by Jane Lebak
“Aren’t we pretentious today?” Hastle snorted. “Raise your sword and get a pat on the head from God, and suddenly you’re strutting around like the king of the universe.”
Michael steeled himself. “You were protecting that lab. Why?”
“You’re in command of Heaven’s army.” Hastle rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’ve figured out the purpose of standing guard.”
“Belior was building a weapon.”
“Congratulations.” Hastle sat back against the wall. “You get a gold star.”
“But it backfired.”
“Not my fault. I was holding up that Guard pretty well against you until your little spy tackled me from behind.” Hastle snorted. “If Belior detonated himself with his own weapon, that’s his own stupidity at play. Let Satrinah explain it to Asmodeus. Not my problem.”
Michael said, “We need to know what that weapon did.”
Hastle took a deep breath but said nothing.
Michael leaned against the wall, waiting.
“Look, I don’t feel like talking to you. You and everything you do disgusts me.” Hastle shook his head. “I should have known from the start you’d be God’s little goodie-goodie, running His errands and standing guard in front of Him like a toddler with a stick. The first time I met you, I should have kept right on going.”
Michael shivered, but he kept his voice even. “I’m not exactly pleased with how you turned out, either.”
“I didn’t invite you in here.” Hastle’s eyes glimmered. “You invited yourself. You can invite yourself right out again whenever you like.”
Michael said, “If you cooperate, we can release you.”
Hastle regarded Michael as if bored.
Michael shoved his hands in his pockets. “Belior disappeared too. You saw him vanish when the weapon backfired.”
Hastle snickered. “I see no downside. I worked for him, but I don’t care one whit what happens to him.”
Surprised, Michael said, “Then why were you working for him? You were one of a very small group of hand-selected soldiers working on an elite project. Clearly you were chosen for your loyalty.”
“Unlike you,” said Hastle. “If loyalty is the criteria, you’d never make it.”
Michael bristled. “My loyalty isn’t in question.”
“It’s really the only question.” Hastle glared at the floor. “Why did I ever think you’d be loyal to me in the first place? Regardless, I don’t have to like someone to do my job, and,” Hastle added, “I have objectives of my own. Again, unlike you. I have something I want other than what my supposed superiors tell me I should, and this was the best way to get it. Therefore you can feel free to keep me locked up as long as you like.”
Hastle smirked at him, and Michael lowered his wings. He prayed, Those eyes. They’re the same, but they’re not. It’s all wrong.
Of course it’s all wrong, replied God. Think of his choices.
This isn’t how he was. Michael bit his lip. How can I appeal to someone like this?
This time God didn’t answer.
Hastle said, “Did you just ask your Daddy what to do about me?” He leaned forward, eyes sparking. “Are you going to give me torture and pain? More fire? It’s kind of interesting to see what you’re going to try with me. Maybe He could just pull my little puppet strings and make me give you all the answers you want.” Hastle’s eyes narrowed to slits. “But then again, if He wants to do that, maybe He should just tell you what you need to know without involving me in the first place.”
About to reply, Michael stopped himself. This wouldn’t be fruitful. The demon was trying to exert control over the situation, and as long as Michael stayed there talking, the demon was going to think he’d in some measure succeeded. They didn’t need answers badly enough to let the demon play these games; Remiel and Zadkiel were safe, and the Cherubim were analyzing the remnants of the weapon-making lab.
Hastle grinned, but Michael just stepped back through the cell wall.
Remiel ran her fingers along the skin Raphael had mended, and when she stretched her arms over her head, they rewarded her by not stinging like crazy. She flexed, and her hips didn’t complain. The beginnings of a huge bruise had dissolved, too.
“He’s good.” She turned to Saraquael. “Do you want take a shot at being my wardrobe consultant?”
Saraquael motioned her over to where he sat alongside Zadkiel, and when Remiel approached, he traced the ripped fabric of her clothing. “Given how torn up you were, it’s a good thing this is as thick as it is. You’d have been shredded.”
