by Jane Lebak
He vanished too, leaving Michael standing, horrified, in the ruins of the house.
Zadkiel couldn’t stop crying. She knew she shouldn’t be crying. She needed her head together, and she needed to do something to help Remiel. Anything. And instead tears kept welling out of her useless eyes, and this body she’d never wanted to be wearing in the first place kept dictating how she responded: with tension, with shaking, with salt water on her cheeks and a continuous tremor in her chest and stomach.
Mary held her as she walked. Nivalis was all around her. They were being nice, but Zadkiel didn’t need anyone to tell her: she’d failed everyone. Failed by getting caught by the weapon in the first place. Failed by being the reason Remiel couldn’t just leave her. Failed because now the Christian community had nowhere to call home. Failed, failed, failed.
Failed because she couldn’t see. Because she’d made a deal with God and because God had kept His part of the bargain. Maybe as a punishment. Maybe to show her that what she wanted had been bad for her all along, and she should never have had the nerve to ask for it.
She couldn’t even reach for the taste of wine. She didn’t deserve it.
The heat on her face. The smoke. The children’s sobbing. The smut in the air. The shouts of the Romans and the yelling of the men hauling water to the fires.
As soon as the building had come down, the wind had died. The fires were being contained, and the Romans had ordered everyone to clear the area.
There was no reason to stay here anyhow. The house was destroyed. Zadkiel had heard it crash down, had felt the rush of heat as it collapsed, and then she’d felt Nivalis return, terrified. Guarding her.
Guarding her as if she deserved it.
Remiel, gone. Satan had broken in to get Belior, and that was fine. Belior had sworn allegiance to Satan, and that made him Satan’s property to dispose of. Who cared what Satan had done to him? But Remiel had run back in to make Belior leave, and Satan had grabbed them both.
But he’d left Zadkiel. Well, why would he want her? She wasn’t important.
Mary stopped, and Zadkiel paused at her side. A woman said, “Your house? That was your house? Where will you go?”
Mary said, “I’m not sure.”
Mary’s arm jerked away from Zadkiel as the woman grabbed her hand. “You must come with me. Stay in my home. You saved my daughter. Now I can do something for you.”
Mary said, “Thank you. But there are so many of us.”
“Bring all you have,” said the woman. “At least stay the night.”
It took half an hour in the confusion to find everyone, longer still to get everyone directions to the new house. Someone took Zadkiel by the arm, leading her while reciting one of the psalms. The touch was gentle, and through it all Zadkiel kept feeling her body crying because it was tense and scared and sad, and she felt so, so guilty.
At the woman’s house, someone guided Zadkiel to a place to sleep, but she couldn’t relax. She didn’t even lie down. She just tucked up her knees and huddled around herself. Nivalis she could feel, but she didn’t talk to her. She didn’t pray. She just concentrated on that burnt-out part of the inside of herself, the place where Mary’s house once stood and where now instead stood the very, very deep conviction that she’d caused all this harm and could never make it up to anyone no matter what she did.
TWENTY-THREE
Remiel’s head pounded so hard that she couldn’t focus while Satan beat Belior. It registered, but it registered more as the pain in her own head from the noise every time Belior screamed or howled or growled, the sparks that flared across her vision with every sudden noise, and the continuous nausea from having been transported heaven-only-knew how far.
Her head hurt again when Satan dropped Belior like a sack of rocks at her side, and he lay there shuddering. He shook for so long that Remiel wondered if she were witnessing a seizure, and if so, what she should do. She didn’t want them to kill the host. But “what to do” implied she could do anything at all, and right now she couldn’t move.
Eventually Belior stopped shaking, and then he stopped twitching, and eventually his breathing became less shallow and more even.
Satan spat at him, “You can’t hide in that body forever. I will get you out of there.”
“I keep telling you, you can’t. It’s involuntary possession.” Satrinah sounded urgent, and Remiel picked up her head to try focusing on her. “We tried separating them. He killed one host trying to win free and just got absorbed into another. We tried to make the Christians cast him out, and they couldn’t do it.”
