Shattered Walls (Seven Archangels Book 3) Read online

  Remiel sounded bitter. “No. I’m fine.”

  Mary said, “Can you at least refresh her, Gabriel? Make it as if she’d slept without her sleeping?”

  Raphael shook his head. “Infusing her with that kind of energy wouldn’t have the effect you want.”

  Remiel folded her arms. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay awake and pray.”

  Gabriel said, “I dispute that you’ll be fine. You’re unused to the demands of a human body, and while some human urges require discipline, others shouldn’t be fought, and sleep is one such. Ten days without sleep will result in death.” He nodded. “Keeping prisoners awake has been a type of torture in multiple totalitarian human states throughout the centuries.”

  “Then it’s a good thing no one’s keeping me prisoner.” Remiel glowered at him. “Drop the subject.”

  Mary said, “Can you block her ability to dream?”

  “Not without consequences.” Gabriel turned to her. “Although it seems like one continuous unit, human brains undergo four separate stages of sleep, and the stage of dreaming sleep is necessary for—”

  “I said to drop the subject!” Remiel’s voice raised, and Mary jumped. “I don’t care about the stages of sleep or what other cultures do to extract details from unwilling informants. This isn’t your concern. Just find out what they did to us and figure out how to reverse it.”

  Gabriel started, then said, “I’m sorry.” He stepped forward. “I didn’t mean to minimize your feelings. I’ll come back later and ask you to forgive me.”

  He vanished.

  Mary stared at Remiel in shock, then looked at Raphael.

  Raphael shrugged. “It still takes some getting used to when he does that.”

  Mary put her arms around Remiel, who had her face in her hands. “Even if there are consequences for not dreaming,” Mary said, “whatever Gabriel meant by that, can’t you protect her from dreams? I mean, she’s not dreaming now, so how much worse could it be?”

  Raphael shook his head. “In theory someone could wake her up whenever she started to dream, but it’s part of the way the brain is wired. If she sleeps, it’s going to happen, and the longer she puts it off, the sooner she’ll enter dreaming sleep every time. Eventually, she’ll just start to hallucinate while she’s awake.” He reached his hand to Remiel. “Is it that bad?”

  “Worse,” she whispered.

  Raphael said, “I’ll pray for you, but I don’t think there’s anything else I can do about it.”

  And he vanished as well.

  With them both gone, Mary put her face against Remiel’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this. What can I do for you, sweetie?”

  “I don’t want to sleep.”

  Mary rocked her. It was that instinctive part-hug part-motion that came back to her from long nights with her own son. Remiel looked so young. Mary put her hand up to Remiel’s soft hair. “Sweetie, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but eventually your body is going to give out.”

  “Not if Gabriel solves it first.”

  “Gabriel didn’t sound like he was going to. You need rest. You’re going to fall apart.”

  Remiel whispered, “I haven’t slept for thousands of years.”

  “Then you’re a few thousand years past your bedtime.”

  Remiel laughed helplessly against her shoulder.

  Mary said, “That title you use for me.”

  “Kecharitomene.”

  It was an awful thing, but Mary said it anyhow. “Does that mean if I order you to sleep, you’ll do it?”

  Remiel deflated in her arms. “Please don’t.”

  Her smallness was frightening. This was an angel. By all accounts, a very high-ranking angel. “You’re beyond the end of your rope.”

  “I can hang on a little bit longer.” Remiel shook her head. “I’m not weak.”

  “I never said you were weak.” Mary kissed her forehead. “But for now, you’re human.” She gave a squeeze. “I won’t order you to sleep. But I’ve been human all my life, so I’m warning you, you need to be careful. The more tired you get, the more clumsy you get, and the worse your judgment is going to be. Your temper will get shorter.”

  Remiel said, “Is that why Gabriel was more irritating than usual?”

  “You’re not used to the exhaustion,” Mary said, “and you’re in a difficult situation where you might need to make quick decisions. So listen to me. Even if you don’t sleep, and I won’t order you to, please rest a bit. Try to get back some of your strength. Maybe the angel that Gabriel mentioned, Nivalis, maybe she can help out too.”

