by Jane Lebak
“There’s something about the Lake of Fire that prevents angels from healing well here.” Raphael shook his head. “We have to move him.”
Raphael wished he had Ophaniel nearby so he could think, or that Gabriel could level the spikes in his thought. Gabriel always came up with something like, “Don’t waste time trying to make reality fit what you want. Look at what’s really there.”
I don’t want to look at what’s really here. I just want you back. Oh, God, help me to think.
Raphael focused on Remiel. “Can you form a spherical Guard around him and raise the whole thing?”
Remiel did, trying to catch as little of the sand and pebbles as possible. “Now,” Raphael said, dropping two sets of his wings and laying them out, “lower him again,” and she did. Then Raphael folded his discarded wings over Gabriel, wincing as he crinkled like charcoal after the campfire had burnt out.
Zadkiel had left. Michael had Jesus. Remiel glinted gold, so he turned back to her, the only one capable of doing anything.
She looked blank, but a focused blank, as if she knew he needed her and not her grief. “Where should I take him?”
Jesus said, “Bring him to the room where I’m staying.”
A moment later, the angels had flashed there. “Put him in my bed,” Jesus added.
“You don’t have to.” Raphael realized only now how hard he was shaking. He dropped to his knees, putting his hands over his face. He couldn’t keep speaking: it wasn’t as if Gabriel could feel anything, not in this state. So Jesus might as well sleep in a bed tonight.
There were hands on his shoulders, and he extended his heart to feel Ophaniel beside him, and also Israfel. She was crying angelically, shedding all her emotions without giving them any direction. Ophaniel was trying to keep both of them calm at the same time, but how could he?
Remiel unwound Raphael’s wings from Gabriel, and then she shed light on the room so they could examine him.
He was charred. Even though they’d been gentle, the cloth bore a layer of ash in his outline.
Jesus said, “Can you heal him?”
Raphael knelt, running his hands over the air near Gabriel but not touching him. “God, how could you let them do this to him?” he whispered. “This isn’t right. It should have been me. He was only trying to protect the family, and that was my job.”
Jesus rested a hand on Raphael’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. He’s with you, and you can help him better than anyone.”
“Not this!” Raphael jumped to his feet, standing with Gabriel between his legs. “There’s really not a whole heck of a lot I can do about this level of damage! They set him on fire! They chained him up and set him on fire, and you think I can just make all that go away? Gabriel never forgets anything! How would you like to remember that?”
Jesus backed up a step. “Is he in pain right now?”
“He’s unconscious.” Remiel sat where they thought Gabriel’s head might be. “He can’t feel anything at all.”
Michael said, “I’m surprised he isn’t cindered.”
“This damage was calculated.” Raphael had flames around his eyes. “At this point, two fireflies lighting up at the same time would push him over the edge. They must have done this over a period of days, getting him right to the edge of cindering without triggering it.”
Remiel looked up, her face pale. “We’re going to have to finish the job.”
“Satan is such a monster,” Raphael said. “He knew we’d have to do that. There isn’t a hell hot enough for him!”
Jesus said, “Raphael, stop!”
Raphael pulled his wings tight around himself. Ophaniel coaxed him to sit, then laid his wings over Raphael’s shoulders.
Jesus said, “What is cindering? Why can’t you just heal him?”
Beginning to explain, Raphael choked.
Ophaniel rubbed Raphael’s arm. “You know that angels can heal from any injury. But it’s not instantaneous, and greater damage requires greater time.. A recovery from damage like this might take a couple of months.”
“Months?” Jesus’s eyes opened wide.
Ophaniel said, “But if an angel gets completely burnt up, that’s being cindered. An angelic body will simply regenerate after that. It takes about a day because the whole form is constituting anew, not trying to repair.”
Raphael tightened his wings. How could they be talking like this, like an explanation of how many cubits to build some object or what ingredients go into a stew? This was Gabriel. Gabriel, like this.
Michael said, “The problem is, he’s on the verge of cindered. We’re going to have to burn him the rest of the way to enable him to regenerate.”
