Seven Archangels: Annihilation (29 page)

She shook the water from her hair, then finished materializing in a room with a very startled Camael.

- + -

Gabriel awoke to Remiel's voice, and he felt the added resonance he shouldn't have of an angel immediately post-winnowing, raw and wild. She wasn't sane—the fact that her voice had penetrated the Guard would have told him that anyhow. She knew how to annihilate, and her brother was trapped.

Gabriel realized in shock—he was alone. Alone in a Guarded room. He couldn't call for help.

He reached for God, wordlessly begging for strength.

Gabriel pushed himself upright, endured a momentary panic, then held the wall for support.

Remiel had her fingers in his heart, trying to drag him out of the room. Gabriel released himself and felt her grip him, hoping her insanity would enable her to pull a sane angel through a Guard the same way she could force herself.

Look at me,
God said, and Gabriel changed his focus to the Vision.

He felt himself change again, a different place. Where was he? No—God—he could see God so it was all right. He was somewhere. He was…here. Windows. A simple room. Cold. It was frigid.

Remiel had Camael pinned to the wall, her will binding his hands and feet, her blade at his throat. She didn't even turn to Gabriel once she had him inside.

Camael struggled, and Remiel said, "I was in the room when Satan destroyed a friend of mine, and I learned. I'm as smart as you are, Watcher."

Gabriel leaped for her, knocking her a step away from Camael, but she spread her wings and kept her balance even as Gabriel utterly lost track of where he was. He collected himself in time to see her eyes showering with sparks. Grabbing her sword blade with one hand and the hilt with the other, she blasted her power at Gabriel. "Just watch! I'm doing this for both of us!"

Gabriel hit the far wall and crumpled.

"Stop her!" Camael was screaming.

Gabriel tried to call for Michael and couldn't make the words form.

He pushed back to his feet, keeping in mind what he needed to do without caring where he was, then sent as much protest to Remiel as he could. In that moment, both Irin looked right at him.

Camael went white. He tried to recoil into the wall.

Remiel said, "I'm ending it now," and she unleashed all her fury at Camael.

Gabriel mustered whatever power he could and blasted Remiel, who deflected it with one hand. She had so much energy that she didn't even bother taking her eyes off Camael as she did it. Then, as Gabriel watched, she reached into Camael's heart and pulled. The room rattled. Camael's spine arched, and he screamed.

Unable to rise from the floor, Gabriel erupted with protest.

Jesus appeared on the other side of her and said, "Remiel, stop!"

She dropped where she stood, and Jesus caught her over one arm.

Camael was breathing heavily, head slung down, but glaring at him all the same. Jesus glared back at him, and in another moment Camael too had crumpled.

Jesus turned to Gabriel, who hadn't risen from the corner. "Rapha'li," he called, "to me."

Raphael appeared, took in the whole scene, and rushed to Gabriel, the healing glow already marshaled. He flooded the Cherub, who flinched at the touch. "Michael! Uriel! I need you immediately!" He turned to Jesus. "Lower the Guard so I can get them inside!"

Gabriel raised his arms to anchor himself against Raphael.

"What's going on?" Raphael was shouting at Jesus. "What is he doing here? I can tell she was throwing power like crazy a minute ago!"

Michael and Uriel were there then, and Gabriel felt Uriel trying to lift him away from Raphael. He tightened his grip, but Michael disentangled him. Gabriel kept his eyes tightly closed, only listening.

"Rapha'li, take care of him."

"And what about her? She's utterly spattered with parts of him!"

Seraphic fire, all those sweet Seraph vibrations. Gabriel opened—

"Gabriel, no!"

Suddenly all the Seraph fire was gone, leaving Gabriel grasping for nothing.

"Thank you." That was Uriel's voice.

"Not a problem." Jesus's voice. "Rapha'li, you help him. Trust me to take care of her."

A lurching, and Gabriel felt himself moved, but the room still felt the same, felt freezing. Don't look. Where was he? Raphael… Remiel…

"How much damage did she do?"

"I can't tell. He's not sounding out." Raphael's touch suffused him. "He's out of tune inside, and he's hemorrhaging energy. The healing won't stick."

Gabriel tried to reach for him, lost track of where he was in the world, and desperately sought for the Vision.

