Broken Angel

Chapter 2: Zachriel

AZRAEL

Gabi and I had been searching tirelessly for Penelope, trying to sense her, trying to go to her potential charges, and still nothing. She has been deliberately avoiding us, avoiding everyone. All I want to do is find her and make sure she’s more or less okay, ensure she’s still the same Penelope, and that I simply imagined the coldness.

I met Gabi back at the house hoping that she had better luck. Honestly anything would be better than coming up empty. “I couldn’t find her,” I told Lex and Gabi. Penelope had been blocking me out. I couldn’t sense her, not as her soulmate, and not as an Archangel. She was hiding, for what or from who, I had no clue. But that meant she was avoiding me. The reapers had been have noticed she had been around before or after they had met their charge. But they were never there at the same time. I tried to find her next charge, but when I was in one place, she was on the other side of the planet.

“She’s blocking everyone out,” Gabi said as she began pacing around the nursery. Michael did the same, he would only allow the humans to call or summon him, he said it made his work easier if he didn’t have to watch over us as well. That’s what Gabi was for.

Gabi had always ensured the rest of us were under her management, that was how we were able to stay organized and not at each other’s throats when humans called to multiple Angels. Now Penelope was out on her own doing as she pleased. We had no idea where her orders were coming from, but she seemed to be working quick, too quick.

I understood that humans were emotional creatures, and sometimes some of them needed help dealing with Death, but Penelope didn’t have to die for this to happen. It was selfish of me, but now she was helping the humans, and had to leave the twins, had to leave me. There should have been another way.

Father had been ignoring our requests, and if Penelope was difficult to track down, our Father was practically untraceable. He had yet to give me an explanation for anything he had done. He was always one to let things play out unless intervention was needed, but this seemed excessive.

“Penelope was here,” Lex told us as soon as he entered the room. His eyes were automatically drawn to Gabi, but he turned and went to check on the twins. I knew he was just using my kids as a distraction to avoid Gabi as long as he could, but eventually they wouldn’t be enough.

“What?”

He sat down in one of the rocking chairs holding his face in his hands. “She was here looking for you. She found the twins instead.”

She was here. Penelope was here, looking for me. There was a renewed sense of hope in me knowing that she was so close. Maybe I could still reach her. If she was able to find me, I should be able to find her.

“Did she—did she recognize them?” I asked thinking about the twins. Maybe she got her memories back, but then why wasn’t she here with them. There had to be a reason why she was here, maybe she felt a connection to them after all.

Lex shook his head and took a deep breathe leaning back into the chair. “No, but she touched Alec. I think they recognized her, they didn’t feel threatened”, he explained. “She knows of me as Lucifer’s creation not her brother, and she didn’t seem too impressed with me.”

I hadn’t realized how this was affecting Alexi. Yes, I lost my soulmate and the mother of my children, but he lost his sister and best friend. Now seeing her and having her think so little of him must have been painful. My siblings and I fight, but we would never turn our backs on one another. It would take us a couple of years, but we eventually find our way back to one another.

“Why would she be looking for me? She told me to stay away,” I said them remembering how irate she was with me when I first found her. Ever since then she had been blocking me out.

“Father could have sent her,” Gabi thought out loud as if it were, we hadn’t all been thinking the same thing. It wouldn’t be a surprise if he had, the question was what for.

“If she’s looking for me, then all I have to do is wait and she’ll come to me. We need to summon Zach.” If Penelope was still looking for me, then she could easily find me. Now I had to get Zach here and pray that he was willing to help. If he could give her back her memories, then we could get Penelope back, or at least a version of Penelope that remembered us.

I closed my eyes attempting to concentrate on Zach. I needed him to come through this once, I had never asked him for anything, we had never worked together, this would be the first. All I was getting was a wall, he wouldn’t let me summon him. Was everyone blocking me out just to piss me off? Because it sure as Hell was working. I expected as much from him, but Penelope doing it was annoying me all the more. “He’s blocking me out,” I groaned.

Gabi nodded her head and tried summoning him. A few minutes later the asshole showed up in all his white robed glory. The pious little prick always thought he was better than the rest of us simply because he was more reserved, but we all knew that he was more immoral than the rest of us, he simply hid it very well underneath the white. Zach looked like a child, no more than 12 perhaps, what distinguished him from the rest of us was the lack of eyes, it was blank, he didn’t need them to see people’s memories he simply knew.

