“You’ve fallen far,” Satan sneered, “Michael.”He reached for his own clothes, trying to ignore the tremors in his own body, trying to remember where he was, trying to feel nothing more than delight that the chief prince had finally succumbed to him.But Satan felt torn; he felt wrong.None of it had hurt, deeply, and yet there was a churning ache in the pit of his stomach.‘I cut myself open once, looking for flowers.’He had felt something inside of him that hurt too much to bear.In between his hips, in his lower back.The pain buried inside, holding him down.‘No,’ he thought.“You fought against me for millions of years only for it to mean nothing in the end.You’ve given yourself to me now.You’re mine now.”‘Why aren’t I happy?’he thought.“I’m your God now.”‘I told you, Michael.I knew.You would fall one day, fall for me.I know it all.I always knew how this would end.’He was like God.He was God.
Michael’s brows furrowed, and his gasps finally began to wane — the heat between them simmering down into cold coal.“You’re wrong.”
“God is never wrong.”
“You are not God!”Michael shouted.“You never have been!”But —‘Satan.The inside of you.’Like a lock, like it was natural, like it was not an abomination.‘It was better than anything,’ Michael thought before he could stop himself.‘Your body.Your face.Your voice.’His mind whirled.‘I’m sorry.’He didn’t know why he apologized.‘There’s a part of me that’s still in you.I can feel the pulse of your heart.The tightening you do around me.The embrace of your warmth telling me to keep going, to press in more, to bring you closer, then away, then closer.’The greatest feeling he’d ever felt.‘Better than anything God has ever promised me.’He hated it so much that it ached his bones.
Satan answered lowly: “That you do not believe in me is your own stubbornness, nothing more.”There was seminal wet in him, trickling down his legs.‘It felt right.It felt wrong.’He’d begged for it.‘Fuck me,’ he’d wanted to say when he was an angel.‘Please.I’ll be the first angel to die unless you fuck me.If you don’t love me, if you don’t hurt me, I’ll die.’“But I don’t need your faith.”He was great with Michael or without; that was what Lucifer had learned after the fall.
Harshly, the doors opened — Baal, with a legion of demons not far behind.“Satan, they’re gone.The king, his men, women.”
“Check his bunker,” quickly, Satan answered.
“I’m hearing that the king is dead.He was betrayed—” Baal stopped, face frozen before melting into a calculating, suspicious expression.Seconds later, he was taking another step.It didn’t matter that Satan and Michael fixed their clothing; the throne room reeked of it — lust.Quietly, the regent turned his head and said over his shoulder: “All of you, prepare for an attack.”They asked against who, but Baal didn’t answer as he twisted to take both doors with his hands, then shut them slow, heavily, in their faces.Then, he locked them.
Satan had just settled over his throne again.‘Who is in control now?’But the truth is that the king of Babylon had never been in control; he had been one limb of empire.Power is pure arteries, a cobweb of wealth and evil, and Babylon was a headless chicken running.Its death throes, however, would bring far greater collapse than other fallen kingdoms of old.Satan had allowed slow rot to kill the previous Babylons until they fractured and another Babylon rose in the distance, but this quick, violent fall, amid all the other apocalyptic omens, was harrowing.‘This cannot be stopped easily.’What to do?What to do?A soreness in his body flared, and he grimaced, took one armrest, dug his nails into it.No, no, he had to act.He couldn’t lay here in the afterglow of hate.‘It felt wrong.’He didn’t have the time.There was no time.
Before him, there was the thud of Baal’s fist making contact with Michael’s jaw, and then the clang of the prince’s armor as he stumbled back, only to then growl like an animal and throw himself at the demon.“Fucker,” Baal snarled, bringing his arms up to try and protect his face at the same time that he tried to dodge the punch Michael was flinging in his direction.“Did you like it?”Baal continued to taunt.“Did my seed inside make him nice and wet for you?”Michael landed a blow right against his abdomen, so hard that it threw Baal to the ground.Yelling out in pain, he managed, “I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Both of you,” Satan said, “we need to find my child.”He lifted his face, eyes cold, and saw them grappling at each other, Michael over Baal, their faces so twisted in hate that their gazes alone could have ripped each other to pieces.“Gather the demons, Baal.And you, Michael — your sword is in the hall.If you want to end all of this, then we have to act.You can’t sacrifice yourself, and you can’t kill me.The apocalypse is much larger than the both of us.And the both of you.”
