Chapter 26.1

 

Her words have barely finish echoing before Steve has stepped towards her. She can feel the change in the air around her as he moves; the shift of soul fragments from the Nephilim and Astaroth, the interaction of his as they move through and around hers.

His voice almost echoes, such is her perception of time, now. “Roisin.” It sounds like a plea, but she doesn’t understand why he’s so concerned. Why is it to him that she has become Justice? Is he worried he might fall prey to her?

She turns toward him slowly, as though the movement has to pass through several layers of perception before it reaches her body. She is only just been granted this new perception, and it will take time for her movements to become naturalised in the shape she now wears, but she has time to learn, and the knowledge to apply that learning through infinite scenarios in a the blink of an eye,

And she can blink very fast indeed.

Steve’s voice cracks into two pitches as he speaks again. He is overwhelmed by emotions in a way she could never be and wasn’t when she was human. She had learned to feign it of course. The school psychiatrist had deemed her ‘borderline sociopathic’ though never to her face. She’d read it in the letters he’d sent to her mum. “Roisin, look at me,” he says again, and she does.

She sees him properly now. She sees the lines etched on his face from the multiple lifetimes he has lived and feels… sorry?... for him. How tired he must be of life, forever avoiding a child. His fractals shift and glitter more than most, laden with lifetimes as they are, like a dusty old hard drive barely hanging on as it clatters through addresses. It is as though she can see both him and everything around him and everything inside him all at once. All the men he has been and, to her surprise rather than any amusement – and certainly no judgement – the brief period in the eighteenth century where he lived for thirty years as a woman.

A thousand languages to choose from, but she finds the one this frame is most familiar with, where the pronunciation won’t tackle her laryngeal and articulatory muscles. “Steve,” she says softly.

He pauses mid-step, looking at her with a slight frown. “Your voice,” he says. “It’s different.”

“How?” How can it be different?  She has the same body, the same lungs, the same vocal cords, throat, larynx, mouth, facial muscles. Nothing has altered, so there can be no change.”

“You’re projecting. It’s the difference between a normal voice and a stage voice. The voice you’re using now could reach the back row of an auditorium, probably without amplification.

She considers his words. The tone is the tone of angels. It is the voice of the Four, of Death, of the Metatron. It is not the voice of the Creator, for that would reduce him to atoms. She modulates it into a tone more acceptable. “Better?”

“Better.” He smiles as he reaches for her hand

The Nephilim shifts, but Roisin lifts a finger—just a small gesture—and the creature stills instantly, as though she has spoken a command in a language older than sound. She has no need of its protection. For all his idealisms and experience, he is still only a mortal. She could cut the life from him as easily as thought.

She can hear his heart skip a beat as he takes her hand. His is warm, familiar, and she can feel the lives he has led through it. What has he waited for, all these years? Not for her, for she would not be born until he was ancient. In his past he sees the children he could have had, for though he has been gay these many cany centuries, he was not always so and once? Once there were children he called his sons and daughters, but they were not of his blood. Nevertheless, he had a father’s love for them.

Her hand is squeezed beneath his own. It is not an attack, she knows. The gesture is not intended to cause her physical pain but is a call to something he thinks is there. “Come back,” he whispers.

The lifting of the corners of her mouth brings him pain, for she sees it reflected in his eyes. Whatever he hopes of her, she cannot offer it, for whatever he seeks belonged to the human woman she was, not the angelic vessel she has become. “Steve,” she murmurs, “I’m not gone.”