Mason Johanson Is a Falling Star (mutinous) wrote in repose,
Re: Church: Janus/Mason
Ella's job was of the moment, an assignment rather than a vocation. Her primary assignment was simple as a songbird, to be as she was for him. He had bargained her freedom for her company, and never once regretted bringing her on. Not every one of his birds earned his trust. Ella had earned enough to be sent to this mortal plain on assignment on her own. He must see something in her, then.
However he'd managed it, he seemed utterly comfortable, the preacher. No hint of something unholy bursting from the shell it lived in, not a whisper or a flicker of dark energy, not a whiff of sulfur. Then again, he was very old, and very practiced, the dissembler of dissemblers. If he couldn't by now reduce his person to a kernel of nothing, if he couldn't hide or disguise himself, if he couldn't fully absorb his being into compliant flesh, he was not the power that had been described. Only an amateur would so obviously burst the seams of their chosen shape. He had sunk deep into the skin and bones, multiplying there like radioactive isotopes in marrow. He might even bleed when cut.
He grinned, unexpectedly, when she said the church had made her hesitate. It was a grin that said he wouldn't tell anybody if she wouldn't. He had a talent for drawing others into tiny conspiracies of rule-breaking, small infractions that added up to trust and temptation. "Being old?" he asked, with a chuckle. "I don't think you'll line, darlin."