Chapter 4 #3
Gabriel said, “I need to talk about the state of the Earth with you. Hardly an angel in Heaven knows how frightening humanity has become, but— There’s something else that I needed to tell you about.
Immediately.” Uriel made a noise of affirmation just as he took the first steps, relieved to feel the road of Heaven beneath his sandaled feet again.
“It’s about Dina.” Then, Uriel stopped once more but maintained his gaze down the road, toward a crowding of angels headed somewhere, likely to a temple to pray or feign praying as best they could.
“Metatron hasn’t let him out of your house in years.
I saw Dina arrive from… Well, he said from the stars.
Metatron wasn’t pleased with him, and he dragged Dina away.
When I confronted Metatron, he told me Dina was being reclusive, is all.
” Uriel sighed harshly, and then he murmured that he would deal with this.
“Ah, good. I thought I needed to tell you immediately because I know that you care about him—”
Scoffing, Uriel unfolded his wings. “Is that so?” Then, he took off back into the air for a flight that lasted mere minutes.
The door was ajar when he arrived, flaring the prince’s already simmering anger, and he threw open the entrance and shouted, “Metatron!” Slamming the way in behind him, he immediately moved through the hall, face twitching at whatever that old man had done now.
Uriel soon found him in the seating area before the library and didn’t waste a second: “Explain to me what I’ve been told. ”
Lounging on a divan, Metatron was scribbling on his parchment — sentences on something regarding human language. He lifted his gaze, then furrowed his brow. “Welcome back.”
“Gabriel tells me that no one has seen Dina for several years.” When the man-angel scoffed, Uriel grit his teeth, hardly felt himself move before he found his fists around Metatron’s robe, and he found himself pulling him off his seat harshly.
“Don’t be obtuse. He came back from the stars, and you’re punishing him.
I gave him the order to go, Metatron. I’m a prince.
I was the first prince. I was the first angel. Tell me where Dina is.”
Staggering, spitting, then laughing in utter bewilderment.
“So it is true? You sent Dina to lose his mind?” Metatron shoved him back, and though Uriel stumbled, he did not let go.
“Don’t be an idiot, Uriel! I locked him up for his own good.
He returned from the stars speaking in riddles, whispering, making no sense to anyone.
He spoke of the stars telling him to act. ”
‘The stars,’ Uriel thought to himself, eyes widening, long dead hope resurrecting in his chest. ‘They must’ve spoken to Dina. To prevent the apocalypse?’ The stars must be rebelling against God’s apocalypse plans; they must know that humans have no place in Heaven or in the skies. “Where is he?”
Metatron was quiet, then: “Why did you send him to the stars, Uriel?” But, in the second of silence, the prince noticed distant thumping, and he caught Metatron’s scowl before he released him, taking off running in the direction of noise.
Metatron shouted after him, “You’re a moron!
I hid him away so that he could return to normal, but he’s no better than before!
Leave him where he is or watch how he’ll bring madness to your streets how Satan did!
” Uriel wanted to shout that Enoch had no idea what he was talking about; he had not been there for when Satan was born, was not there for the war.
The wooden door in the ground was beating like a heart in between a ribcage of fallen tablets and scrolls, some muffled groans at the other side — pained or perhaps starving.
Though there was a silver lock, it was open, and as Uriel dropped onto one knee, he took the latch with both hands and, grunting, lifted it.
Though angels did not rot or age, the youngest angel had come close, his hair in such tangles with his lace veil that it seemed to have interwoven with it, his once-white tunic a dirty beige, lips cracked dry.
Angels cannot die, no matter how deprived they may be of anything, but they come close; they suffer to a grave, but they never lie it.
At least, that is what Uriel had once thought.
“Dina,” he whispered, catching every detail in that confused, innocent expression.
For the first time, his hands itched with the want to touch someone, his arms ached with the need to pull Dina close and squeeze him tight and apologize for not having done more. Instead, he said, “You must go.”
“Uriel,” Dina barely managed, legs and arms pressed hard against the narrow tunnel so that he wouldn’t slide back down into dim candlelight. “You’re home.”
“The stars spoke to you, didn’t they?” Uriel asked even though he could hear Metatron’s stomps, his grunting, so close behind.
“You must listen to them.” ‘Do what they haven’t thought me worthy of.
’ He reached for Dina’s hand and pulled him out of the hole, then squeezed his fingers.
“Please. I’ll hold back Enoch as you run.
” Without hesitating, Uriel let him go, spun around, then threw himself at the man-angel, tackling him against the wall of tablets, taking his head, slamming it down onto the stone.
In a bloom, blood spread beneath the crack of a skull soon to give way to angry flames. ‘Save us all, Dina.’
Hurriedly, fluttering his wings, Dina took steps backward, heart in his throat, shaking, all his vision blurred.
It was so bright in the library compared to his prison that he was nearly blind, but his muscles remembered the paths he’d taken for thousands of years here.
Taking off in the opposite direction of the labyrinth, he searched for another way out.
‘I will end it. I will end it all, Uriel.’