Chapter 37 #2
‘The humans have made weapons far more destructive than the angels,’ Michael wanted to tell them, but they wouldn’t dare to look at him.
‘They have exterminated animals on Earth, and they have exterminated some of their own. They are closer to God now than angels ever were.’ The prince stepped toward the doorway, and he could see Phanuel's back, heading for a street lined with stone monuments of laws at either side, some of the columns toppled over.
‘Phanuel.’ He wanted to say he was sorry.
He wanted to tell him that he was wrong.
He wanted to tell him he was right. In their youth, Phanuel would insist he was always right, he was wiser and older, even if by a mere year or two.
‘When God punished me after the war, I used to dream of Lucifer dying. One day, I saw my bloodied hands. I killed him. My longing woke Satan, and he burned himself out of Lucifer’s body.
’ Before the war, however, Lucifer had appeared in Michael’s home, wanting to love the prince in a way that Michael didn’t understand.
In perfect clarity now, ‘I remember your frightened eyes, your desperation. There was something terribly wrong that you wanted to tell me. But you didn't. God was in there with us. You said that you loved me. You wanted me to be your God. I didn’t realize you were asking me to save you from Him.’
‘Why? Why?’ Michael had thought at God, and he’d merely heard an echo. ‘Why?’
In the tower — the devil touched the faces of some demons, examined their wounds, and he sighed into the crowd of them.
Many of them held bags of belongings, all that they’d managed to save from Hell’s fires, while others clutched various kinds of weapons.
In their wide eyes, Satan saw his own tired face reflected, and he noticed the frightened quivers of their lips.
Very juvenile, innocent-seeming. ‘Now that the eternal torture we’ve always spoken of is finally before us, you feel the weight of dread.
’ “The apocalypse hasn’t finished,” Satan told a demon he drifted his touch away from, as well as all the hundred gathered around him, listening.
“You demons defeated Heaven, and you saved me from Michael, from the God above, and all the angels. We will never know defeat. No more lives will be lost.”
The words had fallen from his mouth before he could stop them, and he saw Asmodeus’ loathing face in his mind.
A boom sounded in the distance, something akin to thunder, but Satan ignored it until a pair of doors at the other end of the hall opened loud enough to silence all the demons in the room.
And Baal in all his armor and horns stepped through quickly, his dark, thin wings folding closer to his back.
“Angels.” Immediately, Satan’s hand went to his revolver.
“But not God’s.” He hesitated. “The Watchers.”
A second passed, as if Satan was trying to remember what that word meant, and then he turned on his heel, headed for the window.
Swiftly, he took the iron deadbolt, pulled it back, then pushed open the pane.
Satan set a foot on the sill, then the other.
Standing on the window, facing the apocalypse.
He saw what had made that boom sound earlier — a falling piece of a star, crashing against a smaller building and the vehicles parked next to it.
‘Destroying Babylon.’ How much of it had the Watchers already destroyed?
Biting down a sting of anger, Satan allowed his hands to curl into fists as he faced the attackers, almost two hundred angels flying forward only to slow, then hover before him, his tower, wings flapping slow.
At the front, bathed in starlight, and with pale warpaint over his face — Azazel.
One hand continued to hold a chain that attached to the collar on Samyaza behind him as Azazel met Satan’s stare.
The other Watchers swarmed by him were panting, baring their teeth, growling — all like the animals that centuries of torture had turned them into.
This was revenge, wasn’t it? The Watchers destroying the world as the demons had done to theirs.
“Azazel,” Satan called, “all of you —” But then his shoulders loosened, and he smiled too wide. “How about we have dinner?”
Armoni, meanwhile, brought Rosier to a cramped chamber in the tower, one of a few reserved for dukes, where Moloch had seemingly settled with some followers.
They were gathered by the burly insurgent, and the closest to him was a red-haired demon named Ara, dressed in sheer, much like Armoni — both of them trying to appeal to Moloch’s tastes.
Except Ara had done it willingly, though with that empty look in his eyes and bitter curl to his lips that he always carried.
‘Cain’s old lover, Ara.’ Armoni didn’t get along with him, had long stopped pitying the demon who loyally stood beside Moloch and his barbarity simply because Moloch had been there for him in the aftermath of Cain’s death.
