by Meg Collett
Michaela shivered. This was wrong. But this is Gabriel. Was Gabriel wrong?
A small female fallen angel emerged from one of the doors. She took the wounded angel from Gabriel’s arms and helped him inside. Michaela looked into the room. It was a small hospital. A group of fallen angels attended to the injured one.
She had to catch up to Gabriel, who was already at a set of spiraling stairs. He looked back at her with a question in his eyes. She gave a tiny shake of her head. She would not be carried down stairs in front of this many fallen, who were still following them.
She wanted to ask Gabriel what was happening so badly. It was at the tip of her tongue. She needed to know why these fallen would go against Lucifer’s orders. She had never seen fallen angels so docile or obedient. They looked at Gabriel like they loved him, respected him.
It was wrong. But she heard the doubt in her mind.
They were at the bottom of the stairs before she could decide if she should ask Gabriel. In front of them was another door. This one guarded by a large angel with deep scars converging across his face. Gabriel stopped in front of her. From behind, the fallen surged around them. The guard drew his sword, but his effort was worthless against so many angels.
The fallen angels took down the guard and soon Michaela saw a plume of feathers rising into the dimly lit space.
The fallen had killed one of their own for Gabriel.
Amidst the feathers, the fallen gathered, waiting for Gabriel. She and Gabriel approached the door. The feathers were still rising around Michaela. Her body passed straight through them, causing her stomach to churn.
Gabriel paused with his hand on the door. Michaela watched him carefully to make sure it didn’t hurt him. He looked over his shoulder. “Are you ready?” he asked.
Michaela nodded.
“Lucifer is likely in here. And he won’t let Clark go easily,” Gabriel said. He looked to the fallen behind her. “Stay out here,” he commanded.
He opened the door.
And the light of the sun blinded them.
42
Michaela blinked a few times to clear her watering eyes. The heat and light burned her face. A wind pulled at her hair. Gabriel put out an arm to keep her from going inside any farther.
Inside the room, Clark stood before a spinning, floating fireball double the size of him. The flames were a spectacular, brutal red at the very center and nearly white at the edges. The core spiraled so fast it was a blur of nauseating motion. The flames slashed like daggers around the outer rim.
Michaela looked closer and realized the tips of the flames were turning to shards of ice only to melt and refreeze, which is why the fireball looked like it held thousands of sharp edges. Michaela understood what the mixture of fire and ice meant.
Clark was even more powerful than she had imagined.
“More!” Lucifer shouted at Clark from the opposite side of the fireball. His eyes were huge with excitement. He leaned forward. “Bigger!”
Clark’s arms trembled. He seemed to be holding the fireball aloft with his power alone, which shocked Michaela. She felt the power in the air like a vacuum sucking her closer. Clark’s face was pinched in concentration. He hadn’t even noticed she was there.
The sound coming from the vortex was a growing roar. Michaela’s ears popped. Her hair twisted around her face.
The fireball wobbled. Clark stumbled. The icy flames surged outward, widening the core. Its magnetic pull made Michaela and Gabriel slide forward a few inches. Clark leaned back, his feet slipping and dragging him closer to the flames. Lucifer voluntarily let the fireball pull him closer. He reached out a hand. He seemed to be laughing, but Michaela couldn’t hear the sound.
She needed to get to Clark. The pull was getting stronger. The edges of the fire were still growing outward. Sweat dampened Clark’s shirt to his back. His face was starting to look panicked with his mouth open and gasping. He couldn’t control it for much longer.
She stepped forward and slipped, banging her knee on the floor. Immediately she slid forward. Gabriel grasped her arm and wrenched her backward. He pulled her to her feet and put her hand on the doorframe, which he held too.
The sound was deafening now. The heat nearly unbearable. Michaela didn’t know how she could get to Clark, who was fighting with all his strength to keep from being pulled into the flames. A shard of ice flew from the edges of the vortex and sliced across his arm. Michaela saw the pain and fear in his face. She had to get to him no matter what.
