"Annihilation, Chapter 19" by Jane Lebak

Chapter 19

Mephistopheles had two minor demons chained side by side as he compared them in a feasibility study for the manufacture of a chimera. He kept all his notes in his head, as usual, where no prying eyes or backstabbing competition could snitch a peek, and he gathered information. Bits and bits and bits of disconnected information.

Gabriel.

He remembered talking with him in the cell, waiting for Lucifer to come and destroy, discussing what really happened when a soul came apart and one moment became the final moment. Mephistopheles recalled the rapid exchange of theories, their questions and the answers they'd provided one another. Gabriel's eyes had sparkled like silver when he'd learned how God had manufactured him.

Gabriel's glow had pierced the lab area.

He remembered that burst of understanding in Gabriel's eyes, the one Cherub in all creation who might have rivaled his intellect. The moment of comprehension, the unreachable theory of how to form a new angel or destroy an old one, it had been their shared victory over ignorance, and he ought to have smiled because he had made that singular moment possible. But then he knew what else he'd made possible, and the realization penetrated him like a rapier.

Fire formed behind him, and Mephistopheles aroused himself enough to recognize Beelzebub's arrival. Without turning from the pair of minor demons, Mephistopheles allowed his soul to siphon off part of his fire and in return offer back a sense of Cherubic stillness.

"How dare you?" Beelzebub said.

Mephistopheles spun to face him.

Beelzebub burned. His eyes were in flames, and his wings vibrated, and his mouth had formed a tight line.

Mephistopheles steeled himself. "What are you doing?"

Beelzebub was in such a state that he threw off heat. "What are you doing?"

Mephistopheles gestured at the pair. "I have a theory—"

"You think too often." Beelzebub stepped closer. "And what benefit has it gotten you?"

Fighting the urge to back toward the minor demons, Mephistopheles tried again to siphon off the fire. There was so much that it hurt. Beelzebub wasn't just enflamed—he was enflamed at him. There was too much power. Something had fueled this fire.

Asmodeus? Belior? Lucifer?

Beelzebub's power surged beyond anything Mephistopheles had witnessed since the crucifixion. Powered like this he might be a match for Lucifer himself, only he stood here instead. And that meant—

"Stop thinking!" Beelzebub's eyes glowed white in the center, and he lunged for Mephistopheles, grabbed his arms to his sides with a grip like two train couplings slamming together. "You're always doing this, running off into your own head and treating me like something to leave behind as fast as possible!"

"What are you talking about? Let go! I'm not fighting you!" Mephistopheles twisted, and then fell as Beelzebub released him. He couldn't take down this fire. It would be like quelling the sun with a garden hose. "What's gotten to you?"

"Why must it be something getting to me, as if you're the only one who ever knows what's going on?" Beelzebub's wings were spread fully from his side, and he took up so much of the world. "Maybe I can finally see what's going on, and you're not the only one with any brains."

"What are you talking about?" Mephistopheles took a step toward him. His face was right near Beelzebub's, and he made his eyes piercing, not flinching even though it hurt to stare into that white glow. "It's not that you're not rational, it's that you haven't given me a reason why you're so angry."

"Did the annihilation weaken you?"

Mephistopheles raised one hand to his neck. "No—"

Beelzebub caught his hand between them. "Then what's going on in your head? You're sullen, you're disturbed, you're ineffective—"

Mephistopheles yanked back his hand. "Do you care?"

"Absolutely I care! People are talking, people are laughing at me, and I don't have to tell you the politics if you're weakened."

Of course if that was the case, having this discussion in front of two low-class loudmouths wasn't going to help matters.

Mephistopheles flashed them away. "This isn't about politics."

Beelzebub's cape rippled in his own heat. "Then why don't you tell me what it's about? I just got called into our lord's chamber and got humiliated and lambasted because of you!"

Mephistopheles radiated surprise.

"You're asking Asmodeus for favors? You're not working on the task Lucifer set you? You're going to the gates of Heaven and begging for Raphael to come out so you can apologize?"

"I didn't— Beelzebub, that's not true!"

