Chapter 42 #2
Samyaza was still hoarse, and he continued to twitch, as he quietly told Azazel, “We should bring them with us.” When Azazel glanced over at him, he noted the softness in the eyes of the Watcher who’d long ago snarled that he knew what was best for Azazel.
As if recalling the same memory, Samyaza’s face flashed with regret, pain.
‘But it was me that became your keeper, Samyaza. I fed you my own blood, and I let you drink my tears.’ Azazel walked over his gaze to Dina, and to the murdered girl and the other girl holding her body.
“Bring them with us?” Azazel echoed softly.
“Where to? Where are we going?” He’d mocked Satan over dinner, told him he’d become just like God.
‘But now here I am, broken over a place we helped destroy, hoping to run away and never look back. It’s what the devil did, isn’t it?
’ Perhaps, Azazel would crave godhood soon, as well.
‘Will this be the beginning and the end forever?’ The wound of his heart ached; the emptiness never faded.
But he could feel the Watchers eyeing him.
And he understood Lucifer, truly, for the first time.
It was Kokabiel who answered. He swooped down, approached Azazel, and smiled blissfully.
“Above. Past Heaven. The stars have made room for us.” Azazel understood now what that meant.
“They're calling us home. A new paradise, one God can’t reach.
" After this, Kokabiel smiled at Baraqiel, but Baraqiel still refused to meet his old love with anything but quiet coldness.
Armoni, below, looked at Rosier, then at Dina again, still shadowed by Apsinthos, and Azazel quickly said, “Don’t bother, Armoni.
” Exhaling slow. “Let Dina lay in the grave he’s dug for himself.
” Azazel didn’t feel the relief he’d thought at those words, even less so when Armoni flinched, but Dina’s gaze remained dark.
‘I’m sorry, Dina,’ Azazel also found himself thinking.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.’ “Danel,” Azazel then called, “can you help carry Rosier up? Samyaza can carry Armoni.”
The demon of fruit clenched his teeth, hugging Asmodeus’ arm tighter.
‘I don’t want to run.’ He wanted to die.
‘I want to burn in Hell.’ But Armoni pressed his head to Rosier’s own, and he took his free hand, squeezed it.
And when Danel descended to carry the demon, Rosier felt his eyes burn and his throat close.
Michael, after retrieving his sword, dressed in silence in what might’ve been a broom closet.
After Baal had left to follow Satan, he'd returned with a scowl and some human clothes folded over his talons — cargo pants, boots, and a tank top that’d fit horribly tight around Michael's chest. Immediately, Michael had tried to argue, but Baal had dropped it on the floor, turned on his heel, and disappeared again. The prince frowned, reached for the gift that’d surely come from Satan.
And unsure what else to do, he pulled on the clothing over his enormous body, only to hide them beneath the armor he still refused to go without.
Truthfully, the chief prince should contact the other angels — Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel at the very least, but he didn’t know where they were.
He had defected from God's war, without meaning to. And just as he began wondering what his fate would be now, he heard the beautiful voice he detested: “Baal says there’s no sign of your angels outside; I suppose you really abandoned them, and they abandoned you.” Just as Michael turned around, still missing his helmet and his chest plate, he saw the devil at the doorway changed into human clothing himself — a loose white top, frilled at the sleeves, loose pants, dress shoes — ridiculously mundane, almost soft-looking.
Oddly, that made Michael’s grip on his helmet tighten more than if Satan had still been dressed in his infernal, seductive sheer.
“Hm.” The devil looked too innocent, pretty, harmless.
Serpentine eyes narrowed, eyeing Michael’s hair, still wild from sex. “Come closer,” ordered Satan.
“No.”
“It was an order.” The devil’s voice hardened, but Michael still didn’t move.
Swiftly, Satan crossed the space between them, grabbed the prince’s hair with a painful yank.
“Don’t move.” Michael grunted but didn’t struggle, even when the devil’s lavender scent washed over him wickedly.
Rough but efficient, Satan’s fingers worked through the prince’s tangled curls, divided it into three sections, then pulled one over the other in a loose braid.
