Chapter 10 Gavriel #2
The song wasn’t words, exactly. Or not ones usually spoken aloud.
I recognized the patterns and the cadence from the Celestial music I’d once studied.
This was the Mother’s tongue, delivered into the mind of the Messenger.
The power of that message was what sped a Messenger across the void to our realm.
Once the Message had been given, the Messenger would possess just enough strength to return to the Celestial Realm, although Rafe had taught me long before that re-entering that final gate was in no way certain.
The memory of that lesson flooded my mind as Arabella’s notes trickled into my ears.
My teacher—although I was starting to think of him less as my superior and more as a best friend, like Mik—leaned over the tome he’d opened on the table. The writing on the parchment was almost incomprehensible.
“Is that another joke?” I asked, squinting.
His own gold and silver eyes had fine lines at the corners, which said without words exactly what kind of Celestial Seraphiel was.
A mischievous one. He’d pulled enough pranks on the Guides and other High Angeli here—leaving the blame at my feet more times than I cared to count—that the laughter he loved to fill the realm with had left permanent marks on his face.
“Why would you think it a joke?” Seraphiel asked, but his tone betrayed a little too much innocence.
Too-perfect nonchalance. “When a soul ascends, they travel across the void to the threshold of the Celestial Realm. There, they wait until the gate appears. If their souls are pure, they enter on their own, singing their name. And then, they are given a gift.”
“It says here”—I paused; the lettering was hard to read—“that the gift may be meaningless to all but the one who receives it.” That part of the text had a ridiculous list of items handwritten in the margin with the words Best Gifts Ever scrawled over them.
“There’s nothing on this list that would be of any value.
No swords, or symbols of power, or instruments. ”
“Do you think they would need swords in the Celestial Realm, Gavvy?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m five hundred years old, Leader Seraphiel. Please stop calling me Gavvy.”
He threw his legs over the arm of his chair, creating five balls of soulfire and juggling them as he talked. “Only if you stop calling me Leader Seraphiel.”
“Fine. High Angelus Seraphiel.” I gave him a look. He insisted on going by High Angelus when he was no such thing. He was one of the First Children.
He winked at me. “I think I’d rather be a friend. Call me… Rafe.”
My cheeks burned. “Rafe, then. These gifts don’t make sense. Who would even want a pair of feathered, vibrating gloves or a sculpture of the inside of the universe’s most perfect nostril? Or a sexual toy that can pleasure fourteen Celestials at once—that’s not even possible!”
Rafe dropped the fiery orbs, he was laughing so hard. “You have much to learn, Gavvy—Gavriel.”
I was certain now that he’d made this list up and scribbled it there to trick me into memorizing it as canon. “I wouldn’t even take those gifts if they were offered. They’re crass. They’re not… dignified.”
His eyes speared mine, glimmering less with humor and more with warning.
“You know, the Celestial gate only opens once for each soul. Even then, it doesn’t always open.
If you’re the type who would turn away your one perfect gift, intended for you to keep for the rest of eternity, the gate probably wouldn’t open at all. ”
“That’s happened before?” I’d heard the truth in his words, though. A frisson of fear crept up my spine. “Where did those souls go, the ones who were turned away?”
“Some did as they were meant to and waited outside the Celestial gate until their souls were ready. Others left and tried to go to Earth, but ended up in the Abyss.” His voice deepened, filled with rage. “And sometimes, they dragged other traveling souls along with them.”
“The imbalance.” I breathed the words. “Those souls were meant to be in the Celestial Realm. But they didn’t make it inside.” He hummed in agreement. “But Leader… Rafe. What happened to the souls they dragged with them? Are they still trapped in the Abyss?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice raw. “And someday, someone will have to go and get them, and bring them home.”
I wanted to ask more, but his face was so sad. So I changed the subject. “I think we should request that the Maker’s Apprentice Mikhail make physical copies of some of these Celestial gifts as practice in his craft lessons. As teaching tools for the senior Protectors.”
The gleam returned to Rafe’s eyes as he leaned forward. “Which ones, Gav? You choose.”
“This one would be fun.” I pointed to one of the gifts, smiling as the sadness fled the room.
When the memory fled, I turned my head and caught Rafe staring at me. The corners of his mouth were turned up in a smile I still loved, even if he was almost unrecognizable otherwise.
