Fall From Grace Read online

  “I’ve only the utmost respect for our colleague, one built atop a foundation of cooperation and understanding. I’d never imperil such a blessing, would you?” Satanail’s grim stare cut through the false cordiality.

  “No, Archon,” Cassiel submitted.

  The Seraphim entered the Grand Hall and proceeded along lengthy corridors burnished by intricate carvings and murals. Vaulted ceilings and wide halls allowed them to glide through. The Hall was constructed as a nonagon around the slopes below the Sanctuary with each corridor dedicated to business for one of the nine Choirs. It was a testimonial to the Host’s growth from an aimless knot of angels into a sophisticated collective whose every aspiration was realized.

  The Seraphim corridor featured life-sized portraits of each Seraph on the walls. Michael paused at his painting, a scene of him spreading the first Word of the Creator. The Council and the Host had reacted with universal acceptance, but would they now find the same cause for mirth? Father, be with me and ordain my words with your wisdom, he prayed. Give my brothers the perception to embrace the Host’s future glory as I have.

  The Council Room was ever a sight to behold. The Seraphim entered and assumed their places around a circular table crafted from smoothed ores arranged in a topographical map of Heaven. Light shone down through a stained glass ceiling as a symbol of the Creator viewing their sessions, creating shimmers of color across the table like a dissipating rainbow. The most breathtaking sight, however, was the open archway that offered a stunning view of Araboth City and the surrounding plains.

  “Everyone, please have a seat,” Michael said.

  A muted apprehension gripped the room. Facing the most pressing issue of their history, Michael looked to Satanail for moral support but was met with blank apathy. I am the Logos, the Creator’s chosen voice, he repeated to himself in a calming mantra.

  “Thank you all for coming today. I summoned you not out of obligation or duty, but out of friendship. You have proven to be the most trustworthy and honorable among the entire Host. The very values and beliefs of Heaven came from the Word and your honest counsel of it. In the upcoming days, I will need that counsel more than ever,” he began.

  “Must we trade in banal courtesies?” Gabriel said. He never had patience for formality.

  “Gabriel!” Raphael scolded.

  “What? We know why we’re here. Let’s not delay.”

  “Agreed,” Cassiel said. “Michael, is it true that the Creator’s silence has been broken?”

  “Have you received the Word?” Uriel asked.

  The Seraphim were restless, but Michael was unsure how to broach the topic. Their eyes on him, their anticipation and hopes, stole the words from his mouth. He spoke with Satanail first in hopes for a second voice if he became flustered, but that support was absent.

  “Yes, the Creator has spoken…but a precise recitation of His Word yet proves elusive.”

  “How difficult is it to relay a message from our esteemed Creator? We all have other matters to attend,” came a voice from the doorway.

  Sammael strutted into the Council Room, amused by the confounded Seraphim. His body had changed over time, now malformed and gnarled. His once exquisite locks of maroon hair dangled in matted tufts over a splotched skull. Michael could not help but recoil.

  “Did you fail to remember, Logos, that I’m also a Seraph by right?” Sammael said and released his six crimson wings, the emaciated feathers but meager memories of glory. Michael swore he saw the beginnings of a smile beneath Satanail’s stare.

  “Sammael…it was thought that you rescinded all claim to the Council,” Michael replied. “It has been long since you expressed any interest in angelic affairs beyond your borders.”

  “Suns have ignited and extinguished since the Council last convened. This must be a meeting of great significance for Heaven, and I intend to represent my people’s interests. Please, continue.” Sammael’s arrival was disconcerting but appropriate.

  The Word was meant for all.

  “First and foremost, brothers, know that I love Heaven. I love the home we have built here, but we are on the verge of a new era,” Michael said. “Heaven can no longer be separate from our Father’s other works. The balance of Creation is shifting. I have seen the beginnings of a new race, one that could finally flourish as we have.”

  Michael expected an immediate backlash, but the silence that followed was even more blaring. He looked towards Satanail and received the same laconic stare without criticism or support.

  Ignore Satanail’s frozen tongue. Remain committed. Confident.

