Chapter 86: 14.1.1
The fire had died to embers. Koen stared at the glowing orange fragments, seeing nothing. The quiet in the cottage was a physical thing, thick and cold, settling into the spaces between the crooked floorboards and the rafters that groaned in the wind. Outside, the woods were silent. Even the usual scratch of branches against the upstairs window had stopped.
Gabriel was gone. Off to some celestial dispatch office, probably. Another “urgent communiqué.” He’d left hours ago with a casual ruffle of Koen’s ashen hair and a, “Don’t burn the place down thinking too hard, darling.”
The words, meant to be light, had stuck in Koen’s ribs like splinters.
He sat on the rag rug, his back against the threadbare sofa, methodically cleaning his revolver. The familiar ritual of oil and cloth usually calmed him. Not tonight. Each pass of the cloth over the polished steel felt useless. His ears, a touch too pointed for a human’s, lay flat against his skull—a purely demonic tell he couldn’t control, like a disheartened hound.
Not very bright, are you? Gabriel’s voice, laughing, from last week when Koen had misread a bounty poster.
Manners of a feral dog, just yesterday, when he’d eaten straight from the stew pot.
Just point at the scary thing and pull the trigger, love. Leave the thinking to me.
He knew Gabriel loved him. He knew it. In the way the archangel’s trueform wings would sometimes, in a private moment, curl around him in a shield of impossible warmth. In the way Gabriel had torn apart a lesser cherubim once for suggesting Koen was a stain on his record. The love was a fact, solid as the hearthstone.
But the teasing wasn’t just teasing anymore. It had seeped in, a slow poison. Koen had started hearing the words in the silence after they were spoken, turning them over, finding their sharp edges. He’d begun to watch himself, trying to preempt the jokes. Thinking before he spoke, which just made him stumble more. Staying still so he wouldn’t seem impulsive. He felt clumsy in his own skin, a too-large creature in a house of delicate things.
The front door creaked open.
Koen’s head snapped up, his orange eyes catching the dim light. A scent of ozone and cold night air rolled in, followed by Gabriel. The angel was in his human guise, six-foot-three of flawless grace, shaking rain from his perfectly combed blonde hair. He looked immaculate, untouched by the muddy lane or the damp.
“Back,” Gabriel announced, shedding his long coat. “The celestial filing system is a tribulation unto itself. You wouldn’t believe the bureaucratic nonsense over one misplaced soul-transfer form.” He glanced at Koen. “You’re still up.”
“Yeah,” Koen said. His voice came out rougher than he intended.
Gabriel flopped into the armchair opposite, the picture of elegant exhaustion. “What’s on your mind? You’ve got that constipated thinking look.”
There it was. The hook. Koen felt a flush start at his collar, warm and prickling. He focused on reassembling his revolver, his hands moving with a swift, unconscious precision that belied his reputation. Click, spin, click.
“Nothin’,” he muttered.
“Come on. It’s me.” Gabriel’s tone was light, amused. “Did you finally try to read that bestiary and strain something?”
The flush spread to Koen’s face. He kept his head down, his black hair falling forward. “I ain’t stupid.”
A beat of silence. Then a soft, incredulous laugh. “Koen, darling, no one said you were.”
“You do.” The words were out, low and charged, before he could stop them. “All the time. You say it all the time.”
The room got colder. Gabriel’s relaxed posture didn’t change, but the air around him tightened, charged with a static that made the hairs on Koen’s arms stand up. “It’s a joke,” Gabriel said, his voice carefully neutral. “You know that.”
“Is it?” Koen finally looked up, meeting those glacial blue eyes. He saw his own reflection in them: wide, upset, demonic. A feral dog. “You joke that I can’t think. That I got no manners. That I just… smash through things. You joke about what I am.”
Gabriel’s expression shifted, the casual amusement melting into something more complex—annoyance, a flicker of concern, a layer of archangelic impatience. “For God’s sake, Koen. Don’t be so literal. It’s affection. You have… a wonderful directness. A purity of action I admire. I tease you because you get that adorable flush, and your ears go back. It’s charming.”
Charming. Like a pet. Koen’s hands clenched around the revolver. His knuckles turned white. The old injury on his temple, a relic from a hammer-blow that had taken his consciousness three days to reclaim, gave a dull, sympathetic throb.
“I don’t feel charmed,” Koen said, the sentence feeling long and awkward in his mouth. “I feel like you’re waitin’ for me to be dumb. So you can laugh.”
