Tanya glanced at him, and wondered if she ought to feel sorry for this Nero whenever Spocklar caught up with him. He probably wouldn't be as viciously creative as Azarael would, but Azarael...was Azarael. Not much could top him in that department.
"I'm sure you'll get the first turn," she said cryptically, following his glance to Sharley and her scars. "Azarael's...ex-wife, I guess you'd call her...gave those to her," she said, finally releasing Spocklar's hands so she could go help deal with Sharley's hair. "I always figured since she survived that bitch, she could survive anything, but that's what happens when you're mortal. I'm not surprised you never saw them--she's ridiculously oversensitive about them, though I never could figure out why."
She'd just brushed all the hair out of Sharley's grey (though now blood-free) face, when the zombies scattered into the shadows. Ordinarily they weren't at all afraid of Azarael, but right now...oh hell no. They were honestly only amazed that their Mama wasn't. She wasn't, and she remained unafraid even when Azarael stood in her doorway.
He stood an easy six and a half feet tall, shrouded in black, his face as marble-smooth as Tanya's though rather less pale. His resemblance to Sharley was somewhat vague; she certainly got her height from him, but the only other tie they really had was in his eyes--they were a peculiar orange-ish color, inhuman as an owl's, and they were exactly the same shade as the small piece of Sharley's right iris that didn't match the rest. Unlike Tanya, who one might have taken for human upon cursory examination, Azarael couldn't have passed for human if he'd wanted to.
He was bad enough under normal circumstances, but now, with such fury emanating from him like some kind of deadly radiation, he was a creature wholly terrifying--or at least, he was, until he actually stepped into the room and laid one incredibly long-fingered hand on his daughter's face. Tanya watched him like a hawk, but for a long, long moment he said nothing at all. In his own way he was as appalled by Sharley's death as Spocklar, for like Spocklar, though he knew objectively she was mortal, he'd also not really imagined her ever dying.
Tanya moved to take Spocklar's hand, mostly to give him some kind of an anchor against the free-roaring hurricane of intangible but unchecked wrath that was currently the Sea of Az.
"Take this outside," he said, when he finally did speak. "There is not room enough in here." He turned and left without another word, out into the uneasy whisper of the trees outside. The zombies scrambled to obey him, actually lifting the whole table, and Tanya gave Spocklar's hand a reassuring squeeze.
"He'll make it okay," she said. "He and I will, but we're going to need your help, and I've got to ask it because I know Az'll never think to."