by Nana Malone
Soldiers herded women and children towards slave-galleys waiting to convey them into a life of involuntary servitude. Azrael wafted through the shadows, invisible, a darkness only those close to death could perceive as women wailed and babies screamed in terror … or the genetically evolved.
“Help us,” a boy cried. His eyes filled with tears as he reached towards Azrael. “Ml’ch, set me free.”
Azrael shuddered. Ml’ch. Moloch. The child reminded him of the boy who’d preceded Elissar into the flames, the one he hadn’t been able to save. The one whose consciousness he hadn’t been able to save. Elissar was lost to him, but somewhere she still existed. He could feel her as though, any moment, she would pop out from behind a bush and chime ‘I see you.’ The others had been devoured, a fate worse than death.
Azrael faded back into the shadows. The Romans were brutal oppressors, but they were also an empire of laws. Even slaves had rights. They did not sacrifice their children as food for a malignant god. He pried himself away and floated above the city, letting fate take him where it may. So much had changed in the years since he had died.
Fate brought him to a house which was familiar. Her house. The dilapidated structure was no longer the house of a nobleman, but like him, it still existed. For now. The Romans had set fire to it. Azrael watched, his thoughts dark as flames licked through the tired roof, turning the structure into ash. Consumed by fire, just as he had been consumed by fire. Azrael floated without form. A billowing black storm cloud so dark none would ever mistake it for smoke was yet another reminder of his past.
No cloth dolls or honey-cakes adorned the roof where they used to play. No more colorful chatter about how one doll's empire could pit another doll's subjects against them and compel change. He missed her. Oh, how he missed her! She’d been a bright light shining in the pre-dawn sky. Her loss was not just Azrael’s loss, but her entire world's.
“I’m sorry,” Azrael whispered as the roof collapsed into the gutted building. Sparks flew up into his non-physical form and were absorbed. He had it within his power to simply touch the flame and extinguish it, to suck up the energy until it could no longer burn, but for some reason he did not. Ever since Ki had sent him back to protect this world, he had avoided this place. This accursed city where his anger at what they had done to the only real friend he’d ever had threatened to upset the delicate equilibrium which enabled him to exist in this realm without destroying it.
Destroy. The Romans had destroyed the statue where Elissar had met her death, smashing and dumping it into the harbor. But the statue in her courtyard was still here, shoved off its lofty pedestal, but otherwise unharmed, a reminder Moloch continued to exist. Its ruby eyes glittered against the flames, taunting Azrael’s sorry state of existence like laughter. The air around him shuddered as he suppressed the perpetual dysphonic vibration which could uncreate worlds whenever he lost control of his emotions. It was better to act against the source of his anger than suppress it and lose control. He roiled towards the offending statue like pyroclastic flow and solidified into dozens of tentacles, wrapping one around the statue and relishing the feel of it dissolving into his ever-growing consciousness.
“Take that!”
The sound of stones crunching beneath a boot disturbed his ruminations from somewhere behind him. Azrael turned and froze at the first sight of one of his kind he'd seen since the day he'd been rendered a disembodied wraith.
“Get back!” the Angelic soldier ordered. His eyes glowed with an unearthly blue light as his sword poised ready to strike.
“I mean you no harm,” Azrael said. “But please don’t strike me. If you touch me you will die.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” The unknown Angelic's features were devoid of emotion, but he was big. The biggest Angelic that Azrael had ever seen.
“It’s not a threat,” Azrael spoke softly to convey he meant no harm. “I’m … damaged. Everything I touch dissipates. Only the Song of Ki enables me to survive.”
The Angelic cocked his head as though listening to someone speak even though Azrael could detect no listening device implanted in his ear. Although he wore the armor of a Roman legionnaire, he had the unusual black-brown wings of a Seraphim descendant. Wings like Azrael, himself, had once possessed, although the Emperor had never told his mother who his DNA-sire had been.
“Why hasn’t your mate healed you?” the Angelic asked.
