“Thank you.” As I move toward the largest tent in the camp, I soothe Min-Lee again so she won’t walk after me seeking the pleasant feelings I can give her, while at the same time, I send an emotional probe inside the tent. It returns with the usual: determination.
I like sensing Michael’s influence as they execute Michael’s orders without question. Secure and guard the Veil. Never ever allow anyone out of it. Trouble is, those orders exclude anyone outside it wanting to get in, and Min-Lee’s coins and the coins I found on the ground last week when I visited the Outpost had to have come from the Veil. Not only were they found here, but the coins spread into the Exile in Raphael’s Court, telling me Lucifer’s corruption is spreading far and wide. It’s only a matter of time before the soldiers posted here go home to Michael’s Court with their coins. I can’t allow that.
I part the tent’s flap and step inside. “Sergeant Gunman.” I greet a middle-aged mortal who seems to have forgotten to shave for the past week. Michael would surely disapprove of his beard and mustache. Sunken green eyes hide the depths of his surprise when he sees me.
He and his crew, three men and one woman sitting around the table, stand at attention. “Your Highness.” They salute.
“At ease.”
Gunman’s shoulders relax, and he manages a small smile. “Come in, come in.” He waves me inside and fetches a chair, then spins it around for my comfort because the back of the chair would irritate my wings.
As I sit, I power sweep the room, a quick close sweep of their emotions, opening my receptors to them. The range of their emotions quickly becomes overwhelming to me, an addiction I’ve struggled with ever since we took up Courts in the realm. Michael’s soldiers bottle up emotions so they don’t impose on me in a burdensome way. Still, I have to make it quick, before I indulge in them for too long.
Let’s see what we have here. Discomfort. Confusion. No fear yet, which I expected given their training. Gunman projects confidence, and this confidence makes him feel like he can hide the nightmares from me.
A map of outposts lies on the table, and Sergeant Gunman picks up a wooden soldier, flipping the figurine between his fingertips as one would flip a gambling coin from the Before. Interesting.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” he asks.
Internally, I laugh at the utter displeasure he projects toward me, but these poor souls, trained in the arts of combat and fearlessness, wouldn’t believe an empath could trick them. Since I take care of the emotional well-being of the realm, the care for orphaned children and their protection, most mortals believe I am a gentle soul, incapable of tricks.
I smile, appearing friendly and harmless, easing their discomfort with whatever secrets they hide behind those sunken eyes. Meanwhile, I reach for their discomfort and simply flip the feeling into comfort with me and my presence in the camp, prompting an immediate physical reaction.
They lean back in their chairs, and one man even winks at me.
Ha! I wink back.
“What can I do for you, Your Highness?” Gunman asks.
There. Much better. “For me?”
Confusion. “Well, yes, isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Is it?”
More confusion, and the woman snaps her fingers. “Oh, I know. You must be here for the quarterly report. We’re just about to send it out to the Court.”
“The Court” is the Court of Command, as if it’s the only Court in the realm. Blessed be Michael and his soldiers. “You are?”
“Yes. Would you like a briefing?”
“Certainly.”
The woman recites a verbal briefing as she would recite it to a fleet angel who would then fly to Court of Command and recite it to his superiors, word for word. In the report, she mentions the Veil thinning, the flashes they’d observed, and tells lies about the men they’d buried early on when the nightmares started.
She reports they died on duty in battle. For the sakes of the men’s families, I won’t correct the lie. The soldier fails to mention the fact that everyone under this tent likely remembers the Before, or at the very least has had contact with someone from the Veil, smuggling in the coins.
The earrings hanging from her ears aren’t approved for Michael’s ranks, and besides, they look suspiciously like crosses, a sign of Christianity and the savior who couldn’t save mortals from themselves. They crucified him.
These men and women in charge wear all the signs of early-stage Marked mortals, but they can hide the signs because Lucifer isn’t here and hasn’t finished the Marking. They don’t have much time left in their own heads before they start doing his bidding.
Once she finishes reporting, the men fill me in on the rest.
“It sounds to me like you feel you’re doing a great job.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Do you disagree?”
I stand. “Keep up the great work.”
The sergeant walks me outside, rubbing his beard. Something’s bothering him, possibly his level of comfort with me. I influenced emotions, not minds, so subconsciously, he could have noticed he changed around me, but he can’t do anything about it and can’t quite explain it.
It is easier to question one’s thoughts than it is to question one’s emotions. Why do you feel the way you feel isn’t something most mortals would even think to ask themselves, but it’s so important to ask that. I ask myself that every day. The answers guide me, clear my path of reactions that could turn into regrets. The most emotionally driven species in the universe never bothers to stop and question the why of their feelings.
“Most soldiers are on duty, I presume?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He emits anxiety, so he’s lying. I latch onto the sergeant and detach from everyone else in the camp. “Walk with me, my friend,” I say.
Surprised I called him a friend, he walks with me anyway.
“Tell me about the winds.”
“The winds?” he asks, projecting confusion.
I brush a wing over his arm and hear him sigh with comfort and safety. Relaxed around me now as if I were his parent, he says, “The winds come and go like a summer breeze, bringing sand into the forest. Animals run away. We have no food to hunt. Do you think we’ll starve?”
“You will be well. I will take care of you. Can you do me a favor?”
These men and women can’t go back home. They have to continue believing I don’t know about their corrupted minds.
“In the report, request that your unit stays on Veil duty.”
I feel his resistance because he longs for someone. He likely has family in the Court of Command, maybe a wife, maybe kids, but they all became history the second he accepted a bribe from someone, and I know he has, for this Outpost reeks of greed, wrongdoing, and betrayal of the values held up by their Court. Michael may not foster the virtue of temperance, but fortitude, prudence, and faith came naturally from his Court.
Tendrils of this man’s fear stick to my senses so much that I can almost taste the cookie-dough stench of the Marked, the vanilla-cinnamon-over-blood odor only Lucifer makes me smell. I detach from the sergeant and raise my emotional shields.
The sergeant blinks, his sunken eyes darkening even more. My power has drained him, but he will live for now.