Airs & Graces (25 page)

“I will not give you these men, for they are not mine to give, but take my daughters. They are virgins both and would please you greatly this night.” There was muttering, and the two girls got to their feet, and went forward.

“Ahhhh, we won’t be bought off with a couple of girls! What makes a guy born in Ur think he’s in a position to negotiate? Practically a foreigner yourself, just less pretty. Forget it, old man! They have to come out eventually, and when they do, we will find them! They are too far into the city to leave without one of us seeing! We will know them soon enough!” He laughed, and it was a booming, sinister sound. I felt Gabriel shudder, though I couldn’t tell if it was revulsion or if he bristled at the notion. Maybe it was a bit of both. Tabbris’ hand locked onto his arm as he whispered earnestly into Gabriel’s ear in yet another language I should not have understood.

“I told you, my brother, not all should be damned because of the sins committed by those around them. They have a choice; our Father gave them free will!” Gabriel closed his eyes and counted in his head.

“Our Father also gave the order, Tabbris, because the deeds of the many outweigh the deeds of the few here. Would you defy Him? Would you allow your compassion for these pitiful creatures, these
mortals
to destroy your faith in Him?”

The look in Tabbris’ liquid gray eyes was sheer defiance. “These people would have sullied themselves to protect us,
strangers
to their home. They don’t know what we are or what’s about to happen here. Still they protected us from the unclean outside.”

“What, do you want to do,
warn them
?” Gabriel sounded outraged, and Tabbris’ mouth set in a grim line.

“You’re His messenger Gabriel, think about it brother. What purpose does the destruction of these cities have if no one is left to explain
why
it was done? At the very least we should do unto them as they’ve done unto us.”

Gabriel searched Tabbris’ face and made a harsh and exasperated sound. “Very well, you have my agreement.” He paused and finally nodded. “All right, we warn them, but as soon as they’re clear, we’re reporting to Michael.”

Tab chewed his bottom lip and finally nodded his assent. Both of the Angels turned back to a room full of shocked faces. Lot was the first to speak.

“What manner of…” he started to ask, finally saying; “What is this you speak under my roof?” his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Gabriel and Tabbris looked at each other. It was Gabriel that spoke first,

“Take warning, Lot: you must leave the city with your family at all costs.” It took the Angels several minutes of explanation that was met with resistance until both of them let slip their wings. The family fell to their knees and bowed to the floor, lying prostrate before the two. Tabbris’ wings were not crimson edged in black, as I’d expected, but were as newly fallen snow and a match for Gabriel’s, which I caught sight of at the edge of his vision when he turned his head.

Finally, the women began to hastily pack necessities into bundles. Gabriel did something to them, put them under some kind of spell, for lack of a better word, and made sure to tell them to not look behind them, to just flee as far and as fast as they could. The sons-in-law and Lot began to linger, refusing to take flight right away despite the urging of Lot’s two daughters and his wife. In the end, Tabbris stepped forward, and took Lot’s youngest by the hand, holding his other out to Lot himself.

“Please…” he breathed, and Lot took the proffered hand. Gabriel took the hand of the eldest daughter and the hand of Lot’s wife, but the men betrothed to Lot’s two daughters refused to go.

Tabbris looked grim and told the rest of the family in a solemn voice, “It’s their choice.”

Tab and Gabriel led the immediate family of Lot through the streets, Gabriel muttering a spell, which again was the only word I had for it, of concealment all the way to the city gate. Once free the two Angels told the family to run, to just flee and get as far away as possible, and they told them, that no matter what they heard, to just never look back.

Lot thanked them and took each of his daughters by the hand, and, their packs heavy on their shoulders, they fled up the road. Gabriel turned to Tabbris, and I could feel him grin.

“What did you do?” Tabbris asked him.

“I put them under a geas to not look back; if they do they will be destroyed.” He looked intently at Tab, who simply nodded.

“It is their choice,” he said finally. “You did warn them fairly.”

“Free will and all of that,” Gabriel agreed. “Now to report to Michael.”

“He’ll be angry,” Tabbris mused.

