Uriel laughed. “You silver-tongued rascal,” he teased. He sobered a little, reaching out to curl his free hand around the nape of Raziel’s neck. Very quietly, he said, “I love you too, Razzy. Without you, I’m lost and insane. If you hadn’t been there, I think I’d be in Hell after Eden. I know I’m a damn difficult bastard sometimes, but I’m grateful, and I love you.”
“Babe,” Raziel said, leaning in to give Uriel a quick kiss, “there isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do for you. So no going to Hell for you. I’d just have to pull you out, and my feathers would end up smelling like brimstone. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get that smell out?”
Uriel burst out laughing. “Okay, fair enough. So, we done with the emotion sharing bullshit?”
“I believe so, yes.” Raziel grinned. “I’m a little surprised you aren’t choking on it, to be honest.”
“Desperate times.” Uriel sighed. “And it’s probably good to say these things once in a while.”
“Agreed.” Raziel sighed in turn. “Let’s go back to Iona.”
“Right.” Uriel used his power to hide what they were doing from the other patrons in the café and moved them straight from Paris to the sacred isle.
Chapter Fifteen
GABRIEL stood alone on the moors as dawn colored the sky silver. The clouds seemed tinted with mercury and charcoal in this early light. He closed his eyes and turned his face toward those pewter- colored clouds, and quietly sang the last few lines of “Abide With Me.”
A beam of light cut through the clouds, caressing Gabriel’s face with fingers of Holy Benediction. Gabriel smiled at that touch, that Celestial hand that had created him and his kind giving him a silent yet much-needed blessing. As the clouds closed up, the light faded, and the silvery dawn returned to normal.
Opening his eyes, Gabriel squared his shoulders and lowered his head, looking around. From the village, he could see a line of figures walking toward him, and he knew that it was the rest of his Brotherhood. It was time.
Gabriel checked the straps of his vambraces, rolled his shoulders to settle the lamellar armor—small hardened leather rectangles laced together to form a cuirass—that he wore over his chain mail and watched as the Archangels made their way toward him in a stately procession. He ran one gauntleted hand through his hair and adjusted the wool-lined coif that would soon cover his hair and sit beneath the helmet that currently sat at the nape of his neck.
The Archangels were dressed in their traditional clothing—Samael, Tzadkiel, Uriel, and Raziel in simple chain mail, gauntlets, and leather boots, a floor-length plain black linen robe lined in white and gold brocade silk worn over the top and open at the front. Remiel, Haniel, and Metatron wore simple blue wool tunics and trousers with leather boots beneath their own robes. And Michael... Gabriel had to swallow several times at how handsome his lover looked. Michael wore a silver and blue robe with a hardened leather breastplate inlaid with colored lacquer over the top. Matching vambraces were on his arms and greaves upon his legs, and his sword hung sheathed and belted at his hip.
Several paces behind the Archangels came Brieus, Sophiel, Israfel, and Agrat, in civilian dress, and Shateiel in armor matching Gabriel’s, carrying a banner pole from the top of which flew the pennon of the standard of Heaven and Gabriel’s crest. With them were Hiwa in a simple black suit and Ahijah in his priest’s habit. And finally, came Ishtahar.
Once again, Gabriel was struck by just how beautiful Ishtahar was. Clad in a traditional gown that was similar to the lehenga, dupatta, and choli of India and made of fine purple silk, embellished with silver embroidery, Ishtahar’s bearing was as regal as an empress. Her hands and feet were decorated with henna, the designs interspersed with tiny diamonds stuck to her skin, and the midnight of her hair was bound up in a roll akin to the style of ancient Rome by strings of diamonds and amethyst. Her purple sari was pulled over her shoulders and the back of her head, and her blue eyes were rimmed in kohl, making them appear even larger than usual. She was every inch the High Priestess, every inch a queen.
The way they were all dressed was significant. Gabriel, Warrior General of God, ready for battle, standing poised for the fight with his second-in-command beside him, holding Gabriel’s banner.
