by Rebecca Lim
The fog parts momentarily and I see that strange, three-sided structure ahead, like a house without a roof, open on one side. There’s a winged man standing before it, built along mythical lines, his back to me, wearing raiment so bright I can barely stand to look at it. He has long, dark hair spilling down his back — every strand straight, even and exactly the same — and I’m so filled with panic and shame, fear and relief, that I run towards him screaming, ‘Uri, Deo gratias. Uri.’
But then he turns, and I see that it isn’t Uriel at all. His eyes are a brilliant blue, and there’s a blazing scar across his face the size of an archangel’s handprint. He is both dazzlingly beautiful and hideously disfigured, and his name springs into my mind unbidden: Jetrel.
The instant I recognise him for who he is, I remember Uriel’s earlier words of warning: Hold your nerve. Do not shift. The advantage we gained from reaching this place on foot, unheralded, is almost gone. One last element of surprise remains to me, and I must hold fast to it.
The fog hides from Jetrel’s eyes what happens next: I find a gun in each hand; there because I need them. I raise them with shaking hands, pointing them up into Jetrel’s face, where it towers over me. I pray he does not see the single lick of blue flame that plays across the surface of each gun.
‘I wouldn’t,’ he says, and smiles with pointed teeth like the canines of wild animals.
I look behind me to see another shining, winged giant, a feral light in his wide-set grey eyes. With his prominent bones and hairless face and scalp, his vulpine teeth, his heavily muscled bare torso and blazing abdominal scar, he seems even more terrifying and otherworldly than his companion. I know he must be Shamshiel, for Uriel said that Shamshiel and Jetrel were together, but he is so changed I do not recognise him at all.
I train a gun on each of them — one to the south, one to the north along the stone roadway — and they laugh in my face.
Then they look at each other as if I’m not even here.
‘There’s nothing but condors and humans on this mountain,’ Shamshiel spits. ‘How much longer must we wait? Our company becomes increasingly restless.’ His tone turns mocking. ‘And Lord Gabriel grows difficult to control.’
‘He’s secure?’ Jetrel hisses.
‘For now. Semyaza and Astaroth, Balam, Yomyael, Beleth and Caym are holding him at the mausoleum. But their powers wane, just as yours do. We are too far from home.’ Shamshiel reaches behind himself suddenly and pulls someone forward. ‘They found this one stumbling around in the fog. So they gave him to me. Shall I give him to you? Or to her?’
I see that it’s Ryan, ashen-faced, staring at me.
I start forward, shocked, and Jetrel’s eyes narrow, catching the movement.
‘Why? Do they know each other?’ he says.
‘I saw her face in his mind. He “loves” her. He could not bear to lose her.’ Shamshiel chuckles darkly.
Jetrel smiles. ‘Then let us see whether those feelings are reciprocated. You, girl,’ he snaps, gazing with a sneer at the barrel of the gun that’s trained on him. ‘Shoot him. Do it, and we will let you live.’
His taunt tells me that they still think me human. They think they have nothing to fear from me and my human weapons.
‘Shoot him,’ Jetrel repeats slowly and loudly, as if I possess no more wit than a trained animal. ‘Or we will take your puny, mortal handguns and pit you one against the other.’ He laughs and turns to Shamshiel. ‘They say the female is the more deadly of the species. Let us see if that is the case. This one certainly looks it.’
Shamshiel shoves Ryan towards me until the barrel of the gun that was aimed at him is now pressed against Ryan’s forehead.
‘Shoot him,’ Jetrel barks from behind me. ‘Do murder.’
I turn my head and look into his brilliant eyes, the shining, disfiguring brand that is burnt across his jaw, his lips, the left side of his face.
‘Fiat voluntas tua,’ I murmur. Thy will be done.
Then I pull the trigger of the gun that’s still aimed at Jetrel’s head.
I see Jetrel’s eyes widen at my words, an instant before the bullet — that is no ordinary projectile — hits him between the eyes. The force of his dying bears me to the ground, sends a blast wave of heat and light into the air that is enough to light up the fog from within, like a nuclear cloud.
Let Uriel see, I think fervently. Let him be warned.
I open my eyes to find Ryan standing over me, a weird look in his dark eyes.
