Shattered Walls (Seven Archangels Book 3)

by Jane Lebak

  Remiel shivered. “The Cherubim. They’ll notice I’m gone.”

  Camael snorted. “Even if they pick up on it, which is doubtful, they can’t do anything about it.” He flexed his wings. “They can’t call out from that Guard, and they can’t leave. And second,” he added with a smirk, “they’re not going to. My sigil’s in there. That’s our energy, and they’ll just register it as your presence without bothering to double-check if you’re actually still around to produce it.”

  Remiel looked up. “Satan’s going to love them for that.”

  He folded his arms and leaned back. “It’s really kind of a shame I won’t be there when they realize what’s happened.”

  Remiel whispered, “But you’ll get in trouble.”

  “Do you honestly think they’ll tell their master they got tricked by a Virtue?” Camael laughed out loud. “You’ll have carved your way out of there with a holy blade long before that happens, trust me.”

  Vetzi snickered. “They’ll slice themselves to pieces rather than admit you escaped with no one noticing. Be prepared to hear tales of your prowess for centuries to come.”

  Remiel lifted the bread to her face and inhaled the smell, then prayed the meal blessing. She broke it open and started eating.

  “They’ll say she cracked Satan’s Guard too,” Camael said.

  Vetzi’s brow furrowed. “They won’t dare spread rumors of that nature.”

  Remiel swallowed. “What are you going to do with me?”

  Camael braced himself. “I’m keeping you here with me.”

  Remiel’s eyes flared. “Forever?”

  Camael raised his wings. “At some point those two are going to figure out how to reverse whatever it is they did to you. When they do figure it out, we’ll have them set you free of this body as well, and then…”

  He stopped. Remiel’s hands tightened on the bread loaf. It was still hot.

  Camael sounded resolute. “I’m not giving you back to them. That’s a matter of pride. I’m disgusted they caught you in the first place. But…”

  Again he trailed off. Remiel chuckled. “Satan caught someone who couldn’t run away and couldn’t fight him. Quite a feather in his cap, don’t you think?”

  Vetzi said, “You’re harder prey than that.”

  She snickered. “Human. Trapped in a burning building. It didn’t take a great hunter to bag me.”

  Vetzi looked like he wanted to argue, but Remiel waved him off. “I’m just saying Camael doesn’t need to be ashamed. Camael wouldn’t have been caught so easily because he wouldn’t have been in the situation to begin with.”

  She glanced at her brother, and his whole visage had darkened. Not with anger. It struck her again despite the centuries and despite their alliances, just how alike they were—how identical. Identical in every way except the most important, and how it felt right and wrong at the same time to be looking at his face and interpreting his expressions and knowing what it was he wanted to say before he even said it.

  But she couldn’t decipher it now, and she hurriedly turned her attention back to the food they’d given her. His attention flickered over her, and the vertigo flared from his proximity.

  He crouched before her, and she tensed.

  He whispered, “Stay with me.”

  “I haven’t got a choice.”

  “I’ll give you a choice.” His voice grew lower still. “This is treason. Satan would pin me down in the Lake of Fire if he heard me say it, but hear me out.”

  Remiel’s head snapped up. Could he? Would he?

  “Stay with me.” Camael took her hand. “We’re one. You renounce your loyalty, and I’ll renounce mine. We’ll be together, free spirits the way we were intended to be.”

  She shook her head. “Just come back with me. I’m already free.” She pulled his hand closer to her human heart. “You know I want you to come home.”

  He recoiled before his hand reached her chest. “You’re enslaved, and I can’t abide by that. But we shouldn’t have had to choose sides to begin with.” His voice ticked up a notch. “You can stay with me.”

  Remiel drew back on herself, biting her lip. This human body, clumsy thing, was shaking. Her heart was pounding, and her eyes were watering. It had grown hard to breathe, and she clenched her hands. Camael. Camael.

  He edged closer. “I know what I’m asking you to give up. God bribed you in every way possible to stay under His service. He gave you status and power, but he didn’t give you me because I saw through His ruse.”

