The Wrong Enemy Read online

  Rachmiel held it like a closed box. Would Tabris mind if he opened it?

  Tabris opened it himself, spreading a dull dread through Rachmiel’s gut: there had been no punishment following the crime. Other angels had been punished for far slighter offenses, the crowning example being the Archangel Gabriel, cut away from Heaven for a year because of a tiny infraction in 600 BC.

  Tabris’s voice was a whisper. “God loved them enough to reform them. But not me. I got reassigned as though it never happened.”

  Rachmiel sat with that in his hands, leaden and cold. No answer. He closed his eyes, and his light inside Tabris went dull.

  God, I don’t have a rebuttal for this one.

  Tabris took that for confirmation. “He may still love me,” Tabris added. “But not the same way.”

  But that’s not true. Except inasmuch as Tabris was going to be different in the aftermath, of course God’s love for them had to change along with the ways they changed; different angels needed love in different ways.

  Rachmiel streamed this out even as it came to him, and he realized the Holy Spirit was pumping it through to Tabris. Huddled on the ground, the semicorporeal Tabris doubled around himself and closed his wings like a bivalve shell protecting the soft creature inside.

  Of course God would love Tabris differently, but different didn’t mean less. New choices formed new facets of character, and Tabris, with his additional perspective and growth, would love God differently too.

  The inspiration flowed like a stream on a July afternoon: that God had created His creatures with free will precisely for this end, to give them the opportunity to shape themselves so they could love Him in their own way, and so He could love them not only as they were made but as they became. Like a tree from a seed, the branches would divide where they would, and the leaves appear, but all differently for every tree, and as each soul formed different branches to extend itself toward His light, God loved the result.

  The question for Tabris was whether this new branching would lead to new growth, or whether Tabris would allow one bad decision to destroy him.

  Rachmiel thought, Are you saying all things work together for good for those who love you?

  In his heart, and only to Rachmiel, the Holy Spirit indicated He’d heard that somewhere before. Rachmiel laughed.

  The communication hadn’t reached Tabris, but Rachmiel’s joy had, and he shuddered.

  May I speak through you? asked the Spirit.

  Thrilling, Rachmiel assented.

  The Spirit reached for Tabris, who retreated on himself, wide-eyed. The Spirit surrounded him without engulfing him, and the first thing He did was assure Tabris not to be afraid.

  Tabris waited.

  Like an inspiration, Rachmiel realized two things, and they passed through him to Tabris: first, that a harsh punishment at the beginning would have pushed Tabris over the edge of despair. Part of correction was knowing when too much would make your child lose heart.

  Tabris closed his eyes and stayed down.

  Next Rachmiel felt that the natural consequences of the crime were severe already: Sebastian had been taken away; Tabris had to live with the memory of his crime; the other angels knew about it. These factors alone had crushed him. A reprimand from God on top of that would have extinguished him.

  The Spirit receded from Rachmiel’s heart, and Rachmiel released Tabris. The sunlight shone through him as he sat on the cliff, and he realized his energy had returned—or more likely been restored during the contact with God. He flexed his wings and neck, then stretched and got to his feet.

  Tabris lay on the grass, exhausted. Exhausted, but relieved.

  They would need to return Elizabeth, but not yet. For now Rachmiel waited while Tabris gathered his strength. Below them, the waves flowed over the rocks and out again to sea, rhythmic and fruitful, while the wind above sang of freedom.

  Twenty-Three

  Listening to her teacher, Elizabeth didn’t detect the return of her guardians. An angel stood with her. He greeted Rachmiel, then added, “Voriah summoned me when Elizabeth woke up.”

  Rachmiel thanked him, then asked if Elizabeth was all right.

  “She had trouble awakening. A bit confused.”

  Remembering how Tabris had predicted exactly that, Rachmiel kept himself from grinning at Tabris. “I’ll check her over. Anything else?”

  The sub nodded. “Voriah said she woke with a start at three-thirty. Did something happen?”

  “Something.” Rachmiel focused on a corner of her soul, then looked back at the sub. “She just turned off the light and went back to sleep?”

