Chapter 29 Suriel
Iripped myself free of the restraints the second I heard Charlie’s strangled scream. I’ve tried shaking her awake, tired whispering in her ear, tried hugging her, but she’s still limp. I pull her up until we’re almost standing. “Come on, Charlie. Please, just-”
The fire changes, drawing my attention. No longer red and orange with twists of yellow, but potent black. Her head starts to lift as invisible sparks leap from her skin, scalding me. They leave physical marks, like I’ve been splashed with hot oil.
I feel a shift and glance outside as a dove slams into the window. It’s tattered, burnt, missing feathers, but still trying. It doesn’t coo anymore, it screams. It beats itself against the window, trying to get to Charlie.
This isn’t a nightmare. She’s not waking up, not properly, but kissing her is wrong. I have to respect her. I have to honor her wishes – not out of orders, but because I love her. Let it damn me, I don’t care. I love her imperfections and anger. I love her and haven’t gotten enough time to show it.
She can’t slip through my fingers now.
“My dove, please. Come back to me,” I say, studying her throat as it works, then her face as she goes deathly still. “Be angry with me, don’t-”
Her eyes open and a sizzling red light traces her body, as if there are flames hovering a millimeter from every inch of her skin.
Her hair twists in a wind I don’t feel. Her all black eyes don’t focus – she looks right through me.
I stumble back as she stands in an unnatural way.
She reaches back, gasps, stumbles, then coughs.
Thick, black oil spills over her lips. She laughs, a rolling terrified sound that become a cackle.
“My choice. Free,” she says, her voice slow.
“Charlie,” I whisper. “Charlotte, wake up.”
I reach out to her, but the air around her shifts and sparks. Boils raise on my fingers before I yank my arm back. She pushes herself off the wall, coughing again.
I really look at her. The same black oil covers her feet, her hands, it’s smeared over her chest. The indent of each oilslick is clear – like a chain, but the way it leaks over her …
“He touched you,” I whisper. “The Devil …”
It’s her soul leaking, spreading, trying to fight corruption while also embracing it.
I reach out to her, determined to help her, to fix this, to hold her.
The second I try to wrap myself around her, I’m shoved back as a wing rips free from her back.
There aren’t feathers, just skin, jutting out across gnarled bone like it’s broken, Her wing tries to shake off the blood and lingering skin from her back.
She gasps, but uses it to push herself up.
All I can do is follow as she staggers and sways, her free wing thrusting out, twisting at angles it shouldn’t, then shaking to reveal feathers that are drenched in the same, iridescent black sheen as the oil on her body.
She walks towards the back door at a jerking, halting pace.
Anytime she comes close to falling, I reach out, only to gain more blisters before I touch her.
“I’m coming,” she breathes, then mumbles it a few more times as her chin drops to her chest and she stumbles against the wall by the pantry.
My runes burn until they’re nothing. The salt seems to become ash itself where it’s near her. Twice, she tries to open the door, not realizing that the two-by-fours are nailed in place.
When her second wing rips through her skin and shirt, she claws through the wood. Her fingers barely touch it, but the entire door simply explodes. Wood shavings dance in the air around her before catching light and burning themselves to ash.
The earth below us shakes, buckles, then stabilizes. Her head cocks to the side, but she keeps walking. “My choice. I go.”
“Charlie, this isn’t your choice. It’s not, you have to wake up. I know it’s easier. It’s always easier, that doesn’t mean it’s right, it-”
Her hand presses against my chest, searing my skin.
I bite my tongue against the sound, but my body crumples under the hellfire.
The oil keeps the flames burning until I drop and roll in the dirt, putting out the fire, but leaving my ruined skin there in the shape of her hand.
I pant as she keeps walking, each step more sure than the last, while her wings operate independently.
They don’t need her or each other based on how they twist, stretch, then drag on the ground.
The second those dripping feathers touch the asphalt, the flame around her catches.
Each bit of that hellish black residue in her wake catches light, working backwards until the cabin is a burning inferno.
The trees around us burn as well. It keeps pace with Charlie.
Her steps are steady even when she coughs up more oil; her wings keep her going.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
Again, it’s the best word. Touching her will kill me. She’s beyond my power. She’s beyond Heaven’s grasp. The freedom she wants …
“Where are you going?” I ask loudly.
She doesn’t stop walking, but answers. “Home is waiting. I always wanted a home.”
I don’t know what she’s seeing, but it can’t be the spreading blaze around her. Perhaps I can make her see reason in another way. “Charlie, you don’t want to be used. You said that. This is what it means to be used by the Devil. Just let me-”
“No. Your job is done,” she snarls in a voice that’s hers, but not.
She’s wrong.
This is wrong.
Her wings spread wide, ready to take off. She tests them once, gets them in sync, while I struggle with figuring out how to get close to her and staying alive. Then she lifts herself, shakily, slowly.
I can’t debate anymore.
I grab her ankle, trying to hold her back. “Charlie, this isn’t what you want! It’s destruction! It’s not power, it’s-” I nearly bite through my tongue as I try to hide my scream. My hand isn’t just on fire, it’s smoldering, bubbling, as if she’s cooking me alive.
“Power is control. I like control. I want to go home,” she says, ignoring that I’m holding onto her, even though it’s keeping her from ascending fully.