Bracing myself on my elbows, I say pleadingly, ‘I never would have done it, you know. I never would have shot you. It just had to look that way. I’m sorry.’
‘And now you’ll never get the chance,’ Ryan says in a voice that is strangely resonant, like steel on flint, ‘because I’m going to kill you first.’
A flaming short sword comes to life in each of his hands, as if they are an extension of his fingers, and I scramble away from him in horror, backwards across the ground. I can’t shoot him because it’s Ryan. It’s indisputably Ryan. I feel his peculiar human energy, the energy I would know anywhere, anytime. But it’s mixed up, contaminated, dominated by the energy of another.
Possession.
‘Shamshiel!’ I scream as I rise to my feet, sickened beyond belief. ‘What have you done?’
The guns in my hands dissipate instantly into motes of light, replaced by short swords indistinguishable from those in Ryan’s hands save for the light of the flames that play across the blades. Mine blaze from hilt to tip with the clean, pale blue of holy fire, but not his. His blaze with a tainted light.
It is too awful to contemplate what Ryan must be going through right now. For it’s Shamshiel’s laughter coming from Ryan’s mouth, the mad light of Shamshiel’s eyes in Ryan’s own. I shudder as we circle each other, weapons raised. Truly, I am facing a monster.
‘Who are you?’ Shamshiel growls through Ryan’s mouth, crouching lower in a fighting stance, rolling his shoulders, his blades testing the air in intricate patterns that flow and shift into each other. ‘One of the malakhim? The double-dealer they speak of? If you are she, lay your weapons down, sister, and let me embrace you.’
He licks his lips in a manner so dreadful, so lascivious, so unlike Ryan, that I have to look away for a moment, sickened.
‘I’m just a girl,’ I say grimly, looking back into his mad eyes, testing the air with my blades in broken figures of eight. The short swords, Shamshiel’s weapons of choice, feel unfamiliar and unwieldy in my hands.
‘Then have at me, girl,’ he roars, ‘and let me see what you are made of.’
He lunges forward with astonishing, inhuman speed, coming at me so quickly that the tip of the blade in his right hand slices through the front of my jacket, actually nicking the surface of it, of me, before I can leap back. The wound stings like acid burn.
Shamshiel keeps pressing forward in Ryan’s body, swinging his blades at me in wide arcs, in hypnotic patterns, like a reaper’s scythe. In panic, running on instinct, I throw up block after block. Our blades come together with the crack of lightning strikes, and I’m barely able to parry his fluid, two-handed fighting style.
I’m unable to truly attack or land a blow, because although it’s Shamshiel I feel in every chop, down stroke and numbing engagement, it’s Ryan I’m seeing, Ryan’s body that will bleed if I harm it.
How do I do this? I think, panicked. There’s no way to do this without hurting Ryan, or being hurt.
Uriel! I cry into the ether. But there’s no reply. He must be out of range, or fighting his own demons elsewhere on the mountain.
Shamshiel runs at me again, Ryan’s teeth bared, sweeping his right blade upwards at my face while he swings his left inwards at my abdomen. I’m trying so hard to avoid the blades that I don’t catch him changing the ground rules on me, holding my eyes as he pulls one foot back before sweeping my own from under me. As the back of my head hits the ground with unbelievable force, he throws himself down on me, laughing, teeth e
xposed and glistening.
I roll sideways frantically, my outline already shredding as I try to get away from him, to re-form elsewhere, out of reach, the way Nuriel showed me was possible in a dirty fight. But Shamshiel catches me by my outflung left wrist, pins it to the stone path with the blade of one of his weapons. The scream that is torn from my lips is awful and echoing, and the earth begins to shake again, as if it feels my pain. It’s as if my agony is bringing forth a response in the physical world.
My weapons dissipate in my hands.
I cannot hold them. Shamshiel’s blade is anchoring me here, I cannot shift away.
I look at my pinned left wrist and see my scar come to life, see that agonising fire ignite upon the skin, snake upwards from my fingers, cross the back of my hand, take hold of my wrist, my forearm, as if it is alive. As beautiful as it is corrosive.
And I see Ryan’s eyes widen as Shamshiel perceives the flames. He thinks me an exile like him, but some turncoat, some traitor to Luc’s cause. I see him trying to work out who amongst his fallen brethren carries a scar like mine. It is only seconds that he studies me, his eyes crawling across my skin inch by inch, but it feels like a lifetime.
