Shattered Walls (Seven Archangels Book 3)

by Jane Lebak

  Shortly, a group of male voices entered the house: men from the Christian community who had gone back to the site of the fire to salvage what they could. Zadkiel could tell from their voices it was distressingly little, close to nothing at all. That beautiful home, spacious and so perfect a gift for their community, destroyed in a single night.

  Sighing, Zadkiel hunched down at the table. Their kindness to her had been repaid with destruction.

  Shortly after, the woman of the house came to her. “You’re so sad. What can I do for you?”

  Zadkiel said, “I’m sorry for bothering you. I’m blind, and I don’t know where it would be convenient for me to go.”

  The woman said, “You can stay right where you are, if you like. Is there anything I can get you?”

  Zadkiel shrugged. “I can make fishing nets.”

  The woman laughed. “I haven’t the first clue how to make fishing nets!”

  She left, still chuckling as though making things to sell were a great joke, and Zadkiel ran her hands over the table top. It had already been cleaned off.

  A minute later, the household’s little girl came to Zadkiel and asked her to follow. Taking Zadkiel by the hand, she led her through different rooms until eventually she stopped. “She’s here.”

  Zadkiel wasn’t sure if she was herself or someone who had sent for her, but then Mary replied, “Thank you, sweetie.”

  The little girl scampered away, and Zadkiel pivoted toward where Mary’s voice had come from. “Here,” Mary said, taking her hand. “I’m still trying to track down where everyone went, but at some point our three fishing girls will come for you, and they can take you to the market to buy more rope for a new net.”

  Zadkiel said, “Selling a net won’t repay the damage done to your community.”

  Mary said, “You didn’t do the damage.”

  “It happened because of me.”

  “It happened because of the evil one.” Mary squeezed her hands. “You’re blameless.”

  And then she heard John’s voice. “How could you be anything other than blameless?”

  Wait, they weren’t alone? Zadkiel swallowed hard. “Sir, the evil one came there for revenge, trying to drive us out. You protected us, and we repaid your charity with evil.”

  John said, “Beloved, consider.” He took her hands from Mary’s. “Consider the honor of Christ having asked us to do what he did, to give up everything to protect someone else. Of course we would protect you. Of course we would make any sacrifice God asked of us—what an honor!”

  Zadkiel shivered.

  John continued, “We’re doing no more than Christ who came before us. No, of course you wouldn’t have asked this of us. It’s always easier to be the giver than the recipient, the protector rather than the protected. But we in no way hold you to blame for the actions of the devil, and in every way we want you to be one among us.”

  Zadkiel bit her lip. “I should have been able to do more to protect you.”

  John said, “You are what God made you, no more and no less. Please, release your guilt and stand free in Christ. You are his child, Beloved, as are we all.”

  Zadkiel only shook her head.

  John hugged her. “I’m sorry you are in this situation. I am not sorry we helped you. We lost a building, but rather than destroying us, the fire is giving others the opportunity to be generous. We’ll find new places to live and worship. The Spirit will guide us, and even more souls will be added to our number. The devil meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” He kissed her cheek, and then he let her go.

  Mary said, “I would take you out into the market with me, but I’m concerned. Satan took Remiel, so if you’re spotted with me, you may be in danger too.”

  Zadkiel had considered that already. “Satrinah recognized Remiel. She hadn’t identified me, so they might not know what to look for. Otherwise they’d have snatched me last night as well.”

  Mary said, “All the same, I’d prefer if you stayed indoors.”

  Zadkiel shook her head. “That puts this household in jeopardy. There aren’t seals on this house yet.”

  Mary said, “Stay where you are. Remember what Michael said last night, that Belior was Satan’s primary target. And if I don’t appear to be singling you out for special treatment, he might not pick you out from the crowd.”

  Doubtful. To all accounts, Belior had recognized who she was, but Zadkiel didn’t object further. She let Mary bring her into a room that echoed without people in it, and then shortly Mary filled it with a half-dozen children who needed instruction in the scriptures. “Let’s memorize a psalm,” Zadkiel said, a little unsteady. “This one was written by David.”

