Airs & Graces (27 page)

“That’s possible.” I recalled some of Iaoel’s more difficult visions. Human suffering was usually a distant affair to her, but now and then, she got caught up in what she was seeing and what she was feeling.

“I think, maybe, they dragged them to Hell. I mean, the people maybe looked human, but they could have been Demons, right? They were so
strong
. And everyone was so scared. And what else would scare Iaoel that much?”

“The keys didn’t go to Hell,” I assured her. That much I was absolutely certain of. “Anywhere in Hell that someone hid them, they’d have been found and used by now.”

“Okay, so maybe not actual Hell. Or maybe she got a chance to hide it somewhere else. But it was… so real. I close my eyes, and it all comes back to me.”

The words were familiar.
“I close my eyes, and it all comes back to me.”
I remembered the times Iaoel told me just that. The last time was only a couple of days before her betrayal, while she was trying to parse through what she’d seen. I looked down at Adelaide, still pressed against my side. “She wasn’t giving you a vision. She was having a nightmare. She’d had that vision before.”

“So you knew about that, about the keys?”

“No, I didn’t. She didn’t tell me what she’d seen. She said she couldn’t. But it affected her, just like it did you. I recognize the signs.”

Adelaide looked crestfallen. “So, you’re saying she’s taking control of me after all?”

“No, I don’t think she’s going to, either. Your personality is too strong for that, but her visions
will
affect you, whatever form they take. Especially when you’re so tired.”

She thought about that for several minutes. “All right, that makes sense. I
was
pretty exhausted. I’m still getting used to all of this. Especially having a manipulative bitch in my head all the time. Anyway, I meant what I said before. Thank you for helping me. You really do care, right?” She didn’t sound entirely sure, but she also sounded willing to listen and believe.

“Of course, Addy.” It was true, and becoming more so. I’d repeated the scenario many times, protecting mortals and their free will, but rarely long enough to get to know one like this, to watch someone take on so many challenges. And I’d even remembered to keep her name preferences in mind, even if I didn’t share them. Adelaide was a beautiful name.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the questions. I know we can’t have feelings, or… any of that. And I get it now. It’s about her, and how you felt about her, and how she’d twist that, right?”

“That’s part of it, yes.” I did my best to keep my tone even.

“And the other part?”

“The other part is that this is my life, Addy. It’s never going to stop, until Judgment Day. This is no life for you, or any mortal. I’m going to do what has to be done, and then free you, from her, from this. So you can make decisions about the rest of your life.”

She looked at me, tears in her eyes, then lurched forward in her seat and hugged me. “Thank you, Tabbris. So, that doing what has to be done thing. What do I need to do?”

“You’ve had a tough enough day already, and yesterday was worse. You should rest.”

She drew back from me, saying, “Fuck that. Going by the sun, I’ve slept around the fucking clock already.”

“And then a couple hours more, yes.”

“Then I’ve had enough sleep. And too many nightmares. What do I need to do?”

“Meditate and relax, then focus on the end of that waking dream. She may not want to show you, and she’ll be more aware now too. You need to try to see more. I have a suspicion now, but the scenario you talked about has been repeated too many times throughout history.”

There was no hesitation this time. I suspected, given Adelaide, that after the comparison, and the nightmare, she was eager to test herself and battle Iaoel to show her defiance. I made a mental note not to compare the two too often. Useful as it may be for motivation, Adelaide had been hurt enough, not only by the dire circumstances that’d swept her up, but by me as well.

She settled in on the floor and did her best to go through the meditation techniques she’d learned at the Temple. It took quite some time before she actually appeared anything remotely like relaxed. I guessed she was battling Iaoel, trying to force a further vision. Nothing seemed to come of it until she finally seemed more resigned to the meditation, no longer struggling, just trying to focus on elements of her dream – or Iaoel’s dream – again.

