Chapter 39
Iblink a few times as my eyes quickly adjust to the light, and I waste no time taking a quick read of my surroundings.
I was right. I am in a vehicle. The back of a van, it seems.
And my only company is the devil himself.
He’s about what I expected: deceptively beautiful, dripping in sin, and every bit the fallen angel.
His eyes are striking, like cut peridots with flecks of yellow tourmaline, bold eyebrows and long eyelashes complementing them.
His hair, thick and dark, is cut short on the sides with the top’s length styled back.
One stray curl seems to have broken loose, falling errantly across his forehead.
He doesn’t necessarily look ready to hurt me, considering he’s unarmed and wearing some kind of vintage suit. However, looks can be deceiving. I know that well by now.
The plethora of tattoos is a bit surprising.
They start on his knuckles, disappear under his jacket sleeves, then return at his collar and reach into his hair.
The only part of him not tattooed is his face.
I try to glean an ounce of helpful information from them, but they’re just a riddle of intricate designs and symbols—
Azael crosses his arms, inadvertently sending my gaze back up to his face. He’s waiting for me, raising his eyebrows as I meet his green eyes in an amused, taunting manner. “Are you done inspecting me? Do I meet your expectations?”
My scowl deepens.
I need to buy myself some time to escape.
If he thinks he can turn me to his side, maybe I can use that to my advantage.
It’s risky, considering his reputation for being a convincing liar and reversing angels’ loyalties, and the fact that I have zero espionage training.
.. But unfortunately, it’s the best plan I can come up with.
“No. I’m disappointed.” I lean back on the bench, not taking my eyes off him. Channeling all the dullness I’ve been surrounded by for the past few months, I keep my emotions schooled and indifferent. “I thought the devil was part goat or something like that. You don’t even have hooves.”
He snorts, just barely loud enough to be perceivable. “Out of everything you could say, that’s what you pick?”
It’s my turn to raise an eyebrow.
“What did you expect from me? ‘Wow, Azael, you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen, please have my babies!’” I scoff. “Give me a fucking break. You’re not the first angel I’ve met.”
“I’m well aware of the others you’re acquainted with. Or engaged to, I should say.”
He just keeps giving me more reasons to hate him. “Great, so now that you know I’m a bit preoccupied, you’ll send me back. Yeah?”
“You’re so eager to return to them.” He clicks his tongue, chastising me. “I will consider releasing you, but I’m afraid I’ll be keeping War.”
I freeze, trying to retain my surprise. My fucking asshole fiancé still gave me an apocalypse horse? And he didn’t even tell me?
“Surely you don’t mean my Andromeda?” I play innocent. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re mistaken. She’s just a regular chestnut Arabian.”
Azael makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Nice try, but even if your lies were halfway convincing, she can’t hide her nature from me. Who do you think owns the first?”
Of-fucking-course he has Conquest. Goddammit. I really liked Andy, too. “Stealing my beloved horse is a really shitty move, you know. Even for you.”
“Should I steal the rider, too?” His voice lowers to a haunting pitch, methodical in its intimidation. “Take her home with me while I still have the chance? It’s a tantalizing opportunity. I’m very tempted to.”
I dig my nails into my palms, despising the way my heart begins to race. Try as I may to keep my breath from hitching, it still comes out shaky and devoid of confidence. “You’d be wasting your time. I’m—I’m not a turncoat.”
“Is that so?” He tilts his head, clearly unconvinced. “Then answer me this, Kaelene: What has you so devoted to them? Perhaps you believe you don’t have a choice in the matter, but still, that begs the question of a much larger why. Why would we exist to play out a predetermined fate?”
I open my mouth to speak, but I’m too stunned by the sudden bout of existential philosophy to come up with a rebuttal.
Meanwhile, Azael looks at me like a cat that’s caught a mouse.
“Exactly. It’s not predetermined. Just as a diamond cannot be formed without pressure, a soul cannot be shaped without adversity.
For humans to have free will, there has to be more than one option.
” He leans his head back against the wall.
“They say it began with two polarities in the garden. One as wise as a serpent, the other as gentle as a dove. Do you believe that’s still the case? ”
I only glare at him, unwilling to play into his game.
“No,” he eventually continues for himself. “Because paradise is the ending, not the beginning. Michael and I were only ever meant to ensure duality. To balance Order and Chaos.”
