Chapter 43 #2
On the contrary, Baal shouted for the demons to raise their weapons.
“Kill the Leviathan!” he barked, hurrying back to get on his horse, to lead it away from so close to the battle, swerving it just in time before the Leviathan crushed the road where he’d been standing.
Baal pulled on the reins, bringing the winged stallion up into the air, and as soon as he was approaching the height of the Leviathan’s head, he lifted a shotgun that’d been attached to the horse’s armor with a single hand, pressed on the trigger.
The bullet passed straight through, and then so did the next, and the one after that.
The legion of demons all followed, and a rush of gunshots chased the sea monster.
Uriel, meanwhile, landed stealthily in a crouch on top of a building nearby.
“Kimah—?” His heart thudded hard in his chest at what was not Kimah, what was Satan in every feature of his face; and yet, he felt something there, a sensation like it was his own body standing on that road and fighting the Leviathan.
“Kimah…?” Then, Uriel noticed Dina, who was retreating the same as Apsinthos and ducking his head to avoid any stray bullets.
His mouth opened, closed, opened: he was yelling at Apsinthos to leave with him somewhere safer.
But then, the archangel heard even more noise, raised his head, saw a few more angels descending, hovering. Watchers.
Satan was still screaming in all his fury, pummeling the Leviathan who coiled itself around his limbs, even with bullets tearing hundreds of small, dot-wounds to bleed from.
It screeched in the face of Satan, matching his yells, refusing to surrender.
When a red-haired angel fell from the sky, the devil didn’t notice.
It wasn’t until he heard the smash of something colliding with a hovering star nearby that he turned his golden face.
Body flared, howls halting for a second.
After the plunge, Kokabiel had felt a second of peace, and then, as he sunk into the star — an unbearable scorch.
His mouth opened in pain, and yet, he couldn’t scream, the fire bursting his lungs first, then his throat.
‘This is the pain you’ve told me of.’ All the stars.
For all other things, the stars never agreed, whispered to Kokabiel conflicting truths, expressed their different dreams — but they shared the same pains.
Long ago, he’d learned to recognize some voices; he knew them from their wordplay, the desires they expressed the most. To silence all the other voices, to hear only one, to know everything, to have the truth for the first time — he did this.
Spreading thin, picked apart by the flames.
‘Kokabiel.’ Was that his voice or another’s?
‘Kokabiel.’ His thoughts, like his flesh, were pulling, stretched out into time, far into the dim vacuum above.
‘Baraqiel,’ he’d always called to him in Heaven after the war, ‘the stars told me—’ He wanted to tell him what he saw now, wanted him to know all the truth. How to kill a star. How to kill God. Kokabiel drowned in it — the truth.
Above, Baraqiel jolted, and though Danel grabbed at his arm, he stopped himself on his own.
Azazel asked what was happening, his heart stuttering and caving in, but Baraqiel said nothing.
The blaze was beautiful, all the fire more magnificent than God, in that moment.
‘Koka.’ How stupid he’d been. ‘You burn as bright as I always felt you did.’ He grimaced deep and a choke fell from his mouth.
‘I loved you because you were dangerous, because you were like fire, but I ran from you when it started to burn.’ The star they all witnessed grew brighter, as if Kokabiel had turned into its fuel before, suddenly, it swerved one way, then the other.
Briefly, Baraqiel thought he saw Kokabiel’s face, his eyes, in the mass of fire-flesh that composed the star before it lurched toward Apsinthos with a thousand mouths opening, closing around the blaze of the most wicked sun.
Dina screamed at this, barely managing to beat his wings to throw himself far from the stars.
As he did, he stumbled onto a wall, not far from Michael.
He watched, heard, Apsinthos roar and struggle against the star Kokabiel had managed to manipulate, but as he was bit into, chunks of his body tore off, flares whipping out like wings from them both.
Frantic, horrified, Dina turned to Michael, called, “What are you doing?! Aren’t you supposed to bring about the apocalypse?
For good! For the greater good!” Tears gathering, starting to stumble down his face, the young angel pleaded: “End this, Michael! End it, please!” But the chief prince’s eyes were dark, cruel on him.
And Dina shuddered. ‘Maybe Tadeo was right. The world ended a long time ago, and it’s this place that is Hell. ’
Apsinthos’ sight began to slip, all the suicidal intent that he’d had came to a grinding halt.
