But then the anti-Christ cackled, shaking his head, throwing his hands in the air like he’d just witnessed a great performance on stage or in a circus.“Come with you!”he taunted, shoulders shaking with his laughter.“How much of what you’ve said are lies, devil?!Was it only the part of me being your child or was it the anti-Christ thing too?”
Satan laughed right back at him.“You know the truth.Deny me all you like but you can’t deny who you are.”
Tadeo grappled the front of his saddle with one hand, then shoved one boot onto a stirrup before yanking his body up, onto the horse.“Bullshit.”He took the reins, nodded at the angel, and said, “Dina, let’s check in on my family.If they tell me that there’s nothing I need to handle, then we’re going back for the soldier.”
“Anti-Christ,” came Satan’s voice, low, bristled with irritation in a way that Tadeo wanted to laugh and say was very parental.“You know the truth.The angel is deceiving you.You’re the destroyer of Earth, and you are the son of the devil.If you continue to deny your rage, your world will just grow more rotten and evil.”
Jerking his chin at the angel again, Tadeo watched as Dina’s wings unfolded from his back, beat once to toss him into the air enough to fall onto the saddle behind the young man elegantly.Then, Tadeo turned back to Satan, smiled mockingly.“I have my father’s eyes,” he replied simply.“The color and the shape of them.And I have the exact texture of his hair.And his nose.”He tilted his head, flaunting the side profile of his face.“So don’t you try to trick me that you could ever,” he suddenly snapped, “be my father.”
Satan stared, expression like stone.
And, without waiting for a proper response, Tadeo swirled saliva in his mouth, then spat it at the ground between where he’d been standing and where the devil was, the breeze still tossing his hair beautifully, his cassock ruffled by the wind.Dina’s arms went around Tadeo’s ribs to hold himself steady, wings still partly out.“You will burn,” said the boy, “as God promised you would, and I will be His sword if I have to.I will cast you down.And I will save this world from ending.I am no anti-Christ.I am no son of yours.I’m just a man trying to be a saint.Now, go back to Hell where you belong!”He tugged on the reins harshly, encouraging the horse into a walk, then a gallop, quickly.
But both Tadeo and Dina half-expected the devil to come after them, somehow — maybe do away with his disguise, peel back his pretty flesh to reveal the grotesque Beast that he was, lower himself onto all fours, then chase after them.Satan, however, remained still, where he was, watching the angel and his anti-Christ as they sped further and further away.Tadeo couldn’t help but think of how the image of the devil turning into a Beast could be so reminiscent of the current turmoil beneath his skin, and so he frowned deeply, shifting his attention back to the street before him just as a turn approached.It was all he could do to try to stop his mind from wandering, from even taking a second to seriously consider any of the devil’s words.He knew better.And yet.
Dina bit down on his wobbling bottom lip, his heart erratic and twitching in his chest.‘It can’t be true that Satan is his father.’Tadeo was right; he had very distinctive features of the human father he’d lost.‘But why lie about this?To convince Tadeo to join him?’The angel turned back again, but Satan was gone.‘And did he… believe I’m here to save the world, after all?’
Tadeo, meanwhile, was trembling, his breath unstable and feeling like it teetered on an edge.However horrifying it was to be told by Satan that you had his blood running through his veins and that you were a weapon to end time — Tadeo was far more distraught by the devil mentioning that day he’d died.‘You didn’t send them after me.’Tadeo had never in his life thought that Satan had secretly ordered soldiers to kill him, especially not the way he had, and yet he was utterly sweating, itchy, tensed by Satan stressing that fact.‘It’s not about that day.It’s about how maybe Satan isn’t behind any evil acts at all.He’s not responsible for this war or any wars.’But if Satan wasn’t responsible for this evil, then what evils was he responsible for?Was it any of them?
As they continued onward, the sun beginning to set, the sky blooming red as the fires of Hell — ‘Tell me that this is the devil’s work, God.Tell me that men slaughter, rape, war, genocide because of the devil.Don’t tell me this evil is human.Don’t tell me that this is just us.’
