In the End (10 page)

“
Just like this,” Lucien whispered, pressing his hand over the angel's. “There's something there that's not there, and if you can catch it and then just... nudge it aside. Just an inch, like there's something on a windowsill, but it's blocked by a curtain. Easy as molting. You can do it. Don't even think about it.” His voice was soft and calm.

“
I –”

“
Can.”

Lalael took a deep breath, steeled himself, remembered he wasn't supposed to be thinking about it. He stopped... and slipped his hand through the boy's skin. A faint white light shone around his wrist; it was painless. The crowd, curious as to what was going on, was quelled when Lucien raised his head and roared at them, “What did he tell you? Shut
up!
”
He lowered his voice again to whisper into Lalael's hair, “You've got it. You did it. Now draw it out and you're golden.”

And Lalael drew the demon out. “Box! Box!” He wrestled to hold the imp as it tried to slip through his fingers.

“
Box.” Lalael stuffed it inside, and Lucien
beamed
at him. “You did a good job.” Lalael felt a little lightheaded. “Hold the box. I'll get the others for you.” Lucien swept up, kneeling beside each of the next victims as his coat once again shielded his actions from the crowd; he cleaned the demons out in moments. Lalael belatedly stumbled after him, still mentally reeling. He'd actually done it. It had
worked.

It didn't seem real.

The girl, who looked the same age as the one a few weeks before, and the teenaged boy were both possessed by soul eaters, while the woman had another imp. Lucien smirked as he shoved the last one in the box. “Pretty crowded in there.” He grinned at Lalael and stood up smoothly. “Good people, your fellows are safe!” The crowd looked on skeptically, unimpressed by showmanship, but Lucien was unfazed. “They'll wake up in a bit. Does anyone have coffee while I'm waiting? No? Fine.” Again, he turned to Lalael, who was looking thoughtful.

“
Lucien, if the--" he paused, glanced at the crowd around them, and lowered his voice further. "If the ones in this box are still here, do you think there are... ones like me left, too? Others?”

“
Other than you?” Lucien stopped, looked at the ground, shook his head. “I'm sorry, 'Lael... I don't think so.”

“
I don't like that name.” Lalael shook his head. “It's alright.”

“
'Cause even – your kind, even the lowest are... well, there's not much objective, measurable intellectual superiority in the highest caste. These are just... vermin.” Suddenly, the crowd began to cheer. The two looked down and saw the victims sitting up and rubbing their heads or their hearts. “You four all right, then?” Lucien asked with a charming grin.

“
Who are you?” the woman asked, nodding all the same.

“
Specialists,” they said, promptly and in unison.

***

Lalael was, in a word, exuberant. The angel kept putting a little bounce in his step – not a skip, but merely that unrestrained buoyancy of spirit that is best expressed through the balls of the feet.

Lucien was mildly amused. “What are you on?”

“
Hmm?” Lalael asked, still grinning and swinging the bag with the box of demons in it. They were both ignoring the shrilling noises, although Antichrist wasn't: He was doing his damned best to get into that bag, despite how it kept moving.

“
Did they give you – I don't know – sugar or some sort of drug? Or coffee? If they gave you coffee and none for me, I will go back there and kill the –”

“
No coffee. We just did a good thing.” Lalael looked again in his bag at the handful of jewelry that they'd taken as payment for the exorcisms. “And we got paid.”  He said it like it was a novelty, pleased grin still plastered all over his face.

“
Lalael, what rank are you?”

The good mood vanished instantly. Lucien could almost see the tension slam back into Lalael's spine. “It doesn't matter.”

“
Yes, it does. I said that the Rule of Three shouldn't have worked like that. The First Restriction, you know.”

“
Yeah, and about that,” Lalael demanded, “Why did you use it on me in the first place?”

“
I didn't realize I was doing it until the middle of the third repetition.” Lucien made an extra effort to look penitent.

Lalael did not seem entirely convinced, but he let it slide.

“
What rank are you?”

“
You're doing it again!”

“
Sorry.” Lucien shrugged. “I want to know why it worked the way it did.”

“
I... Fine, I'll tell you,”he said as they reached the door of Lucien's apartment. He turned, crossed his arms, and began to speak.

“
Inside," Lucien interrupted. "Don't know who will overhear these days.”

CHAPTER
SEVEN

“
Look,” Lalael said as soon as they'd returned. “I'm going to tell you. But I don't want to talk about it.”

“
Fine,” said Lucien, and shrugged.