  “What does that mean, ‘another race’?” Gabriel asked.

  Michael unfolded a parchment across the table. Sketched on the paper were drawings of a male and female from the species he saw in his vision, a people he chose to name “Mankind.”

  “This…is Mankind,” Michael announced with all the pride he could muster. “This species, these humans, are children of the Creator as we are, an innocent race yet in its infancy.”

  Murmurs of disapproval sounded from the Seraphim.

  “Mankind?” Sammael tested the new word on his tongue and then spat on the floor. “Ugh, the name tastes of shit.”

  “They’ve no wings,” Uriel added. “Almost like sad, hairless apes.”

  “Why would the Creator deny them flight?” Cassiel asked.

  “Their gifts lay elsewhere. They have the ability to breed and create life,” Michael replied, dreading the reaction it would elicit.

  “Such subtle and chaste reproductive organs,” Raphael said of Mankind’s genitalia. “Magnificent.”

  The others were not as open-minded.

  Gabriel slammed a fist onto the table. “In all our devotion, we’ve never been given the ability to procreate. Every creature on Heaven can reproduce, but not us. What has Mankind done to warrant such favor?”

  “It is necessity, not favor,” Michael reassured. “They need to reproduce to evolve. We do not.”

  “They’ll die off into oblivion, like all of Father’s other failed experiments of biological whimsy,” Sammael said.

  “Single-celled failures with no intelligence,” Cassiel clarified. “How many of these humans exist? Where are they located? What if their numbers have the potential to overrun the Host?”

  “They inhabit a blue planet deep in Creation and far from Heaven,” Michael explained.

  The personalities of the Seraphim were at their most divisive. Sammael’s dismissal of Mankind as inferior was no surprise nor was Cassiel’s focus on facts, but Gabriel’s reaction to reproduction was unexpected. Michael never knew he had a desire to procreate and would need to appease similar envy should it arise in the Host.

  “I understand your concerns. But what I have seen for us is something wonderful, something we have always lacked: purpose. Purpose beyond our own welfare. All of our experiences, all that we have learned, we can bring to Mankind. We must protect and shepherd them. If we do not…they will destroy themselves.”

  “Pardon me, Michael, but I fail to see how their future is our responsibility,” Cassiel said.

  “I welcome the chance to edify new brothers, but Cassiel is correct,” Raphael added. “We are not the caretakers of Creation. Nature dictates that life must survive without our influence.”

  “Mankind has defied the infinite obstacles of evolution and become unique. Worth preserving. The Creator does not want them to perish. They are His children, our kin. We cannot sit idle and allow their annihilation,” Michael responded with a fervor he hoped to spread.

  “What you saw could have already happened. Entire systems of planets meet their end with every cycle,” Cassiel continued.

  “No, Mankind’s fate is not set in stone. Their future is bound to our own—that is His Word. If you wish to mature as a species and break from the lull of stagnancy we have made for ourselves, then this is it. This is our destiny.”

  “To serve?” Sammael sneered.

  “To teach. To men
tor, something you should all understand. Is that not the role of a Seraph? To guide and inspire the Host of Heaven?”

  The Council again fell silent. Everything Michael preached stemmed from a feeling within. But even as he spoke in favor of Mankind, his mind skirted around the bleak feasibility that his interpretation of the Creator’s Word was wrong.

  “Evolution, destiny, I’ve no mind for it…but I’ll follow your lead, Michael. You’ve earned as much,” Uriel said. “How do we travel to this planet to begin our task?”

  “We will find a way.”

  “Putting aside the metaphysical repercussions of carving passage across Creation, if we were to open such a path, they too could use it to travel here. If Mankind’s nature is destruction, what would stop them from wreaking that havoc on Heaven?” Cassiel asked.

  The questions were overwhelming Michael. He had accepted Mankind on faith and assumed the other Seraphs would do the same. Satanail’s words, his allure, could influence them, so why did he remain silent? It was a betrayal. Michael expected the Archon’s voice of reason to bolster his own, but without it all he could muster was the simple affirmation of—

  “This is the will of the Creator.”

