Chapter 26 #2
“Who are you?” Gabriel called quietly; in all his time on that horse, right nearby, he hadn’t said a word, but when he finally did, Joana’s head jerked upward.
She’d understood that. It wasn’t quite in her own language, but the divine messenger’s question was so comprehensible that it felt as if she, suddenly, knew a single phrase from his own tongue.
Except, Gabriel directed his next words to the chief prince — “Michael. Who is this girl?” — and, to Joana, he’d become incomprehensible again.
A tonal language, only capable of brokenness in its pidgin, perfect nature; a mass of consonants with the occasional high vowel.
Michael didn’t reply, tearing the chain off his body, reeling them behind, twirling his wrist.
‘I can remember how it hurt still.’ Satan wanted to say that he remembered having his wings cut off more than he remembered what loving Michael had been like.
‘I don’t think we ever did love each other.
If I were not the devil, I’d say God was right all along.
We knew not what we did.’ He turned, slowly, to face the saint, lifted his chin elegantly, silently telling him to do it, then, to bring him back to his Father, to see Him tear Satan to pieces, then set a broken, remade angel before His prince.
‘To teach Michael that what is dead is dead. There is nowhere to go, no return, no Heaven, no Hell. Lucifer is dead, and he cannot be brought back, and you have killed Satan in the fix. How many times will you kill that body you’d once kissed all over?
How many times will you kill him before you can make yourself stop loving him? ’
The chief prince met his gaze sternly, twitchingly, saying nothing to his faux daughter or to the other archangels, before he flung out his chain, and the devil grit his teeth as it snaked around his body to make every part of it feel the hard whip, to crack each bone beneath, then scald his skin.
He staggered, without meaning to, felt the top of him hunch forward blindly.
‘The day we demons stepped into Hell, it met us with flames. I told them, “Do not put them out. Control them, as I have nurtured you despite how you are as destructive and wild. Do not be afraid of the lake of fire.” There are worse ways to suffer, God, than a lake of fire. We have created it together, on Earth — you and I.’ God’s guiding hand over his, telling Satan where to cut, where to bleed.
A growl and a gasp shot out of Satan’s mouth as the chain continued to burn at him, and then Uriel said, “You will come quietly.”
There were many humans now — in their pants, their shirts, in uniforms for work or for school, looking utterly mundane in the face of divinity.
Satan could hardly see them, but they had wormed their way through the crowding of angels and their steeds, and then many more were steps further back, trying to peer in between with their own eyes or with cameras.
Man, woman, child, elder stared with hitched breaths, and a few spoke, but the screams of the stars drowned them out, and their hushed words were not ones of rejoice.
Joana, like them, didn’t feel like any of this was victory.
Tadeo had read the Book of Revelation to her, even when she had grumbled at him to shut his delusional mouth because she had no interest in prophecies, but she’d note the hopeful note in Tadeo’s voice.
It was, ultimately, a story about good defeating evil, and so why didn’t it feel that way?
Why was Joana feeling her heart shrink in a cold terror and gripping at her shirt with a sudden childish want for someone to tell her what to do right now when all she wanted was to cry.
“Michael,” she tried again. ‘Stop,’ she wanted to snarl at him.
‘You stupid idiot. You coward. This is all wrong. You know it. You can feel it too, can’t you?
You don’t want this either. Don’t do any of this. ’ “Michael.”
The prince stepped forward, and the stars were still screaming, and when Joana glanced up to look for them, she saw silver birds, drones, parodies of angels in armor.
Somewhere, Joana could hear it barely, barely — there was a boom like fireworks for the new year.
But Michael continued, moved to loom over Satan just as he’d fallen onto his knees but continued to stare back, eyes determined, hot with anger.
Slow, Michael reached for him, using the hand that didn’t hold the other end of the chain, and gripped Satan’s cassock by the throat to raise him slowly, back to his feet.
“Joana,” he addressed. “Go and hide for now. I will come back for you.”
“Don’t do this,” Joana now freely said, though her heart hammered in her ears. “Fuck, don’t kill Tadeo.”
“I have no choice,” Michael said.
“Fuck you,” Joana said. “Use some goddamn free will. Don’t end the world, Michael.
” Her heart stuttered, then her gaze flashed to Satan once more as she realized what should have been obvious from the start: “The devil was the one trying to save this world from apocalypse, wasn’t he?
” Neither Michael nor Satan replied to that, neither did the archangels.
And so — Joana laughed, felt her shoulders rattle with the force of it, as she inched back, blood cold.
‘The world is so fucked up.’ She wished that Michael hadn’t jumped before her, wished Satan had just ended this all right then.
Carefully, Uriel turned his horse away, and when he gave it a light kick, it began to walk.
The sea of angels parted before him, and the humans hurried to follow suit, some taking this moment to begin running, to head where so many humans must be.
“All of us will escort Satan,” said Uriel, “then we will return to finish the job.” But he stopped to look up at the stars.
“The world will be no more, and the anti-Christ will be cast to the lake of fire.”
‘Tadeo,’ Joana wanted to wail, ‘where are you? Where are you? I have to tell him not to return. They’ll kill him if he returns.’
“Yes, Uriel,” said Michael, and Uriel, then Raphael — who looked back to the chief prince for too long before twisting his face back to follow the angel of wisdom — then Gabriel, who stared at Michael for some moments, as well, before he turned to Uriel.
Only then, the chief prince faced Joana once more, reached for his helmet, lowered it over his head.
He promised again, “I will return for you.”
Words a tangle in her throat — Joana watched.
Michael went to a winged horse, armored but not enough to hide its body the color of blood, and lifted the chained devil on a silver saddle.
When an airstrike, down just a few streets, flared the sky in orange, Michael didn’t react, not when the ground rattled nor when humans yelled out in terror.
None of the angels said a word at all as the people took one another’s hands, began hurrying away, shouts of fear trailing behind them.
Joana’s vision hazed, and she felt her knees knock together.
Darkness bloomed over her eyes before some hands came over her, some voices asked what had just occurred; it was Tadeo’s family, his aunt, one of his cousins.
But Joana could only painfully choke up in response.