Naamah?Who was Naamah?A child, from the flood, curly-haired, weak, starving.Azazel’s eyes widened, and his breath fell from his mouth.“Don’t say that name.What are you doing?I have to?—”
“I saw them dead,” Samyaza forced out.“Naamah.Your husband.My wife.They were all dead.Their families.Naamah with a knife in hand.Dead.All of them.”
Azazel’s muscles tensed.“Samyaza—” A barrage of memories struck at him — cold water, rain, warmth of falling in love, death, family.“Why this, why now?”And his face stung, and his eyes burned.
Satan shot at Michael's face, the bullet bursting through the prince's jaw, the force sending him back a step.And, just as the prince tried to steady, the devil yelled out without words like an animal in blood-red anger, and he shot once more; this time, the prince fell, onto a knee.Blood spluttered from his mouth thickly, coating his silver chest plate in red.As the devil huffed for breath, he took a few steps toward Michael, gun raised still, unflinching.He set the revolver under Michael's chin, forced up his mangled face.The prince's eyes were wide, furious, yet tired.‘I know what it's like to be tired, Michael.’Satan, quietly, said, “You can't kill me.”
“End it then,” gurgled Michael.“Endme, and the end times will stop.”
Lucifer was quiet, staring, listening to the wind hiss.Demons were watching — Baal and all those hidden in the walls.“It's already ended, Michael.”He lowered the gun.“You've lost.”
Michael said again, “Kill me.”
“No,” said Satan.“Neither of us will die.Even when you turn on God, you seek to sacrifice yourself.But I won't let you, you stupid God-damned martyr.You will face what you've done.You will suffer what you deserve.”
“Kill me!”Michael shouted, angry, mangled face twitching in fury.“End it!”
“No,” said Satan again, matching his anger with a hiss.“Wewill end it.Together.”Like they had been born, together.
Though Samyaza held Azazel, and Azazel no longer found the words to order Joana’s death, as if they'd traded places, as if Azazel was the one who'd been broken, who couldn't speak— the other Watchers descended like animals, aiming, hurling their spears.Kokabiel — grinning.Baraqiel — empty.Danel — determined.
The first cut through Joana's side, and just as she lost hold of the statue, crying out, another spear went through her abdomen, then another.A fourth cut through her chest.For a flicker, her eyes were wide, then calm.Joana fell slow, torn apart, thinking of a river, thinking of her family, of Tadeo, and even Lupina.The last thing she heard was the raging war, and she saw Tadeo, and Lupina, who were looking up at her.She noticed her brother, slumped; perhaps, dead too.Then, she allowed the darkness to bleed in.She fell.She was dead before she hit the ground, but there was a touch of relief on her face.Catharsis.Something like victory for once in her life.
CHAPTER40
The statue had fallen too, shattered beside her body.
As he’d run to it, Tadeo’s six legs had, with each step, weakened, then shrunk, folded.It wasn’t long before there were bare, human feet beneath him, and his wings were gone, his clothes absent like he were naked Jesus choking on the crucifix, crying out to know why God would do this to His own son.And Tadeo felt nothing, initially, hollow, like that were not a person he was approaching, not a friend.A girl, Joana.Those around her didn’t stop to crowd around, many hadn’t even noticed; a shower of bullets speared in their direction, followed by the booms of a couple remaining tanks.The people were fighting; the people were dying.A silver bird struck nearby, collapsed a home against the person standing beside it; it must’ve been a warning to Tadeo, who didn’t flinch, who stared at Joana.She would have wanted all the people in the world to keep fighting like this, even after she’d fallen.
‘Your child hands had come over my own, not much older, and you taught me to shoot.’He’d said he was a monster of biblical proportions; he didn’t need a gun.Her hardened brown eyes — an attempt at a wise, aged glare.She’d always wanted to look older.She’d insist that she looked like her father, but it was really her grandmother she looked like.She’d insist she had the aim of an assassin, and she did.Often, Tadeo and her would go out to eat.A year ago, she’d said: ‘The ground grows nopal, tomato, and corn.It doesn’t grow liberation.If we want to taste it, then we have to plant the seeds.’But she couldn’t do it alone; no one can harvest without friends.
