Apocrypha: Family Matters: Peretz

                                    

                                          
Caleb knows the explanation - the excuse, as he calls it. He's heard the story so many times, like it's something from Tanakh. It might as well be, he reflects. It could be: one of those ridiculous episodes, immortalised so they might be held up as examples of how ridiculous man could be, at times.

He knows the story, word by word; at this point, remembrance of the telling and retelling might as well be a substitute for actual memories. It is about as accurate, anyway.

He pictures a room, small and dingy, though well-lit (at this point, his father always points out that said room is not often lit like that, the miser, because they lack the means. Caleb shakes his head every time. His father might not be aiming to live up to the stereotype of the stingy Jew, but he manages)...

A couple, not too young, nor too old, though weathered. His hair and eyes are brown, hers dark and blue. The mother is tired and flushed, the father on edge.

Akiva is now expectant in an altogether different way, and there is any number of things he is waiting for. His boy, eyes screwed shut and skin hot to the touch, is mewling quietly. He is not sure that is a good sign. In his experience, newborns are loud or quiet, and those in-between sometimes sickly or otherwise weak. He does not want to lose his son so fast, not after his hope has been rekindled. The leg wound that saw him sent back home from the Great War has him using a cane, even leaning on it when not walking, sometimes, but he is alive. He expected to die, blasted apart by a shell or rotting from the inside because of poisonous gas.

Those are the real killers, not the bullets. Even when they don't touch you, they leave you dead inside. Even now, the sound of a slammed door has him crouching. But such is the soldier's lot. Maybe, one day, they'll stop looking upon his kind with such venom...but he is not holding his breath. This would not be the first war Jews have died in for those who shy away from them at best. Just the biggest.

Akiva looks up from his cane's head, a carved steel eagle, to glare at the doctor. He's been fussing for a good while, a while - though Akiva is no expert in such matters, he feels it is his duty as a father to ask - than might be safe for his son. The boy is hardly moving, and that scares him as much as any moment in the trenches ever has.

He watches the doctor pick up and put down some tool or other, producing a dull sound as it hits the metallic tray, before his hands move to the others. Akiva is fairly sure he's already checked them all. Clearing his throat, the former soldier says, 'Herr doktor, if you don't mind, can't you come here?'

The doctor turns with a guilty look, and, after making his way over and checking the boy's heartbeat, admits he does not believe the lad is long for this world. He repeats the sentiment eight days later, when Akiva and Dalit expect their son to be circumcised. But the doctor hems and haws once more, finally saying that he believes this would put the boy's life at too much risk.

They don't call upon the doctor's services after this, but they quietly agree that no, their boy does not seem too healthy. He only cries when he wants to be fed and changed, after all, and barely reacts otherwise, but for some wheezing gasps.

Caleb did not die, as expected, though he was always more susceptible to cold than the other children, and his scrapes and bruises took longer to heal. He is still, however, the only uncut boy of his faith he knows, and every reminder - usually coming in the form of uninspired taunts about how he must be a Christian in disguise or denial - makes his face turn red. In anger more than shame, admittedly; anger at his parents, who didn't go through when they should have, and at that indecisive idiot, damn his pessimism.

Despite his weakness, despite his bones taking longer to heal than those of his friends, he has broken his fists on the faces of most of his rivals. But at least their faces broke as well, and they quieted down some.

'Bastards,' Caleb mutters heatedly to himself as he makes his way back home, hands in his coat pockets. The cold is biting, and his temper makes things worse, heating up his skin and leaving him puffing like a bellows. His hat only comes to the middle of his ears (a hand down from his father, who must've had the ears of a mouse, he swears) and he no longer has his scarf. He didn't manage to throttle that goddamn bigot, though not for lack of effort. Ratty thing just fell apart halfway through, but at least he put the dog on the run.

Still, he can't help but marvel at the sheer audacity of the hooligan. Not the trick itself - slipping something of yours into the pocket of someone you passed was an old way to pick a fight -, but the fact it was done to him, because of what he is, and in broad daylight at that.

Caleb hunches his shoulders, pulling his hat as far down as it will go. He doesn't like this Hitler fellow everyone's been talking about for years, not least of all because people like the boy he thrashed love him.

Despite his mood, Caleb smiles as he sees the front of the shop their home is built above come into view. For all he can be a pain in the neck sometimes, his dad is interesting. He has all these books about faiths and cults and sects from all over the globe, and Caleb has heard him and his mom talking about branching into philosophy too. His favourites are these "comparative religion" books, which put different beliefs side by side, and...

