Zheng had been in Los Angeles taking care of several business interests that he and his brothers had in the area when he'd gotten the urge to come to Canada and visit Vorhees Spa. Shu was still missing and he was hoping that someone at the spa knew where she might be, though he had been assured on the phone several times by Mr. Hughes that they had not heard from the female dragon since she'd left Minnesota. Something, though, had told him to come to Toronto and drive out to the spa even though it was late in the day. He figured it was partly due to the fact that he hadn't seen Vesper since she'd first come here almost nine months ago. He would check up on her, and then he would head to Zurich, where he had his next meetings already scheduled.
He had found Samir in the foyer talking to a young, pretty elf woman who looked at him with her huge, brown eyes, but remained quiet as the giant introduced the two of them. She did look somewhat familiar to him, and he thought that he might have seen her in Belarus, when they had rescued Alexandru. They had been about to head out to Vesper's home, something that he hadn't realized had been completed so quickly. They'd invited him to go with them, so that he could see Vesper, and he had agreed. It hadn't been until he was walking in between the two that he realized that there was a little girl clinging to the back of the elf. The woman's name was Natasha, he remembered suddenly as the little girl stared up at him with wonder in her eyes.
She wasn't fully elf, she had markings on her forehead that hinted at something else, something that he couldn't quite remember, though he knew he'd seen it before. But Zheng said nothing about her other than to ask her mother her name. Elarinya. They walked in easy conversation out of the spa and along the lit path through the woods towards the meadow that he knew existed beyond. When they saw the dark wood cedar siding of the little house nestled back against the trees, with a very quaint little child sized play house to the right of it, near a very tall snowman and several much smaller ones, he had to smile. This, of course, was where Vesper would live.
Looking in the large, front window, he saw a partially decorated Christmas tree with twinkling lights, and he could barely make out Vesper standing, her body facing towards the right, towards the closed front door. Natasha walked up to the door and opened it quietly, walking in with her daughter while Samir and Zheng followed behind her. Zheng looked towards Vesper and saw that Mr. Hughes was near her, very near her, and he could tell she was in pain, but she wasn't stepping away, and Mr. Hughes didn't seem willing to either. Neither the angel or the ayperi said anything about their entry, their eyes were glued to each other, and Zheng frowned as he watched Vesper shrug her shoulders, and her head tilted ever so slightly. Her arms raised up towards the angel and he was suddenly shoved forward, by what, Zheng wasn't sure, had she pulled him towards her? Natasha gasped as the two came together in a brilliant, explosive kiss.
A light filled the room, and everything went white and fuzzy as the four of them were pushed farther away, against the far wall of the hallway as whatever had hit the two winged creatures when they touched filled the room. The air sizzled and crackled and it took some time before the light filtered away and they were able to see what, if anything, was left of Vesper and Mr. Hughes. Zheng didn't see Vesper right away, but Mr. Hughes was standing, hunched over, trying to catch his breath as his body shook violently.
"Oh, my god. What did she just do?" Samir whispered in shock, stepping forward just as Zheng moved in the same direction.
"Arc?" Zheng probed gently, the angel looked in his direction. His face was red, tight, tear-stained, and he was breathing shallowly.
Mr. Hughes didn't respond, instead, he started tearing at his clothes as if they were on fire. They watched as his naked, tattooed chest was suddenly bare, and he was bent over again, tensed muscles telling them he must be in pain. Zheng saw the stumps of his wings on his back and frowned, he hadn't been aware that the angel had cut them off. No wonder Vesper had felt pain when she got near him. As he watched, the wings began to grow and slowly shift to their original shape. The tattoos seemed to be turning almost fiery red as they, too, came off, one by one. It must have stung because Mr. Hughes was trying to hold back groans as his body reacted to what he had just been put through.
Zheng looked behind him at the elf girl and saw that she'd taken her daughter down the hallway and was just walking back into the room and was walking right past both of them to the woman who was lying on the ground unmoving on Mr. Hughes' other side. She wasn't moving, Zheng frowned, sending Mr. Hughes a look as the man continued struggling with what was happening to his body.
"Is she alive?" Samir asked, worry filling his voice as Natasha squatted down beside her friend to feel for a pulse.
"She's alive." Natasha said immediately.
Samir stepped around his boss and picked up the ayperi. She was completely limp in his arms, but he could already see some changes to her from the contact with the angel. Her wings had become white and somewhere between a cross of the papery wings of a moth and the feathered wings of an angel. While he held her, she suddenly gasped loudly and long for air, her eyes jerking open, their now marbled gray depths wide, looking around her in shock. Zheng watched as she tried to raise her head, but wasn't quite able to.
"Vesper?" Samir whispered.
She didn't respond, her body began to shake and she lost consciousness again. He frowned as Samir laid her down on her back on the couch he was closest to.
"Look at her skin, Samir." Zheng had looked down at where her lower abdomen had been exposed as she'd been moved around.
Samir moved the shirt out of the way and they watched as wording similar in style to what had been on Mr. Hughes was burned into the skin of her chest and stomach. They couldn't tell what it said, but realized that Mr. Hughes had moved a little closer to them, and while he breathed in shallowly, hands on his thighs, still bent over as his body was healed, he leaned closer so that he could try to read what had been etched into the woman's skin.
"What does it say?" Zheng asked, knowing by the frown on the angel's face that he wasn't very pleased.
"Grigory...Aidan...Anya...Cynric...and Fezekial. Repeated over and over." His voice was filled with disgust.
"Why their names?" Zheng straightened as Vesper shifted again, but didn't come awake.
"They have all penetrated her in some way." Mr. Hughes frowned, closing his eyes tightly as he breathed through the pain. Feathers were starting to grow from his wings, but they weren't white, as Zheng had thought they would be. At least, not all of them.
"When she comes awake, what do you expect from her, Mr. Hughes? What is it that you desire most, as that is what it seems that she responds to?" Zheng watched as the strange elf girl sat on the couch and put Vesper's head in her lap. As he watched, he realized that there was something a little different about this particular elf.
