Seven Archangels: Annihilation

Jane Lebak

Chapter 11

         Saraquael's summons came to Michael while he was securing three minor demons outside a church. Leaving them with a pair of Archangels, he reappeared at Uriel's bungalow.

         Saraquael was handing Uriel a paper packet the size of a credit card. Michael looked over Uriel's shoulder at the mottled beige paper, blank but regardless imprinted with a message. Remiel's: I found this but can't check more.

         Uriel uncreased the paper to find six beadlets.

         Michael tried to swallow his disappointment. Uriel refolded the paper and flashed to Gabriel's room.

         Saraquael said, "She doesn't sound good in that message. Rattled."

         "You think they came close to capturing her?"

         Saraquael flinched. "We ought to pull her out of there."

         Michael considered.

         "No, I didn't see her." Saraquael dragged a hand through his hair. "She left it on my desk, and it felt to me like it had been done long-distance, maybe from the plane of Creation. I'm worried about her. About everyone assigned right now."

         Michael rubbed his chin. "The enemy is getting bolder, too. Spiritual attacks are way up since this started."

         "I've been deploying more angels but ordering they move in pairs," Saraquael said. "The idea being at least one could get word out if they're attacked, and I keep telling them all just to run for help, not to stick around long enough to be the 'second victim.' But it's possible for a pair to be overwhelmed."

         Michael smiled. "Put the Cherubim on it."

         "I'll give it a cool name, too, like Operation Lifeguard." Saraquael clapped Michael on the shoulder. "You'll figure something out, don't worry."

         "You're more confident in my abilities than I am."

         "It's not you I'm confident in."

         "Oh, sure." Michael gave him a shove. "Drag God into it, why don't you?"

         A moment after Saraquael departed, Michael felt surprise from Gabriel's room, and in he flashed.

         Raphael was sitting on the side of the bed, his guitar standing by his calf, and Michael saw Gabriel's hand was resting on his.

         Uriel and Raphael both looked stunned. Michael said, "Is he awake?"

         Uriel projected that Gabriel seemed to have reached for Raphael deliberately. Raphael assented, but Michael could feel his distress: apparently he still wasn't picking up anything from Gabriel.

         Michael looked at Uriel, who nodded back at him. So Michael departed.

         At the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, Michael prayed for what was happening right at this moment. Uriel would have put a Guard around the room and reached into Gabriel's heart with the same hands that had reached into Michael's only a little earlier.

         At the edge of his awareness, Michael felt three Angels join him, keeping watch. He'd forgotten his own orders, but they hadn't. It was a ridiculously stupid slip-up, but thankfully no harm done.

         Wings cupped about himself, Michael reached for God's hand and squeezed, so tense, unable to form words or even to formulate the desire, but he knew God knew, and close at hand God remained.

         He looked at the other mountains, all so young. He could remember their formation. One of the nearby mountains was still a perfect cone, and from here he could see another mountain that used to be taller than the peak on which he sat. Although he was near the equator, crunchy snow clustered around him, yielding only at the lower elevations to brown and then to green as the land fell toward the earth and joined the other valleys. Michael let the winds tug at his feathers, tilted back his head and let the world sing its praises to God while he offered back all that beauty in exchange for Gabriel's life.

         Uriel appeared next to Michael.

         Surprised, he opened his wings to look at the Throne: Done already? Shouldn't it have taken hours, all that fine beadwork? Or did Michael need to help somehow?

         Uriel met Michael's gaze with eyes that glistened.

         Michael grabbed his knees to his chest, dropping his forehead to them, and clapped his wings back around himself like a clamshell.

         Uriel said, "He's going to die."

         Michael only shook his head.

         They shouldn't be having this conversation here, out in the open in the middle of Creation. He knew that, and yet he couldn't marshal the will to move, to even ask more questions. Uriel had tears but wasn't crying. The last time Uriel cried had been after the winnowing.

