Seven Archangels: Annihilation

Jane Lebak

Chapter 4

         Lucifer flashed Camael, along with Mephistopheles and Beelzebub, into another lab area chamber, an easy feat of translocation for someone with enough willpower to lasso three souls and carry them away regardless of—or despite—their own intentions.

         Unable to be seen, still Camael tried to contain his gag on breathing an antiseptic odor covering a musty scent and the hint of smoke. Lucifer was pacing the room. As he moved, the chemical burn smell faded and intensified.

         This must be Lucifer's own chamber, his office, a place so secret that even Michael had never located it, let alone broken in—and yet here was Camael, carried inside like the closest of friends. For one mad moment Camael dreamed of exploding the place, shining light over all the dark corners, maybe for the first time since Hell's creation. He didn't.

         The scrape of a chair and a rustle of feathers. "I want a full account from all of you."

         The next scrape sounded different, wooden, a tall bench at a workstation: Mephistopheles' slighter form on a stool. Beelzebub's deep voice came from Camael's other side, at a height that meant he remained standing. "Why do you need an account? You were there."

         Camael slid down the wall and drew his ankles close.

         "It's an analysis," Mephistopheles said. "We have to ensure we did it right."

         "He's not there anymore. Of course we did it right!"

         For two hours, Lucifer debriefed Camael and the other two, one hundred twenty minutes of pure fright having seen one angel dead and knowing that if he wasn't fully, totally Camael, the next hour would see the death of a second. So many questions, so many different ways of asking the same thing. And every time, the same answers. Lucifer wanted to be sure. You had your hands in him. Did he die?

         Yes, I told you, I think he did.

         You think, or you know?

         I couldn't find anything else. He was there and then he burst into nothing when you moved through me and made that last pull.

         Not mentioning—not even remembering the moment Camael decided there was no choice but to resist, but then not enough time, that moment when it felt as if Gabriel were vacuumed backward, but then there was nothing at all and hope turned into emptiness when Camael realized it wasn't the arms of rescue but the suction of nothingness and the Abyss.

         Lucifer, all excited: had they really done it? And Camael, ripped in half again and again: yes, we did it. Mephistopheles: the evidence indicates that we succeeded, just as I hypothesized. Beelzebub: this is awesome, everything we've ever wanted.

         No, no, Lucifer would say at that point, let's go over it one more time. Just in case we missed something.

         After that excited roundabout, Lucifer and Beelzebub all the more fervent with every exchange and Mephistopheles more analytical and less certain (what if in theory—what if we allow for this differential) Lucifer received a message from Asmodeus, chief of Hell's army.

         Beelzebub let off an irritated sigh.

         "Come in," Lucifer said, but Camael felt that Lucifer actually looped him into the room. These must be unique Guards. You couldn't be let inside; you had to actually be drawn in like a fly on a frog's tongue. Camael wondered if the reverse were true and tried to send out a tendril of thought—but back it bounced. Interesting. In by pull, out by shove.

         Asmodeus bowed. "We've positioned sentries in defense formation as you ordered. No attacks so far." Again the irritated sigh from Beelzebub—Asmodeus had disrupted their meeting to report nothing? Asmodeus continued in his even bass, "I wanted to note something interesting."

         "Asmodeus," and the firmness conveyed that Lucifer's next words, however phrased, were to be considered a threat, "interest me."

         "The angels stationed in Creation are silent," Asmodeus said. "All of them. The tourists are gone, but the angels with assignments are paired up."

         Lucifer's chair creaked. "But silent?"

         "They're doubled up," Asmodeus repeated, "but nobody is singing."

         Camael recoiled. Beelzebub gasped.

         "That's what they did when he died," Mephistopheles whispered, his voice abruptly coming from the same corner as Beelzebub's.

         No one spoke.

         "We did it!" Beelzebub said. "I told you, we did it!"

