Fall From Grace Read online

  “If you were so eager for bloodshed, I could have spilled more of yours. Speak your intent or be expelled from the city walls once more…by less agreeable means.” Michael closed the gap between them, his arms tightening to execute the threat.

  “When we last met, we sought to slander from infantile spite. Amitiel was a victim of that animosity. We both value life and wish to avoid further loss,” Satanail replied. “I come bearing a proposition.”

  “There will be no negotiation,” Michael spat as if expelling the notion from his mouth.

  “Of that, I’ve no delusions. It was pretentious to think you’d waver in your convictions when I was unwilling to do so. I’m not here to discuss terms of negotiation. I’m here to accept your unconditional submission.” Satanail moved closer and felt the heat of Michael’s breath on his face. “These are my demands: surrender command of Araboth. Abdicate your titles. Publicly denounce Mankind…and bow before me. Then, and only then, I will reunite the Host.”

  “Demands? This is how you call for peace?” Michael placed a hand on Satanail’s chest to separate them. Prudence became a molten temptation to snap the bones in every haughty digit.

  “I follow your example. Father’s example.”

  “You contort it for your own gain.”

  “Our gain,” Satanail corrected. “I speak for hundreds who’ve become thousands. Thousands will become millions. The power to decide our own path, to weave the yarn of destiny, belongs to the Host. The Creator has no right to tailor the fate of all.”

  “If not Him, then whom? You?” Michael mocked.

  “A collective voice seeded in communal discourse where all can be heard. That is harmony. That is Heaven.”

  Satanail’s enthusiasm was smashing against the intransigence of Michael’s faith, but his conscience was cleared. He made every rational petition for the restoration of peace. Unfortunately, the Logos gave value to one Word alone, and it wasn’t Satanail’s.

  “When your spoiled words fail to nourish, and they will fail, the rebels will devour you,” Michael countered. “You hold no love for them. They are your excuse.”

  The accusation incensed Satanail. Michael could never know the exquisite capacity of his love for the Host. To claim it an artifice of selfish purpose was an insult without pardon.

  “You sink to new depths of denigration to wound me, but it only reinforces what I must do.”

  “Even if you could mobilize the numbers to overthrow me, Heaven would be plunged into anarchy, a primitive state bereft of any structure or civilization.”

  “For an angel of consummate faith, you’ve none in your own people. I’ll lead the Host into my utopia and love each of them as a true Father would,” Satanail said. “Now kneel.”

  “Is this what your wounded pride needs?” Michael kneeled and retracted his wings. “It means nothing. Mankind shall persist, with or without me.”

  Satanail held out his hand. “I offered this hand to you as an equal so that we could lead the Host together. No longer.” He rotated his palm to the ground and placed it on Michael’s head. “Surrender…and call me Father.”

  “I cannot,” Michael said and rose from under his hand.

  “I thought as much.” Satanail removed the metallic cylinder from his shoulder and unscrewed the cap. “When the streets of Araboth are filled with the dead, think on this moment—”

  Satanail slammed the cylinder on the stone floor, generating a spark that ignited the powders contained within.

  A white-hot shaft of fire surged through the skylight above the altar and bored a blazing beacon into the sky.

  “—And remember how you could’ve spared them.”

  The rumble of a distant explosion reverberated through the Sanctuary. A seismic shock wave rattled the mountain like a sweet aria to usher in the refrain of Satanail’s conquest.

  Michael was still reeling from the concussive blast when a chain of additional explosions pounded the city. He smashed the cylinder with his wings and flew through the Sanctuary ceiling to locate the source of the detonations.

  Above the clouds, a layer of soot and smoke enveloped the Observatory. Whips of flame fanned outward as entire chunks of the dome imploded.

  “I’ve taken your eyes,” Satanail said from behind Michael. There was a glint of spiteful pleasure in his pupils. “But you have so much more to lose.”

  How could any angel degenerate to such maniacal psychosis? Michael had prayed that the provocation was bluster without substance, that no one could be so beset by hatred. But looking at his brother now, Michael saw a soul that welcomed sin.

