Fall From Grace Page 31

  “Take Michael and go.”

  Metatron dropped his swords and used all of his arms to fling Michael up to Gabriel…perfect throw.

  “Got him! Grab my legs. I’ll pull you out.”

  “Leave me,” Metatron said. “I will only weigh you down.”

  “I can hold you both.”

  “Leave me!” His words were final, so Gabriel flew away with Michael.

  Metatron tried to regain his swords, but the demons stole them first. They danced around and littered him with demeaning, vulgar pokes. Beelzebub pushed his way through, gore dripping from the spikes on his morning star.

  “The Seraph is mine.”

  The demons restrained Metatron’s arms and propped him up for their general. He closed his eyes and heard the circular whirl of the morning star’s chain, but his soul was at peace. Content. In his final foray into the living world, Metatron had replenished his soul and given everything for his brothers. His faith, his grace, his strength, and now his life—it was all theirs.

  After everything he saw through the Host’s eyes, Metatron was ready to move on.

  Perhaps one day, another angel would write of him.

  Satan’s demons were relentless in pursuit of the retreating angels, like the snapping jaws of a predator on the heels of its wounded prey. The war machines chipped away at Araboth’s fortified walls with a chronic battery of catapult fire. The angels, disorganized and mentally depleted, practically trampled each other for a mirage of refuge within the city. It was almost sad to see what had become of the proud race. Almost.

  The storm clouds finally vented their cataclysmic deluge as the day receded with the Host’s army. Satan basked in the splendor of victory, rain cleansing the blood from his body along with any deep-seeded sympathy for his enemies. The liquidation of Michael’s remaining angels would be swift and unconditional—a precursor to the totality of his rule. Any who defied Satan would join the angels in extinction.

  “No one escapes!” Mammon whipped his legions with the command. “Ram the gates.”

  “Belay that order!” Satan interrupted with a severity that halted the demons’ advance. “Surround the city and continue the bombardment. Give them no respite, but do not enter the gates.

  “Rest well, my sons. Come first light, we’ll lay the foundation of my Kingdom on Araboth’s ashes. The era of Demonkind has begun!”

  While Satan’s sons enjoyed the fruits—or meats—of their labors, Mammon approached. He was still boiling from the inferno of warfare. “Lord Satan? Father? I do not understand.”

  “Patience, Mammon. The battle was won but hard fought. Our demons are wearied and injured.”

  “As are the angels.”

  “A dying animal may yet lash out and strike a fatal wound,” Satan replied. He made certain not to inform any one general of his entire plan, ever cautious of betrayal since Lucifer lost his nerve. “Haste is the curse of a reckless mind, and the night aids our enemies. We don’t know what snares await us within Araboth’s walls.”

  “Ask and you shall receive,” Beelzebub said and hurled an angel into the mud at Satan’s feet. Though cuts and bruises had distorted his face, the six arms were unique to an old friend. His extra pairs of wings, however, were a recent addition.

  “Metatron?” Satan opened the Seraph’s swollen eyelids so he could see. “Michael made you a Seraph? A librarian? Scraping the bottom of the barrel, isn’t he?”

  “Do what you must. All you will hear from me is silence.”

  “Even a spider may discover the means to speak when its limbs are plucked,” Satan said while tracing Wormwood’s edge along Metatron’s arms. “Generals, shall we begin the night’s entertainment?”

  Michael awoke in Gabriel’s arms to see his nightmares made reality. The Host had withdrawn into Araboth, leaving their dead as piles of carrion on the plains. Uriel and volunteers from the infantry remained outside of the city gates to guard its borders, futile as it was. Not a stone’s throw away, the demons had set up camp and flagrantly feasted on the flesh of the fallen.

  War machines fired nonstop to erode the integrity of the walls. An occasional boulder arced higher and punched a hole through the lattice of angels across the skies before crashing down and setting fires within the city.

  “Put me down,” Michael groaned.

  “You need healing,” Gabriel insisted. Barbs from the nets were embedded all over Michael’s body and wings, dribbling steady streams of poison that prevented movement.

