Dogs of the Father: A Legion Fanfiction - Episode 1: Little Prophet

Chapter 6

"So that weird tattoo thing on my arm changed again," the Prophet prattled, as though she were holding a two-sided conversation. "It showed the cliff that you fell off of. So, I thought to myself, why not climb it? And guess what I found?"

Gabriel winced as the Prophet smeared something sticky onto his wounds.

"A big old knife. Sharp ... too. I think you dropped it before you fell off that cliff. So no more falling on my ass trying to swing that big ol' mace of yours at the coyotes and the rattlesnakes that keep smelling your blood and coming to eat you."

She'd been speaking to him for a long time, although he had no idea how much time had passed. He groaned in pain as her touch became less gentle, compressing the shoulder wound she was tending and sending jarring stabs of pain into his chest. He could no longer feel the stretch of stitches pulling his wounds shut. At some point, he must have healed enough for her to remove them.

"Oh, sorry!" the Prophet exclaimed, her voice suddenly serious. "Gabriel? Are you ever going to wake up?"

He panted, trying to force the lungs that finally realized he needed to breathe to bring oxygen into his lungs. With great difficulty he formed the words.

"Who?" he managed to hiss out. The effort of exhaling that single word caused him to sink back with exhaustion, unable to say more.

"Who what?" Hope tinged her voice. "Tell me what you need, and I'll do my best to help you."

He lay still a long time, his lungs shuddering as he willed himself the strength to ask the question he had wanted to ask ever since the voice had first found him at the base of the cliff and called him a jackass. The light of the Father had left him, but now that he reached deep down inside of himself, he found a new strength, weaker and more tentative, but still powerful.

"It's okay, Gabriel," the Prophet said. "We can talk later."

As she squeezed his hand, strength poured into him, willing him to live. For days, no, weeks, it had been her strength keeping him alive.

Was this why humans devoured the Earth? Cast out of Eden and cut off from the light of the Father, they had no choice but to draw strength from whatever they could find. He willed his body to soak up the warmth from the sun, the air that he breathed, and the strength she gave so willingly from the small hand that clasped his.

"Who ... are ... you?"

"My name is Audrey," the Prophet said. "It's been forty days since the world came to an end. Give or take a few days."

Before he'd been cast down, all he'd had to do was think of somebody and everything about that person would jump into his mind, but cut off from the Father, he was no longer omniscient. But he knew that the moisture which dripped onto his cheek was tears—her tears. Whoever this woman was, something had changed since the first time she'd cursed at him with hatred and ordered him to get up.

"Gabriel?" she caressed his cheek. "Please wake up?"

The light threatened to blind him, but he forced his eyes to focus. He had to see this Prophet whose voice contained a spark of divinity.

It reminded him of Michael's voice when his brother had pleaded with him there was another way; right before he'd placed obedience over what his heart knew was right and obeyed the Father's command to kill his own brother.

Dark blue eyes stared earnestly into his. Tattooed between her eyebrows lay the heavenly script, not simply the mark of a Prophet, but the Father's proclamation that it had been her hands which had welcomed the Savior into this world, her hosannas of joy which had first greeted the Savior's ears, and her willing sacrifice of her own life to save the life of the Savior which had convinced the Father to give her species a second chance. Tattooed above it lay the Father's command:

"Whoever dares touch the Prophet shall incur the wrath of the Left Hand of God."

Him...

The Father had given him a mission; a path to earn his way back.

"You bear the mark of a Prophet," his voice warbled.

"Yeah," she self-consciously rubbed her forehead. "They just appeared. Like a painted lady at a circus."

"It's a great honor." He kept his voice a deep monotone to hide his vulnerability. "He sent me to defend you."

The Prophet pulled her hand away from him.

"That genocidal maniac left you so banged up," she shrieked, "the only thing you're going to defend is the hole in the sand where your ass landed after he tossed you off that cliff like some fucking scapegoat."

Gabriel gasped.

"You take the Father's name in vain?"

Normally such blasphemy would earn a knock over their head with his mace, but the Mark upon the Prophet's forehead proclaimed that disobedience was somehow the source of her strength. He could feel it flow into his body. Defiance... To defeat, not only the will of the Father, but death.

"If you don't like it," the warmth in her eyes disappeared, "I can always leave."

"No," he said quickly.

Terror gripped at his intestines. He didn't know what he was supposed to do, but whatever it was, it all revolved around her.

The Prophet glared at him, but gradually a shy smile replaced the defiant pout.

"I'm just glad you're awake--" she got busy, tending the wound in his shoulder. "For a while there, I thought you weren't going to make it."

Gabriel fell silent. Never, in his long existence, had he ever been beholden to a human. Although he'd carried the word of the Father to others, there weren't many occasions when he'd had to utter words that were purely his own.

"Thank you," he said flatly, not sure how to express the tangle of emotions.

"Oh, sleep, you big oaf!" She ran her fingers through his hair as though she patted a dog. "I think you're going to start getting better now that you've decided to stay."

Gabriel had always been obedient. He obeyed that command, drifting back into a restful sleep that was not so deep that he wasn't aware of her sliding under the blanket and curling up next to him to share her warmth. Strength poured into him every place her flesh touched his body, even as her breathing grew rhythmic and shallow.

The thought crossed his mind that it was forbidden for angels to lay down with mortal women, but he'd been cast down into the earth, the wind sucked out from beneath his wings so was unable to fly, and dashed upon the rocks as punishment. He was no longer an angel. Nor, he sensed, was the Prophet motivated by prurient interests.

If anything, it appeared she viewed him as some sort of ... pet?