The Fifth Heaven, Makon, Malkut HaShamayim

The Great Deluge

The world was emptier than it had been in a long, long time. His wife was dead. His children were dead. And despite feeling the weight of Azavel draped over him, fingers clenched tightly in his clothes, he felt dead.

He held his breath for many reasons. His fellow Iyrin wept openly around him, but they did not understand the danger they were in. By fleeing to the heavens, they opened themselves up to attack from the Heavenly Host. That was not what he worried about.

What he worried about was the chayot haKodesh on the rim of Makon. He could feel the holy fire and righteous indignation from a parasang away. A woman—a human woman—stood unflinching next to him, but that did not ease his worries. He did not fancy dying and his fingers sought out Azavel’s. “Do not say a word,” he whispered.

Azavel’s response was drowned out by a bellowing shout.

“Where is he?” That voice shook the heavens, rattled his bones, broke essential spirits, toppled temples. Wives of those who had managed to save them screamed and wailed. When no one answered, he stepped forward and took an Iyr by the throat. “Where is Shemyaza?”

“I—I don’t know!” the Watcher cried, writhing in his grasp. He screamed, smoke curling up as the scent of burnt flesh hit the wet air.

He tightened his fingers over Azavel’s, prompting the other angel to press his face to his neck. Stay quiet. Stay quiet and maybe he won’t come for you. He was a fool in many regards, and he’d long since accepted that, but on the off-chance the chayot haKodesh knew who he was and what he’d done, he was not going to risk speaking up.

“Tell me. What. You. Know.”

“Please, please. I know nothing!”

“Do not worry of Shemyaza, Brother.”

It was fortunate that, though he breathed more since cohabiting with humans, he did not necessarily need to do it, as otherwise the sight of Michael the Archangel would have taken that breath away. Michael was resplendent with the Lord’s Glory, wrapped in light and armour, and though he exemplified all that he had come to hate about Heaven and its Host, he could not say he was not in awe of it. To his side and slightly behind was Uri’el, who was utterly silent, but no less intimidating.

The chayot haKodesh dropped the Iyr to the ground, where he crawled back into the arms of his wife, who knew to keep her eyes on the ground, lest she be struck with fear and blindness. “Michael, dog of war. What have you done?”

“Ask not what I have done, Samael. Ask not of the Lord, either, for He is above us. But what is this deed that you have done? Carrying out judgement in His place? You, of all His children, ought know better than that.”

“I,” said Samael, slowly, “am going to take that Flaming Sword and shove it up your ass, Mike.”

The Archangel, the Rebuker, Commander of a Thousand Myriads, kept his composure, but the absence of an immediate response was what Samael wanted. When he spoke, he did so without inflection. “It was only a matter of time before the sins of yourself and your followers caught up with you, brother.”

“They are not my followers.”

“And yet they followed your path. The end result is the same, Samael. Perhaps one day you will accept that you have sinned and repent.”

And in that moment, Samael’s rage was his rage.

“I will not repent when I have committed no crime.” A thousand eyelids opened over Samael’s burning skin, each one filled with seventy thousand stars that burned as bright as any other hanging in the Firmament. “What have you done? When the Lord takes so much of us all, have you taken what little revenge I could scour from this?”

“Shemyaza is not yours to punish, my dear brother. But, if you are looking for those who share his blame...”

He felt eyes upon him and knew that, despite his desperate attempts to remain small, he was going to be noticed. He was going to die.

“They will be taken to Raqia before the Flood is over. I will do one thing for you, and that is this reprieve. It is not as though you can do much else.” Michael spread his wings and flew away, Uri’el quick to follow in his egress.

Trembling, he knew this was it. This was the culmination of all his disobedience, for daring to challenge the state of things. The natural order. And for what? For love?

Yes, he thought, staring into the burning, infinite eyes of Samael, the Lord’s insidious Poison and His culling Venom. He had turned towards him now. He was coming for him now. What I did, I did for love. Maybe he could believe it.

“Your guilt weighs heavily upon your soul.”

His jaw quivered. His voice was lost. This was different from petitioning the lieutenants, who he had known for millennia. This was an Archangel, despite what Heaven had decreed. This was Death.