  Emergency infirmaries were set up across the city where Thrones tended to the wounded. Angels that did not participate in the battle brought crippled warriors food and manna reserves. Those who died from their injuries were covered and left in the streets.

  Gabriel landed by Raphael. The Seraph was a shade of himself, a specter of routine. He moved an angel who had passed on and laid Michael on the same bloody cot to assess the damage.

  “Where is Metatron?” Michael asked. Their dismal silence was his answer—dead. The sheer accumulation of physical harm and spiritual strain had finally taken its toll. “The war is over, Father,” he muttered aloud in a delirious prayer. “And we have lost. We have lost.”

  “Hush. Do not speak,” Raphael said so others would not hear his disillusionment.

  “Conserve your strength, Michael,” Gabriel urged. “It’s not over. You prepared us for this possibility. Contingencies are in place. Araboth City is a fortress.”

  A searing laughter gurgled out of Michael’s throat. His belief, his faith, had died on the plains.

  We are trapped. Death is here for us.

  Araboth City was not the Host’s fortress; it was their tomb.

  CHAPTER 28

  Demons at the Gate

  Satan stepped outside his temporary command tent to let the air relax his tired muscles. Fresh blood, still warm, drizzled down his hands and onto the muddied plains. Behind the flaps, Metatron’s screaming and Beelzebub’s grunting alternated like the call and response of a vulgar concerto. The Seraph was very resilient, but Beelzebub’s imagination was a bountiful incubator of barbarity. The general manipulated flesh like he did raw metal, using pain to forge the desired outcome. Body or mind, Metatron would eventually relent.

  A reprieve had come in the storm, but its clouds obscured the skies above Araboth and brewed a concoction of electric ruin. Satan’s legions flanked the entire circumference of the city walls, the war machines like ferocious beasts on frayed leashes. Fiery boulders launched into and over the walls, each impact crunching holes in beloved landmarks and spreading rings of flame through the streets.

  Darkness brought a different fight of painstaking attrition that was shearing the last layers of the Host’s dogmatic surety. When Satan made his triumphant return into the city, Michael would beg him—pray to him—for an end to their pain…and Satan would oblige. The compassion of ultimate release would conclude their miserable existence.

  Demons danced in the glow of the burning city, ridiculing Uriel and his sparse angelic infantry. Many waved their weapons at specific angels as if staking a claim on their lives. Converted Princedoms put on a deviant, theatrical play of the Host’s defeat featuring an effigy of Michael tacked to a pole.

  An irritating trio lobbed insults at Uriel like crooning jokers. Jetrel, Rimmon, and Yofiel, once a distinguished comedic act among the Princedoms, drew uproarious guffaws. Satan didn’t appreciate their degradation of his opponent—even as mortal enemies, he respected Michael—but his demons needed the diversion to recharge their vigor.

  “By the Creator, I’ve gotten prickles in my dainty wings. All is lost. All is lost! Retreat, my angels, retreat!” Jetrel said while mimicking Michael’s barbed entanglement.

  “The pain, oh, the pain. I’m…so…woozy,” Rimmon cut in with exaggerated weeps. “Come, my sweet Gabriel. Take me to your breast and whisper that I’m a righteous leader.”

  “Heal us, Raphael. Put those glowy fingers on me.” Yofiel clapped his hands and thrust his n
ose up. “We Seraphim must be shiny and new. Not one scratch.”

  Jetrel strutted across the thin stretch of land that separated demons from angels and jabbed a finger in Uriel’s chest. “And you, Uriel, stay behind and keep watch over those wicked demons like the loyal, stupid boor that you are—”

  SNAP! Uriel wrenched Jetrel’s neck completely around and booted his body into the crowd of demons. Their laughter and defamation instantly ceased. Uriel’s statuesque poise had been all that maintained the unstable ceasefire, but he could tolerate no more disrespect.

  “Jetrel!” Rimmon ran for the corpse with Yofiel. Jetrel’s head bobbled back and forth, his spine separated from skull. “I’ll eat your heart, Seraph.”