“Now you’re just being irrational.” Gabriel sighed, a long-suffering sound that scraped down Koen’s spine. “This is what happens when you think too much. You get it wrong. You’re twisting things.”
The condescension in the words was the final twist of the knife. Koen stood up, the motion too quick. He loomed, six feet of dense muscle and simmering hurt, but Gabriel just watched from the chair, an emperor observing a mildly interesting disturbance.
“See? Impulsive,” Gabriel murmured, almost to himself.
Something in Koen fractured. It wasn’t a loud break, but a quiet, fundamental one. The love was still there, a heavy weight in his chest, but it was suddenly separated from this man in the chair by a vast, cold distance.
He didn’t shout. He just turned, walked to the peg by the door, and took down his long leather duster. He shrugged it on.
“Where are you going?” Gabriel asked, real confusion entering his voice now.
“Hunt,” Koen grunted, checking the pouches on his belt for cartridges.
“It’s the middle of the night. It’s pouring. There’s no bounty posted.”
“Don’t care.” Koen pulled the hood up. “The woods are always hungry. Somethin’s out there.”
He yanked the door open. The wind screamed in, carrying the scent of wet earth and pine and darkness. He didn’t look back.
“Koen, this is ridiculous. Come back inside. Don’t be an idiot.”
The word hung in the raging air. Idiot.
Koen stepped out into the torrential black. The door slammed shut behind him with the force of the wind, cutting off the warm, dim light of the cottage, and the shocked, fading image of Gabriel finally starting to rise from his chair.
The rain immediately soaked through his hood. It felt clean. The woods awaited, a dark maw of straightforward danger. A place where problems could be pointed at, shot, and solved. He moved into the trees, his footfalls silent on the sodden ground, leaving the confusing, painful warmth of home behind for the simple, honest cold of the hunt.
The trees swallowed him. Rain dripped from the pine needles, a steady, cold percussion on his leather hood. His breath plumed in the air, the only cloud in the starless dark.
He walked for an hour, maybe two, time blurring into the rhythm of his movement. His thoughts churned, a replay of Gabriel’s laugh, the word idiot hanging in the air. He pushed them down, focusing on the land. Here, a broken branch. There, a disturbance in the mulch.
His senses, sharper than any human’s, stretched out. He caught the sour tang of wet rot, the distant musk of a deer, the electric smell of ozone clinging to him from the cottage. He followed a different scent, a crude, greasy odor that stuck to the back of his throat.
It led him to a creek, swollen and rushing with rain. On the far bank, something was tearing into the carcass of a young boar. It was all angles and matted fur, like a wolf put together wrong, with too many joints in its legs. A Gloom Hound.
Koen didn’t hesitate. He never did. He drew his revolver in one smooth motion, the oiled click a satisfying promise in the chaos. The creature’s head snapped up, eyes like chips of muddy amber reflecting no light.
It charged, a silent, skittering bolt across the water.
He fired. The crack of the shot was immense, shattering the forest’s quiet. The bullet took it in the shoulder, spinning it. It fell, scrambled, and came again. He fired twice more. The second shot missed, chewing bark. The third hit its neck.
It collapsed, twitching, into the churning creek. The greasy smell began to fade, replaced by blood and gunpowder. Koen stood there, smoke curling from the barrel. The directness of it was a relief. A problem presented. A solution applied.
He didn’t bother retrieving the teeth for a bounty. He just turned and walked away, leaving the stream to wash the thing away. The adrenaline bled out, leaving a hollow, aching fatigue. The rain softened to a drizzle. The walk back felt longer.
He slipped back into the cottage as the first grey light stained the sky. The main room was empty, cold. He peeled off his soaked clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. A note sat on the table, Gabriel’s perfect, looping script: Had an early summons. Don’t sulk all day.
Koen stared at it. The words seemed to vibrate with that same tired amusement. He didn’t crumple it. He just walked past it, upstairs, and crawled into their bed. The sheets were cold. He didn’t dream.
The smell of coffee and the sound of someone moving downstairs wormed into his consciousness. Sunlight, too bright, cut through the gap in the stubborn upstairs window. His body had healed any chill, any minor ache from the hunt, but his mind felt heavy and raw.He dragged himself down. Gabriel was at the stove, humming, pristine in a white shirt. He glanced over. “You look like hell walked over your grave.”
Koen’s ears, which had pricked up at the sound of movement, now went completely flat. He didn’t correct him. He just shuffled to the table and sat, the wood chair groaning under his weight. “Probably did.”
