Shattered Walls (Seven Archangels Book 3)

by Jane Lebak

  Rachmiel and I are a lot alike.

  Except, of course, Rachmiel hadn’t raised his hand against the girl. Tabris should never forget that. When danger had appeared, Rachmiel had driven off the threat, and Tabris had turned against the victim.

  He spread his wings and flew the perimeter of his tether. When what bound him to the girl was love and not force, he’d be able to travel anywhere in creation and still feel her heart beating within his own. Now he wouldn’t have recognized her existence at all except for the chain pinning him to one spot, making him a radius that strained ever outward.

  No, that’s wrong, he thought. Do that and she’ll grow up feeling abandoned.

  As he glided, he thought how different this was from his first guardianship. It had been textbook-normal until the disaster. Nine months curled up beside a developing embryo, snuggling the child and shielding it as it grew, semiconscious days of dreaming protection, loving what as yet had four cells and an immortal soul and had rooted itself in the body of another living thing. Then birth, the laughter, the admiration when he first saw the tiny body, the pride as he stood over the bassinette in a hospital room—Sebastian! His vows still rang in his ears.

  He sailed over the remnants of a rock wall and cupped his wings, angled upright, and dropped to a stand. The long grass licked his calves, tickling him where it could, but he had no energy to play with the plants, to tell them to think about God while they stretched their blades toward the sky. The grass settled back, disappointed after he passed, then forgot him and returned to playing tag with the moonbeams.

  Tabris embraced the cold as he walked, draining all the warmth from his body for an instant to crystallize the evanescence that was him. He loved God’s world. It was good to be here.

  A trickle caught his attention, and he angled toward it. His favorite season was fall... Autumn, he corrected himself. Within a few weeks the piles of snow and blistering wind would settle on the land, and he could lie on the rooftops at night, warming up the ice dams and talking to his Father.

  He stopped in his tracks.

  Wait a minute—could he even…?

  No, not that. He wanted to know, but he didn’t, couldn’t. He shut his eyes and struggled to force down the fear, then told himself to delay, don’t ask that question right now because you shouldn’t ask questions whose answers would destroy you.

  He’d arrived at the stream, but for now he ignored it.

  The black shape of trees and the subtle farmland gave the gift of silence Tabris both needed and feared. He hadn’t prayed since it happened. He’d been too stunned at the time, too numb afterward, too afraid now. Just as Sebastian’s parents hadn’t spoken to each other when they’d learned of the accident, gripping each other’s hands in wretched silence, so too had Tabris gripped God’s hand without words, not wanting to let go until the moment God would rip him off like brittle duct-tape. He’d only released his grip when Raguel took him home.

  No, actually. It was a few moments earlier. Tabris thought back through time to the echoing judgment hall and realized his sense of God’s presence, what humans call the Beatific Vision, had been strangled down at the same moment he’d been placed on probation. What he had now wasn’t a Vision. More like a Glimpse. He could still make contact, but as if through layers of glass, and that change had shocked him into releasing his grip.

  Tabris shuddered. Can I pray?

  Asking God would be a destructive test: reach for God with his whole heart and either God would fill him, or more likely, God would say nothing, which would be its own answer. So Tabris answered himself: he wouldn’t try anything more than reciting words, not yet anyhow, not real prayer. He’d avoid the purer forms: contemplation or meditation or unification...he’d wait. Maybe it would become clear. Maybe it wouldn’t have to.

  Finally he stepped into the stream and walked against the flow of the water to the furthest point of the tether. Numb, he lay full-length in the center, allowing the wet cold to rip right through him. He couldn’t fly any further, but if he lay still and let the water rush past, it was almost the same. He could let the stream scour his soul, untangle his hair, and saturate the two-toned feathers, and maybe when it was done, maybe there wouldn’t be that blot of ugliness after all.

  He dug his hands into the tiny stones at the bottom until he found the softer sediment, and he closed his eyes.

  Guardian.

  I’ll do it, God.