         Uriel touched Michael, wing to wing, and in the next moment they were both at a lakeside in Heaven. Michael saw the six Angels, their escort, taking places in the trees just at the edge of sight.

         Michael managed to say, "Does Raphael realize?"

         "I couldn't have hidden it from him." Uriel sat on the ground and traced lines in the gravel. "He's the healer. It takes him an instant to diagnose, another instant to heal, yet for all the energy he's poured into him, Gabriel hasn't done more than tread water."

         "The things Jesus taught you—"

         "I tried. I tried and tried, but there wasn't enough thread or string there to make it work. Look." Uriel drew a line of light in the air, a cord as thick around as the circle of thumb and forefinger. "That's what yours was like, flexible and healthy. This was what Gabriel's was like." And here Uriel skipped one finger through the air, creating a ragged string only a foot in length, shredded like used dental floss. "I can't tie that. I wound together a couple of pieces, but even at that I was afraid it would break. And Michael, yours seemed to go on for a kilometer. This was all of his I could find."

         Michael turned back to the water. "Could it have been hidden inside, just not where you expected to find it?"

         "It would be like misplacing a Howitzer cannon in a broom closet."

         "Jesus told you we had to find as much as we could."

         "But that string would have to be somewhere, and no one's found it. We searched the field. Remiel searched the cell. I even searched my house, but it's not there."

         "Then it's up to Raphael," Michael said.

         Uriel's eyes flashed. "He can't do any more than he has. Jesus gave the work to me, and I can't do it."

         "Jesus said it depended on him holding on."

         "And I can tell you right here and now that I haven't any idea what that means." Uriel stood. "I'm sorry, Michael. Give me a minute."

         As Uriel walked away, Michael stared into the water, stared and listened. There were fish in the lake, and dragonflies, and birds above. Trees whispered in accompaniment to the lapping wavelets, and the insects hummed a descant as they darted. He wished it would rain, drown out the whisperings and the zings of the insects, just smother it all in an unfriendly roar of falling water and gusting wind.

         Uriel returned. "I'm sorry. There's no reason to get mad at you. I'm beginning to think Jesus said I had the assignment rather than Raphael because he didn't want Raphael to blame himself when it failed."

         Michael flinched. "But...  Can't we do anything?"

         "I already had this conversation with Raphael, only he won't accept it." Uriel's head bowed. "He keeps telling me we'll find a way to pull him through, and I can't see that we can with what there is."

         Michael said, "Jesus wouldn't have given us encouragement if there were no hope."

         Uriel smiled ruefully. "You have so much faith."

         Michael swallowed. "You trust God more than anyone I know."

         "I trust him to do what's best," Uriel said. "That doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Nor that we're going to like it. If Gabriel's death were for God's greater glory, I have no doubt Gabriel will die, and that in the long run we'll praise God that he did."

         After a moment, Uriel added, "I combed everything Jesus told me. He said the job was mine. I can't remember at all him saying I would succeed."

         Michael tossed a pebble into the pond. "What more can we do for Raphael?"

         "I'm going to give him a breather, send him out to look over Gabriel's jurisdiction." With folded arms, Uriel gazed across the pond the way Michael was looking, a more intimate togetherness than looking into his eyes. "He returned before so restored. Once it's over, I don't know." Uriel nudged the gravel. "I can't imagine one without the other."

         Michael said, "Remiel adjusted."

         Uriel said, "Remiel."

         Michael arched his neck and looked at the sky. "Maybe the added parts Remiel found will help him turn a corner." He drew a long breath. "In the meantime, I'll get Ophaniel on it. Maybe he can figure out where the other parts might be."

         Uriel said and projected nothing.

         They returned to Raphael and Gabriel, Michael wondering what they'd find, what he'd say, how much Raphael would admit.

         The Seraph sat playing guitar, subtle finger-picking in a repetitive tuneless fashion, a basso continuo more than a song, over and over. With his eyes closed, he played. Michael realized the song itself served as the prayer he couldn't pray.

