Angels and the Bad Man

by M. K. Gibson

  The Tears of God.

  The Tears were each about two feet long and rippled as they floated. They were not solid, nor liquid. They were a sort of tangible energy. And they cast off the purest, warmest, most powerful light. A light so beautiful I felt shame for looking upon it. As if my very perception of it tainted the raw nature of the photons in motion.

  “Welcome,” a voice said from behind me.

  I spun around, my hands going to my blasters. Behind me, sitting now upon the previously empty thrones, were three beings. If I were to call them angels, that would be like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground.

  These beings, while indeed angels, were so much more. Each of them was twice the size of Chael. Each of them was dressed in armor and garb that told a story of who they were.

  The first female was adorned in thick, crimson battle armor trimmed in silver and a quilted brown leather war skirt. Her form conveyed a simple message—warrior. Her skin was a purple so deep it was almost black, while her hair, eyebrows, eyes, lips and fingernails were pure gold. She was handsomely beautiful. Golden angelic script tattoos lined her strong jaw. Her wings had dark purple feathers with golden downy highlights.

  While the first angel gave off an air of calm confidence and quiet power, the second female was anything but subtle. She was dressed in shamanistic garb and armor of leathers and feathers, tinted the color of the storms after a sunset. Her flesh was half black and half white, split down the middle of her face. Each side was tattooed with the opposing color. Her wings transitioned from dark to light gray with blood-red tips. Her hawkish features stared at me with an intensity and familiarity once only reserved for a most-hated enemy.

  Last, the third angel stared at me with an intensity that made me want to hide and weep. The angel wore a lower faceplate made of a strange silver metal. Only its glowing green eyes peered through the hooded cowl.

  Neither male nor female, the being sat there, relaxed yet ready to spring at a moment’s notice. It wore a dark blue armor over a sleeveless black robe which split past a braided belt into divided skirts. Silver script and runes were embroidered in the angel’s garments, matching their ornate interwoven silver bracers. Silvery and black tattoos flowed up its thin yet muscular slate-gray arms.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am Gabrielle,” said the purple and gold female. I sensed that if I crossed her, she would systematically destroy me in a clean and efficient way.

  “Remiel,” the black and white female replied. Her voice rumbled and rolled. I felt electricity charge through the space between us. If she were to turn on me, then it would not be a clean death.

  “Sariel,” the final being said.

  “Uh, hi. I’m—”

  “We know who you are,” Sariel announced.

  “Yeah, that was dumb,” I mumbled. “What is this place? And how did I get in here?”

  “This is the Shrine of Light. And we are its Guardians. This is where we protect The Tears of God and guide its light to the dark places of the world. And you were allowed sanctuary because your need was great and selfless.”

  Remiel gave me a hawkish, stern glare, tilting her head at an odd angle. “If it were our decision, you would have remained barred from this sanctuary.”

  The power of the three guardians rolled off them in waves of energy, life, hope, and fear. I felt that they were in fact holding back the very essence of their true selves, lest it bring me to my knees. It was hard to meet their gazes.

  “You’re more than just angels, aren’t you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes,” Sariel said. “Archangels. We are of the Fourteen. Three of the original Virtues. Gabrielle is The Purest Strength of Will. Remiel is the Raging Storm of Unyielding Faith. And I am The Truest Mercy.”

  I felt cold to my core when Sariel spoke, yet there was comfort in the sense of finality.

  “You’re Death.”

  “A name I have been called, yes.”

  Oh . . . crap. The Angel of Death. Salem, what have you gotten yourself into? I was clearly in over my head. I tried to look around calmly for an immediate exit.

  “I am here because—” I started.

  “You are here to try and remove the Tears of God,” Gabrielle said flatly, finishing my thought. I felt the urge to run away from her stern gaze.

  “No I’m not,” I lied reflexively.

  “Do NOT lie to us,” Remiel bellowed in a voice that was half roar and half screech.

  “We do not appreciate lies in this place,” Sariel said.

