Seven Archangels: Annihilation (25 page)

Mary laughed. "You guessed it!" Then she paused. "Why would sensory integration affect his speech?"

Uriel shrugged, projecting no worries. When Gabriel wanted to, he'd speak.

Mary said, "He did want to."

Uriel's eyes widened.

"He tried to say thank you, but he couldn't."

Frowning, Uriel sat on a cushion and ran a hand along a beaded curtain. "I wish you hadn't told me that. But there's a lot of coordination that goes into speaking."

"More than for eating?"

Uriel winced. "You've got me stumped. Please don't tell me you said something he didn't understand."

Mary shook her head.

"Comprehension always leads production." Uriel clattered the beads against one another. "I hereby return to not worrying."

"As long as you're not worrying," Mary said, "why is he always cold?"

"He isn't really cold," Uriel said.

"Shivering," Mary said. "Teeth chattering. Response to warmth. What am I missing?"

"It's a spiritual cold." Uriel looked off as if considering a definition. "It's the counterpart of the spiritual heat the damned feel, even though they're not physically on fire. Remember the sound that two pieces of metal make scraping against one another? Doesn't it make your hair stand on end, so you flinch?" When Mary nodded, Uriel said, "He's feeling that constantly."

Mary looked puzzled.

"Something's a bad fit inside," Uriel said. "When the pieces all regrow to their right proportions and shapes, the fit will be better, but I'm guessing now that something needs to shift around, so two bead-edges are too tight against one another or scraping one another, and every time that happens, he shivers."

Mary said, "Can you release the string a little so it's not as tight?"

"Where would I do it?" Uriel dropped back limp on the cushions. "Everything has to heal before I can go back inside to figure out what's too tight. Once that happens, yes, I can shift things where they need to be. Until then, at least he's safe, even if he needs to be in a tropical paradise."

"That's not so bad." Mary stood. "I'm off to my kitchen to heat that up a bit with the paradise of an oven and cookies."

- + -

Gabriel drifted but didn't feel entirely asleep. Although he lay still, his mind thrashed over what had happened...the gaps—in his memory, in his thoughts, in what he could perceive, in Creation where he wouldn't have been—  He didn't want to create one more gap by sleeping again.

He braved the vertigo by concentrating on the Vision as he sat up, and although the confusion struck again, he didn't experience the fear. It was okay if he was suddenly somewhere unknown in space and time, as long as God was there with him.

That would be everywhere,
God told him.

Indeed, but it helped to have the reminder.

Gabriel saw Raphael sitting sideways on the rocking chair, back to one armrest and legs draped over the other as he read a stack of papers attached to a clipboard. Gabriel couldn't feel the images in his head as Raphael pored over the sheets, and he flinched.

Raphael looked up. "You okay?"

Well, no, not really. But no worse.

Raphael said, "You should go back to sleep," and then returned to looking at the papers.

Gabriel noticed two new thermoses on the bedside table. There was a note with them which Gabriel flashed to his hands. This was what the note said:

Gabriel,

I ruivb rkv a cie od gioeu klf a iswqmpa zi euc. Beew wexxrp lqn I cuww qll wyc cneyf.

Uejs

Terrific. Gabriel swallowed against a sick dread before Raphael could detect it, and then when Raphael didn't pick it up he realized how much he'd expected Raphael to respond anyhow.

The handwriting was Mary's; the only reason he could recognize his own name was that she'd used the single pictogram of his seal.

He flashed the two thermoses to his lap. When he concentrated on the yellow sticky papers, he found he could make out the individual letters, but they wouldn't fit together into words. The shorter one he decided must say "tea" which meant the other probably said something like "soup" along with whatever variety it was.

Gabriel took the cup off the top of that one and tried to unscrew the cap, but it wouldn't turn. Mentally he felt into the plastic grooves; it wasn't jammed on tightly. How humiliating.

You're not quite yourself right now,
God reassured him.

The smartest angel in creation would not be defeated by a thermos screw top, that was for sure.

No, somehow I knew that
, God replied.

Gabriel sent his senses into the center of the bottle to where the soup sloshed around, and he formed a Guard the size of a fist. Then he second-guessed himself and made sure his fist fit into the cup. When it did, he flashed the ball of soup out of the thermos and into the cup.

It worked! Gabriel was looking at a creamy liquid with floating slices of mushrooms.

Congratulations,
God said.

I'll take my victories where I can find them.

Gabriel was finishing the cup when Raphael said, "You really aren't going back to sleep?" Gabriel only looked at him patiently. "There's no need to be rude," Raphael replied. He opened the curtains, admitting a flood of sunlight into the room until Gabriel wished he could move to the window and let it slant over him.

Raphael tossed the clipboard into the air where it vanished just before clattering to the floor.

Gabriel frowned at him.

"Nothing you need to see," said the Seraph.

Gabriel glowered.

"So what if they're your test results?" Raphael came closer. "I'm not going to give them to you."

You're not protecting me—I can tell how damaged I am.

"Then you don't need to see a long row of check boxes." Raphael tilted his head. "There's nothing wrong with your Cherub nature, at any rate."

Gabriel sighed at him. Raphael raised his eyebrows.

A cold hand clenched Gabriel's heart then—what if he wasn't the most intelligent being in Creation any longer? That meant Mephistopheles—that would mean Satan had the number one Cherub on his side, and then how—

It's not worth worrying about,
God told him.

Raphael pulled his chair closer and looked into Gabriel's eyes. "We'll figure out a way to get you back up to speed. At least you're still here. And that's what's important."

While Gabriel agreed, he'd rather have all of him here, not just most of him.

Raphael met his eyes, and then he looked aside: he'd instinctively tried to communicate with him through the bond that didn't exist any longer.

Abruptly awkward, Raphael said, "When they took you…what was it like?"

Again that cold hand, only now it was a second one around his throat. That tiny room, the blackness, the other Cherub cheerfully explaining the technique, Beelzebub's proposition—

Hands on his hands: he hadn't realized he'd begun shaking.

Raphael met his eyes, and Gabriel looked into them, longing for the depth he knew he ought to be able to plumb but which he found closed off to him, and in its place he found only a similar yearning on Raphael's part. They shouldn't need words. He extended his soul toward Raphael's.

Raphael turned away. "Uriel said not yet. You're still too weak."

Gabriel opened his hands.

"I don't know when, but I'm not taking the chance that I might hurt you again."

Again?

"If you'd died, it would have been my fault."

Gabriel arched his eyebrows. Surely Satan had something to do with it?

Raphael didn't reply.

This made no sense. From what Uriel and Mary had said, Raphael had saved him.

Flamelets appeared around Raphael, and his shoulders and wings tensed. Gabriel couldn't see the front of him, but his hands must have been clenched. His soul vibrated the room around Gabriel, and it would be so easy and so right to immerse himself in that power, absorb it and calm Raphael, invigorate himself and know fully what was the guilt or the admission Raphael was keeping hidden.

Uriel blew into the room. Before Raphael could even turn, the Throne forced him outside the Guard.

Stop!
Uriel grabbed Gabriel's hands. "Don't even attempt to absorb that kind of fire right now! I can't say that strongly enough."

The residual flames of Raphael's spirit crackled in the air. Gabriel clenched his fists and set his jaw. He felt like a parched wanderer encountering an oasis as the thirst tightened at the top of his throat.

Uriel's hands touched Gabriel's cheeks, and the Cherub opened his eyes so he was staring into the indigo of Uriel's own. The Throne breathed deeply. Gabriel forced himself to breathe in rhythm, and then again. Those eyes, so deep—but the hunger, the empty space—the chill, the sparkling fire—the darkness, the isolation, the union—

Uriel drew him closer. Look to the Vision. The Vision. God, this is tough. The Vision. Breathe.

Uriel sang softly, "Light of ages, fire of the heart, delight of the soul."

Gabriel joined in. "Ancient splendor and warmth of love, you I know and meet in joy, the breath of me, the light of all, the substance and the soul."

The glinting Seraph energy faded out like fireflies. Gabriel ached, and his eyes burned. He couldn't swallow.

Uriel shimmered, hands trembling.

Gabriel gave Uriel's hands a squeeze, then tried to smile, but he couldn't quite.

Uriel swallowed. "You know why you shouldn't absorb his energy?"

Gabriel nodded. He understood, but that didn't mean it was easy.

Uriel nodded, eyes dark.

Gabriel squinted.

"I sent him to Sidriel," Uriel said.

Gabriel laughed in silence, imagining Sidriel's surprise and then excitement; but then he remembered Raphael trying to hide from him a terrible thing, and he knew that whatever it was, Raphael was sharing it with Sidriel and not with him.

Uriel looked out the window, and Gabriel tried to look as well. Clouds, trees, the darting shadow of a bird zipping past.

"It's only until you're stronger."

Gabriel's hands knotted.

"Sing with me again." Uriel made a mandolin, and together the pair sang and waited.

Chapter Sixteen

Remiel returned to her studio for the first time since Gabriel's capture. She didn't turn on the lights because of the mirrors, so instead she groped her way across the smooth wooden floor to a room at the opposite side. There she lighted all the lamps with a hand motion rather than illuminate it herself, and she staggered her way to her desk. The bed, end table and chair stayed in the correct places, thankfully, although the same couldn't be said for the angle of the floor.

She wasn't winged. She was remarkably solid but felt as if she might float away in the slightest gust of air.

A vase of cut flowers stood on the end table, filling the air with the spices of autumn. Remiel looked over herself and could name different scents: iodine, cigarette smoke, beer.

She fingered her ear, then flinched.

After calling a tall glass to her hand, she flashed water into it, added salt, and heated up the whole thing on her palm. When it was hot but not too hot to touch, she raised her shirt and bent over the glass so the lip of it sealed around her navel. She lay back on her bed so the cup was inverted with salt water gently scalding her skin.

Remiel closed her eyes. Saraquael would know how Gabriel was. The whole time she'd been in Creation, she hadn't dared ask in case she'd be overheard by them, and then she'd remembered being one of them and thought she shouldn't know just so she wouldn't tell them (but wait, she hadn't told them, right? Mephistopheles had caught her and asked, but she couldn't remember what she'd answered) and she shouldn't even think too much about him. So she hadn't told any of the guardians on Earth, hadn't asked for an update, hadn't dared let herself believe the unbelievable, because what if that had been a part of the dream too, and what if Saraquael had said something nebulous just so she'd calm down, or what if he had said something else and she'd only heard what she so desperately wanted, although impossible?

Maybe Saraquael would bring her to him now. Maybe Gabriel would be awake and she could see the truth.

Remiel tried to feel around Heaven for Gabriel, but again, nothing.

He had to be dead.

Saraquael said he was Guarded. Who would have put up the Guard?

Oh, of course.

"Michael?" Her voice sounded thin.

The Archangel appeared, at first concerned, but then he drew a sharp breath.

"Don't be like that," Remiel said. "How is Gabriel?"

"I haven't seen him in a couple of hours. I assume he's the same." He folded his arms. "You smell like an ash tray."

"The poison gets into the air," Remiel said. "I need a shower." She pursed her lips. "When can I see him?"

"I'd suggest," he said, undue emphasis on
suggest,
"after you sober up a bit."

"I'm not even buzzed."

"And get decently dressed."

"He's not going to lust after me, Michael. Seriously. I can't even imagine him caring."

"But others might." Michael's eyes glinted. "You went partying on Earth, and were you dressed like that the whole time?"

She propped herself on one elbow to see. Mid-calf black boots, mid-thigh black skirt, and a rumpled white t-shirt that ended a little below her navel when she stood. "It looks skimpier pushed up like this." She laid back down on the mattress.

Michael said, "And you've apparently forgotten how to drink," pointing at the inverted cup of water.

Remiel met his eyes just long enough to register the blue sparkle that meant his last statement was a joke. Okay. He was okay. It was all right.

"He told me to do this."

"Unless 'he' was God, what would compel you to do that?"