“No,” Baal and Michael said in unison, only to shove at each other again.
“Burn in Hell, then,” said Satan, stepping away from the throne, striding across the room.Reaching the doors, he turned the lock, hesitated.Then, Satan looked over his shoulder and said, “Stop being so obsessed with yourselves.Vanity is a sin, didn’t you know?”The ache in him continued to burn, but Satan chuckled at the demon and the archangel before walking away.
In another world, Dina was on the ground, staring at the crack in the Earth by his feet, dividing him from the Leviathan and Rosier and Armoni.He was by Tadeo’s mother, and he looked to her, and — instinctively — he reached for one of her chair’s wheels as it started inching toward the cracks.He turned it like a gear, trying to push her to safety, but he was watching himself move on his own.Like he was a soul trapped in the body of someone else, an innocent person.Wobbling, Dina rose to stand.
“What have we done?”Armoni breathed nearby.“What did we do?”
Rosier only thought: ‘It’s almost over, it’s almost over.’His throat burned, his eyes itched.‘It has to be.’He wanted to tell the Leviathan to cast Satan down to Hell next.‘Find him.Kill him.’This was all Satan’s fault, after all.Asmodeus would still be alive if Satan hadn’t done this, all of this — God’s apocalypse and the very first one in Heaven.Asmodeus would have never hurt Rosier; he would still be his friend, standing beside him.
Dina took a step back, an emptiness pooling inside of him; he was half-here, half-nowhere.Only when he felt eyes on his back, and he saw brightness bloom around him, did Dina blink.Something fiery and great loomed above — ‘Apsinthos.’And Dina felt the ground he stood on and the heat of a world on fire.“Apsinthos,” he whispered out loud, without looking above to the star.“Is it over?”
‘He wasn’t supposed to be cast down like this,’ said Apsinthos.‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.’
Together, Rosier and Armoni lifted their faces to peer at the sun looming over Dina, its flames gargling its own body, pulsing like a muscle.Armoni asked, “Dina, what is this?Apsinthos…?”Just like when Dina had seen Azazel again, he felt the weight of the past fall onto his shoulders.Armoni’s fingers had once wiped at his tears, and his lips had grazed his cheeks.Dina wondered how he got here; he wondered how long he’d lived; he wondered if he was the same Dina that had stolen the rings of an angel before the war.“Dina?”He remembered Uriel.“Dina, answer me.”Where was Uriel?He’d been gone a long time, hadn’t he?
Though Dina didn’t reply to them, someone else soon called: “Armoni!Rosier!”When the two turned their heads in another direction, whereas Dina only flickered his gaze, they saw an angel with a bleeding heart — Azazel.His face paint had smeared — as if he’d cried in white.He’d let go of the chain hanging from Samyaza’s collar, and Samyaza looked the most alive he’d had since the flood.‘Forgive me,’ Azazel was still thinking, as he’d gasped to Samyaza after the Watchers had surged forward, speared Joana to death.They had flown away quickly, trying to escape the murder scene only to return to it at the sound of the Earth cracking open to swallow the anti-Christ down.Now the Watchers hovered — uncertain, bloodied, waiting for Azazel to tell them what to do next.
Samyaza was still hoarse, and he continued to twitch, as he quietly told Azazel, “We should bring them with us.”When Azazel glanced over at him, he noted the softness in the eyes of the Watcher who’d long ago snarled that he knew what was best for Azazel.As if recalling the same memory, Samyaza’s face flashed with regret, pain.‘But it was me that became your keeper, Samyaza.I fed you my own blood, and I let you drink my tears.’Azazel walked over his gaze to Dina, and to the murdered girl and the other girl holding her body.
