Mykael's Song: It Teaches Us Nothing

Part 3: Wane

The turbo tuning sang a  high pitched aria, as the car rolled down the dark back road. He'd  forgotten how far Vickie's neighborhood was from anything. The incident  had sobered him up right quick, but everything seemed to be moving a  little slow. Parking two streets down had been a good idea, though. The  police sirens had wailed right past him as he laid the inebriated girl  in the passenger seat.

"Yknow, given the luck  I'm having with nameless people today, I think I'll just give you one,"  Mykael said conversationally. She was breathing at least, though her  eyes just barely responded to light. "I think we'll call you...Candy.  No, Chardonnay...still no? Tiffany, Tammy? Tammy feels right. I feel  like a Tammy would get herself into this – yknow she's not too wild, but  she's got a wild side."

Mykael wished he hadn't  run out of names. Now he actually had to think about what he'd just  seen. His hands were still shaking. Mei and Michi hadn't just been  collecting shitty intel. Rape had essentially been turned into a  spectator sport with no referee, or commissioner, or rules. It had to be  more than just mob mentality. He couldn't believe someone could in  their right mind watch this happen, not even morally bankrupt young  adults like himself. No,something else fed that savage behavior so it  could feed itself.

Mykael had dealt with  glamours, compulsions and the like before, but he didn't know what to  make of this. Usually he could smell residual magic those things left  behind, and there was none in Vickie's house; yet everyone in immediate  view was clearly under some kind of suggestion. Not even Vicky and her  friends had reacted to the screams. Why hadn't he been affected then?  Having two souls made him resistant to most mind control, but not all.  His phone was vibrating. It was Julie, she sounded worried.

"Mykael, where are you, have you seen Vickie?"

"Not since I was with you, someone started shooting; I'm taking someone to the hospital." He said as he looked over at Tammy.

"No one can find her." She was trying to sound calm, but clearly in a coke induced panick.

"We'll find her when I  get back." Something slammed onto the hood of his car, a dark, hulking  shape that dented the metal like tin with a terrible crash. The back  wheels flew up, and launched the car into the air. It tumbled and spun  down the empty road, glass and metal shooting around like shrapnel as  the car wrapped around a tree – more like putty than metal.

"My, my..." a slick,  velvety voice said from the darkness. "You're a fast one, aren't you?"  The silver lion said as she looked into the empty, mangled car. He  wasn't sure if she was actually a lion, but she scared him like one.  Mykael stood in the road, with Tammy cradled in his arms.

"Oh, that?" He looked at  the shrapnel in the street like he'd just noticed it. "That was nothing  – probably wouldn't have broken my wrist on the airbag if I wasn't  drunk, though. Tiffany – did I tell you your name is Tiffany now?" He set his jaw, jokes aside. "Tell what I saw, back at the house. What are you?"

"Oh, that?" She looked  at him innocently. "I was as horrified as you were the first time it  happened around me – but that was three years ago... I've kind of fallen  into the role by now." The moon shined through the fading clouds and  seemed to sharpen the silver eyes that cut holes in him now. She smiled a  snake's smile. "Now it's just in my nature, one might say. I'm a  one-winged angel, if you must know. Gabriel took one of my wings for  speaking out against God, now I walk the earth, cursed to bring misery  to the women I spent my angelhood watching over. I couldn't stop this  anymore than you could stop sleeping." So that's how she saw  me...She's some kind of ambiguous angel? and THAT'S why I couldn't smell  whatever magic caused this, it wasn't magic...It was the divine. public  rapings, ordained by the divine...and they wonder why I hate religion.