Her body started to shake, and she whimpered, biting back screams, and the words that came with them. I put my hand on her shoulder, and she stilled, aside from small shivers, but didn’t open her eyes. When the whimpers began again, despite my presence, I was tempted to shake her back to alertness but resisted the urge. She’d wanted to do this – and while I wouldn’t have stood in the way of her free will before, there was something more to it now. I respected her enough to trust she could handle it, and I could appreciate her strength in willingly facing this adversity. At one time, especially coming out of the temple, I hadn’t been sure, and every time I looked at Adelaide, even as different as she was, it could be a struggle not to remember what Iaoel had done. Now, I saw her as vulnerable, tired, in need – but also possessed of a strength and beauty all her own. Iaoel had chosen her vessel too well for her own good.

After over an hour’s struggle to bring the vision on, the vision itself lasted two hours. She opened her eyes, and almost toppled over, leaning heavily into my shoulder and wing, clutching herself tightly to my side. She wept openly for some time, not even trying to talk until it subsided.

“I still couldn’t see everything. It was like a lot of the dream, all disjointed, coming in one piece, then another. But they weren’t Demons, I don’t think. I mean, they could have been, and she just couldn’t see them, but I think they were men. She kept the keys hidden. They hurt, they hurt a lot, but she kept them hidden, even though they threw her in a prison. Her, and a lot of other people. They… Tab, they were tortured. They cut them, and starved them, and beat them, and… and a lot of other things. She didn’t see her family. And she kept herself alive, and sane, sort of, by focusing totally on keeping the keys hidden. And she did. Well, she held on to her sanity anyway. She… she died in that prison. They killed her, Tab. I saw my… her body being dragged, and tossed with a lot of others to be burned. But she had the keys hidden inside her, and she died… she died hoping they wouldn’t find them.”

“Do you know who they are, yet?”

“No. Like I said, it was disjointed, jumping from image to image. And Iaoel was doing her best to be disruptive – throwing distorted images into the mix, I think it was her version of screaming, since she has no voice. I think you were right. She’s had this vision before, Tab. She remembers being stuck, being beaten and helpless, tortured, and then feeling it when the body was burned. She just kept that part on a loop, trying to make me suffer with her.” While she remained obviously tormented by the nightmare visions, Adelaide didn’t seem entirely broken up over Iaoel’s suffering. “I do remember some words, though. I just don’t know what they meant.”

“Someone spoke to you?”

“No. Well, yes. A lot of shouting and commands I didn’t understand. With the screaming, and echoes and all sorts of noise, I couldn’t be sure, but I think it was another language, and Iaoel wasn’t translating. I always understood before, but not this time. I just saw the letters. But these were words on a sign. It kept coming up, but every time it did, she tried to throw up another image. The more I fixated on it, the more pissed off I think she was getting, so I tried to hold onto it.”

“The lack of translation may have been because of the nightmare. And, a sign?”

“A sign, all in black, twisted letters on an archway, yes. I just remember they were important. They stood out in my… in her mind. If we had a computer, I’d look it up. Maybe that would help?”

“Just spell them out for me. Or write them down as best you can.”

After a short while, a lot of it spent with Adelaide stretching, trying to get some feeling back in her legs, we went outside, and she sketched the words she’d seen in her vision in the dirt.

“Try to rest for a while, we’re going to go find food and get some supplies, and then we’re leaving.”

“You know where the keys are? Where?”

“Appropriately, where Angels fear to tread.”

***

The archway letters reading
Arbeit Macht Frei
might as well have translated out of German as ‘
Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.’

After all, the Auschwitz Museum commemorated one of the most hopeless places on Earth. Where Adelaide may have seen signs of God’s judgment upon mortals before, this was an all-too-human tragedy. It was understandable that Adelaide had briefly thought that the vision might have been one of Hell.

We made sure to arrive at night, with no one about. Even narrowed down this far, if the keys were somehow still here, the complexes of the two memorials making up the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum took up a lot of space.

Adelaide clutched my arm tight as we walked. Then she paused as we neared the buildings, pointing at the archway gate. “I remember that. We’re in the right place,” she finally managed, before starting to move again. “They pulled us through those gates. Do I want to know what it means?”