“Leave him be,” said Azavel, his arms tightening protectively around him. His body quivered with fear. What are you doing, Asb? “He’s suffered enough.”

“I’ll remember that when I rend his wings and toss him into the seas.”

His lips parted, his jaw opened, the muscles in his throat contracted, but nothing happened. He was afraid. He was very afraid.

Standing, Azavel drew his neshek, a long, vicious blade lined with a serrated edge. He stood no chance against a chayot haKodesh, let alone this one, but he still issued the challenge. It was enough to make Samael pause, if only out of incredulity.

Azavel said, “You’ll have to kill me, too.”

“Then you die first.”

Humans oft thought of the Archangel of Death as using a threshing scythe, symbolic of his harvesting mortal souls. Samael did not use a scythe for combat, for, as aesthetically pleasing as it was, it was not an effective weapon. Instead, he reached inside of himself with one hand while the other was held out for Azavel—

“That’s enough already, Sam.” That was the human woman, who looked upon Samael’s pure form as though it were nothing more interesting than a shaft of buckwheat. “Hurting these people won’t bring back our baby.”

Oh. Oh, that was his wife. That was Lilith. He had only seen a glimpse of her when the Lord had made them bow to Adam. She looked different, though only a little older. Her body was fuller, the way women got when many children had once inhabited them. It made her look filled out and inviting, but he did not forget that this was the woman who had conspired against the Lord’s machinations: and had succeeded.

And now he owed her his life.

Interstate 80, Iowa

1997 Anno Domini

He let the vibrations of the engine drill into his forehead. It was better than letting the mindlessness of watching corn darting past the window drive him to insanity. His comrades, Kasyade and Penimi in particular, were singing songs he only barely recognized, but it was hard to really focus on the lyrics as his teeth rattled in his skull.

Twenty minutes of that quickly turned into enough. He peeled his forehead from the dash and squinted over at Azavel, who was focused on the road and looking oh-so-hip with his fancy aviators. Somehow, as always, Azavel noticed his staring and tilted his head just so, ticking up an eyebrow. The chayot haKodesh themselves seemed to burn in his eyes, only faintly muted by the polarized lenses. “Like what you see, Yaqum?”

“Not enough to break my vow of ‘no buggery for seventy generations.’”

“Aw, c’mon,” said Kasyade from the back. “A little buggery never hurt anyone.”

He was half-way turned when Gaderel snorted. “A lot sure does, though.”

“That just means you’re not using enough lube, dude.” Kasyade sighed dramatically as she fell over Penimi; as much as her seatbelt allowed, anyway. “This is why we had to teach you Sodomites where the clitoris is.”

There was a moment of silence as Yaqum and Azavel both stared open-mouthed at the road. “Would you like to walk, Tamiel?” Azavel said darkly.

Kas sat up, her eyes shining from the light cast back from the headlamps. “Watch your tongue, Asb’el.”

“Hey, hey, dai maspik!” Yaqum pointed a finger at Asb, whose eyebrow danced up again. “No fighting. We’ve got enough gas to get us out of Iowa, not the Flood.”

Kasyade relaxed back, settling against Penimi again, who rolled her eyes in response. Despite the defused situation, tension sat in the back of Yaqum’s throat. Kas was a lieutenant for a reason. Azavel needed to stop playing with fire before he got all of them burned. He’d talk to him about that, but the last time he did, he...

“What was it you were singing earlier?”

“That B-movie song, from the movie about the toaster.”

“That movie was nuts.”

Kas snorted. Her fingers were playing with Penimi’s hair now, darting between the dark curls like water. “Yeah. Guess there might have been something to that whole ‘humans corrupt’ thing, huh?” She laughed as her hands danced. “Hey, Gaderel, remember that one time you came back from the hotel shickered like some gonif? What happened back there?”

“You saw the bellhop, yeah? Said he knew a way to get me to see God.”

“Oh my Lord above, Gade, why are you like this.”

“I was wondering that, too, by the end of it.”

“One day you’re gonna—”

“Shhh!” In the rearview mirror, Penimi sat up. “Did you hear that?”