“I have no mate.” Azrael tucked his tentacles in front of his form like an enormous resting cat to appear as non-threatening as possible. “I was rather young when I died.”
A niggling sensation registered in Azrael’s consciousness. Not only did he feel he should recognize the Angelic standing before him, but he felt the way he did whenever Ki was trying to tear his attention away from some fascinating butterfly he studied to alert him Moloch’s Agents were on the prowl.
Only it wasn’t Ki’s energy he sensed…
“You lie.” The Angelic flared his wings. “Only a mated pair can hear the Song of Ki.” His fist gripped tighter around the hilt of his sword as feathers stretched into the wind, ready to catch it at a moment's notice and leap into the air.
Azrael had no idea who could or could not hear the song which perpetually vibrated like a radio playing softly in the background. All he knew was that whenever Ki wished to send him on a mission, the Song would grow louder.
“I have no mate,” Azrael repeated. “But the Watchmen Ki asks me to save so they can bear witness against Moloch say they can hear it, too. At least for a little while.”
The Angelic had no insignia of rank on his armor, but the gold breastplate indicated he must be a very high-ranking Angelic, indeed. Who was this guy, anyway? Perhaps he could find out what had been going on within the Alliance since his death and rebirth? Or was that death and … death? If nothing else, it would give him a chance to make small talk and reduce the likelihood the Angelic would rush him and cause his own demise.
“Perhaps you have news of my mother?” Azrael asked. “She’s a sociobiologist on the Eternal Emperor’s staff. Janiel Thanatos?”
Mortal Angelics could live a thousand years … if stupid wars against Shay’tan didn’t cut short their lives. His mother had still been young when he’d died. He’d teleported to every place they’d ever lived, but Mama and Gazardiel were long gone. With no way to convince terrified mortals to speak to him and no ability to touch electronic equipment without shorting it out, Azrael had finally given up searching. Ki needed him here.
“What’s your name?” the Angelic asked, his demeanor changing.
“Azrael Thanatos. Or at least it was. Now … well … I guess my name is still the same. Not that anybody’s called me anything but ‘monster’ since I came back. If they call me anything at all. Actually … usually they just scream and run away. You have no idea how good it is to actually speak to somebody for a change instead of … well … killing them. But they deserve it. If I do. Kill them. That is…”
Azrael realized he was doing that nervous run-on talking thing. He was normally rather shy, but it had been so long since he’d actually spoken to someone who wasn’t dead, near-dead, or an Agent of Moloch that an enormous dam of talk sat all bottled up, ready to spill out at the first person unfortunate enough to ask, ‘so … how are you doing?’
Azrael decided maybe it would be better if he shut up….
The Angelic lowered his sword, the point resting against the ground, but he did not sheath it. His wings relaxed, slightly flared, ready to spring into action if Azrael so much as twitched. Azrael recognized the ‘ready stance’ they’d tried to teach him at Basic Training.
“Who’s your sire?” the Angelic asked.
“I don’t know,” Azrael said. “Mama … had difficulty. The Emperor … she’d been working for him for a long time. Mama liked to say instead of a commendation, he gave her me.”
The sword still pointed into the ground between them, but by the subtle relaxation of the Angelic’s wings, he
realized he must have told him something he’d already known.
“Who are your siblings?” From his demeanor, it wasn’t really a question. The Angelic already knew the answer and was testing to see whether Azrael knew.
“Gazardiel,” Azrael said. “My baby sister. I suppose she’s married by now. Unless she was like Mama. Nobody wants to marry a sterile hybrid.”
Once more, Azrael felt that peculiar feeling when Ki wanted to reach him. Or if he was extracting a particularly nasty Agent that was squatting on a human host-body like a tick. Those were the worst. Of all the squatters Azrael had been forced to reap, the demigods were…
Oh … shoot!
“General Mannuki’ili!” Azrael blurted, suddenly realizing why the Angelic looked familiar. “I’m … I’m … I’m … S-s-sir!!!”
