Uriel

The beast made sleep yet another exhausting affair. Neither he nor the beast dreamt, so instead Uriel's unconscious moments were spent in a battle without wounds or weapons to determine a victor, only dark shadows, and the will to live. But in their eternal struggle for control, there was no winning, but defeat was not an option either.

When Uriel woke, he did not move. For a long moment, he just absorbed the warmth of the little body curled up against him as he listened to of thud of her heartbeat and woosh of each breath.

There was always a moment between sleep and waking when both man and beast were one. when there was no battle between them, but it was always momentary for the hunger would soon crawl up from his belly, scorching his throat and burning in his veins, reminding the beast that it was dying. But despite the hunger, the beast never tried to draw from Nina like it did others. Perhaps It knew she was the only thing that kept them sane and would not risk its own destruction. Or maybe it was because the beast somehow recognized itself within her.

Uriel simply didn't know but he was grateful for one less battle today.

Carefully slipping out of Nina's hold he silently left the living room. The blood dried on his clothes made them difficult to remove but Uriel was quick to change. Splashing water on his face he used a clean towel to scrub away the grim before trading his night ware for something better fit for the day, then eyed his reflection.

there were times when it was almost disturbing to see.

The white shirt and fitted pants he wore along with a matching black set of the same and a few other necessities were the extent of his wardrobe, but frugality fit him just fine, and he could always glamour something else if he needed to.

It was his own face was that he found disconcerting.

He wasn't vain nor was it that he didn't care to confront the man in the mirror, but he was Mage and the Mage loved to flaunt their glamours. None ever wore their own face for various reasons. For Uriel, it made him invisible, but for most, it was because they were vain. They interchanged their glamours as easily as an old car for a newer model. While each construction required its creator to believe in the image they projected just as much as the one they wanted to deceive, they all had one major flaw. The technology could be tricked just as easily as the eyes but mirrors; they only told the truth. That made them hated more than anything among the Mage and a rarity in their homes. Uriel kept this one here because it was good to be reminded of who he was every once in a while.

Just a man with a monster living inside him.

Turning away from his reflection Uriel gathered his weapons and exited the room. Collecting the discarded halters from the table where he left him the night before he began strapping them on. Behind him, he heard Nina stir. Glancing at the couch he saw her roll over and blink sleepily at him. She stayed curled up in her warm bundle of blankets but pouted when she noticed the daggers he held.

"Are we still going today?" She chose to speak in Russian this time and he knew it was to make him feel guilty, but he also knew all her tricks and wouldn't fall into that trap again. He finished slipping his daggers into their sheaths and turn to look at her.

"Not right now, there's something I have to do."

"There's always something." She scowled, switching back to Spanish. "Why can't you take me with you?"

He went to her, crouching low so they were eye to eye, and gently brushed a wild curl away from her face.

"You know it is it is too dangerous." He told her softly, allowing the change of language because he had taught her to always do the same. "I'll be right back soon."

He was tempted to add a promise, but he knew from the way she looked at him that she wouldn't believe it and there were already too many promises between them. Still, her disappointment felt like a heavy weight around his neck. he kissed her lightly on the forehead and rose. Grabbing his long coat, he swung it around, draping it across his shoulders to conceal his arsenal, and went to the door. he placed his hand against the wood but hesitated.

He gave her one last look, only to find Nina had turned her back to him and he was already late.

Old wood was the best for traveling. With Its history written in every grain, it remembered the most and knew more of other places. Young wood had its benefits too as it brought awareness of new places. fortunately for Uriel most forests had both. The trees did not think of space the way men did for they did not think like men at all, but their roots knew every corner of the globe. For them, locations did not have names or borders but were instead marked by impressions left on the collective. Their world was mapped out by a compilation of perceptions and shared with the surrounding vegetation.

As a man, the impression of a living thing that did not see, smell, hear or taste should have been incomprehensible, but the beast understood their language just as easily as the flowers or the grass, and Urial shared all its abilities. Wherever he wanted to go all he had to do was remember the way the land had felt beneath his feet, and they could take him there. Still, to let the trees carry him to a destination was sometimes a shot in the dark.

In the half-second between one location to the next Uriel was himself but in a different form. One that could be pasted from root to earth and earth to root until he reached his destination, but like the trees, it didn't think like a man and would occasionally forget where it wished to go, and Uriel would be spat out like a bad seed in some part of the world he had never seen. Perhaps it was the beast free of all restraints, or perhaps it was himself stripped down to the bare essence of what made him what he was. He could not be sure, nor did he know how this unique way of travel was possible, only that he alone seemed capable of it.

The first time he had done it he had been a frightened boy running for his life. Safe, he needed to get somewhere safe. The next thing he knew he was in a strange place far away from the frozen streets of his motherland, where the air was so cold it froze your lungs inside your chest and winter claimed more than it spared. A place with so many trees they seemed endless, so tall they block out the sun, and unlike the ones he was used to, brimmed with foliage.

And the flowers.

Urial had never seen so many flowers in his life.

Suddenly he understood why his mother loved them so much.

And just like that reality had come back to him. Mama was sick. She needed him and the medicine. The medicine! For a brief panic-stricken moment, he'd thought maybe he had lost it but to his relief, the bundle of cloth was still clutched in his hand. He had to go back and if he had hesitated to return it was only because he didn't know how to. At least that was what he told himself and much easier to believe than the truth.