Azavel’s hand moved to the silent radio’s dial, and Yaqum, knowing what the asshole was going to do, put his hand over his. He watched the road markings come toward them from the darkness, heard the engine grumble as it greedily drank gasoline, felt the pulse of his soul where he’d rested his head against the dashboard.

And then a shot from the dark. Oh, God, please, help me! Someone help me!

They all reacted at once. Yaqum started slapping the dash, repeating, “Stop, stop, atsor!” Kasyade and Gaderel were already unbuckling. Penimi pushed between the front chairs to stare out the windshield. How she didn’t hit the windshield when Azavel slammed on the breaks, Yaqum didn’t know.

“Where is she?” Penimi mused.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Azavel grumbled, before Penimi’s hand smacked over his mouth.

Please! Please help me, God, oh, Jesus Christ, somebody!

“Do we answer to Jesus Christ?” Yaqum asked idly as he kicked the passenger door open.

“Fuck yeah, we do,” said Kas at his side.

Before them was a sea of corn, swallowed in the distance by the darkness. Distantly, Yaqum wondered what exactly led him to this, but it was not a long journey. The moment he decided to get laid was what got him here. He was pretty sure it was worth it.

“This is how people die in horror movies, by the way,” Gaderel said as they entered the cornfield, pushing aside the stiff stalks.

“Shut up, Mister I-Had-An-Incredibly-Drunk-One-Night-Stand-With-A-Random-Bellhop.”

“I’m just saying—ah, fuck, some of it got in my mouth.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it did.”

The cornfield sprawled out under an infinitely dark sky, unfamiliar compared to the wheat and sorghum of home. Sound was like water, distant and vast and everywhere at once. And yet, between gasps of smoke-stained lungs, Yaqum heard mostly the distant buzzing of flies. He pushed stalks of maize out of the way, and he knew they were no closer to finding the lost soul. He turned to Azavel, who peered at him from the fibrous distance, and opened his mouth.

Light flickered into the darkness, and a scream echoed out to the stars. “No, please, stop! Get away from me!” A woman, hoarse and high-voiced.

Without waiting for the others, Yaqum pulled a sword from his soul and hacked away at the corn. Whoever owned the field would just have to deal with it. He drew his arm back for another cutting motion—parting the Green Sea, he thought, and cursed Gaderel—and before he could land it, a scared face emerged from the foliage and collided into him. They fell to the ground in a tangled heap, Yaqum groaning and spitting blood out from where he’d bit his tongue.

“Hey, you found her,” Kasyade said, she and Penimi grabbing the both of them and hauling them to their feet.

“Wh-where did you—” Before the woman could finish that thought, she interrupted herself, “We have to get out of here. My father, he’s crazy.”

“Oh, I get you.” Kas handed the woman to Penimi as a longsword pooled out from her palm. The others followed suit, drawing their weapons and pointing them where she’d come. “I really get you.”

The man was wearing a thick plaid jacket and a working man’s jeans and heavy boots. In his hand was a shotgun, sawed off and mean-looking to someone whom buckshot was fatal. At best, it would tickle any of them. Sans the girl, of course.

“Give ‘er back, you—”

Kasyade stepped forward out of her mortal shell, the soulless husk dropping to the ground as her splendor washed the night into day. Shimmering trails of mortality hung in her armour, cascaded down her shoulders. She wore the taint that humanity had inflicted on her with pride, lifting her neshek as though she had never left the Host behind.

“Be ye not afraid,” intoned Kasyade, the Lord’s hidden Perfection and covered Hand, even as the man screamed and his eyes burned. “For I am an angel of the Lord thy God.”

Despite the many inventions of humanity, they never did learn how to fight angels. None of them believed they had to. And so none of them could.

They left him in pieces through the cornfield, the girl weeping as they took her back to the car. Azavel murmured something into Yaqum’s ear, and though his stomach turned, he whispered back, “Don’t even consider it,” even as he knew he would be hopeless to stop him if he tried.