Just then, a bench flew into the vortex, knocking Clark to his knee. The ball of fire and ice tilted. The bench hovered inside. Splinter by splinter it was pulled apart. The wood cracked and ripped. Its pieces disintegrated into the flames until nothing was left. The wood hadn’t burned. It had disappeared, pulled apart by its very atoms.
“Look at your arm!” Gabriel shouted the words straight into her ear, but she still had a hard time hearing. She looked to the skin of her forearm and had to stifle a scream.
The skin was pulling away from her bones. Smaller pieces of her flesh flaked off and were sucked into the vortex. She pulled herself back, closer to the door and looked up at Gabriel.
The skin on his face was doing the same thing. Horrified, Michaela jerked her head back to look at Clark. His clothing and skin was being torn off, leaving behind bloodied holes. The very parts of their bodies were being pulled apart like the wood.
“Clark, hold on!” Michaela screamed.
She was about to release her hold when Gabriel shouted into her ear, “Your leg! I’ll get him, okay?”
Gabriel waited for her to respond. She might not make it to Clark with two good legs. She pictured Gabriel being pulled into the fire’s center like the bench and cringed. But they had to reach Clark. She nodded.
Gabriel let go of the door and slid a few feet forward. He looked back and mouthed the words, “I love you.”
A shiver ran down Michaela’s spine. The words felt final. Like Gabriel didn’t expect to say them again.
The look on his face was only love. Michaela saw no hints of fear as he took her in, like she was the last thing he was going to see. In that moment, Michaela understood her mistakes. She realized her regrets, the secrets she had kept from herself. It wasn’t Heaven’s gates or killing Molloch or letting the hybrids go. Somewhere along the way, she had lost herself, and in that darkness, she had failed Gabriel. She failed him because she forgot the reasons she loved him.
He would walk through fire to save the ones she loved. He would die for her. And she had turned her back on him.
“Come back!” Michaela yelled. She let go of the doorframe, but a hand latched around her arm. It was a fallen who had grabbed her. He shook his head. When she looked back at Gabriel, his back was turned, and he was struggling as he made his way to Clark.
The seconds were agonizing as she scrutinized every step Gabriel took. She watched Clark and prayed for him to hold on a little longer. She couldn’t speak because her throat was swelled shut. She didn’t breath. In that moment, she could’ve died too, watching Gabriel crawl closer and closer to his end.
When Gabriel was halfway to Clark, his arm was nearly raw where the skin had pulled off. He used it to shield his face from the heat and light of the fireball.
Michaela had almost forgotten about Lucifer. When she found him through the flames, she gasped. Half his face was gone, revealing the muscles and bones beneath. He was too close the fireball and didn’t seem to be resisting the pull.
Gabriel grabbed Clark and jerked. Clark stumbled, making the fireball bob above the floor. Its edges warped and surged outwards, slicing into their skin. Clark fell, his body angling into the flames. Gabriel rooted his feet and heaved on Clark’s arm. Inch-by-inch, Gabriel pulled Clark into him and away from the fire.
But they wouldn’t make it. As Michaela watched, Clark and Gabriel would both die. But she wouldn’t just watch.
“Help me!” Michaela yelled to the fallen. He nodded and extende
d his hand to an angel behind him. A few more linked hands. Michaela stepped farther into the room. She closed the distance to where Gabriel and Clark were struggling to gain more ground.
She grasped Gabriel around the chest. She felt how hard he was straining to keep a hold of Clark. The fallen holding her hand pulled hard against her wrist until she felt the joint popping and loosening in its socket. Together they pulled Gabriel and Clark closer to the door.
They were almost there with half their skin missing when Gabriel yelled to Clark, “Let it go!”
Clark’s eyes were bloodshot. What skin he had left on his face was bruised, the blood vessels broken underneath. He looked back to where Lucifer stood on the other side of the flames. He was so close he could almost reach out and touch the edge of the fireball, which was shifting and lilting without Clark close enough to control it.
