Michael, suddenly, grappled Satan’s shoulder, and distantly, Raphael and Gabriel made noises of shushed alarm.
But the Lord spoke once more: “Yet, the apocalypse has yet to pass.”Satan felt a hiccup in his throat that surged him forward, then a hilarity that struck at him like the arrow from a bow.He laughed, through the agony that was blinding him slow.“Michael,” He suddenly called, “why have you brought the fallen cherub before me?”
Satan, through his hysterics, almost didn’t hear Michael’s hurried, tight voice: “My Lord?—”
“You’ve brought the serpent of Hell to the Throne before the promised time.”
Michael tried again: “Father, you know that he interfered with the return of your Son and the apocalypse.I only brought him here for you to meet again before I hold him for the right day.The Judgement day.”
But the Lord did not reply, and Satan was still laughing and laughing, curling up no matter the raw scorch in his eyes, all the bloody tears swelling.All about, angels were speaking again, to one another, then to God.Again, they asked Him to do something, to punish the one who’d had all of them punished.‘Retribution,’ they begged for.‘Revenge.Give us revenge.’But the Lord didn’t heed to them.
Instead, He banged a fist on His Throne, silencing the host, and urging: “Take the Beast of Hell far from Throne!Do not bring him before me!”
His wrath settled heavy terror over all the angels, many of which instantly swerved to leave, to return to their city, their cage.The archangels remained where they were, Satan still on his knees, thinking of turning back and seeing all the six wings and the flames that made up Michael to cackle at his face.‘I told you,’ he wanted to say, ‘that you can’t quench His bloodthirst, Michael.God will never love you enough, and if God ever loves you too much, it will only hurt too.’But he could not see; he couldn’t feel the floor before him.He must be dying.Darkness seeped into him like poison.
Soon, Michael released the devil’s throat, then took him by the chains again.Spinning, spiraling, like he were about to tip over, Satan could no longer fight the pull of pain leading him into the abyss at the opposite end of life.When Michael, roughly, tugged on him, and Satan moved in what saw as emptiness, he felt as if he were free falling.The sensation was enough to recall the agony of his soul and flesh burning together in the fall, only one of which was able to be repaired.His soul had turned ash and scattered itself over all the Earth.But Lucifer could still remember rearing her — the Earth.He could remember encouraging the demons to mend the soil and the sea, to allow the new creatures to flourish and roam alongside them.Perhaps his soul wasn’t dead, after all.Perhaps all the Earth was the devil’s wicked soul, and that was why it must be destroyed.To kill the devil, you must destroy the Earth.
As Satan was pulled back into the sea of stars, far too dark, his stomach lurched, and he realized he’d stopped laughing.Only pain composed him now.He didn’t know where Heaven was.He began to wonder if it was anywhere at all or if it was in the place where nothing was, if it was separate from what is, what is real.The un-real place where the angels and God lived.The lie.
It was several turns of the Earth later that Satan awoke.
He was chained, hands bound high over his head, wrists locked together, whereas his ankles were chained but not bolted in place.A healer must’ve wet the devil’s eyes, for now he could see enough to not recognize his surroundings.The walls were stone, which Lucifer couldn’t recall to have been typical for Heaven — but his memory was faulty and he had known quite the different paradise.What he could recognize, however, were the weapons.Each wall was lined with them — swords, spears, shields, maces.All of it seemed very archaic to Satan, who’d grown quite accustomed to every firearm of the Earth, including those from the place bordering Babylon, where Tadeo was.The anti-Christ, the child of the devil.Bitterly, he laughed.Then, the devil listened to the sound of a door dragging against the ground, but he didn’t turn to it.He maintained his attention on the details of where he was, the links of his chains, and the dips in the stone walls.The ground, cold as the room, burned his bare feet.
But he was not naked; he had been dressed in a white tunic, like an angel.Oils had cleansed his body, including of blood, and he smelled of lavender.Even his hair had been brushed excessively, some small braids scattered within the golden sea falling from his scalp.God had declared that Satan would live another day without Lucifer being resurrected out of his body, but it seemed Heaven was not going to wait to begin the conversion back to his dead faith.
Clink, clink— an armored person was approaching, an angel.‘How long was I asleep?’Time had always been difficult in Heaven.He remembered being an angel and never quite caring for it except on rare occasions, and living on Earth had made him submit to the sun’s orders on the hours.Slow, the devil lifted his face to see the chief prince before him.His helmet was missing, but Michael remained in his silver armor and reddened cape as always.His lips were pressed tight, his jaw was set, his eyes bore holes into Satan.And he had, in a gauntlet, a fruit — red, gleaming.An apple.
