“Why did you fall?”
Satan, suddenly, laughed.“I can’t say that I remember.”
“I’ve heard that it’s because of your vanity.”
“That makes sense to me,” the devil continued to joke.“I would cast someone down from paradise for vanity, as well.”
“It doesn’t bother you that you act like Him?”Tadeo wasn’t sure where such a jab had come from inside him.He supposed that he’d come, without even realizing it, to a revelation, about God and about his own religion.The word itself, religion, no longer felt adequate for what he felt.This was something else, belief rooted in disbelief, the truth found for him in a lie.Tadeo saw God in his pain, never in his joy.To him, all the suffering was proof of God.Love was proof that God could die.Tadeo could still taste Dante’s alcohol in his lips.He could feel Joana’s shoulder that he often leaned against.
“I’m greater than Him, worse than Him.”
Tadeo couldn’t be sure what that meant, how greater and worse could ever mean the same.But he’d been told to love God, to fear Him — all his life.The Lord is good; the Lord is cruel.
“Tell me,” said the devil, stiffer, “how you plan to save what’s left of the Earth.You will still eventually die, and your successor may not make trees grow for the people.All the water is poisoned, and the stars have fallen from the sky.”
Tadeo admitted: “I don’t know.”
“I can save the world for us demons but humans will not survive long on it anymore.Maybe it is best for you to slaughter the remnants of humanity, then yourself, to stop everything once and for all.”
“Isn’t there another way?”Tadeo asked quietly.“Isn’t there another way to stop this?Can’t we confront God?”He opened his eyes again, finally.“If you think yourself so powerful, then why not face Him?”Satan was quiet, and Tadeo decided, then, to say what he’d felt earlier: “I can tell you why I’m different.It’s because someone told me I had a responsibility to our people.Even if they looked at me with scorn, I had a responsibility to meet them with grace.It’s the right thing to do.And what I think is right and good is larger than myself; it’s larger than God.Isn’t that what you wanted to be?”
“There’s nothing rational about you.”
“There’s nothing rational about love,” confessed Tadeo.“Haven’t you ever loved someone, devil?”
CHAPTER45
The chief prince fell to his knees.‘A bed of flowers.Eden.God, our Father.’Those had been the devil’s thoughts, inside of Michael.That had been the devil’s pain, lodged deep and gutting him open to spill wickedness out of his own body.Yet Satan was gone now, dead like Joana, dragged enormous and bright into a wound in the Earth.With a glance behind him, Michael saw streaks of redness where she’d been, disappearing around a corner of a toppled building.Where were all the humans?Gone?Had Christ returned and raised them to Heaven?Had the second coming of the Son come and gone?Maybe they had all left, and God had chosen for Michael to remain on Earth to rot alone.
But he was not alone; almost, he didn’t hear the steps coming up behind him.He almost didn’t feel when talons grabbed Michael by the back of his neck, wrenched him onto his armored feet.Then, with a growl, Baal shoved the prince, spat at his face, “I’ll fucking kill you.”Throaty, stuttering in all its rage.“I'll fucking kill you.”Over and over.
“Baal,” Michael said, slowly, wondering if he’d ever addressed him like this, “it was Satan who wanted to come here, who thought himself capable of fighting stars and God?—”
“Fuck you,” said Baal, then pushed him once more, and the saint took just another step back, taking the blow.“All of this isbecause of you,because he made the mistake of loving you.And you fucked it all up.You were a coward.You cut his wings off without being asked to.You’re worse than God?—”
Immediately, Michael yelled out to cut him off, threw himself forward to shove the other back — but Baal beat his wings to stop the momentum and keep himself from crashing into anything behind him.Even still, the regent of Hell wheezed, a splatter of blood left his mouth.Michael’s mere shove had been strong enough to break bones, muscle.
Nearby, Dina lay with his mouth still mangled and, twitching, turned his head slowly to eye Apsinthos, now a dim-star, half-shriveled.‘Apsinthos,’ he thought desperately.‘Dear Apsinthos.Forgive me.I love you.Forgive me.This body of yours is hurt.We’re both hurt.’
‘Dina,’ came Apsinthos’ rumbling voice soon after.‘Don’t listen to them.’The angel was about to ask who, but it wasn’t long before a choir of beating wings came toward him.
“Dina!”Azazel called a second later.“Stop this.Now.”Arms came around Dina next, around his throat in a headlock.Frantically, he reached to claw at the arms just as Samyaza’s grunt sounded by his ear.“Dina— Look at me!”
But Dina refused, eyes wide, panicked, searching for Apsinthos even when a few other Watchers dropped into the street before him, obstructing his view of the great star.He tried to speak, but all it did was release a gurgling noise as blood splattered down his mangled mouth.“Hhgh,” was all he could manage, and so he kicked and continued to scratch.‘Apsinthos, is it over?Can it be over?’
Armoni stumbled over, coming to stand beside Azazel, and he said, “Dina, you’re being used.”
‘I don’t care,’ Dina was crying out in his head, ‘I want to be used.I want to be manipulated.I would do anything to be wanted enough to hurt and use.’Azazel and Armoni continued to shout at him to open his eyes, but Dina’s were wide open.If he could shriek, he’d say: ‘None of you understand, none of you could ever understand.’He continued to look for him, Apsinthos, in desperation.It couldn’t have all been for nothing.He had to end all of the world now more than ever.It was all so terrible.His heart hurt so terribly.The pit of his stomach twisted so tight he thought he’d rip inside.
On a rooftop, Uriel still stood, watching.Though he maintained his gaze on Dina, thrashing and gurgling on his blood, he heard Baal and Michael’s brawl continue.
“He’sgone!”Baal was snarling, but his voice cracked and broke.“Lucifer is gone now because ofyou!I don’t care what happens to me.I’ll kill you.I’ll kill you over and over for the rest of eternity.”
Michael breathed out, “There’s nothing I could have done—” His sword finally slipped from his hands, clanged to the ground.
“You didn’t eventry!”And when Baal tackled Michael, the saint didn’t try to dodge.He allowed the demon to ram him into the side of a car, then reach for his helmet and tear it off of him to fling far from them.Michael even raised his hand to stop any demon or stray angel from intervening, and he looked at Baal’s panting face — shuttering between anger and a childish sadness.It made the demon hesitate for a second, but his hand still curled into a fist.He punched Michael’s face hard, using his other hand to keep him pressed against the car, then he struck the chief prince again, again.
‘Lucifer.’Fiery and enormous and brilliant Lucifer, tempting anyone to fall to their knees.To pray.‘I spent every day since the fall telling myself I’d killed you.’He coughed out blood, his skin swelling and darkening with each punch.‘God told me that you were dead.I believed Him because I wanted that lie.It was easier to believe you dead than changed.’There should be rage in Michael, wrath at how he had been misled by the Lord, but his chest ached raw.Instead, such guilt flooded him that it was as if he’d committed the horrible evil on Lucifer’s body.‘I am responsible.’This was his sin, as much as God’s.Michael had done nothing.‘I saw the hollowed corpse of the angel I loved, and I kissed his limp, tortured body.I didn’t listen to you.I didn’t trust you.’Satan had rebelled, violently, horrifically; Michael had fought him down.‘I broke you, too.I handed you to Him.’He’d worshiped God, all that He had done.He’d worshiped a rape.
