Monsoons and Monsters: Godhunter Book 22 Page 14

  “So many,” I whispered as we headed down the steps. “They're all archangels?”

  “You forget that we are a collection of three pantheons,” Azrael explained. “Those are the archangels of three religions melded into one.”

  “Oh.”

  “It will be all right, Carus.” He gave me a sweet smile. “They cannot hurt me.”

  “Maybe not, but we can make you suffer,” Gabriel strode forward and stood at the head of the flock.

  Gabriel; the angel who once had me tortured for daring to interfere with his plan to exterminate the merfolk. His henchman, Sachiel, had sipped tea while he presided over my torture. Azrael had rescued me—storming Heaven with the demons of Hell at his back—and had killed both Sachiel and the angel who had actually done the torturing: Aban. But Gabriel had escaped because Jerry had made a bargain in exchange for his life. I was a little bitter about that.

  Still; I had kept Sachiel's teacup as a souvenir.

  “Shut the fuck up, you traitor,” Michael said from the front left of the gathering. “We have to tolerate your presence since you're still technically an archangel, but no one actually wants you here.”

  “Jehovah wants me here,” Gabriel growled.

  “Jerry's a drunk who doesn't know what day it is half the time,” Raphael sneered. “He doesn't even know about this meeting, so there's no way he wants you here.”

  “Fuck you, Raph,” Gabriel growled.

  “Enough!” Azrael roared, and everyone went still. “You will not stand before me, in my territory, and speak to my friends disrespectfully, Gabriel.”

  “I can and I will,” Gabriel hissed. “I am one of you, whether you like it or not, and you are not above the Sphere of the Arches.”

  “I am here as a courtesy, out of respect for my fellow archangels,” Azrael said calmly. “But I will be given my due respect as well. If not, we will see who really holds the power in the Heavens.”

  Gabriel went white as his expression fell into one of pure terror. Azrael was a gentle, kind man most of the time, but that didn't mean he was weak. Much to the contrary, his father had created all of the Heavens, and he controlled them. Luke had withdrawn from the Seven Heavens to live in Hell in order to stop the Angelic War, but he hadn't lost control of the Heavens; a fact which was discovered when he faced down Jerry over my abduction and torture. Luke has shouted at Jerry, and his voice had made the Seventh Heaven tremble. It was indisputable proof of Luke's authority. Jerry had to accept that Luke was actually the most powerful deity in the collective pantheon; not just King of Hell, but also King of the Seven Heavens.

  Which made Azrael a Prince.

  Azrael had never thrown his weight around or brought up the fact of his secret/not-so-secret rank. But being forced to interact with Gabriel had pissed him off as much as it had me, and he was done playing nice. He may have stopped gathering souls, but that had no effect on his position in the pantheon... or his power.

  “All right, let's take a breath.” Michael held up a calming hand.

  “You are not as strong as you think,” Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Azrael, and then transferred his stare to me. “Neither of you are. And I will take great pleasure in making you see that someday.”

  Before I could tell Gabriel to “Bring it!” Azrael had launched himself across the few feet separating them. He lifted Gabriel by the throat and shook him until dove-gray feathers started falling from the archangel's wings. Gabriel's face began to turn blue.

  “Cease this, Azrael,” Samael, Ruler of the Fifth Heaven, and another Archangel of Death, placed his hand on Azrael's shoulder. “Don't force us to turn against you; especially not over this filth.”

  I jerked in surprise. Samael was a wild card. He wasn't on good terms with Azrael, but he wasn't an outright enemy—like Gabriel—either. He was the only angel married to a demon; Lilith, and yet he was a staunch Jerry supporter. Samael had once punched Azrael over a Jerry comment. He'd also called my husband a bastard, in the truest sense of the word. But Az had been kind to him because he and Samael were connected, and Azrael pitied Samael for embodying the dark side of Death without having compassion to comfort him. Samael was the embodiment of the wrath of God. Which is why I had been surprised when he called Gabriel filth. God, aka Jerry, loved Gabriel.

