He glanced at me and grinned. “I gave terms for a peaceful departure if it could only be arranged. It cannot. Did I mention God gave me a third command? He told me to come unto the unrepentant and make war upon them to remove them from this land. God’s will be done.” With his shield of the Four Towers strapped to one arm, he drew his sword with his other hand and pointed it forward. A cry escaped his lips that reverberated though the sky.
I raised my voice to join my brother’s as we raced towards battle.
Others joined us. Uriel raced beside me, laughing into the night, and beside him hurtled Raguel, his face grim, spear held forward. Raphael and Ramiel soared beside them. Next to Michael, flew Gabriel.
The Four Towers were joined as one. I was aware of Michael, Uriel, and Gabriel as easily as I was aware of myself. Our might was combined, our will, our hope, and our spirit. Together, we were the Hand of God personified. Limitless power flooded through me. Power flowed from the source of all things, from God Himself.
I didn’t need to see Gabriel raise his horn to his lips. I felt myself doing it. He let loose seven long blasts that shook the heavens.
Forward! Forward the Hosts! The clarion call cried out. To Battle! To War! To Victory! For the Kingdom of God!
Trumpets blared in response. The Hosts of God surged behind us. The voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players filled the sky with the Divine Song, led by Zerachiel. Drums beat like a rolling and lasting thunder. The hearts of the righteous swelled with the Holy Spirit.
The mass of fallen loomed, appearing so impossibly large and grotesque that it resembled a beast with seven misshapen and draconian heads.
We charged into them. Like seven stars streaking down from the heavens did I, my brothers, and my sisters, the Archangels, collide with the fallen. It was the first time our collective might combined as one for the purpose of unbridled destruction. And the forces unleashed had never been felt so powerfully since.
The fallen imploded like a collapsed star.
The ninth sphere rattled. The astral plane trembled. Creation shook.
Blinding light flared. Cleansing and holy fire scorched and incinerated. Millions of bodies ripped into nothing and spewed from the mass of fallen as if belched from a range of volcanos. Great plumes burst outwards like an opening magnolia as shockwaves tossed aside any and all in its path.
It was the hour of judgment. The Wrath of God.
A third of the infinite legions was destroyed in an instant.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The hosts of God clashed at last with the fallen legion.
The Guardian class, like an unstoppable tide, drove into the fallen center and swept away all within its path. Seraphim clashed with devils, brother against brother, and the night erupted in flares of red and white. The Thrones tore holes in the fallen ranks as their charging chariots, pulled by their horses of white, ravaged the flanks. Cherubim, led by Ramiel, rained a hail of arrows from above, their arrows blazing, their spears streaks of lightning from the heavens. Zerachiel and the Virtues sang the Divine Song and it poured across the sky like the morning rays from the rising sun – lending strength, vigor, and healing to those in need.
Michael, a force of nature, called fire from the sky, and waded through the fallen as if through wheat. Where he went fallen fled. Raguel fought alongside Raphael, the two complementing one another. Raphael’s intellect gave him perfect fighting form and precision, tempering Raguel’s fanaticism and berserker-like rage. Gabriel and Uriel fought with me, the three of us rotated and weaved through the masses like a tornado rips through the countryside.
Bodies fell like a savage hailstorm, the accumulation below forming mountains and valleys, the landscape remade in heaps of the dead. But fallen alone did not die, Angels perished as well, the corruption of Lucifer affected even the mighty Hosts in this sphere.
Hours passed. Abruptly, the fallen began to flee back to their portal. I stopped in mid-flight, chest heaving, arms weary, and merely floated.
“Let them go.” Michael’s voice carried like thunder.
A cheer rose. I could scarcely believe my eyes. My heart hammered. Could it be over at last? Did I dream?
The cheers rose into a crescendo. My voice echoed theirs.
Tears streaked. Angels wept. Many spun and twirled in the air in celebration. Angels hugged and held each other. Laughter carried everywhere.
“Alleluia! Alleluia!” they cried out in a great voice.