Lalael laughed once, soft and sudden. “I wouldn't be telling you this at all.” He paused, rubbing his hands together absently. “But I guess I trust you enough not to take advantage of it. Just don't talk.” Lucien nodded. “I don't like to remember it. Just let me get it done with because it begins at the Beginning and goes on all the way to the End.

“
In the Beginning, we all were One and Equal. The Síela, Creation the Many-Named, made us, the angels, from fire and from light. '
Of fire we are made, flame in our souls and light in our hands. Blinding fire, glowing flame –'
”

Lucien snorted. “Nursery rhymes.”

“
Don't –” Lalael said sharply. Lucien didn't, and the angel took a breath. “We were Made, on each of the thousands of days of the Innocent Time, and we were loved by the Síela, and for a time, it was good. But we were perfect, with our shining wings and bright eyes, and therefore imperfect. We lived but to adore the Sko Meala. When the Síela created the humans – out of
animals –
i
t saw the flaws, and it saw the wildness and the animal in man's nature, and that made human goodness all the more miraculous. And so after a time, the Síela realized the humans were something that we could never be. They were different. Special. They had the power of Belief that we didn't. To us, the Sko Meala is a leader, a guardian, a beloved and worshiped parent. To the humans, it was a ruler. They made thousands and thousands of gods out of the disgustingly tiny amount of it that they could perceive and understand. And then the Unpleasantness happened. Don't interrupt.” Lucien had been about to say something.

“
And then the Evildoer... Well, you remember. His power was greater than that of humans, but... He might have conquered all of Ríel before they cast him out.” Lalael twisted a pen between his fingers. “I remember how afraid we were.”

“
So do I,” said Lucien, but Lalael didn't seem to hear.

“
It was terrifying. No one knew who would disappear. First it was the rebels, then it was the supporters, and then the people who had stayed neutral. They weren't even giving trials by that point. You just kept your head down and sang as loud as you could or you got thrown into the Pit.” Lalael twisted the pen faster now and glanced at Lucien. “Was that when...?”

Lucien nodded. “We don't talk about it in the Lower Realm. Lots of wrongs to avenge. Everyone has one.”

Lalael put the pen down and laced his fingers, speaking from ancient memory, as if he had heard this story a thousand times and now had to tell it for himself. “The Sko Meala divided us into the Nine Ranks. I was an Angel to begin with. In the choir.” He smiled faintly. “That was before the trouble started. It was where I met Arael-pir, the Choir.” His smile faded, replaced with a look of such twisted pain that Lucien felt like gasping for breath.  “For a time, I was the favorite of all the angels – I was the most human. Because I had flaws. I was a novelty.
Fashionable
. I think It and the Honored Archangels saw me as a pet of sorts. And then time passed...” He took a deep breath. “It became apparent that I wasn't good at it. I could never figure out which way the music sheets were written; I made mistakes. Was I holding them upside down again? And suddenly imperfection wasn't fashionable anymore. It created discord in the Song, and it was inconvenient, and so they sent me somewhere else.” Lalael shook his head, picked up the pen again, twirling it slowly. “This... This isn't the first time I've been on Earth. I was a Guardian. I was a messenger. I was a guard of the gate.” He shrugged. “Needless to say, I fumbled those as well. The Sko Meala wasn't happy. I was withdrawn from each position and sent elsewhere.

“
The Most Honored Archangel Raphael was the next to try me, so I was sent into the legion of healers. Two months and I was out. They handed me to the Most Honored Archangel Uriel. I was assigned to be a
Laista
– a, um...? I don't know what you'd call those.”

“
Guide,” Lucien answered promptly. They still had
laista'a
in Rielat, too. 

“
Except, apparently I wasn't subtle or persuasive enough. The woman told her friends that she was hearing the voice of  the angels, which was correct, but they didn't believe her. I think in the end, she went mad. They killed her.

“
So I was pushed thither and yon around Ríel, trying to find something I was truly good at, which wasn't much,” he added with a sharp laugh, “and never learning much of anything.” He fell silent again for a moment. “They called me the misfit,” he said. “The embarrassment. The disgrace. So eventually, about a hundred or so years ago, they finally stuck me in the Army.”

