34.2

 

She looks across at Linnea and the assistant is standing in the cliched stance of an angel. Wings folded, hands held in prayer. Her architecture is permeable, crossed through with lines of possibility, fractured with obedience to two masters and flushed with determination. determination. If only could have seen her duplicity before. The ghoul was Fallen, but Linnea is risen, through the introduction of structure; a structure which looks too much like the work of the Artist to be a coincidence. She has fractals now; enough to make a whole geometric figure; an eight, perhaps, or an infinity sign. Who is she praying to, if God is dead?

“Anyone who might be listening.” Pestilence’s voice is softer now, and as Roisin shifts her gaze back to the artist, she sees his changed form. If gender was still part of the architecture, Pestilence would be female and Roisin recognises her at last; some part of he connects with the rider in a way she has not felt for millennia; they are two parts of a whole; two parts of an Elohim whose duty it is to preside over Creation; they are the ploughman, the shepherd, the caretaker, the harvester. It is not the Creator who builds the architecture of the world, but them. The Creator split them because it was their task to rebuild an architecture the Creator would prefer remained in place.

And now they were gone, and the old structure had begun to fray. It was time to plough and sew the seeds of the new. Roisin smiles at her sister, Jedith. “We need the others.”

Pestilence nods. “They are coming. Can you not feel their approach?”

And she does. There is a thrumming in the air; hoofbeats through the planes and the smell of blood, of pain; of triumph and despair; of loss and relief. Where a moment ago, or a lifetime, there now stand two more perfect beings, their inner fractals each a perfect tetrahedron in the dim framework of the structure of Creation. Death smiles, and it is not the rictus of a skull she sees, but a tapestry of beginnings and endings. Death is not the cruel end of life, but the opening a door the fresh possibilities; to renewal and regeneration, for the fractals of soul to be washed clean and renewed. War is the scythe of the world, cutting away the old to make way for the new. Without her there would be no innovation and society would stagnate

And then—

The air changes. A pressure. A tightening. A narrowing of possibility. Planes shifting, breaking, reforming into structures due to be torn away. The walls of the flat begin to solidify once more.

Astaroth’s head snaps toward the door. “Oh dear. That was fast.”

The Nephilim’s awareness flares like a scream. He is coming. He is coming now.

Pestilence smiles faintly. “Well. Just like a bad penny,”  as War and Death link hands.

Roisin clutches her chest. “I can feel him.”

Astaroth grabs her arm. “Roisin — listen to me. This is the warning I didn’t finish.” He pulls her close, eyes burning with urgency. “When the Sixth Seal breaks, the world reveals itself.” He gestures to the trembling room. “You’re seeing that now, but when the Sixth Seal breaks fully Hasmed will see you for what you have become, and he will not allow it.”

Pestilence adds, almost cheerfully: “He’ll try to end you. Not out of hatred, out of necessity. You are the New, and as we’ve already pointed out, angels don’t like change.”

Astaroth’s voice drops to a whisper. “He will try to erase the revelation. He will try to erase you. Or try to, at least, and the attempt will break the world.”

Rosin smiles at him, this angel of such power who commands legions of demons, fought in the Rebellion against God, and was cast down purely to advance a long scheme planned so many moves ahead a grandmaster would weep as he was caught on a Fool’s Mate. Despite all his scheming, or perhaps because of it, she can see him for exactly what he is, now, a gap in the architecture; a loose panel in the boarded-up windows of an abandoned warehouse where the pigeons fly in.

And she has become to him as a Thunderbird is to a pigeon. It is her turn to place a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, brother. I’ve got this.”

The mantle pulses violently as the Sixth Seal cracks deeper.

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