We did it! We defeated the fallen legions. We defeated Lucifer.
We won!
“Salvation, and glory, and honor, and power, unto the Lord our God!” cried Michael.
It was over.
* * *
“Why do they stop?” Raphael’s voice pulsed in my mind.
The words jerked me back from my jubilation. The portal still stretched massively across the sky, still an open gash across the heavens and bruised with greens and reds and purples. The fallen were bunched against it but could not pass through, the blocked throngs of fallen pooled like a swelling and spreading puddle of blood.
My heart stopped. I felt a consciousness I had not felt since the fourth sphere when I battled in Mephistopheles’ domain. But back then, I felt overwhelming harmony. Now I only felt unmatched hatred.
The fallen abruptly retreated from the portal in terror. A great bellow reverberated from the portal and shook the night. Again it sounded, the roar deafening. Angels covered their ears. Others moaned from the sound of it. All eyes fastened onto the portal.
Something began to emerge. Something insanely immense.
The paw of a great bear, mammoth claws extended, pads clearly visible, appeared. The paw continued through, stepping into the ninth sphere, its leg so massive it reached from the ground to the portal. Heads emerged next from the portal, slowly ponderous and giant, as a leviathan would rise from the sea.
The heads, seven in number, were misshapen half-melted faces of angels, both male and female, sitting grotesquely upon long necks that weaved and bobbed in the air. Each face had at least one horn protruding from the forehead, some had two, for a total of ten in all. They grew from golden and tufted hair that sat like crowns upon each monstrous head. The body of the beast came through at last, covered in red large and spotted welts as if it were a diseased leopard. The portal seemed scarcely large enough as the beast pushed its way through. It stood on four paws and its seven heads rose nearly a mile into the sky.
Before it, floating like motes of dust, flew Lucifer and Mephistopheles.
The beast roared. All seven mouths opened wide like lions bellowing their rage.
“What is that thing?” pulsed Raphael.
My heart fell. A deep sadness struck me as I recognized her. We had shared a bond once, deep and spiritual, and I would know her anywhere despite her grotesque appearance.
“She was once Mother Nature,” I pulsed back. “I channeled her when I fought Mephistopheles and she lent me her strength. They’ve captured her, twisted her, and given her corporeal form.”
Lucifer’s words came back to haunt me … I have yet to reveal my full strength … in fact, you can thank Sariel for delivering to me my greatest asset. It was through his battle with Mephistopheles in a lower sphere that I uncovered a power greater than Archangel, greater than all of you combined.
“How do we fight it?” asked Uriel.
“Like any other Fallen,” said Raguel firmly. “With the conviction of our faith!” He charged his chariot towards the beast.
“I would have preferred a strategy,” rumbled Gabriel, snapping his reins and pursuing after. As did we all.
Raguel fell upon the beast first, charging towards a head that drooped low, and hurtled towards its eye. He looked like a gnat charging a bull.
A huge bear paw rose, but it was not lumbering or slow as I would have expected. It was impossibly swift. With a quick swat, it swiped Raguel out of the air. His chariot burst and his steeds were crushed. He hurtled sideways, spinning and
flailing, sailing a thousand feet in the span of a heartbeat. He smashed into the side of a mountain. Rock and debris exploded from the force of his impact.
“Raguel!” shouted Ramiel who flew to his aid.
“Fall back!” cried Michael.
The others veered away just as another swat caught Gabriel’s chariot. It exploded into shards, the steeds dying instantly. Gabriel leapt clear, wings extended, and darted away.
“I ask again, how do we fight it?” said Uriel breathlessly.
No one answered. We flew back to stand with the hosts.
The beast rushed us. The ground broke and sunk into huge craters. With each gargantuan step, mountains shook from the massive tremors. The remaining walls and standing structures in the city below us crumbled as if made of sand.
“Hosts engage!” cried Michael. Gabriel blew his horn to order the charge.
