Seven Archangels: Annihilation

Jane Lebak

Chapter 23

Lucifer brought Camael directly into the lab area along with all the others except for Mephistopheles, who signed them in at the front gate. Lucifer sat Camael on a stool and paced his office, noting as he did the positions of the Maskim. Asmodeus and Belior sat or stood to Camael's left, and in the far right corner was Beelzebub. After a moment, Mephistopheles requested admittance. Lucifer flashed him into the room, but not near Beelzebub. As he suspected, within seconds Mephistopheles had moved closer to him.

Politically speaking, he'd stabilized the situation, even if it meant having to endure a Cherub-Seraph bond in a "honeymoon" phase again. Which reminded him—

"Mephistopheles and Beelzebub," he said, "what was wrong with the two of you up there? You were chattering like a pair of adolescent monkeys."

"We weren't," Beelzebub said.

"It was constant," Lucifer said. "I know you didn't mean it and I'm glad you see why I was so upset and You only wanted what was best—what was that about?"

Mephistopheles said, "That was all through the bond. No one should have been able to hear it."

Lucifer huffed. "But I did, didn't I?"

Belior blurted, "How could you hear into their bond?"

Even Lucifer could feel the blistering hatred Belior sent toward Mephistopheles, and Beelzebub confirmed it by saying, "What are you hinting at?"

"I'm implying that someone is engaging in the world's oldest profession."

"Let me settle this," Lucifer said. "If bonding with Mephistopheles guaranteed that I could annihilate God, I would do it. Short of that, not a chance."

"Rest assured, I'm fine with that," Mephistopheles said.

Belior said, "Then how can you hear into their bond?"

Lucifer felt Mephistopheles send, Can you really hear me?

"Of course I can," he snapped.

Beelzebub shimmered with nerves.

Belior said, "Bonds are private. You can't tap them. That's part of the point." More hatred and jealousy from the other Cherub.

Mephistopheles said, "Therefore you may put your mind at ease. Our enemies weren't at all inconvenienced by anything that went between us."

"All the same," Lucifer said, "when you're working for me, I expect you to be working for me, not carrying on extra conversations."

"I can do two things at once," Beelzebub said.

"That's what we tell drivers with cell phones, but it's not good enough for me."

Lucifer could sense Mephistopheles attacking the problem from five directions at the same time, expanding into Beelzebub's intelligence to use his energy too, creating hypotheses and striking them down in almost the same moment, swirling the evidence together with the possibilities and weaving them, testing them, challenging the ones that survived the first round and then modifying those.

Interesting. He'd never watched a Cherub solve a problem from the inside. The process had never struck him as important, only the results. And it did leave him curious, too, why he could feel their bond and no other, so he left Mephistopheles to wrap himself in the question.

"Now for you." He turned to Camael. "How did you get captured?"

"Raphael. He was enraged. Wanted revenge."

"That answers one question," Lucifer said, but Mephistopheles was so engaged that he didn't even register it. "But Raphael also seems to have been replaced on the Seven." He frowned again at Camael. "When they questioned you, what did they ask?" He paused. "Don't hedge. If you told them how to annihilate, say so."

"They didn't ask how it was done. They asked about afterward, though, and some process. How many were in the room, what response we expected, our next move. They were really interested in Mephistopheles."

The same could not be said for Mephistopheles, who hadn't registered his own name.

Belior said, "I suppose someone ought to be."

"Stay civil," Beelzebub said, "or I'll help you remember your manners."

"Not on my watch," said Asmodeus.

"Settle down," Lucifer said. "Camael, go on."

"There wasn't much else. They kept me enclosed but not chained, and they gave me pretty much anything I demanded." He tensed. "But Remiel—she's gone crazy."

Asmodeus chuckled. "I saw her. She was slicing her arm while talking to herself, and then she attacked Saraquael. He had to hit her with lightning to stop her."

Beelzebub said, "That must have been fun to watch."

"You could ask your Cherub sometime."

"To move along," Lucifer said, "Remiel seems to be fully recovered, if irritating."

"You might want to know...." Camael trailed off, and then his voice returned shakily. "She came through the Guards on my room and tried to annihilate me."

Shock rolled around the room. Even Mephistopheles was paying attention now.

"I swear on my own blood," Camael said, "she reached into my soul and grabbed the heartstrings."

Lucifer said, "Mephistopheles? Why do you find that so distressing?" The Cherub was all but radiating fear, and Beelzebub felt confused. "Do you have something to tell us?"

