Fall From Grace

by J. Edward Ritchie

  The paired rivers of milk and honey and oil and wine had evaporated into trickles that sizzled on the hot, dry earth. The paltry fluids were a scoffing tease like a single drop of water in a mouthful of sand. There were no animals alive to replenish the milk, no bees to cull nectar and produce honey, and no grapes to harvest for wine. Whatever manna remained in stores across Heaven would have to be rationed until the Host could deduce a new means of sustenance. Difficult times were ahead.

  Gabriel fidgeted with Sheburiel’s rings on his fingers, fondly recalling his old friend’s spicy attitude. The golden walls he guarded were split into sharp panels stuck in the ground like the teeth of a cavernous maw holding the dead Tree of Life. Gabriel dove in and flew through the maze of petrified branches. He felt something lure him down and descended farther into the tangled weave of roots as if to a source. He proceeded so deep that the light above became a flickering dot, like the distant grace of his own soul that he could see but no longer reach. At the convergence of the Tree’s roots was something magnificent—

  A seed, pulsing with hidden life and warm to the touch. Gabriel protected it in his hands like incubating an egg and flew back to the surface. He dug a hole, knowing the dirt couldn’t support life, and yet the seed compelled him to plant it. A thorn ejected, pricking his finger, and the seed fell from his hands. A single drop of blood splashed onto it and was absorbed. Gabriel filled in the hole and waited, unsure why…until a green sapling poked up. The dirt around it became fertile soil and expanded outward to rejuvenate Heaven’s lands that the creep of decay had killed.

  Angels gathered around Gabriel to watch the slow but steady spread of life. They rejoiced and hoisted him onto their shoulders. Gabriel should’ve been elated, but nothing stirred the cold vacancy within him. Surrounded by praise and love, Gabriel had never been more alone.

  Why can’t I feel anything, Father? Who am I now?

  After healing all those they could and laying the others to rest, Raphael and the Thrones returned to the ashes of Raqia. The air, once moist with precipitation, was coarse and stale. The lake by the Monastery clearing was stagnant and polluted with death, sullying any attempts at meditation. There was much work to do before the Choir could reinstitute their haven.

  The rainforest canopy was burnt away, and the ancient trees had withered into gnarled skeletons of bark, but Raphael believed that life was cyclical. Matter could never be truly destroyed, only transferred, thus linking all organic life via a singular omniscient will—the Creator. The dead brothers whom they buried had bequeathed their energy back to Heaven and become, in a sense, immortal. Raphael meant to channel that energy and see Raqia reborn from their divine matter.

  Raphael knelt and thrust his hands into the scorched earth. To his surprise, he sensed new life surging across Heaven, originating from Shehaqim. He concentrated his grace to summon it towards Raqia, bathing his body in a fluorescent glow.

  Father, permit me to be the conduit through which these lands can be nurtured and flourish as never before, he prayed.

  “We have healed each other, and now we must mend the wounds afflicted upon our home. Join me, brothers,” Raphael said to the Thrones. They knelt in a growth spiral outward from him and aligned their grace like a communal power source.

  A single blade of grass sprung from the dirt near Raphael’s hands. Rebirth had begun.

  When Uriel salvaged his Forge in Zebul, he also regained the stabilizing kernel of his psyche that had become disjoined by warfare. He soaked in the heat of the magma as it resurrected the Forge with an exultant roar. Soon, the clang of hammers on anvils began like opening notes shaping and molding the blacksmiths’ metallic composition. The rewards of a hard day’s labor were all that Uriel required from life.

  I’m home, he thought. Bless the Creator.

  Deliveries of wreckage arrived from across Heaven and were sorted into piles of similar ore to be melted down. Uriel had the daunting task of leading Heaven’s architectural renovation. It was to be rebuilt from the ground up absent Satanail’s distinct hand, and exciting designs were blossoming from the Princedoms. It would be a lengthy and taxing process, but Uriel bloomed in the undertaking. For him, the clarity of faith came from the physical exertion of creation. Robbed of that clarity by Satan, he had become intoxicated by destruction. His hammer swung with hate instead of love and would’ve putrefied his grace were it not for his brothers.

