gabriel_tam | (no subject)

(no subject)

The room is fairly nice, all things considered. There are several chairs, a porta-cot set up discreetly against one wall for visitors that for one reason or another are reluctant to leave, and it's clear that whoever designed this particular private room in the first place intended to make it seem as warm and welcoming as possible.

Of course, given that it's a hospital, there's really only so much that can be done.

Currently, the hospital bed is tilted upwards at an angle, with the evident intention of making the patient comfortable. It seems to be working, at least a little, because Gabriel Tam is asleep.

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"Given your ... background," Gabriel says, a touch dryly, "I'm not sure how familiar you are with the theology of this 'verse?"

"Familiar enough in certain respects."

His tone is crisp, sharp as a blade.

"I have been to Earth before, and some stories seem to span universes."

"Well, that'll help."

A pause.

"He... he was an angel. The angel of Vengeance."

"Was."

Galadan tastes the shape of the word in his mouth.

"And now?"

"Now, he's... whatever an angel becomes after a Fall."

There's a distinct emphasis on the last word.

Gabriel essays a slight shrug, wincing a little as he does.

"A-- a demon, I suppose."

Galadan's smile is brief and twisted.

"Now that I daresay I know something of--angel or not."

He's putting things together rapidly now, mind working furiously.

"And aside from his mandate, ostensibly, what else does that change?"

"His employer."

Those two words are flat and bitterly bleak.

"Who."

Galadan's reply is neither flat nor bleak, just stark and cold and utterly demanding.

This--this is what he needs to know.

Or a very great part of it, at the least.

"That's where it gets a little more complicated."

Gabriel passes his arm over his eyes, as if trying to wipe away fatigue.

The knuckles of his tightly-clenched hand are white from the force of his grip.

"Gabriel."

There is command in Galadan's voice, clear and sharply focused.

"Hedging ill becomes you."

"Oblige me by showing some patience, if you don't mind!" he snaps, only then looking up at Galadan again.

"It's difficult for me to explain."

Galadan's expression doesn't flicker a hair.

"You have not yet seen me impatient, Gabriel. But do go on in your own time. The worst would seem to be behind us, would it not?"

The arch of his eyebrow indicates his opinion of that sentiment very succinctly.

Very succinctly.

"Oh, I wouldn't trust to that."

A beat. When he speaks again, Gabriel's tone is steady, almost too much so.

"You know, some people might say the two of you have something in common."

"Might, only? Surely you know well enough to say for certain, Gabriel Tam."

"I do, actually. Or at least, I think I do."

Pain and difficulty breathing or no, his gaze is clear.

"The being he works for is, I suspect, much like the one named Maugrim that you once told me about."

Galadan's expression sharpens, grey eyes burning with a sudden fierce light.

"You would do better to pray to all your gods that that were not so."

Particularly if such a creature has turned its gaze toward Gabriel's own destruction.

"If not, he's the closest our 'verse is likely to know," Gabriel counters, wearily.

"Lucifer. Satan. He's got other names as well."

A beat.

"One of them is Nic Rosse."

There is a moment of cold silence.

Then--

"Is it."

Galadan quells the upswelling of rage at being left so uninformed, mind already cataloguing this new information, fitting more puzzle pieces into place.

His lip twists in what might, to the tutored eye, pass for ironic amusement.

"How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn. Appropriate."

He is not speaking solely of Lucifer.

"It seems so."

Slowly his hand relaxes, fingers uncurling, until at last the small square lettered tile is visible.

Gabriel's staring at it, and not at Galadan.

"He... Rosse... has some interest in River."

Galadan has, both in the bar and here, gone to great lengths to hide the extent of his power, to 'pass' for human.

Here and now, with no one around but Gabriel Tam, that mask falls away.

The Wolflord is a small man, though elegant, but at this moment a malevolent power seems to fill him to the brim.

It is a power that would be very recognizable to Jennifer Lowell.

Recognizable and terrifying.

"Define 'some interest'."

It sounds a term Galadan himself would have used, once, for a creature he could turn to his hand. Such beings are often fine tools, at least for one sudden blow.

The last time--

The last time Gabriel Tam was in the presence of power uncloaked, with menace like that--

Get hold of yourself, idiot!

"Don't you think that I would, if I could?!" he snaps, harsh enough to tear his throat anew. He couldn't care less. "Don't you think it haunts me to know--"

"To guess," Galadan corrects swiftly. "To imagine. I hold little stock with either of those."

There is no fury in his voice, only a cold, merciless implacability that has centuries of patience behind it.

"But enough. That is what lies behind this attacker of yours?"

If Gabriel does not know the answers to the questions Galadan has, he knows one other that might.

River is a clever girl, and observant. And there are benefits to asking direct questions, on occasion.

"No, to know," he retorts, and now irritated temper is clear. "I remember very clearly. A business matter, he said -- of course that was five hundred years ago, or however it works in that tāmāde bar, and when he mentioned it now, when they were taken, it was to threaten to leave them dead and floating, dŏng ma?"

The flare of anger exhausts his strength, and Gabriel looks bitter as he falls back against the mattress.

"As for why he'd send Raguel after me, I've no idea. I can only suppose that something I've done has annoyed him. Then again, I'm given to understand he might do things just because he thinks they're fun."

"It appears that there is a great deal more for me to watch for than I might have expected."

Already he is including these new details in his plans, much as he has ever done.

"Though there do seem to be weaknesses to exploit, should it come to that."

Given Galadan an inch, and he'll take an entire world apart.

He has before.

"I suppose."

His tone is one of weary resignation.