Flames swirled around Satan. “I don’t believe you. After what you were trying to do, he’s showing his intelligence and trying to hide. Forever.”
He focused his power again on Belior, and the possessed man flexed against Remiel’s side, screaming with a hoarse voice.
“Stop.” Remiel struggled to get upright. “She’s not lying. He can’t get out.”
Satan pushed her out of the way and blasted Belior with more power. Remiel lay panting, trying to register where she was. A cave. They were in some kind of natural cavern with the echoes of water dropping. Beneath her face she could smell lichen on the moist ground, but there were also the multiple sharp smells of a human body being tortured.
Satan stopped, and Remiel edged toward Belior. “Please, Belior’s yours, but don’t kill his host.”
“I’ve no authority to kill his host.” Satan folded his arms. “I’d have done it by now, trust me. You’re very cute,” he added, smirking. “Aren’t you the lesser Irin, the one that stayed enslaved? A pity that God stuck you in such a weak little body.”
Remiel edged further toward Belior, a shape she could decipher only vaguely in the flickering light of the flames around Satan’s wings. He was wet, dark, limp. She felt his neck and detected the flutter of a pulse, then rolled him onto his side.
“If I ever let you out,” Satan said to her, “you can tell whoever is in charge of you that I don’t appreciate having your people coddle my little traitors. If you want to unseat me, go ahead and try. Feel free to invade. I’ll feel free to defend. But do not collude with my officers because now you see what I’ll gladly do to any and all of them who attempt that kind of subterfuge.”
He punctuated that by blasting Belior one more time. Belior seized again, and Remiel held him until the spasms turned into twitches and then eased.
“Talk to me, faux-Camael.” Satan paced around the cavern, his wings filling the world and leaving Remiel dizzy with the power he shed. “Which other of my officers are you working with?”
“We weren’t working with them.” Remiel swallowed hard. “Belior used some kind of new weapon on me. I don’t know what it was supposed to do. It didn’t work the way he wanted.”
Satan crouched down and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into a brightness that stung. “I thought your kind couldn’t lie. Did your Tyrant change His mind about permitting you to deceive? It’s about time.” Satan glared right into her eyes. “But I’m not deceived. Gabriel’s energy is permeating Belior, and Satrinah’s is all over you.” Remiel recoiled, but he kept his grip. “I know that weapon was designed to trap me and dethrone me. Your assignment may have been to protect him,” and he looked at Belior with disgust, “but you can count that as yet another failure on your part. The list is getting rather long, but he’ll remember it. He always does.”
Remiel closed her eyes, but her head kept pounding. The nausea rose again, and she vaguely wondered how Satan would react if she vomited all over him. Probably not at all—he’d just go immaterial and she’d have to deal with the awful taste.
“You getting caught in your own plan is another monument to your own stupidity, but I also don’t think your people are smart enough to recognize that, so I’m retaining you for now.”
Retaining. That implied he had no authority to torture her, whatever consolation that might be.
“I’m not ignorant of what goes on in my domain.” Satan
dropped Remiel. “I have informants. And I have my own common sense. Give me that much credit.” He turned to Satrinah. “He’s disgusting. Clean him up before I deal with him again.”
“You might want to move away,” Satrinah said, as if bored.
Before Remiel could distance herself, Satan had flashed several gallons of sea water over the top of Belior and doused him thoroughly.
Remiel scurried further away, her clothes soaked through, while Satan did it again.
He vanished. Satrinah went over to Belior and prodded him. “Not too much damage.”
Remiel rubbed her hands against her arms. “He was seizing.”
“I’m sure he was. You were unconscious through most of that.”
The salt water cut down the smells, but Remiel’s teeth began chattering. “Why did Satan think you were trying to depose him?”
Satrinah snorted. “I should have known you weren’t as smart as you pretended to be.”