  Azrael stared at Samael as Gabriel thrashed. Finally, Az cast Gabriel down.

  “Get out of my territory, Brother,” Azrael hissed the last word at Gabriel. “And don't ever return.”

  No; Gabriel and Azrael aren't brothers. It's a title given to a fellow archangel, and in this case, it was a reminder of who Gabriel was supposed to be, and how horribly he'd failed at it. Gabriel narrowed his eyes at Azrael, glanced around at the other archangels—who conveniently found other places to look—and then shot into the sky.

  “That wasn't done well,” Samael said grimly.

  “That man orchestrated the abduction and torture of my wife,” Azrael ground out the words from between his clenched teeth.

  Samael blinked in shock.

  “You didn't know?” Azrael scowled. “How could you not have heard about my invasion of the Seventh Heaven?”

  “I heard that you and your father came to challenge Jehovah and failed,” Samael said with soft uncertainty.

  “Challenge?” Azrael huffed.

  “Failed?” Raphael hooted.

  “Dude, you are so out of the loop,” Michael added.

  Samael looked around him and found the other angels nodding at him sympathetically.

  “Tell me what happened,” Samael demanded.

  “Gabriel was conspiring to wipe out the merfolk race through the employment of sonar,” Azrael said.

  “Sound,” Samael whispered.

  Gabriel was the Messenger of God, and as such, his magic gave him control of speech and words: sound.

  “Yeah, that's right,” Michael huffed and joined our little circle. “The bastard didn't even have Jerry's approval, but Jerry stood up for him, even after he abducted Vervain because she found out about his plans.”

  “Abducted her and had those fiends, Sachiel and Aban, torture her,” Raphael growled. “That winged maggot doesn't deserve to live, much less be a part of the Sphere of Arches.”

  “Thanks, Raphael,” I said sincerely.

  “Most of us are decent men, Godhunter,” Raphael said. “Don't judge us all by the actions of those assholes.”

  “I try to judge a man by his actions alone.”

  “A good practice,” Michael said approvingly.

  Samael was watching all of this with a scowl. Finally, he nodded. “Fine. You were justified in your anger. But now that has been settled; there are other matters to attend to.”

  “What's up with the souls, man?” Michael asked point-blank. “You just stopped fetching them? You could have asked me to cover for you if you needed a break.”

  “I don't need a break; I need to quit. I'm tired, Mike,” Azrael said. “I've had enough, and I wanted to see if I was really needed before I hung up the scythe. It turns out that I'm not. The souls moved on without my help.”

  “But to where?” One of the other archangels asked.

  “The Void,” Azrael said.

  The archangels muttered among themselves.

  “The Void?” Samael shook his head. “So, you are needed. You make a difference in where the souls go.”

  “The Void gives them the chance to be reborn,” Azrael said patiently. “My father supported me in this, and if the Lord of Hell is okay with giving up souls, then you angels should be.”

  “Lucifer doesn't need any more power,” another angel said. “We do.”

  “But you don't get energy from souls entering Heaven, Cassiel,” Azrael pointed out.

  “Jerry shares his power with us,” Cassiel shot back.

  Azrael frowned and glanced at me. He hadn't considered that he'd be taking away energy from his fellow angels.

  “A soul in Heaven is not a source of energy,” Mike defended Az
rael. “You're being deliberately misleading, Cassiel, and you know it.”

  “Jerry does supply us with energy,” Cassiel protested.

  “A trickle,” one of the others muttered.

  “And it's not from the souls in Heaven,” another angel added.

  Azrael chuckled.

  “We get power from our exchange with humans,” Michael said in a loud voice. “You all know this. We are lucky in that way. Humans continue to pray to us, and every angel has an opportunity to respond, and contract with a human for sacrifice.”

  “Contract?” I asked Az in a whisper.

  “A prayer is considered an offer of employment,” Azrael whispered back. “If an angel responds, the human is obligated to donate life energy to the angel.”

  “I thought that was your source of energy,” I pointed to the dark corner of Shehaquim; the place where evil souls were tortured by angels instead of demons.