“Satan,” Michael said.
The devil replied: “How long have I been asleep?Where am I?”His head throbbed like a pulse, and he rocked a heel, realizing he couldn’t steady it well.“Didn’t your God tell you that it’s not the proper time for the convent to be fulfilled?You may have broken the Revelation’s prophecy by bringing me here, Michael and now the world will continue.My demons will roam the Earth and rule Hell and tempt every human to turn away from God, every last one, until there are none who can be saved.”
“Many times,” said the prince, “I asked myself why the apocalypse never came.I suspected it, that you were involving yourself and killing the anti-Christ each time it was reborn before the other prophecies of Revelation could be fulfilled.You’ve delayed the destruction of the Earth for thousands of years, killing and killing — but see how rotten it has become?See what you have created?”
Satan, weakly, snorted.“Did it take that human girl saying it for you to connect everything, Michael?”He grinned, then chuckled.“Who is she?Were you so jealous of me having a child that you couldn’t stop yourself from looking for one of your own?”
Tightly — “She is not my child.”
“She looks at you like a father.”
“Besilent,” Michael snarled.“You are the jealous one.You saw that God had a son, and you could not live knowing He is great and you are not.You bore a monster, devil.Even after seeing what the Watchers had done, you thought yourself different.You thought yourself not an angel.”‘I remember grabbing Azazel, demanding to know what made him different, why his child was beautiful and why mine would not take.’“Is this what you wanted?You have your child now, and see how you must kill it to maintain your wicked world?It is because of your vanity, your foolishness.”
“I asked you,” Satan said, humor falling away, tone turning harsh, “where I am.”His eyes had narrowed; his lips had pressed finer.
And the chief prince hesitated, careful, staring.“You’re in barracks.”Nodding his head at the walls, he added, “Where all the angels’ weaponry is, where the army rests.It was built for the flood.Do you remember the flood, Satan?If you do, then why did you do what you did?Don’t you remember the destruction of the Earth, all the blood on your hands?—”
“Our hands,” Satan, sharply, interjected.“Do you remember Azazel and his child, Michael?Do you remember how you skewered it, Michael?It wasn’t me who did.It was you.It was your sword.He was never right after that happened, Michael.You broke him.You break so many angels.”
Michael breathed out slow.“I gave you what you wanted after that, devil.I stood before God and negotiated your Hell, and I showed you mercy.I have shown you mercy since before you became the devil, but you reject salvation, time and time again.And you speak of the death of Azazel’s child to mock me, but I saw the horror in your eyes, Satan.I know that you are not the stone that you pretend to be.Every word you say, every face you make, is pure lie.”He leaned himself closer, and his breath was hot.“You are not the God that you act like you are.You were an angel, and you are the husk of one now.But the Lord has told me that the apocalypse will bring us restoration, and that to end all wars, we must return to the time before the very first.You will be done away with forever, Satan, as if you never existed.It will all be like before.”Michael thought of Joana, of telling her that they could never return to the time before the war.
Satan was quiet for a second, then he tilted his head, how a predator might examine a frightened rabbit in a trap.“And Lucifer will return, beautiful and worshiping, to be God’s bride.”Michael tensed.“You will watch it happen?You’ll listen to Him fuck me how you listen to Baal do it, too?”
“It is a union,” said Michael, “of the perfect angel to God.Only you would read His prophecies to mean sins of flesh.”
“Tell me then,” answered Satan, “if not listen to your Father fuck him, then what will you do with Lucifer once he’s been resurrected, Michael?”The devil set his feet more firmly over the ground, tried to push himself forward so that he could spit onto Michael’s face with every word.“Will you tell him that his beauty is a curse to be ashamed of?Will you never teach him to fight?Will you watch Lucifer remain in Eden with God forever?”Digging his nails into the chains that upheld him, Satan heard the voice of the Lord still echoing in his skull, his taunting that the devil’s rebellion had amounted to nothing.And he thought of the past thousands of years, all his lives, all his identities, all the worlds he’d ruled in this endless war.“Bring Lucifer back.Do it a thousand times.”‘The Lord told me that He made me a hundred million times before my feet touched Heaven.He’s going to do it again.Was God telling me, in that moment, that He will destroy me and begin again?Did it all already end?How many times has it all ended?’Satan, more hushed now, said: “You can never keep Lucifer from falling.”‘It will happen, over and over.God and His devil, chasing each other in a tempest.’
Michael, just as quietly, whispered, “I know how to stop him from ever falling again.”
Impatient now, Satan said: “It was your fault.”
