It had been one thing to feign ignorance, to tell the truth misleadingly, but lying to a distressed face was another.Dina’s open mouth choked up; he wanted to confess that this had to happen, that this was the only way to end evil.They had to destroy it all.They had to die to resurrect — all of them.“It must get worse before it gets better,” he told the anti-Christ.“Please trust me, Tadeo.This must occur.I understand that it doesn’t seem so, but—” The guilt was dirty, heavy.“You must have faith, Tadeo.”
“Faith, eh?”Dante echoed.
Tadeo glanced at the soldier beside him, noticed his narrowed eyes, tense expression; and Tadeo’s heart thumped hard enough in his chest to hurt, but he returned his attention to the angel soon enough.“Is it true that angels and demons worked together to imprison these Watchers?Why?”
Again, Dina required a second of silence before he spoke again.“The story of the great flood is far more complex than what your people wrote down.”
“Agh,” Danel groaned, hoarser this time; then, he grunted up to Azazel again.“I can hear the sun— It’s saying a million words to me at once.I can’t think.I can’t.”A whimper, high and helpless, escaped Danel’s mouth.“I’ve never been able to hear it, not like Kokabiel does.”
“What is it saying?”Azazel calmly asked.
“I don’t know,” gasped the fallen angel of the sun.“I can’t make sense of it.If this is what Kokabiel hears, I understand why he is the way that he is.”
“He,” croaked the always-quiet voice of Baraqiel, “must be hearing it all too.”The nearest Watchers turned to see the body of the red-haired Kokabiel, splayed out over the ground, shuddering in harsh jerks, almost as if he were convulsing, with fingers grasping at nothing.Suddenly, Baraqiel nudged him hard with his foot, almost a kick.Unlike the others, Baraqiel’s body was almost entirely devoid of gory gashes, for he had gone quietly, without resisting, when Michael’s angels came for him amid the flood rain.
Dante told Tadeo: “I don’t think he’s telling the truth.”
But Dina ignored him to say: “Think of the story of Abraham and his son, Tadeo.Think of the story of Job.To do good for God, you must confront a call that first seems implausible and cruel, and you must face adversity.You will be rewarded for it.The world will be saved.You must trust in His plan.”
Tadeo clenched his jaw.“I do.I do trust in Him.”But this did not feel right.“If what you say is true, though, then what do we do now?”He could feel Dante’s frustrated glare on his skin, searing, but he was being careful.‘What comes after the darkened sun?I can’t remember.I can’t remember now.Fuck, I can’t remember.’
Dante watched Tadeo’s face — earnest, faithful, blinded by devotion.Tadeo wouldn’t listen, couldn’t listen.His faith was too strong, and it was going to get people killed.‘Then maybe I’ll be doing the right thing,’ the soldier thought, ‘if I do what they told me to do.’He recalled falling into Hell with Tadeo, how Tadeo had healed from an uninjured hand he’d protected.‘I need a phone.’It was his mother or Tadeo, after all, and Tadeo was a murderer, a torturer.He was Dante’s torturer.
Azazel called out to Dina: “What is happening?”He knew not of the apocalypse.“Who are these men?”Then, he paused, sighed.“Is it… really you, Dina?”
The young angel turned toward the Watchers finally, looking into Azazel’s eyes the color of the Earth’s firmament, and a pang of hurt whipped him.“Yes,” he said.‘Dina, don’t stray your attention.You must lead the anti-Christ home.’“Yes, it’s me, Azazel.”He moved to the new leader of the Watchers, inching closer, until he staggered over a rock on the pale sand.“Old friend.”‘Dina, stop.’‘I’m sorry, Apsinthos.’
The features on Azazel’s face softened, then he closed the short distance between himself and Dina.Spreading his arms, he welcomed Dina into them, and he felt the younger angel latch onto his torso in their tight embrace.‘If nothing else,’ Azazel thought, ‘you still feel as I remembered.Warm.Small, even if you’re about the same size as me.’“I see,” he mused.“Itisyou, my Dina.”‘I hope.’With a clinking of the chain, Samyaza took a step closer, yet another noise building in his throat, but Azazel didn’t pay any mind to it, not now.
“I am,” Dina said.“I am.It’s me.Dina.I have to tell you—” ‘Dina, do not.’“The boy there… He is a monster, Azazel.He is going to destroy all of this Earth and all of Hell, but I thought to use him to free you before he has done away with all the living here.But I tried to stop him, Azazel.I did.”‘You’re lying.’“And I’ve tried— Iamtrying… to lead him to good, without him knowing.It hasn’t been easy, and I see that the stars are screaming.I fear that I’ve failed.If that’s so, please know that I’ve done all that I could.”A knot tightened in his chest, and he felt it pull so tight that every hem of his fear, his love, his self, began to tear.“I never understood what happened to you, Azazel.”His eyes burned, his throat began to narrow in a hot itch.“I’m sorry.”