The girl was wearing cosmetics at some point, which pleased Gaderel to no end, but her tears and presumably the corn stalks smacking her in the face had left her looking as though she’d clawed her way out of the she’ol by hand. “Th-thank you,” she mumbled. She was squeezed between Kasyade and Gaderel, Penimi sitting on the former’s lap. It was her turn to play with hair, though since Kas kept hers cropped short, it didn’t look nearly as fun from the rearview mirror.

“It’s nothing,” said Yaqum. “Down this way, you said?”

“Y-yes. My friend Becca lives about twenty miles down.” He could see her fingers tighten in her torn sundress, dirt caking her hands. “How d-did you find me? Why did you...?”

“We heard the screams.” It was not a lie.

“Oh.” She shifted, then said, to Azavel, “Why are you wearing sunglasses at night?”

“He likes Corey Hart and Top Gun,” Kas said.

“I’ll pull this car over again.”

“And the Blues Brothers.”

“Fuck you, Blues Brothers was good.”

A smile twitched onto the girl’s face, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Still, small victories. Humans were so delicate, their minds like paper, and though he had successfully covered her eyes, though the Iyrin’s forms were less chaotic and traumatizing, there might still be scars there.

“What’s your name?” Yaqum asked, rolling his head back to look at her.

“Abigail,” she said.

He opened his mouth, then considered carefully, before changing to, “That’s a lovely name.”

“Th-thank you.” A sniffle escaped her, then a hiccup, and then she was burying her face in her hands. “Oh, God, I almost died.”

“But you didn’t,” Penimi said, reaching out and gently tucking one of the girl’s curls back behind her ear. It bounced back almost immediately. “You’re alive.”

Abigail didn’t respond immediately, which was fine. Azavel turned the radio on, but set the volume low. It was up to Yaqum to frequency surf, clicking the button and watching the numbers on the little display dart around.

“I-is this one of those Japanese cars?”

“Yeah,” Azavel said, voice gruff. He’d killed a man for this car. “Toyota Corolla. But they built it on your West coast, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

“Oh. I didn’t know they did that. Way my d-daddy talked about them, you’d think the Devil himself made them.”

The idea of Samael, or any of them, seeing as how humanity saw them, hand-assembling cars was a funny sight. Yaqum covered up his laugh with a nasally grunt, trying to play it off as a runny nose.

“The Devil doesn’t make cars, honey,” Kasyade said. “What’s he doing now, Yaqum?”

“Last I heard he had some business firm in New York, managing and remodelling apartment buildings. Real estate’s real big over there.”

Kas nodded, then turned to the girl. “Right. So the Devil’s not a mechanic, he’s an architect.”

The girl went pale. Yaqum suspected that it had nothing to do with what was said, but how it was said. They were serious, and they spoke like it. Her lips trembled, but finally she said, “Are you my guardian angels? Or are you... are you...”

“Demons?” Yaqum finished.

Azavel laughed. “Fuck. You can read and write because of Penimi there and you think we might be demons.”

“There’s a reason we say ‘be ye not afraid,’ Asb.”

“We’re never going to be the good guys because they’re afraid of semantics.”

“Oh my God,” Abigail breathed. “Oh my God, I’m... I’m crazy. Am I crazy? I feel crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Yaqum said.

“Well...”

“Shut up, Gade,” Kas said, quickly. “Abby—can I call you Abby? Abby, the world’s crazy, not you. One day, things will get better.”

“When?”

When we're free, Yaqum thought. When love is free. But he did not dare say anything of the sort. For a moment, none of them did.

Then Azavel said, “When we kill the Lord.”

“Asb!” Kasyade leaned forward, her eyes burning. When she caught his gaze in the rearview mirror, she ordered, “Yaqum, hit him.”’

“What?” he squeaked.

“I’m not wrong,” Azavel said, in that even, matter-of-fact way he always said things. “None of us are safe as long as He lives.”

Kas’ eyes continued to simmer in the rearview mirror, even as Penimi scratched fingers through her tight curls. Even Gade had fallen silent, his eyes darting over the cabin’s many inhabitants, unsure who deserved to be watched.

Abigail’s friend did not live that far away by the way Azavel drove, but it felt like an infinity peeled before them, loping into that murky, dark horizon. The Corolla desperately tried to light the way, several more feet illuminated as the high-beams clicked on.

