by Jane Lebak
In a hundred years, Remiel wouldn’t herself have tried scanning outward to detect and count guards who were themselves scanning out to detect intruders. For a Seeker, though, it might be possible, and Zadkiel was one of the best. She rested a hand on the ice. A half-dozen. One of them… Zadkiel yanked back her hand and whispered, “Asmodeus.”
Remiel grimaced. Asmodeus was one of the Maskim, a Seraph second in power only to Satan. And his involvement pretty much guaranteed the participation of another member of the Maskim: Belior, Asmodeus’s bonded Cherub.
Zadkiel frowned at her. We should bring Michael.
Not yet. He needs more information than we’ve got. Remiel considered the ice chamber. Are there any other exits?
Zadkiel pressed against the floor with her eyes shut, then spread her wings. Remiel stood over her, shivering. This position was entirely indefensible.
It took minutes, minutes during which Remiel’s wings numbed over from the cold. Then Zadkiel edged toward the opposite corner, put her hand to the ice, and started producing heat.
Remiel clenched her sword hilt. Keep doing this and they were sure to attract demonic attention.
When Zadkiel pulled back her hand, she’d left a palm-sized impression in the ice, as deep as her hand. Beneath that was a fissure in the ice wall.
“Perfect,” Remiel whispered.
Zadkiel dissolved her subtle body, making it completely incorporeal. Without any form, she was able to flow down the crack in the wall, pausing just inside. Remiel took a deep breath and then she herself returned to her fully angelic form, losing her pseudo-body’s shape and existing as a pure spirit. She attached her attention to Zadkiel, who drew her into the fissure. Before penetrating further, Remiel paused and created heat, melting and smoothing the area of ice Zadkiel had just cleared. Now they were sealed in.
Pulling Remiel along, Zadkiel descended, creeping like water in a steady drip through stone. No, not merely like water. They were water. The two of them were free-flowing energy, etchers of stone and makers of caverns. They were motion and they were slipperiness. And then they were free.
Zadkiel let go, and Remiel found herself in a niche just outside a larger cavern. And there, two wingspans in front of her, stood Asmodeus.
Chapter Two
Asmodeus wasn’t paying attention to them, fortunately. His fury was focused entirely on the Cherub before him, shorter and decidedly nervous. Low-level demon soldiers ringed the room, but instead of guarding the location, they were watching their commanding officer. Bad form. When Remiel guarded someone, she looked everywhere but at that individual.
“This isn’t going anywhere near fast enough,” Asmodeus was telling the Cherub. “I don’t care what Belior said to you. We need this finished soon.”
“Foreshortening procedure leads to preventable mistakes.” The Cherub, for herself, didn’t seem fully engaged in the conversation, something Remiel found both impressive and incomprehensible. If this was who she thought it was, then Asmodeus had a primary bond with her. He might be filling her soul with fire right now, and no one else would know it. The Cherub (what was her name?) only said, “We have very little material to work with, so I need to be sure before I commit.”
“That’s not my fault.”
The Cherub narrowed her eyes, still not looking at him. “There’s no reason for your defensive response. I’m only stating that given the scarcity of working material, our situation warrants caution. You can infer from that whatever you like. You could also,” she added, “send additional units to scour for raw materials.”
“We can’t get caught.” Asmodeus folded his arms, and his eyes burned. “I thought you were better than this.”
“Given the importance of this project both to you and to Belior,” said the Cherub, “I need to be better than better-than-this. Your harassment doesn’t improve my ability to function.”
She turned to him at last, and she extended a hand. Remiel could detect nothing, but she knew what was happening because she’d seen it often enough between Gabriel and Raphael: the Cherub was drawing off the Seraph’s fire. It would energize her, and at the same time, she’d flood Asmodeus with Cherubic calm. It took a moment, but the flames licking around Asmodeus’s wings lowered, then winked out. The Cherub’s eyes brightened correspondingly. “I want Belior to succeed. There is nothing I want more. You know that.”