Remiel huddled around herself while Satrinah tried to get Belior into better shape, longing for warmth she couldn’t get from body heat alone. She prayed, and that steadied her. They were trying to use that weapon on Satan? Oh, of course, of course, it was so horrible and so like them. In hindsight, it made so much sense: they’d wanted not to get back into Satan’s good graces, but to rid themselves of him entirely. They could end the political games with their opponents on the Maskim by deleting the owner of the Maskim from the equation, and then they could use the army to wipe out the other two and establish themselves in power.
Remiel’s eyes stung, and she choked back whatever feeling she’d have sputtered out if she’d attempted to speak. Twenty years of working in secret, in ice, with their own little staff of loyal supporters…and had those supporters even realized what they’d been working toward? Or had their idea been all along that they were making weapons to take out God’s angels?
Satrinah sighed. “Well, he’s about as good as I’m going to get him. I was hoping Satan would be able to yank him out of that body, but even that didn’t work.”
Remiel said, “You mean you could have stopped him?”
“It hardly matters whether I could or couldn’t: I wouldn’t have because it made more sense to let him finish what John failed to do.” Satrinah inspected one of her outer feathers and flicked off some unseeable piece of lint. “We cooperated, but your nasty Archangel friend went and ratted us out. That’s not how blackmail works. We invented it, remember? Blackmail means using your information to manipulate people, not manipulating them and using it anyhow.”
Remiel bristled. “Michael didn’t tell Satan.”
Satrinah folded her arms. “So how’d he find out?”
“How should I know? I’ve been stuck in this body the whole time.” Remiel swallowed hard. “Won’t Asmodeus come to get you?”
“Satan took down Asmodeus first. I felt that clear across Creation.” Satrinah shuddered. “This whole situation would have been so much easier to resolve if you’d just let me examine Belior in the first place.”
“Examine him now,” Remiel spat. “Take your time.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing? Or did Camael take all the Irin’s intelligence when he left?” Satrinah made enough light to show Remiel the edges of the cavern. Belior lay in a puddle of sea water, and Satrinah tilted him onto his side again so he wouldn’t aspirate any of it. “That material is bound up inside him, and I can’t figure out how to unlock it. Gabriel looked him over already, and clearly he didn’t figure it out, because you’re still here.”
Remiel rubbed her arms to get warmer. “So since you’ve got this vast intelligence at your disposal, what’s our plan?”
Satrinah tossed her head. “I had a perfectly workable plan. You wrecked it for me, so don’t ask me about our plan. Any plan I have involves you in no way whatsoever. You can stay here as our master’s plaything for the rest of eternity for all I care.”
Remiel frowned. “Why haven’t you left, then? Take him and go.”
Satrinah fired her power at the cave ceiling, and although Remiel flinched, it just shimmered around the outer wall and didn’t cause a cave-in. “That, half-a-twin, is a Guard. It keeps angels and their communiques from getting out.”
They said nothing further to one another, Remiel more irritated than she should be about Satrinah’s attitude and the fact that apparently it was Remiel’s fault, entirely, that Satrinah had been caught in the act of treason. She struggled to stay warm, and when that didn’t work (thanks to the wet clothing and the lack of sunlight) Remiel went near Belior to check out how he was doing. Or rather, how his host body was doing. Satan could string Belior out at the bottom of the Lake of Fire for all she cared, but the host still had a redeemable soul, and therefore the host needed to survive.
The host had very pale skin, was shivering all over, and was breathing rapidly. “Use that brilliance of yours to shine a bit more on him,” Remiel said. “Don’t you see his lips are blue? We need to warm him up or he’s going to die.”
Satrinah said, “If he dies, Belior escapes.”
“If he escapes, Satan beats the hell out of you and then finds him again. We need to warm him up.”
Satan returned, fire surrounding his wings, bringing with him two other demons. “That one,” he said, pointing toward Belior. “This one is for me.”
