by Jane Lebak
She waited for more, but no more came, and her mind started drifting.
So instead she prayed, and she ran her mind back over the conversations from earlier that day. She prayed about Belior breaking his own wrists to escape a place where he was protected and fed, and then prayed about Asmodeus threatening two Cherubim who by all measures appeared personally loyal to him in every respect.
Loyalty. It wasn’t often she saw glimpses of the demons’ old selves through the new, but in Satrinah she’d seen personal loyalty to Belior and to Asmodeus. She had a bond with Asmodeus, and maybe that explained it, but she didn’t appear to be maneuvering to supplant Belior nor even to make him look bad in the eyes of Asmodeus. By all accounts, she appeared to have disobeyed Asmodeus in order to help him (although to his credit, Belior looked to be nourishing an insane amount of jealousy toward her whenever she interacted with the Seraph.) If you could believe what she said (and granted, you never wanted to trust a demon) then apparently she wanted not to be on the Maskim in Belior’s place but just to keep running Belior’s experiments for him. And through their every interaction, it seemed never to occur to her that the two demons giving her commands were both jerks of the highest order of magnitude.
Again the thunder rolled, and again came the silence.
What if there were still something of their original souls inside all of the fallen? But of course there was. They hadn’t lost who they were. They hated God, and because of that they hated themselves, but those selves were still there.
And that meant Camael…
Remiel felt her eyes getting heavy, and she whispered, “Nivalis?”
Nivalis showed herself, casting a bluish glow that didn’t make Remiel squint in the dark.
“I was thinking, remember how Gabriel infused me with some of his energy?” When Nivalis projected assent, Remiel said, “You could do that to me too. Just enough to wake me up without making me vomit.”
Nivalis recoiled, projecting negation with all her feathers spread.
“It is not a bad idea,” Remiel replied. “You’re here to help me, and I need help.”
Nivalis touched Remiel’s hair and gentled it back from her forehead. Remiel tingled where her fingers passed through. Nivalis kept her voice soft even though no one else could hear her. “You need to sleep.”
“I’m not going to sleep,” Remiel hissed. “I’ve said that.”
Thunder. And then thunder again.
“What if you’re in this form for months?” Nivalis’s glow faded to a deep purple. “I can see into your body. Your stress hormones are pegged, and at some point you’re going to start making really bad decisions.”
Remiel curled around herself, fists tight in her blanket. “I’m not asking you for your opinion. You came because you wanted to help.”
“I do. I’m not sure this helps.” Nivalis ran her fingers over Remiel’s hand, and Remiel made it unclench. “Even if it’s only a little, you say our energy hurts.”
“I know it will hurt.” Remiel smiled wickedly. “That doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
The thunder claps were sounding closer together and louder. What would it sound like when the rain began pelting the tile roof? When she’d weathered out that blizzard, the wind had been her constant companion, singing and puffing and sneaking cold air through the walls like warriors entering a besieged city. Would there be wind? Would rain send its droplet spies through the tile roof?
Nivalis’s mouth twitched. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll do it, but first I want you to answer a question.”
Remiel’s eyes narrowed. “It depends on the question.”
“And I promise to do it no matter what your answer.” Nivalis wrapped her fingers around Remiel’s other hand. “What did you dream so horrible that the certitude of pain is preferable to the possibility of dreaming it again?”
Remiel tucked down her head. “You know.”
“I don’t know. I’m asking.”
Nivalis waited in silence while Remiel tried to think of the words. Don’t answer—that was the thought that kept ricocheting around her head there in the dark, surrounded by a half dozen sleeping human women. Don’t answer because it was so much more real if she did.
Nivalis cuddled around her.
Thunder again. The rolls were coming almost on top of one another now, and Remiel could smell the ozone. If it wasn’t raining already, it would be soon. “Camael,” she whispered into one of the booms. Camael. Camael. Camael. My brother.
Nivalis tightened around her. “As he is, or as he was?”
