Seven Archangels: Annihilation by Jane Lebak Page A

on a table, wings raised and feet dangling, resting his toes on a bench. He was a head higher than the hive, and that made it easier not to meet anyone's eyes. Not to see them.
    What couldn't Satan top?
    This was going to transgress some kind of unspoken demonic etiquette because he would include details that would prove embarrassing if Satan didn't change them and unbelievable if he did. As long as Camael could concoct it well enough.
    The groupies were calling over more of their ilk and repeating Mephistopheles' and Beelzebub's stories. More time.
    But was it wrong to lie? Gabriel would have objected. He'd refused to play the role of Hamlet once because he said acting was a lie, albeit small, "to purport to emotions never felt." Or whatever a Cherub said when he wanted to sound persuasive and ended up sounding confusing and geeky.
    Maybe you never felt this. Remiel had lied that she was Camael in order to come down here at all, and to no avail. Why further betray Gabriel? Camael wished he'd escaped, but probably the Guards had kept him pinned until he had dissolved in agony.
    Oh, hell, Camael thought.
    "Do you want to keep telling the same stories?" Camael raised the pitch of his voice to carry over the noise of the crowd. They pressed closer, and Camel pulled up his booted legs onto the table top. "I'm going to tell you what actually happened."
    The damned fell silent. Camael smirked.
    "First off, the Cherub wasn't chained to a wall. Don't you think Satan would have used an altar?"
    The groupies oohed.
    "Beelzebub and Mephistopheles set two Guards, one around the room and one over his body so he couldn't move at all.
    "What did our lord do?" asked one, and Camael hesitated until he remembered which lord it was.
    "Did you drink his blood now?" asked another.
    God, help me, Camael prayed, then wondered if this wasn't being unGodly. His stomach twisted. God, help me!
    Camael cocked his head. "Our lord instructed me not to divulge all the details of how we worked on him. Apparently he has his eyes on some would-be rebels and wants to do the same to them."
    A delicious frisson rippled through the room. Camael realized the details would manufacture themselves in a crowd this hungry. When this was retold, he'd be naming names and giving approximate dates for each of the accused to go under the knife.
    Camael said, "Do you think any creature could withstand such pain and not renounce God? At the hands of the lord of pain?" The hall filled with glistening faces all trained on Camael's. "Gabriel did not die a martyr. He was assaulted by us from the outside and God from within all at once."
    "He joined us!" they shouted.
    Now the demons were lobbing questions like hand grenades: Did they set him on fire? Did they cut him to pieces? Did they drink his blood?—a refrain so often repeated that Camael had to wonder if it weren't so unusual to this assemblage. Instead he said, "Beelzebub cupped his blood in his hands, and he baptized Mephistopheles with it!"
    Why only flirt with blasphemy? Why not dance with it?
    Camael got to his feet as the demons pressed close to hear better, and the curve of his wings brushed the ceiling. Satan had to have noticed the commotion at this point—some loyal minion would have notified him. There would be another session of questions, a reprimand of sorts, and it was all in futility if angels could die. If Satan really could stop them from loving God after all, despite their choices.
    Why would he do that?, Camael thought, blanking out the names of every ex-angel, wishing for a part of Gabriel to have remained alive somewhere, loving God even if it was only in the way the rocks cried out.
    "Lucifer dared God to stop him," Camael shouted. "He channeled all his energy through me, and I magnified it, and we started annihilating Gabriel's soul."
    All the demons hooted. No one asked what material forms a soul, or how it was put together, or how they had destroyed it. Camael didn't volunteer how it felt to be