An Arrow In Flight (Seven Archangels Book 1)

by Jane Lebak

  Raphael backed out of the conversation at that point, drawing Edna aside to ask a pointless question about the house.

  By the time dinner was ready, Raphael could see how Sarah and Tobias were hanging on each other's every word, but she kept biting her lip. What had happened to seven might also happen to eight.

  Tobias pulled him aside on their way into the dining room. "Azariah," Tobias said, clutching at Raphael's sleeve, "remember what you said on the road? Ask Raguel to let me marry her."

  Sarah's father, overhearing, looked abruptly scared. Raphael nudged the boy toward him.

  Grim, Raguel put an arm around Tobias' shoulders and escorted him a distance away from the party. Tobias shot him a glance, and Raphael followed.

  Raguel said, "Eat, drink, and be merry tonight, for tomorrow— for no one is more entitled to marry Sarah. Even I don't have the right to give her to anyone but you." Raguel shook his head. "But I have to explain the situation frankly. She's married seven men, all of whom were kinsmen such as yourself, and each one died on the wedding night. But now, son, eat and drink. I'm certain the Lord will look after you both."

  Across the house, Asmodeus encircled the woman's soul, fencing her in and coiling around her, eyes glittering. Tobias faltered.

  Raphael smiled into the boy's soul the same way he would have into Gabriel's, giving him access to the strength of his Cherub nature. Tobias clenched his hands and focused himself. Calling on Raphael's soul without realizing what he did, Tobias said, "I won't eat or drink anything until you set aside what belongs to me."

  At Raphael's side, Michael said, "Is there any chance you could talk to Tobias about women as property?"

  Raguel inclined his head. "She's yours according to the decree of the Book of Moses. Your marriage has been decided in Heaven. Take her. From now on you're her love, and she's your beloved. She belongs to you today and ever after. And tonight, son, may the Lord prosper you both. May He grant you joy and strength!"

  Joy and strength, Raphael thought. I'm the angel of joy. And God's Strength—where is he?

  Asmodeus clutched Sarah, wrapping his wings around her with such darkness that for a few seconds, Raphael couldn't sense her soul.

  Raguel took Sarah by the hand and gave her to Tobias with the words: "Take her according to the Law. By the decree written by Moses, you are her husband, and she is your wife. Take her and bring her back safely to your father. May the God of Heaven grant both of you peace and prosperity."

  Asmodeus drew still closer to her, clinging.

  While Raguel drew up a marriage contract, Raphael walked across the room and looked out the window. Asmodeus is so tight to her, he prayed. I'm really going to need your help. At my strongest I'm not a match for him, and without Gabriel—

  Behind him, one of the servants whispered to another, "They scrounged up another husband for her."

  The other whispered, "I wonder how long she'll take to murder this one?"

  Raphael whirled on them. "I beg your pardon?"

  Both servants looked up, eyes wide. "Is it your place to spread rumors?" Raphael said. "I thought the position of a servant was to serve, not to pass judgment on the employer."

  The servant glared at him. "Surely you know. She's had seven husbands!"

  Raphael said, "It's not your concern. None at all."

  The servants backed out of the room.

  "No wonder they'll one day call you man's best friend," Raphael said to the dog, who wagged his tail excitedly. "You can't speak."

  Michael returned to him. "Asmodeus has this household under pretty good grip."

  "Do you know what drew him here in the first place?" Raphael shook his head. "There's no way I can dislodge him alone."

  Michael nodded. "I know how you feel. Satan outclasses me in just about every way too." He paused, and then, "God says you'll have His strength."

  Raphael's eyes widened.

  Michael assented.

  "Where's Gabriel?"

  "With Tobit and Anna. He started pressing Tobit with questions about your story, which got Tobit thinking about the fact that he didn't vet you very well." Michael chuckled. "I get the impression Tobit is re-assessing his priorities right about now."

  Raphael crossed his arms. "That's helpful."

  "You know how Gabriel gets right before he says something he's been thinking about?" Michael nodded. "He's that way. Be patient."

  "Patience is difficult without a Cherub."

  "Tobias is a Cherub."