         They didn't interrupt. Uriel stood at the window looking outside, hair gleaming black in the sunlight.

         "Excuse me," Michael heard.

         He turned to find Mary in the corner holding a vase of lilies. "I had an idea."

         Uriel sent a wave of recognition, and Raphael, looking up, cried, "That's his!"

         Mary put the vase into Raphael's hands. "I don't know if this would be of any use, but you can have them."

         Michael sent out a question.

         "Oh, I'm sorry." Mary turned to him. "Gabriel gave these to me the first time he appeared, when he told me about Jesus. He didn't have them when he arrived, but just before he left he handed them to me, and they've never wilted."

         Michael's eyes widened. "He must have formed them from his soul material, only he never called them back to himself."

         Raphael held the vase close to his chest. "You understand the flowers won't be here any longer."

         "But he might," Mary said.

         Uriel snapped.

         "I'll get the word out." Michael summoned Saraquael, then belayed that and went for the Dominion himself.

         Half an hour later, they had located four more soul-manifestations of Gabriel. Uriel placed them beside Gabriel on the bed and set about finding a way to distill them back to soul-essence, nearly impossible because an angel locks a form like that with his will, and Gabriel wasn't able to unlock them himself.

         One of the items had been a brass key, worn to dullness, only an inch long.

         "What's the story behind that?" Michael asked Saraquael in the kitchen.

         "I nearly had to mortgage my soul to get it." Saraquael rested on one of the cushions. "He'd given it to a woman on Earth when she was a girl, and she'd worn the thing on a chain ever since. I offered her a replacement, a duplicate, a bathtub full of cash, but she wouldn't part with it. In the end I had to explain why I needed it and she just handed it over."

         Michael chuckled. "I'd love to hear him tell the story behind that."

         "I'd love to hear him tell us anything right about now." Saraquael rubbed his eyes and raised his aqua-tinged wings. "What's next?"

         "Have you made any progress on Operation Whatever Cool Name We Gave It?"

         "You're getting punchy." Saraquael shook his head. "I started the Cherubim debating. After another half hour I'll step in, poll the top three ideas, and bring them back to you. Assuming they're all metaphysical possibilities."

         Michael snickered. "That's always a danger with them."

         "Because if something's not possible, I'll get a couple of hours of why in a perfect universe it should be. I know." Saraquael stood. "But there are other things I should be doing, so I'll get to them."

         "You can rest a bit," Michael said.

         Saraquael shook his head. "I'd rather be working." And he vanished.

         Michael returned to Uriel and Mary, who looked up wearing a huge grin. "We unlocked the flowers."

         Uriel said, "I'm not sure how much it added, but they're done. I'm trying the rest of them."

         Raphael returned carrying a hard-sided black box the size of an overnight bag. "I remembered this."

         Uriel grimaced. Michael felt the Throne projecting that Raphael should put it back.

         Raphael vibrated angrily.

         "God made that, not Gabriel." Uriel returned all attention to the assortment of objects. "I'm not going to destroy it."

         "It's quite possibly—"

         Uriel projected, No.

         Raphael set it on the windowsill.

         Michael said, "You know, if he sees you treating it badly, he may just get out of bed to beat you up."

         Raphael chuckled.

         "What is it?" Mary said.

         "His trumpet."

         She whistled, but she didn't ask to see it.

         Raphael had flamelets around his eyes, but he didn't insist. In the next moment, Michael realized he was trying to stay calm so Gabriel didn't reflexively absorb the fire.

         Michael wanted to say that given what Uriel had found inside, the trumpet probably wouldn't make a difference, but his mouth went dry and his throat tightened.

         We have to find that string. The cord. Whatever it is. Otherwise all this does is delay.

         Uriel didn't look away from the objects on the bed. "Raphael, you'd better go now. Take a break. Like we said before."

         Raphael kept his eyes on Gabriel for a while. He rested his hand on the Cherub's head, whispered a blessing, and murmured, "Hang in there." Then he departed.