  The moon shone its round glory on the sleeping hills, casting a haze on the inhabitants of the night. Tabris, his eyes and ears closed by water, realized the glow was vanishing when he felt another angel’s spirit brush against his own.

  Rachmiel.

  “Come back,” said the other guardian. “It’s not right to leave you out here.”

  Tabris followed, dry the instant he left the water, and was brought directly to the girl’s bedroom. Full sensation returned as the tether slackened. The room was empty of all the other angels that had filled it earlier, even Raguel.

  The other guardian made it clear he should sit on the bed. Tabris complied mutely. Rachmiel too had remained wordless, his heart rather than his voice conveying the instructions.

  Rachmiel settled in the chair by the corner window, the moon illuminating him like a spotlight, revealing that the other angel’s previously-strained features were sensitive, his blond hair had a gentle curl, and his wings were orange. The moonlight accentuated the color of his eyes, sunset-toned so they would range the full spectrum of a night sky, most likely orange when he was calm but deepening to purple when he was upset. Now they were purple. He’d drawn his knees against his chest, and while Tabris studied him, he studied Tabris.

  For a while they remained in this still-life, Tabris longing for a way to cover up his soul, but he braced himself and let his new supervisor inspect him.

  Finally Rachmiel turned his gaze to the sleeping girl. Images appeared in Tabris’s mind, accompanied by Rachmiel’s gestures, his carriage, his emotions: thoughts of time, of compelled acceptance, and of the child. He unclenched his hands, and then looked at the girl and smiled.

  Tabris said, “Elizabeth?”

  Rachmiel’s confirmation filled Tabris with sadness, enough at odds with everything else that it had to be Tabris’s own. Facts blossomed in his mind like a tree erupting in springtime: Elizabeth Hayes was ten years old; she had three brothers; she liked pounding on the piano; she was smart but shy. Her personality unfolded for Tabris, her history and her skills, and underlying all this was Rachmiel’s love that started cracks spreading along Tabris’s already-striated heart.

  The love changed then to ferocity: if Tabris hurt her, Rachmiel would defend her with his life.

  Tabris whispered, “I wouldn’t.”

  The other guardian’s eyes flared.

  Tabris averted his gaze, at first pretending to look over the girl and then actually doing it. He reached out to touch the red hair that covered her shoulders, then stopped himself. “May I?”

  Sullen for only a moment, Rachmiel nodded.

  Tabris extended a hand to her cheek, freckled and soft, in the process of losing the tan earned bit by bit every day of the summer. With two fingers he traced the curve of her cheek, the information now coming to him as readily as if he were a doctor reading a patient’s chart. She had good health except for a scab on one knee. Her eyes, he learned, were blue. Her face hadn’t lost its baby-roundness yet. Trivial information: her shoe size, the length of her hair, her blood pressure, her lung capacity, what she’d eaten for dinner. Her pulse and her temperature. And he could feel her dreams.

  Tabris said, “She’ll wake in an hour?”

  Rachmiel shrugged, meaning a little longer.

  Tabris winced, looking again at Elizabeth because it was better than letting Rachmiel look into his eyes. As if he’d sensed this, Rachmiel reappeared in front of him, on the other side of the child. A question: would he like to meet the other angels in the household?

  He had no choice, so
why phrase it as a question? But Rachmiel wanted a response, so he agreed.

  Rachmiel flashed them downstairs to a living room. Two angels sat talking on the thick carpet, and a third perched on the carved mantelpiece. Rachmiel projected to the others, who faced Tabris and extended a greeting by smiling and opening their hands. It felt staged.

  Rachmiel gestured to a female angel with straight brown hair that rippled over her shoulders. “Josai’el guards Elizabeth’s grandmother, Bridget.” His voice sounded much gentler than his initial protests. Josai’el bowed, and Tabris made a deferential gesture toward her as the head of the household.

  Rachmiel continued, “This is Hadriel. He guards Elizabeth’s mother, Connie.”

  Hadriel greeted him, but Tabris could feel the tension, the objection. Rachmiel said, “And lastly—”

  “I’ve met Mithra.” Tabris didn’t look him in the eyes. “Hello.”

