Terminal (Terminal trilogy #1)

28: And later

Blake was... Blake was here. I rolled Michael's ring around in my palm, watching the room. It was calm again. Michael was back in his chair, now working through a second bowl of mints. I sat on the table in front of him, watching my feet.

"Do you know how unhealthy those things are for you?" Raphael said, watching Michael tear through another hard candy. He was speaking angelic without really needing to, and Cassiel and her friend were paying idle attention, like this was some important matter for angels.

"I'll shoot myself in the head if I get tooth rot," Michael said, crunching loudly. He popped another mint in his mouth. "Gotta stay awake." He glanced up at me. "You following?"

"Pretty well."

"Hum," he said, like it was the sort of thing people said from time to time. He might as well have said 'taxes'- his tone carried everything you needed to know about what he was feeling.

"So." Christina loudly cleared her throat. She was sitting by my feet, seemingly a bit perturbed that I had shown up and calmed Michael down like that. "We should have an actual... meeting."

"What?" Noel said, "A meeting? At this wonderful party? What a concept."

"Please don't get sarcastic with me."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound rude," Noel stood up, gesturing to herself, "Just, you know, it's a bit disorienting. Who the fuck are you again? Why the hell is this 'meeting' happening?"

"We're here to discuss the slight possibility of a peaceful conclusion to this war," Lane said, earnestly, though surely Noel knew this already. "No promises, just giving it a chance."

"Why? We've been quite content with the war. It isn't like there's protests down in the square- well, er, anymore- or really all that negative a perspective of the fighting. Everyone's cool with it. We're basically winning."

"You wouldn't be if I allowed it," Michael said bitterly. He wasn't lying. "I could kill everyone in this room in seconds, but I choose not to. I could end the war in days, but I graciously allow otherwise."

"Why haven't you slaughtered us all yet?" Kell sounded bemused at the very real concept.

"Because there's no fun in an easy fight."

"I wouldn't encourage him too much." Raphael interjected, raising his hand a little bit before speaking. He smiled slightly.

"Hey." The new guy, with his new dark bruise, stood up and nodded at Raphael. "I can see your brother there is the type of bloodthirsty asshole I hate. You look like a literal twelve year old- what are you doing backing him?"

Raphael nervously laughed, "A twelve year old can't have opinions? Michael is my brother, and I stand with him." He glanced to the side while he smiled, clearly uncomfortable with explaining himself, "We're no more evil than you are, ultimately. And... honestly, I'm older than I look. And I used to be older than even that."

"What?" The new guy shook his head. He seemed to have a thing for over gesturing. "You guys are disgusting. And I hate you. And I know I got clocked in for saying it a few minutes ago, but I'll say it again: I really, really fucking hate you guys, and just seeing all your faces makes me that more excited to separate them from your skulls."

Across the room, Stacy gently rolled his eyes. There was a lot of that going around tonight.

"Can we try and talk about something else?" Christina said nervously. "Mi- Micky, do you mind dropping the subject? We're just here until midnight and... it'd be best to have no more deaths."