Sacred Cups (Seven Archangels Book 2)

by Jane Lebak

  Gabriel cut the contact and took Raphael’s hand. It might be the last time they were ever together.

  He wasn’t sure Satan was right, but Satan was sure. Although Gabriel didn’t mind being destroyed if it was God’s will, he had an odd reluctance to being destroyed if it meant Raphael wouldn’t exist either. So they stood together, one unit in the face of tragedy, and he kept his hand and his heart in Raphael’s, his wings touching Uriel’s, and his eyes focused on Jesus.

  The Father would demand justice. A destroyed race. A second destroyed race. A destroyed world. A destroyed Son.

  At the base of the cross, his sword across his lap, Michael sat back on his heels with his neck craned up. Saraquael and Zadkiel sat immediately behind Michael, their swords sheathed. Gabriel could feel the air thick with angels, all their attention forced on one dying man. Only three demons were there, Satan and his two top Cherubim, but all watching in the same horror at how humanity had done what even Satan hadn’t the gall to do.

  Justice.

  Gabriel shivered, and Raphael squeezed his hand.

  Gabriel sent to him, Do you forgive me?

  Raphael pulled back his heart, and Gabriel blistered with the residual heat. He lowered his head.

  Things happened. They offered Jesus wine on a sponge, but he didn’t take it. Gabriel felt tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t remember crying. Jesus looked at John and told him to care for his mother, and then asked Mary to take John as her son. Speaking was so hard because he had to use so little air. Jesus was dying. Less than an hour and it would be over.

  And then Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “My God, My God—why have you forsaken me?”

  Mary let out a choked cry, covering her face in her hands. Raphael turned to Gabriel and sobbed into his wings. Gabriel remembered the cup, the void, the moment it had touched Jesus’s lips.

  Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” and then as Gabriel’s head raised and Satan behind him gasped at the same realization, Jesus said, “It is finished. Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.”

  He bowed his head, and Gabriel felt the moment of death.

  Raphael ignited in his arms and emitted a concussion that shook the Earth. He flashed away. Gabriel took off after him.

  He arrived in the Temple sanctuary. Raphael had drawn his sword, and with a shout, he threw himself at the curtain and ripped it lengthwise, then flung his sword at the far wall where it clanged against the stone.

  Gabriel tried to pull off the fire through the fury, but Raphael turned on him.

  “This was your fault!” He burned like a forest fire. “You were always jealous of the bond I had with him!”

  Gabriel raised his hands. “I never wanted this!”

  Raphael advanced on him. “You had it in your power to stop it earlier, or at least to tell him we hadn’t all forsaken him. But he died alone, and he died believing we’d abandoned him, and it’s your fault.”

  Gabriel took a step backward. “Raphael, please!”

  “Get out of my heart.” Raphael’s eyes were a pair of live coals. “I’m no longer your Seraph.”

  He took his sword and vanished.

  Gabriel went down in front of the torn curtain, and he didn’t rise again.

  Eighteen

  Gabriel lay on his side before the curtain, unmoving as a ragdoll. His wings lay scattered, his arms limp, his legs crossed at the ankle. He stared at nothing. The angle of the sun changed, and dust settled, and he didn’t stir. One of the priests walked through him. He lay there.

  Satan entered the Temple and sat, also unmoving, looking at Gabriel looking at nothing, both facing the same direction, both in absolute silence. Someone else walked through. Much distress about the torn curtain. No tying or sewing on the Sabbath, so torn it must remain. Servants lit the lamps. The sun went down.

  Distant prayers sounded. Gabriel didn’t move. Satan dismissed Belior with nothing more than “Leave us alone.”

  Stars shone. The prayers ended. Satan got up and came around to the front of Gabriel.

  Gabriel was staring away with the thousand-mile Cherub stare. Satan lifted him by the shoulders into a sitting position and looked him in the face.

  After a moment, Gabriel’s eyes focused, and he regarded Satan in confusion.

  “Do you still have the Vision?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “Is the Second Person back on the throne?”

  Gabriel shook his head.

