No Shadows Fall (31 page)

“Aye, I’d be honored,” Gabriel said. He gestured to Shateiel, and his lieutenant stepped up and took the fabric out of the box, then bound it securely around Gabriel’s upper left arm.

“And would you do us the honor of flying our pennon?” Hiwa asked, stepping up to join his brother and lifting a second piece of silk from the box.

“It would be my honor,” Gabriel said. He took the flag and handed it to Shateiel. “Fix this to the banner pole, lieutenant.”

Shateiel saluted, then did so, the purple and silver banner secured beneath the white and blue one that was Gabriel’s own. Ahijah shut the box and, with Hiwa, stepped back to join their mother.

“Israfel”—Michael turned to the angel of music—“do you have the fanfare for Gabriel’s arrival prepared?”

Israfel nodded. “I do, yeah.”

“Just don’t let it play until I’m ready to challenge Semjaza,” Gabriel said.

Israfel nodded again. “I know. I remember how to do this, Gabe. It’s been a while, but my memory’s pretty good. More or less. At least, my memory’s pretty good when it comes to everything that’s like, related to music, so yeah, I’m good.” He grinned hopefully at Gabriel and then at Raphael who reached over to ruffle his hair.

Gabriel shot a quick wink at Raphael, and then he grinned at Israfel. “Good lad. So”
—
he turned once again to Michael
—
“now the niceties are out of the way, are you and the others going to power me up?”

“Just one more thing,” Ishtahar said. She bowed to the Archangels, her hennaed hands pressed together, and spoke. “My lords, I am honored and blessed to stand with you.” She turned to Michael and bowed low to him. “Your highness, I am in your debt.”

“There is no debt, holy priestess,” Michael said gently, not reacting to her calling him by his royal title. Later, Gabriel would ask Michael about that—he knew that being addressed as prince or your highness made Michael feel uncomfortable. “We do what must be done,” Michael went on. “Be at peace.”

“You are very kind, Prince Michael.” Ishtahar smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“And now we will give you some of our powers,” Michael said to Gabriel. In an undertone, he added, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”

“Positive,” Gabriel nodded. “Power me up, baby.”

Michael shook his head in fond amusement, a smile tugging the corner of his lips. “As you say, then. Come,” he said as he turned to the other Archangels. “Let us begin.”

They surrounded Gabriel in a circle, each member of the Brotherhood laying a hand upon his head. Gabriel closed his eyes as he felt the transfer of power from them through their touch. It felt heavy, leaden, as if unlimited energy were being held in one frail shell of flesh and bone, likely to fly apart into pieces of holy light any second. He gritted his teeth as the power of the Archangels mingled with his own, amplifying his own power ninefold.

When it was done and their hands gone from his head, Gabriel took a deep, slow breath. “We better go soon, Mishka,” he said. “I feel like I’m going to explode ’cause I’m holding too much energy in my vessel.”

Michael nodded. “As you say.” He joined the other eight Archangels and said to Gabriel, “We will be there—you will feel us but not see us. No other member of the Host, save Israfel, Agrat, and Shateiel, will know we are there.” With that, the Archangels blurred and disappeared.

“Right,” Gabriel said to Shateiel as his lieutenant stepped back from kissing his wife goodbye, “you take the boys over, and I’ll take Ish, yeah?”

“As you command, general.”
Shateiel saluted.

Brieus, Sophiel, Agrat, and Israfel had followed the Archangels to Washington, and Gabriel rested a hand on Ishtahar’s shoulder, watching to make sure that Shateiel was ready to move Hiwa and Ahijah.

“Are you ready?” he asked Ishtahar.

She nodded. “I am. I am afraid, I will not lie about that. But I am ready to face whatever comes, my lord.”

Gabriel nodded. “Me too,” he admitted. And then he moved them before she could respond.

When the world came back into focus, Gabriel looked around the place with interest. There was no denying that the Stonehenge replica had been built with love and care. He walked over to it, ignoring the calf-high dry grass that rustled against his greaves, and looked closely at the stones. They were chipped and rough, like the Stonehenge in Avebury, England, but this was a roughness and chipping that had been designed, not worn into the rock through the ages. On each stone was a brass plate, and on each plate was a name, dates, and rank. Gabriel touched one of the plates, his fingers lingering upon the date of the death of the young man, as he remembered that this place was not just a replica but a shrine to honored war dead.