“Undoubtedly,” Gabriel replied. I could feel his smile broaden. “I can’t
wait
to tell him.”

The colors swirled around them in the way that I was now aware instant travel caused them to do, and Gabriel turned to Tab, who had shed his disguise and now stood armored, his short sword at his hip rather than at his back as I was used to. He wore a dark molded leather chest piece over white linen, and what looked like a leather kilt made from many straps. Sandals wound up his shins and calves, and though it should have looked comical, as I was familiar with him in modern clothing, it really wasn’t. The way he carried himself was imposing. A leather headband kept his long black hair out of his eyes to the best of its ability, and he turned and looked down over the two cities, the firelight winking from windows and doorways far below, the sounds of laughter and sex wafting up the hillside, carried on the near nonexistent breeze to where the Angels stood.

Michael was near them both, looking dour, but if Tab looked intimidating in his Roman-esque armor, Michael looked downright formidable. His hair was long and loose, and it crackled with his power in a nimbus around his strong features. The pommel of a great two-handed sword showed above his shoulder between the ridges of his wings. The blade of the sword gleamed wickedly sharp where it stabbed towards the dusty earth from beneath his left wing. His chest was broad and bare: the only interruptions of its well-muscled expanse were the leather straps holding his sword to his back. Two smaller straps held a metal pauldron to his left shoulder. His belt was wide and thick leather with a round metal disc in the front, large enough to protect most of his stomach and groin area. The disc, deeply etched with foreign symbols I should not have been able to read, spelled his name and gleamed golden in the starlight. He too wore a leather kilt, made of many woven straps studded with what appeared to be emeralds. Where his legs started beneath his kilt, he wore strong metal greaves that began just below his knees to cover his shins and the tops of his feet. The greaves may have been made of copper or bronze, the patina across the surface dying them a green that was only slightly subtler than the emeralds of his kilt.

As magnificent and pretty as he was, it was what hung near his right thigh that grabbed my attention. Two obvious keys dangled, swaying, from a golden cord on his belt. One appeared to be twisted black iron, and the other was a fine white material that looked like pearl. I was frustrated when Gabriel looked away from the keys, taking them from my sight, to take in their surroundings. They had all three stopped with the pretense of trying to look human, and they all three stood armored and armed, with their wings against their backs. All three seemed to be unconcerned with being seen.

“Report,” Michael snapped at the two of them, clearly irritated, and they did. They told him all of what had transpired. Michael’s look grew stormier with the retelling, and finally he paced.

“It is His will, and His will be done, Tabbris,” he said finally.

“It’s not right!” Tabbris snarled. “He gave them free will, and not all of them chose the darker path! The family we just encountered is evidence of that fact.” He strode forward and put a hand on Michael’s armored shoulder, his raven locks fluttering on the subtle night breeze. “We can still do the right thing!”

“The right thing?” Michael asked. “There is only one right thing, Tabbris, and that is to carry out His will with swiftness and surety.” He searched Tab’s face and finally asked in a quiet tone of devastation, “You would defy Him?”

Tab’s eyes widened. “No! I would uphold His word and His will from before this new order! His word gave the humans the right to choose their path. There are still
good
people down there!”

Michael placed his hand on Tabbris’ shoulder. “I am sorry, Tabbris, but the order hasn’t changed and we must uphold it.” Michael turned to Gabriel and opened his mouth to give the command, but was cut off by Tabbris’ shout of incendiary rage. Tabbris lifted Michael and threw him back. The Archangel skidded, still on his feet, his wings out stretched to counter balance himself.

“I can’t let you do it,” Tab said between gritted teeth.

“It is not your place to save them,” Michael said through gritted teeth. Gabriel stood and watched the exchange, wide-eyed, and I could feel his concern for both of them even as he mentally recorded everything before him.

“It’s not right to destroy the few for the sins of the many. He is angry, but do you think that after all is said and done that He will not feel remorse as we will feel it if we go through with this?”