Caleb watches, frozen, as shards fall from where a blur smashed through the glass front. For an absurd moment, he thinks it must be so cold the glass is cracking, then realises two things.

The first is that, even if it was so cold, the glass wouldn't explode like that.

The second is that, even here, even now, he is refusing to accept the wickedness of the people he knows despise him and all those like him.

And they do not deserve that.

As Caleb turns, a stunned look on his face, he also realises he is in danger, as are his parents.

Then the second brick hits him.

He manages to lift his arms in front of his face, but his wrists break as he deflects the brick, and he stumbles, crying out at the pain. Falling onto his rear, he has no time to see the brick come down on his head, almost lazily. Though his hat spares him the worst, he is still dazed, and can feel blood spread across his scalp, warm and sticky, making his hat cling to his hair.

Lifting bleary eyes, Caleb manages to make out a gaggle of youths make their way towards him (the shop?) with purposeful strides. At first, he thinks they're some of the bigger bad kids, but as his vision steadies and they become less blurry, he makes out their uniforms.

Staggering to his feet right when his father arrives to drag him to safety - but where in the world is that? -, he decides that he bloody hates this Hitler man and his Youth. The oaf he got into a scrap earlier is leading the pack, bringing a sneer to Caleb's face that turns his youthful features ugly.

'There! He has my watch!' the idiot exclaims, pointing at him even as his father drags him away. Caleb's hands reflexively fly to his pockets, and he groans. Son of a...he does have his watch, true enough. Kept it after teaching him a lesson, deciding he was entitled to some compensation.

When he and his parents are huddling in some quiet street corner, praying the shadows will hide them, Caleb, teeth chattering, digs out the damned thing out of his coat. 'D-Dad, I...' he stutters, tears leaving streaks through the grime on hiss face. Swallowing, he continues, 'He...he didn't lie.'

Akiva manages a ragged laugh, even as Dalit reaches for her son's shoulder with a calming smile, and Caleb decides his dad is a million times the man Hitler will ever be, for who else could laugh at times like this? 'Don't be fooled, son,' he whispers, eyes peeled for anyone passing close by their hideout. 'People like them, they don't need reasons to do what they do.'

* * *

The next uniformed group that comes to the Peretz house is made up of men, not thuggish brats. These are thuggish sorts too, though they seem more refined at first.

When they talk about how people like him and his parents have been pushed to the edge enough, many scraping by, ill and starving, he foolishly, foolishly wants to believe they are taking them somewhere, if not better, then safer. Some time has passed since that awful November night, but, though Caleb feels older than he is, he is still a child. And children, he thinks, should not hope to be imprisoned forever, which is what he believes these men have come to do.

Maybe, if they're all locked up somewhere deep in the country, people will no longer come by to ravage their homes.

This hope does not last long, for all it is said that such things die last. After they take him away for all he has known and tear his father from his books and his mother from her clothes, they bring them to a train, sleek and fit to burst. Caleb fancies he can hear it creaking on the tracks, so full of Jews he makes a joke that it must be driven by Moses.

His parents don't laugh.

Caleb falls quiet after that, unsettled by his own joke. How long did his people wander, last time they left a place in such numbers? Too long, too long...and though there are no deserts in Germany, it feels no less a wasteland.

* * *

There is a part of his youth Tamar Thousandhands, as he will style himself over the decades to come, chooses not to think of much. Not because he does not wish to remember what he went through - the work, the hungry, thirsty labour that felt even lowlier than slavery, that saw his parents reduced to thin walking corpses before they were taken away from the last time -, but because, whenever he thinks of it, he cannot help but reminisce of everyone who did not survive where he, ill weakling that he was, managed to.

When he does remember, it is because he craves anger. Seeks the certainty, the power, wrath and spite and hatred bring. Tamar knows better than most how such feelings can be whipped into a frenzy, for it made him suffer, but he is no bigot. Not like his old tormentors. He has no tolerance for intolerance. When you treat others as though they are less than people, you stop being a person yourself, as far as he is concerned.

But those days are far away yet, and Caleb cannot yet dream of the man he will become.

It is here that he meets Sarah, a scowling, rawboned girl who can mould dirt like clay and stack uneven rocks like playing cubes. They smile when they can get together, and she teaches him to skip stones across the narrow, thin puddles the rain leaves behind sometimes. Tamar, thick-skulled as he is, teaches her how to headbutt properly, then - so she doesn't embarrass herself laughing with a nosebleed- how to set her nose.