Jesus had tears in his eyes. “Does it hurt? You said he’s unconscious.”
Ophaniel kept his arms and wings around Raphael. “If he took a couple of months to heal, he’d feel weak most of that time, and it would be uncomfortable.”
Raphael closed his eyes. And he might spend all that time thinking about what it was like to be set on fire. Repeatedly. Without any help from me.
Michael said, “Regenerating is uncomfortable too. Mostly it’s itchy, but it’s a helpless feeling. And there’s also the matter that one of us would be forced to burn him.”
Raphael shuddered. “I can’t do it.”
Drawing a breath, Remiel extended her hand.
“Wait.” Jesus put his hand on hers. “Is there anything I can do?”
Raphael pushed off Ophaniel’s wings and leaned closer to Jesus. Both of them shouldn’t be harmed because of this, because of his inability to do his own job. “It’s not your hour yet. Don’t force yourself. You’ve never done anything like this before.”
Jesus said, “He’s not hurting, so there’s no need to act immediately. Can’t I have a few minutes?”
Jesus reached toward Gabriel, and Raphael grabbed back his hand.
“I need to touch him.” Jesus wrapped his hand around Raphael’s and squeezed. “I can’t just reach through my mind the way you can.”
Raphael didn’t draw back.
“I’ll be gentle,” Jesus said, and only then did Raphael release him.
Jesus touched Gabriel so softly that nothing more broke loose. The boy closed his eyes, and Raphael experienced an odd assortment of images, a sense of Gabriel’s soul (which made him smile despite the horror) and also a fleeting feeling of how angels were put together, the depth of the damage, the last thing Gabriel remembered (and here Raphael couldn’t help but cry out.) Raphael gradually became aware that Ophaniel had a grip on his shoulders, that Israfel watched with her black eyes agleam, and that Michael and Remiel looked worried.
“Oh,” Jesus murmured. “Feel this.”
Raphael reached into Jesus’s mind to sense what Jesus was focusing on.
“This is what’s keeping him asleep.”
“Don’t wake him up,” Raphael urged.
“I won’t. But that’s the mechanism.”
Raphael stayed in his mind as he explored other parts of Gabriel’s construction.
Jesus shook his head. “I don’t know, Raphael. But it feels as if…” He looked up. “The Father gave me authority over you.” When Raphael nodded, he continued, “I’m trying to do this the way you would. But maybe I can do it my own way.”
Raphael gestured to Gabriel, as if to say Go ahead.
Jesus braced his hands on the floor and whispered into Gabriel’s ear, or where they thought his ear might be. “Gabriel-love, stay asleep, but be whole.”
Unable to hope, Raphael remained frozen.
Remiel gasped, and Israfel covered her mouth with her hands.
Some of the black flaked off Gabriel, and beneath it Raphael saw soft grey feathers, unburnt.
Michael whispered, “Oh God, my God…”
Jesus brushed his fingertips over Gabriel’s arm, now recognizable as an arm, and the soot came away. There was an angelic body beneath.
Raphael ran his hands over Gabriel, feeling him knit as if h
e’d never been injured. His soul ignited and he started scouring Gabriel all over to loosen the remains of the ash, unclenching the tight limbs, checking for hidden injuries. There were none.
Jesus sounded cheerful. “Can we awaken him now?”
Raphael assented.
Jesus released that inner mechanism. “Gabriel, be awake.”
And with that, Gabriel opened his eyes. He sat up in the center of the angels.
Raphael and Israfel hurled themselves at him, hugging him from both sides at once. Gabriel startled, then, looked around at the others, and saw their relief, felt their awe. He turned to Jesus, who wore a huge grin.
“Are you hurting?” Israfel asked. “Were you in any pain?”
“Only for about three seconds,” Gabriel said as the Seraphim released him.
Raphael exclaimed, “They did it all at once?”
Gabriel nodded. “Satan. He surrounded me with a Guard and fired into it. I’ve got to figure out that technique.” He looked from Raphael to Israfel. “Did you burn me out?”
