Seven Archangels: Annihilation (39 page)

"She's highly unlikely to leave. God has paid her enormous bribes and given her every freedom in an attempt to keep her enslaved. You realize you can't compete."

Camael sounded defensive. "The one thing God can't give her is me."

"Ah, but you nearly were given to her—first as a trussed prize turkey and then as a living sacrifice. You're better off avoiding her." Lucifer folded his arms and leaned half-sitting on his desk. "The other option you've failed to consider is that Remiel might ask for you, and God might brainwash you and enslave you at her side."

Camael smoldered. "He'd have to change me."

"I'm not sure she would care. She must feel about you as you do about her."

Camael's voice lowered. "Yes, sir."

"I recommend keeping your distance, but you're free to do as you wish. Dismissed."

Lucifer enjoyed his solitude for a while.

Mephistopheles' theory about being drenched in Gabriel's offal might have some merit to it—how else would he have heard that trumpet? Of all four subordinates, only Mephistopheles hadn't reacted with surprise when he said there was a funeral taking place—and there might have been, but the Seven hadn't made it appear that way. In retrospect, who knew why they were blowing that trumpet? Choosing then to regain Camael was useful enough, though. If a funeral did take place at a later time, he'd find a way to disrupt that too.

But hearing the trumpet and sensing the bond might well mean Gabriel-residue, and waiting for it to dissipate on its own just didn't appeal. How disgusting to be covered in a monument to someone else's weakness.

Lucifer tried burning it off, tried focusing himself, tried squeezing it off with a Guard. He couldn't tell if anything had worked because he had no litmus test except for detecting Mephistopheles' bond with Beelzebub.

What a pain. Lucifer flashed to Mephistopheles.

He and Beelzebub were in the common area, nauseatingly honey-mooning. Beelzebub sat on one chair with his feet propped on another, and Mephistopheles sat side-saddle across his lap. The pair had their wings up to form a kind of shelter, and Lucifer could feel two things: they were actively trading power, and Mephistopheles was talking through an idea at two hundred fifty words a minute, with occasional gusts of up to three hundred.

To get their attention, Lucifer had to project an announcement.

Mephistopheles pulled back his wings and pivoted. "Sir!" Beelzebub sat up, lowering his legs from the chair, and Mephistopheles slipped around so he straddled Beelzebub's lap, leaning forward with his hands on the Seraph's knees.

"Sir," the Cherub said, "I have a portion of your answer for my assignment."

This quickly? He ought to have intervened earlier. File that away for next time. "Let's hear it."

Mephistopheles opened his hands to create a hologram. Lucifer noted as he did so the way he balanced by hooking his feet behind Beelzebub's ankles and bringing back the innermost pair of wings to wrap around the Seraph's waist.

"This is a mock-up of the soul." Mephistopheles waved a hand and made more lights. "I'm tracing through the power conduits common to most angels, and I believe if you attack a few central points rather than merely unwrapping the entirety of the heartstring you'll end up with an unlaced angel in a fifth the time."

Lucifer seated himself in the second chair. "Go on."

"If you notice here and here," and those points lit on the mock-up, "the various attributes cross over on themselves. The model more accurately mimics a weaving than a string of beads, I've discovered, and at these points there's a combination of important attributes. If you remember, you were stuck momentarily at this point on Gabriel, and now I know it was due to the crossover attributes strengthening the linkage. But if you attacked all three and released them simultaneously, an important structural integrity point would be undone, weakening the entire form."

Lucifer saw Beelzebub had worked his fingers through the shortest feathers at the back of Mephistopheles' innermost wing pair, and the Cherub shifted a little as if to guide him.

"I've found three pressure points so far." Mephistopheles spoke as if Lucifer's problem were the only thing he was thinking of and the bond wasn't lit up like the New York City skyline. "I suspect there may be as many as ten, more likely six or seven. I'll require a few test subjects to map the common points, but it shouldn't take prohibitively long to develop a working model. A day, perhaps two."

Lucifer rubbed his chin. "This still can't be done from a distance."

"No, sir. Someone still needs to be in close proximity. And the subject needs to be still."

Shaking his head, Lucifer folded his arms. "That won't be any use in a battle situation."