The angelic hosts surged. Trumpeters blasted their horns. Arrows and spears blazed like a hundred thousand shooting stars, arcing through the night towards the beast’s heads and neck. Most bounced from the beast’s skin but some found purchase, protruding like thorns.
“Stay high and attack the heads!” shouted Raphael. “Do not get within striking distance of its paws!”
We swarmed around the beast, attacking the heads and necks like angry insects. Huge misshapen lips peeled back and snarled. It bared giant and gnashing teeth. It lunged, catching angels in its huge maw, biting and chewing.
Its heads swayed back and forth. But unlike its paws, they were ponderous and moved slowly. We continued to press our attack, dashing into strike exposed eyes and ears, and loosing spear and arrow into the wide open mouths.
It showed no sign of pain, no sign of discomfort. We did nothing to the beast that seemed to harm it at all.
The beast reared. A huge paw swiped through the hosts. A swath hundreds of feet wide ripped through them. It swiped again, clearing another path. Thousands of angels died in an instant.
“Fall back!” cried Michael. Gabriel blasted his horn twice. The Hosts retreated.
“Four Towers! To me!” Michael commanded.
I soared from my chariot, as did Uriel and Gabriel, and flew to Michael’s side.
“You ask how we fight it?” said Michael. “We will cut off its head, one at a time. Let us join as one. Open yourselves to me.”
As before when the shield of the Four Towers was first presented to me, I surrendered to it. Power, raw and infinite, flooded through me as vast as Spirit. I relinquished my individuality and felt the minds of Uriel and Gabriel as easily as my own. We united with Michael.
A giant paw swept towards us. I found myself dodging it as if time was mine to command. Perhaps it was.
I saw myself as another would view me from the outside. I could sense and feel my astral body but I was impartial to it, distant, aloof.
I marveled at how we flew as one, rotating in the air, twisting, leaving trails of shimmering light like giant interwoven and intricate vines soaring skywards. Heads snapped at us, paws flashed by, but we dodged with ease.
Suddenly, we dove. Our swords flashed, blazing white, and we cut deep into the snaking neck right below the jutting jaw of a monstrous head. The beast reared, screaming its fury. We wheeled in unison, striking the neck again. The head lolled sideways, hanging by thick and ropy tendons. Michael wheeled and darted back, ducking under the snapping jaws of the nearly severed head and with a mighty sweep, cut it free. It dropped.
I braced myself for the tremendous crash but it never came. The head vanished in a wisp of smoke.
No matter. One slain. We banked and charged at another. The exposed neck from the head we had just removed loomed before us but the wound was no longer fresh, it was scarred and sealed. We skirted around the neck just as a bulge protruded from it like a budding flower and blossomed in the shape of a giant maw with fanged teeth. A terrible scream shrieked from it, blasting us from our path, scattering us.
My concentration broke, I found myself twirling in the air, no longer connected to my brothers, no longer one with the Four Towers. I extended my wings, slowing to a stop, and watched in horror.
A grotesque face formed around the mouth, growing ever larger, until it resembled the same monstrous head we had severed mere moments before, complete with horns and golden hair.
“We cannot harm it!” shouted Uriel. “If we can’t harm it, how can we kill it?”
A crushing paw hammered into Uriel and drove him into the ground.
“No!” cried Gabriel, hurling a spear into an exposed eye before racing to Uriel’s aid. The spear sunk into the eye and disappeared, causing the surface to ripple as if it were thrown into a pond.
A cheer erupted from the fallen who watched in the distance. The cheering swelled and I could sense the worship in their voices, worshipping this beast and Lucifer who gave it life and power.
Who can hurt me? A voice bellowed in my mind. But I didn’t hear it alone, we all did. It came from the beast.
Who is able to make war with me? Surely not thou, Michael, and thine heavenly hosts. God hath created thee in His image and see how powerless thou art? How feeble then must be the image from which thou were cast! Come! I shall grind thee and thine frail hosts under mine feet!
Laughter echoed softly. Laughter from Lucifer and Mephistopheles.
Michael said nothing and hung in the night. I moved to his side.