He’s saying he’s Michael’s equal.
“If that’s true,” my dry throat cracks, “and I’m not saying I believe you, but if that’s true, then what would you even hope to change? You’re both here again, aren’t you? Why not leave well enough alone?”
A piece of a serpentine smile threatens to overtake Azael’s lips, as if I’ve played right into his plans by asking that.
“Earth is only a tiny speck of the Creator’s universe.
He entrusted us to maintain the planet’s duality, but guess who failed to do that by having me locked away for a couple of thousand years?
” He leans forward, his face suddenly hardening into a deathly seriousness.
“Think about it. What is the nature of Order, and what is the nature of Chaos?”
As much as I’d like to write off everything he’s saying as propaganda, it eats at me.
Nothing about the angels has ever had a clear right or wrong. But Order and Chaos—entropy and extropy—that I can see.
It makes too much sense. Chaos leans toward natural progression and free will; Order leans toward controlled perfection. And if Michael is the side that favors control, then he’d stop at nothing to eliminate the other.
“Domination,” I answer. “You’re saying he wants domination.”
The devil is already breaking through my walls, and I’m sure he senses it as much as I do. His eyes smolder as they stay locked onto mine, holding me captive as much as my shackles are.
“History is written by the victors, and I do not intend to lose again.” His voice drops into a growl that is near feral. “I am the only force stopping Michael from bringing the entire world to its knees with an apocalypse that he is causing.”
I feel a dead weight sink inside me.
Michael committed genocide once. What’s to stop him from doing it again? He holds every angel in Elohim in an iron grip. If he wanted to burn the world down, he could do it ten times over.
Dear God, please tell me that isn’t true.
It can’t be. It was too easy for Azael to break my resolve, and nothing is ever that simple with angels.
I stick my chin up, looking down my nose at him, as if that’s any bit convincing. “I don’t believe you.”
“Liar,” he proclaims immediately, disdain dripping off his tongue. “Tell me, how do you plan to live with yourself after you open the Abyss? How will you sleep at night as every nonreligious human being on the planet is being tortured, all because of you? Even the children?”
Bile rises to the back of my throat just at the thought, but I force myself to swallow it down. I avert my eyes and respond unevenly, uncertainly, “The children are innocent. They would be spared.”
“From God’s eternal judgment, yes, because babies aren’t evil.” Azael’s lips twitch as he holds back a snarl, abject fury blazing in his eyes. “But who commands the locusts to do his bidding? Have you not read it in Revelation?”
My gaze stays firmly fixed on the wall. “Abaddon would never harm children.”
“Fool. You know nothing about the angels you keep company with!” He snaps forward and snatches my jaw, forcing me to look at him.
“Do you think Abaddon and Semyaza evacuated all the children from Sodom and Gomorrah before destroying the cities? Do you think that Michael spared a single child when he slaughtered everyone in Adonai?”
My eyes blaze with hatred, but I can’t respond with his fingers pressing into my cheeks so harshly.
He lets go, leaning back, but no less furious. “You do, don’t you? Well, let me be the first one to tell you that they didn’t. If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you to the old nursery in my ruined city and show you all the bloodstains we keep as a reminder.”
I cover my mouth, gagging—
“You are not allowed to puke in my vehicle,” Azael warns.
With a brush of magic, the urge completely dissipates, and my physiology drops back to a nice, normal baseline.
“You’re confused, but you’re not heartless like them.
I suppose we can thank your human upbringing for that.
Still, you’ve done well to listen, and now we have some time to spare.
Ask me whatever you’d like, and if it’s in my power to answer, I will. ”
I hate how much I understand the story of Eve now.
Azael is a slippery, vile snake, but he offers the Tree of Knowledge.
I have questions that nobody has been willing or able to answer.
If this is my reward for appeasing my captor, it would be a waste not to take advantage of it.
And there’s one question that I’ve been dying to know since the beginning…
“Why me?”
He looks smug and satisfied with himself, knowing he has me exactly where he wants me. “Only the power knows why it picked you.”
That’s not helpful. “Well, am I still my own person, at least?”
“That depends on how you define your personage.”
I narrow my eyes, becoming very impatient with his dubious responses. He answers, but somehow avoids the entire question at the same time, just like a politician. Maybe all politicians really are from the devil…