Azazel’s hand planted itself on Dina’s back, rubbed and rubbed.For now, he trusted in him.“I,” Azazel started, “can’t begin to explain now, but I can tell you that when we Watchers made lives here on Earth, even if we were punished for it — I learned that there are some things you do not need to apologize for, Dina.”Delicately, Azazel reached for the youngest angel’s cheek, then guided Dina’s frightened face to meet his patient gaze.“I’m here now, brother.Let me help.We can all help.”
‘Beautiful,’ said Apsinthos.‘You are the greatest angel of them all, Dina.’
Dina sniffed, felt dampness in his eyes, as he smiled at Azazel gently and stepped back, away from him.“We must go to the place where the boy is from.”‘No one ever did pay any mind to me because I was created after Lucifer, the most perfect of us.No one knew why God would ever want to create another.I was bound to be thought a derivative, a lesser one.A lesser angel of beauty.A lesser Lucifer.’Wiping at his face with a sleeve, the angel returned to facing Tadeo and told him, in his language, “We must return to your home, Tadeo.”‘But maybe it was always I that was destined to be greater.’
The anti-Christ didn’t reply immediately, taking a second to look back at Dante, as if the soldier whom he’d tortured, who had every reason to lie and betray him, would tell him the truth.But Dante was silent too, lips pressed tightly together.“Hm.”Wind whistled past his ears, momentarily as loud as the screaming stars.“Alright.”What other choice did he have?To stay here?Even if Dina had just revealed himself to be a demon in disguise, Tadeo knew that the first thing he’d do is go home.‘Probably.’He didn’t know what he was supposed to make out of the fact that the angels he’d freed from Hell didn’t seem much like angels.“We’ll go back.But what about them all?”
“They’ll come with us,” Dina said.“They’ll be able to help.”
“Help with what?”Dante finally spoke again.
A flicker of irritation lit Dina’s eyes, but none of that was evident in his smooth response: “Help with… the situation.”
Kokabiel, suddenly, seizure-d against the ground more violently, and Danel drew a sharp breath, slapped both hands over his ears, and bared his teeth, a long, pitiful cry seeping through.“Something is happening,” Danel gasped.“The stars are falling.They’re falling.”And beside him, Kokabiel jammed his index into the sand, sharply drew lines into a pair of glyphs in an archaic angelic script.
“Trumpets soon,” Baraqiel read, hardly above a whisper.
The Watchers’ disarray turned Tadeo back to them, and he winced anxiously for what could be coming and for what he’d done.He tried: “Angels!”The anti-Christ knew that they couldn’t understand him, but some Watchers — among them, Azazel, Samyaza, Baraqiel — nonetheless looked to him.“We will go to my town, where all my people are.It may not be safe there, but I believe in my angel that it’s the proper place for us both.He’s asked me to have faith, and I hope that you can all have faith in me, as well.”Helplessly, he tried to look at Dina, but his eyes landed on Dante’s, which were oddly stern, almost disappointed.In Tadeo’s chest, a rib might’ve unsettled, enough to jab at his heart in a way he didn’t quite understand.
Without the cue, however, Dina still translated, or at least Tadeo believed so.The angel said: “The boy says that we must return to his home now.It is better to do as he says.You saw what he can turn into.”Then, Dina noticed Kokabiel and the markings that warned of the rapidly approaching apocalypse.‘The revelation,’ thought Dina, ‘already here.’
Tadeo adjusted himself, then began climbing further onto the shore, ignoring his own nakedness, wondering where Dina had left his clothing.“Let’s leave,” he called to all those Watchers he walked past, hearing the splashes behind him of the others beginning to move again.There was one series of splashes much more frantic than the others, but Tadeo didn’t turn before the distinctive sound of Dante’s huffs sounded behind him.Heavily, the camouflage green jacket, the one the soldier had worn on the day they met, that he had continued wearing despite his half-defection from the military, fell onto Tadeo’s shoulders.
Dante grumbled, “For fuck’s sake, you’re naked.”
Azazel was staring at the two men again as he told the Watchers: “Let us do as Dina recommends.Let us go to this boy’s home, and then I’ll see about us all escaping to be elsewhere.”But he couldn’t help but feel that Dina hadn’t told them everything.Memories of a naive, innocent Dina, with tears in his eyes and a veil over his hair, were engraved into the back of Azazel’s eyelids, and on the surface, they mirrored the angel that he saw, but a deep, unreasonable feeling screamed at him.Azazel glanced at Samyaza, read the distrust in his eyes.