I loved you, I thought to him. And I still do, Rafe. Tell me what I can do to save you. I’ll do it. Do you need my wings? My soul? Anything. I can’t bear to see you suffer.
His eyes widened, but just then, the Gate began…
screaming? No, it wasn’t the gate. It was a Guide—Righteous Fervor, in fact—in the hallway nearest the entrance to the basement.
Their hood had fallen back, their face and neck exposed.
In an instant, another two Guides fell to the floor.
Flickers of darkness moved in the hallway, speeding toward the fallen Guides. Covering them.
They were being consumed by shadows.
More shadows began to emerge from that hallway, and more unarmed Guides fell. Sanctuary was being overtaken. The Abyss had found a way inside after all.
Someone needed to find the point of entry and close it. I reached out mentally to anyone who could hear, but Perception was the only High Angelus besides me left, and so only he responded.
Where are you, Perception?
The Flight Hall, he responded immediately. Where do you need me?
At the Great Gate, but bring weapons. As many as you can carry. They’re attacking here.
I knew my duty; I had to help my people. But Arabella was still singing, and the control she was using to let only the smallest ribbon of power fly free was terrifying. I had no idea what might happen if the shadows reached her while she fortified the gate. She needed protection until she was done.
“Take care of her,” Rafe commanded, already moving toward the screaming Guides. I stepped toward her, trying to see a way to protect both her and the Guides who were being slaughtered. “I’ll handle those fuckers.”
“The shadows, or the Guides?”
“Fair question,” Rafe snarled. “Fine. I’ll save your festering, pustulant Guides.”
With what? I only had Mikhail’s soul knife, which was effective at close range, but nothing like the Celestial sword I’d just melted down. Fuck. “We need more weapons,” I called. “Perception is on the way to the Weapons Hall.”
“I’ll help him,” Hope shouted, shooting away.
“Weapons of war won’t be enough,” Rafe growled as shadows began to surge through that doorway.
“Can anyone in this place play an instrument? Does anyone know the old songs?” His gaze fell on the frightened, shivering Protectors around us, realizing what I already knew.
There were no High Angeli left. “Shit. None of you are even old enough to be able to sing in High Angelic.”
“M-my friends and I know the songs Feather taught us,” Truth called over the screams. “We’re the Maker’s children. We can sing it without much pain. What do we do?”
Rafe startled at Truth’s assertion, then clapped the young man on the back, almost knocking him over. “If you’re Mik’s, you’ll do. Stand close together, stay in front, and sing the songs of power as loudly as you can. The shadows can’t bear the sound of them.”
Truth muttered, “Oh shizz,” next to my side, as another Guide fell under a huge, razor-edged shadow, and a horde of smaller shadows swept toward us.
Rafe leaped to my side as a broad swath of coal-gray matter with thick, jagged edges loomed over me.
“Get back,” he shouted, a pulse of power rushing out of him.
The shadows fled from him, but as soon as the power surge waned, they came roaring back.
“Guard the Sacrifice,” he told me, and I leaped to Arabella’s side, the soul knife in my hand.
Never had I wanted or needed a sword as badly as now.
But I knew I had other weapons, though I may not have kept up my practice with them as I had the sword.
I opened my own mouth and began to sing a hymn of battle, one I thought the young Protectors might know.
They did. A group of eight, including Truth, stood in front of the largest crowd of kneeling Protectors and began to sing along. We sang in unison, aiming for power, not intricacy in our musical strikes.
I watched as the shadows quailed and retreated from that group, and went racing after Rafe. He was running toward the hallway—to the basement door.
They came through where you did? I asked, but I knew the answer.
A narrow shadow slipped past Truth’s octet, and I raised Mik’s knife, meeting the shadow’s hard edge with the smoky blade.
Rafe was fighting as he pushed through the mass of shadows in the hall, using the carapace he wore as armor, and his claws as weapons.
They were mostly ineffective until he reached down and drew lines of power from the ground of Sanctuary, wrapping them around his hands and using them as thread-like whips to dispel the monstrous gray beasts.
I sang louder as I sliced through the creature I was battling, pushing at the smaller remnants of shadow that remained on the ground, all of which were trying to get to Arabella. Of course they were. She shone like a beacon of purity. They would want to be near her, smother her.
As I took a breath to sing another refrain of the hymn, and noted a fresh wave of shadows pouring down the hallway, I thought they might succeed.
But only if my light, my life, was fully extinguished.