  Remiel murmured, “Thank you.”

  “I’m going to sleep, though.” Mary ran a hand through Remiel’s hair, so fine and yet so crisp at the ends as if God had shorn her like a sheep right before sending her to rescue that calf. “Wake me if you need anything.”

  By the time Mary settled herself in bed, Remiel had extinguished the lamp, and Mary hoped that meant she’d at least get a little sleep, even if it was despite herself. And she prayed for God to touch Remiel’s dreams. I don’t know what’s in there, Mary prayed, and I have no idea what an angel’s interior life must be like, but clearly something’s hurt her more than she ever let on.

  SIXTEEN

  Michael and Saraquael answered together when Gabriel finally sent Michael a summons. Maybe…please, God, let it be a breakthrough. Please.

  They appeared in a basement room beneath Gabriel’s library, currently outfitted like a laboratory and occupied by four other Cherubim. Gabriel glanced up with a smile as they flashed in, and Michael swelled with hope. That looked like a Cherub with an idea.

  Gabriel rubbed his hands together. “You were quick. We may have an answer.”

  Michael said, “You detected something on Remiel?”

  “Nothing at all,” Gabriel said happily. “I also monitored her for adverse responses while I sent minuscule pulses of energy through her. It’s fascinating how little I learned from that encounter.”

  Michael’s eyes widened. “But…you have an answer anyhow?”

  “Almost.” Gabriel leaned back against a table and folded his arms. “Raphael says you’d prefer the short story rather than the long one, but the long story is really intriguing, and I’d love to document it in detail someday. But on the assumption that Raphael is correct about your preferences, the key is Nivalis.”

  Michael frowned. “She wasn’t part of the strike team when the weapon went off.”

  “I had no idea why God would have pulled her off the grief squad in order to tend to Remiel and Zadkiel. It’s not as if we’ve a shortage of bereaved guardians right now, although I wish we did.” Gabriel ran a hand through his hair and flexed his wings. “Anyhow, when I tested Remiel, I pulsed her with energy at a much lower level than Saraquael did when he implanted the knowledge of the city’s layout.”

  Beside Michael, Saraquael flinched. “I had no idea it would do that to her.”

  “But because of you, I did. That’s not normal for a human,” Gabriel said. “They feel lower levels of angelic contact as inspiration, or our energy makes them excited. They almost always react to strong infusions of angelic power with fear. But migraines, vertigo, and nausea are nonstandard responses.” He approached Michael. “What I found is that Remiel’s system is actually intolerant of angelic energy right now. I went to Zadkiel and Belior as well afterward to see if I could get similar responses from them, but they were both asleep, and in retrospect, I believe conducting tests while they’re sleeping has affected my ability to gather data. The point is, though, that they’re not exactly stuck in human form. They’re using it to take refuge from their rightful angelic forms.”

  Michael blinked. “How so?”

  “Exactly! What would do that to them? It’s amazing.”

  This was the short story, Michael reminded himself. He’d need to thank Raphael later.

  Gabriel stretched his wings. “But Nivalis’s presence told me there’s another mechani
sm at play that I hadn’t accounted for, and to get the final answer, I needed you.”

  Michael opened his hands, projecting readiness.

  “Just stand still.” Gabriel’s put his hands on Michael’s head and stretched out all six sets of wings around him. “When you modeled the laboratory for me and explained how the weapon detonated, we all ignored the fact that you were peppered with that weapon’s energy too.”

  Michael’s head dropped. “Zadkiel took the hit for me.”

  “No, Zadkiel absorbed the majority of it, but it’s quite certain you were hit. There!” Gabriel’s eyes glimmered. “Oh, you’re brilliant. Just stand still and be calm. Meditate. This won’t take very long, and I don’t think it should hurt at all.”

  That wasn’t quite the reassurance Gabriel intended, but before Michael could reply, a sensation like cold crept over him. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re not doing what I said,” Gabriel said. “Meditate for a few minutes.”

  Michael closed his eyes and took his focus off the cold sensation. What is he doing?, he prayed.

  He’s doing what I created him to do, replied God.