  It was Uriel’s ultimate gift to the Host, a spiritual privilege, to spend his life restoring the villages, cities and institutions that had been lost in the war—the gift of reconstruction.

  Since awakening in Michael’s home, Metatron chose to stay insulated from the Host. The war had to be recorded, a debilitating project that he could not ask of anyone else. For better or for worse, he was Heaven’s Scribe. Thus, Metatron abdicated his title of Seraph and segregated himself in a Mathey cave with a stack of parchment, reliving every gruesome detail of Satan’s rebellion. To emphasize the war’s severity, the text was inked in his own blood. The first sentence on the first page read: “The story of Heaven’s war begins with two brothers.”

  May this record survive the manipulation of time, Metatron prayed.

  So long were their lives that he feared details would be lost or transformed by the haze of memory into something more ideal. That would be a travesty of ignorance. The war was part of their history, ugly and vicious, but all mistakes held knowledge of self-improvement. The Host could learn far more about their nature from past failures than from the compliance of peacetime.

  During his brief intermissions, Metatron allowed his mind to wander to his mysterious savior. Michael refused to speak of her, only giving a name—Lilith. Why had she saved him? Where had she gone? Sometimes, in the dark of night when the wicks of his candles fizzled, Metatron thought he felt Lilith’s eyes on him. It was only under that unseen, watchful gaze that his thoughts cleared into the hush of slumber.

  The rubble of Araboth City was almost entirely cleared away, exposing a flat land rife with possibility as if the mountain had never existed. All that remained were traces of the Sanctuary that had collapsed into and buried the Chamber of Creation. Though Heaven was beginning to heal on multiple fronts, the Fires and Word had been mute since Michael’s battle with Satan. In the wreckage of Heaven’s heart, he hoped to locate some gleam of sacred direction.

  The gateway to Earth, a rift in space and time, had vanished after Michael’s return. Without a path to Mankind, how could the Host fulfill the divisive purpose that altered their way of life? The long road of healing was strengthening their bond beyond the confines of regions or Choirs. They were one again and eager for their next journey, so why had they been isolated from Mankind? Had Heaven’s war caused the Creator to deem the Host unfit, something to be contained like a toxin? Did He lose faith in His original children as Satan had proclaimed?

  Michael’s hands scraped beneath the piled stone but found nothing. The Host had disgraced their angelic roots and cost themselves their one hope for a meaningful future. Their destiny was expired, leaving them adrift in Creation.

  Father, we accept responsibility for our sins against you and Heaven. Forgive us, Michael prayed. May Mankind succeed where we fell short and become the children that Creation deserves. The Host’s prayers and love are with them, even if we are not.

  Michael released his wings to rejoin the Host when a flame ignited, no bigger than his fingernail. It danced and landed in his open palm then burst into a radiant, white sphere—the Fires of Creation, burning as bright and infinite as ever.

  “Father…?”

  The Fires entered Michael’s chest and fused with his soul. He felt them rise up and expand out of his forehead, encircling it like a blazing crown of grace. The halo provided a direct, constant connection to the Creator. It was divine enlightenment. Bliss.

  Michael’s halo attracted every angel in the region—and every angel in Heaven—like a silent vesper. One by one, they landed around the Chamber r
ubble. The rapturous Fires entered each angel and formed a halo. His Word was shared among the Host without favoritism or prejudice.

  Together, they were all the Logos.

  When the entire Host had gathered in Araboth and received their halos, the sacred ground beneath them parted. A gossamer bubble in the continuum of Creation imploded and reformed into a gateway. Through the luminescent tunnel, the Host beheld the pure beauty of planet Earth.

  “Guardians, it is time you all saw Earth and our human brothers for yourselves. I do not command but ask that you join me,” Michael said. “Enter of your own free will.”

  There was no dissent. The angels had no doubts, no fears, no questions—only love.