'How come a stork likes you knows how to headbutt?' she teases him one day.

'How come a goat like you doesn't?' he retorts, almost glad that he's gotten to sallow for his blushes to show. But he's still proud, and doesn't like to let anyone see they've got him flustered. Even the girl he likes.

One day, Amos, a boy Caleb has locked horns with more often than he'd like to (he's too tired, dammit. Isn't Amos? But the horse-faced son of a bitch is like a spinning top, almost), sits down with them during one of their rare breaks. It's shortly after a pitiful meal, just enough to keep them alive, so they can keep making weapons.

'Did you hear?' Sarah mutters, sitting cross-legged like the Indians from one of Akiva's books. At least, Caleb thinks glumly, his dad didn't burn with them. 'Heard said we're getting new guards. These ones like to beat 'em Itzigs don't call each other by their numbers.' She flexes her arm, displaying hers, alongside a small amount of muscle.

Caleb is too dog-tired to remark upon her throwing that bloody word around. It's not like she thinks less of her fellows, or like the jerries are going to stop.

Amos preens, puffing his chest out as he does when trying to appear brave. It has earned him more than one kick to the ribs. 'My name's too good to be forgotten,' he sputters, hair still curly despite the grime they live in, though no longer glossy. 'I'll show 'em what's what.'

Sarah waves him off. 'What'll you show, hmm? Your behind?'

'They can kiss it!' he replies, nodding as he decides that sound good. 'I'll show 'em, just you watch.'

Caleb isn't sure where the hell Amos gets his hands on the scissors, just as he doesn't know whether he should hate him or love him for putting a couple of the few kids younger than them out of their misery. Least he's quick enough to put them through his own throat before the guards get their hands on him.

According to Sarah, the girls Amos ended (not that they were brimming with life, Caleb reflects grimly) were taken away because, more than being Christ-killers, "Like the rest of you goddamned Yids", they liked each other. 'You know, like your folks did,' she added, seeing his bemused face.

He doesn't "know", not really, but he figures they weren't hurting anyone, any more than the rest of them were.

'Maybe some boys got jealous,' Sarah jokes weakly, her humour gone as bleak as anything in their living nightmare, 'that they weren't getting any kisses, and went and told their daddies. Then poof, they were put on a train, eh?'

Caleb gulps, looking around and feeling like an idiot as a result. There's little light to see by after curfew, and even with everyone packed together like sardines (like corpses in a mass grave, Amos used to say), he can't make out anyone's features. He doubts they can see him, either. So, he thinks when he turns back to Sarah, he's just scared of her, and that's dumb.

Running a hand through his short hair, he moves closer to her. 'How about we make someone jealous ourselves?' he asks, voice husky more out of thirst than anything. Sarah's hands move to her mouth, and for a moment, he fears he's crossed some line. Then he realises she's trying to contain her giggles.

They don't make anyone jealous, that night.

But he makes his Sarah laugh, and, Caleb thinks, this matters, in its own way.

* * *

The end of the War feels like something out of a dream, even if it only really ends because new monsters, many not man-shaped, have started crawling out of humanity's nightmares. Caleb is almost a man by now, old if not fit enough to fight, and he has faith. Not in the false messiah so many of the Allies exalt - he loves Jesus as he can only love a teacher of such wise thinking, but the Nazarene was a man, and God is God -, but faith in the Lord.

He does not become a soldier, though he figures he could, given some time. He has faith, and all the lore he can get his hands on, he devours. The teachings of the Kabbalists and their ilk are as mystifying as they are enlightening, but Caleb seeks knowledge of another kind.

Sarah is present when he turns himself into what he must become - how could she be otherwise? She does not hold his hand or lay her hand upon his brow when he shrieks his lungs bloody, for such would be dangerous, and he would never forgive himself if he so much as scratched her, but she is at his side, never out of sight, and that helps.

Two of her hulking golems flank her, like the world's biggest watchdogs, and their solidity is something Caleb craves as the world melts before his eyes, and he falls, for eternity and a heartbeat, into the Hell that many dread.

He is approached, for that is the wont of the fiends, and tempted, for that is their pleasure. But the pleasure of demons are as hollow as they are endless, and Caleb is no longer inclined to indulge those stronger, crueller than him, merely for respite. He turns them all aside. They offer him wealth and joy beyond anything he has dreamed of, the corpses of everyone he has hated, everything and everyone he has ever held dear.

