Shattered Walls (Seven Archangels Book 3) Read online

  Hastle snorted. “Reverse engineering what exactly?”

  “You left evidence behind in the form of Remiel and Zadkiel.” Michael opened his hands, as if to say it should have been obvious. “They were affected by your work, but we can analyze those effects, and we’re confident Gabriel will figure it out in short order.”

  Hastle’s nose wrinkled. “You don’t have them.”

  “I know exactly where they are.” Michael projected his sincerity. “I swear by Him who made the Heavens and the Earth. I’ve spoken to them and assessed them, and I know where they are.”

  For the first time, Hastle looked rattled. His feathers stood out. “That’s a parlor trick. If you know their location, why talk to me?”

  “I thought you were dictating terms, not begging for information.” Michael rested a hand on the wall. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you think a little longer about whether you’d like to cooperate, and if I feel like it, I’ll come back in to talk to you. Without Danel.”

  He stepped back out through the wall, and once away from Hastle, leaned against the bricks and covered his face with his hands and wings.

  THIRTEEN

  Remiel hauled water from the aqueduct so she could scrub out the main room. Mary joined her, but she demurred with, “I’ve got this,” and just kept cleaning. Some of the tile pieces blown apart by Belior’s demonic tantrum could be fitted back together, but the ones ground to powder were hopeless. They’d need to be replaced.

  Nivalis hovered, shooting glances toward the back of the house. “I don’t like having him in the building.”

  “He’s got to be someplace, and at least here we know where that is.” Remiel’s nose wrinkled. “It’s bitter justice that he’s trapped too. You’d think he’d be the first one to know how to reverse whatever he did.” Remiel picked up more slivers of shattered tile. “If you want to choose one part of this situation to be unnerved about, that’s the one.”

  When Nivalis didn’t reply, Remiel brought the trash bucket into the street and dumped it, then returned to the house. “How’s Key?” she asked.

  “The girls are scared, but she’s calming them down by telling them stories. The last time I checked on her, it was Daniel in the lion’s den. They liked that.” Nivalis’s wings flared. “Remiel, now. The storage room. Asmodeus.”

  Remiel strode through the house, fists clenched, before she realized there was nothing she could do in her current state. Really there wouldn’t have been anything she could do in her previous state either, given how much stronger Asmodeus was and the fact that he and Belior were bonded. But she hadn’t quite decided what to do about that.

  Mary called, “Remaya? What’s wrong?”

  Remiel stepped inside the storage room, and she let her eyes adjust to the darkness.

  Though tied up, Belior had managed to back himself into the corner, and his eyes were defiant as he stared at a spot above and in front of him, but the rest of that human body read terror. Stopped in the doorway, Remiel watched an exchange between him and nothing.

  Nivalis came up behind her, and at her touch Remiel shuddered with a sparking headache—but now she could experience Asmodeus’s presence and power. He towered over Belior, dark and imposing. Remiel couldn’t detect any conversation even though they must have been arguing, but through Nivalis she also could read Belior’s physical stress levels, the cascade of fight-or-flight hormones in his host’s brain, the anger, the helplessness, and yes, the fear.

  Fear. Of his own bonded Seraph.

  She should have expected it. Of course she should have, but she’d seen Gabriel and Raphael so often, and so many other Cherub/Seraph pairs as they worked with one another, steadied and supported and encouraged. Even when they argued (and she’d seen it a couple of times) they did it without intimidation.

  But Belior looked intimidated. Whatever was going on interiorly, he might have been holding his own, but he was trapped and without means of defending himself.

  “Stop!” Dizzy, Remiel clutched the wall. “You, demon, just stop it. Leave him alone.”

  The darkness that was Asmodeus didn’t even acknowledge her, but Remiel staggered between him and Belior. She crouched right in front of Belior and looked up at where Asmodeus was. “By Christ’s authority, leave.”

