Chapter One - Condolences of Angels
"We are gathered here this day to lay to rest the remains of Azrael, anointed in the time before time as the Herald of Doomsday, large and small alike, from celestial bodies to mice and... men. One creature's armageddon is but one other's bad day, he once confided in me toward his waning years. This holds particularly true of the state of the world as many here would define the current state of affairs, yet the floor shall open to discuss such matters in the aftermath. For now let those who knew Azrael best lay their condolences, their memories, and their sorrows before his open casket, and then we shall all gather in solemn hymn to conclude the ceremony."
I looked around at the faces in the crowd and wondered, not for the first time, how I'd become entangled in yet another power struggle for the future of all worlds-kind. Ferrovax's words spoke of those who belonged here, who knew the angel of death personally, who had garnered and owed him favors across the long millennia and who drank tea and ate fried pickle chips over lunch.
What had I ever done to assure an invitation to Azrael's funeral in Valhalla? I'd sent my fair few his way ahead of schedule, beginning with my first teacher in the real magical arts, Justin DuMorne, only a couple of decades ago. With every year that passed from then on I either had the threat of execution hanging over my head or had deep fried another of the ever-many things that went bump in the night, and the crowning achievement of that feat was knocking off the entire Red Court of vampires only a few years ago. But from what I'd gathered so far in the forty minutes I'd been idling between the Nevernever's A-listers and trying not to gather unwanted attention any more than usual, my actions should have earned his ire if not outright disapproval. For a guy who liked to offer games of Chess, Backgammon, and worst of all Go to those who challenged his initial invitation to the here-after, I'd come along and knocked off about a hundred thousand Reds in one fell swoop, to say nothing of the lives that would have been turned down the road, and I'd done it for reasons that were less than altruistic at best.
My line of thoughts abruptly narrowed down to one absolutely frigid perspective as Mother Winter sidled up to my side and rapped her walking stick against my duster, drawing a wince before I could help myself. "Don't disappoint, Knight." Three words, short and simple, and loaded with negative connotations.
Once upon a time I might have made a petty expression at her backside as she passed for saying something like that. But in recent years I was starting to come around to the way of thinking that, just once in a while, it was better not to incense a being who bred bubonic plague in her garden with the kind of tender expression that a first-time mother made toward her newborn. She'd already demonstrated that her will could be brought to bear like a scalpel, short, sharp, and flaying to the bone.
So instead I respectfully kept my silence and hoped that she accepted it as respect. I was still working on my why for being here before my what to say when my name came up, and therefore said nothing of the sort to let her in on my situation - tarnishing the reputation of the Winter Court would guarantee an ice age of suffering, if my predecessor to this mantle was much proof of the mercies Mother Winter had passed down to Mab.
Neither of us was truly fooled. She tutted and marched off to chat up Hades, while Odin, who I understood at least should have spoken last of all this assorted lot, approached the alter next to the casket and laid a worn hand across the aged wood, unable to reach inside and clutch Azrael's bones directly. He spoke then without turning to face us.
"Aeons are but dust in the eye of one so alone as Azrael. He was old; far outstripping we who survive solely by the faith invested in our dwindling religions. He has seen every birth that the cosmos has to offer but for his own. He has loved and nurtured every life that he has come to watch over and, eventually, invite into his own care." Odin paused, and at last looked over to where the previous speaker stood. "Ferrovax, whom he cradled in the egg and breathed across with the fierce warmth of a thousand suns until the shell dissolved, has ever been Azrael's favored step-son. It is to you whom he trusted most, confided most, and of us all gathered here in this moment who stands in the best position to gain the reaping." The Allfather then panned his sight over to Uriel, standing quiet in the shadows and awaiting his turn. "Whereas his own spiritual flesh and blood he scorned, is that not so Uriel? Could not Raphael, Gabriel, and Michael join you for this occasion?"
Of all the Almighty's agents in the field I knew Uriel best. He had never once stricken in anger, or spoken for the sake of his own. He said nothing now to the stark claim, but he raised his chin and looked then to the doors. Odin's visible eye drifted over a moment before the knob rattled, rolled, and in walked four other brothers to the reaper lying still and lifeless in the coffin. Cold light glinted from the lines of Raphael's fierce face, as expected of one who was tasked with the slaying of demons. Estranged peace radiated across Michael's careworn features, the other shepherd of mankind since the time of Eden. Gabriel's youthful gaze caught in a deep sadness, and there came a whispering at his presence as of many voices following. And in the middle of them, bound by ethereal chains that weighed down the atmosphere, strode Lucifer Morningstar, anguish in his immaculate expression.
"O' Death," cried the devil softly. Eyes the same mercurial shade as naked light shining up from beneath molten silver looked through Odin as he walked forward, and his attendants came close behind. Uriel silently strode around to shut the door before meeting his fellows, offering a nod toward Odin - who grimly acceded the platform and joined his son and daughters across the room.
