Angel Tongue

septem

Isaac was still deep rooted in a confused daze the entire way to the infirmary.

He let them pull him all the way, his eyes glazed and his mind wandering in a fantasia of ambiguity. When they finally reached their destination, they prodded him to sit on a table, which to Isaac's fright and increased awareness, still had blood marks upon it. A middle-aged man dressed in everyday clothes then came up to him, a small smile on his face.

"That is yours, you know," he said, causing Isaac to raise his eyebrows questioningly. "The blood," he clarified, "demon venom makes it quite difficult to clean up." Then, he tipped his head in a semi-formal greeting, "I am Piero Belluomo."

Isaac nodded back, taking a closer look at the man, as he spoke, "I am Isaac Stjerne. Well met." He had on a pair of thick-rimmed black spectacles, distorting his eyes, and his hair short blonde hair, which had looked properly combed back at first glance, had some strands that refused to stay in place. Belluomo, he had said, if Isaac heard correctly. "You are Pax's father?" he asked, casting a glance at the boy who was standing off to the side.

The man smiled again. "That is correct," he said, looking off to his son and Sierra. "You've made friends already, have you? That's good." At that, Isaac opened his mouth to correct him and say that they were merely acquaintances and the only reason he was with them now was because they had accosted him when he woke up, but decided not to. Piero then raised his hand, revealing a thin glass tube, one of its ends coming to a metal point. "May I?" he asked.

Isaac eyed it suspiciously, going back to his last memory of another pointy object. "What is that?"

"This," Piero said in a matter-of-fact tone, waving the object about carelessly, and for a while, Isaac was afraid it might stick into someone's eye, "is a device with which I will take some of your blood. My wife told me that you were not aware of the Manus Dei. We need to look at your blood now-what it is made of, how you became Manus Dei despite your allegation that your parents are not-from your blood, we might see the answer to these questions."

"You will take my blood," Isaac replied, his powder blue eyes blinking before he continued, "look at it, and see how I am Manus Dei?"

Piero put a hand-the one not holding the device-on the counter behind him. "It is not quite as simple as that. It will take quite an amount of time, many processes, you see. Several days, at the very least."

"But I do not have any kind of ability that would make me out to be one of you," Isaac reasoned.

"Perhaps," the man agreed, "but you were not awake when you were first brought here. You were several breaths away from the underworld. Your only hope was that of a medicine which would have killed you anyway, had you not been Manus Dei. We were reluctant to administer it, but thanks to Sierra," he looked over to the girl, whose face had turned a shade of scarlet, "you are still alive, because you are Manus Dei."

Isaac found himself at a loss for words as he let what Piero told him sink in. He had been told that he almost died, yes, but he never knew that he would have been killed by the medicine otherwise. A gaggle of horses seemed to be galloping in circles in his mind for the day, he thought, their only goal to confuse him further and further.

"There is also the fact that one's gift does not always manifest early on," Piero kept on speaking, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Your pallor has not dissipated yet," he swiftly changed the topic to Isaac's medical state, involuntarily causing a small bubbling of shame to ease itself into Isaac.

Isaac looked at his hands, specifically as his skin, as pale as it has always been. "It has always been like this," his voice was smaller this time, more quiet, "they say my mother... fell ill, when she was carrying me in her womb. Sorry."