  “Damn it!” Satan dropped him, and Gabriel collapsed back to the ground. “Do you realize what that means? Do you have any comprehension?”

  Gabriel had unfocused into the stare again as if he hadn’t been moved, although his wings lay in different positions.

  “Is this what you wanted?” Satan shouted. “Don’t you realize what’s about to happen?”

  Satan kicked one of Gabriel’s wings, then vanished.

  Gabriel didn’t move.

  More activity in the sanctuary. More priests discussing how to mend the torn curtain after Passover. Stars shifting.

  Uriel appeared in the sanctuary and lifted Gabriel to sitting, then coaxed Gabriel to a stand. Uriel put an arm around him and flashed him away.

  Distant prayers. Noise from the streets. The sounds of animals outside the temple. A ruined curtain and silence within.

  #

  Gabriel arrived at Mary’s darkened residence and crumpled in the corner, knees up, arms folded, head on his wrists. Uriel kissed Mary on the forehead and vanished.

  Mary came to Gabriel, bloodshot but tearless, and tried to touch him. Only after her fingers passed through him did he make himself semi-solid enough to reach for her hand.

  Through the shadows she looked him in the eyes. “I sent Uriel for you. I didn’t know where you’d gone.”

  Gabriel only regarded her.

  “You’re so grey. You’re misting into nothing.” She touched his hair. “Where’s Raphael?”

  Gabriel projected confusion.

  “Where is Jesus now?”

  Gabriel again projected confusion: not on the throne of glory. Maybe Sheol. Somehow he knew his body lay in a tomb outside Jerusalem.

  Mary said, “Shouldn’t you be with Raphael rather than with me?”

  Gabriel flinched.

  Her face fell. “Why would he be angry at you?”

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, and he looked directly at her with a question.

  “Because it’s easier to take care of you.” She forced a small smile. “You’re right in front of me.”

  Gabriel put his hand on her chest right beneath her throat, and then he touched her forehead.

  “I’ll be all right,” Mary whispered, and the tears came. “I…you get cried out sometimes.” She looked aside. “I didn’t even get a chance to light a lamp before sundown.”

  Around the room, lamps flared into light.

  Mary started. “Doesn’t that violate the Sabbath?”

  “I don’t care.” Gabriel tightened his fist. “Created beings just killed the Son of God.”

  Mary bit her lip. “When they nailed him…he’s God’s Son, so maybe he didn’t suffer the pain. Maybe not all the pain.”

  Gabriel averted his eyes. “Would you like to believe that?”

  “I would. I’d like to believe he thought Peter and James and Philip were all standing behind where he couldn’t see them. Or that they got arrested defending him.”

  “It would be nice.” Gabriel rested his head on his knees. “He didn’t deserve that. Every man there today deserved it, but not him.”

  Mary’s voice broke. “Why did it have to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He hit the floor. “Why can people be so stupid about the obvious and simultaneously creative with their cruelty? Why didn’t they just cut his throat? Why make a spectacle of death? Who was the sorry cretin who came up with the crown of thorns? It was probably the only idea the man had in his life. Why did he get it then? Why didn’t he come
up with a way to make water flow uphill?”

  Mary shook her head. “Jesus knew he was making people uncomfortable, and he refused to stop doing his Father’s work. I would only hope I could do the same.”

  Gabriel dropped his head. “God’s hand can hurt when it works. But the results are worthwhile. Nobody trusts any longer. Humans don’t trust themselves, or each other, and it spreads. At the end, they can’t trust God either.”

  Mary said nothing, and Gabriel struggled to keep the dry embers of his heart from scattering on the wind.

  Mary sat back a little. “I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

  Gabriel lifted his head, confused.

  “You were here for him.” She bit her lip. “Without him, there’s no more need for you to come around, and I have no more need to see you.”

  Gabriel said, “Uriel won’t leave you until death. And I might not be necessary, but I’ll still stop by.”

  Mary took his hand. “You’re very sweet.”

  “I’m hardly sweet,” Gabriel said, “but I do whatever I can in God’s service.”

