Chapter Thirty-Two - Gifts
Distant birds in Gabriel’s sky hang motionless, and the breeze ruffling through her brother’s soft curls ceases entire. The scene of the mighty slabs guarding the entrance to the Monument below sits frozen, and, unlike before, the page does not turn.
Everything remains still instead, as if suspended by Raphael’s previous words.
Until a different voice entire speaks.
“You have questions.”
The voice of the Book, the voice of Raziel, booms loud but not across this setting - only across the mind. I find myself sitting cross-legged upon the mountain, much as I was back in Camael’s room of meditations. “How can I not? Yet still I fear asking them. Is what you have shown truly all I need to fulfill my Purpose?”
“Secrets revealed from without are not all which are needed.”
“Must I ask: can Elohim be healed?”
“Raphael has yet to discover a way.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“Think, Amariel. Think on that which was not spoken.”
Fingers touch the dream’s dirt, worrying free a single moderate stone to balance across a palm. “You believe I can.”
“Should you solve your own mysteries, and explore the secrets you have kept from yourself.”
“You cannot just show me?”
“Just as I cannot reveal that which lies beyond Creation’s bounds, I cannot show what one would refuse to behold. And partial sight, partial understanding, is the very danger you seek to avoid. In such lies naught but madness.”
The stone is smooth, with a hint of blue to match the sky. “What is it I am refusing to see?”
“That which is hardest to view: yourself.”
“Can you help me?”
Across pebble’s surface, the color of that expanse smooths into sharper reflection.
“I may but provide a mirror.”
With trembling fingers the stone tilts and the face of an angel comes into view.
My face.
Except behind her features lay so much more.
A memory of embrace by the darkest of tentacles and forced transition Beyond reaches out to drag me under.
And this time I don’t resist.
Primal Chaos.
All that could be, blended with all that never was nor is.
Truths that were not truths, lies that were not lies, all demanded perception in full - and, in so doing, ripped layer after layer of self into its maelstrom. Until only a simple core, a singular Name, remained.
Or so had I expected.
But I was not only a Name, not only a concept breathed into existence by the highest of thoughts emanating from the Source of All. I was daughter of the First of all angels, yes - but also daughter of a demi-goddess, and thereby a granddaughter of humanity.
And below that Name of Promise shone a spark granted each spirit forged within Jophiel’s sword-protected Garden. The sparks requiring a holy fruit’s Seed with which to achieve their fullest ascension and expression.
Such as the one Gabriel had gifted the final shards of Aradia as preserved by Azrael’s unbending will.
Preserved by Azrael’s most secret hope.
For that was the true Promise waiting within the Light upholding all that is: A path to the ultimate gift, to the grant of the ultimate ability.
The power to Create.
Creation Ex Nihilo. From the Nothing that held everything which could be, the potentials residing betwixt Abyss and Tapestry.
There, shrieking without voice and thrashing without limbs, I had buffeted across endless waves of immediate eternity - the experience etching itself into the heart of that spark, the spark which moves across the fundament forged by angels, yet was not part of. The spark which weaves threads of its own into the structures of Fate, to create that which was not possible before, to generate additional branches previously inconceivable within the existing matrix.
Everything that could be, everything imaginable and beyond, spun around that speck of Light. Entire universes could be born, generating entire fabrics of meaning hitherto unimagined. Blending the infinite Light with that fathomless spark could, if desired, also forge a new being.
One transformed into a new Source entire.
One which could spawn a Creation of its own, a forging exactly as could be desired. Not transient and ephemeral like those of the other beings I could sense swirling about within the Chaos, those surfing the potentials to play at being creators - all while wrapping themselves in endless transient illusions crafted without true substance, indulging in momentary islands of sheer self-gratified solitude.
No. I, too, could forge fundament and spirit.
I, too, could expand to not only channel the original Light, but explode a brightness uniquely my own.
I, too, could be Mother and Father of All.
However I wished to be.
Yet to do this would require separation, to move past a boundary beyond which there could be no possible return, not without destroying all That Is and Ever Was.
And in that moment outside of Time, when realization fully dawned alongside the overwhelming scorching need to unleash all that inner potential, through the concept of Threshold itself an obsidian hand reached out. Nearing panic against that rising infinite surge within, I grabbed on to those fingers like nothing I had ever grabbed onto before.
My brother Isaiah, my brother Azrael, with that hand they pulled me back.
And my eyes had opened once more upon Creation.
Within the meditation chamber of trees and artificial sun floated the Spear forged of the helical strands of Light and Chaos, each spiraling up the shaft to combine at the sharpest of tips.
Staring at the mind-bending mix of Brightness and Shadow, I finally understood what its duality represented.
Finally understood why it was mine to wield and how.
For it, too, had a Name, if one could but see and comprehend.
With a voice trembling with awe and trepidation, I spoke that Name aloud.
“Choice.”
A star-filled palm touched that shaft of duality and, after a hesitant pause, took firm grip.
Beneath those fingers the Spear pulsed, and in a brilliant flash the spiraling helix compressed and merged - until a singular beam of Light remained with a hardened point no longer of iron but something else entire, casting forth the Light of Creation as blended with a shine entirely original.
Together, those Lights banished all possible shadow from trees and room.
The mourning shade sitting heavy across my heart, however, lingered still.
Lilith caught me walking through the more luxurious halls. She was draped by the same emerald dress as before, except this time the hem bore darkening stains of splattered blood. That she hadn’t cleansed the fabric meant she fully intended others to see it.
As for me, a gown of simple lavender hung clean and loose to bare toes. Blood spilled from the battle had been banished to the domains of thought and memory.
“Amariel,” she said in an imperious tone. “We need to talk.”
“I’m on my way to the Aerie.”
“This shall not wait.” She stood in the middle of the hall - as if daring me to insult her by walking past.
“Fine. Here work? Or shall we find a conference room - or maybe an alcove to lurk about in?”
The mother of the Lilim did not smile. “The war is over.”
“At horrible cost, yes.”
“Thus your authority as Warleader will either end, or by demand’s acquiescence become more.”
I didn’t feel tired, yet I was. Thumb and middle finger pinched against forehead as her implication hit. “Shit. Vance and the twins.”
“Precisely. Release them to my custody.”
“I do that, and the Sarim will hold it against me.”
“You hold the Sefer Raziel, your quest here in Hell is complete. Why should you care what those squabbling idiots think?”
I stared at a vision of beautiful raven-haired ruthlessness, and sighed. “I get the feeling that slamming those doors is not the right thing to do.”
“By my hand were entire legions of the foe - staging from the wreckage of Mastema’s realm - kept occupied during the main assault. They would have swarmed your position otherwise. Consider my offspring’s release tribute for this aid.”
“And what then would I gift those who also participated? They either all fought for your collective defense, or as mercenaries. It cannot be both.”
Sharp violet eyes narrowed, a threat clearly swirling behind.
Determination rose within to match, and words came out snappier than usual. “And don’t fucking think of assaulting the Spires to grab them. Servitors of Light are posted to give warning, and Nathanael and Raguel stand guard - and they will summon my brightest of posteriors if needed to stomp any threats. I am not losing any more whom I love this day!! Got it?!”
“You would fight me over this? Are my family not also your friends?”
“I seek a better solution for them - and for all.”
She tsked, but grudgingly moved aside. “Solutions are compromises even at their best. Pick carefully.”
I didn’t walk on immediately, but instead paused due to a question pricking the brain. “Lilith - when your other self received shipments of Tears, were they then given to Raphael? Or to Gabriel?”
Her gaze fell to the golden scroll dangling within its case from the rope belt entwining my waist. “That is a dangerous question.”
“It is, isn’t it.”
“Are you certain you desire that answer?”
“No, but I may soon need it. Time will tell - just as for now you need to trust that I will not abandon your son and granddaughters.”
“That window is limited, and grows short.”
“For an eternal being, rushing seems awfully out of place.”
“We are caught in a crucible of change, are we not?”
“You aren’t the only archangel who has said such to me.”
“The truth of this is obvious, niece of mine.”
“No argument here. But back then, I had no clue. Even when Raphael first said it.”
She didn’t flinch from my pointedly meaningful look, but nor did she say anything further.
Moving briskly past, I walked on across the marble-floored corridor.
Upon entering the desk-infested center of the Aerie, Cassiel looked up from his seat at one of the displays.
“Amariel. Good, we need you.”
Navigating the maze of saluting officers (both angelic and demon), I reached Cassiel’s main console. “You know, the last time you said that I gained an uncomfortable new headpiece.”
“This time likely won’t be much better.”
I took in the displayed massive and singular image: a giant red sun pressing close to the planet I’d just left.
Oh. Oh no. “Is that thing cracking??”
He brushed blond strands away from an eye. “The entire realm, not just planet or sun.”
An empty stomach fell. “All those souls…they’re still there.”
“And they have no idea how or why. They’re like newborns, and their world is dying.”
“Can we get them out?”
“The realm has degenerated and become too unstable for the needed portals. And even if we could, their numbers exceed what other realms could easily absorb.” Cassiel shook his head. “Dis itself, large as it is, remains overrun with those who had been condemned to support the buildings. Beelzebub had tens of billions. The Sarim presiding over the other realms would refuse their arrival - these sparks would bring no resonances to bolster the remnants of their Names.”
I looked to the current ruler of Dis. “Can you take over that place too?”
“No. Even with your boost, such lies beyond my capability - my core pattern was never designed for such things. Though that does not matter.”
“It doesn’t?”
Deep ocean-blue eyes met mine. “The nature of the realm won’t allow anyone to try. Beelzebub’s entire forging allows only for his own pattern exclusively. In essence, it is deliberately self-destructing.”
Pulling over a chair, I dropped onto it. “So what can we do?”
“Can you repair it?”
“What? How?”
A voice came from behind. “Reforge the structure entire.”
Turning, I looked up to the stern face of an angel dressed for either a corporate boardroom or a high-level mobster’s soiree. “It isn’t that easy, Abagor.”
“You alone have the capacity.”
“Tell me, did Lucifer make a realm of his own when he was here?”
“He did not.”
“Ever wonder why?”
“Often.”
Cassiel’s quick mind caught on. “He always planned on leaving. As does she.”
“Bingo,” I said, holding up a single index finger. “Got it in one.”
In a tone holding no condemnation, only curiosity, Abagor asked, “Would you sacrifice so many for your freedom?”
The damaged planet slowly rotated before us, the dotted lights of its cities twinkling and going dark one by one.
“No,” I sighed. “But with my aid there may be another possibility.”
Wings touched by rainbows twitched upon Cassiel’s back, and blond locks fell again over a cheek. “Which is?”
“First we do a boatload of accelerated research and prep.” Without thinking, my hand reached out to brush away those bangs.
This time he let me, and didn’t flinch away. “And then?”
With a palm resting gently against that cheek, I answered. “Then we ask someone for an incredible gift.”
Two stars - one twinkling bright with a full-spectrum’s white, and the other shimmering purest of sapphire - floated in the darkness beyond the borders of a broken and fraying realm.
“This is gonna be tricky. Never done it with a whole population already in residence.”
“Through you I’ll hold them together while you get everything else in place.”
“You sure you’re up to that? All things considered.”
“He died to save them, I have to be. Did you finalize the blueprint?”
“You bet. That Cassiel fellow worked out the last parameters with those extra details you got from the Book. Kid is sharp, could give Uriel a run for his money.”
“Cass isn’t really a kid.”
“P’shaw, all Grigori are children to us ancient and retired smiths.”
“Dare I ask what you think then of me?”
“You, ma’am, are nothin’ less than an inspiring and absolutely adorable newborn. Thankfully, ya don’ need diapers, never enjoyed that part.”
“Not so sure about that. You basically gave me those when we first met.”
“Nah, I just asked questions.”
“They were good questions.”
“You had good answers.”
“I hate asking you for this. You can still say no - it will tie you down here. Possibly forever.”
“Needs doin’. Just promise me something?”
“Name it.”
“We do this, it’s gonna push against the Gate somethin’ fierce. Yours and mine resonances ain’t made for these levels, nor is the design y’all came up with.”
“Crap. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“The way I figure - and that smart kid agrees - it’ll constantly strain what we’re gonna forge regardless. All we’re accomplishing is buying some time, you understand?”
“You need me to come back at regular intervals to help patch it back up?”
“Nope, aiming for a larger ask than that.”
“My friend, anything for you.”
“Then fix it.”
“Fix what? The Gate?”