         "We had sentries surrounding the Guarded dome over the field where you abducted him," Asmodeus said. "That dome remained in place and we were unable to break it, not even enough to see through, but—" and here they felt his excitement surge, "we were able to hear Raphael scream 'No!'"

         Camael felt both Beelzebub and Mephistopheles cringe simultaneously.

         Lucifer and the captain of the army pinpointed the moment the scream happened, about half a second before the annihilation finished. "That corresponds to when I broke their bond," Lucifer added.

         Mephistopheles sounded hollow. "You could find that?"

         "I saved it for last," Lucifer said, "in case Gabriel was in pain."

         Camael stared toward his hands, only he couldn't see them. I feel nothing. I feel nothing.

         "Are they in attack formation?" Lucifer asked.

         "They're not staging anything we can determine," Asmodeus said.

         "Excellent work." Lucifer cracked his knuckles. "Alert me if you think you can interest me again." And Asmodeus was gone.

         Camael's head dropped onto his folded arms, and all three pairs of wings came up over his head.

         Silent angels. A buddy system. No invasion. Gabriel dead.

         Gabriel.

         Dead.

         No—stop feeling. Feel nothing.

         Mephistopheles said, "We shouldn’t conclude too much from their behavior. I want to conduct one more sweep—"

         "We don't need one more sweep!" Beelzebub's energy sliced through the room like a quasar. "We did it!"

         Camael mustered his voice. "What's next?"

         Lucifer said, "I know you want to kill her, but she's last."

         Camael bit his lip. His blood had a sickly taste. Too cold in here. This was Hell—where was the fire? Where the sound? Silent angels. Silent Gabriel, never to sing again.

         I feel nothing.

         Mephistopheles said, "Michael is the next logical choice."

         "It would be to our advantage to take him down," Lucifer said. "When we thought we had only one chance, it had to be Gabriel. With two, though—Michael, or Uriel?"

         "We'd never get near Uriel," Beelzebub said. "Do you think we could do this to one of the monkeys?"

         Mephistopheles murmured, "I told you, they're not put together the same way."

         "It's too bad," Lucifer said, "because I'd love to permanently remove that woman from the picture."

         Beelzebub laughed. "Camael, who's your choice?"

         Camael stayed ducked. Raphael. If you killed Gabriel, it was only a kindness to obliterate his Seraph too and spare him existence as a half-moon and a lifetime of memories no one wanted to mention and a name you never wanted in the first place. To dance and hear only half the music, and to know God loved you but would not give back the only other thing you ever wanted even though you knew it was wrong even to want—

         "Suggestions, Camael?"

         Camael swallowed. "Raphael."

         "Not strategically significant."

         "With all due respect, sir," Camael said, "you don't know how Raphael is going to react. He might make himself important."

         Beelzebub snorted. "You mean like your sister did? Or like you?" He laughed. "I don't think we have anything to worry about."

         I feel nothing. I feel nothing.

         Lucifer was quiet.

         Camael laid his head on his folded arms, again tenting himself within his wings. Gone, going away. I feel nothing. I am nothing.

         Camael uncurled a long thought and snaked it outside the Guards as if they didn't exist, hunting for air, hungering for light and water, for someone's hand and a presence inside that said, you are, you feel, come to me.

         Camael felt thoughts probing over him, so he sent away his mind outside the Guard. Light. Quiet. Oblivion. Gabriel. Gabriel wasn't thinking anything any longer, never again. I feel nothing.

         "Debriefing is over. Dismissed," Lucifer said. Camael ended up free, somewhere else in Hell but carrying the hell of loss deep inside.

        

 

         Still in Lucifer's chamber, Mephistopheles found himself not dismissed.

         Lucifer was writing, a light scratch of nib against paper, and then, when Mephistopheles began wondering if he had been forgotten, said, "Camael is getting slippery."

         Mephistopheles said, "He's only a Virtue. That sustained an effort must have exhausted him."

         "He's hard to grip right now. He was probing outside my Guards. Observe him. I don't want him going insane."

