‘It would please me to have my leverage conscious!’ Samyaza pressed for his will to be met, but a moan from his framed captive put the smug tone back in his voice and countenance, as all eyes turned to Araqiel. ‘Here you are, at last! So nice of you to join us.’
‘The pleasure is all yours,’ he replied. ‘Do with me as you will.’
‘I really just required the pleasure of your company,’ Samyaza advised. ‘And as long as I have it I shall not blow the Grigori craft out of the sky!’
‘You said Araqiel would not be harmed.’ I was mortified by my colleague’s sacrifice; I had no idea if Araqiel’s powers were still subdued by the weapon that had taken him down in this chamber. Now that he had rejoined his body, he might well be trapped in there.
‘I trust that I am now at liberty to proceed with my imperial objective?’ the mind-eater asked, although I was far from satisfied with this arrangement.
‘See my directive is carried out,’ Samyaza looked back to his creature to advise. ‘I do not trust any of the Grigori to be cooperative, so ensure they know the plight of their brother. Who I will be happy to bring to our new location once I have been summoned forth.’
Samyaza had no intention of doing any such thing. ‘No, you must not deliver that news to the Grigori, they will take up arms against the emperor!’ I insisted that would not be the wisest course of action to achieve its goal.
‘Fear not,’ it told its master, ‘I have a plan that ensures none of my subordinates will become an impediment to your directive.’
‘What?’ The notion that this senseless puppet was thinking for itself was horrifying!
‘I trust that you do.’ Samyaza grinned, satisfied that he would get his wish, and with the emperor’s blessing, my form rose and departed the room.
‘What, no fond farewell?’ Samyaza commented sarcastically in my wake, and I felt compelled to say good riddance, but feared my form might repeat the sentiment. I looked to Araqiel, so much wanting to express my remorse at his fate, and to query him about his chances of escape. However, with a micro-shake of his head and a stern expression, he begged me to leave without protest.
Goodbye, my dearest brother, I shall never find a counsel so wise as yours unless we meet again, I thought, as the ache in my chest increased. If I had understood the human correctly, the Logos had moved onto the next universe at the time I beheaded its vessel; yet I made a quiet appeal to that divine messenger to watch over Araqiel, who had placed so much faith in him, and I was about to do the same.
The launch of the Grigori vessel Leviathan, proceeded without further delay, and my task force were happy to facilitate the process.
As Bezaliel, the pessimist among us, so eloquently put it: ‘Let’s leave this shit-hole of a universe, while the going is good!’ To which the usual argument was not forthcoming from Sammael, or any of the Grigori.
It seemed the creature inside my form had heeded my advice — it had not mentioned Araqiel’s fate to the rest of the crew. Once a course had been set for the Eternity Gate many dark-years away, the mind-eater posing as commander assembled the crew and instructed them to follow him.
Sammael and Armaros, aware of the impostor, hung back to bring up the rear.
‘What do you think he’s up to?’ Sammael whispered aside to his fellow conspirator.
‘Never mind, we stick to the plan,’ Armaros replied. ‘I’m sure the commander is keeping an eye out for our best interests. If his form tries anything suspicious, you know what to do.’
Sammael nodded. ‘Still I wish you’d tell me how you plan to pull this off. Faith is not really my thing.’
‘He’s leading us to cryogenics.’ Armaros was distracted by the observation, and Sammael was stunned.
‘What if he’s picked up on our plan, and intends to turn the tables on us?’ Sammael was edgy.
‘Let it try.’ Armaros sounded very determined to prevail.
As the Grigori assembled in cryogenics my brothers were understandably perplexed, as this was a place associated with cattle.
‘What is the meaning of this, Commander?’ Penemue was the first to voice his concern, for he’d suspected for some time that something odd was going on with their leader.
The creature posing as Azazèl took a stand on one of the benches to ensure it could be heard and understood by all. ‘All of you need to pick a module, and enclose yourself within it, emperor’s orders.’
‘That’s absurd!’ Sacha protested in unison with my own objection. Sacha was fair of face and hair, like Armaros and Araqiel, but was more warlike than his brothers. Still, he shared their keen mind and was also highly intuitive. His eyes were his defining feature, an eerie shade of grey. More than an ability to levitate and teleport, Sacha had learned how to fly — no wings required.