  The angels moved in restless discomfort.

  “It is our main source,” Raphael admitted. “But we don't like to talk about it.”

  “It's a bit of an embarrassment,” one of the others said.

  “You are, however, right to point it out,” Samael said with stern approval. “We should at least be able to address our dark deeds with each other, Brothers. The energy you get from prayer contracts is negligible. It's angelic torture that gives us our strength, and in that way, we are no different from Lucifer. In fact, if we're being brutally honest; it was Lucifer who gave us the idea of a righteous torture.”

  The archangels lifted their heads, looked at each other, and nodded grudgingly.

  “Fair enough.” Michael smiled at Samael. “Leave it to you to put us in our place, Brother.”

  Samael's hard facade cracked slightly with the smallest of smiles.

  “Are we done?” Azrael asked them. “We've established that the souls are fine and that we don't need them for power. I see no other way that my actions could affect the Highest Sphere.”

  “You've rocked tradition, Azrael,” another angel said as she stepped forward. Yeah, this one was a woman. “And you know how tightly we hold to our traditions. It has not gone over well with the Host.”

  “I understand that, Saraqael,” Azrael said gently. “But I need you to understand me. Look into your hearts and be honest with yourselves one more time. You know that I have worked the hardest out of all of us. I have loved humans and done what I thought was right for them, for most of my long life. I have watched other angels go lax in their duties, and no one has reprimanded them, but I finally do so carefully, making sure that the humans are fine without me, and you stand here and judge me for it?”

  Saraqael looked away in shame.

  “We don't mean to judge, Brother,” Michael said softly. “We are here for you. We wanted to know what was happening so that we could support you. Even Samael is here for you. Only that fucktard, Gabriel, wasn't in agreement with us, but we had to include him.”

  “Really?” Azrael asked with hope.

  “Of course,” Raphael huffed. “We got your back, Brother. You've always had ours. We just wanted to know what we were defending, and why.”

  “We all saw the effects of blind loyalty on our territory,” another angel said. “We have no intentions of ever repeating that mistake. But if you say the souls are fine, and this is what you require for your happiness; then we are with you, Azrael.”

  “Thank you, Orphiel,” Azrael said sincerely. “Thank you all.”

  “That was not the only reason we called you here,” Samael's voice was low but it carried, and the archangels went still. “The Archangels are only one sphere of the Host, and though we are the most powerful, we are also the smallest. We may support your decision, but we cannot guarantee how the other spheres will react. I will stand with you, Brother Death, but know that I do so grudgingly, and against my better judgment.”

  “I appreciate your support despite your feelings toward me, Samael,” Azrael said.

  “You misunderstand.” Samael shook his head. “My reluctance doesn't stem from any ill will between us, but from the possibility of this ending badly. I sense a sinister stirring around you, Azrael. The winds of war are circling.”

  “Yeah; I don't think that has anything to do with Azrael,” I said with a grimace.

  “What?” Samael looked startled.

  “Sorry; did I ruin your dramatic speech?” I teased him. “There's a war wind coming all right, but it has nothing to do with the Grim Reaper's retirement. It's because a storm god is on the loose with an Atlantean machine that could destroy the Earth.”

  The Archangels began speaking all at once, and Azrael rolled his eyes.

  “You could have prepared them better before you laid that on them,” Az said to me.

  “Samael isn't the only one with a flair for the dramatic.” I smirked.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  We spent the next few hours explaining the situation to the archangels and answering their questions as best as we could. The good news was that we now had the archangels searching for our storm god too. The bad news was that we now had archangels searching for our storm god too. Angels, especially the top dogs, were a take action bunch. Helpful, yes, but also interfering and arrogant to the point of not telling you when they were going to interfere. They got their answers from us and then took off, each one believing that they knew best how to handle this debacle. Only Michael, Raphael, and (ironically) Samael remained.

  “You should have brought this to our attention sooner,” Samael chided Azrael.

  Azrael simply waved a hand at the sky, where a flock of archangels was disappearing.

