Chapter 33
“Forgive me,” Michael breathed, “Father.” If a soul could kneel, he did it at the base of the Lord’s Throne, at His feet; and his six flaming wings consumed his form to make him nothing but a speck of bright.
“For my weakness. Heaven burned again, as it did during the first war, because I could not contain the devil.” The sensation of sinking gnawed at him, and he wished he could shut his eyes and look away from God.
“I said,” boomed the Lord’s voice, “that Satan would be done away with, and Lucifer would be born again from his body. A new Jerusalem will present itself as a bride — the marriage of Heaven and worship, which has already happened and will happen again. You ask for my mercy, and you continue to sin.” Pain, now, consuming Michael.
“Even with the body that will bear the resurrected Lucifer — you sin. Even after you were punished before all of Heaven for sullying your body, for your sins of flesh, you sin.”
“He,” Michael rasped quickly, “tempted me, my Lord.”
“You already know how this will end.”
Throat narrowing and warming enough to burn.
‘He tempted me. He deluded me. Only because you should not be given something broken, I will refrain from ripping him in half when I see him again. But when you kill Satan, bring him such pain that the Beast will never make a home in Lucifer’s body again.
Please, Father. I will do anything for you to hurt him. ’
God said: “The end is written.”
Michael’s gauntlet held the handle of his sword so tight that he could feel even the divine metal of it strain to not snap beneath the prince’s strength.
“Why—” he began, but then the rest of his voice fractured, and there was a sudden labyrinth of paths before him of words to say, questions to ask.
“Why—” he said again, but he couldn’t remember what he’d originally meant to say.
‘Why does God divine punish? Divine hurt, divine ache? Why must Satan die for Lucifer to resurrect? Why must the world end for good to triumph? Why did I save a girl only to tell her that I must kill everything that she loves? Why am I here?’ ’ “I’ll bring him back.
” ‘Why?’ “And you will kill me, too, Father.” ‘Why? For all that I’ve done.
’ He wished he hadn’t heard his own voice in his head, his own thoughts of Joana.
Her face, the flickers of pain in her eyes.
‘She looks just like you,’ Satan had teased.
Within all the flames that made up the angel, there was a chest that ached, and Michael promised, “I will bring Satan back to you.”
“Why,” God echoed.
In the town bordering Babylon — Tadeo healed.
He was in the plaza where Michael had captured Satan and standing where the devil had been, propped up by a crate.
There were hundreds around him, the boy’s family lost among all the heads and the infants being lifted toward him.
All of Tadeo’s, rather gentle and anxious, calls for them to form an orderly line drowned beneath all the shouting.
Some were pleading for his healing hands, others just trying to watch — each time not believing it, each time wanting to see it happen again just to be amazed a second time.
Those harmed from the strikes were supposed to take priority, but all those who’d been sick, injured, and neglected years or their entire lives rushed to Tadeo in desperation.
Nearby, Dante watched; he was standing on top of a building, no longer bothering with the phone he’d been fiddling with for the hours Tadeo had spent there.
The sky had grown dark, an endless void absent the stars, while the moon flooded an ominous red glow over them all, as if to prepare them for the light of hellfire.
Arms crossed over the ledge, he also saw some cars whizzing down the roads, toward Babylon, but the border was closed even for the regular trade that’d passed through when the gasoline was cut.
He flexed the hand that Tadeo had returned to him, again and again.
“Here,” came a grumble from behind him, and he looked to see a water bottle and two quesadillas rolled up in aluminum being extended to him from a curly-haired young woman — Joana, the one who’d gotten him into this house, one that belonged to a ‘bad man’ according to her.
As the soldier mumbled a thanks, taking the offering, Joana explained: “Electricity is out everywhere, so everyone’s out there cooking their last meals.
” But it didn’t seem like she wanted to say much more — using her newly freed hands to reach into her pants and retrieve a light at the same time she shoved a cigarette between her lips.
Pointedly, she didn’t look at Dante, as if doing so would drop another weight on her shoulders, another boy to look after and betray.