  In Satanail, he saw the choice of evil.

  “Your extortion of the Host, your insistence on worship above reason, has forced my hand,” Satanail continued. “This is all that remains between us, Michael. This is WAR!”

  War: the word meant destruction and suffering for a vain ideal that could never succeed. It meant death instead of life, misery instead of rapture. It was the cataclysm that would bring Mankind to extinction, the very sin against Creation that the Host was meant to save them from.

  “War…it is the end of civilizations, of entire worlds. It does not discriminate. War is damnation for all,” Michael said. “I will not allow you to unleash it upon Heaven.”

  “I already have.”

  Michael locked Satanail’s neck in his arms and strained the vertebrae. If he snapped Satanail’s spine and returned his soul to the Creator for judgment, would it prevent or ensure the outbreak of war? Michael’s hands had already stolen one life, but could he repeat the sin?

  “You can’t do it,” Satanail heckled.

  “I wish that were true—”

  A final explosion detonated within the heart of the Observatory and shattered the entire dome, expelling a tempest of debris down towards the city.

  The intensity capsized Michael and flung Satanail from his grasp. A shrill ring deafened his bleeding ears as he flipped through the billowing smoke. He regained momentum and dove to warn the defenseless citizens of Araboth, racing against the descending slag.

  Michael breached the clouds, and his screams carried across the city like a siren.

  “FLEE THE SKIES!”

  The warning came too late.

  Massive glass chunks of the telescope lenses barraged the city like a gale of blades, cutting down angels by the hundreds.

  Michael weaved through the hail of shards, pulling citizens to safety. Crimson spurts surrounded him as heads and limbs were cleaved in the salvo. He grabbed onto a spinning Princedom about to be flattened by a sheet of glass, but another fragment sliced through the angel’s torso. The cut was so clean, so fast, that the victim was still alive to see his own body bisect and splatter a rooftop with entrails. Even those who took refuge inside were reduced to pools of bone and meat as building-sized slabs chopped through stone.

  The air became a vile mixture of smoke, feathers, and gore. Flashes of light discharged into the sky like works of fire as one thousand angelic souls vacated the dead. It was a loss too grave to comprehend. Michael had to defer his mourning and save as many others as possible. He pushed aside his shock and veered through the skyline, ignoring the glass that slashed across his wings.

  “FLY DOWN THE MOUNTAIN! Seek shelter below!”

  Michael batted debris away from crowds and rerouted every angel in his path towards the city outskirts. Remnants of the telescopes had pierced into the Sanctuary roof like a bed of spikes waiting to catch the plummeting angels. Scores of bodies were impaled, pouring chutes of blood off the roof slopes and flooding the surrounding steps.

  “MOVE!” Michael tackled a stunned angel away from a shard that lodged in his shoulder instead. Adrenaline dulled any notion of pain as he yanked out the glass. “Get out of the city!”

  If Michael compelled himself to think of the most horrific, violent tragedy that could befall Heaven, his mind could never conjure sights as grisly as what he saw that day in Araboth. The reality was a panorama of brutality b
eyond the potency of his darkest dreams.

  It was a nightmare.

  “Father, help us,” Michael whispered, but prayer would not save them. There was no divine intervention in the Host’s future.

  The storm of glass ceased as suddenly as it began. Angels sobbed in mental and physical anguish. It was a scene of abject despair as they cradled the corpses of loved ones, covered their own gushing wounds, or stumbled about the streets in search of missing limbs. Through all the screams and confusion, Michael only heard the pleas that called his name over and over.

  Michael thought the worst had passed…but then the guttural groan of strained metal inundated the streets like a mechanical monstrosity’s last breath. The foundation of the Observatory dipped below the clouds and plunged down to the city. The sheer size of the wreckage would pulverize the Sanctuary, and the impact would cripple the integrity of every structure in the area.

  Araboth City would not survive.

  The Observatory’s shadow expanded over the survivors and reignited their terror. This city has suffered enough, Michael thought. Enough pain. Enough death. ENOUGH!

