by Meg Collett
A panic built in Gabriel’s bones as he struggled against the Seraphim. Abel remained silent, his head bowed, as he considered a judgment. Gabriel could not afford a punishment with Michaela missing.
“Gabriel, your judgment has been received.” The Aethere sat back on the benches with relief, but only Gabriel heard the hint of joy in Abel’s words. Abel let out a mighty sigh as if the burden of delivering Gabriel’s judgment weighed heavily on his soul. “For the sin of sedition and allegiance to the fallen legion, you are to be banished from Heaven,” Abel began. The Aethere murmured in agreement. The Seraphim didn’t bother to hide their fear as Gabriel tensed, the air around his tightly tucked wings snapping.
“For the sin of cavorting to commandeer Heaven and for hiding the known whereabouts of the traitor responsible for such a heinous and ridiculous plan, you have received the punishment of…” Abel paused, his eyes flaring neon. Gabriel caught the slightest scent of sulfur in the air. “Eternity in Hell.”
“You can’t do that!” Gabriel yelled. The Seraphim surged forward like they had a prayer of holding him. He slung them off like ragdolls. More poured in through the door from the hall outside. “You can’t just send me to Hell!”
“Brothers, do you not agree this is the safest solution for now?” Abel asked, his brow creased in worry he didn’t feel. The other Aethere nodded, never looking at Gabriel, who spat on the ground at their feet.
“Lucifer will not allow this!”
“I believe Lucifer will love to have an Archangel to play with in Hell. Take him away now.” Abel motioned to the Seraphim, who gathered up their chains, confident with double their numbers. Gabriel was hauled toward the door. It took all of his remaining strength to pull the Seraphim up so he could speak to Abel one last time.
“You better pray Molloch isn’t dead. You better hope that angels can’t die.” His words were a snarl. His eyes burned like lava inside his skull as he stared down Abel. “Because if there’s a way or even the slightest chance, I’m coming for you.” As they yanked him away, Gabriel had the satisfaction of seeing true fear on Abel’s face.
11
Reminding himself of a sinner late for church, Clark slunk in through the back of the meeting hall in the Descendants’ Châteauesque-styled compound. The hall even looked like a sanctuary with a high, buttressed ceiling and lofts full of worn, wooden pews where an overflow of Descendants sat since the meetings were always standing room only. Clark eased along the dewy stone wall toward a group of young Descendants. As the grand space opened up before him and the sound of arguing voices grew louder, Clark paused long enough to take in the twelve floor-to-ceiling slender stained glass windows depicting the twelve Archangels.
Clark supposed those would have to be replaced now.
He slipped in next to the young men and women, who took in his baggy shirt and torn jeans only to shoot him nasty glares. They scowled at his muddy motorcycle boots and pink hair. Clark returned their looks with a cool, crooked grin before focusing on the meeting’s arguments.
“Can the Aethere just take control of Heaven like that?” Standing on his toes to see over peoples’ heads, Clark recognized the speaker as a newly seated Descendant named Liam, who was called to sit at the grand table and thus able to speak during meetings.
The grand table was a long wooden table stretching the length of the hall beside the Archangels’ windows. Candles dripped wax onto the splintery surface as the Descendants bickered. A group of fifteen promising young men and women around Clark’s age were “called” to sit at the table.
“Of course they can. Someone has to run Heaven. All the Archangels are gone. The Aethere had to step in,” answered Dylan, a brawny Descendant with a deep voice.
“That guy is such a dick, right?” Clark whispered to the skinny redhead teenager next to him. The boy wrinkled his nose and shifted away.
“The Archangels aren’t all gone, though,” Liam responded.
“Michaela has fallen.” Dylan spoke like he was talking to a child. “It’s obvious the others have too. The Aethere did what they had to do.”
“But we don’t know for certain she and the Archangels fell!” Another Descendant at the table chimed in.
“Then where are they?”
“If they were innocent, they would come forward and help the Aethere.”
