Seven Archangels: Annihilation (22 page)

Shaking, he hungered for Beelzebub to come pull the thorns from his heart, but then Beelzebub would want to know why, and then Mephistopheles might have to answer because what good was a Cherub if he left an unanswered question? Next Beelzebub would dump energy into him, and together they'd be more stable, but he'd
know
, he'd see right inside his Cherub and then feel obliged to bury the thing he saw because it was a weakness and a filthy shame.

One of Gabriel's last thoughts had been of Raphael. Beelzebub's last thought would always and forever be of himself.

"This is stupid," Mephistopheles muttered, and he tried to flash to Camael himself.

Camael's trail had vanished. It had been a while, but Mephistopheles should have just been able to think about him and take himself there, and instead "there" brought him a nebulous bounce.

Someone had Camael behind a Guard.

Lucifer. Questioning him why Mephistopheles hadn't begun his work yet.

Belior. Making him a better offer.

Beelzebub. Laughing at him.

Mephistopheles went to the lobby, signed out, and flashed to Creation.

The void of space didn't help—too much like the labs. He traveled to Earth to check out a couple of smaller projects he was overseeing, but then he still couldn't find Camael.

Mephistopheles opened his senses. This wasn't his specialty, but he understood how to do it, at least in theory. Wherever Camael was, the created space around him knew. This wouldn't work if Lucifer had him behind Guards, but it should help in almost every other circumstance. He held an image of Camael's soul in his head, then began matching it to every bit of creation and Hell, machine-gunning the pattern in a broad hunt for anything similar. This method would give scores of false-positives, but Mephistopheles made note of every place that felt "right" and then reviewed them each with a second challenge, and finally proceeded to check in person all fifty-four that passed.

At the fifteenth site, Mephistopheles found Remiel alone in a cornfield.

Intriguing. Why waste the opportunity? This time he might be able to contain her.

He flitted into the nearest oak to stand immobile in the branches, a shadow clinging to the trunk. Partly cloudy himself, he blended with the sky and avoided the scattered sunbeams that penetrated the foliage.

An exodus of birds lifted from the limbs with rapid wing beats, but Remiel didn't look toward the tree. She sat, feet tucked under her legs, leaning over herself.

Mephistopheles knew he ought to call Beelzebub or Lucifer, but instead he focused entirely on her.

"Why couldn't you do this?" she whispered. "See?"

Mephistopheles leaned out but still could see only golden feathers. He smelled blood.

"Gabriel," she whispered, "if I can do this, then why couldn't you?"

Like a breath of vapor, Mephistopheles inched along the branch directly over her head, curling around the bark of the tree and proceeding like a snakeish coil.

"See?" she said again, and this time Mephistopheles did see.

Remiel did it again. She took her curved dagger and with the slender blade slit the thin skin of her arm lengthwise from her wrist to her elbow.

He'd gone ice-cold as Remiel watched the slice heal perfectly beneath the blood that welled up. "Why didn't you do this?"

He couldn't descend and trap her. No one could, not with her more quicksilver than angel. She might well continue sitting here and slicing and mourning for all eternity, and no one could move her because the madness rendered her untouchable. Otherwise he would have stopped her himself.

She rocked a little on her knees, then cut deeply into the brown-stained flesh and held down the point of the blade so her substance couldn't immediately seal. It left a red mark when it did join.

Her face was dirty. "See?"

Mephistopheles inched back toward the trunk, wondering if Remiel would care even if she did discover him.

He froze on feeling a new presence.

Saraquael had arrived, and now he knelt in front of Remiel with one arm on her shoulders, but not forcing her to stop. He murmured slowly, softly, and he kept his head near hers. Remiel looked up from her arm and met his eyes as he spoke with all the gentleness a poet-soul had to dispense. She listened, and Mephistopheles wondered if silent tears had overspilled those eyes.

Saraquael slipped one hand under her left, the other on top, and drew away the dagger.

Mephistopheles twinged with relief. He tensed, then, as Saraquael looked right up through the branches of the tree at the smoggy form of him.

The contact lasted only a heartbeat. The next, Zadkiel had appeared at Saraquael's back, armored and on alert. Five Archangels appeared by her side.

