Tadeo shook his head.“Kill Him entirely.Kill the God in Heaven, and kill the God on Earth.”Kill the God in the devil’s head.“Promise it to me.”
Satan still argued: “There will always be a God.He cannot die.He wishes He could die.”But the second that those words left the devil’s mouth, he twitched again, and then he laughed, deep, happily.“That is what He wants, isn’t it?All God has ever wanted is to die.”
CHAPTER47
As angels and demons rose to Heaven, they oversaw the burning Earth — sick, hungry, dead, and war-torn; the dim light of a black sun loomed, a red moon on the horizon hummed, and the low-hanging stars were quiet.
Within the ruins of paradise, however, nobody waited for them.Raphael was directing the half-dozen angels crowded by him toward the north, and when they said that Metatron had sent them to the center, the angel of healing groaned and waved a hand dismissively.“Don’t listen to him,” he advised.One angel reminded Raphael, though without much sincerity, that the Lord, their God, had ordered them to heed Metatron’s words.“He’s always told you to heed me, as well — so make your choice.”Quietly, the angels smiled, and they headed north to continue the hasty reconstruction.Raphael, gripping his staff with both hands, could only sigh at that; he’d spent much of his life tired but never had he felt this much exhaustion, not even in the aftermath of the first war.He couldn’t remember the last time he’d rested his itching eyes or even his trembling knees.
“Raphael.”As if sensing the healer angel’s pain, Gabriel landed beside him with ruffled wings and stepped closer, one hand falling onto Raphael’s arm, squeezing firmly.“You must rest, brother.”
“Where have you been?”Raphael replied, voice tighter, his brows furrowing enough to form a crease on his forehead.He turned and saw Gabriel out of his armor as all the angels were now, with a flower in his hair again and a distant glaze over his eyes, lips parted slightly.“Tell me— Tell me where you’ve been.”
“I was looking for Mary,” Gabriel confessed softly, and Raphael felt a familiar sinking feeling in his chest.
“Gabriel,” he began tensely.
“I was thinking about,” Gabriel went on speaking anyway, tilting his head to gaze down a street with the remnants of a stone monument scattered over it, their laws broken, “how I was the only one who ever visited her.She was in a house, but you never went to see her, and neither did Uriel, Michael, or even Metatron.And we always talked about the same things, brother.I apologized for what I did to her, and she would tell me that I did nothing wrong.That I had asked, not demanded, her to carry the son of God.She could have rejected it.But is that true?I could have said no to God, too, whenever He forced me do what I didn’t want, but I believed he’d never hurt me.Coercion is larger than a question.And I think that if Mary were really here, really in Heaven all this time, she would have spit in my face.Why would God do that to a girl?Break her once, break her again on a crucifix.”
Raphael quietly said, “We tried to tell you long ago, but you didn’t listen?—”
“I do think Mary left the Earth behind, but she’s not here,” Gabriel murmured, a sad smile fluttering the ends of his lips upward.“Somewhere else.One day, we should leave too.”When Raphael frowned, he added, “One day, if you can ever bear living for your own wellbeing and not that of others, beloved brother.”
Outside paradise, the chief prince Michael broke through the veil between the earthly and divine, and he settled onto where clouds turned cobble, trailing toward pearl gates.Leading the way, Michael saw that the gates were closed, locked, and immediately grabbed the bars, gritted his teeth.Groaning low, he stepped forward, pushing hard.And before the demons or Watchers could catch up to him, he’d already forced open the gates into Heaven.A shuddering pant fell from his mouth.Then, he met the city he’d left in ruins with its destroyers behind him and the Watchers who had been corrupted not on Earth but in this Heaven.Baal and Azazel moved closer behind Michael, looking at the city with an almost equal amount of disdain but Azazel’s gaze was crueler, for Baal could hardly recognize this as a place he’d ever lived in.
Azazel lowly said, “We should have gone directly to God.”
“The angels will help us,” Michael said.
“Even after all of this?”Baal chuckled and gestured vaguely at the destruction.
Without answering, Michael marched forward, listening to the footsteps of everyone who followed.And as he walked, he saw angels lift their heads, step away from their homes, set down what they did.He’d expected to see loathing, but they eyed Michael more careful than they’d ever seemed, trying to decipher him.Anxiously, they noticed the demons, but they remained quiet except for murmurs passed between them.Michael raised a steadying hand to them, ordering them to be patient, to not run, without words.