  Michael focused on God’s face, on Love and Creation, and he let himself get lost in contemplation. His inner sight trained entirely on God, and he started dissociating.

  “Hey, stay with me,” Gabriel said.

  God guided Michael back toward himself. You’ll learn what he’s doing in a minute. In the meantime, spend that minute with me.

  Michael fought the tension and tried not to be aware of his surroundings until finally Gabriel said, “Okay, here’s our answer.”

  Saraquael exclaimed, “What’s that?”

  Michael blinked uncertainly as he brought his focus back to the room and the others. The other Cherubim had crowded around him, and he could pick up projections of amazement, gratitude, confirmation, and five flavors of questions. Saraquael tugged two of the Cherubim aside and brought Michael up in front of Gabriel.

  On his palm, Gabriel had three jet-black shards. They resembled very tiny blades, elongated points on one end and blunt triangles on the other. “I pulled that out of you,” Gabriel said. “Or rather, off you. It hadn’t been able to penetrate into your soul, but it had been atomized and was stuck all over your person. Not quite as much as I thought it should be,” he added, “but still rather impressive.”

  Michael shuddered. “How’d that get on me?”

  “Oh, it wasn’t like this to start with, or you’d have found it. This is the form the material took once it was solo and had only itself to draw in on.” Gabriel tapped above it, and his finger struck an invisible Guard the size of a hazel nut. “This is keeping them stable for now. They’re very fragile.”

  Michael gazed into the deep blackness of the shards. “What are they made of?”

  Gabriel looked at them in awe. “They’re made of Death.”

  As best as Michael could determine, (after the Cherubim had gotten very excited by the fact that this material existed in the first place, which took a while to work down to a mere tsunami of excitement) this material came from Sheol’s shattered walls. Walls the angels hadn’t been able to break and only human souls been able to penetrate, but which Christ had broken apart at his Resurrection.

  The demons must have scoured the Void where Sheol used to stand, hunting for any stray residue the angels had missed after cleaning up mountain ranges of the stuff.

  “But you said it couldn’t be Sheol material,” Michael said. “You specifically tested for that.”

  Gabriel projected agreement. “It’s not Sheol material as it originally was, no. We were able to move around in Sheol’s debris and for the most part suffer no ill effects. But these pieces started out as Sheol material, and Belior weaponized them.”

  Weaponized. “How did he do that?”

  “I have no idea. It’s been about two and a half minutes since I confirmed what it was.” Gabriel grinned, and his grey feathers shone nearly silver. “You’ve got to give me a little more time than that to reverse-engineer a process he took twenty years to develop.” Gabriel looked momentarily dazzled by the challenge. “But whatever Belior did do has enabled it to escape our ability to detect it. It’s not quite the same, and as you recall, Sheol material never had much of a signature to begin with.”

  That hadn’t been Michael’s primary concern at the time. The problem hadn’t been finding Sheol material as much as navigating within a veritable blizzard of Sheol material. Locating places without it had been more of a priority.

  Gabriel looked back into the sphere on his palm. “Because we didn’t know it had been changed, it didn’t register when we tested for Sheol material. Moreover, it seems to me that Belior or Satrinah altered the material with the specific intention of suppressing its signature further, imparting something of a stealth mode. The target wouldn’t be able to feel it coming, and after impact, the target wouldn’t know how to expel it from himself.”

  Michael opened his hands. “And yet you got it off me.”

  “It wasn’t embedded in you. I haven’t gone back to check Remiel yet,” and here Gabriel hesitated. “Well, I will soon, but not until she’s ready. When I do, I’m betting I’ll find it’s worked its way into the fabric of all three of their souls.”

  Saraquael said, “Why theirs and not his?”

  “That’s the perfect question to ask,” Gabriel said, pointing at Saraquael, “and that will be one of our next avenues of research. In the meantime, though, I have another question. There wasn’t as much on you as I predicted, so where did the rest of it go?”

  That didn’t sound like as much of a question as a line of research, and the Cherubim must have thought as much, because suggestions began flying around the room: did it destabilize? If it wasn’t fully embedded in Michael, maybe it dusted off?

