Snorting, Asmodeus spun on his heel and grabbed Jaoel by the neck. “C’mon now, Jaoel, why the drama? You should be excited,” he laughed, licking Jaoel’s left cheek. “I’m taking you to your new home.”
Gabriel clasped his elbow and dropped to his knees, gritting teeth as murmurs broke out behind him.
“My Lord, the demon has been spotted at the Border Woods.” He dared not look up as God descended His dais, keeping his head low and his eyes on the ground where blood dripped from his wound.
“Gabriel,” God said in a stern voice when He stopped in front of him, His bare feet golden just like the rest of Him. “Look at me.”
Gabriel looked up. “My Lord, I will ge—”
God slapped him across the face in front of everyone, the sound reverberating through his entire body and then the gilded marble floor. The hit stung and burned, the force of it toppling Gabriel over on his side.
“You disappoint me, Gabriel. You have failed me and Heaven. Again. You let a demon run free among us. You let himkillUriel and desecrate the body of one of your own angels, right under your nose,” God said in a voice like thunder that made the skies themselves tremble.
Shame flooded Gabriel, a tidal wave he couldn’t stop. God was right. Gabriel should’ve put it all together sooner, the little discrepancies in Jaoel’s behavior, the hints, the clues. The way the angel had looked at him,the hunger in those cerulean eyes. The birds in the courtyard had stayed away from Jaoel, ever since his awakening, and Gabriel shouldn’t have ignored that either, should’ve investigated it more.
Gabriel ground his teeth together. His cheek felt raw. The massacre in Florence had been a bad enough blow to Heaven. Two of their best agents had died on that day and their murderer still wasn’t captured. It was as if he’d disappeared from the face of the Earth, no matterwhere Gabriel had looked. His failure to solve the case had brought shame on his name, but it was nothing compared to losing Uriel, one of the six other seraphim God loved so dearly.
“My Lord, I will take a squad of angels with me and leave for the Border Woods immediately. I won’t let the demon escape, and I will retrieve Jaoel’s body.” He had to, so it wouldn’t be defiled further, taken to Hell and used as a vessel for its many evil souls.
God paced in front of Gabriel, humming. The sound, deep and thoughtful, touched Gabriel, dragged its phantom fingers along his cheek where a bruise was already forming.
“The watch-owls are saying something foul is happening as we speak. An evil greater than we expected. It hasstolenUriel’s soul.” He stopped, surveyed the room as whispers broke out, and then pinned Gabriel with his disappointed ocean-blue gaze. “The trespasser is anArchdemon.”
Gabriel’s chest felt too tight, the pain from his cuts flaring. Jaoel had delivered them, though it hadn’t been Jaoel, but instead, the demon possessing him. A body-snatcher, that much Gabriel had surmised, but he’d not gotten the name, hadn’t managed to identify him before he had escaped, slipping through Gabriel’s fingers like a slimy worm.
“An Archdemon?” Gabriel muttered, tremors preceding a rush of adrenaline. “Are you certain?”
God slapped him again. “Do not question me.”
Gabriel averted his gaze, shame filling him. It was reckless for an Archdemon to come here and risk so much. Their minions were expendable just like God’s angel troops, their dukes, their viscounts, too. But not the Kings, and since what God was saying had to be true, then that was who Gabriel had faced. A fallenArchangel.
The question was,which one.
“The owls don’t make mistakes, Gabriel. Unlike you,” God said, His voice like crackling thunder. He unsheathed the golden sword he carried on his hip and held it out. “You know what to do.”
Gabriel dipped his head in humility. “Yes, My Lord,” he said and took the sword.
Goosebumps covered his body as he stared at his reflection in the blade. Whispers and giggling erupted through the room, all eyes locking on him as he willed his breathing to remain steady. God had never punished a higher rank like this, not even during the First War, when so many angels had been lost to Hell. An infringement of one’s rank and status like this was unheard of, but it was the Lord’s will and Gabriel had to obey.
Through gritted teeth, he swallowed the overwhelming shame and cut his hair. He felt no pain, yet his chest squeezed tight, his heart mourning the loss as his lush locks pooled on the floor.
Gabriel didn’t show his inner agony. He couldn’t. He simply handed God His sword and knelt back down, trying not to give into the mounting shame just as the doors with the living vines and clouds opened.
“My Lord,” Michael’s voice cut through the chatter. “I have my squad ready to pursue.”
Glancing over his shoulder, Gabriel watched the other Archangel approach, his fiery hair glinting and swaying with a flourish in the sunlight that seeped into the antechamber through the tall windows. They lined the side which faced the lush gardens and remained always open, their silk and cloudstring drapes billowing in mesmerizing rhythms at the hands of air currents.
“No,” Gabriel muttered, standing up. He rocked his heels and met God’s gaze. “No,” he said to God more firmly, steeling his resolve. “I will take care of my mistake. As I should. Michael need not meddle or concern himself with this.”
“You have a lot to make up for, Gabriel. What guarantee do you have that you won’t fail me and Heaven again?” God demanded, His voice like steel.
Gabriel didn’t have a guarantee, questioning his capabilities and status in his own mind, too. But he had to redeem himself, to prove he was worthy of his position and place in the heavenly kingdom.
“I will not return to you until I’ve retrieved Uriel’s soul and Jaoel’s body, My Lord. I will chase this Archdemon all the way to Hell if I must, but I will catch him.”
God hummed, playing with a lock of His platinum blond hair as if to mock Gabriel. He kept it shaved on one side and shoulder-length on the other, pearls and sapphires woven into it in intricate arrangements.
“Very well, Gabriel,” He decided, walking over to Gabriel. He stroked Gabriel’s throbbing cheek with his knuckles, pressing hard against it as His gaze hardened. “Do not disappoint me again.”
