Chronicles of Gabriel, page 5
“We do each other favors,” she interrupted with a shrug. “Every Christmas I help him de-frag the Abbey’s mainframe.” She paused uncertainly, staring up at him. “How did it go?”
The others had been on enough missions themselves they knew how to read the signs. A re-routed plane meant trouble, but Gabriel wouldn’t be smiling if something had happened. His choice of wardrobe spoke to a lack of transportation. The pallor of his skin meant he wasn’t seriously hurt.
Unfortunately, that still left plenty on the table.
And Natasha hadn’t yet learned those signs herself.
“It went fine.”
Gabriel kissed her on the forehead, steering her deliberately away from the catastrophe in the sink and towards the table. It was half-submerged in wedding paraphernalia and had become functionally unusable. In the penthouse up the street, Molly’s table looked very much the same.
“Yeah?” she pressed lightly, still circled in his arms. “Any highlights?”
A series of images flashed before his eyes.
“I think Julian’s a better shot than I gave him credit for.”
She relaxed in spite of herself, notching her wrists behind his neck. “Is he anywhere near as good as me?”
Gabriel bowed his head with a smile, tangles of golden hair falling between them.
One might think that being a ballerina would have instilled some kind of precision when it came to marksmanship, but it had translated only into grace and not aim. The lovely girl couldn’t hit a target if her life depended on it, but she was very good at keeping herself from falling down.
Carter had made her a ‘field agent.’ He’d done this with a secret smile. He’d also done it with fierce conditions from Gabriel—texted back and forth in the dead of night. She could go out into the field, anywhere she wanted, anywhere she was needed.
With a team of five veteran agents surrounding her at all times.
“No one’s as good as you,” he answered, kissing her squarely between the eyes. “After things settle down at the agency, I was hoping you could take me to the range. Give me a few pointers.”
She flashed a grin, tracing a finger around his lips. “Oh yeah? You want a few pointers?”
“At least a few. Show me the proper way of doing things.” He pulled her closer still, bending down to whisper in her ear. “Or we could always start now...”
A stampede of little footsteps thundered down the hall.
Incoming.
“Dad!”
Gabriel pulled back with a radiant smile, turning around as a tangle of messy blond hair flew across the kitchen and hurled itself into his arms. It had taken him a while to turn around. It had taken him a while to remember the title was addressed to him.
Now, he couldn’t imagine a world without it.
“Good morning!” he exclaimed, spinning him in the air. He tried to get close enough for a kiss, but the boy kept turning his head. “You and your mom weren’t cooking, were you?”
I smell treachery.
Jason pulled back, still avoiding his eyes. “Nope. We promised last time, was the last time.”
Gabriel chuckled as Natasha flushed and glanced towards the sink.
“Good lad. You want me to drive you into school today?” He gave his fiancée a teasing wink. “We could always stop at Jaqueline’s on the way. They’re probably open...” He trailed off in shock, catching the boy’s chin. “Hey...what happened?”
In a flash, Jason slipped out of his arms and landed lightly upon the tile—grabbing an apple from the counter before racing back down the hall.
“No need for a ride,” he called over his shoulder. “Mom’s already taking me.”
A door slammed shut in the distance, then the couple turned back to each other.
“Don’t freak out—”
“He has a freaking black eye, Natasha. What the hell happened?”
She lifted her hands, trying to calm things down. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me.” She wrapped a preemptive hand around his sleeve. “And we’re not going to casually interrogate him using our years of ghoulish espionage, or anything else that isn’t normal and will freak him the hell out. He’ll tell us when he’s ready. You taught me that.”
Yeah...in theory.
“Did he just...” He trailed off in frustration, hands balling into fists at his sides. “Did he just come home from school like that? Did one of the others say if anything happened?”
Jason kept things surprisingly close to the vest, considering he was all of seven years old, but Gabriel could usually pry any necessary information out of his cousins.
Especially when they were bribed with sweets.
“You don’t want it to happen that way,” Natasha reasoned calmly. She’d thrown a stapler out the bedroom window after seeing the bruise upon her son’s face, but she’d had almost fourteen hours to compose herself since then. “You want him to tell you.”
Again...in theory.
Gabriel stared a moment longer, then raked back his hair with a sigh.
Not for a single moment of his life, had he ever planned for becoming a parent. Having raised one infant in a place not dissimilar from the actual gates of hell, any dormant impulse or inclination had been ground straight out of him. But his life had never gone according to plan.
Jason was like springtime, like the sudden emergence of the sun.
Never could Gabriel have imagined the white-hot burst of emotion that would follow, never would he have imagined that anything could warm him so deeply, invoke such a profound change.
And never had he felt so completely out of his depth.
He blamed his training, he needed to blame something. Since he was three years old, he had been taught to fix problems, to carve his way past obstacles, to always—always—be in control.
But being a father wasn’t like that.
