Blessed by Night

Malachi watched the phone ring for a few seconds.

Luna watched her husband as he seemed to get lost in a world all his own. She started to reach out to him when he suddenly silenced the call and handed his phone to her.

"Mind holding onto this for me so I don't do anything stupid..?"

Luna was almost hesitant to take it. "Are you sure about this?"

Malachi smiled earnestly. "Believe me… right now, it's best I don't have it, love."

Every part of him wanted to pick up that phone and answer it. But he didn't trust himself not to do something stupid afterward.

Joanne had already told him what she wanted. He wouldn't go against her if he could help it.

Luna accepted the phone and put it away in her back pocket for safekeeping.

"Are you two, erm…" the father looked back and forth between them.

"Husband. Wife." Luna pointed to Malachi and then herself.

The husband paused for a long time. "That is a very young husband."

"…I wasn't aware of that until after we met in person for the first time, but by then it was too late. I was smitten." She shrugged.

Malachi was not amused. "That joke might be funny if you didn't make the same mistake two more times."

"You were the one who picked Bianca and Anna first, remember?"

"And they wouldn't have been around nearly as long if you weren't as attracted to them as I was."

Luna placed a hand over her forehead dramatically. "Oh, I'm just a naive old woman who was searching for love. You all intentionally seduced me with your virile young bodies and…"

Luna paused when she saw the parents move to cover the ears of their young children.

She started to think that maybe her joke had gone a bit too far.

*A-Ahem* "My husband will be escorting you now."

-

With Serosh helping to carry the family on his back, the journey towards the Japanese countryside took next to no time at all.

It would have taken even less time if they had allowed him to teleport them there, but once the family's young boys saw the giant tiger, they naturally wanted to ride it.

Their parents were a bit more reserved about the whole idea, but with Malachi assuring them that it was safe, they couldn't find any other reason to refuse it.

Serosh ran slower than normal on account of not just the parents, but the baby they were carrying as well. The last thing he wanted to do was send anyone flying.

Malachi flew just beside the family during the voyage. The entire time, he kept his gaze on the child the mother was keeping close to her breast.

He had been trying not to stare, but sometimes he caught himself wondering when the last time he'd blinked was.

"Umm… We're here."

Malachi blinked again and realized Serosh had stopped running.

At some point, he realized they had arrived in a small village in the countryside.

He didn't sense very many life forces. And what he could sense was weak.

The village must have been full of elderly people. No wonder they weren't traveling around together…

The mother slipped down from Serosh's back with her two sons following her.

"Please give us a moment, and we will bring everyone here." She bowed.

When she did so, Malachi finally got his first good look at the child's face.

It was a young girl with a tranquil expression.

She appeared to be just waking up judging by how she yawned.

When they made eye contact, Malachi felt his chest tighten.

"Ahem!"

In his grief, Malachi had forgotten about the universal law of public perception.

He knew where his eyes were, but to anyone else, it would look like he was openly leering at this woman's chest.

And her husband looked like he was about to deck him for the misunderstanding. Powers be damned.

"…Sorry. I just never got to see my kids that small."

No one expected Mal to say something so unquestionably heavy. Not even himself.

He started to take his words back when the mother made him a completely unexpected offer.

"Would you like to hold her?"

Malachi wasn't even given the chance to refuse.

Before he could stop her, the woman was unstrapping her baby from her chest and pushing her into Malachi's arms.

"W-Wait, I-"

"Support the head. Make sure to rock her gently so that she doesn't get fussy and maybe make some faces at her. She also likes to be sung to."

Malachi was baffled. Who just hands a stranger their kid and walks away as if it's normal?

The mother shuffled away quickly with her children as if she thought Malachi was going to try and hand her back.

…He was.

When he couldn't get the mother, he turned to the father and held the baby out like he was making a peace offering.

"Nope."

Malachi could have screamed.

He even considered giving the baby to Serosh when he suddenly felt something tugging at his head.

When he looked down, he found a small white fist holding on tightly to one of his dreads.

Somehow, that was enough to make him freeze up.

His chest became tight. All of his thoughts faded away into white noise. The feelings he had been ignoring all of this time threatened to crash into him.

In that moment, Malachi realized that he couldn't keep going the way he had been.

Something had to change.

Malachi wanted to put his life back together. Not just get his child back.

He wanted to figure out who killed Awena and see them brought to justice. He wanted to figure out why his powers were missing and why he was turning into a demon in the first place.

And more than anything else, he was going to see the women he loved smile again even if it killed him.

"Umm… sir? You're crying and… glowing."

Malachi suddenly snapped out of his trance. His face felt wet and the child in his arms was giggling while grasping for him.

He looked down at his hands and realized that his body was covered in a faint purple light. It was like nothing he'd ever seen before.

"T-That's not going to give my baby some kind of super cancer, is it?" The father asked worriedly.

"N-No!"

Malachi honestly had no idea. He hoped it wouldn't.

He certainly didn't feel very cancer-y. But then again, he didn't feel anything. He didn't even notice he was glowing until he'd been told!

"M-Maybe give me my daughter back just in case…"

Malachi was reluctant, but in the end, he couldn't say anything to a concerned father.

He passed the child back just as he noticed the mother and her children emerge from a building with a parade of elderly people.

But there was one face that was almost certainly did not belong among the wrinkly ones.

"Brother…" Serosh nudged him.

"I see him." Malachi narrowed his eyes.

Shuffling along in the back of the crowd was the very same man who had fled from Malachi in the sewers.

And it looked like he was going to try his luck again, because as soon as the two of them locked eyes with one another, the man took off running in the opposite direction.

"Fetch."

Serosh grinned with teeth too big for his mouth and sank into the shadows…