Kodesh still unfilled. I am raising you to that status.”
“Can you do that?” Lemuel sounded shocked. This wasn’t going quite as he had imagined. He’d heard the stories of how Michael and his allies had fought Yahweh and had expected much the same to happen here. “Will the humans let you?”
“This is nothing to do with humans. When Yahweh died, I felt something change within me. As if something had left him and come to me. So, I raised Leilah-Lan to be Chayot Ha Kodesh. I thought it was a nominal move only, that she would remain Erelim. I was wrong, she has grown in size and power and truly is becoming Chayot Ha Kodesh. So the power to raise others has come to me, perhaps from those beyond the gates. Now, I will use it to raise you.”
There was a stifled gasp from Maion, one that ended in a barely-suppressed sob. Michale moved towards her and stretched out his hands. “What is the matter little one?”
“I am only Malakhim. I am not a fit mate for a Chayot Ha Kodesh.”
“Maion, did I not tell you that you are part of my clan now? And because of that, I would always look after you? Did you think I would cause you to be taken from your soul-mate after you have endured so much to be with him? Did I not tell you that a leader serves those he leads as much as they serve him? So to solve that insignificant little detail, I will raise you to the rank of Erelim. Your services to the Angelic Host deserve no less. He reached out his hands and placed them on Maion’s head. Once again, he felt power running through him and he saw Maion standing tall. Then, he turned and did the same for Lemuel. “Maion, why don’t you run down and show Doctor Gunn your new wings. He’ll be fascinated with them. Tell him everything. He’s still a doctor, he’ll want to know it all.”
Maion beamed and ran out of the door, eager to show off her new wings and status. Michael smiled fondly at her, then turned his attention back to Lemuel. “Feel different yet?”
“I don’t know… I…” Lemuel hesitated again. Now, he really was bewildered. “Why.”
“Why did I raise you up? Because I promised to, because you deserve it and because if we are going to end up having a fight, I wanted to give you a fair chance.” Michael didn’t even wince at the barefaced lie. He never had any intentions of fighting fairly.
“Fairly? You? You shit-steamed pile of vomit. How could you do it to me Michael? Get me hooked on drugs, make me betray everything I held holy. You were my friend.”
“I still am, the fact you are still alive proves that. It would have been much easier for me to have you killed. You and your little playmate.”
“Maion too. You hooked her on drugs, made her prostitute herself. She almost died because of you.”
“Nobody forced Maion to start using. She did that all by herself. Like most of the Angelic Host, she was bored and looking for new experiences to liven up her life. She was Malakhim, what did she have to look forward to? Her rank meant that, at best, she would be mate to a lowly angel and spend eternity washing his dishes. At worst she would end up in a temple making the same reverential dance every day. For all eternity Lemuel. Like those poor bastards in Yahweh’s choir. What has happened to them by the way?”
“Humans took them away. They were talking about something called
PTSD.”
“Well, there you are then. Maion just wanted some thrills before the humdrum eternity set in. She got herself hooked. If you want to blame anybody, blame Yahweh. He was the one who set the system up here. Her getting hooked was a convenience for me. One of the purposes of the Club was to find you a mate who would be more to you than just a mate. You deserved better than that ball-busting bitch Onniel and Maion filled the bill perfectly. Working the club taught her a few tricks to hook you, that was all. There’s never been prostitution in The Eternal City so the idea has no stigma attached to it. With Yahweh gone and his maniacal obsessions about sex removed, I think this will be a much healthier city to live in but that’s my opinion only of course. It was Belial, working under Yahweh’s orders who crippled and nearly killed her. You can’t blame me for that.” Invisible, Michael tensed. Believe that and we’re half way out of this.
Lemuel sat still, churning the information over in his mind. “Onniel is dead.”
“Very.” And if I want it, there’s a pile of evidence pointing straight at you as her killer my old friend. “She was the one responsible for the fate that befell Maion. Yahweh smiled upon her so when she went to him, demanding revenge, he obliged.” Michael sighed theatrically. “I suppose in a way, I am to blame for what happened to Maion. I should have anticipated Onniel’s actions. I knew of her character and the fact that Yahweh liked her. I should have anticipated her actions. For that lapse, I can only apologize and try to make amends. But never in my wildest dreams did I anticipate the nightmare that Yahweh had created.”
The combination of sudden, unexpected promotion and Michael’s calm, matter-of-fact discussion of Maion’s fate took the wind out of Lemuel’s sails. He had been working up a fine head of steam over what had happened to his beloved Maion; now it seemed as if all the major points had been out of Michael’s control. Selfishness also tore at him; if Maion hadn’t been experimenting with drugs and got out of her depth, he would never have met her or become her patron. She would never have become his mate. He would have been stuck with Onniel and her carping, shrewish ways. The truth was that his home was happy now, so much so it underlined how miserable a place it had been before Maion had become its Lady. His staff liked her and they had spoken well of them both when the humans had come to ask questions. The story of how Lemuel himself had come to the defense of a maltreated human and thrown his own mate out of the house when she was revealed as the culprit had struck a note in his favor.
Confusion eddied and boiled in his mind. He had been so certain in his rage and offense, in his belief that Michael had been behind all his troubles. Forced to look on things from a different perspective, reality seemed a far thing from the simplistic picture he had once had. Michael had exploited Maion, that was certain but had he, Lemuel, done any less? He also had taken advantage of her addiction and bought her services. Was he not as much to blame as Michael?
“You drugged me as well. You tricked me into addiction.” Lemuel was uneasily aware that the complaint had come out as petulant whine rather than a soul-searing indictment.
“I did, and if you wish to confront me on that, I will concede it. You have every right to be upset. But, look at the situation Lemuel. Yahweh was going mad, you know that now but back then his madness was obvious to only a tiny few. How mad was something that even we did not guess. Yet you were the chief investigator of the League of Holy Court, the de-facto head of Yahweh’s secret police. You had to be separated from Yahweh, you had to see him for what he really was. Much of the blame here lies with you Lemuel, how often did you close your eyes to what the League was actually doing? As you had the victims of your investigations tortured into confessions that might, or might not, be true, did you ever doubt what you were doing?”
Lemuel flushed red and looked at the floor. “No.” His voice was small and weak.
“There was that human you picked up. The one you identified as a heretic because she had a small bottle of human garlic seasoning in her possession. You had her tortured, Lemuel. She was three-quarters drowned, raped and murdered while your prisoner and yet your faith was still not shaken. You Lemuel, you were Yahweh’s right hand when that and much more happened. It was a small step, Lemuel from the dungeons of the League of Holy Court to Yahweh’s concentration camp. So small a step from vigorous enforcement of the law to oppression and mass murder. A step so tiny and easy to make that its implications frighten even the humans.
“You are my friend, Lemuel, we had to save you yet you were so firmly under Yahweh’s spell that regular argument would have been futile. So we hooked you. We got you just addicted enough that being with us was pleasant while being away from us was the reverse. Then, we slowly showed you that heresy had its values, that a degree of dissent was essential for a culture to move onwards. That the people who held different ideas from you were not necessarily bad persons because of their beliefs. Nor were people whose beliefs were conventional necessarily good or of pure heart. We showed you that people had to be judged for who they were, not for what they believed.”
“So you did it all for my own good?” Lemuel spoke with tones laden with disbelief.
“Of course not.” Michael was derisive. “We did it so I would not have to kill my friend. We would have done, Lemuel, we would have had to. But, above that, we needed you as a messenger to the humans. We had to send them the keys to Heaven by a messenger they would believe. Anybody else, one of us, they would have treated our
