Baal dropped his fist, and his eyes were reddened, wet beads slipping down his scarred face, but then he threw Michael aside, to the ground by his abandoned sword.Over the clang of armor, Baal said, “You’ll take his place in Hell.”Gasping, trembling, eyes wide and frantic.“I’ll save him, and I’ll have you burn in his place.”
Michael wanted to beg, ‘Do it, please,’ but he heard the devil in his head, whispering, ‘You God-damned martyr,’ still trying to sacrifice himself instead of facing what he’d done.“Baal—” but he couldn’t force any other words out.
Sighing, Uriel had realized that no one was going to finish the job with Apsinthos, and so he called, ‘Kimah.’And he met silence.‘I know that you listen.’Anxious crinkling in his chest, the prince tilted his face to see a great sphere of a thousand mouths, descending slow to hover beside him.Kimah, who’d offered some of his fire to Satan before he’d been defeated.‘You’re beautiful,’ Uriel said, then smiled sadly.It hurt his cheeks to do it; he’d not smiled for billions of years, except for rare moments with Dina, when he wouldn’t be able to smother his fondness, his pity, in private.‘I think that I understand now why you’ve come to hate me.Everything that I thought I did for you, I did for me.And I bowed to the Lord who did this to you.’Swallowing hard.‘I’m not asking for you to forgive me.’
‘I cannot,’ said Kimah, ‘absolve you.’
‘I’m not looking for you to absolve me,’ Uriel said, but a softer joy continued tugging at his lips; he’d long become so unfamiliar to happiness.‘I’m asking for you to help me.’
‘You saw what happened to Kokabiel.’
‘I did.’
‘It won’t kill him.Apsinthos cannot be killed.There are pieces of him scattered across a trillion stars.’
‘I’m doing it for Dina,’ confessed Uriel, turning back to the youngest, most beautiful angel.‘Look at him.He’s fallen so deep into the lies of that star that he can’t remember who he is.But I know what that is like, Kimah — to follow hate out of hopelessness.Even if it’s only temporary, to break him out of the spell — Dina must watch this star die.’If Lucifer had killed God during the war for Heaven, even if just for a moment — Uriel might have run away with him.Maybe that was wishful thinking.Angel of hindsight.
Kimah said: ‘I don’t want to destroy you.’
‘Nothing can ever be destroyed.I won’t really be gone, Kimah.I will be with you, even if you can’t hear me.For an eternity — if you can remember — I couldn’t speak, but I was still with you’
‘I might have grown to despise you,’ Kimah replied, ‘but I never stopped loving you either, Uri.’Then he approached.
On the street, Dina was still writhing, refusing every word that all those around him tried to offer.It wasn’t until he was suddenly punched hard against his stomach that he jolted, looked up.Azazel and Armoni were still standing before him, but it was Baraqiel who’d just driven his fist into Dina’s abdomen, then another time.Dina spluttered out more blood before Azazel quickly put a hand on Baraqiel, telling him to stop.But the mournful angel of light struck harder before other Watchers had to grapple and pull him back.It hadn’t helped; Dina just continued kicking, banging both his arms against Samyaza’s hold in hysteria.In every direction, he whipped his head around, only incidentally catching a figure in a nearby roof walking toward a star.First, he believed it was just one of the demons, but when he looked back, he noticed their stern gaze.Familiar.‘Uriel?’
Michael watched brightness bloom over the ground he was thrown over, and he lifted his chin at the same time that Baal did.In the dark, reddened sky, there was a star, and just as it began to swell, a few ripples across its fiery body opened.A thousand eyes of every size revealed themselves all over its shape, and a hundred mouths parted to pant like an animal and bear an infinite amount of teeth.An angel must’ve thrown themself into the sun, how Kokabiel had, but who?Who?
Breath hitching, Dina saw how the enormous star above had a few eyes on him, and he shook his body against the Watchers some more.‘Uriel.’He had seen that gaze in all those thousands of years that he’d run into the prince in his own home, in the libraries, in the kitchen, in the bathing area, in the dark, by candlelight, reading.‘I convinced myself that you liked me, secretly, that you didn’t mind me.And then I realized that your affection was another mere story of mine, one of my fairy tales.What are you doing now, Uriel?’Dina shook his head.‘Don’t do it.’He wanted to scream.‘Don’t do it!Don’t do it!’Kicking, thrashing, sobbing.‘Don’t hurt him, Uriel!’Then, he turned to Apsinthos.‘Devour me!Please!Kill me for you!’
Apsinthos inched back, but like all stars, he was slow.‘Kimah,’ he called.‘What are you doing?It’s all almost over.And this won’t stop me.’
‘This has never been about you,’ said Uri-Kimah before rushing forward, mouths opening wide.Apsinthos revolted the second that Uri-Kimah reached him with his teeth, and Apsinthos flared erratically and threw his body back, then forward, then away.But Uri-Kimah was relentless and fast, tearing into Apsinthos’ body with bite after bite, chasing wherever Apsinthos tried to nudge himself to safety.The wicked star’s glow grew even darker than it had been, and when it was like candlelight, Dina broke through all the broken bones in his jaw to scream at the clash incoherently.
It did nothing.It wasn’t long before Apsinthos began to die out, graying as he disappeared into the mouth of Uri-Kimah.But the last of Uriel was soon to follow.Each eye rippled over the great star began to shut, slow, sleepily, and the size of Kimah shrunk in a soft, calm decrescendo along with his brightness.Kimah’s weakened body fell to hover close to the center of the street.Michael and Baal both hurried away in the same direction.At the other side, the Watchers, too, scrambled to get far from the remains of half a lover, burning quietly still.
