by Nana Malone
Since the incident with Chemosh, Azrael had become cautious about sensing the differences between mortals, quasi-ascended beings such as Archangels and the other old races, and the larger consciousnesses humans called gods. Even before he’d finished teleporting onto Haven-1, Azrael could feel an enormous, overpowering consciousness permeating everything on the planet. The Regent, of course, had the same over-arching consciousness, but this felt different. Another dampening field? Ever since the botched raid at al-Dura, he no longer assumed his inability to penetrate an area and size up another consciousness was simply mechanical interference.
Squeaks, grunts, purrs and growls assailed his ears as the scent of tens of thousands of creations wafted up to his nostrils as he stepped into the Emperor’s cavernous genetics laboratory.
He reached into his pocket to feel the reassuring lump. The ‘hug’ Elisabeth had given him in case he needed one after meeting with the Emperor about the boy’s fate. Little did she realize how much that small gesture had warmed his heart! It was silly, really. Falling in love with a woman you’d only touched once as a child! Like Prince Charming falling for Cinderella based on one dance and a discarded glass slipper!
Azrael’s ‘glass slipper’ itched, reminding him why he’d always been so obsessed with her. Unlike Prince Charming, there wasn’t an abundance of ‘feet’ who could survive the testing of the shoe.
He hurried down the cluttered aisle, avoiding brushing against the thousands of cages of living creatures which were piled floor-to-ceiling, hissing and chirping as he went. A humanoid male with wild ‘mad scientist’ hair was engrossed in something on a table. The Emperor. Out of his robes of state and into the laboratory coat of a scientist … like him. Across the table sat the Emperor's laboratory assistant perched upon a high stool. She was an ethereal creature with gossamer wings, pointed facial features and ears humans would describe as ‘elfish.’
“Why GC GC AT GC and not GC AT AT GC?” the Emperor asked.
“You’re looking to balance the creature's survival instinct with its social capacity,” the assistant said. “What better way to become more sociable than increasing its sex drive?” She batted her eyelashes in a flirtatious manner, reaching across the table to touch his hand.
Azrael saw what had the two so engrossed. Some poor mammal lay dead upon the table, its internal organs splayed as the two picked through its reproductive system with medical instruments. To one side a souped-up electron microscope displayed what appeared to be a male gamete cell, while on the other side a gene sequencer crunched numbers.
The laboratory assistant didn’t need the equipment to know what she examined. She picked up a chunk of flesh and rattled off an unintelligible sequence of amino acids. The Emperor placed the sample into the gene sequencer to document her results.
The woman only appeared proper at first glance. Upon closer scrutiny, Azrael couldn’t help but notice the designer cut of the lab coat, the proper pencil-skirt had a slit that went just a little too high up the thigh. Tendrils which had escaped her prim bun were too artfully arranged around her chiseled features to be accidental. Modest cleavage scooped just a little too enticingly over the swell of breasts, accentuating what was hidden rather than concealing it. She was like a fashion-magazine centerfold version of a laboratory assistant, right down to the discreet glitter of diamonds embedded in the corners of her eyeglasses.
They didn’t smell like a mated pair, but pheromones of the female's sexual interest flooded through the laboratory so headily that even Azrael found himself affected. Rumor claimed the Emperor was asexual, but Azrael figured he’d better make his presence known before he interrupted something.
“Ahem,” Azrael coughed, tucking his wings tightly against his back in the formal ‘dress wings’ formation the Regent had taught him to use when addressing the Emperor. “Your Majesty? I’m here at your request.”
“Ahh!” the Emperor turned and gave Azrael a benign smile. “Our little void creature is here. Innana! There’s somebody I want you to meet!”
The laboratory assistant gave him a fearful look from behind her thin-framed black eyeglasses, allowing him to see, for the first time, that her eyes were golden.
“Hashem!!!” she snapped. “You know I can’t stand void creatures! They’re always breaking my toys!”