"You're lying," Mephistopheles said. "No one else knows how to do it."

"She grabbed my soul," Camael said, "and I swear on my own blood, she started disassembling me."

Beelzebub said, "What, did Jesus come and save you?"

"Actually, yes," Camael said, "but that's not the worst of it. Remiel was clearly nuts. She grabbed my heartstrings, and I swear this, Gabriel appeared to stop her."

Four cries of surprise. "No way!" Beelzebub said. "He's destroyed! I saw it!"

Asmodeus shouted, "You four swore he'd been annihilated!"

"Quiet!" Lucifer said. "Camael, go on. What happened next?"

"He couldn't do anything. He tried to get between us, and really he looked so filmy I didn't recognize him at first. She swatted him away and attacked me."

Complete silence took on its own sound-form in the next moment.

Lucifer said, "Remiel wasn't surprised when he showed up? She swatted him away?"

Mephistopheles didn't give Camael a chance to reply. "What did he look like? Did he feel like Gabriel?"

"He was much greyer than before, misty at the edges. She tossed him off like nothing." Camael paused. "He didn't feel like anything to me, but I wasn't checking him out."

Again silence. This made no sense—Remiel should have reacted to Gabriel's return. With joy, with terror—with something other than only irritation at the inconvenience of having to remove him from the scene of the crime. And how did she know the process? Unless the link with Camael wasn't as unidirectional as they'd thought.

Lucifer noted how Mephistopheles was not engaging this new problem with the same fervor as the previous one. In fact, he seemed to be avoiding it.

"You mean, there's something after this?" Beelzebub whispered.

In the same tone, Mephistopheles said, "I hope not." His voice and Beelzebub's were coming from almost the same spot now.

Lucifer said, "Are you sure it was Gabriel? There are half a trillion angels."

Camael assented.

Belior said, "When she attacked your heartstrings, or however she did it, are you sure you didn't hallucinate?"

Asmodeus laughed. "Maybe you dreamed it all."

Beelzebub said, "You were thinking of Gabriel because he's the one we annihilated, and you were upset."

Mephistopheles said, "Be reasonable. He said Remiel responded to Gabriel. They weren't both hallucinating."

Belior said, "He could have hallucinated her response."

"We could all be hallucinating this conversation, too, but that's hardly worth discussing."

Lucifer paced. He realized both bonded pairs were standing next to each other, and it made his skin crawl. He could feel Mephistopheles calming Beelzebub, drawing off his fire and replacing it with whatever it was that kept Cherubim so unreasonably logical during a crisis. Mephistopheles still wasn't fully engaged with Remiel annihilating anyone or Gabriel returning to stop her. His brain still played with the other question, the spy-hole in their bond.

Lucifer said, "When you were rescued, what did he do?"

There was no mistaking the inflection on the pronoun. Camael said, "He appeared, and Remiel collapsed in his arms."

"And what did he do with Gabriel?"

Mephistopheles gasped.

Camael said, "He—he didn't do anything to Gabriel. And Gabriel didn't interact with him either."

Asmodeus said, "Gabriel's back! You didn't get all of him!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Mephistopheles said. "We got all there was."

Lucifer said, "Let's be thorough about this. What happened after?"

"He looked at me too, and he put me under the same way he did Remiel."

Revolting development, that. "In theory, he might have interacted with Gabriel afterward."

Camael assented. "When I awoke, the whole room was different. It was subtle, but things had been moved, and there was power soaked into the walls. Even the windows felt 'fixed'."

"The enemy searched for traces of Gabriel," Lucifer said. "They must have taken apart your prison."

Mephistopheles said, "But what did Camael see? If Gabriel isn't really destroyed, then he'd have made contact. If he was destroyed, then he couldn't have."

Lucifer said, "How about a transitory state, between being and nonbeing?"

Mephistopheles had that flat Cherub intonation again. "There is nothing else."

"You know as well as I do that God changes the rules when He doesn't like what we've won. No one can get out of Sheol; then His Son dies and voila, people can get out of Sheol. There might not have been another mode of existence until Gabriel died, but maybe now there is."

A long quiet permeated the room.

Belior said, "But if Gabriel were there, wouldn't he have responded to him?"

Beelzebub said, "That means Gabriel wasn't there. Camael had to have been hallucinating."

Mephistopheles sighed. "We've already established that Camael didn't witness the entire scene."

"Shut up!" Beelzebub said. "There couldn't have been anything there!"

