For Baal, there was something so amusing about this — firearms in Heaven.They did little more than brandish them, and swords and maces were far more enjoyable to torture with, but he liked how the poor heavenly host seemed so distraught.How little they must’ve known of humanity far advancing them.Taking a torch from the top of a stand on the street, Baal flung it at the first wooden house that he passed, angels scattering away like insects, like humans.‘Poor things,’ Baal thought in the same voice that Satan always said it in.‘Sheltered little children.’Michael and his soldiers already saw what the world had become — but all these angels who never left their Father’s dollhouse?They must’ve thought Earth was as it’d always been because Heaven was as it’d always been.
Behind the regent of Hell, the demons were all starting their own fires, galloping past to swing axes and send any nearby angels to the ground, and when an angel dared to raise a sword, they lifted rifles.There was no time for the tortures they’d invented during Satan’s first rebellion, but demons still looked for eyes to pierce with the ends of their blades and they grappled hair and dragged angels on the back of their horse, then trampled them into a grotesque sludge of bone and crushed meat — still screaming, unable to die no matter what broke.
But as the demons reached the very heart of Heaven — a shadow loomed above, the only armored angel that had remained in paradise as Earth’s apocalypse took place.Great wings spread out behind him — Michael, sword and chain in hand.At the sight, Baal unfolded his own wings, struck them hard enough to raise his body off his horse, to bring him halfway toward the chief prince.The silence between them was brief, and faint;clink, clink— they both twirled their wrists to lasso their chains.And the regent said, “Your city burns, prince.”
“It is Hell that burns,” hissed the archangel, who didn’t waste another second before whipping out the golden links that snapped against nothing when Baal instantly swerved to the left, “and you willburnwith it!”Baring his teeth beneath the helmet, snarling, Michael swung once more, but again, the demon flew out of the chain’s way.“Abomination!Beast!Demon!”Baal laughed, so quick in the air that his voice seemed to trail behind him with the breeze that circled around the prince who, grunting, then flew after him.He continued to throw out his chain, heart thudding harder and harder, but when Baal sharply turned, Michael stuttered and twisted inelegantly, frantically swinging blindly in the direction Baal had gone.‘God rebuke you,’ Michael thought, so angry that he shook, ‘damned angel offlight.’
“No,” Rosier was whispering, watching the battle from a street away, the street where he’d once lived.“Michael is going to rip him to pieces.”He was panting, trembling, as the fires in the city swelled and multiplied.Their horse was walking slow beneath them, passing by homes that should have felt familiar but didn’t.‘Home hasn’t been home for a long time, has it?’There was a hole in his heart, and it was dually tragic and comforting to know that there was nothing to fill it now, nothing to look for, nothing to hope for.
Asmodeus lifted his head, and then he chuckled — “He’ll never catch Baal.”
Indeed, the regent flew upward steeply, watching again with a victorious grin as the prince fluttered his wings to stop, his chain extending to grapple at empty space as it kept, kept, doing.Baal could still hear the devil in his head: Satan, Lucifer, taking his hand, curling it into a fist, telling him, ‘Fight with your strengths.You have some, don’t you?If you ever wrestle with Michael, he’ll win with brute force.’
‘I have a strength,’ Baal had said quietly.‘I can fly.I taught you— I taught you to fly.’
Satan had stared, then squeezed Baal’s fingers and replied, ‘Then fly.’And then he’d kissed him slow.
A whistle.Baal shouldn’t have looked, but he did, gaze flickering in its direction, and he saw Phanuel, on top the rounded ceiling of a temple, looking perplexed, frightened, even when he lifted a hand to point at a stone, long building some roads away.He mouthed something, a name.It might’ve been Lucifer, or Satan, or maybe Baal’s own, but he heard theclinkof the chain, threw out the one of his mace in panic.Just in time — his chain tangled with Michael’s, twisted then knot tight between them, but as it did, the morning star at the end of Baal’s weapon swung about, then struck hard at Michael’s wing, sending him back as the feathered appendage folded backward with a bloody crack.
Gasping in the pain, Michael plunged, and as he did, he grasped at the air like he’d find the hand of God to take, to keep him from falling — but the Lord hadn’t done that even for His favorite angel.And so Michael hit the ground.Heavily, hard, it was enough for a sea of blackness and pain to flood him instantly, to hear the thuds of his armor banging against his strained muscles.Twitching, he tried to twist around, to stagger onto his feet but the throb in his wing jerked all of him, and he let out a noise of agony like a groan.He stumbled, he kept moving, he tried not to look at all the angels, those who stared at their prince, just defeated.Chimes rattled in his ears, and Michael tried to reach for his sword once he realized he’d dropped his chain.Looking up — ‘Baal.’He saw a blurry, golden sky without him, the regent of Hell.
“Michael!”shouted an angel.“They’re heading for the barracks!”
The spinning world around Michael stopped, and he reeled in a cold breath, and he looked in the direction of the barracks.“No—” he rasped.“Stop them—” He instinctively stretched his wings only to hiss, flap the one that worked behind him without meaning to, pushing him onto the fountain that, just some days ago, he’d brought Satan to.‘Satan.’“No,” he seethed.“Don’t let them into the barracks.Don’t let them take the devil!”‘His mouth had tasted perfectly like Lucifer’s, as soft and plump and sweet and maddening.Venom.Liquor.Eucharist.Wine.Lucifer’s mouth like liquor.He was with me again, for a second.Lucifer.His sin, his arousal.Tempt me again, please.Tempt me again.Lead me down to Hell, and let me burn for you.’“Don’t let them in!”he panicked as he dragged himself closer and closer.‘I kissed you, and I regretted it all.For a moment, I did.I should have fallen with you.Cast me down with a kiss.The kiss of death.Sin.I regret it all.’
Two angels, those not too ashamed of their desecrated prince, went to help him, grabbing his body, keeping him upright, as he looked at the sight of the barracks — the door perfectly unlocked, wide open.Phanuel, standing calmly beside it.The prince couldn’t look all the way inside, but he knew that Satan was gone.
CHAPTER32
The Watchers waited for Dina to leave, as well.When Kimah revealed himself, Uriel had stumbled back, then turned and fled like a human with wide-eyed terror over his face; he left his ancient lover in the sky, furious, flaring.And then Dina had hastily healed many of the Watchers, promising to return soon, saying he had to see someone but flying up toward the other stars.Azazel, who refused to have his heart wound closed, had watched him warily, carefully.‘You’re not how I remember,’ he’d thought for what seemed the hundredth time.‘We don’t age, but you feel larger in my arms, like you’ve grown larger than yourself.’
When a garbage bin nearby fell on its side, he and the other Watchers jerked their heads in the direction.Quick, Azazel gripped the chain that held Samyaza’s collar, just managing to keep him from violently lunging at a group of watching teenagers.They screamed at this and at all the other Watchers who growled and flared their wings, before twisting to scurry away.After this, Azazel raised his hand, and the Watchers slowly settled, wings folding back, snarls fading, but their eyes still wild, and he realized that they’d have to move somewhere more private before he could deal with the matter at hand.
With Kimah no longer twisting his tongue, Kokabiel giggled, grinning sleazily at the humans, then at the Watchers, then lingering his gleeful gaze on Baraqiel.
Not much of the town had been targeted by strikes, but this hadn’t stopped hundreds, thousands, of people from scrambling out of the area with nothing but what they could carry or fit in their cars.The neighborhood that Azazel walked them towards seemed particularly empty, and so he saw one larger home, gestured for his followers to come in with him, and brought them into its yard.Azazel wasn’t able to keep his curiosity at bay, however; he reached to touch every wall, every column, every gate.When he was on Earth, the humans had primarily lived in huts; he’d quite liked them.They were warm, simple.His human husband, Eitan, had fucked him on the floor of his hut, and Azazel had enjoyed it until he hadn’t.Mindlessly, Azazel twirled Samyaza’s chain and stepped into where there was dirt, pepper plants, an orange tree, and stray tile leading into a two-story home with a flat roof.
“Kokabiel,” Azazel called as the others did as he had done — touch everything, tilting their heads at every sound — and filled the yard.“Explain.”
“Ah?”Kokabiel walked with a bit of a sway, like he were moving to a rhythm solely in his head, but went to grab Baraqiel’s arm, “Bara, you’re ignoring me.Why is that?”The fallen angel of light in question tensed and looked away, his jaw set.
“Kokabiel,” Azazel called again, firmer, and the other Watchers inched away to provide Kokabiel some distance from everyone except the Baraqiel he refused to let go of.“Tell us what that was.What have you been hiding?”When the fallen angel of the stars continued staring at Baraqiel, Azazel furrowed his brow, then said, “Baraqiel, tell him to answer.”
“I thought,” Baraqiel whispered instead, “I could forgive you for what you did.”Like a kitten, Kokabiel tilted his head, blinked wide, innocent eyes.“But you haven’t changed.”He tore his arm away, breathed unsteady, and then he grunted, “Answer him, Kokabiel.”When Kokabiel began to speak, Baraqiel snapped, “Answerthe questions, Kokabiel!”
Staring, then huffing, Kokabiel pursed his lips before turning to Azazel.“The star Kimah,” he answered, utterly disinterested.“Kimah!That’s who that was.I speak to stars, Azazel.Didn’t you know?I’m the angel of the stars.I’m their angel, and I speak for them.But they all come to me at once.They all pull my tongue in every direction.Today, today, all the others let Kimah alone use my mouth.And that is all.What else do I say?I just do as they tell me.”He looked at Baraqiel again, then he giggled, “Bara, do you hear that?”The angel of light twitched angrily.“I’m answering.Like you told me.”
Azazel continued: “There’s more.”And he felt Samyaza press up behind him, face coming over Azazel’s shoulder, chin coming to rest there.“All the time we were chained, you wrote riddles on the ground.”
“Riddles!”Kokabiel wheezed at that.“I don’t write riddles!I just speak!Not all that you don’t understand is a riddle!I’ve told you of boxes that sing, that speak, and I told you of great silver birds that spit fire.I told you of history.Man, woman, royalties, killings.You didn’t understand, but I saw it all.The stars showed it to me.While all of you rot, I watched how men destroy themselves and each other.I watched prophecies of the end seep from the lips of ancients.I watched a Nazarene man who said he was the Son of God gurgle on his own blood to death.”
“Son… of God?”Azazel whispered.
“What do you mean by that?”Danel demanded.He stood onto his feet, moved toward Azazel’s side, the one not populated by Samyaza, like a guard.“What do you meanson?”
But Kokabiel was nudging Baraqiel again, saying, “Bara, Bara, are you listening?You won’t even look at me.Should I grovel?I can get on my knees, Bara.Is that what you want?”
Danel barked: “Kokabiel, for fuck’s sake!Answer the damn questions!”