***

He stood before the Archangel Michael, with his armor and uniform clutched in his arms, eyes downcast and wings limp to show his abject respect. Lalael was silent, humble, humiliated; Michael said no more than he, and neither did the two angels who sat at the ends of Lalael's wings and cleaned off his last assignment's
brethuchirou –
the patterns of color on the primary feathers that marked rank, distinction, and position. No one else had theirs changed as much as he did. Some people had been painted the same colors for their whole lives. As he waited, still, silent, and demure, it occurred to him that his feathers must have been painted with every color and every pattern there had ever been. 

The Archangel Michael crossed his arms, and Lalael knew without looking that his jaw would be clenched, the vein on his forehead would be pulsing, his eyes would be dark with fire and fury – Lalael knew where he wasn't wanted, and the Archangel certainly did not want the Embarrassment in his army. He knew they wished he'd been cast out while they had the chance to get rid of him.

Lalael had been forced upon him, dumped on him like a pile of rubbish: Michael's frustration at having to deal with the Misfit's incompetency was the talk of the City. He held a sheathed sword that he shoved into Lalael's arms so hard that the angel nearly fell over onto the groomers behind him.

Lalael raised his eyes; Michael met them, held his gaze for a moment before looking him over with disgust. “Don't get in anyone's way,” he said, and that was all.

A few years later, Lalael knew why he had ended up there. He developed a feeling, a conviction that they'd put him there in the hopes that when the End came, he would be killed. Then they wouldn't have to deal with him for the rest of eternity, would they? And one day, it would come. They simply had to wait: Patience was a virtue.

***

“
I wasn't wanted. I knew nothing I ever did would be good enough.” He hesitated, continued, “Arael never...” He didn't finish, and Lucien didn't make a sound. “I'm tired,” Lalael said with feeling somewhere between supplication and sigh. “Tired of everything; of life, of existence – tired of sleeping, of waking, of dreaming, of breathing. There's always a little of me that just wants some nameless peace, and I don't know where to look for it except in death, and I'm a coward.” As he finished, Lalael buried his head in his arms and was quiet.

And Lucien, Lucien began to speak.

“
It wasn't my fault that I Fell.”  Lalael looked up at him, questioning, blotchy faced and eyes too bright. “I'll swear it. On anything. I just... We were so young. Even the wisest, and the highest. So passionate for our new world. I felt like the entirety of Creation had been made just for me.

“
I remember when we were Felled. I thought that the Lightbringer's banishment hadn't been fair, and I happened to mention it to someone within earshot of a pair of the Guards of the Gate. Lucien dragged Antichrist into his lap and ran his fingers through the cat's fur. “They swooped down on us, and wrestled us before the Throne of, um.”

“
Shousán,” supplied Lalael.

“
That one is the Light, then?”

Lalael nodded into his arms.

“
All the angels were assembled,” Lucien continued, lacing his fingers together. “It was amazing. I'd never seen so many of us in one place. I was there, in the crowd of those who disagreed. And then the Speaker of Truth declared us guilty of treason and we were taken to the edge of Ríel. If you went willingly, they tied weights to your wings, but if you didn't... they did worse than that. They did the same to the ringleaders – the Lightbringer and the others with him. And then after they'd Done It, they pushed them over the edge and threw their wings down after them. And then everyone else stopped fighting.

“
Uncountable years in the Lower Realm,” Lucien said with a kind of horrified wonder. “And I still wonder how I survived without my sanity.”

“
Uncountable years,” Lalael echoed.

“
In pain and darkness and fear. And I remained... me. My name has changed many times, as I moved and as the humans and the other Fallen named me. I've been on earth before, too, more often than you.” Lucien's eyes became distant, as if seeing into the past, and his voice husked with old memory: “In Babylonia, they called me Tishn, the demon of thirst, when I appeared to them in the desert. I can't remember most of them; it's been so long.. Göker in Persia. Daleel was the last name I was given – the last before I named myself. Lucien I am now and Lucien I shall always be. I was sinking into madness there in the dark, and I brought with me the only light I could. It was my way of clinging to my memory of the Higher Realm, just as it began to flicker and die out. All those years in darkness without even the tiny light of a little candle, and my name was my light. And the years in the heat of fire and the weight of the earth above me, and my name was the water and the wind. Years alone among my foes, and I was my own companion, for my name kept me sane.  And then one day,” he said slowly, “I forgot my true name.”

             
“You forgot your name?” Lalael demanded suddenly. “You forgot your
name
?”

             
“The name I gave myself,
my
name, it kept me... me. And that, Lael, is how I Fell.” The angel was silent. Lucien added, gently, “This is the part where you say...?”

             
“I hate that name,” he whispered, but he sounded unsure.