Beside Remiel, Zadkiel leaned forward. Remiel followed her focus toward the work area. Oh, for five minutes to explore those containers, the notes, the implements. Not even five. Just get enough of a glimpse so she could report back to Michael. Why did they say they didn’t have enough material? What material could they be talking about?
Demons didn’t like matter, but they also didn’t hesitate to use it when it suited their purposes. The Psalms said God saved His children’s tears in a bottle, but that was just a metaphor: Remiel sometimes joked about endless storage rooms filled with oceans of tears separated in thin glass tubes, each labeled and dated. What if the demons were capturing something like that? The blood of the martyrs, for example, since the Roman Empire whipped or even crucified the Christians far too often. Maybe the material was bits of the Holy Bread the Christians used whenever they renewed the New Covenant during their worship.
Well, whatever material they were talking about, they’d been harvesting it without detection, but it was limited.
And it was, apparently, weaponizable.
Remiel steadied herself. Okay, so based on this conversation, Belior was the chief driver of the plot. Asmodeus wasn’t saying Satan wanted this done, so that left one delicious scenario. And boy, was this a good one.
Twenty years ago, right after the Resurrection, Satan had demoted Asmodeus and Belior within the Maskim. Although they’d been his top advisors, after everything went down, they’d been put in command of Hell’s army instead. And here they were now, were making this weapon in secret, so it must be meant as a gift to Satan. A really amazing gift that would raise their standing and win back that top position. This Cherub what’s-her-name must be helping because as Asmodeus’s primary, she’d benefit too.
So: highly motivated demons, keeping to something like a timetable, and experimenting with very limited resources. Based on the low number of guards, they were working in extreme secrecy but didn’t fear immediate detection. And given the setup, the demons were unable to move everything on a moment’s notice.
Well, this could get fun in a hurry. In fact, she had something of a duty to make sure it did.
Remiel squeezed Zadkiel’s hand. Zadkiel met her eyes, and she stared her down.
Zadkiel looked unnerved. But even though neither angel had projected anything, Remiel knew she’d understood. Zadkiel would stay put.
Remiel slipped back up the crevice, maneuvering through the walls with the gentleness of an air current until she unsealed the fissure and slipped back into that first small shelter.
Remiel reached for the Holy Spirit. He responded, though faint. Hell didn’t want Him here, and God obeyed the laws He’d set for His own creation.
Well, here we go. Sword drawn, she shot down the hidden entrance tunnel toward the cavern.
A demon guard collared her the instant she burst inside, but she slashed him and then detonated with light and heat.
And Zadkiel, Zadkiel who was cautious and brave and so perceptive, Zadkiel stayed hidden. Exactly as she was supposed to.
All five guards rushed after Remiel, but she blew them back. And then she did the dumbest thing she could think of: she charged the work table.
Asmodeus exploded toward her, fire blowing out like projectile vomit. With a shriek, the Cherub encased the work area within a Guard (perfect) and now Asmodeus discharged even more energy at Remiel without fear of harming their work. Remiel fled back toward the wall, and he pursued. The soldiers blocked the entrance, but they hadn’t cast a Guard over the whole cavern yet, so she flashed out into the sleet and wind.
Asmodeus followed, and once out
side, he called for backup. Again, perfect.
Remiel streaked through Hell, streaming light as she flew. She hurled her sword back at Asmodeus, and it didn’t even slow him down. She flashed through multiple spots in the interior of Hell, reappearing in the labs, over the Lake of Fire, in the upper levels, and finally in the entry portal, the only means in and out of Hell.
Asmodeus had filled it with soldiers. With a shout, Remiel emitted a flare of light, then summoned another sword from the fabric of her soul. As a battalion of archers loosed flaming arrows, she gathered herself and flashed out into Creation.
Asmodeus was after her—him and a hundred soldiers—so she fled, pushing as hard as she could. She tucked her head, but something slammed into her back, driving her into the side of a mountain and sending a shower of snow up.
