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Asteria

“Holy shit!” I said. “Stop, don’t come any closer.”

“Why?” Uriel froze in the act of stepping inside Seraphiel’s flat. Sariel, who had been walking behind him, bumped into Uriel.

My stomach roiled and I ran to the wall farthest from the door to put more distance between us. “Back up! Please!”

Uriel, who was in a casual white shirt and khakis, walked back two steps.

When Seraphiel came out of his shower, dripping wet, I was momentarily distracted. Covering my eyes with a hand, I said, “Put a towel on…”

“What is it?” asked Seraphiel. “I thought it was an emergency from the way you shouted.”

“Are you decent?” I asked. “No, never mind, what’s important is Uriel. Give me a moment, please.”

The sofa should do. The metaphysical stench of the Iah virus was strong in the room, but the Rite of Cleansing would take care of that.

“Alright, I’m ready,” I said as I sat down on the sofa. “Sariel, come inside. Uriel, close the door and stand in front of it. This will take a few minutes.”

I took deep breaths to calm myself.

The three S-class ELs were silent. Seraphiel had quickly put a T-shirt and jeans on, but he was still toweling his hair dry with one hand while he stood beside the sofa staring down at me with knitted brows.

“Uriel’s sick again?” said Sariel. He was a platinum blond today, with one red eye and one grey eye. I’d never seen those leather pants and that sleeveless mesh shirt before. Had he been planning to go clubbing after seeing me?

“I need silence, please…” Closing my eyes and assuming a meditative lotus position with my hands resting palms up on my knees, I examined Uriel.

There it was. The Iah virus manifested as black dots to my spiritual senses, and they were all over him but… yes, they were more densely clustered there.

Examination done, I initiated the Rite of Cleansing, and golden sparks shot up from my open palms to shower down on Uriel. The black dots shrank to tiny pinpoints and stopped pulsing. The virus had been deactivated for now.

The rush of relief I felt when the Rite of Cleansing worked made me relax my guard too early. The nausea that I had successfully held back until now rose again, and I ran to the toilet. What followed was an unpleasant interlude of vomiting.

“Asteria?” Seraphiel said from behind the toilet’s closed door.

No, thanks. I don’t want someone to hold my hair back for me while I vomit.

“Go away,” I said. “I’ll be fine in a moment.”

Seraphiel went away while I continued to throw up the remains of a very expensive lunch. I stared glumly down at the half-digested food before flushing the toilet. Seraphiel and I had gone out to enjoy Kraej’s City’s hottest new rustic Northwestern restaurant. In the context of exorbitantly-priced food, “rustic” seemed to mean that dishes were served on chopping boards and slabs of wood.

Discretion was the name of the game, so I’d worn my disguise and we’d reserved a private dining room for two. Uriel had tipped us off that most high-end places offered private dining places for clients who didn’t want to be seen together in public. That made sense because rich people wouldn’t want their wives or husbands to find out if they were having some nookie on the side, right?

Still clutching my stomach and feeling rather delicate, I walked back to the living room after brushing my teeth and gargling with mouthwash.

Seraphiel practically pounced on me the moment I left the hallway. His hair was still unbraided and clung damply to his shoulders and back. He lifted his hands as though to grab me, but dropped them when he remembered that it wouldn’t be a good idea.

“Asteria, are you alright?” asked Seraphiel.

I gestured for him to sit beside me as I sank down on a chair. He handed me a piece of candy.

“I’ve trained him well,” I said to the others.

Sariel had put a leather jacket on and was pacing back and forth while Uriel was sitting in his usual chair massaging the space between his eyebrows.

“Hey now, stop looking like your dog just died, Uriel. You’ll be fine,” I said.

“What’s a dog?” asked Sariel.

“Fine? Fine until I get sick again, you mean,” said Uriel. Leaning forward and resting his arms on his legs, his eyes searched mine for answers while I did my best to look cheerful.

“Let her rest a bit,” said Seraphiel. “Sariel, sit down.”

Sariel hissed at him, but he did as he was told.

“You were reinfected with a new strain or mutated variant of the Iah virus,” I said to Uriel. “We need to find out how as soon as possible. How do you feel?”

“I didn’t even know anything was wrong,” said Uriel. His voice was soft and calm, but he spoke slowly, as though it was a struggle to speak each word. “I feel the same as I have since you first came.”

“Good. So there have been no noticeable effects yet. I saw you last Monday and you were fine. You must have been reinfected sometime between now and then. Tell us everything you’ve been doing since then. That includes anyone you’ve had intimate contact with. The virus seemed to be strongest...” I coughed and then gestured to my lower body, indicating the place where the virus had been clustered the most densely.