Gabriel turned, a flicker of surprise crossing his features before it was smoothed away by a fond, exasperated smile. He brought over two mugs, setting one in front of Koen. The coffee was perfect, exactly how he liked it—stupidly sweet with a splash of cream. A detail Gabriel always remembered. “See? No manners. Sitting down without a ‘good morning.’ My own personal caveman.”
The words hung there, an old, familiar hook. Koen felt the automatic protest rise in his throat, the heat on his neck. He swallowed it. He looked into the dark liquid of his mug. “Yeah,” he said, his voice a low monotone. “No manners.”
Gabriel chuckled, taking the seat opposite. He didn’t seem to register the agreement as surrender, only as Koen being unusually quiet. “And you’re wearing yesterday’s trousers. They smell like creek water and gunpowder. You did go out and shoot something, didn’t you? Impulsive.”
Koen took a slow sip. The sugar tasted like nothing. “I’m impulsive.”
“At least you’re admitting it.” Gabriel leaned back, sipping his own black coffee, watching him over the rim. “That’s growth, I suppose. Or is your head just too thick from the rain to argue?”
Another opening. Another chance to bristle. Koen just shrugged, his broad shoulders lifting and falling with a tired finality. “Head’s thick.”
There was a pause. Gabriel’s gaze sharpened, scrutinizing him. Koen kept his eyes on the table’s grain, tracing a dark knot in the wood. He could feel the angel’s confusion, a slight prickling in the air, but it was quickly overshadowed by routine.
“Well,” Gabriel said, the casual tone returning, “as long as you didn’t track any Gloom Hound viscera onto my clean floor. You know how you are with messes. Like a toddler with a loaded weapon.”
“Like a toddler,” Koen echoed softly. He finished his coffee in one long gulp, the heat barely registering.
He stood up and took his empty mug to the washbasin. He rinsed it meticulously, placing it on the drying rack with a care he usually didn’t bother with. Gabriel was reading a scroll that had appeared on the table, a faint celestial shimmer along its edge. He was already moving on, the morning’s banter concluded to his satisfaction.
“I’ve got a mountain of inter-departmental grievances to arbitrate today,” Gabriel said without looking up. “Try not to do anything that requires complex thought. Stick to… I don’t know, cleaning your guns. You’re good at that.”
Koen stared at his own hands, still resting on the edge of the washbasin. They were capable hands. They could field-strip a broken pistol blindfolded. They could stitch a wound closed on a panicked horse. They felt like useless slabs of meat.
“I’m good at that,” he said to the empty basin. The water dripped from the tap, a steady, lonely sound.
He turned. Gabriel was already lost in his correspondence, a faint frown of concentration on his perfect features. The cottage was warm, and sunlight finally broke through the clouds outside, catching the dust motes in the air. It was a picture of domestic peace. Koen walked through it, a ghost in his own home, and went to fetch his cleaning kit.
He sat back on the rug by the cold hearth. He took apart the revolver from last night, the one that had killed the Gloom Hound. Each component was laid on a soft cloth. He began the methodical process of removing powder residue and applying oil, his movements precise and practiced. It was the one thing he knew, absolutely and without question, that he did right.
The oiled metal gleamed under his careful touch, a universe of cogs and purpose contained in his palms.
He worked through the morning, then the afternoon, as shafts of light moved across the floorboards. The silence stretched, broken only by the clicking of parts and the distant rustle of Gabriel’s scrolls. A new bounty notice, delivered by a tired-looking raven, fluttered onto the table near midday. Koen glanced at the sketch of a river troll. He left it there.
When his stomach growled, he just ate some hard cheese from the cupboard, standing at the counter.
Gabriel emerged from his study as the light began to gold. He stretched, his spine giving a series of faint pops. “Did you move at all? Or have you been communing with that revolver like a holy relic?”
Koen was wiping his hands on a rag. He looked up, his orange eyes dull. “Probably,” he said.
That gave Gabriel a momentary pause. His blue eyes narrowed a fraction. “‘Probably’ what?”
“Probably didn’t move.” Koen tossed the rag onto his kit. “Like you said.”
He watched the words land. Gabriel opened his mouth, closed it, then waved a dismissive hand. “You’re in a mood. I’m making dinner. Try to use a plate this time. It’s the flat, circular thing.”
“I know what a plate is,” Koen said, but there was no fight in it. It was just a statement.
“Debatable.” Gabriel turned to the icebox, his voice drifting back. “You used a shovel as a plate that one time. At the summer solstice gathering. In front of the Summer Queen’s envoy.”