He wanted to laugh. As if they'd be hard to dispose of on his way toward Saraquael. Still, Mephistopheles didn't move.

Saraquael had returned his full attention to Remiel, who seemed to respond to him. At the very least, he was able to touch her. There must be enough of her left in there for him to contact. "Stay with me," Saraquael was saying. "Please just sit by me."

Remiel slipped sideways so she faced off into the distance, giving Mephistopheles a full view of Saraquael and a profile shot of her. She wore a lostness, as though she had never seen the Earth before. Saraquael kept his wings and one hand on her, a contact Mephistopheles marveled at: why didn't she shove him aside? But she seemed to absorb his presence while staring blankly at the stones, the insects, the ripe corn.

"That's right," Saraquael said. "Stay with me."

Good luck,
Mephistopheles thought.
You'll never keep her here if she wants to be somewhere else.
She was so effervescent now that a strong breeze might carry her away, dissolving her into a mist spread across space and time.

The breeze rustled the tree. Mephistopheles shifted so he straddled the limb, then swung his legs up and leaned against the trunk. Every time he moved, Zadkiel tensed, so he flexed his wings once just to see her jump.

Odd that Saraquael had summoned her rather than Michael.

"I'm with you," the Dominion was saying, flashing a wet cloth to his hand and wiping the blood stains, leaving the skin pink and raw when he'd finished. Remiel extended her arms beside one another and showed Saraquael.

Why was he taking so much time with her? She was safe, if you could call it that, since if Saraquael had this much trouble reaching her, Mephistopheles never could; he'd have had better luck talking to Gabriel with a ouija board.

As if she'd heard, Remiel said, "Why are you here?"

Saraquael said, "I can't leave you here. You're special to me."

She screamed, and Mephistopheles got a terrific view of the moment Saraquael realized his fatal mistake.

Cold wind blasted the tree. Mephistopheles darted to the whipping edge of the limb to watch, not caring that Zadkiel had drawn her sword. Remiel was on her feet. "How can you tell one of the Irin she's special? She's never been unique, never cherished, and if she plays herself right she can turn into the other one and no one ever cares about the change! Special? Can a facsimile of anything be special?"

Wind exploded from the rises of the hills and whipped through the tall corn. Mephistopheles stilled his branch, but the rest of the tree flailed around him. Rain plummeted from the clouds.

Saraquael scrambled to his feet, armor-clad.

"See how special I am?" She shifted her body to masculine so she again resembled Camael. "Look how special I am."

Mephistopheles thrilled as Remiel raised her arms to conduct nature like a symphony orchestra, calling more rain now, more wind there. The sky darkened to olive.

Zadkiel was praying. Mephistopheles laughed.

"Quite a show," said a deep voice at his side. Asmodeus.

Mephistopheles didn't answer, but he felt his soul despite itself welcome the weak bond with the Seraph.

"I'm wondering what they're planning to do," Asmodeus said.

"She's too far gone to capture. The sheep are asking God to do something." Mephistopheles huffed. "I'm betting he's just as responsive as he was with Gabriel."

Asmodeus cocked his head. "Which is to say?"

"That he won't care."

Asmodeus sparkled with wild energy: the Seraph wanted to head down there and mix things up a bit. The Seraph hadn't summoned Belior, so Mephistopheles drew off some of the energy to stabilize him. Asmodeus's warmth shot through him like whiskey, and it quelled a hunger of which he'd been barely aware. He hadn't touched Beelzebub's fire since Gabriel's death.

Saraquael shouted something to Zadkiel about getting him at least one sane moment.

Fat chance,
Mephistopheles projected.

You've got to admit,
Asmodeus replied,
she's got some power.

The twin raised its arms and called a bolt of lightning. The energy erupted from overhead with a simultaneous flash and boom, searing the air and rocking the earth. Mephistopheles lost his balance, but Asmodeus caught him momentarily before he pulled free.

The lightning struck the Irin.

"Now!" Saraquael projected to everyone, and both he and Zadkiel grasped the Irin as she leaped aloft, him around her chest and Zadkiel around her thighs while Remiel attempted to beat them off with her wings, kicking, head thrown back. A shower of raindrops blasted from her feathers as she flailed, and both demons leaned forward to watch.