  A blast like a waterfall struck Remiel, nauseating her and blurring her vision. Information flowed into her human brain like oil from a jug, oil spilled across a tile floor and gathering in slick, viscous pools. Of course he had the right. He owned Belior. She was nothing. She needed to leave. And her body, her pitiful human body overflowed with fear to the point that even if she wanted to run, she couldn’t have. Her legs would never have supported her. Her mouth burned. Her eyes watered.

  “Stop!”

  Mary strode into the room. “In the name of my Son, you are ordered to leave. You have no authority.”

  Remiel registered that the one she should be protecting was Mary, but the axis of the world wouldn’t stop pivoting: Nivalis’s touch and Asmodeus’s energy were overwhelming her human senses and exacerbating whatever damage Belior’s weapon had done. Mary, on the other hand, just stepped forward. “He’s my guest. You’re threatening my guest, and I’m ordering you out.”

  That wasn’t what you wanted to do, make a demon your guest. Remiel wanted to say it, but she couldn’t form any words. The presence of Asmodeus lay like an oppressive blanket over the room, and in the center Mary stood without buckling. It looked for all the world as if she didn’t even notice it. “You have nothing to say to me,” she added. “You have no claim on me.”

  Asmodeus actually answered her. “His soul is mine.”

  “Settle that after he’s outside these walls.” Mary folded her arms. “For now he’s here. Leave.”

  The presence vanished.

  Mary shook her head, then whispered, “Thank you.” It was a prayer.

  Behind her, Belior collapsed to his side, and he vomited.

  Where she still knelt on the storage room floor, Remiel whispered, “Get out of my head. I can’t think.”

  Nivalis backed off, and Remiel closed her eyes, breath heaving. Sweat drenched her body, and her arms trembled as she leaned on them.

  Belior wore a bloodless pallor, and his body gleamed with sweat. Mary went to his side and helped him upright, then edged him toward a clean part of the floor. “Remaya, bring me a basin of water and a towel.”

  Remiel staggered to her feet, leaned on the wall, and then said, “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Outside the room, it was marginally easier to breathe. She made her way into the kitchen, then out to the aqueduct for water. By the time she brought that and a towel back to the inner room, she felt steady again, but Mary took them from her at the entrance. “I’ll do this.”

  “I’ll stay, Kecharitomene.”

  Mary moistened the towel and cleaned Belior’s face. He pushed her away with his bound hands, but she kept working, ignoring the hatred in his eyes. Remiel came closer, but Mary said, “I’m taking care of it.”

  Her hands worked quickly, but there was gentleness in the way she cleaned him up, and Belior gave up struggling. He lay on the floor, limp.

  Mary kept her voice low. “I know about Seraph/Cherub bonds, but can’t you break this?”

  Belior glared at her with disgust, projecting something uncomplimentary about human stupidity.

  Mary chuckled. “I never before appreciated the broad degree of subtlety angels can convey without using any words at all.”

  He dropped back to the floor, projecting irritation.

  She finished cleaning the stones, then handed the basin to Remiel to dump in the street.

  Outside, Remiel regained her bearings. “Don’t do that to me again,” Remiel whispered. “I don’t react well to angelic contact.”

  Nivalis said, “I’m sorry. I thought it worth the risk, given who you were facing.”

  “You nearly incapacitated me. When Saraquael did that, I ended up just like Belior is
now.”

  Remiel drew water from the aqueduct and washed out the filthy towel, then dumped the basin again, rinsed the towel, and brought everything back inside.

  In the storage room, Mary was spooning a thick porridge into Belior’s mouth a little at a time. “The body you’re in needs something. John ordered you not to harm the body. You have to eat and drink.”

  Remiel said, “He may have a really bad headache too. And don’t expect even the slightest gratitude from him for stepping between them.”

  “I didn’t do it for his thanks or any kind of debt. I did it because I will not countenance someone hurting someone else in my house.” Mary spooned up a little more, and Belior tightened his lips against the food. “I doubt he’d consent to having me pray over him to relieve the headache, if that would even help him. But I intend to make sure he doesn’t kill his host.”

