Lyda Morehouse - Archangel 03 - Messiah Node, ebooks [ENG]
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Messiah Node
Archangel Series Book 3
Lyda Morehouse
[v0.9 Scanned & Spellchecked by the_usual from dt]
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Michael
Chapter 2 Mouse
Chapter 3
Rebeckah
Chapter 4
Page
Chapter 5
Michael
Chapter 6
Mouse
Chapter 7
Rebeckah
Chapter 8
Page
Chapter 9
Michael
Chapter 10
Mouse
Chapter 11
Rebeckah
Chapter 12
Page
Chapter 13
Michael
Chapter 14
Mouse
Chapter 15
Rebeckah
Chapter 16
Page
Chapter 17
Michael
Chapter 18
Mouse
Chapter 19
Rebeckah
Chapter 20
Page
Chapter 21
Michael
Chapter 22
Mouse
Chapter 23
Rebeckah
Chapter 24
Page
Chapter 25 Michael
Chapter 26
Mouse
Chapter 27
Rebeckah
Chapter 28
Page
Chapter 29
Michael
Chapter 30
Mouse
Chapter 31
Rebeckah
Chapter 32
Page
Chapter 33
Michael
Chapter 34
Mouse
Chapter 35
Rebeckah
Chapter 36
Page
Chapter 37
Michael
Chapter 38
Mouse
Chapter 39
Rebeckah
Chapter 40
Page
Chapter 41
Michael
Chapter 42
Mouse
Chapter 43
Rebeckah
Chapter 44
Strife
Chapter 45
Michael
Chapter 46
Mouse
Chapter 47
Rebeckah
Chapter 48
Strife
Epilogue: Amariah
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For Shawn and Ella, my family
CHAPTER 1 MICHAEL
Sometimes I wondered what God was thinking. Last night, just after midnight, a meteorite fell
from the sky and destroyed the Dome of the Rock. It hit with surgical precision—nothing else was
affected. Even part of the Wailing Wall still stood. People were calling it the Passover Miracle … or
mistake, depending on which side you were on.
I used to know God pretty well, and frankly, this seemed out of character.
But maybe He has changed. It'd been a long time since I stood at God's right hand. Three and a
half years, in fact, since I'd held that exalted state. Although I guess I hadn't exactly
stopped
being
Heaven's Prince, since no one else had assumed the title in my absence, it's kind of hard to be God's
number one defender when you've been struggling to stay on Earth, and stay sane.
Lately I'd been feeling pretty normal, almost human, you might say. I had been invited to Second
Seder at Rebeckah's kibbutz in the Glass City—a big step for me.
It meant seeing Deidre again, and our daughter, Amariah.
Deidre looked great tonight. She'd gone all out, dressing in a slinky black sheath. I had a hard
time keeping my eyes off her; she, on the other hand, looked everywhere except at me.
Amariah, at least, seemed pleased to see me. She'd rushed into my arms and hugged me, calling
me Papa and rattling at me about all the things she'd done in preschool today like we were still close and
hadn't been separated. She looked precious in a black velvet dress with a matching bow on top of a pile
of blond, unruly curls.
Rebeckah, our hostess, played matchmaker with the seating assignments. So I got put next to
Deidre. Fine with me, of course, but Deidre's jaw kept clenching, like she was struggling to hold
something back—something, by the looks of it, that I wouldn't want to hear.
"How have you been?" I asked, despite the obvious signs that she didn't want to talk.
Dee looked around the room instead of answering. I followed her gaze. We had gathered in an
old American Legion hall. Armored fabric was draped along the south wall. At the edges, veins of
Medusa crystals leaked out like deadly spiderwebs. I cringed every time Amariah romped near it, but
everyone looked after her and kept her from touching the glass. I had to remind myself that it was as safe
as anywhere in the kibbutz. The whole place had been rescued from the Medusa; this room, at least, had
three walls that were untouched by the glass.
