Free In the End by Alexandra Rowland Page A

called to the angel, who was already thundering down the stairs at the end of the hall.  Lucien caught up just outside the front doors.
    “ Going this way,” Lalael mumbled. Lucien watched him striding swiftly away down the street for a moment.
    Lucien stared after him, shrugged, and followed.
    ***
    “ Here,” Lalael said, stopping suddenly. Lucien jogged the last few yards and leaned on his knees to catch his breath.
    “ Here where?”
    “ This is it.”
    “ What's it?”
    “ This house, this is the one.” They were standing in front of a little bungalow, which used to be white but now had dark, charred stains of soot and fire on the siding and the dilapidated green shutters. It was exactly the same as the house in Lalael's dream, down to the struggling rose bushes in front of the porch. Further along the road and across the street was an expanse of former-campus, on which was some school of philosophy and religion. On the other side was a string of similar houses.
    “ What about it?” Lucien asked carefully. If the angel had gone mad, he thought, he was not sure what he was supposed to do about it.
    “ My dream last night,” Lalael said, keeping his eyes on the house as if it was going to run off.
    “ You didn't want to tell me.” Lucien tried not to care.
    “ Obviously. Why would I tell you? This is it, though. This is the house in my dream.”
    “ So?” Lucien said, studying his nails, “Doesn't matter, does it?”
    “ We have to go in.”
    “ What!”
    “ Because there's a sick little girl in there,” Lalael said urgently. “I have to help her!”
    “ You can help if you want, but since I'm evil, I obviously don't do nice things like that.” Lucien shook Lalael's hand off his wrist.
    Lalael huffed. “What else do you want?”
    “ Nothing,” Lucien said angrily, walking away. “Nothing more at all.”
    “ Where are you going?” Lalael called after him.
    “ You want to go home don't you?” Lucien replied, without looking back. “I'm helping you get out of the clutches of that evil demon you're staying with. Going to go look at books or something.”
    Lalael watched as he walked away. He put his hands around one of the gate posts in a strangling grip and looked back at the house.
    “ I have to go inside,” he said to himself quietly. “It's important.”
    ***
    The academy, like most of the large buildings, was utterly deserted. Bits of paper skidded through the hallway on a stray breeze near the floor.  Lucien ignored them all as he walked through the darkened halls; streaks of light from outside broke the shadows, the bars of sunlight falling through open classroom doors. His shoes tapped on the linoleum, slowing to a halt at the doors to the archives. The archival library was high, dark, and smelt of musty paper. These books were old, and it was shadowy deep in the stacks. He shivered.
    He trailed his fingertips down the spine of one of the books. Dust had just begun to accrue. “Damn it all,” he hissed suddenly, then strode along a few shelves, pulling out books at random. Having collected an armful, he dropped them carelessly on a desk, and pulled the chain on the desk lamp to turn it on. He swore again under his breath when nothing happened, having forgotten... well, everything that had happened in the last few days, except the angel who seemed adamant that Lucien was evil, when all Lucien wanted was... what did he want? Rest? Peace? None of it mattered anymore, and if Rielat abandoned him here for the rest of all eternity, good. But he was starting to realize that the next long while on Earth might not be as fun as it had been the last seven years.
    He picked the first tome up off the pile, dusted off the front cover with a few irritated strokes, and opened it to the middle.
    ***
    Lalael knocked on the white door. After a minute, it was opened a crack.
    “ Um. Hello,” he said, “Is... Is someone in there sick?”  The door opened further, revealing a short, plump woman