         Mephistopheles listened to the pen scratching and tried to deduce the letters he was hearing written, at least the language if not the actual words. "I'll assign someone to assess his movements."

         "You know his value to this process," Lucifer said. "I don't need to tell you how displeased I'd be if we had to revert to our backup plan."

         Mephistopheles was sure the pattern he had just heard could be the letter n, but it might have been a ｶ or a p. "Will that be all, sir?"

         "Not yet." A pause in the writing, and then it resumed; that was almost definitely a ﾐ. "I'm fully aware that the discovery was all yours which enabled today's success."

         Mephistopheles inclined his head, knowing Lucifer would pick up the acknowledgment he projected.

         "I want you to get to work on a way of mass-producing the effect. A technique so any demon can work that way."

         Mephistopheles hummed. "Do you want that technique in everyone's hands?"

         Lucifer chuckled. "I'll make Beelzebub my next victory if he even thinks of trying it on me. And you can feel free to repeat that."

         "I didn't mean—"

         "Naturally you didn't." Lucifer continued writing. "Tell me, do you think it hurt Raphael when I broke their bond?"

         Shaking, Mephistopheles clenched his fists. "I can't say."

         "But surely you suspect. I've never seen fit to permanently fetter myself with such an anchor, but you and Beelzebub use the bond to your mutual advantage enough that I consider you an expert."

         Mephistopheles bit his lip. Lucifer was definitely writing in hiragana, but it might have been anything at all. A report, a poem, even the crossword puzzle. "I just violated God's sovereignty in a permanent way" ten thousand times.

         "If it didn't hurt at the moment," Mephistopheles said, "then I'm certain it hurts now."

         "Very well." Lucifer set down his pen. "Let me know if you ever want all your bonds broken. Dismissed."

         Mephistopheles found himself in his own chamber, pushed back through his own Guards. He sat on his desk with his head in his hands.

 

 

         They'd prayed. The group of angels and humans at the playground had prayed. Everyone in Heaven had prayed, once word went out. But Michael's sword was his prayer, and Raphael's deep injection of power toward Gabriel's soul was his. Uriel and Mary stood, hands clasped, tears over-shining both their faces as they united in prayer for one thing, one thing only.

         A dozen Principalities maintained a dome-shaped Guard over the field, shielding the archangels and saints.

         Across the field, Raphael had drawn storm clouds, six wings extended, eyes raised, wind whipping around him louder than a shout. Parents had gathered their children into minivans to hurry them home in advance of the storm, not knowing this storm would encompass all Heaven and Hell.

         Beside Raphael at the storm's center stood Israfel, adding her Seraph surge to the might that had shredded the temple veil and shaken the Earth on Good Friday. Their combined strength shot through creation like a needle: deep, insubstantial, a probe into the heart of Hell searching for the heart of God.

         Find him.

         Then Michael found Gabriel, found his own sigil protesting on Mephistopheles' hand, found Remiel's sigils shrieking rage, and he tracked their outcry through the labyrinths of the mind to the locked room in a lightless area. He landed on the roof of the room, then grasped and targeted that Seraphic spike, guiding it into the Guard like a surgeon's biopsy needle. Using his sword, he'd pried at the Guard—not enough to force himself inside, although the bonded pair within thought that was his intent. Instead he called to his sigil, and it responded. With thrusting against both sides, he widened the mesh just enough to slip that filament inside.

         Like a pump, Israfel and Raphael had flooded Gabriel with their strength, sending all but their souls into Gabriel's heart. Raphael couldn't force himself through, but he struggled to feed more than a tendril of power through the eye of that needle. And when at the end they all realized it was too late, not enough, no more time, Raphael engulfed whatever he could and aspirated everything out of that cell.

         With a cry, Raphael snapped back into himself, but more than himself because within him he contained the dissolved remnants of his bonded Cherub. Israfel dropped her sword.

         Uriel rolled out a command to the others like a shock wave: Everybody leave!

