"You should never have come here."

We sat on the edge of the bed, side by side, and I could barely believe it was real; that he was real. My eyes coveted every inch of him, convinced that if I blinked or looked away, then he would be gone again, back into that dream world in which he had lived since we had arrived on the doorstep of the Chapel. The sting of the wound on my neck and the taste of him on my lips told me this was no hallucination and yet I still couldn't take my eyes off him. 

He held my arm on his lap, idly tracing the pattern of blue veins on my wrist and my skin tingled furiously under the gently touch of his fingertips. There was a disapproving tone to his voice, but it was tinged with sadness and although I was relieved that he wasn't angry, somehow his sadness seemed harder to bear. I could cope with an angry Harper Cain. I could deal with every spiteful word that slipped from his tongue. I could deal with his simmering rage and his thunderous temper. I'd been there, done that, worn the T-shirt and thrown back at him everything he ever gave to me, but this was different. This wasn't how things were meant to be and I knew instinctively that not only was he torn over my decision to save him by seeking sanctuary with Josiah, but he was also tortured by the silent grief of remembering what he had lost in the dark, bloodied woods of Oxleas. To wake up and discover yourself in the twisted web of the seers was one thing; to wake up and remember your brother was dead was quite another.

"I did the only thing I could do," I replied softly. "I had to protect you and Lucius. You understand that, right? I had no choice."

He smiled then and raised my wrist to his mouth, pressing his lips against the papery skin. "Yes, as much as I hate to admit it, as much as I despise the fact the seer manipulated this whole damn thing, I do get it. I just wish he hadn't pulled you into this. I made this mess, not you."

"As soon as Josiah knew what I was, my fate was sealed and the fact he knew I would never desert you just made things easier for him. You made no mess because it was already a damn mess to begin with. She's insane, I mean truly insane and has been for many, many years from what Josiah told me."

"Oh you don't need to tell me that," he said, rolling his eyes. "I was the one who had to sleep with the woman. I mean, the things she...."

"Okay, okay," I interjected quickly. "I really don't need details."

He chuckled and nipped playfully at my wrist, before interlocking his fingers with mine and sighing deeply. "So, what are you going to do? Are you going to do as he asks?"

"That's counting on the fact I would even know what to do once Caelan has passed over into Purgatory. And even if I somehow work it out, which at the moment seems highly unlikely, why should she be the first one that is allowed to ascend? There are so many waiting already and their patience is wearing thin again. I can feel it. I can hear them. And besides...." I trailed off, my skin breaking into goose bumps as I remembered Him and the weighty power of that smile.

"What?" Harper frowned, his forehead crinkling with concern. "What is it?"

I swallowed, desperately trying to moisten my throat which had suddenly gone very dry. "He's waiting for me," I lowered my voice to a whisper. "The Smiling Man. I went looking for....." I paused, not wanting to twist the knife any deeper. "I was searching for Garrick."

For a split second the grief shadowed his features, twisting his face with dark shadows and haunting him with ghosts of memories he wasn't ready to deal with. He squeezed my hand and sucked hard on his bottom lip.

"And did you find him?" he said. The flicker of hope in his eyes was crushing.

"No." I shook my head. "I thought I saw him, but it turned out to be nothing but a trick. It was Him. Lucifer. And now He's waiting for me, only I have no idea what He wants or what I'm meant to do. How do you even begin to work out how to deal with the Devil himself?"

"What exactly did He say? Did He threaten you?" I saw the way his lips thinned at the thought of it and resisted the urge to smile. Only Harper Cain would get pissed at the Devil for threatening my life.

"That's the weird thing, He didn't threaten me, although I was fucking terrified. He called me Michael and said He was going to enjoy the next part of the game, whatever the Hell that means. I got the impression that He was a little surprised to see Michael as a woman, but He wasn't at all phased by the fact that I wasn't Michael himself. He seemed....amused, if anything. It was as if He thought this whole thing was nothing but a big game. I mean, is that what this is? Just a game to keep Michael and Lucifer entertained?"

"You mean like some age old game of Battleships between an Archangel and the Devil? Well, I've no doubt they've spent eons manipulating us for their own cause, but it's definitely no game. It's a war. Although I guess judging by Lucifer's reaction to you, we now know that this isn't the first time Michael has sent his creations to face the Devil. The question is why? Why can't he do that himself?"

"I have no idea." I shrugged. "Garrick told me before he....well, he told me that I had to find Michael and that the answers apparently lie somewhere in Benjamin's journal but I haven't found anything so far. Did Benjamin ever tell you anything?"

