Chapter 2
At the center of Heaven, the archangel Michael was burned at the stake.
For minutes, his screams engulfed him and all the angels who’d gathered to watch his silhouette disappear into the trinity of flamed colors ripping at his brown skin, scratching to peel it away before the fires seeped into exposing muscle.
As if an angel made of wax, the prince melted.
As if he were a candle, thick blood rushed into his mouth, gurgling his cries in pain.
Darkness scaled along his body where smoke trickled upwards, but it would not stop.
His feet were buried in the Fountain of Life, in her waters, and Michael’s burns would stitch closed only for the fire to skin him raw again.
He burned, and he healed; bound to the fountain, Michael’s suffering never ended and never began.
It was a man, in Heaven, who announced his sin with spindly hands still clutching the rope he’d ceremoniously confined the strongest angel of all with.
He was ancient, with colorless hair, wrinkles that shrouded his features — the dark eyes, a stout body beneath a white robe, and new jewels that God had gifted.
The man, Enoch the Elder, proclaimed: “The Lord commanded for your chief prince to pay penance.” Enoch’s marks of age seemed finer now, better carved, more purposefully placed along the sagging muscle of his arms, and they now marked him distinct among thousands of perfectly youthful angels gathered in Heaven, watching with oval-ed eyes or facing away with deep grimaces.
“For when he returned to Heaven—” Enoch had to shout over the continual screams of Michael “—your prince came before God and asked for a home for the damned souls of man, where Satan and his followers may hold authority. The Lord, in His mercy, granted the devil his wish but the archangel a punishment — for acting as a messenger for the devil, for being his angel.” He was stepping away from the Fountain of Life, and the angels nearby stumbled back as if Enoch were Satan himself.
“And for having sullied his body,” pure venom in his voice, “with that of the devil — your prince must know penance.”
Among all the others, Dina watched, fingers interlocked, barely peering over the shoulders of two tall angels standing before him.
And like all the others, his breath hitched.
‘Sullied?’ The old man, this strange man, who’d arrived in Heaven claiming to be like them, an angel himself.
‘Michael sullied by the devil?’ The youngest — or was he the second youngest now that this man was here?
— looked all about, seeking an answer, hoping someone would ask the question that he wouldn’t dare.
Others anxiously shifted in the crowd, avoiding gazes or, like Dina, searching for guidance, perhaps from an archangel.
But they were absent, all except for Michael.
Enoch spoke once more: “Your prince sullied his body, his body that is God’s temple, as all your bodies are temples to God.
He was tempted by Satan. He fell into sins of the flesh with the devil.
Even your most holy prince betrayed our Lord, Creator.
The greatest of God’s elect could not be faithful.
” He took another step, and he spread his arms, offering himself to them.
“Let it be known that there is no angel pure of sin, then. All angels are tainted. All angels carry the original sin of the first war.” Dina’s heart thudded against his chest, and he gripped nervously at his tunic’s front, dipped his head, wishing his lace veil would slip down his face to shield his twitching expression and the frightened burn in his eyes.
“Those you called the Watchers have proven to Heaven that the devil corrupted even those among you who thought yourselves so holy. And, because of this, the Lord has said, as He once did: angel will serve man.”
Dina’s gaze flickered to Michael, to his writhing body — a mere shadow in the tongues of flames.
Uneasily, Dina’s nails picked at the joints of fingers.
He watched. He listened to the gurgles of agony.
‘Michael.’ It couldn’t be true. ‘I was the one who revealed to Noah that a Flood would do away with sin.’ How could Michael be tempted?
Were all angels truly corrupted? Were all angels sinners before God — whether they had even committed a sin or not?
Had it been Satan’s forbidden fruit, the forbidden knowledge of evil, of sin, of flesh; had it been knowledge alone that condemned them?
“It will be man who inherits Heaven,” said Enoch as Dina clenched his eyes shut, trying to swallow a hiccup now of worry and confusion.
Where were his friends? Azazel? Armoni? What had Michael and the angels really done to the Watchers?
