Scorn of Angels (23 page)

He cannot expect to destroy us,
thought Michael.
God will notice a half-million Angels
gone.

But what if he doesn’t
care?

It was a terrible thought for an Angel to have.

“What do we do?”
demanded Raphael.

God must care,
Michael corrected himself.
God would not let us all die in vain.
God, in his goodness, has been betrayed and as before, it is up to us to protect his Creation.
He sent out to all the Angels at once, “
Stay the course. We will reach God. And if Tribunal destroys us, then God will know, and order shall be
restored.”

The expanding sphere of darkness engulfed them all.

“Now!”
sent Epiphenia.

Arcana focused every ounce of her being on breaking through the Gates and flew forward. There was a moment of pure agony as she forced herself into the wall of power that blocked the way. Epiphenia put all her power into pushing Arcana through. The pain became excruciating and then vanished. Arcana was out of mortal realms and winging upward to Heaven.

In Heaven, a half-million Angels disbursed from God’s mountain, content that their message had been delivered and that all was right with God and with the world.

Standing on the stairs before God’s throne, Tribunal watched the Angels wing away. Pride filled him. He—alone—had turned half a million Angels away. God had not even noticed.
I am the only one fit to rule here,
he thought.
Mine is the power and the
glory.

The time has
come.

God was no longer paying attention to Heaven or Hell or Earth. There was still a chance he could be reached though. If enough people of the Earth cried out for him—for God, not for any of his mythological stand-ins—he might notice it. And that was why Tribunal’s next step was to, country by country, eliminate all the humans from the Earth. Then there would be no one to cry out for God’s help when Tribunal unmade Creation.

And when Creation is unmade, God himself will be unmade,
thought Tribunal.
What a pleasure it will be to get rid of him.
A faint anxiety crossed his mind, which he stifled.
And then I will bring into being my own Creation, and it will be stupendous. There will be no humans, no Angels, no devils. I will build my own race of immortals, and together we will watch the universe grow and die, and when that happens, we will make it grow all over again,
He smiled.
Maybe I’ll keep the Archangels around until the end, just so I can feel their despair as they watch their God become
unmade.

Chapter 11

N
yx was spattered
with silver ichor from a dozen different Angels. It covered her skin, her armor, and flicked off her wings as she flew through the Alps. She could feel it sliding down her body before it flew off to spatter the nearby mountaintops. She wondered that God didn’t notice the deaths of so many.

Nyx was moving so fast the air rippled around her. Every time she passed near the tops of the mountains she blew up a long, graceful plume of snow that swirled and danced in the slipstream of her wings.

She would have been more impressed with it if she weren’t being chased by twenty-three Descended Angels, all howling for her death. As it was, all she could do was lead them somewhere where she could destroy them all.

And it would be a lot easier if I had some help,
Nyx thought darkly. Persephone had vanished hours before, leading away a third of the surviving Descended. It had been helpful at the time, but now with Arcana gone to Heaven…
Persephone! Where are
you?

St. Moritz,
sent Persephone.
Near a nice little tavern with some divine-smelling lamb
cooking.

And what the fuck are you doing
there?

Hunting. Hold on a moment…
Persephone left the mind-link open, and Nyx heard the Descended Angel’s howl of pain as Persephone’s blade hacked through his body. There was a brief clash of blades and then another howl, suddenly cut off.
What are you doing
?

Running. I have twenty-three of them chasing
me.

Sounds like fun,
sent Persephone.
Why don’t we meet in Nice and kill them all
together
?

Too many people for them to kill, not enough places to
hide.

Rome, then?

Always Rome,
Nyx groused.
No wonder it’s the Eternal
City.

Eternally fun,
sent Persephone.
Think we can lure them into the
Catacombs?

Nyx looked over her shoulder at the howling pack of Descended. Their armor was also spattered with blood, mostly silver and their own. A few were flecked with Nyx’s blood, the result of some lucky cuts when she was fighting the others. A couple even had gold blood on them from their encounter with Arcana. All of them were angry from the deaths of their friends.
Shouldn’t be a
problem.

Think Arcana made
it?

Fuck, I hope
so.

Epiphenia hung in the sky in front of the Gates of Heaven. There was no air here to stir her long hair, no sound to reach her ears. There was only silence and the Gate through which she would never enter.

Arcana had gone through, and now there was little Epiphenia could do. She
was
reaching out with her mind, listening and watching and feeling what was happening on the other side of the Gate as best she could. She could feel that Arcana was still on her way up to the inner Gates, still unnoticed by Tribunal.

Heaven had changed, and not for the better.

The power that had been blocking the Gates was once more at full strength. No one would come in or out again until Tribunal was ready. The deep timpani vibration of God’s presence was less than it had been, and the layer of Tribunal’s presence around God’s had grown thicker. The Angels in Heaven didn’t seem to have noticed the change, but Epiphenia could feel it. God was still there, but distant, as if he no longer had interest in what was happening in his Creation.

My father. Are you my father too? Why don’t you notice us? Your children are dying on Earth, as they will in
Heaven.