Remiel shook her head. “That’s two questions.”
Nivalis said, “I know you miss him.”
“How would you know?” Remiel jerked up her head, scattering Nivalis like motes in the sunlight until she gathered herself back into form before her. “I’m the only one.”
“I lost someone too.” Nivalis’s eyes clouded. “You’re the only one with this loss, but you’re not alone.”
Remiel said, “Would you dream about him?”
Nivalis said, “I’ve never dreamed. But I don’t want to forget him.”
“Dreaming isn’t remembering.” Remiel kept to a whisper, although if the thunder hadn’t awakened the other women then surely her voice wouldn’t either. “It’s different. You’re there. You’re with him. He’s in your heart and you’re feeling him, and he fits so perfectly.” Her voice broke, and there was rain in the room but it had come from her rather than the sky. “And it’s right even though you suspect it’s wrong, but you don’t care because of how right it is. And then—“
Remiel pushed her face down onto her forearms. And then you woke up. And then he was gone. And then you were totally alone in every way that ever mattered, swallowed by darkness and aware of how much distance there was between yourself and everything you ever intended to be and because of that how wrong the world was. Because you were alone.
Nivalis said, “And then he changes?”
Remiel tucked her head closer. “And then you change.” She was whispering into the little space made between her chest and her arms and the bed, so faint even her own ears couldn’t pick it up. Nivalis could hear anyhow. “You’re empty.”
Nivalis cuddled her. “And you miss him even more.”
Remiel didn’t move. “You don’t know. You don’t know.”
“I know some of it.”
Remiel whispered, “The denial. You don’t know that. They won’t speak about him.”
Nivalis moved closer. “I’ve seen that. I mention being a guardian, and other angels will tense up and change the subject.”
Remiel shook her head. “No! Not like that—they won’t speak about him, but back then, he was me. We were identical.” She fought to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “Don’t you see? It’s not the same at all. The other angels won’t speak about Judas. But they’ll talk about you. Back then we were the Irin together, or if we weren’t, then they can’t figure out which Irin they were dealing with, and they won’t talk about Camael because he’s fallen, so—“
Remiel ducked down her head.
Nivalis whispered, “Oh. No.”
“I didn’t have a name before the Winnowing. And they talk like I didn’t exist before it happened. They don’t want to talk well of him. They don’t want to talk badly of me. You’re grieving for Judas, but the one who’s dead isn’t Camael. It’s me.” Remiel blinked hard and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “And then you want me to go back to that, after I’ve spent all this time not being Irin anymore, and exist in full again, and then wake up and get that stripped off again, and be dead again, and for what?” Her voice broke back to the inaudible whisper only Nivalis and God would be able to hear. “I’d rather stay awake a thousand years. I can’t do that again. I can’t.”
She fell totally silent because nothing remained inside her. There was everything, everything lying out there in full view as if she’d vomited again and instead of the contents of her stomach it w
as her heart spewed all over the floor, reeking and disgusting, a wild and living thing that had clawed its way out and now everyone could smell it for what it was.
She curled tight, struggling to breathe regularly. Nivalis felt close, so close. The thunder sounded so far away, but getting closer. And somewhere closest still in all this was God: in her, in Nivalis, in the thunder. In her past. In her future. In the angel she was made to be and never would be again.
And then Nivalis let go of her and moved away because why would she stay? Seeing that, why wouldn’t she go?
Only instead, Nivalis slipped around in front of her and rested her hands on Remiel’s shoulders. “Thank you for talking to me. It sounds awful.” She was warming up against Remiel’s skin, or maybe Remiel was just tensing. “You’re right: it’s not the same. No one pretends I didn’t exist before Judas. But I’ll carry your burden with you. You never get over it. You carry forward. It’s right to be sad sometimes.” Nivalis breathed over her neck. “It’s your heart that got hurt, and you have a beautiful heart.”