  CHAPTER 36

  Damnation

  Satan’s knees scraped against the edge of a remote bluff overlooking a sheer drop into the suffocating perpetuity of infinite nothingness. Chains forged of an unknown metal were clasped to his limbs and wings, binding him in the static position like a living statue. The links glowed bright orange from the heat of flames that enveloped and scalded his entire body. His black locks of hair had singed down to a broiling scalp. The skin wasn’t consumed, only disfigured, as if the fires chewed but wouldn’t swallow their meal. The constant duress prevented him from healing his shattered spine. Satan was trapped within the prison of his own paralyzed body.

  The pain…the pain was incessant and personalized like a consciousness sired by Satan’s sins. He had survived the gamut of agony under Sammael’s knife, but this was different, raw and organic with no emotional catalyst. Pain had become as routine as breathing, an axiom of life through which all of his senses were sifted. But Satan didn’t scream, not once. To acknowledge the pain would be to admit fault to the Creator, and Satan wouldn’t give Him the pleasure.

  Satan retained his sanity by studying his bizarre surroundings. During transportation, he felt a vacuum like Earth’s gateway and then the sensory emptiness of open Creation. His prison was frightening in a way he had never experienced—the panic of desolation. It was a realm without boundaries, self-contained like Heaven but an anarchic doppelganger of paradise. Chunks of disparate terrain drifted without form or reason. Fires raged amidst wild elemental forces that shredded and reformed the landscape. Wherever Satan was, it felt like the physical realization of unfettered cosmic entropy.

  Behind Satan, a sea of prisoners stretched back into a barren abyss. The surviving demons that fell totaled over one hundred million. Each was chained and burning, their wings hacked off into leathery stumps that were the only indication of their former grace. That was the profit of their loyalty to Satan—Michael had completed their demonic malformation. Their heads cocked back to lick at waterspouts that dripped just often enough to sustain basic life function, but none of them were “alive” in any real sense. No dignity. Satan’s children were a chronic humiliation that tarnished the legacy of his rebellion.

  Michael appeared, as if he somehow materialized from the black, and hovered before Satan. The fires receded and dulled his pain in a reprieve that was even worse, for Satan knew it would return. Was this a hallucination, a bitter method of Father’s ridicule?

  “Are you real?” Satan asked. He’d forgotten the sound of his own voice.

  “Yes, Brother.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Far from the Kingdom of Heaven,” Michael replied. Was that satisfaction in his tone? “Your kind has fallen from grace.”

  “My kind? We all fell,” Satan clarified.

  “But we flew out of our darkness. You never will.”

  Satan hid any signs of the remorse he felt, not remorse for his actions but of the toll they took on his pride. He exhaled a long breath and beheld the details of his scarred body that had been concealed in the flames. The vanity brought by his physical beauty contorted into sorrow and self-pity, aggravated further by the sight of Michael’s fiery halo.

  “What’s that? The crown of Heaven’s Lord?” Satan asked, a molasses of saliva and resentment oozing from his mouth.

  “A crown worn by the entire Host. One that you could have shared.”

  “Had I only bowed? If you’ve come expecting regret, you’ve wasted your time.”

  “I expect nothing from you.” Those were the most damaging and cruel words that Michael had ever spoken to Satan.

  “Yet you and Father have such lofty, fatuous expectations of Mankind. If the Host of Heaven failed to live up to those same illusions, what hope do the humans have?”

  “They have more than hope. They have Guardians.”

  “Thus the Host willingly clasps the chains of its servitude. Disgusting.”

  “Those who will not serve in Heaven will burn here…in this Hell.” Michael unsheathed Wormwood, and Satan knew that his definitive judgment had come. “I excavated this blade from the Sanctuary ruins. You have ever been the source of your own demise, Satan, but the Creator can raise you from perdition. Ask for forgiveness.”

  “Why, so you can prance me around Earth to show Mankind what becomes of His enemies? I think not,” Satan growled. “I’ve done nothing to forgive.”

  As Michael lifted Wormwood, he felt the evil infused in its blade and heard the cries of all its victims. Memories of Satanail’s former magnificence saturated his mind. Memories of his divine brother. Memories of his other half that had been amputated like a gangrenous limb. But those memories were all that survived of Satanail. Beneath Wormwood, the charred muscles of Satan’s grotesque form tensed in anticipation. The Creator had revealed this realm to Michael as a prison for the fallen, but would He condone the extent of their punishment? The Creator was compassion and love. In time, He would forgive Satan…but Michael could not.

  “I will make it quick.”

  “Don’t patronize me. Get on with it.” How could Satan still harbor so much hatred and venom, especially when there was nothing more to gain from it?

  “I do love you, Brother.”

  Michael brought down Wormwood and sliced off Satan’s last pair of wings like the dead branches of a tree whose timeless nobility was beset by rot. His own wings throbbed as if the edge had also cut through them. The Creator’s predominant gift of flight was officially revoked.

  Though Satan tried to hold it back, a cry burst from his mouth. The demons bemoaned their master’s deformity. Michael opened Wormwood’s nodule, and its black hole devoured the severed appendages along with any skeletal structure of Satan’s wings left within his body. He would never be able to regenerate them; the angelic part of his soul—Satanail—was excised.

  Michael shattered the nodule, discharging the essence of the black hole back into Creation. He broke Wormwood’s blade in two and then hurled its pieces beyond the abyss. The flames of imprisonment reignited, a product of Michael’s will and grace generated to contain Satan’s sweltering wrath.

  You failed yourself, Satanail. You failed us all.

  “No chains can bind me forever. I swear to you, Michael, I will return to Earth. I will be the death of Mankind.”

  “And I will always be there to cut you down.”

  Michael and Satan: brothers destined to exist in opposition as warriors for the diametrical forces of good and evil. Would a day come when the cosmic harmony of Father’s complete vision could finally be achieved? Was there a future where the brothers could forgive and reunite in peace? As Michael flew away from Satan to depart the wretched realm, he prayed that they would both live to see the answer.

  The Host had only begun to explore the surge of power and abilities that came with their ascension as the united receptacle of the Word. But Michael had also received a unique gift from the Creator imparted with unspoken gratitude. By harnessing the consecrated energy of his grace, he could now open celestial pathways through the Cosmos. Michael was free to traverse the infinity of Creation as Heaven’s emissary.

  Father, Satanail feared that the dawn of Mankind would bring about the twilight of our Kingdom, but this is our true beginning. The struggle between goo
d and evil is a tilting scale that threatens all of Creation. It is our duty, our purpose, to maintain the cosmic balance…starting with Earth.

  On my oath, the Host will forever be Mankind’s brothers.

  We are their Guardian Angels.

  Amen.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author would like to thank the following: my family for their constant support throughout my entire career; Markus Goerg, Mikhail Nayfeld, Dick Hillenbrand, and Robert Watts of Heroes & Villains Entertainment for their countless hours of hard work to bring out the best in my writing and for never giving up on me; Drew Yanno for being my mentor and friend ever since a career in writing was just a twinkle in my eye; my dogs Castiel and Dexter (rest in peace) for keeping me company and being a source of inspiration during the long days; and the late Gustav Davidson for his unparalleled resource, A Dictionary of Angels.

  Finally, to Veronica, who saved me from my own darkness with her unconditional love.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  J. Edward Ritchie grew up in Connecticut and attended Boston College. He worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles for ten years before relocating with his wife to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. For his world creation style of fiction, he finds inspiration across literature, comics, films, and video games. Fall From Grace is his first novel.

  Table of Contents

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1 A Flight of Tradition

  CHAPTER 2 Rejuvenation

  CHAPTER 3 Apprentices Old and New

  CHAPTER 4 The Logos and the Word

  CHAPTER 5 An Unexpected Storm

  CHAPTER 6 The Quandary of Knowledge

  CHAPTER 7 The Council of Seraphim

  CHAPTER 8 Separate Paths