Seven Archangels: Annihilation (42 page)

They had completely engaged with one another now, Israfel hanging half-unfastened behind Gabriel but otherwise forgotten.

Satan pushed. Gabriel felt himself give. Again Satan pushed, and more of Gabriel yielded. There just wasn't enough of him.

Remember your strength!

What strength?

Gabriel bubbled with frustration, with horror as Satan unfastened still more of him. Raphael within was trying to keep him tight, but it was a matter of time—

Michael landed a blow that vibrated the whole Guard, but it didn't shatter.

Satan had forced Gabriel back against the chamber wall now, side by side with Israfel. Gabriel wondered if he'd lost the war for both of them because here he was wavering on the brink of delirium with Israfel no closer to freedom, and Satan still had more energy than both of them combined.

Michael slammed the Guard again. It buckled, then re-formed partially around Gabriel.

As it did, he felt the chain anchor for Israfel's left arm at the back of his neck.

His eyes flew open.

Remember your strength.

The chain anchor. His attempt to survive the first time.

Gabriel extended his soul behind him into the wall, grasping the anchor. His heart racing, he vacuumed out all his own power.

With a gasp, Satan watched Gabriel double in strength, in a second becoming his equal in power, and in next surging ahead of the one angel so strong he had though he might be God's peer.

Gabriel himself marveled, intoxicated, flushed, astonished by his own glory and by the might he possessed, the things he knew he could do, the sudden insights into the universe and God's heart and God's intentions. There was nothing he couldn't know now, no mystery he couldn't unravel—and for a moment he beheld himself and marveled at the glory of the God who had created him.

In the next heartbeat, Gabriel came back to himself, was smart enough to see the trap into which he was plummeting, and returned his focus to Israfel. As the infusion of strength settled in his heart, Gabriel pushed Satan to the opposite wall with his will, repairing himself even as he grabbed Satan's heartstrings. Then, his eyes fire, Gabriel wrenched with a stranglehold on that one pressure point Satan kept hitting on Israfel.

Satan cried aloud as he tried to secure himself, but now for the first time in eternity it was a fair fight.

Israfel stared, bedazzled. Raphael cheered him on, crazed. With his hands in Satan's heart, his will pinning the Seraph in place, Gabriel blazed a light entirely Godly. That light shattered the lab area darkness, vibrated the Guards from within, and forced wider the keyhole Ophaniel and Zophiel used to access Israfel.

In the corridor, Michael was flinging himself at the Guards, which buckled without breaking.

"Peter!" Michael shouted. "Peter!"

Armored and sweating, Peter arrived instantly.

"Peter," Michael gasped, "You're the Rock, and on that rock he built his church—"

Peter's eyes gleamed. "And the gates of Hell won't withstand it!"

He landed one powerful kick at the Guard, and the whole framework ruptured.

Michael rocketed inside, tackling Satan.

Gabriel dropped around Israfel, covering her in his mantle, shattering her chains.

Satan hit the granite, Michael's sword against his throat. The Archangel's eyes swirled white and blue, and for a moment the presence of God flowed around him.

"Thus says the Lord," he shouted. "You will never, never attempt another annihilation. Creation is reserved unto me, and annihilation is mine."

Satan spat in Michael's face.

Still God's mouthpiece, Michael didn't notice. "If you make a third attempt, I will disembody your will and pin you in place, strip your power, and leave you alone and impotent for the rest of time until you're only a forgotten fable, all but annihilated yourself."

Raphael forced his way into the room and came beside Gabriel trying in desperation to rebuild Israfel for the final time. Israfel had her arms around Gabriel's neck, and she shivered like an ice-covered branch in the wind.

Raphael focused his amber light on them. "Let me help you."

Gabriel faced him in confusion: Satan had hit the same eyelets so many times—she was raw, she wasn't holding where he fixed her—

"We'll do it," Raphael murmured, stroking her soul to send his power through her.

"Ophaniel!" Gabriel shouted. "Zophiel!"

Michael didn't turn his head from the demon before him, his eyes locked with Satan's. God was bringing him back to himself. "Do you concede?"

Satan said, "No."

Michael flashed him to another part of Hell.