  The smaller angel said, “I guard Andrew, her father.”

  Tabris’s mouth tightened. “I remember.”

  Josai’el projected a call, and three more angels appeared, the guardians of Elizabeth’s brothers. Tabris felt the names and identities slipping past him, too much to absorb. But over time, he’d be able to match the personalities and the pairings. Katra’il, a female angel with blond hair in tight curls. A blue-and-white eyed angel named Voriah. An archangel named Miriael. The names came and went, and Tabris would just have to figure them all out again later.

  The introductions made, Tabris felt the others anticipating something. Only what could he say to allay their fears when he wasn’t sure he could do that for himself? He looked at his hands. Rachmiel had known his crime the instant he’d arrived, so there was no reason to assume the rest of them didn’t know. But conscious that he rode the fringes of being tolerated at all, he forced the words. “Thank you. I’ll probably be asking a lot of questions about how things run here.”

  “You’ll get into the routine quickly.” Rachmiel’s eyes had gone softer. “I’ll talk you through at first, but I’m sure you won’t need much help.” The emotions projecting from him had changed, less sharp and more warm, and Tabris shifted backward: he’d expected protectiveness from Raguel, but not from Rachmiel. “The days can get pretty hectic, but at night you’ll get a chance to recharge.”

  “I know—” Tabris began and then stopped when he thought about the past. The past? Yesterday? Yesterday, when he and the guardians of Sebastian’s parents had sat on the rooftop to pray the evening offering together, and then curled beside their charges in their warm beds, an angelic wing thrown protectively over human shoulders.

  Miriael’s voice drew him back to the present. “The demons around here tend to attack in groups. This household is large enough to ward off most strikes, and sometimes we’ll go out on loan to the neighbors if they need us.”

  Mithra said, “An old woman lives alone at the top of the hill. I help her guardian a lot.”

  Tabris took in the seven of them with a glance and registered how they fit together, their familiarity with each other’s motions and habits, how they anticipated which one would speak next and made space for one another. In a living room that had long since sacrificed elegance for practicality, this team resonated with unity and flexibility. With mutual trust. But him? Would they ever trust him? More than that, would he ever feel as comfortable again with anyone?

  Even a human could have deciphered the tension ghosting their eyes: Why are you here? Raguel must have taken advantage of the time he’d spent outside, sitting them together on the worn sofas and explaining that damnation had been as close as the dotting of an i. He’d probably teased out their concerns, persuaded them to confide their worries, and then urged them to call if they had any doubts. Like a session for friends of a teen suicide: get them all in one place and talk.

  And once that meeting had ended, Rachmiel had been sent to fetch him, the boys’ guardians had dispersed, and the guardians of the three elders had remained to discuss how you handle a threat God orders you not to send away. Apparently you bring it into the living room and introduce it to everyone, and then wait for a speech.

  Tabris shivered. “Thanks for taking me in.” His voice sounded thin, but he thought it was expected, and he could never let his guard down, never let himself forget this community of angels was doing him a favor.

  Josai’el embraced him, and he allowed her. “Welcome, Tabris. We’re glad to have you.”

  Three

  Josai’el’s first impulse had been that one more angel meant that much more strength against demonic attacks. Her second thought came right on the heels of the first, and that was the one she held onto: Tabris needed them. A heady thought, that one. Of all the families on Earth, God chose hers as the best stronghold for a wounded angel.

  The whole story felt like a disaster. The instant Tabris had arrived beside Raguel, his pain had overwhelmed her. Worse, when Rachmiel had towed their new member back from the outside, she’d sensed that despite his best resolutions, Rachmiel had been harsh. A wingspan before her, Tabris had stood with the hollowest expression she’d ever seen on an angel, and the impulse to embrace him had been so strong. The damage of the past twenty-four hours was etched onto his face, especially his eyes, and Josai’el wondered how many other signs she hadn’t recognized.

  With the family due to awaken soon, she invited Mithra and Tabris to accompany her on a survey of the house. “You have to know the place since you’ll be working here.”