She reached out to find Michael, hoping that God’s Soldier would be able to help protect Arcana. To her surprise, Michael was nowhere near God’s mountain, even though he’d been leading the assault on it only a few hours before. She searched through Heaven until she found him, far from the mountain, leading a full flight of armed Angels on patrol.

Epiphenia reached out to his mind. “
Michael. Can you hear
me?”

“I can hear you,”
replied Michael. “
Who are
you?”

For a moment, Epiphenia understood Nyx’s propensity for swearing. “
Epiphenia. We spoke before. When you led the Angels to the
mountain.”

“When I did
what?”

The clear lack of comprehension in Michael’s mind sent a wave of despair washing over Epiphenia. He could not remember. The strongest of God’s Archangels could not remember what he had done only moments before.

“
Michael,”
Epiphenia said carefully, “
what do you remember of the last little
while?”

“What do you mean?”
asked Michael.
“And where are you, Epiphenia? You are not in Heaven, and I do not recognize
you.”

“I am on Earth. I am Nyx’s daughter. And I am trying to stop Tribunal from destroying all
Creation.”

“Angels can’t have children.”

Epiphenia would have screamed in frustration if there had been enough air where she was. She forced herself to calm down. “
Michael, I am going to open my mind to
you.”

“Why would you do that?”
asked Michael. “
What do you have to share with
me?”

Epiphenia didn’t answer, just opened up her mind and let all of it spill into Michael’s, from her birth on Earth to her death in Hell, to her rebirth and all that led to this very moment.

This can’t be true,
said Michael, and Epiphenia could sense how badly the news had shaken him
. To tamper with an Angel’s memory is…
His voice hardened.
Tribunal cannot be trying this. There is no
way…

Arcana is coming,
sent Epiphenia.
And if she cannot get through to
God…

Michael turned in the air, leaving the other Angels behind, and winged back to the Gates of Heaven, fear driving him faster than he had gone before.

In his place between the worlds, Tribunal was examining the moment when he had faced down the Angels. He had used his power, yes, and had surrounded God’s mountain with it without God noticing. But when he had, something else had happened.

He replayed the moment in his mind, feeling every nuance of the power he had used, and all the other power he was using. Something had changed…

The Gates to Earth,
Tribunal realized.

Someone had sent a massive surge of power at the same time as his attention had been with the Angels. Something had weakened his Gate there so much that someone had come through.

And not just anyone, either…
He turned his thoughts on the path from the outer Gates to the Inner Gates. There was an Angel there, flying up with all her strength.
Arcana. Fancy seeing you here.

And more importantly,
thought Tribunal.
How did you get
here?

I’ll have to ask her.
Tribunal rose up and with a thought transported himself to the chair at God’s right hand in Heaven. God did not notice his return, any more than he had noticed Tribunal leaving. God was completely lost in illusion and Tribunal was very happy about that.

He rose up at once and walked down the long steps. There was plenty of time, still, before Arcana arrived.

Arcana, her eyes shut and all her mind and energy focused on God, flew up in the warm, gentle light of His presence.

Hell was easy to reach. One fell. Heaven was the opposite. An Angel had to strip away all worldly thoughts and care, no matter how pressing, and think of nothing but God. To do otherwise was to find oneself gently slipping backward toward the Earth. It happened many times and was always a source of much laughter and gentle chiding among the Angels.

This time, there would be no laughter. Arcana would not—could not—allow herself to slip back. There would be no second chance. If she fell, the Gates would not open for her again. The power that blocked the Gate was too great to penetrate a second time. So even as the thoughts of what would happen if she failed attempted to rise up in her head, Arcana pushed them away, focusing only on God’s great love, the love she had for him, and her desperate desire to see him. Slowly, with great effort, she rose higher and higher. Above her, the light grew indescribably bright until it would have blinded any living mortal’s eye.

Then she was floating in the sky, looking at the true Gates of Heaven. The Earth was a ball of blue far below her. Arcana smiled as she floated forward, and one foot touched the soil of Heaven. An enormous feeling of well-being swelled in her, driving away all the cares of the mortal world. The struggle for life and death happening on the Earth felt like nothing. This was Heaven, and there was nothing here but peace and God’s love, and the knowledge that all one’s journeys had come to an end.

It wasn’t true for Angels, of course, but all mortals, whose souls came here, felt the same sense of joy and wonder. It was a relief and a respite from their lives on Earth. For the Angels, it was a reminder of where they truly belonged. Arcana breathed the air of Heaven for the first time in a thousand years, and it was pure and sweet and wonderful.

Her other foot landed on the soil of Heaven, and with confident, easy strides she went through the Gate. She was home. She let the armor on her body fade and change into a long white dress, reminiscent of the ones she had seen in Italy on her travels on Earth. For the first time in a thousand years, Arcana felt a sense of peace.

And even if it wasn’t going to last, it felt very, very good.

But now that I’m here, I need to see God. Fast.
If she could go straight to God and see him, everything would be all right again. God would listen, Tribunal would be stopped, and Creation would not be unmade.