  Crap. I think I just pissed off The Angel of Death.

  In moments like these, I had always found that honesty was indeed the best policy. When your back was to a wall and the big scary whatever it was had you by the balls, lying to them almost never worked out. Mostly because “big and scary” got to be that way by already knowing the truth. And much like the cops of olden days, they just wanted the confession.

  “Yeah. I am. I need them,” I said aloud as I looked at my feet. Then, as I thought about why I needed The Tears, I felt a surge of righteous courage.

  I lifted my eyes to meet their faces. “Not for me, but so that others may live. So that others may have a chance of survival. Because I fucked up and the only way to save these people is to bring back The Tears. So, does this mean we are going to fight?” I asked, my hands rested on my blasters.

  “No. We will not,” Sariel said, and I let out a relieved breath. Sariel gestured toward the pedestal. “You are free to attempt to take The Tears. You have one chance. Are you worthy?”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  We Were There

  If being in the presence of the archangels was enough to make me quake in my boots, then standing before a piece of God made me want to fall to my knees and weep for forgiveness. There, in the center of this magnificent room, I felt small and insignificant. I felt unclean. Worthless. Every sin and act of moral malfeasance I had ever committed was there, just resting below my skin like a vile oil.

  I’ve done a lot of horrible things. I thought I had come to terms with them long ago. But here, in this place, before the Tears, it was like I needed to confess. I needed absolution. I needed to feel like a child again, innocent and full of faith instead of aged and full of denial and bullshit justifications.

  I approached the Tears of God. I cautiously reached my hand out to touch them, then stopped. I looked back over my shoulder at Gabrielle, Remiel, and Sariel.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  “If you can take them, then you can take them. If your need is great and you feel you are worthy, then The Tears will follow,” Sariel said.

  “However,” Gabrielle cautioned me, “if the Tears are removed, their current purpose will cease to be.”

  “What?”

  Crap. Naturally there was a catch.

  “OK, I’ll bite. What’s their current purpose?”

  “We focus the Tears of God through this dynamic space, in many places at once, to push The Light into the dark places of the world,” Gabrielle explained.

  “Come again?”

  “We keep the Deep Ones at bay,” said Sariel.

  “While simultaneously trying to bless this world with the last remnants of His Grace,” Gabrielle finished.

  Double crap.

  “You’re telling me these things are what’s keeping the Deep Ones back?”

  “The only things,” Remiel confirmed. “The Light that the Tears of God emit transcends the physical. His Light is their enemy. From here we can project that Light into the deepest of the firmament. To the darkest of the waters. The Tears maintain the Balance. While keeping this universe’s greatest nemesis at bay, they shine their warmth on all of mankind.”

  Something inside me snapped when I heard Remiel take credit for something I knew was a lie. “That’s bullshit!” I yelled at the archangel with a ferocity that surprised us both.

  On instinct, my hand went to my weapons. Gabrielle’s angelic warb
lade had already cleared its scabbard in a blink. Thunder rumbled in the shrine while a miniature lightning storm crackled between Remiel’s hands. I saw her looking at me, and I just stared right back.

  Sariel did nothing but watch me.

  “You think what you’re doing is helping mankind?! HOW DARE YOU?! Answer me, goddammit!”

  A wave of unseen force crashed into me.

  I was lifted off the ground and propelled backwards into the stone and crystal wall at major league fastball speed. My head slammed against the wall hard enough that I tasted copper. My vision blurred and the air escaped my lungs. I hung there several feet off the ground, held up by sheer will. Before me, Sariel stood with an arm outstretched in a—I shit you not—Jedi Force choke gesture.

  “We told you not to blaspheme,” Sariel said flatly.

  I don’t do bullies and I don’t do censorship. America may have fallen two centuries ago, but I still felt in my heart of hearts, the Red, White and fuck-you Blue. So, I exercised my First Amendment right to speak my mind as plainly as possible. But with trying to choke in air, all I could do was extend my middle finger.