“Becca’s road’s just up here,” Abigail said, quiet. Afraid. “It’s all dirt and hard to see, even during the day.”

“I’ve got it.”

“O-okay.”

Dirt and stone and gravel churned under the car’s wheels. Yaqum thought it a soothing sound; it reminded him of horses and camels and towncarts and sandals, years and leagues away. It reminded him of the way his daughter swung her legs up, giggling and holding onto his and Liraz’s arms, before her feet inevitably crashed down to the earth. She looked up at him, grinning with teeth too big for her face, and said, “One day, Aba, I’ll fly like you can.”

“Yaqum.”

He jerked up, looking to Azavel leaning in from the passenger door, hand braced against the frame. At some point they had reached their destination, as spoke the empty backseat and the silent engine. Azavel pulled those damn glasses from his face and looked at him, eyes scrutinizing. No mortal body could hide the golden light in his eyes, glittering until the dome light timed out. Even then, his irises seemed to have a glow of their own, staring out from his blank face.

“I didn’t touch her,” Azavel said.

Yaqum’s mouth went dry. “Oh. That’s good.”

Azavel nodded, apparently satisfied, and slid those aviators back onto his face. “Kas, Gade, and Pen took her inside.”

He wondered what it must look like to those poor humans, three random strangers guarding a girl they must have known well, a girl shaken, upset, covered in blood that was not all hers, at whatever ungodly hour of the night it was. Without thinking much of it, he realized he was listening for sirens calling over the plains.

“Pen’ll probably pave over their memories of this. Make it less suspicious.”

“That’s... good.”

“Yaqum. You’ve been weird this whole ride. Wanna talk?”

“Asb, I love you, bli safek, but in all of Creation, we’ve never talked.” When that didn’t prompt a change in expression, he sighed. “Why did you say that shit in front of the kid?”

“What? About killing the Lord?” Azavel shifted, leaning bodily against the car as he held the door open. “She asked a question. I answered it.”

“Your answers are always really terrible, you know that?”

There was a lazy roll to Azavel’s shoulders. “I don’t recall you protesting back in the shadow of Mount Hermon.”

His mouth went dry again. He swallowed, or tried to, in order to coax some saliva back out from under his tongue. Those eyes, thousands of years ago, stared at him with the same intensity as they did now from behind those aviators.

Now you are not the first.

Gravel crunched under heavy boots, and Azavel pulled back enough to reveal their companions returning from a white farmhouse, quaint and cozy. The shadow of a tree lingered in the hazy dark, but Yaqum didn’t have much time to ponder it before Kas stood before them, her hands on her hips, brow raised.

“Let’s get out of here before the cops show, yeah?”

They drove in silence until morning broke. A blue sign announced the presence of a rest stop and, without orders, Azavel pulled them into the empty parking lot. Someone must have been in charge of maintaining the bathrooms off to the side, down a sidewalk, but they weren’t there that morning, and Yaqum couldn’t find it in himself to blame them.

He opened the door the moment the engine died with a grumble, stretching out his legs by hobbling over the dry, cracked asphalt. Focusing on getting the blood flow to return to his ass, he didn’t turn at the sound of doors opening and slamming behind him, and he resisted the urge to turn when Kasyade started in on Azavel.

“Ei, gut! You know, if you had such a problem with my orders, maybe you should bring them up when we don’t have some schlimazel in the fucking car!”

“Kas, I don’t think—”

“Don’t defend him, Gade! Look at me, Asb’el, look at me and tell me your honest fucking opinion. Or whisper it in Yaqum’s ear and have him tell me, since you’re so attached.”

“I think we should be looking for Shemyaza.”

Heart in his throat, Yaqum turned at last. Gade and Penimi were wisely standing back, even as Azavel leaned against the tan trunk of the Corolla like he hadn’t a care in the world. Kasyade was furious, more furious than she had been in centuries. Her white teeth were bared past her lips, yet another sign of too many that they had fallen so, so far from Heaven.

“Oh, you do, do you! You ever fucking look at the sky or did you forget that’s where Michael put him after beating the shit out of him?”