  “Valid,” Samael muttered. “They do tend to fly off half-cocked.”

  “I hope they don't screw things up too badly,” Raphael murmured.

  “I would be grateful if you kept me updated on any activity on this,” Samael said. “I will investigate further and inform you of anything I discover in return.”

  “Agreed.” Azrael shook his hand. “Thank you for putting aside our differences today, Samael.”

  “Thank your wife.” Samael glanced at me. “The Godhunter has been good for you, Azrael. I'm impressed with your maturity and courage.”

  “Azrael was a good man before we met,” I protested.

  “Good, sure.” Samael shrugged. “But that's relative. What I like are facts, Vervain, and the fact is that the Azrael I used to know would never have had the balls to stand up for himself and take control of his life. I said once that you had unmanned him. I have never been so wrong. You gave him something to fight for; the impetus to be the man he was born to be. Someone I can finally respect.”

  Azrael burst out laughing, and we all stared at him in surprise.

  “The entire Host respected me for plodding on all of these years and doing the work that no one else wanted to do,” Azrael said with a smile. “But you, Brother Death, are connected to me without being blinded by friendship. You saw the truth. You saw my dedication as the mask it was; a way for me to hide from life while blaming it on someone else.”

  Samael smiled, fully and very sincerely. He held his hand out to Azrael, and Az took it.

  “Welcome back to life, Angel of Death,” Samael said.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The investigation dragged on. The angels were reporting in with so many new leads that they were difficult to follow up on, and they never seemed to pan out. Let's just say that their idea of a storm god was very general. And Eros hadn't been located either. The search was still going strong when time ran out, and I had to return to Faerie. So, I traveled back to Arach with a knot in my belly that was slowly clenching its way upward, into my chest. I stepped out of the Aether and reformed in front of the Great Tree, right where I'd left my faerie family.

  “What happened now?” Arach growled with an air of irritation.

  “Nothing that we can do anything about at the moment,” I said. “And nothing that affects us here.”

&nb
sp; Arach scowled at me for a minute longer. “You'll tell me after we get this settled?” He waved a hand toward the dogs.

  I nodded.

  “So be it.” He sighed.

  Arach handed me Brevyn, and we went to the waiting cŵn annwn. The animals got to their feet and looked at the tree, then back at Arach.

  “How are we going to follow them through the Aether?” I asked him.

  Two of the dogs came forward and positioned themselves in front of us, facing the tree. They wagged their long, silky tails at us meaningfully.

  “I suppose we hold on.” Arach smirked.

  “And just trust them to take our children and us through the Aether?” I nearly shrieked. “What if we don't make it through? What if my grip slips on their fur?”

  “If you feel yourself floundering, concentrate on getting to Pride Palace,” Arach said calmly. “I will do the same.”

  “I don't like this,” I muttered, but I bent forward and grabbed the dog's tail. “This is so silly.”

  “Hold on, Son,” Arach said to Rian as he grabbed a tail too.

  I held Brevyn tightly, and then Arach and I let our dogs lead us to the tracing tree. The hounds touched their noses to the bark of the massive trunk, and we were all drawn into the Aether. Our physical bodies shifted into thought, zipped through the magical realm that held the other realms together, and then reformed at a new location.

  I looked over a sun-dappled valley, dotted with little white cottages. Mountains rose in the distance and flocks of birds streaked across the bright sky. The scent of honeysuckle drifted on the breeze, urging me to take a deeper breath. Sunlight brought the verdant forest below us to life, turning the patches of green into a shimmering quilt. In the center of the quaint scene stood a Cinderella castle of glass, outshining everything around it. This god territory looked nothing like an underworld, but that's exactly what it was.

  “Annwn,” I whispered as I set the wriggling Brevyn on his feet.

  “Annwn?” Arach repeated with interest.

  The cŵn annwn had calmed, at peace now that their master was where they wanted him. But they weren't done yet. They circled Arach once, and then started down the little hill we stood on, heading straight into the thick forest, on a path that would take us to the castle.