Seven Archangels: Annihilation Read online

  Raphael flashed up into the hay loft, semi-solid and armed with hay. Remiel shrieked as he tackled her. The ensuing furor saw hay tumbling over the side of the loft while twelve flailing wings thumped against the roof, the bales, and the floor boards.

  One of the horses looked at Gabriel. "Don't ask me," said the Cherub. "I just followed them here."

  Gabriel flashed up onto one of the beams so he didn't become a friendly fire statistic courtesy of the hay shrapnel.

  From behind him he heard, "Oh no, you don't," and abruptly he was nabbed between Remiel and Raphael, who catching him off-guard were able to force him solid. They shoved him into the loose piles.

  Brilliant with joy, Raphael laughed. Gabriel discharged enough energy to blow them off, then fixed his eyes on the Seraph. He drank in Raphael's soul-fire, empowering himself and at the same time getting giddy. He could feel God smiling on them, laughing along with the game. Grinning, Gabriel tore hay from the closest bale and jumped Raphael, shoving him into the sliding straw and dodging the return volleys.

  Raphael struggled away from him. "You lunatic! On the best day of your life I could pummel you into the ground!" And Gabriel, knowing in his heart how much power he really had, replied by tackling and pinning him.

  Remiel sang aloud, "She'll be buried deep in hay-seeds when she comes—when she comes!" More angels arrived, more bedlam ensued, and Gabriel ached from the laughing. It was good. He suspected it would take several hours to comb the last straw bits out of his wings and hair, but so far he'd avoided having it stuffed down the back of his shirt, although not for want of Raphael trying.

  Raphael whistled, bringing everyone up short. "Someone's coming."

  "Tag!" Remiel slapped Gabriel on the shoulder. "You're it! Everybody run!"

  All the other angels flashed out of the hay-piled barn except for Remiel. "Say," she said, "would you mind…you know, taking care of this?" Then she vanished too.

  Gabriel shook his head, considered the piles of loose hay all over the loft and the barn floor (knee-deep in some places) and recalled where all of the baled hay had been at the start. A moment's concentration returned every blade of grass, every piece of hay, every sliver of straw, back into the place it had been when they'd begun.

  "Sure," Gabriel said to God, shifting his sight to the Vision of God, breathtaking and even more joyous than Raphael up to his waist in flying hay. "She starts the fight, but whose responsibility is it to make sure everything gets cleaned up again?"

  God smiled at him.

  He glanced around to make sure everything had its right place, then straightened one string where it looked less tight than it had been when they started. As the farmer opened the door, Gabriel vanished, leaving the man to wonder why the hay scent was so strong this afternoon and why the horses looked vaguely amused.

  - + -

  Now it was Gabriel's turn to find everyone.

  He opened his senses. Immediately Gabriel felt Raphael's presence like a beacon through their bond, but it wasn't fair to single him out first. Raphael's soul was attached to his so tightly that at times they seemed like one angel. Together both were stronger and more balanced than if they'd remained separate and extreme, but at the same time, it meant Raphael couldn't possibly hide.

  It wouldn't be sportsmanlike to nab him first.

  Avoiding Raphael's presence for now, Gabriel released his senses and picked up echoes of all the angels, though not all of them were easily identifiable. The strongest was a signature of Michael's power, but when he traveled to the location (a dresser drawer in an apartment in Prague) it was only a ring: a sigil. Michael had divested part of his soul into the object, giving it his power even though it wasn't him.

  That was a good ruse. Gabriel pocketed the ring and turned his attention outward again, and again the clearest sense he got was Raphael.

  Raphael had taken the form of a chain link on a park swing, and he vibrated with tension as he awaited capture. At least two others were nearby.

  Gabriel coalesced at the park, invisible in the October air as he settled to the ground. Children shrieked as they raced through the equipment while in a field alongside, three older boys played Frisbee.

  Gabriel's mouth twitched. The others were waiting for him, but really, it was just a game. He would tag Raphael and send him to get the rest of them. No one would object, and there were books in the library, or maybe an afternoon ahead where he could find an unused living room with comfortable chairs.