Ophaniel dashed to Israfel's side. "Hold on. Israfel, please, just hold on." Grabbing Israfel's hand, he looked to Gabriel. "Help her! You have all this power, do something!"

Gabriel gathered her closer, bowed his head so his blond hair mingled with her black.
Respond,
he urged.
I'm holding you together. Raphael is pouring in power. This is the last time. You just need to knit together now. Just once more. You're safe. Just once more.

Zophiel rushed into the room, casting aside her sword with a clang against the stone. "I'm with you, Israfel. Stay focused."

Gabriel tried again to restring her, but everything crumbled: metal fatigue of the soul. He directed Raphael's healing power onto those spots like a searchlight, and he prayed.

"Do something," Ophaniel begged.

"We're trying," Raphael whispered. "He's doing everything he can."

"It's not enough."

"It'll have to be," Raphael said. "Gabriel, what else can we give you?"

"I need ideas." He looked from Ophaniel to Zophiel. "Bounce something off me. We need another means of patching her up."

With her shredded heartstrings and eyelets in his hands, Gabriel sent his enhanced mind into the problem and engaged with it on every level possible, attacking it from twenty directions at once, discounting each idea as useless or dangerous. Ophaniel and Zophiel offered suggestions, but batting them back as other suggestions gave him no breakthrough. He abandoned that and went further inside, reviewing everything that had gone into saving himself and wondering what use it would all have been if he in turn was not able to save Israfel.

He raised his eyes to Raphael's, and he sensed the key lay with him. The Spirit pushed him to remember…something. Raphael had saved him by letting go, but that had worked only because of what Raphael had been holding. Gabriel had none of that; letting go in this state meant Israfel's dissolution.

Pray for us,
he sent, and Raphael nodded: he hadn't stopped praying.

Israfel felt soft in his arms, like jelly. Gabriel looked to Ophaniel, who went immaterial and slipped inside Gabriel's body, then solidified as Gabriel went desolid so that Israfel had been transferred to him. Ophaniel stroked her cheek, but even that pressure left a shining distortion over her.

Zophiel said, "If we're going to have an epiphany, we need it now."

Gabriel went after the problem again, engaging and returning as rebuffed as if he hadn't tried at all.

He looked at Raphael. "This is so frustrating. I might as well not even be here!"

And with those words he remembered Raphael saying the same to him: that with his mind engaged in a problem he might as well not even be there. And then he nearly wasn't, never again.

How many times hadn't he been there for Israfel, all the little abandonments and the unshared moments? And now Gabriel wasn't even "here" when she was dying, rendering her last moments like so many others, with Gabriel physically near but mentally far.

Gabriel bowed his head and whispered, "I'm sorry."

He disengaged. He focused on Israfel, on the poppy he'd braided into her hair, and he leaned forward so he had his arms around her as she lay on Ophaniel's lap. He sent his mind back into her soul and pressed his will around the crumbled parts to support what he couldn’t repair, and thought only about Israfel, only about this moment. Because if all he had left to give Israfel was these few minutes, then this was what he would give.

Zophiel whispered, "Could Uriel help?"

"Uriel gave back the knowledge," Raphael replied in a similar hush. "I already asked."

Israfel's hair felt brittle even as the rest of her felt soft. As the minutes passed, Gabriel dissolved a little too get his form closer to her, determined just to be near, waiting. Just being present.

Raphael murmured, "Try her again."

Gabriel gave Israfel access to his power, and there came a response: weak, but she'd taken it. Raphael's glow still enveloped her, and Gabriel tried again to direct it to the weak spots.

What if there was another technique, some way—

Whatever you're doing, quit it,
Raphael sent.

Chilled, Gabriel forced himself to stop looking for alternatives, just to be there.

Raphael sent reassurance.

For so long, Gabriel felt as if he were only waiting, watching, and so useless. But he was holding Israfel together, and he was guiding Raphael's efforts to best effect, and he could sense the prayers all around them, Uriel's and Mary's, Michael's, Saraquael's, Zadkiel's—so many. At some point he looked up from Israfel to realize many others had come into the room as well, that Zadkiel stood behind Raphael with her hands on his shoulders, that Michael had checked in on them, only he'd been so absorbed in Israfel that he hadn't noticed.