From his position in the back, Clark had to strain to see the head of the grand table where the Keeper of the Descendants sat. The Keeper was the man who made the decisions, communicated with the angels, and kept the Descendants from dying in an angel’s war. The Keeper was also his father, Isaac St. James. When Clark saw his father, the older man was staring straight back at him with narrowed, disapproving eyes.
“Yikes. He looks pissed,” Clark said. He looked around, but no one stood near him anymore.
“None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Michaela betraying everyone,” Dylan said, his words sneers.
“But we don’t know that,” Liam said with a heavy sigh.
“Because no one is telling us anything!”
“We don’t need to know everything!” Dylan yelled above the others’ voices.
“Why can’t we at least help look for her? Something might have happened to her.”
The arguments went on and on, round and round. Clark’s palms sweated with all the talk about Michaela. His foot danced on the grimy stone floor. Feeling too conspicuous, he pushed his sunglasses farther up his nose and slouched back into the shadows.
“We do what the Aethere tell us, because we have obeyed the orders of angels since the time of Enoch. When the Aethere tell us they will handle the search for Michaela, we let them handle it. Of course, if you want to do things your way, then maybe you could start your own rebellion against us. You could join Michaela,” Dylan said.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Liam said with a frustrated sigh. “It just feels like the Aethere are telling us to shut up and not ask questions.”
“We shouldn’t question. If that is what the Aethere want us to do, then we do it!” Dylan said, slapping the table.
“But we have followed Michaela since the time of Enoch. We have trusted her with our lives, and she has kept us safe in very dangerous times. I don’t think we should just blindly follow the Aethere when they say she’s a traitor. Why can’t they tell us more if this is what they want us to fight for now? That’s what Michaela would have done.” Liam’s words made everyone at the table fall quiet. The Descendants in the lofts and standing along the walls held their breath. Clark chewed on a fingernail.
“That’s enough,” Isaac said into the stunned silence. Clark flinched automatically at the authoritative tone in his father’s voice. “The Aethere have spoken. We have our orders for now. They are like they always have been even during Michaela’s reign. Watch the fallen, clean up their messes, and try not to let the rest of the humans find out. We leave this Michaela situation alone.”
With that the meeting was over, and Clark didn’t stick around to watch the old, bent priest make his closing prayers. Instead, he faded into the back archway, exiting the way he had come. He had a few more things to gather before he could leave, and he couldn’t leave soon enough.
Clark had always hated the main hallway outside the meeting room. Its wooden paneled walls were lined with eerie, almost terrible portraits of all the Keepers. The paintings went all the way back to Enoch.
“Dude’s got an ugly mug.”
Clark passed through the hall and down the back staircase. It took him a while to make it to the east wing. The compound was huge, consisting of twists and turns that had been added on over the many years since the estate was built.
The little town had been built around the compound hundreds of years ago. Clark, like most of the Descendants, had lived his whole life here amongst the ancient Descendant families and the few normal humans who called the town home. He had gone to school here, trained here, and would have worked like an average human with some normal
job to help run the town.
It would have been awful.
Finally, the wood floors changed to the ancient stone of the hallways that led through the backmost part of the estate, toward the hospital and gun ranges. Clark made a series of turns, following the path in his head. As much as he hated being a part of the Descendants, this place was his home, and he knew every inch of it.
One more corner and Clark came upon the forgotten medical closet that had been his refuge from his father when Clark was younger. Now, he hoped the antibiotics weren’t out of date, and he could find something that might help Michaela.
“Glad you could make it.”
Clark spun around at the sound of his father’s voice. Isaac propped against the doorframe in a manner that would have looked causal if anyone else had done it. Instead, Clark only thought his exit was efficiently sealed.
“Oh sweet heavens, me too. You know I’m a sucker for those riveting meetings,” Clark said. He palmed a bottle of antibiotics.
“I know you were late, Clark,” Isaac said.
“So sue me.”
“Where were you?”
