Seven Archangels: Annihilation (16 page)

Now—

These were the pieces touched by God Himself when they all came forth new and soft, made as individuals even though he didn't respect the things he'd made, made all at one time in a gush of wonderment—

And he, Mephistopheles, the only one who'd figured out how—

Do it.

Just pull. Get it started. It will be easier once it's started.

I'm responsible for this. The only one here.

Her heartstrings slipped away once again, him feeling at once her own denial, the skewed unreality of the moment, her own questions as to who she was and where she could go from here, and he knew he couldn't lay a hand on her again.

He'd call Lucifer. Let him do it again; let his hands be the ones for the second time.

Illuminating the room, Remiel looked about as if stunned by her surroundings. She pulled her wrist out of the chain and stepped forward.

Mephistopheles retreated: it was too late even to call for a backup. She pulled free her other hand. He couldn't grab her will because her will wasn't in command right now. Crazed like this, nothing could hold her, no Guard keep her in or out.

He said to her, "Do you know how I recognized you? Because even Camael isn't that twisted inside."

Looking at him over her shoulder, she bit her lip. Then as though they didn't exist, she stepped through his Guards and vanished.

Mephistopheles dropped against the wall, one of the ankle rings jutting into his back. He didn't shift. He maintained the Guard and sat for ten minutes.

Lucifer ought to know about this, but then again, Mephistopheles could fully predict the kind of response he'd get, the subsequent loss of status, the sneers, the interesting nicknames unforgotten for an eternity or until someone else fell from favor.

What was Remiel looking for, anyhow? Such a dangerous mission couldn't be for no reason, surely. Knowing she might be killed if captured, yet heading in alone and disguised as her brother (something Camael had never been able to stand doing—something she'd never done before) bespoke a desperation Mephistopheles didn't understand.

The options were, either she was crazy before she'd started and wanted to visit this room as a shrine, or else they thought something had been left behind, or they wanted reassurance that Gabriel was really destroyed and not just trapped.

The letter never mentioned annihilation.

Maybe they weren't convinced.

But what evidence could she be seeking? There wouldn't be blast marks on the stones, and no trace signature remained of Gabriel's energies. Therefore, spiritual residue.

That was an interesting prospect, that they might be trying to collect bits of Gabriel, maybe not for reassembly, but for a memorial, or—no, they'd never be able to clone an angel, would they?

Without wanting to, for the hundred-and-eighth time, Mephistopheles relived the scene. Their Guard, unbreeched. The way the Cherub had screamed for God. Camael's energy drilling into Gabriel. The Cherub unable to move, unable even to cry out by the end as they disconnected one piece from the next from the next from the next. That flash of raw light as Lucifer finished.

Mephistopheles sat on the floor and closed his eyes.

I made that possible.

Remiel insane. Angels not singing. Raphael crippled.

I did that.

A great victory. Everyone said so. A crowd of revelers chanted so. Even the minions of Heaven seemed to think so. Victory.

Oh, Gabriel.

Mephistopheles' eyes flew open.

He gripped his Guard and drew it down on itself, rendering it ever smaller until it hit the chain anchors for the arm braces and he had to give those permission to permeate; then further down, slowly, until he had to give permission to pass himself through, and still smaller until the Guard was the size of a grapefruit and fit on his palm, and finally so small there rested on his palm only a tiny bead.

It rolled a little, trembling from the contact. Mephistopheles probed the contents of his Guard the way he'd probed Remiel.

It felt like Gabriel, only it wasn't Gabriel any more than the letter 'b' spelled Gabriel or a picture of Gabriel would have been Gabriel. It was only a part of a part of one of the beads that made up a soul riding the heartstrings.

The question remained: what would Remiel have done if she'd found this? There certainly wasn't enough to make an angel. Three could fit on the head of a pin. Most likely he hadn't found it in the post-annihilation sweep because it was so small. Yet Remiel had anticipated its presence and come searching.

She had sounded pained regarding the funeral. Maybe they required something of Gabriel to dispose of properly. But surely symbolic laying to rest wasn't worth risking Remiel's life and sanity. The only way to make her potential sacrifice worthwhile was if they believed they could resurrect Gabriel.