“Everything. Fix it all.”
“That’s…a tall order.”
“Ms. Claus says I’ve been good. She even let me put the topper on the tree.”
“Nathanael, you’ve been and are the best. I’ll do all I can.”
“I reckon that’s a sight more’n you realize. Good enough for me.”
“We all set then?”
“When you are, ma’am.”
“In that case…hmm. I was about to say something awfully cliché.”
“If it’s what I’m thinkin’, I’d be sorely disappointed now if you didn’t.”
“Oh. Then just for you…’Let There Be Light!’”
And there was Light.
When the others arrived, bare toes were peeking out from simple lavender cloth to sink into the wet from the receding tide. A breeze cooled by ocean waters brushed past to join winds blowing across empty sand and lava-smoothed stone, all freshly condensed across the surface from the powerful pressures settling far below. Over a cloudless horizon the glow of approaching dawn stretched fingers to slowly wash away a twilight full of twinkling stars much closer than any observed from Earth, while a full and silver moon dipped opposite to slip below the churning seas.
A moon whose bright spots and shadows hinted the dark silhouette of a bird blended seamless with slender forest feline.
Upon wings of varied colors and shapes they came, some stoic and reserved, others gazing about in wonder and excited trepidation. Including one huddled within a brown coat, who had angrily immediately pushed away from the black and gold armored arms that had carried him, standing now apart and wingless upon the unblemished sand.
To him and the rest, I spoke.
“Thank you for coming.”
“It’s not like I had a choice,” said the man in the coat as he glowered. “And he wouldn’t even say why. Where are we? I don’t recognize it.”
Another answered him. “That’s because it is new.” Floating out from the crowd of hovering angels, the rising wind carried blond hairs free from Cassiel’s boyish cheeks as he turned to face them all. “Brothers, sisters, I have asked you here as the Lady Amariel wishes to speak to us - and to make an offer. One unprecedented in all our history.”
Hundreds of eyes refocused their attention.
Lowering into a crouch, long reddish-gold hair fell braidless from one side to sweep across the sand through whose damp grains my fingers then slid. “You know who I am - and who I was. You may blame me for much, blame the Powers or the Host, or blame yourselves. But today, I care nothing for blame.”
The crowd remained silent, other than the soft sounds of a field of feathers rustling against the breeze.
“Instead, I care for their future,” I said, pointing upwards to the multitude of stars preparing to hide themselves from the glare of the incoming day. “Theirs, and yours.”
Nick’s head tilted back, and he gasped. “Souls. Those are souls. How…?”
I let Cassiel answer.
“These,” he said, gesturing with arms enfolded by wide sleeves hanging from a golden robe, “once were lost to Beelzebub. And now are free - cleansed of all recorded experience, but free. As pure as any sparks newly forged from the Light to join in that blessed union of spirit and flesh.”
While the others glanced between themselves and the sky, Nick spluttered. “Good grief, Amariel. What have you done?!”
Brushing at wet sand stubbornly sticking to fingers, I stood. “We created them a place. But we need help. From all of you, you few chosen by Cassiel, you few of the thousands of your order banished to these realms of torment and pain.” Moving to Cassiel’s side, toes reached drier ground, cold yet firm. “The pattern here is a limited imitation of the physical, as best as can be done within these levels where spirit and solidity blur together in rules more fluid than fixed. But it could become much more, the potentials are there - and therein lies our plea.”
Turiel, folding wings of dripping lava, placed palm against the ground. “This realm, its firmament echoes Earth. Vast ocean, tectonics,” he said, before looking again at sky and also moon. “And tidal pull.”
I nodded. “With the necessary components, simplified as some may be.”
Beginning to understand, Nick paled. “You cannot be serious.”
“But I am,” I said softly. “They deserve a fresh start. As do all of you. And with your brave efforts, we hope that more may dare to again feel and embrace the Light that was lost.”
In the middle of the crowd, Yomyael - with pain and longing stretching towards the rising dawn - dropped to her knees. “No!! Don’t tempt…don’t curse us with this again! To watch, to love, and for all that they are to be only etched within and then reset!”
Cassiel placed hands behind his back. “We still stand in the realms beyond death, any resets would be by external force. Or by choice to renew again.”
Gazing daggers over an armless shoulder, her anger flashed. “Don’t lie! I see the patterns of birth woven in!! One implies the other!”
“Only for flora and fauna,” he said, unperturbed. “As on other realms.”
“It’s more than that,” she snarled. “There’s intent here for such to touch the souls as well!”
“Births, yes,” I agreed. “For other than the first few who shall begin, those who will be in greatest need of initial guidance. The remaining stars above are to be born from love - or lust - as children. They will need to build civilizations, to learn and grow, as our intention is to start small. And, as elsewhere in Hell, death by old age cannot for souls here occur. At least, not unless they wish it. We lay but a foundation; where they take it will be up to them and their inner sparks.”
Another Grigori in the crowd, a tall yet lanky willow of a figure, spoke up. “And how are we to avoid the mistakes of the past? Cassiel may have selected us, but we too are damned to darkness, condemned to never again stand in the Presence!”
“Teach,” I said. “Guide. But do not interfere. Your Names, tarnished and encrusted as they are now, will require great effort to polish and restore - but this can be accomplished. Nathanael shines above, for his heart carries mine as a gift to all who dare try - and through him may much be rekindled.”
I paused to give them a moment for this to register, then continued. “Without the Light, we angels go astray. Here - fulfilling your deepest Purposes, fulfilling that for which you were created - you may reach those heights again. We will not force this, we only ask and offer - that you may come to shine your true selves once more.”
Yomyael bowed head, her solitary hand clutching at the stump where the other arm should have been. “And if it’s too much?! Will you cut us down??”
Cassiel knelt besides her. “If it is, then join me again in Dis.”
Nick frowned. “Aren’t you forgetting something? This is Hell. If we don’t meddle, demons will overrun.”
“They will not.” Camael, who had stood still and silent since arriving, now stepped forward. “No portals shall take root upon this soil. By my Name is this realm sealed, and Nathanael alone holds the key.”
Many in the crowd flinched, but they took him at his word.
Nick, however, looked around. “And where is Nathanael?! If he’s the progenitor of this realm, shouldn’t he address us?”
Scanning beyond these heavens, I answered. “He works to harness the current fluctuations and loop the localized fabric of time, to allow for what needs be done - to allow for what we hope to be.”
“That’s a neat trick.”
“A certain book showed how.”
The angel pretending to be less shoved hands into deep pockets. “Then I know why you dragged me here. It’s no good. I can’t do it.”
“You’re the only one who can.”
“I can’t.”
“For this realm to truly be theirs, to flow with the magic of their lives and existence, it’s the only way.” I breathed in the vista of empty sand and sea. “This needs a foundation of spirit moving through solid elements nurtured and not forced. Else it be but pictures projected rapidly upon a screen.”
“I’ll just fuck it up.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“After everything…how can you not?”
“Because you won’t be doing this alone.” I looked to Cassiel, who stood and stepped over to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.
“We all erred,” said Cassiel. “I most of all.”
“You’re not even him,” muttered Nick, turning from his brother’s gaze to instead stare down at his feet.
“I am what he became.”
A beaten leather shoe nudged the sand, leaving a half-broken footprint. “I have no wings upon which to fly.”
“Then,” said Cassiel, “until yours are healed, you may borrow mine.”
Spreading feathers touched by rainbows, Cassiel rose from the beach. And by his extended will, did he also lift up his brother.
Inhaling deep, an anxious floating angel looked to me with eyes swirling with cloudy grey. “What if I fail?”
I smiled. “With our help, Barakiel of the Grigori, you keep trying. Be stubborn towards success. For these souls - and for yourself.”
Searching above the ocean to where wisps of white lent their dots along the dawning sky, he hesitated.
And then, after a delay which caused heart to worry if we truly had asked too much, he finally nodded.
Without further discussion, the two sped into that sky. Far above, hovering as the brightest star in the local tapestry, Nathanael let time slip forward so that the yellow sun’s even brighter rise increased its pace, and the distant specks of cotton across that blue canvas billowed with growth, filling with moisture to tower over the sea as tremendous fronts of gray and black.
Between the folds of the mountains of now-heavy storm the first flickers began to arc, and a low rumble reached our ears - carried by a wind whistling itself into a frenzy. Each bright pulse fizzled before reaching dirt or ocean, but after a pause would strobe again. And again.
And again.
As the emerging typhoon’s unleashed downpour swallowed the sun, thick sheets of blinding lightning struck all around, hitting shore and hitting sea. Day and night accelerated under time’s command, sun and moon spinning faster behind the thunderous torrents, and shadows found themselves banished entire by the continuous display flashing that brilliance from horizon to horizon, all to connect ground to sky - and more.
Across this world, the dance of Life could now begin.
Chapter Thirty-Three - Prayer
As I wasn’t needed to help Nathanael and the Grigori guide the accelerated evolutions swiftly covering the new planet, I slipped away. And not back to the Citadel.
Without fanfare I sneaked back into the Spires, finding a healed Twitch in the kitchens experimenting with a new soup recipe. Whatever he saw across my face needed no words, and he put down a spice container to swiftly enfold me in his arms, which of course caused tears to flow anew.
Dangit.
Leading me over to a bench, he sat with me until they slowed, even producing a handkerchief (okay, a scrap of beaten cloth) tucked away in the folds of his reaper uniform wrap.
I gratefully blew my nose upon it, and he refused its return.
Sighing softly, I leaned against him, cheek pressing against his chest and shoulder. “I should be happy. We won the war. And forged a miracle. Yet…” Eyes closed, only to again see dark feathers and fur.
Arms squeezed, and he nuzzled my hair.
“I’ve got the Book. And will need to go deal with Heaven.”
He went still.
“I’ve an idea on how to get souls out of Hell. I want you to come with me.”
Him shaking his head caused me to lean away, and meet eyes gone rather serious.
“Twitch…”
A hand gestured to not just the kitchens, but the entire encampment.
“You shouldn’t be-”
The hand shook more insistently.
“She is right,” a voice said from the doorway. “Your bright soul belongs not in Hell.”
Startled, we both turned to the silver-haired man leaning against a hooked staff.
I said his name as greeting. “Raguel.”
“Apologies, but your arrival was noticed.”
“And here I thought I’d been stealthy.”
He smiled as he stepped further in the room. “Justice may be said to be blind, but some presences are difficult to ignore.”
Twitch didn’t return the smile, indeed he released me to cross arms instead.
Raguel’s eyes twinkled kindly anyway. “It is alright, my friend. You have reignited the myth of the Pilgrim in the hearts of many. I can resume the mantle from here. Your acts - and hers - have rekindled my heart. Especially if she accomplishes this promise.”
Watching Twitch struggle inside, I spoke up. “I don’t know how many can come for the first trip. But I hope to establish a path.”
“Then,” said Raguel, “I shall send with you the strongest I have kept safe, for their faith shall aid you as they have me.”
“It could be dangerous.”
“Yet you ask your most beloved companion to join?” Raguel asked lightly, his eyes of gold still shining.
“If he’s with me, I believe my heart won’t dare fail.”
That earned a slow and deeply considered nod from the angel. “On that, dear Amariel, you may very well be correct.” He looked back at Twitch. “Reflect on this carefully, young man, before you decide.”
Again Twitch shook his head. Hopping up from the bench, he picked up the waterskin resting on the counter near the bubbling cauldron of soup.
A waterskin he held out with a fierceness.
Oh.
“I don’t know if I-”
The pouch was shoved into my hands, though his own then covered mine.
After a deep inhale, wings unfurled.
Dead graxh stared lifeless, chests and stomachs sliced open by the monsters who had risen from the dirt to shred the harnessed beasts which had pulled the wagon. A clash of blade against armored hide came from beyond the wreckage, where Thomas blurred with speed in desperate flurries, searching for weaknesses his slender knives could exploit. Spheres of spikes and claws spun around him, striking repeatedly as a whirlwind with which he had but two blades to parry.
Whereas she clutched at a belly running slick with hot red of its own, the neglected womb exposed in the barest of blue light still flickering from the pair of toppled lanterns.
The burning and bloody mess accused her desperate fingers, reminding of precious cargo lost out of the need for one more hit, just one to settle nerves afire from going too long without that which only momentarily stemmed agonies of body and spirit.
Water spilling from shattered casks flooded past to be swallowed by thirsty soil, water that with her presence hadn’t been required. Her gift, useless in life where such bounty flowed through every pipe and faucet, here in the depths of damnation had found utility, had found purpose.
