by Jane Lebak
The mist felt cool. Zadkiel moved, and she realized she was in angelic form, and next she realized she could see again. The place she found herself, however, was sterile. It wasn’t featureless—she was in a mudbrick house, but it was more like a painting of a house than an actual house. Nothing was near her. Nothing seemed three-dimensional. There was a place you’d make meals and a place you’d sit to work, but they didn’t feel lived-in.
Where am I?
You’re with me, the speaker said, and I need you to wake up.
Zadkiel turned. Wake up?
You’re still in a human body, and I’m making you dream so I can appear in the dream. It’s me, Nivalis.
Zadkiel blinked. Wait—Satan! Satan knocked me out!
Satan took the Sheol material that was in the Guarded sphere you were holding. I need you awake. You need to save Michael. You need to do it now.
Zadkiel struggled to reach back into the body she’d been trapped in for so long, for the blindness and the helplessness. Slowly the pain of stones swelled up under her body, the ache where she’d landed on a rock, the itchiness of mud on her skin. She reached further and clasped at the memory of wine until the taste flooded her senses and reminded her of everything she’d been and everything she’d become.
She opened her eyes and could see nothing. Okay. Awake.
Don’t move!
Zadkiel’s human body stayed frozen in fright, even in this painful position. Remiel was screaming, calling to Saraquael, calling for God. Saraquael was shouting suggestions to her, but it sounded as though they were separated. Michael she couldn’t hear at all.
Satan’s wrapping them up in Sheol material. He took the sphere from you. He’s using Belior as a weapon. You need to stop him.
Me? That was the only thing Zadkiel could think, a horrified, Me? When Michael couldn’t do it, and Saraquael couldn’t, and Remiel was trapped?
But she was the only one left. She and Nivalis, but Zadkiel was the only one trained as a soldier. She was stronger than Nivalis. Or at least, she should have been. Should have been.
Should have been.
Zadkiel struggled to breathe evenly. What can I do?
Nivalis sent, There’s still Sheol material in you. It’s linked to what’s in Belior, and that’s what Satan is using to trap the others. He’s encased Michael in it already. You need to do this now.
Head pounding from the angelic contact, Zadkiel reached inside to touch the Sheol material. It remained buried, and it was pointing outward. Satan was manipulating it from within Belior, and the stuff within her own heart danced in synchrony to his directions. Relaxing her senses further, she could detect angels on the other end of the feed, but not anything about them, only that they were there and that they were struggling.
Encasing them: Satan was encasing them in Sheol material, and once he was done, would he just cut them loose and leave them trapped? All three of them?
Zadkiel pushed on the Sheol material in her heart, but it didn’t yield. It kept gliding like a puppet in time with Satan’s manipulation.
I can’t do this, Zadkiel sent. What did you do before, to manipulate it? Do it again!
Nivalis moved within her, and Zadkiel could feel the other angel’s presence against the shrapnel.
You thought you could free it before, Zadkiel sent. Can you try that again?
It’s anchored to you. It responds, but it’s hooked so deep. A warmth enfolded Zadkiel. Give it to me, Nivalis said. Your grief. The thing that’s making you so sad you’re a kindred spirit of Death. Tell it to me. I need it now.
Zadkiel went cold all over.
Remiel’s scream cut off mid-cry, and Saraquael yelled for her in a panic. On the other end of the chains, Michael had gone still, as if very small and very distant. She needed to do something.
I can’t do it! Zadkiel’s face tightened, and she tried to stay still rather than run or curl up around herself. I’m not good enough. I’ve never been good enough!
Nivalis projected surprise.
You’ve always known it! Heat rose within Zadkiel’s heart, and her mouth twisted as she struggled to keep the tears at bay.
Nivalis sent, Hang on. I’m going to work it free.