  Remiel tucked her head down on her arm. “Please stop.”

  “I want you with me.” Now he touched her. He flinched as he made contact with the flesh surrounding her spirit, but this time he didn’t withdraw. Her head spun from the vertigo of having him so close, his signature an echo of hers, his strength and even the way his soul vibrated so intimately familiar. He was her. She was him. That’s the way it was supposed to have been from the start.

  “God forced us apart,” Camael said. “You can put us back together.”

  Vetzi said, “I’ll help you. After each of you renounces your affiliation, I’ll stay with you and keep you protected. Remiel’s as good as dead to her folk already, and Camael, you can disappear with ease.”

  Remiel pulled back even tighter on herself to stop the shaking.

  I can’t. She pressed her hands against her face and breathed into her palms. I can’t. God, help me. I can’t do this. She wasn’t even sure which she couldn’t do: couldn’t leave God, who she loved and who loved her, couldn’t renounce her loyalty and her fealty and the fact that He had created her and sustained her and been with her every moment? Or whether she couldn’t say no to her brother, who after all this time apart from her was finally with her again.

  One heart. One mind. Irin.

  But with God, she also had a oneness. Not the same, but not entirely different either. Camael completed her. God completed her. She loved them both. Had loved Camael. Still loved him, apparently. Never had stopped. And God never had slackened in His love of her throughout. Not even in the moments she least deserved it.

  Camael put his wings around her like a shelter while she shook. “She’s still cold,” he whispered to Vetzi. “Can you make it warmer in here?”

  He was warming her up. He wanted her near.

  Vetzi said, “Are you really stuck in that form? What did the weapon do?”

  Remiel shrugged. “I don’t know. No one knows.”

  “But what was it?”

  Camael’s wings smelled good, clean. Remiel closed her eyes. “Sheol material. Weaponized.”

  Vetzi crouched nearer and looked her in the face. “And were you working with Mephistopheles too?”

  Remiel’s jaw tightened. “Why do you people keep asking me that? We weren’t working with them.”

  Vetzi’s brows contracted. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “She’s not lying.” Camael tightened his grasp on her. “I can feel her signature. And it feels right.”

  It feels right. It feels so right.

  Remiel’s voice broke as she pressed into Camael’s embrace. “Just come back with me.”

  “It’s not possible. God said it was final.” Camael cuddled her to his side. “I can renounce my allegiance, but that won’t bring me back to you. You have to renounce yours too.” He hesitated. “Why are you keeping us apart? Don’t you want to be together?”

  Her head reeled. She wanted to tell him to back off and let her think, but she also didn’t want him to move away from her. He was right here, after all this time. Breathing together, vibrating in unison. How could she say no?

  He sounded as tortured as she felt. “Didn’t you ever love me?”

  “Don’t say that.” Her mouth trembled. “You left me.”

  “So you love Him more than me,” Camael snapped.

  “Of course I do!” she exclaimed before wondering whether it was true. But it had to be. God came before everybody and everything else. “You’re badgering m
e. You’re the one who left. You can’t blame me for staying when you’re the one who decided to abandon me in the first place.”

  “We have a chance to be together now,” he urged. “I’ll hide you.”

  “You can’t hide me from God.” She shook her head. “You can’t hide me from myself. I can’t renounce Him.”

  “You can,” Camael said. “I did.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “But you can ask for mercy. I’ll ask for you. I’ll beg. Please, Camael.” She sat toward him, but he recoiled. “I’ll offer Him everything I have to bring you home.”

  “Beg?” He looked disgusted. “And play the servant?”

  Her eyes widened. “Then you don’t want to be together! You just want me here with you.”

  Vetzi said, “She’s a tough nut to crack, isn’t she?”

  Camael didn’t follow as she backed away.

  Remiel said, “That’s it, isn’t it?” Her voice sharpened. “You’re playing me! You have no intention of renouncing anything whatsoever. You just want me to get winnowed alongside you.” She glared at him. “We went through that once. Wasn’t once enough?”

