Chapter 8: Death

Zadkiel hadn't been back in Heaven more than a few short years before he was given another task: he was to find and capture Azrael, the fallen Seraphim.

With that command he realized the Caretaker knew about Hagar.

His stomach turned at the thought.

Crossing the Moira was like walking through spiderwebs, the threads tugging at your spirit hoping to keep you there in the space in between.

The first place he went was to find Hagar in the Egyptian desert wilderness she'd called home the last he'd been able to sneak away to check on her. There was no sign of her, as if she'd vanished into thin air. It was a better thought than the alternative, that at 160 years old she'd finally succumbed to Death. Zadkiel couldn't see her going easily in the night, not with her temper, so he had a reason now to hate Azrael.

He didn't want to remember that Hagar was human and so very fragile.

It took him a few months but he finally tracked down some of Ishmael's children who told him Hagar had died in a fire that burned up everything, her ashes scattered in the wind.

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Zadkiel moved on as best he could from Hagar, which is to say he let the wound rot and fester and blamed Azrael for taking away his home even as he knew realistically that this wasn't her fault. He kept himself busy, visited hospitals and graves with arms full of flowers and blessings hoping to speak with Death. He stalked high crime areas hoping Azrael would come herself to collect when someone was stabbed. He got close visiting Ireland's high seas in search of Grace O'Malley after hearing a story that she'd once walked off taking a cannon shot to the midsection but he learned there that he wasn't the only one looking for her.

"You shouldn't fight with me for this, little brother," Lucifer said to him, "I'm not letting her go even if it's for Father." Zadkiel turned away, his brother looked too much like Hagar and his obsession with Azrael looked far too familiar. "Do I look like someone special to you?" Lucifer laughed at his reaction, "Oh that's rich. Who do I look like? What did you do together that Father sent you after such dangerous prey as my sweet Azrael?" Zadkiel's brow furrowed and lips pressed into a thin line before his silvery-white wings folded out of the marks on his back and he took to the air as if fleeing the conversation.

He quickly came to the conclusion that Azrael was right to flee Lucifer because Lucifer seemed to have gone quite mad.