Salem arrived with a sulfuric wind, a small goat under each arm. “Babies!” He lauded. “Better blood.”
“Thanks,” Iofiel said, keeping her distance. “My binds gotten worse, though, so I can’t give you what I owe in return. We might have to wait a little bit.” She swallowed. She couldn’t tell him, but if everything worked out, he wouldn’t need a blessing in order to get lost in the chaos. She liked to believe, end of it all, she was someone who repaid their debts.
“We don’t need goats,” Archie said.
“Hello, imp.” Salem put the goats on the ground, and put his hands on his hips. “What the hell are you two up to?”
“You want another scar?”
“What, have you learned past your first spell yet? Ooo, impressive.”
“Don’t be an asshole, Salem,” Iofiel tutted, and he straightened up.
“Ok. I’m going to stand off to the side, and I won’t snitch if you follow through on your promise.”
“What is she giving you?” Archie asked.
“A chance at a career in soccer,” Salem answered proudly. Archie failed to hide his snickering. “Hey! A general chance at a non-demon life, thank you very much.”
“Whatever. Iofiel, are you feeling better?”
“No, but you should hurry and get started anyway.” There was a good chance the moment she saw Morningstar she’d simply die, or send out a beacon to the Archangels, but at least she’d given it a go.
Archie kicked apart Salem’s summoning circle— a very standard set up, with his Infernal name in the middle of a shaky ring. Archie cut his hand open, and bled into the dirt, slowly tracing out Morningstar’s name and sigil. It was exceedingly simple, even more basic than Salem’s— beyond the blood, of course, which it looked like Archie wasn’t producing nearly enough of. With a cautious look back at Iofiel, he cut open his vein until his left hand was blood soaked, and reran his marks.
Then, a song. It sounded so weird from Archie’s mouth, since it was clearly Angelic in origin, and it was brief and awkward, not quite anything Iofiel knew but familiar all the same. All was then quiet in the woods.
When a demon was summoned, they knew it, and had a moment to prepare in most cases. Morningstar took his time, but then he was there: as plain as ever, as un-lovely as a day-old baguette.
“Good morning, dear,” he said to Archie immediately, cleaning and healing his wound. “What a scrape you’ve welcomed me into.”
“You,” Iofiel took a step forward.
“I have a name, honey. You angels have always been so odd about avoiding it, but— ah, is that it?” He grinned as he took in her bound arm, which continued to pulsate and burn. “I can’t help you with that. I’m an Angel, darling— the same class as you. Fame can’t change some things.”
“You know far more than an average Angel though. And I don’t need you to fix me. I need you to— I—”
“I could kill you, you know, honey-dear-darling-angel. This is a disturbance in my schedule, and truth be told, I’m not fond of such things.”
“You wouldn’t kill me though.”
He raised one immaculately and artistically shaved eyebrow. “Oh, are we playing a game? There’s no need to dance like this. That bind isn’t set to kill.”
“Free will. The right to choose things, and do things, even the wrong things— you’d never kill an idiot like me, who—” Iofiel spoke fast, hiccupping with laughter. “I love everything. I love the world. I love humans. I love Heaven, I love God, and I need your help to kill Archangel Michael.”
“Dear,” Morningstar’s grin crept across his face, displaying his perfectly straight white teeth. “Oh dear, oh dear. What has Our Father’s greatest warrior done now?”
“He’s been trying to force the apocalypse through magic, and while there’s no harm in dyeing a sea red, or trying to kill the devil—”
“Ah, la, what?”
“The city we met in— it was his order, I’m sure of it. It’s gone. Everyone is dead. It’s a message to me, a message to the world, a sign of the end— but mostly it’s a lot of dead humans who didn’t deserve to end up dead. Archangel Michael will not stop until he’s sure he’s begun the End Game, but I don’t want that. I don’t want him to kill! Nor I do want some End at all, honestly. It’s free will. Humans have it, and the apocalypse is just a big thing trying to circumvent— I don’t know. The purpose of humans in the first place?”