  Michael burst up in an unbridled ascent like a geyser of feathers and slammed into the Observatory. His hands clutched the base of the crumbling facility, its weight distributed across his shoulders and wings. He harnessed all of his Seraphic grace to fly up and halt the descent. His fingers dug into the stone. The distended muscles of his wings tore. It was not enough.

  The Observatory was crashing.

  Azazel hovered nearby to monitor its decline. The arbitrary death cast upon the city had begun to remove his delusory veil. Michael saw the misgivings of a wavering acolyte.

  “Azazel, help me,” he pleaded.

  “I…I c-c-can’t.”

  “Father still loves you. He will forgive you.” The Observatory began to fracture above Michael. “Look to the city, to your brothers. Prevent any more from sharing their fate. You do not want this.”

  “Azazel, STOP!” Satanail commanded, landing atop the shattered dome. “Come to me.”

  “Satanail does not control you!”

  Michael felt the fractures spread across the foundation. The Observatory would soon rupture, and he could not uphold its multiple pieces.

  “Whose feather is embedded in your wings? Your place is at my side. With me, you have a purpose. You belong. But with Michael, you’re nothing,” Satanail said. The hypocrite preached that the rebels had a choice, but their pledge to him was eternal. He would never let them slip from grasp.

  “Purpose cannot be given or taken, only accepted,” Michael urged. “You can save those whom Satanail would watch die. Leave him behind. Come back to us.”

  Azazel’s loyalties were at an impasse, but fear bested his courage. “I’m sorry, Michael.” The compliant disciple rejoined Satanail and flew off for Limbo, leaving Araboth City to suffer.

  The Observatory’s stability was on the threshold of collapse. If Michael could not stop its decline, then perhaps he could divert the collision away from the city. He shifted horizontally and redirected his flight outward. Every muscle stretched, every bone compressed under the titanic weight, but he flew on.

  The Observatory clipped the summits of Araboth’s tallest buildings and sheared off whole floors. Angels poured from windows and doors to flee the shadow of certain death.

  Michael saw the city walls…but he was not going to reach them in time. Until his final breath, he would do everything in his power to protect his people. If he had to die, it would be for them. That was his duty, one he was proud to fulfill.

  “Father, I return to you.” Michael felt relief as if the weight upon his body was lessened.

  Gabriel flew to his side and shared the load. “Not this day.”

  “Help the others. We cannot—”

  “Don’t talk, FLY!”

  Fueled by Michael and Gabriel’s combined strength, the drift of the ruins hastened. Their wings flared with grace that seared trails of energy across the skyline. With all of Araboth watching, the Observatory cleared the city walls. Angels erupted in cheers, the aversion of further disaster providing essential solace.

  Blocks of stone and warped metal rained around Michael and Gabriel. The tangle of cracks interwove across the foundation, compromising their grip.

  “Release on three,” Michael instructed. “One. Two. Three!”

  They dropped the Observatory and fled from under its shadow, breaking out just before it smashed onto the plains.

  Smoke and debris washed over Araboth like a sandstorm. The Seraphim were caught in the momentum and pitched back into the city. Michael ricocheted off two buildings, splintered through the wall of a residence, and slid to a halt across the floor.

  At last, the chaos settled.

  Michael stretched his wings, wincing as the torn ligaments expanded. He limped for the hole in the wall and surveyed the city damage. An ankle-deep layer of soot obscured the streets. Glass and rubble left a circumference of scars emanating out from the Sanctuary.

  The dead were innumerable.

  Michael stepped into the street and was rejoined by Gabriel.

  “Burn this into your mind, Gabriel. This is Satanail’s legacy. This is war.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Satanail has renounced his oath to the Creator. He is no longer a brother of the Host. Words have failed us. I have failed us. No more half-actions. No more hesitation. I am the Creator’s Logos and Archon. I am His justice.” Michael curled his fingers into a bloody fist. “And I will crush His adversary.”