Cheap dark paneling covered the rest of the room, and the place still smelled faintly of
Friday-night fish fries and dust. Yarn art and paint-by-numbers pictures added a perversely homey touch,
despite the concrete floors and water-stained acoustic tiles on the ceiling.
When Dee didn't answer, I added, "I start a job on Monday. It's just delivery. Part-time. But I
think it's a good start."
Her eyes flicked over to me for the briefest of moments. "A good start at what?"
"You know, making a living. Maybe I can move out of the halfway house and get a real
apartment of my own, and—"
"Michael," she said, talking to the doth napkin she folded and unfolded in her lap. "You know
you're kidding yourself, right? You're an archangel. You don't belong here."
My eyes sought out Amariah. She was making her way back to the table dragging a sock
monkey by the toe, apparently her newest favorite toy. I couldn't be certain, of course. I rarely saw her,
except on occasions like this. "Are you saying you don't want me around?"
"No, it's not like that." Dee's voice was softer than I expected, giving me hope.
"I'm making a real effort here, Dee," I said. "I want to be a good father to Amariah."
"I know," she said, finally looking at me with those soft blue eyes. "But coming back changed
you."
"I'm getting better."
Her mouth opened to say something when Amariah bounced into the seat between us. "Is it time
for the Four Questions? I love that part."
She would. As the youngest, she got to ask all the questions. I wondered whom Rebeckah
would consider the oldest. Technically, I was—at least in spirit. In flesh, I was younger than Amariah.
Rebeckah coughed lightly, signaling that we should begin. Rebeckah was an ex-Israeli career
soldier and ex-LINK terrorist. Her flattop was still as precise as the sharp lines of her broad shoulders
and the cuffs of her cotton shirtsleeves. After we recited the traditional questions and answers, the room
erupted, as everyone had questions of their own.
"How could it not be a sign?" Rebeckah asked, her voice straining to be heard over all the
others. She leaned into the table, her body tight with tension. "The only thing that's been standing in our
way was that mosque."
She didn't have to say it for us to hear it …
that damn mosque
is what she meant. Rebeckah
wasn't the first person to think that the destruction of the Dome of the Rock would mean progress for the
Jewish cause. People tended to forget that the Muslims were God's people, too.
I pushed my spoon around in the clear liquid of the matzo-ball soup. "God wouldn't dance while
Her people were crying."
The room fell quiet. Even Amariah, who was only a little over four years old, stopped playing
with her napkin to stare at me with wide eyes. Nobody was happy when I spoke of God. Some
probably remembered my days in the wilderness when I would rant about God on the street corner.
Others knew the truth about my origins. Both scenarios, I imagined, inspired extreme discomfort.
I cleared my throat, and quoted, " 'When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels
in heaven wanted to sing praises to God for rescuing the Jewish people. But God silenced them, saying,
"My children are drowning in the sea and you want to sing before Me?" ' "
Others started nodding, remembering the Midrash.
"Michael's right. There's more war now than there was before," agreed Deidre quietly. Unlike
Rebeckah, Deidre's blond curls always seemed to be in desperate need of a haircut. Personally, I found
it sexy and inviting—kind of like an unmade bed. "I don't know all this stuff, but isn't the Messianic Age
supposed to be one of peace?"
"Good point," said Tom. Tom was a Wiccan visiting from Seattle. Black and thin, he wore his
hair trimmed close to his scalp. A silver Ahnk rested against his black shirt, and blue and green Celtic
knots circled his biceps. "We still need a messiah. Where's the Lion of Israel in all this?"
"Is Elijah coming tonight?" Amariah asked. She had been very disappointed when he didn't come
last night at First Seder. "Will he be there this time?"
"Elijah doesn't really come. That's just part of the ceremony," Deidre said, repeating the mantra
from last night. Amariah looked crestfallen.
"I want Elijah to come. I've never met him."
Some people around the table laughed. I sipped my soup.