  "He's Sarah's Cherub," Raphael muttered, then stopped. "Oh…" He grinned at God. I didn't think I'd respond to a human Cherub the same way as to an angelic one. He reached for Tobias the same way he'd have reached for Gabriel, and he gauged the intensity of the contact. It wasn't a primary bond like Gabriel's. It wasn't just an awareness of the other's presence, though, because they could trade power and maybe over time learn to hear each other's thoughts. How sly of you.

  Not sly, God replied. It was a matter of need.

  "Azariah," Tobias called, "it's time for dinner." Raphael turned, but then he wondered: did Tobias need him to bond so he could complete the journey, or had it been him who needed Tobias?

  He didn't get a chance to wonder longer. Tobias grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up the stairwell.

  Raphael said, "No wonder you needed a guide. We're eating in the other room."

  Tobias whispered, "What do I do?"

  Raphael whispered back, "Eat dinner?"

  "No, I mean…in the bridal chamber."

  Raphael nodded. "We went over that. Stay calm. Put the fish on the coals for the incense. Pray with her for deliverance."

  "Yeah, but—after." Tobias flushed. "The whole bridegroom/bride thing. What am I supposed to do?"

  Oh, that. "I don't have any more experience than you do." Raphael wished for a moment that Gabriel were here to answer, but then again, Gabriel would probably say, "He needs to insert his reproductive organ into hers and then generate a sufficiency of friction to trigger a sperm ejection reflex." So he'd have been on his own anyhow.

  Raphael said, "Well, here's my suggestion. You take her hand. You look at her. You talk."

  Tobias shook his head. "That's not what I mean."

  "It is what you mean." Raphael took a deep breath. "You promise her all of yourself. You promise you'll always be there. You promise that forever and ever, she's your love, and that when you guys have grandchildren and great grandchildren, and a stranger comes to the door, you'll tell him all about your beautiful bride and how much she's changed your world. And you'll hold her hand, and you'll promise."

  Tobias said, "But the rest of it?"

  Raphael shrugged. "I don't know anything about the rest of it. I only know about the important part."

  - + -

  Stilted conversation peppered their dinner, as though everyone suspected Tobias ate his last meal. Afterward, Edna went with Sarah to prepare the bridal chamber. Raphael locked himself in his bedroom, then took angelic form. First he went to find Sarah.

  Sarah sat on her bed crying, her mother's arms around her, but between her and her mother was Asmodeus, always Asmodeus.

  Raphael slipped his lithe spiritual form into the mother's body, his shape contouring to hers and moving with her movements. Asmodeus recoiled from him, and Raphael shed light through mother and daughter. He-in-she raised a hand to Sarah's cheeks to dry the tears, then looked into her red eyes. "Be brave, my daughter." Edna's words were soothing, calm. "The Lord of Heaven will grant you joy in place of your grief. Courage, Sarah." Then Raphael let go Edna's body, and she left the room.

  Raguel escorted Tobias to the bridal chamber, and Tobias closed the door with only a little hesitation. At the head of the bed, Sarah curled around herself, and Asmodeus curled around her, his soul a black fire to consume Tobias.

  "Don't touch me," she urged. "If you can touch me—you're the first. There've been seven. My father told you. But no one's ever touched me. It's when they try to touch."

&nb
sp; Tobias raised a hand. "I understand. And I'm not going to touch you yet."

  Sarah watched as Tobias (with shaking hands, something Raphael could relate to at this moment) took the fish's liver and heart and placed them on the embers for the incense.

  Sarah leaned forward. "What's that? Something you do in Nineveh?"

  "This drives off demons," Tobias said. "Azariah told me."

  The fish entrails sizzled as they hit the coals, then blackened. A fishy smell filled the room.

  Sarah coughed. "Is the smell what drives them off?"

  Tobias laughed out loud. "Now we pray."

  Asmodeus uncoiled, raising his sword and hovering over Sarah like a storm cloud. "We have worse smells in Hell." His eyes glinted. "Touch her. Touch her, and we'll see what the fish does."

  Tobias sat on the bed and said, "Father Almighty," and Sarah extended her hands to his as they prayed.