  Satanail had committed another unforgivable crime against Heaven and the Host. He was not worthy of the grace gifted by his Creator. He was not worthy of life. There remained but one path to save the lost souls who followed him into perdition.

  Michael had to kill Satanail.

  The jubilant reception Satanail received upon his return to Limbo rang across the plains like bells of triumph. The ruins of the Observatory were a staunch confirmation of his divinity. Satanail had brought down the sky upon their enemies and ascended into godhood. The innocent casualties were regrettable but would be recorded as a charity, for they were spared the sight of Heaven’s downfall. Michael regarded Satanail’s attack as the commencement of war, too deafened by hubris disguised as faith to hear the quiet truth carried on the wind: he had already lost the war.

  Limbo vibrated from the rebels’ stomping dance of victory. Tremors spread across the plains, scattering the wildlife, and shook the walls of Araboth City.

  “Behold, our first victory!” Satanail exclaimed, pointing to the demolished Observatory. “It is the first of many. We will conquer every region, every city, every puny settlement. We will not rest until all of Heaven is ours and all those who oppose us are obliterated. The Creator will look down upon us and mourn His folly. Mankind isn’t the heir to Creation, we are! Today. Tomorrow. Forever!”

  Azazel flew forth with a vat of black dye, the same used to color his adornments. Though understandably shaken from his role in the attack, his reluctance with Michael was unacceptable. Azazel wasn’t an exclusive kindred spirit as Satanail had thought, but merely the first outlet that presented itself for his message. Now, he had thousands. Still, it’d be inconvenient to locate and season a trustworthy replacement.

  Azazel’s attitude had to change. Soon.

  “Our service to the Creator and His antiquated laws is over! Today, we die as angels and are reborn as something far greater. I mark myself as the progenitor of a new lineage…my lineage.”

  Satanail dipped a sharp fingernail in the dye and carved an inverted pentagram over his heart, permanently infusing the black shape into his pigment. A pentagram was the Creator’s symbol of the elements and senses, but the apex of Satanail’s star pointed downward in rejection.

  “Free will: from our very first breath, we’ve been denied it. Satanail was the name forced upon me by the Creator, the name of His servant. My bondage, my enslavement, ends now.”


  Satanail spread his six wings to their full length. Azazel flew above him and doused them in dye, coating every feather in the thick fluid.

  “From this day forth…I AM SATAN! Your savior. Your Creator. Your Father.”

  The rebels fell to their knees as if the Creator Himself had descended onto Heaven, but He was now obsolete. Their faith, their lives—their souls—belonged to Satan.

  “Stand, my sons. Cast off the name branded upon you and break free of your final shackle. Embrace the latent darkness within your souls. Therein lies a power beyond the limitations of grace.” A gust from Satan’s black wings blew over a series of tents, revealing vats of dye that stretched back to the city limits. “Step forth and become my harbingers. Become my demons!”

  The rebels formed lines to undergo their transformation. No questions—they had outright faith in their Father, Satan. Erastiel was first, a gargantuan mass of muscle second only to Uriel.

  “Who are you?” Satan asked.

  “I am Beelzebub!”

  The crowd howled their blessing as Erastiel dunked his wings into the dye and joined the demonic ranks as Beelzebub. He was a fearsome sight to behold, one sure to smear his name across Heaven in the blood of Michael’s angels.

  “I would repay your benevolence,” Time said and surfaced from the rebels.

  “This isn’t demanded of you. You’re free,” Satan replied. “This ascension must be one of your own choosing, Time.”

  “That is not my name,” Time uttered with disdain. “Father.”

  “Then tell us who you are, my son.”

  “I am Mammon!” he replied and slathered his wings. The former Virtue was a welcome addition and indication that, when given choice, freed minds would follow Satan.

  “Splendid.”

  Heaven couldn’t be conquered by Satan’s hand alone. He needed to establish luminaries among his ranks fierce enough to clash with the Seraphim and who’d fight to their deaths with pleasure. He saw worthy candidates in Beelzebub and Mammon, angels of prominence in their former lives who could command the masses in his absence. Generals.