Ferociously, he fought back; he resisted the growing darkness, the sudden drowsiness, and Apsinthos forced himself to grow brighter, to bite back.
As he did, the star of Kokabiel shuddered, began to dim itself and shrivel.
Satan, in the hold of the Leviathan, watched: the darkening, weakened star backing away, close to the ground.
Kokabiel, almost certainly dead now. But Apsinthos was also noticeably less bright and smaller, his spherical body now misshapen.
With renewed vigor, Satan tore the Leviathan off of him, just enough for him to immediately crawl over the ground in a burning, terrifying panic, vision narrowing to tunnel around Apsinthos.
He had to crush him, in his hands; he had to eat him. He had to do it now.
Nearby, Baal cursed, trying to reload as fast as he could to help his fellow demons prevent the Leviathan from reaching Satan.
As he worked, he saw Michael, ‘stupid fucking Michael,’ with Dina by his side.
And, breath catching, clenching his teeth in anger, he turned the gun.
Knowing that Michael’s armor would protect him — Baal opted for Dina.
Jolting, Michael heard the boom, then looked over to see the young angel thrown back, crash against a wall.
The bullet had gone through his mouth, tearing little of his lips but decimating his teeth, the base of his skull.
Instinctively, Michael tried to reach for him, but then he stopped, and oddly, he remembered where he was, what was happening.
He looked at who’d done it as Dina jerked, clutching at a throat now covered in blood. ‘Baal.’
Dina, shaking, eyes wide, choked up, though he could still breathe — angels could not die, angels could not die, though Dina had just seen one burn up.
‘Why won’t the world end?’ What had he done wrong?
Why wasn’t God satisfied? Why couldn’t He put them out of this suffering?
A mercy kill? Wasn’t God merciful? Warily, he looked up at the one who’d made him do all of this.
But the devil didn’t reach Apsinthos in time. The Leviathan wrapped itself around Satan and, in a final effort, flung its own body with Satan’s into the crack in the Earth. Nails and fingers of flames clawed at the Earth as Satan was pulled toward Hell.
Watching it happen, Michael held his sword and thought, ‘Goodbye, Satan. Burn. For everything you’ve done.
’ He didn’t react, didn’t even move, when the devil thrashed, managed to pull some of his body above the gash in the ground and reach out.
Fire stretching over the pavement, toward Michael.
The prince didn’t move, met Satan’s terrified face.
The devil’s fingertips touched Michael’s armor — his chest, over his heart.
‘Michael—’ Satan’s voice, but in the chief prince’s head, and Michael’s breath hitched in a cold, furious terror.
‘Michael.’ Shuddering, the archangel saw another face in his mind, suddenly.
God. ‘Eden.’ Petals crushed beneath a naked body, darkened by blood.
A bed of flowers. ‘The Lord’s hands.’ And pain, a terrible pain.
‘I never told you. I never told you that you were right. This is all because of you.’ Dying, the devil finally confessed.
‘He told me that I was made for Him and made for this.’ This?
‘Do you know now?’ A twist of his stomach, and Michael did see it.
‘Do you understand now?’ It hurt. ‘I thought I’d die. ’
Satan was jerked back, and the sensations stopped, but the ghost of them lingered on Michael, in his body, in his core.
God, the Father. His hands. His jealousy.
He had seen love among angels, then tried to correct it, using Lucifer’s body.
Violently now, the Leviathan wrenched the devil back, and silent now, the serpent dragged Satan back into the ravine.
‘It was my fault.’ The Lord had told the truth.
‘It was my love that caused this, every second of this.’ But not his love alone.
The punishment for love; God’s punishment for love.
And, in unison, the demons screamed for their ruler. Baal abandoned his horse again, tried to fly down in time, though there wasn’t anything he could do. Worst of all, the crack was trembling, starting to close around Satan.
Finally, Michael moved — numbly, hearing nothing but the dull thumps of his own heart.
He beat his wings, threw himself forward, and yelled out in anguish, suddenly.
In confusion. Lifting his sword, he reached the Leviathan to slice, hard, strongly, beneath its head.
Screeching, the serpent revolted but refused to release Satan from its hold.
Its skull folded forward, away from the rest of its body, in death, black blood gushing out, but the head fell with the devil, the gash in the Earth closing around them both.
The chief prince, cold, shaking. ‘Lucifer?’