  “Her mother had tucked her in about ten. She’s been fine all morning.”

  Rachmiel thanked the other angel, who departed.

  As Rachmiel checked over Elizabeth, Tabris sent him two observations. First, that non-guardians were time-dyslexic. (Rachmiel chuckled.) And second, that other angels always reported to Rachmiel and didn’t even look at him.

  “Force of habit,” said Rachmiel.

  Rachmiel grew conscious of the room’s emotional flavor: angelic wonder. At first he would have called it curiosity, but it didn’t have that peckish feel. This was surprise, and aimed more at Tabris than at the pair of them: Tabris, projecting?

  Rachmiel sat on Elizabeth’s desk, legs swinging, then wrapped around Elizabeth and apologized for not waking her up. Did you miss me, kid? Just a little, in your heart, did you realize I was away?

  Tabris stood guard, eyes scanning the room.

  Then Rachmiel realized the unsaid half of Tabris’s second observation: other angels always reported to Rachmiel, but Rachmiel himself considered Elizabeth his own. Claiming coequality with Tabris meant nothing if his unquestioned assumption was that she belonged less to Tabris than to him. When he thought of the guardianship, it was himself and Elizabeth as a human-angel team, and Tabris and himself as the guardian team. In his mind, they weren’t a triad, and Tabris wasn’t her partner.

  Maybe Tabris realized. Maybe he even understood.

  Only to him, Rachmiel projected, Sebastian will come back to you.

  Tabris turned away, pacing the room in a patrol pattern. Rachmiel forced his thoughts away from the subject. Space. Tabris had said he wanted privacy, and where was more private than the classroom of a public school? When everyone was already watching them? Answer: anywhere.

  Then Tabris sent a negation: a denial that Sebastian would ever forgive him, a denial that it mattered, a denial that there could be a happy ending for an angel named Free Will.

  The teacher started talking about this afternoon’s math test, and the other angels lost interest as Tabris returned to what they expected: an impervious but soulless presence guarding one of the students without that faint spectrum of emotions.

  Right before library, the teacher exclaimed, “Oh, Elizabeth! We forgot about the supplies! There’s not enough time.”

  Elizabeth said, “I can do it! I’ll run.”

  The teacher said, “I’ve got an idea: you go down to get them, bring them back here, and catch up at the library.”

  Rachmiel looked to the teacher’s guardian, who said, “Sylvia had them answer trivia questions for the privilege, and she won.”

  Out in the hallway, Rachmiel said to Tabris, “I’m not used to being surprised.”

  Tabris said, “But on the other hand, who can argue with a trip to the supply room?”

  Elizabeth skipped over the colored tiles to jump from one white square to the next. Rachmiel said, “Sebastian will come for you tonight. I’m sure of it.”

  Tabris huffed. “I’m not. You’re acting as though he’s you. He’s more like me, and he’s going to mull it over before approaching. Maybe a thousand years or two.” He folded his arms. “Most likely, right before he enters Heaven because it’s a requirement that he cancel all outstanding debts, and Casifer will want to check off the box on the paperwork.”

  Rachmiel shuddered. “Tell me there isn’t paperwork to get int
o Heaven.”

  “There’s a mountain of it.” Tabris wore the beginnings of a smile. “Why do you think I opted to be a soldier? Michael has a secretarial squad do the army’s forms.”

  Grinning, Rachmiel held his hand over his heart. “I don’t suppose my greeting card company will have to file taxes?”

  “Better line up your accountant now.” They paused at the supply room door while Elizabeth fished the key from her pocket. “That’s all a lot of nonsense, of course. Maybe Sebastian won’t be able to. Maybe I took out both of us because God won’t allow unforgiveness into Heaven. Wouldn’t that be a horrible irony?”

  “Quit that!” Rachmiel’s voice was stern enough that he felt angels around the building suddenly pay attention. Elizabeth popped the lock and entered the supply room. Speaking lower, he said, “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “I don’t think I am.” Tabris grew subdued. “But I don’t know.”

  “Don’t think like that. The kid will come tonight, and it’ll be fine.”