  Uriel swished a mouthful of oil and brought a torch to his lips. Grinning, he spat out a mist that coated Rimmon and Yofiel in liquid flames.

  The brothers squealed in a dying jig until their carbonized bodies fell next to Jetrel. Satan thought it was their most entertaining performance to date.

  “How long will you hide behind fiends and buffoons, Satan? Fight me!” Uriel implored, but Satan didn’t acknowledge him. The pause in battle was disorienting the angels’ judgment and sense of self-preservation, as he predicted.

  “Ignore him, my sons. The words of the dead are vacant, but their claws remain sharp,” Satan said and motioned to Uriel’s victims. “Control your hubris, lest you join these fools. Throw them in the piles.”

  The bodies were flown to the rear of the encampment where corpses of both angels and demons were stacked like putrefying humps. Mammon’s legions poured buckets of tar onto the piles, sending black streaks cascading down the remains.

  Satan dropped a torch onto the tar and watched a wave of fire billow across the steppe. Acrid particles of a million lives wafted up from the pyres like signals to the Creator. Surely the plethora of death would summon His eyes back to Heaven?

  How does it feel to have an entire city’s worth of dead sons rush back to you, Father? Satan prayed. Or do you feel nothing?

  Was the Creator so detached that the events of war were no more to Him than an operatic drama? Were they all characters acting out a story for his spiteful amusement? Or perhaps He was too squeamish to watch Satan trounce His angels, only peeking between closed fingers like a frightened human whelp.

  Satan placed his palms against the ground and felt tremors advancing from deep within the soil. Movement.

  Brace yourself, Father, for the worst has yet to come.

  Michael’s thrashed body was splayed across the Council Room table. The miniatures he used to meticulously plan the war effort were scattered across the floor, chipped and broken like the angels who followed his ill-fated strategies. Dark, tacky blood leaked from the barbs in him and seeped into the porous stone. The life siphoned from Michael’s body, and with it, the worry and pain that had sapped every last trace of joy. He could barely recall a united Heaven, as if it were an ideal so perfect it existed but in the fleeting serenity of a dream.

  Though Michael remained alive, his soul began to depart and dulled his connection to Heaven. A figure paced around him, its form obscured. Another prodded his wounds and sent rushes of warmth through his wings. Their conversation was muted, like heard through a funnel.

  “He’s awake,” a voice said. Gabriel. “Michael?”

  Gabriel bent down closer and came into focus. The youthful gaiety in his eyes, his mellow and handsome features, had all been ground to dust by the millstone of leadership. He was not the same angel; none of them were. Were they even still angels at all? If those who followed Satan had become demons, what had the faithful become?

  “His eyes are open, but his pupils aren’t responding. What’s wrong with him?”

  “The extensive trauma has put his body in shock,” a second voice replied. Raphael.

  Michael felt a tug in his wings, relieving a node of pain, and heard a loose barb clang onto the table. Raphael was removing them while stimulating the growth of new skin and feathers.

  “I have purged the poison. His injuries are healing, but his grace is still fading. If Michael’s soul detaches from his body, he may never regain consciousness. He will…slip away from us.”

  “But he’s still alive, right? His wounds aren’t fatal.”

  “The soul is more fragile than the body. Even for angels, there are limits to what we can endure,” Raphael explained. “Seeing the Host pushed back into the city may have devastated what remained of his resolve, and none of us can blame him. We were never meant to withstand the weight he has shouldered. The onus of greatness is not a thing to be envied.”

  Michael’s eyes shifted to the archway and saw the endless barrage of Satan’s war machines across Araboth’s skyline. Smoke rising into the Council Room brought the heat of fires burning its streets. Angels were crammed into every hole and nook of every district. Others flew about in a directionless panic. Was this the result of greatness, of wisdom? The Host should curse his name for leading their civilization to such a dismal conclusion.

  “The reinforcements to the walls won’t hold, and the air guard is exhausted. Our skyways will soon be defenseless. Satan will breach the city,” Gabriel said. “We need Michael.”

