“No one knows, but Raphael is convinced it willreturn.”
“If anyone should be convinced of that it’s an angel,” she said. “Raphael told me he chose to leave Heaven,unlikeCaim.”
“He did,” I confirmed, “but like Caim, he can’treturn.”
“So he said,” she murmured. “So what happened when Hellbrokeaway?”
It took me a few seconds to recall what we’d been talking about. “When Hell first broke away, thepower—”
“God,” shecorrected.
“God resided in Hell until Heaven broke away. When that happened, God left Hell and went to Heaven. With its inhospitable air, life doesn’t evolve in Heaven, so to sustain the cycle of life beginning to flow between the dimensions, God forged the angels in the image of man. Over time, the three planes became a symbiotic network of different species. Humans are the only ones with a soul and the only ones who can create a new soul. When a person perishes, their soul goes to Heaven or Hell, though some remain on Earth and serve their time in Purgatory as ghosts. Where they end up in death all depends on a human’s deeds while they’realive.”
“I’ve met some of the ghosts at the wall. Some of them are assholes, but a fewarenice.”
“Most are selfish, one-way pricks, but at least many of them are trying to helpusnow.”
“I guess you don’t likeghosts.”
“No, but they also serve their purpose. They do nothing for us though as both angels and demons feed on the souls who travel to our realms until they are ready to be reincarnated. Demons create pain for the souls as punishment until they become twisted wraiths. Angels give them pleasure as a reward for their deeds. When a soul’s time is up in either dimension, it is reborn on Earth. Just because a soul makes it to Heaven once doesn’t mean they won’t make it to Hell a time or two also. Without this life cycle, no one knows what would happen, but we do know all our species rely on each other tosurvive.”
“What about demons and angels when they die? Do theyreincarnatetoo?”
“No,” I said. “That is where our death and rebirth cycle differs from humans. When an immortal dies, that is the end for them. We experience no afterlife, but that is the price we pay forimmortality.”
“Oh.” Wren remained still against me as she tried to process everything I’d revealed. “Where do Lucifer and the fallen angels come intoallthis?”
“There was a time when angels and demons walked the Earth. They didn’t do so freely, but they did move amongst people. The varcolac can open a gateway between Hell and Earth. The demons who passed back and forth were carefully monitored and had to pass tests to travel to the mortalplane.
“Then, six thousand years ago, the asshole angels above had a fight, and they solved it by tossing their trash ontoEarth.”
“And that trash was Lucifer and the otherfallen.”
“Yes. All angels can leave Heaven, but only the archangel Michael is capable of opening a gateway from Earth and into Heaven. When they threw Lucifer and his followers out, they did so with the belief they would die onEarth.”
“Why did they think they would die if the angels are immortal too?” sheasked.
“All immortal creatures used to become mortal while on Earth. The only way an angel or demon on Earth could retain their immortality was to return to Heaven or Hell. When humans opened the unnatural gateway into Hell, it changed everything. Our worlds became so intricately entwined that immortals are now capable of remaining undying while onEarth.”
“Oh,” she breathed, “and Michael never planned to let the fallen angels return toHeaven.”
“Exactly. The fallen should have perished on Earth, but once here, they sheared off their wings in the hopes of becoming more human. It didn’t work, and it only caused most of their wings to grow back twisted and black. The fallen angels started to become more demonic while on Earth, and during that time, Lucifer figured out how to open a gateway into Hell. Once the angels entered Hell, they retained their immortality, became far more demonic, and wreaked havoc. They were able to do all this because the golden angels couldn’t take care of theirfuckingmess.”
“I take it you don’t like the angels much,”shesaid.
“Those self-righteous pricks started this whole thing, and only Raphael has done anything to try to help fix it. I don’t trust him or Caim, but out of the two of them, I trust Caim more. I never believed I’d say that about one of the fallen, but Caim is more open, whereas I think Raphael may still be hiding things from us. They’ve both sacrificed to help us though, so I’ll work with them unless they give me a reason to kill them. Then, I won’thesitate.”
She shifted against me as if to pull out of my arms, but then her head fell onto my chest. I froze, uncertain of what to do. With any other woman, I would have known what to do, but dealing with Wren was like walking on thin ice. I never knew when she might crack and try tokillme.
“Your feelings for the angels are much like my feelings toward demons,”shesaid.
“Yes.”
“Where are your mother andfather?”
I held her closer before realizing what I was doing and easing my grip on her. After all these years, I still hated recalling the end of my parents’ lives. “Dead. I watched thembothdie.”
ChapterSeventeen
