Seven Archangels: Annihilation (36 page)

The other two Cherubim had devised a check system more complicated than the FedEx delivery algorithm, but he trusted that in a few moments the scheme would collapse under its own weight and they'd resume with a modified simple system.

Israfel said as he started a second braid, "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"No."

He felt power go out of her. Then she turned, thrusting a black box into his lap.

The other angels, minus the Cherubim, looked up at attention.

Mary sat forward. "The trumpet?"

"I never showed it to you, did I?" Braid abandoned, Gabriel opened the case so the instrument gleamed in the sunlight. "I'm supposed to sound this for the final resurrection."

Mary extended a hand, then drew back. "Can I hold it?"

Gabriel handed over the instrument. She sighted along its edges, moved the valves, and admired the craftsmanship. Behind them, the Cherubim were still debating.

The awe in her voice blended into the breeze. "God outdid Himself."

Raphael leaned back on his palms. "It's the most perfect instrument in all creation, and the sound it makes is heart-stopping. It makes a D and you just want to keep on hearing a D."

Looking puzzled, Mary handed it back, and Gabriel kept it on his lap. "You've played it?"

"You mean without raising the dead?" He laughed. "It won't be the trumpet itself that brings about the resurrection." He rested his fingers on the third valve tube. "Any trumpet would do, and any player. It's just an instrument."

Raphael swept one wing out so he brushed the top of Gabriel's hair. "Tell me another one. You love that thing."

Gabriel traced a fingertip along the bell. "I like the sound quality."

Israfel made a face at him. "Go ahead and play."

Gabriel raised the instrument, lowered it, then stood. "You have to straighten your windpipe to get a strong note."

Raphael murmured under his breath, "Not that he's fanatical about the trumpet."

Gabriel feigned surprise. "Doing things right is being fanatical?"

Raphael turned to Mary. "That's obsessive-compulsive
with
a hyphen, if you were wondering."

She laughed until Gabriel raised the trumpet and played one note.

Everyone silenced. He looked down at where she sat.

"Play it again," she breathed.

Tilting the trumpet higher this time, he used the full force of his lungs to play first a scale, then to work his way back to the starting note before picking notes at random.

The trumpet met him in his soul, and he closed his eyes as though engaged in a long kiss. The stillness of those around him made for an echo like a concert hall, and Gabriel let all the notes fall together into a melody and then braided his heart directly into the sound.

Remiel appeared, startled. A moment after, Gabriel felt Michael's arrival, his nonverbal approval. Gabriel cut off the song.

Mary sat forward. "Keep playing."

"I don't like having an audience." Gabriel's head buzzed as he sat, and he felt as if his axis were wobbly. "Not when I'm just fooling around with it. It's all the trumpet, anyhow."

Raphael extended his hand, and Gabriel passed him the instrument. Still sitting, the Seraph played a short tune.

"Now," he said, "was that the trumpet, or was that me?"

Gabriel laughed. "If I say it's the trumpet, you'll say I'm disregarding your years of practice. If I say it's you, you'll ask if the trumpet magic works only for me."

Raphael grinned.

"It's grace." Gabriel took back the trumpet. "For me, the instrument is the grace. For you, it's your talent." Handing it to Israfel, he said, "Show us what someone can do with both."

Israfel stood. After taking a few breaths to steady herself, she blew.

Gabriel knew the Islamic legends indicating Israfel would be the one to sound the trumpet for the final resurrection. Until that moment, he'd never given them a second thought. The note Israfel voiced had the power of resurrection in its depth, the tone of longing and the timbre of regret. Breathless he listened as she found a new note and held it, then continued into a song Gabriel suddenly recognized. She and the trumpet seemed at war, and the struggle itself produced the sound.

Israfel abruptly handed the trumpet back to Gabriel. He regarded her without ability to speak.

Raphael found his voice first. "Were you trying to raise the dead?"

As Gabriel snapped the clasps on the case, Israfel said, "Maybe I was."

- + -

Still at the pinnacle of Mount Aconcagua, Mephistopheles raised his head.

Closing his eyes and stopping his heart the better to hear the sound, Mephistopheles shivered.