He is even confronted by the one God has designated to test the souls of mortals, and draw out the darkness inside. He is wearing armour of tarnished ivory, thorned vines encircling his limbs and chest, and the young man knows they were grown from the crown laid upon the head of he who walked the world almost like the Lord; who, in doing so, was misunderstood by man.

In his hand, he clutches a sword, bejewelled and polished to a mirror sheen. He raises his bow as Caleb walks toward him, an arrow aimed at the youth's eye, and urges him to halt. Has he no pride? How can he plan to content himself with casting down his broken foes and their works, instead of reigning over a kingdom wrought from their agony forever? Has he no anger left?

But he walks on, and the First of the Fallen shoulders his rifle with an amused huff, his weapon as changing as his mood. This one will prove interesting, he thinks.

'Say, my boy,' he calls out, as Caleb begins scrabbling at the bedrock of his prison-demesne, nails already cracked and bloody. 'I see your conviction, tempered by false modesty as it is. Seek my son, the son who bears my sceptre; you might learn much about being kings in waiting from each other.'

Caleb does not pay the tempter much thought, busy as he is pulling up the creatures that dwelled below Hell before it was given shape and purpose. Later...he and the cambion who goes by Louis Cypher with much humour do succeed in meeting, sometimes, but, alas, it is mostly for work. The Hellfire Club's president is as skilled in binding and unbinding his uncles and aunts as he is at helping those they held to recover so they might reenter society, or at preparing those seeking to bear them within themselves. Tamar often seeks his counsel.

When they can meet to just talk, Louis, always busy chasing his beaus and belles, comically bemoans the air of responsibility Tamar, family man that he is, brings into his establishments. Whenever Louis hears of the newest member of the Peretz family (which, Tamar thinks with some amusement, is during almost all of their infrequent meetings), he throws his hands up, sighing.

'You keep making all these little ones, my friend,' Louis says one day, alternately pulling at his beard and ponytail, both silver. 'Do you lot not stop?'

Tamar, who finds it quite funny that one of the most dangerous beings in existence is put off by the mere chance of knocking someone up, says, 'Well, Louie, if you want a family of your own, you only need to stop frequenting backdoors.'

'Cal, you know how I work,' Louis says patiently, eyes not even once betraying the hundred millennia they've seen. 'I can't help but end up inside arseholes.' He takes a sip of his hot chocolate, silently daring Tamar to say anything about his choice of drink. 'And don't call me Louie! Damned cartoon ducks...'

There are years between Caleb's transformation and his first meeting with the Hellflamer, however. Right now, it is all he can do to keep his eyes on Sarah, for as long as they last. They are soon replaced by flames that burn without fuel, flames that scorch most of his skin off, leaving only patches, soon to be covered in the words and shapes of binding.

* * *

Hell Decade is nowadays used to refer to the years between the Shattering and ARC's first anniversary. The first handful were defined by fear and chaos, until the world pulled itself together, though it took the coming of the Martians to make Earth present an united front. And, in fifty-five, the world's foremost paranormal law enforcement agency proved itself, again and again, and grew.

Caleb has more experience than most agents when the recruiters come to him. He has spent most of the last ten years alternating between keeping his monsters leashed and, at Sarah's urging and direction, venturing out to stop what menaces he can in their corner of Germany. The fighting helps him think, for he and his creatures align in purpose.

Caleb listens as they list his duties and rights (interesting order...though men more interested in the latter than the former often end up monstrous), nodding quietly, then lifts his burning eyes. 'Will I get to kill Nazis?'

The woman, with skin as dark as onyx and eyes like liquid light, smiles. She has a calming effect on him, he notices. His monsters have stopped screaming for destruction, though they're still walking up and down in his head. 'Perhaps. Many of them have access to supernatural resources or minions...'

'I'll slaughter them,' Caleb says quietly. 'I'll string them up by their guts and stack their corpses like cordwood. I can hurt them, hurt them until they forget death can take them, because I won't let it.'

She looks saddened, though the man, a flamboyant smoker (her Chinese gigolo? He could be, despite the uniform...), chuckles, taking out his pipe. 'I say, he knows what he wants, Aya.'

She looks up at Caleb, schooling her expression. 'That he does, Ying.'

* * *

Rose Palmer - she went by Rosa, back in the old country, though her last name there bore no resemblance to her current one- is terrified as he hunts her. Caleb only regrets that he can't prolong the end and the dread before it for eternity, for his other duties pull him away.

