“No… No, no.I’ll put a sword through my own throat so that I don’t have to speak a word to Him.”
“He can hear your thoughts— No.Put your hands down, please.You’re going to pull all of your hair out.Don’t hurt yourself.”
Gabriel continued to stare at Uriel and thought of the last time he’d tried speaking to the Mother of God, had waited for her voice to respond to his questions and her maternal touch over his hair before she left the house, returned to the side of her Father, who was also the Father of her child.‘Do you ever hate me?’he wanted to say again.‘Do you ever think that I came to you when you were too young, or that I neglected to tell you just how your Savior would save you?Do you ever wonder if I took advantage of the love you had for a God you didn’t know?I’m just a messenger.I hope you can forgive me.’
Uriel blinked, and then he raised his face, made eye contact with the youngest archangel; he noted Gabriel’s distant expression and realized all the time he’d lost, as well, in his own head.He couldn’t be another Gabriel.He could not follow the same path.Jerking his head to the side, Uriel snapped, “Be quiet, Michael.Whatever you’ve imagined, it doesn’t matter!”He looked back at the messenger angel, then added: “And you, get your hands off of me.”
Jumping, Gabriel clutched at Uriel’s hands a little tighter.“Are you still in pain?”
“You’re all useless.”Uriel ripped away his arms, then shifted to climb onto his feet slowly, staggering.“We can’t do this.None of you dare to leave this room.”They were in the same barracks where Gabriel had met Michael earlier, the same ones where Michael lived, but in another room, one with no furniture beside stone benches, stone floor, and candles.“If the four of us travel to the Earth together, at once, the apocalypse will begin.”
It would be another mark on the list of events that Revelation had foretold.If Revelation was prophetic, this would trigger the apocalypse; if Revelation was not prophetic, then the angels would act like it was.That was the riddle at the center of it all, to Uriel — was Revelation a prophecy or was it absolution for what lay ahead?One can clean their hands of anything if one says it was pre-ordained.‘Is the Book of Revelation prophecy or absolution?’he echoed to himself.
“None of you understand,” said Uriel.“You don’t know what it will do.”
Michael’s breaths remained unsteady, and his face was still turned to a corner of the room, but he grunted out, “Youknow nothing, Uriel.You’ve always thought you understand God, but you don’t.”
“Idiot,” Uriel snapped.“All you do is follow God’s orders without wondering why He hands them.”
Raphael furrowed his brow, both hands on his staff, his voice taking on a sternness that it’d rarely ever taken — “Uriel, you’ve been the one to emphasize how important our submission to God has been for billions of years.You warned us to fear God before any of us even had a reason to.And now you’re rebelling?What has become of you?”
“Once the humans rise to Heaven, the Lord will have no need for us.You have seen Metatron.Soon, God will transfigure all the humans such as He did to him, and if we angels are not sent to burn, we will be made servants to man.”
Gabriel, slowly, stood, his hands before himself, fiddling.‘Mary,’ he thought.‘I didn’t see you at the Throne.Were you behind it?’He turned to face the other archangels, seeing Raphael’s bewildered eyes and Michael’s tight, frustrated expression.He parted his lips, but he didn’t speak.‘Where have you gone?’
Raphael spoke again to Uriel, “What are you suggesting then?You want us to lock ourselves in here?You want us torebel?”
Quiet and stiff, Michael replied, “If you rebel, the Lord will have you punished.”
“Yes,” Uriel laughed darkly, “and I’m sure you’re very eager to tear my wings off like you did to that little devil you still fantasize about.”
Instantly, Gabriel stepped before Uriel, but Michael had already swung his fist, and it struck the messenger angel across the top of his head, so hard it sent him to the ground, his skull crashing against the stone, instantly cracking open.His mouth, his senses — all overwhelmed with blood, its metallurgic heat, its rush out of him like a broken dam flooding the ground.‘I still remember,’ Gabriel thought as he felt, distant like a dream, his body jerk and shake, ‘when Lucifer punched me.With everyone watching.The way he curled his palm, the angle of his elbow.’Michael had taught Lucifer how to punch.
“Michael!”Raphael yelled, raising his staff and roughly shoving the chief prince aside with it, but his voice cracked, and his gasp was horrified.“Look at what you’ve done.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Michael seethed, his gaze not even flickering in Gabriel’s direction before he stepped forward, grabbed Uriel by the collar of his robe then slammed him against the wall enough to rattle the oldest angel’s body.Uriel managed to keep his head dipped forward, avoiding his skull slamming into the stone enough to break open how Gabriel’s had but nonetheless still striking it enough to make him grimace.“And you?—”
“You’re a killer,” Uriel spat.“God has made you into a killer.You’ll even break open the head of another prince of Heaven.”
“You don’t know how lucky you are that our Father decided I don’t torture you, after all.”Michael, from a rage building in the very back of his throat, growled.“But now you will leave this room.You will follow His orders.You will do as He says.”
Raphael retrieved a long vial of water from a pocket in his robe and dumped it entirely over Gabriel before laying his hand on the split of the skull, where brain matter itself was cascading out.But Gabriel was still conscious, would always be, and he continued staring at Uriel and Michael, who appeared more like shadows than angels through all the fog over the young angel’s eyes.‘Mary, did you know the end was coming?’He hardly felt the healing, the same way he’d hardly felt the pain.‘Did you know, the same way you knew your son was going to die?’He shut his eyes, for a moment, and he tried to listen to Raphaels’ hums, tried to lose himself in the delicate work of his fingers.‘Your son, who your Father put in you.’
“You cannot make me,” said Uriel.“I will not destroy the world for God.There will benoblood on my hands, not in His name.”
Hazily, Gabriel felt himself tugged closer to Raphael, who was on the ground with him, and he rested his healing head against his friend’s chest.Even with all these recent memories badgering him, he found himself reminiscing, too, on his first days as a prince, how Uriel had ignored him, how Raphael had taken his hand and put his wing over him and led him through the perils of authority.Raphael had reassured him that responsibility was nothing to be afraid or ashamed of.He’d seemed so wise, though it was Uriel who was meant to be the angel of wisdom.
“Uriel, forgive us,” Raphael called, his talk making his chest rumble against Gabriel’s cheek.“But we must follow God.We have no choice but to be obedient to Him.We’re His chosen.If you won’t follow His word out of love, then remember your fear of Him.”
But now Gabriel felt older than them both.As his skull closed, and all that remained of the injury was dried blood by his ear, he pushed his body away from Raphael’s, though not without dragging his hand over to his, squeezing the fingers that had healed him.Parting his lips, he heard his own voice say: “I don’t want to bring apocalypse to the Earth either.”He said it simply, like it wasn’t the great rebellion that it was.“I will stay here with Uriel.Michael — you and Raphael may do as the Lord has ordered, but I cannot.”
“What?”said the angel of healing first, his eyes wide, his mouth opening and spluttering.“Gabriel—” Except Gabriel pulled away from him entirely to climb onto his bare feet, then putting one over the other, approaching Michael, the towering chief, the angel of strength.“What are you saying?”
“I said that I won’t end the world,” Gabriel said, and he looked up at Michael as the prince inched his face to stare back, his eyes as wide as Raphael’s but overbrimming with rage.
Michael, tense, slow, asked, “You’re going to rebel?”
“I want,” Gabriel answered, “to speak to Mary?—”