She looked up to find Asmodeus glowing like a super nova, his sword flying toward her neck. She rolled sideways, and he nicked her wing. Again she flashed away, reappearing over a tropical forest. This time Asmodeus reappeared with Belior at his side to fill him with Cherub energy, energy Asmodeus released like a lightning blast.
Remiel tucked into a ball and dropped, flashing out of Creation just as his soul’s energy shot through where she’d been.
And then in the next moment, she flashed right up to Heaven’s gates and barreled through to the other side, landing on her shoulder and rolling up onto her knees, laughing.
Asmodeus slammed against the gate but couldn’t get in.
She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Nice try, loser.”
Archangel guards clustered around her as Asmodeus discharged a blast of flame at the gates, but nothing got through. Remiel grinned.
Belior joined him, startled, maybe even frightened.
“What’s the matter?” Remiel got to her feet and dusted off. “Someone got into your super-secret club house?”
Belior shot a look at Asmodeus and must have been asking what she’d discovered, so she stepped closer to the gates. “You had all those little toys and your toy soldiers to go with them. You’re so cute.”
Remiel ignored the flood of invective from the Seraph and watched the Cherub. Come on, Belior, give me a clue. But Belior only put his hand on Asmodeus, who whirled on him and stared him down, and in return Belior fixed him with an equally stony stare.
The Archangel Michael appeared at Remiel’s side, so she faced him. “Situation under control.” Remiel chuckled. “These two built a snow-fort. Nothing to see here.”
At her back, both demons vanished.
Michael was projecting five flavors of surprise and shock. “Where’s Zadkiel?”
“Safe.” Remiel backed up her words with a projection of reassurance and mischief. “She’s the one doing the real work.”
From her hiding spot, Zadkiel listened as the demons attempted to batten down the chaos Remiel had created. She’s good at that, Zadkiel prayed, but I’m not sure this was really the best way to get the answers we need. Because in the next moments, the remaining demons, including the Cherub Satrinah, were sure to search the room.
Zadkiel hid herself more thoroughly than before. First she dissociated, and then in her pure spirit form, she released all her thoughts. Every attachment to here and now, including her worries, had to dissolve in order to escape the intensive scans.
So before Satrinah even ordered the soldiers to search the cavern, Zadkiel went deep into herself and brought up the memory of wine. Cana. Jesus at a wedding with her invisible at his side. The simplest of instructions with no light show and no magic words. Just: fill this jar; bring this to the steward; his mother’s gentle, Do whatever he tells you. The fabric of a miracle looking like everyday canvas.
That was when Zadkiel had offered a trade, and in exchange for something she’d never needed anyhow, he gave her a cup of that wine. I want to know what it tastes like when my Lord says ‘wine,’ she’d said to him. She’d turned her subtle body into a human body, and he’d given her a chalice filled to the top. She’d drunk that cup to the very bottom not for the taste nor the detached feeling alcohol gave a human body, but for the truth it contained.
Afterward Jesus had given her the ability to recreate that taste whenever she wanted, and she did it now. Wine. It had been the unknown hint of a covenant about to be born in a later cup of its own, and she’d tasted it that first day. She alone of all the angels, Zadkiel, not even one of the great ones.
Zadkiel prayed with the memory, dismissed herself in her hiding spot and became nothing more than the truth of what she’d tasted two decades earlier. And there she remained, unaware of the bustle and undetected by the demons.
When at last she returned to herself (a gradual return, so gradual lest she trigger their notice) she became aware of two tense voices: Satrinah and Belior.
“They suffered no disruption,” Satrinah was saying. “I cast a Guard over the work area immediately in order to maintain the process’s stability because it stood to reason he’d flame her without consideration for the potential damage.”
Belior huffed. “No, that would never occur to him, even after some of the material destabilized and disappeared. But are you certain we can’t move them?”
Tentative, Zadkiel extended her senses until they encountered a bristling anger at her back: the area now bore a strong Guard, whereas before there had been none. Until Remiel had blown in, therefore, their chief fear must have been discovery by Satan rather than discovery by the angels, and setting a Guard might have attracted attention. Interesting.