Thomas would need it. He would beat these things. He could make it back to the outpost.
But he would need to drink to carry on, to replenish that which leaked from those numerous yet shallow wounds, to stave off his own collapse.
Yet behind bleeding stomach, her spine had also severed, and the pull of inner regrets and sorrows would no longer be denied.
Except he needed that gift.
He needed it.
He needed her.
As all began to fade, through guilt and pain she wept a prayer.
A prayer repeated, unwavering and wrapped about while also clenched tight within.
Timeless and unchanging, refusing to let it go.
Over and over, echoing forever across empty inner darkness.
Until a distant Light pulsed.
And Thomas’ cracking voice reached for her...
“Leila.”
A slender face below short cropped brown locks lay against his lap. She blinked against the brightness suffusing the room, and a weak hand reached upward. “Thomas…you’re…”
He took her fingers, squeezing tenderly as the wraps below his eyes grew heavier with dampness.
Wings eased off the brilliance. “He’s fine, Leila,” I said softly. “You saved him. And thereby saved so many others.” As her confusion rose, partially from seeing a neon-bright angel, I added, “But don’t worry about that now. He’s alright, and so are you.”
She tried to sit up, but reforged muscles weren’t yet ready for such effort, and she sank back. Twitch looked quickly to me, before back at her.
I agreed. “See if she’ll eat some of your soup while I go find Maddalena. Let’s go Raguel, we should give these two a moment.”
After an ignored wave to the pair on the floor no longer holding any attention for us angels, we exited the kitchens to cross through the broad dining hall and its many tables awaiting mealtime.
As we reached the doors to the caverns beyond, he paused to lean against his staff.
“He will go with you. But she should remain.”
I checked the motion to turn the handle on the door. “He’ll want her to go too.”
“You may have reawoken her soul, but her place still lies within these realms.”
“Then he’ll insist on staying.”
“He shall not. For another waits for him beyond the Gate, another who has never let him go.”
“You seem awfully sure.”
“I am.”
“He just got her back. To separate them now would be cruel.”
“Events will work out, worry not.”
“I always worry. Why not about this?”
“Because it is just.” The folds besides his eyes crinkled with warm certainty.
“Oh.”
“Come. There are others who are also in need, and I believe you intend to speak with them as well.”
“Well, yeah. After I find Maddalena. How’d you know?”
He chuckled. “You are not the only angel possessing eyes with which to see. And you tread the paths of my Purpose.”
“That’s…actually reassuring.”
Reaching past, he pushed open the door. “As it should be.”
I walked through, and the shepherd followed.
Though maybe in truth it was the other way around.
“My dearest friend Jordan,” said Vance with a warm smile. “Or are you here as the Lady Amariel? Or perhaps as Warleader of the rebellious Sarim - forgive, as by your attire the appropriate formalities are, shall we say, perceptually nebulous.”
Having found Horatio first and dispatched him to summon Vance and the twins to his curved meeting table, by the time we’d then tracked down Maddalena and sent her to Twitch and Leila, the three Lilim had already arrived. Vance wore again his more raconteur aristocratic style, including a 17th century European black silk doublet smartly buttoned down to matching pantaloons. Ruyia and Yaria had gone with a different look, more Asian with their floor-length silk skirts of aquamarine, and matching wide-sleeved tops that hid many sharp and deadly instruments.
Glancing down at the contrast of my simple lavender dress cinched by belt of twine and its dangling scroll case, I shrugged. “Maybe a mix of all of those, if I think about it.”
“Then to each of your perfectly lovely aspects, we shall give full attention.” While the statement was immaculately polite, the mischievous lift to the still-growing mustache and cheeks hinted at more.
The twins, however, were all seriousness, sitting at the table to flank their father with hands carefully folded upon the felwood surface.
“Good,” I said, deciding I really didn’t feel like taking a chair - and thereby stood there awkwardly. “So…for reasons I’m sure you understand, I can’t just release you to Lilith.”
Yaria growled, but a warning glance from Vance kept her silent. Not happily though as demonstrated by her deepening scowl.
I pressed on anyway. “Neither can I, out of my love for you all, hand you over to the demons for execution.”
Vance tugged on the fresh mustache growth straining to achieve former glory. “For which we are grateful. But such provides an acute predicament, does it not?”
“It does. Which,” I said while resting elbows atop the back of a chair, “is why I offer a third option: banishment. Outside these realms of the fallen Sarim.”
Again Vance forestalled a daughter’s angry protest with a raised hand. “Banishment? To this world forged anew from Beelzebub’s wreckage?”
“Word travels fast. Though with you Lilim, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.”
He chuckled, but withheld comment.
“But no,” I continued, “That world is to be for souls only - no demons, no Lilim, no devils. With the angels themselves treading as lightly as possible.”
“Ah.” He leaned back in the chair. “Then again forgive, as I can think of no realms which could possibly meet such qualifications.”
“Then how about we start with Earth.”
The widow’s peak on Vance’s forehead stretched upward in surprise. “Earth?!”
Yaria’s chair shoved backwards, and her fist pounded the table as she stood. “Why tease us with impossibilities?! Have the Sarim instructed you to torture us without knives?!”
Ignoring her outburst, I spoke direct to Vance. “Your mother has a channel to Earth between her two aspects. I believe it can be utilized to create an opening.”
His eyes widened further. “The pond…”
“Exactly. The pond.”
“Father!” Yaria interjected. “What is she talking about?!”
I answered, but maintained focus on Vance. “The transit connection used to cleanse the Chaos from my spirit. Also employed by Lilith to transport the smuggled Tears out of Hell.”
Yaria made a choking noise, and then went silent.
Vance however spoke. “Mother shared not the destination.”
“I know.”
“Is she aware of your knowledge?” Lips under the non-quite spiraled growth pursed as implications continued their calculations.
“Most of it.”
“And have you proposed this already to her?”
“Not yet. I wanted to talk with you three first. This would mean leaving everything you’ve ever known behind, for a trip not certain to succeed.”
Again fingers ringed with precious metals and gems tugged the thin mustache. “But this proposal avoids our execution, as well as any further complications for Mother and the rest of our people.”
“Yes.”
“This…is an elegant solution. If it can be done.”
Ruyia, having herself stayed quiet only because her sister had shouted first, now objected. “You cannot be serious!!”
Vance turned towards her. “Mother exists both here and on the other side of that wall. Think you not that her heart transcends the limits of the Gate? She shall gladly welcome us, the first of her children to escape this prison!”
“But…!” Words failed Ruyia.
From Yaria’s sleeve a blackened dagger flew, loudly sticking point-first a solid inch into the table’s wood.
“We do it,” she announced angrily, now that she had all our attentions. “I hate it, but we do it. On one condition.”
“Daughter! We are in no position to demand-”
“I insist!” She stared then at me.
I met her dangerous glare. “What is it?”
“The Reaper Barry comes with us.”
Ruyia spluttered, while Vance did a double take, and both blurted, “What?!”
Yaria wrapped strong yet slender fingers around the embedded dagger’s hilt. “Ruyia is in love with that idiot. And the foolish ale-guzzling bear talks too much when deep in his cups.”
“He say he loves her too?” I asked, amused and also touched that even immortals like Ruyia could blush so fiercely.
“Bah,” snorted Yaria. “The dolt would shout that from the tops of these Spires, if the idea ever penetrated that thick head. No, the lout once let slip what landed him in Hell: tragedies born of the necessities of war. His guilt and remorse sent him here.” With a quick yank, the blade came free. “Face it, my sister, he is too good for you. Which is why you should never let him go.”
I thought about it. “You realize, as a soul he could be forced into reincarnation.”
Vance frowned. “And what of us? Is not Earth still under Seal against those of angelic lineage?”
“Well,” I said, echoing Vance’s earlier smirk, “I may have made some adjustments. Like giving myself an override.”
“That,” said Vance, “could cause trouble with Azrael, could it not?”
I shrugged. “Depends on which of the two try to yell at me.” Before he could ask, I waved him off. “That’s mine to worry about.”
He blinked in puzzlement, but didn’t press. “And the Gate itself? The threads woven by mortal wizardry which allow projection are barred against becoming anything more. Neither Mother nor any of the Bene-Elohim can defy the Edict of Throne.”
“Leave that to me as well, my friend. For in a way, I think Creation herself has granted my spirit the key.”
Three dubious faces reflected a mix of concern, contemplation, and restrained annoyance.
But they didn’t argue.
Though Ruyia did mutter, more to herself than to us.
“If he’s forced into a new life, I’ll follow and find him. To this I swear.”
Not wanting to intrude just yet on Twitch and Leila (okay, I may have been dreading doing so), I wandered through the caverned encampment attempting to collect fragmented thoughts. The Lilim, with the possibility of leaving the rest of their family forever, needed time to prepare.
Then again, so did I.
Walking past buildings occupied by demons and souls working together, I couldn’t help but ponder those demons - especially the ones from my original crew still sharing the star’s mark. A certain remembered comment by a brother and friend weighed on the mind.
I paused at the sparring ground, where a horned dire wolf sprouting additional human arms wielded sword and shield against an axe-bearing tentacled blob. As I watched them hack and dodge, the mark-driven threads between us resolved and became clear.
In Rabbi Kirov’s lectures he’d once commented that evil’s presence alone corrupts by proximity, as its naturalized and eventually accepted example may erode the righteous so slowly as to hardly be noticeable until too late.
What I saw here was the opposite, and while I really shouldn’t have been shocked, it still managed.
As through that mark, the Light slowly inched deeper into all connected, the gentlest of tides slowly washing in. It was the slightest tilt of difference, but already profound.
Training as they were, still did they harness power from the souls contained within. Still with harvested fury, pain, and adrenalin, but with an additional need not having been present before:
A desire to support and defend.
Rising within them, pulled from souls barely touched by the slightest of drips, these demons now wished for more. They, too, had tasted the Light, and Darkness alone was no longer sufficient for their growing appetites.
They may not have even realized it, but it was there.
Just as I hadn’t understood when last I fought besides them, and they had surprised by so fervently coming to my defense, buying with their lives the needed time for us to win. I had, without knowing, been feeding them something new.
And they literally were made of what they ate.
So lost was I in this revelation that I hadn’t noticed the two stop their bout, hadn’t noticed them and everyone else around dropping to knees. Souls and demons had emerged from the buildings, whispering to one another, none daring disturb the spaced-out woman with silly flashlights for eyes.
Good grief.
A mental tug intervened. “Milady?”
“Go ahead, Saphiel. What is it?”
“A messenger has arrived. They refuse to speak to any but you.”
“Who are they?”
“They claim the name of Drek, and are in the service of Abagor.”
“Oh. Him. He outside?”
“He is, milady.”
“On my way.”
Releasing the contact (or at least attention to it), I gave the kneeling crowd an awkward wave. “Please, continue.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, I made my way towards the closest cavern exit.
And no, I didn’t hurry. My walk normally was that brisk. Oh hush.
Escaping - ahem, exiting - the cavern, I crossed the plateau to approach the waiting and hovering angel. Wearing the same beautifully-forged silver armor I had seen before, the almost Sidhe-featured angel with blue-black hair offered a deep bow.
“Lady Amariel.”
“Hello Duchiel.”
Irritation soured those high cheekbones as he straightened. “I am known as Drek, milady.”
“Yet that is not your true Name, besmeared and neglected though it may be. What news from Prince Abagor?”
Clearly wanting to say more but not daring to, he answered the question. “The Sarim have declared the war with Beelzebub won.”
“It is.” As for me, I wanted to add ‘what gave them the first clue?’, but I too bit my tongue. Diplomacy at its finest!
“As such the position of Warleader for this cause is no longer required.”
“Naturally. They start stabbing each other in the backs yet?”
A hint of amusement crossed his lips. “Not that I am aware, milady. But the knives are surely sharp and ready.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“My prince demands resolution of a certain issue impinging upon his domain.” His eyes flicked past my shoulder to the caverns behind.
“Tell him I am working on a solution, one which should satisfy all involved parties.”
“He will certainly ask what such could possibly be.”
“As currently it is in the planning stages, I am unwilling to share details at this time. Other than to note that it will be unprecedented, and something only I could provide.”
The ties between Duchiel and Abagor flickered in the ether between here and the other side of the Rock. Interesting, Abagor had returned to this realm - yet had also sent a messenger instead of visiting personally.
