Saturday, January 01, 2005

Fifteen- Birds of a Feather, Second Generation

"Merry Christmas!" Tyler grinned at his niece and nephews, welcoming the three of them with a bear hug. He was pleased to note that they hugged back. "We were worried you weren't going to make it in time, Jance was going to leave without you."

"I wasn't. He lies." Jance wore his usual expression of holiday cheer; someone had wrestled him into a Grinch sweater and he looked about as pleased to be there as a cat in a bathtub.

"Merry Christmas! Traffic is bad- the weather's worse and the roads are all blocked off. We've still got enough time to get there, right?" Tristan brushed snowflakes out of his hair and elbowed Carly when she rolled her eyes at him.

"He wasn't even driving- he's been sleeping all day. Merry Christmas, Jance!" Carly liked making the young demon blush; she had a natural talent for it. "Here, we brought booze. Put it somewhere and we'll go."

"Booze! You really are a member of the family. Thanks, Carls." Tyler took the festively colored bag and tried not to smirk at the chubby reindeer on it as he handed it off to one of the menials. "Jance, let the others know we're on our way."

They didn't bother taking a car; they were running just a little too late for that. Tyler made sure the kids got teleported safely, since they were the only ones without the ability to bend space to their whims. Shateiel and Jehudael were waiting for them in the vestibule of the church with Judecca, wearing their Christmas forms like crowns. They were a little more androgynous and a little more beautiful than usual; the glow beneath the angels' skins was golden, a nice contrast to Judecca's silvery sheen. Toby was escorting Lyra on Dei's insistance; she'd wanted to participate, but she wasn't that much a part of the family yet.

Tyler liked her, he really did- he just didn't like what she'd done to his brother. Twenty years was a long time to nurse a broken heart, and sorry didn't heal the limp Dei sometimes walked with when he wasn't sleeping well.

"You kids make sure Jance behaves, okay? Especially you, Carly. And Jim, you ought to keep an eye on Jehudael." Tyler loved making the youngest Carlisle squirm, and nothing made him squirm like Juhee in angel mode. "I'll see you all afterwards, 'kay? Lilith has your seats saved."

Tyler snapped his fingers, because he could, and rematerialized in the orchestra. "Yo. Everybody's here."

"Took you long enough." Dei looked up from his music with a smirk. "We were going to start without you."

"Fuck off, you can't start without me, I've got the melody." Tyler sat down at his stand, glaring.

"Watch your mouth in the house of god, Tyler." Dei's singsong voice was mocking him. Tyler glowered and summoned his trumpet.

"Stop that, both of you. People will stare." Opal smiled at him, and that made everything better. She always made everything better.

"Did Jubal pick an instrument?" Tyler asked, scanning his music.

"Organ. Len keeps giggling whenever he mentions it, because they're both actually twelve year old boys."

"That explains a lot about you, doesn't it?" he teased.

"Keep that up and you don't get to unwrap your Christmas gift until February." She wasn't looking at him anymore, but she was grinning.

"Children! This is a time of love, joy, and happiness! Let us not bicker and argue about who killed who..." Len appeared on the balcony, decked out in robes with a tinny halo dangling lopsidedly over her head.

"Appearing, as always, in your own...special...idiom." Tyler blew his mother in law a kiss. "Lookin' good, Len."

"You say the sweetest things. D'you think the halo's a bit much? Jubal told me to take it off, but then, that wasn't all he was telling me to take off, and I don't think he quite meant it like that, and I'm sure he wouldn't want me to be taking it off in front of *you*, no matter how much you might like it." The halo dropped a little lower over her ears, and her robes suddenly morphed into something a lot less angelic. "We're ready to start whenever you are."

"Cool. I'm ready. Dei?"

"Been ready all day."

"I'll bet you have. Opal?"

"Hang on." She jangled a tuning chord on her cello and made a few minute adjustments to the pegs. "Four-Ten, El Capitan."

"Awesome. I'll go tell Jubal." Len disappeared. A moment later, the lights dimmed.

They'd had to pull a few strings and favors to get the cathedral on Christmas Eve; normally an actual choir would've taken care of the music, but Tyler and Opal were amazingly persuasive when they wanted to be.

The church was full to bursting, but the celebrants quieted down when the lights went down. Jubal started up the organ, soft and low but rising steadily.

Radueriel hadn't led the choirs of heaven in over six thousand years, but her voice was still strong and sweet enough to summon light out of darkness; the five of them hit the opening chord at the same time, and the entire cathedral burned like the sun.

Rejoice, rejoice.

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