There But For The Grace by A. J. Downey, Jeffrey Cook Page B

Houston’s existence.
    Yee-haw.
     
    ***
     
    “At least you are keeping your supper where it belongs. That is somewhat improved, is it not?”
    I waved Azrael off as he hovered near me at an apparent loss as to how to help. I was fighting like hell to keep the contents of my stomach in my stomach, knowing now how important it was that I stay nourished. If I threw it up, I was just going to have to replace it, and that took time. Time that I felt was running out. It’d been a minute since I’d taken a shot at praying to Tab, but I did it now, feeling a little guilty for not having done it sooner.
    Tab, just hang on, I prayed. I’m one step closer to getting to you, and I’m about to take one more. These fuckers are slow. It’s more red tape than a bureaucrats’ convention.
    Azrael chuckled, and I eyed him from my graceless ‘trying not to heave’ position.
    “It’s rude to eavesdrop, you know.”
    I’d opened my mouth to say it, and they were my words, but it wasn’t my voice. I turned to look, and there she was, swinging gently back and forth on a dilapidated playground swing set. The neighborhood we were in was squarely in the midst of the ‘hood. No one should be out here this time of night. I blinked, stunned, and tried to figure out if this was one of Iaoel’s visions. The voice belonged to a little girl, and I do mean little. She couldn’t have been more than five or six. The image was even more wrong, more bizarre, by the fact that she wore a light Regency-style dress, ivory in color with a pink inset. Her long blonde hair fell past her waist, and she kicked her little slippered feet back and forth. A stuffed barn owl, looking a little worse for wear, perched in her lap, one glass eye fixed and staring, the other missing, a piece of broken thread dangling out of the missing expanse of white fur where it’d been affixed.
    I straightened and stared, speechless for once. The girl looked me over, amused as a spate of gunfire left me ducking for cover in a place where there was none to be had. Azrael sighed, and when both she and he seemed unconcerned, I stood back up, slowly.
    “A gang war? Really, Miri?”
    I blinked and looked from Azrael to the little girl.
    “Wait, she’s War?” I asked.
    “Chayyliel, technically, but you can call me Miri. Much less complicated.”
    I stared at her. She looked like a child, but the age and wisdom in her ice-blue eyes belied anything childlike at all. She got up, hopping down from the swing. Little stuffed owl under one arm, she went to Azrael and took his hand. She looked me up and down and cocked her head to one side, and the effect was more terrifying than any Hollywood attempt at creepiness, including the little girl from Poltergeist.
    I moved over to the swing set and sank into the one next to the swing she’d vacated, knees suddenly gone to jelly, and also, so I could be more on her level. We stared at one another in silence and finally she looked up at Azrael and said, “She wasn’t at all what I was expecting.”
    I couldn’t help it. I barked out a laugh, which died right the fuck out when her eyes slid to mine, pinning me.
    “How did you even know I was coming?” I asked.
    She raised one tiny, slim shoulder in a shrug and answered simply, “We’re linked, the four of us. For the most part we keep those connections closed down and respect one another’s privacy, but Azrael and I, we’ve no need to. It’s how we know where each other are, for when the time comes.”
    “Makes sense,” I said and quietly mulled things over, “So you know why I’m here already, then?”
    “Yes, but I want a milkshake.” She swung Azrael’s hand back and forth like any child asking for ice cream would, and I felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “You have questions, and I will answer them, but only if I get a milkshake. Besides, I’m nearly done here.” She looked off to the side and I followed her gaze. A boy no older than twelve or thirteen