"I pray for Elijah to come, but not in my lifetime, isn't that right?" Wolf asked. His hair was white,
like snow, and silver pupils reflected the overhead fluorescent lights. Wolf was a Gorgon. He'd been born
inside the Glass City, and the Medusa had mutated his genetic makeup in utero. He was converting to
Judaism. He had perfect pitch and wanted to be a cantor.
"That's right," said Rebeckah, but there was something of Amariah's disappointment on her face.
"Maybe we should try to get the ceremony right, and, if all the Jews in the world do a perfect
Seder, maybe the messiah will come," said Jane. Jane was Tom's wife, though they couldn't have been
more opposite. As white as he was black and older by at least a decade, she had the eyes and bodytype
of an owl.
Thus chided, we picked up our booklets and went back to the ceremony. Rebeckah began to
read the next section. I knew the Seder by heart, so I watched her, smiling as she changed the words to
be more gender-inclusive. God would like that, I thought. Then I noticed someone standing behind
Rebeckah. I hadn't seen him come in. In fact, it was as though he materialized out of thin air. He
appeared to be Israeli, in his middle forties, with more salt than pepper in his hair.
And he had wings.
Brown and striped like a hawk's, they spread out behind him, nearly touching the ceiling.
I blinked. I looked at the others around the table. Their noses pressed into the books, they
seemed oblivious to a second archangel in their midst.
Don't frighten them, Michael. I have come for you.
Voices, like a chorus of a thousand
tongues all speaking at once in a million languages, echoed in my head. It took a second to parse the
meaning. But, like hearing the voice of an old friend, I suddenly recognized the archangel Raphael.
"Excuse me for a minute," I whispered to Deidre, and jerked my head in the direction of the
bathroom. She nodded, but, like everyone else around the table, she stayed focused on the readings. I
wondered if I was hallucinating Raphael's appearance. Standing up, I walked past the buffet table toward
the door to the outside. The archangel shook his head, as if to say he wouldn't follow me. I gave him a
steely stare. I was, after all, his former commander. Then, without seeing if he would follow, I stepped
into the evening drizzle.
The kibbutz stood at the very edge of the glass, just over the line on the "wrong" side. Calling it
glass was really a misnomer, but it glittered on the asphalt in the misty rain like a jewel and laced the
chain-link fence like ice.
The Medusa bomb was the greatest technological achievement in the last war—a combination of
nanotechnology and biowarfare. An aerosolizing device released billions of viral nanobots whose
programmed task was to consume complex molecules and excrete silicon. One big flash glassed most of
the Bronx—human, animal, and mineral. That was supposed to be the end of it, but, like any good virus,
the Medusa mutated and became resistant to its internal command to stop.
The only thing the Medusa couldn't digest and transform was that which had already started as
silicone. So windows and other glass had remained intact after the blast. Using this knowledge, the
kibbutz had set up barriers of crushed glass around the buildings they occupied. Of course, the Medusa
would eventually make its way through the soil, under the barriers, but it slowed the progress. At least
until another mutation occurred.
I stood on the sidewalk, much of which was still concrete, and waited. Raphael finally came out
and sat on the top step of the stoop. His wings were too large to fold neatly behind him, so Raphael
flapped them around, trying to find a comfortable position. Finally he gave up and let them sprawl across
the steps. His left wing's primary feathers scrunched up against the metal handrail I leaned on. I resisted
the urge to pluck one of them.
"What were you doing in there?" I asked him. "Wearing your wings out in the open like that.
What if someone had noticed you?"
"No more screwing around, Michael. Mother wants you home," Raphael said, rubbing his arms
for warmth.
"Mother?" I repeated. "Of anyone, She should understand why I can't leave. I'm a father myself.
I have responsibilities, a daughter to raise."
Raphael gave me a skeptical look. "You've been here long enough. Maybe even too long."
I ran my fingers over the firm edge of a feather close to me. Enough? I didn't think so. Not
nearly. My daughter was only four. I wanted to see her through to college, maybe even to the grave.
Plus, I had some things to work out. Deidre and I didn't live together anymore, and I intended to
change that.