CHAPTER24
The last time the devil had been in Hell, he hadn’t stayed long, but he’d restored peace in the infernal kingdom — for the demons, though the same couldn’t be said for the tortured souls — and invited Azazel to dinner.
‘A demon had come to free me from my bindings, then helped bathe me in water and milk before I was dressed in a freshly cleaned tunic, my face newly painted, my body smelling of lavender.They brought me to beautiful Satan in his dining room, in his tower, staring out a window at the Hell that he’d always told me I was responsible for.He saw me through the glass reflection, and he asked me if I was happy.I said that I dreamt of us, in some paradise in the sky that I’m certain never existed now.I served you, devil, some wine, and you spilled it.You covered your hair, and you didn’t sing yet, like a young bird fallen from the nest, too weak to fly.I dream of us often, Satan.You dream of us, too.You used to dream of being me.Your hand on my chest, on the wound where my heart should be, and on my stomach; you wanted to bear my own memories.You wanted to feel the touch of a man.You wanted to be loved and discarded.And you wanted to create, but you already had, Lucifer.Your first child was sin, and now your second is damnation.’
In the caves where the Watchers were imprisoned, the angel Azazel opened his eyes from the empty sleep he’d forced upon himself; grunts and rattling chains sounded nearby.The darkness before him, however, was so thick that it was as if he were still trying to dream.He was seated with his ankles chained to the ground, as always, but his hands were free; whenever he was taken to the devil and returned, Azazel would almost never be chained to the same spot.This time, he was right across from the one angel he cared to be closest to the most.There was a shadow of a figure, someone slumped with his hands chained high and spread.Grunting, twitching like a starved monster.
“Samyaza,” Azazel soothed in a whisper, then he rose slowly, bare feet planting over the pebbled ground.“You’ll wake the others.”He stepped forward, the chains connected to his ankle dragging like serpents over the ground, until he reached his friend, lifted his hands to cup his face.Though he’d long adjusted to the darkness, it wasn’t always easy to see the details, even those that he was sure would haunt him in death.If he were ever to die.‘It’s difficult not to think we’re all already dead.’At his touch, the shuddering angel at the center of all the Watchers stilled but not without a hitched whine.“Good, good.”He pressed his face to Samyaza’s, nuzzled their noses.“If Armoni doesn’t come soon, you can have some of me.”‘My blood, my saliva, my tears, my sweat, or the wet of my sin.’It was all Azazel had left to offer.
Samyaza panted and without speaking, he brushed his mouth on the other angel’s, then lowered his head, trying to reach Azazel’s chest.There was a gaping hole there, where a sword had pierced through long ago, where a heart had been skewered out of him and dug into the body of a child.An angel-human child.‘You think that I didn’t see you, devil, the day that you helped kill my baby.Your paled face, your wide eyes, the sudden horror on you like it was your own beating heart cut out.Does the devil regret?Do you wake from nightmares of my child that you murdered and need absolution?’Azazel raised himself on the tips of his toes and allowed Samyaza to drink from his chest, the wound.
Samyaza never spoke anymore; he could only ever groan.
‘I dreamt, too, of the first day you freed me, Lucifer.Samyaza fought against his chains and demanded for the demons not to touch me, but I reassured him.I thought there was nothing worse that could ever be done to me than what had already happened.All of the Watchers were still so conscious then, not animals as they are now.And, for the first time, I was cleaned and dressed and, wonderfully, fed, before I met the devil once more.Lucifer, the one I’d last seen standing over me and the body of my massacred child even if I couldn’t remember it well then.I remember it now.Or I’ve imagined it now and made it true.You asked me about my child.I said all of us Watchers had children.You said mine was different.You said mine was beautiful.It was not an abomination like the others.Why?Was it because I was with a man, not a woman?’