         Raphael knelt, eyes flared, hands open as if at a loss for what to do next, how to fasten together the shattered slivers of a soul. Millions of them.

         "Heal him!" Uriel's breath brushed Raphael's lips, their faces were so close. "Heal him—all of you! Don't let a single part of you not be healing him!"

         Raphael enfolded his wings around himself and Uriel. An amber sheen suffused the Seraph, pulsing, searching, seeking out every sliver of Gabriel—glue to grains of sand. The energy formed up like egg white, shimmering in Raphael's lap.

         "Dear God," Uriel was whispering in a voice lost to the wind, "dear God, let this work, please make this work—"

         Uriel could insert spiritual fingers into what Raphael had dragged back, but fitting the pieces together was like stitching marmalade. There wasn't nearly enough, and it had no cohesion.

         Uriel pulled back from Raphael's sphere.

         Mary had remained, Israfel at her side with one hand on her shoulder while the wind whipped their drenched hair.

         "Do you need me to go?" There was no reason for it, but Mary's voice had reverted to a hospital hush that the storm scattered like dry leaves.

         "Stay." Uriel looked at Israfel. "You should leave. Your substance might mix with his—but—"

         Israfel didn't budge.

         Uriel looked again at Raphael. "If anyone can heal him, he can. Their bond, plus his God-given healing ability. But…"

         Michael reappeared, pale, his red hair tousled and his eyes stark. The Archangel's whole soul formed one question mark, but Uriel just let him sample the silence to sense their tension. Michael plunged his sword into the ground and leaned on it, then dropped to his knees and rested his forehead against the hilt.

         Dear God, please make this work.

         Mary turned to Israfel. "Are you still strengthening Gabriel?"

         The angel faced the wind. "It's like pouring wine into a sieve."

         Mary stepped closer to the pregnant orb that was Raphael, her face aflicker with the ferocity of eternity and existence struggling to survive. "Gabriel," she whispered, "it's okay. We're working. You're with friends. God loves you. We'll find a way."

         Michael glanced at the Guard shimmering around the field. "We've got to move them both. If we're attacked here, now, I can't protect them. The slightest disruption—"

         "Agreed." Israfel sheathed her sword. "I'll cast a Guard around Raphael and transport them together." She frowned. "Where to?"

         "Gabriel's home," Michael said.

         "No." Uriel looked back over one shoulder. "Mine. There's too much of Gabriel's residue in his library, and the same with Raphael's house. We're going to need to repair him, and we'll need to know what's him and what's not without a question."

         Michael swallowed. "You're right. Mary—" He looked at her and drew a long breath. "I hate to say this, but stay here. Right where Raphael is now. In case something—some part of them gets left—"

         She bit her lip.

         Michael clasped his sword. "Okay. Move."

         Israfel appeared above Raphael, flung out her arms and all six wings and cast a magenta sphere around the amber orb of the Seraph healer, shading him violet. Uriel set a second orb around Israfel, and first Israfel vanished, then Uriel. Mary sat on the grass, her eyes on Michael until he wrenched his sword from the hill and vanished too, bringing the Principality Guard with him.

         It took another half hour for the storm to ebb, but Mary remained in the rain, eyes closed the whole time.

        

 

         Uriel guided Israfel and Raphael into the bedroom of Uriel's bungalow. Uriel immediately changed the house so there were no windows, and the walls and floor met without any seams or chinks. With the room now doorless, Uriel turned to Raphael.

         "I don't know what to do." Raphael's cracked words dissolved like a match shaken out.

         Israfel added, "He's so weak."

         Keep working. Uriel knelt in front of Raphael, who now existed half as disembodied energy and half his own spiritual form. The Throne extended a hand to the globule of an angel unrecognizable any longer as Gabriel. A touch evoked no response. "Gabriel? Cherub?"

         "Oh, God, my God," Raphael whispered, his hands over the orb. "He can't die now. You can't let him die like this. Not among friends. Not with all of us here."