Ishtahar was presenting herself as the high priestess of Eden, not of Semjaza, and her decision to wear the purple of the nobility of the city rather than the green of the bondage to Semjaza’s will was strategic. It would be a slap in the face to Semjaza, so fixated upon appearances, to see her clad in the color of nobility rather than submission. Hiwa and Ahijah, by choosing not to wear white floor-length tunics to indicate their position as sons of an angel and his human consort, demonstrated that they were their own men; further, Ahijah, in choosing to wear his formal cassock, illustrated his allegiance to all of Heaven, not to Semjaza alone.
Gabriel inclined his head to everyone as they came to a stop in front of him. “Well met,” he said.
“My lord Gabriel,” Ishtahar said, stepping forward, “I have chosen to wear the stones of your heavenly body, the moon, and of Prince Michael’s heavenly body, the sun.” She touched the necklace of milky-white moonstone and shimmering gold sunstone that she wore. “I will not wear any symbol of Semjaza’s house or his rule as it was in Eden. The rule that he so hopes to return to. I, in the presence of these witnesses, present myself to you as High Priestess of Eden and servant to Hashem—God—and His Archangels.”
“You look beautiful, my lady,” Gabriel said sincerely. “And thank you for the compliment in wearing our stones.”
She smiled at him and stepped back.
Michael stepped forward then and turned, addressing them. “Is all in readiness?”
“Yes.” Raziel, left hand resting on the pommel of his sheathed sword, nodded. “I buried the amulet the Archdemons gave us beside the stones of the Stonehenge circle. None noticed my presence.” He smiled faintly. “Semjaza’s busy redecorating the Maryhill Mansion to suit his tastes. He seems to require a great deal of yellow silk and red velvet. It’s all rather pretentious and wanky. I digress, though. Yes, the amulet is buried by the stones, the circle is clear, and Semjaza and his ass-kissing lackey are totally unaware of what we’re up to.”
“I am glad.” Michael smiled back. “Gabriel, are you ready?”
“Aye, ready as I’ll ever be.” Gabriel winked at his lover, and Michael chuckled.
“Good. Shateiel, are you ready to stand as Gabriel’s second?”
“Yes, my lord. I am always ready to stand beside the general in whatever capacity he wishes me to.” Shateiel bowed gracefully.
Ahijah stepped forward before Michael could say anything else. He held a plain wooden box in his hands. “My lord Gabriel,” he said formally, “would you do my mother, my brother and myself the honor of wearing our favor, the symbol of our house, in this battle?” He opened the box to reveal a long strip of purple fabric, embroidered with the designs of Eden, Ishtahar, and her sons.
“Aye, I’d be honored,” Gabriel said. He gestured to Shateiel, and his lieutenant stepped up and took the fabric out of the box, then bound it securely around Gabriel’s upper left arm.
“And would you do us the honor of flying our pennon?” Hiwa asked, stepping up to join his brother and lifting a second piece of silk from the box.
“It would be my honor,” Gabriel said. He took the flag and handed it to Shateiel. “Fix this to the banner pole, lieutenant.”
Shateiel saluted, then did so, the purple and silver banner secured beneath the white and blue one that was Gabriel’s own. Ahijah shut the box and with Hiwa, stepped back to join their mother.
“Israfel”—Michael turned to the angel of music—“do you have the fanfare for Gabriel’s arrival prepared?”
Israfel nodded. “I do, yeah.”
“Just don’t let it play until I’m ready to challenge Semjaza,” Gabriel said.
Israfel nodded again. “I know. I remember how to do this, Gabe. It’s been a while, but my me
mory’s pretty good. More or less. At least, my memory’s pretty good when it comes to everything that’s like, related to music, so yeah, I’m good.” He grinned hopefully at Gabriel and then at Raphael who reached over to ruffle his hair.
Gabriel shot a quick wink at Raphael, and then he grinned at Israfel.
“Good lad. So”—he turned once again to Michael—“now the niceties are out the way, are you and the others going to power me up?”
“Just one more thing,” Ishtahar said. She bowed to the Archangels, her hennaed hands pressed together, and spoke. “My lords, I am honored and blessed to stand with you.” She turned to Michael and bowed low to him. “Your highness, I am in your debt.”
“There is no debt, holy priestess,” Michael said gently, not reacting to her calling him by his royal title. Later, Gabriel would ask Michael about that—he knew that being addressed as prince or your highness made Michael feel uncomfortable. “We do what must be done,” Michael went on. “Be at peace.”