God remained. God was strong.

More words, now just sounds and vague impressions of concern, and Gabriel drifted away. Why were they so sad and scared? He was with them, so he must be safe. They were strong. God was strong. He ought to help them with whatever it was, but so dark, so warm, so easy to let go and let the tides carry him.

Thoughts like a spotlight forced into his mind, riveting him. "Stay with us," a voice said, and another, "Think—you've got to focus," and a third, "You're going to have to do it again."

Gabriel tried to block the light, tried to retreat from the sound.

A fourth voice, the one Gabriel loved, said, "Stay with them, Gabri'li." Then, "Reach for me."

Gabriel marshaled all himself and extended himself, and in that moment torn by the tides and enshrouded in fog, he felt prayers and wills locking him in place. "We don't have a choice," said one of them—Uriel. "I have to go back in right now."

Chapter Nineteen

Mephistopheles had two minor demons chained side by side as he compared them in a feasibility study for the manufacture of a chimera. He kept all his notes in his head, as usual, where no prying eyes or backstabbing competition could snitch a peek, and he gathered information. Bits and bits and bits of disconnected information.

Gabriel.

He remembered talking with him in the cell, waiting for Lucifer to come and destroy, discussing what really happened when a soul came apart and one moment became the final moment. Mephistopheles recalled the rapid exchange of theories, their questions and the answers they'd provided one another. Gabriel's eyes had sparkled like silver when he'd learned how God had manufactured him.

Gabriel's glow had pierced the lab area.

He remembered that burst of understanding in Gabriel's eyes, the one Cherub in all creation who might have rivaled his intellect. The moment of comprehension, the unreachable
theory
of how to form a new angel or destroy an old one, it had been their shared victory over ignorance, and he ought to have smiled because he had made that singular moment possible. But then he knew what else he'd made possible, and the realization penetrated him like a rapier.

Fire formed behind him, and Mephistopheles aroused himself enough to recognize Beelzebub's arrival. Without turning from the pair of minor demons, Mephistopheles allowed his soul to siphon off part of his fire and in return offer back a sense of Cherubic stillness.

"How dare you?" Beelzebub said.

Mephistopheles spun to face him.

Beelzebub burned. His eyes were in flames, and his wings vibrated, and his mouth had formed a tight line.

Mephistopheles steeled himself. "What are you doing?"

Beelzebub was in such a state that he threw off heat. "What are
you
doing?"

Mephistopheles gestured at the pair. "I have a theory—"

"You think too often." Beelzebub stepped closer. "And what benefit has it gotten you?"

Fighting the urge to back toward the minor demons, Mephistopheles tried again to siphon off the fire. There was so much that it hurt. Beelzebub wasn't just enflamed—he was enflamed at him. There was too much power. Something had fueled this fire.

Asmodeus? Belior? Lucifer?

Beelzebub's power surged beyond anything Mephistopheles had witnessed since the crucifixion. Powered like this he might be a match for Lucifer himself, only he stood here instead. And that meant—

"Stop thinking!" Beelzebub's eyes glowed white in the center, and he lunged for Mephistopheles, grabbed his arms to his sides with a grip like two train couplings slamming together. "You're always doing this, running off into your own head and treating me like something to leave behind as fast as possible!"

"What are you talking about? Let go! I'm not fighting you!" Mephistopheles twisted, and then fell as Beelzebub released him. He couldn't take down this fire. It would be like quelling the sun with a garden hose. "What's gotten to you?"

"Why must it be something getting to me, as if you're the only one who ever knows what's going on?" Beelzebub's wings were spread fully from his side, and he took up so much of the world. "Maybe I can finally see what's going on, and you're not the only one with any brains."

"What are you talking about?" Mephistopheles took a step toward him. His face was right near Beelzebub's, and he made his eyes piercing, not flinching even though it hurt to stare into that white glow. "It's not that you're not rational, it's that you haven't given me a reason why you're so angry."

"Did the annihilation weaken you?"

Mephistopheles raised one hand to his neck. "No—"

Beelzebub caught his hand between them. "Then what's going on in your head? You're sullen, you're disturbed, you're ineffective—"

Mephistopheles yanked back his hand. "Do you care?"