Azrael almost choked as he realized who poked amongst the entrails of some failed genetics experiment they were autopsying together as though it were a hot date. She-who-is. Moloch … and Ki’s … daughter. Architect of the Universe.
“Temperance, my dearest goddess,” the Emperor took her hand and give it a squeeze. “Azrael apologized for that little misunderstanding. He’d had a bad letdown that day, that’s all. Haven’t you ever had one of those days?”
Words were not said, but Azrael could almost hear the mental conversation which passed between the two deities as SHE demanded he leave and the Emperor urged her to give him a chance. She-who-is had the answer to Azrael’s question. The Emperor used this as an excuse to get the two of them into the same room together. For what purpose, he didn’t know.
“The boy you killed is fine,” She-who-is snapped with a dismissive waive of her hand. “His father found him and escorted him into the Dreamtime. Now leave!”
“Was that so hard?” The Emperor kissed her knuckles like a knight kissing the hand of his queen. “If you want the boy to serve you, you have to be nice to him once in a while. That’s all. There’s no need to avoid him.”
“Nice?” The goddess gave Azrael an up-and-down appraisal which made him feel like a prize bull going up for auction at a meat market. He could sense the goddess's enormous consciousness reach out and appraise the size of his, the same as Chemosh had done. Whatever it she looked for, it put her at ease. She gave him a coy smile.
“Such a … beautiful … boy," She-who-is accentuated the word ‘boy.’ “One of our better collaborations, Hashem. Your Angelic hybrids. Pity there’s nothing left of this one to grab hold of and enjoy.”
Azrael realized the goddess had both praised his desirability, and then cut him down at the knees. Oof! No wonder Emperor Shay’tan had all sorts of prohibitions against love goddesses. Only Hashem appeared to be capable of navigating that fine line between flattering the goddess' need to be desired while simultaneously encouraging the most formidable intellect in the universe. Hashem had found his intellectual equal, packaged in a pretty container with a bow. He could enjoy his cake only so long as he encouraged her to keep her … frosting … under control.
“Thank you, your majesties,” Azrael bowed deeply. “It is my pleasure to serve you both.”
She-who-is stepped from behind the laboratory table, the click-click-click of her high heels resounding against the white marble floor as she boldly strode to stand in front of him, mere inches from his body, no longer afraid.
“So beautiful.” She-who-is moved her hand millimeters from his cheek, a feral glint coming into her eyes as she noticed the way he trembled. “The Regent taught him to hold his shape well. I wish she’d been around the first thirteen billion years HE was still here. It would have made creating the universe so much less … repugnant!”
Azrael held his breath, afraid to breathe lest he brush against her. He knew SHE could survive his touch, but didn’t know whether she was immune to getting jolted out of her current shell. Azrael could think of no better way to piss off the Architect of the Universe than to find out!
This was a creature who’d once been lovers with someone like him. Okay … not quite like him. He’d been born mortal and become a void creature. He was tiny compared to the vast consciousness the goddess simply referred to as HIM. Even the Regent was petite compared to HIM. The Dark Lord had finally left because She-who-is had never loved him. After fourteen billion years of being used, HE had finally had enough.
Was this what Azrael had to look forward to once Elisabeth reached the end of her mortal life? Being needed? Being used? But never loved? Someday, she would become ma
ted to somebody else for real and, as her ‘friend,’ Azrael would hide his broken heart and pretend to be happy for her. The emotion associated with that thought caused him to sharply inhale. The rise of his chest caused his head to jerk and brush against the hand the goddess held millimeters from his cheek. Warmth from her hand permeated his face as he felt her power flow into his body and be absorbed.
“Dammit!” She-who-is shrieked. “He zapped me!”
Her mortal shell dropped to the ground. A brilliant white light shone in front of him. Immediately, the molecules of the mortal shell dissipated into stardust and swirled back into the consciousness before him. She would not be inconvenienced for long.
“So … beautiful … your majesty,” Azrael stared at her naked consciousness. Stripped of her physical form, she was an opposite version of him. What they called ‘tentacles of darkness’ in a void creature were ‘rays of light’ in her. But otherwise, she looked exactly the same as he did. What the Regent had told him was true. The base element of all life was consciousness. She-who-is’s was just larger than most.