“Doing my civic duty, of course,” Clark said, snapping off a salute. He was ready to get out of there, out of the compound, and back to his car. Now that he thought about it, locking Michaela in the trunk wasn’t his greatest plan. He hadn’t known what else to do with her before he drove into the compound, and it seemed like the safest place at the time. Of course, he had been pretty drunk then.
“You’re drunk,” Isaac said. Clark’s eyes snapped back to his father, and he wondered for the millionth time over the course of his twenty-four years if the man could read minds. “I can smell it from here.”
“I was out with some friends.”
Clark jerked the stuffed duffel bag off the ground. Before he went to the meeting, he had packed some clothes, some cash, and his knives from his room. That all laid beneath the horde of pills, gauze, stitching kits, syringes, and anything else he could remember from the odd assortment of first aid classes he hadn’t skipped.
“Did someone cut their hand on a liquor bottle somewhere?” Isaac motioned to the medical supplies in Clark’s bag with a slight smile. In another lifetime, they might have gotten along. But Clark was too much like his father, and they were meant to collide, to chip away at each other until nothing was left between them.
“No. I’m going away for a few days.”
Clark started toward the door. His glare almost faltered when he saw the sadness in his father’s gray eyes. Wrinkles wove their way across his tan, leathery skin. His once rich brown hair grew mostly gray now. It surprised Clark, who always pictured his father as the intimidating, tree of a man who smoked cigars like a chimney and drank scotch without making a face.
“Clark, the meeting wasn’t just called about Molloch’s murder.”
“Technically, we don’t know she killed him,” Clark said under his breath. He took another step closer to the door.
“Molloch? Of course we do. The Aethere sent a cherub messenger down here who told us everything,” Isaac responded.
“Well, who told the Aethere? They weren’t there. Do we just believe everything they say?”
“We’re supposed to. The Aethere are ready for a witch-hunt. It won’t be long before the remaining Archangels are found and brought before their judgment like Gabriel,” Isaac said.
“What did they do to Gabriel?” Clark asked. Apparently this was the one meeting he shouldn’t have been late to. Isaac sighed heavily.
“Sentenced to Hell for treason.”
Clark’s eyebrows rose. If the Aethere had gone that far with Gabriel, he couldn’t imagine what they would do to Michaela.
“That doesn’t sound right. How can they send an angel who hasn’t fallen to Hell?”
“Maybe he did fall.” Isaac shrugged as if to say he wasn’t the one who decided right and wrong.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” Clark said.
Father and son’s eyes met through the morning shadows of the small room. Clark opened his mouth to tell Isaac about finding Michaela in the cave without her wings, but he decided against it. This was a struggle Clark would have to face on his own. No matter what, his father was Keeper, and he had obligations. Clark had hoped to keep Michaela close and in the protection of the Descendants. But it seemed everyone had chosen sides. Clark had to choose his.
Isaac stepped aside. Clark breezed past without a word to where he was headed. Clark was almost to the end of the hall when Isaac called out, “Clark.”
Isaac’s voice rang down the hall like church bells. Clark paused before turning around. “What?”
“We both know where this is going,” Isaac said, not looking at Clark.
“Where what is going?” Clark asked warily. For a moment, Clark thought Isaac meant Michaela.
“Your place here, as a Descendant,” Isaac answered.
The sun was rising. The beginning rays brightened the dirty old windows, seeping pink light across the floor. Clark watched the light inch closer to the toe of his boot.
“Oh,” Clark said, unnerved. It had never come to this before.
“If you leave…” Isaac began.
“Don’t come back? Sounds good, Pops. Thanks for letting me out alive. Too bad you didn’t do the same for Mom.” Clark’s voice was ice. He turned and walked out.
***
Isaac closed his eyes, leaning against the doorframe for support this time and not for show. Iris. His heart ached almost as bad as it had during his second heart attack, which Clark knew nothing about. No one did, except for the doctor. The Keeper was a burden Isaac would never wish on Clark. The weight of Earth and Heaven was a heavy load for just a man.
