October - Gabriel (Patreon)

The pixie messenger service was the most reliable way of communicating within the Night Market as long as the client stayed on their good side. The second anyone tried to use them after besmirching their name, or, chose to not pay their bill, the pixies began to send death notices to family and friends. Sometimes they would intercept important missives and then claim they were lost in the shuffle. Or they would put cherry bombs inside an individual's mail slot. It was because of this that I always tipped them well. 

Gabriel, however, was a different story.

He hated the pixies. Rarely was it that I saw him rehearse any sort of passionate diatribe but if someone mentioned the pixies, he was hard pressed to stop himself. I once caught him and the Baron Chrysanthemum speaking animatedly at a Baron meeting about how the pixies should be abolished from the market and that they were no more than pests. None of the minutes from that meeting were ever delivered to the governors hall. Instead, the pixies took said report and made a paper mache portrait of the two of them and lit them on fire down by the docks.

So, when the pixie showed up at my door and told me it was an emergency and that I needed to get to the precinct of the Velvet Guards, I didn’t rush out the door. With Gabriel and I’s relationship, I figured it was inevitable. Sooner or later one of the pixies was going to harass me in order to get to him. It was why I took my time, going so far as to stop off to get a cup of kafe for the two of us on our way there.

But the moment I pushed through the reception doors, I could tell there was a problem. The air was tense and Caroline, the usual receptionist, was not at the front desk. Instead the night shift receptionist, an ogre by the name of Burl, was staring at me.

“You heard then? Figured you’d be comin’ around here soon enough.”

I took a few more steps in, my eyes wandering to try and assess the danger. It was clear that my relationship with a Warden was starting to affect me if I looked for an exit the second I entered a room.

“What happened?”

“Mutiny,” Burl said, sounding just a bit too excited about it. “Bunch of the guards decided they were done workin’ the late shift. Locked the day shift guards into the cells. There was some fights that broke out and a few had to go to the healers.”

“There is literally no day or night here. Why would they care?”

“People can get a bit funny when they are stuck in routine. It’s why I try to do something chaotic at least once a week. Helps break up the monotony and keep me young. You wouldn’t know it but I’m twenty six.”

There was a bang from the passageway where the cells lined the walls.  It was also where Gabriel’s office was located. “Where’s the Warden?”

“Don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s why we’re in lockdown. Can’t find him.”

My eyes went wide. “Is anyone looking for him?”

Again, Burl shrugged. “Don’t know. Just the receptionist. Don’t know where Caroline even is. So I just sit here, doin’ my job.”

I was down the hall before he had finished his sentence. Burl was the kind of worker who was going to do what was in his job description and nothing more. Even if he found himself in a literal emergency.

The hall was in a disarray. Some of the cell doors were blown off their hinges, a feat considering that most of those doors were held together by rust. I could see  a few of the guards walking up and down the hall, escorting either prisoners or hurt visitors to a different, less affected section. I didn’t recognize most of the guards. They had all been faceless to me for so long. It took everything in me not to call out to them. Yell at them to drop everything to find Gabriel. I knew how this place worked though. If Gabriel was missing, he probably already had a missive in place for a situation such as this. Finding him would be last on the list of procedures. Without a doubt, the guards were following orders.

I shoved past some of them, making my way further down the hall. The prison was set up in layers that gently sloped downwards until caverns opened up beneath the ground. Rarely were prisoners placed in the lower levels. Those, according to Gabriel, were saved for the most depraved. The ones that the precinct wouldn't mind forgetting existed. There was a rotten smell down here. 

My feet stepped through sludge, wetting the bottoms of my shoes as I felt the air grow thicker. I could see where the ever burning wall sconces had become, well, not ever burning any longer. There looked to be some sort of structure up ahead that had crumbled. And most of the cells down here were flooded with water or had doors so corroded it would take a miracle to open them. I wasn’t sure how long this place had been like this though.

I let my eyes wander, peering into the dark. There was nothing here. I doubted the riot or whatever it was, had gotten this far. But just as I was to turn, I heard it. There was a sharp hiss as the tumble of displaced rock hit the ground. I froze.

“Gabriel?”

My voice felt muffled down here, dampened by the heavy walls and the water that pooled across the room.

“Gabriel,” I tried again when there was no answer. “Please tell me that’s you.”

There was a silence, like a breath was being held, and then all at once, the room released in a sigh. “It’s me.”

I went splashing through the water in search of him, frantically moving around debris and broken down walls. I found him near the edge of the room. He was half sitting on top of a broken wall, his leg at an odd angle.

“Are you hurt?” I felt like a fool for asking when it was clear something had happened. For all of Gabriel’s idiosyncrasies, sitting alone in the dark where they put murderers and monsters, was not one of them.

“My leg is stuck,” he said. The soft glow from his eyes, the grace running through his veins, was my only light.

“Why didn’t you call out?”

“Because there are people with a job to do.”

I practically fell against him, my hands running up and down his arms. As my eyes adjusted, I could see the problem. His leg was stuck beneath a fallen portion of the wall.

“I’ll go get help,” I told him. “We’ll have you out–”

“There are certainly more important things being done right now. I can wait.”

