Dina was up ahead, and Azazel stared at his face, trying to recall his memories of him again, every instance that the young angel had held his hands, bowed his head.Constantly, he would cry.And, now, Dina was parting his lips, but the one who spoke next was someone else entirely.
Baraqiel — hair trimmed close to his head, his skin paler in certain places as if from kisses by painted lips, and his eyes tired; his build was also tall with little visible injuries.He had Kokabiel in his arms, limp like a murdered bride.“Kokabiel has had visions for all of our imprisonment; I think he should be the first to be healed.”But he didn’t say it softly, kindly.He wasn’t particularly fond of the angel of the stars anymore — Azazel thought — though that didn’t stop Baraqiel from spending all his captivity staring at Kokabiel, pressed to his side.
Once, Baraqiel had confessed to Samyaza that he had a habit of checking for darkness in Heaven, of lighting candles to fill it.‘But then I met him,’ Baraqiel had said, softly.‘Kokabiel.’Samyaza had told him that he shouldn’t be so close to another, his face twisting in the disgust he’d trained himself to feel over the affection of two angels.‘Now I look for him,’ Baraqiel had said.‘Now I’m always looking for him.Maybe he’s my light.’Samyaza had said: ‘Or maybe he’s your darkness.’A corner to keep lighting candles in, to keep scratching at the compulsion.
Slow, he settled Kokabiel down on the sidewalk, right as Dina stepped up to him.
Folding his wings into himself, Dina swallowed, then reached for a bottle of water that he’d been carrying for the humans, and he spared a second to glance around them, noting the lack of humans here.‘Heal him,’ Apsinthos said, ‘but be wary of what he speaks of.I don’t know what he’ll do.’That was strange; Dina wasn’t sure that he’d ever heard Apsinthos confess to not knowing something.But he followed orders, poured some of the water to pool coldly onto his left palm.He was no great healer, briefly taught by Raphael one day that he’d visited Uriel’s home, but Dina’s hands were careful.Soon, he’d threaded Kokabiel new tissues, tendons, and teeth.Creeping along, skin pulled itself over new bone — brown, freckled.Like the space between stars, dark irises pooled at the center of eyes born blinking.It was a slow process, but not so much that the Watchers didn’t all turn and lean in to watch it happen like they’d never seen a miracle.Baraqiel stood right beside Kokabiel, and he, like all the others, anticipated that crazed smile that he’d found so dually comforted and terrified by once.
Except — Kokabiel’s reborn angelic face was empty, eyes hollow, lips only slightly parted.
“Kokabiel, are you with us?”Azazel spoke, and he felt Samyaza press against his back, face hovering by his left shoulder.
“Speak,” Danel urged; and the angel of the stars fluttered his eyes, but the gaze in them remained unfocused.“Tell us everything that you’ve been hearing.All this time we were chained, you knew what was happening on Earth, right?”
Kokabiel, suddenly, almost violently, jerked his head in the direction of Baraqiel, and his first word was, “Bara.”His voice was soft, and the fallen angel of light visibly tensed, eyes widening.“You kicked me.On the beach.”
Before there could be any further exchange however, a certain deep, stern voice called, “Dina?”The sharpness of the call made the youngest angel’s heart stutter then stop, but he didn’t dare move even when he heard all the Watchers do so around him.“What is this?”Uriel demanded next.“What have you done?”
Instinctively, Dina’s bottom lip wobbled, and he whispered, “Uriel.”He turned about, slowly, slowly, all the shame that he’d only begun breaking free from flooding back into him in an instant.“You’re here—” Eyes wide, frantic — he met Uriel’s face hidden by a silver helmet.“Why are you here?”He must be here to end the world.“Forgive me?—”
“You freed the Watchers,” Uriel whispered, low, strained.
“Uriel,” Azazel replied, and all the Watchers reacted as if only at Azazel’s word could they understand who it was before them.They rose from their crouches, flared their wings, bared their teeth, and were it not for Azazel’s grip on Samyaza’s chain, the ex-leader of the Watchers would have thrown himself at the prince and clawed him apart.