While she watched, he rejoined the fibers to one another, then lifted the blood stains from the fabric over her leg and arm. He added, “Stay still. I want to make sure I’m merging the fibers with their correct counterparts.”
Zadkiel sounded subdued. “I wish you’d told me you were hurt.” She tucked up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Actually, I wish you weren’t stuck like this with me. You’re in this situation at all because you tried to save me.”
“And you’re in it because you tried to save Michael, so don’t mention it. Besides, Gabriel’s on the case. We’ll be home before either one of us gets hungry.” Remiel chuckled. “Although maybe we should find a water source.”
Zadkiel didn’t object to the change of subject, and Remiel put a hand on her. “Come on, let’s head downhill. There’s got to be a stream near all that plant life, and it’ll probably be less windy down there.”
Remiel hefted her discarded winter fur and helped Zadkiel to a stand. It was nerve-wracking how Zadkiel stayed frozen in place, afraid to move through a world she couldn’t see. So Remiel stayed close to her and said, “Okay, small steps at first,” staying on one side with her arm curled around Zadkiel’s waist.
Even so, Zadkiel wanted to stop after ever step, so Remiel put a little pressure on the small of her back, and Zadkiel walked with a jerking hesitation.
Remiel looked ahead for even patches of ground and gave warnings as they went. “There’s a plant right in front of your feet.” Or, “You’re about to step down.”
Saraquael had fallen silent, scanning the horizon.
“You know, you’re supposed to be taking care of us,” Remiel said to him. “You could scout out a good location and then flash us there.”
“Scouting, sure, but I don’t want to risk teleportation. We have no idea what they did to you.” Saraquael’s eyes darkened. “If there’s something about you that’s interacting badly with the angelic plane, it makes the most sense to minimize your contact with it.”
Remiel helped Zadkiel around a stone higher than her ankle. “Raphael didn’t have a problem healing me with angelic power.”
“You weren’t immersed in his healing energy. That’s a huge difference.” Saraquael kept scanning the distance rather than focusing on either of them. “I don’t want chance that you’ll get knocked unconscious and flashed to who-knows-where a second time. You landed in a good spot this time, but two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, and other parts are just plain uninhabitable.”
“You’re so sweet.” Remiel snickered. “You think I’d die?”
“Do you want to take that chance?” Saraquael’s voice pitched upward, and he looked right at her. “I don’t. We have no idea what they did to you or why this is happening in the first place. Dying should put you back in your angelic form, but if you can’t be in angelic form, what then?”
Zadkiel stopped moving. “Wait, really?”
Saraquael went back to scanning long-distance. “Yes, really. You’re stuck in human bodies. What if those bodies are dead?”
Remiel didn’t push Zadkiel to keep moving. “No, that really hadn’t occurred to me.”
“A lot of things haven’t occurred to you.” Saraquael’s eyes narrowed. “Let me suggest another one. Satrinah knows you got hit with her weapon, and if a Cherub has an experimental weapon she’s never used, guess what she’s going to do aft
er the first time she uses it?”
Zadkiel clutched Remiel’s arm. “He’s right. We have to take shelter. Now.” She turned toward where Saraquael ought to be standing, and he obligingly adjusted position to be where she was looking even though she couldn’t see him. “You can’t stay. She’s going to have Asmodeus scouring the world searching for any trace of us she can study, and Asmodeus will know to look for you.”
“I agree. I’m keeping my signature suppressed, but that will only work for so long. I want to get you in a safe place, and then I’m going to send another angel to look after the two of you. But for now, move it.” Saraquael turned to Remiel, his green eyes gleaming. “This isn’t a game. I’m trying to keep you protected.”
Remiel nudged Zadkiel back into a walk, and she struggled to keep her hands from trembling. Was this body still injured after all? Everything sounded too loud, and all Remiel wanted to do was hurry. Hurry, but with nowhere to hurry to. Her breathing hurt, and her eyes stung.