Although it burned his heart, Mephistopheles tried again to pull the power. It charged him, but now he shook. And despite that, there was still a volcano mid-eruption in front of him.

"Don't you dare." Coming closer still, Beelzebub's voice deepened to a growl. "I'm not good enough for you until you need it, and the instant I see what you're really like, you try to reach inside and work that magic to put me on your leash."

Mephistopheles gulped. There was nothing to do. He couldn't handle Beelzebub this way. With time, maybe. He needed someone else to help him take down that power—but there was no one. Lucifer wouldn't. No one else could. He could run for Heaven's gates, knowing they'd shelter him at least long enough to let Beelzebub calm himself—hell, he'd shelter one of the enemy if it gave him a crack at winning them over—

Beelzebub backhanded him, and Mephistopheles went down on his knees. "Quit thinking! I'm right here in front of you! Look at me!"

Was this the fear Gabriel had felt in those last moments? Was this the same agony, knowing he'd never see his Seraph again?

"I said quit thinking!" Beelzebub kicked him in the head, and Mephistopheles rolled with the blow back onto hands and knees, then leaped into the air and flashed away. He had no destination—he just ran, and at his heels he felt the Seraph, the black flames, the acid power.

Beelzebub nabbed him, tackled him, flashed him into the floor of a cavernous room in the labs. His anger's glow shattered the darkness, painting him red, casting shadows. Mephistopheles rolled sideways to regain his feet, but then Beelzebub was down on top of him, pinning his hands back, hips to hips, legs tangled in his. Mephistopheles fought, but a Guard sealed the room, and he couldn't struggle free. Beelzebub leaned forward, wings curved like a canopy over them both.

"You wouldn't take my power for days." Beelzebub's face was close enough to breathe into Mephistopheles' mouth. Their eyes were inches apart. "You resisted me long enough, and now you want to make nice, you worthless parasite? Well take it then, take all of it!"

Mephistopheles' eyes flew wide. "Please—!"

"I own you." Beelzebub arched his back. "From now on, you look only at me!"

Then he forced himself inside, a spear of Seraphic fire solid with fury. Mephistopheles tried to clamp his heart closed, tried to deaden their bond, but Beelzebub's power surged like water through a fire hose, opening all the kinks, flooding him, ramming itself inside no matter what he did. Mephistopheles screamed, screamed, begged, no let this stop, please it's too much, please I'll do anything, I can't—

Beelzebub's form tensed over him like a volcanic eruption, power searing from him into the Cherub, too much power, hot energy broiling the air. Mephistopheles yelled, unable to escape as Beelzebub shot him full of fire. The Seraph's eyes drilled into his, and like debris in a flood, everything in Mephistopheles churned to the surface: all his memories, all this thoughts, his theories, his desires, his guilt, his everything. And as it churned back up into Beelzebub, the Seraph laughed at it, mocked the things he couldn't understand, jeered at every pain and the little moments as he shed light on every privacy and every single, dark, little thing that had wanted to remain in darkness.

"Scream all you want," Beelzebub hissed into his face. "No one cares. Lucifer doesn't care. Asmodeus doesn't care. Even God doesn't care."

Mephistopheles went limp beneath him.

At some point he realized the pain had abated. He didn't know for how long. He was lying in the dark, a spent Seraph and himself on the rough rock.

Beelzebub climbed away from him and crumpled to the ground. Mephistopheles curled on his side, his knees to his chest, his forearms guarding his face, one wing up over his head. He might have been there a thousand years. It might have been seconds.

"Don't make me do that again." Beelzebub's voice sounded quiet, so quiet in comparison to the screaming fire. Where was he? "I hate that you made me do that."

He kicked the wing to uncover Mephistopheles' head. It didn't hurt. How could it not hurt? How could anything hurt ever again?

For a moment he wondered if Beelzebub had come closer and extended his hand, and he tensed rock solid. But all Beelzebub said was, "Whatever you've done, I won't bring it up again."

With him so close and so spent, Mephistopheles could rip out Beelzebub's heartstrings now and be rid of him forever. But he didn't.

Then the Guard was down and the Seraph gone, and only the Cherub remained.

Warmth.

Hands. Softness. Sadness. Worry.