  The children listened and repeated, and Zadkiel worked with them, translating from the Hebrew David had spoken so beautifully into the Greek in which he’d never imagined his words taking form. She told them the meaning behind some of the images and used every mnemonic device she could think of, and the kids took turns reciting.

  And then, in the middle of explaining how one Hebrew word had become a different Greek one, Zadkiel sang it, and then kept going. David had sung this one himself, not just listened to others singing it. He’d sang it before the Ark of the Covenant, saddened that his hands had been too bloodied by war to build the Temple, but rejoicing nevertheless to be so close to the Ark that contained the words of God, the staff of the priesthood and the bread that sustained the people in the desert.

  And as she sang, Zadkiel realized Mary was in the room too, and that Mary was herself the Ark of the Covenant, having contained the Word of God, Jesus who embodied the Priesthood, and who then had become the Bread of Life. David had leaped and danced for the Ark, and John the Baptist had leaped for joy when Mary had come to him, but Zadkiel only sang. She thought about the Ark blessing the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite in the hill country and Mary blessing the house of Zachariah in the hill country, and then she thought about the Holy Spirit overshadowing both Mary and the Ark.

  Mary was so different from herself. Mary was what God had made her and was acutely aware of God’s manufacture: that she had been blessed, that God had done great things for her, and that in all things she was only what she’d been made to be. And Zadkiel must have in some respect denied God’s gifts to herself because in so many ways, she should have been more than she was.

  It hurt. Zadkiel stopped singing mid-psalm, and the children begged her to continue, but she couldn’t go on.

  When Michael checked on Zadkiel, his first thought was that she looked despondent, but then he decided some of that was exhaustion. She’d walked across the city last night after the fire, and it seemed as if she’d spent much of the day working with the community’s children.

  Saraquael alerted her that they were there, then prompted Zadkiel to extricate herself from the children and find a place she could talk to them alone.

  Zadkiel made a disbelieving face, and Michael snickered. “You didn’t think this through,” he said to Saraquael. “There are two dozen people in this house, and the children follow her like ducklings.”

  Saraquael frowned. “You’re right. I’ll get Mary.”

  He vanished. Michael said to Nivalis, “Has everything been stable here?”

  “So far. We’ve had demons crawling through the place, but so far nothing especially different, and none of them seem to have taken any special note of Zadkiel.” Nivalis shifted nervously. “Is Satan looking for her too? Mary thinks he might be, and this house isn’t sealed against demons.”

  Michael’s shoulders tensed. “I’ve got a substantial patrol surrounding all the Christians in Ephesus. That should provide some protection for now.”

  Mary entered the room and sent the children to play in the courtyard, then helped Zadkiel walk to one of the smaller rooms at the back. She seated her on one of the couches, then said, “You’ll have at least some privacy here. Do you mind if I don’t stay? One of the men is still coughing tonight after the fire, and John is praying over him.
”

  “Go tend him,” said Michael. “We’ll let you know if we need you.”

  After Mary left, Michael Guarded the room.

  Saraquael moved closer to Zadkiel, warming her with his presence. “We haven’t found Remiel yet. We assume Satan’s kept her on the plane of Creation, but we have no idea where on Earth she’d be.”

  Zadkiel nodded. “I wish I could help you find her.”

  “We think you can,” Michael said.

  Zadkiel’s head picked up. “How?”

  Nivalis’s eyes gleamed. “That would be great if you could.”

  Saraquael said, “We’re sure one of the demon guards stole and hid a stash of Sheol material, and again, we’re relatively sure it’s somewhere on Earth.”

  Zadkiel frowned. “That’s a lot of territory to search.”

  “And it’s a substance you can’t detect, doubtless under a strong Guard. I know.” Saraquael gave a quirky smile that Zadkiel wouldn’t be able to see. “But Sheol material draws in on itself whenever it can. It wants to be all of one piece, not in separate little pieces.”