Raphael gestured to Jesus. “He healed you.”
Gabriel turned to the boy, eyes wide.
Jesus took Gabriel’s hands and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be so surprised. You were going to heal anyhow, so it wasn’t a miracle. I just upped the timetable.”
Gabriel examined himself, and Raphael felt no echo of the damage, no residual signature of Jesus’s healing power. Gabriel shifted so he was on his knees. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and he bowed his head.
Jesus laughed aloud, then put both hands on Gabriel’s hair and kissed his forehead. “You’re welcome.”
Gabriel’s eyes clouded. “I made an awful mistake. They figured out the deception, and it’s my fault.” He lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I reacted.”
Jesus shook his head. “You did all that work for twelve years, and I appreciate it. Don’t you realize what you gave me?” He touched Gabriel’s hand. “By protecting me the way you all did, by pretending you had loyalty to my mother but not to me, you gave me a childhood. You gave me time to grow up without being under a cloud of terrorism. That’s all I could have asked of you.”
Gabriel’s downcast eyes focused only on his lap.
Jesus made him look up, then gave him a hug. “I’m so glad we found you, and that you’re all right. The rest is incidental.”
#
Late that night, Raphael lay on the floor alongside Jesus’s bed, one hand resting on Jesus’s hand, his wings up on the low mattress so they draped over Jesus’s legs. Gabriel sat against the wall, eyes closed, and Raphael relaxed just being near him after so long.
They were bonded right now about as deeply as they could be, not consciously drawing fire or steel from one another as much as swirled together so they felt like one soul. Gabriel’s prayer resonated in Raphael’s heart while Raphael augmented it with his native fervor; meanwhile Raphael’s thoughts permeated Gabriel even as Gabriel’s innate calm focused them and gave them clarity; and yet somehow despite all that, they were still individuals.
Michael sat at the window, looking onto the street. His sword was sheathed, but he remained armored.
Raphael let Michael take the brunt of the watching. With his bonded Cherub on one side and his bonded charge on the other and God sparkling in his soul, he really couldn’t imagine being happier.
Gabriel put the image in Raphael’s head: they could also be eating ice cream.
Raphael laughed.
Jesus propped himself up on his arms. “Gabriel, I want to ask you a question,” he murmured.
Gabriel said, “I think you need to be sleeping.”
Jesus said, “Why are there so many of you?”
Gabriel withdraw from Raphael’s soul, and Raphael sat away as Gabriel radiated tension.
“When I healed you, it wasn’t just you the way I see you here. I also sensed this.” He opened his hands the way Gabriel did when they learned math, and he created a picture of Gabriel from long ago, with sharper eyes. “And I picked up this one too, and also this.” The second and third figures were Gabriel in a human form and then Gabriel female.
Gabriel had a level tone. “I’ve been all those.”
Jesus frowned. “But Raphael doesn’t feel that way to me. Michael doesn’t have a lineup like that in his heart.”
Michael watched from the window, curious. “I would bet you get two images off me.”
“The one you are and the one you are when you’re working for the Father?” Jesus shook his head “They’re close enough that I’d call them one and the same.”
Gabriel said, “There’s only one Raphael, and there always ever will be. He’s perfect as he is. But do you see this one too?”
Between his hands, Gabriel created a light-sculpture of an Cherub in black armor, his grey wings tucked at his back, helmeted, gauntleted, sworded, and an expression on his face between arrogance and loathing.
Jesus slipped off the side of the bed, and he touched Gabriel’s forehead. “That exists only here. And in Satan’s desires.”
Gabriel wasn’t even looking at the figure, as if he couldn’t.
Raphael shuddered, nauseated. “Is that—you?”
Gabriel refused to meet Raphael’s eyes.
Raphael insisted, “You didn’t fall. You would never fall.”
Michael said, “Satan showed him that in a dream.”
“I thought angels don’t dream.” Jesus looked over his row of images. “Oh, the second one. He dreamed it.” He passed his hand through the space between Gabriel’s fingers, and the image broke apart. “You can let go of that one. You won’t ever exist as him.”
