“No. I mean, I’m pregnant again.”
“Can you be pregnant twice at the same time?”
I usher her inside, out of the rain. She’s shivering. Her eyes are shining with more than tears. I am concerned she has caught a fever. She certainly seems to be delirious.
“He’s going to kill me when he finds out. And he’s going to kill the babies too. He can't stand the idea of anything being inside me that's not his. He’s told me before, if I ever cheated, he’d kill us all.”
“What did you mate with, Ivy?”
“An angel,” she whispers. “At least, I think it was an angel. It might have been the opposite. He came to me in a revelation in the fog and I lay with him. I do not know his name. I do not know his mission. I submitted to him because it felt right, and then, when it was done…” She lets out a little sob. “It didn’t feel right anymore.”
“How do you not know what you fucked, Ivy?” My question is impatient because I am now very worried for her life. Craig will not forgive this indiscretion. She should never have mated with him in the first place, but of all the many sterling qualities Ivy has in abundance, good taste in men is not among them.
“It’s not what you think. One of them… my first scan, there was a baby. A single. Now there’s two. There’s been an extra one added since I was seduced in the fog.”
That does not sound like something that should be able to happen, but then again, when it comes to the Lord all things are possible. There are those who believe the entire universe sprang from nothing in a single instant. If one can accept that, a secondary angel pregnancy seems positively mundane.
“What am I going to do, Bryn?” She wails the question at me.
She has suffered enough. Craig is the most powerful of our kind, but he is also the most cruel, and that is saying a lot given my own proclivities for brutality. Ivy and I have been friends for a long time, but she chose to spread her thighs for Craig and that has tied her to the beast for the rest of her life — unless someone with the power to intervene saves her.
I look deep into her eyes and brush a strand of crimson hair from her face. I cannot bear her misery any longer. I have to do what needs to be done, though it will be a betrayal of my oaths and vows to the Brotherhood. I will never have her. I have resigned myself to that fate. But he will not have or hurt her again, either.
“You are going to be free.”
Present day…
Nina was so much safer when she was tucked neatly away inside her mother. I could protect her then. Now I can do nothing for the pain and anguish that assails her on all sides. Thor’s call brought relief at first, and then a great deal of concern.
“I bought her some lunch, but she just went mad,” Thor explains, apologetically. “She was screaming about Jonah, and you, and something about mouths… the fog had come in. There was nothing I could do. There were too many people.”
Nina is in a London psych ward. After a heavy dose of sedatives, she was ensconced in a padded room with a camera feed. It is this feed Thor and I are watching, along with a nice young psychiatrist with an earnest air about him.
"The sedatives are wearing off. That’s why she’s becoming more agitated.”
Yes. Agitated. That is a good word for her behavior, which I would have described as sitting in the corner screaming at things that are not there — at least not for those who watch with typical human eyes. I see faint shadows and shades flitting over the screen. I know that the fog has gotten into her. She is mad on it. It will pass, but not quickly enough to get her out of this mess.
“I am her legal guardian,” I explain. “I’m prepared to take her. I think she’ll calm down more quickly in a familiar environment.”
“We cannot release her until she is able to take her medication regularly and no longer believes that you killed her brother and sacrificed him to demons.”
"She said that?”
“Yes. Among other things. She believes she is angelic in nature. It’s a common delusion. It should resolve with treatment.”
This could be a problem because I did kill her brother and sacrifice him to demons. She is going to have to come a long enough way to know to lie.
“You can come back and see her tomorrow," the doctor says. “The drugs we’re using are quick acting. We should see some stability then, and hopefully we can keep that going. No more running into traffic and screaming at pigeons.”