by Meg Collett
“That’s why I needed to find you. I want your forgiveness, Michaela. I need it. I know I don’t deserve it, but…” Fighting tears, Asz searched the room.
Michaela took his hand and squeezed it. “It’s okay, Asz. This whole thing was out of your control. I don’t blame you for what happened in the cave.” The words were hard to say, and the angry, bitter part of Michaela resisted speaking them. But forgiving Asz was the right thing to do. He didn’t deserve her anger.
“Really?”
“I mean it, okay? But I need your help with one thing. I need you to tell me what happened with Cassie. Why did she fall? What happened?”
Asz didn’t speak for a long moment as he gathered his thoughts. When he finally spoke, he sounded almost like his normal self. “I didn’t notice anything at first. Cassie was always different, always so fragile—so human. How could I have noticed? A seed of doubt is a small thing. Small enough that I wonder if she even noticed until it was a living, breathing monster inside her. By then, when I understood that something was truly wrong, it was too late.”
“I understand,” Michaela said, but Asz shook his head.
“I can’t…I’m not saying this right. Let me show you?” Asz pleaded. She realized what he intended. She nodded, still holding his hand. With her other, she took Clark’s.
I wait for Cassie at the edge’s wall like I always do when she is returning from a trip to Earth for souls. The worry is a pain in my chest, a stiffness in my neck. My thoughts are consumed by the bad things that can happen to her on Earth. She is so small for a carrier angel, I think.
But Cassie sneaks up on me. I feel the slight touch of her small hand on my shoulder before I can even sense her. I spin around, grabbing her cold body into my arms and stirring up dust that coats us both. I’m laughing, not because I think it’s funny, but because I’m overcome with relief.
But she doesn’t laugh with me. I lean back and see her eyes are too wide, unblinking, one green and one gray. I search her body for a wound. All I see are the goose bumps on her dissolving flesh.
“What’s wrong?” I ask immediately, thinking all my worst nightmares are coming true. Her smile is more of a flicker, a spasm. She brushes her loose blond hair out of her face in a jerky, too quick motion. She scratches at her arm. Another half smile.
“Cassie. What’s wrong?” I beg. Her nervous twitches are so pronounced; something has happened.
“Asz, we need to talk,” she whispers, leaning in until her mouth is close to my ear. Her eyes dart like someone can hear us.
There’s no one around.
“That was the moment it started,” Asz said.
Michaela struggled to hear him as she pulled herself from the memory. Clark steadied himself against the desk, his hand against his stomach. He looked at her in shock, and Michaela realized she should’ve told him what was about to happen.
Michaela understood the unsettling feeling. She smelled Cassie—the scent of lingering earth still clung to the wisps of her hair. A clammy sweat chilled Michaela’s skin.
“What was wrong? What had happened?” Michaela said, but Asz was far away, remembering. She strained to pull herself back into his memories, focusing on his eyes and trying to see behind them into his thoughts.
“She was talking crazy. It started as little words that I never quite caught. Then it turned into yelling, clutching, crying. She begged me to listen, to see reason. She scared me talking like that.”
“What was she saying?” Michaela asked. She didn’t understand how Cassie was the cause for the Archangels’ falls. In the cave, Cassie spoke of souls and how Michaela was hurting them. But Michaela rarely dealt with the souls directly.
“She said something was wrong with the souls. She was worried about them, trying to convince me something bad was going to happen to them. She spoke of a Purification.”
Michaela went deadly still. She dropped Asz’s hand. Don’t get mad, she told herself. It didn’t work. “She was working with the Aethere? After all she did for the souls, how could she want the Purification?”
Asz truly looked at Michaela for the first time. “No,” he said, shocked. It was the most emotion Michaela had seen from him so far. “Of course not. She hated the Aethere. She hated you even more. She said you and the Aethere were planning a Heaven without souls.”
“No! I never wanted that!” Michaela wanted to scream. “Who told her those lies?”
“Lucifer.” Asz’s shoulders slumped as if he had just admitted defeat. His black eyes were a lonely, sad ocean.
“I assumed,” Michaela said. “If he was working with the Aethere and knew about the Purification, he would have the perfect ammunition against me. And using the Aethere’s Purification was the easiest way to get to Cassie.”
“Why did Lucifer go to Cassie though?” Clark asked. His voice was shaky, but he stood strong beside Michaela.
“She was the weakest. And if she fell, she would take Asz with her. After that, the unrest would have spread amongst the other Archangels, but the chance of me noticing during the anxiety from the fallen angels’ disappearances was low. Lucifer could pick and choose the Archangels who where the weakest.”
“It’s not your fault,” Clark said. Michaela didn’t respond. Another memory formed in Asz’s mind so she took his hand.
“Cassie, please tell me what’s wrong,” I beg again for the countless time. We’d been performing this same dance for a while, and it is slowly picking up tempo. I don’t know how much longer we can stand it.
She is a crumpled doll in my arms. The crying lasts for ages. Her sobs rip my heart apart. She is still so human. I feel every withered inch of her. She is disappearing right in front of me.
I’m a desperate angel, because I’m losing her. I’ll do anything to save her.
Finally, she looks up at me. Her different colored eyes are the most extreme I’ve seen. “We need to go, Asz.”
I’m so confused. She shifts in my arms and cups my face in her tiny, cold hands. I feel like a giant around her. My size always makes me feel so powerful, like I can protect her. I’ve never felt so powerless, so small than I do right now in this moment.
“Go where?” I ask.
She stops crying. For the first time in a long while, she looks like the old Cassie—the one I love. She waits, staring at me with those startling eyes.
Finally, I understand what she has been trying to tell me all along.
“The threat of the Purification was too much. She fell apart in my hands. It happened so fast after that, I had no time to decide what I should do.” Asz paused. He raked his hands over his face. “That’s a lie. I knew exactly what I would do. I would do anything to make her better. If she wanted to leave, we were leaving. I’m sorry, and I know it was wrong. But I couldn’t stay in the place that was tearing her apart. And I couldn’t let her leave without me.”
Asz was far away. His memory of leaving Heaven was excruciatingly painful. It blinked through their minds like a scratched record; it was powerful, but Asz passed over it. “But it didn’t work. I thought if she stopped transitioning and stayed in one place for a bit with me, she would settle down. But she was just as bad on Earth as a fallen as she was in Heaven. No, it was worse. Lucifer had her convinced she needed to save the souls.”
Michaela leaned forward. “Was Lucifer using the extra souls he got from the Purification for something? What did he need Cassie for?” But Asz wasn’t listening.
“They were all she talked about. How she was saving them, giving them a new purpose. She was saving everyone, she said. She had it so twisted. He had her so twisted. Like a little toy car, he wound her up and steered her in the exact direction he wanted her to go. I watched it happen. I tried to…I tried…I don’t even know what I was trying to do anymore. Whatever it was, it didn’t work.”
“Asz, why? What happened?” Michaela pressed. She gripped Asz’s hand until he winced.
“Michaela,” Clark said like a warning. His eyes were trained on As
z.
“A few days ago…” Asz took a shuddering breath. Michaela saw a bottle of wine and old musty apartment, but Asz passed over the memory. “I had to go out. I needed air. When I came back, she was reading it. I smelled it instantly. She looked up at me, her eyes were crazed. She was reading the Apocrypha.”
Michaela saw the bottle of wine crash to the floor, pouring red across the floors like blood seeping through pages. She jerked out of the flash of a memory when Clark gasped. He yanked his hand out of hers and spun around. He rubbed his arms as if the marks burned, his breathing short and quick.
Michaela smelled his fear, but she ignored it. She grabbed his arm, pulling him around to face Asz. “He touched the Apocrypha and that happened. What does it mean?” Michaela said, demanding.
“Michaela!” Clark tried to pull away.
“It’s fine.”
“Lucifer has been trying to decipher that book for decades. It was only because of Cassie that they got even close. If the human can read it—”
“I can’t,” Clark quickly interrupted.
“You haven’t tried,” Michaela countered.
Clark glared at her. “Maybe it will wash off.”
“It’s still dangerous. The Watchers’ language went to the grave with them. We all assume only the Nephilim can read it.”
“The Apocrypha is on you.” Asz’s quiet voice jarred Michaela and Clark out of their argument. “Lucifer won’t care if you can’t read it. He won’t tolerate losing the information.”
“What’s in it?” Clark asked.
“It is the secrets of the Watchers. The ones they taught the Nephilim. There are rumors the Watchers knew a way to kill an angel long before…long before,” Asz’s eyes drifted over to Michaela, “before Michaela found another way.”
“We thought we had expunged the secrets along with the Nephilim during the flood. We didn’t get them all. Every now and then we hear of a Nephil. We track them down and kill them.” Michaela’s words brought a wave of unexpected guilt. She had never regretted killing the Nephilim before. She pushed away the thought. “But why was Cassie reading that book? What did it have to do with the souls?”
Asz shook his head sadly. “I just wanted to help her. I thought if I gave her some space, she could clear her head. But when Lucifer gave her that book, she lost herself. But I was lost too. I hated myself for leaving Heaven and for leaving you in that cave, Michaela. I could barely stand it. I was fallen in the only way that mattered—who owned me. But I couldn’t give up on her. I needed to keep her sane, and maybe I could show her a way out of this mess she had made.” Asz paused.
Another memory stirred, ready to pull them in. Michaela’s vision was just blacking out, opening to his memory when he said, “I couldn’t.”
23
After my reaction, she leaves. She hates me, I know, but I think I hate her too. I hate our bond that didn’t give me the freedom to decide between holy and fallen. I hate that all she talks about is the thing driving her mad. Unimaginably, I still love her. But my love is more like a weight between us. It’s driving us even further apart because we can’t be free of each other.
I’m thinking all this as I follow her. I need to know what this thing is that’s so important to her. As I track her farther downtown, I decide no matter what, she and I are leaving tonight. No more Apocrypha. No more souls. It’ll be just the two of us from now on.
She goes to a huge building next to the gleaming Ashley River. I stand outside for awhile to gather my courage.
I need it as I walk in the front and ask for her. A fallen works the reception desk and recognizes me as an Archangel, a traitor. My fallen status is automatic admission into Lucifer’s building. Smiling sweetly, too sweetly, she takes me straight back to Cassie’s lab. We make so many turns past other labs that I’m completely lost. Cassie’s lab is down in the basement, far from the others. The fallen doesn’t speak to me once, though she swings her hips suggestively in front of me as we walk.
I hesitate outside the door waiting until the fallen leaves. I allow myself one deep breath to settle my nerves.
Why am I nervous? I wonder. Stop. Focus. I swing the door open, stepping through like Don Quixote saving the princess.
It’s dark, and I’m not expecting that after all the bright, fluorescent lights in the halls. For a moment, I’m blind. The only light from the room comes from Cassie’s wings. It’s dim, fluttering, fading. It takes a moment for that to register.
Then it does, and I realize how stupid I am, how naïve. Something had taken a hold of her, and I didn’t matter anymore.
She sits on the ground, hunched over, bleeding, and murmuring. Her face is tight in concentration and pain. I see the fresh glint of blood, smell it like a fire in the air. She trembles as she defiles herself.
Her right wing hangs limp at her back, bent and warped—the source of the flickering light. Her left wing is pulled around to her front, held tight in her tiny hands. She doesn’t look up when I barge in.
She pulls out her feathers. They are strewn around her like melting snowflakes. She plucks her left wing practically bare. I instantly recognize the language of her murmurings. It’s the Watchers’.
She still doesn’t look at me even after I fall to my knees, sobbing. I don’t know how long I kneel in the door or how long I cry.
Finally she looks at me, her eyes wide and black. Her smile quivers when she holds out her hand, beckoning me to her. “Come,” she says. “Give yourself away.” Then she laughs. It’s a bubbling noise that almost sounds like choking.
I smell it. Human blood. I watch as she raises the near empty vial to her lips, letting the drops fall to her tongue. I want to pray for her forgiveness, but that isn’t an option for us anymore.
“Why, Cassie?”
I can’t move. I can barely look at her. She drops the vial, her fingers clumsy and drunk. She starts pulling at her feathers again, her attention already turned away from me.
“We have to save the souls. They need a safe place. It’s the only way.”
“Cassie, that’s not your decision. You took them to be judged. That was the safe place.”
That got her attention, and her focus is terrifying. I think she might launch herself at me. Her eyes are wild. Her fists form a claw that she scrapes down her legs, leaving bloody cuts. The face I spent eternity loving contorts in a vision of rage and hatred directed completely at me. I’m scared of her—my little bird.
“That is not a safe place!” she spits. “We must give them a new place.” Like a curtain closing, her rage slides away, replaced by the empty expression and hollow plucking. “We must hide them inside us.”
She passes out at some point after that. I lose track of how long I’ve been there. Her body lies in the middle of her own destruction. I get up and leave. An eternity together, and all I can do is leave her.
The memory ended. Michaela blinked. A hollow chill crept through her. Even the snake was still.
“I wanted so badly to fix her, to bring her back, but I think I made things worse. I scared her more. She felt so alone all the time, like no one but Lucifer understood what she was saying.”
“When did this happen?” Michaela asked quietly. Her heart sank. Cassie and Asz had been on Earth together less than a week, and Cassie was already completely lost.
“Last night. I had to leave her. I couldn’t stand to see her body knowing she wasn’t in there anymore. She was stolen from me and lost to the world. I couldn’t stand to be around what she had become.”
“What did she mean about putting the souls inside her?”
Asz looked at her like she hadn’t heard anything he’d said. “She is making monsters of us all. Why do you think all the fallen are running scared and hiding in places far away from Charleston? That damned book cursed us all. I came here to destroy it.”
Asz settled his gaze on Clark’s arms. Michaela stepped closer to Clark. Her voice was low, a warning, when she said, “Asz.”
But
he didn’t hear her. “I can’t fix it now. Just be careful, human. Those are dangerous words on your arms.” He paused. His gaze settled fully on Michaela, coherency clearing the murkiness of his eyes. His voice was strong when he said, “I want to die remembering her as she was. I can’t lose myself too. I’m the only one left of the two of us who remembers how things were supposed to be. I can’t be in this world another day knowing what she has become.”
“What are you saying?” Michaela’s voice turned sharp.
“Please understand, Michaela,” Asz pleaded. “I didn’t want this. If not for her, I would never have chosen this for myself.”
She tasted a bitter metallic stench. Asz started backing away toward the door. Slowly, the pieces formed a picture in her mind.
“Asz, you don’t have to do this,” she said. She held her hand out like she wanted to pull him back.
In his hand, Asz held a long, arching knife. The handle was crudely shaped, formed in a hurry. The blade was not a blade at all, but a white, shining bone sharpened to pierce through any barrier. Michaela grimaced, feeling sick.
“This was made from your bones,” Asz said, holding the knife up to inspect it. “Lucifer made many from your wings. I’m sure you guessed by now that only your bones can kill an angel. Lucifer says it is because you were the first angel ever made, the purest. He’s tested the theory a few times on some fallen. It works, and now everyone knows about it. He gave this one to Cassie, but I took it from her.”
“Michaela, we have to leave. Now,” Clark said, sounding terrified.
“Asz, please,” Michaela begged. She took a step forward and would have walked all the way to Asz if Clark hadn’t stopped her. Asz smiled at Clark.
“That second bookshelf is a door. It will take you into the back parking lot. You should go,” Asz said. He nodded at Clark. “Good luck.”
“No. I won’t leave. No one has to die.” Michaela stood resolutely in the middle of the office. Clark heaved on the end of her arm.
“There’s nothing left in here,” Asz said, pointing at himself. “I needed your forgiveness, Michaela. It was the only way I could allow myself peace. Will you still grant me this?”