“But he will—”
“I know!” Gabriel screamed. With a mixture of horror and excitement, Michaela understood what Gabriel wanted. She looked back at Lucifer, who was completely enraptured by the spiking flames. She had never seen such a pure, unveiled emotion on his face. Her heart broke for the angel he had been, but this was probably their one opportunity. They wouldn’t get another chance like this.
Clark looked unsure, his eyes shifting between Lucifer and the fire. “Go on, Clark!” Michaela screamed, swallowing the sadness in her throat.
Clark closed his eyes. After a moment, his entire face relaxed. The fireball burgeoned out, engulfing Lucifer. Like the bench, Lucifer hovered inside. His skin flew off in fleshy chunks. Underneath, his bones cracked and tore off his body. He was screaming, writhing in soundless agony. His eyes found her as his blood rained back into the fire in bloody droplets. Meeting his eyes, Michaela saw relief. In his end, Lucifer was finally making peace with the devil within. Michaela looked away before she saw the rest.
The roaring stopped. Michaela’s ears rang in the silence. The heat that had filled the room dropped off, leaving an almost icy chill behind. Darkness veiled the room, blinding Michaela as her eyes adjusted.
When they did, she saw Gabriel and Clark lying on the floor in front of her. She rose to her feet, muscles trembling, and helped them up. They staggered as Gabriel tried to hold up an unconscious Clark, and Michaela tried to hold up Gabriel.
Her heart seemed about to burst. She thought Gabriel was going to die. Suddenly everything Iris said made perfect sense. She jerked Gabriel’s injured face down to hers and kissed him.
The kiss was long and needy. He responded instantly, letting Clark slide to the floor and wrapping his arms around her. She pulled him harder against her even though it probably hurt him.
Michaela pulled away. Her eyes met Gabriel’s. The darkness didn’t repulse her anymore. She would rather have black eyes staring down at her with desire and longing than have Gabriel look at her with that finality ever again.
His eyes drifted over her shoulder. An emotion Michaela had no name for filled his eyes, lightened them, darkened them, then lightened them again. He struggled to understand what he was seeing. Deep lines formed between his brows. Michaela turned to look over her shoulder.
Her hand fluttered to her mouth, pressing down the sound that was escaping. Michaela forced herself to swallow. Trembles worked through her body.
The fallen angels who had helped them enter Hell were…
…Kneeling.
They were kneeling before Gabriel.
43
“Gabriel,” Michaela choked out. “What are they doing?”
Gabriel didn’t seem able to speak. Michaela took in the angels’ bowed heads, saw their fingers pressed into the floor. The slope of their backs gleamed from their sweat. No one looked up. No one moved or breathed or spoke.
“Gabe,” she whispered.
“Help him,” Gabriel said. But it was a command. It was gentle and spoken with respect, but Michaela heard the command. She’d used it often in her own voice. The fallen angels rose. They met Gabriel’s eyes before converging around Clark and lifting him from the ground.
Michaela stepped back and away from Gabriel and the fallen angels. Her fingertips trembled where she still held them against her face. Numbly she dropped her arms and found Gabriel in the dispersing crowd. The fallen entered the way they had come, taking Clark with them to tend to his injuries.
Gabriel saw her face, and she watched as his expression crumpled. “Gabe,” she said again, her voice full of horror.
“Lucifer’s dead. They have a new leader now,” he said, speaking finally. He sounded just as raw and torn apart as he looked. His clothes were tattered and singed. The skin on his body was mostly bloodied and scraped. He didn’t come any closer to her. He kept his distance as though she were afraid of him.
Was she?
“You,” she said. “Gabe, you’re their new leader. You’re the General of Hell’s legion.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched shut at her words like they were lashes across his back. His eyes fell to the floor, but not before she saw them darken. “Yes,” he said. “I am.”
Michaela struggled with her feelings. The disgust and bitterness writhed like the snake inside her. They felt easy and comforting. It made her feel strong to hurt Gabriel. She felt like the general of an army when she labeled him fallen and mistrusted him. It was like she was doing her duty by hating him.