  Elizabeth started gathering items from the teacher’s list: a box of pencils. Twenty-two blue test notebooks.

  Tabris frowned. “You know, if he does forgive me, I won’t know what to do.”

  “That’s easy.” Rachmiel grinned. “You hug him.”

  Tabris’s eyes clouded, the color of honey mixed with blood. “I mean longer-term. What do I do about Elizabeth? She’s my job, but so is he, and I can’t do both. So maybe it’s for the best that he won’t do it meaningfully in her lifetime.”

  “God works quickly. But maybe you wouldn’t have to choose.”

  He thought of a dozen cautionary tales, though, and he found himself mimicking Tabris’s frown. The one-person rule existed because if a guardian angel had a second charge, the bond with the first charge could spiral into the bond with the second. If Sebastian got near Tabris and Elizabeth while Elizabeth was awake, Elizabeth would sense Sebastian’s thoughts and feelings, effectively hearing voices. Keeping them separated would solve the problem, but that meant choosing.

  Tabris said, “In the natural order of things, I shouldn’t be here at all, so going back would set things right. Right? Except that I have a responsibility to Elizabeth now, and she needs me.”

  Rachmiel watched Elizabeth double-checking the test booklets. “I’m not going to dispute that. You work really well with her. But I managed alone before, and I could do it again.”

  Tabris shook his head, giving the icy smile of an angel who had watched God about to reject him. The spiritual temperature dropped.

  Rachmiel swallowed hard. “You had an idea?”

  “With two of us around, she’s stronger than with one. But remember Milton? ‘Sufficient to stand but free to fall’? With two of us, her temptations will be greater because that’s only fair, but so will her accomplishments. If I leave, the good she produces will be in proportion to her gifts. If I leave, that will necessarily be less.”

  Rachmiel’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t think God would cut off her potential because of choices you made.”

  Tabris huffed. “You mean Sebastian’s potential wasn’t cut off?”

  Rachmiel paid a lot of attention to helping Elizabeth check over her list. A box of dry erase markers.

  Tabris said, “And keep in mind that as Sebastian’s wife, she’d have had me around anyhow to help with her formation. For Elizabeth’s sake, I have to stay. But if Sebastian decided it was worth the effort to forgive me, I would owe it to him to be with him, even though he belongs to that other angel now.”

  Dust from the supply shelf got on Elizabeth’s hair, and Rachmiel flicked it off. “When I first visited, the one he wanted was you.”

  Elizabeth found a bottle of antiseptic wipes, and that was the end of her list.

  Rachmiel said, “Casifer’s a lot like me, and he’s giving emotional support. You’re like Sebastian, though. He’ll need you before the end to finish off his spiritual formation.”

  “He can’t enter Heaven without me?” Tabris’s eyes went huge. “That’s crazy! What if I’d been damned? God wouldn’t have abandoned him to eternal Limbo!”

  Rachmiel raised an eyebrow. “I think I have my answer about whether you were joking two minutes ago when you said the same thing.”

  Elizabeth left the supply room and headed back to the classroom.

  “It’s about more than forgiveness,” Rachmiel said. “You’re his role model.”

  Tabris said, “In that negative-example sort of way. Here, Kiddo—see all these things? Don’t do them or you’ll deserve Hell too.”

  Rachmiel sighed.

  Tabris snapped, “I’m sorry to weary you with my problems. When you brought up the subject, I figured you wanted to talk about it.”

  “Stop talking about damnation as if God’s just waiting to fire up the barbecue.”

  Tabris refused to reply.

  Elizabeth’s class had already left the room, so she set the supplies on the teacher’s desk and turned to follow. And then she stopped.

  On the desk was a copy of this afternoon’s math test. And the answer key.

  Elizabeth returned to the desk and leaned over the paper.

  “Elizabeth!” Tabris’s voice deepened. “Leave that alone!”

  She reached for the paper, hesitated, then picked it up. All the multiple choice answers, straight down the page. A, A, D, C, A, B...

  Before Rachmiel’s eyes, her soul darkened.

  “Leave it alone! That’s cheating!” Tabris pulled up close to her, his hands over hers, his wings around her. “Elizabeth, you know that’s wrong.”