  No, you do not, Gabriel. Michael wished he could speak of the love and pride he felt for the Seraph that his apprentice had become. He wished he could let the entire Host know that they each went above and beyond the calling of friendship, loyalty, and duty. No dishonor would follow them in death, for they were faithful until the end. Angelic.

  “Satan is the source of Michael’s tribulations. We call each other brother, but none of us know the psychological and spiritual extent of their connection. They were two halves of a whole, interlocked in perfect union, until hewn apart by this war. It is an open wound that I cannot heal. The entire Host expects Michael to take up sword and cut off a piece of himself like unwanted gristle. The pressure…could you do it?” Raphael asked.

  “No, but I’m not Michael, as everyone keeps reminding me. Don’t give up on him. He hasn’t survived only to die here, on this table. He made an oath to stop Satan and end this war. Michael has never betrayed his word.”

  My word…the Word…do my attempts to fulfill it have any meaning, Father? Michael prayed. Does Creation recognize my efforts? Have I made you proud, or are you ashamed of your son’s defeat? If Satan were in my position, would the glory of Heaven still resonate?

  “Words do not equate to action, Gabriel, even if their intent came from the noblest of hearts. Place yourself in his position. If Michael stood before you now, an enemy of the Host, could you kill him? If every soul in Heaven depended on it, could you end his life? We should brace ourselves for the likelihood that…that Michael will not return to us.”

  Lingering between life and death, could Michael choose to fade away and leave the fight to fresher minds with sturdier hands? What if Satan’s claims were correct, that he was damning the Host with blind self-righteousness? Had he initially surrendered to Satan, Heaven would have been spared so much misery. The primordial beasts would not have awakened, the Tree of Life would not have rotted, and millions of species would not be extinct. Some semblance of society would have endured. But no, every last decision Michael made set off adverse reactions that marred the purity of all he was trying to preserve.

  “What is Heaven without Michael?” Gabriel asked.

  “There may not be a Heaven for much longer, not one he would desire to be a part of.”

  Raphael removed the final barb and finished sealing the wounds. He placed his palm over Michael’s heart in a symbolic restoration of their rent brotherhood.

  “I rescind my blame and forgive you, Michael. Neither you nor Satan is at fault. If not Mankind, the Host would have found another reason to kill each other. Another reason to destroy what we love. That part of our nature was always destined to surface. I see that now. If you need peace, if you need to be with Father, know that we will understand. We love you.”

 
“How can I help him?”

  “Pray…I will be,” Raphael said and left the Council Room.

  Gabriel cleaned the blood and feathers surrounding Michael while praying aloud. “Father, I know you must think that the Host has deserted you, failed you, but Michael hasn’t. He’s done everything you’ve asked. He’s the only reason any of us are alive. The only reason we still trust in your Word. Don’t take him from us. Not him.”

  The sincerity of Gabriel’s plea shone through to Michael like a focused beam, but he floated away from its brilliance. You can become twice the angel I have ever been, Gabriel, he tried to relay through the spiritual ether. There is nothing more for you or the Host to learn from me. Do what you believe is right. Resist Satan however you are able, and do not fear death. All things must end. Whether Heaven falls or prospers once more, love our brothers.

  We are a family.

  Michael closed his eyes and cut the last tethers that bound him to Heaven. His soul drifted away from his body and into the enveloping womb of Creation.

  CHAPTER 29

  Drifting in the Abyss

  With the night expiring, Satan returned to the command tent to check on his esteemed guest. It’s not everyday one plays host to a Seraph of Heaven. Cranked ropes spread each of Metatron’s six arms, pulling them taut. Assorted bodily fluids oozed down the contours of his muscles like a roadmap between burns, gashes, and bruising. Satan watched, captivated, as Beelzebub pinned back Metatron’s eyelids and gripped the sensitive orb between his fingers.

  “It’s said that the Scribe’s eyes see everything. Do you feel that tension on your optic nerve? I can remove the eyeball from its socket without severing it.”

  Metatron lurched, startling Beelzebub. How embarrassing.

  “Anything?” Satan interrupted.