Admittedly you never knew what God was going to do after you won a hand. A notorious sore loser, God would change the rules of the game midstream if things hadn't gone the way he liked. Lucifer and he had acknowledged that basic unfairness during the planning stages. Still, making God change the rules meant they'd won inasmuch as they'd done something so unexpected that he couldn't have won by ordinary means.

Keeping a hand cradled beneath the bead, Mephistopheles sent a summons to Lucifer, who appeared momentarily.

"I trust you've been working on your assignment."

"You needed to see this." Mephistopheles handed over the bead wrapped in his Guard.

Lucifer flashed out of the chamber into his office minus Mephistopheles. A moment later, Lucifer pulled him inside.

Stark anger. "Explain this."

"It's spiritual residue from—"

"Explain how you think it survived."

Mephistopheles stood ramrod straight before his blistering attention. "It survived because at the last when you disconnected his heartstrings, you blew apart what remained, and this bit must have gotten trapped in a corner." Mephistopheles tried to calm his own heart. "You can see from its size it's almost nothing, and without a Guard around it, I doubt you could handle it. If you'd like me to further study it—"

Lucifer crushed down on the Guard with two fingers, smashing apart the bead and causing a pain to shoot through Mephistopheles' head. He felt the bead go, felt whatever had been inside the Guard absorbed into Lucifer's hungry spirit.

"You will track down any more of these."

"Sir, I can say with complete confidence—"

"You were completely confident
before
that we'd found and annihilated all of him, everything except the memories. Your confidence means nothing to me. I want assurance that nothing more survived."

Mephistopheles bowed his head, an obeisance Lucifer would feel even in the dark. "I apologize. I should have taken it on myself earlier to squeeze the room, but at the time our search seemed thorough enough."

"I don't keep you around to
seem
thorough, Mephistopheles." And with that, Lucifer pushed him back out into the cell.

Yeah, maybe he would just neglect to mention Remiel.

Mephistopheles reset his Guard on the room and repeated the squeeze, bringing the Guard tighter and closer until it collapsed on itself without entrapping anything inside. In order to make sure the room contained nothing further, though, Mephistopheles would need to devise a new kind of technique. They'd never had to filter out something so slippery and small.

Lucifer appeared at his side. Mephistopheles didn't react, just endured a moment's humiliation as his master set a Guard on the room and squeezed it again.

Embarrassment yielded momentarily to awe. A Guard's strength is directly proportional to one's willpower, and Mephistopheles had never encountered a Guard anywhere near this tight. It had to be three times stronger than the one he'd just used, and Lucifer beside him vibrated with the tension of the San Andreas Fault.

The next feeling was panic as Lucifer's Guard hit the edges of Mephistopheles and contained him within the squeeze. He moved toward the center, but he could feel Lucifer's amusement as the Guard tightened around him, forcing him closer on himself. Just when he wondered if he were supposed to beg for mercy, Lucifer allowed him to permeate the Guard, and it continued shrinking to a singularity.

"If I may," Mephistopheles said, "don't dissolve your Guard yet. Start expanding it slowly again." He threw a Guard on the room, attempting to make it as iron-tight as the one Lucifer had just done. Mephistopheles made a note to practice Guarding. Tight enough and maybe you could keep out the Almighty.

Lucifer said, "This is new."

"Between the two of them, we should be able to determine if anything remains."

Lucifer's Guard contacted Mephistopheles' and pushed outward while Mephistopheles concentrated to hold the shape of his own, the crushing pressure between the two always in his thoughts, and from what he could tell, perfectly even. Nothing blemished the seal of one against the other, but was it ever hard to maintain concentration against that kind of pressure—

Mephistopheles' Guard shattered, leaving him seeing arcing lights that couldn't be there. His head pounded. He tried to ask if this were a sufficient degree of certitude, but the words wouldn't form.

"Very well, then." The rustle of folding wings. "Now get back to my assignment." And he flashed away.

Mephistopheles dropped to the floor, unable to stop shaking.

Chapter Eleven

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 clam shell.

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.