"I'm working on it."

"I can see that. Get me the complete list of pressure points in ten hours." He leaned forward. "Then get to work on the distance strike."

Mephistopheles nodded, his blond curls all but obscuring the brightness of his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Beelzebub." Lucifer's tone went stern. "Do not distract him. I'm glad you're encouraging him, but do not become a distraction right now."

"No, sir."

Beelzebub had no intention of following through, but in a couple of hours he would send Beelzebub on an errand and give Mephistopheles time to work alone. For now he was keeping the Cherub well-fired, intentionally or otherwise, so it paid to let him stay.

"Call me if you need anything or anyone's cooperation," Lucifer said, standing. "Your assignment is my top priority, and I'll ensure it's also the top priority of everyone else in Hell."

- + -

Against the sunset, a pair of angels stood overlooking a lake. Swallows darted over the surface of the water, nabbing insects from the air. A family of ducks swam out from shore, gliding across the silent water with noiseless paddles, a mother and six ducklings until one was pulled under.

"This absolutely reeks," said one as he watched the reduced duck family swim to shore.

"It worse than reeks," said the other. "I told them not to attempt it, but you know how Cherubim get, and Mephistopheles convinced him he had it all figured out just because he lucked into a couple of ideas that turned out to be right." Asmodeus shook his head. "I told them not to try. I told them it wouldn't work from the start."

Fighting a smile, Camael said flatly, "You're a foresight god."

"Screw off."

"Because Lucifer's treating you like a fifth wheel? I don't think so."

"Go amuse yourself," Asmodeus said. "Or just shut up and leave me in peace."

Camael grinned.

They stared for a while at the bugs which made use of the last glimmers of daylight. Idly selecting a dragonfly, Camael called it to the attention of one of the swallows, which swooped low and enjoyed its dinner.

Camael shivered as a breeze reached parts of him more used to Hell's flames. "It's the most un-freaking-nerving thing to be taken apart." He pulled his wings closer. "I wonder if I'd have been able to talk with Gabriel."

"Would you even want to?" Asmodeus said. "Lay off. You've got Belior wasting his time because of your self-aggrandizement, and we all know you didn't see anything."

"I don't have to justify myself."

"You can't justify yourself, you mean."

They watched as the sun finished its apparent descent and left only a residual afterglow of its glory.

Gabriel's afterglow. No direct light, only the reflection of something too big to be swallowed all at once. Not Gabriel, just the afterimages, the leftovers, lacking a home and an anchor, drifting apart like a dust cloud dispersing after an explosion.

"Quit thinking." Asmodeus glared at him. Did he look that horrified? "It's no good when Cherubim do it, and it's even less attractive in Virtues."

Camael shrugged. "I'm bored."

"Pull that stunt again," Asmodeus said. "Call your sister."

Camael squinted. "Lucifer said not to."

"You're bored and she's crazy. You could have a little fun."

"I'd rather go scare some minister's son."

Asmodeus narrowed his eyes and raised his wings. "Call her."

Camael shook his head. "I don't want to see her like that. Enslaved. It leaves me nauseated for days." He could see Asmodeus wasn't convinced. If anything, he liked the idea even better now. "If Lucifer catches us—"

"What will he do? Kill her?" Asmodeus opened his hands. "Kill you? Either way, you won't have to see her enslaved again."

Camael rolled his eyes.

Asmodeus turned to look again at the sunset. "Of course, if you're afraid of her, we can go find a minister's son."

"Oh, please. She frightens me even less than you do." Camael folded his arms. "I have nothing to prove."

"You're certainly proving something right now."

As the afterglow dissipated, Camael said, "What would you do when you got her here?"

Asmodeus drummed the fingers of one hand against the opposite forearm. "That depends. Last night she went crazy as far as we could tell. She went bar-hopping, did some online chatting, then ended up at a tattoo parlor in Australia getting pierced."

"Her ears." It was so repulsive. "I saw they were all in different places."

"Navel too." Asmodeus turned toward Camael. "She was smitten with the piercer, and quite drunk. I'd love to watch when he pierces her next, whatever part she chooses. Whatever
he
encourages her to choose."