  Michael added, “We don’t think it’s a coincidence that all three of you ended up in Ephesus. The material draws itself together in order to remain stable.”

  Zadkiel’s eyes widened. “Oh! And if you combine that pull with the fact that I’m a Seeker, it means I might have a decent chance to figure out the direction it’s stored in.”

  “More than that,” Saraquael said, “I’m thinking you could lead us straight to it.”

  Nivalis raised a finger. “To the stolen stash, or to Remiel and Belior?”

  Michael gave a weak smile. “We’re not sure which, to be honest. Probably to whichever is closest.”

  Nivalis shook her head. “I dislike that idea. We could be handing her over to our enemies.”

  Saraquael said, “We’re not going to toss her out into the desert all alone. Michael and I would both be with her.”

  “And me,” said Nivalis, “but Satan’s involved now. If he’s looking for her, and we bring her to him, I’m worried what might happen.”

  Saraquael said, “We’ve got scouts. If Zadkiel wants to try, we can do this in such a way to maximize her safety the whole time.”

  Nivalis frowned, and a stray emotion slipped: that didn’t mean Zadkiel would be safe.

  Saraquael offered a smile: it was the best they could do.

  Zadkiel said, “Of course I want to try. And I’m not worried about my safety.”

  Michael said, “In the interests of full disclosure, we may have to flash you from one location to another.”

  Zadkiel grinned in his direction. “In the words of someone we both know, that just means it’s going to hurt—it doesn’t mean it’s not going to work.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Teeth chattering, Remiel huddled around herself and tried to remember what the Holy Spirit had told her about hypothermia back when she’d weathered that blizzard. She’d spent most of that first long-ago night praying on the rooftop, letting the wind slice through her, facing the gale with her hair blown away from her eyes and her earrings freezing in her ears, and through it all she’d laughed and joked around with God and enjoyed the chaos of nature at its rawest. God, showing off.

  Her angelic mind should have been able to remember these things, but her human brain was flooded with all these hormones and neurochemicals, and she couldn’t focus past them all. The body kept telling her it wanted to warm up, but she couldn’t figure out how. Her body had spent so much of its precious heat drying off her clothes already, and now she just shivered in the thin fabric of her chiton as she curled on the cave floor. She was breathing far too quickly, and she suspected her pulse was racing also, but she didn’t have all that much to compare it to.

  Belior should have been cold too, nasty thing that he was, but Belior had sent one of the minor demons to fetch warm clothes and warm food and a warm drink. Remiel knew better than to ask for anything herself. The Cherubim were well aware of her discomfort because they’d examined her thoroughly, her soul and spirit and when necessary her body, and there was no reason they would care unless she actually did die—in which case, Satan would probably have at them again.

  The only bright spots in this: whatever they’d done in examining her hadn’t hurt in the slightest, even when they’d tried to flood her with angelic power; and also, whatever Nivalis had done in infusing her with energy had more than taken the edge off her exhaustion. For all that she’d been transported multiple places and probed and lit up from the inside, her headache wasn’t as devastating as the one time Saraquael had transported her to Ephesus.

  What was Satan up to? Even though he thought the Cherubim had conspired to use that weapon against him, he had charged them to re-create it and then left them alone, but first turned them against one another. Satrinah wouldn’t use it against her bonded Seraph, so if forced, she’d choose Belior. Belior, meanwhile, had been told that if Satrinah failed to extract the material, she’d be the one killed. Therefore Belior had no incentive to cooperate with Satrinah, and Satrinah none to cooperate with Belior, and Satan had then left them under heavy surveillance to do exactly that.

  In other words, whatever Satan’s primary goal was, it in no way involved input from the Cherubim. He’d parked them in an underground location where they would accomplish nothing and at the same time couldn’t team up again to harm him. Either that or he wanted the Cherubim to think the only way out was to use the weapon on him, and therefore be super-incentivized to get it done faster.