  A host who apparently hated God every bit as much as Belior did. Remiel sat in the entrance, suddenly aware of her own exhaustion and how futile it all felt. Aware of how intense a tragedy it was that Belior couldn’t trust someone who had full access to his soul, and even worse the tragedy that would have been if she and Camael were together on the wrong side.

  For the first time, Remiel wondered if Camael would have done that to her if she’d fallen at his side. If they’d have struggled for dominance and made each other afraid and had to stay linked anyhow. Without really dwelling on it, she’d always assumed that if they’d both fallen, they’d have been the same in every way except that they’d both hate God. Not that in some sense, eventually, they’d hate each other.

  But it had to be that way. Hating the image of God meant hating yourself because you had His image on you. And the twins were in the image of each other.

  Camael. God, I miss him. She closed her eyes as she prayed. I just miss him so much sometimes.

  Demons weren’t that hard to deal with when you could spy on them, fight them, irritate them, and run for home. Being in such close quarters, though…being able to see their interactions and their twisted almost-friendships as they almost-functioned: that seared her heart the way an open flame seared meat to a blackened crust on the outside and left a bloody rawness just beneath.

  She got to her feet. “My lady?” Her voice came thin. “Should I send John to help?”

  Mary waved her off. “Go. He’s not going to hurt me.”

  Mute and tied up, he still might find a way to do it. But Remiel chose to believe her, and she withdrew to the kitchen to start preparing the evening meal.

  FOURTEEN

  Michael prayed for an hour, purifying himself and growing calm, before he entered the Holy Temple in Heaven. He remained just inside the entrance columns, focused on the angels at the front as they moved through their mid-day liturgy. Censers streamed with a rainbow of fragrances; angels appeared and presented prayers, then disappeared again; several angels canted a psalm in a call-response rhythm; and a number of white-robed angels knelt in adoration with their arms crossed over their chests while a choir of Seraphim sang the holy Trisagion.

  After a time, Michael joined in the liturgy, praying, praising, asking, scrutinizing his own actions and intentions in order to bring any imperfection before God for cleansing. Then at the end of the ceremony, Michael flashed to the doorway at the front and joined the other angels as they departed.

  He fell in beside Danel, who turned toward him with a smile. “I felt your arrival. Thank you so much.” Danel hugged him, then put a hand on his head and blessed him. He still glistened in his white robes, and his lavender wings smelled faintly of myrrh. “Wait for me, please?”

  Michael tingled from the blessing. “I came here to talk to you. I’ll wait.”

  Danel reached his wings forward to touch the tips of Michael’s, then vanished.

  Michael waited outside the white stone structure, soaking in the peace and perfection of its columns and its carvings, the geometric absoluteness graphed out by the Cherubim and then evoked with heart by the Thrones. Thank you, he prayed. He wasn’t even sure what for, but gratitude swelled inside him. I love You so much.

  Danel returned, wearing blue and with his hair a tousled mess. “Let’s go somewhere quiet. I wanted to talk to you, but it sounded like you were so busy with this crisis.”

  Danel took his hand and flashed them away before Michael could wonder that everyone thought it a crisis. Or that word had gotten as far as the Sanctuary angels, who tended to stay to themselves.

  They reappeared in a deserted spot: literally and figuratively both, as it was desert sand underfoot and cactus plants standing guard all around. Danel started walking at a thoughtful pace. “God told me in prayer that Hastiel was in custody, and I wanted to find you. But I also didn’t want to presume that talking would help you.”

  This whole meeting had gotten away from him already, so Michael abandoned anything he’d planned to say and just followed the conversational stream. “Why wouldn’t it help?”

