The Wrong Enemy Read online

  Rachmiel sighed. “You were hurt. Feeling angry isn’t wrong. It’s normal, and I’d be worried if you weren’t angry.” He put a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “You do need to forgive him. But it doesn’t have to happen right now.”

  Sebastian shrugged him off. “Maybe I can just work real hard on it and get the divine brownie-points, but not succeed.”

  Voriah said, “Pray about it. Pray for the grace to want to forgive him. If you can’t, then back it up a step and pray to want to want to forgive.”

  Sebastian laughed out loud, but it sounded to Rachmiel as if it hurt. “So when I’m praying to want to want to want to want—”

  Voriah said, “Before it gets to that point, maybe one of us should pray with you.”

  Sebastian tensed. “But—really?”

  Rachmiel said, “Surely you’ve prayed with Casifer.”

  “Yeah, but he kind of has to.” Sebastian swallowed hard. “You’d be praying with an unforgiving kid who wasn’t even good enough for—”

  “No.” Rachmiel’s voice had dropped. “Quit thinking that. Of course we’d pray with you.” He touched Sebastian under the chin so the boy looked up. “Would you like to do it now?” Teary-eyed, Sebastian nodded.

  They sat, Casifer behind Sebastian and the other two angels before him. Casifer began first, silent and earnest.

  Sebastian closed his eyes. His hands were fists.

  “Don’t expect anything specific.” Voriah kept his voice low. He rested his hands on Sebastian’s. “Open your heart and invite God inside. Once He’s in, He’ll do whatever He wants. You may want to hide parts of yourself, but try not to because those are the parts you most need to show God”

  Sebastian nodded.

  Rachmiel joined the prayer Casifer had begun, a low-stress, repeating praise, an invitation. Muted. Rachmiel didn’t understand at first until he realized Casifer didn’t want Sebastian overwhelmed. Start slow. He could ramp it up later.

  Sebastian tried to open up, but he’d left his heart locked tight.

  Voriah was praying now too, an adoration/meditation mix which imbued Casifer’s steady prayer with a sense of peace. He projected to Sebastian: Relax. Trust. He’s not going to hurt you. He made you.

  Rachmiel opened his own heart to God. I’m sorry this is so mercenary, he prayed, but I want to show him how.

  God replied, It’s not as if I mind being with you, no matter what your reason.

  Rachmiel grinned.

  Voriah was still projecting, Relax.

  Sebastian said, “I’m trying, Coach. But it’s tough.”

  “Then we can stop.” Voriah backed off. “There’s no need to rush. Eternity’s a long time.”

  Rachmiel felt God stream from his heart like water flowing back to the sea.

  Sebastian sagged against Casifer. “Why is that so hard? I prayed all the time when I was alive.”

  “This is different.” Casifer rubbed his shoulders in slow circles. “Back then you prayed with words and thoughts, but souls pray differently. You’re asking that He enter your heart and see your soul from the inside. To increase the difficulty, you’re asking Him to see a flaw, and one you’re not ready to correct. But keep trying. God will come in when you’re ready.”

  They remained on the cliff, Sebastian lying with his cheek against whatever grass had defeated the wind to find a foothold in the rock. The angels talked among themselves until Casifer decided it was late enough that Sebastian’s parents would be sleeping.

  The four arrived in a bedroom, dark and tinged with pollution that took Rachmiel by surprise. He forced himself to get used to the thinner atmosphere, changing his eyesight to make out the square shapes of furniture and the form of the couple cuddled beneath the blanket.

  Sebastian whispered, “Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.”

  The parents’ guardians cried out with surprise, embracing Sebastian and looking him over, each one saying “I’m so sorry” and voicing a wish that they’d predicted the danger and somehow averted it.

  The two guardians introduced themselves, and then Sebastian introduced everyone else. Sariel, who guarded Sebastian’s mother, thanked Casifer for everything he’d done with Sebastian so far.

  Sebastian crouched alongside the bed, then touched his mother’s face. His fingers didn’t make contact, but he stopped as if they did. “How are they doing?”