  Remiel prayed and lay on the ground, watching water drip from the ceiling while the Cherubim argued and experimented in a far corner.

  She noted after a while that her teeth had stopped chattering. She felt warmer. She was finally succumbing to hypothermia, maybe, (if only she could remember what the Holy Spirit had said about it,) but then she realized no, the stones beneath her were actually producing heat. That wasn’t just a body-temperature thing.

  Watching intently, she focused on the cave, but all remained as it was: a ring of demon soldiers and the pair of Cherubim at the center, bickering too quickly for her to follow. And all the while, the stones were just a little warmer than her body, and the goose-bumps had receded, and she could uncurl her limbs without wanting to tighten right back up.

  Okay. So what’s going on?, she prayed. I wouldn’t object to a rescue mission right about now, you know.

  A demon soldier approached Belior with a loaf of bread.

  “I don’t want this now,” Belior snapped, knocking it to the ground.

  The soldier approached Remiel with another loaf.

  Remiel tensed. Satrinah called out, “What are you doing?”

  The demon replied, “Our master says the human isn’t to starve. You need her alive.”

  The demon crouched before her, and she scrambled back into the wall. He handed her the loaf (warm in her hands, which were still chilly) and then passed her a heavy piece of metal encased in a Guard.

  As she took it, he removed the Guard from around the piece.

  She stifled a cry as it touched her palm. That was her own power, her own signature.

  A sigil. Camael’s.

  The demon guard nodded, then with his wings spread a little further than they had to be, he took back the sigil and set it on the warmed stones. He grasped Remiel by the wrist and flashed her out of the cavern.

  It happened so quickly that Remiel had no chance to brace herself. The demon pulled her out through the Guard and into another Guarded cave where she collapsed onto herself, head pounding and vision split by repeated lightning strikes. And all that wasn’t as bad as the way her palm ached to have been holding Camael’s sigil just a moment ago.

  “You got her?” said a familiar voice.

  Camael’s.

  “Like there was any doubt.” The demon soldier huffed. “The way the Cherubim were arguing with each other, I could have led a parade band and an army of ten thousand through there.
For a pair of insatiable questioners, they didn’t even wonder why I was bringing Belior more food when they hadn’t ordered me to do it.”

  Remiel picked up her head, but then someone jerked her to her feet. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

  They could ask her, she thought deep inside herself, still grappling with the vertigo while hearing them as if from a long distance.

  “They’d discarded her like broken pottery shards in the corner, freezing.” The soldier snorted. “I warmed her up for you.”

  “They’re such idiots.” Light flared through the cave, coming from Camael, and Remiel closed her eyes reflexively. “Disgusting. You got stuck in an awful body.”

  He let go of her, and Remiel stumbled back against the wall, then crept her way down to a seated position with the idea that once she was sitting on the floor, she couldn’t fall off it.

  The soldier said, “You can eat that. I didn’t do anything to it.”

  Remiel just held the loaf close to her stomach. She managed a weak, “Why?”

  “Why what? Why didn’t I leave you there to be mistreated by those two buffoons?”

  Remiel squinted. “Yeah. That.”

  “Because they’re already so smug.” Camael snorted. “Vetzi knew I’d want to know about them taking you, so when they sent him on some pointless errand, he came to me first.”

  With her hands on the warm loaf, Remiel huddled around it, unable to eat but at the same time craving the heat, the softness of the insides beneath the crusty outside. Her human body was sending dozens of impulses and details, and she couldn’t decode them. Her eyes burned. Her mouth was tight. She kept swallowing on nothing.

  Camael leaned against the wall. “I kept getting scouted out, and they’d pretend it was nothing. I’m not stupid. That meant they were looking for you, and it also meant they couldn’t find you. I’m not without my own authority, so I put out feelers.” His eyes glinted. “When I figured out where you were, and what they were doing, I turned them in to Satan.” He chuckled. “And I got my reward, but what I wanted was you.”