It was an oak that returned him to the city, much like the one he had saved but this one's branches stretched high from years of reaching for the sun. But it was tired. The park in which the oak had sprouted wasn't much when it began and hadn't changed for the better. The oak had fought so long to survive in this forest of stone and steel but the air around it was tainted. Shattered glass and paper bags littered the grass and shrubbery had taken over most of the walkway after so many years of neglect. Tents were propped up here and there. Uriel sensed the Skyglass in more than one as he slipped through the abandoned park and the Beast perked up at each new potential meal, but he would not allow it anything more.

The bar was just as dim as before, and Rune looked just as high-strung. Apparently, he had decided he was allowed to bring a playdate along today despite the very specific agreement he and Uriel had because next to him sat a man Uriel didn't care to see and had no interest in talking to.

Cain Borgendoff; a bastard in every sense of the word.

Like Tarren, Cain was once a friend. Back when they had just been a bunch of street rats high on their newfound freedom from adult supervision and still full of optimism. That was before the cold set in and food in their bellies become much more important than the idealistic morals that failed to keep them warm. In the end, it wasn't hunger but jealousy and betrayal that turned brotherhood into a bitter rivalry.

Urial didn't fault Rune for his ignorance but it was a bad omen to have another relic of his past come out of the woodwork.

Rune stood when Uriel joined them and with the relieved expression he wore, Uriel could guess there was something important riding this meeting. Uriel didn't acknowledge his farmer informant at first, his full attention focused on Cain, but he did loosen his hold on the beast. Just enough to let Rune see how much of a fool he was to have let greed overcome his fear, making him turn an unhealthy shade of white and fall back a step. When Uriel finely did flick a glance in his direction, he got the message and Rune was out the door before Cain had a chance to speak.

"Look what the cat dragged in."

If he hadn't known for a fact that Cain had been born in a back alley of the same shit hole city as himself, Uriel would have thought it was a glamor that curbed the gruff tones of their native language, but it seemed his old companion didn't wish to remember the place where they had started.

"What are you doing here?" Uriel asked taking the seat across from Cain.

"Calling in a debt."

"What debt?"

"The one you still owe me." He sneered.

"Do I?" Uriel tilted his head curiously "and here I thought killing your sister made us even."

"You benefited from that just as much as I did."

"True, but I had other options."

A silent and you didn't hang between them.

Cain's jaw tensed then relaxed as he visibly eased into an air of calmness but there was no hiding the hate that poured off him in toxic waves and the beast lapped it up like a dog given table scraps.

"Be that as it may I never asked for your help, you did it on your own."

"Yet the debt was forgiven." Uriel pointed out, splaying his hands to show wrists bare of any bindings.

The gesture was a barb to let Cain know he could see bast the glamor covering wrists which bore so many they overlapped in a mottled parody of the thick chain hung around his neck as a talisman. Cain made his living trading bargains and bindings, but this talisman was old, the metal having fused itself to his skin after years of use. With the outrageous fashions of the city, no one looked twice at it, but Uriel had seen enough of the very same to know it for what it was. It was one of the very same used to keep the children he found bound to a machine as it killed them.

How Cain had gotten his hands on it was a question Uriel might just kill to have answered.

"Not intentionally." Cain gritted, his fury cracking through his act.

"That's your problem." Uriel shrugged.

"It'll be yours when it gets out that the Shadow doesn't keep his bargains, what will you do then?"

Likely nothing.

Uriel didn't need his reputation to do what he did but having it did make things much easier. The Mage were too afraid of him to force the issue, but bindings were the closest thing they had to an honor system and without them most would be less than willing to do any future dealings with him. After all, no one wanted to be bound to a man who had no master.

He could just kill Cain he supposed, it would make finding who had given him the talisman more difficult but if Urial had a weakness it was curiosity.

"Blackmail isn't your style. What has you so desperate?"

Cain's eye twitched with irritation, but he didn't bother denying Uriel's observation.

"I Need to know who this belongs to." He said tossing something at Uriel who caught it before it could hit him in the face.

It was a bracelet. Just a band of worn leather with three wooden letter beads. J, I, B; Desperation and love emanated from each letter but the last felt particularly hollow. They were the same emotions he had felt in the residue on the necklace Tarren wanted spelled.

Exactly the same.

An image flicked in his mind's eye. A vague shape of a face, a familiar blue, and a pearl neckless. A spike of pain splintered the image-making Urial flinch internally as his mind bounce off its own spell, but he was careful not to let anything show on his face when he set the bracelet down and slid it back to Cain.

"Sorry, can't help you."

"Why not, master hold your leash too tight?" He prodded.

Uriel stood and gave his old nemesis a patronizing smile.

"Enjoy the meal. Oh, wait I forgot, ..." Uriel tilted his head in mock sympathy, letting his eyes fall to Cain's waist where his shriveled intestines were held in place with a plastic plate and straps. "You can't."

With a smirk, he made as if to leave but a hand shot out to stop him.

"You think he'll keep you around when you're no use to him?" Cain seethed, ignoring Uriel's barb. "He won't be in power long enough to regret it without his Shadow following him around."

Urial frowned at where Cain gripped him. Taking his wrist in hand he removed the other man's hold but did not let go. Leaning in close so he could whisper in Cain's ear, Uriel spoke so softly that his words were just barely audible.

"I might take orders from a king you do not serve but next time you think to threaten me or him, remember that I will end you." He pulled back just enough to look his enemy in the eye and flexed his hold on Cain's fingers until he felt the bones crushing inside them. "And when I do there will no mercy, no death, but you will beg for it."

Dropping the now mangled limb he turned his back on Cain and left. The Mage King's shadow had more important things to deal with than an old enemy too bitter to let go. For one thing, he had a traitor to hunt down and Rune's head start was over.