She reached out with a ray-of-light tentacle and slapped him on the face. Not hard enough to hurt. Just enough to communicate her annoyance at being unexpectedly jolted. And he could feel it. It felt … good. Not as good as when Elisabeth had touched him, but good nonetheless.
“Well?” She-who-is asked. Toying with him. Punishing and issuing a sexual invitation at the same time. She waited, the beautiful white tentacle of starlight millimeters from his face where her hand had been only moments before. Waiting. Waiting for him to reach up and take the hand she offered. Touch. Touch she must have known from her former husband that void-creatures hungered for more than anything in the universe. The pheromones of attraction were nearly overwhelming. A heady drug…
A drug for the unwary…
The General had warned the Archangels to avoid falling prey to the goddess' ‘affections.’ Woe be the male that became her favorite! That male's downfall was usually even more meteoric than his rise to glory.
“Thank you, your Majesty for blessing me with the sight of your true form,” Azrael deflected the blatant sexual invitation in a way least likely to offend her. He bowed deeply. “I am your most loyal servant.”
“Hmpf!” She-who-is snorted, annoyed Azrael had not taken the bait. “Hashem! We’ll discuss this later!”
And with that, the goddess who ruled the universe finished dissipating her physical form out of the teeny-tiny space she’d crammed it into in order to fiddle with dead things in Hashem’s laboratory and disappeared. Almost immediately, the overwhelming consciousness Azrael had sensed since his arrival dissipated with her. Hashem’s consciousness was large and imposing, but not like that.
“I’m sorry I displeased her,” Azrael bowed and remained bowed.
“Stand straight, young man,” the Emperor ordered. He gestured to the poor dead creature whose entrails were splayed across the laboratory table. “I had to entice her to come with something she found fascinating. For all her provocative demeanor, she really is quite brilliant. I think she does that … other … thing she does out of boredom. It’s lonely when there’s nobody around intelligent enough to cater to your vast intellect.”
“Yes, Sir,” Azrael said, not sure what else to say. He’d just zapped the ruler of the universe out of her temporary shell and annoyed the heck out of her. He was relieved the Emperor didn’t seem concerned.
“Despite her foibles,” the Emperor said, pushing a button at the base of the table, “she has a good heart. She's sacrificed so much to keep this universe safe from her father, but it's a tough job. Sometimes she lets her blind spots get the better of her.”
Azrael was silent as two laboratory assistants came in and rolled away the remains of a predator from one of the protected seed planets. Who was he to criticize the gods?
“I shouldn’t throw stones about blind spots,” the Emperor added. “That’s the Regent’s job. She tells me when I’m out-of-line, while the General makes sure my backside stays covered no matter what missteps I make.”
“Yes, Sir.” Azrael waited. He sensed the Emperor had called him here today to do more than pass along information about whether the boy had made it safely into the Dreamtime. The Emperor stared at him, his golden eyes glowing as though lit by internal suns as he weighed how he wished to present what he had to say. Eyes like … Elisabeth’s. Only gold instead of silver.
“She-who-is informed me your mother was released from the Dreamtime,” the Emperor said. “About thirty-seven years ago. She chose Earth in the hopes she might cross paths with you. She’s in a new physical form and without memory of who she was before. Not that young research subject you seem to be so interested in, mind you! Obviously. Wrong age. I just wanted you to know.”
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Azrael said excitedly. Mom? Reborn? On Earth? Of course, she wouldn’t recognize him until she was already dead again, but at least it gave him something to look forward to every time he did his ten good deeds. Perhaps … maybe she’d been attracted to work similar to what she’d been doing before for the Emperor? It gave him someplace to begin looking.
“Very well then,” the Emperor said absent-mindedly. “Back to work. I’m glad She-who-is finally got over her little … phobia.”
“Sir?” Azrael's brow furrowed in confusion. “I jolted her and she slapped me!”