The drop is still devastating. We’re far above the trees and keeping my grip even when it feels like my skin is sloughing off is taking so much effort, so much grace that the fall might kill me.
I want to convince her, to kiss her, to get to her in any way I can, but I can’t feel my palm.
What’s left of my nerves are screaming. My arm shakes, my shoulder aches, and my fingers slip from Charlie’s super-heated skin.
I plunge into the cold night, accepting that death is waiting for me. “Not like this,” I whisper. “This can’t be how the world ends.”
Meteors with brilliant tails streak the otherwise black and red sky. A blood mood, ash clouds, a storm. The final seal is nothing but a memory. The lost lamb crashed through it with fury paving her way.
“Brother,” the angelic voice revitalizes something in me, as I realize I’m no longer falling.
“Raphael, he’s fading,” Gabriel says as he lifts my chin. He comes into focus. “Brother, you must stand. You’re not finished.”
“She’s already made her choice,” I whisper.
“Since when do you give up?” Raphael snorts as their beating wings cool the near agonizing burn across my palm. It shouldn’t hurt after the level of burn Charlie delivered, but I’m sure Raphael is healing me. “There are battles to fight and you have a woman to subdue.”
I want to tell him she’s different. She’s not the same as Eve. She’s not willing to give in, but something else seems to drain me. “What’s happening?”
“We’re losing,” Gabriel answers solemnly. “Heaven is losing the battle.”
“That’s not possible,” I say. “That’s not how it’s written. You must be-” My eyes open and I behold the true state of the world from the view angels are supposed to have.
Calling the planet decimated would be too kind.
It’s past the point of repair.
Angry rips gouge the earth, exposing the red, sloshing magma below.
The cities are burning, animals are stampeding with panic nipping at their heels.
The humans that are left are beyond depraved.
They’re devouring every positive shred of the legacy they could leave.
Dismantling towns while reveling in the destruction becomes their new joy.
They’re carving each other apart while fucking and feasting on what’s left of their fellow humans. This is the profound depths of chaos.
Yet the path that Charlie took is clear.
Her power is as destructive as the sun, if it blazed a path across the world, leaving an inhospitable scar.
Her power is so incendiary, so unwieldy, that the path below her is gleaming with black glass, sharp and ready to eviscerate and kill with all the subtlety of a bear trap in a freshly mowed lawn.
Sound waves ripple across the earth, shattering windows, deafening those below, shattering bones at a touch.
The blast is a sudden sun in the sky, growing larger to light the night and make those who can still see after the first blast forget the blood moon.
There is only Hell come to earth, the laughter and baying screams of hellhounds, the wicked glee of angels as they dance and trumpet in a perfect mockery of Heaven’s glorious horns.
Blazing across the sky, between the falling tons of rock still smoldering with magma, are golden streaks that I can’t quite make out.
They burn, sizzle, then burst upon impact, cratering the earth, but leaving no burning remains, just a splatter of gold that’s quickly covered by ash and pumice from the eruption that must have happened when Charlie took flight or when she tried to kill me.
“This can’t be Earth,” I breathe. “This isn’t possible. Heaven isn’t meant to-”
“You feel it,” Raphael says as we move faster and faster, though the carnage below hardly shows any of our progress. “Heaven’s grace isn’t as strong as it was. They’re closing ranks, coalescing around you, Suriel.”
My gaze turns to his. I feel the unwavering weight of Michael’s gaze as well. My heart feels as raw and skinned as my back.
This was never meant to pass.
We were made to prevent it.
“We’ve failed. Failed them all.”
Raphael shakes his head. “We all have our purpose. We all have our duty, Suriel. You must focus on yours. You must uphold the faith others have placed in you, in us.”
“How?” I whisper, feeling something crack in me. It’s like trying to walk without my wings again, suddenly aware of gravity, aware of how crushingly heavy my body is. “How can any of us when this-”
“This is better than nothing. You are more than many deserve. We’ll get you what you need, but you must act,” Gabriel says as they bring me to the edge of the caldera.
Demons of all sizes skitter about. Some crawl on unnaturally long arms and legs – reminding much of the spiders I’ve seen.
Others haul themselves from the fissures around the lake of fire, taller than the house Charlie and I took refuge in, happily shifting in the air, among the trees, hunting down any sinner that can be found.
“The wicked will inherit the world if you do not make your aim true and finish this,” Gabriel says, gripping my shoulders as he stares deeply into my eyes. “You must do this. Only you can.”
I want to tell him how impossible that is.
That I cannot be asked to do something so terrible.
But the desperation on Gabriel’s face puts it all into a new perspective.
He’s never been anything but stoic – a perfect angel in devotion, action, and lack of emotion.
Now, he’s shaking, clinging to me as if I’m all he can focus on without losing his hope, his faith, and his courage.
How can I bear that?
How can I question Heaven’s design when my brothers need me so much?
Is she worth it?
“Haven’t I commanded you …” Raphael pauses to make sure I’m looking at him. “Be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you … wherever you go.”
He cups the back of my head and rests his forehead against mine. “God is with you, Suriel. Your brothers are with you. We are strongest when courageous. Not fearless, but focused.”
“Be that for us now. Don’t let the others burn and fall in vain,” Gabriel bids, leaving me with orders, the weight of life and existence on my shoulder, and an impossible blow to deal.