Her voice was thin. “This is my fault.”
“Let’s debate whose fault this is after we stash you somewhere less exposed.” Saraquael took to the air overhead. “Please.”
Zadkiel kept her voice low. “I can move quicker than this. I’ll be okay.”
Remiel struggled to focus on the descent, hyper-aware how easily seen two women were on a hilltop, and how far they had to go until they reached the tree cover. Her foot slipped on some stones, but she caught herself before taking Zadkiel in a slide with her. Saraquael put his hands on her shoulders, a tingly sensation. “Don’t panic. I’m still here, and I’ll call for help if necessary.”
He could call for a legion of angels right now, except that would attract demonic attention. Even guards at strategic locations would raise some demon’s curiosity enough to report it. No, they were doing everything right, and yet it felt entirely wrong. If someone’s helpless, you protect them. You don’t just tell them to hide and hope for the best.
The going got more difficult toward the base of the hill as the vegetation grew denser, but Remiel tried to hurry Zadkiel. A couple of times she stumbled and once she fell, but Remiel rushed her back to her feet and kept them moving.
When they reached tree cover, Saraquael talked to the Earth until he felt which way they could go to find a stream, and he directed them until they arrived at water and a small clearing.
Remiel led Zadkiel to the edge, then helped her cup water into her hands so she could drink. Zadkiel hadn’t spoken for a long time now, and her face was smudged. Her Greek tunic (they called that a chiton, right?) had gotten dirty again, and Remiel looked at herself to find her own clothing in disarray. But for now they’d at least hidden themselves.
Remiel looked up at Saraquael. “We need a plan.”
“Right now the plan is to reverse whatever they did to you, and as soon as I leave you, I’m going to follow up on that.” His mouth tightened. “I’ll find out what Gabriel’s learned, and then I’ll question the two demons we captured in the lab.”
Zadkiel spoke softly. “Belior’s out there too. Somewhere.”
Saraquael said, “Asmodeus probably found him in the first couple of minutes. Since your souls are still angelic, I assume Belior’s is too, and therefore he’ll still have all his bonds.”
Remiel shivered: by extension, there was another angel the demons would find when they looked for her. And then he would come looking for her. And if she still gave off any angelic signature at all, he’d find her. How could he not? It would be like not finding himself.
Zadkiel hadn’t made that connection, and said only to Saraquael, “I didn’t mean we needed to look for Belior, only that demons hate matter, and maybe he’s stuck in a human body too.”
Remiel tried to shrug off the targeted feeling. “It serves him just fine if he hates what he did to himself. I won’t be in any hurry to share a cure with him.”
Saraquael folded his arms. “All the same, since you two landed near one another, he might be in the area also. You might want to avoid other humans, at least for the time being.”
Zadkiel stiffened. “He couldn’t be trapped in an animal form could he?”
Remiel glanced at the trees. “Both of us ended up in the last physical forms we’d taken, so I suppose it’s possible.”
Saraquael shook his head. “There’s no way to shield your presence from thirty million forest insects, so I’m not going to go that far. I’m going to assign you two ninth-choir angels as if you were regular humans with regular guardians. That setup should at least look normal if a demon does encounter you. If you meet a suspicious human…that’s its own set of dangers.”
Remiel tightened her fists. “As long as it stays in human form, I think I can handle that.”
Saraquael shook his head. “I don’t like this situation, but we’re going to work on things as quickly as possible. Stay in contact.”
He vanished, and a moment later Remiel could feel two bright presences on the periphery of her senses. They glimmered momentarily, then faded into the background. Just like normal guardians.
She looked at Zadkiel, who knelt at the edge of the stream with her hands in the water and her eyes staring sightlessly forward. And for a long time, Remiel didn’t have even enough energy to pray.
SIX
Michael looked up when Saraquael flashed into his central command office in Heaven.
