Dreams of Angels, and the Falling Thereof

Remission 1.3

The lights were off when I crept back into the house. The sun, slowly edging over the horizon, illuminated the front hallway in a soft, golden glow. There was a familiarity to Hilda's home, the knowledge that she would be right upstairs, sleeping, that put me at ease. I wanted to return to bed myself, but the galloping pace of my anxious heart kept me from doing so.

The ride here with Poppy had been silent, devoid of any snark or cruel commentary. I still wasn't entirely sure what had happened outside that motel, but if she really had used a power on me, it would seem the effect had worn off. The mental fog she placed over me had dissipated the moment I left her pickup truck, and my senses were without disruption or discomfort. I was in the clear, that much I could be certain of. I'd just have to remember that I wasn't going to tell anyone what I heard. Even though I wasn't sure who I'd even tell, I knew, at the very least, that was important to keep in mind.

Once I had changed into a clean set of clothing, and given myself the necessary hour in the shower, to burn away the stench of the dumpster, I stopped for a moment in the guest room. Rooting through my suitcase for a moment, I found and retrieved my mask. It fit comfortably in the pocket of my jacket, and so I left it there.

Never know when you might need it, I rationalized, knowing it to be a paranoid response more than a reasonable one.

Once that was done, I found my way to the kitchen table. The silence lingering over the space was nearly oppressive, seeming to deafen all of my other senses. I was not used to real silence. The ambient hum of electronics had been so ubiquitous back home, but Hilda kept her house sparse of devices. Hell, she didn't even own a television. All she had was a dinky, boxy old laptop, which I pulled towards myself. Sitting here in silence for an hour hardly sounded like an interesting prospect--I didn't need any more reminders of how alone I felt. Better to keep myself busy.

After several minutes of whirring, which I was certain would end with the computer's combustion, the log-in screen appeared, requiring I enter the password before I continued. I tried the name of Hilda's old cat, General Fluffybottom, paired with her birthday. Much to my surprise, it worked. I set myself a mental note to teach Hilda some technological literacy while I was here.

The flickering fluorescent screen illuminated the area around me in a bluish tinge. My eyes hurt, but the fog in my head was finally clearing. I could focus on making notes and working through possible theories. If 'Poppy' had been a Mask, chances are the woman she was talking to was as well. I added them to the text document, making a note beside Poppy's name that she had used some sort of psychic influence on me. She had mentioned a "Naamah..." preliminary investigations revealed nothing, just links to websites explaining names, and one strange Christian website I dismissed off hand. A quick search revealed that Ahab was, indeed, a mask. Specifically, he appeared to be the head of the nearby St. Louis Seraph branch. He would have effective control over Harlington too, if I was guessing right. Towns this middle of fuck-all nowhere simply wouldn't be big enough to have their own dedicated, non-vigilante Masks, so it made sense to have their administration fall to bigger nearby divisions.

If the Seraphs were working with outsiders, the most likely answer was that Poppy was a mercenary, being brought in to handle a threat that the local heroes couldn't handle themselves. It was either that... or, she was on the darker side of the law, and was seeking some sort of asylum, or engaging in some plot. If that was true, I had just been driven home by a supervillain. A supervillain who had used a disturbingly potent power on me, whatever it had actually done.

Not a pleasant thought.

I marked it down as a possibility nonetheless. Too many factors to keep track of, and if my instincts were right, more would soon come into play. That was the trouble with being a superhuman. A Homo Nephilim. A Mask. There were too many names for people like me, it was almost hard to keep track of them all. The Mauler Principal dictated that superhumans instinctually seek one another out, drawn together by the same sorts of mechanisms that helped salmon to navigate back to their stream of origin after years at sea. Except, y'know. Masks weren't drawn together to fuck. Most of the time, anyway.