Daystar (35 page)

Lucifer shook his head.
 
“I would know, he is one of my Archangel’s now, he simply no longer is able to be contacted.
 
He is a place separate from Heaven, Hell, or here.”

Whitney stared at the spot he used to be.
 
“He is doing what he needs to.”
 
She nodded.
 
“He is fine.”

Dahlia hugged Whitney.
 
“Whitney.”

Whitney shook her head.
 
“He is fine.”
 
She looked at Dahlia and smiled.
 
“He’ll be okay.”

Andy paid them no heed.
 
He stayed on his knees before the pyre.
 
He contemplated throwing himself upon the flames, but he knew that Lucifer or Dahlia would pull him out before he could die.
 
So he stayed motionless and let the heat brush across his face in waves.
 

Andy’s heart beat slowly.
 
It had nothing to live for, nothing to keep him going, yet it continued to beat.
 
He found this strange.
 
He had always expected he would end when she did; it had never occurred to him that he could continue if she died.

Andy wished the organ would cease beating.
 
He wished that he would feel as dead as Belial.
 
His heart might live on a physical thing, but his emotional core had been ripped from him as surely as Helion had taken it from Uriel.
 
He went numb, not even able to cry.

The others grew silent and sat behind him.
 
The sun rose straight overhead, reaching its zenith.
 
The heat was scorching, but no one moved.

Hours passed.
 
They stared at the flames as the sun went down and darkness reclaimed the land.
 
The stars came out one-by-one.
 
The flames died down to embers, the embers to a fine white ash.
 
Slowly those around him walked off in pairs, back to Eden or into the wilds, but Andy stayed.
 
Whitney stayed.
 
Neither had any reason to leave; they had nowhere else to go.

***

Wednesday

Gabriel stared at his hands; he had been doing this for some time.

He did not have a thought in his head.
 
That was a first for him.
 
He tried to think, but he could not.
 
He did not know what to do.
 
He had been given a task.
 
He intended to see it through…at some point.
 
The when of it was rather vague for him.
 
Things just did not seem important any more.

Gabriel rationalized the stalling with the realization that he was missing information, the kind of information that could only be found in memory and experience.
 
The items he had locked away and forgotten existed for so long.
 
Dahlia had changed that.
 
She’d restored his memories, all of them.
 
He had them inside.

Gabriel focused and a memory surfaced, then another.
 
They engulfed his senses.

Gabriel remembered flying alongside Furcas, the two singing together, happy without a worry.
 
He remembered Paimon teaching him things about the universe, imparting all of his knowledge to him.
 
It seemed odd to him now that Furcas and Paimon had never met until the planet was created, perhaps it had been fate.

His thoughts circled back to his brother.
 
Paimon had been the first thing Gabriel had seen in his long existence.
 
He remembered Paimon picking him up, holding him upside-down by his foot and giving him a once over before nodding and saying, “Acceptable.”
 

Gabriel mimicked his brother’s voice.
 
He looked around to see if anyone was watching him, but he was alone.

Paimon had taken him and shown him around Heaven, as all the other Archangels had when their siblings were born.
 
Gabriel remembered Paimon as they flew side by side; he had learned everything there was to learn about Heaven, about rules and calculations.

Gabriel shook his head to focus on the here and now, but again he blanked.
 
He bit his cheek and stared into the never ceasing light of Heaven.
 
Gabriel scratched his head, sure that eventually something would come to him.

Near the throne, Michael waited with Samuel.
 
The pair watched the fire swirl.
 
An Archangel formed.

METATRON, A TRUE REPLACEMENT FOR BARACHIEL.
 
SAMUEL YOU ARE BETTER SUITED FOR BATTLE, THIS ONE WILL TAKE THE REGISTER.

A black-haired youth opened his eyes, steel gray, unfeeling.
 
He held Barachiel’s register in his hands.
 
The youth was branded above his heart.
 

Michael gestured at the boy.
 
“Why is he marked that way?”

NO MORE MAY HAVE FREE WILL OR FALL AWAY.
 
NO MORE MAY HAVE HEARTS.
 
I DO NOT REQUIRE FEELINGS.
 
I REQUIRE OBEDIENCE.

Michael frowned and watched as another Archangel was produced.
 
The boy stumbled out of the flame.
 
He had long white hair, was wild-eyed and long-limbed, his similarity to Berith and Uriel unmistakable.
 
The boy looked intensely confused and scared of existence.

AZRAEL, TO REPLACE URIEL.

Michael flinched; he had felt Uriel die.
 
He steeled his nerves and beckoned for the young ones.
 
Azrael and Metatron stood at his side, a pair of opposites.
 
Michael looked at them with uncertainty in his eyes; they barely came up to his ribs.
 
They were scrawny and gawky and from Azrael he felt fright.

The fire churned and a third was born, female and young.

ARIEL, MY WRATH.

Ariel stood up; she too had a brand over her heart.
 
Her hair was honey-colored, her eyes blue, her lips pouting.
 