         "He's firmer than he was." Michael had appeared from the hill and raked his hand back through his hair. Heat shimmered about him momentarily, and then the rain was gone from him. Israfel and Uriel had already done the same. "You're doing some good."

         "I can't feel his mind." Raphael remained soaked from the storm, but Michael understood why he wouldn't want to heat up.

         Israfel settled on the floor, her wings tucked at her back. "Holy, Holy, Holy," she sang, her voice a thread through the room. "Holy God, Holy Omnipotent, Holy Immortal, all your works adore you—"

         Raphael ran his fingers along the light energy inhabiting his lap, and he joined Israfel's song, the Trisagion of the Seraphim. "You are the one who was, and who is, and who is to come."

         Uriel sat with closed eyes, praying. Michael stood in the corner, pale.

         As if in a dream, Raphael raised his hands to shoulder height, and between them he cast a bar of light, then flicked the fingers of his left hand so it began to spin. Michael frowned, alone watching in silence as Israfel continued singing and Uriel continued praying. Raphael pulled his right hand away from the spindle, and it pivoted on the fingers of his left hand until it swung perpendicular to his lap, pointing at Gabriel.

         Michael's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak, but then he stopped himself.

         Raphael guided Gabriel's energy with his right hand, up and onto the spindle where it spun, then emerged on the other side more solid.

         "How—"

         Uriel raised a hand, and Michael fell silent. Israfel's song hesitated, but she maintained it.

         As Gabriel's fabric solidified, visions assaulted the four angels: memories, stray words and odd thoughts. Like four AM inspirations, impulses darted through their minds, apparitions, scenes from the wrong point of view.

         Michael recoiled, but he didn't leave.

         The flashes of Gabriel's experiences left no footprints. From one moment to the next they couldn't be sure what they had just been thinking, but Raphael continued spinning, and the spiritual energy continued thickening.

         Uriel moved in very close now. "Sing, Israfel. Keep singing. And Raphael, spin him through again. Make it tighter."

         The whole process repeated, Raphael guiding with his hands, an amber glow cast onto his lap. Israfel drifted to the end of the song, and she didn't resume. After a moment, she lifted a hand and focused her energy on Gabriel; Michael's head raised as the random memories intensified. Uriel sat taller.

         After the second spin, Raphael had in his lap an amorphous form, but semi-solid and with at least something of Gabriel's signature.

         Knee-to-knee with Raphael, Uriel traced cool fingers over the angel, guiding the body into a form, calming the rough areas, firming where it was too prone to melting away. It took time, but before Israfel's and Michael's gaze, the angel developed limbs, wings, then features, then an approximation of Gabriel's features.

         Sitting back, Uriel breathed deep.

         Raphael sought out the Throne with wide eyes, water still dripping down his neck.

         Uriel opened both hands and looked down.

         Raphael flinched, his body projecting mortal confusion.

         Uriel was barely audible. "It will come in God's time. The Spirit showed you how to spin."

         "We can't leave him like this," Raphael urged.

         Uriel looked right into Raphael's eyes. "You're exhausted. I'm exhausted. No one has any clear idea of what to do next, so until God chooses—"

         "That's crazy!" Water sprayed around the room as Raphael's wings snapped open. "God let this happen! God let them attack with no warning, and now you're suggesting we just wait on God?"

         Israfel met Raphael's eyes, the heat rolling off her. "Maybe we could wait for God to send in a second wave of demons."

         "Or a text message." Raphael's fire surged. "We could wait for a clear sign for years and let Gabriel fall to pieces and find out afterward that God wanted us to do something rather than sitting on our wingtips waiting for revelations with instructions."

         Michael found his hand on his sword, but Uriel remained calm. "We've discussed this before, that God won't step in to avoid the results of someone's evil."

         "Don't try to out-Gabriel Gabriel!" The pitch of Raphael's voice had steepened to a painful degree. "This isn't theory! This is his life and he's almost dead and there's hardly anything left of him, and it wasn't his evil, and it wasn't his fault!"

