The Twice-Drowned Saint by C. S. E. Cooney

Author:C. S. E. Cooney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
Published: 2022-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Reverse Angle: Wuki and the Razman

“Hello, my uncles,” I called out cheerily, my back still turned to the door. “Did you come singly or in battalions?”

“Little of this, little of that,” replied Uncle Wuki’s adenoidal tenor from just inside the stairwell. Uncle Wuki may have been puffy and brown and big like a bear, but he always sounded like a seven year old with a bad head cold.

Rotating until my back was to the railing, my elbows resting on the white brick, I nodded a casual greeting at him where he loomed in the doorway. His face was in shadow, but I could still feel him grinning at me—a dopey grin, big and childlike.

“Hey, Ishi,” he said. “Zulli told us your latest plans. We came over to chat about ’em. He’d’ve come too, but …” He shrugged his broad shoulders.

“That’s right,” I recalled, “Uncle Zulli had to work tonight.”

“Got called up for rampart watch. Drew the graveyard shift.” Wuki giggled. “Poor slob. Always has the worst luck.”

I nodded with mock sympathy. “Which you, his brothers, all exploit without ruth or mercy.”

“Well, of course,” Wuki replied guilelessly. “Zulli is the youngest.”

Standing on tiptoe, I glanced to the silent shadow waiting behind him on the stairs. Not a bear. A colossus. The last time I’d seen him, three angels were riding him all the way to Betony’s death. I softened my voice away from its teasing edge.

“Hey, Razman. You had quite the morning at the Celestial Corridor. You sound?”

“For now.”

Uncle Raz sounded unutterably tired. He gave Wuki a light push, then stepped out after him onto my roof garden. As he passed under the threshold, he reached up and removed a small box from a hidden cache in the lintel.

The box was stuffed with cigarettes. Raz took two, passed one to Wuki, and put the box away, sliding the door of the cache closed so that it was imperceptible to a casual observer, or to a good uncle.

Both of them simultaneously lit their cigarettes and held them loosely in their hands, letting the phantasmal plumes drift up into darkness.

None of Onabroszia Q’Aleth’s brothers actually smoked; that had been Mom’s sole domain. Cigarettes were her favorite vice long before she’d discovered a secondary use for them: tricking the angels in regards to her younger brothers.

Wheresoever one of the warriors of their Holy Host abided, there too might the angels dwell. In this sense, Hosts were barely more than receptacles to be engorged or engulfed by angelic attentions depending on a given angel’s needs and moods.

And angels were capricious, self-concerned, often inattentive.

Fortnights could go by of my bad uncles going to work, dressing up in their Holy Host armor, and performing perfectly normal patrols. And then, without warning, I’d suddenly have to endure weeks, months—half a year!—of never seeing my bad uncles at all. The shadow side of Q’Aleth Hauling Industries would grind to a stop; nothing would come in through the serac or go out over it clandestinely, and certain citizens of Gelethel who had grown accustomed to their choice of non-angelic perks would get very uppity indeed.

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