I couldn't really blame her for leaving me. I'd been such a mess at the time that I hadn't even
noticed she was gone. When I returned to the place we'd been staying—a cheap one-room apartment in
Harlem—she'd taken all her things and left. Amariah hadn't been born yet; Dee was eight months
pregnant. I think, with the baby so close, she got desperate for safety. And I'd been anything but stable
back then.
But lately I'd been feeling grounded. My sense of self was greater in the last few weeks than it
had ever been. These days I knew the difference between myself and others, myself and God. I'd
stopped my midnight ramblings down Skid Row; I'd started bathing regularly, shaving, clipping my
toenails—taking care of this body I usually forgot about.
I'd even moved out of the shelter and into a halfway house. I was starting that job on Monday.
I'd been getting really serious about making a go at playing the part of a mortal. I thought that if Deidre
could see me trying, she'd let me back in. Then the three of us could be a proper family. I didn't want to
miss anything more than what I already had of Amariah's life, or Dee's, for that matter. There was no way
I was going back to Heaven. Wild angels couldn't drag me away.
"No," I told Raphael, flicking his feather. "Things are just starting to be good."
He fluffed his wing away from me. Rain brought out the darkness in his hair. "Michael, do you
realize what you're saying?"
"Yes, I'm saying go away. I'm starting to make things work here, Rafe. True, it's been hard.
There's just so many decisions to make. … I mean, free will is thick here, like smog. But I think I'm
finally on track."
Free will was such a nightmare. In Heaven there had been no choices, only the will of God.
Here? Sometimes the smorgasbord of decisions stymied me into complete inaction. Just choosing which
tie to wear to Seder tonight had taken me an hour. I had no skills, no practice at judging what was good
and right, since previously God had predetermined my whole existence.
Raphael frowned at me. "On track? What could be more on track than being with God?"
Raising a baby,
I thought but couldn't quite say. Being a good partner, maybe even a good
husband: these things I craved more than God's grace. I wanted to tell Raphael about it, but I could see
the fierce glory in his eyes. He had just come from Her, and I could feel Her heat, like the sun, pouring
from Raphael.
"I don't know," I mumbled in acquiescence, dropping my eyes so he couldn't see the lies written
there.
"Then come home, my prince," he said.
Home? I hardly remembered Heaven anymore. As my connection to Earth got stronger, my
memories of God faded. Heaven, I knew, was not a place, per se. It was a complete merging with God's
consciousness. Once, that idea of oneness seemed ideal; now…now it scared me. Lose my identity?
Surrender all that I had become to a higher mind? It sounded like death, and I'd just started to live.
Home meant Amariah and Deidre now, not God.
But how could I tell an archangel that?
Hazy moonlight glittered on the crystallized rooftop of the house across the street. The gentle
drizzle made the sharp edges glitter like diamonds.
"But why now?" I asked. "Is it because of the meteorite?"
"Something like that," Raphael said. He looked over my shoulder suddenly, as if seeing
something. I turned, but saw only a darkened street. When I turned back to him, Raphael held out a hand
for me to take … as if he wanted me to go with him, right now, right this instant.
"Come," he said.
"Uh," I said, stalling. "I should really say good-bye."
"There's no time for that," Raphael insisted. When he reached for me I moved away, nearly
stumbling over the glass barrier inches from my feet.
"Why the hurry?" I demanded. "Surely I'm allowed some time to explain this to my daughter? I
can't just leave without saying good-bye. It'd kill her." It'd kill me.
"Shit," Raphael said, looking down the street again.
This time when I followed his gaze, I saw something. A cloaked figure wobbled slowly down the
middle of the glass-covered street. His body was bent as if with extreme age, and he leaned heavily on a
walking stick. I would have dismissed him for a Gorgon, except that most of them never lived to see the
age of six, much less sixty.
Then I heard the metallic click of a scabbard releasing a sword.
I was turning to ask Raphael why an archangel would be so threatened by an old man when I felt
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