It was model planes and too many race cars. It was reading the same story eighty times, then finding some inner patience to read it just one time more. It was why he studied his friends with their children in secret, and purchased every available resource to teach himself the basics. It was why he carried sunscreen and Dramamine in his glovebox, why he could sit down and tell you the plot of most cartoons, and found himself awake at four in the morning, doom-scrolling parenting blogs.
It was an endless learning curve. It would never be enough.
But if there was ever a kid to make you try...
“I want Jason to do a lot of things,” he finally murmured.
Things had been difficult, the more time had been crowded out by the impending nuptials. It felt like the little family had just been hitting their stride before getting knocked back twenty paces.
Twice, he and Natasha had talked about postponing it. But given the absurd levels of guilt the child already carried, they didn’t want to risk anything that might make him feel worse. They had been treading carefully instead—letting him set the agenda, letting him set the pace.
And now he’s taking a beating on the playground.
“Can you just check his memory?”
Natasha lifted her eyebrows in surprise, hands on her hips.
“I thought we were never going to do that. We made a promise—”
“We also promised to keep him safe. And I can’t very well do that if there are a bunch of little prats running around the schoolyard, hitting him in the face. I need names.”
There weren’t a great number of people in the world who would have stood their ground against Gabriel Alden. Unfortunately, all of them happened to live on the same block.
“Why?” Natasha shot back. “So you can strangle them?”
“...no.”
She let out a patient breath, fighting the urge to smile. “I’m taking Jase to school today. You’re going to get a few hours of sleep.” She kissed him again, tracing the shadows under his eyes. “You’ve been doing too much lately. You need to rest.”
He glanced down the hall impatiently. “I don’t need to rest—”
She caught his face, turning it back towards her. “You do, Alden. I can promise that you do.” She stretched onto her tiptoes, whispering with a little grin. “I plan on exhausting you later. You’re going to need all your strength.”
The anger ebbed as a reluctant smile played around his lips.
“Oh yeah?” he quipped, watching as she walked towards the door. A breezy dress hung loose on her shoulders, skimming above the knees. “And how exactly do you plan to exhaust me?”
She glanced over her shoulder with a bright smile. “We need to pick a table-setting for Molly. She’s been jumping down my throat.”
...That’s just mean.
He nodded slowly, arms folded across his chest. He’d always had a good poker face, but it was hard not to smile when she looked at him like that. Most days, she won those little games.
“Oh, you thought I meant sex?” she asked innocently, before shaking her head. “I heard that doesn’t really happen after we get married.”
A teasing scowl flashed across his face.
“Don’t even joke like that,” he threatened. “I’ll call the whole thing off.”
“Love you, babe.”
“I’m serious, Natasha. Not a single joke.”
“Get some rest.”
The door swung shut behind her, leaving him alone in the kitchen. He stood there for a moment, watching as Jason slipped outside and joined her at the car, before walking slowly down the hall to his bedroom—preparing to submerge himself in pillows and do exactly that.
He shouldn’t have listened. He should never have closed his eyes.
Chapter 5
Gabriel sat alone on the park bench, watching the people ice-skating across the street.
It was just a day before Christmas, but he didn’t know that. It was just a few days before a sobbing baby sister was about to burst into his life, but he didn’t know that either. He was in a rare moment of calm amidst the perpetual storm. He was in a rare moment of unsupervised time.
Outside.
He pulled in a deep breath, fingers wrapping giddily around the bench.
His little face might have been calm, but inside, he was dancing. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d been allowed above ground since coming to live with the strange man below the church. The only reason it had been allowed that morning, was a sudden hiccup in travel arrangements for the new arrival, whatever that was supposed to mean.
Gabriel wasn’t particularly concerned one way or another. He’d be forced to deal, whether he worried or not. For now, he was living in the moment. For now, he was watching them skate.
Look at her spin...
His bright eyes followed along as a graceful-looking woman detached herself from the others and started playfully showing off, dropping back her head as she twirled in a tight spin.
If it wasn’t for a book that Jason had brought home one day, he wouldn’t have even known what ice-skating was. His only experience with such a thing had been when Cromfield brought him on a ‘talent-hunting’ expedition in Nova Scotia and he’d fallen through a partially frozen lake.
It had taken the others a full minute to realize he was gone. It had taken the overworked healer another ten to revive him. To this day, he couldn’t think about it without getting chills.
The noise had drawn him. His instinct had been concern, but none of the people appeared to be at any risk of falling. Quite the contrary, it looked like they were having the time of their lives.
His lips curved in a rare smile as he watched them flying around in circles.
They looked like a flock of birds, gliding across the ice. And the woman, he’d never seen anyone so beautiful. There was a scarf around her neck. He imagined it must be very soft.
“Are you going to the rink?”
He jumped in surprise as a child sat down beside him—a boy who couldn’t be much older than he was himself. There were pink stains on his cheeks from the cold, and his nose wouldn’t stop dripping. But he smiled easily enough. It took Gabriel a moment to recall he should smile in return.
He couldn’t. He clutched the bench instead.