‘Who are you?’ he rasps finally, crouched beside me. ‘Tell me your name.’
I’m shocked when Ryan begins to growl and convulse like a wounded animal, twitching uncontrollably, his facial muscles spasming and contorting, eyes rolling back in their sockets. I know what I am seeing: two sentient beings fighting for control of one body.
‘Tell me,’ Shamshiel screams from Ryan’s mouth as Ryan’s will and body fight him terribly.
I can feel my options narrowing. Soon there will be none that will not end in the death of one of us; I feel it like a train bearing down upon me at speed.
I beckon the beast inside Ryan towards me, weakly, as if I am mortally wounded. The demon bends until he is looking into my face, and it takes everything in my power not to turn my head away, to retch in horror. For Ryan’s human skin seethes with such violence and power that my own soul crawls with disgust.
So fast that Shamshiel does not catch the movement, I plunge my right hand into Ryan’s chest, my fingers dissolving instantly like mist.
Ryan roars in a terrible, mortal agony, twists and struggles, but I do not let him pull away. I draw him closer with every ounce of my will, searching desperately for some flaw, some thread that will lead me to where Shamshiel is anchored like a parasite, hooked in so deep that he cannot be shaken out by any means.
But Ryan is no stone angel, just a creature knit of flesh and blood and bone. His body begins to burn, and I know that I am slowly killing him.
‘Aaaaaaaah,’ he cries in agony, attacked from within and without by fire.
Then something seems to move past my questing will — quick and sinuous, like a serpent escaping — and in the instant that it touches me again, I roar in a voice like sounding brass: ‘Ejicie eum!’ Cast him out!
Shamshiel explodes backwards out of Ryan’s body, shrieking in rage.
I pull back from Ryan and my right hand rematerialises. I hug it to my chest, weeping tears of fire and contrition as Ryan falls to the ground beside me, clawing at his neck, his torso, trying to put out the flames that are nowhere except inside him.
He badly needs my help, but Shamshiel puts a foot on my left hand before I can reach over with my right to pull his blade out of my pinned wrist.
‘Eloah,’ he growls, ‘for that is what you must be, though the strangest I have ever come across. You look and behave like one of them, like a creature of clay. But only the elohim have the power to cast out demons in this manner, and Lucifer wants you all. You are to be collected like pretty butterflies and brought to him to be dealt with.’ He indicates Ryan with disgust. ‘But this one dies. I tire of the game that cost Jetrel his life; it ends now.’
Ryan gasps and shudders beside me on the ground, curled over in mortal agony, unable to talk, unable to move, his eyes wide with fear and pain.
Shamshiel’s remaining sword blazes into life in his hand and I weep harder, tears falling from my eyes like diamonds, as I beg, ‘Take me, but spare him. Leave him. Let him live.’
The demon looks into my face from his great height and hisses, ‘Die now, die later, it matters not. For soon they all die. From Panama to Mexico, Iceland to Iran, Kamchatka to Sumatra, we will remake the world, its oceans, its climate — for we move at long last. It is only the first step in what is coming, what Lucifer promised us. Soon we will be free of this wilderness, our prison. We shall etch our contempt upon its very bones, upon its face, so that God himself may see what we have written there, then quit it forever.’
Shamshiel wraps his two great hands around the hilt of his short sword and raises it above Ryan’s prone and twitching body where it lies beside me. Weeping uncontrollably, I see the great muscles of Shamshiel’s shoulders bunch, his face contort, as he readies himself to administer the killing blow, while I watch, unable to move, to do anything.
Then time seems to speed up and slow down all at once.
I see a thin line of blue fire appear like holy writing across the front of Shamshiel’s throat, see his eyes fly wide. Hear the howl of indescribable anguish that climbs and climbs into the heavens, only to be lost in a shattering roar of heat and light.
Then Shamshiel is gone; and the fog with him.
As I lie pinned to the ground by the blazing weapon of a dead monster, I see four winged giants standing above me, bathed in a light that comes solely from within.
Then I close my eyes and am lost, for a time.
21
It’s Ryan who pulls Shamshiel’s blade from my wrist, Ryan who shakes my shoulders and calls my name and holds me close; Ryan, whole and healed and himself again.