‘It is a condition of our exit out of this universe,’ the mind-eater advised. ‘The emperor is monitoring this ship and will destroy us if there are not one hundred and ninety-eight pods occupied by the time we leave this system.’
‘I didn’t realise we had a system for monitoring our mobile cryogenics from Tartarus?’ Armaros was suspicious as Araqiel had a hand in developing many of the technologies that were currently in use, and Armaros did much of the research and chronicling of the same.
‘I’m sure there is a lot the emperor has not made us privy to,’ my diseased vessel put down the query.
‘He’s lying!’ I appealed loudly, but hardly anyone heard my challenge, only the creature who was the cause of my concern, and he roused half a smirk from his usually expressionless face. Sariel, our co-pilot, was telepathic, and he frowned momentarily, but no doubt thought himself imagining things.
‘Holy shit,’ Sammael uttered under his breath, looking to Armaros to see if he had a contingency in place that would counter the commander’s bombshell.
‘This is unexpected,’ Armaros was sorry to advise.
‘One hundred and ninety-eight?’ Bezaliel queried the math.
‘Araqiel will not be joining us, and I must stay conscious in order to revive you all once we arrive at our destination, and to give reports to the emperor,’ it concluded.
‘I hadn’t considered that either.’ Armaros was appearing less and less confident.
‘Is that safe, Commander?’ Penemue queried on behalf of everyone.
‘Trust that I have our combined interests in mind,’ it said. ‘Know that we are imperishable, and that I will revive you upon our deliverance in the next universe.’
‘Sariel,’ I moved closer to him. ‘It’s a mind-eater you’re dealing with!’
Again he frowned and ticked his head, as if he feared he had a short circuit in his brain.
‘Our commander would never steer us wrong,’ Gadriel encouraged his brothers, but he had always been the most credulous among us, and quite possibly the most vain. To my deep distress, the rest of the crew also seemed resigned to comply.
I had to act! I could not stand idly by and see this creature deceive them.
I didn’t have the time to talk Sariel around and so resigned myself to rejoining my body. Still, I paused a moment to appreciate my sensibilities as they were now, before contamination, for once the virus had my soul within its grasp there would be no escaping its scourge.
As my brothers moved to enter the individual modules set in rows throughout this chamber — designed to hold thousands — I willed myself back into my form and felt myself consumed by the heavy dark shadow and the anguish of being eaten away from the inside.
‘Don’t … listen —’ I struggled against the virus to say the words, loud enough to capture the attention of my brothers in arms and my body contorted with my struggle. ‘The Emperor’s mind-eater …’ my harrowed sights turned to Sammael and Armaros ‘… seeks to protect itself!’ I appealed for them to act on our plan. As I was suddenly overcome with a desire to serve Samyaza, a great hate of any who would oppose me in this welled in my gut and mind.
‘Seize him!’ Sammael commanded his broth
ers. ‘The commander has been exposed to the emperor’s new virus!’
Alerted to my predicament, all the Grigori came running at me. But the creature that consumed me was not to be contained, and I was compelled to retaliate, and did so with extreme force, releasing a wave of psychokinetic energy that cast off my brothers and sent them flying backwards in every direction. Even Sammael was slammed hard into an open module, and I hit the door lock. The module sealed and trapped him inside. I was prepared to do the same to every Grigori who came towards me and would have, but a sharp stabbing pain in my back saw my body immobilised, and my spirit knocked clean out of my form. ‘What the …?’ I turned about to see one of the emperor’s crippling devices embedded in my back.
‘That’s for Araqiel,’ informed Armaros.
‘What the hell is that?’ Bezaliel was the first to recover from the shock of seeing one of the Grigori knocked unconscious.
‘It is one of the emperor’s new toys.’ Armaros held forth the wide-barrelled pistol and, flicking a lever on the side, the blades of the glowing stun device retracted and it was magnetically drawn back into the weapon. ‘It is what they used to take down Araqiel.’
‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ Bezaliel mumbled, horrified by the scholar’s words.
‘Good job!’ Sacha was gratified to see their opponent taken down.
‘Yeah,’ Penemue agreed in part, ‘but how is the commander going to report to the emperor now?’
‘Maybe he was lying about that, too,’ Armaros said.
‘But what if he wasn’t?’ Penemue decided it would be best to be prepared.
‘Let me out of here!’ Sammael protested, slamming on the door of the module that contained him.
As Bezaliel was closest he merely served Sammael the finger through the transparent casing.
‘Get out of the way,’ Gadriel pushed the antagonist aside and opened the module as requested. ‘I can shapeshift into the commander and pose as him if needs be,’ he proffered, eager to be of aid.
Sammael gave a laugh at this. ‘You are an imbecile … the emperor is never going to believe you are Azazèl, let alone possessed by his new super-smart virus!’
‘Is that right?’ Gadriel shoved Sammael back inside the module and locked it again.
‘Stop with the games! We are in serious shit here!’ Penemue insisted, hitting the release button to free their brother. ‘We have no choice but to use Gadriel.’
‘We’re screwed!’ Bezaliel maintained his regular negative take on things.
Gadriel was insulted. ‘Your confidence in me is underwhelming. Maybe you would rather be blown to pieces! I’m sure it will be a hoot trying to collect and sort the body parts of all two hundred of us as they are shot out to every quadrant of the dark universe.’
‘Don’t be so sensitive,’ Penemue suggested. ‘Just put the captain on and let’s see how much work we need to to do on your character. How long has our commander been infected?’ He looked to Armaros for answers.
‘Since the day we were advised of this mission,’ he replied. ‘The commander managed to escape into Lux just prior to being exposed and had avoided rejoining his body.’
‘So his mind has not been affected,’ Penemue assumed.
Armaros shrugged at this. ‘He must have rejoined his body just now to warn us,’ he said sadly. ‘My fear is that now he is trapped in there with it.’
‘Well, there is only one way to know for sure … but just in case,’ Sammael dragged my slumbering form into the module, ‘let’s see this thing safely to bed.’ With Sacha’s aid they hoisted my body up and strapped it in. ‘Sweet dreams, Commander.’ Sammael closed and sealed the door, then activated the cryogen which frosted up inside the containment module, and I immediately felt the cold seeping through me to my core. ‘Armaros,’ he looked to the scholar, ‘maybe you should head to Lux and check on our commander’s state of being while we work on Gadriel.’
Their resolution was a great relief to me, and I was deeply grateful for their clear thinking and team work — I would never have been able to pull off this escape without them, and yet most of them were acting out of a trust in my gut instinct, which could yet prove to be naught but an enchantment that was leading us to our deaths. Yet my intention had been put in motion and there was no turning back. The truth of the matter was Samyaza was done with us anyway, and if we didn’t succeed in this, we might end our days as decorations upon the wall in his throne room.
Armaros was most gratified to find me awaiting him in Lux. ‘It is a joy to see you, Commander, I feared you had been trapped with the creature.’
‘I was kn-kn-knocked right out of my b-b-body, when you hit m-m-me with the stun d-d-device,’ I did my best to prevent my teeth chattering as I spoke.
‘Commander?’ He was concerned to note my shivering. ‘You can feel the cold! That must be very unpleasant?’
I shrugged in response to this. ‘F-f-funny enough, I find it prefer-fer-ferable to f-f-feeling nothing at all.’
Armaros frowned, and finding the statement rather odd, he skipped to another subject. ‘So the emperor did not order us into stasis?’
I shook my head.
‘Is our commander required to report to the emperor?’
I nodded. ‘That would be n-n-normal procedure,’ I replied.
‘We are preparing Gadriel to assume your form,’ Armaros advised.
‘I was th-th-thinking I could p-p-possess his form and sp-p-peak through him.’ The lack of flow between the words in my brain and my mouth, was frustrating, ‘but n-n-not with these shiv-v-v—’
‘Shivers,’ Armaros concluded for me, as clearly he was frustrated with waiting for me to get the sentence out. ‘No,’ he quite agreed, ‘clearly that would be a little suspicious.’