“Work makes you free,” I translated. She shuddered harder, needing a couple of moments before she was able to continue moving.

The trip was a slow one. I kept careful watch out for anyone that might see us, but Adelaide kept pausing, freezing up as she recognized bits and pieces of the complex, while others didn’t seem to play any particular role in the flashing images of the nightmare visions. At one point, she even clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling a scream. When she pulled her hand away, she’d bitten down so hard on her lip she was bleeding. “Sorry, sorry! That building, I remember that building. And that area there. It’s like it hasn’t changed. But that was so long ago. And then over there is where there was a… I guess they called him a doctor, but he didn’t heal anyone. I just remember pain, and fear, and some paintings.”

“They’ve taken pains to keep it the way it was, so no one can erase the history.”

“God, it’s horrible,” She bit down again. “That’s okay to say, right?”

“Yes, praying to God is okay. This place could use a little more of Heaven’s light.”

“Why didn’t you stop it?” Her tone shifted, briefly, to something more accusatory. “You… I mean, He passed judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, but he let this place stand. Why?” There were more tears by the end, while her tone became more plaintive as she spoke, genuinely seeking answers.

“Sodom and Gomorrah are precisely why. There was …regret, or at least a change of heart over punishing people for the exercise of the will
He
gave them. The burning of the innocent along with the guilty brought with it deep guilt. Otherwise, he would not have let Himself be locked away. The virtuous and the forgiven still go to Heaven, and His promises are kept. There’s no more floods, or scourges, or rains of fire these days, except the ones men visit upon themselves.”

“So all of this was just men? No Fallen, or anything?”

I shook my head. “I wish there had been. That much was watched for. We’re not supposed to interfere in most mortal lives, most of the time. That suits most of the host just fine. But when the Fallen get involved, that’s something different.”

“And you couldn’t do anything to help these people because then, the Fallen would have gotten involved, and made things worse?” It sounded like understanding was dawning. There was no more reproach in her voice. She’d seen how I reacted, when I was younger, to the plight of the innocent in the cities.

“Much worse,” I agreed. “I can protect people from having their exercise of the Gift interfered with by Heaven and Hell. The horrors you visit on each other are a different matter.” Adelaide looked at me. I could see every bit of my own heartache and regret, the helplessness over not being able to do more, mirrored on her admittedly lovely face

“So it’s not just about Judgment Day,” she spoke with more certainty now. “You guys are in a constant cold war. Except not everyone is willing to sit on the sidelines.”

I nodded, letting her focus on trying to make sense of the intricate politics of the ages-long war while we moved. Finally, she pulled up short again, and pointed off in the distance. “There. I remember that view. I think we may be close. I think… I… I think she spent any time she could staring through the gates off that way. Are you going to be able to, like, feel the keys when we get close, or anything?”

I shook my head. “I’m relying on your guidance. They’re very well protected that way. Iaoel’s gifts, obviously, gave her an edge there, but it took even her a long time to find anything.”

“So they could be anywhere. Or not even here,” Adelaide said, without sounding remotely like she was giving up. She walked the length of the complex, though the two of us needed to briefly duck out of sight on hearing voices. The Museum had been vandalized before, and I was sure they weren’t taking chances.

After her long trek, searching for anything that stood out as especially familiar, she moved back to the cover of a building. “Tab, I… I think I need to try to get another vision, here, where the impressions might be strongest.”

I think she expected me to protest, for her sake. When I didn’t, for a moment, her expression turned back to the hardened look I had gotten used to, when she was so certain I didn’t care about her fate. Then it softened again, focusing on what was at stake. Instead of protesting her efforts, I did my best to show some regard by helping her to get comfortable, in a place distinctly not designed for comfort. There was brief discussion, even, of moving inside one of the buildings, and the areas designed for the camp officers, but she refused, insisting she had a better chance in someplace she recognized.