You can’t. It won’t matter anyhow. Nivalis was knee-deep in the emotional blood hemorrhaging from Zadkiel’s heart, as if her feelings were all being plunged out of her. I’m not good enough. I should have had Saraquael’s place with the Seven. I’m stronger than he is, only I wasn’t good enough, and I disappointed God, and I disappointed everyone. I can’t do anything, and everyone knows it. The only thing special about me is the wine, and even that’s a liability. And I…
Zadkiel couldn’t go on. Tears traced down her face, and in her soul, it hurt as Nivalis tried to rock that thing loose. It just hurt.
Nivalis had finally seen her as she was: helpless, a failure, and a disappointment to God Almighty who had only ever been good to her.
Behind her, it felt as if Nivalis were warming her by cuddling her. Zadkiel tried to shrink away from her touch, but Nivalis projected reassurance.
Above her, Satan was saying to the Cherubim, “I have to compliment the two of you on your work. You forged an excellent weapon, but this is kind of boring.”
Two angels on the other end of the chain were still struggling. The last one ensnared must have been bound up harder because he was fading faster. And Zadkiel only thrummed with how she’d failed everyone again.
In her heart, Nivalis pressed something into her control. Do you feel this? Try again. Tug on it.
And as soon as she did it, Satan would know she was awake and would wrap her up in it too.
The fear shot through her whole human body, and for an instant she couldn’t move. Then Saraquael called again to Remiel, but Remiel had gone still like a gravestone, so Zadkiel gathered herself. She grabbed hold of that shrapnel in her heart and gave a yank.
It responded, and next a blinding pain shot through her head as Satan kicked her. “Stay down!” he snarled. “You gave me what I wanted!”
Zadkiel pulled the shrapnel again, adding strength from her fear and pain. Nivalis was still with her, still diffused, and as soon as Satan brought her down, he’d do even worse to Nivalis. It was on Zadkiel to protect her even though Zadkiel couldn’t even protect herself. But she reached again through the line and groped for whichever angel on the other end was the last one struggling, and she ordered the darkness to let go.
The thrashing on the other end intensified. Maybe that meant whoever it was could win free.
Satan lifted her by the shoulders and shook her so hard her teeth hurt. His power exploded around her, but it couldn’t touch her: no authority. The by-blow left her head reeling, and she struggled to contain it.
“She’s retained some inside,” Belior said.
Satan said, “Linked with yours? Draw it out of her.”
Zadkiel tightened her grip. Once Belior pulled it out, the demons would have it all. She couldn’t defeat their enemies, but she could at least be an anchor and keep that substance rooted in their side for a while.
And then she thought: what if she could pull everything back into herself? All those pieces Nivalis had united with her own…they were still working in unison. What if they all came back to her?
She could do that. All these years she’d failed God, failed her choir, failed everyone—but at the very least she could entomb all of that renegade material in herself. If death had to claim one of them, why shouldn’t it be her?
She reached for the substance and opened wide, pulling it into her heart.
Nivalis blazed inside her. Don’t do that!
No, no, it worked best this way. Free Michael and Remiel and Saraquael and let them do their work for God’s glory. They were marvelous, brilliant. They could defeat Satan. God had elevated them right from the start because they could.
“Stop her!” Satan shouted at Belior.
The shrapnel bits flew into Zadkiel’s heart, and then, as
more and more came to her, she extended herself further to reach for the ones in Belior.
“No!” Belior’s voice pitched up. “You little wench!”
Again her head exploded in pain, and Zadkiel tucked around herself. She was bleeding, and she kept tugging because that was the only thing she could do. And in the distance, as if through a very thick blanket, came awakening motions: the other angels were getting out.
“Belior, I need that power back!” Satan shouted. “Stop her!”
Then came Satrinah’s voice, shrill. “Bond him! He needs more energy! Bond him and give him access to yours!”
The stuff anchored in Belior wouldn’t come loose, but all the rest was back in Zadkiel now: everything drawn off Michael, everything from Remiel, everything stolen by Hastle. It was hers like a dead weight in her soul, and she let herself sink under its crushing power. I’m so sorry, Father. I’m sorry because I never did anything worthwhile, but I can do something for you now. I’m so sorry.
Belior yanked back, and it slipped toward him. Zadkiel shivered, abruptly cold all over, and Belior tugged it again so more went back to him.