‘B-b-but Sar-i—’
‘Sariel,’ Armaros concurred.
‘Is t-t-tele—’
‘Telepathic.’
‘He m-m-might conv-v-vey —’
‘Your thoughts to Gadriel!’ Armaros jumped to my conclusion. ‘Brilliant! That just might work,’ he surmised as I nodded in accord. ‘We’ll just stick a small receiver in his ear, and Sariel and yourself can monitor the emperor’s transmission from another room.’
I clapped my hands to approve his train of thought.
‘What about Araqiel? What has become of him?’
The mere mention of his name made my chest ache. ‘He is am-m-musing the Emp-p-peror. I shall f-f-fetch him, aft-t-ter —’
‘— we deal with this last obstacle?’ Armaros guessed my meaning, and I nodded in gratitude. ‘Then we had best go see how they are doing with Gadriel.’
‘Thank you,’ I managed to say without faltering. ‘I c-c-could not have —’
My fair, small-framed brother held up a hand to prevent me saying more. ‘We are legion,’ he said. ‘We shall always have your back, as you have ours.’
Despite the chill that had hold of me, it warmed my soul to know he spoke the truth. If we were to perish on this mission then we would leave this universe as we’d entered it, together.
In the commander’s quarters, unity was not really the sentiment of the moment. Penemue, Sammael, Sacha and Bezaliel had Gadriel in front of the mirror correcting his appearance, when Armaros entered.
Gadriel had assumed my form; sort of.
‘What is with the wavy hair?’ Sammael critiqued our shapeshifter’s efforts. ‘The commander’s hair has always been dead straight!’
‘But it looks better, don’t you think?’ Gadriel admired the appearance he was wearing in the mirror.
‘It looks ridiculous!’ Bezaliel scoffed from his position stretched out on a sofa.
‘Change it!’ Sammael was losing patience.
With a roll of his eyes Gadriel complied. ‘Better?’ he huffed, as he turned to his brothers
‘A good likeness,’ Armaros awarded kindly, ‘but you might want to try looking a little paler, with some big dark rings around the eyes, as you are supposed to be diseased.’ br />
‘Really?’ he asked as if it were truly beneath him to appear less than perfect.
‘Just do it!’ the rest of the company replied in unison.
‘All right already!’ Gadriel turned back to the mirror to gauge the transformation. ‘Truly gross,’ he decided, once he looked wrecked enough to repulse himself.
‘Okay, that’s perfect,’ Penemue granted, ‘now to make him speak and act like the commander.’
‘Our commander can help us out with that,’ Armaros was pleased to advise.
‘So his spirit is not trapped in cryogenics with his body?’ Sammael assumed.
‘No, he is here with us now,’ Armaros informed, whereupon my brothers peered around the room as if expecting to see me.
‘Sorry about the hair thing,’ Gadriel said for my benefit. ‘Really, your hair is perfectly adorable.’
Sammael’s cheer soured and he whacked Gadriel in the back of the head. ‘Perfectly adorable? The commander would never say anything like that!’
‘Touch me again,’ Gadriel turned on his assailant, ‘and I’ll turn into Balem or Baleth instead, and rip you limb from limb!’
‘Now you’re sounding more like the commander.’ Sammael grinned.
‘We need to work together.’ Armaros pushed them apart. ‘And we don’t have much time left.’
‘What does the commander want us to do?’ Penemue was all for being helpful.
‘I have some of our brothers setting up a comm-link. The captain cannot speak directly through Gadriel as he’s feeling the effects of the cryogen. We need Sariel on a comm-link to act as telepathic relay between our commander’s spirit and Gadriel.’
‘Holy crap!’ Bezaliel finally sat up to attention. ‘If we pull this off it will be a goddamn miracle!’
‘Do you have a problem with that, Grigorian?’ Gadriel tested out his authoritative tone.
Bezaliel flinched, and then waved Gadriel off as he recalled he was not the commander. ‘Idiot.’
‘I got you!’ he boasted.
‘Not bad,’ Sammael warranted. ‘Now let’s see how you fare convincing Samyaza.’