Koen remembered. The envoy had looked horrified. Gabriel had laughed until he cried, later calling it the most barbarically charming thing he’d ever witnessed. Koen had burned with shame for a week.
“It was a clean shovel,” Koen said softly.
“It was a shovel.” Gabriel pulled out vegetables, his back turned. “The point stands. Your grasp on civilized implements is tenuous at best.”
Koen didn’t argue. He just walked to the table and sat, watching Gabriel’s fluid movements at the cutting board. The knife was a silver blur. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Tenuous.”
The slicing sound stopped for half a second, then resumed, quicker. The only other sounds were the crackle of the fire being stirred to life and the sizzle of oil in the pan. A rich, herbal smell began to fill the cottage, usually a comfort. It just made Koen feel hollow.
They didn’t speak while Gabriel cooked. It was a comfortable silence usually, but now it felt loaded, like the air before a storm. Koen traced a scar on the tabletop, a deep gouge from where he’d once slammed a captured poltergeist’s containment orb down in triumph.
“Soup’s on, you magnificent lout,” Gabriel announced, placing two wide bowls on the table. It was a creamy potato and leek soup, with chunks of dark bread on the side. Perfect. “Try not to slurp.”
Koen picked up his spoon. He ate methodically, bringing the spoon to his mouth, swallowing, repeating. He made no sound. He broke his bread into tiny, precise pieces before eating them.
Gabriel watched him over his own bowl. He took a few bites, his gaze lingering on Koen’s lowered head. “That troll notice looked like easy silver. You heading out for it tomorrow?”
“If you think I should,” Koen said, staring into his soup.
“I don’t think anything. It’s your job.” Gabriel’s tone was light, testing.
“Okay.”
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel put his spoon down. It clicked against the clay bowl, a sharp sound. “You’ve said about ten words all day. And they’ve all been ‘yes’ or ‘okay’ or ‘probably.’ Did you get hit on the head in those woods last night?”
Koen finally looked up. His expression was blank, a flat, freckled landscape. “No.”
“Then what is it?” Gabriel’s eyebrows drew together. There was a flicker of genuine, frustrated concern there, but it was buried under layers of assumed annoyance. “You’re acting strange. Even for you.”
The old Koen would have flared at that. ‘Even for you.’ He would have sputtered, his ears going hot, defending the little ground he had. Now, he just felt the vast, cold distance from last night widen another inch.
“I’m tired,” Koen said. It wasn’t a lie. He was a deep, soul-aching kind of tired that his regeneration couldn’t fix.
Gabriel studied him, searching for the telltale signs of a concussion—the dilated pupils, the slackness. He saw only a profound exhaustion. He let out a long breath, the suspicion smoothing from his features. “Alright. Fine. You do look wrecked. That’s what you get for stomping around in a downpour chasing phantoms.”
He picked up his spoon again, the crisis averted in his mind. “Eat your soup before it gets cold. And for Heaven’s sake, stop tearing that bread into confetti. Just bite it.”
Koen looked at the shreds of bread on the table beside his bowl. He’d done it without thinking. He gathered them into a small pile, a mess of crumbs. “Sorry.”
He picked up the whole remaining piece of bread and took a large, uncareful bite. He chewed, the action mechanical. Crumbs fell onto the table and his shirt.
Gabriel shook his head, a faint, familiar smile returning to his lips. “There he is. A total mess.” The words were softer now, almost affectionate again, now that he had a reason for the behavior. “Just tired. Go to bed after this. You’ll be back to your normal, oblivious self by morning.”
Koen swallowed the bread. It tasted like dust. He nodded, agreeing with that too.
The next morning, he left the troll notice untouched on the table. A week later, the raven returned, screeching impatiently until Koen finally crumpled the now-stale parchment into his pocket. He tracked the beast for three days along the murky riverbank, a task that should have taken one. His shots were still true—the troll dropped with two rounds through its mossy heart—but the space between pulling the trigger and walking forward to check the body stretched longer each time. He stood over the stinking corpse, his revolver heavy in his hand, and felt nothing but the damp creeping into his boots.
Back at the cottage, he tossed the troll’s gristly ear onto Gabriel’s desk. It landed with a soft, wet tap on a pristine invoice from the Seraphim Choir.
“Hm? Oh, good.” Gabriel didn’t look up from his scroll, a quill darting in his hand. “Took you a while. Get lost?”
Koen’s ears, which had lifted slightly at the completion of the hunt, pressed back against his skull. “Something like that.”
