by Meg Collett
With one last glare at Michaela, Uriel turned and stalked into the darkness of the toolshed without a backwards glance. The door creaked shut behind her.
“Well, isn’t she just a beaming ray of sunshine?” Clark said. “Are you okay?”
Michaela spat more blood. She felt like a drain had opened inside her, and she was dirty water swirling around it, sinking and spinning until she was lost to its depths. Michaela understood why Uriel was angry and spiteful. She was right—it was all her fault.
“I think it would be best if you both stayed here a few nights until Uriel leaves,” Isaac said. “I can get you both into the compound. You will be safe in there.”
“The tunnels?” Clark asked. He turned to Michaela. “There’s miles and miles of empty, deserted tunnels that run beneath the town. They go all over the place and always end in the compound.”
“Yes. We will use the tunnels to get you inside,” Isaac called over his shoulder.
Clark shifted Michaela’s arm onto his shoulders to help her walk. “I’ve got it,” she said, moving away from him.
“Quit bitching, and let me help you.” Clark’s grip tightened as they walked toward Isaac’s truck. Michaela gave in and leaned heavily against his side.
“There. Isn’t that better?” He opened the passenger door and helped Michaela ease inside. He got in next to her, handing her a handkerchief from the dashboard of the truck to wipe the blood from her face.
“Ready?” Isaac asked. He turned the engine over, and Johnny Cash crooned about prison blues over the old 8-track player.
The truck bounced along the farm roads, jostling Michaela’s injuries and putting her in a foul mood. Nearly a half hour later, Isaac pulled over on the side of a gravel road that ran parallel to the compound. The peach orchard was behind them, and the small town center was less than two miles ahead.
Isaac got out of the truck and walked over to an abandoned fruit stand on the side of the road. He waited until Clark helped Michaela out of the car and joined him next to the sagging building made of plywood with crudely drawn fruit shapes adorning the sides.
Isaac ducked inside, avoiding the cobwebs that swung above his head in the morning wind. The sun was already in the sky, and Michaela saw people milling about the town. No one paid any attention to the blue Ford parked on the side of the road as Clark and Michaela followed Isaac inside.
Isaac, flashlight in hand, waited by a set of stairs leading below ground. Michaela didn’t bother to ask questions. She followed them quietly down the steps into the tunnel smelling of wet earth. Clark glanced quickly at her a few times, likely worried about her fear of being underground after being in the cave. But Michaela wasn’t afraid. She was just broken.
She wished they wouldn’t, but Uriel’s words kept replaying in her mind. Uriel was right; Zarachiel’s injuries were her fault. Just like Gabriel being Hell was her fault. If she thought hard enough about it, everything was her fault. Just like Uriel had said. Even the pain of her healed broken nose popping into place didn’t shake the trance she was falling into. She was lulled by the words that kept repeating in her head.
Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.
It took them a while to navigate the oftentimes rocky, sometimes muddy, terrain of the tunnel. Michaela manage to limp on her own most of the way, only taking Clark’s hand when she slipped. Her mind created a numbing fog that settled like a thick cocoon around her, trapping in her depression and guilt.
Nearly an hour later, they reached a heavy wood door. Isaac pushed the door until it screeched open on its rusty hinges. Dust shifted in the air as they walked into the narrow hall of the compound. The stone walls were moldy and dank. Clark coughed, batting his hand at a spider web.
“No one comes down here?” Clark asked.
“No, you will be safe,” Isaac said. He pointed toward the first room along the hall. “Here you go.”
The room had two cots, blankets, two changes of clothes, and some food. A single lantern cast a warm, dim glow over the room. A rat scuffled along the back wall.
“I got it ready last night. I figured you wouldn’t be leaving as soon as you thought.” Isaac watched Michaela like he expected her to say something, but she didn’t register his words.
She drifted into the room like a hobbling ghost. Bypassing the food and cot, she settled against the far, dark corner’s wall. The stone was ice cold against her damaged back. She drew her legs beneath her shin and stared vacantly at the stone floor.
She remained there, in that exact position, without eating or drinking or sleeping for an entire week.
31
Clark sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Michaela. The skin below his eyes was gray and sagging; it highlighted the bloodshot red that filled the whites of his eyes. He squeezed her limp hand in his. She stared right at him, eyes open, barely blinking, but just like she had all week, she didn’t move.
“Michaela, you need to eat.”
The first couple of days, Clark had given her space, letting her deal with whatever feelings she needed to deal with. By the third night, Clark tried to coax her into eating. He cajoled her to move, to at least lie down on the cot. Clark didn’t know how long angels could survive without food or water, but by the fifth day, he was concerned. He crouched in front of her vacant eyes and begged her to eat. He pressed water against her lips until it ran down her chin, soaking her shirt.
They had to leave soon. Isaac couldn’t keep them hidden forever. Eventually a group of kids exploring this empty part of the compound would find them. So now, on the seventh day, Clark was going to make something happen.
He snapped his fingers in her face, which was pale and ashen, but she didn’t respond. Her body had withered; her skin was dusty. Black tendrils of hair hung dirty and listless across her shoulders. Clark pressed his ear to her heart; it was still beating. With a sigh of frustration, he sat back on his heels.
“Why can’t you just drink away your problems like a normal person?” Clark demanded.
There was a knock on the door. Clark’s heart stuttered, but it was Isaac who walked in with a bag of food. Clark stood and nodded.
“Is she talking?” Isaac asked, eyeing Michaela.
“No.” Clark pulled out an apple and bit into it. “I can’t get her to move.” A piece of apple flew from his mouth. Isaac scowled at him.
“She needs to wake up,” Isaac said. He walked over and stared down at Michaela.
“No shit.”
“What all have you tried?” Isaac nudged the toe of his boot against Michaela’s leg.
“I’ve talked to her, poured water in her mouth, stripped down naked and did a rain dance. Nothing works. She doesn’t care.”
Isaac pulled out a slim carving knife from his belt. Clark recognized it immediately as the one he used to play with when he was younger until he had nearly cut his finger off. Iris had been furious. It was the first time he had seen his mother angry. Clark turned away, trying not to think of his mom.
A gasp of pain made him spin back around. Isaac had buried the knife hilt deep into the fleshy part of Michaela’s thigh. Her eyes were wide, flashing black with anger. Her lips snarled. With a twist of her hand, she yanked the knife from her leg and surged upward, ready to attack Isaac.
But she stumbled and slumped back to the ground. Her leg gushed a little torrent of blood. She pressed her dirty hand over it and groaned.
“What the hell, dad!” Clark sputtered the words when he finally managed to talk. His heart raced as his gaze shifted from Michaela’s leg to his father to her leg again.
“She needed to wake up. I woke her up.” Isaac shrugged. He wiped the knife on his jeans and put it back in the sheath.
“Well, next time warn a dude before you go around stabbing people.” Clark hurried over to Michaela and helped her sit up.
She opened her mouth, trying to speak. Instead, she coughed and motioned to Clark, beckoning for water. Isaac handed him a water bottle, which he took with a g
lare, and held it to Michaela’s lips. She gulped it down.
Clark got the bag of food and set out the items. He opened containers of fruit and steak. He watched until she picked at the food, eating small bits at a time. He groped around the bottom of the bag, feeling a paper wrapped object. When he pulled out a fast food hamburger, his eyes actually watered.
“Okay, you’re forgiven for stabbing my friend.” Salivating, he sank his teeth into the thick, greasy burger. The cheese oozed from the sides of his mouth, and ketchup dripped onto his jeans.
Michaela was still eating when Clark finished his hamburger. He got up and walked over to his father, who stared at him appraisingly. “Thanks again,” Clark said, his eyes on the ground. For some reason, Clark was awkward and uncomfortable around his father now.
“Clark…” Isaac began. “You’ve been here a week.”
“Does someone know we’re here?” Clark asked quickly.
“Not yet,” Isaac answered. “But I can’t hide you forever.”
“I know.” Clark leaned against the wall, propping his boot onto the rough stone. They both watched Michaela.
“What are you going to do?”
“We have to get back to Charleston. She needs to stop the Aethere before this gets out of hand,” Clark said, trying to whisper so Michaela wouldn’t hear.
“I think it’s already out of hand. The Aethere stopped judgments on souls.”
Clark looked at his father sharply. “What does that mean?”
“It means all the souls go to Heaven to wait, but none get judged. If they really made a deal with Lucifer like you said, then they are punishing him for not holding up his end. If all the dead go up and none come down to Hell or go into Heaven, there is going to be a big mess real fast.”
“Crap.” Clark raked his hand through his hair. “When did that happen?”
“After the incident at the club.”
“We should’ve left days ago.” Clark rubbed his tired eyes. “How are the other holy angels allowing Abel to rule like this? Why hasn’t someone stopped the Aethere?” Clark asked. His voice rose too high, and Michaela glanced up from her food.
“The other angels are scared. The Descendants only heard about the souls because Uriel told us when she left,” Isaac said.
“Did she take Zarachiel?” Michaela asked. Her voice was hoarse.
“Yes. She left yesterday with him. His injuries were marginally better.” Isaac stepped back, closer to the door. To Clark he said, “I’ll let you two talk.” He left the room as quietly as he’d entered.
Clark crossed the room and sat in front of Michaela, who returned his gaze with empty eyes. He handed her another water bottle. “You can’t do that anymore,” he said quietly. He reached over, slipping a piece of lank hair behind her ear. The side of her face was deathly cold.
“What?” Michaela asked. She gulped down the water until it spilled from the corners of her mouth and dripped to the floor.
“Easy. You’ll get sick.” Clark took the bottle from her hands. “I meant you can’t just sit here, freaking out and not talk to me.”
Michaela looked at him strangely. He handed the bottle back to her. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” she said. Clark’s shoulders relaxed as he watched Michaela for a moment before speaking again.
“Uriel’s a bitch. I’m not a fan.”
Michaela smiled, like she understood. “She’s hard to get to know.”
“That’s fine with me, because I have no desire to know her. She’s crazy,” Clark said, pulling at his frayed jeans.
“She was just mad. She deserved to be.”
“Let’s agree to disagree,” Clark said.
They sat quietly for a while. Michaela sipped on another bottle of water. Clark resigned himself to picking at the grime beneath his fingers. Finally, he couldn’t take the silence.
“We can’t stay here anymore,” he said.
She focused on twisting the cap back on the bottle. “I heard.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” Clark persisted.
“I don’t know…”
“Are we going back to Charleston?”
“Clark, I don’t know.” Michaela sounded exasperated, but Clark wasn’t going to let her off the hook.
“Shouldn’t we go figure out what Cassie is doing with the souls?”
After a long pause, Michaela said, “I don’t think I should…”
“Why not?” Michaela scowled at his endless questions, but Clark wasn’t offended. He raised his eyebrows, impatiently waiting for an answer.
“Uriel was right.” Michaela sighed. “I’ve hurt everyone trying to figure out what is going on. I should just leave well enough alone. The Aethere…well, clearly they just have something against me. If I just go away,” Michaela swallowed roughly around the words, “maybe it will smooth over, and they will free Gabriel, and the others can go back.”
Clark threw his hands in the air. His boots scraped across the rock floor as he stood. “I’m not having this argument again. It was annoying the first time. We both know you decided you couldn’t walk away from this.”
Michaela averted her eyes, her shoulders slumping. “Okay,” she said.
“Don’t say it like that. You know I’m with you no matter what you decide to do. But I can’t let you just sit here anymore.”
The strange expression from before returned to Michaela’s face, and Clark wondered if she’d ever really had a true friend. Not like Gabriel or the other Archangels who followed her lead because it was their duty, but someone like Clark who got mad at her and questioned her but still stood by her side. Clark didn’t think so.
“What will happen if I go back?” Michaela asked. She stared at Clark with wide, unsure eyes. She was worried about who else would get hurt.
“What will happen if you don’t?”
***
After Clark told her the Aethere were withholding judgments, Michaela wanted to leave right away. She yelled at Clark, saying he should have stabbed her sooner. Clark liked to see her fired up and ready to take on the Aethere, but he and Isaac convinced her to wait until nightfall to leave.
Now, Clark snored in the cot next to Michaela’s. She was exhausted. Sleep pulled heavy against her eyelids. More than anything she wanted to close them and sink into the welcoming darkness, but she was scared Gabriel might channel her.
She had felt him throughout the week, searching for her at the limits of her consciousness. He tried to pull her to him through his dreams, but she resisted. She had hurt him, because by the end of the week he’d stopped trying so often. More than she wanted sleep, Michaela wanted to go to him, to feel his arms around her once again. She needed reassurance, for someone to tell her she was on the right path, that it wasn’t her fault. But that wasn’t Gabriel, and she couldn’t handle his disapproval right now.
Before she knew it, she was asleep, lulled by the trance of dreams. As she fell into their grasp, she hoped it was just a dream.
It was.
Michaela opened her eyes and wished she’d never closed them.
She stood in Purgatory next to the edge’s wall. She slowly turned, feeling Heaven’s warm glow on her skin. The hairs on her arm stood as she swept her gaze over Purgatory toward Heaven’s gates, which stood open, beckoning to her. Even from her distance, she caught the sweet scent of flower blossoms. Looking up, she saw glimpses of the crystal city through the pink clouds above the gates.
Even though she tried telling herself this wasn’t real, her stomach flipped with such excitement it hurt. It didn’t work. She was home. Her throat swelled, and it took a moment before she realized she was crying tears of relief. A tiny smile she couldn’t hold back anymore crept across her face. She closed her eyes, raising her arms outward, and basked in the warmth for a long moment.
She opened her eyes, but as she went to step forward, she heard a scream.
Instantly, the gates slammed shut, and the clouds above Heaven shriveled up and turned black. Michaela jer
ked back, stumbling against the wall. The warm glow sank to a bitter, chilling blast of air. Wrapping her arms around her body for warmth, she looked around Purgatory. The shadows were longer, darker, but she saw no one.
“Hello?” she called. The gesture was so reminiscent that Michaela immediately clapped her mouth shut, like the word itself was a bad omen.
When the scream came again, Michaela realized it was coming not from Heaven but Earth.
Cautiously, she peered over the wall and down into space. Even from the heights of Purgatory, she saw the massive fires grow on Earth. They were huge pits of flames, spreading across entire countries and stretching high into the atmosphere. The popping, lashing fires caused massive, nuclear explosions that leaked toxic fumes into the air and singed the earth gray. The heat licked upwards, burning Michaela’s face. The destruction was so immense, so apocalyptic, that Michaela could only stare in shocked silence.
A crack drew Michaela’s attention. Abel appeared beside her, holding a broken seal in his hand. Six more lay at his feet, but Michaela didn’t need to see the others to recognize them. Her eyes flashed back to Abel’s face, which held an enraptured expression, his eyes gleeful as he took in the burning world.
“Abel!” Michaela shouted over the wind, clutching at the sleeves of his robe. He ignored her. “What are you doing with the Seven Seals?” She shook his arm, but Abel didn’t respond or even act like he heard her. She dropped her hand. He couldn’t hear or see her, because this wasn’t just a dream. This was a vision of what was to come if she didn’t stop Abel.
Her heart stopped beating as if fear itself had reached inside and clenched its fist around her life’s source. Her blood was ice in her veins, frosty with horror.
By breaking the first seal, Abel had started the End of Days. Each one broken after the first brought a new horror upon Earth, and the seventh seal ended it all. Any moment now…
Hooves galloped across Purgatory, growing louder as they grew closer. The sound broke Michaela’s reverie, and she twisted around, guessing the source. A gorgeous white horse dripping in bright, red blood with a rider holding a bow raced across the dust toward her. As it drew closer, its rider, a handsome human with coins over his eyes, raised a bow, leveling an arrow straight at Michaela. It released with a pop and cut through the air straight toward her heart.