I suppose I could have taken insult at that, but it did maintain a layer of separation regarding the aforementioned ‘issue’.
“My prince states that in honor of our recent victory, he shall exercise extreme patience and await your proposal. For now.”
“How kind of him.” If sarcasm could drip from lips, I’d have needed a napkin. If not a towel.
Duchiel ignored the tone. “He also adds a passed-on request: Prince Asmodeus wishes, at your convenience, your returned presence to his Garden of Pearls.”
“Convey to Prince Abagor my gratitude for delivery of this request.”
“I shall, milady.” With a second bow and my nodded response, he disappeared into the almost-empty sky where Nathanael’s gift twinkled still within that lightless night. It shone all the more bright, not from its intensity, but rather the sheer contrast against the otherwise cover of total darkness.
It caught at the eye, that star, inevitably calling attention without demanding.
Probably a lesson in there somewhere, but at the moment thoughts became busy, juggling what would be needed to pull off the intended stunt.
Lost in planning’s requirements while gazing upward, a voice from behind broke the contemplative silence.
“My Queen.”
I’d felt her approach, so that wasn’t what startled. Yet I flinched as pain still raw flooded from those two words, spoken most often of late by another, and the gaze that swung to meet her may have contained unintended agonized reproach.
Maddalena immediately dropped to a knee with lowered head. “If I have disturbed-”
“No, no it’s just…oh hon.” I pulled her up, then wrapped arms around shoulders covered with her dark and curly hair. “I’ve lost someone dear, and to him I also was his queen.”
“You are queen to many.”
Seeing her discomfort, I let her go. “Which doesn’t stop wishing to be only a friend.”
“But you are-”
“-What I am.” I finished for her. “I know.” Gathering myself together, I shifted to a more formal parade-rest stance. “Now - you would not have broken my reverie were it not important.”
She nodded. “I’ve come about Leila.”
Concern flared. “Is she okay?!”
“She is fine, my…my Queen.” The priestess said the last defiantly.
I let that go too. “Then what is it?”
“Her abilities are greater than she may realize.”
“Hmm? She was able to summon water, right?”
“Yes, but I believe those waters can be more. She carries the potential to be a healer, perhaps stronger than I.”
“Stronger than…but you’re amazing.”
“Thank you, my Queen. But even I have limits - ones I sense not within her, as if such had somehow been removed should she but tap deeper.”
A memory of Leila’s waterskin pouring over a dreadfully wounded Lilim’s bare chest flashed past. Of my hands filled with channeled love and desperate need flowing into the life-preserving stream.
Oh wow.
“That may be my spirit’s doing.”
“Yours?” The priestess didn’t really question the possibility, but curiosity certainly piqued.
“Leila’s waters were used to channel the love of two daughters frantically trying to save their father, as blended with Twitch’s love of her that she may aid them as well as him. Can you teach her to use it?”
“Me, my Queen? I am no teacher.”
“Yet you learned how to use yours.”
“In dreams sent from the Goddess. Such gifts are divine, and best taught by true inspiration from those above.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “And what if the divine was there in person?”
“You, my Queen?”
“Not me, my lovely priestess. But another whose teachings are forever in service of all everyone here has fought to build.” The smile became a gentle laugh. “Which would also preserve the scales with your departure.”
“Departure? Wherefore am I to go?”
“With me, dear Maddalena. With me. But not yet, for there are things I must do first, as must you.”
“I am here for whatever you need, my Queen.”
“Then find the angel Raguel - known here as Herald. And on my behalf, ask him to take Leila as a student. Tell him she will require his balanced ways.”
“As you request, so shall it be done.”
“Speak also with Vance and the Twins. Tell them I shall prepare the way, and that I ask for you and them to be ready. The reforged connection to Lilith’s tower in Dis still stands, and while I no longer require its passage, many others will have need when I call.”
“We shall be prepared.”
With palms on the shorter woman’s shoulders, I kissed the many curls atop her head. “Then I go in confidence.”
After receiving her curtsy and polite nod, I let manifested wings carry me upward as if floating towards that distant star. The more I thought about it, the more it felt right.
This could actually work.
My friends might yet be saved.
Chapter Thirty-Four - Departures
Having become acclimated to flying the spaces between realms, the trip was uneventful and direct. Not as quick as an immediate translation, but I wasn’t ready to test such maneuvering to patterns not ingrained in both memory and heart.
Somehow both felt necessary.
Arrival through the mists to the beach lined with shadowed cliffs was therefore simple, and without delay the moss-tinged angel Posri led again up the mountainous steps to the garden and its many statues of memorialized sacrifice.
Passing by them all, I chewed a lip, wondering if our host had yet erected one for Tsáyidiel. If he had, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it.
Breaking down in front of a fallen archangel was not something I wished to deal with.
Again in his simple wheelchair, we found Asmodeus waiting instead before the empty plinth where Camael’s wing had once floated, the marble surface still pitted and scarred from the absent feathers’ dripping flames. He huddled now under a thick beige blanket against the chill wind whistling between his treasured memorials.
Noting his shivers, I skipped the usual formal greetings. “Maybe we should go inside.”
“Hmph. I would claim that I am fine, but such would be an obvious lie.” The one eye burned red and irritated, and the skin even on the face’s undamaged side hung sallow to droop over the bones. “Not,” he said with a rough chuckle, “that I am a stranger to fabrication.”
“You really don’t look too good, Asmodeus.”
“Manifestations of the deeper trauma,” he admitted. “Still, I yet exist.”
“I received word you wanted to see me.”
“Yes!” With effort, he straightened. “Travel, as you may imagine, for me has become troublesome. Having just arrived, I held no desire to again immediately depart - yet I wish to convey congratulations on your victory.”
“Somehow I doubt you had me visit just for that.”
A chuckle turned into a wrenching cough, and with a sneer of disgust he spat blood to the side. “Of course not. Follow.” Gripping the metal circles inscribed within the rubber wheels, he pushed himself across bare rock.
Curious but cautious, I walked behind him, and soon we sat and stood before that smaller yet more violent plinth I had noticed before - the one whose contents were bound by a fiery seal forged of the fallen archangel’s will and Name.
That which was trapped within continued to rage.
Sparks and flame, occluding any vision of what was inside, continuously boiled against the imposed script, as energy pulsed with determined fury of crimson-tinged indigo.
With Asmodeus’ failing condition, those securing bonds had begun to crack.
“What’s in there?” I asked, fearing he was about to give me something new to wrestle against.
He gestured towards the writhing binding. “When last we spoke amongst my pearls, it appalled you to conceive our great War against Heaven as necessary. Yet I know with certainty that Hell still serves a greater role, that our existence and struggles were not only right but needed.”
“Still serves? Or potentially could serve. The two are not the same.”
“You were not there, when Lucifer in his rage-filled pride falsely believed we no longer deserved existence.”
“I have borne witness to Gabriel’s memory.”
The bloodshot eye swung up, and after a moment’s consideration, the angel nodded. “Then perhaps you will understand after all.” Without waiting for response, Asmodeus plunged a hand through the binding, the intact half of his skull snarling fiercely with the effort.
And against the pain.
Hot flame burst up his arm, and with a shout and toss, what he pulled free clattered and spun across the stone floor.
“There!” he snapped, as he smothered his still-burning skin with the blanket. “There lies the proof! Though it curse my every touch!”
Glowing as if retrieved direct from an active forge, a sword’s hilt smoked where it had landed upon the rock. Only a sharp nub of a previously attached blade extending from the black circular tsuba still remained.
I couldn’t help it. I gaped in absolute astonishment. “Is that…??” Words failed.
“Behold,” he growled, his own fury smothering the pain, “that which was the second-most prized item of my collection until you shattered to pieces the first. Behold this shard of Azrael, cast unto Darkness at the moment of our false imprisonment!!”
Taking a step towards it, the handle - wrapped and bound like the most simple yet elegant tachi - sparked fresh fire. Not daring to get closer, I crouched before it instead, and the flames died down - though not entirely. “It’s really not happy.”
“Not…happy?!” Asmodeus' laughter grew into a bellow, before twisting instead upon additional choked and bloody phlegm. Wheezing, he wiped a tear from the eye with a freshly-seared hand. “Are any of us?”
“How…?”
“How did it get here?” He inhaled, a process slow and painful. “More appropriate is not a question of how, but why.”
“Then why?!”
“Creation refused to let us fall into nothingness. That should tell all that you need know.”
Having spent a fair amount of time pondering that vision, I nodded. “Hell is still a part of What Is.”
“And Azrael…” he prompted.
Dang, this was like being stuck back in Kirov’s metaphysics classroom. “Azrael defines the boundary, at that level he is the boundary. For Hell to still be part of Creation, Azrael must encompass it. A piece of him had to come here.” Like with the Seals on Earth. Good grief. ‘As Above, so Below’ in spades. “Why show this to me?”
“Because I offer a trade.”
“A trade?” Attention tore away from the black-on-black handle, and returned to the broken - and freshly singed - angel.
“Your time as Warleader has closed. Much as I desire for your continued service in uniting us against our truest foe, your Purpose clearly draws you immediately elsewhere. Even now you endeavor to again escape this prison, though likely not by use of the same dramatic method previously employed.”
“How would you know that?”
Sharp yellowed teeth grinned, and they weren’t exactly friendly. “Because your overly-tender heart upon that sleeve cannot bear to do such alone a second time.”
Being unable to deny, I said nothing.
“Fear not, for I wish only for your success! Indeed, I offer assistance.” He pointed a finger more bone now than flesh towards the handle. “For a price.”
Tensing, or more accurately bracing for impact, I went ahead and asked the question. “Which is?”
“I am owed a crown, Archangel and Archon. Leave me your freshly-leafed circlet of gold, and take with you instead this slice of Judgment.”
“You want to keep a piece of me here in Hell.”
“We had but one tiny shard of the Light on which to hold, and by your hand was it destroyed. And the greater threat of Leviathan remains.”
“That relic you clung to, with its fading battery of ancient power, at the core that crown sat empty! It contained not his Name, surely you knew this!”
“Very few could see that deep. It was a symbol, nothing more…and nothing less."
I glared as emotion churned against reason, and again said nothing.
“Is it so wrong,” he added to the charged silence, “to ask for another?”
Remembering similar words, the golden leaf-embossed crown slipped free from my hair. “No. Damn you, but no. Keep it safe, Asmodeus - and if you cannot, it goes to Nathanael’s keeping, you understand?”
An eager yet damaged hand took the gleaming wreath from mine. “I do, and also-”
His words cut short, as the circlet flared with interruption. To our mutual bewilderment, the flesh across his fingers began to heal - not the underlying scourge inflicted by the Child of Leviathan, but only that which the implement of Azrael had moments ago imposed with its fiery rage.
When the Light eventually faded, the hand was again whole.
I broke our mutually stunned silence. “You were going to say something.“
He continued to marvel at skin no longer damaged. “I was.”
“Not used to being surprised?”
“After a status quo of eternity? I suppose not.”
I scoffed. “Happens to me all the time.”
“And this is why you may succeed.” Resting the circlet on his covered lap, even his breathing began to ease. “The artifact of he who renamed my lord’s shattered seat is yours. If you intend to use that Spear of impossibilities to strike down Elohim’s Wall, with this relic I suggest an alternate course.”
“Which is?”
“Build instead a bridge. Remove not the hilt and the power it represents from Hell, nor keep it from Heaven’s reach.”
I reached out from the crouch, fingers filling with Light both mine and from above. For they filled with all the love I held for my incarnate brother and Aradia’s angelic uncle.
The fires within the handle dimmed, accepting the tentative touch.
As I lifted the precious item from the stones, the Fallen angel’s bloodshot eye squinted against the glow. “You burn with the holy flame of a Seraph in her prime. Beware not to scorch those you would carry, for that full glory shall be needed to succeed.”
“I know. I’ve an idea about that.”
“Go then, and pursue it.” He smirked as the redness within the eye also began to clear. “Perhaps I shall yet bear witness to what must come.”
“In that case, Asmodeus, until we meet again.”
“Until then.”
Both lighter and heavier than before arrival, on wings of crystal did I depart.
There was only one more place to visit before everyone needed could gather at Lilith’s painted tower.
Before me again rose a towering grey-cloaked spirit, his sandaled feet straddling the felwood decks of a mighty vessel. Except this time I hovered at his eye level, shining truth instead of dissembling as I had previously.
This had thrown the poor guy off his game, as twice already had he raised finger as if to say something then stopped, thinking better of it.