“It’s sexually transmitted? Then shouldn’t you have told me not to-”

I cut Uriel off. “No, when we met that first day I deactivated the virus. You wouldn’t have been able to infect anyone.”

“Don’t use that tone of voice on her,” said Seraphiel.

Golden and grey eyes glared at each other.

“We’re all on edge. Please calm down,” I said.

“I need a drink,” said Sariel.

“We all do,” said Seraphiel. He ran a hand through his damp, disheveled ink-black hair.

Sariel jumped up and went to the bar to pour drinks for everyone.

“Something soothing for my stomach, please, Sariel,” I said. The Commander prepared a honey and galangal tea for me. “Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Everyone, calm down, for fuck’s sake. Uriel take your time and go over every single place you’ve been to and everyone you’ve seen since Monday,” said Sariel.

We all nursed our drinks as Uriel listed his activities for the past three days.

“I think it will be easiest to check the places Uriel has been first. We can do that right now. Tomorrow, I need to take a look at all those women,” I said. “Uh, is there any way for me to get inside Uriel’s office, training room, and other places without people finding out?”

“Those are all secure military workplaces,” said Seraphiel. “In theory, anyway.”

“What?” I said.

“The men bring their girlfriends over all the time,” said Sariel. “A Commander was once caught with one of his girlfriends in his office. She was bent over his desk, just-”

“Too much info!” I said. Turning to Seraphiel, I opened my eyes wide in pretend shock. “Ely, you…”

“We all know who it was,” said Seraphiel.

None of us looked at the person in question.

“We can sneak you in tonight,” said Uriel.

“Sounds like a plan. After that, we should drop by the restaurants Uriel mentioned. Uriel’s apartment will be our last stop,” I said. “Let’s get dressed, Ely. I’ll use that blue wig Sariel prefers.”

“Okay,” said Seraphiel.

Sariel and Uriel went to the bar for more drinks. Casually, I stood up and removed the thin sweater I was wearing.

“Ahem.” I coughed to draw their attention to the T-shirt I was wearing.

“No… not that. Anything but that!” said Sariel. He started banging his head on the bar’s surface.

Seraphiel was speechless.

“Nice one,” said Uriel. He smiled for the first time since he’d arrived.

“Israfel gave it to me,” I said.

“It’s rather risque,” said Uriel.

Laughing, I went to the guest bedroom to change. The T-shirt was one of the more lurid Seraph X Sariel fan club T-shirts I’d seen, printed with a fanart of Seraphiel in full military dress uniform clutching Sariel’s naked form.

“Burn it,” said Sariel when I joined them after I finished changing into my disguise.

“No need. I’m sure Ely will ‘accidentally’ destroy it just like he destroyed all my Sariel fan club T-shirts,” I said.

“What’s taking him so long?” asked Uriel. “I can’t believe he takes longer than you to get ready.”

“Perfection takes time,” I said. “He has to comb all that hair, then oil or condition it, then blow dry, then braid-”

“Okay, I get the picture,” said Uriel.

“Never mind him, what do you think of my disguise?” I said. Twirling in place, I showed off my short, poofy pink skirt, black fishnet stockings, and sleeveless blue blouse. The curly blue wig was short and had cute bangs. My top was exceedingly low cut.

“Seraphiel will hate it,” said Sariel.

“No, he’ll love it. He just won’t want her to wear it in public,” said Uriel.

“He’s not the boss of me,” I said. I sat down at the bar and we had some more drinks. Uriel seemed to have cheered up a little or the drinks had mellowed him out enough to smooth the deep lines on his forehead.

“What are you wearing?!” said Seraphiel to me when he finally appeared after half an hour, dressed in his uniform.

“You don’t like it?” I asked.

“Don’t you think it’s a little too revealing?” said Seraphiel. Golden eyes almost popping out of his head in shock, Seraphiel stared at my chest.

“This is one of the core principles of disguise. I can’t afford for people to recognize me. Wearing this ensures that none of your soldiers will be looking at my face,” I said. “Oh, and Ely? My eyes are up here.”

“...” Seraphiel blushed.

“She could put on that T-shirt instead,” said Uriel.

“No,” said Sariel. “Besides, this will give Seraph a real incentive to not let anyone see her when we sneak her in.”

“What do you mean? I thought I could distract the guards. I’ll just pretend I dropped something and…” I turned to Seraphiel and started to bend down, but Uriel and Sariel hustled us out of the apartment, laughing.