  Sariel said, “Surviving, I suppose. Your mom misses you terribly. She’s been working hard at her job, and she’s not crying every day anymore, but it’s going to take a while before she makes peace with losing you.”

  Sebastian kissed her cheek as if brushing her skin with a rose petal. As Sariel watched, Rachmiel picked up from her a stream of projections: her joy that Sebastian had gotten into Heaven, but also grief raw like an acid burn, the image of a mother holding her son’s body and talking to him long after he couldn’t hear her.

  Sebastian didn’t try to hide the tears. “And Dad? How’s he doing?”

  The father’s guardian, Neraya, said, “It hit him hard. He doesn’t have the same support your mother has, although your great-uncle Carlos took him under his wing right away because he’d lost a son too. At least he has someone to talk to. But he still comes across daydreams he hasn’t removed you from yet, all the things he’d planned for you, and he realizes again that you won’t be there.”

  Sebastian knelt alongside the bed, resting his head near his father’s. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I would have lived if I could have.”

  Casifer wrapped around Sebastian as he rested his hand over his father’s.

  “Can I talk to them?” Sebastian said. “Could I leave a message in their dreams?”

  The angels looked at one another. Sariel said, “It would be tricky, but I think we could manage it.”

  The angels conferenced, all projected and at a speed Sebastian wouldn’t have been able to understand anyhow. The decision: they could slip a communication into one parent’s dream; it would be better to use the father than the mother because the mother would be more likely to believe it, and the father would be less likely to discount it if he were the one who’d felt the communication.

  “This isn’t something we do all the time,” Voriah said. “But let’s go ahead. Do you know what you want to tell him?”

  Rachmiel stayed out of the way as Casifer and Neraya set up a conduit between Sebastian and his father. “They can’t keep it open long,” Voriah said, “so you’ll need to get in, give a message, and then get out again.”

  Sebastian looked flustered. “I didn’t realize this was so difficult.”

  Rachmiel said, “You asked for your father to have a vision in his dreams. We can simulate that. But it’s not easy.”

  Voriah smirked. “It’s easy for God.”

  Rachmiel said, “And if Sebastian’s father dreams about seven fat cows coming up from the Nile, then we’ll know whom to credit.”

  Casifer signaled, and Sebastian closed his eyes.

  Rachmiel felt the boy’s concentration shift, and he backed up the process with prayer, asking God to bless their work and approve it. He’s a father whose son died, Rachmiel prayed.

  God replied, So am I. And then, I will bless this work.

  Rachmiel shifted to praying for Sebastian as the boy radiated grief, and momentarily Rachmiel felt himself amplifying and trembling with it too. And then, rage. Rage that this was necessary at all, that a boy should be reduced to saying one or possibly two sentences to his own father after six months, from across the divide between life and death, and why? Because an angel had taken his life instead of protecting him.

  God— Rachmiel prayed. God, help me—

  Casifer and Neraya thinned out the channel and then pinched it off so the communication ended, and Sebastian dropped to the ground, his face in his hands.

  Voriah said, “It worked.”

  “We got through.” Casifer crouched beside the child. “I’m going to take him back now. Thank you for everything.”
/>
  Sebastian didn’t look up, didn’t say goodbye, just stayed coiled tight. All Rachmiel wanted to do was wrap around the boy, but just now, struggling so hard to keep it together, he resonated exactly like Tabris. Exactly. And with Casifer between them, and with that anger still brimful in his heart, Rachmiel stayed still.

  Tabris caused this. Tabris.

  Casifer vanished with the child.

  The four remaining angels said nothing for a minute, and then Sariel said, “I hope he’ll be all right.”

  Voriah said, “I never realized— You know, with Tabris in our household, I never thought about what he’d left behind.”

  Rachmiel forced himself not to add, “You mean the trail of devastation?” He’d thought about what would happen if Tabris killed Elizabeth; he’d never thought about what her death would do to her parents; her brothers; her grandmother.

  Sariel looked up. “How is Tabris? He’s never visited.”

  Yeah, funny that. But they’d never visited him, either, and Rachmiel wondered if they were just as angry. Or angrier, since they’d lived through the parents’ every single second since then, every question, every middle-of-the-night crying jag.