  The others remained silent while she led them from room to room, introducing the human inhabitants (but allowing Mithra to introduce his charge.) Tabris couldn’t possibly be retaining all the names and relationships, but he’d piece it together during daily interactions. She brought them outside, showing him the limits of the property, then detailing the places she loved and the spots most likely to hide demons.

  Outdoors again, Tabris stood a bit freer. “It’s a far cry from suburbia.” His voice was low, restrained. He flexed his wings and craned his neck toward the cold expanse of the predawn sky.

  Josai’el said, “The Hayes family has lived here over two centuries. Bridget was born in the master bedroom of this house.”

  Mithra did a perfect imitation of her voice. “Andrew was born in room 302 of the city hospital.”

  She made a face at him, and he laughed.

  “How far is the city?” Tabris asked.

  Mithra pointed south. “About fifteen miles, but we don’t go often. Elizabeth’s school is in town.”

  Tabris began to speak, then stopped. They continued walking while Josai’el wondered whether she ought to press him or give him breathing room. Mithra remained quiet, and because he’d known Tabris longer, she followed his lead.

  At the woodshed, a hiss stopped all three. “Tab-riss!”

  Tabris and Mithra whirled instantly, manifesting their swords from their own soul-material. Even brighter than the light of their weapons, Josai’el rose into the air, illuminating the field with a spiritual glow.

  “No need.” An angelic form appeared sitting on the wood pile, his sharp shadow jolting where it passed over split logs. “I’ll show myself. Tabris and I go way back. You’re my pal. Tell them.”

  Tabris said, “Zeffar.”

  “I go by another name now. You can call me Accuser.”

  As Tabris trembled, Josai’el moved closer. “You’re not wanted. Leave.”

  “Tabris missed his destiny.” Accuser drew up his knees and spread his wings. “I tried to help him along, but your Jesus sinks in his claws and never lets go, even though Tabris couldn’t have made his intentions clearer. I told Tabris to fight for his freedom, but he was too weak.”

  “Quiet,” Josai’el said. “Go.”

  The demon vanished. Mithra put away his sword, but Tabris kept his raised.

  Mithra sounded upset. “He asked for your damnation?”

  Tabris nodded.

  Mithra projected disgust, adding that Satan always sent someone to a tri
al. Tabris sighed, then extinguished his sword.

  Mithra turned to Josai’el. “Maybe we should go back inside.” She realized with a jolt that because of the demon, Mithra had swung to Tabris’s side. “Demons will have a harder time getting to us there.”

  Tabris shook his head. “I’d rather stay outside.”

  Josai’el said, “Then let me show you my favorite place. There’s a pond.”

  The pond turned out to be the source of the stream Tabris had discovered earlier, and she hung back while he drew nearer the water. Surrounded by trees decorated with prayers like streamers, Tabris relaxed even more, and for the first time Josai’el caught wisps of his thoughts. Brown eyes, brown hair, a boy’s laughter. Hunger for prayer. And emptiness.

  Pines and oaks mingled with willows around the water, sharing the neighborhood with shrubbery and wild strawberry plants that had lost their fruits to birds and children. Insects came in search of the angels only to pass right through them, and then, confused, resumed their feeding. A muskrat swam on the surface of the pond, then ducked under.

  Tabris’s soul vibrated as though he were very close to projecting something, but then he only spoke. “This is wonderful.”

  “Bridget likes to come here on sunny days to read or sit,” Josai’el said. “I come whenever I can to pray.”

  Mithra had approached a sleeping finch on a tree branch, so Josai’el said more softly, “Come here yourself whenever you want. Feel free to make use of everything we do.”

  “I’m still tethered.”

  “You’re not at your limit, are you?”

  “Close. My hands are numb.”

  Tabris stopped, his eyes widening as he regarded his fingers, his open palms. Josai’el caught from him a fragment of the thought—not even a day before, these hands had robbed the world of a life.

  She rested her hands on his, and Tabris’s head jerked up. She squeezed his fingers, projecting with her heart wide open, All is forgiven.