And next he saw Raphael smiling, realized Ophaniel had relaxed, that Zophiel breathed easier, and in the next moment he gazed down at Israfel as her eyes fluttered open.

"You're still here," Gabriel whispered.

She groped for his fingertips.

Gabriel probed into her soul. The parts that had crumpled were firmer again, not yet ready to be laced but rapidly reconstituting.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You gave me everything you had."

"No," Gabriel said. "Just the only thing I could."

- + -

Ophaniel carried Israfel to Heaven where Mary and the Thrones awaited, Gabriel and Zophiel accompanying.

Wings flared, Uriel stared at Gabriel. "What happened to you?"

Gabriel puzzled until he remembered Jesus had turned him pale and dark-eyed. He didn't answer but just stayed by Israfel's side.

After laying her on the bed, Ophaniel whispered to Israfel, trying to get her hands loosened from his wings, but eventually he just went desolid to stand free.

Uriel inspected her. "Everything seems to be here."

Gabriel sighed.

Uriel peered at Gabriel. "And there's more of you than before." The Throne touched him. "Satan tried to unlace you too?"

"I returned the favor." Gabriel shivered. "I had to repair myself. Does it feel like I did it right?"

"You're raw, but it's all there."

He felt Raphael ask for him, so he flashed back to Hell. The infusion of power seemed to have had at least one permanent effect: there wasn't the terror any longer when he traveled.

She's stable.

Raphael nodded. "You still look terrible."

"Thanks. I scared Satan half to death."

Pivoting, Raphael took a step toward him. "You scared me half to death too." Raphael's eyes flamed. "I couldn't get to you."

Gabriel brushed his wings by Raphael's.

Raphael stopped to heal an injured angel, then returned his attention to Gabriel. "Remiel was having trouble with Mephistopheles. You should join her and pull your up-from-the-grave stunt once more."

Gabriel sighed. "This isn't a practical joke."

"They deserve to have the daylights scared out of them." Raphael paused with a glimmer in his eyes. "Satan sent out a wave of terror that could have cracked open a planet when you surprised him, and pretty much every demon tried to hide after that."

"Asmodeus and Belior too?"

Raphael shook his head. "Raguel had to cinder Asmodeus." He looked downcast for a moment. "We tried to hand him over to Belior until he reconstitutes, but he doesn't want anything to do with him."

Gabriel's shoulders dropped.
What a waste.
Then he looked up. "So it's only the three stars of the show remaining."

In the lab area again, Remiel, Saraquael and Raguel worked on a Guard Gabriel found too familiar.

"They're both in there," Remiel was saying to Raguel, "and we can't crack it open." She tapped the Guard. "Have you ever felt anything this strong?"

"I believe I have," Gabriel intoned.

Gabriel caught the glances the other three exchanged when they saw his eyes and clothes.

"It's just me," he said with a laugh. "Gabriel 2.0, the scary version."

"Don't mind me." Saraquael shifted to stand behind Remiel. "I'll just make sure I keep the lights on at night for the next century."

Gabriel grinned. "I'm testing out my Halloween costume."

"Dibs on the cloak," Remiel said.

Gabriel touched the Guard, sampling the power of the Seraph-Cherub bond that fueled it, and at the same time realizing with an intoxication that he still was far more powerful than ever before. He could crush that Guard and laugh while doing so, maybe squeeze the pair tight and pull them out through their own web.

Instead he made his presence known to the Guard, and the Guard, recognizing him, trembled with surprise.

As it did, Raguel smashed it open.

While holy light flooded the chamber, the two inside scattered like roaches, flashing to any other part of Hell. Prepared for this, Remiel and Saraquael flashed after them, and within seconds, each returned with one prisoner caught and chained. They dropped them in front of Gabriel.

Mephistopheles fell to his knees. Beelzebub glared first at one Cherub and then the other, although one disturbed him visibly.

Gabriel folded his arms.

"Go ahead," Beelzebub said. "Annihilate us."

Mephistopheles rolled his eyes. "No, you idiot."

"We changed you," Beelzebub said.

Gabriel studied him.

"Quit over-thinking everything." Head tilted, Beelzebub smirked. "Are you going to destroy us, or did death only make you more annoying and less effective?"