Seven Archangels: Annihilation by Jane Lebak

amphetamines washed down with espresso. Telling about angels dressed in black, angels without songs, angels constantly armored—and angels grim, so terribly grim.
    Around her, demons laughed and pretended to be Gabriel being ripped limb from torso until Remiel wanted nothing more than to rise from her chair and start stuffing parts of them down one another's throats.
    But the disguise had to hold, particularly now, so Remiel put on Camael as best she could and scowled, keeping her eyes closed.
    A demon bumped Camael's head as he passed, and Camael growled so the interloper skittered away.
    The air had a fug Camael detested—give him the open air of Creation any day, the freedom of wide spaces; even the darkest alley in Sodom seemed preferable now. The continuous noise—less sound than static feedback—could drive anyone to frenzy with its whine. From the pits and the ice fields it was possible to hear the tumult of the human damned. At least this room had only a few columns to support the weight of everything above—a weight anyone could feel just waiting; the deeper levels had more columns, smaller chambers, no room even to open your wings.
    Another pair of demons launched into an Amos-and-Andy style production of "How I Killed Gabriel" when Camael decided he'd had enough. Looking off to the western side of the room he saw it vanish into the thick air of the lab area. He pushed aside a demon and started walking. That was the place to go to be alone, but being there, near where it happened… Even if the real Camael did have chambers there—and who would want to see the contents of a demon's privacy?—being there would only bring it back, the memory of standing with Beelzebub and Satan in a darkness hungry to devour any light they shed. Neither had tried. Gabriel alone had shone there, and Camael could have given away the game by doing the same. For all the good his presence had done, he might as well have.
    Camael stopped in mid-stride. No, don't go there. Don't go in and remember how he'd been so weakened that Satan had helped him to stand, that he'd leaned on God's enemy and his friend's murderer.
    Murderer. A murderer from the beginning, Jesus had said. Jesus had known Gabriel would— That this would happen.
    "I hear you were around when they got him?"
    Camael faced the demon with a growl. A low-ordered one, but the demon stood its ground.
    "Did the poor freak scream?" it said. "Did it renounce God? Mephistopheles said it did. Beelzebub said Satan drank his blood, too."
    "Get out of my sight," Camael said, but an audience had been drawn, clustering around him like maggots, and they all expected him to say something, a victory speech with an account more amazing than the ones before. He'd be the star for a moment, and then they'd move on, trying to coax a story out of Satan.
    That opened up some possibilities. What couldn’t Satan top?
    "Fine," Camael said, "but I'm only telling this once."
    He walked into the center of the throng, reminding himself that the lower demons lived for the higher orders to condescend to them. They might as well get someone's approval and guidance, having spurned God's.
    Almost at the center, Camael looked into the eyes of an Archangel that once had been a friend, and he looked at another, and then a third, and he remembered all their names, remembered happier days when they all had loved God together. Camael had to grip himself not to scream, not to cry at the stupid loss of so many bright lights, so many individuals who had played the same songs, read the same books, fought with the same weapons, and then drowned for a different god.
    As the shock rippled through Camael, he realized he couldn't follow through on his original plan to play Henry V, to be one with the troops and pretend to be their friend. He had been their friend once, and what remained, these husks of spirit, repulsed him. He dreaded contact.
    The low-order demons filled this whole corner of the great hall. Camael sat