But for love, pain is an easy thing to excuse.
Armoni had learned that well from his closest friends since he left Heaven.
He looked at Rosier in his arms, curled into himself somewhat, unnoticed as Armoni tried to usher him into an adjacent washing room.
‘I never told you, Rosier, that I was excited too when we both spoke for the first time, and we learned that we were like each other but no one else. I despised fucking, and you didn’t understand it.
I know that our bond is why you begged Asmodeus to intervene, to try to keep Moloch from hurting me.
I know, I know. If I didn’t, I would have told you to leave Asmodeus’ side long ago.
I watched you cling to him, and him to you.
I comforted you when you wept of Asmodeus sleeping with others, and I encouraged you to mind your body more, to listen to what it wants.
I wanted to tell you that he’s no good for you; I think you knew that I wanted to tell you that.
’ Asmodeus had been selfish, possessive, and Rosier had been gentle, patient, so willing to forgive.
‘You would even forgive Asmodeus hollowing you out. Maybe that's exactly what he did.’
But as the two of them settled against a grooming divan — ignoring all the toppled furniture and shattered oils and the wet floor — Armoni didn’t dare to voice any of that. He hugged the still dead-eyed Rosier to his side, let the demon’s head fall to press against his neck.
“Rosier,” he simply said, “don’t… lose your mind.
Demons, angels — we don’t die, do we? Even humans don’t die; their souls weigh down into the fires or they remain in the leaves.
I think Asmodeus is in the leaves. And I think he can be brought back.
He can.” But Rosier remained eerily quiet, Asmodeus’ arm loose in his hold.
Moloch’s voice filtered in: “It’s a shame. I really did like Asmodeus. Didn’t we all? Very reasonable demon. Very sharp. Great fuck.” His followers laughed. “But our lives will be easier without him, and it’s what he gets for not standing with me when I came up to him before Hell burnt up.”
One of Moloch’s friends added with a snicker: “And he left behind that Rosier that he was so obsessed with. Now that he’s a widow, he might need a little comfort, right?
” Rosier's grip on Asmodeus's arm tightened; his fingers dug into the dead flesh.
Armoni felt him stiffen, tried to call his name, but Rosier didn't react.
He stared at a wall. Toward Moloch's voice.
In the grand dining hall of the tower, the demons worked quick under Satan’s commands to set up the table long enough to seat hundreds, and then they emptied out some of the stored dried meats and drinks and spices.
They hadn’t the time for cooking, and so the plating was shamefully simple.
The guests, however, didn’t seem to care.
When Azazel waved a hand, allowing his Watchers to help themselves — they pounced, shoved aside the chairs to grab at the food with their hands, then shoveled it into their mouths.
There were few exceptions — Kokabiel, who poked at the food curiously, and Baraqiel who stood still beside him, and Samyaza, who twitched, who stared at the food but seemed to refuse to eat it if the standing Azazel didn’t.
“Sit, sit,” Satan urged, going to the head of the table, settling down on his chair.
Baal was beside him, too, as were other dukes and demons, curious like children, a few grimacing over how they might’ve contributed to the state of the Watchers now.
“How long has it been since we’ve spoken, dear friend? ”
“Before you left,” Azazel reminded him. “But you don’t speak to me as often as you used to.
” He then reached for a cup of wine just poured for him, then swirled it in interest. He heard a grunt by his ear, looked at Samyaza, read the gaze in his eyes.
‘You don’t seem happy,’ Azazel thought, then brought the wine to his old lover's lips, tilted the glass.
Samyaza, dutifully, sipped, painting his lips.
Twirling a fork, Satan leaned back into his chair. “And why have you come? I never would have thought that once you Watchers gained your freedom that you’d come right back to me.”
Azazel hummed, then he lowered himself onto a chair finally, setting his wine glass on the table. "We've been looking for you."
“For revenge?” Satan's tone was still light, but Baal shifted behind him.
“You,” he decided to remind him, “and all the Watchers will surely burn as I will.” Satan's gaze rose to the window behind Azazel to see Babylon still burning.
From this room, he could more clearly see how the Watchers had torn through buildings on their way to the tower, leaving a trail of rubble and bodies in their wake.
‘My empire.’ If Babylon fell, that would be another prophecy fulfilled. ‘I need them away from here.’