  Raphael zinged him through the bond. Get your head out of the clouds.

  Gabriel clenched his heart back to himself.

  It's just a game. Raphael sounded frustrated. God can keep the universe running without you for ten minutes.

  Gabriel folded his arms, and his grey eyes darkened even as he pulled his six grey wings tighter to his back.

  Why bother playing a game if you're going to be thinking about ten other things when you're with us? You might as well not even be here!

  Gabriel cut the contact and released himself to find the others.

  Once he focused his perception on Remiel, he immediately—and not unexpectedly—found two signatures. He "felt" through both of them, each terribly close, observing rather than probing: one of the two was evil, and Gabriel didn't want to touch it.

  Remiel's twin.

  God sent him reassurance, and Gabriel briefly shifted to the Vision, brushing God's own sorrow over the fall of Remiel's twin. Two bright lights, so inscrutable that together they formed one angel constantly bi-locating—so united that when one chose a different master, the other nearly lost its mind. Gabriel felt now and always had that one of the greatest tragedies of the winnowing had been the separation of the twins known only as the Irin.

  You're doing it again, God told him.

  One moment, two Irin. The next, one demon calling itself Camael and one screaming angel whom God named Remiel and promoted to the Seven.

  Gabri'li, God said gently.

  Gabriel couldn't help but smile when God used his nickname; while Gabriel meant "God's Strength," by adding 'li instead of 'el, God could turn it into "Strength of Mine."

  I know: I'm doing it again.

  God chuckled.

  I ought to apologize to Raphael. He's right.

  Although Remiel's signature came from a field beside the play park, Gabriel moved in the opposite direction. A kid jumped off the swing where Raphael hid, and Gabriel drifted over to sit on it, rocking with the leftover momentum.

  I knew you'd find me first, Raphael sent.

  About to respond with an apology for being distracted before, Gabriel stopped. He looked across the park to a group of kids clustered around a young boy and something he held in his hands. Focusing his hearing on the group, he grinned, then prayed, God, could you put me in a body for a few minutes?

  A moment after that, a slight boy, grey-eyed and blond, slipped off the swing and inserted himself into the gathering.

  "Eew!" one kid was saying.

  "It's not eew," said the one in the center. "It's my baby tooth."

  Gabriel got up close to the kids, shorter by a head than most of them. He studied the white wonder on the boy's palm, then took the boy's hand and drew it closer.

  "Don't touch it!" said one of the boys, louder. "It's disgusting—it used to be part of his body."

  "No, it's cool," said another.

  Gabriel could hear guitar music, which he filed away as out-of-place at the park, but for now he got up close to the boy with the tooth and said, "Life is like a tooth, you know?" He kept his voice soft so the bigger kids turned to look. "Now is this life, and then we go ahead to a bigger and better one after we die, and that one lasts forever." Gabriel looked at the boy with the tooth. "That's like a baby tooth that falls out, and you get a better tooth that's stronger and lasts the rest of your life."

  "That's even cooler!" said the kid, and then the other kids all started chattering at the same time about how they wanted to lose their teeth now, and the one
boy still calling it disgusting. Gabriel retreated toward the benches, and as he did, he saw the source of the guitar music. Raphael had taken the form of a teenage boy and was strumming. He looked up from his guitar.

  "Oh, right," Gabriel whispered. "Tag."

  Raphael flashed him an amused look, and Gabriel quirked a smile.

  Raphael sent back, I should know better than to try distracting a Cherub engaged with a problem.

  Gabriel came closer, about to share all the things he'd already deduced, but then an older boy started talking to Raphael about his guitar technique, asked what brand guitar it was (Raphael had his name in Hebrew, "God Heals," where it ought to say "Martin") and within minutes both excitedly compared techniques, discussed different fingerings, and then talked about alternate ways to handle bar chords.

  Gabriel waited for a break in the exchange, but it only got faster and more furious. He gave up when the boy's kid sister showed up requesting songs. When Raphael started playing "Shoo Fly, Don't Bother Me," Gabriel turned the rest of his attention toward the field to find Remiel.

  He could feel her in a clover patch, and shortly he stood there, staring around his feet.

