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There was a long silence. Then Naomi broke it. “What will you be doing in Rome mother?”

“Me? I’ll be going back to work of course. Sewing clothes, just a few hours now and then, enough to make some friends and keep boredom at bay. There’s going to be factories in New Rome as well and if I get my feet under the table now, I can grow with them. And I might even buy a few shares in them, nothing like owning things is there?”

Once again, there was a few minutes silence as the McLanahan’s digested the situation. They’d spent their lives working on the basis that they would be inheriting their family property in due course, now at least half of it had just gone. Probably all of it, John McLanahan thought, for it was unlikely that his father would do anything differently. Quite unexpectedly, his family had been hit with a financial crisis of unexpected proportions. Eventually conversation resumed but it was stilted and awkward until the time came for them to leave and catch the bus back to the Hellgate.

As the door closed behind them, Naomi clutched her husband’s arm. “Oh John, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know darling, I just don’t know.”

Chapter Four

Sky over Acara, Brazil. December 2008

In the dark skies of night, illuminated only by the glitter of the stars, a great figure, black as obsidian in the darkness, glided on outstretched wings. Beneath it, the activity of the world appeared to slow down and its sounds muted as if the world and all who lived within it were pausing out of respect for the monstrous being that flew over its head. Yet Uriel was not deceived by the appearance nor did he expect respect for his person. Those who lived underneath were humans and they had defied the almighty will of Yahweh. Not just defied it, but broken it and cast the pieces back in His divine face. They had resisted His commandments, their armies had invaded the realm of the Divine Enemy and cast him down. “Blown him up to the max,” as Michael-Lan had put it.

Uriel did not quite know what to make of The Eternal General, Commander of the Armies of the One Above All. He had changed in the last millennia or so, there was a levity in his persona that had been missing from the grimly determined commander who had fought the Divine Enemy throughout the Great Celestial War and led the final charge that had broken the Enemy’s last great effort. Sometimes Uriel even questioned whether Michael-Lan was still loyal to the One Above All but he had always dismissed those doubts. He had not dared raise the matter with the others in the First Tier of Archangels. Gabriel and Raphael would have laughed at the very idea. Azrael would have taken the suggestion as a personal affront and even questioned whether the very suggestion was indicative of Uriel’s own lack of loyalty. Raguel would have demanded proof of the accusation as was his way and when it had not been forthcoming, would have dared to judge even Uriel himself. Zadkiel would have merely stated that mercy and tolerance were the primary virtues and Uriel might do well to practice them.

It caused great frustration and anger to Uriel that he, the sword and the scythe of the One Above All, the one whose very passing caused entire nations to weep bitter tears, could have doubts about Michael-Lan’s loyalty and yet be unable to voice them. Nor was that the only reason for his anger and resentment. For the fact was that the humans were shutting him out of larger portions of their world. He had told his acolytes that the industrialized, developed areas of the world repelled him and he abhorred its clinical acceptance of death as an inconvenience to be wrapped in legal paper and forgotten. He had claimed that the less developed areas of the world still knew how to grieve and has their primal connection to death and mortality. It sounded good and it had much truth in it but it was still a lie.

Uriel no longer haunted the developed areas of the world because it was too dangerous for him to do so.

The change had started some sixty years before, a small change then and beneath Uriel’s notice. The humans had invented something that made his skin itch and revealed his presence known to those below. From those small beginnings, the things had spread across the world, covering it with small spots where his skin had become uncomfortable. Then, the humans had linked those spots into great sheets that covered whole countries and they had built weapons that could threaten even Uriel himself. He had learned that when the humans had sent their great burning lances through the sky after him and they had sent those who flew their aircraft to hunt him down. They knew not what or who they were dealing with but they responded with violence as had always been their way only now their ability to destroy was growing at rates the Hosts could not comprehend. He had told the One Above All of the change for all the good that had done. Lost in the surrounding miasma from the praise of his choir, the warning had gone unnoticed. He had told Michael-Lan who had simply replied “don’t sweat it Bro.”

What was a ‘bro’? And why had the General ignored the warning? Was he, Uriel, the only one who understood the threat developing on Earth? Perhaps then but not now. The destruction of the Eternal Enemy’s Kingdom and its occupation by humans had finally gained the attention of the Hosts and his warnings were at last justified, little reward he had got for them. Nor had the ever-growing web of human weapons and warning systems ceased to grow, they had spread from country to country, reaching out ever further, ever higher, crowding him away from the rich pastures of the developed world into the sparser, less populated areas. There, it was true that there death still had its terror and mystery but in truth the death that Uriel now feared was his own. He had never before believed that humans could kill those in even the lowest levels of the Host let alone the glittering archangels but the Eternal Enemy was dead at human hands and Uriel knew if the humans could find him, they would kill him with just as much dispassionate ruthlessness. Uriel looked at the humans and now he knew fear because they were killers with abilities that matched even his.

But, for now, here in time and space what Uriel wanted and what he must do were the sole thing in his universe. He looked down on the small town that lay beneath him, the crowded areas where the poorest lived, the great mansions of the rich and the smaller homes of those who lay between those two great extremes. He surveyed them and nodded as if coming to a decision yet the fate of those people had already been decided. It was merely Uriel’s vanity that implied there might yet be a decision made. His hand was already raised and he swept it over the town below, his benison chanted in tones dire with portent. “Peace be with you and my peace I grant you.”

Once there had been a time when every single living thing in the town, down to the angrily buzzing mosquitos and the languid grace of the dragonflies would have dropped to the earth in that instant instant. Those days also had gone. The animals and insects dies, that much was certain but the humans did not and resisted the divine command. Uriel concentrated, stepping up the power of his assault, driving down on the minds beneath him. Eventually, he felt the weakest down below crumble and their defenses collapse. In that instant they died. Even so, there were those who continued to resist and their defenses were too strong for the assault. Exhausted from the effort, Uriel turned in a slow beautiful motion and flew away, the light of the stars reflecting off the ebony wings jutting from his back. His work here was done, as much of it that was within his power. And that was the thing that drove his mind for he had never before experienced the concept that his power could be limited.