“Slow down there, hun.” Her arm was shaking uncontrollably, searing hot, and tears were streaming down her face. Morningstar touched her skin gingerly, and she yelped. With one, agonizingly slow fingernail, he traced a white line down her arm. She tried her best not to scream, biting her lip instead, sucking on the inside of her cheeks.
When he reached her hand, he whispered something, and the pain immediately ceased. “Thank you,” she said.
Morningstar looked up, scanning the woods. “You know I’m not fond of humans.”
“But you are big on free will. You wanted angels to have it, like humans do.”
“I’ll tell you what I dislike: most things. I’m not fond on humanity, but I’m less fond of Michael.”
“Even if you don’t like them, humans do have the right to... get themselves killed. I can’t stop it if the apocalypse does start, if we really are faced with... whatever old prophecy. But it shouldn’t be rung in artificially. They have the right to lead to their own ends, the right for The War to be won through humans proving themselves as either good or bad. That’s the big experiment, right? What nature free will would afford?”
“Why do you look to me like I’m going to help you?” Morningstar asked. “Even if I knew the answers, I wouldn’t bother to tell you. But I will do this,” and he grinned again, wide and menacing.
Without a word, he did something she’d never seen before— wove a spell too complex for her to understand, too old-world to make sense. Archangel Michael’s bind had been alien too, but at least she knew it was a bind of some sort. Morningstar’s augment of it was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Even if he was just a lowly Angel like her, he had been alive since the beginning of time. He’d seen the world come about, and had learned a thing or two in that time.
He touched her bound arm, and it started to hurt again, until he wove whatever he’d just cast around the binding spell— briefly, the dark markings flashed red. His smile had faded as he’d worked, but when he finished he flashed her another one, then tousled her hair with his bloody fingertips.
“There you are, kid. Pierce him open and touch his blood, and he will be dead. One favor you’ll have to do in return— when you get to Heaven, touch the ground for me, will you?”
“What?”
“Was something unclear there?”
“Yes, a little bit.”
“Well. Enjoy being a traitor.” Morningstar snapped his fingers as he stepped away from her, walking back towards his summoning circle. Then one of the baby goats bleated, and he stopped to examine them. “How odd.” He picked one up, and then gestured towards a shocked Salem to pick up the other.
He did, and the moment he had Morningstar left in a flash of light, taking Archie and Salem with him.
Iofiel was alone in the woods, her arm now startlingly cold instead of hot, and though she would’ve loved to collapse and take a nap, she kicked up her sigil and did a fairly weak illusion spell in case any angels caught scent of the spilt demon blood.
She was too tired to fly, but it was important to get as far away as possible. The woods were wide and sparse, ancient and not commonly walked. She didn’t know where the nearest footpath was, but stumbled downhill, woozy-headed. One thing to do now, then. Maybe two.
Worrying would do nothing, so she did her best not to. Iofiel was a way off from the summoning space, at least, when she finally collapsed among ferns and fallen branches. She blacked out almost instantly, too weary to properly hide her wings or halo.
It was night when she woke again, still worn out but at least st
rong enough to sit up. The trees were too tall to let much light in, and Iofiel shivered. It was a little bit cool out, but not enough that demanded she use magic to keep herself warm.
She prepared to fly, going through the motions of the same old illusion spells she was obliged to use, when she thought she saw something. Like a person, or a cut out of one, not far from her.
It was probably shadows playing on the tree trunks, but it was enough to shake her hold on the spell. She started working to hide her halo again, but something about the shadow bothered her. It wasn’t right. It didn’t blend in perfectly.
It looked like a mirror in the woods, person shaped but reflecting back. To shake her fear, Iofiel started walking forward at a slight angle, hoping to prove it a mere shadow— but the moment she got within twenty feet, it moved.
It turned.
It was mirror-like alright, person shaped and ten feet tall even just sitting on its knees. It— they crawled forward. Though difficult to make out, they definitely had a halo— a thin silver-white bar that blended into the dark forest. A Principality, Iofiel guessed, though they were doing a great job hiding.