Azrael lurched up out of his catlike pose, fumbling his tentacles as he tried to figure out which one he could use to give the Eternal Emperor’s highest-ranking general a proper Alliance salute. He had neither a hand, nor a forehead to salute against. Mikhail. The Angelic who had thrown Moloch into Gehenna.
The General burst out laughing, a most unexpected reaction given how serious the Angelic … scratch that … Archangel … had been until this very moment. Unlike Angelics, who were mortal, albeit long-lived compared to humans, Archangels were ascended beings. Like the Eternal Emperor, only younger. A lot younger. The General had been the first.
“You’re supposed to be dead, Private Thanatos,” the General said. “How long did Ki keep you in the upper realms before she let you go?”
Azrael lost form. Every tentacle except the one he’d chosen to give some semblance of a salute deteriorated into a roiling black thundercloud.
“I’m not sure,” Azrael said. “Time moves differently there.”
“It does,” the General agreed. “Why didn’t you report back to your commanding officer?”
“I … um … tried,” Azrael stammered. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of … dead? Undead? Besides ... Ki asked me to stay … and … um … I’m not even sure who I’d report to now. The day I died I’d just been transferred back to the Eternal Emperor’s scientific division. When Ki released me, it was 150 years later. The only reason I was on Earth that day was because…”
Azrael trailed off. Ensign Zarif had cooked the books so he could make one last trip down to give Elissar the doll and say goodbye. Zarif. Another friend … lost. His shorter-lived Sata’anic soldier friend was also dead and in the grave, as was his former Spiderid commanding officer. There had been no one at Ceres station to reason with when he’d teleported there in the hopes someone would remember him long enough to stop screaming in terror and shooting at him.
“We’ve been getting reports of an unknown entity punching holes directly into Gehenna to deposit Agents,” the General said. “Witnesses described a young void-creature, but your behavior didn’t match that of a void creature.”
Azrael had no idea what void-creatures did or did not do. In fact, he hadn’t even been aware there were others of his kind. But he realized the General had never answered his initial question.
“You do realize there’s a front gate you’re supposed to be using?” the General asked, his eyebrows raised in bemusement.
“N-n-no s-s-sir,” Azrael stammered. “I didn’t … um … Ki didn’t tell me much when she sent me back. I just … um … that’s how I got out … I think … I’m not really sure how I got out the first time because I don’t remember … but I think … um … you mean to tell me there’s really a front gate?”
The General stared at Azrael as though he were a puzzle he wished to decipher. Azrael could practically hear the wheels turning in his mind as his expression turned from bemusement to curiosity. Yes. Why had a mere cadet been sent to do a man’s job?
“Sir?” Azrael interrupted. “About my mother?”
The Archangel’s expression changed from curiosity to sympathy.
“I’m sorry,” the General said as gently as he could. “She passed away when word reached her you had died. The Emperor himself performed the … uh … he said she died of a broken heart.”
A strangled cry of grief escaped into the air, causing the matter around Azrael to vibrate like a discordant note. Whenever his emotions became aroused, he destroyed. Even if he didn’t mean to destroy. He backed away lest he inadvertently destroy the General.
“I’ve got to go,” Azrael choked, trying to stave off sobbing until after he’d gotten out of earshot of his commanding officer. Actually … Ki was his commanding officer now. But Azrael didn’t wish to blubber in front of the personal guardian of the Eternal Emperor.
“Private Thanatos,” the General called as Azrael rose into the air, preparing to leap between the dimensions before he destroyed half the Mediterranean. “Wait!”
Azrael paused, his tentacles trembling with emotion. He could feel the molecules around him pick up harmonic sub-frequencies of the discordant vibration his emotions were broadcasting and multiply them like rings circling out like a stone dropped into water. The Song of Destruction. Sparks flew off his non-physical form as electrons collided with the antimatter he was comprised of and simply blinked out of existence.
The General appeared to understand what Azrael had become, and he was not afraid.
“I’ll find you,” the General gave him a salute. “As soon as you’ve had time to grieve. The Regent will want to meet you.”