         Israfel said, "How can you call non-interference fair when Gabriel is going to die and Gabriel never sinned?"

         Israfel and Raphael both gasped simultaneously, and Israfel darted toward the angel in Raphael's lap.

         "He moved?" Michael whispered.

         "Gabriel?" Israfel stroked where his hand ought to be. "Gabriel, squeeze my hand."

         Nothing.

         Uriel moved between Israfel and Gabriel. "Raphael, Israfel, the two of you have got to get control. He's trying to absorb your fire, and it'll tear him apart in this state."

         Raphael closed his eyes and stilled his soul's vibrations.

         "Gabriel," Israfel whispered again, "can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand?" She draped herself and her wings over Raphael's lap, resting her head on the crook of Raphael's arm and keeping Gabriel cuddled at her shoulder. "You've got to come back. Please, just let us know you're still in there."

         Raphael rested his hand where Gabriel's shoulder ought to be. With his eyes closed and his mouth twisted, he swallowed. "For the love of God, Gabriel, don't leave me."

         The milky form shifted on Raphael's lap.

         Michael shivered.

         Uriel looked at Raphael. "You're going to have to be his principal healer for as long as it takes. Can you stay with him?"

         Liquid gold, Raphael's eyes projected that he wouldn't leave.

         Uriel turned to Michael. "I've got the room Guarded, but I want you to re-Guard it over mine and link to my permissions. We'll make sure there's no second strike."

         Michael did this.

         Uriel opened both hands in such a way that the room itself widened, then created a full-size bed in the corner and a couple of chairs. Raphael gathered Gabriel, allowing one pair of his wings to drop around his shoulders like a cloak, which Israfel pulled free and gathered underneath the Cherub's form. They wrapped it tight before lowering Gabriel on the comforter. Stretched out, he lay so small, wispy like a malnourished four-year-old.

         Uriel told Michael and Israfel, "I'm going to ask the two of you to leave. Raphael is already so close to him, and at any rate he needs to be here, but I don't want to have lots of angelic residue when I get down to the actual repair work. It might be difficult to tell what's him and what isn't, and in this state his soul might graft onto anything else around."

         "Except for you," Michael said.

         Uriel shrugged. "I know what's me."

         "I only meant you're made of Teflon."

         Uriel snickered. "I'm a Throne."

         "I know your choir. It's the same thing." Michael departed.

         After laying her hand on Gabriel's forehead, Israfel left too.

         Uriel sat at the edge of the bed, wrapped in a purple aura of prayer, wings relaxed. Silence enveloped the scene, the only movement the flicker of Raphael's healing glow that traveled over Gabriel's form while the Seraph sat closed-eyed at his side.

         Mary appeared in the room, drenched, and Uriel looked up to meet her gaze.

         She extended a hand. At the very center of her palm lay a silver drop, rounded on itself like a bead of mercury.

         Uriel closed both eyes and struggled against a frown.

 

Copyright 2008, Jane Lebak

Cover

Copyright 2008, E. J. Mickels

E.J.Mickels II—aka 'Hisart'— a multi talented artist, has a BFAA in Drawing with Minors in Illustration and Graphic Design from the University of Akron. A veteran of the USAF, he has traveled through Europe and most of the USA.

E.J. ventured out as an Illustrator and has appeared in The Sword Review as well as Ray Gun Revival and in Dragons, Knights and Angels. He also wrote and keeps his own web-site-< www.Hisart.us >—which contains a small fraction of the art he has produced. He works in any medium and is just as comfortable setting at a PC with pen and tablet as he is with a chainsaw, airbrush or welder. He has done custom motorcycle and helmet work, as well as in the distant pas,t worked as a tattooist. He is also a writer, he participated in NaNoWriMo 2005, and maintains his own blog 'Sword and Pen' at < www.hisart777.blogspot.com >.

E.J. is currently the ArtWrangler at Double-Edged Publishing's Fear and Trembling magazine: < www.fearandtremblingmag.com >.