“You said this beast was once Mother Nature. Are you certain of this?” he asked quietly.
“Yes. She was once the embodiment of God’s creation in the fourth sphere.”
“Then She is Spirit, yes?”
“Yes, although tainted beyond recognition.”
He smiled. “Then let us show Her once again Spirit’s greatest power and we shall see how deep this taint runs.”
“Didn’t we try that, brother?” I asked warily. “With all our combined strength, we couldn’t hurt it.”
“Strength is not Spirit’s greatest power, brother. It never was. Only love can heal Spirit. Join with me once again, but sheath your weapon. It will not be needed.”
I did as I was bade. Gabriel did not join us. He aided in the healing of Uriel’s crushed body. But to my surprise, others did join us. And they numbered in the millions. Michael had cast his request to the hosts.
Michael’s soul flared as if it had given birth to a thousand thousand suns but it was not a physical light. He appeared to my eyes as he had moments before, floating stoically. Nevertheless, I could not look upon him for fear the sight of him would burn and overwhelm my spiritual vision.
The light radiating from him was love, perfectly reflected from Spirit. In that moment, I had never seen it so tangible. We joined our individual and personal love with Michael’s divine love; our compassion, our forgiveness, our desire for peace, our desire to reunite with our families, our desire for healing, and our desire for unity.
Michael gathered together all the different versions of love flowing into him and from him and he merged them into an ocean which he simply released into the ether.
It was Love like I had never felt in any astral sphere. It was pure.
It was God.
The beast shrieked and recoiled as if burned. It scrambled backwards, stumbling. Its heads whipped about, its voice roaring in agony.
The beast fell to the ground as if in a death throe. Mountain peaks crumbled, valleys were remade. It flailed uncontrollably, its heads smashing the ground again and again. The earth cracked beneath it and split apart, a crevasse formed a mile wide. Half the beast fell into the pit before the ground widened even further to swallow the rest. As the beast fell, I felt its form dissolve, its anger fade, its corruption vanish. It merged back into the Spirit of the earth, back into Mother Nature, back home.
I stared numbly. The air was thick with dust and debris.
Michael had been right. Only love could heal Spirit. And it had healed Her indeed.
My mind snapped back into focus. Where was Lucifer?
I reached out with my senses. I found him a heartbeat later. He and Mephistopheles fled towards the portal. He had my son.
“Lucifer!” I cried, surging forward. Michael trailed right behind me.
I tore through the sky as fast as I could. The fallen were already pouring through the portal in their bid to flee. I felt him through the ether. I would not let him escape.
Just then another figure moved to intercept Mephistopheles. A streak of light shot up from the ground and hammered into him.
“I’ve got this one!” cried Gabriel, grappling with our struggling brother.
Fair enough. Lucifer was mine.
I plunged into the portal after him.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The portal wasn’t simply the one massive doorway that it resembled – it was a maze of beginnings and endings. It led to thousands of locations all over the eight lower spheres. Lucifer’s path flitted from one location to another. Perhaps he thought he could evade me with the staggering number of doorways. If so, he thought wrong. I would not be so easily thwarted.
I emerged into Lucifer’s underground palace. Michael a step behind me.
We stood in a vast hall made of gold. A dome arched overhead, inlaid with precious gems depicting the birth of the astral spheres. The floor was made of gold and platinum tiles, checkered and polished to a sheen that cast perfect reflections. Great statues lined the walls, each twelve feet tall on marble pedestals. All were of Sammael in various poses as he had once appeared in the Causal, before his transformation into a beast with two horns.
Against the wall, between the bases of two statues, sat Asmodeus. His legs were stretched out and he sat hunched over. Beelzebub’s head rested in his lap, her body healed of the wounds I had inflicted on her, but her eyes remained closed. He stroked her hair gently. His wing draped lovingly over her like a blanket.
He glanced up at our approach. His face was haggard, his eyes swollen and haunted. Gone was any vestige of any peace or harmony. His cheeks were streaked with tears.
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