Nicolas nodded into the crook of his neck.
They parted with hitching breaths and wet faces. Nicolas folded himself back under Ashmedai’s arm, staring at Daniel’s limp form in Valac’s arms.
“Come,” Ashmedai said. “Home.”
They appeared in Nicolas’s darkened bathroom. Ashmedai turned on the light, and Nicolas squinted, ducking his head. He turned on the shower, and soon enough steam billowed out from behind the curtain.
Ashmedai approached him slowly. “All pain has anend,” he said as he peeled Nicolas’s blood-soaked shirt off. It was everywhere, matted in his curly hair and streaked on his face. Nicolas’s hands shook as he undressed Ashmedai.
When they were both naked, Ashmedai guided him under the spray of the hot shower and stepped behind him, curling around him and letting the hot water wash away the stains of the night. Pink swirled down the drain, and neither of them bothered to reach for the soap yet. They were in no hurry.
Nicolas’s devastated screams echoed in his memory, and Ashmedai suppressed a shudder. He never wanted to hear Nicolas sound like that again. His palm pressed flat against Nicolas’s chest, taking comfort in the pulse of his heart and the steady inhale-exhale of his breaths.
“I don’t know what to do now,” Nicolas finally said, hollowly.
“Nor do I,” Ashmedai confessed. He paused, considering. “What would Danny want you to do?”
He was certain Daniel would wanthimto do whatever it took to make Nicolas happy and help him through this dark time. He just didn’t know how to do that.
“He’d want…” Nicolas sighed. “He’d want me to stick to the plan. Join the Sentinels, fight the good fight, spend eternity with you. Those are the things that would make me happy, and that’s still true even though he’s… not here.” Nicolas quivered.
A shameful little curl of delight went through Ashmedai at that, tempered by the sadness that permeated them both. “Those things would still make you happy?”
Nicolas turned his head to smile at him. It was weak, but real. “Yeah. Especially that last one.”
Ashmedai leaned in for a soft kiss. “I am glad. I want that, too.”
Nicolas turned in his arms and rested his head against Ashmedai’s shoulder. “I knew spending eternity with you would mean having to say goodbye to him one day. I just didn’t think it would be so soon. We were supposed to have more time. He should’ve been allowed to grow old.”
“Yes, he should.”
Barely whispering, he said, “He was all the family I had left.”
“I know. I am so sorry we lost him, my light.” Human lives were so fleeting. He’d never had to grapple with losing someone he cared about. How could Daniel be there one minute and gone the next? His body remained, but he was no longer in it. It didn’t seem right. Why couldn’t they just go and get the soul and put it back where it belonged?
He sighed. It didn’t work like that, and he knew it.
Nicolas’s breath hitched. “Just tell me it’ll all be okay. Tell me we’ll get through this.”
“It will all be okay. Wewillget through this. One step at a time.” He picked up the bottle of shampoo. “Starting with this.”
Ashmedai had never attended a funeral.He didn’t even know what it was until Nicolas explained it. When humans buried their dead, they said kind words about the deceased, reminisced about his life, and prayed that his soul would find peace in the afterlife. It sounded nice, though he begrudged the idea that Daniel would go somewhere Ashmedai wasn’t welcome.
It was also, as he learned, unusual for a funeral to be held at night, but since the halflings were in charge of this, they were able to do it whenever and however they wanted. Nicolas said he didn’t want Ashmedai or any of the others to feel uncomfortable in the sunlight at the grave, so he elected to wait until nightfall. An LED lantern sat beside the marker as they lowered the casket into the ground.
Everyone was in attendance, wearing their finest suits. The demons all looked appropriately somber, because this death had hit all of the humans hard. Nicolas and Julian might have known Daniel the best, but they’d all felt the grim reality of his death.
Nathan cleared his throat. “While there would normally be a preacher in attendance at a graveside service like this, we obviously couldn’t have one here with us tonight, so would anyone like to say a few words?”
Nicolas straightened as though preparing to bear the responsibility of the moment, but Julian stepped forward first, patting Nicolas’s shoulder with a weak smile.
“I actually expected this, so I prepared something, if that’s okay with you?”
Nicolas sagged with relief. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Julian smiled. “I’ll avoid any Bible passages for present company’s sake. I just wanted to say a few words about Danny.” He cleared his throat. “Daniel Joaquin Garcia was one of my best friends. We were in the same preschool class, and the moment he shared his crayons with me, we were bonded for life.” Julian chuckled. “Graduating together was one of the best days of my life. Being in Nic’s squad together, we became real family. Daniel partnered with me during patrols, asked how I was after each encounter with a demon. Hell, he even brought me soupwhen I was sick. Daniel really made me feel like I belonged.
“I took Daniel with me when I went to tour my first house. It needed a lot of work, and I was on the fence about buying. He was the one who talked me into it. ‘It’s got good bones,’ he told me. ‘We’ll all help you turn it into a home, you’ll see.’ And they did. They all helped me remodel the place from the ground up. The others in our squad… They didn’t have our backs when the time came. But Danny never faltered. He knew what he stood for, and he never wavered, not even when people he called friends condemned him for it. He was honorable, and loyal, and the best damn friend anyone could’ve asked for.” Julian’s voice wavered, and he impatiently swiped a tear from his cheek. “And the world’s a little bit darker without him in it. He will be… very missed, but I’m glad we got to have at least a little time with him.”