  Gabriel said, “Run down where you’ve been spending your time since then,” which could easily have covered the whole of Creation. With Saraquael’s help, Michael started an itinerary of places, times, and names, until Gabriel’s head picked up. “Hang on. That was it.”

  A minute later, they stood in Hastle’s cell, no support team on the outside, and no intention to interrogate.

  Hastle gave Gabriel a bored side-eye. “Michael, why did you bring me a Cherub? Did you think I was missing the opportunity of working with them?”

  Gabriel didn’t even acknowledge Hastle. “We’ve got it.”

  Michael’s heart bottomed out.

  Hastle said to Michael, “I’m not going to talk to him, you know.”

  “Good,” Gabriel said. “It’s easier if you stay silent.”

  Saraquael moved in close to restrain Hastle, and when he had the demon pinned with his will, Gabriel extended his hands.

  Hastle frowned, and then his eyes flared and he screamed. He thrashed and scissored his wings. Michael! Michael! Don’t let them do this to me, Michael! You were my friend! You betrayed me! You sold me out to God and now you’re selling me out to them, and for what?

  Saraquael held him still, but the howling went on and on, and Michael didn’t listen. Couldn’t. Hastle was an animal. A liar. No, Hastle was just a demon, and he hadn’t been interested in Michael at all. Not even a bit. He’d been mining Michael to get back little slivers of Death, one atom at a time, all the while stringing Michael along as if he wanted him in there to talk, to negotiate, to parlay, as if still cared about his former friend and everything they’d done together…

  Gabriel said, “Silence,” and then Hastle couldn’t even speak, although he still projected. Projected hatred. Panic. Despair.

  When Gabriel stepped back, he was holding four more obsidian arrowheads, and Hastle sagged in Saraquael’s arms.

  Saraquael released him, and Hastle dropped to the floor, hands-and-knees. His wings splayed around him, and he whined. “Please. Don’t. I need that.”

  Gabriel said to Michael, “I’m finished here,” and he flashed back to his lab.

  Saraquael
fixed a look on Michael. A very pointed, very intent look.

  Hastle lay limp, prone.

  No, don’t think it. Hastle was a liar. He was a user, nothing more. Steeling himself, Michael nodded to Saraquael, and he let his lieutenant transport him out of the cell.

  SEVENTEEN

  Zadkiel awoke feeling warmth on her face. Sunlight? Perhaps. She stretched, and she whispered, “Remiel?”

  “I’m here.” Remiel’s hand found hers, and Zadkiel squeezed. “We’re about to serve breakfast, but Nivalis told me you were waking up.”

  Zadkiel accompanied Remiel to the kitchen, smelling the scent of new bread and that strange porridge thing they’d had yesterday. “Can I help with anything?”

  Mary and Remiel must be exchanging looks. That would have explained their silence. And then Mary said, “Can you carry the bread out to the table?”

  The house’s layout was simple, and Zadkiel had spent time counting steps and tracing the walls whenever she’d walked from room to room. She tilted her head to gauge the different sounds, and talking voices came from where she figured the men were eating. “I can try.”

  “Here.” Mary helped her get a basket into her hands, heavy with bread. “Remiel, accompany her so we can test whether she navigates well enough.”

  Remiel put a hand on her arm, and Zadkiel said, “Let me try this alone. Just stay by my side.” She listened and pivoted by small degrees until it sounded as if she were facing the conversation, then took a step forward. When Remiel didn’t correct her, she took another step, then walked with a little more confidence toward the source of the noise. At some point, Remiel touched her arm and she stopped in place. Remiel helped her find the table surface and then settled the basket on top of it.

  “Stay with me,” Zadkiel said, and she turned to retrace her steps. This direction was harder because Mary wasn’t making nearly enough noise in the kitchen (nor really any) to guide her, but she’d counted her steps on the way in and knew approximately how far it ought to be.

  A hand grabbed her elbow, and before Zadkiel could protest, she realized it wasn’t Remiel’s. “Beloved, please,” said John’s voice, “you have no need to wait at table.”