“You fucker,” Danel said.“You fucker— You and all the other princes are why we suffered for hundreds of thousands of years in darkness!”
“No,” Uriel answered, then reached for his helmet with both gauntlets, lifted it up from his head, then brought it to hold before his torso to reveal an expression so furious that it dug like blades into all who faced it.“You carved the path to Hell yourselves for committing abominations with humans.”
Azazel, more carefully, said: “Uriel, we are already free, and we will never be bound again.”
But Uriel had turned his rage toward Dina, moving toward him as the young angel staggered back, heart erratic, lungs refusing to draw breath.“Was this all for them?”he snarled coldly.“Was this to free your friends?”Dina remembered how he’d told Uriel that he wished to see his friends again, not long before he met Apsinthos.‘I told you everything.I used to revolve my life around you, Uriel, and not Apsinthos.’“Do you realize that you’ve reared the apocalypse or is this all single-mindedvanity?”
‘Vanity?’Dina echoed in his mind.‘Is that what this is?Vanity?I’m ending it for all of us, Uriel.’And yet when he thought of the end, he thought of Apsinthos, of himself, sitting at the edge of the universe, feet dangling, watching it all burn.Maybe it was vanity, then — but was that so bad?‘Don’t yell at me, Uriel.It’s not fair.Maybe I wouldn’t be here if you’d been kinder to me.Maybe I wouldn’t have to do what the stars knew you were incapable of.’
Uriel seethed: “Dina, answer me!”
“You,” said Kokabiel, “aren’t wanted here,Uri.”
The tone was unnatural on Kokabiel — still distinctly his airy voice, but the tone was ghostly, echoing.And the prince’s expression suddenly froze as he felt all his blood rush through him cold.“Uri…?”
Kokabiel rose to his feet, all those near him staggering back, gazes flickering between him and the petrified archangel.“Return to your God, Uri.Isn’t that where you like to be?Return to Him.You worship Him.You serveHim.Your place at the foot of His Throne sits empty, waiting for your knees.”
“Stop,” left Uriel’s mouth quickly, and utter panic stressed his eyes, his mouth as the angel of the stars walked toward him.“Stop this.”
“Uri,” said Kokabiel again.“You serve the one who destroyed me.”
“No,” Uriel said again.“Enough?—”
“What bothers you?Did you prefer me dead?”Kokabiel stopped, just some feet before Uriel now, his red hair tangling with the wind, his dark eyes endless and sparkling with all the stars in the sky.“Perhaps you did because you are dead too.To me, you are dead.You are a shell of a soul.You are an abhorrent weakness.You are not the one who bled fire from nothing.You are not my eyes.You are not a half of me.What you are is betrayal.”
“Enough with this, Kokabiel!”Uriel yelled, but he was desperate.“End your charade.You’ll suffer a fate worse than all the stars for mocking him.You will know God’s wrath?—”
“Uri.”This time, the word didn’t seep between Kokabiel’s lips, and the prince, slowly, saw that a shadow had come over him, over all the Watchers lifting their face to stare at something above them.“How I’ve come to hate you.”Every syllable was a hiss, every word cut into the heavy, loathsome flesh that Uriel carried.His fingers twitched; his body trembled.He had dreamt of reuniting, of resurrection, of returning to the one he lost at the beginning of time.It was never meant to be like this.He had imagined, he had been tormented with the nightmares of completeness, of holy love again — but this was no nuptial reunion.This was not love, nor retribution, nor resurrection.
Uriel turned back, half-hoping he’d turn into a pillar of salt by God for daring to look at all that he’d ever loved and lived for however much it was damned.‘Forgive me,’ he was already pleading, but he didn’t know to whom.
Looming above the buildings, there was a great flaming sphere perched, made of mouths, disfigured faces, shadows, and tongues — a pulsating organ-heart of itself.A great smile might have contorted its body, a wicked fury may have burned it brighter.And, all over the Earth, many other stars had fallen from the grace of the abyss.