He was profoundly humbled by it, this enormous structure that so simply and elegantly declared the identities of the local soldiers who had died in the wars of the Twentieth Century. He walked around the outer ring, reading the names with care, then around the inner ring, doing the same. Finally, he walked to the altar stone and bowed low, silently promising to honor the dead—both those remembered upon the plates on the stones and those who weren’t. What he was doing in challenging Semjaza was not just to honor humanity in the present and protect them from enslavement, but to honor and remember the deaths of all those who had ever lived and fought to remain free.

Straightening, he saw that Ishtahar, in between her sons, stood to one side, between two of the large standing stones of the inner ring. Shateiel stood to one side of the altar stone, holding the banner pole with its pennons streaming proudly in the wind.

“Are we ready for this?” Gabriel asked. As they all nodded, he pointed to the space between the inner and outer rings of stones. “When we start fighting, Shateiel, I want you to take Ish and the boys into that space and keep guard.”

Shateiel saluted.

“Right then.” Gabriel took a deep breath and stepped up to stand on top of the altar stone. He drew his sword—the sign to Israfel to play the fanfare prefacing Gabriel’s formal challenge.

The fanfare was loud, and it made him start in surprise. The sound of trumpets shattered the stillness of the Maryhill Estate and the Stonehenge monument like a boulder crashing through a pane of glass. Gabriel grinned at Shateiel, who rolled his eyes eloquently.

“I am certain the deer and elk on the other side of this continent heard that,”
Shateiel thought, his mental voice dry-humored.

Gabriel chuckled. “Aye, me too.” Then he turned to face Maryhill, the roof visible in the near distance, and pitched his voice to reach the ears of anyone within the ruined estate house.

“In the name of God, I defy thee, Semjaza, foul and despicable angel. I call thee craven and base. I declare thee unfit for the title of prince and cast my despite of thee in thy teeth. In the name of Ishtahar, high priestess of the city of Eden, I declare thee guilty of sins great and small. In the name of the Brotherhood of Archangels, I challenge thee to combat, single war
’
gainst me, Gabriel, Saint, Archangel of Annunciation, War and the Spirit of Truth, Second-in-Command of the Hosts of Heaven, General of God, Commander in Chief of the Seraphim. I stand here as a living banner for God, He Who is The Creator, known also as Hashem, Yahweh, and Jehovah. I challenge thee, Semjaza, foul and accursed, to a fight to the death.”

The formal, stilted language rolled off Gabriel’s tongue as if he’d spoken it only yesterday. All the thousands of centuries seemed to vanish, and Gabriel felt as if he were standing on the wall of Eden, calling out Semjaza as Michael threw the Grigori down to Hell.

There was a moment of silence and then, from the direction of Maryhill House, came a roar of pure rage.

“Gabriel! I, Semjaza, Prince of the Grigori, husband and lord of Ishtahar, my high priestess and mother of my children, do accept thy challenge. Bid all that you love farewell, thou most despised of Archangels, for this day shall surely be thy last.”

“Pompous, ain’t he?” Gabriel remarked. Hiwa laughed and Ahijah shook his head, a rueful smile on his face.

Shateiel rolled his eyes.
“I am surprised he limited himself to two sentences. I had thought we would be getting a book-length reply.”

“The day’s young yet,” Gabriel said, and Shateiel laughed soundlessly.

Several moments later, Semjaza strode out of the underbrush between the Stonehenge structure and the house of Maryhill. He wore black-and-red enameled plate armor, inlaid with mother of pearl and gold. Beside him was Azazel, carrying a banner pole with Semjaza’s crest on it and dressed in simple chain mail, much like Shateiel.

Semjaza stopped as he entered the inner ring and glared at Gabriel standing on the altar stone.

“Gabriel.”

“Semjaza.”

“Where is my wife?”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “Are you blind?”

Semjaza’s eyes narrowed and he looked around. As soon as his gaze fell on Ishtahar, Hiwa, and Ahijah, his eyes widened and his expression became cunning. “My beloved Ishtahar.” He quirked an eyebrow. “You are not wearing the green, beloved. Why do you clothe yourself in the purple? And my sons, why are they not attired in the white of their rank and station? And where is your pathetic little lover, Remiel?”

“Semjaza.” Ishtahar’s voice was clear and firm. She fixed him with a glare. “I am not
yours
, Semjaza. I am my own person. I chose the purple as a symbol of my rank and my allegiance to Hashem. My sons chose their own raiment for their own reasons—they are not infants whom I must coddle and command, as you seek to do. And dear Remiel is not here out of respect for me, for he respects and supports my decisions and has never sought to keep me as a slave or a pet as you have done.”