I breathe in the familiar warm, male, human scent of him and cannot help murmuring, ‘Jubilate Deo.’
‘Well said,’ a familiar voice replies softly, ‘well said.’
For a disorientating moment, I open my eyes and look into my own face, my true face, not the false one I’m wearing now. Then I fathom groggily that it is Uriel who smiles down at me, in his customary form, the tail feathers of his great wings trailing upon the stone at his feet, his right hand resting upon the hilt of the great sword that cut Shamshiel down.
My eyes move slowly to the winged Titan standing beside him, also wreathed in glory, and I see that it is silver-eyed, auburn-haired Jeremiel, who says now, in a voice like exaltation, that makes me shiver to hear it, ‘Mercy, well met. It has been far too long, sister.’
Beside him stands dark-eyed, dark-haired Barachiel, whose province is lightning. It seems to play within the folds of his shining raiment, the long, sleek feathers of his luminous wings, as he growls at me the way he always used to, ‘Here’s strife.’ But today he’s smiling, and I find myself smiling back.
When I look to the last of them, I start to weep again. I can’t contain my tears: they spill down my cheeks and down through the fingers that cover my mouth in horror. For his gleaming, sleeveless raiment is rent and despoiled; his wing feathers are broken and torn; the surface of his alabaster skin is marked by signs of terrible torture, by wounds that continually bleed light into the air.
‘Gabriel!’ I cry, and he bends and takes my hands in his, his flaming hair falling over his pale brow into his pain-clouded emerald eyes. He sweeps it back impatiently, then pulls me close against him.
‘Never weep for me, marvellous creature,’ he says softly, pulling back and looking into my face for a long while. ‘When you and I are together now, there should be only joy. Enough death and pain and evil has marked the time you were lost to us. No more tears, Mercy, I beg you. I am well enough, whole enough.’
But his laughter has a catch in it, as if it hurts him to laugh.
As I smooth my thumbs across the wounds on the backs of Gabriel’s great hands, I startle such a strange expression upon Ryan’s face. Awe, wonder, jealousy: I see a little of them all there, the greatest
being jealousy.
‘These are my brothers,’ I say quietly, with emphasis, with pride, as Gabriel releases me and rises painfully to stand beside Barachiel.
‘No more, no less.’ Jeremiel addresses Ryan almost reprovingly. ‘For if we had not meant you well, you would not now be restored.’
Gabriel makes a stilling gesture in Jeremiel’s direction and looks down into Ryan’s face. ‘We have no words to express our gratitude, our elation, that she is returned to us. You did as Michael asked: you kept her alive in your chaotic, frightening world. Restoring you to health goes no way towards repaying your care of her.’
‘What of Michael?’ Uriel asks, turning to the others, his wings dissolving into ether. At the same moment, Jeremiel and Barachiel also relax their guard and their wings melt away into the chill air.
‘Yes, what news?’ Gabriel adds, flexing his own giant wings stiffly for a moment. The torn feathers catch the weak sunlight, seem to hold it, magnify it momentarily, before they also shred apart.
‘Luc’s forces gather in Panama,’ Barachiel replies. ‘They have some vague, self-important intention of bringing the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans together. I had it from Semyaza himself before he inconveniently died. If Luc is there, then Michael and Raphael will not be far off. They are too valuable to Luc, he would want them close.’
‘Luc did promise Michael an exceptional form of vengeance,’ I remind the others quietly, flexing my scored left wrist that still burns with pain from Shamshiel’s blade. ‘This might be what he intended. Destroying a nation. Creating a new climate, a new world order. He was always ambitious.’
The four turn and refocus their eyes upon Ryan where he kneels beside me on the ground.
‘Then it is time to see him home, Mercy,’ Uriel says quietly. ‘It cannot be further delayed. While we hold Luc’s attention, get him home. Get yourself home. There is no other way. I’m sorry.’
I feel my eyes brim again with tears and am appalled at my weakness.
‘Why?’ Ryan says bravely, violently, and I see Barachiel frown. ‘Why must she always sacrifice her own happiness for others? Hasn’t she done enough? Can’t you keep that monstrous bastard away from her for good? You put him here in the first place — take him back, or finish him off. We don’t want him, either. You’re, like, the most powerful angels in the universe. Do something.’