George nodded in appreciation. Most times people here wore the clothing they were familiar with, in the case of Rose and George, jeans and T-shirts, but for an election, formal Roman attire was required. Even if their senator hadn’t been up for re-election this month, the fact it was election day still meant that he would have had to appear before his constituents to answer their questions and address their concerns. But, this being his re-election meant there would be a formal debate between the candidates with questions taken from the audience, followed by the vote.
Together, they left their home through the double set of doors that kept the dust out of their home and went out to the road that serviced their sub-division. At the moment, the area was served by a Beast-drawn bus but in due course, a proper motor-bus would replace it. For a moment, George Matthews thought that the replacement had happened because he heard the sound of engines but it was something different. A small column of military vehicles, a mix of Humvees and armored cars. Human vehicles armed with long-barrelled guns. They pulled up alongside the bus stop and a figure got out, one wearing a breathing mask. Obviously he was still in his First Life.
“Ave Citizens.” The officer’s right hand was extended in a careful Roman salute, the clenched fist striking his chest above the heart and then extended towards the Matthews, upper arm close to the body, lower arm level with the ground, hand open, palm down. Not the way it had once been depicted at all, historians had been quite shocked when they had seen the real thing.
“Ave Colonel.” George and Rose returned the salute. “May we be of assistance to you?”
“Colonel Paschal, DIMO(N). I have an appointment to meet with First Consul Gaius Julius Caesar and Second Consul Jade Kim in New Rome.” Paschal flushed slightly, partly from the effort of remembering to get the formalities right, but also from embarrassment. “We seem to have lost our way. My driver insisted we stop and ask directions.” Behind him, the female driver of the Humvee was grinning. Rose reflected that Hell and Earth had some things in common, a reluctance to ask directions being one of them
Rose smiled at the Colonel. “George and Rose Matthews. It’s easy to go astray Colonel, the roads around here are being built and extended all the time. We Romans love good roads you know. Go straight on for about five kilometers until this road ends in a T junction. Turn left at the junction, that’ll put you on the Aemilian Way. Stay on that, it’ll take you all the way to Rome.”
“Thank you, Citizens.” Paschal looked at them curiously. “Please forgive the intrusion but, you are Americans?”
“We were Colonel, but that was in our First Lives. We’re Romans now.”
Temple of Ceaseless Compliance, Eternal City, Heaven
“So just who dared to try and pull this off?” Michael-Lan winced slightly, the wound in his shoulder was healed, the one in his chest very nearly so but he still got a twinge if he moved too fast.
“Humans?” Lemuel put the question tentatively. It was the only answer he dared think of.
Michael-Lan almost snorted with laughter. “If this was human work, you’d be dead. The favorite expressions of humans where killing is concerned are ‘if some is good, more is better’, ‘nothing succeeds like excess’ and ‘more dakka’. If humans wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t just be dead, your body parts would be strewn over half the Eternal City. This wasn’t human work, this was somebody else.”
Lemuel-Lan thought about it carefully. His body ached from the wounds suffered when rubble had fallen on him and he’d taken some Tylenol to ward off the pain. “It must be the First Conspiracy.” His voice had dropped so the words would not carry.
“Not The Second Conspiracy?” Michael-Lan dropped his voice to match.
“No, Most High One. I have infiltrated that group. There is heresy there, certainly, but it is well-intentioned. An excess of zeal has led the congregation of this Temple to use human products in order to serve Our Eternal Father more diligently. They have been led astray by good intentions and need only a little re-education to bring them back to the right path.”
Michael-Lan nodded, making a note to reward the team who had worked here for a job well done. “Nevertheless, maintain your infiltration of the group and find out its extent. They may be well-intentioned but when we pick them up, we must arrest them all at once. No loose ends. Make sure you identify them all.” And that should act as your orders to take you into the club. “You think it is the First Conspiracy then?”
“It must be, Noble Lord. I can think of none other. I would guess they have learned of our investigation into their organization and decided to strike. Perhaps a cell feared they were about to be discovered and wished to prevent that.”
“It could be.” Michael-Lan was thoughtful. This whole situation didn’t make sense from most points of view. Rivalry between cliques of Angels were well-known but they never, never got to the point of assassination. At worst, blackening reputations in Yah-Yah’s eyes and causing loss of influence. That didn’t worry Michael, as the Great General, he was above such things and anyway, he was a past-master at such games. Had one of the other Chayot-Ha-Kodesh decided to break the rules of millennia and start playing for keeps? Michael-Lan ran through the names in his mind. Of the Chayot of the First Rank, only Azrael, Zadkiel and Chamuel were likely candidates. Were the Chayot of the Second Rank trying a powerplay? Sariel, Raguel, and Remiel could be ruled out, Sariel was already a member of the Montmartre club, Raguel was one of Yahweh’s most devoted followers and Remiel was a mindless nonentity. Jophiel and Haniel? They were possibilities certainly but Michael didn’t think they would have the initiative to try something this radical. That left Barchiel and Salaphael. Michael couldn’t help but run the last name over in his mind. He was in mild disfavor and filled with resentment because of it. And he had the originality to think up an assassination plot. It was, after all, originality that had got him into trouble in the first place. It was not a valuable trait to have when Yahweh was around.
The simple fact that the attack on Lemuel had been tried was what worried Michael-Lan. It suggested that the First Conspiracy was moving closer to its goal of a take-over in Heaven. He knew enough to realize that any such effort would be a catastrophe, that it would result in a war at least as destructive as the Great Celestial War had been. Better the status-quo than fighting in the streets of the Eternal City. That would be casting the whole situation into the hands of the Humans. That thought made Michael-Lan stop cold. Could he be wrong? Was this a human strike at Heaven? He was going to great lengths to keep the humans on the defensive, to make sure their efforts were focussed on Earth while the sheer effort needed to support their war machine slowly exhausted them.
But suppose they had found a way to infiltrate Heaven? He’d heard how they had started a rebellion in Hell itself and used it to assassinate the highest of the Daemonic hierarchy. They’d even dropped the hammer on Asmodeus, the Hellish equivalent of a Chayot-Ha-Kodesh. Assassinating people was right in their line. That just left the question, why was Lemuel still alive. Anyway, there were no traces of explosives around here. The human preference would have been for a bomb, a big one packed into a vehicle. This attack had used a trumpet blast. That had to be angelic. Unless the humans were using an angel as a front. Humans manipulating an Archangel. That would be one for the books. Once more, Michael found affection for humans rising in him. They made life so interesting.