  Voriah said, “Until a short while ago he was tethered. I think he’s pretty well settled with us.”

  Sariel said, “That’s good, at least. You guys were brave to take him in.”

  Rachmiel shifted his weight. “Bravery had nothing to do with it. Divine orders. I wanted him gone.”

  She picked up her head. “That’s not how the story got back to us. Interesting.”

  Voriah said to Rachmiel, “Well, we didn’t exactly advertise that you tried to hack him to pieces.”

  Rachmiel’s eyes narrowed.

  Voriah said. “Doesn’t Sebastian look just like him?”

  Sariel shook her head.

  Both Rachmiel and Voriah started.

  Neraya said, “Not at all. A slight similarity, but not as close as some I’ve seen.”

  Voriah projected confusion.

  Rachmiel said, “The eyes? The mannerisms?”

  Sariel said, “Not especially, no. But that’s just my opinion.”

  Just her opinion as someone who’d spent twenty-five times longer with Tabris than he had, and far more with Sebastian.

  Voriah said, “Would you like to visit Tabris?”

  It was an odd enough segue that it took Rachmiel a minute to realize what Voriah had: Mithra had said the changes in Tabris were obvious but would never elaborate. Bring these two, and they might.

  While Rachmiel prayed for help to diminish his anger, Sariel decided she would go, and Voriah spoke long-distance with Josai’el to find out if Tabris had gotten home yet. He hadn’t, so instead of flashing back to Vermont, Voriah brought them all to wherever Tabris was.

  They landed in Antarctica, as far south as they could get without going north again. Snow dusted them on the wind, and they adjusted their vision to compensate for the brightness after so long in the dark.

  Miriael and Tabris were seated on the ice, and Tabris looked up with his wings flaring. Sariel flung her arms around him, and he closed his eyes. “Tabris, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have done something.”

  Rachmiel sat on the snow, keeping his wings raised, trying to figure out Tabris’s very, very, very careful non-reaction to Sariel. When she sat back on her heels, he said, “How are you guys doing?”

  It was then Rachmiel realized the emotional stream from Sariel had dried up too. She wasn’t projecting anything at all.

  Sariel gave an abbreviated version of the update she’d given Sebastian, but she also included information on some other angels she and Tabris had worked with. All the while, Rachmiel sensed Tabris probing her: he had to be able to detect Sebastian’s presence, and yet he said nothing. Nothing like, “Why are you here with Rachmiel and Voriah?” When Sariel paused, Tabris said, “Did Sebastian’s death destroy their faith?”

  Sariel hesitated. “No, not Lilia’s. She found her faith comforting. Luis—well, he’s numb. He’s going through the motions, but for now that’s okay because at least it keeps him in place. I’m worried about the long term. The questions.”

  Tabris looked down, and Rachmiel fought a new anger: if Tabris couldn’t pray for himself, he at least should have been praying for them.

  Voriah felt Alan wake up, and he excused himself to go home.

  Tabris introduced Miriael, adding, “We’ve been sparring.”

  Sariel smiled. “We never liked to mock-fight.”

  Miriael’s eyes flashed a negation. “Not a mock-fight. This is to the death.” He grinned. “Tabris won last time.”

  She asked about the household, about which other angels were assigned there, and she wanted to know about Elizabeth.

  Rachmiel paid attention here. What did Tabris really think of the family? Or Elizabeth, for that matter? But Tabris gave only an overview, there are three boys and one girl, and the grandmother lives with them, and they live in Vermont—and Rachmiel felt himself missing the details that would have set his family apart from any other. The chaos, the interactions, the alliances between the children, the feel of them. The laughter.

  If that was all Tabris thought of them, then what did it matter which household he stayed in?

  “I need to get back to Lilia, but it was good seeing you again. I’m glad you’re doing all right.” Sariel hugged Tabris, then said, “Rachmiel, can you come back with me?”

  Well, that put the B in ‘subtle.’ Rachmiel said, “You guys can get back to beating each other senseless.”

  Miriael said, “Swords are so much more elegant than a beating.”