But she pictured Iris, a Nephil, and Isaac, a Descendant. She knew of the hate between them because she had fostered it. She knew Isaac must have felt compelled to hate Iris for what she was. But he loved her for who she was anyway.
Iris spoke of finding strength in love. Michaela could tear down Gabriel in his weakest moment as he stood before her, feeling ashamed and wrecked. It would probably make her feel powerful to call him the names the humans had called Lucifer. But it was a weak sort of power, and she knew it.
Or she could love him. Her love could repair his strength. Together, they could find the worth in their fight. She could choose to love him as simply as she could choose to hate him. Both emotions were right there in her heart. She wouldn’t have to work hard to find either one.
Michaela walked toward Gabriel. Eventually, he heard her footsteps against the floor and looked up. The pain and fear were breaking him apart. But she saw the flash of hope in his eyes like a streak of gold through the black, and it was all she needed to know.
“Gabe.” She drew to a stop in front of him. “Gabe.” She raised her hand to his face, and cradled his cheek. “Gabe.” Her other hand brushed through his hair. From her fingertips, she imagined her strength pouring into him.
Then she kissed him like she loved him. It was the easiest choice she had ever fought so hard to make.
“What does this mean?” Gabriel asked when their lips parted. She rested her forehead against his and stared deep into his eyes.
“It means we have an army,” she said. Her words were barely a whisper.
A shiver ran down Michaela’s back. This was the moment Iris had spoken of. It was the moment when she could decide if she wanted a war, a real war.
“We can fight the Aethere,” Gabriel said, understanding what she meant.
“And take back Heaven. You and the others could go back home.” Her voice cracked, because she knew the words weren’t technically true for her. Heaven was not a place for murderers.
“I think I have a new home now.” Gabriel’s voice shook as hers had.
Michaela pulled his face down to hers and kissed him again. When they separated, she said, “No matter what this means, we can be together. We can figure this out. We deserve each other.”
Gabriel searched her face, seeking truth to her words. His black irises lightened, revealing flecks of gold within the darkness. His expression softened. A hint of a smile pulled at his lips. “I deserve you.” He said the words like a revelation, full of hope and wonder.
Michaela nodded, her lips inches from his face. His arms were tight around her, gripping her like he thought she would wal
k away at any moment. “We can fight back. This will be a real war now and not an apocalypse,” she said.
“We can fight with a real army. We can take back Heaven for the angels who deserve it.”
Michaela heard the double meaning in his words. Heaven was not a home anymore to either of them. But it was to all the other angels who deserved it. And they would fight to make things right for them and the un-judged souls.
“And we can do it together,” Gabriel added. “If you’ll have me.”
He looked down at Michaela, waiting with his breath held. She found strength in his dark gaze. He was still hers. Nothing could separate them, not even Heaven or Hell.
“Until the very end,” Michaela said.
44
November 12, 1989
The room was dark aside from a rocket ship nightlight casting a warm, green glow from the corner of the room. Toys littered the floor, heaped in makeshift piles as if a little boy had pretended to clean while he played. Beneath cowboy themed blankets slept that same little boy with blond hair and perfect blue eyes. His mouth was parted ever so slightly to let out little puffs of air as he played somewhere far away in his dreams.
I finally allowed myself to cry while I watched my son sleep.
I had been strong that whole day while I made him breakfast and shooed him off to school. I had done laundry and made beds while he learned about the angels in the west wing of the building. When he got back to our living quarters, I had made him a snack and helped with homework. In the evening, with Isaac at the head of the table, we had eaten dinner like it was any other day.
But I refused to meet Isaac’s eyes from across the table. I was barely holding on, praying for night to come when I could give in to my tears.
I could tell myself over and over that leaving them behind was for the best. This was something I had to do to protect a future we all needed. Sometimes I even convinced myself that in the long run, Clark would understand why I had to leave.