Remiel knew she didn’t have a beautiful heart. She had a heart sawed almost in half and then ripped apart the rest of the way, cast off on the roadside and feasted on by vultures. Where was the beauty?
“Breathe deeply,” Nivalis said. “Let your body relax. You tensed when Gabriel did this, and that may have made it harder.”
Before Remiel fully registered that Nivalis was about to make good on her promise, the energy already flowed through her. It seeped in like the cold wind through the walls of that winter-strong fortress, and her ears rang, but she tried to relax and let it happen. Nivalis was being so gentle, and her natural power was a hundred times less than Gabriel’s. It felt like the sting of extinguishing a candle by pinching the wick rather than the prickles of an entire body deprived of oxygen. So she waited, and Nivalis kept the flow gentle, monitoring her and feeding her and killing her with an energy her body cried out against in protest.
And with the energy came something else: came Nivalis’s assurance of the presence of God even in the loss of Camael. God was with her in the grief, with her in the regrets.
No, she never regretted staying with God. She loved Him.
Yes, it was as if Nivalis’s heart replied, she loved God more than Camael. That had been her choice, but she regretted the necessary sequel of that choice, and God was at her side in that.
Remiel’s head pounded, and when the pain got sharper, Remiel tensed up. Nivalis backed off, then whispered to her, “Relax your shoulders. Relax your jaw. Now your eyes.”
When had she curled up around herself like this? But it was good: she felt so much more awake than before, and now she had hours in the dark to work down the headache and wait for the nausea to subside.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Nivalis projected back her own thanks.
Sure, thank you for sharing what a freak you are. Thank you for not masking the truth.
Thunder exploded overhead, and Remiel started. One of the other women awoke with a gasp, and Remiel reached for Zadkiel’s hand in the next bed.
Zadkiel sat up. “What’s going on?”
“It’s just a storm. It’s been coming on for a while.” Though dizzy from Nivalis’s power, Remiel squeezed her hand. “It’s finally gotten close.”
Another crash shook the house, and Remiel’s head pounded harder. She knew what thunder was; she’d ridden storm fronts. And for goodness sakes, she’d been in that blizzard for days and never felt the same kind of fear this one innocuous rainstorm was causing just because it had the nerve to be loud. Poor thing, she mocked herself, frightened by a noise.
One of the children started crying across the room, and in the dark, the mother made soothing sounds. Remiel rubbed her arms and tried to settle back down on her bed. Her head still hurt, and because of the headache she saw sparks along with every loud sound.
Again came the thunder. Again Remiel reminded herself it was just a noise. Trying to sound confident, she said, “You should get back to sleep.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll sleep.” Zadkiel settled back down.
“Nivalis figured out how to help.” Remiel fought her own dizziness as she helped Zadkiel straighten the blanket. She said in Gaelic, “I asked her to run a low stream of energy into me, the way Gabriel did. It’s just enough to energize me and not enough to flatten me.”
Zadkiel replied in the same language. “That’s probably not healthy. If she misjudges how much energy to put into you, you’re going to be worse off than before.”
But not as bad as it could be. Camael. Saying it to Nivalis had brought it all back in ways Remiel never anticipated it would, or rather, had known it would do all the time and had wanted against all hope never to feel again. Wanted not to feel that oneness, that simple comfort in her own self that she hadn’t enjoyed since the Winnowing. Because she’d always had it back then, just being together with him, and now she’d never have it anymore.
Unless she fell asleep. And then she’d have to give it up all over again.
More thunder. Zadkiel whispered, “Pray with me. I don’t like this.”
Remiel moved closer to her, and in the dark they prayed with hands joined, silent. Remiel remembered Jesus calming the storm over the sea of Galilee and prayed for it to happen again. It’s silly to be scared. But the more she prayed, the more she found herself repeating, It’s wrong. This feels wrong. The storm smells wrong.
She’d harnessed storms and ridden the crash of storm fronts against one another. She knew their power. So why doesn’t this one feel right?