That trumpet.

He stood, cursing his own movement as he sent a half-dozen pebbles rattling down the slope, then attuned his hearing even further to the notes.

Music. From Gabriel.

It resounded only faintly, and he shifted into Hell where the sound felt just as faint: a thrum that set his whole soul on the edge of an unspeakable grief.

Shifting planes back to Creation, he stood rigidly and arched his neck as though he could feel a trumpet brushing his own lips. The feathers on his innermost wings trembled with the slow sound.

After the rebellion, when Gabriel had received that trumpet, Mephistopheles had realized the instrument was an extension of Gabriel's own soul material. This must be the trumpet's dirge for its owner.

The sound ended abruptly, and he awaited more.

If Gabriel had to blow that trumpet to begin the resurrection, maybe now it had been prevented.

Or else someone in Heaven was trying to resurrect Gabriel.

Or worse, someone in Heaven wanted him to hear the sound on Earth to make him feel guilty.

He bristled. Guilt meant sin, and sin he ought to love, so he smiled as though to display unbridled glee at violating every moral norm with his natural endowments. Which, of course, he had.

The trumpet played again, obviously not Gabriel this time not just because Gabriel was dead, but because of the difference in style. This song was planned. Although played with more skill, this music didn't resonate within.

Mephistopheles' heart stabbed him. Raphael.

The Cherub sat again, pulling his legs close to his chest and wrapping himself in his wings, head tucked into the cocoon he'd made of himself.

"I did it. I told Lucifer how. I conducted the experiments. I found the link between the Irin. I was the first to reach inside a soul and hold the strings that make it whole, and because of me those strings were snapped. I did it. I'm the reason."

Why should he regret it? What God had done deserved no lesser punishment than that. Mephistopheles had plucked one of the stars from his heart. He'd given their side a key to unlock their freedom. Why then the urge to go stand before God and say,
I did that. I'm the one. I made them sad, and now I have to tell you—

No, don't even think the words.

Then came a note of such unfulfilled tension that Mephistopheles huddled over himself. A second note flew like a second arrow into his soul.

Who was that?
No way was that Raphael. But then he remembered, didn't Gabriel have a second primary? With Israfel? That could well be her.

Two primary Seraphim, the trumpet, a sound audible in Hell…. This must be Gabriel's funeral.

He blinked.

Gabriel's funeral. They'd done it

They'd really, actually, genuinely done it!
He'd
done it—him—Mephistopheles! He'd reached into Gabriel and stabbed Raphael through the heart and Israfel in the gut. He'd wrenched Gabriel out of Heaven and into the void, and he'd done it
himself
, with no one's help in devising the theory, only a little extra support in coordinating the test—he'd done it!

And he laughed because he'd fulfilled his true nature, his fortune he'd designed for himself, his own destiny in every sense of the word.

Well, then, God,
he thought,
now
I'm
the smartest angel you created—and no debate!

He leaped to his feet and looked over the world as though an audience watched to record his movements in its spiritual minutes.

He was free—and freedom came with its own intoxication.

With laughter he scanned the valley stretched before him with its shanties and muddy villages. He leaped from the pinnacle, spreading his wings to break his fall, then arcing in the air to knife over the coffee fields. He extended all six wings to their fullest and punched a hole in the cloud cover.

"We did it!" he screamed to the unhearing Earth. "We annihilated an angel!"

He tucked into a ball and plummeted, waiting until a heartbeat before hitting the ground to flash far distant.

He landed in Beelzebub's chamber. "Seraph," he whispered in his ear, draping himself over Beelzebub's back and enwrapping him in his wings, "are you busy?"

Beelzebub turned toward him, surprise and fire bubbling inside for Mephistopheles to drink deeply. The heat flooded into his core before rushing outward like a release of long-built tension through his limbs and wings.

Cherub steel exuded from Mephistopheles' heart in rings for the Seraph to absorb. He joined his hands around Beelzebub's chest. "I suspect we have a funeral to crash."

Beelzebub's fire surged.

