Red Rain

Chapter 20 - Falling

"Go on, then," Elijah says, nudging us one at a time with his feet. "Show me your ugly mugs."

Gabe and I pull down our hoods and stand up, staring daggers at Elijah, but first turning to Fionna and thinking together, Don't worry. We got this.

Elijah uses his free hand to poke and prod first my face, then Gabe's. "I see you both got my eyes," he says. "I guess you, though" - here he looks back at me, his lip curling - "take more after your mother. Whoever she is. Some innocent sap who went for artificial insemination and still got herself fucked."

"Don't talk about our mom like that," Gabe says. "You don't even know her."

Elijah laughs, then turns to Fionna. "So these boys are your friends? Is it true that one's an angel and the other's a demon?"

Fionna nods wordlessly, still with her angry glare fixed on her face.

"And their names are...?"

"Alex Snow," I say before Fionna has to respond. Gabe adds his name a second later.

"And I assume you're the angel?" Elijah says, looking at Gabe.

Gabe shakes his head. "Some angel I would've been, huh, Alex?"

Elijah rolls his eyes. It's so disturbing how much he looks like Gabe doing the exact same thing. "I shoulda guessed. You look more like me, so it only makes sense that you'd be a full-on demon. Tell me, how does it feel, knowing your brother can fly but you never will?"

"Actually, I can fly," Gabe says, shuffling his wings. I look closely and see that he's finally got slits in the back of his jacket. The edges of his wings poke out just enough to shine against the dark fabric.

"In your dreams, maybe," Elijah says, snorting. "If you inherited your dashing good looks from me, no doubt you also got my vivid imagination."

Gabe's fists clench. "I'm nothing like you."

"Yeah. You keep telling yourself that." Elijah chuckles again. It's getting really irritating. "Odd that the demon would get an angel's name, and the angel didn't. What was your mother thinking? Or, more accurately, was she thinking?"

Now it's my turn to get aggressive. "If you're only here to insult us, this meeting is over. Goodbye, and don't let the door hit you where the Lord split you."

"In that case, y'all can just kiss my lily-white ass," Elijah says. "Fun though it may be to get under your skins, that's not why I'm here tonight. Before I give you back your little friend, I feel I owe you boys an explanation. Maybe I'll clarify some of the lies you've no doubt heard from my dear old friend Bob."

The chill deepens as the wind picks up, rustling the trees around us.

"We've already figured out Robert was lying to us," I say.

"Wonderful," Elijah says. "Then I won't have to talk so much longer. You know, I'm really not used to public speaking. I don't think I've talked this much in...well, ever." He adds a small chuckle, but nobody else laughs. "Rough crowd. I get it."

"Are you just gonna keep cracking wise, or are you gonna tell us what you're so obviously dying to say?" I ask, matching the hatred and disgust in his voice as best I can.

"I can see now how we're related," Elijah says. "You know, I, too, used to hate my father when I was your age. Hated that belt-whipping, Bible-thumping inbred bastard with a passion. I was one of those poor unfortunate souls who went into the Army just to trade a fake boot camp for the real thing. And now, seeing how much you boys clearly want nothing more than to see me gutted like a fish, I guess the apples didn't fall so far from the tree after all." He smiles horribly. "Which is all the worse for you boys. Their window to strike is drawing more and more shut each day."