  “If you wanted only to forget about it all, then having me show up wasn’t going to achieve that end.” Danel chuckled. “Some angels who encounter a former friend will choose to pretend it hasn’t happened, or that it’s not the same soul. I figured you’d face him head-on, but just in case, I waited. Besides, I’m not so different from you. You stayed in the back of the Temple until the liturgy ended, and I also didn’t want to interrupt your work.” He stopped to crane back his neck and study the sky. Contentment rolled off him, and Michael felt him quickly reach out to God, just a touch, and then return to himself. He looked at Michael with his silvery eyes gleaming. “It must be so difficult for you.”

  Michael looked at the ground.

  “I wanted to tell you how sorry I was that you had to deal with him under the circumstances.” Danel’s voice grew softer. “He’s probably changed so much.”

  “He hasn’t changed enough.” Michael shook his head. “He’s still recognizable. It’s there—he’s all there, and he even asked me to bring you in like when we were the troublesome trio, and I refused, but for him even to ask that…”

  “He asks things like that because he knows you’re going to hurt. I’m betting he doesn’t genuinely want to engage with you any more than you want to engage with him.”

  “That’s not true.” Michael’s hands clenched. “He works hard to keep drawing me back. If he didn’t want to engage, he’d have talked to the other questioners, the professionals. The ones he never cared about and who are trained not to care about him. To make me go away, he’d either give me the information or make fast on a staunch refusal to say anything whatsoever.” Beside him, Danel’s light dimmed. “We’ve had demons before who refused to speak. Hastle could easily be one of them. Easily.” He resumed walking, and Danel hurried to keep pace. “He hates what I’ve become.”

  Danel chuckled. “I can only imagine what he’d say about my vocation.”

  Michael muttered, “I don’t know if he even believes the things he says. It’s a game.”

  Danel’s head picked up. “He always was mischievous. It made him fun to be around.”

  “This isn’t mischief.” Michael’s feathers tightened. “It’s malice.”

  “Or is his behavior just mischief stood on its head?” Danel flexed his wings. “He’s not just hurting you. He’s hurting you and having fun at the same time. It wouldn’t be fun to you or to me,” he added, “but we also didn’t reject God.” Abruptly Danel chuckled. “You were a mischief-maker too, though.”

  Michael pivoted. “I was not!”

  “Oh, no, of course not. Do you remember when you and Miriael detonated Hastiel’s music?”

  “That wasn’t my fault!” Michael’s eyes widened. “Not entirely my fault. I suggested it, but I didn’t realize Miriael was going to act on it. I mean, that he would act on it too.”

  Danel’s eyebrows arched, and he folded his arms. “Totally blameless, were you?”

  Michael closed his eyes. Hastiel had set up hundreds of little Guarded spheres
containing specific atomic contents so each of them would glow a different color and make a different sound while burning. The flame of each would set off the next after a specific time, and the overall effect would be a wave of sound and color designed to glorify God. Hastiel had put these together so many times. They were beautiful and so delicate.

  Danel said, “And you weren’t even a little involved in what happened next.”

  Michael smirked. “I just thought it would be funny to change some of the contents of some of the spheres so they burned a little differently. It wasn’t my fault that Miriael went ahead and did it again after I did it. And I really didn’t expect it to go like that!”

  Danel snapped, and a blue flame shot up from his hand all the way to the stratosphere.

  Michael laughed out loud. “How was I supposed to know such a little change was going to have such a huge reaction?”

  Danel said, “So instead of one little flame touching off the next in a beautiful string of colored lights and notes, we got in effect a supernova and an entire symphony played in the same two seconds.”

  Michael covered his face in his hands. “He was so…so angry at us…” He dissolved in laughter. “I felt so bad. I spent the next three days helping him put the whole thing back together, and then he wouldn’t even let me be there when he did it again.”

  Danel grinned. “But no. You were never involved in any mischief.”

  Michael said, “Do you remember what happened after, though?”

  Danel looked puzzled, and then his eyes brightened. “That’s right! Miriael had picked out a spot to make his own little domain, and he was so pleased with it and went on and on about it!”

  “And on.” Michael nodded. “And on.”

  “So Hastiel followed him to it and then scouted out every last little bit so he could make a perfect duplicate.”