  Camael shot a worried look at Vetzi, but Vetzi only said, “You tried your best. I don’t hold you responsible.”

  Vetzi grabbed Remiel from behind and twisted her arms, then bound her up with his will. She struggled, but his will was far stronger than she’d anticipated…and in the next moment she recognized it for what it was. Satan’s power. Vetzi was Satan.

  Camael rushed toward her in tears. “Don’t do this to me! Please, just stay with me!”

  Vetzi pushed Camael aside. He flared like lightning, and when Remiel could see past the glare, he’d dropped the disguise. Twelve white wings, green eyes, cornsilk hair. “You’re right, you know. You weren’t hard to capture.” He chuckled. “But that would have been the same in either form.”

  Satan dragged her through space again, and this time it hurt. It hurt as her heart got torn away from Camael while he screamed her name one last time, and it hurt as her head howled with pain and her vision whited out, and it hurt when she was dumped unceremoniously on the stone while Satan was saying, “Don’t you Cherubim pay attention to anything? Why should I have to bring back your toys like animals that strayed off?”

  A circle of warm metal throbbed on the cave floor, directly under her chest. Remiel didn’t need to touch it to know what it was. It vibrated with power. Camael’s sigil. Camael. Gone.

  She collapsed to the floor, landing with the metal against her skin.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Saraquael came for Zadkiel just after dark. She made her way into the courtyard with Nivalis, then asked her child guide to leave her there for the time being. After the child scampered back into the house, Saraquael took form and touched her arm. “Here, you’ll need to put this on. It might get cold.”

  She reached forward and felt heavy fur. “Where’d you get this? Isn’t this the clothing Remiel was wearing before?”

  Saraquael chuckled. “The same.”

  Michael sounded amused, and Zadkiel warmed at how relaxed he sounded, and the fact that he was there at all. “How’d you do that?”

  “I told Remiel which merchant to go to,” Saraquael said as he helped Zadkiel sip the heavy tunic over her chiton, then the coat over that. “I’d scouted him out ahead of time and asked if he had anything warm for a trip up north. That way when these two came to him, he’d be willing to buy it.”

  Zadkiel worked her feet into the boots with his help. “What did you buy it with?”

  “Money. They kind of honor that over in the market.”

  She could hear the good humor in Saraquael’s voice, and she rolled her eyes. “And you got the coins by mining the metal yourself and stamping it with the seal of the emperor?”

  “No, silly. I got it from somebody who didn’t need it anymore.” The boots tightened around her ankles as he fastened the straps. “I searched the bottom of the Mediterranean until I found a shipwreck, and there were coins in the wreckage. I probably overpaid,” he added, “but you and Remiel got money when you needed it, and now you’ve got warm clothing, and the merchant has more money than he started with.”

  “And the dead ship captain doesn’t care,” Zadkiel said.

  Michael sounded astonished. “When did you set that up?”

  “As soon as I realized we might bring them to Ephesus. If we didn’t, no harm done. The merchant would have told me no, and then no one would have come to sell him winter gear. Needing the winter clothing again was the only thing I didn’t count on.”

  “Why’d you choose him?” Zadkiel asked. “You realize that merchant was disgusting, right?”

  “How so? He was polite to me.”

  “He made remarks about seeing Remiel naked and buying her from me for his personal gratification.”

  Saraquael sounded irritated. “Well, then. I guess I need to pray for him specially, don’t I?”

  Zadkiel grinned. Michael said, “Zadkiel, before we start, have you changed your mind?”

  Nivalis’s voice sounded unsteady. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Zadkiel shook her head. It was too bad she couldn’t project in this form, but body language would help. “I’m good to go.”

  “Put your arms around my neck,” Saraquael said, and she hugged him. He lifted her into his arms and took flight.

  She clutched him reflexively, gasping as the air gusted around them. He had his arms around her back and under her knees, and she hoped no demons tried to knock her out of his grasp.

  “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” he murmured.

