Seraphim watched in mute fascination as the woman called Joan casually talked about the range of curse x bless puzzle traps that would confuse attempts to find her hideaway, as well as the mechanical ‘technological’ innovations including a computer virus that kept power track usage to a minimum so that there would be no evident use deviations on the city grid… ‘Whatever that meant.’ Seraphim kept her eye rolling confusion to herself until the woman touched a flat panel on the wall by the far door.

“So what’s in there, the throne of the devil himself?” Seraphim guessed. “Or Hephaestus’s forge maybe?”

Joan chortled a little and glanced over her shoulder at Gabriel, “You’ve got a firecracker on your hands there, don’t you? Careful about that, or she might just explode in your hands.”

Seraphim crossed her arms in front of her chest and fumed, staring in silence at Joan while to her annoyance, Gabriel only grunted in affirmation.

“Anyway,” Joan moved on, “no, nothing like that. Just a chemical toilet, shower, and a small armory.” She pressed the panel with her palm and the door barely clicked, she pressed the space on the wall open, swinging the almost seamless entrance inward to reveal a chemical toilet, a bidet, curtain hanging in a circle around a showerhead that hung from the ceiling, a first aid kit on the wall, and then six long shelves full of various balls and tubes.

Seraphim looked at them, “Are those… fruits or something?” She asked.

“No, Sarah. No.” Gabriel answered, but he kept his eyes on the smug, broad smile of Joan and asked, “Do you really need that many grenades?”

“What can I say? Bang big or don’t bother.” Joan said and walked in to pluck a green one off its perch. “Explosions are the best, maximum impact on maximum numbers with minimum effort. This little baby,” she stroked it with delicate fingers as if it were a favored pet, “is full of cursed chaff. If the explosion doesn’t get you, what you inhale will kill the lungs faster than you can beg for help.” She set it down and picked up another.

“This one makes hellfire.” She set it down and picked up another, looking at it with some pity she said, “This poor baby only knocks people out. But it’s good enough that even a demon would be disoriented. Good if you want prisoners… I’ve got a bunch of different ones with different effects. Coming down here uninvited is a real bad idea, is what I’m saying. What do you say, Sarah, are you impressed?”

Seraphim frowned. “With these, you hunted spirit beings?” She asked.

“Sometimes. Sometimes we protected them, it’s…” Joan looked at Gabriel’s face and finally took a breath, her shoulders slumped, “look, it’s just complicated. Better if you don’t think about it. Being a Charietto got complicated. Really, really complicated. All you need to know is that I’m going to help you get out of here, you and my ex, and house you here until then. You could at least say thank you. This,” her lips turned down a little when she looked over to Gabriel again, “is uncomfortable for me, we haven’t seen each other in person for years, and this is not the kind of reunion I would have hoped for.”

Seraphim felt a bolt of shame lance through her, and the hardness in her heart that was growing, stopped in its tracks, she bowed her head. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude. Thank you for taking us in, and for helping us get out.”

“That’s better.” Joan said with a sharp nod, “Just stay down here until I or one of the others bring you things.”

“And the way out?” Gabriel asked pointedly.

Joan pinched the bridge of her nose and looked down at the floor, “You still don’t trust me, even after coming to me?”

“I do.” Gabriel said with sudden finality, “But I never trust things to chance. Maybe you’ll be caught and forced to talk? Maybe they’ll hold some of our friends hostage, or torture you, or who knows what? I don’t trust to chance, Joan, you know that.” He said, and she wordlessly jerked her thumb over to the shower. “The grate just inside the curtain, it can be lifted up and it’ll take you to the sewers. They’re not far and there’s a way to collapse the path behind you.”

Gabriel’s face softened and his arms fell at his sides, “Thank you, Joan, I mean that.”

“I know you do.” She answered him and the trio stood in uncomfortable silence again before Joan cleared her throat, and said, “I-I have to go back up, I’ve got to mind the shop and I’ve got to kick their asses in another game of Jenga. So you two just make yourselves at home. Use the computer if you want, it’s got a VPN hookup that ties to a virtual server in another safehouse which itself is listed as a cryptocoin mining operation to disguise the power use, and there’s a lot of movies and books available on the drive, read or watch stuff until later.”

Joan didn’t wait for their response, she walked past them both as fast as she could and climbed up the ladder without a backward glance. The hatch closed, and the pair was left alone again.

“Don’t mind Joan.” Gabriel said and went to sit on the cot, its springs speaked just a little as his weight settled in, “I’m a little rough on her over our past, it’s like she said, life in our profession was complicated.”

“Complicated how?” Seraphim asked and went to a bunk opposite his own, she undid the chain holding it in place by the hook and lowered it down so that she could sit on the edge.

“For one thing, spirit beings haven’t been revealed to the whole public yet, even among organizations that use or work with them. It’s more widely known than it used to be, but if you asked the average person, most people would say they’re ‘highly skeptical’ that you exist at all. So there’s not really many people someone in my line of work can talk to. People marry within these professions, date within these professions, move from company to company or nation to nation doing jobs, it’ll make you rich, but nobody knows what you do but the people you do it with.” Gabriel explained, “And most people die young in it.”

“Oh… so it’s dangerous and lonely?” She asked.

“You could say that, the best, like Joan, like Konrad, Peter, Arthur, Michael, me? We make a lot of money and then, generally, disappear ourselves. We don’t need to work anymore and the job burns people out. Either with guilt or with energy or just… frustration.” He explained, but Seraphim locked onto the word.

“Guilt?” She probed, ‘I’ve heard the guards mention charietto’s before… in terrifying terms… what could make such people feel ‘guilt’?’ Like most of the questions she had, she had a feeling she knew how it would be answered.

“That’s not something for you to worry about.” Gabriel asserted and he stretched himself out on the cot, “Just relax and wait for Joan to bring us some supplies, we should hold on to what we brought with us until we have to use them.”

If he saw the annoyance and frustration on Seraphim’s face, he didn’t respond to it, her fingers clenched into the side of the bed, the metal bending in her grip. ‘I’m so tired of answers like that! Don’t worry about it! Don’t ask! It’s none of your business! I hate this! I hate hearing that! I’m not a child!’ She wanted to rage at him, but somehow Gabriel seemed to have the uncanny ability to fall asleep at will, his eyes were closed and his breathing was rhythmic and steady.

He appeared utterly peaceful, and the rough, grim expression that seemed to dominate his face was gone, his face was relaxed and the brown hair he hadn’t yet shaved off was just starting to grow back in. Envy sparked in her breast with the brief receding of her frustration, ‘When was the last time I slept that well?’ The answer came to mind immediately.

‘Never, never in my life.’ She swallowed a lump in her throat and stretched out on the mattress, his feet hung over the edge, her’s didn’t even reach it. She closed her eyes, and the lights above went out, plunging the room into darkness.

She stared up at the bare ceiling of the room Joan called her ‘ark’, and the only sound around her was that of Gabriel’s slow, deep, steady breathing.

‘Maybe if I…’ She thought and matched the rhythm of her breathing to his own until they were in sync, and she fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep.