Chapter 39 #2
“What changed in my soul, exactly, when I merged with the star?”
“Now you’re asking the right question.” His arrogance only grows. “But do you truly want me to tell you? If I do, I can only warn you of the repercussions of what would happen if other angels were to know. Clearly, they don’t yet, so you’ll have to decide if it’s worth outing yourself.”
“I do want you to tell me. I need to know.” I refuse to beg, but thankfully, I don’t have to. Azael offers up the truth so willingly, I can hardly believe how easy it is—especially considering how that’s the exact opposite of his reputation for lies and deceit.
He takes a breath just deep enough, long enough, for me to observe it.
“Very few of us have met a soul like yours to be able to recognize its nature. They’re rare; they don’t typically personify as archangels do.
The only other one I’ve met chose to do so by creating a new individuality, against its very nature.
Somehow, though, you made one meld with yours. ”
I stop breathing as everything clicks together inside my head.
“Breathe,” Azael—Azael reminds me.
That surprises me enough to enter a new state of shock, looking at him in some admixture of horror and awe.
“No,” I insist. He doesn’t have to say it. I’m almost certain I know what he’s talking about. “You have to be mistaken. I just borrowed its powers. I didn’t become it.”
“Not powers, Kaelene. Power. It’s a type of angel in the Second Sphere. A force of nature, bigger and stronger than the rest of us inhabiting this planet. Just abstract enough to desire an individual to represent it—”
“No!” I shake my head furiously, but he doesn’t let up.
“It’s quite interesting, really. Since you were born a human, would we still outrank you? Or do you outrank us now?” The corner of his lip tilts up. “No wonder Kesbeel wanted to tell me about you. He just conveniently left out the most important part.”
“What—the Kesbeel?” The one who created the Elohim and Adonai realms with a simple oath? I didn’t think he was still around, let alone speaking to anyone. Holy fuck. This just keeps getting worse. “He knows who I am?”
“Calling Kesbeel a ‘he’ is one of the biggest stretches that Elohim has ever normalized. To put it simply, his personification is much more… inhuman. Minimally functioning.” His eyes skim over me. “Though, with how animalistic you were acting a moment ago, I’d say you’re equally volatile.”
I ignore the jab. “What did he say about me?”
“Nothing you should be concerned about.” Azael glances toward the doors of the van. “We don’t have much time left. I need to turn you back over to your masters.”
“You’re letting me go?”
“In a moment, yes.” Azael nods towards my restraints, which collapse into ash the moment he looks at them.
“I suppose I’ll let you keep Tumultuari, since it doesn’t seem to appreciate me as its owner anymore.
Consider it a token of goodwill. If you’re feeling generous, you can return the favor by not telling anyone what we talked about. ”
The dagger appears out of thin air in his hand, and he holds it out to me. Moderately worried it’s some sort of trick, I hesitate, then tenderly grasp the handle.
The hum of energy that floods into me feels exactly the same as it always has—familiar, almost even comforting.
When I meet Azael’s eyes, green and blue and all the colors of the Earth itself, I find nothing malicious in them, either. I’m so confused. Am I supposed to stab him? “You realize you’re handing me a celestial weapon capable of killing you, right?”
“Unless your Power equipped you with thousands of years of combat instinct, I’d say you still have a long way to go before you can land a scratch on me.” He pulls back, appraising me. “Besides, you don’t want to kill me. Not yet, at least.”
“What do—”
Everything goes black.
I’m lying in the middle of the desert, my cloak sparing me from the scorching midday sun. Very considerate of my kidnapper, keeping my pale, cave-dweller skin from burning…
The first thing I hear is the call of a raven, shortly followed by the rustle of much larger wings. I want to pretend I’m asleep, just so I don’t have to face them, but I know it wouldn’t work. I can tell by the boots, visible in the crack of my hood, which two angels have come to collect me.
“I’d like to go home now,” I mumble to myself, almost subconsciously. “Back to North Carolina.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” Abaddon’s voice rumbles from above me.
With a heavy groan, I bring myself to a sitting position, readjusting my hood. Abaddon offers his hand, but I only stare at it, unwilling to touch him.
“Who was it?” Michael snaps.
Ignoring the hand, I pull myself to my feet, dust the dirt off me, and look up at the sky. Maybe I have a death wish, but I don’t care to cowtoe to a single angel right now. “The Adversary, of course.”
It brings me some small pleasure to know that I’m putting Michael in a bind by not directly stating it was Azael. He’ll have to give up something if he wants more information.
The earth seems to rumble beneath us as Abaddon takes in a furious breath. Michael, on the other hand, looks at me with clear suspicion.
“How many? What did they look like?”
I shrug. “Just one, I think. There was a bag on my head.”
“And what did he want?” Abaddon grinds out through his teeth.
"He tried threatening me into not opening the Abyss."
Michael narrows his eyes, taking another step forward so that he’s standing in front of Abaddon. “Why are you lying?”
“I’m not. Everything I’ve said is true.”
“You’re telling me that he just gave you a warning and let you go?” The anger on Michael’s face is making my nonchalance so worth it; I have to hide how giddy it makes me feel. I think there’s something seriously wrong in my head. Maybe Azael knocked a few screws loose.
“Yep. He sure did.”
“What else did he say, exactly?” Michael’s seething catches Abaddon’s attention, who takes a step closer as the lead archangel continues to press for answers. “If you don’t spit it out already—”
“Michael,” he growls, “that’s enough. She said what his intentions were.”