"Are you scared?" Mephistopheles sounded as if he was grinning ear to ear. "Maybe he's in the room with us right now!"

A second's scuffle in the dark. Lucifer felt Mephistopheles laugh through the bond, then pull off the fire he'd just spiked up in Beelzebub, empowering himself and leaving the Seraph just as energized as he'd been before. The Cherub's soul sparkled.

Lucifer checked Camael over again in his mind, challenged him and found him whole and not Remiel, but bearing the slight distortion in his thoughts similar to that in their test subjects when he'd practiced grabbing heartstrings. Belior and Asmodeus he ignored for now; they had nothing to offer.

How to defend against something that might not even be alive any longer?

Well, that was why he had Cherubim, wasn't it? "Belior, conscript three Cherubim of your choice and devise a defense against Gabriel if he still has some sort of existence. Do it by tomorrow."

Asmodeus said, "And at the same time, why not tell him to take two more Cherubim and devise a means to extinguish the Lake of Fire and eradicate God? You can't be serious!"

"Asmodeus, you will implement this defense as soon as Belior develops it, using whatever of the armed forces you require." Lucifer turned to Mephistopheles. "Your thoughts about why I can feel your bond?"

Mephistopheles monotoned, "Gabriel detonated all over you. I must have been spattered as well, and because you're a Seraph and he was a Cherub, his substance is responding to both of us."

Belior huffed. "Then why can't Camael sense you?"

A pause, and then Mephistopheles said, "Have we established that he can't?"

Camael said, "I can't…but I think I did. Back when you told me… something. I don't remember. But I remember realizing I could sense your bond when I couldn't before."

"You were down, crouched with your wings tucked." Mephistopheles didn't sound concerned. "With far less surface area, I'm sure you absorbed less of his substance, and therefore the effect wore off sooner."

Lucifer said, "If this is true, then how long—"

"—soon. I'm surprised his substance would have persisted this long. The beadlet we found after twenty-four hours was nearly dissipated, but there was a lot of him."

Lucifer knew one question it always paid to ask a Cherub: "How confident are you of this theory?"

"I can't test it," Mephistopheles said, "but it fits."

"Belior?"

"I can't comment. It makes some sense."

The lack of criticism meant as much as a standing ovation, considering the source. Lucifer said, "Very well, then. Mephistopheles, you have your previous assignment to finish. Get to work."

Lucifer forced out everyone except Camael.

"Sir?" said the Irin.

"Were you calling Remiel prior to her attack?"

He assented.

"Had you spoken to her prior to the attack?"

Again assent.

"Are you aware that once she realizes you can influence her, your usefulness is limited?"

A feeling of dread from Camael confirmed he'd revealed their link.

"You were trying to win her?"

Defeated, Camael assented again.

Why God liked to do things in pairs Lucifer would never understand. Angels functioned perfectly fine alone, but these inexorable pairings simultaneously increased and decreased their usefulness. Split Irin, depressed Cherubim, defensive Seraphim...it was too bad he hadn't convinced any Thrones to join him. They were reclusive, and if he could have brought onboard even one of them, he could have fired the rest of the Maskim.

"She's highly unlikely to leave. God has paid her enormous bribes and given her every freedom in an attempt to keep her enslaved. You realize you can't compete."

Camael sounded defensive. "The one thing God can't give her is me."

"Ah, but you nearly were given to her—first as a trussed prize turkey and then as a living sacrifice. You're better off avoiding her." Lucifer folded his arms and leaned half-sitting on his desk. "The other option you've failed to consider is that Remiel might ask for you, and God might brainwash you and enslave you at her side."

Camael smoldered. "He'd have to change me."

"I'm not sure she would care. She must feel about you as you do about her."

Camael's voice lowered. "Yes, sir."

"I recommend keeping your distance, but you're free to do as you wish. Dismissed."

Lucifer enjoyed his solitude for a while.

Mephistopheles' theory about being drenched in Gabriel's offal might have some merit to it—how else would he have heard that trumpet? Of all four subordinates, only Mephistopheles hadn't reacted with surprise when he said there was a funeral taking place—and there might have been, but the Seven hadn't made it appear that way. In retrospect, who knew why they were blowing that trumpet? Choosing then to regain Camael was useful enough, though. If a funeral did take place at a later time, he'd find a way to disrupt that too.

But hearing the trumpet and sensing the bond might well mean Gabriel-residue, and waiting for it to dissipate on its own just didn't appeal. How disgusting to be covered in a monument to someone else's weakness.