The soldier hesitated, then mumbled, “Cell service is mostly dead too.” She made a noise of affirmation, flickering the flame that ignited her cigarette.
Though she hadn’t asked, he said, “I’m worried about my mother.
I was hoping to reach her.” He couldn’t resist the allure of honesty: “Soldiers were with her.”
Below, Tadeo cured the one-eye blindness of a man, and the people cheered.
Joana blew out some smoke, then leaned over the ledge with Dante. “Is she anywhere nearby?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I don’t know if she’s still home.” Joana asked where home was. “I was born in Mesbilja.” He specified the state. “We’re from there, originally, and I think she was there now.”
“Maya?” Joana asked.
“Winik atel,” Dante clarified. “But I don’t visit the pueblo much anymore.” And then he mentioned the southern city where his mother worked as a maid.
“Sorry.”
Dante chuckled at that. “And what about you?” He nodded his head at her. “Any family?”
“Mine is safe,” Joana said. “If the strikes were really trying to hit criminals, then they wouldn’t be, though.”
“You’re from a criminal family.” He didn’t phrase it like a question.
Joana picked the cigarette out of her mouth with two fingers, exhaled some smoke again.
“Not in the rich way.” Then, she rummaged through her pockets again.
“My dad got involved with some bad people, dragged my brothers in. Dragged me in too. He was trying to claw his way up.” Like the food, she offered her lighter and cigarettes to him.
Dante, immediately, set his food down on the ledge, then reached for them. “Does Tadeo know?”
“Nah.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t tell him.” Laughing, Dante slipped the cigarette in his mouth, flickered the lighter, then brought the flame to light the end. And since they were talking, he decided to ask, “Tadeo told me about you. All nice things. Are you really a lesbian?”
Some smoke huffed out of Joana’s nose. “Yup.”
“Hm.” Dante shifted. “You know, I’ve sucked some dick before. In the military college.”
“Ok. Didn’t ask if you were a lesbian, did I?”
Again, Dante cackled, almost choking up on his cigarette. “Just trying to make a friend.”
“I’m going to go.” Joana swiped the cigarette and lighter from the soldier’s hands, shoved them into her pockets for the last time. “Good luck with your family. I hope they’re alright. Are you—” She stopped. “Are you going to leave this place too?”
“I want to,” Dante admitted. “Should I?”
“You can try. If you want to see your family again before the world ends, you should probably try.”
Smoke burning his throat, Dante returned his eyes to Tadeo.
Placing a hand on a woman’s hair, the terrible gash over her face began to close, and he seemed like a proper Messiah, like Jesus with all the worshipers.
Dante’s mother would kill to be here, wouldn’t she?
‘She would push through the crowd, ask him for help. She would tell me that Tadeo is here to answer our prayers after so long begging for God to send us help.’ But she would come away disappointed.
‘I tried to tell you, me’.’ Mother, in his indigenous language.
‘You don’t want a Messiah. You want her back.
’ Dante’s older sister. ‘Fuck.’ He wanted her back too.
‘How the fuck is praying going to help us?’ he used to snap at his mother. ‘How is it going to help her?’
Joana had just walked away from him, and Dante hadn’t even realized until he was alone for several minutes, thinking of his mother and his missing sister.
He counted all the fallen stars to try to soothe his fears, but Dante had seen so much death throughout his life, and he could perfectly imagine the empty look in his mother’s brown eyes, the trail of dried blood falling past the edge of her lips, her limbs tense and sprawled.
When someone’s shot, their arms go stiff for a moment, and their body jerks like they’re going to seizure.
People defecate after they die, they urinate.
Dante had seen it, had found it so frustratingly gross.
It was like nature had wanted to mock humans in the end, remind them that they’re just animals, foul and dirty as they are.
He’d seen decay, seen the roaches and the bone fragments.
If it weren’t for his disappeared sibling, he might’ve become a trafficker and led the sort of life that worshiped death.
He couldn’t blame Joana, couldn’t blame Tadeo.