“I’ve set them up in a more secure location with two soldiers posted as guardians.” Saraquael looked worried and worn, his wings dropped and the feathers dull. “They’ve got a water source for the time being, and I’ve stationed a Virtues in the sky about twenty miles westward to make sure the weather holds.”
Michael stepped away from the windows ringing the mountain-top room, then glanced at Gabriel’s report on the table at the room’s center. The document was far too gleeful for what it contained, but he supposed a Cherub faced with an unsolvable problem could respond in no other way. Gabriel’s report began somberly enough: whatever that weapon was, it had vanished without any residue upon discharge. Gabriel noted that this behavior correlated with what they’d heard about some of the materials going missing even while the demons were still working on the project. Gabriel then detailed every single test his team had run on the seized materials and the results of each, sounding progressively more intrigued. He offered his preliminary conclusions sounding chirpy (nothing definitive) and the writing was ebullient by the time he discussed the next direction his team intended to take.
Quite a journey for a one-page briefing. Michael handed it to Saraquael. “Nothing from Gabriel. He can’t even figure out the nature of the weapon, let alone why it hurt them.”
Saraquael emitted a burst of shock. “Gabriel didn’t figure it out?” He frowned at the report, then steeled himself. “Okay, then we need to question the prisoners.”
Michael paced the office’s perimeter. He liked it clear and uncluttered, a convenient area for coordinating operations with multiple team heads and choir chiefs while remaining calm and focused like a temple’s heart, but really, it also was convenient for doing laps around that desk in the center when he needed to move and think at the same time. As he paced, he stared at the roots of the mountains, his view of the river interrupted only by wispy clouds and clumps of trees.
“I’ve dispatched a team to hunt for Belior. Asmodeus found him first, doubtless,” Michael added, “but any additional information on how it affected him would have to help.”
Saraquael snickered. “Remiel thinks it’s poetic justice that he got caught in his own weapon.”
Michael glanced at him. “You’d know. You’re the poet.”
“A confused poet.” Saraquael gestured one-handed at Gabriel’s report. “How bizarre is it that Belior zapped himself?”
“Unless that was part of the point.” Michael shivered. “I’m beginning to wonder if the weapon didn’t require a sacrifice.”
Saraquael snorted. “Hence the requirement to keep two soldiers wi
th the two Cherubim. The Cherub wields the weapon and powers it with his own personal martyr. Poetically speaking it does have a kind of horrific symmetry.” He folded his arms. “If that were the case, I wonder if either of the soldiers knew. It’s going to take some delicate questioning to get that information.”
Michael flinched. “I already spoke to one of them.”
“Oh, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t.” Saraquael bit his lip. “No good comes from that.”
“He was my friend,” Michael said, a little defensive.
“Precisely why you should have been the last person to interview him. Or even later than the last one. No good comes from that kind of thing, ever. Plus, now you’ve contaminated my sterile field.” Saraquael offered a smile. “So what did you get from him?”
“You have to ask?” Michael sighed. “Nothing good comes from that.”
Saraquael refrained from saying anything further. He didn’t have to.
Michael added, “He goes by Hastle now, by the way.”
“Good to know, I guess. I’ll make sure not to use it.” Saraquael smirked. “I’ll get an interrogation unit together for the other one.”
Michael folded his arms as he looked outside. An interrogation unit. They’d probably send in two questioners and have several others posted outside to monitor and make suggestions. But Saraquael knew all this, and he’d handled this kind of questioning before. It just had never seemed quite this important.
Saraquael laid a hand on Michael’s arm. “You’re not okay.”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I’ve met old friends too. There’s just enough there to remind you why you loved them.”
As Saraquael wrapped his arms and wings around him, Michael relaxed. “I wish… I know it can’t happen, but still.”
“That’s why no good comes from it. Because it hurts you, and they enjoy it. I’ve done it myself, and while you’re talking to them, you forget they’re master manipulators.”