  Two of the other boys approached, one of them the "disgusting" boy. "What are you doing?"

  Gabriel didn't look up. "I'm searching for a four-leaf clover."

  "How do you do that?" said the smaller of the two, who appeared to be six.

  "It's actually not that hard." Gabriel grinned. "You've got to figure that statistically speaking, there would be about one four-leaf clover in a patch this size."

  "I'd have estimated two." The smaller boy's eyes peered out curiously from under his curly hair. "I think it's about one in three hundred, although there's obviously some variance due to genetics."

  The bigger boy rolled his eyes.

  "This species of clover tends to have fewer four-leaf variants," Gabriel said, waving a hand out over the plants, "maybe one in five hundred, and given the square footage of this patch, I estimate we have about five hundred clovers here. Knowing that, you look at the patch and unfocus your eyes and concentrate on the shapes rather than the individual leaves themselves."

  "Oh!" The smaller boy seemed to get a bit taller. "You're pattern-matching rather than actually looking."

  Gabriel grinned. "It's as simple as picking out a square in a field of triangles."

  The boy looked breathless. "Do you find you can train the human eye to register only the squares?"

  "Absolutely!" Gabriel turned his attention back to the plants at his feet. "Human vision is very easy to fool because the brain interprets visual patterns the way it expects to and rejects any data it doesn't expect—"

  "You don't have to tell me," said the boy. "I take advantage of that all the time."

  The bigger boy said, "You'd better quit it. Now."

  Immediately the younger boy fell silent.

  Gabriel brightened. "Got it!"

  As he picked the four-leaf clover that was Remiel, the bigger boy jumped Gabriel. The smaller one throttled him, jamming a cloth against Gabriel's mouth so a sweet chlorine fog flooded his lungs and left him coughing. A stabbing heat scorched up his thigh. Then came a haze over his eyes and a binding around his lungs.

  Demons!

  Even as Raphael leaped from the bench and Remiel exploded from the clover, the smaller boy raised both hands and threw up a shimmering Guard around them like a bubble.

  Gabriel tried to call for God but couldn't think clearly, couldn't find a way to get out of this solid body and back into his angelic form, and in the next instant his vision blackened.

  Gabriel fell limp, insubstantial, and before Raphael could get close, they'd flashed him from the field.

  Chapter Two

  Raphael exploded away from the park in pursuit, Remiel following. Raphael immediately outdistanced her, but she streaked behind, trans-forming her clothing to armor, forming her sword in her hand. The demon pair "bounced" rather than flashing straight to Hell, passing through five locations in an attempt to throw off their hunters. In the time it took to think of their next location, they were already there.

  After the third bounce, Raphael tackled the nearer of the demons mid-transfer, and he hurled him to the ground on a snowy field in Antarctica. Remiel rose up behind him, sword aflame, and looked down to find Raphael had captured her twin.

  God— Her heart seized. What are they doing?

  Raphael slammed Camael into the ground by his shoulders. "What did you do with him?"

  Camael looked Raphael in the eyes and laughed.

  Remiel concentrated so her armor changed into Camael's armor, her sword to his sword, and then her body changed from female to male. Her earrings plinked out of her ears onto the surface of the snow.

  Raphael spun to face her. Projecting her determination, Remiel streaked after the other demon.

  She followed the traces of his passage, but even that brief hesitation had caused the trail to dissipate. She could feel only hints of Gabriel's power, and she thought his captor was the Cherub Mephistopheles. But it was impossible to verify.

  At some point she felt the trail angle into Hell, so she tried to follow, but Hell bounced her back.

  Stupid regulations. Remiel flashed into Hell's lobby. Demons flanked the stone columns as she advanced to the sign-in book, complete with pen on a chain, where demons checked in and out on order of the commanders of the army. Closer inspection revealed that pen was missing and the chain dangled limp. Remiel formed a pen out of her soul material and signed the book, "Camael, Mephistopheles, and Guest."

  The demon guarding the entrance huffed. "Guest? You have to specify."

  "Bite me." Remiel turned to enter. The stone floor clung to her feet as she moved.