She looked like a prepubescent version of Dahlia.
 
Ariel smiled, showing rows of sharp teeth like a shark.
 
She bowed to Michael.
 
“Archangel, we three are at your service.”

Michael stared at the youths; to him they appeared children.
 
Unbidden, memories of his own childhood came back to him.
 
“They are so young.”

YES.
 
THE FALLEN WILL PAUSE TO STRIKE THEM.

Michael ground his teeth and chose his words carefully, “I pause to
use
them.”

DO NOT.
 
I DESIGNED THEM TO DIE FOR THE CAUSE.
 
THEY CAN BE REPLACED EASILY.
 
THEIR YOUTH IS A CAMOFLAUGE ONLY.

Michael kneeled before the throne.
 
“If you would make me Primangel, I could—”

NO.

Michael nodded stiffly to hide his disappointment.
 
“As you command.”

***

There was darkness and a mirror in quicksilver.
 
Helion opened his eyes.

In the silver surface, Belial looked at him.
 
He blinked.
 
She blinked.
 
He held his hand up.
 
She held hers up.
 
Mirror twins.

They were young again, barely teenagers as they had before the split.
 
Blonde with blue eyes, skin unblemished, wings cobalt blue and soft.

Helion gulped.
 
“You.”

Belial swallowed.
 
“You.”
 
Her eyes darted about.
 
“Where are we, Helion?”

Helion shrugged.
 
“I do not know, other than the fact that no one can reach us here.”

“Why?”

“We required space and so a space was created for us.”

“We?”
 
She frowned.
 
“But, I am no longer separate.”
 
She frowned as she sensed him out.
 
“You did not honor my wishes, Helion.”

He shook his head.
 
“I did.
 
You asked me to take your life away.”

“The intent was not for me to then remain in
you
.”

Helion cut the air with his hand.
 
“I removed your life-force from your body.
 
Freed from its house, your soul rejoined with mine.
 
As we were at our inception, one soul and one body.
 
There was nothing I could do to prevent this.
 
I did not understand it, until now.”

Belial frowned.
 
“Then my prison has only been extended.”

He reached out to the quicksilver.
 
“No, I seek to free you.”

Belial smiled slightly.
 
“Then free me, subsume me and take my consciousness into your own, absorb and dissolve me.”

“No.”

She frowned.
 
“No?”

Helion traced his finger on the quicksilver; she reached up to do the same.
 
He looked into her eyes.
 
“I must understand, Belial.
 
Why do you seek to disappear?”

Belial touched her chest.
 
A hole appeared with no heart.
 
“I have been in pieces for too long, I am tired.
 
I do not want to remember what Uriel did; I do not want to live with it.”

“Uriel is dead.”

She smiled and then looked away.
 
“The memories are not.”

“They linger?”

“Yes.”

“Give them up.”

Belial snatched her hand back.
 
“What?”

Helion leaned towards her image.
 
“Give them up; if you seek to be without them then give them up to me.”

“We are one, Helion.
 
This cannot be done.”

“Are we?”
 
Helion looked at her image.
 
“I rejoined us and yet this divide exists, a conversation occurs as if we were two beings.”

She smiled slightly.
 
“We are a split personality now.”

He smiled with her.
 
“We have always been a split personality, though I have failed in doing what I should have.”

“What is your meaning?”

“The personality created should protect the one injured.
 
I did not protect you.
 
I have not protected you all this time.”

“Not your responsibility.”
 
Belial stuck her chin in the air.
 
“I lived with it, fought, and survived.”

“Belial.”
 
Helion reached for her.
 
“I want you to thrive, not just survive.”

She frowned.
 
“This conversation is pointless.
 
My body is gone; soon even this scrap will be as well.”

Helion shook his head.
 
He pointed to the hole in her chest; a heart filled it.
 
He watched as she looked down.
 
“You have your heart back and with it your body can be remade.”

She paused.
 
“You recovered it from him.
 
Good, but that does not change anything.”

“It does.”
 
Helion touched his chest.
 
“We were born of one body, one soul, and so we can be again.
 
We can split again.”

Belial took a step back from the quicksilver.
 
“I do not desire to go back to the memories or pain.”

“That body and what he did to it is gone, Belial.”

“My memories are not, Helion!”

“Your memories are
our
memories now, but that heart, it does not have them, it was taken from you, it is pure still.
 
You can rejoin it and be free.”

She held his gaze.
 
“What will I be without my memories?”

“You will be as you were supposed to be, innocence—”

“Stupidity.”

Helion glared at her.
 
“You seek to distance yourself from the girl that was victimized.”

“I am not a victim!”
 
Her eyes flashed.

“You were and that is not shameful to admit!”

She turned away.
 
Helion concentrated.
 
The silver between them disappeared, and they were in one small room together.
 
She bumped into the wall and turned to him.
 
“Let me sleep again!”

“No.”
 
He sat down and patted the floor.
 
“You will listen to your brother for once.”