“Bring them with us?”Azazel echoed softly.“Where to?Where are we going?”He’d mocked Satan over dinner, told him he’d become just like God.‘But now here I am, broken over a place we helped destroy, hoping to run away and never look back.It’s what the devil did, isn’t it?’Perhaps, Azazel would crave godhood soon, as well.‘Will this be the beginning and the end forever?’The wound of his heart ached; the emptiness never faded.But he could feel the Watchers eyeing him.And he understood Lucifer, truly, for the first time.
It was Kokabiel who answered.He swooped down, approached Azazel, and smiled blissfully.“Above.Past Heaven.The stars have made room for us.”Azazel understood now what that meant.“They're calling us home.A new paradise, one God can’t reach."After this, Kokabiel smiled at Baraqiel, but Baraqiel still refused to meet his old love with anything but quiet coldness.
Armoni, below, looked at Rosier, then at Dina again, still shadowed by Apsinthos, and Azazel quickly said, “Don’t bother, Armoni.”Exhaling slow.“Let Dina lay in the grave he’s dug for himself.”Azazel didn’t feel the relief he’d thought at those words, even less so when Armoni flinched, but Dina’s gaze remained dark.‘I’m sorry, Dina,’ Azazel also found himself thinking.‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you.’“Danel,” Azazel then called, “can you help carry Rosier up?Samyaza can carry Armoni.”
The demon of fruit clenched his teeth, hugging Asmodeus’ arm tighter.‘I don’t want to run.’He wanted to die.‘I want to burn in Hell.’But Armoni pressed his head to Rosier’s own, and he took his free hand, squeezed it.And when Danel descended to carry the demon, Rosier felt his eyes burn and his throat close.
Michael, after retrieving his sword, dressed in silence in what might’ve been a broom closet.After Baal had left to follow Satan, he'd returned with a scowl and some human clothes folded over his talons — cargo pants, boots, and a tank top that’d fit horribly tight around Michael's chest.Immediately, Michael had tried to argue, but Baal had dropped it on the floor, turned on his heel, and disappeared again.The prince frowned, reached for the gift that’d surely come from Satan.And unsure what else to do, he pulled on the clothing over his enormous body, only to hide them beneath the armor he still refused to go without.
Truthfully, the chief prince should contact the other angels — Raphael, Gabriel, and Uriel at the very least, but he didn’t know where they were.He had defected from God's war, without meaning to.And just as he began wondering what his fate would be now, he heard the beautiful voice he detested: “Baal says there’s no sign of your angels outside; I suppose you really abandoned them, and they abandoned you.”Just as Michael turned around, still missing his helmet and his chest plate, he saw the devil at the doorway changed into human clothing himself — a loose white top, frilled at the sleeves, loose pants, dress shoes — ridiculously mundane, almost soft-looking.Oddly, that made Michael’s grip on his helmet tighten more than if Satan had still been dressed in his infernal, seductive sheer.“Hm.”The devil looked too innocent, pretty, harmless.
Serpentine eyes narrowed, eyeing Michael’s hair, still wild from sex.“Come closer,” ordered Satan.
“No.”
“It was an order.”The devil’s voice hardened, but Michael still didn’t move.Swiftly, Satan crossed the space between them, grabbed the prince’s hair with a painful yank.“Don’t move.”Michael grunted but didn’t struggle, even when the devil’s lavender scent washed over him wickedly.Rough but efficient, Satan’s fingers worked through the prince’s tangled curls, divided it into three sections, then pulled one over the other in a loose braid.Briefly, Michael remembered Lucifer’s hands in his hair in Heaven — gentle, curious — but this wasn't that.And it never would be again.Hands slowing, leaning in, Satan whispered hot against Michael's ear, “You’re mine now.Even your hair belongs to me.”
