Aaron woke to an empty bed. He sat up with a yawn, the room smelled of flowery perfume and sweat. He glanced to where Lille had been curled against him with a sense of satisfaction. Human brains were a strange thing. A cocktail of chemically driven responses that resulted in euphoria from accomplishing a biological imperative. He wasn't human, he didn't care if he passed on his seed to another generation. He had no legacy, he was a shadow passing through this world. Iehan was the one with a legacy and the power to change the world. Lille walked in Iehan's footsteps and Aaron would give her the power she needed to make her dreams reality. Save the world or destroy it, neither mattered as much as Lille's desire towards one goal or another.
Iehan's speculation that Lille was a nephilim concerned Aaron the most. Had another demon taken hold of a human host and conceived the child that would become Lille? It would explain some of the latent talent he awoke in her. When he reached out to her in desperation, he woke a sleeping spark that would have matured on its own if it'd been given time. He still didn't know what happened after he was cast into the abyss. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and cracked his neck as he rose with stretch.
Aaron's stomach growled but he needed to shower. He meandered into the shower, quickly washing off and shaving before dressing. He checked his reflection in the mirror, he liked his face without the scruff. It was strange, the face wasn't Pedro's though the body was. Whose face had he formed in place of the one that was destroyed? He shrugged as he slipped out of the bedroom to the kitchen.
Luke stood at the island, scowling into a cup of coffee. His face sported a day's growth of beard, dark with hints of red. His eyes narrowed as he noticed Aaron's approach. He was packing a .40 S&W in a concealed back holster with a smaller Sig & Sauer P238 in an appendix holster beneath his t-shirt. Aaron sensed at least two knives concealed on Luke's waist and ankle. His aura was full of anger and pain, not quite betrayal.
"Morning," Luke offered, his jaw tense making the greeting fall flat.
Aaron nodded, moving past to retrieve a coffee mug, like the man in front of him wasn't envisioning ways to hurt him to alleviate his frustration. "Morning. How much property is there to patrol with all these cameras covering the difference?"
Luke opened and shut his mouth. The unspoken question of how Aaron knew about the cameras left hanging in the air. "13 acres. No one will bother us."
"That's a lot of ground to cover. I'm surprised you aren't using any UAS for it." Aaron set a mug on the counter and poured from the fresh pot sitting on the machine. "Has someone tried to take one of your safehouses before?"
"No one has succeeded." Luke frowned with a sigh, grabbing his mug and took a sip. His tone flipped to something warmer but edged more on polite than friendly. "Nah. There's still a delay and the dwell time on smaller drones is better for surveying than long term surveillance. We can duck the FAA for the most part but we have better solutions for that. Someone still has to man it, and then someone still has to intercept an intruder."
"You don't have a smaller scale armed security drone?" Aaron asked as he sipped his coffee black. He was surprised at just how much Pedro knew about unmanned aerial systems and their various load outs, costs and capabilities. It seemed like Pedro was a brutal punk but he had a strong interest n both Lille and drone technologies.
Luke let out a soft chuckle at the comment. "Not for something like this." He shook his head. "You interested in surveillance tech like that?"
"I was curious. SDS has a lot of funding and technology at its disposal. I was thinking about it." Aaron shrugged. "Mounting a gun with a mechanized firing mechanism on a drone is theoretically possible but it'd be heavy and large. A gun drone would lose some aspect of stealth, maybe if such a feat was possible, it'd need to be on a larger quadcopter unless it was a rail launched double prop bird?"
"I'm not in R and D." Luke shrugged with a small grin, starting to warm up to at least conversing with Aaron. "I wouldn't doubt that Morris has something like that in one of the labs but I dunno. I figured you were just some gun they put into the killbox."
"Eh, I was. I just had other interests," Aaron volunteered.
"Varied from what I hear," Luke eyed him suspiciously as he set his mug down on the counter. Aaron moved to sit near him but left a couple of barstools between them - they weren't friends, not yet.
"Oh yeah? What'd Lille tell you about me?" Aaron tilted his head as he watched Luke, fascinated by the shifting tones, expressions, and colors within his aura. Luke was also a rather attractive and passionate man - very much the type of man Aaron saw as an ideal partner for Lille. Luke was a good person and cared deeply about her. Aaron knew all the anger towards him from Luke was over concern for Lille's safety, even if there was jealously mixed in.
"You're the guy from her childhood. I don't get it. It's all strange, the Apagos, the Kalipot and us," Luke shook his head. "What are you? I saw the footage, she blew your head off."
"Oh, you saw that." Aaron took a long drink of his coffee. It made things easier. He didn't give a d*mn who knew the truth. Lille told him a big part of it already. "Easiest way to explain it is that I'm her guardian angel." He waited for Luke to laugh it off but he didn't.
"The black one that calls the void, does not sound like the description of an angel to me," Luke raised a skeptical eyebrow as he stared at Aaron.
"It's not a very PC name, is it?" Aaron commented with a short laugh. "Angels performed all kinds of roles. We did different things. Some created the grass, animals, taught humans the path of the moon, and others acted as God's wrath, they destroyed." He sipped his coffee before continuing. "I didn't have much of a form, but I was a destroyer. Clothed in shadow sending souls back into oblivion. I do more than manipulate shadows but things get stuck in archaic texts over the years, it's hard to shake."
Luke glanced down into his mug, idly tracing the curve of the handle. "There's nothing holy about you. At least, not now. I can't sense it in you."
Aaron leaned forward. "Oh really? You're touched like Lille?" He raised his right hand, and muttered a couple of words. A flood of images washed over him, sparking golden before dying out, leaving the kitchen dimmer in the absence of such light. "That's interesting. Does Morris know that you both work magic?"
"Yes." Luke nodded. "We are assigned different teams but we often work together when one of us isn't enough."
"I fell. I no longer wanted to live in chains." Aaron set the mug on the counter. I guess that marks me as evil in the face of history. We lost the war." He stared into the dark fluid. "Let me tell you, hell is a myth. The abyss? Now that's real. It's just nothing for eternity. Do you condemn those that wish to overthrow tyrants? Isn't that what SDS is in the business of doing?"
"A fallen angel." Luke scratched the back of his neck, uncertain of what to make of Aaron. "Okay, what's that have to do with Lille?"
At least the concept stuck. Aaron sighed. "In a past life, Lille made a deal with me. I'm hers forever and I don't go back to the abyss. It's an excellent deal for her."
"She didn't sell you her soul in a past life?" Luke asked.
Aaron sighed. "No. I'm bound by the pact. Every lifetime I return to assist.".
Luke folded his arms, looking impressed. "Does she look the same?"
"Nope. She's definitely not a French magus. I can't picture her with a beard, though she's got the slaughter thine enemies thing down," Aaron commented with a grin. "What did you really want to ask? You looked like you were planning on executing me earlier for existing."
"The day is still young." Luke responded dryly. "You know d*mn well why I'm angry."
"What you and Lille do is up to her. If you hurt her, I help her skin you." Aaron casually lifted his mug, drinking the last drop. He rose from the stool and extended his hand to Luke. "More coffee?"