The moment was surreal - I'm no Christian, though Michael Carpenter had tried for most of our friendship to convert me to that particular flavor of the light - but it didn't take an atheist to understand what was supposed to occur when the archangels gathered on the same ground for the first time since the Fall from Grace. The apocalypse, as spoken from the lips of believers since John a little over nineteen hundred years ago wrote about Revelations. I'll admit that beneath the cold indifference of my mantle, I might have started to sweat a little as I remembered what Uriel had told me of his own relative strength a while ago. A throw down here could eradicate every major and minor deity present - and one mortal just to balance the equation out - before wiping the Nine Realms down to zero on the road to total annihilation, first stop Ragnarok.
I didn't want to think what that would mean for the Outer Gates.
The angels spoke amidst one another with a quiet ambience. Whatever language they used was indiscernible from a sort of ringing static when I tried to listen, and like with that one time when I had tried to use my sight upon a guardian angel, Uriel glanced over his shoulder at me with a gentle shake of his head in denial, and I backed off on eavesdropping.
I took a breath and pushed my trepidation down where it would be less likely to rear up screaming, and with nothing to do but wait and trust that between those four any skirmish with Lucifer would be quickly subdued shy of a nuclear blast, I looked over to my nearest neighbor. At once my skin began to crawl. It isn't often that I have to look up even dealing with near-human beings from the Nevernever, but the man only a few feet away stood easily seven and a half feet tall and exuded the kind of heebie-jeebie sense that reminded me of Cowl's attempted Darkhallow ritual. How I missed him until now I had no idea, but symbols like those at Chichen Itza swirled over his dark cocoa skin in white, green, yellow, and red ink, and he wore a sable mask over his face that seemed to be sentient, because one moment it hung in an open mouthed grin, and the next the jaws had snapped tightly together into a grimace.
"Winter Knight," the man uttered with a deep and oddly hollow ring to it. I clutched my staff a little tighter and wondered about those standing rules at the door for guest behavior.
"Maya," I answered simply. If he was Aztec I'd probably pissed him off, but it was a fifty-fifty shot.
He gave a sort of gurgling sound and his chest began to shake. Laughing? It only lasted a few seconds before the mask cracked open into another grin, and he left me standing there with the feeling that something ill was on the way. Who the hell was that?
I didn't have the chance to think about it for long. Uriel stepped back and turned to the crowd.
"As Odin spoke some minutes ago, it is true that we children of our own Father's vision have not always agreed and confided in one another." He nodded to Lucifer, who said nothing more but waited with his chains creaking. "When last I spoke to Azrael some thirteen hundred years ago, Beowulf had won another attempt to face down Grendel in the Scandinavian wastelands and thus set forth into that beast's dark cave to reclaim his sword as the valkyries circled overhead. They cried out that Azrael had thrown the match to spite them, for Beowulf's time had come, though he denied their scorn and in the end the matter wound up before the Allfather, where I happened to be present to discuss the issue of foreign souls and the halls of Hel and Valhalla."
Uriel's smile was one of old pain beneath the surface as he lowered his eyes in reminiscence. "Of course, Azrael in turn accused Odin of setting the entire saga into motion at my request just so that we could be gathered in the same room together on doctrinal business, thereby trapping him until the issues were laid to rest." He glanced over to the Asgardians and added, "Not to besmirch your honor. It was simply… coincidence. And when all was done and Azrael free to go, our parting words were thus; a day would come that he would reap even I."
Ouch. Thomas and I may have had our own grievances in the past, but to say something like that… what exactly had happened between them?
"So yes, in most matters regarding the Heavenly Host, Azrael felt little love toward we his brothers, but for one." And there Uriel drew back and returned to his own position in the room, and all eyes fell upon Lucifer standing there with his grief on display.
The devil raised his head high and continued for Uriel, "Death and I agreed on many occasions where others disagreed." To compound that fact a sudden smell of brimstone arose, and wings that had been burned during the Fall now spread wide, and to my surprise dripped with cold dew. When he folded the skeletal remnants down and turned toward us two jagged peaks of smouldering light dripped ash from between the curls of blond hair hanging over his brow.
"Beneath that lake of permafrost in which I drowned in what-if and what-will-come, there was only ever one guest to come and go from the depths of perdition, a brother where all others had forsaken. And when I have concluded my task as appointed before any of you crawled out of the afterbirth of... Father's... making, I will find which of you is responsible for killing Azrael and spend the remainder of eternity ensuring you suffer."
End of Chapter One.
A/N: Hello folks. This is a recent idea I had on my mind, and it takes a few cues from Supernatural(the tv show) with a bit of Lucifer too. We'll see how this goes. Thanks for reading.