I stared up at him. This annoyingly, stubborn, monochrome toned man. I wanted to shake him and kiss him all at once. Because like I had suspected, he had made sure everyone else was taken care of first. Meanwhile, he was most likely stewing over the fact that he was not up there lending a hand.

I looked down at the broken down piece of wall. Gabriel’s leg was slightly behind him, making it a difficult spot for him to reach and try and free himself from. Most likely, he wasn’t about to bend and get a good enough grip. Maneuvering myself around him, I bent down to dig my fingers beneath the stone, testing its give.

“What are you doing?”

“If you don’t want anyone to come and help, then that leaves it up to me.”

“You’ll hurt yourself.” His voice took on an edge to it that meant he was not happy with my choices.

“Maybe,” I said, putting a little more force into the lift. “But you’ll be free.”

His hand wrapped around my wrist, eyes glinting in the dark. “No more of this,” he said softly. “We will wait. By tomorrow–”

“Tomorrow?”

“I am not letting others be hurt because of my mistakes,” he hissed.

I pulled myself away from him, making sure I was out of arms length. “Why were you down here to begin with?” I asked him. I was looking around the room. There was no way I would be able to lift the stone by myself. I needed some sort of pry bar.

“It started down here,” he told me. At least I could always count on him for that. Gabriel was very good at giving the facts. “The men who rebelled up top were not upset about their shift. They were the ones who had been tasked to come down here and take assessment of the cells. We have to do that once every five years.”

“So what?” I asked, spying a piece of metal rebar. “Something down here made them crazy?” I gripped the bar in my hands, bracing the flat of my foot against the wall to pull at it.

“In a way, yes. There was an artifact attached to one of the dead down here. Most likely magically set to go off once the man stopped breathing. It in turn, pushed the men into violent tendencies.”

The rebar broke free with a groan and I splashed back in the water. “And their violent tendencies made them angry about their work hours?”

Gabriel shrugged. “That is still unclear.”

“Gabriel,” I said, coming over to place the rebar near his foot. I only hoped that I would not stab him inadvertently. “Do you think they might have actually been mad about their shift and this just kind of tipped them.”

“I make sure all the shifts are fair.”

“Doesn’t mean they have to like it.”

“That doesn’t make any logical sense. Everyone has the same hours. The same rotations. And get the same pay.”

“Not everyone lives their life the same outside of the precinct.” With a grunt, I began bending the bar, lifting the stone upwards just enough for Gabriel to grab his leg and pull his ankle free. I let go, letting the stone crash back down. Gabriel's ankle was bloody, his boot looking as if it were bent around him. “Shit,” I breathed. “That doesn’t look good.”

He didn’t even wince. “It will be slow going back up but I will be fine.” And, because he was Gabriel, he began to rise as if nothing was wrong. That is until his bad leg buckled and he nearly went tumbling down into the sewage beneath us.

I got a shoulder under his arm just in time, taking a good portion of the weight. “You need to start treating your own injuries as facts,” I told him. He could list everything else in life with blinding clarity but when he had a broken foot, he thought he could walk.  

“If we can just help me to sturdier ground, I’m sure I can navigate my way up.”

I knew he wouldn't be able to. I also didn’t see the point in fighting him, however. Slowly, we made our way across the room, sloshing through water. By the time we reached dry land, the silver in Gabriel’s veins was looking dull and I was breathing harshly.

“How did you get caught in a landslide?” I asked him, trying to distract myself and keep moving. And, in a way, trying to distract him from the pain he would never admit to having.

“I was disposing of the body. The area I was at has an old chute that leads out to the ocean. I managed to get the body in,” he winced, “but then when I closed the hatch, the wall partially collapsed. I shall be running our inspections every year now as opposed to every five. This could have been prevented.”

“Let me get this straight. There was a riot. You came down here, by yourself to solve it. You then took a body that was imbued with magic and pushed it down a shute you could have also been sucked within. And then a wall collapsed on you and you were just going to sit down here until you thought the appropriate amount of time had passed for you to call for help.”

“Yes.”

“I should drop you.”

There was shared silence after that, mostly because dragging a six foot seven, well built man, through derelict tunnels, was no easy feat. But also, because Gabriel realized he had upset me.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a long moment. We had made it up two levels and if I strained my ears, I could hear some of the prisoners from the level above. “I did not think about how my actions might upset you.”

I turned to look at him, our faces so close we could kiss. I wanted to yell at him. Berate him for such a clear dismissal of his own pain. But I had learned to decode Gabriel over the years. This was one of those times where he truly felt sorry.

“I love you,” I told him gently. “Which means I want you home at night.” He looked a bit taken aback by this, but still nodded. “I need you to promise me that you will at least try to come home to me.”

He straightened a little as we hobbled down the corridor. “I promise,” he said. It was then that the two of us collapsed. I could no longer take his weight and the pain was etching strained lines around his eyes. We sat against the wall, panting, though this time, there was at least candlelight within the hall. “I think you should go get help,” he said.

I leaned my head back. “Finally.”

Before I could rise, he took my hand in his, pulling my gaze downwards. “I love you, too.”

My heart melted. Leaning down, I pushed his unmanicured locks out of his eyes and pressed my lips to his. “You better.”