She couldn’t even anchor it. I’m sorry. I failed You.
Nivalis poured energy into her, leaving her dizzy, but Zadkiel couldn’t hold fast against Belior. The darkness was slippery, and sometimes when she gripped it, it would slide away, only to stick for a while and then hurt her, and Belior just kept reeling it in. Satan hadn’t bonded him—he was just naturally stronger than she was, and he could tear it free from her grasp.
Nivalis tried to anchor it, and Satan said, “Well! Look at this,” and ripped her away from Zadkiel with a shriek.
“Let her go!” Zadkiel’s head raised. “She’s just an Angel! Don’t hurt her!”
Blood traced down her neck and shoulders. There would be tears and bruises all over her, and she couldn’t do a thing to save anyone. Belior pulled more of the stuff back out, and she was down to just the anchored material. She couldn’t feel Nivalis any longer. She couldn’t see. And she was losing her grip on what remained.
She reached for God, and wordlessly, she tried to hold that moment.
I’m proud of you.
Her eyes flew open. Surprised, she stared into space, that anchor-tug on her heart still so intense. How? I’ve let You down in everything. In everything.
Proud of you.
Zadkiel pulled, and it came back to her a bit. Proud of her? She pulled again, and more of it came. But how? How could God be proud of her when in every way she’d been outshone by lower angels, lesser in power or strength and yet promoted to so much more than herself?
“Belior!” Satan hollered, and Zadkiel pulled more, then reached along the line toward where she thought she’d felt Saraquael struggling last of the three. He was more than she was. Created with less, but promoted over her into the Seven, and yet God was proud of her? She extended toward him where Death surrounded him and sealed him in place like a sarcophagus. But her heart could slip along it, probing for an opening.
“Stop her!” Satan shouted, and she felt him grasping over Belior’s hold and yanking the material. Zadkiel called it back into shape around herself, imagining the shrapnel the way Remiel had described it, a school of tiny fish all pointed in the same direction. She pointed them at her, and then she pointed them back to Saraquael and sent them toward him, gathering all their fellows and calling them to her.
Proud of her. Not just tolerant of her, but God was proud of her. By now the shrapnel kept responding, and she imagined holding it in one hand and her own feeling of inadequacy in the other, and they worked together. She didn’t need to pull everything out of Belior. She just extended as far as she could into the attachment and probed for Saraquael, and in one moment of brilliance, he grasped back at her as if through a hole in a very thick wall. I’m here, she sent, almost jubilant. I’m here, and you’re coming back with me.
She pulled, and he slipped toward her through the connection. Satrinah was screaming at Satan to bond Belior now, do it now and break it later if they could figure out how, but bond him now—but Satan struck Zadkiel instead.
Zadkiel hit the ground, the world gyrating so crazily that couldn’t figure out which way she’d even go to get upright again. Help me, she prayed.
He was proud of her. It kept coming back to her: God had said He was proud of her, and He loved her, and she was His own.
Saraquael was still reaching for her, and she grasped back for him, and they clasped. It was strength she needed now, but trapped as he was, he had nothing to offer.
Satan kicked her again, and Zadkiel curled around herself.
She reached again for God, and instead she tasted wine.
Wine, as wine existed when her Lord said, Wine. Wine as it was, as it should be. And herself, as she was, as she should be.
Before Satan hit her a third time, Zadkiel felt it coming, and she rolled to the side so his blow glanced off the heavy coat. She stumbled to her feet, then ducked as he struck at her again.
Wine. It flooded her, and she called it to the forefront of her mind. Again she darted to the side, this time crashing into Belior and then rolling away from him just as Satan blasted the spot with power.
She had no time to think. She extended again for Saraquael to pull him out of Death, and instead she found him pushing his sword at her through the opening.
She unsheathed that weapon from Death and unreality, bringing it up just in time to crash against Satan’s own weapon.
“You’re not clever,” Satan snarled. “You can’t use that toy.”