"Absolutely I care! People are talking, people are laughing at me, and I don't have to tell you the politics if you're weakened."

Of course if that was the case, having this discussion in front of two low-class loudmouths wasn't going to help matters.

Mephistopheles flashed them away. "This isn't about politics."

Beelzebub's cape rippled in his own heat. "Then why don't you tell me what it's about? I just got called into our lord's chamber and got humiliated and lambasted because of
you
!"

Mephistopheles radiated surprise.

"You're asking Asmodeus for favors? You're not working on the task Lucifer set you? You're going to the gates of Heaven and begging for Raphael to come out so you can apologize?"

"I didn't— Beelzebub, that's not true!"

Although it burned his heart, Mephistopheles tried again to pull the power. It charged him, but now he shook. And despite that, there was still a volcano mid-eruption in front of him.

"Don't you dare." Coming closer still, Beelzebub's voice deepened to a growl. "I'm not good enough for you until you need it, and the instant I see what you're really like, you try to reach inside and work that magic to put me on your leash."

Mephistopheles gulped. There was nothing to do. He couldn't handle Beelzebub this way. With time, maybe. He needed someone else to help him take down that power—but there was no one. Lucifer wouldn't. No one else could. He could run for Heaven's gates, knowing they'd shelter him at least long enough to let Beelzebub calm himself—hell, he'd shelter one of the enemy if it gave him a crack at winning them over—

Beelzebub backhanded him, and Mephistopheles went down on his knees. "Quit thinking! I'm right here in front of you! Look at me!"

Was this the fear Gabriel had felt in those last moments? Was this the same agony, knowing he'd never see his Seraph again?

"I said quit thinking!" Beelzebub kicked him in the head, and Mephistopheles rolled with the blow back onto hands and knees, then leaped into the air and flashed away. He had no destination—he just ran, and at his heels he felt the Seraph, the black flames, the acid power.

Beelzebub nabbed him, tackled him, flashed him into the floor of a cavernous room in the labs. His anger's glow shattered the darkness, painting him red, casting shadows. Mephistopheles rolled sideways to regain his feet, but then Beelzebub was down on top of him, pinning his hands back, hips to hips, legs tangled in his. Mephistopheles fought, but a Guard sealed the room, and he couldn't struggle free. Beelzebub leaned forward, wings curved like a canopy over them both.

"You wouldn't take my power for days." Beelzebub's face was close enough to breathe into Mephistopheles' mouth. Their eyes were inches apart. "You resisted me long enough, and now you want to make nice, you worthless parasite? Well take it then, take all of it!"

Mephistopheles' eyes flew wide. "Please—!"

"I own you." Beelzebub arched his back. "From now on, you look only at me!"

Then he forced himself inside, a spear of Seraphic fire solid with fury. Mephistopheles tried to clamp his heart closed, tried to deaden their bond, but Beelzebub's power surged like water through a fire hose, opening all the kinks, flooding him, ramming itself inside no matter what he did. Mephistopheles screamed, screamed, begged, no let this stop, please it's too much, please I'll do anything, I can't—

Beelzebub's form tensed over him like a volcanic eruption, power searing from him into the Cherub, too much power, hot energy broiling the air. Mephistopheles yelled, unable to escape as Beelzebub shot him full of fire. The Seraph's eyes drilled into his, and like debris in a flood, everything in Mephistopheles churned to the surface: all his memories, all this thoughts, his theories, his desires, his guilt, his everything. And as it churned back up into Beelzebub, the Seraph laughed at it, mocked the things he couldn't understand, jeered at every pain and the little moments as he shed light on every privacy and every single dark little thing that had wanted to remain in darkness.

"Scream all you want," Beelzebub hissed into his face. "No one cares. Lucifer doesn't care. Asmodeus doesn't care. Even God doesn't care."

Mephistopheles went limp beneath him.

At some point he realized the pain had abated. He didn't know for how long. He was lying in the dark, a spent Seraph and himself on the rough rock.

Beelzebub climbed away from him and crumpled to the ground. Mephistopheles curled on his side, his knees to his chest, his forearms guarding his face, one wing up over his head. He might have been there a thousand years. It might have been seconds.