“He’s gone,” Azavel said. Before Yaqum could stop himself, he looked up, but only saw the moon hanging in the clear lilac morning. “I was looking all night and he’s gone.”

Suddenly the fury on Kas’ face was gone, melted away, replaced by something he wasn’t quite sure there was a word for. Her lips parted, her eyes went wide, but nothing came out of her. Shock, maybe. Shock was a good word.

Penimi spoke first. “Why didn’t you say anything last night?”

Another of those easy shrugs. “I wanted to be sure.”

Some sort of bug started to sing, chirping loudly to attract an early morning mate. No one said anything, as though, somehow, the erets would shatter if they did.

Or a dam would, and sweep them all away, like it was meant to the first time.

Gade turned away from them first, letting out a breath and running his fingers through his hair. One, two, three times he turned back to them, mouth agape, as though he were going to say something, but no words spilled forth.

It was, despite himself, Yaqum who came forward, dragging his poor legs back over to them. “I’m not doing it again.” They looked at him, uncomprehending. Even Azavel lowered his aviators to really look at him. “I can’t watch us build up a future just to have Him take it away from us again.”

The relaxed look on Azavel’s face evaporated. “It was your idea,” he said, and despite his flat tone, his eyes shone with betrayal. “This was all your idea. We’re here, right now, because of you.”

“I know. I know! Just let me—”

“You told me! Told Kas and Gade and Pen and we petitioned the lieutenants, but that wouldn’t have happened if you’d—”

“Azavel, that’s enough,” Kas said.

There was fire in Azavel’s eyes now, his stance wide, his fists tight and shaking. Something cracked, but Yaqum didn’t dare glance away. The only thing that had stopped Azavel from closing the distance between them was Kasyade’s hand, firm on his chest. He looked to her without understanding, and so Kas continued.

“Shemyaza and Azael were already afflicted by the Yetzer haRa when we descended onto Mount Hermon,” she said. “It was... it was why they wanted to come in the first place. And it would have only been a matter of time before they brought it up themselves.” She looked to Yaqum then, her dark eyes soft. “The burden was never yours alone to bear anyway. We all agreed, swore the imprecations.” When she looked to Azavel again, her eyes were narrow. “If you want to find Shemyaza so bad, go. We’ll find another car. But don’t you dare come back, especially if you succeed.”

There was a sound from Gaderel, the soft, strangled noise he made when he wanted to say something important but couldn’t find the words. For a moment, none of them said anything. Then, Azavel leaned back against the trunk, the car’s suspension creaking in protest. He uncurled one of his hands, let the shattered pieces of a polarized lens cascade to the ground, and put the remains of the crooked frame on his face.

He looked to Yaqum in that flat way that he normally reserved for people and things that weren’t Yaqum, and his heart twisted. When Azavel looked away, cast his eyes to the asphalt, he barely heard him say, “I’m not leaving.”

“And you mean that? I won’t check us into a motel tonight and find you missing and the car gone in the morning? It’s not a major setback, but I’m still gonna be pissed if you lied to me.”

“I mean it,” Azavel said.

The next eighteen hours saw Yaqum driving in unsettling silence. Every time he turned on the radio, he got broken pieces of Golden Oldies or loud and clear evangelists, preaching the Good Word and Eternal Damnation. As always, he wondered if those things were supposed to be separate. They always came together, it seemed, whether that was intentional or not.

He’d always believed damnation wasn’t a thing, back when he was guarding the Throne of Glory, spear in his hand, song in his throat, fire in his heart. Even when Azael came to him, eyes golden like a playful lion, and asked if he wanted to do something very special, something that would be sung about for eternity, something so risky that Heaven itself trembled at the thought... even then he didn’t believe in it.

The Lord paved over worlds and worlds of life to begin each cycle anew, but each soul came home. That was how things were meant to be. Everyone would go home to the Kingdoms of Heaven at their end, because the Lord loved each and every one of them. Gehenna was a small price to pay, but it was small. It was right. It was just.

Yet as he sat there, in a small metal cage, surrounded by his closest friends in furious, defeated silence, going seventy miles per hour down Interstate 80, Iowa, he was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t looking damnation right in the face.