I smiled. “You’re wondering why I am here.”
“In this form, you have no need of the boat.”
“Ah. Well, on that you are incorrect.”
“You have wings on which to soar.”
“So do you. I caught a glimpse of them before.”
“Gone are those days of Host and Glory.”
Feathers behind me stretched further, bathing him in illumination as they also spread their shine across the past.
To see there what had been expected.
“How many,” I asked more softly, “did you save as they fell between these realms unto the Abyss? Before the Light dimmed beyond what was necessary to trace and catch their passage. Before heartbreak brought you here.”
The boat tilted, floating there upon boiling waters which were not water. “Not enough.”
“Then I ask, would you rise to those heights once again? For many have need.”
“I am the Boatman, nothing more.”
“Yet within you lies another moniker, one sleeping and buried but there - for in ages past before the Houses united, you shepherded angels across the vast churning Deeps between, and not over this shallow and acidic reflection.”
“I…I am the Boatman.”
“I care nothing for the lesser labels others have since applied. And I see true, you have never forgotten.”
“I am…”
A brightness more intense than the flaming ceiling high above burst outward, driving away all shadows upon these bony shores. Indeed, skeletons collapsed into fine powder, their dust sweeping clear by a rising wind. “Hear me, Supreme Lord of the Waters - angels and souls again call to your glorious Purpose! For they are in need of passage betwixt tides they otherwise may never cross!!”
Behind the tattered and sea-weary cloak, a lattice of feathers other than mine began to spark and glitter. “But I am-”
“You are the angel Phuel!! And by this redeclaration of your holy Name is the price paid for your freedom, and for your aid to all in such need. Do you accept?!”
The mindless souls serving at the oars upon the boat trembled, and with return of long-forgotten awareness, all peered into the burning Light hovering above.
And also to the brightly winged giant angel standing tall upon their ship.
“I do.”
Beautifully colored paintings hung over us, their towering figures arching across the broad and domed ceiling. Gone was the hole where conflict had opened passage to burning sky, although the fresh patch of concrete remained blank and unpainted.
Despite our feathered gathering having taken forms much shorter than illustrated, Lilith’s actual presence dominated the carefully crafted reproductions stretching above. Her emerald dress no longer bore the stains of slaughter, but threats of possible resumption of such burned behind violet eyes - and in words’ tone.
“My son and granddaughters, I was led to believe they would be here.”
“As was I,” said Abagor, whose attention kept flicking towards the simply robed angel standing off on his own in contemplation of the small ritual wading pool besides the portal stones.
“Should we come to an agreement,” I said, “then will they come.”
“Agreement?” Lilith’s arms crossed below silk-covered curves. “They are mine.”
Abagor, as always wearing the bland business suit, refocused. “They have been convicted of high crimes in my domain. Their release would cause-”
“Not my concern!” she hissed. “Your fear of additional rebellion against the feudal demons matters not!”
His features hardened. “This goes beyond responsibilities within my realm, but to the compacts between the Sarim necessary for our preservation. Perhaps instead you prefer I invoke a Conclave and enjoin your offspring’s testimony with our former Warleader set as Judge?”
She shook her head. “Careful, Abagor, you know where that would lead.” She readily met his glare. “You have no more desire for that than I.”
“I am prepared for truth. Are you?”
Without shifting her gaze, she spoke then to me. “Amariel. Clearly you have an alternate proposal, or else that one,” a purple-painted fingernail pointed towards the figure bending over the pond, “would not be here. Let’s hear it.”
Despite the tension flaring between them, I shrugged. “It’s simple. Vance and the Twins shall be banished from Hell entire. The politics become rather moot at that point, would they not?”
Abagor blanched. “Surely you don’t intend to carry them through the Chaos? Their spirits cannot withstand-”
With a laugh filling the vast chamber, Lilith interrupted him again. “Not through the Chaos, idiot! Yet something equally ambitious and dangerous.” Her righteous irritation tempered into a sly smile, and she finally looked at me. “Think you can actually do it?”
“Yes. With your help, both here and there.”
“Then I agree.”
A timeless face scrunched as Abagor attempted to puzzle it out. “Agree to what?”
The fingernail shifted to point at the pool itself. “Sending them to Earth, using the connection already constructed that holds myself as tether on both sides.”
The gears clicked in the Maschitim’s head, as he took in again the waters, the grey-robed angel, and finally me. “If you leave that door open, everything shifts. This could restart the War.”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Not if access is carefully controlled.”
“You would bar the Host from crossing in force?”
“If I must.”
He took several moments to consider, but finally nodded. “Then what do you need?”
“Several things,” I replied. “Cassiel’s permission to bring the Lilim and others here for starters.”
“Others?” He ran a thumb down his black tie, not that it had gotten wrinkled.
“No way I’m doing a jailbreak for the Lilim alone.”
“Ah. What else?”
I looked to Lilith. “This is going to strain that connection something fierce, even before we get to the Wall. As I understand the process, forging this working needed a mortal wizard.”
She nodded. “Only a mortal soul can thread a fresh needle between Elohim’s Decree. The original wizard died long ago, and so has the most recent replacement. Safely cleansing your wing exacted a price.”
“Oh.” I winced. “I’m sorry.”
“Worry not. Her soul currently receives the promised alternative rewards here in Hell. She understood the risks.”
“Do you have anyone else?”
“Not at present. The specific expertise required isn’t something one simply posts to the mortals’ Internet to find applicants.”
“Damn.” Biting a lip, I physically and mentally chewed it over. “You know, I think I know someone who could qualify.”
“Would they be agreeable to the potential outcomes?”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “He believes he owes me one.”
Abagor was unconvinced. “That must be a substantial debt.”
“A neglectful father’s guilt is a powerful thing.”
Lilith peered upwards past the paintings covering the ceiling. “Yes, it is.” Meeting then my gaze, she gave a nod. “Let us prepare.”
I gave her the contact information, and we both got busy making some calls. Overhearing some of Lilith’s conversations through the shimmering pool, I about lost it with laughter when catching a certain detail. I couldn’t help it: here we were, planning to take a magic boat between Hell and Earth, to cross over to where Lilith’s other self had prepared a receiving magical pond. And where did the other Lilith live?
In a house bordering some woods within the state of Oregon.
More specifically, she lived in Portland.
For once, time was with us - quite literally in this case. With the weird and ongoing fluctuations of the timestreams, we caught a break where Earth’s frame was spinning only slightly slower than down here. This meant that within a sleep’s rotation everything was ready both here and there.
Not that I’d actually slept.
Instead, I’d spent most of the time staring at Lilith’s inset pond, occasionally catching glimpses beyond the waters of her mortal-incarnated self as she worked to reinforce the spells bound to the ring of stones on that side. She hadn’t changed much from when she’d pulled Tarot cards to read my fortune in that weird vision projection I’d had before waking up in the hospital in Dis; the curly hair was still a bottled red, and she’d needed a cane to hobble between the circle of stones - due to knees no longer up to the stresses on their own.
While she may have physically been practically the opposite of the svelte yet curvaceous manifestation here, the broad face carried much more warmth - as emphasized by the numerous laugh lines resting besides kinder eyes. While the Lilith in Hell had proved prickly as a thorned rose, the one on Earth seemed more an orchid.
Make of that what one will.
With the reactivation of the portal between the embassy and the Spires out on the Rock, many folks crossed through. Vance, Ruyia, and Yaria had been followed by Twitch, Maddalena, Barry, and Leila. The last kept clinging to Twitch’s hand, triggering somersaults of worry across my stomach that he still might not go with us.
Okay, maybe a part of me was also envious of the touch. Seven years (or the estimated equivalent) without will do that.
With them came Raguel, who upon seeing Phuel immediately embraced his restored brother. The two then conferred together regarding the needs of the yet-to-be-manifested boat, as its usual crew of souls had disembarked prior to us coming to this tower.
Realizing I was putting off the inevitable, with a tight chest I walked over to where Twitch and Leila sat beside the still-glowing portal.
Seeing my approach, they both stood. “Thank you,” she said, bowing her head, “and thank you for taking care of Twitch.”
I smiled. “I think you’ve got that backwards - he took care of me. Whenever and however I needed him the most.”
Undernourished and looking like a stiff wind could knock her over, she still gave Twitch a forceful look. “He’s been arguing that he should stay here. With me.”
With hunched shoulders and still holding her hand, the scarred soul shuffled his feet - and, of course, didn’t say anything.
Not that I needed him to. “He loves you.”
“And I him. Yet he should go.”
Squeezing her hand, he shook his head.
“No, Tommy,” she said firmly. “We’ve been through this. For what I did in life, I belong here. You don’t. And Raguel says I can be useful, that I am needed. Whereas you…you still feel her prayers, right? You said you did before.”
This was news to me. “Wait,” I blurted. “You’ve been able to feel Jenna’s prayers??”
Not meeting my startled gaze, he reluctantly nodded.
“I didn’t know that! I just knew she had prayed every day for you - ever since, well, since she and I got attacked together in a forest.”
Leila looked at me curiously. “You’ve met his sister?”
“She’s one of my dearest friends.”
After letting go, she placed a hand against the wraps covering his cheek. “It’s meant to be, don’t you see? God sent you an angel. You.”
The wrapped cheek leaned into her hand.
She understood, just as I did. “I know,” Leila said. “But Raguel says she needs you. And your sister does too.”
By the entrance more figures were arriving, and I spotted one in particular. “Tommy, I flew back to Hell to save two precious friends who don’t deserve being here. And the other has taken on a burden of Purpose from which he cannot return. Please,” I said, shifting to stare uncertain into his eyes, “let me free at least you. Please.”
Fighting back a tear, he finally nodded.
He’d agreed.
And I found myself able to breathe again.
Leaving the two to their last few and bittersweet moments together, I went to deal with a number of folks with whom I needed to talk. Namely those who had just arrived.
Cassiel led them all in. First was Krux and his Citadel officer aide, followed by a platoon of the General’s armed lunks escorting the two political prisoners.
Edgar and Nadia.
After a nod from Cassiel as he went over to Raguel and Phuel, I crossed to the two souls dressed in clean Citadel tunics, ignoring the salutes from the bat-winged devil and the accompanying goon squad.
Hey, I wasn’t Warleader anymore after all.
Edgar, missing the original corporate slacks and suspenders, placed himself in front of the only-slightly smaller Nadia. But upon seeing me, he moved aside.
The glowing mark of the star upon her forehead glowed brighter the closer I approached.
Stopping a few feet away, I looked them over. I’d managed brief visits with them when I could at the Citadel in their more luxurious prison cells, though with the war with Beelzebub keeping me busy, such visits hadn’t been as often as I’d have liked.
This was the first time, however, that they’d been taken anywhere, and I could tell they were greatly afraid.
“Did these idiots explain anything to you?”
Nadia hesitated. “No, milady.”
I sighed. “They were supposed to. We’re preparing to do the impossible, and while it’s risky, I’m inviting you two to come with. You’re too entwined in that political mess we’ve discussed, and I’d prefer Cassiel not being stuck with any part of it.”
Edgar, looking at the active standing stones, made a false assumption. “Are we to go through the portal back to the Spires?”
“No,” I told him. “We’re going through the pool. To Earth.”
They both boggled, but it was Nadia who blurted, “Earth?? Is that where the…the stuff in the barrels went?”
“Yep. And there’s a chance this won’t work. But with time itself going crazy, I have no idea when again I’ll have opportunity for a second trip. Or even if Heaven will allow such a thing.”
Edgar ran a hand through thinning blond strands on their way to balding. “A one-way journey.”
“Exactly. Once-in-a…well, a once in an eternity offer.”
He pondered. “What will happen to us if we succeed? Purgatory?”
“Not sure. You may instantly end up reincarnating. Or maybe hang out as ghosts for a bit until I can work out the details. But I’ll do my best to take care of your souls one way or another.”
They looked at each other, and while he seemed unsure, Nadia stepped forward. “I’ll do it. I’ll go. By your hand am I marked, where you go I should follow.”
“You don’t have to.”
She smiled. “All the more reason.”
I returned the smile, then looked to Edgar. “And you?”
He remained silent, deeply troubled thoughts chasing across his face.
“Edgar, I need an answer. I won’t force it if you say no.”
“Souls have never escaped Hell.”
“This is true.”
“I am a coward.”