  Tabris laughed. “If we’re going to kill one another, we’re going to be civilized about it.”

  Sariel put a hand on Rachmiel’s arm, and then she brought him back with her to Los Angeles.

  As soon as they arrived, she dropped onto the bed and cupped her face in her hands. Neraya rushed up beside her, one wing over her shoulder, and let Sariel cry.

  Rachmiel’s wings flared. “What—?”

  “He’s so different.” Sariel looked up. “You were right: he does look just like Sebastian. Dark-eyed. Face all tense.” She closed her eyes as if she could wipe away the memory.

  Rachmiel said, “What did he look like before?”

  Sariel said, “His eyes were hazel, fading to green on the edges just like his wings, but even his wings are darker now than they were. More like honey on the covert feathers and emerald on the primary ones.” She shook her head. “It’s not just the way he looked.” She turned to the father’s guardian. “He was always a bit stiff, right? But now he’s rigid. His bearing is all wrong, like he doesn’t want to move. And he’s silent.”

  Neraya said, “Silent?”

  “He speaks. But he’s not projecting, and there was always a steady stream of that from him. He’d be watching—” Sariel shivered. “He was a watcher and a thinker, but today, he was...speaking.”

  Neraya whispered, “That’s deep damage. He needs help.”

  Rachmiel said, “How was he as a guardian?”

  Sariel gave a half-laugh. “I thought they were going to send a camera crew in any day to create a new manual on how to be a guardian angel.”

  Rachmiel sat up: a chance to add to his mental portfolio on Tabris. “How so?”

  Sariel said, “His reaction time was astonishing! I’d have barely registered a threat and he’d already diffused it.”

  Difference number one, then. Rachmiel had always considered Tabris’s reaction time to be slow...except when battling Miriael. He said, “Was he hands-on?”

  Sariel nodded. “Absolutely. Sebastian didn’t so much as skin his knees when he learned to walk, and Tabris was all over him, helping his balance.”

  Fascinating. Rachmiel had learned early on to shoulder all the work when it required contact with Elizabeth. Projectiles and insects and fractions were in Tabris’s column, but balance, walking in the dark, base-running in kickball—tho
se were Rachmiel’s job.

  Neraya said, “He kept the boy on a tight rein, always alert for things that might potentially become problems.” That, at least, Rachmiel had seen. Tabris, telling Elizabeth to eat an apple rather than open a bag of chips. Or the daily (and futile) routine of telling her to do her math homework first, instead of letting it drag on until bedtime.

  She continued, “Sebastian stayed free of significant sin until he was about twelve. And then one day, Tabris shut down. He stopped communicating. We assumed Sebastian had done something, but we couldn’t get from him exactly what—”

  Sariel added, “—and of course, that’s not any of our business, but we wanted to help—”

  “—and we tried to reassure him that this happens to every human being because of their free will. After a day or two, Sebastian made things right, but Tabris stayed quiet. And about a week later, he killed him.”

  Shuddering, Rachmiel closed his eyes.

  Sariel said, “Does he talk to you at all? What about the angel he was sparring with—Miriael?”

  Rachmiel said, “If he talks to Miriael, I don’t know about it.”

  Sariel bit her lip. “He’s got to be getting an emotional outlet somewhere. It should be you. You’re his partner.”

  Partner and guardian of Sebastian’s intended wife. That ought to have counted for a certain degree of compatibility. Rachmiel said, “He doesn’t trust me enough. The other day, he even asked me not to lie to him.”

  Sariel said, “He can’t keep that much pain locked inside.”

  Neraya muttered, “Yeah, because if he did, it might make him silent and broody and make his bright spirit go dark.”

  “Good point.” Sariel folded her arms. “He’s got a really strong will. He probably could control his whole soul if he had to. No comfort, no sympathy. He knows he was wrong, and he knows everyone else in the world knows it.” She looked up. “Has anyone tried talking to him?”

  “Of course I’ve tried talking to him!” Rachmiel’s eyes narrowed. “He shuts me down. I don’t think he even talks to Raguel, and Raguel’s in charge of his probation. He doesn’t want help.”