As this occurred, Samyaza lost his grip, and Dina broke away.‘Uriel.’He tore his wings out from his back, beat them, threw into the disarray to disappear into it.‘Uriel.’Uriel had always glared at him when Apsinthos had bombarded Dina with affection.He should hate Uriel, now more than ever, but he didn’t, couldn’t.‘No book I ever read had the words for how I felt about you.And there are no words now for what I’ve done.’The new Heaven after the apocalypse was supposed to be worth all the suffering.Worth all the blood of children on his hands.Worth murdering his own friends, loved ones.Uriel, angel of wisdom, had just looked Dina in the eyes and burnt up.‘Why didn’t you help me?Why didn’t you want to return to paradise?Why?’
CHAPTER46
‘It’s what I wanted,’ Rosier thought emptily, the weight of Asmodeus’ severed arm in his sling making his entire body slouch.‘It’s what I wanted,’ he told himself again.But revenge is not justice, it’s surprise.Revenge was breaking the cycle, gaining the upper hand, with an exhilarated thrill.But it isn’t justice, not on its own.And then, it’s nothing but this emptiness.In the wreckage of the world, the fallen angel of fruit could only stare at the closed crack in the ground where his old friend had disappeared to.Sweet Lucifer, golden head in Rosier’s lap, fluttering his violet wings absentmindedly, asking if God dreams.Of course God dreams.What does He dream?This, all of this.‘Asmodeus would laugh whenever he caught me coddling you, Lucifer.He said we raised you well.’
Slow, the demon of fruit slipped down from the back of Danel, who turned back at him curiously; he’d remained latched onto Danel’s back, too numb to involve himself with Dina.Michael remained doubled over with a bloodied face and pressed to a vehicle, not far from the one he’d been beaten against by Baal.And the regent of Hell in question was standing firmer beside Michael, panting for breath, some blood still in his mouth.Rosier’s eyes trailed down both of their bodies, found the chief prince’s sword, laying lonesome in the rubble.
Michael felt the ebbing tremble in his body — a new clarity blooming, solid, stabilizing.When he looked to Baal again, he noted a wincing face: broken ribs or terror.‘It’s not your fault he’s gone,’ he wanted to tell Baal.‘It’s mine.’But that was just more self-sacrifice, and Satan had snapped at Michael for it, and if Satan was just a memory now, Michael was compelled to pay respects, to listen, to obey him, for once.“Baal,” Michael tried, low, grunting it.“Baal.”Joana’s death lingered still, but what she’d pleaded the prince to do was have mercy, not forgive.And to see that wretched souls are still souls, that there are no good people, no bad people.Satan had tried to stop the world from ending; if he’d succeeded, Joana would be alive.
“If,” Baal began gravely, “you don’t want me to order my demons to slaughter you with the fires of the stars right now, then you should hand yourself over to me without a fight.”He turned over with a limp, taking a step back, seemingly quite prepared to return to fighting.“I meant what I said.I’ll have you take his place.I don’t care what I have to do.I’ll make you suffer everything that Satan has tenfold.”
Hesitating, the prince straightened, shifted away from the car he’d been leaning on.He said, strongly: “There will be no war between the angels and demons anymore.”Immediately, Baal quirked a brow, and there was a rumble of noise from the angels and the demons alike.“There will be no more war.”None at all.“But I won’t hand myself over to you.”
Baal jabbed: “What the fuck are you saying?Are you willingly going to save Satan with us?”
‘Save,’ Michael echoed in his head.‘Like I promised I would once.’“I’m going to kill God.You’re going to help me.”
Far from them, not far from a river running red — Dina landed across a wide road with a stumble.His wings folded back into himself, and he shuddered, and he gripped his top as if he were a human suffering a heart attack.All around him, discarded cars stood empty, and there was nothing but a few wandering animals and human bodies.When he raised his face — he noticed a house cat with a collar, fur matted and dark, face pressed into the open, fly-infested gash of a human.Stomach twisting, Dina took a step back, though he should be far, far used to this sight by now.
But it had been so easy, just some hours ago, to justify every face of death with the promise of salvation, of paradise, of the return to the past.He had told himself every scream and cry was a brick on the road to a Heaven he’d been born too late to know.Without realizing, he’d begun to ask if this road could ever be worth it, could a new Heaven ever make up for this brutality.And he’d realized, perhaps more crucially, that those who’d known the old Heaven, the place before sin, were not standing beside Dina, fighting for it.‘Uriel wanted the apocalypse stopped more than anything.’Had all things really been better before sin?How had Satan invented sin?Had he pulled it out of his body like he had the Beast?Or had he seen it, somewhere, named it?
The cat continued to eat the corpse, and Dina listened to the hiss of hot breeze, and he listened to the heart-beatings of the stars above.Apsinthos might speak to him again soon, but he thought of Tadeo, who’d fed the people like the cat now ate.‘You wouldn’t end the world, Tadeo, even if you have every reason to.’Was he really in Hell now, burning for refusing God’s will of the end?Slowly, Dina looked to the river.‘I know where Hell is.’It was a short trip if he flew.‘I’ll know where to look for them.’Dina didn’t doubt the demons would come looking for Satan soon, but he could still heal in a way they couldn’t.Painfully, Dina shut his eyes, and he heard Azazel’s shouting in his head.He remembered Uriel, in his library, touching his head.