“You are very kind, Prince Michael.” Ishtahar smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“And now we will give you some of our powers,” Michael said to Gabriel. In an undertone, he added, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“Positive,” Gabriel nodded. “Power me up, baby.”
Michael shook his head in fond amusement, a smile tugging the corner of his lips. “As you say, then. Come,” he said as he turned to the other Archangels. “Let us begin.”
They surrounded Gabriel in a circle, each member of the Brotherhood laying a hand upon his head. Gabriel closed his eyes as he felt the transfer of power from them through their touch. It felt heavy, leaden, as if unlimited energy were being held in one frail shell of flesh and bone, likely to fly apart into pieces of holy light any second. He gritted his teeth as the power of the Archangels mingled with his own, amplifying his own power ninefold.
When it was done and their hands gone from his head, Gabriel took a deep, slow breath. “We better go soon, Mishka,” he said. “I feel like I’m going to explode ’cause I’m holding too much energy in my vessel.”
Michael nodded. “As you say.” He joined the other eight Archangels and said to Gabriel, “We will be there—you will feel us but not see us. No other member of the Host, save Israfel, Agrat, and Shateiel, will know we are there.” With that, the Archangels blurred and disappeared.
“Right,” Gabriel said to Shateiel as his lieutenant stepped back from kissing his wife goodbye, “you take the boys over, and I’ll take Ish, yeah?”
“As you command, general.”
Shateiel saluted.
Brieus, Sophiel, Agrat, and Israfel had followed the Archangels to Washington, and Gabriel rested a hand on Ishtahar’s shoulder, watching to make sure that Shateiel was ready to move Hiwa and Ahijah.
“Are you ready?” he asked Ishtahar.
She nodded. “I am. I am afraid, I will not lie about that. But I am ready to face whatever comes, my lord.”
Gabriel nodded. “Me too,” he admitted. And then he moved them before she could respond.
When the world came back into focus, Gabriel looked around the place with interest. There was no denying that the Stonehenge replica had been built with love and care. He walked over to it, ignoring the calf-high dry grass that rustled against his greaves, and looked closely at the stones. They were chipped and rough, like the Stonehenge in Avebury, England, but this was a roughness and chipping that had been designed, not worn into the rock through the ages. On each stone was a brass plate, and on each plate was a name, dates, and rank. Gabriel touched one of the plates, his fingers lingering upon the date of the death of the young man, as he remembered that this place was not just a replica but a shrine to honored war dead.
He was profoundly humbled by it, this enormous structure that so simply and elegantly declared the identities of the local soldiers who had died in the wars of the Twentieth Century. He walked around the outer ring, reading the names with care, then around the inner ring, doing the same. Finally, he walked to the altar stone and bowed low, silently promising to honor the dead—both those remembered upon the plates on the stones and those who weren’t. What he was doing in challenging Semjaza was not just to honor humanity in the present and protect them from enslavement, but to honor and remember the deaths of all those who had ever lived and fought to remain free.
Straightening, he saw that Ishtahar, in between her sons, stood to one side, between two of the large standing stones of the inner ring. Shateiel stood to one side of the altar stone, holding the banner pole with its pennons streaming proudly in the wind.
“Are we ready for this?” Gabriel asked. As they all nodded, he pointed to the space between the inner and outer rings of stones. “When we start fighting, Shateiel, I want you to take Ish and the boys into that space and keep guard.”
Shateiel saluted.
“Right then.” Gabriel took a deep breath and stepped up to stand on top of the altar stone. He drew his sword—the sign to Israfel to play the fanfare prefacing Gabriel’s formal challenge.
The fanfare was loud, and it made him start in surprise. The sound of trumpets shattered the stillness of the Maryhill Estate and the Stonehenge monument like a boulder crashing through a pane of glass. Gabriel grinned at Shateiel, who rolled his eyes eloquently.
“I am certain the deer and elk on the other side of this continent heard that,” Shateiel thought, his mental voice dry-humored.
Gabriel chuckled. “Aye, me too.” Then he turned to face Maryhill, the roof visible in the near distance, and pitched his voice to reach the ears of anyone within the ruined estate house.