The resurrected Tadeo had craved violence more than anything, craved destruction.‘You told me that violence was good, even necessary.’He could be good, even as a killer.He could do good.
Coming to kneel in her blood, Tadeo touched her skewered body.Dante had said he liked her, while he and Tadeo walked and talked home, said he appreciated someone who worked hard.‘You two would have been good friends too.’He’d loved them, he realized.‘I loved you.’Tadeo had fought beside them, couldn’t bring himself to be angry at them for betrayal.And yet they were dead.Empty-lidded, Joana’s eyes were dark, and Tadeo gazed into them as he heard the woman who’d lead him here, Lupina, scream in agony, other shouts following after hers, from all those around him.
‘What harvest?’Tadeo had told Joana.‘I only have two hands.Dante is dead, my mother can’t work.We are losing everything.No, we didn’t win, Joana.We’ve lost.We’ve lost.’It had all meant nothing, and the soldiers were still firing on the town.At the end of the world, they still hated him, all of them.At the end of the world, hate was all they had left.Tadeo had nothing left, too, buthate.Clenching his jaw, remembering, oh, remembering it all, the days of his childhood, the blooming fears, the trafficking, the fights with his mother, his father, missing for days, his body, swinging beneath an overpass, the soldiers, pulling them apart with his hands and teeth, running into the empty fields, fighting, wanting to do good.It hadn’t been enough.God had cursed him.It was not enough.There would be no harvest.It hadn’t been enough for Joana.It hadn’t been enough for Dante.There was nothing left.He didn’t hear the angel of the lace veil, Dina, approaching behind him through the boiling of his blood.Hate, at the end of the world.
He would make them all suffer.
“I,” the devil was whispering somewhere far away, “feel his rage.”Outside, the rotting body of Babylon, nearly dead, trying to burn out in a blaze of glory to take the rest of the world with it.“I can feel him in the greatest moments of his agony — when he died, when he resurrected.It was the same when the Beast, my child, was in other bodies.What has united them all across time has been hate.”Slow, Satan turned away from the throne he’d been facing to the defeated chief prince, not many steps before the devil and far from the closed doors that Baal had dragged him through before locking them.Dim, reddened light leaked through tall window panes — the shine of the moon falling onto them like blood.
In his own golden chains, Michael's wrists were tied behind his back.He was standing, though partly slumped forward, jaw still bloodied and open.Lowly, he asked, “Why am I here?I told you to kill me; or will you force me to kill you instead?”
“Be quiet, dog,” spat Baal, stepping up behind the prince.“You wouldn’t be stupid enough to try again, are you?”
Michael glared forward, grunting.He couldn't afford to waste time like this.He was worried for Joana.If he failed in preventing the apocalypse, he was killing her.‘I must not surrender.I must stop this.There is still time.’
Satan said, “I’ve talked to the king of Babylon.I’ve told him to stop the attacks on that town, but—” A hesitance, then his voice returned sharper.“He’s erratic.He calls on God now to save his soul.”Satan laughed.“Thousands of years that I’ve stopped the end of the world, and now that you’ve allowed it to happen, you come to me with regret.”
Michael felt his armored hands curl into fists.“I’m not the one who started this, Satan.Youdid this.The moment you rebelled in Heaven.The second youhad that child!You wanted to create, Satan.Well, you have created now.Is it everything you wanted?”
“You want me to kill you,” Satan said so low that it was almost a growl, “but I won’t.I want you to feel every second of the apocalypse you’ve created.But, for now, I need to use you.You will do as I say, and you will step into the offices of the king, you will command them to stop in the voice of God.”
“No,” said Michael.
Satan’s voice struck like a whip.“If you won’t do it, the bombing will blow apart that girl you care so much for.”
Michael clenched his teeth, and he spoke through them: “I’m not your weapon.”