Nadia startled, turning to face the shorter man. “Edgar! You-”
He cut her off. “But I am. Carlos fought when they came in, fought and became a stone. But I did not. Afraid was I in life, too fearful to do what was good. To be righteous. And in death, I remain so still.” Looking up to me, he spoke in but a whisper. “She deserves not Hell, but I do. How could my escape be right?”
Meeting his haunted gaze, I grew stern. “Would you act different if again faced with the same challenges as in life?”
“I…,” he said quietly. “I would like to think…yet have not…I do not know.”
“Then find your courage. Embrace the bravery to simply hope, to believe you too can change. Decide to face either annihilation with this venture or its success. Put it all on the line, here and now.”
Nadia, finally understanding, put an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t wish to go by myself.”
Swallowing, he reached across his chest to place trembling fingers over hers. Not able to say it, he simply nodded.
That earned him a warmer smile still. “Good. See the grey-robed angel standing next to the one with the shepherd’s crook? Talk to them; they’ll get you two prepped.”
Eager to get away from the soldiers, they hurried off. Which left me standing with the Citadel forces.
I deliberately continued to ignore Krux, instead turning to the aide at his side.
“Hello, Santiago.”
The soul smiled. “Greetings, Jane. Or should I call you Amariel?”
“Still hanging out with short-stuff here?”
Said short-stuff was mid-gesture at magically lighting a cigar, and with an annoyed cough managed to set half of the wrapped plant-stuff on fire. Cursing, he dropped it and stomped about with a taloned (and apparently fireproof) foot.
Santiago chuckled. “Fortune has favored, and I continue in pursuit of the best opportunities.”
Pulling out yet another cigar, Krux paused. “Hey, did you want to take this guy with you? Lord Cassiel briefed me on this op of yours - thought I’d bring him here and offer.”
“Why? You wouldn’t do that out of any goodness in the lump of coal you call a heart.”
He snorted. “You wound me.”
Feeling increasingly suspicious, I looked again at Santiago.
And finally registered the four-pointed star pendant hanging below the pressed shirt.
“So that’s it.” Eyes growing dangerously brighter narrowed. “He’s still in the Apostle’s cult, whatever and whomever still remains after that ritual. You brought him here to witness all this - to grant him more credibility, to manipulate them in my Name. You knew I wouldn’t take him with us.”
Krux smirked, and Santiago stood there nonplussed without reaction - yet still was equally smug.
Yeah, that didn’t sit well.
The metal star upon his chest flared, and the soul gasped as the sparks drove him to a knee. With the scent of burnt flesh invading nostrils, Santiago ripped the shirt’s top set of buttons free as the metal began to cool. “What have you done?!”
“The Apostle’s followers believed in me,” I said, calm yet with veins filled with ice and fire. “They believed in the Light, and begged for redemption. Whereas you…you carry no guilt for the pain inflicted by your life’s choices. The stains covering your soul dragged you here, but you yet refuse to acknowledge how they haunt your every gaze.”
Wincing against the smoldering star now embedded into the skin, the soul defiantly rose again. “I have done always what I needed to. For myself, for my family. Such is the way of the world - why then should there be guilt?!”
The gold star pulsed. “That question you must answer as that star whispers through your sleep - whispers the agonies felt by your victims and the families they too left behind. When you fully understand, then and only then shall it release you.”
Krux finished a puff on the cigar, and opened a smoke-filled mouth to say something. Then wisely thought better of it and chomped back down on the slowly burning leaves.
“For this, a curse?!” Santiago’s face twisted with harsh yet tightly controlled anger. “Shall I in turn set your followers against you? For they are fools, lambs too willing to stumble towards slaughter!”
The Light within was resolute. “Señor Hernandez,” I said, using the name originally granted at his birth upon the Earth. “I could, if I wished, make it so that from your tongue would be heard only truths regardless of what is intended to be spoken. But I shall not, for I believe not in such censure. I warn instead that words carry consequences, and that the new Lord of Dis shall be watching from above. And the Apostle’s flock shall not treat with mercy should that Lord find need to repudiate any falsehoods fallen from your lips.”
The soul, smart enough to hold now his tongue, remained still. Smoldering yet controlled…and silent.
Looking then to Krux, I gave a short nod. “General.”
“Archangel.” He saluted, rather crisply too. And kept his own mouth from offering any additional smoky comment.
Leaving them there, I turned to stride across the hangar-sized room. Cassiel was standing apart watching the others, and raised a bangs-covered eyebrow as I got close.
“Everything alright? You pulsed.”
“Yeah. Something irritated me is all.”
My friend chuckled. “Thought that was my job.”
That earned him a sardonic (but not really) smile. “Always.” I looked around and frowned. “I know Nathanael is still quite busy with the Grigori, but where is Camael? I thought he’d be here.”
Cassiel resumed being serious. “There was an attempt to force access to New Eden, he’s dealing with it.”
“New Eden?”
“Nathanael thought the moniker appropriate. And even I couldn’t argue.”
“Does Camael need help?”
“He reports that he’s got it covered.”
I wasn’t convinced, and through the connection established with the healing of his wing, reached out direct.
“Camael - we are about to depart. Should I delay?”
The response was instant, and infused with visions of fire and steel. “Worry not for me, my lady.”
“I had hoped you would join us.”
“My presence would complicate your impending meeting with the Council of Heaven. For now, my Purpose lies in supporting what your glorious Name has crafted here - as its existence itself shall add complexities to those discussions all their own.”
“Nathanael crafted it, not I.”
“By your Light was this miracle accomplished. Though it is not yet complete.”
“Someday I hope for it to be. But I know not how long until this door may again open.”
“In the fullness of time, it will.”
“Belief alone will not make it so.”
“No, my lady. But you shall.”
“Because of Creation’s needs?”
“And yours.”
“We shall see. And when this tempest has abated, perhaps with good wine at hand, I wish to hear your story in full.”
“Then this too shall come to pass. Take good care, my lady. And may the Light forever hold us close.”
“May it be so.”
Refocusing again on where my toes actually stood, I sighed - a sound of wistful sadness yet resolute.
Cassiel noticed. “Should we hold off? They’re loading up.”
Floating in the ten-foot wide pool now sat the boat - miniaturized to fit, though it still took up most of the pond. Upon its deck stood Phuel, smaller in size to match the scale and holding things steady, as a stream of bright white-robed souls flowed out from Raguel’s chest to manifest again as men and women. These proceeded aboard to assume their places as rowers and filled the empty benches. All told it took about a hundred of them, yet within Raguel were orders of magnitude more.
Safely held, but each shining with a patience which could only be maintained for so long.
Everyone else coming was also on board, standing on the deck and gazing upward at the larger-scaled beings waiting outside the ring of now-burning stones that surrounded the water. Small waves churned across the surface, and through them flickered the Earthly face of Lilith as well as someone else: a certain goatee-wearing wizard whose rescued daughter had helped save that world.
Through this link I could only smile, and Martin Diego smiled warmly back.
Not that there was anything more needed to be said between us.
“No,” I said, feeling the truth of the statement. “It’s time.”
Cassiel nodded, then gave a wry smile. “This has been quite the field trip, wouldn’t you say?”
I grimaced. “Mine usually are.”
Unexpectedly, he pulled me into a fierce hug. In that embrace I felt both a young boy who had outgrown all classrooms, as well as an ancient spirit finally achieving a peace thought lost forever.
Either way, I hugged back my friend as tight as he gave.
He spoke quietly into an ear. “Give Jenna my apologies and thanks. And if you can, I ask that you visit my father. Help him to understand, for he will be terribly alone.”
“I will.”
“Thank you.” Letting go, he took a step back. “Your vessel awaits.”
“You know, the last time we said goodbyes you mentioned something about Khan. Been meaning to ask about it. Care to explain?”
The boy still within the angel couldn’t help but grin mischievously. “No, on that subject these lips are sealed.” He then looked more thoughtful. “Other than that I bet that cat is likely knowledgeable about certain things.”
“Certain things?”
“Exactly.”
“You angling for cheesecake?? That’s hardly a help.”
“It is if you’re smart enough.” His grin widened. “So, as usual-”
I said it for him. “-Don’t be stupid!”
After we both stopped laughing, he added, “Unless absolutely necessary. Now, if you believe all is in place, get going. Everyone is waiting.”
With a deep inhale, I performed a mental checklist:
Spear, check. Book, check. Sparkly pendant, check. Hilt of the Sword of Judgment, check.
Everyone I loved whom I could feasibly take with me, check.
Flexing wings, I shrank down to an appropriate size and floated across to stand on the deck with the other passengers. Handing the pendant along with one last glittering and not forgotten bluish stone over to the Supreme Lord of the Waters, I then spoke. “Alright, Captain. All are aboard.” Stepping back, my friends surrounded me.
As Twitch’s hand found mine, Phuel’s booming voice called out.
“Then we go.”
I’d like to say our launch was a gentle castoff, as if drifting out upon a tranquil ocean framed by magical sunset, and not at all like being rapidly flushed through a porcelain throne.
Except, yeah, it was totally the latter.
Chapter Thirty-Five - Doors
The transit was taking forever.
From one perspective, we were as small charged pulses of electric current fighting to cross a wire spliced between the twin anchors provided by Lilith’s aspects: one in Hell and one on Earth. Overcoming the ridiculous voltage differential across the circuit required applying a greater counter voltage to reverse the natural direction of travel.
Or - as how it appeared to my assembled senses - Phuel’s boat rowed mightily against a slender yet fast-moving river, one cutting directly between two sheer and unclimbable cliffs. Below those rapid waters lay that remaining narrow connection still maintaining the link between Hell and the rest of Creation, while above us sat the blank yet flickering border to the Abyss, upon which the film of Primal Chaos pulsed and swayed. The mixture of mortal wizardry and Lilith’s will had forged the river of our passage, laying it directly alongside the fragment of firmament leading from the Gate into Hell. Their combined efforts maintained the channel, though Phuel and I had worked to expand the width, turning it from the thinness of a drinking straw through which she’d shoved Beliel’s Tears to the admittedly slender waterway we now navigated.
Raguel’s bright souls manned the oars with committed focus, their natural buoyancy aiding to push against that downward flow. The resonance of their faith and purity moved steadily forward one stroke at a time, as their oars slipped below the wet surface churning with all the negative backwash spilling from everything above.
They weren’t exactly conscious, either, those souls. They were held in a trance, a state maintained by Phuel whose overall pattern of boat and helmsman wrapped around the occupants to keep them from having to swim (and drown!) directly. Twitch and the other passengers stood on deck with expressions also blank, for their minds lacked the capacity to arrange the crazy experience of this travel into a coherent vision within which to act.
Even the three Lilim struggled, holding tight to the forward rail and bravely staring dead ahead into the waters streaming towards us - reminding of how I too had needed to do similar when my own perceptions had been scrambled. Their angelic heritage contained the potential to resolve the inputs, but they were entirely untrained - this was quite different than using a prepared portal to simply step between realms.
Only myself and the grey-hooded winged helmsman were properly aware, and he wasn’t exactly the type to brim with casual conversation.
“You sure there isn’t anything I can do to speed this up?” I asked for possibly the hundredth time, shouting to him from one end of the boat to the other, my pacing having taken me to the front yet again.
“Not without damage to those in our care.” His voice reverberated as if spoken more from the ship itself than from the looming figure upon the rear deck.
“Ugh.”
Said boat, of course, was bathed in the Light from the persistent fires within my feathers - a constant stream was needed to bolster Phuel’s Word, as even he would have found this passage impossible otherwise. Beyond us, however, that Light immediately faded - leaving the cliffs at our sides as hesitant lurking shadows slowly slipping past. As for the Chaos above, the less I looked at it the better.
Lest a perceptual interaction stir something undesired.
Walking back across the creaking beams, I stood again beside the angel manning the single massive steering oar. For whatever reason, the river - even rushing by as it did - filled the air with a salty and stagnant musk, the moisture clinging to every exposed surface.
“This whole connection thing is trippy, don’t you think?” I asked, wiping at my face with a silky sleeve which itself was also damp. “It’s astounding a single mortal wizard is able to slip it past Elohim’s great Wall. The balancing act between that magic and Lilith’s feels awfully precarious.”
He said nothing, rotating the wooden oar ever-so-slightly to adjust our heading. Whether doing that was actually necessary, I didn’t know. Or maybe it was simply a metaphorical perception on my part of his overall will guiding us forward.
Like I said, trippy.
“Still, it’s odd,” I continued since he hadn’t responded. “I mean, I see far ahead of us Diego’s magics holding the door - for lack of a better term - open. Yet the pattern employed isn’t entirely his.”