  Despite a distinct lack of dignity, I think I pulled it off. But there was no way I was done my rant. Sucking in as much air as possible, I unloaded.

  “I’ve got news for you three. The world freaking sucks! Out there, inside the light of His Grace”—I tried my best to air quote with my hands as I hung there—“it is a cesspool of demonic tyranny and shit. Near soulless men and women walk about every fucking day in their gray-washed lives. They grovel and scrape. Beg and steal. They’re alive, but not living. Every day people are taken off the streets by demonic enforcers and no one says shit because that’s just how it is.”

  I yelled as best I could. My throat was raw, but I was just getting warmed up. “I lived through it all. The Wars. The surrenders. The destruction of the old world and the building of the new civilization. The poor and the hungry and the cold, forced to live in places that rats abandon, only to be gobbled up by some of the Lesser Deep. So good job on that one, a-holes! So you can tell yourself you are doing good work keeping back the Deep Ones all you like, but I’m here to tell you, you suck at your job. And you know what I never felt in all the time since G-Day? Not one iota of hope, or light, or your warmth! So I don’t know if the three of you are locked in here doing shadow puppets, but it sure as shit isn’t helping mankind!”

  After yelling, I seethed, catching my breath. Beyond my own labored breathing there was no sound. The archangels did not respond; they simply watched me. Remiel and Gabrielle stood and joined Sariel, flanking the Angel of Death.

  “When you fell from the Citadel of Abraxas,” Sariel whispered, “we were there.”

  “What?”

  “When you were cold and alone in Flotsam, we were there,” Remiel added.

  “Deep down, you knew you could not quit,” Gabrielle said, slowly lowering Sariel’s hand, guiding me gently back to the ground. “You wanted to. But something inside you refused to let go. And as that spark of resistance almost vanished, like a lone candle flame in the wind, ready to flicker out, you felt something reignite it. Something that gave you just enough of a push to persevere. That is what we do.”

  “We see everything,” Remiel said, casting her hand upward.

  The crystal dome of the shrine shifted. Each and every little facet within the massive crystal dome was now a window to somewhere in the world. Hundreds of millions of tiny scenes played out. They shifted over and over so fast it seemed like the twinkling stars of night.

  I saw the world. Lives being lived. People in their darkest moments, the saddest of times. Each one at a crossroads of pain. Yet they hesitated before continuing down the path of destruction. Not all of them chose to fight on. But some did. And I felt joy. Hope.

  “The world is a very large place,” Gabrielle said, putting her blade away. “I am here, in this place, to give them the will to go on.”

  “I bless those who show faith to something greater than themselves in the face of opposition,” Remiel said.

  “And I am the blessed mercy so many need,” Sariel said almost sweetly. “You must understand, we cannot change the lives of so many. When He left, we were also left behind.”

  “Seven of the Fourteen took refuge here. We focused our abilities and power to help mankind for as long as we could. We created a home for those who no longer wanted to live in the world. Those who were too angry at mankind to live among them. Those who blamed the His absence on your kind.”

  I looked at the seven thrones, then at the three of them. “What happened to the the other four?” I asked.

  Sariel, Blessed Mercy, Angel of Death, looked away, saddened. Garbielle placed her arm on the archangel’s shoulder while Remiel spoke.

  “We lost Hanael, the Purity of Joy, shortly after The Abandonment. Where she went, we do not know. With her went the Joy of Man went. Raphael walks the world of man while Orphiel oversees a realm, leading his mutations.”

  “And the other?” I asked. “That’s six. Where’s the seventh?”

  Gabrielle looked to Remiel, who then looked to Sariel.

  At Sariel’s nod, Gabrielle spoke. “As long as this shrine has stood, in a time and place that exists, yet does not, The Deep Ones have tried to corrupt this, the last of Holy Places. They eventually succeeded in their attempt to corrupt one of us. A thin tendril of corruption laid low the heart of our ally and mightiest of us. They made him doubt the cause, made him lose his faith. And the corruption of the Deep Ones transformed him into their powerful thrall.”