  “Asinine lunacy,” Sammael said. The savory words dripped from his tongue like syrup.

  Uriel jumped to a stand. “It’s not your place to question the Creator.”

  “It’s exactly our place,” Gabriel barked. “Michael said it himself: our duty is to guide the Host. If a threat arises, no matter the source, we must question it.”

  “Since when do you respect duty?” Uriel taunted.

  “Enough of this,” Michael commanded, but his voice went unheard in the smog of hostility spreading among the Seraphim.

  “Yes, it is enough. The Creator wouldn’t ask this of us. Or rather, of you…his self-proclaimed favored sons,” Sammael said, if only to enflame the argument.

  “No, He wouldn’t. Michael, to even flirt with the possibility is blasphemy against our divine existence,” Gabriel continued.

  “INSOLENCE!” Uriel shouted and released his wings.

  Uriel soared over the table and landed in front of Gabriel, muscles flexing. Gabriel met the intimidation with his own wings, his face only reaching up to Uriel’s chest but seething with undaunted fury. Michael may have failed to recreate the euphoric rhapsody he felt upon witnessing the Creator’s new children, but he would not allow such aggression to spread.

  The Seraphim would respect their Logos, their Creator, and fall in line.

  Satanail was the only Seraph who remained seated as Uriel and Gabriel teetered on the brink of madness. The invitation he sent to Sammael had attracted the outcast to voice a negative opinion without Satanail as the dissenter. Satanail was alarmed, however, of the pleasure he derived from the conflict. Gabriel’s dispute was helpful, but a part of him still wanted to see the cocky Seraph taught a lesson in manners. Violence that Satanail would’ve recently found abhorrent now carried a certain appeal that was…delicious.

  “Lay a hand on me, and it’ll take every last Throne to mend you,” Gabriel warned Uriel.

  “Come now, brothers. Pause and breathe,” Raphael pleaded. “Inhale the calm and exhale your ire.”

  “He must be taught respect,” Uriel said and shoved Gabriel clear across the room.

  Satanail rose to his feet, gripped with excitement. He stepped aside as Gabriel lunged forward and speared his shoulder into Uriel’s gut, driving them both into the ground.

  “Stop this,” Michael said, again ignored.

  Gabriel cocked back a closed fist and hurled it onto Uriel’s eyebrow. His knuckles split open a ragged gash that coated Uriel’s face in a wet, bloody mask. Disappointing. What was the use of Uriel’s brawn if a single blow crumpled him like a sack of stone?

  “STOP THIS!”

  Michael yanked the two Seraphs apart with ease. The bass in his voice rumbled through Satanail’s body and carried out of the archway, causing entire lines of angels to halt. When pushed, the might of his brother never ceased to impress.

  The Word had splintered the Council, the most united angels in the Host. Not an encouraging prelude for Michael’s cause, Satanail thought. And yet, why does it feel so satisfying?

  Sammael chuckled. “And you call my people savages. You’re not fit to guide or protect anyone. Leave me out of your controversies. I’ll have nothing to do with Mankind. If you care for the Host, neither will any of you,” he said and tore the parchment.

  “…Leave this Council, Sammael,” Michael ordered. “Or I will eject you myself.”

  “Gladly,” Sammael replied and dove out of the archway. His purpose served, Satanail had no further desire to waste eyes upon the malignant Seraph again.

  Uriel groaned, voice bubbling under the wound leaking into his mouth. Such intentional bloodshed had never been seen in Heaven. Satanail was confident that Michael couldn’t ignore what happened. The Word would be delayed or rejected altogether.

  “Remain still,” Raphael said and placed a hand over Uriel’s face to begin healing.

  Gabriel stared at his stained fist as if he had awakened from a repulsive dream. His rage drained into a devastating remorse. Though Uriel’s gash was healed, smatterings of blood remained on his face and the floor as evidence of Gabriel’s malfeasance.