Briefly, Michael remembered Lucifer’s hands in his hair in Heaven — gentle, curious — but this wasn't that.
And it never would be again. Hands slowing, leaning in, Satan whispered hot against Michael's ear, “You’re mine now. Even your hair belongs to me.”
Shivering, Michael said, “I belong to—” But he didn’t belong to God anymore.
“You gave yourself to me.” Satan finished the braid. Let it fall. “And you can never take it back.” He stepped away. “Let’s go find my child.” Left Michael standing there, hair bound, body marked. Soul damned, but he had nowhere else to go.
Outside, Baal had just finished rounding up the vast majority of the demons, the others instructed to protect the tower from humans or whatever else might try to appear.
It was the sort of chore that he’d typically have Asmodeus do.
But Asmodeus wasn’t here to help anymore, and Baal didn’t know where Rosier was either.
He’d heard Moloch was attacked, decapitated; he’d heard that Moloch blamed Rosier; in all the chaos, that was all he’d gathered.
Really, Baal hoped it was true, hoped Rosier had given that bastard what he deserved.
He set those thoughts aside for now, however, when Satan elegantly approached.
Baal straightened up atop the winged horse he held captive and watched the devil climb on, settle in behind him, and whisper, “We’ll kill Michael, after this.
It’s the most certain way to prevent the apocalypse from ever beginning again. ”
Baal almost breathed a sign in relief. Behind him, over the burnt ground of the great tower of Babel that dwarfed all those human skyscrapers, the demons readied on steeds, in cars, on motorbikes — whatever else they could learn to navigate fast enough.
And Michael appeared at the mouth of the tower as the regent of Hell finally said, “With pleasure.” When all the demons noticed the chief prince, they laughed and whistled.
Patting Baal’s armored shoulder, the devil ordered, “Head for the border out of Babylon.” Then, he chuckled, “You’re charming when you’re jealous.”
“You’re cruel,” Baal answered, but he nonetheless leaned into the kiss Satan pressed to his cheek. After this, the devil kicked the horse on Baal’s behalf, and when they went on ahead, the demons hurried to follow in a stampede.
Hours passed with Dina, and he’d spent much of that time almost alone.
Nearby, Tadeo’s mother still sat and Lupina remained on the ground, her empty face continuing to dribble the occasional tear onto Joana’s skewered body over her lap.
Apsinthos had told Dina to wait here, but the angel didn’t know what they were waiting for, didn’t know if the end was still possible.
Tadeo was burning in Hell, as he was destined to, but it wasn’t meant to happen like this, right?
And if the end were really to come now — would it hurt?
Or if it would be like falling asleep. Dina supposed it would come with the Son of God descending from Heaven, but there was nothing in the sky now, not even the silver birds.
All the screams and explosions of earlier had simmered into a strange silence, where there were only crackles, buzzes of insects hungry for the dead, and some distant human voices.
When he began to slump too much, Apsinthos called, ‘Dina. Don’t sleep now.
’ But he was half-dozing, thinking of soft things, of bed, of Heaven.
Had it really been so bad? Uriel had been kind at times, offered him tea, warmed food, and the rooms were always so lush with plants.
He never worried of death, never felt the bristle beside him of human suffering and family and love and bigotry.
‘This is why I chose to end it,’ he tried to tell himself.
But Tadeo had known the evil of the world, far better than Dina, and he’d rejected apocalypse.
The demons on the winged horses arrived first; as they did, they saw the same desolation that Dina had.
Sparse humans wandering, tanks tipped onto their sides, the gray clouds of burning, the bare bones of houses.
When Baal landed the pegasus, Satan lifted his body so that he could see over the regent, and he felt his heart begin to drum slow, frightened.
He clutched at the demon’s shoulders, and he exhaled at the sight of it all.
‘Am I too late?’ No, he couldn’t be. He was God.
He was God. ‘Is the anti-Christ dead?’ No, he couldn’t be. But where was he?
“There’s Dina,” Baal said, leading the horse deeper into the town, toward a crack in the Earth. “What the fuck happened here? Is Hell opening here too?” Hooves beat at the ground behind them, but they were slowing from their gallops. And all the demons quieted.