“Michael?”It was Raphael, beside Gabriel; they looked down the road at them from the foot of the Fountain of Life, the younger one holding the arm of the healer.“What are you doing?”
Hesitating, Michael looked to all the other angels who’d gathered to watch their chief prince, and he addressed them, first: “The time has come for God to face what He has done.He is the one who allowed the war for Heaven, who allowed for the birth of evil.”There were some sharp breaths, but the prince continued, “When all the devastation in Heaven and Earth enrages you, angels — you must remember who is the father of it all.There is only one Creator, and He created sin.If it wasn’t Him, then He is no creator, and He is no God.And we ought not to worship someone who is just like us.But now, we must war against God for every transgression He has wrought upon us.He has made us all suffer — tortures, deaths, violations — and we have taken it all instead of turning to him and saying, ‘Give me one reason to worship you!Why should we pray to someone as foul, as wicked, as the one who created suffering.’We turn on God today not like we did in the war for Heaven; we turn because He is the evil we so claimed to detest.He is the Beast!He harms us, toys with us.This jealous God punishes us for daring to love anyone more than Him!”
Suddenly, a furious voice called: “Michael!”And Metatron dropped down onto the golden roads, face twisted.“You couldn’t protect Heaven, and now you join the demons in destroying it?”
“You can have your Heaven” Michael said, “that you’ve always wanted for men, Metatron.Stay here.I and the angels will go to God to count our grievances for the rest of eternity.”Then, the prince looked to Gabriel, Raphael, and said, “Come with us.”To all the angels, after that: “Come with us!”
“Don’t listen to him!”Metatron shouted.“He’s long been corrupted by the devil!”
Baal shifted; he remembered the devil, in a moment like this.Lucifer, standing on the fountain, shouting, ‘Why do I worship this God?Imagine no God.’A paradise for the angels, Satan had asked for.Opening his mouth, the regent wanted to parrot all of what Satan had once said.Instead, he only found himself whispering: “Why worship this God?”None of them had ever received an answer.And the angels closest to Baal lifted their heads curiously, a few remembering who had asked this question first.One turned to the other, whispering, ‘If we built this Heaven,’ ‘If we don’t ask the fruits, the flowers, that we have grown to worship us?’, ‘If we don’t demand to the towers and bridges we’ve built to sing our praises forever?’, ‘If God is so all-powerful,’ but ‘He cannot serve Himself a drink,’ ‘cannot sing for Himself or even wash His own feet.’Why worship this God?These murmurs turned Metatron’s attention to the gathered angels, and he grunted.
“Stop this,” Metatron snarled.“Return to the apocalypse.End all the wars if you so want evil to be defeated.”
Turning away from him, Michael tensed, then he noticed Phanuel, stepping up behind Metatron.Their eyes met, brief.“The first war,” the prince confessed, “was for love.And God ignited it.Because of love between us, God committed the greatest evil on His own angels.He violated our bodies.He took our tongues.God demanded violence because He could not have love like we do.”
Raphael tried again, “Michael, we tried to speak to the Lord — Gabriel and I.”Gabriel nodded, but then he smiled a little, happier and sadder than he’d ever been.“You’re not saying we should try to fight Him, are you?With demons and Watchers—” But he noticeably flinched when he saw Samyaza, and when Gabriel touched his hand, Raphael’s entire face twisted in a grimace.
Azazel noticed how Samyaza’ gaze flickered, as well — another rare awakening in him.And he frowned, then solemnly said, ”Michael.Let us meet with God.
Michael hesitated, but he supposed he’d said enough.“Let us confront our Lord.”Rolling his shoulders, he straightened himself to stand proud, like he’d done in his youth.‘Pride, again.’The prince wondered if this is how Satan felt when his shame fell away — the ability to lift his chin and say, ‘Yes, I’m a sinner.I’m unforgivable.I will never be loved again.I’m a traitor to God and to nature, and I reject this body, and I will burn in Hell happy but liberated from the chains of Heavens.’“Angels, if you will, come with us to kill the one who is responsible for every second of this suffering.Come with us to demand answers, to know the peace we haven’t known for hundreds of millions of years.”Some of the crowd shifted, and though Metatron started looking around himself, telling the angels to stay where they were, the other archangels intervened.
“Follow Michael,” Raphael ordered.
“Yes,” Gabriel agreed, his face still a picture of sadness and joy.“Follow Michael.”