‘Why was my child beautiful?Why did it have the beauty of an angel and the body of a human?Why did it have perfect wings spouting from its back?You asked me why me, why me.What was it about me and that dead man I’d loved that had beget a beautiful life?Was it love?’
Azazel pulled away, and in the dark, he caught Samyaza’s mouth dripping blood.
At another end of the prison, a torch’s glow swelled as a figure, ahead of many more, stepped out from a nearly infinitely long staircase.At either side of the narrow cave tunnel in the Earth, there were Watchers, their ankles and wrists cuffed and chained to the ground.Long ago, they had all stood as if crucified against the walls, but due to a cave collapse, they’d all been relocated, and this is what’d become of their bindings.All of them grimaced or hissed or covered their faces from Armoni, who looked down at them with pitying eyes and a frown.All the Watchers had matted, knotted hair, and many of them were naked to expose all their never-closing wounds, weeping blood as if newly cut.When they, one by one, seemed to realize it was Armoni, they nudged each other, grunted, gasped — but they didn’t speak.
As Dante moved into the prison alongside Rosier, Asmodeus, and Gemory, panting from the climb he’d had to do for entire days, his legs burning, his head pounding — he stopped.He stared at all the naked Watchers, their quick glances and their reddened mouths.“What?”He hadn’t been expecting anything in particular, and during the climb, he’d especially not cared for whatever they found, so long as it was safe from the chaos in Hell.They’d been particularly slow, given Asmodeus’ weak legs and Dante’s, however soldier-trained, human stamina and the bruised ribs.They’d rested, even slept, on the steps, and Dante had begun to imagine the red cave walls closing in to the sound of the distant groans of suffering souls.He’d never met his father, wondered if he was here.But — now that it was over — he remembered expecting angels.These chained creatures hardly looked like angels anymore.
Armoni spoke, softly, and Gemory translated quietly, her hand coming around Dante’s arm: “The Watchers have been held here for thousands of years.The angels worked with the demons to capture them, kill their families, then imprison them under Satan’s control.”
“Their families?”Dante echoed.
Rosier was the one who answered this time: “They married humans and had children with them, but their offspring were horrible, monstrous giants.”Dante remembered Tadeo in his monstrous body.“But much of that history, and that the angels relied on demon help, has been buried, not only for humans.For us, and for the angels — we aren’t supposed to speak much of it, even if that terrible event, that flood, is why we all came to Hell.The devil tells us that God surrendered this place to us because he had the angel Michael act as his messenger to God and form a covenant with Him.”
Asmodeus was leaning on the fruit demon in question and muttered, “I’ve never been convinced that the arrangement is as perfect as Satan says.”
Armoni spoke again, this time with a glare, and Gemory giggled before she translated: “Armoni is telling us to get to walking so that we can speak with their leader Azazel.“ Dante eyed all the imprisoned Watchers around him once more, and he saw that they were staring carefully at him now, one of them baring his teeth how a dog might.“Azazel is one of the only Watchers who speaks now.”However tempted Dante was to ask for more, he simply followed along as Armoni began to walk in between the walls of prisoners.
On the shore, beneath nothing but stars — Tadeo had just arrived on foot after leaving his horse and belongings with his relatives, and he began walking straight into the sea.He was still shaking, despite how long it’d been since his confrontation with the devil.‘Anti-Christ.His child.’That wasn’t true; it wasn’t when the devil said it, and it still wasn’t.‘But what’s the alternative?’He swallowed thickly, then heard splashes behind him, and he stopped, turned swiftly, and said, “No.I’m sorry, Dina.”The angel in question stood still, just some steps into the ocean, following behind the anti-Christ.“Stay on the shore.I think I’ll go alone.”
But the angel stared back with wide eyes as his hair was tussled by the breeze behind him.“Mm?”Then, he hesitated, and his gaze lost its shine like he was in deep thought or like he was listening.Apsinthos’ voice said, ‘He will get lost.Hell is infinite.He needs you.’“But,” Dina said softer, “you don’t know where he could be now.Hell is infinitely large.”