He grabbed Remiel by the arm and flashed her to an even colder part of the cave, leaving her in darkness broken only by the flashes of light that sparked behind her eyes whenever she moved her head. She tried to maintain her footing, but the vertigo brought her to the rocks, and even then the world pivoted like a leaf in a wind storm.
Satan grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the floor. She closed her eyes and tried to keep still. “Now. What is that weapon supposed to do?”
She coughed, the light flaring behind her eyes again and everything tilting. “It’s Death,” she choked out. “Sheol material. Weaponized.”
He tossed her back onto the rocks so she was facing him. “I already have that information.”
Remiel slumped against a boulder, panting, feeling almost distantly the way a human’s fear seized control over her body: the longing to run, the urgency, the shaking. She was cold, so cold, and her body hurt, and her heart pounded. She couldn’t get enough breath. Satan could kill her if God permitted it, and he’d do so without hesitation and probably the most painful way possible. He was bad enough to deal with when she was in angelic form and he was just a calculating bully. Now he was enraged and she was stuck, and she’d be completely at his mercy if only he had any mercy to be at.
Zadkiel—had he gotten to Zadkiel too? Because for her it would be worse. She’d be blind and at his non-existent mercy. Had she been in that first cavern, beyond the reach of Satrinah’s light, still unconscious? Was she already dead?
Remiel reached for God, and even though she didn’t feel Him reach back for her, the act of reaching steadied her. She was afraid. Her body was afraid, and that was normal. She wasn’t used to the cascade of fear hormones, but at least they made sense.
Satan got closer, and she shivered uncontrollably. “I’m going to treat you worse than Belior if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“Then you’re going to have to torture me,” Remiel said through chattering teeth, “because I don’t have the information you want.”
Satan made no move for so long. Remiel huddled around herself, wondering if she’d just freeze to death waiting on him and if they really were right that she’d just stay trapped in this body long after it was dead. Wondering if Michael or Saraquael would be able to find her after the body was dead, and if maybe they’d get someone to resurrect her. Wondered what it felt like to be resurrected. The only thing she knew for sure was it left you ravenous because Jesus had always made sure dead people had plenty to eat once they came back. Maybe Mary would bake her some bread. Maybe being dead for a while wouldn’t be so bad.
But then instead of breaking her ne
ck or leaving her to freeze, Satan grabbed her shaking body and yanked her back through space to the main cavern. He dumped her beside Belior and faced Satrinah.
It hurt. It hurt so much. Remiel prayed, Remember that whole thing about making up what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ? Seriously, how much more could be lacking?
Satan said to Satrinah, “How do we force him out of that host?”
Remiel could feel what he was projecting behind that: the host was limiting what he could do to Belior, and he still believed Belior was using it as a human shield.
Satrinah sighed. “Again, the Sheol material is pinning him into the host, and none of us has been able to get enough of a grasp on it to release his soul from the human body he’s possessing.”
Satan said, “Have you tried releasing her?”
“She’s not in possession of a human,” Satrinah said. “That’s a solidified subtle body. To all intents and purposes, at the moment, she herself is human. I assume the mechanism pining her in the form, however, is the same. I also assume Gabriel and his cohorts have attempted to remove the shrapnel from her in order to restore her normal fluidity of form, and because she continues in this fashion, we can assume he failed.”
Satan folded his arms. There was heat in his anger, but not enough to warm Remiel. She looked for Belior in case she could huddle up next to him and pool their body heat, but he was conscious again, sitting up and positioned between the pair of demons Satan had brought into the cavern. His eyes were shadowed, and bruises mottled his skin, but he was awake.
Great. Demonic healers. Beat the human body within an inch of death, then restore it and start over.
Satan said, “Give me some theories. What would extract the shrapnel?”
Satrinah said, “We developed several techniques to locate the Sheol material and concentrate it enough to gather it. Once you put it together, though, it has a natural adhesion to itself. It seeks itself out, and it tries to stay together once it’s formed up.”