Seven Archangels: Annihilation (41 page)

Michael flashed to the clearing closest to Beelzebub, as near as he could get without taking to the air. At his back, Saraquael provided cover, and Zadkiel followed on his left. The three worked their way toward the rallying point of Hell's defense.

The Seraph focused on them with a sheen of double-intellect in his eyes.

Zadkiel gasped, "Mephistopheles."

A Seraph-Cherub pair in combat are almost impossible to defeat in this kind of situation: the Cherub ensconced, unseen, empowering the Seraph while providing surveillance to guide his raw force.

Saraquael sent an order to the angels in his immediate command: find Mephistopheles. Then he separated from Michael and Zadkiel, working his way in the opposite direction so they could surround Beelzebub.

Stopping to confront a new demon, Saraquael hesitated when he realized how much pain surrounded him.

Everyone had been wounded at least once. Angels and demons' spiritual bodies recovered from wounds that would kill a human being, but in some cases that meant only replenishing them for the next strike. Their forms did this naturally. The pain came as it would in a man, but recovery overtook the wound before it crippled. What the demons fought for (when defending) was not to take lives but to resist control. Their frenzy sprouted from a fear of chains. Humans proved useless in angelic struggles until they compensated for this cardinal difference: angels fought to restrain, not to kill. Demons on the offensive fought to hurt.

Even to humans, the dangers were psychic more than corporeal, and Saraquael had just encountered one of them: the carnage sickened him. He swung his sword, but the room tilted at him.

A golden glow split the darkness at his side: Remiel, laughing like a lunatic. She whirled like a dervish, a sword in each hand.

The demons thought her mad. They fled wherever she danced with her sunshine blades. Beside her, Saraquael recovered his footing.

Her back to his, Remiel said, "A poet's soul shouldn't be here."

"I'm the standard-bearer." Saraquael looked into her eyes and tried to regain his balance. "We need to stop Beelzebub."

Remiel charged Beelzebub, even as Michael jumped him from the other side and Zadkiel sliced at his legs.

Saraquael gasped as Beelzebub avoided all three attacks simultaneously while striking back at them as accurately as if confronted by only one.

Saraquael sent the order again:
You have to find Mephistopheles!

One of the Dominions replied, flagged the Cherub in Saraquael's thoughts. High in a nook on the wall, Mephistopheles was discorporated as he directed Beelzebub's every movement to keep him unhurt. He paid no attention to himself. The demons near him had formed a living fence.

Zadkiel!
Saraquael sent.

The other standard-bearer followed his thoughts to Mephistopheles. With the fury of a comet she charged, plowing through the guards at his front, her sword dragging through his dissociated form and forcing him solid with a scream.

Ten Virtue archers fired on Mephistopheles the moment Zadkiel made him solid.

As Mephistopheles took the hit, Beelzebub dropped in pain, and both vanished.

Saraquael and Remiel followed Beelzebub, while Zadkiel pursued Mephistopheles. Michael remained in the hall.

Raguel sent that Asmodeus had been isolated in the ice fields. He wasn't captured, but he couldn't get out either.

Sidriel sent that they had Belior fully engaged at the Lake of Fire.

At the far end of the hall, answering the need for a commander, Satan appeared.

Michael surged with relief—he was here, not destroying Israfel—and then terror—had he already done it?—and then rage. Either way, it was combat.

Focused on Satan, Michael didn't realize until too late when a demon slashed at him. Even as Michael turned to avoid the blow, a brilliance arced from the ceiling to divert the demon's sword. Raphael touched Michael with one hand, healing him while striking with his sword in the other hand.

For the moment, Gabriel's power resided in Raphael, but Michael couldn't tell where the Cherub had established himself.

Michael called Remiel.
I need all the Virtues scanning Hell for Israfel. Flush out any individual demons in hiding.

Forming teams of three,
she replied from a distance.

Michael looked again toward Satan, and he tingled all over.

"Go to him." Raphael's voice had a repressed laughter out of place in the middle of a battle. His double-shined eyes glistened in anticipation. "Please."

Michael hadn't heard the last word, nor anything after "go". He found an open space, and instantly flashed to it to lock himself in hand to hand combat with the first enemy creation had ever known.