 

 

         Raphael ran through Gabriel's jurisdiction, rounds they'd often made together during brighter days. Raphael knew all the angels he checked up on and who asked for assistance. Gabriel had the areas of higher education (naturally) and communications (less obviously) so Raphael found himself dealing with professors and students, messy add/drop forms, miraculous cell phone reception for a stranded traveler in the middle of New York State's southern tier, and a newspaper editor trying to prove one of his columnists had made up his material—and furthermore, figure out what to do about it.

         Again as he moved through the list of needs, Raphael heard repeatedly how sorry everyone was, as if he somehow owned the loss—and that everyone was praying.

         It's true, he realized. Everyone was praying but no one was singing.

         Not even a sad song. Even angels who made up songs on the fly about the people they guarded kept an odd silence. If he listened, Raphael could hear the Trisagion, the holy-holy-holy maintained continuously by the Seraphim before the throne of glory. But only that.

         Raphael arrived in the park where Gabriel had been abducted, solid and wingless, his guitar again in hand. It was too much silence, too many angels in shocked separateness rather than together under the same burden.

         Children played on the swings, and others climbed the slides and clambered over the monkey bars, their guardians keeping their grips sure and their feet steady.

         Raphael warmed his hands, surprised by the briskness of the morning, but when it came time to play a song, he stopped. He knew a million songs and could play any instrument he'd ever come across, but right now he couldn't choose a tune, couldn't decide on a melody or words.

         "Hey," a little girl said. "You were here yesterday."

         Raphael nodded, thinking at the same time, Only yesterday?

         "You gonna play again?" The girl looked to be about eleven, longhaired and lithe. Raphael noted her orange-winged guardian standing a short distance away, and behind him, an angel with two-toned wings watching with singular intent. In the tree above them was one of the Angels Michael had deployed to keep tabs on him.

         "What's your name?" Raphael asked the girl.

         "Elizabeth." The girl folded her arms. "What are you going to play?"

         "I can't decide." Raphael forced a smile. "You pick something."

         "I can play Arkansas Traveler on the piano," she said, "so I know the words if you can play the music."

         Raphael played, and Elizabeth sang. She suggested Shortnin' Bread next, but she only knew one verse, so after three repetitions they gave it up.

         "You're fun," the girl said. "Are you going to be back again?"

         Raphael said, "I'm not sure," sending his fingers picking over chord progressions again.

         Elizabeth said, "You look sad."

         "One of my friends is very sick." Raphael looked at the guitar, almost unfamiliar with his own fingers as they moved with such assurance.

         "Is he going to die?" Elizabeth didn't wait for an answer. "I'll pray for him, okay?"

         "Thanks." Raphael forced a smile. "He'll appreciate that."

         She grinned. "I've gotta run now. See you!" and she raced across the playground to her brothers.

         The guitar sang softer now. No angels joined it. Raphael scattered his senses across the field, listening with his heart to feel anything that might have been Gabriel's, but nothing answered.

         "Excuse me, mister?" Elizabeth was back. As he tried to focus on her, she handed him a stuffed teddy bear on a key chain. He turned it over, seeing where the fuzz had been worn off the nose and the white belly gotten dirty, but he also saw her bright smile, and he thanked her.

         "That way your friend will have something," she said, then darted back to her brothers.

         Raphael looked at her guardian, and he found the orange-winged angel and the two-toned one standing side by side, arms folded, smiling at the girl. The two-toned one projected toward Raphael that he was very sorry, and they were praying. Raphael thanked him.

         The park quieted down with the kids gone. Singing with the girl had opened a floodgate of songs in his mind. He slowed his fingers to a crawl over the strings, but he only played. His heart wasn't in his voice, and he was afraid to try singing if it was only going to shatter everything holding him together. A crow called across the park, and from the distant houses a wind-chime clanged. Raphael paused, then continued playing guitar.

 

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 >.