Satrinah didn’t answer right away, moving about the work area with a rustle of feathers, leaning in, touching the table, focusing closely on the work. “You should reassess my calculations to be certain, but I would prefer not to transport. Stability is the greatest concern. The losses aren’t considerable, but given our lack of materials, we need to account for replaceability.”
Belior said, “Then we need to prevent her from getting back in. She may not even try. Her sanity is never entirely to be taken for granted.”
He called one of the soldiers and gave instructions. The bits Zadkiel caught told her the demons were going to seal off the cavern by destroying the entrance.
Entombing themselves, in other words. With that Guard up, no one would be able to get in or out without their explicit permission, and the Cherubim would be aware of any attempt.
That done, the Cherubim returned their full attention to the project at hand. On the plus side, they felt secure: they’d scoured the room and now no one could get in. Whatever Remiel had done after leaving, she’d managed to convince them her objective was creating chaos rather than a targeted search for a weapon under development. On the minus side, they spoke in voices low enough that Zadkiel had no chance of overhearing a thing.
But they’re Cherubim, she prayed. Fallen Cherubim, but still.
So as long as the problem of moving their experiment-in-progress absorbed them, Zadkiel was able to move about the room with more freedom. Still cautious, she nevertheless was able to slip through the corners, slide like a thought around the peripheries, and get closer to the work station.
Whatever they had there, it felt dreadful. The Cherubim regarded it with disgust, and as if it were a living thing, it behaved with repulsion toward them as well. What was it? She couldn’t sense any kind of energy signature, but at the same time, the Cherubim handled it as though it contained power.
They weren’t dealing with a sigil. It wasn’t material imbued with human feeling. It wasn’t ensouled. But it was something that, according to them, they occasionally had less of.
She couldn’t even gather from the Cherubim’s conversation what they’d designed the weapon to do. She’d heard Gabriel get like this before, of course, wrapped up so much in one tiny detail of a problem that he overlooked the chief purpose of the project. If he were part of a construction team, he’d be the one working so hard on a latch that when he finally solved the problem of securing the entrance, he’d be shocked to remember the door
was part of a house, and the rest of the house had been built around him. Microfocus was like a Cherub disease. These two needed a Seraph.
Or rather, I’m glad they don’t have one around, Zadkiel prayed. Let them take longer. I’m not going to object.
Deep inside, she felt the Holy Spirit chuckle.
Who’s the target of this thing? With a weapon, you wanted to know that first. Something to kill a human? Microbes, maybe? A weaponized disease could in theory wipe out the human race. Demons tended to warp rather than kill, though, even when they had permission. You couldn’t destroy a soul, human or angelic, because souls were immortal. The demons struck greater victories not by killing human bodies but by having the humans strangle off God’s life in their own souls.
Maybe the pair were forging something to damage the Earth. The universe had no shortage of materials capable of that, though. Matter was matter. To experiment like this, they must think they had a means of destroying the planet permanently, or maybe just the Holy Land. Gabriel had talked once about unstable elements, and how they were perforce rare.
Oh, that made sense. Satrinah had emphasized stability. That must be what the Cherubim were using.
Zadkiel withdrew on herself and again recalled the taste of wine. Then, steadied, she considered her options. Remiel’s escape meant Michael by now knew as much as she did, and therefore help would come at some point. Zadkiel could wait. She’d have to remain undiscovered, but that wouldn’t be a problem.
If she were correct, the weapon itself would be of no use on the spiritual plane, and for now the demons had it sealed up away from Creation. Zadkiel couldn’t leave, but as long as the demons didn’t realize they had an intruder, she had an advantage.
So which demon was projecting the Guard? She doubted it was Belior, given his focus. It might be Satrinah, but most likely it emanated from the only two remaining soldiers, either one or both. Satan or Michael might cast a wide net searching for Satrinah or Belior’s signatures, but no one would know to search for two anonymous soldier demons who probably even Satan wouldn’t recognize.