Her blue, blue eyes are wide and bloodshot as she sees her husband's remains shamble across their bedroom, ripping the bed apart as they go. Caleb is only here in spirit, his body clashing with a self-made god of a warlock half a hemisphere away, but it is enough. The little witch has no cantrips left, no hexes, and nothing to kill herself with. Caleb has made sure there are no blades or ropes around, and he won't let her bite her tongue off or ram her head into a wall.

Her brown, wavy hair is in disarray, her white and blue dress tattered. She looks like the housewife she pretended to be, despite the blood staining her - most of her Connor's. What is left of him has bled for so, so long, but it is not enough. There is a hole in Caleb's heart he fears no amount of bigot blood will ever fill, should he spill an ocean of it.

It was almost a clever plan, in its humility. Scurry off to the States like the she-rat she is, find a weak-willed, strong-bodied fool who shares her ideas, and breed a clutch of little monsters. But he stopped her before she could bring her spawn into the world, fouling it further.

Sadly.

Their marriage was something out of a fairytale: everything got done on time or earlier, there were no inconveniences, no fights, and so much luck, so many promotions...to think, all it took was some children's souls, torn from their flesh well before they could decide what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Caleb admits: he is puppeting the husband's remains because it hurts and scares this little whore of Hitler's. He could possess a wall and crush her, but where's the joy in that? Let her fear. Let her tremble, as she feels a fraction of what she and her horde inflicted upon the world.

'You cut so many destinies short, Rosa,' Caleb breathes through shattered teeth, forcing ruined lungs to work. 'And not just the coloured and the queers and the crippled - even those as pure as you dreamed of, just because they did not think the same...but they were useful, weren't they? Rosa...' he makes the abomination smile. 'I'm so sorry!'

He grabs her by the arms, pulling her shoulders out of her sockets as he lifts her. 'I'm so sorry you don't have children to see you squirm!'

Rosa does not die quickly, or well. But every family she stole from receives a piece of her body, mouthless but mewling the apologies carved into their flesh. It is only after everyone has come to terms with the events that Caleb lets her die.

* * *

Paradoxically, his colleagues have stocked up on complaints right when he's almost done killing the Nazis' old guard. He'd laugh if their yapping wasn't getting on his nerves. And to think it hasn't been too long since he's beaten Strauss bloody, to the delighted cackling of his monster. How could they stoke his temper so quickly?

The Heads' meeting has ended, as far as official matters are concerned, and Tamar is left with his peers stares, concerned but judgemental. Growling low in his throat, he slams his palms on top of his chair's armrests, looking up at Aya, who happens (does she, really?) to sit across him. 'What?'

The mummy exchanges an uncomfortable look with the gryphon, but, despite Gilles' boisterousness, she's the one to speak. 'Cal,' she begins gently, 'I understand it still hurts-'

'Do you?' he asks blandly. 'I didn't see you with the other blacks in chains, Reem. Maybe I'm going senile, or stupid, but I don't see how you understand.'

He sees Leon's chest rise, and points at him. 'Don't you start on with how you witnessed their evil because you fought against them.' He stands up, slamming the table with one fist. 'Your goddamned country looked at you like mine looked at me! You just happened to get to hold a rifle!'

Gilles reels back, blinking, and Tamar glares at everyone else in turn. 'Efrat's kid is leaving for Romania, and I don't intend to sit here and be badgered by you lot instead of saying my goodbyes. I barely know Menachem, much less his wife - because, I must add, I'm busy doing what you're about to condemn me for. You're welcome,' he adds bitingly.

Amara's voice betrays nothing as she responds. 'Tamar, you cannot get into fights with every hateful idiot you meet on the street. Threatening to come into their homes and break them if they do not broaden their horizons will only make them hate everyone different.'

'Oh, look who's found her voice!' He flicks a hand at her. 'What's wrong, Ami? Learned your crush is related to you and dried up? Wagging your tongue won't get it back into her, by the way.'

'That's enough, Caleb,' Ying says, voice gravelly, as he also stands up, eyes glowing through his shades. Next to him, Amara is giving Tamar a betrayed look, eyes glistening. 'You are not the kind of man to lash out at his friends for trying to help, and you...' Ying slumps slightly. 'You cannot force people to think like you. Believe me.'