Satan met Michael's blade, a sword searing with blue light. Michael's whole soul glistened, warm, charged with the might of God.

Swords clashed far too fast for human eyes to see as they pressed for an advantage, each seeking a moment, an opening, and a solid hit.  Satan brought all his power to bear, a power second only to God's own, and it would have shattered Michael where he stood except that God inhabited all Michael's soul. In response, Satan marshaled everything he had, hating the person of Michael, hating even more the one to whom Michael had ceded control.

For the moment, it was God versus Satan, no pretense, and both would win: God would win the battle, and Satan would win the only way he could, by refusing to do the thing God had asked of him. Satan's fury consumed him—the frustration, the unfairness, and the iron determination to persevere regardless because in his heart, he knew he was right to refuse to submit.

Michael felt God's warning. He dropped as Satan swung at his head.

Something shot out of the floor right through Michael, extending itself like an underworld manta ray, its billowing form rippling out to three wingspans and suffusing the chamber with a red light.

Satan looked up in horror.

Gabriel, thin, black, and infuriated, thundered, "Lucifer!"

Satan recoiled from the form curling over him, fear exploding off him like radiation from an atom bomb. His Seraphic fire whipped through the room, enveloping everything around him.

Every last demon cleared the area.

Gabriel raised his arms, that cape whipping all around him, and fixed Satan with a glare that could blister granite.

Satan fled. Gabriel pursued.

Reality thickened around Gabriel as he tried to pass through a Guard not designed to admit him, but inch by inch he pressed through, forcing it to recognize himself as a part of Satan's form, forcing himself toward Israfel, toward her killer.

As Gabriel arrived, he erupted with fear, no idea where he was, unable even to hear God in the darkness of Hell. Then he forced himself to get calm: he could sense Israfel; he could sense Satan as terrified as himself and probably feeling the fear as his own. Oddly enough, the darkness helped by giving Gabriel less data to assimilate. He knew where he was now. He was in the room where Satan had tried to destroy him.

I'm in!
he sent to Raphael, and the Guard admitted his thoughts to the outside because it recognized him. He pulled, then pushed at the Guard until he managed to open a keyhole for Raphael's spirit latch onto his.

God, give me strength,
Gabriel prayed, and he felt Raphael relaying his prayer to God.

"You're awake," Satan said. "Perfect."

Satan faced Israfel chained as Gabriel had been, and he pinned her with his will. There was no power focus, no team forming a Guard on the room, no one Guarding her immobile. Perhaps all that had been an affectation; perhaps Gabriel's unlacing had proven so easy that Satan dispensed with the formula. This meant it would be either easier or harder to defend Israfel; insufficient data—Gabriel couldn't predict.

Israfel shrieked, and Gabriel's heart jolted.

"It's over for you," Satan whispered between heavy breaths. "They're trying to free you, but not in time."

Israfel tried to strike back, and Gabriel felt panic wash through her when she couldn't. Her head whipped around, but she couldn't move any other part of herself.

Hands inside— The feeling of slipping apart—

Gabriel rose behind Israfel, unleashing red light to shatter the darkness like a flawed opal. Even as Satan stared in shock, Gabriel shouted, "Never again!"

Satan returned his attention to Israfel, who cried out once more and tried to blast back at him, frustration swirling from her as he kept her will frozen.

Gabriel slipped behind Israfel, reached into her soul, and re-laced her.

Satan tugged her apart again. "I'm glad you're dead. Alive you were my inferior, and death changes nothing."

Gabriel secured Israfel a second time, then tried to reach through the Guard for her other bonded Cherubim. Raphael fed Ophaniel's strength through the opening to Gabriel, and once they had a line in, Ophaniel's and Zophiel's energies found a home in Israfel's heart. Momentarily her secondaries joined the stream.

Satan worked faster. Gabriel counterattacked, retying Israfel as quickly as he could to undo any damage before she got hurt, but Israfel was still the pawn, still in the center. Gabriel called for more help, desperate as he watched her partially destroyed and partially fixed again and again.

Satan's eyes gleamed, and then Gabriel felt his grip change to grasp a different part of the beadwork. As he struck the new spot, Israfel's whole soul shivered.