“Oh … that?” the Emperor waved his hand. “She fully intended to get jolted. Ever since the Regent put her back into her place a few thousand years ago, she’s been like a little kid who suddenly developed a fear of dogs. I’ve been bugging her for centuries to systematically desensitize herself, but until you were standing right in front of her, she didn’t have to force herself out of her comfort zone. It was time for her to get over her fear and pat the dog.”
“Oh,” Azrael said. All of a sudden, her peculiar behavior made sense. Hashem had granted him an audience when SHE would be here in the more ‘natural’ setting of the genetics laboratory so it would be less threatening.
And he was the ‘dog.’
“That will be all, Colonel Thanatos.”
“But … sir,” Azrael said. “I’m only a Major.”
“You are what I say you are,” the Emperor said. “Dismissed.”
Azrael bowed deeply, and then backed up one row of tables before turning and making his way out of the Emperor’s laboratory. He touched the cheek where SHE had slapped him. He couldn’t feel an echo of sensation the way he did where Elisabeth had touched him. But … wow! There were creatures out there other than the Regent capable of touching him! Non-void creatures!
“A colonel…” Azrael exclaimed to Jeremiel as he burst through the double-doors to the hall. Wings flared with excitement, he practically skipped down the hall to the Garden beyond. A colonel! He couldn’t wait to tell Elisabeth!
* * * * *
Chapter 40
For he will command his angels concerning you
To guard you in all your ways.
Psalm 91:11
Earth - AD March 25, 2003
Najaf, Iraq
“I can’t see more than 25 yards in front of us in this soup,” Tank Driver Vasquez shouted into his headset. Vasquez stared with dismay at the controls between his knees, not even sure whether they were even on the road any longer. “This sandstorm has visibility down to nothing! You’ve got to be my eyes and ears, Jaworsky!”
The M1 Abrams tank was part of a 7th Cavalry Regiment headed north after securing the bridge over the Euphrates River code-named ‘Objective Floyd’ to secure a second bridge which would isolate the city of Najaf. They had come under heavy fire at the bridge after crossing it, but had prevailed. Or so they had thought. Now … not so much. The sound of dozens of automatic rifles came at them from close range.
“The bastards must have snuck up on us during the sandstorm!” Tank Gunner Jaworsky shouted into his headset as he peered through his gun sights into an orange haze of blinding sand.
“This place is crawling with Iraqi forces!”
“Bradford!” Tank Commander Silva shouted from the turret. “Get this baby reloaded!”
“Come to Papa!” Gun Loader Bradford coaxed, choking on the air thick with blown sand. He kissed the enormous shell before loading it into the firing chamber of the boxy gun. “This one’s for my sister Susan who died on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.”
“Ready?” Gunner Jaworsky asked.
“Ready!” Gun Loader Bradford called back.
“I’m detecting heat signatures on the infra-red at ten o’clock, Sir,” Gunner Jaworsky shouted. “Request permission to engage?”
“Engage,” Commander Silva yelled.
More small arms fire came at them, pinging harmlessly off the side of the tank as the hum of the turret swinging around shuddered through the heavily armored vehicle. Gun Loader Bradford dove into the belly of the tank to avoid being hit.
“Shit!” Loader Bradford shouted. “There’s got to be hundreds of them out there! They’re like fleas in the sand!”
“Request permission to show them who’s top dog, Sir!” Gunner Jaworsky shouted, pointing at dozens of heat signatures swarming towards them in his sights.
“Permission granted!” Commander Silva shouted. “Fire!”
The ear-splitting thunder of the main gun firing shook the tank … even through the radio headsets the crew wore to drown out the ruckus created by the tank.
“We got a direct hit, Sir,” Gunner Jaworsky shouted.
“Bradford!” Commander Silva yelled. “Get up there and tell me what’s going on. We’re flying blind here!”
“Yes, Sir!” Gun Loader Bradford popped open the hatch.
The whistle of an incoming anti-tank missile cut through the air
