Shivering, Michael said, “I belong to—” But he didn’t belong to God anymore.
“You gave yourself to me.”Satan finished the braid.Let it fall.“And you can never take it back.”He stepped away.“Let’s go find my child.”Left Michael standing there, hair bound, body marked.Soul damned, but he had nowhere else to go.
Outside, Baal had just finished rounding up the vast majority of the demons, the others instructed to protect the tower from humans or whatever else might try to appear.It was the sort of chore that he’d typically have Asmodeus do.But Asmodeus wasn’t here to help anymore, and Baal didn’t know where Rosier was either.He’d heard Moloch was attacked, decapitated; he’d heard that Moloch blamed Rosier; in all the chaos, that was all he’d gathered.Really, Baal hoped it was true, hoped Rosier had given that bastard what he deserved.He set those thoughts aside for now, however, when Satan elegantly approached.Baal straightened up atop the winged horse he held captive and watched the devil climb on, settle in behind him, and whisper, “We’ll kill Michael, after this.It’s the most certain way to prevent the apocalypse from ever beginning again.”
Baal almost breathed a sign in relief.Behind him, over the burnt ground of the great tower of Babel that dwarfed all those human skyscrapers, the demons readied on steeds, in cars, on motorbikes — whatever else they could learn to navigate fast enough.And Michael appeared at the mouth of the tower as the regent of Hell finally said, “With pleasure.”When all the demons noticed the chief prince, they laughed and whistled.
Patting Baal’s armored shoulder, the devil ordered, “Head for the border out of Babylon.”Then, he chuckled, “You’re charming when you’re jealous.”
“You’re cruel,” Baal answered, but he nonetheless leaned into the kiss Satan pressed to his cheek.After this, the devil kicked the horse on Baal’s behalf, and when they went on ahead, the demons hurried to follow in a stampede.
Hours passed with Dina, and he’d spent much of that time almost alone.Nearby, Tadeo’s mother still sat and Lupina remained on the ground, her empty face continuing to dribble the occasional tear onto Joana’s skewered body over her lap.Apsinthos had told Dina to wait here, but the angel didn’t know what they were waiting for, didn’t know if the end was still possible.Tadeo was burning in Hell, as he was destined to, but it wasn’t meant to happen like this, right?And if the end were really to come now — would it hurt?Or if it would be like falling asleep.Dina supposed it would come with the Son of God descending from Heaven, but there was nothing in the sky now, not even the silver birds.All the screams and explosions of earlier had simmered into a strange silence, where there were only crackles, buzzes of insects hungry for the dead, and some distant human voices.When he began to slump too much, Apsinthos called, ‘Dina.Don’t sleep now.’But he was half-dozing, thinking of soft things, of bed, of Heaven.Had it really been so bad?Uriel had been kind at times, offered him tea, warmed food, and the rooms were always so lush with plants.He never worried of death, never felt the bristle beside him of human suffering and family and love and bigotry.‘This is why I chose to end it,’ he tried to tell himself.But Tadeo had known the evil of the world, far better than Dina, and he’d rejected apocalypse.
The demons on the winged horses arrived first; as they did, they saw the same desolation that Dina had.Sparse humans wandering, tanks tipped onto their sides, the gray clouds of burning, the bare bones of houses.When Baal landed the pegasus, Satan lifted his body so that he could see over the regent, and he felt his heart begin to drum slow, frightened.He clutched at the demon’s shoulders, and he exhaled at the sight of it all.‘Am I too late?’No, he couldn’t be.He was God.He was God.‘Is the anti-Christ dead?’No, he couldn’t be.But where was he?
“There’s Dina,” Baal said, leading the horse deeper into the town, toward a crack in the Earth.“What the fuck happened here?Is Hell opening here too?”Hooves beat at the ground behind them, but they were slowing from their gallops.And all the demons quieted.
“Yes,” Satan whispered tightly.It was true that Dina was up ahead, but there were bodies here too.One body in particular, laying limp in the arms of a young woman who was frozen, chest barely rising with gasps.The corpse must’ve died just hours earlier.If it weren’t for all the open wounds, the blood on her clothing — Joana could have passed as sleeping.With her curls, her complexion, Satan saw her so much like Michael, the same as he had when he first noticed her beside the prince.It’d filled him with scorn then, but now there was a flicker of recognition, of pain.
Above, there was the whip of a breeze, an angel gliding down fast.Michael — he stumbled, lifting his hands to his head, grabbing his helmet, tossing it.“Joana—” left his mouth.“Joana!”The woman holding the corpse looked up slowly, her eyes distant, mascara forming streaks of black down her face, ash a coat that grayed her skin.“Joana.”He lifted his hands, as if to grab her, but they froze in the air even when Lupina nudged her body toward the archangel weakly.
“She told me about you,” said Lupina, voice raw and scratched.“Everything.She always used to talk to me about you.I didn’t believe her for a long time—” She laughed, her voice hitching and breaking.“She said that you were an angel.That you tried to save her.She really loved you.”