  Mary smiled. “I appreciate it. But will I be able to see you?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Mary hugged Gabriel, who wrapped her in his wings. Her tears soaked into his shoulder.

  “Would you do me a favor?” she asked.

  “Nearly anything.”

  “If I give you something, will you bring it to his tomb?”

  Gabriel nodded. Mary got up to get a knife, then pulled some of her hair apart from the rest and started cutting through it.

  “Let me do you two favors.” Gabriel flashed to her side and touched the strands where she wanted them cut, and they severed. He tied them together in a bundle. “Put them in his hand?”

  “Anywhere in the tomb,” she said. “I didn’t want to ask Mary Magdalene, but at least I know you won’t think I’m crazy.”

  Gabriel said, “I may leave him a feather too. We can be crazy together.”

  Mary nodded even as new tears came. “Well done, Gabriel,” she said with a long-ago sternness. “That will be satisfactory.”

  He bowed to her. “It’s been satisfactory for me as well, my lady.” And with that he flashed to the tomb.

  As soon as he arrived, Raphael’s flames engulfed his heart. Gabriel reflexively armored himself.

  “How dare you?” Raphael advanced on him. “You have no place here.”

  “Mary sent me,” Gabriel said. “And you need to get yourself under control.”

  “You have nothing to say to me.” Raphael folded his arms and flared his wings. “He’s my charge.”

  “He’s my God.” Gabriel turned away. “Are we like Michael and Satan fighting over a dead man’s body? You’ll just have to tolerate my presence for one more minute.”

  Gabriel knelt before Jesus’s body and made himself semi-solid to inhale the myrrh and aloes. He passed his hand through the cloth to lay Mary’s lock of hair in Jesus’s wounded hand, but he avoided the holes from the nails. Gabriel kissed his face through the burial cloth. I’m sorry, he sent to nothing. I love you. I wish there were something I could have done.

  Raphael’s heat suffused the room. Gabriel wanted to say more, but the Seraph flames threatened to breach his heart.

  As Gabriel got to his feet, Raphael said, “You owe me an explanation.”

  Gabriel flashed away.

  He flashed through eight locations, including one in Heaven and one in another solar system, before he was sure Raphael couldn’t pursue him through them all. He returned to Earth long enough to find an abandoned cabin on the other side of the world. It was still daylight on this mountain. He Guarded the walls, then reGuarded them. No one would find him here.

  With the corner to his back, he settled on the floor.

  Why? he prayed.

  No answer.

  Gabriel sent his brain into the problem and turned it over, attacked it from as many directions as he could, questioned his answers and then formed new questions, and every explanation came up wanting.

  After all this time, he could recognize a “missing piece” problem, the kind you couldn’t solve until you had that final bit of information which made the others sensible but which only baffled you without it.

  Regardless, Gabriel turned it inside out, turned it backward, tried to reinterpret all of scripture in light of the past day. Although some of it made more sense, more of it made less.

  Cherubim weren’t designed to work alone. That was the stinging truth. If he wanted to make any progress, he needed at least one other Cherub to refine his ideas. But that meant bringing down the Guard, and bringing down the Guard meant he might have Raphael all over him again within thirty seconds.

  Choice: guaranteed Cherub versus possible Seraph.

  Choice: (possibility of answer plus risk) versus (safety plus no answer)

  Certitude: No answer without Cherub help

  Very high probability: Raphael still furious.

  Risk = high.

  Very slim possibility: answer with Cherub help.

  Benefit = either high or zero.

  Gabriel played through the scenario for a minimum-risk maximum-benefit result, changing the variables, choosing the Cherub most likely to give his ideas the proper spin, deriving alternatives in case Raphael did find him, and still no perfect solution.

  Certitude: He couldn’t hide forever.

  Probability (reasonable): Raphael wouldn’t remain angry forever.

  Question: How long until Raphael calmed himself?

  Sub-question: Did Gabriel have a responsibility to calm Raphael?

  Question: When would Raphael get distracted and find another target?

  Sub-question: Was Gabriel culpable if Raphael did find another target?

  Question: Was Raphael right to be angry?