Saraquael had flooded all his power into his sword, and Zadkiel let Saraquael’s sword itself guide her defense. Every time Satan struck, wine coursed through her like blood through her veins, and every painful breath intensified the memory. She was the only one who could do this. The only one. And God was proud of her.
She parried twice against a blade she couldn’t see, then pivoted in time to defend against a blow from Satrinah.
Satan got a blow in at her side, and as she crashed into the rocks, she raised her sword to deflect an incoming surge of power.
She couldn’t keep doing this: even with her sight, she’d have been overmatched. She reached again into the shrapnel, hoping to find Remiel, but one of them hit her, and she went down, her head reeling.
Come to me, she thought, pulling on the shrapnel bound to her heart. And as she pulled, it came to her, came into her heart, and then surged up through her arm and out into her sword.
Belior shouted, “Watch her!”
Zadkiel raised a weapon that suddenly thrummed as if alive, but it was the opposite of life. It was hunger; it was loneliness; it was isolation. All that in her palm. She pivoted toward Belior’s voice and pointed. “Come to me! Now!”
Belior screamed as she opened wide to pull with a strength she’d never felt before in all existence. Flamed engulfed her, but she gathered the shrapnel up like a shield around herself so the heat didn’t turn into pain. All of it. Now. All of it, to me!
Her heart thrummed, and as the shrapnel came to her, it thinned out over Saraquael and Remiel and Michael. Satan was shouting something at Satrinah or Belior, but she couldn’t make out the words over the roar. Instead she was alone inside a sphere of Sheol, bearing a sword imbued with Death, and Saraquael was tearing free of the sickly membrane that had overwhelmed him.
And then light came to her, light she hadn’t been able to see since Belior first set off the weapon in the ice caverns. Her human form was yielding to her angelic power. The last bit of shrapnel to be released was the material embedded in her heart, and God was proud of her, and it was coming out.
Zadkiel aimed toward Satan, and she blasted the Death energy at him.
All around her, the cavern rumbled. “Don’t!” Belior shouted. “He’ll drop the ceiling on us!”
Sounding groggy, Saraquael projected, You did it. You finished their weapon.
Sides heaving, bones aching, Zadkiel took a ready
stance.
Satan flew at her with only one objective: get that weapon. She raised it and met his strike, parried, met him again, defended with every bit of energy she had. She wasn’t strong enough. She knew it, but she didn’t have to be stronger than him: she had only to hold onto the sword and direct it. The power felt comfortable now: a familiar ache that fueled her defense. Saraquael was getting to his feet and reaching for Remiel, who had just clawed free from her own cocoon. Michael lay in a heap on the stone, but it was Zadkiel the demons attacked. Satrinah and Satan struck with a choreography just short of perfect, but she was able to keep them distant.
Belior tackled her against the wall, and as her spine slammed into the rock, the sword fell from her hand.
She twisted and lunged for it, but Belior knocked her backward again, and her head cracked against the stone. She struggled up, but Belior dove for the sword.
Before Zadkiel even had a chance to cry out, Satan flashed the sword to his hands.
He raised the sword and leveled it at her—and then Remiel crashed into him, once again wearing a human body and wrestling the weapon away .
“Let go, wench!” He ignited, and Remiel’s clothes caught fire. “I’ll hurt you beyond anything you ever dreamed!”
“Hurt me,” Remiel gasped, holding the sword in both hands. “That doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”
Zadkiel flung herself onto Belior to keep him from jumping Remiel. And then, as Satan snatched at the sword, light flared through the cavern.
Michael stood over Satan, holding the sword high and engulfing it in his light.
“Enough!” He flared his wings, and a strong wind swept the cavern, extinguishing the fire around Remiel. Michael pivoted to face Satan, his eyes like twin stars, and he pointed the tip of the weapon at him.
Satan vanished, taking his Guard with him.
The cavern shook. Chunks of stone plummeted from the cavern ceiling in a waterfall of rock and dirt. Zadkiel pushed Belior down and threw herself over him to protect his host, and then Remiel was over her, and the ceiling caved in.