Lucifer tried burning it off, tried focusing himself, tried squeezing it off with a Guard. He couldn't tell if anything had worked because he had no litmus test except for detecting Mephistopheles' bond with Beelzebub.

What a pain. Lucifer flashed to Mephistopheles.

He and Beelzebub were in the common area, nauseatingly honey-mooning. Beelzebub sat on one chair with his feet propped on another, and Mephistopheles sat sidesaddle across his lap. The pair had their wings up to form a kind of shelter, and Lucifer could feel two things: they were actively trading power, and Mephistopheles was talking through an idea at two hundred fifty words a minute, with occasional gusts of up to three hundred.

To get their attention, Lucifer had to project an announcement.

Mephistopheles pulled back his wings and pivoted. "Sir!" Beelzebub sat up, lowering his legs from the chair, and Mephistopheles slipped around so he straddled Beelzebub's lap, leaning forward with his hands on the Seraph's knees.

"Sir," the Cherub said, "I have a portion of your answer for my assignment."

This quickly? He ought to have intervened earlier. File that away for next time. "Let's hear it."

Mephistopheles opened his hands to create a hologram. Lucifer noted as he did so the way he balanced by hooking his feet behind Beelzebub's ankles and bringing back the innermost pair of wings to wrap around the Seraph's waist.

"This is a mock-up of the soul." Mephistopheles waved a hand and made more lights. "I'm tracing through the power conduits common to most angels, and I believe if you attack a few central points rather than merely unwrapping the entirety of the heartstring you'll end up with an unlaced angel in a fifth the time."

Lucifer seated himself in the second chair. "Go on."

"If you notice here and here," and those points lit on the mock-up, "the various attributes cross over on themselves. The model more accurately mimics a weaving than a string of beads, I've discovered, and at these points there's a combination of important attributes. If you remember, you stuck momentarily at this point on Gabriel, and now I know it was due to the crossover attributes strengthening the linkage. But if you attacked all three and released them simultaneously, an important structural integrity point would be undone, weakening the entire form."

Lucifer saw Beelzebub had worked his fingers through the shortest feathers at the back of Mephistopheles' innermost wing pair, and the Cherub shifted a little as if to guide him.

"I've found three pressure points so far." Mephistopheles spoke as if Lucifer's problem were the only thing he was thinking of and the bond wasn't lit up like the New York City skyline. "I suspect there may be as many as ten, more likely six or seven. I'll require a few test subjects to map the common points, but it shouldn't take prohibitively long to develop a working model. A day, perhaps two."

Lucifer rubbed his chin. "This still can't be done from a distance."

"No, sir. Someone still needs to be in close proximity. And the subject needs to be still."

Shaking his head, Lucifer folded his arms. "That won't be any use in a battle situation."

"I'm working on it."

"I can see that. Get me the complete list of pressure points in ten hours." He leaned forward. "Then get to work on the distance strike."

Mephistopheles nodded, his blond curls all but obscuring the brightness of his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Beelzebub." Lucifer's tone went stern. "Do not distract him. I'm glad you're encouraging him, but do not become a distraction right now."

"No, sir."

Beelzebub had no intention of following through, but in a couple of hours he would send Beelzebub on an errand and give Mephistopheles time to work alone. For now he was keeping the Cherub well-fired, intentionally or otherwise, so it paid to let him stay.

"Call me if you need anything or anyone's cooperation," Lucifer said, standing. "Your assignment is my top priority, and I'll ensure it's also the top priority of everyone else in Hell."

Against the sunset, a pair of angels stood overlooking a lake. Swallows darted over the surface of the water, nabbing insects from the air. A family of ducks swam out from shore, gliding across the silent water with noiseless paddles, a mother and six ducklings until one was pulled under.

"This absolutely reeks," said one as he watched the reduced duck family swim to shore.

"It worse than reeks," said the other. "I told them not to attempt it, but you know how Cherubim get, and Mephistopheles convinced him he had it all figured out just because he lucked into a couple of ideas that turned out to be right." Asmodeus shook his head. "I told them not to try. I told them it wouldn't work from the start."

Fighting a smile, Camael said flatly, "You're a foresight god."

"Screw off."

"Because Lucifer's treating you like a fifth wheel? I don't think so."

"Go amuse yourself," Asmodeus said. "Or just shut up and leave me in peace."

Camael grinned.