Remiel called more lightning, straight at all three of them. Zadkiel stared.

With a gasp, Saraquael wrenched Remiel around in midair so the bolt blasted her full in the chest.

"Bravo!" Asmodeus called. Then, to Mephistopheles,
I didn't think he'd do it!

Fast reaction time.

Remiel lay limp in Saraquael's grasp. Zadkiel threw out a Guard. Saraquael flashed them away, followed a moment later by the Archangels.

They won't hold her long,
Asmodeus sent.

They touched her at all,
Mephistopheles replied.
She had to have been rational for at least a second.

The weather calmed as if someone had turned off a fan. The groaning tree stood firm again, and Mephistopheles flashed out to the flattened corn field to avoid the dripping leaves. A moment after, Asmodeus followed.

He nudged the sticky ground with his boot. "She was bleeding?"

Mephistopheles assented.

"I'm upset you didn't call me sooner."

"I didn't call you at all."

"I notice you didn't call Beelzebub, either." When Mephistopheles shot him a glare, Asmodeus smiled. Wretched snake-oil salesman. Did he think Mephistopheles couldn't read him like a cheap paperback?

With a jolt, Mephistopheles realized—he was being propositioned.

His discovery had earned him enough political capital that everyone was singing his praises—and if Asmodeus could get Mephistopheles to change loyalties, Lucifer certainly wouldn't put someone this popular in charge of the army. Asmodeus would have to be promoted to Lucifer's number two again.

Asmodeus groped for him through the bond, and Mephistopheles absorbed the energy without thinking about it. He'd never even considered— But then Belior…and Beelzebub…

He took a few steps, feeling the wind wrapping his wet clothes against his legs. Asmodeus watched. He shivered.

"I need a favor." The rain plastered Mephistopheles' hair to his head and dripped down the back of his armor between his wings. "Camael is missing. Given Remiel's mental state—"

"Say no more," Asmodeus said. "Consider him found." And away he flashed.

Mephistopheles moved to the spot where the lightning had hit, standing on the charred earth and remembering how Remiel had sliced open her arm while talking to a Gabriel who was no more. The wind wrapped circles around him, and the corn lay beaten flat by the mad rain.

- + -

Gabriel rocketed out of Uriel's grasp the instant he awoke. Raphael and Michael rushed to grab him, but he blasted through the Guards and flashed away. Raphael flashed after him. Michael took off in pursuit of them both, uncertain where he'd headed but following the trail of fear.

He skidded up to Raphael, who had Gabriel crumpled at his feet. The Seraph turned, spread his arms, and send a hard blast outward:
Back!

Michael dropped to his knees beside Gabriel, who had grey eyes white-ringed, question and aching rolling off him. Raphael crouched beside them, covering Gabriel with his wings.

Michael looked around for the first time: the throne of God. Gabriel had fled directly to his Father.

Raphael's "Back!" had been directed at a dozen Cherubim and Seraphim who had come to help. A moment after that realization, Michael made a second one: it wasn't working. The Seraphim had stopped, but if anything, more Cherubim were gathering.

"Is he okay?" "What happened?" "Can we see?" "How does one reattach—"

Gabriel struggled against Raphael's hold, and Raphael had to force him to look into his eyes. Michael expected Gabriel to calm instantaneously, but it didn't happen.

Michael put a Guard around them, then doubled it. Behind him he could hear Raphael trying to talk Gabriel into a state of calm. "You're safe! You're with me! Gabriel, listen to me!"

Michael glanced beyond the bubble to the waiting Cherub faces.

In the next moment he felt Jesus arrive. The Cherubim dispersed on his order, but not without a few looking over their shoulders.

Jesus walked through the Guard as Raphael stood, hefting Gabriel in his arms.

Raphael looked urgent. "I need to tell you—"

"Rapha'li, later." Jesus kissed him on the cheek. "I'll still be here."

Blinking hard, Raphael flashed Gabriel away. Michael projected his thanks, then returned as well.

The first thing he saw was Israfel's livid face. "How could you let him escape? Uriel said we might need you when he regained consciousness!"

"I'd set up the Guard to keep others out," Michael said. "It never occurred to me I needed to keep him in."