“Zach,” Gabi greeted him with a head nod.

“Gabrielle, one of Father’s most loyal Angels,” he smiled up at her, but I knew it wasn’t genuine. “That is until you gave into temptation and accepted that monstrosity,” he finished pointing to Alexi who was still seated. And there it was, his back handed compliments that told us exactly how he felt.

“Show some respect. He’s my soulmate,” she snarled. Lex didn’t seem bothered, apparently, he’d been getting called many things today.

“They were all a test. And you all failed,” Zach chuckled mirthlessly. “Father wouldn’t dare break Lucifer’s new toys, in fact he’s proud of him for showing initiative.” That made sense, our Father loved Luci even after what he had done, he gave him his own domain and the freedom to do as he pleased. One could even say that he had been rewarded.

Zach started walking around the room looking at the twins things, he was inspecting everything, trying to see what he could use. I knew how his tiny mind worked. He didn’t even bother looking at us before he started speaking again. “You know, I expected as much from Raphael and Jophiel, maybe even Lucifer if someone was dumb enough to love him. But not you two, especially not the Reaper. I looked up to you Gabrielle, as much as I hate Azrael I looked up to you too, but you’re both corrupt now.”

“Loving someone doesn’t corrupt you,” Gabi voiced looking at Alexius. She was dying and I could see it happening before me. I had to do something, I understood he was grieving, but she was still my sister.

“Doesn’t it, I know what you’re planning on doing RazRaz. Going against Father’s wishes. I was wondering when you were going to summon me,” he turned to me with a half smirk on his face, but if he had eyes, he would be glaring at me right now.

“You know?”

“I know everything.” He said pointing to his head. “I’ve met Penelope actually, she reeks of you, and she has your sigil imprinted on her. Poor thing doesn’t remember a thing. She’s very nice to me. We’re friends you know. A bit surprising since I don’t like you.” Zach had a genuine smile on his face, he was enjoying this too much. Enjoying me needing his help.

But if he knew she was missing memories, he should have given them back to her. There was no reason why she shouldn’t have them. It gave her the humanity that an empath needed. “If you’re her friend then why haven’t you given her memories back?”

“She hasn’t asked me to,” he casually answered.

Zach took a few steps closer to the twins crib which had me stepping in between, he may be my brother, but that didn’t mean I trusted him around them. “She doesn’t know she’s missing them.”

He ignored my obvious attempt to keep him away from them and turned around to look at the rest of the room. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss brother,” he retorted.

“What the f**k are you talking about?”

Zach sat on the carpet and began playing with some of the toys that were set out, some of the toys that Penelope had chosen. I wanted to wring his little neck out for touching them, but he continued playing with the small toys. “How do you think she’ll feel when she finds out that she died and Father turned her into one of us, that she’s left your two brats without a mother, that she can’t live as a human and she has to work as one of us. She’s an empath, all her feelings are heightened, if Father thought she was dangerous before, she’s unstoppable now. I don’t think he thought this one through.”

I picked up Zach from his white robe ready to toss him out of here. There was no need for him if he wasn’t willing to help, and I sure as Hell wouldn’t take him insulting my kids.

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. Maybe this was the reason she didn’t have her memories. But our Father still didn’t have to take her, he could have let her live as a human, then she wouldn’t have been as powerful as she was now. With her gifts as an empath, and the added blessings of an Archangel, Penelope was more capable than the rest of us, she just didn’t know it yet.

“You wouldn’t hurt a child would you?” He asked nonchalantly. Gabi and Lex were standing behind me not bothering to stop me.

“We both know you’re no child,” I growled. Zach always knew how to irritate me by acting innocent while we both knew he was anything but.

Zach let his head fall back as he gripped his chest. “You wound me,” he chuckled. In the next moment, he began glowing in a bright white light showing his true form. Zach was almost as tall as me, his feet no longer dangling in the air, platinum blonde hair shown in an almost brilliant white, the space in between his eyebrows and his nose was an empty void where you could see the stars in the galaxy, each one a person’s memory. “Why don’t we negotiate?” he asked in a deeper voice than the one his child form took.

“What do you want?” I questioned skeptically. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe he would simply help out of the kindness of his own heart; he was more like Lucifer than he cared to admit.

“A favor, from the Angel of Death.”

“Done.”