Remiel’s throat tightened as she reached for God and listened to the thunder three times in a row.
She didn’t get a chance to hear the next one before someone in the street screamed, “Fire!” And then the thunder slammed overhead again, and Remiel raced to the front of the building.
TWENTY-TWO
Five Angels rushed to Michael in fewer than two seconds, all urgent and all with the same alarm: Ephesus was under attack.
He went without thinking, calling four squads of Archangels to himself and putting all the rest on high alert before he’d even finished flashing out to Mary and John’s house. He arrived in the midst of flames.
People hollered in the streets, calling for help and rousing their neighbors to leave their houses. Michael flashed to the heart of the flames and ordered three Archangels to start calming the winds before they carried the fire.
“Lightning strikes,” reported one angel. “Two hit the roof of that house, and one hit the tree.”
Both targets were immediately adjacent to John’s house.
Michael flashed to the courtyard where Mary was helping the other Christians bring their children out of the home. Remiel was leading Zadkiel by the hand. “Keep the flames off the roof!” he ordered, but the winds were so strong, and even the lashing rain wasn’t helping extinguish the fires. The trees between the houses had ignited, reaching toward the sky with branches like fingers of flame, and the bushes were engulfed as well. Men were fighting to douse them with water, but the rooftops were too high and the flames too hot to get close.
Roman soldiers charged in, shoving pedestrians out of the way.
Remiel handed off Zadkiel to Mary “Stay here!” she shouted, then ran back into the house.
Michael flew alongside her. “Are people still in there?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
Before Michael could focus through the walls to see how many and where they were, Satan appeared before him.
Michael drew up short. With his twelve white wings flared around himself, Satan said, “You took one of my officers prisoner. I’m taking your house. Fair exchange, no?”
How did he know about Hastle? Why did he even care about such a low-level demon?
Michael manifested his sword and flared his wings. Satan waved him off. “I’m not stupid. I can’t get in there, so I’m having them bring him out.”
And then Satan turned h
is back on him and drove up the wind higher, then peppered the ground with lightning strikes.
The human crowd scattered. And as John’s house ignited, Michael reached inside with his heart to find Remiel racing for the only souls still inside: the magician’s human soul, and Belior’s demonic one.
Michael flashed inside. The roof beams were burning. The walls were already hot, and thick smoke choked through the windowless rooms. “Remiel! You’ve got to get out of here!”
“Come on!” she shouted, but Belior was bracing himself in the doorway, his eyes white-ringed and his body shaking. “You can’t stay! Your host will die!”
Michael manifested to both of them. “Remiel! Leave him! You’re going to get trapped.”
“He’ll be trapped too! He’ll end up in another body and we’ll lose him!”
Michael shouted, “I don’t care! We’ll find him!”
Remiel yanked Belior by the arm, but he wrenched free of her grip and fled to the back corner. Michael shouted, but Remiel pursued him.
From another part of the house came a crash as the tile ceiling caved in. Broiling air rushed through the building, drawing a startled cry from Remiel and finally breaking Belior’s hold over his host. In panic, the human host’s survival instinct overcame the demon’s instinct to hide, and the magician bolted for the front entrance.
Satan appeared before him in what used to be the front room. “Look, the walls are down. No building. No protection.” And he snapped.
Belior was gone. Satan pointed at Remiel. “You too.”
Nivalis barreled in between Remiel and Satan. He swatted her into the burning wall, then blocked a blow from Michael’s sword. Sparks flew through the angelic realm, and Remiel crumpled to the scorching hot tiles.
Satan grabbed her around the waist and flung her into the air. A demon appeared, snatched her, and vanished.
Michael rushed him again, but Remiel was gone. Satan blew him into the wall beside Nivalis, who pulled herself onto hands and called her sword back to herself.
Michael flashed to a stand, but Satan only looked him right in the eye. “Don’t try to protect my traitors. I’ll take care of them myself.”