It's okay. I think it's okay.

Why do I think it's okay?

I don't know.

Worry. Not my worry.

Father?

Gabri'li, Gabriel-mine, stay with them.

I don't know.

You're hurt. Stay with them, Gabri'li.

"Gabriel." Firm voice. Worried. Uriel. "I'm going inside. Stay focused."

Gabriel tried to grasp the fog around him, groped for a landmark, wished for a handhold amid the swirl. Tides drifted him sideways, rocked him. Sleep.

Then confusion, fear, tension. Gabriel flexed his spine, wings snapping open.

Crashing sounds, an outcry. The tension ended. Michael's voice: "Clear the room! Everything out!"

A moment later the ground beneath him felt harder, the room emptier, the sounds more echoing. Back to the fog.

"Gabriel," came Uriel's voice again. "Try to hold still. I'm reaching in."

Again panic, tension, twisting. Tumult around him, and then it eased off.

"Raphael, hold him!"

"I can't! It's reflex."

"He's got to be still."

"I'll try getting into his mind," Raphael said. "Then you can go in again."

A moment later, the fog thinned, and Gabriel had the peculiar feeling of being two places at once, one in the fog, one above himself in the cell where Remiel had attacked Camael, only all the furnishings and contents and even Camael himself had gone. Looking through Raphael's eyes, he saw himself in his own lap—except it was Raphael's lap. Scary to see oneself so faint, as if an errant wind could snuff out the spark. Michael looked on a razor's edge of strain, and Uriel wore lines of tension.

You have to stay still, Raphael told him.

Gabriel agreed. He watched as Raphael knotted his hands around his own, feeling the double-touch from both sides as if he was touching his own hand. "Let's go."

But as soon as Uriel went inside, Gabriel felt the tension, the pressure, the urge to run away—fight them—where am I? and he flexed right out of Raphael's grasp.

Uriel pulled back again, and this time no calm remained in the Throne's eyes. "I can't do anything if he doesn't stay still!"

Michael moved closer. "I'll Guard him down to the floor."

"No, you will not," Raphael said.

"Uriel needs him still. He's thrashing."

"He can't help it." Raphael crossed his arms over Gabriel's chest. "When you touch the string, it triggers a reflex, and he moves, and then he doesn't know where he is, and he gets frightened. It also doesn't feel all that pleasant."

Gabriel realized he'd sent some of that through Raphael. The Seraph continued, "So I'm not going to let you Guard him down. It's too much like what they did."

Uriel said, "I need him in one place."

"Give me another chance," said Raphael.

"And if that doesn't work," Michael said, but Raphael interrupted, "Then you'll give me another one after that."

Gabriel felt Raphael concentrate, and the Seraph's spirit slipped away from him. He tried to cry out for him, but then he tumbled back into the fog, grasping at a world as insubstantial as a cloud. He called for God.

You're not alone.

Gabriel tried to curl around himself in the mist, but even then he felt himself drifting apart.

A light shone; next two lights. He concentrated on those. Hearing, "Hold onto me," Gabriel trained on the voice, focused on the amber light and in that moment recognized Raphael come to him, face to face, battling the same currents only without drifting. Here was solidity. Gabriel extended his heart for an anchor.

"We're together," Raphael said. "We're going to do this together."

Gabriel relaxed, less afraid of his own body as long as Raphael stayed near.

"You need to stay still." Raphael's heart nestled around his. "Completely still. You need to relax so Uriel can tighten your heartstrings. It may hurt, but we're going to do this together."

Gabriel looked into the amber and resolved to stay still.

"Now," Raphael whispered.

Every part of Gabriel felt like fire, but he trained himself on the amber. "Perfect," Raphael was saying. "Just like that. You're doing great. Now relax. Relax just a bit."

Relax? But the dread, the tension, every moment unbearable, foreboding; he was unworthy, small, ignorant. He grieved for things lost and despaired of things found. He couldn't do this—

"You can do this," Raphael said. "Rely on me."

Stay with the amber. Relax.

"You're doing great."

This was great? This was awful. This was frightening. This was too big a task—

"This is you and me," Raphael said. "It's just the right size for us. You can do it."