  Her voice resonated an ocean of regret. “He is no longer with us. No longer an archangel, exiled from this place. He is now twisted and dark. And he seeks to remove the Light from The Tears of God. To allow the Deep Ones full entrance into this world.”

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Outside this shrine, attempting to slaughter the very angels he once swore to protect and lead against the adversary Satan.”

  Holy . . . freaking . . . crap. That meant . . .

  “Chael?” I asked.

  “A simpler name for a simpler form,” Gabrielle said. “Once I called him my brother. Once, he was known as ‘He Who Is Like God’. He, like Sariel, Remiel, and I, was of the Fourteen. He was Courage in The Darkest of Places.”

  Sariel’s glowing green eyes stared at me through the shroud of darkness. “You, and the world, knew him as the Archangel Michael.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Beyond Strangers, Beyond Enemies

  Michael.

  Chael. Mi Chael.

  Michael.

  Seriously? I lifetime of playing Scrabble and I didn’t see that? That’s it. I am now officially the dumbest human that ever was or ever will be. But in my defense, how often does one come across a ten-foot bloody psychopath and think “angelic deity”?

  “Chael is Michael? The Michael? The guy who fought the great Dragon and led all the choirs of angels?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Yes,” Sariel said.

  “He was the Second of the Fourteen. The Second Child of Light. While Pride came First, he who would be called Lucifer the Morningstar, Michael was the Second and equal and opposite of his older brother. For when Light was absent, there was Dark. And thus the Courage to Face the Absence of the Light was created. In all things powerful and courageous Michael was,” Gabrielle said, saddened.

  “Can he be fixed? Could he be an archangel again?”

  “We do not know,” Sariel said. “I fear my brother is forever taken by The Deep Ones.”

  “That’s why he has been helping me,” I said aloud to no one as my mind raced back to Flotsam Prison. It was only when I mentioned the Tears of God did Chael’s dementia shift and his demeanor change. He became helpful. Hell, he was the only reason we got off the island.

  I knew he was crazy and possessed, but I didn’t realize there was enough gray matter in his head to carry out a long-term agenda like the removal of The Tears.<
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  “If I take The Tears, then The Deep Ones will awaken fully and enter this world?” I asked.

  “Not immediately. But eventually. Years, maybe? Another eon? No one knows for sure. What we do know is their lesser minions and possessed ones already walk the world, carrying out their bidding. Creation itself is their prison. If they were to wake up and regain their full power, they would rip the world apart. And everyone and everything would perish.”

  “So, I take The Tears and save my people. But ultimately they die, and I’d be subjecting the world to increased Deep One deaths and possessions?”

  “Essentially,” Remiel said.

  Well, that’s it. That’s my choice. Take The Tears and save my people for now and screw the world. Or leave them and watch Löngutangar burn while the crappy, shitty, dreary, subjugated world limps ever onward.

  So, how would you like to be violated: anally or orally?

  Maybe I could get back in time and move my people again, I thought. But that was stupid. No, I couldn’t. Even if I could be there right now, I’d never get them out in time. And where would we go? Into the waste again? Back to Midheim? We would all be tracked down and killed.

  The magnitude of the situation hit me. Overwhelmed me.

  I dropped to my knees, right there in the beautiful crystal and stone shrine where no one but three archangels could see me, and I wept. Tears ran down my face. I was beaten. How could I remove the Tears and let the world suffer so only my friends and family could live? And even then, they would eventually suffer. So The Tears had to stay and keep us in this wretched state because the alternative was far worse. Hell, I didn’t even know why Lady Bathin wanted them. Maybe some sort of power reserve for her and her demon lackeys.

  So, that was my answer.

  I thought of all the people of Löngutangar. I thought of my mother and father. I could never get their machines out in time. Their existence I had taken for granted. And they would forever be gone to me. The one tie I had to a family, to life before G-Day. Gone.