“In the name of God, I defy thee, Semjaza, foul and despicable angel. I call thee craven and base. I declare thee unfit for the title of prince and cast my despite of thee in thy teeth. In the name of Ishtahar, high priestess of the city of Eden, I declare thee guilty of sins great and small. In the name of the Brotherhood of Archangels, I challenge thee to combat, single war ’gainst me, Gabriel, Saint, Archangel of Annunciation, War and the Spirit of Truth, Second-in-Command of the Hosts of Heaven, General of God, Commander in Chief of the Seraphim. I stand here as a living banner for God, He Who is The Creator, known also as Hashem, Yahweh, and Jehovah. I challenge thee, Semjaza, foul and accursed, to a fight to the death.”
The formal, stilted language rolled off Gabriel’s tongue as if he’d spoken it only yesterday. All the thousands of centuries seemed to vanish, and Gabriel felt as if he were standing on the wall of Eden, calling out Semjaza as Michael threw the Grigori down to Hell.
There was a moment of silence and then, from the direction of Maryhill House, came a roar of pure rage.
“Gabriel! I, Semjaza, Prince of the Grigori, husband and lord of Ishtahar, my high priestess and mother of my children, do accept thy challenge. Bid all that you love farewell, thou most despised of Archangels, for this day shall surely be thy last.”
“Pompous, ain’t he?” Gabriel remarked. Hiwa laughed and Ahijah shook his head, a rueful smile on his face.
Shateiel rolled his eyes. “I am surprised he limited himself to two sentences. I had thought we would be getting a book-length reply.”
“The day’s young yet,” Gabriel said, and Shateiel laughed soundlessly.
Several moments later, Semjaza strode out of the underbrush between the Stonehenge structure and the house of Maryhill. He wore black-and-red enameled plate armor, inlaid with mother of pearl and gold. Beside him was Azazel, carrying a banner pole with Semjaza’s crest on it, and dressed in simple chain mail, much like Shateiel.
Semjaza stopped as he entered the inner ring and glared at Gabriel standing on the altar stone.
“Gabriel.”
“Semjaza.”
“Where is my wife?”
Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “Are you blind?”
Semjaza’s eyes narrowed and he looked around. As soon as his gaze fell on Ishtahar, Hiwa, and Ahijah, his eyes widened and his expression became cunning. “
My beloved Ishtahar.” He quirked an eyebrow. “You are not wearing the green, beloved. Why do you clothe yourself in the purple? And my sons, why are they not attired in the white of their rank and station? And where is your pathetic little lover, Remiel?”
“Semjaza.” Ishtahar’s voice was clear and firm. She fixed him with a glare. “I am not yours, Semjaza. I am my own person. I chose the purple as a symbol of my rank and my allegiance to Hashem. My sons chose their own raiment for their own reasons—they are not infants whom I must coddle and command, as you seek to do. And dear Remiel is not here out of respect for me, for he respects and supports my decisions and has never sought to keep me as a slave or a pet as you have done.”
Semjaza’s lip curled at her speech, and he shook his head. “You have lived too long without a firm hand to guide you, my beloved. But I forgive you. The same will not be said when I kill Remiel after I have finished dispensing of Gabriel.” He turned to look at Ahijah and Hiwa. “And here are my sons, my beautiful children.” Semjaza smiled. “I am blessed. You have come to watch me kill Gabriel and his mute lieutenant and take your preordained places in my house. You, Hiwa, will govern the lands called Russia, Lithuania, Armenia, and Ukraine. And you, Ahijah, will govern those lands called South America. And you, most beloved Ishtahar, will be beside me in my palace in Eden.”
“No.” Ishtahar lifted her chin in defiance. “We will not. We are not here as your family, Semjaza. You took from us a great many things, not just our liberty, not just my free will or my body. You kept me under control through threat to my sisters, and I mourn them daily for their deaths in childbirth, unable to carry their Nephilim offspring. You continued to keep me under your control through threat to my sons, branding them with the stain of your sin and making them unable to live as Hashem Himself intended all to live upon this beautiful world. I was never your priestess, Semjaza. You presume too much. The role of High Priestess of Eden that I hold was always in honor of Hashem. Never in honor of you.”
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