'Oh, yes.' Tamar laughs darkly. 'I guess you have time to think about everything, after you get exiled for being a murderous pervert.' His eyes move to Gerald and Elga, seated close together. The ghost looks deeply uncomfortable. And, for all his anger, Tamar deflates, sitting back down. 'Please don't be scared of me,' he mutters awkwardly, not looking at the Head of External Affairs despite addressing her. 'I know what you went through, and there are women I hate far more - who never gave up on the poisoned lies you did - who I'd wince to see go through a fraction of that.'

Elga does not say anything, but her smile, though shaky, is genuine. Tamar still chuckles whenever he remembers the latest attempt to assassinate her. To think, they'd actually believed a Head would stand aside and let his colleague be killed because, why, he hates the woman she used to be? Not that Elga needed the help.

It's John who sets him off, and after he's just calmed down, too. Propping a translucent elbow up on the table, the chained man says, 'Have you thought that your family's leaving because they're scared of how damn angry you get, mate?'

Not that the table is expensive - but Tamar still elects to jump over, rather than through it, to get at his peer.

* * *

Despite the endless hunger, despite the tireless voice urging her to rend and slaughter, Rivka Peretz is grateful for her ghoulish body, sometimes. No need to sleep, for one. She already sees her siblings whenever she closes her dead eyes - the nightmares used to be unbearable.

She remembers holding little Omri with one arm, as if he were his namesake, Channah - big enough to walk, though younger than her big sister by several years - clutching her other hand. She remembers running behind the dumpster, dragging her wailing sister along on scraped knees, too tired to carry her, too.

She no longer feels the breath of their pursuers that day on the back of her neck, but only because she no longer feels anything. And even the Iron Guard's remains, as short-lived as they are pitiful wherever they form, can scar a young girl, in body and soul.

She is hungry, so hungry. She puked and cried when they started chasing them, fumbling with their pistols. Where'd they get that, in Romania...? It doesn't matter, now. They fired and missed, and fired and missed, but hit her enough times, hit all three of them. Why's she the only one screaming?

Her stomach feels full and burning, and looking down, Rivka can see smoking, ragged tears in her flesh. So why is she so hungry...?

Her eyes linger on the stylised menorah on her hoodie, and she wishes for the breath to curse herself. Would they have known, otherwise? The munchkins did not look like the people those bastards had made themselves hate.

Rivka's twitching eye catch a glimpse of her murderers - for she's dying, she's sure - running away, their handguns tucked back into waistbands or down shirts.

Surely it can't end like this?

She remembers the stories, passed down to her dad from his grandpa, and thinks she might have one chance to set things right. Her grin is skeletal and bloodied, more grimace than smile. She can barely feel her face enough to tell.

'Just...a lil'...' she mumbles, reaching towards the crumpled form of her baby brother, pulling him closer until she can put her mouth to his tummy, like she does when she's blowing raspberries. At the same time she bites down, she scratches a strip of skin off her little sister's arm.

She needs more flesh, she's sure, and she can't bear to hurt just one of them that that much. Better...this way.

During her first meal after undeath - raw and screaming -, Rivka Peretz wonders why God didn't claim her before she died, instead of letting her rise again as a corpse-woman. Later, when she can think straight, think enough to weep over two small, unmoving bodies, she also wonders if her feeding killed them, rather than the gunshot wounds.

The thought would have made her retch, as a human, but ghouls do not give up on what they have consumed. And, for all her family reassurances that she's not to blame, that she's just a scared kid who sought a way to strike back against injustice...for all the years she's spent with ARC, joining them more because their resources should have helped her discover the truth than because she wanted to help people - though that is why she has remained - she does not yet know the truth.

Rivka rubs her eyes, exhaling. She has been unable to get tired in a long, long time, but she swears the letters on the report are starting to blend into each other.

Scowling at the paper, Rivka looks up and, seeing the cross on the hallway wall, wonders why the Lamb, said to love all no matter their beliefs or realm of origin, did nothing that day. Maybe her great gramps is right, and he really was only a man. She usually tends to agree with Tamar anyway, but hearing about his kindness from so many of her agents and acquaintances has her curious, she supposed.

Pushing the report away, she fishes out her phone, dialling one of her best friends. God knows he has enough things on his plate nowadays...but he knows people who just might be able to answer this question, if not tell her if she is a murderess. Half of the postcogs she's asked disagree with the other half. She knows such matters of degree are prone to being interpreted subconsciously, but still... 'Hey, David,' she says when he picks up, crossing her legs. 'Where did you say your dad's hanging out nowadays?'