Igniting like a fire onto charcoal, Michael whirls around to face the King.
“If you weren’t so blinded by your unholy, vile attraction to the mutated human, you would realize that every single detail of her encounter is critical for understanding the Adversary’s plans.
Do not forget your place, Destroyer. Her emotions are not more important than the mission. ”
I take a step back, my eyes wide, shocked that Abaddon would challenge Michael so blatantly. It’s a terrible idea—one that might get us both killed. I can feel the tension rising in the air.
Abaddon’s voice drops even lower, reaching a menacing depth. “My place, and my Queen’s, is not within your sovereignty. I only align with you out of our mutual servitude to the Almighty. At any point in time, I could retract that support.”
Their wings both shoot out, nearly simultaneously, like two oversized birds in a territorial display of strength.
Michael begins to glow with an impossibly bright light, something that once felt like acid when I was fully human—and in parallel, fire lights along Abaddon’s armor, glowing with a shadowy dark material.
I start stumbling backward to get away.
When they draw their origin weapons—Michael with his brilliant greatsword and Abaddon with his scythe—I realize this isn’t anyone’s bluff. They’re genuinely moments from fighting each other to the death.
I can’t even imagine the destruction that could happen in the crossfire of these two. It could be catastrophic. Nuclear.
“Stop,” I breathe weakly, my eyes wide, my pupils constricted to tiny beads. “I’ll tell you everything. Please. This isn’t necessary.”
Abaddon’s glowing silver eyes dart to me. My voice almost acts like a lullaby to him, dimming the destruction that radiates off of him...
But it does nothing to Michael.
His Holy light sears everything around him, scorching the earth. Like the egotistical dictator he is, he cannot let a challenge against him go unpunished.
“You make a mockery of us, Destroyer,” his voice booms with thunderous might, entirely inhuman. “I am a Principality of Earth. This is my realm you’re standing in. If I wanted to take your life for disregarding our governance, it is entirely within my sovereignty.”
“You can try,” Abaddon starts, but I immediately step forward, stealing his attention again.
I’m desperate to keep him from making this worse. I’ll put myself in the line of fire if that keeps them from destroying the whole Middle East in one argument.
“Please—”
“Do you see what you’ve done, child?” Michael’s gaze rips towards me, burning and blazing, as if he’s trapped the sun inside them. “This is why we do not wed humans. The impulsive, fleeting nature of your kind is a corruption to our immortality.”
A strange calm takes over me, as if the anxiety I feel so often finally matches the gravity of the situation I’m in. Either that, or I’ve simply accepted the likelihood that I’ll experience death today.
Whatever it is, I feel abnormally fearless, tilting my chin up to look him dead in the eye with confident defiance.
“No, Michael. You’re wrong. Your immortality, your complete detachment from the purpose of life and death, has made you rotten to the core. You cannot rule humanity when you have none. You do not speak for us. I do.”
Faster than the speed of light, Michael has a hand wrapped around my throat.
A millisecond later, Abaddon lunges, pushing darkness and destruction like a spear of power at the other angel—but it’s futile.
Without even turning to look at his attacker, Michael lifts his free hand in a movement that cracks the wind and the sky, throwing Abaddon back like a rag doll. I watch his limp body fly through the air at an impossible speed until he disappears from my line of sight.
I don’t see where he lands, if he’s okay, or anything. All I hear is a sickening crack as his body crashes into the ground, as if a meteor had just struck the desert, leaving me with cold, hard shock.
It’s hauntingly quiet for a brief moment.
Then Michael acknowledges me again.
He glares down, still gripping my throat in his massive hand. His hardened, cruel face seems to have every intention to suffocate me to death—but not without a lecture first.
“You’re an innocent, and he preys on you. I am a shepherd, Kaelene. My sheep are ignorant, but I protect them regardless.”
Protection. Is that what this is supposed to be?
With all the strength I can muster, I push against his armored forearm and try to twist out of his grasp, as if I could possibly free myself. No such luck. He doesn’t budge.
This is the day I die my first death.
“I am not your sheep,” I rasp in a constricted voice, accepting that it’s time for me to speak my last words. “I am… a lion…”
His face twists even more with insult, compounding the fury and insanity already floating at the surface. He grips my throat harder, the force crushing me—
And then something completely unexpected happens.
A sword plunges out of his chest.
Satin red blood sprays out from the punctured, golden chest piece, misting onto my face.
His eyes slip down to the wound, wide with the horror of finally facing death, however temporary it may be for him. The hand around my throat becomes sickeningly limp, and his glow rapidly diminishes, until…
I watch the life slip from his eyes.
Sheer terror, the likes of which I’ve never felt before, sends my heart into a roaring frenzy.
I had already accepted my death. It would have been a relatively peaceful one, with the most powerful being on the planet crushing the life out of me in sheer hatred.
Simple, quick, and straightforward. But this?
A weapon capable of killing Michael so easily, now inches from my face? That is a horrifying uncertainty.
For a moment, I don’t think time is even capable of moving forward. I think it might be frozen.
Then the sword slides out of his torso, and as if it were the last thing tying him to this plane of existence, his body quickly turns into ash on the wind.
I expect to see Abaddon, maybe, or another Council member.
But it’s green eyes that meet mine.
“Hello, Kaelene. I’m afraid I need to steal the rider after all.”