“Solomon.”
“What?”
“The structure is Solomon’s.”
“King Solomon? From the Bible?”
“He once held the Book tied at your belt. To him was the glory of Humanity revealed, along with its great and terrible potential.”
“You’re talking about true choice. The ability to create beyond the existing pattern.”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” I chewed at a lip. Or did I? “Wait, are you saying Solomon was the first to do this? Heck, Camael once said Solomon had asked him to bury the tome because he thought it too dangerous.”
“The wise king made such possible. All others stand upon his works.”
I thought about it for a few minutes. Or maybe an hour - hard to tell in this timeless place that wasn’t properly a place. “If a single soul could do that, what if thousands tried to do something? Or billions??”
“Working together there are potentially no limits except those they impose upon themselves.”
“That…that’s what Beelzebub was trying to do, wasn’t it. Take over enough souls, and if he could tap into that…” Words trailed off.
“Yes.”
I shuddered at what could have been, only to further worry the poor lip over thinking about what still could be. “But I can do that too. Without needing to take over souls.”
“You are without restraint. For unlike the First, you may reforge your pattern as you will.”
“Wait, what?!”
“Already do you transcend your heritage.”
“I…oh shit.” With a thought, the Spear appeared in my hand, along with the memory of a dark sword plunging into my heart - and of shouting my Name into that blade of Chaos while burning as bright within as possible. But the Name…I’d shouted my own nuances upon it, thereby writing it anew within my greater self.
A miniature act of Creation.
Fingers trembled, and I almost dropped the Spear, the luminescent artifact which had been reforged twice already.
Well, only once - the second was more an evolution or final tempering from concrete realization of everything that had happened in that original moment.
“I was going to use this to widen the wizard’s door so we can actually slip through. Because it carries Elohim’s Name.”
“The Throne cannot work against itself. By your will and choice alone, shall this journey be accomplished.”
“But I can do it.”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Planting a glowing end against the planks at my feet, I leaned a shoulder against the weapon. “It’s a weird thing. Part of me understands all this - without words and without thought, but it does. And the rest of me gets to run around confused all the time until the greater self reaches down and takes action.”
“True knowledge flows through the layers of abstract. From above to below. But also from below to above.”
“How do you know all this? Is it just inherent to you as an angel, or did you have to learn?”
“To fulfill Purpose, all is known.” The angel paused, even as oars continued dipping into the waters sloshing past. “Yet below my second master’s wings did I learn more.”
“Second master?”
“First was the Lightbringer, then was he whose shard you hold.”
“Azrael. You studied under Azrael.”
“Yes.”
I grinned. “Is that where you learned the whole booming-voice-from-under-a-hood trick?”
“…Yes.”
Not able to help it, I snickered. But before I could follow with a teasing comment, a change twisted the air.
Salt spray hinted now of pepper, and then of lemons.
Which was quickly followed by a cascade of other entirely random scents, some recognizable like the sudden assault of gasoline vapors…and some not.
Refocusing to where I hadn’t wanted to look, I saw why, and with Spear in hand, bare feet floated off the deck. “Hey Phuel, if this goes badly, flee back to Dis. Don’t worry about me, take care of those in your charge.”
“Understood.”
Within the fractal dimensions coursing above, a great shadow moved - and smaller ones began fizzling across our wire’s boundary to drop into the water ahead of us.
They weren’t exactly fish.
Like the collations of Chaos witnessed before my latest leap past the Gate, the clumps of entities refused to align into categories and therefore proper description, and they swarmed towards us. And then only towards me as I pulled away from the boat - something which worked, in my opinion, to an advantage in that upon four wings of brilliance I was able to lead them yet further away from Phuel and his precious cargo.
Naturally, however, they weren’t constrained to the river’s water and leapt, floated, flew, or even blipped, directly at me with tentacles covered by bulbous eyes and many razor-lined hands stretching out to catch, crush, and slice me entire.
Again there was no foretelling their acts, no vision of them in future lines within the bounds of Creation.
Training and a certain sharp pointed stick would have to suffice.
Feathers spiraling with gathered frenetic speed and a harmony all their own, I danced across the waters between the many manifestations - plunging Spear’s burning tip into each of their cores to slam Light across their projections and thereby destroy them. They were fast, and I faster - though with their growing numbers inevitably a talon, tooth, or whip still would lash out to reach my otherwise unarmored and oddly barefoot form.
Which wasn’t actually true. I was protected, not in metal, but in Light.
As with Beelzebub that power hardened to repel contact, refusing any strands of the Unknown purchase upon my inner pattern - that core which actually mattered. This space was more abstract than solidified, even our madly fought dance more concept over substance, though their intent lay clear in the attempts to snap at the case dangling from my belt, before the spinning Spear of shining fire simply sliced them away.
Yeah, no. There was no way I was going to lose this Book again.
But, given how the first dribbles of invaders quickly transformed into a flood all their own, I needed to step it up a notch or else be simply overrun. “Phuel!” I shouted across the distance between us, while darting between three more blobs of randomized constructions to shred them to tatters with the blade burning at the end of the lengthy rod of Light. “Brace yourself and everyone! I’ve got to go nuclear - can you handle it?!”
“Within certain limits, yes.” Around the boat a translucent blue nimbus appeared, ready to safely channel energy away from those inside.
It was time for six wings.
Perception expanded alongside the additional blazing feathers to encompass the boat, its occupants, and the entire strand of passage. Enough that every invading force crystallized within my vision, and in that moment of comprehension all were cut down in flashes of brightness beyond brightness.
For at its core, the Light was an act of Perception by the Source. And, once fully perceived, these blobs of Unknown became Known, their forms transfigured as fixed entities vulnerable to the rules of Creation.
In other words, killable.
Carcasses suddenly fixed and describable began to smash through the river, limbs and torsos of creatures beforehand not ever imagined leaking their heart’s blood and effluence into the stream. Their corpses cascaded past as the ship slammed through, leaving multi-colored smears across the hull.
The smell was equally horrible, and I began to really miss that quick citrus scent from earlier.
Watching yet even more of them spill across, focus shimmered and pulsed brighter still - which is when I saw it: a tiny speck lying ahead of us just beyond the boundary, barely the size of a chickpea yet infinitely dense like a black hole.
With an equally infinite hunger.
Phuel did too. “Amariel!”
“I see it!”
“I have not the strength to fight a full spawn of Leviathan!”
“It’s the source of all the smaller ones, isn’t it?!”
“Yes!”
“Well, that sucks! I can’t just keep fighting off these tiny extrusions!”
“Do we flee?”
“Dammit!” Anger flared, which caused worry for poor Phuel - he too could be overwhelmed from an emotional burst from my six-winged state. But no, the holy script of his Name around the boat solidified further.
He was using the Light I channeled to protect against even itself.
“Maybe I can drive it off!”
Harnessing that instinct, I burst forward at speed transcending speed, hoping to drive the Spear through that terrible dot. If I could harpoon it…I mean really harpoon it…maybe it could be yanked across entire. Maybe it, too, could then die.
At least, I hoped.
Except it had a different plan entirely, one in my blindness to the Chaos I had failed to foresee.
As I got close, ripping through emanations by the dozens, the Child began to pull away.
And Phuel again shouted in sharper alarm.
“WAIT!”
But it was too late.
A second Child of the Depths, wounded still with crackling static from my prior eviction notice, reached past the Chaos as well.
Not before us, however.
From behind.
With a shriek to loosen bowels and sanity, its madness wrapped around the tether of our passage, and even as I prepared to blip instantly to it, the monstrous thing squeezed tight.
The stream of magic anchoring us back to Hell, back to Dis, snapped.
Without that tether, the river bucked wild like a dropped yet active firehose, tossing helmsman and the boat about like a piece of freed candy from a piñata by a Major League home run king, aimed directly at the waiting Abyss above. The recoil then whipped past like a vacuum cleaner’s cord retraction, its passage shredding the rest of the spellwork leading to Lilith’s opposite anchor on Earth.
Shrieking in throat-ripping horror, I watched Phuel’s glowing ship plunge across that boundary.
Maddalena and Twitch stood at the railing, her eyes closed with lips moving in silent prayer. Twitch, though, he stood still, staring across the rift between us.
Eyes open but unseeing, yet unafraid.
Marshalling resolve, I flared brighter still as the surrounding Chaos swallowed me as well.
All senses went, naturally, absolutely haywire.
Perception shatters into Everything and Nothing. All of history blending with all that could ever possibly be.
Don’t panic.
Existence within loops of existence within loops of existence. Pulling and tugging, ripping and tearing, dissolving and never having been.
Don’t panic!
Tools.
I hold many.
Hilt. Book. Spear. Wings. Light.
Solutions. Need solutions.
Without destroying a Creation solid yet fragile. Without forever losing those I would hold tender and close.
The Book. Secrets within Secrets. Mysteries within Mysteries.
Focus. Inward only, for I exist. For and against everything, I exist.
Pages fighting for coherence turn. Concepts are shared. Comprehension gathers.
Anchors. Tethers to frames of reality.
Ahead and behind, behind and ahead.
Realm and crown, crown and realm.
Pieces of self, yet always one.
Always One.
By heart’s Choice, One also with the Source of All.
And thereby with Creation.
In understanding, Light explodes outward as infinite of infinites.
A shard of Limitation cuts to required narrow size.
With wings expanding six by six by six, feathers crackle with brilliance to catch at lost ship and dimming guiding angel, enfolding a Word holding true by strength of the burning faith of those it carries.
Yet a Wall immovable prevents reaching desired anchor.
Frustration. Fury. Spear prepares to tear all down, despite dire warnings from Book and Hilt.
But there, a pinprick in that fortress, a piercing by a soul’s frantic invocation of a Name.
Name of an Archangel.
Name of an Archon.
Mine.
By restrained application of Spear to that smallest act of Creation, we slip through the provided door.
Another’s voice snaps across reassembling perception.
“Michael, hold!!”
Manifesting through gates isn’t always instant, especially when needing to realign differing time and abstract streams to juggle lower-level consciousness into syncing properly. Plus all those trifling details such as needing arms, legs, wings, eyes, lungs, these kinds of things.
Below spread the lake within my realm Gealltas, winter-chilled waves crashing mightily from the abrupt disturbance that a Gate fifty feet wide and twice as high assembled of silver and platinum bars makes when it appears suddenly right in the middle. With the metal opening wide, water rushed through to spill beyond, even as shimmering green ivy began to coil up and around the gleaming rails.
Also below was Phuel and his boat, battered but intact, and to great relief, every one of the passengers were starting to wake from terrors of horror and madness, visions now slipping away like ephemeral (and hopefully forgotten) dreams. On the sandy shore could be seen a hastily painted four-pointed star, with other holy names inscribed along the edge of a containing circle. Within those intricate patterns, a rather tired wizard sat atop the holy script of my own Name, which his exhausted throat chanted repeatedly. Next to him knelt a beautiful knight, with golden sword placed tip-first into the earth at circle’s center, that its connection could grant success to their combined magics. Outside the lines and script two more figures flickered into view, both rather surprising with their own emerging presence.
What lay above, however, demanded full and immediate attention.
Arrayed across the realm’s star-studded night hovered cohort after cohort of the Host, heavenly armor gleaming bright in the reflected shine of a full and rising moon, their uncountable banners and pennants whipping in the upper winds keeping the horizon’s clouds at bay - with their numbers stretching beyond the boundaries of the realm itself. Most were uniform in size and accoutrements, others varied with all the differing animal heads and bodies found in nature, and more still were as spinning wheels of eyes, wings, and flame.
And all had arrived ready for battle.
It was Raphael who had cried to the Defender of Glory, requesting their awe-inspiring leader to stay his attacking command.
Said Defender floated there before the endless armies of Heaven, sword and shield blazing golden fire, and his answering shout shook the surrounding forest where many spying fae shrieked and fled to their burrows and leafy homes.
“A breach of Elohim’s Edict lies before us, and you say hold?!”
Understanding dawned, and with a gesture the newly forged Gate swung closed with a loud metallic clunk. “There,” I announced to the glorious army within and past the sky. “It is closed.”
“Michael-”, began Raphael, but his brother interrupted.
“Let her and only her speak,” commanded the warrior Archangel, the massive pressure of his voice abating, but only a little. “Amariel - explain this. And explain these who have followed with you, for they too stand in violation of the Edict.” A rising golden plume, matching the same shine as the helm itself to which it attached, whipped about in that wind, and the Defender’s mighty presence again rattled the realm.