At that moment, Mephistopheles heard in his heart the summons, felt Beelzebub feeling it too, and they disentangled even as Lucifer drew them before him.

Asmodeus and Belior were already present. "You're presentable?" Lucifer said to Mephistopheles. "The both of you get armored. It seems a funeral is taking place, so it's time to retrieve Camael."

- + -

Saraquael was explaining to Michael about the ball token when Raguel's warning rolled through them all: Satan at the gates.

Raphael was behind Gabriel in an instant, hand over his eyes. Immediately Gabriel slumped unconscious, wings spilled at his sides. The next moment they'd flashed back into Uriel's bungalow.

Saraquael followed with the trumpet. "I'm going to put up an in-and-out Guard specifically geared to Gabriel. It should be impossible for them to sense him, but keep him unconscious if you can."

Saraquael left with the impression that Raphael thought Gabriel needed the sleep anyhow.

At the gate, Saraquael found the entire Maskim: Satan flanked by his top four officers, the two Seraphim a step behind and to either side the two Cherubim. All five in black armor, caped, booted, and stern.

Remiel perched on the top railing of Heaven's gate, and Raguel had a position just before it. Archangels stood at the gate houses, but they weren't doing more than watching. Saraquael took a place beside Raguel. After another moment, they were joined by Michael and Israfel, Ophaniel and Uriel.

Satan scanned the seven archangels in apparent confusion. "Is someone in charge here? I want the manager on duty."

Saraquael let out an irritated sigh, but Michael only stepped forward looking for all the world as if he had not just been insulted. "That would be me. What can we do for you today?"

From behind and above, Remiel project to Saraquael,
Welcome to Heaven
.
May I take your order?

Behave,
he sent back.

"I want my lieutenant," Satan said.

Remiel's voice again:
And would you like a drink with that?

No ice,
Saraquael replied.

Michael said, "Lieutenant?"

"Give us Camael," Satan said.

Remiel said, "What makes you think we didn't annihilate him?"

"Because you're there and not here." Satan squared his shoulders. "Don't be a wench. Return my lieutenant."

Michael said, "You destroyed one of our own. We're entitled to keep one of yours."

The Seraphim on Satan's either side had flames around their eyes, but the Cherubim remained unmoving.

"I still don't believe you really did it," Remiel said. "You have no proof."

Satan said, "What proof do you want?"

"Anything," Remiel said. "Whatever is left over."

"There wasn't anything left over." Satan stared off to the side, seeming bored. "When we found leftovers, we destroyed those too. Trust me that I have no interest in keeping any part of him." He returned his attention to Michael. "Now, my lieutenant."

Remiel said, "What if we decide to keep him? What will you do?"

Saraquael saw Mephistopheles and Asmodeus exchange a glance. Both had seen Remiel go mad earlier.

"Well?" Remiel's voice had risen in pitch. "What will you do? Even annihilation is preferable to Hell. We'd be doing him a favor."

Michael looked around at Remiel, who fell silent.

Satan said, "My lieutenant. I don't care what you have to do to get him. Just do it."

Michael smiled dryly.

Mephistopheles, in flat tones: "What do you want?"

"What we want," Michael said, hands clenched behind him, "is the assurance that you won't perform any more annihilations. Your word is worth, ultimately, nothing, so we retained Camael as a kind of insurance."

Mephistopheles said, "What's Camael to us?"

"You want him returned." Michael arched his eyebrows. "He must be worth something."

"It's a matter of dignity," Satan said. "We can't leave one of our own with you. Now bring my lieutenant."

Saraquael felt Remiel speaking in his mind again.
Can you feel Mephistopheles and Beelzebub going at it?

He glanced at the pair, both motionless.
In what sense?

Their bond. It's like it's alive. You can't feel it?

Not at all.

He felt her turn the same question to Israfel only to have her say a bond can't be felt by outsiders.

He had no doubt Remiel was right—but watching them, he felt nothing and saw nothing. A moment after that, Satan turned his head and glared at the pair of them. Both radiated surprise, and Beelzebub's feathers flared.

Asmodeus hadn't noticed. "What do you feel like demanding instead? We've complied with the restrictions in your letter."