Chapter 32 Suriel
“We can’t hold them, Suriel … He’s too strong. They’re too strong,” My brothers scream in my head. I’ve already seen so many disintegrate into nothing without having a final kind touch.
Now Charlie’s slipping away too. Everything tilts, like the shuddering earth is trying to guide me into the lake of fire, like Hell’s power has become a magnet that pulls in the wicked while repelling and crushing what’s true and honest and real.
It’s Charlie.
Her power is feeding Lucifer’s will. His proud smile doesn’t match that victorious shine in his eyes. He only cares about winning. And she’ll only realize that when it’s too late.
Screams fill the night and Charlie looks up, no trace of horror on her face or in those all black eyes. The black tainting the veins on her face spreads, now stretching out from her lips as well.
My brothers and sisters fall from the sky in the kind of shooting star no human would wish on if they desired anything righteous or good.
It’s so tempting to close my eyes and be done, so I don’t have to witness this, hear their screams, feel their pain like my own.
All that keeps me from using my sword on myself is Charlie.
She deserves better.
She deserves salvation.
“Whether Charlie remembers or not, she is not yours,” I hiss, opening my eyes to glower at Lucifer. “She is her own. God can’t command her and you can only influence and take from her.”
I grip my sword, trembling as I battle my own doubt and the grief for all those around me.
My devotion to the plan is on ground shakier than the earth below me, but with the lake of fire, Satan standing before it, and demons feasting on the half-dead corpses of the brothers and sisters I’ve loved … I refuse to stand down.
No matter what it costs me.
“You’ve sinned and killed. It’s time to show you a father’s true wrath. If you’re so eager to embrace it …” Lucifer grins, his smile more wicked in its kindness. “…who am I to deny you?”
Demons swarm me. One second they’re watching, sniffing out other angels to feast or humans to infect, the next their entire focus is me.
They’re like locusts, crawling on top of each other, killing each other in their determination to ravage me.
A few rip at me, but I’m capable enough to keep them back.
When one latches onto my back and rips it open, I let out a sharp yell that echoes around us.
Charlie takes a step forward, worry temporarily flitting across her face. Then she seems to remember what side she’s on and glowers at me.
In the next second, a near blinding light forces the demons back as Michael swoops down. He decimates dozens, but I can see the feathers falling from his wings. He’s lost his golden sheen, his divine light flickering and dimming again and again.
Michael pants and sweeps his blade across another row of the demon imps. I crush one under my boot and it pops like a rotten banana, squishing out without the least bit of fruity fragrance. They smell like smoked, rotted meat as they ferment and fester in their death.
One grabs Michael’s wing and tries to pull out feathers to reach the soft, vulnerable skin below. I grab the demon by the throat. The second it opens its gaping maw, I throw it at another imp and they devour each other, blind in their rage and hunger.
Gabriel and Raphael join the fight, beating back demons.
Raphael puts his hand on me, his healing grace helping me adjust to the pain.
My skin doesn’t stitch itself back together,which is proof we’re all losing our grace.
His concerned glance, the weariness etched on him not to mention the ashy gold dust that clings to him, the blood across his body tells me how horribly we’re doing in this battle.
“Raphael,” I breathe.
“It must be done, Suriel. It must,” he hisses. He glances at my tattoos. “We’ll need strength.”
“Raphael!” Michael yells as some horrible mix of body parts come together to form a demon that is a bastardization of Ezekiel’s description of angels. It’s all eyes and arms, massive and eager to grasp, maim, and watch it all.
My brother doesn’t move fast enough. Michael’s sword can’t ruin all the hands that grab, even when the beast is cleaved in two.
Lucifer’s laughter shakes the world, the tremors from hell radiating outward and destabilizing the small front I’ve set up with my brothers, but I don’t look in his direction.
I clutch Raphael. His wings are shredded, one can’t spread at all, the bone visible. His stomach is open, his grace falling from him in a golden waterfall tinged with blood so red and dark that I can’t imagine ever washing it fully from my hands.
“Raphael,” I breathe.
“Do. It. You must. Stop … Stop holding back,” Raphael breathes.
“Suriel!” Michael hisses. “We need Raphael! There are too many of us falling!”
I try to hold Raphael together, try to give him whatever I can of my grace. A few of my tattoos, the chapels on my body race towards him, the color streaking along my skin to give him what I can, what I’m not using, what I don’t seem to be able to wield.
The results aren’t perfect. His wing is beyond my repair, but at least he has a chance. A chance to fight, to die with honor, to do more than heal others and support them.
Through the masses of demons continuing to come, an unrelenting wave, I see Lucifer lifting Charlie’s chin. Her eyes keep flicking towards me as I kneel by my brother, helping him up, determined to keep him from falling among rotting demons.
How can she simply watch?
Lucifer is clearly trying to talk to her, but her eyes keep moving to me. I feel her gaze like a presence.
“Let them die the same way they made you live, my sweet girl. At least they’ll have it end quickly. It’s a mercy they don’t deserve.” Lucifer tightens his grasp on Charlie, trying to make her focus.
Her gaze settles on him with a soft expression of awe and wonder, with something else, something I haven’t seen before. Belonging.
That’s what he has to offer her. That’s the thread of temptation he’s pulling. Severing it might mean leaving her in a bottomless pit of total despair. Which could sentence us all to Hell’s reign.
“Charlie! How do I fix him? How will the dead be mourned?!” I yell, trying to call to remind her of the purpose she gave herself at the morgue.
She doesn’t look away from Lucifer. I think she’s talking to him, but it’s impossible to hear over the Enochian being spouted, the pleas for help and mercy from other angels, the demons mocking the ‘last rites’ humans get to have.
Please, let her cling to who she chose to be before Lucifer.
Let her recognize the truth, even if she’s trapped in his web.
“Go,” Raphael says, touching my hand gently. “Finish this. Our numbers don’t compare to Lucifer’s. Heaven isn’t strong enough to hold it all. Finish it. It’s the only mercy we ask for, brother.”