"Nothing about Archangels that's for sure," he said bitterly. "He told me a lot of stuff over the years, usually about how I was a disappointment to him, about how I was wasting my life on Jenny, how I was meant to be his chosen one....but no, he never mentioned anything about Archangels to me."

"Oh." I slumped, feeling dejected. "Well then I guess I have a lot of reading between the lines to do." I untangled my fingers from his and stood up. "But before then, I have to go talk to Josiah. Why don't you go take a shower?"

Harper gazed up at me, arching a brow. "This place has a shower? Wow, maybe it's not that bad here after all."

"Don't go getting any ideas," I scolded, narrowing my eyes. "We won't be staying. At least, not if I have my way." Heading towards the door, I could feel his eyes follow me as I walked away.

"Megan?"

I hesitated in the doorway, slowly turning to look back at him.

"Do you think he's there somewhere?"

My mind drifted back to that moment, that one moment when I thought I had sensed him, a whisper of his voice, the scent of his skin, that familiar warm feeling that always made me believe everything would be okay.

"Yes," I said, with a small smile. "Yes, I think Garrick's there. In fact, I know he is. And I don't know why he hasn't come to me yet, but I'll fight Lucifer's whole damned army to find him if I have to."

*******

It seemed that The Smiling Man wasn't the only one who was waiting for me.

Josiah sat, in his usual chair in the main chapel, slouched back with one long leg resting on the other. It would have looked like a casual-Devil-may-care pose if it wasn't for the way his hands gripped the arms, his fingers digging into the fabric.

"That was cruel, Josiah," I said as I stalked towards him. "Even by your standards it was low."

He didn't move even when I stood directly in front of him, my toes almost touching his.

"I never said he was dead," he sniffed. "You assumed. You know, considering you're fighting on the side of the Big Man upstairs, you really should have more faith."

"I'm not fighting on anyone's side." I clenched my fists.

"Wrong," he said, stabbing his finger at me. "Whether you like it or not, you're on His side. You were created to be on His side. You were created to fight for Him. Michael is the Big Man's general, after all."

"I fight to survive," I snapped. "I fight just to get through another day. I fight for Harper and for Lucius." My voice echoed off the cold walls of the chapel and I glanced around, suddenly aware that he wasn't here. Lucius wasn't here.

I whipped round to glare at Josiah, who just stared steadily back at me with blank white eyes, a cruel smile on his lips.

"Where is he?" I demanded. "Where is Lucius?"

"With Caelan. Oh, don't worry, he's perfectly safe with her. She loves kids."

I ran for the double doors, hearing his laughter taunt me as I fled the chapel, still hearing it ringing in my ears as I flew along the corridor, stumbling over the debris in my path. Reaching the tower, I threw myself up the staircase, almost losing my footing as I desperately tried to reach her room. At the top, the door was open, the ominous red glow streaming out into the stairwell and from within I could hear Caelan's laughter. My head swam with visions of Lucius in her clutches, her fingers gripping him like the talons of some great raven, cackling as she stripped the flesh from his bones.

Racing into the tower room, I whipped aside the hanging voile that seemed to want to entangle me in its soft layers and stopped dead at the foot of her bed. My eyes widened at the sight of Lucius sitting on the bedside chair, his legs crossed casually underneath him and a book open on his lap. Caelan sat almost mirroring his position, her hands clasped together at her breast as if in rapture. Both of them turned to look at me as I entered, Lucius clearly puzzled by my flustered state, Caelan clearly amused.

She clapped her hands together with glee. "Megan!' she cried. "You came back! Look who came to read me a story, isn't he an absolute darling? We've had such fun."

"Lucius. Go downstairs."

Caelan's face fell. "What? Why? He can read stories to us both. Here, come and sit down with me and listen." She patted a space beside her. "He's such a dear beautiful child and he reads so well."

"Lucius," I said again, my eyes flitting to the little boy who stared back at me innocently. "Go. Now please."

With a nod, he stood up and began to walk away, but not before hesitating near to where I stood and placing the book on the bed. He pushed it towards Caelan, who snatched it with a territorial snarl and held it to her chest as if it was some juicy bone that she thought I would try to take from her.

"You're just like him," she hissed when Lucius had left. Her lips curled back from her teeth as she glared at me with hatred. "Always trying to ruin my fun. Don't do this Caelan, don't do that Caelan. I thought you might be different. I thought you might be fun too, but you're not. You're just mean and boring."

"Oh for goodness sake," I spat back. "You sound like a child. Do you really think I'm going to let Lucius be alone with a woman who chewed her own wrists?"