A moment later, information flooded him: it wasn't just the damage done by Remiel's power; Uriel had found some parts misplaced. Uriel was going to have to unlace him pretty far down to move things back where they belonged. The tension Gabriel felt—all the negative emotions, the chill—were the byproduct of the parts of himself scraping against one another in a bad fit.

His whole personality began vibrating as if it were a Seraph's, and he felt Uriel unhooking and unlacing the parts of him he'd worked so hard to keep together. His vision plunged to blackness, and he let out a cry, but he felt hands, felt love. Raphael was with him, and God was always with Raphael, so God must be here in the horror too. Tension shrieked through him and fright wrapped him round, but Raphael streamed with constant approval.

Gabriel trembled but held.

"You're doing great," Raphael said.

More information: Uriel would now move the parts that were misplaced before. Then everything needed to be re-threaded, and they'd be done.

"Steady," Raphael said.

Steady. Hold steady. amber vision

darkness shêli great stay

time still hay fight Mephistopheles

cookies fire chains checkmate

Raphael fire doing great hold steady

almost done stay focused I love you

"You're doing so well," Raphael was saying.

Father?

I'm proud of you, Gabri'li.

Gabriel reached forward with his heart, found Raphael and clung to the Seraph. "Just a little longer," Raphael said. "Uriel is lacing you back up again."

Why didn't it get easier to hold still the longer he did it? If anything, it got harder. He could feel Uriel's touch against his soul, the pressure of being shaped and focused, the random memories that popped into his mind and even more random emotions that had nothing to do with the thoughts. One moment he saw images of flowers and ached for the fallen, and in the next fury at Remiel while he remembered the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, then a meticulous analysis of a minor point of law, and a moment after that unbridled joy as if transported by music.

Physical sensations crowded him: pain in his jaw, in his neck. His stomach tightened. A tension in his throat made him long to throw back his head, but then there was Raphael, urging him to keep still, almost done. The black heightened to grey, and again he could see Raphael's eyes in the dark, and a moment after could feel their hands joined, and then as if breaking the surface of the world Gabriel gasped, and Uriel said, "One more—" and Raphael said "Just another minute—" and Gabriel could hear them with his ears rather than his heart. Next he could see Raphael's face. Raphael was breathing with him, gazes locked, their bodies in a rhythm while Uriel continued to manipulate the ties inside.

A surge of triumph. Uriel pulled back and became solid. Raphael coalesced from his spiritual form and reappeared sitting in front of Gabriel. Michael in the corner moved in closer.

Gabriel looked around at them and swallowed. He whispered, "Thank you."

Jane Lebak wrote her first book at age three, in magenta crayon, on green-bar computer paper. Her writing has improved since 1975, but the passion remains.

Jane's first accepted novel was signed by Thomas Nelson in 1993 when she was 20 years old, enrolled in the English and Religious Studies programs at Cornell University. The Guardian, a fantasy about angels, was published under the name Jane Hamilton the next year when she was enrolled in an MA writing program at SUNY Brockport. It sold 23,000 copies plus 5,000 copies of a Crossings Book Club edition, before being declared out of print.

Jane got married in 1995 and delayed her publication goals to begin her family, but she never stopped writing. She has had short fiction published in Catfantastic IV, Dragons, Knights and Angels, The Sword Review, and Liguorian Magazine, among others, and nonfiction published in Chicken Soup For The Cat Lover's Soul, Holding Hands With God, Byline, Celebrate Life Magazine, Mothering Magazine, and several more. Numerous humor pieces have appeared in The Wittenburg Door and in The Compleat Mother. Although Thomas Nelson insisted she change her maiden name, she now publishes under her married name.

For more information visit < www.mindflights.com >. The above items appear as part of Volume 1, 2008, Issue 1.

MindFlights is a publication of Double-Edged Publishing, Inc., a nonprofit corporation designated as a 501(c)(3) public charity. Double-Edged Publishing believes the written word is a powerful tool, capable of shaping ideas and changing lives.

Online donations can be made and more information can be found via the MindFlights or the Double-Edged Publishing websites:

Seven Archangels: Annihilation

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