  The demon drew his sword. "By Belior's orders, you have to sign in exactly—"

  "Are you countermanding Mephistopheles' orders?" Remiel snapped. "You will let me inside now!"

  The torches lining the room poured smoke to the ceiling where it gathered, unable to escape. The demon said, "Belior doesn't care about Mephistopheles and his little projects."

  "He'll care about this one soon enough," said a silky voice from an alcove. Remiel turned to find Mephistopheles, his wings tucked exquisitely at his back, his armor gleaming, the only part of him not in total control his blond curls. "Kindly admit my officer, and we won't have to escalate the matter."

  The demon slid his sword into its scabbard.

  Mephistopheles turned to Remiel. "Don't stand on ceremony with these peons. I remember when you stabbed someone through the heart rather than deal with Belior's idiocy." And Mephistopheles flashed them both into central Hell.

  They arrived in a chamber utterly lightless. Remiel resisted her urge to glow: they were in the Lab Area where the chief torment was the living darkness. Demons couldn't disperse it with their glow, and although she suspected she could, to do so would immediately give away her deception.

  "Is he secured?" Mephistopheles asked.

  "I just finished," came a deeper voice which Remiel guessed belonged to Beelzebub, Mephistopheles' bonded Seraph and Satan's other advisor.

  She could hear the hiss of feathers against one another, the sliding of fabric against fabric as someone walked, and then the clank of metal against metal. "Insufficient. This much play in the chains allows for too much movement. We need a five-point restraint. Once we begin, you'll have to run a Guard over him in a V from each of his shoulders to between his legs and across his chest."

  "Easy enough," Beelzebub said.

  Remiel-as-Camael said, "When will we do it?"

  "We can't proceed until he regains consciousness," Mephistopheles said. "That could be fifteen minutes. Maybe longer. It's tricky to predict how medications carry over from human bodies to angelic bodies, but Gabriel's notorious for having no tolerance to drugs."

  Beelzebub said, "I'll stay here. You can tell Lucifer we've got him."

  "I'll stay," Remiel said. "It doesn't make sense fo
r you to stand watch over a sleeping prisoner."

  Beelzebub's sense of annoyance crawled over Remiel, who cringed.

  "Accompany me," Mephistopheles said, sounding as if he were standing close to Beelzebub. "He's bound to be pleased that we captured Gabriel so easily."

  "You got him at all because of Camael," Beelzebub said. "Camael could use the political capital."

  Mephistopheles sounded irritated. "Since when have you concerned yourself about anyone else's political capital?"

  Remiel opened her hands and created a paper cup of coffee and a donut, which she handed to Beelzebub. "I didn't realize we paid you to be a rent-a-cop."

  Even in the darkness, he was able to recognize what she'd done. "Good one! And it's chocolate frosted, too."

  Remiel bit her lip. "Really, I can stay. Sa—Lucifer won't speak to me anyhow."

  How am I going to get Gabriel out of here if he doesn't leave? she prayed, but God didn't answer. They were in Hell. The room was Guarded, preventing unwanted people from entering or communicating. Because God adhered to His own rules, she wouldn't get a clear response.

  Well, the insane could get through Guards. But God would remain stubbornly sane, and so would Gabriel.

  Mephistopheles and Beelzebub weren't projecting at each other, so Remiel knew they must be trading thoughts and energy through their Seraph-Cherub bond. Finally Mephistopheles said, "Stay if you wish. Let me know the instant he awakens."

  In the next moment, Remiel found herself out of the lightless cell and in an equally lightless corridor with Mephistopheles.

  "He's more useful elsewhere," Remiel said.

  "Don't try to talk sense to a Seraph," Mephistopheles said. "But you're right that Lucifer won't bother speaking to you."

  "Wait!" Remiel's heart raced. "I'm important to this. You'd better bring me inside when you do it."

  "Oh." The blandest sense of laughter laced his voice. "Is that the case?"

  Remiel's heart faltered. "I deserve to be there!"

  Mephistopheles still sounded as if he were smirking. "I'll recommend you to him, but don't count on it. I don't care if you serve as the focus. Anyone would do." And away he flashed.