Tab’s face grew determined, and Michael narrowed his eyes. “Gabriel,” Michael said, and it seemed to be enough. Tab tackled Michael, burying his fist into the Archangel’s solar plexus, just above where the belt offered protection. Michael grunted and engaged Tabbris back, but it was a ploy, a distraction, because Gabriel was raising his trumpet to his lips, looking one last time at the two cities in the basin below their vantage point. I could feel his sorrow as he drew breath, and I heard Tab’s wail of anguish as he blew. The order was given, and clouds roiled on the horizon and began to rush forward.

It took my mind – and I mean the real me’s mind, not Gabriel’s – several seconds to realize that the clouds weren’t clouds at all, that they were wings, and that it looked like all of the Angels of Heaven had turned out for this. But then the flames began to rain, and the screaming began to waft up from below, and I think maybe, just maybe, I was screaming with them with how awful it was, but I couldn’t be sure. I know Tab was, maybe not out loud, but he was, because he was standing there, horror staining his face, followed by the deepest anguish and sorrow I had ever seen etched into any one person’s expression.

He used it, though. He used it and turned it into a pure fire of its own and reversed his knife along his arm and launched himself at Michael, catching him square in the back and taking both of them over the edge of the cliff. Gabriel took wing and flew higher to better see the two, but as they plummeted and grappled with one another, it was as if a tear opened up in space beneath them, and they were swallowed up. Gabriel followed them, and all three burst through the skies above lush jungle, Tab and Michael’s battle growing in intensity.

Michael and Tabbris struck out savagely at one another, but Michael did not draw weapon just yet. They broke apart and crashed together and tear after tear in space opened up, allowing them the ability to continue their fight from continent to continent, over snow-covered mountains and arid deserts. When Gabriel was satisfied that neither was going to kill the other, and that Tab, though his weapon was out, did not seem to be using it, he sidestepped through space himself and went to carry out his orders, flying out above one of the two cities ordered destroyed nearest where he’d come through, joining in the slaughter – but not before Iaoel showed me something important about the keys.

At one point as Michael and Tabbris fought, but before Gabriel turned away to go back to the destruction that Heaven wrought upon Sodom and Gomorrah, everything slowed and came to a stop. I studied the image, Michael’s hand around Tab’s throat, opposite fist drawing back to punch Tab in the face. Tab with one of his hands around the bigger Archangel’s wrist, where his large hand grasped Tab’s throat. Tab’s other hand was bringing forward his knife for the first actual strike at his commander with the weapon. I studied the two for several moments before I finally I understood what it was I was supposed to be seeing, why the images had stopped. There was an odd glimmer, below the quarreling Angels; it took me a moment to recognize it as the shine of a pearly key, the shadow of its iron opposite and mate just near it, as they fell. I studied the landscape below the fighting and was discouraged at the sight of deep snow and snowcapped trees stretching out for miles in every direction. It could have been anywhere that was cold enough!

Once I recognized that it was the keys I was supposed to see, the images resumed, fast forwarding to real time, and Gabriel was through traveling and joining the slaughter with grim determination. I had no idea where Tab and Michael had gone and no way out of the vision which was not finished playing out, so with resignation, I realized that I would be forced to watch.

Sodom and Gomorrah, its men, women, children – it did not matter; they all died, all horribly. Some were cut down; some were burned to death or were crushed by falling buildings. All screamed and writhed. Through it all, Gabriel carried out his orders with very little feeling, like he’d simply shut down. For hours I watched him rain fire and brimstone and slaughter every living person he came across, quickly, but not always mercifully.

He stopped in his duties only when the sky opened up, and Tabbris and Michael tumbled out. They were both the worse for wear, battered and bleeding, but for now, Michael had the upper hand. Gabriel could see he had a hold of the front of Tabbris’ armor with one hand, his great sword gripped in the other. Tabbris was hanging, beaten for the moment, almost dejected in Michael’s grasp, wings limp behind him. Michael flew for the both of them, hovering over the destruction, face twisted into a mask of anger, his lips moving, but his words lost over the din of screams, the crash of toppling buildings, and the roar of flames. Gabriel watched them both, watched Tabbris struggle in Michael’s grasp, watched those liquid eyes widen and crystallize in horror at the destruction below and watched as Tab’s mouth opened in a scream that was lost among all the others.