Camael's eyes flashed as sharply gold as Remiel's had ever gotten. "I'll kill him."

"Bring her down," Asmodeus said. "Let her watch."

Camael clenched his fists, set his teeth.

"When she sees how protective you are of her," Asmodeus murmured, "she'll be impressed." A pause. Then he added, "You might still win her."

Oh, wow. He might. He could. Just this once.

Camael closed his eyes and lowered his head. He listened to the rhythm of his existence until clarity came and he could feel hers as well. Holding her heart in his own, he sent,
Come to me.

Suddenly he had the strongest, oddest urge.

Up snapped his head.

Asmodeus cracked his knuckles. "You called?"

Camael gave a shaky affirmative.

"Where is she?"

"Back off. It doesn't happen all at once."

Camael concentrated—and the next moment found himself waist-deep in the lake.

Camael leaped out of the water as if he'd landed in the Lake of Fire while Asmodeus flashed to the pier, staring open-mouthed.

He transported onto the wood and stared in bafflement at his own hands while water puddled around his legs, then flowed between the wooden slits.

Asmodeus sent him a question.

"She turned it back at me." Camael didn't even try to disguise the fear pervading his voice. Lucifer had said
Are you aware that once she realizes you can influence her, your usefulness is limited?
He'd hit the limits of his usefulness, and that was never a good thing. "I sent her a suggestion, and she sent one back to me."

It was easy to pinpoint what Remiel had told him to do.

Asmodeus cracked up laughing. "Do it again!"

Camael's cheeks burned, so he flared heat around himself to finish drying his wings and clothing and hoped that hid the flush. "So she can send me even more pointed instructions? No thank you."

Asmodeus smiled wickedly, throwing a stone into the water. "How imaginative can she get?"

Camael paid an unusual amount of attention to his fingers as he rubbed them through his flight-feathers to interlock them. "Go screw yourself."

"I'd like to see that!"

Camael flashed back to Hell with the sound of the Seraph's laughter still burning in his ears.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ophaniel approached Israfel where she sat atop a New York brownstone.

She tightened up her heart and folded her arms. "Go away. I have nothing to say to you."

"Say it anyhow." Ophaniel sat beside her. "You shouldn't be out in Creation alone."

"This isn't alone." Israfel gestured at the world. "This is Park Slope, and there are thousands of angels in shouting distance."

"None right here with you." Ophaniel frowned. "If our enemies strike, they strike quickly."

"As opposed to we who take hours to decide to do nothing." She still had flames licking around her wings. "Is he awake, or am I still waiting?"

"You're still waiting."

Israfel hit the rooftop with a fist.

Ophaniel said, "You understand as well as I do. When you spoke to him last time, did he feel whole? Or did he feel as if he were full of holes?"

"He braided my hair." She knit her fingers. "He didn't get angry at me for not wanting to bond again. He said he'd do what I wanted, but he was sorry. And then he braided my hair."

"You warned Zophiel yesterday to remind you not to go overboard if he treated you well. You asked me to tell you to hold off for a week or longer, to make sure it was a real change."

Israfel nodded.

"It's permanent if you go back," Ophaniel said. "Isn't permanent worth waiting a week?"

"I— Why do you have to make sense?"

"I'm a Cherub. God made me to make sense." There was no trace of sarcasm on Ophaniel's face. "But God made you too, and I acknowledge that sometimes we don't need to make sense. If your heart tells you to rush back, maybe you should."

"I can't," Israfel said. "You won't let me near."

"In an hour or two, you'll be near again."

Israfel let off a long breath. Ophaniel rested his hand on her knee.

"Is my absence from Heaven a problem?"

"Not as such." Ophaniel shook his head. "To be honest, they may not attack again if Camael tells them he saw Gabriel."

Israfel said, "Didn't Uriel do a memory-edit?"

"Yes, but Uriel didn't realize Camael was still conscious when Gabriel arrived. Consequently, no edit on that. Uriel hasn't left the throne of Glory since realizing—apologizing. I think God wanted it that way, to be honest, since God permitted the rest of the edit. But we shouldn't count on Satan's previous failure for protection." Ophaniel's eyes lowered. "We still need to tokenize you."