  “Only when I can fall.” Zadkiel tucked her face down out of the wind and concentrated on the strength of his muscles as his wings beat.

  “Like this?” He mock-dropped her, and she yanked closer to his chest.

  “Hey!” Nivalis exclaimed. “What are you doing?”

  “Making her laugh,” Saraquael said.

  “I’m going to hurt you,” Zadkiel snapped. He was laughing, and she giggled. “Think how much fun you’ll have explaining to all the little Greek children how a lady fell from the sky.”

  “Oh, rats, they’ll worship you after Raphael finishes putting you back together, won’t they? I’d better not drop you after all.”

  He leveled out into a glide, and Zadkiel raised her head. The air was notably chillier than it had been on the ground, and it was also harder to breathe. The proximity to Saraquael’s angelic power made her ears ring, but it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation. Her head ached, and again, it was more like the after-effect of drinking a whole cup of wine. That she could tolerate.

  “Okay, fellow Seeker,” Saraquael murmured. “We’re going to do what God made us to do. I want you to bring that shrapnel home.”

  Holding close to him, Zadkiel concentrated on Sheol, on Sheol material and death, on what it meant to be weaponized death. She reached inside herself, something she’d been doing since this morning when the archangels had first laid out their plan to her, and she grasped that inner wrongness.

  As it had all day, the death inside her felt cold, but with a cold unlike the biting wind against her cheeks and the dry chill tearing at her lungs. This was a solid cold with an immobility to it that dared anyone to budge it from wherever it set its footprint. She couldn’t use gloves for this one: with her heart, she grasped the wrongness and didn’t try to shield herself.

  “I’ve got it.” The wind carried away her voice.

  Saraquael pressed his forehead against hers, and she felt him trying to probe through her human heart toward the shrapnel inside. It had dissolved within her; it wasn’t in just one place, but rather inhabiting every last bit of her spirit. When he touched it, it parted before him like water around a river rock, and the motion made Zadkiel dizzy.

  She tried to draw the shrapnel up to the surface of her heart, but it kept evading her. No wonder it had taken the Cherubim twenty years to work with this: it wanted
to escape and hated touch. She let it suffuse her, though, and she tried to draw Saraquael’s thoughts into it as well. “Can you feel it?”

  He sighed. “Barely. I know it’s there, but not more than that.”

  Nivalis said, “My turn?” and placed her hands on Zadkiel. Gradually Nivalis fed a thread of energy into her the way she’d done into Remiel, giving Zadkiel access to angelic power without overwhelming her. Zadkiel tensed in response, and Saraquael shook his head. She tried to relax, and the energy kept coming. Her head pounded, but she concentrated on the shrapnel.

  “Have you got a direction?” Michael asked.

  Saraquael said, “It’s not responding. We could try moving her so we could detect a change if we happen to get closer.”

  Michael said, “Is there any response at all? Or just a very weak one?”

  “None.”

  “Then let’s go to the next stage.” Zadkiel felt Michael draw closer. “Cup your hands.”

  She unclenched herself from Saraquael’s shoulders and left him holding onto her unsupported. It surprised her how scary that felt, how insecure not to have something to cling to. She pivoted away from him, and he corrected for her shifted weight. She stiffened, and then when he felt still again, she cupped her palms.

  Nivalis said, “You’re okay.”

  This is terrifying, Zadkiel prayed. Please bless our efforts. And then, Please keep me safe.

  Silly human body, with its human fear of destruction. It occurred to her that it was a good thing she couldn’t see how high she was. She could pretend she was on the bottom branch of a tree, swinging her legs while a stream rushed mere inches beneath her toes.

  She extended her cupped palms, and Michael placed in them a warm sphere that vibrated out of sympathy with the wind.

  Death. She was holding Death.

  “The Sheol fragments are under a heavy enough Guard that they’re not going to embed themselves in you,” Michael said, “but if you need me to, I can lighten the Guard.”

  Zadkiel cradled the sphere closer to her chest even though it was so immaterial that that wind couldn’t knock it free from her fingers.