  Asmodeus extended a hand of his own.

  From the corner, Raphael said, "Reconsider."

  Asmodeus pivoted to find Raphael with his face lit by the embers on which the fish burned. Fire coursed around him, and Asmodeus glanced at the fish.

  Over the fish hovered letters.

  Light blasted from the fish, hurling Asmodeus from the room. Raphael streaked after him, whipping forward with tendrils of will to grasp Asmodeus and bind him. Raphael's will coiled around the demon's wings, crashing him into the ground. They'd gotten all the way to upper Egypt.

  Asmodeus twisting his eyes toward Raphael. "She was mine! She's supposed to be mine!"

  Raphael began binding the demon.

  Asmodeus spat at him. "You didn't save the wretch yourself—it was Him! It was that fish-God of yours!" Raphael tightened the bonds on his hands and feet, and Asmodeus hissed, "Why all alone? Where's your Cherub?"

  So Raphael gagged him too.

  The sun hadn't yet set here. Raphael looked over the sands and sighed. Thank you. Thank you for the strength to subdue him. He didn't touch Tobias, did he?

  God replied, Go check it out.

  In the bridal chamber, Tobias and Sarah remained in prayer, hands clasped, eyes devouring one another but hearts fixed on God.

  Raphael glanced at Ezdrael. "He's fine," said the angel.

  Michael said, "But you ought to go look at the rest of the family."

  Out in the courtyard, Raphael saw what was going on and choked. Raguel had summoned his servants, and they had dug a grave.

  "Hurry," Raguel was urging the servants. "If Tobias dies, we'll be subject to even more ridicule."

  They'd worked quickly. In the time it had taken to dispel the demon, Raguel and his men had dug waist-deep into the ground. Raguel turned to one of the maids. "Now," he whispered, "check on them. Tell me if we need to bring him out."

  Raphael flashed to a tree limb to watch what happened next. A moment after, the branch swayed, and a wing touched his own. He pivoted and found Gabriel.

  Fire surged. "You're here!"

  The Cherub shrugged. Obviously. "I came to explain."

  Raphael hugged him, heat welling inside. "I'm just glad you're here. It's all right now."

  "It's not all right." Gabriel folded his arms. "I keep having angels arrive with advice, and eighty-five percent of the advice-givers are divided between 'You're perhaps being too harsh' and 'You need to get over yourself,' so I figured you might not understand either."

  "You're right. I don't understand." Raphael fingered the edge of Gabriel's wing. "I thought we were going to do this assignment together."

  Gabriel looked at the moon, the stars, the light reflecting from clouds over Ecbatana. "You've done rather nicely without me." He gestured toward the house. "You got Tobias here in one piece, burned out a demon, and married the pair. The last healing is as good as done, too."

  "But I missed you." Raphael's heart sent faster vibrations, but Gabriel still didn't absorb them. "I'm sorry I disappointed you, but you owe me an explanation."

  Gabriel wouldn't look away from the sky. "There are very strong arguments against using alternative names and fabricating identities. It's a denial of your essence, and once you've denied that, it's a matter of time until you deny everything else, right up to and including God."

  "But God said it was all right. This was my assignment." Raphael wrapped his hands around the branch. "I never would have done it if He hadn't said I could."

  Gabriel didn't react.

  Raphael looked for Gabriel's grey eyes with grainy night-sight, but the other watched only Raguel.

  "That man endured a lot," said Gabriel. "He's the one they're going to forget, but he's suffered as much as any of the others in this story. He's wondered what sin he committed to deserve such ignominy. He's doubted Sarah and had to defend her nonetheless. He's grown old with the fear of his daughter married to only a demon."

  Raphael looked away from the Cherub and breathed deeply with closed eyes, trying to restore some equanimity to his soul. Gabriel noticed, then exerted some of his calming influence and took the fire into himself.

  Gabriel looked back at the freshly-dug grave. "Tobit and Anna are counting the days."

  "Michael told me you helped out with Tobit." Raphael also stared into the gash in the ground. "You could have come here."

  They both raised their gazes from the grave at the same moment, and Gabriel finally met Raphael's eyes.