  Sunset flared, but this Gabriel ignored. The trouble with making himself unseeable was he couldn’t see out either. He couldn’t even tell if Raphael was summoning him because he’d set up the Guard specifically to repel the Seraph.

  Ultimately all the analysis broke down. Gabriel prayed and felt it was time to emerge, so he took down the Guard.

  Instantly Michael was in the cabin. “What are you doing?” Emotions streamed from him with such force that he might as well have been a Seraph, and Gabriel pressed into the corner. “We need you now! Even Raphael couldn’t find you.”

  Gabriel was flat into the wall, projecting: he hadn’t realized, he just wanted to think, wanted to be alone, wanted to get away—

  “You don’t have that option!” Michael’s eyes fixed on Gabriel’s as if he’d rather be screaming. “We’re at war, and I need you where I can find you. You’re the smartest angel in creation, but that didn’t occur to you?”

  Gabriel projected no.

  For a moment Michael looked about to continue, but then his wings relaxed. “Saraquael, I’ve got him,” he said into the air, then paused for (presumably) Saraquael’s response. He turned back to Gabriel, a hand on his sword. “Well, at least you turned up. We’re breaking Jesus out of Sheol.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Sheol is impenetrable.”

  Michael nodded. “That’s why we need you. You and the other Cherubim are going to figure it out.”

  Gabriel dropped back to the floor. “I can’t. I can’t right now.”

  Michael crouched beside him. “There’s no way we can do it without you.” He put a hand on Gabriel’s knee. “Is it Raphael? He’s livid.”

  Gabriel tucked his head on his arms.

  Michael put his head next to Gabriel’s. “I’m sorry. I know you recharge best alone, but I can’t give you that option.”

  Gabriel acknowledged.

  “Israfel,” Michael said into thin air. “Can you come to me?”

  “No!” Gabriel’s head jerked up. “Michael, don’t.”

  Israfel arrived, and she met Gabriel’s eyes. Her Seraph fire curled from
her soul, tantalizing. “You had us worried.” She squatted before him. “Are you all right?”

  Only for Michael’s sake, Gabriel let his soul respond to Israfel’s through their primary bond. She gave him her fire, and he took it even though he didn’t have anything to return. She sat forward and smiled, and his heart raced, and the abandoned building seemed constricting and ugly. He wanted to be moving about again and answering Michael’s questions, and there were other Cherubim to debate with and the walls of Sheol to breach.

  “I’m fine. Let’s go,” he said, feeling his heart boiling over, and Michael brought them to the staging area.

  However long the angels had been looking for him, it didn’t seem to have slowed them down. Several dozen were organizing plans and determining what or whom to bring along on a strike force. Gabriel found Ophaniel, who outlined several approaches they had decided would not work.

  Blistering heat in his heart told him Raphael had arrived. Where were you?

  Thinking.

  You ran away from me.

  Absolutely I did. Now let me do my job.

  Why don’t you measure my shock: the legalist is collaborating for an invasion on the Sabbath?

  If it saves Creation, that’s saving a life, which you might recall is permitted.

  And with that, Gabriel cut off contact.

  Ophaniel was looking toward Raphael. “He’s furious.”

  Gabriel ignored the veiled request for information. Ophaniel had his own primary bond to Raphael—let him figure it out for himself.

  Michael called the Seven and the heads of the orders before him. “It’s pretty straightforward,” Michael said. “Jesus is in Sheol, and we want him out. Cherubim, you need to come up with a plan of attack. I want the Principalities and the Archangels arrayed to defend if we manage to crack it open, with the Angels, Dominions and Virtues on alert. Powers are to be arrayed between Sheol and Hell to defend if the demons attempt to interfere.” He looked around at them. “Gabriel, you have the entire choir of Cherubim at your disposal. Uriel, we want prayer support from the Thrones.”

  A heaviness filled the air, and then Satan appeared at Michael’s side, wearing armor.

  Before Michael could react, Gabriel discharged enough force in Satan’s face to strip the corona off a sun, then again before the first shot had time to hit, and a third time, and the fourth time he called his sword to his shaking hands to use as a focus.