But this was my turf to protect and hold dear.
Holding aloft the scroll plucked from my belt, I shouted at he who in truth had invaded my domain.
“By order of Metatron, and thereby the Council of Heaven, have I retrieved the Sefer Raziel! In this I fulfill the will of Heaven!”
His sword’s flames grew longer still. “Yet you also dare free those condemned beyond?!”
Lowering the scroll, I responded. “Most aboard are those selected by the angel Raguel, he whose Word encompasses Justice! He has deemed these worthy and, in all truthfulness, in great need of return. The others are by my choice - a matter to be discussed at length with the Council where I intend to hand over this Book. This new Gate is closed, though admittedly not sealed. Hold but a moment, oh Defender, and more shall become clear.”
“To leave any vector of threat is intolerable.”
I met the gaze bearing down from above, and refused to shrink away from its monumental force. “And to risk foolish decision by impatience is equally intolerable! You invade my domain, Prince of Heaven. Should my cause be righteous in the eyes of the Most High, an attack here by you and yours would undermine the essence of your holy Word. For our sake, as well as your own, I humbly ask forbearance!”
He hesitated. “You ask then for a Judgment?”
“In a way, yes. Will you abide to witness a resolution I trust to be acceptable?”
After focused consideration, he replied. “I shall.”
As one, the army flying behind him pounded swords to shields and shifted to stances awaiting orders.
You know, instead of preparing imminent full-frontal charge.
Doing my best to not show the incredible relief at having won that much, I lowered closer to the boat.
It wasn’t in good shape.
The oars were all not so much snapped as dissolved entire, having finally plunged into an acid even they could not withstand. Viscera-smeared planks and siding equally showed gaps where chunks had been eaten free.
Yet it floated still upon the lake’s now calming waters.
Swallowing a heart’s flutter of realization how close things had been, I looked to their helmsman who had remained at post, his robe now as threadbare and tattered as the old cloak he’d worn when we first met.
But intact.
He saluted, as did everyone standing bravely on deck, though many had wide and anxious eyes under the gathered and clearly threatening Host of Heaven. A quick sweep of souls and spirits showed all hands accounted for.
I returned those solemn salutes, more seriously than ever I had before.
Wings then flew me across to the beach, where a bespectacled attorney’s expensive shoes sank into wet sand.
Well, the dream of those shoes did anyway.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be here,” I said to my friend before pulling him into a fierce hug.
“Diego mentioned it was urgent,” said Isaiah, once I allowed his lungs to regain some air. “Though he left these sorts of details out of it.” His eyes flicked to the ominous sky.
“He was certainly correct.” In warm acknowledgment, I waved to the sweat-drenched and blue-robed wizard with limbs too weak to stand. The usual ponytail had fallen free, and long brown hair in the wild breeze had become entangled with the goatee. “Thank you, Diego. How did you…?” I gestured at the ritual as well as his presence.
The wizard, chest still heaving with catching breath that had run out along with all his mana reserves, coughed. “She said it might work.”
“Lilith?”
“Si, señora. When our ritual failed, she demanded to know what if anything you’d left behind that was truly yours. A call to the Academy revealed you’d created this realm. She instructed the rest - including contacting señor Cohen - and your knight here also was most amenable to the attempt.”
“Now I owe you one.”
He gave a light and raspy chuckle. “Hardly, señora.”
Smiling, I looked to his side where my knight still knelt, his hand touching pommel of the sword forged of my heart and will. “And thanks to you as well, my Knight Champion.”
The plate-armored but currently helm-less Sir Gwydion, the single scar across a cheek marking otherwise perfect yet older fae features, bowed his head. “My Queen.”
I had to keep myself from touching that cheek. Which was really, really hard.
“What’s all this about a Judgment?” Isaiah then asked, pulling attention back to the matter at hand. Namely, how I was going to avoid a war with Heaven itself.
“Come and see.” With a gesture, earth rose from within the lake to provide a thin path from shore to the Gate, and I began walking across.
Having caught the deeper implications of that particular choice of phrase, my friend paled.
Yet he followed.
As did his accompanying legal assistant whose image was still trying to decide whether she had found herself in court - or upon a full blown battlefield.
Not being able to resist, I commented to my friend as we walked. “So you actually answered your phone when they called?”
“Not me. Tracy did. She paid the extra fee.”
“Fee?”
“We’re currently asleep aboard a plane back to the States.”
“Oh.” Sure enough, the slippery tendrils of projections connecting them back to their incarnate forms on Earth were visible.
Made sense. Gealltas was, after all, a dream-realm.
We said nothing more as we followed along that reef, his shoes getting muddy while my bare toes remained clean. On the boat, passengers gathered at the railings, though they too held their silence.
Probably smart.
Reaching the Gate, I could feel energy still slipping past its bars. I’d stopped the flow of water (which was probably making a mess of Asmodeus’s statue garden wherever he’d placed my crown), but it wasn’t in my nature to seal things.
That was someone else’s domain.
To Isaiah - my dearest brother, my dearest friend - I held out the hilt of the sword broken long ago.
His eyes went wide behind the glasses. “That’s my…his…”
“It is. And I ask that you take it - take it and insert unto this Gate. By your will should this be Sealed, that only those you deem worthy may pass.”
He stared at the hilt, and all remaining color fled his cheeks entire. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I ask that you make something right. All of Creation should share the hope of Heaven, no matter how hard or difficult the path. Such needs exist.”
Pain-filled and haunted eyes turned back to mine. “Still…you don’t understand. If I take this…” He swallowed.
I gazed back with saddened necessity. “I think I do. I knew you in the past, and I know you now. But there is no one else who can do this: your alternate self wields one half, you must wield the other.”
“Doing this will not heal the breach.”
“Yet it is a step forward.”
A hand touched his shoulder. Tracy, with image still dancing between holy warrior of the Maschitim and a pantsuited soldier of Earth’s legal system, spoke to him. “Fear not, Boss. There are those of us who shall stand with you. Always.”
My friend shook his head. “If I take this, then someday…” His face clouded, as if afraid to finish the sentence.
The hilt turned over in my grip, waiting to drop into his hand and his alone. “I know.”
“Do you?”
I attempted to smile into my friend’s worried eyes. “I have faith in that future - and in you.”
Bowing his head - to me, and perhaps also to the inevitable - a palm the shade of obsidian reluctantly extended.
And what was his was thereby returned.
As the perfectly tailored suit darkened into a hooded robe spreading two wings of star-studded night behind, he stepped to the newly-forged Gate. Into the waiting slot of perfect size did that hilt slide, and with an echoing click the bars fully locked. Withdrawing the hilt, its true weight sat heavy to his hand.
But the relic remained connected to all which lay behind the Gate, as key and lock now were bound as one.
Turning, we both then looked above to where the gathered Host had borne witness.
I called out, voice cutting across the sky. “Michael! Is this satisfactory to our beloved Defender of the Throne?!”
With a slow nod he spoke, the words shaking trees and mountainside. “It is. For now. But tarry not, as the Council awaits. And should we accept, then this Azrael must render Judgment upon those whom you have brought over.”
Left unspoken was what would occur should the Council decide against.
“Very well. Until then, these shall remain as guests within Gealltas.”
The uncountable horns of Heaven blew, a sound filled with infinite music and thunder, and with a tremendous gust of wind their innumerable wings carried them away.
Leaving only Raphael, who glided down to join us, and a boat from which rose tremendous cheers.
After sending mental commands to Gwydion to prepare lodging for all on the ship - along with instructions to keep any from somehow departing - I turned to Raphael, and on impulse threw arms around him. “Thanks.” I even kissed his boyish-yet-not cheek.
Surprised, but not unwelcoming, he chuckled. “For what?”
“More than I can say in this moment.”
“Then we should proceed to the Council. The others have gathered in the Lower Heavens.”
I wasn’t sure what was meant by ‘Lower’, but such was unimportant right now. “There’s one thing I need do first.”
The Archangel of Healing frowned. “Wouldn’t you agree the current urgency is rather high?”
“Yes, but this will not wait - nor take long.” I looked to the Azrael standing at my side. “And I’d appreciate it if you came with.”
“I shall.”
I smiled at him, with more than a small measure of relief.
Because despite the booming voice echoing from underneath the dark hood, still was worn the face of my friend.
Even if his ever-present glasses had disappeared.
The gangplank descended upon the shore, and those in white robes along with the mix of other outfits slowly walked across, led first by a smiling Twitch holding Maddalena’s hand. Each passenger gaped in astonishment at the lush spectrum painting forest and lake, the fae-sung splendor assaulting senses accustomed only to the dullness stagnating within the depths of Darkness. Many paused to blink overwhelmed eyes at the surrounding glory, inhaling deep the vibrant scents of towering trees, budding flowers, and brisk waters all teasing upon the breeze’s tender touch.
It was Vance, putting arms around equally stunned daughters as they stumbled ahead of a teary-eyed Scotsman, whose words of wonder carried across the clearest:
“Is this not a paradise?” marveled the son of Lilith. “Here the music not only plays, but breathes itself anew!”
Two angels hovered behind, reverent in their silence, reverent in the greater stillness of this place.
This cavern. This Monument.
Uncountable alcoves stretched around a space larger than any human city had ever reached, each filled with unique and sacred items, and within those endless spaces moved images of angels. Dancing, singing, contemplating, and yes, fighting - within the glow cast from my wings each became animated around the specific reliquary still holding portions of their holy Names.
And now, with tears already streaming free, I added to their number.
Within an empty alcove, I held out the offering: a piece of armor, the glittering white and gold which had protected beautiful feathers of a most noble companion. A fragment carrying a special message left behind just for me.
As Gabriel’s magic gently lifted the armor to bring once more alive the vision of glorious panther blended with raven, I stepped back before falling to knees as sadness crushed through my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know it’s what you wanted, but still am I sorry. I chose them all over you - and I put you in the position where such a sacrifice became necessary. You deserved better, my beloved Hunter, my beloved friend. You deserved…” I choked up, unable to complete what I wanted to say.
Arms enfolded me, and I leaned into an embrace more Isaiah’s than Azrael’s. Raphael, too, reached out to gently brush a cheek damp with the cascade of tears.
“He saved them,” I said past the sniffles I couldn’t stem. “Billions of souls, stripped of their histories and reduced to their initial sparks. Yet he couldn’t abide their enslavement.”
“Through your Light, was he redeemed,” said Raphael.
“No.” My head shook firmly. “I but opened the door. In stepping through, his redemption belonged entirely to him.”
Both angels remained quiet, letting me gaze past blurry wetness upon the illusory images flickering past.
Until finally I nodded, and pushed to stand again.
Reaching towards the shimmer of a softly feathered face I’d never again caress, I spoke again. “Rest well, beloved. And know I shall fight to my last drawn breath for every precious spark you have saved - and for all whom you would have wished to save at my side.”
Turning, my sleeve wiped away lingering moisture from both cheeks.
Tears easily dried, but only from skin’s surface.
Raphael, with sympathy and mirrored pain for all the others remembered within these hallowed alcoves, regarded me in full seriousness. “The Council awaits. Are you ready?”
Squaring shoulders, my words echoed sharply across the vast and ancient cavern.
“I am.”
Epilogue - Seals
Within the mostly empty first class seating aboard a late transatlantic flight, two passengers slept deeply. The first, with deep burgundy skirt and lighter blouse, had slipped unto the realms of dreams with a thick book open upon the tray table before her, pages hidden now by dangling coils of striking crimson hair.
The second, whose deep and mighty snores could be heard even within the main cabin, clutched eyeglasses above a thigh covered in the finest Italian tailoring.
His other hand, free of constraint unlike its gloved opposite, had reached out to gently rest upon hers.
Standing over them, however, was not a uniformed attendant. The woman’s long and flowing platinum hair curved around a body too perfect for fashion, though the silk and silver dress clinging tightly to skin’s perfection attempted its best. Reaching a smooth and sleeveless arm towards the man, sharp fingernails stopped just short of the sleep-gasping throat.
For she knew he was one she could never touch direct, despite Aristotle’s solution to Zeno’s conundrum.
Instead she laughed as her hand withdrew, a sound of metal chimes dragged across broken glass.
As she walked away, the only other first class passenger - an older businessman enthralled by her incredible sensuous beauty, yet also terrified of the raw predatory aura lurking behind every movement - overheard her words before she vanished in the transition between cabins:
“Five down, two to go.”