“Are you, uh... in charge of the city?” she asked. The mirror-coating on their skin didn’t include her reflection, just the dirt floor behind her. “Los Angeles?”
They didn’t speak. Angels didn’t always have mouths, but there were ways to get around that, and Principalities were in the third sphere of angels along with Angels and Archangels. Only higher angels generally needed translating.
“Hello?” she said, with a little wave. They weren’t being hostile, at least. There was a chance she had signs of demon-ness about her, but she was the one angel where that was allowed— and angels never attacked each other, anyway. Rule breakers were just put aside for Dominions or... Archangels...
There was a sort of snap, and someone grabbed Iofiel’s shoulder. In another blink, another clack, the woods fell back, and she was in the daylight of Heaven.
27: Maid Of Knives
HEAVEN HIT HER like a sack of marshmallow-scented bricks. She was too dizzy to see at first, but could feel she was being pulled along by the arm through the summer air. As her vision returned, she could see it was Archangel Zadkiel who’d grabbed her, and they’d arrived at one of the stone platforms used for transportation spells. The moment Zadkiel reached the edge of the platform he took to the air, easily lifting Iofiel with him.
He could have pulled her along without any help, but she spread her wings as well, and once she was up in the air he let go of her.
“Hello,” she said.
Zadkiel coolly ignored her. Like her, his hair was blue to emulate Michael. He had earrings like him too, large golden hoops, and a penchant for modern fashion. It made sense he was taking her to Michael again. It made sense Michael might’ve wanted to speak to her.
She needed to touch the ground. Part of Iofiel wondered if this was a trap by Morningstar, either a tell to get her killed or a curse. But it might’ve been part of his killing spell, too, without which she’d be useless.
They were flying above Heaven, the patchwork landscape full of souls— for Michaelmas they had been raked aside to make room, but it was more humane to let them wander. Especially since there were so many to begin with, several billion at least. Like a faint white fog, no space in all of Heaven was without a blurry spot.
Eden was a small pocket, and realizing she wouldn’t have another chance, Iofiel suddenly tucked her wings and fell towards the ground, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping to look ill.
She crashed through the branches of a pine tree, wincing as the twigs snapped and scratched. Then she slammed onto the ground, back first, which actually hurt like hell. Angels were a lot more durable in Heaven, as it wasn’t really a ‘real’ place anyway, but that didn’t mean the impact didn’t shock her.
She heard Zadkiel land and hurried onto her knees, digging a small hole in the ground with her fingernails and sticking her fist into the little concave she’d ended up with. She was grabbing the loose soil with one hand, squishing it, when Zadkiel picked her up by the collar of her coat.
“Have you lost your mind.”
“Yes. Sorry. I just wanted to— touch the ground.” She hoped saying that sounded as ridiculous as it did, and wasn’t some sort of code he’d know how to react to.
“If you drop again, I’m going to break your wings and carry you the rest of the way.”
He again tugged her into the air until she’d opened her wings and could fly beneath him. She hadn’t felt one ounce of anything from touching the ground, so perhaps Morningstar had been messing with her? They came to the tower and soared upwards, then circled down inside, looping slowly towards the bottom where Archangel Michael sat.
Though it hadn’t seem dressed up for Michaelmas, the tower was darker than before, the only light coming from above and their halos. The strange objects that floated in the middle of the tower were no longer spinning, but still sat suspended in the air.
The mosaic on the floor, of Michael felling Morningstar, seemed like a warning.
“Hi there,” Michael said the moment Iofiel’s feet touched the ground. “What have you been up to?”
“Don’t you know?” Iofiel asked, clutching her arm just in case it was supposed to be hurting.
“Either you’ve done your job, or you’ve made me very disappointed.”
Iofiel said nothing.
“I swear we’d made a good arrangement, Ioio. I swear you loved the world.”
“What are you accusing me of?”