“No,” Michael whispered in response, shaking his head, a sharp breath pulling into his mouth.“No, no, no, no—” His chest was rising, falling.All the weight of time was falling over him now, folding down onto everything he saw.He reached, touched her face, and a sob wrecked through him.‘Poor Joana.My poor Joana.My poor child.’He didn’t care anymore to deny it.‘God, kill me.Kill me now for what I’ve done.I didn’t do enough for her.Joana.’She looked so small dead, so young; she looked like when they’d first met.A little girl who stared at an angel without fear, who knew things far scarier, who’d reached for him when he tried to walk away for the first time.
“Angels killed her,” Lupina said distantly.“They weren’t armored like you.”
“The Watchers,” came Satan’s voice from behind, and Michael felt his blood run cold.Slow, he turned his head, saw the devil climbing down Baal’s horse, his expression like stone.“Azazel wanted revenge.”One step forward, then another, another.“You killed his child, Michael.You killed all of their children.”
“How did,” fell from Michael’s mouth hoarsely, “they know about her?”
Satan met his eyes.“I told them.”
Chest tight, heart stopped.Michael’s hands trembled, clenched into fists.Red, like blood, leaking into the edges of his sight.His whole body — growing a tremor of rage.He needed, more than anything, to lunge forward, to rip Satan’s throat out.But he couldn't move.Couldn't even breathe.He could only stare at the devil who'd killed his daughter.“What,” Michael whispered, “did you say?”
Dina lifted his head, then climbed onto his feet.They had been ignoring him, he realized, something he should be used to.However, when his gaze landed on Satan, anger lashed inside of him.The fallen rebel angel, still so beautiful, so perfect.Eyes narrowed, the young angel stepped forward, and he called Satan’s attention.“You’re looking,” Dina said, “for the anti-Christ.But he’s gone.The Leviathan cast the boy down.”
Hesitating, Satan turned his face away from Michael.He answered in monotone, “You're lying.”Thousands of years, the devil hadn’t failed.He had maintained Babylons, he had killed every anti-Christ.He had rot the world in human evil to maintain it.“Tell me where he is.”
“Look at me,” Michael interjected, rage shaking his voice.“Lucifer.”He screamed “Look at me!”
The devil refused.
“Look ather!”His voice broke, stripped raw and bleeding.“The Lord rebuke you!You’re responsible for all of this.For evil, for death, for pain.I will burn you myself for the rest of eternity.I don't care if I must destroy my own hands to hold you under the flames.I want every second of the burn to feel like the first.I want you to realize God was right.He was always right.You're a heartless beast.You're a monster.You deserved everything God ever did to you!”
A rage twisted in deep, so guttural that Satan almost choked.His entire body twitched hot, and a snarl built in the back of his throat.But hissing interrupted.He’d thought, initially, it was another angel flying downward, but then he heard Baal shout for him to move, and he felt heat at his back, and he watched his shadow start to trail far from him.Slow, Satan inhaled, body tensing.Rigid, he turned his face, still hearing Baal’s shouts though he could no longer see him, just sense his movement from the distant thumps of the horse.A star, right before him, as there was a star right behind Dina.It was of the same grotesqueness and fire as Apsinthos, and it held hundreds of mouths, but it held no eyes.
“Satan!”Baal, trying to make his way around the star on the horse, then abandoning it, but he wasn’t quick enough.
The light, the star, swallowed him.
CHAPTER43
The screams of the devil were not unlike the howls of agony in Hell.However long Satan had attempted to differentiate himself from every other angel, demon, living thing — when he burned, he sounded as horrible and bloodcurdling, raw, as everything else.The perfect favorite of God, humbled by suffering.His shrieks were tinged with rasps, and through the flames, all those who saw Satan witnessed his skin reddening then growing wet, dark — flogged.Mere shadow now, the devil sunk into the fire that swelled larger, larger.Baal hurried to Satan, to the sphere of fire that had just consumed the devil, but Michael watched, his eyes cold.Then the flames began shaping into something slimmer, taller.A mouth opened wide in what was becoming a face, a head.Limbs tore out of its sides, and hair fluttered down like the rays of the sun.It was only once the screams stopped that the body settled, then turned downward — a giant flaming figure above the buildings, standing among the other stars.All those there saw that it was Lucifer.
Lucifer, burning as bright as morning, as great as a god.
“Satan,” Michael breathed, lifting his body, reaching for his sword.The sun-angel lowered the top half of his body slowly, his face the size of two or three angels standing over each other, and his expression was unreadable as great hands of fire curled against the cement of the street.Ruins surrounded him, demons and angels surrounded him.‘Like when I first saw you.’And Michael’s heart clenched, but not with love.Wrath — to know that even now, transformed into this enormous burning god — Satan still had the gift of beauty.‘When you’re the most horrible, grotesque thing ever created.’