“I don’t have any skates,” he mumbled.
The boy nodded without really listening, eager to get on the ice himself.
“My dad’s taking me,” he continued proudly. “He’s been in California for his job, but he’s home now and he said we could skate for the entire afternoon.” When this failed to make an impact, he glanced around the snowy park. “What about you? Where are your parents?”
Gabriel’s pulse quickened and he didn’t move a muscle. There were serious consequences for speaking to strangers, and there was a decent chance his keepers didn’t know where he was.
“They, uh...I’m not...”
“Sam!”
Both boys turned in unison as a frazzled man hurried up the sidewalk. There was a steaming paper cup in each hand, and a Bluetooth clipped beneath his hair. He tensed automatically at the sight of another person, then relaxed when he realized it was no more than a child.
“Hello there,” he said cheerfully, coming to a stop. “Did you make a new friend?”
The boy took a cup from his hand, slurping down some cider. “Not really,” he replied with a sideways glance, “he won’t really speak to me.”
Gabriel flushed with embarrassment, but the man took pity on him.
“That’s all right,” he said kindly, “some people are a little shy.” His eyes made the same sweep around the empty park. “Where are your parents? Did you wander away from the rink?”
Unable to answer one question, Gabriel answered the other.
“I don’t have any skates,” he repeated softly.
A slight frown clouded the man’s face, but the Bluetooth was already blinking.
“That’s all right—plenty of other fun to be had.” He glanced around again, hesitant to leave him alone. There were fast-moving cars, it was a busy street. “You have any plans for Christmas?”
Gabriel stared back with wide eyes. “...is it Christmas?”
The man stilled in surprise, feeling profoundly unsettled, then he took his son by the hand and escorted him quickly to the rink. As if the golden-haired boy on the bench was something to be avoided. As if he had something catching that might infect all the rest.
Gabriel stared after them a moment, then turned back to the rink.
The woman he’d been watching had fallen. The scarf was tangled around her neck. With a little sigh, he pushed to his feet and walked slowly across the street to the church.
Is it Christmas? Is that why there are so many lights in the trees?
GABRIEL SAT UP WITH a jolt—shivering slightly, like he could still feel the snow.
He took a second to steady himself, then glanced instinctively at the clock. It was barely coming on noon. He’d only managed to sleep for a few hours.
It’s better than nothing.
He dressed quickly, grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator, then swept out the front door to his car. His son was at school, and his girlfriend was at rehearsal. There was a whole slew of uninterrupted hours to fill until their return.
My fiancée, he corrected himself with a smile. My fiancée is at rehearsal.
The car sped off down the street, slipping into the familiar stream of traffic, as he drifted closer to the edges of the city and the rolling country that framed each side.
For a moment, he was tempted to do a quick drive past the school. There was a bakery across the street that had an outward-facing security camera. If the jackals that attacked his kid had done it anywhere on the eastern side of the building, chances were—
Your fiancée wouldn’t be very happy about that.
He left the city behind. He drove to Guilder instead.
The Oratory was already in full-swing by the time he parked and pushed his way through the double doors. A group of shadow-benders were doing what could only be described as a creepy performance in the corner, but he was pleased to see that Julian was already back training as well.
It had taken a while for the psychic to find his stride after dismantling a human-trafficking ring in Budapest. Gabriel remembered driving him to the safe-house a few days after he returned, he’d never seen his friend so shaken. The whole way there, he’d kept hold of Gabriel’s sleeve.
Julian had never noticed. Gabriel had never said a word.
“Nice outfit,” he called, tossing his bag into the corner and joining him on the mats. “Did Angel make you change? That looks a little more her style.”
At one point, the psychic had probably been wearing clothes, but he’d been drilling hard and before long, his shirt had been tossed in the corner. He glanced up in surprise, then flashed a grin.
“You want to talk about that?” he teased. “Me getting naked with your sister?”
Gabriel stopped cold. Men had been killed for less.
They had actually been killed for less.
“Let’s spar.”
Julian laughed a bit nervously, but waved him forward.
Present circumstances aside, Gabriel appreciated the gesture. Most people wouldn’t accept such an offer. He’d been banned from sparring with PC agents before. It wasn’t ever long before sparring turned to fighting. And it wasn’t ever long before that fighting took a dangerous turn.
There was a reason people generally steered clear of he and his sister in the Oratory. They’d been bred in darker chambers, this was often reflected when they raised their hands.
“Hands up.”
With no further preamble, the two men sank into a familiar pattern—testing each other’s boundaries, defending their own, then hurling themselves forward in a dazzling series of attacks. It wasn’t long before they took a simultaneous step back and tied back their hair. Just a few minutes after that, Julian jogged towards the bucket by the wall and grabbed himself an inhibitor.
Gabriel caught his breath, watching as he slipped it over his neck.
When he’d asked why Julian so often wore an inhibitor to spar with him—him, and not any of the others—the psychic had answered like it was the simplest thing in the world.