“Man will be the new angels, and man will judge the original angels to see who will serve and who will be cast down.” Finally, he proclaimed: “I will be known as Metatron, the first man to live in Heaven. I will sit at the left side of God. Know this for they are His words. The Lord’s words. ”
Over the pain of their chief prince, the angels affirmed, “Amen.”
But it was only for seven days that Michael burned, hardly a blink of an eye, and he didn’t scream for much longer than Metatron’s announcement.
Only silence sounded from him after the first three days, even if the fire didn’t appear to lose its intensity — or so it is said.
Dina himself couldn’t handle the sight, and he refused to visit the center of the city for all the time that Michael was tortured, refused to even step outside Uriel’s home, even tried not to peer out the sparse windows.
Yet, he saw the tortured archangel each time he shut his eyes, and he found himself without appetite for these days, as well.
Hiding couldn’t save Dina for long, however, for he lived in the house of an archangel, and one day, the prince Uriel returned from the unexplained absence since the stake burning began, bringing with him all the horror that Dina had been trying to avoid.
The front door, suddenly, violently, was thrown open with such a loud screech that Dina — laying on his stomach, sleeping, on the divan — startled awake.
“Seven days,” came the voice of Uriel, in conversation, “of penance and burning? Is that really what the Lord commanded or your own whims?”
“Uriel,” came the voice of Metatron, “step aside.”
“Leave,” replied Uriel as Dina hastily climbed off the cushions, stumbling onto bare feet, just in time to see the prince walk into the wide sitting area before the endless library.
When Dina saw the old man-angel following behind, he flinched.
“This is no place for you, Enoch.” Uriel’s brows were furrowed, a scowl pulling at his mouth while his hands curled into fists. “You will not touch the library.”
But the man, Metatron, stopped, far from the archway leading into the labyrinth of books. His eyes landed on Dina, curiously, then he asked, “Who is this angel?” to Uriel.
Right past the young angel, Uriel halted his steps, facing away, towards the library. “No one.”
“You told me that this house was yours alone,” Metatron said. “Did you lie, archangel?”
“I don’t sin,” Uriel replied promptly. “That is Dina. He cleans my house and has no house of his own. Raphael told you of the chaos in Heaven when we heard what the Watchers had done, didn’t he?
” Metatron was quiet, and so Uriel sighed harshly.
“The angels who sinned during our war were blamed and attacked, thrown from their homes. The Lord ordered me to take in this one, though He gave me no reason as to why. Dina is the one who spoke to your great-grandchild Noah.” Metatron asked why.
“Gabriel hesitated when God ordered His message to be given, and I suppose He wanted to show that even an insignificant angel could easily replace him.”
Metatron laughed. “Is that so? So it is not only Michael’s affinity for sins of the flesh, nor your lies, that have created God’s dissatisfaction with His archangels? It is doubt.”
“I told you that I don’t lie,” Uriel said, twisting around to show Metatron a glower.
“Days that Raphael and I have spent before the Lord, trying to convince Him that your pride is like that of the devil. But it must be that He knows you will ruin yourself, that you will fall, and that you will bring the fate of man with you.” Lower, he added: “You will not touch the library I have curated. All of Heaven’s wisdom is here, and you will not corrupt it.
It’s the meeting of man and angel knowledges that flooded your Earth.
Leave this place. Return to God if you so claim to be at His left side.
Fly as high as you can, Metatron, so that you will burn to dust when you fall back to the Earth you belong. ”
“You will be the one to fall when us men judge you.” But Metatron was turning on his heel, and as he did, he said, “I will be back, Uriel. The library will hold the history of man, whether you will be here to read it or not.” His departure was quiet, his steps slow as he returned to the entrance that was just out of sight of the seating space with its three divans, its short tables, one of which held a scroll that Dina had been mindlessly skimming hours ago.
The young angel hesitated, then timidly raised his face to the tall Uriel, whose expression was hot stone, eyes so sharp in rage that Dina feared staring too long would cut him. “Uriel,” he called softly. “Has Michael really been freed from the penance?”