A shroud of pain suddenly clouded her features and her eyes widened as if my words wounded her deeply. "I would never harm him," she said, her bottom lip quivering. "I wouldn't. He's just a baby."

"I'd rather not take the risk, if it's all the same to you."

The look of hurt vanished as soon as it appeared and was quickly replaced by a wide grin. She flicked her hair over her shoulder, brushing it back to reveal the bald scarred patch on the side of her head which she displayed proudly and shot me an exaggerated flutter of her eyelashes.

"Did he send you? That brother of mine? Soon, he'll be getting you to do all his dirty work so he won't have to come up here and bother with me anymore."

"He wouldn't do that."

"Since when did you become his biggest fan?" Caelan laughed coldly, slipping her legs out from underneath her and kneeling on the bed. The chains jangled as she thrust her hands in front of her and she raised herself onto all fours. "You think I don't know he keeps you here just as he does me? You think I don't know that you're just as much his prisoner as I am? And yet you defend him." She slicked a tongue across her lips and swayed from side to side. "Megan loves Josia-aaaah," she sang. "Megan and Josiah sitting in a tree...K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

I stared at her in disgust. "Why do you hate him so much? He's your brother and whatever faults he might have – and by God, does he have them – he loves you."

She recoiled as if I had slapped her across the face. "He loves me? Am I meant to be grateful for his love? I don't want his love. I want death. I want to be free of this world and free of him and he would deny me that! Instead he chains me up in here, surrounded by pretty things to remind me that I am anything but pretty. Do you really think that is love? It's selfish and wicked. I know why he keeps me here. He keeps me here to torture me. He keeps me here to punish me for what I did!"

"Why? What did you do?"

Snap went the cat's bone and the animal screamed; not the scream of an animal though, but a child's scream, piercing the tranquillity of a lazy summer afternoon.

Almost bashfully, she glanced over at me as she nibbled nervously on the skin around her painted fingernails and I watched, horrified as thin rivulets of blood trickled down her fingers.

"I killed them." Caelan gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth as if she had just inadvertently blurted out some big secret, but quickly collapsed into a fit of giggles. "I killed our parents. But it wasn't my fault, I swear!" Those long eyelashes fluttered again. "I wanted to see them and he said that I couldn't. So I ran away the first chance I got and when I reached home, there they were –mummy and daddy– and well, I just couldn't resist. I was hungry, so very hungry. You know how that feels, don't you Megan?" She shuffled forwards as far as she could before the chains pulled on her wrists. "You remember how it feels to need it so very badly? To feel overwhelmed by want and desire? To feel that thirst?" She clutched at her throat, digging her nails into her skin and dragging them downwards, raising deep red welts on her flesh.

"Stop it!" I cried. "Stop!"

Caelan just grinned and did it again, this time drawing blood and stopping only to lick at her own fingers before continuing to scratch at her raw skin. I launched myself at her, grabbing hold of her wrists and trying to drag them away from her throat. Her small, lithe body belied her strength and my head swam with the recent image of Josiah trying to hold her in place, that great giant of a man struggling to subdue his sister and I realised too late that I had bitten off way more than I could chew. Grabbing a handful of my hair, she pulled me near until her face was just a few inches away from mine, until I could see every bump, every twist of her scarred flesh.

"Ah, see?" she whispered, clicking her teeth together. "I knew you would be fun, I just knew it."

Just as her mouth opened wide and she drew so close that I could see her own blood staining her elongated incisors, the room was filled with noise and I felt strong arms grab me from behind and pull me free of her raven-claws. I struggled for a moment, before those same arms wrapped tightly around my body and I spotted the small self-inked tattoos on the hands that held me. Twisting my head to glance upwards, I was relieved and yet horrified to see Harper. He was here, in this room, with her and I wanted to tell him to get out, to leave here, to run before she could capture him too.

A shadow rushed past me and I blinked, trying to focus, realising that Josiah was here too as he reached the bed but Caelan had calmed already, despite looking somewhat dishevelled by our scuffle. She raised her hand to ward him off but her eyes remained fixed on Harper and Harper alone.

"Oh," she breathed, raising herself up onto her knees and grabbing at the skirt of her dress and bunching it up into her fists. "Oh you have returned to me! I knew you would. I always knew you'd come back to me, my darling, my love." The skirt moved up her thighs as she grabbed at the fabric, jutting her hips forward in an action that seemed almost lewd, as her hands danced higher and higher. "I knew it wasn't a dream, I saw it. I saw you. And now you're here and everything will be just fine, you'll see. Everything is going to be just perfect!"

In my head, the nine year old Caelan sat bathed in the heat of the summer sun and broke each of the cat's legs one by one and smiled as it screamed.