Isaac pulled out his cell phone. He punched in the number he had memorized many years ago. He never called it as it was meant for only one purpose. He pushed send.
Isaac steeled himself when they answered. He spoke before the other person could.
“It’s Clark. He found Michaela.”
Isaac listened to the murmurs on the other end.
“Just take care of him,” he said coldly.
Isaac disconnected the call. From the window, he watched Clark’s favorite black Chevelle speed down the main drive toward the front gates. If he believed in prayers anymore, now would be the time.
12
Gold chains, stained dark and gritty from use, wrapped around Gabriel’s body. The sharp edges bit into the sensitive flesh of his ankles, wrists, and neck. Thinner chains were banded across his chest—not to confine him, but to weaken him. They worked.
Gabriel kneeled on the slopping floors of his dark cell. No matter how many times he thought of Abel’s punishment, he still didn’t believe he was in Hell. Just thinking about the angel turned Gabriel’s vision red. Abel was the reason he wasn’t on Earth looking for Michaela. He might have even found her by now if not for this outrageous punishment.
His anger gave him a renewed strength to reach up and tug on the chains at his chest. But he wasn’t strong enough. He dropped his arms back to his sides. He wanted to yell in frustration, but he didn’t even have the energy for that.
“Well, I’ll be damned. It is true.”
Gabriel looked up. He might have dozed off for a moment, because now Lucifer and Beliar stood on the other side of his cell’s rusting, crooked bars. A bare light bulb dangling in the prison’s hall was the only light shining on them
“I told you.” Beliar was Lucifer’s second in command. Everyone called Lucifer the devil, but it wasn’t true. Beliar was the true devil, and anyone who knew the demon didn’t make the mistake twice. The actions that gave Lucifer the misnomer were actually the deeds of Beliar. He did Hell’s dirty work, and he enjoyed it. Rumor was that he enjoyed it too much.
“The audacity of those holy angels.” Lucifer tisked, shaking his head. He smoothed a hand over his white collared shirt. “I’m sure you will make the best of this, Beliar.”
Be
liar’s eyes were not black, but an unnatural neon green. He didn’t have the normal attributes of a fallen angel, because he wasn’t one. He was Hell’s own creation. Some said when Michaela had created Hell by driving Lucifer so hard into the ground a demon had formed from the dust, molten, and Lucifer’s spit.
“I will.” Beliar didn’t smile or leer. His words weren’t even very excited. It was the emptiness Gabriel sensed in the demon that worried him. His skin crawled as Beliar regarded him without an ounce of emotion on his face.
“So, Gabriel, how do you like your new home?” Lucifer asked. He peered around Gabriel into the small cell not tall enough for an angel to stand straight in and wrinkled his nose. “Do you need a cot? Or an air freshener perhaps?”
Gabriel didn’t respond. He barely had the energy to hold his head up. Lucifer noticed. He motioned to a fallen. Immediately, the angel stepped forward, making sure to give Beliar a wide berth. The demon propped against the cell next to Gabriel’s, sending the inhabitant cowering in the far corner.
“Yes, sir?” the fallen asked.
“Take off his chest chains.”
The fallen nodded and drew out a ring of keys. Eventually he found the right one, and with shaking hands, opened Gabriel’s cage with a loud screech. The fallen unwound the chains carefully. The links left behind sore, red burns on Gabriel’s skin. When they lifted, his chest loosened and he breathed deeply.
The fallen was about to exit when Lucifer held up his hand. Beliar straightened off the cell, his interest caught once again. “See, Gabriel, I have a little theory about Molloch’s death.” Gabriel stiffened at the words. “It was Michaela’s wing that pierced him and killed him, according to the reports of the fallen Archangels. But I know angels have stabbed others many times with their wings. Yet no one has died. Do you see where I’m going with this?”
Gabriel didn’t answer, but it seemed Lucifer hadn’t expected him to. Lucifer nodded to Beliar, who entered the cell with Gabriel and the terrified fallen. Beliar picked up Gabriel’s limp wing. He was too weak to fight back.