  "Master Raguel!" came a cry, and Sarah's father looked to the servant who sped from the house. "He's alive!"

  Sarah's father ran toward her. "What? Say it again!"

  "He's fine! He and Sarah are alive! They're fine!"

  Raguel dropped to his knees in the courtyard. "Thank God. Thank God. Thank God."

  Gabriel and Raphael still had their gazes locked.

  "I want an explanation," Raphael said.

  Gabriel looked confused. "I thought I just gave you one."

  "More than that." Raphael shook his head. "You gave me a dissertation about the moral implications of mendacity, but that doesn't explain this. You. Me. Here. Now."

  Gabriel opened his hands. "I can't countenance evil, and I won't be an accessory to lying." He frowned. "Lying is lying is lying. The other Cherubim and I kept debating all the variants on what it means to tell the truth. For example, your false name in some ways means the same thing as your real name, and one can argue you're an Israelite because you serve God. There's also the mitigation of any damage by revealing the truth later, and the falsehood is undoubtedly in the service of a greater good. The Cherubim also came up with several hypothetical situations in which one could argue—"

  "And none of that means a thing because you still treated me like a criminal." Raphael's fire flickered around his feathers and danced over his hair. "Rather than any benefit of the doubt, I got cast aside, and that's it. You're done with me."

  Gabriel's eyes flared. "I'm not done with you!"

  "You left."

  "But I'm not—" Gabriel's voice changed in pitch. "Did you think I was abandoning you?" He leaned forward. "That wasn't my intention. I didn't mean you to interpret my actions that way. I was still helping with your assignment."

  Raphael pulled back from him. "You left, and you stayed away."

  Gabriel shook his head. "You didn't need me here. You had a Cherub with you, and you knew my objection to the secondary lies that would follow the first."

  The spiritual fire around Raphael engulfed the tree, all except for Gabriel who continued absorbing it.

  Gabriel finally said, "Do you understand?"

  "I am very, very," Raphael pulled back his fire from Gabriel, "very angry at you."

  Gabriel huddled over himself.

  "You can't just run off in your own head and do what you think is right and assume it's fine just because it's fine to you." Raphael's eyes glowed. "You left me alone, and for all that you've been discussing the nuances of truth for seven days, you've said nothing to me about why you did what you did."

  Gabriel wrapped his hands around each other an
d tightened his wings around himself. "I can't lose you."

  "And it was okay if I lost you?"

  "But— If you fell—I can't. I can't believe you'd risk that." Gabriel's eyes gleamed. "I can't see you fallen: we're too much one soul. What would I do without you?"

  Raphael muttered, "I assume you'd keep debating."

  "I'm sorry." Gabriel tucked his head onto his arms. "I'm sorry."

  Gabriel didn't move for a while, and Raphael relaxed bit by bit. His fire lowered. Finally Raphael moved next to him on the branch and put his wings around him.

  "Please forgive me," Gabriel said. "I acted irrationally. I didn't consider all the variables. I shouldn't have let an emotion dictate my actions."

  Raphael finally let Gabriel take his fire, and Gabriel returned back to him that ice-like Cherub calm. He could feel Gabriel reaching for God, and Raphael joined in the prayer. From Gabriel: apologies, surprise, confusion. I didn't know what to do. And then, as Raphael settled in to adore God while Gabriel prayed, he felt God's reply: an urging that Gabriel should learn.

  An answering urgency from Gabriel: I know, I know, I'm so sorry. Raphael nestled closer to Gabriel and prayed while Gabriel kept going back and forth with God. They remained in the tree, their prayers woven around one another, until the sun began to brighten the sky. Beneath the first pink-tinged clouds they prayed the morning prayer together.

  Raphael stretched. "Back to my job."

  Before he could flash away, Gabriel grabbed his hand. "Do you forgive me?"

  Raphael nodded. "Of course. Will you stay?"

  Gabriel looked right into his eyes. "I think I will."

  - + -

  Next morning, Raphael mentioned to Raguel that a spot in the garden looked like a hole had been dug and filled in during the night. The man of the house sighed, and Raphael walked away to laugh in private.