Semjaza’s lip curled at her speech, and he shook his head. “You have lived too long without a firm hand to guide you, my beloved. But I forgive you. The same will not be said when I kill Remiel after I have finished dispensing of Gabriel.” He turned to look at Ahijah and Hiwa. “And here are my sons, my beautiful children.” Semjaza smiled. “I am blessed. You have come to watch me kill Gabriel and his mute lieutenant and take your preordained places in my house. You, Hiwa, will govern the lands called Russia, Lithuania, Armenia, and Ukraine. And you, Ahijah, will govern those lands called South America. And you, most beloved Ishtahar, will be beside me in my palace in Eden.”

“No.” Ishtahar lifted her chin in defiance. “We will not. We are not here as your family, Semjaza. You took from us a great many things, not just our liberty, not just my free will or my body. You kept me under control through threat to my sisters, and I mourn them daily for their deaths in childbirth, unable to carry their Nephilim offspring. You continued to keep me under your control through threat to my sons, branding them with the stain of your sin and making them unable to live as Hashem Himself intended all to live upon this beautiful world. I was never
your
priestess, Semjaza. You presume too much. The role of High Priestess of Eden that I hold was always in honor of Hashem. Never in honor of
you.
”

Semjaza’s face twisted in anger. “Ishtahar. I have never treated you badly.”

Ishtahar turned away from him. “Lord Gabriel, I support you and the Brotherhood of Archangels and the will of God.”

Gabriel inclined his head to her, though his eyes never left his enemy. Semjaza was frowning, clearly taken aback by her rejection of him and her support of Gabriel.

“My sons,” Semjaza said, his voice gentler now, “talk to your mother. I can bring back her sisters. I can give them life once more and raise them. They will be forever young and forever with my beloved wife, your mother.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Hiwa sneered.

“Why would we help you?” Ahijah glared at Semjaza. “You took away everything we ever loved. You ruined our lives and made things shit for everyone. You don’t deserve anything from us. You deserve Gabriel’s sword in your gut.”

“Aye, speaking of.” Gabriel decided it was time to get to the heart of the matter. “Are you accepting my challenge, or has all that loafing around inside Aquila made you soft?”

Semjaza spat at him. “I accept,” he growled.

“Awesome.” Gabriel leapt from the altar stone, sword raised, and brought it down in an overhand stroke. His blade clashed against Semjaza’s hastily raised sword. Not pausing, Gabriel swung his sword again and once again his blade met steel.

Semjaza staggered back, holding his sword with the point low. “You were lucky,” he grated at Gabriel. “I was unprepared for your strike.”

Gabriel quirked an eyebrow beneath his coif and helmet. “Would you like to watch the next one coming?” And he lunged, feinting with his blade. Semjaza instinctively followed the feint, and Gabriel twisted his wrist, slashing at Semjaza’s armored shoulder.

Semjaza cried out in fury and leapt at Gabriel, raining blows down on Gabriel’s shoulders. Gabriel dodged the worst of them, jumping onto the altar stone then down to land behind Semjaza and thrusting his sword toward his foe’s kidneys. Semjaza howled and spun, his sword whipping out and slicing into Gabriel’s thigh.

Gabriel hissed at the wound, taking a step back and hefting his sword. The two circled each other warily, watching each other like hawks. Semjaza leapt onto the altar stone, and Gabriel pivoted and slashed at Semjaza’s legs, his blade shearing through Semjaza’s armor to his skin, inflicting painful wounds. Semjaza raised his own sword, and brought it down, aiming for Gabriel’s head. Gabriel brought his weapon up, and the song of steel on steel echoed around the stones, and sparks sheared off the blades.

Using the weight of his armored bulk, Gabriel shoved, and Semjaza stumbled, falling from the altar stone. He quickly regained his footing and thrust his sword, Gabriel parrying the stroke easily.

The clouds scudded dark gray overhead, the eerie light of the sun shimmering on them casting no shadows and coloring everything in shades of silver and gray, everything cast in stark relief, sharp and clear. Sweat trickled down Gabriel’s face as he fought with Semjaza, both of them taking injuries and neither one of them gaining the advantage. Through the bond, Gabriel could feel Michael’s growing anxiety, and he could feel the heavy weight of the many eyes watching the fight.