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Right. I figured I wouldn’t pursue the matter much further, not when we were getting along so well. No sharp exchanges just yet, and more importantly, no instruments, blunt or sharp, being shoved all up in my chest and face areas.
“So this friend of yours. They wouldn’t happen to be an angel, would they?”
Mason nodded slowly. “He was. I mean, he is. I didn’t want to believe it when I met him, when he told me about Samyaza. I guess I was in denial the whole time. He tried to tell me what I was, but I wasn’t having any of it. The day I turned eighteen a bunch of angels burst into my home and tried to murder me. Called me an abomination and shit. I mean of course I’d have trust issues, right?”
“Angels, man,” I said, shaking my head. “You never know with them. There’s good ones, bad ones, good fallen ones, and I presume bad fallen ones, too.”
“Wasn’t Lucifer a fallen angel, too?”
“I guess that makes him the Big Bad Fallen One, then.”
“Oh. You know, these showed up all over my body on my eighteenth birthday, too.”
Mason pushed himself up off the floor, then pulled his shirt up over his head.
“Whoa, dude,” I said. “We just met.”
He chuckled. “Idiot.”
There they were in their full glory, all over Mason’s chest, stomach, arms, and shoulders: a crisscross and scrawl of unintelligible sigils, similar to those that were etched into Samyaza’s skin. I stood up, burning with curiosity, eager to take a closer look.
The main difference, I noticed, was how Mason’s tattoos, or markings – call them what you will – pulsed with a yellowish, almost golden light. One other thing I noticed: Mason was not unfamiliar with the concept of regular exercise.
“Samyaza had these too,” I said. “I mean, I can’t say for sure if they were the exact same patterns and glyphs, but he had this writing all over his torso. But his were bright blue. I don’t know if that means anything, honestly. He certainly couldn’t use the Vestments the way you can.”
“Hurt like hell, too. It felt like, I don’t know, like being branded, like my skin was on fire. Maybe something was unsealed when his essence went into me. I don’t know. Does that make sense?”
“Sort of. Sam did say that the only way to really release his power was to – well, it was what he had to do to save me.” I stuck my hands in my pockets, gazed at the floor, then back up at Mason. “I didn’t ask him to, you know. That’s how righteous he was. It was his decision to cut himself open, to give me what he gave me. And to give you whatever it is you have now.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Mason scratched the back of his neck. “I’ve been giving you a hard time, but I never even knew him. I guess that’s why I’m pissed off, a little. I thought I’d get to meet my dad.”
“Yeah. I get why you’d be sore about that.” Neither of us had apologized to the other, but something passed between us all the same.
Mason bit on his lower lip, chewing over his questions, then finally picking one. “What was he like? My father?”
“Your mom never told you about him?”
He chewed on his lip again. “She’s dead, too. We never talked about him.”
My heart clenched. It was getting harder and harder to keep hating this Mason kid.
“Well. Sam, he was a really nice guy, you know? You’d think fallen angels would be jerks, but no. He cared about humanity. A lot. There was this whole plot to wipe out mankind, and Sam was working really hard to stop that from happening.”
Mason smiled, like that answer satisfied some part of him.
“And he really knew how to throw a punch. Sam didn’t have access to most of his power, but he could really hold his own in a fight. Flatten just about anyone.”
His smile grew even wider.
“Plus, and I’m just repeating myself at this point, he saved my life. That’s the kind of man your dad was.”
“Thank you. For telling me that. For remembering.” He stared down at his hands for a moment, then looked back up at me. “One thing, though. You called me Mammon before, out on the street. Mammon. Did I say that right? An
yway. Who or what is that?”
I shuddered. “Ugh. One of the demon princes. There’s one for every deadly sin, then a ton more for other vices. Mammon is the demon prince of greed, and it wants something from me. Well, from the whole Boneyard, actually. It wants Banjo.”
Mason raised his eyebrow. “Banjo?”