  “Uriel, I…I didn’t…”

  “Listen to me very carefully, all of you. I will not repeat this again.” Michael flew around the room, driving his words into each Seraph. “This is no longer a discussion. I have relayed the Word. Whatever doubts you harbor, reconcile them now. We need to be united in our presentation to the Host. I asked you all here for support, but if that is not something you can pledge, then relinquish your title of Seraph.”

  The Seraphim’s altercation only reinforced Michael’s resolve. Satanail was too aggressive in his attempted manipulation—an error in judgment he’d not repeat.

  “We are here for you, Michael,” Raphael replied.

  “Then I expect your actions to support that pledge. Clean up this mess,” Michael said and stomped out of the room.

  Satanail followed Michael in an attempt to salvage the outcome of his plan. He flew ahead and blocked the corridor.

  “Michael, wait.”

  “Now you wish to speak?” There was disgust in Michael’s voice. “I expected the others’ reluctance, but I relied on having your support. You did not speak a single syllable in my favor.”

  “Because they needed to hear it from you. If I had argued on your behalf, it would’ve only served to undermine your authority. You are the Logos.”

  “I know what I am!” Michael was irate.

  “Then you know what must be done. Your closest brethren, angels of the highest class, just came to blows from conversation. What’ll happen to the Host when faced with the same distressing knowledge?” Satanail asked.

  “They will embrace their faith, as you should have done for me,” Michael replied. His fanaticism was immune to logic.

  “You preach but don’t listen. I implore you: postpone any announcement. There’s nothing to gain in rushing this, Michael.”

  “There will be no delay. You were not there. What Mankind will do to itself, the rampant death…the pain…you did not see it. You did not feel them die.”

  “No, I didn’t. Only you did,” Satanail said. “This time, that won’t be enough.”

  “It has to be.”

  Michael walked past Satanail, intent on announcing Mankind to the Host. The outrage that befell the Council would envelop Heaven. More drastic measures had to be taken. Satanail couldn’t stand idle and let an errant declaration dismantle his life’s work. If Michael wanted to abandon his divinity in favor of servitude, that was his right, but Satanail wouldn’t allow him to make that decision for anyone else.

  The Host had a choice…and Satanail chose freedom.

  CHAPTER 8

  Separate Paths

  Michael glided over Araboth City, unable to sleep, bu
t found the mountain hushed. There was no bustle in the market or spirited exhibitions in the Coliseum. Even the whistle of the wind ceased, coating the air and streets with a thick, unnatural silence. Was the suspension of revelry a glimpse of Araboth’s future? Would the days ahead forever rob the city of its vitality?

  The Sanctuary doors welcomed visitors, but its pews were empty. Michael entered the deserted sanctum and stood at the altar. His sermons were capable of imbuing tens of thousands of angels with an unshakable, binding faith, but what if that gift had waned? The Council session left Michael with a deep sense of shame. Stubborn and indignant, he spoke not as a leader but as a ruler demanding obedience. Not only did he ignore the Seraphim’s valid concerns, he faulted them for it. He called their faith into question and drove a wedge of distrust between friends. How would the Creator judge such a glaring lapse in leadership? Satanail’s warning echoed in Michael’s mind: if he could not compel his closest advisors to see the beauty of Mankind, how could he expect the same—or more—from the Host?

  Michael considered returning to the Fires of Creation, but the Creator communicated on His own terms. He was the divine architect of all that was and ever would be, not a net to rely upon when doubt shattered the footing of surety. Michael had to trust that he received all the required knowledge and that the Creator’s influence was guiding his decisions.

  “Michael,” Gabriel said from the entrance, his face drooped in remorse. “May I enter?”

  “You need never ask,” Michael replied. “How is Uriel?”

  “No permanent physical damage, but other effects linger.”

  “Forgiveness relieves all afflictions.”

  “I doubt that Uriel would agree. What I did to him…I’ve sinned, and I don’t know why. I feel…tainted.” Self-contempt halted Gabriel’s words. He dropped to his knees before the altar.

  “Absolution begins from within,” Michael said.

  “Only for those that deserve it.”