Relief engulfed Raphael, relief from outside himself. Gabriel was taking deep breaths.
Jesus said, “The second one: why were you him, with his sad eyes?”
Gabriel trembled, and Raphael tried to head off the inevitable even as his own heart burned. “But that isn’t Gabriel now. Gabriel now isn’t sad.”
“That’s true,” Jesus said. “But I have another question if what I’m thinking is right.”
Gabriel avoided looking at Raphael. “Then the answer is, God took away the Vision, and I left heaven for a year.”
Jesus said, “What did you do?”
Gabriel said, “I survived. I waited a year, and then I came back.”
Raphael touched Gabriel’s hand because the Cherub felt so cold inside. “You did more than that.”
Gabriel physically withdrew from him, not just emotionally, and Raphael flinched.
Jesus said, “I meant what did you do to deserve that?”
Gabriel looked at his lap. “I disobeyed a direct order, but that was just the excuse. Figure number one was stubborn. He needed to be turned into me, which I guess would be figure zero in your lineup.”
Raphael tried to kindle his fire within Gabriel, but Gabriel recoiled as if touched by ice, so the Seraph backed off.
Jesus said, “What was it like?”
Gabriel glanced at Raphael, fear flitting over his eyes. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m afraid I might lose it too.” Jesus wrapped his hands in his blanket. “It’s too wonderful to be in communion with the Father all the time, and I might get it taken away. I’m only me. And the Father is so big, but I can feel I’m somehow that big too, and it doesn’t fit. I’m afraid I might lose that beauty.”
Gabriel wouldn’t look at Raphael. “You’re still in a season of learning, which is as you should be. You’ve done everything you have to.”
Gabriel send through the bond permission to leave if Raphael didn’t want to hear this conversation. Raphael tensed but didn’t go.
Jesus said, “How did it feel?”
Staring at his lap, Gabriel said, “I wanted to die.”
The words sliced through Raphael’s heart like a scythe. He’d failed him. He’d failed his Cherub.
Michael said, “Really?”
Eyes hollow, Gabriel made no respon
se.
Michael sounded stunned. “You didn’t seem that hard-hit. I wouldn’t have let you walk away.” Michael crossed the room so he sat right in front of Gabriel. “If I’d realized, I would never have left you alone afterward.”
Jesus said, “What had you refused to learn?”
Gabriel stood. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” And he left.
Flames surged in Raphael’s heart. “You left him alone?”
Michael recoiled. “I brought him back with me, but then he left again. He told me it would be better that way. I couldn’t tie him up for a year and make him stay, and I thought he knew what was the right thing because he’d always known before. So I let him go. I didn’t know him well enough to figure it out.”
The unspoken sentence was, of course, I couldn’t ask you.
Raphael’s wings shook. “That’s not right! He needed you! I was counting on you to help him, and you walked away?”
Michael looked grief-stricken, for all the good that did six centuries later. “He wasn’t crying. I figured no tears, no danger.”
“But later, when his strength wore down?”
“He didn’t cry for six months! After a couple of weeks, I had to believe he was coping.”
“Six months?” Raphael advanced on Michael, who went pale. “You let him suffer for six months?”
Jesus put a hand on Raphael’s shoulder, and the Seraph forced himself to rein in the anger.
Jesus said, “Gabriel, come back.”
Gabriel returned instantly, but on the opposite side of the room. A moment later, Raphael felt him sending reassurance: he held no anger against him, and he wished Raphael wouldn’t either. With a deep breath, Raphael lowered his eyes and let out a long breath. And then in the next moment he wondered whom Gabriel thought he was angry at.
Jesus looked right at Gabriel. “I could order you to answer me.”
Gabriel stared through the floor. “I would answer if you did.”
Jesus studied him a long moment. Then he said, “Leave if you want.”
Gabriel vanished again.
Jesus looked at Raphael. “He didn’t go far.”
“Only onto the roof,” Raphael said. “He also wants to be near us.”
Jesus frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”