Israfel cried aloud, "Gabriel!"

Diving back into her, Gabriel could feel the damage: a whole area of Israfel's soul was unsupported, vibrating—and he didn't know how to fix that.

He grasped for Israfel's heart, and she clung to him.

All over Hell, demons were surrendering. They had learned instantly: Gabriel had returned from annihilation, and such a terrible Gabriel that not even Satan dared face it. The Archangels were collecting the wounded and chaining them together, fastened to the walls and ceilings. Virtues rousted out the stragglers in the deeper levels. Principalities carried in prisoners from the ice fields, and Angels stood guard over the restrained or unconscious demons. Constantly the victory became more total as more Guarded pockets were opened and the inhabitants flushed out, captured, and secured.

Inside one of the final strongholds, Gabriel tried to shore up Israfel's buckling spirit. His fading strength left his form misty. The silence remained unbroken now even by Israfel as Satan and Gabriel each attempted to gain an advantage.

Gabriel realized,
I'm constantly defending.
And then,
I'm not as strong as I was.

Raphael pumped energy through the keyhole for Gabriel to absorb however much he could.

Satan struck again, a second pressure point, and more of Israfel's spirit collapsed.

Gabriel slid himself inside Israfel's soul: inhabiting it, loving it, doing his best to contain her within his heart, maybe slow Satan's progress. Ophaniel and Zophiel were filling her, but the strength leaked away through the broken parts. Whereas before Israfel had held tight to herself, now she was flagging.

Hang in there,
Gabriel urged.
Stay with me.

Israfel reached for him, and in the next moment she offered Gabriel her fire.

It came over him like cold water to a traveler in the desert. Like a hungry serpent, his soul uncoiled, absorbing it all and swamping her at the same time in rings of steel, his Cherub strength.

Satan radiated disgust, trying to block the flood or break the bond off at the socket, but there was so much. Gabriel swirled into Israfel and she into him with joy because even fighting for her life, even on the brink of one or both their deaths, a bond was goodness. Was purity. Was love.

Strong again, Gabriel reinforced her soul with his own material. He could feel both Raphael and Ophaniel urging him to open the Guard wide, but he couldn't make more than that keyhole. He might have escaped himself, but he'd never leave Israfel.

Satan's eyes sparkled. Then, with one spiritual "hand" in Israfel's soul, he reached the other into Gabriel's.

Gabriel moved. Satan couldn't hold him, but that shifted him away from Israfel, so Satan hit that major juncture again. Israfel was losing cohesion.

Knock her unconscious,
sent Ophaniel.
He can't touch her then.

Not while she's partially disassembled!

You were unconscious.

Raphael was keeping me together. If I do that without him here, we're going to lose the unfastened parts of her.

A moment later, Raphael's urgent voice:
God says "Remember your strength."

Gabriel shored up Israfel, slipped out of Satan's hold again, and then had to brace Israfel once more.

Quit being cryptic,
he prayed.
I've got a lot going on here.

Satan hit the second pressure point. To Gabriel's horror, more of Israfel's soul collapsed.

In a panic, he reached into Satan's soul for that burning cord holding his soul together, and abruptly in his hands he felt the beads nearest the end: hard, raw, strong. He unlaced them.

Satan blasted at Gabriel, then turned his anger full-on at the Cherub, locking his will on Gabriel's own soul.

Raphael was screaming in his heart, but Gabriel couldn't spare a thought from the fight, because Satan was doing it all over again, wrapping his hands and his power around Gabriel's personality and trying to slide the beads off the string, and he was so much stronger—so much more—

Raphael again:
Remember your strength.

I have no more strength!

The clatter was deafening as Michael attacked the outside of the Guard, but Gabriel knew he wouldn't break through in time to save either of them.

Gabriel forced enough of himself free of Satan's binding to attack again. Too much information: disorientation as Satan struck down at him while he had his hands in the Seraph's heart, his own substance within Satan welcoming him back, and a moment's sensation of how pliable their souls were toward one another because of their respective choirs. And oh, how much more vast Satan's was than his own, how his cord hypercoiled around itself so it left the beads looser but simultaneously harder to disconnect.