“Yes, Sir,” Azrael said. The air around him reached the breaking point. He darted between the dimensions to the farthest end of the universe, where suns had long since transformed into white dwarfs and the planets which surrounded them were devoid of life.
Wailing like a little boy who had just lost his mother, Azrael destroyed a dozen stars.
* * * * *
Chapter 7
And the temptor came …
And saith unto him,
If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down:
For it is written,
He shall give his angels charge concerning thee:
And in their hands they shall bear thee up,
Lest at any time thou dash thy foot
Against a stone.
St. Matthew 4:3-6
Earth: Friday, April 3, 33 AD (179 years later)
Jerusalem
It had started out as a scientific theory, but then the Emperor had gotten the idea into his head to test it out and the next thing he knew, Hashem had broken his own rule about not interfering. And now? Azrael stared in horror as the procession wound its way through the streets of Jerusalem.
“We’ve got to stop this! This isn’t right!”
“This is your mission,” Lucifer said with a malicious grin. “I don’t know how my father lured such an evolved consciousness to volunteer as a rallying point, but it looks like you got your wish.”
Azrael stared at the adopted son of the Eternal Emperor in horror, the one he'd been forced to work with ever since he'd been sent back into this world. White-blonde hair, white wings, with features so handsome he bordered at the brink of being too beautiful to be real, the most compelling feature about Lucifer was not his eyes that were the same remarkable shade of silver that Elissar's had been, but his rabid hatred of the Eternal Emperor. Azrael wasn't certain what pleased the debauch Fallen Angelic more … the fact a snot-nosed dweeb such as himself had enticed the Emperor to bend his rules against non-interference for a chance to stomp out Moloch worship? Or the fact they were watching that experiment fail?
“Not this!” Azrael fanned his tentacles in the direction where the procession had stopped to let the research subject pause and get a drink of water. “He was supposed to…"
Not this. Never this. Azrael had suggested the Emperor send someone a little less … over the top … than Lucifer to set a good example for these people. That was all. To do so without violating the Armistice, Yeshua had agreed to incarnate into human form with only the scantest hint of past-life memories. Not …
<
br /> “Oh!” Azrael's tentacles flailed in horror as Yeshua tripped on the garish purple robe they’d made him wear and stumbled. The pole fell on top of him.
“Look!” Lucifer's wings fluttered with pleasure as he rubbed Azrael’s face in his own sadism. “The same people who sold him out are now helping him carry it.”
Lucifer fluttered over to stand next to Azrael at the edge of the roof, his feathers so close they nearly brushed his deadly tentacles. Unlike most creatures, Lucifer did not pay Azrael a wide berth. In fact, if Azrael didn’t know any better, he’d swear Lucifer wanted to get zapped, an urge the General had warned him not to succumb to no matter how badly Lucifer antagonized him.
“Sir,” one of Lucifer’s Sata’an-human hybrids hissed from beneath his cloak. “Over there. We’ve got company.”
Lucifer cursed under his breath. Azrael glanced across the roofline to see he wasn’t the only Archangel who’d come investigate. Oh thank Haven! The General. And two other archangels. Perhaps the Emperor had given permission to intervene? Azrael made ready to teleport as far away from the slimy former Prime Minister he was forced to cooperate with as possible.
“Whatsamatter?” Lucifer's pale, beautiful features took on a cruel aspect as he taunted Azrael’s failure. “Not so keen on toying with the lives of mortals when you actually have to watch the results of your actions? ”
Lucifer stepped closer. Why did he do that? Taunt him when he knew a single zap would end his charade as the de facto emperor of Earth? Demi-god or mortal, Lucifer’s stint as Moloch’s unwilling host had damaged his DNA. Although immortal, he was unable to teleport or pull his mortal shell into the upper realms to reconstitute it the way the other Archangels could and he was barred from entering the dreamtime. Welcome neither in Haven nor Hades, Lucifer was trapped in limbo, warden of an unearthly prison.