  Rachmiel could feel her trying to memorize the numbers in the longer questions, and one by one the lights winked out. The fractions. The percentages. The spreading darkness. “Sweetie, don’t do it.”

  Tabris hovered over her. “You might get caught.”

  Elizabeth looked at the door, and Tabris reached into her heart, raising her pulse and increasing her adrenaline.

  Rachmiel picked up her fear. “Whoa—stop that!”

  “I’m not letting her cheat,” Tabris said. “If she doesn’t know the material then she needs to fail.”

  Rachmiel pushed closer. Her soul felt clammy. “Giving her a heart attack won’t help. Calm down and—”

  “I’m not calming down about sin!” Tabris said. “Stop her!”

  The lights in her heart were going down like dominos. This sin wouldn’t take out the whole string, but she was choking off the inlet of grace. In the face of Tabris’s urgency, Rachmiel exclaimed, “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I can’t let that happen again!” Tabris’s eyes were throwing light. “She’s not listening to me!”

  Rachmiel said, “I can’t trump her free will!”

  “You’re not trying!” Tabris slammed his hand into the desk. “How do you expect to get her into Heaven if she starts doing things like this?”

  “It’s not our job to get her into Heaven!”

  Tabris’s wings flared. “You want her in Hell?”

  “Saving her soul is God’s job! Our job is to make sure she’s free to choose grace.” Rachmiel turned back to Elizabeth and put his head beside hers, as if to say Wake up, Sleepyhead. “This is cheating, sweetie. You need to stop. You’re not a cheater.”

  She turned to page two. Tabris began exerting force on her heart, and Rachmiel pushed himself between them.

  Tabris’s eyes blazed. “Let me work!”

  Rachmiel spread his wings, blocking him from Elizabeth. “Back off and stop interfering!”

  Tabris shot backward.

  Elizabeth turned to the third page, noted the answer to the final problem, and replaced the answer key on the desk.

  Angels from the neighboring classroom poked their heads into the room. “Is everything all right?”

  Tense like a fault line the moment before an earthquake, Rachmiel kept looking from Elizabeth to Tabris.

  Tabris said, “Completely. I’m done interfering.” And he fla
shed away.

  Twenty-Four

  Tabris landed in Heaven.

  He’d gone home. A log cabin empty of furniture and with an oak floor polished to a slippery shine, this was Tabris’s homebase, selected ages ago from Heaven’s infinite acreage. When he and the Holy Spirit had gone house-hunting, God had teased him along with almost-but-not-quite locations until bringing him to a mountaintop crisp with snow, with an ice-choked stream trickling through the rocks and a vertical drop at the peak’s edge. Tabris had burst with joy, projecting, Here! Here. I want to be with you here, and the Spirit had begun showing him floor plans.

  The demon, whatever he was calling himself today, smirked in the white-blue light shining through a windowpane. “Spar with me.”

  Tabris’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “To be rid of me forever. To work off energy. To prove something to yourself.” The demon paused. “I don’t care what excuse you make. They’re all the same to me.”

  “My damnation.”

  He huffed. “Not even God is that unreasonable.” The demon formed his sword and balanced it in his hand. “Maybe if you’d surrendered to me over New York harbor you’d have to explain yourself, but this would be different. You’re supposed to fight demons. It’s what soldiers do.”

  “Get out of here.”

  “I’m looking for a new name.” The demon studied the way the sun glared off the snow. “What do you think?”

  “I think I don’t care.”

  “I think I’ll do it. Hell’s a free country.” He looked over his shoulders. “Any suggestions? I’ll give you the honor of naming me for a little while.”

  Tabris folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “How about Damned-By-God?”

  “That’s taken. Let’s see...” The demon stared at Tabris. “Recklessness? Too long. Primrose Path? It works, but too feminine.” He stepped toward Tabris. “I have it: Presumption! What better name for a creature as unfettered as I am? Brazen, always taking the easy way out, doing whatever I want...but always knowing someone else will bail me out. Relying on it! Running up debts with no inclination to pay. Let someone else pay my way! I love it.”