The Rise
I sat on top of the building, high above the debris.The reconstruction of the city was starting. Aid organizations were moving back in and contractors were there shifting the rubble off the streets so rebuilding could begin. Refugees were returning. It was time for me to leave.
Well, time for us to leave. Nora and Bray had stayed with me for months before the ceasefire.
We tended the wounded. The sick. The injured.
When a treaty agreement signed by old men who’d never set foot on a battlefield was finally forged, I breathed a sigh of relief.
They played their politics; watched the bloodshed and thought it was an acceptable loss.
When Bray’s eyes had healed, I’d suggested they go home.
But they’d stubbornly stayed with me. Now, they’ll move on with me too.
As my companions. Maybe one day something more.
I wasn’t ready for that yet, but I wasn’t against the idea either.
People had waged war and created art in the name of fornication, so perhaps I’d try it one day.
With Nora. Or Bray. Or both. We were taking it as it came.
I'd decided that perhaps they both needed to heal from conflict zones, so we would head to somewhere where they still needed doctors, but there were less bombs. Just for now. There would always be more wars but they were irreplaceable to me.
A displacement of air told me there was another angel behind me, and the swell of angelic presence told me exactly whom.
My heart thudded in my chest, but I didn’t panic. If this was the end, then so be it. I had no regrets.
Instead of running me through with his sword, the Archangel Michael sat beside me on my wall. The people below us couldn’t see, and for that I was glad. Michael’s presence could be overwhelming for fragile minds.
I turned to him. “Hello, old friend. If you have come to end me, I would request you make it quick.”
Michael sighed heavily. “I’m not here to end you, Raphael.”
I tensed at his words. “If you’re here to end them, then I’m afraid that our friendship will meet a bloody conclusion anyway.”
Michael tilted his head at me. “You would fight me for their lives? Me? Your brother for time immemorial?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation. I would fight for them both. For who they were, if not for what they gave me. Love. Affection. Acceptance. Joy.
Silence settled over us both, and Michael sighed once more. “I’m not here to end anyone, Raphael. It isn’t a task I enjoy, despite the prevailing opinion of angelkind.”
I relaxed, but only a little. “No offense intended, Michael, then why are you here?”
His wings flared out behind him, soaking in the sun's rays. Perfect, snowy white wings. The way mine used to look.
I liked them the way they were now too.
“I’ve come to apologize to you Raph.”
Now it was my turn to frown. “Oh?”
“I wronged you all those years ago, and it’s a regret I’ve lived with ever since.
Every century you suffered, and I could have eased it, but I didn’t.
” His inhale was shuddering, a sound that was filled with doubt.
“I made a decision back then, a decision that I believed to be what the Father wanted. A decision that I so carelessly enacted in my hubris. But you know what they say, ‘Pride cometh before the fall’.”
I couldn’t tell if he was telling me I was Fallen now, or if he was falling, or if he was just making a joke. It was… disconcerting.
Turning to face him fully, I did something I rarely ever did on other angelkind.
I tried to read his soul. Obviously, it was a huge blank spot because he was the Archangel Michael, and an Archangel I might be, but I was significantly lower in the hierarchy.
“I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to convey. ”
“I should never have ordered you to murder the infant. Gusion’s child.
It went against your very nature, and I so confidently thought what I was doing was right, that the ends justified the means, but I was wrong.
So very, very wrong. And because of that, you have been plagued by guilt.
I’ve seen it. You were right not to snuff out her light, Raphael.
You were closer to His plan than I ever was. ”
I shrugged. “Someone recently told me that perhaps Angelkind was also made to evolve. Perhaps this was merely the next step in our evolution. A necessary growing pain, though I do feel guilt about those who were caught in its transformation. Because I know love now, Michael, and I find it hard to argue against its glory.”
We were silent again as we watched people move what debris with wheelbarrows and shovels. Soon, bigger machinery would come in and move the stuff that couldn’t be shifted, but those valuable first steps had to be done with sweat and two hands.
“Your doctors. You love them.” It wasn’t a question.
I smiled now, because I did. They were so much more than I could have imagined.
So open and kind, fierce and brave. They held me at night, and I held them right back.
They lavished me with gentle kisses and kind words and easy affection, and I soaked it in like a sponge. “I do. They are easy to love.”
“They’re good, but their lives are so short.” He meant it with a capital G. They were going up, but I was Fallen. We could dance around the fact, but my wings were a brand of their own.
“They are. And eventually, when they die, I will be happy knowing that they will get the happiness they so deserve.” It was hard to think about never seeing them again, but I would cherish the time we had.
“You wouldn’t argue for them to go down to Hell? So you could keep them with you?”
I shook my head. “No, they don’t deserve to be in Hell for loving me, Michael. Their souls deserve to be rewarded.”
Michael was quiet again. “What if there was another option?”
I flexed my wings, showing him the pink tips. I wasn’t hiding them from him, even if I could. “I cannot ascend again, we both know that. I don’t regret it either. I’ll continue to heal mortals and do my divine duty, but I don’t belong past the gates of Heaven any longer.”
Still shaking his head, Michael stared at me intently. “I don’t mean that. You’re correct. You may never step foot inside Heaven again. But you don’t deserve to be in Hell either. I’m not sure any of them ever did.” He meant the Fallen. “What if there was a middle ground?”
“Purgatory?”
He nodded. “Uriel is there now, imprisoned in the hell of his own making. But what if Heaven remained for the pious, and Hell continued for the sinners, but somewhere in between was for the good. People like your doctors, and Acerezeal’s progeny.
Lucifer’s deadly sins. The child.” I didn’t know if he meant Serendipity or the new baby, Madoc.
It didn’t matter, not really, because what he was suggesting was possibly blasphemy.
“Then I think perhaps it's not just Angelkind that is evolving. But surely the Father can’t approve of this.”
Michael let out a small laugh. “I’ve been wondering if I’ve been getting it wrong all these years anyway. Who knows what he wants? He makes his wishes known himself when the time is right.”
We sat together as the sun set over the ruins of what once was a thriving city. It was broken now, but it wouldn’t be forever.
I looked at Michael. “When the time comes, I’ll help you make the change. When Nora and Bray pass from this life to the next, I will man the gates of Purgatory.”
Michael squeezed my shoulder. “There is no one else I would trust more with the duty.”
Then he dematerialized, and I was once again alone on the rooftop.
“Raph?” someone called from below, and I looked down at Nora as she shaded her eyes against the bright, setting sun. “Are you ready?”
For the first time in my immortal existence, I was.