They stared for a while at the bugs that made use of the last glimmers of daylight. Idly selecting a dragonfly, Camael called it to the attention of one of the swallows, which swooped low and enjoyed its dinner.

Camael shivered as a breeze reached parts of him more used to Hell's flames. "It's the most un-freaking-nerving thing to be taken apart." He pulled his wings closer. "I wonder if I'd have been able to talk with Gabriel."

"Would you even want to?" Asmodeus said. "Lay off. You've got Belior wasting his time because of your self-aggrandizement, and we all know you didn't see anything."

"I don't have to justify myself."

"You can't justify yourself, you mean."

They watched as the sun finished its apparent descent and left only a residual afterglow of its glory.

Gabriel's afterglow. No direct light, only the reflection of something too big to be swallowed all at once. Not Gabriel, just the afterimages, the leftovers, lacking a home and an anchor, drifting apart like a dust cloud dispersing after an explosion.

"Quit thinking." Asmodeus glared at him. Did he look that horrified? "It's no good when Cherubim do it, and it's even less attractive in Virtues."

Camael shrugged. "I'm bored."

"Pull that stunt again," Asmodeus said. "Call your sister."

Camael squinted. "Lucifer said not to."

"You're bored and she's crazy. You could have a little fun."

"I'd rather go scare some minister's son."

Asmodeus narrowed his eyes and raised his wings. "Call her."

Camael shook his head. "I don't want to see her like that. Enslaved. It leaves me nauseated for days." He could see Asmodeus wasn't convinced. If anything, he liked the idea even better now. "If Lucifer catches us—"

"What will he do? Kill her?" Asmodeus opened his hands. "Kill you? Either way, you won't have to see her enslaved again."

Camael rolled his eyes.

Asmodeus turned to look again at the sunset. "Of course, if you're afraid of her, we can go find a minister's son."

"Oh, please. She frightens me even less than you do." Camael folded his arms. "I have nothing to prove."

"You're certainly proving something right now."

As the afterglow dissipated, Camael said, "What would you do when you got her here?"

Asmodeus drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite forearm. "That depends. Last night she went crazy as far as we could tell. She went bar-hopping, did some online chatting, then ended up at a tattoo parlor in Australia getting pierced."

"Her ears." It was so repulsive. "I saw they were all in different places."

"Navel too." Asmodeus turned toward Camael. "She was smitten with the piercer, and quite drunk. I'd love to watch when he pierces her next, whatever part she chooses. Whatever he encourages her to choose."

Camael's eyes flashed as sharply gold as Remiel's had ever gotten. "I'll kill him."

"Bring her down," Asmodeus said. "Let her watch."

Camael clenched his fists, set his teeth.

"When she sees how protective you are of her," Asmodeus murmured, "she'll be impressed." A pause. Then he added, "You might still win her."

Oh, wow. He might. He could. Just this once.

Camael closed his eyes and lowered his head. He listened to the rhythm of his existence until clarity came and he could feel hers as well. Holding her heart in his own, he sent, Come to me.

Suddenly he had the strongest, oddest urge.

Up snapped his head.

Asmodeus cracked his knuckles. "You called?"

Camael gave a shaky affirmative.

"Where is she?"

"Back off. It doesn't happen all at once."

Camael concentrated—and the next moment found himself waist-deep in the lake.

Camael leaped out of the water as if he'd landed in the Lake of Fire while Asmodeus flashed to the pier, staring open-mouthed.

He transported onto the wood and stared in bafflement at his own hands while water puddled around his legs, then flowed between the wooden slits.

Asmodeus sent him a question.

"She turned it back at me." Camael didn't even try to disguise the fear pervading his voice. Lucifer had said Are you aware that once she realizes you can influence her, your usefulness is limited? He'd hit the limits of his usefulness, and that was never a good thing. "I sent her a suggestion, and she sent one back to me."

It was easy to pinpoint what Remiel had told him to do.

Asmodeus cracked up laughing. "Do it again!"

Camael's cheeks burned, so he flared heat around himself to finish drying his wings and clothing and hoped that hid the flush. "So she can send me even more pointed instructions? No thank you."

Asmodeus smiled wickedly, throwing a stone into the water. "How imaginative can she get?"

Camael paid an unusual amount of attention to his fingers as he rubbed them through his flight-feathers to interlock them. "Go screw yourself."

"I'd like to see that!"

Camael flashed back to Hell with the sound of the Seraph's laughter still burning in his ears.

 

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 >.