“See, I see,” Michael said, touching her marked arm, “Why kill, when I can see? When I find sin, I like to punish it. But when someone drifts as far off as you, I figured it would be a good time to... rehearse example-making.”
“What have I done?”
“You know the devil. No bind is a perfect mirror, but I can feel him on you, I can smell sweat and sulfur on your skin, and who did you think you were kidding, beauty?” Michael whispered, his touch making her arm buzz again. “I’m going to break every bone in your body, burn your wings to ashes and bones, and then kill you. The next Iofiel will be better.”
The good thing was that he seemed unaware of exactly what she’d been up to— just that it had been against his boundaries, just that Morningstar had been involved. The bad thing was that Michael was Michael, infinitely more powerful than her, and Zadkiel was still here— if she attacked, one of them would be sure to stop her before she could break skin.
“I’m sorry,” Iofiel said, “But I haven’t done anything yet.”
“You’ve done more than enough.” Michael was sitting cross-legged on the floor, but he stood up, his skin blue in an instant, his golden eyes open. “To the tower’s edge. Zadkiel, send out the call.”
He took flight, and Iofiel could have fled, but then he’d likely break her wings and carry her himself. She followed, trying to think what to do— Zadkiel left, at least, but Michael was still— he was Archangel Michael.
“Wait!” She called up to him as they ascended. “What about the sigil? I can teach you.”
“I already know it,” Michael tutted, “He simply never comes to some angels. Only those like him— which leads to problems like you. I’ve lost too many lately,” sadness in his voice, but not his eyes, “but you’re the worst.”
He perched on the rim of the tower. It overlooked all of Heaven— a limited space that never quite ended, but at the same time did. It was like a bubble-shaped disc, the end of which was a solid white-grey mist that reflected back on itself like a mirror. Above was sky, but also further echoes of the land below.
There were always some angels in Heaven, most of the higher tier angels were confined here in fact, but looking down below there seemed to be an increasing number of Angels and Archangels- ones who had responsibilities on Earth. It wasn’t the same as all of them, like on Michaelmas, but Zadkiel had clearly followed through on his orders. An audience was growing for Iofiel’s fall.
Eden began to fill with angels of every shape and color, until a solid crowd was gathered in the trees and the clouds, Iofiel thought as hard as she could about daggers and knives.
Michael had on a single plate of armor underneath his green cowl, and underneath that was a black cloth tank top. Pierceable, Iofiel would describe it.
On the edge of the tower of Heaven, Iofiel, the angel of beauty, made a white-silver dagger out of magic for the first time in her life and planned to stab Archangel Michael in the gut. The knife was small and hot and pressed against her palm, the blade cutting into her skin a little as she hid it from sight. Michael wasn’t even looking at her, but she hid it from sight and wondered if he somehow knew. If her magic would fail her, if he would prove resistant to the flimsy spell work she’d practiced from Maalik’s textbook, or if he’d simply turn his head before she had a chance to strike— turn his head and smirk at her. As beautiful and aware as ever.
She tried moving, but found herself too stiff, and continued to stand there. Archangel Michael was beside her, and he pressed a large hand against her back, right between her wings. She wondered if she was imagining the burning sensation she felt from it.
In a flicker, her magic failed, and her hand closed into a fist, a little nick of blood dribbling down her knuckles. Then, with all her might, she pulled her hand open and tried to think of what peppermint smelled like.
And then Iofiel, with her little weak knife, stabbed Archangel Michael in the gut. She wiggled it a little in the wound, surprised at how flesh-like he was, and then pulled it out with an upward slash.
The moment she saw blood, she stuck her marked arm palm-first against his wound, and he fell back. Spine right against the stone, aghast, not moving, but not dead either.
Iofiel’s blood was in her ears, her skin, her veins, lips. She wasn’t sure if the angels below knew what had happened yet, and time seemed so, so slow— she fell on top of him as he foamed at the mouth, the skin around where she’d cut him peeling open like an onion.
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