Chapter 34 Suriel
Iknew he’d reveal his true self.
It should validate me, instead, it just makes me more determined to end this. To end him. Of course, I know it won’t be that simple. It takes ruthlessness and sacrifice to put Hell back where it belongs.
I sit up and stare at my brethren, still fighting to get to Lucifer, so focused on the task that their pain is almost forgettable, but if not, then the suffering is worth upholding God’s plan.
“Please, any other way,” I whisper. I feel the angels on my skin move, surging towards my hands, trying to force me to act. “Anything but that. Please, God. I will serve, but please … not like this.”
Lucifer laughs softly, drawing my attention as he keeps a firm grip in Charlie’s hair. The veins around her eyes keep retracting and expanding as she tries to twist out of his hold.
“He doesn’t speak to you anymore, Suriel,” Lucifer says, his smirk growing. “He sent you here to die.”
I ignore him and focus on Charlie. “My dove … please.”
“This ruined, blasphemous bitch is finally unchained and free to fill the role she’s meant to. She serves her true and singular purpose - total destruction. Now, Suriel, serve yours and die,” Lucifer snarls, holding her out towards me like she’s a trophy he’s won.
Her eyes close and she bows her head slightly.
Her shoulders shake, her wings try to close around her.
It’s her worst fear come true – that she’s beyond her own control, that she’s nothing but a piece on the board, chained to destiny she could never shape.
That there was no way to escape it. No free will.
I shudder. “You were also created to be loved. Let yourself be that too. You’re more than a plan.”
It’s her choice to accept it.
It has to be.
Her eyes start to change, the whites visible, but then black, they pulse in and out as she grabs her head. She twists back and forth like she’s in agony. Lucifer sighs and strokes through her hair, tracing down her spine.
“It’s too late for that, my disobedient pet,” he says, unable to hide the mocking tone anymore. “Suriel, God, nor those human morals can save you. You’re all mine. If you won’t do it of your own volition...”
I hear as much as feel his corruption. She bows forward, his middle finger thrust into the nape of her neck, like he’s scratching at an inch at the back of her brain.
Her eyes don’t go black, they shrink, only her pupils show her inner darkness.
Her veins all glow white, then her head falls back and her lips part.
Something darker than black fills her eyes, ringing her eyes in an almost rainbow hue – as if she contains a black hole that will suck the world dry.
She screams, but Lucifer isn’t finished. He places his hand over her heart, the inverted cross that’s blazed there. Her body contorts, her wings splay out as her fingers start curling back, almost breaking with the effort.
The world itself trembles, the air sizzles and the sky breaks, ripping open and revealing a perverse, yet beautiful aurora borealis.
Her face is twisted in a silent scream as tears streak down her face.
Every vein in her body ripples black, as if she’s calling the galaxy itself into her, a bomb poised to explode and it’s breaking her.
“CHARLIE!” Her name rips from somewhere deeper than my throat.
I don’t question it, don’t acknowledge the heartache and pain I’m drowning in.
I just move. I throw everything I have at Lucifer, my blade glowing with divine fire again, echoing all the righteous holy sacrifices that have been made.
Lucifer laughs, holding his arms wide as if giving me more space, like he knows it won’t harm him.
I barrel into him, knocking him down. He may be ten feet tall, but on his back, he’s nothing but a molehill. “Kill me over your dirty, used-up nephilim. She’s a tool; the unlovable antichrist herself. She’s nothing but a battery for me.”
Without a word, I drive my blade into his wing, thrusting deeper and deeper as Lucifer wails, his wing trying to pull free. His wings are God gifted and Hell perverted – no match for an archangel’s blade.
As my brothers join me, I give them what’s left of my tattoos, every holy thing I’ve earned through my time of service.
Every bible verse I’ve upheld, every bit of stained-glass I’ve saved, the eyes across my hands that proved I’m a guardian, everything over the years, even the weapons of the angels memorialized on my flesh - it all serves to empower my brethren against Lucifer.
“You think God will reward you?” Lucifer demands, grabbing my hair and jerking my head back as he tries and fails to sit up. “You failed his test! Serve me like you once considered, like you were always meant to, Suriel. Choose for yourself and think of Charlie as a reward for the right answer.”
“She’s not a reward,” I spit my blood in his face. “I serve who I choose, Lucifer. Let me demonstrate.”
I drive my last weapon – the tooth I saved from his fucking hellhound – into his eye. He lets out a screech that threatens to deafen me as I shove it deeper, infecting him with the poison, tainting his blood with Charlie’s compassion and Lust’s necrotic venom in equal measure.
My brothers and sisters crawl over Lucifer, pinning him in place.
Lucifer thrashes, trying to break free, but with my tattoos, my siblings are strong enough to hold him.
It may take dozens, but we’ll do it. We’ll do it bleeding, dying, accepting our death and the fact we’ll never be mourned. There’s no honor in war.
“Suriel, it’s too … He’s too …” my brother collapses on Satan, fizzling away until he’s nothing.
Lucifer laughs as he continues to thrash, more angels perishing on top of him. “You were never meant to win. I’ve rewritten the book. My daughter, locked out of Heaven, unwilling to embrace hell, the lost lamb tainted you. Heaven is gone. How does eternal suffering feel?”
Michael, barely able to lift his blade, offers it to me. I twist it in both hands, holding it over Lucifer’s throat. Behead the beast, let him swim in the lake of fire. End the war.
“WAIT!” Charlie’s scream overpowers every other sound and freezes my hands.
“Just let it end,” I beg Heaven … still silent.