He didn’t mention the hours spent sitting on a rotting log, watching the river swirl, unable to remember why he’d come out here at all.
The half-finished knitting project sat in a basket by his usual chair. A lumpy, torn attempt at a scarf in a muddy green wool. He’d been determined to learn, to have quiet hands that made something instead of just broke things. Gabriel had laughed, a beautiful, bright sound, and called it “adorably ambitious.” One evening, Koen had looked at the tangled yarn and the mismatched stitches, a monument to his clumsy fingers, and saw only proof.
He nudged the basket under the chair with his foot. It stayed there, gathering dust.
The silence in him grew. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet. It was a hollowed-out space where his thoughts used to rattle around, now just echoes of Gabriel’s voice. Just point at the scary thing. Leave the thinking to me. He functioned. He ate. He cleaned his guns with a monastic focus. He answered when spoken to, usually with a grunt or a single word. He existed in the spaces around Gabriel’s luminous presence, a shadow grown thin and silent.
One afternoon, finding himself alone, he mechanically began preparing a stew. He chopped potatoes, the knife a dull thunk on the wood. He browned the meat. He stood at the stove, stirring, watching the bubbles rise and burst in the gravy. The cottage was utterly silent. The wind wasn’t howling. No scrolls rustled. There was only the simmer of food and the empty, aching cavity of his own chest.
A hot, sudden pressure built behind his eyes. He blinked, and a tear fell, striking the iron rim of the pot with a faint hiss. Then another. They came silently, streaming down his freckled cheeks, dripping from his jaw. He didn’t sob. His shoulders didn’t shake. He just stood there, stirring, as his vision blurred the stew into a brown smear. The salt taste on his lips mixed with the steam.
The front door opened.
Koen turned his head away quickly, swiping a rough, wet hand across his face. His sleeve came away damp. Gabriel breezed in, shedding a fine mist of rain from his wings, which he’d evidently been using.
“The regional manager of miracles is a paperwork-glutted tyrant,” he announced, his voice filling the room. He stopped, sniffed the air. “Is that… you’re cooking?”
Koen kept his back to him, giving the stew a frantic stir. “Yeah.”
“Smells like half the forest fell in. What’s in it?” Gabriel’s footsteps approached.
“Stuff.” Koen’s voice was thick. He cleared his throat.
A hand landed on his shoulder, spinning him gently. Gabriel’s sharp blue eyes scanned his face, taking in the reddened rims, the damp lashes, the faint, traitorous shine on his skin. The archangel’s winged brow furrowed. “You’re crying.”
Koen flinched, a full-body recoil as if struck. He looked at the floor, at the stew, anywhere but at that perceptive gaze. “No.” It was a weak, transparent lie.
“Koen. Look at me.” Gabriel’s tone wasn’t teasing now. It was puzzled, tinged with a hint of impatience. “Your face is wet. What happened? Did you burn yourself?” He snatched Koen’s hand, turning it over, inspecting the unmarred, tanned skin for injuries.
“I’m fine.” Koen pulled his hand back. “Just… the onions. For the stew.”
Gabriel stared at him. Then he glanced at the counter. There were no onion skins. No cutting board. Just a single, lonely potato half-chopped. The lie sat between them, pathetic and obvious.
A long moment passed. Koen braced for the dissection, the relentless questioning that would poke and prod until his raw insides spilled out onto the clean floor.
But Gabriel just sighed, a sound of supreme, fatigued understanding. He squeezed Koen’s shoulder again, the gesture almost pitying. “Right. The onions.” He gave a small, knowing shake of his head. “Your regeneration doesn’t do much for mundane irritants, does it? Demonic biology is so oddly specific. All that resilience, felled by a root vegetable.”
He said it like it was a solved equation. He turned away, hanging his damp cloak on a peg. “Try not to rub your eyes with those greasy hands. You’ll make it worse.”
The rationalization was a door slamming shut. Koen stood frozen by the stove, the tears on his face cooling in the air. The stew was starting to stick and scorch at the bottom. The smell of it, once rich, now seemed cloying and wrong.
Gabriel was already moving on, pouring himself a drink, humming a fragment of celestial hymn. The moment—the caught, exposed truth of it—was over. Brushed aside. Explained away. Koen was just a simple creature, crying over pretend onions.
He turned back to the pot. The tears had stopped. They didn’t come back. He served the slightly burnt stew onto two plates, carried them to the table, and sat down to eat what tasted like ash.