"It's possible he had Lucifer's permission," Gabe said quietly, "if unlikely. Landel occupied an interesting position in the metascape, and his technology was ... strange. What he did wasn't so much to pull in a person so much as a ... broadcast. Like Skulduggery's skin, right now. It actually made people like Skul and I, truly powerful people, more vulnerable. Landel's machine couldn't cope with the power-levels to bring us completely over, so it brought over a relatively powerless echo without Landel having to separate us from our power manually. Suffice to say he never fully understood what he was doing--just that he could do it."

In cases like Valkyrie, the construct wasn't complete enough to hold her real memories. If 'construct' was the right word. They were still real, real enough to be called real, but lacking. And in the case of the 'brainwashed', Landel didn't have enough material to make them complete. So he filled in the memories with a 'real-life' alter-ego.

The Archangel wasn't dislodged, if only because he gripped Skulduggery just a little tighter to keep it from happening. "If there's any chance at all that Lucifer can be redeemed, I have to try," he said firmly. "I've seen what my Lord sees when He looks at Lucifer now. I've seen what he could be. I can't give up on that possibility. Especially if he remembers, like Michael and Rafe and I do."

Descry smiled at Erskine. "No, it doesn't hurt. It's strange how being disembodied can change your perspective of the universe, but it does. I'm just a soul. Things I'd have thought impossible are easier to comprehend, states of being I couldn't have imagined are plausible. I know who I am, and I can't lose that now."

That didn't mean the memory was a particularly nice one now he was on Earth, without the reassuring weight of Heaven all around him, but he couldn't be lost in it.