by SM Reine
She landed in the amphitheatre, feet raising dust. Michael glared at her.
“Be late again, and the deal’s off,” he said.
“Oh yes sir.” She gave him a mocking salute. I don’t even want to be here. Everything still hurt, and she wanted nothing more than to escape to a pub or cave and drink the pain away. I don’t care about Michael. I don’t care if Bat El is imprisoned. All I ever wanted was to drink, to hunt with Volkfair, to be left alone. “I’m only here because I’m curious to see if you really can teach me any tricks, but to be honest, I’m doubtful. If you were such a mighty warrior, you would have faced Angor yourself, not dragged me from my pub to fight him.”
Michael shot her his best glare, and Laila smirked. Did he really think he could treat her like some angel recruit new to Earth? She was Laila, of fire and shadows, not some lowly soldier. Michael had to learn that.
Michael spat and turned to leave. “Forget it. You’re done. Go to hell, Laila. You don’t want to train here? Then leave. We’ll take over this world without you. Good luck with the whole usurpation of Hell thing.”
Laila rolled her eyes. “You going to pull that whole walking away in disgust routine again? All right! God. I’m sorry, okay? I got beat up pretty bad yesterday, so I overslept. Sue me.”
He turned back with a sigh, stepped toward her, and handed her a sword, hilt first. At first Laila didn’t realize it was a sword; it looked more like rusty scrap metal. She stared at the weapon with its chipped, rusted blade and wooden handle, then stared at Michael.
“No thank you,” she said.
“You agreed to train with a sword. Well, here’s your sword.”
“That’s not a sword, that’s a tetanus colony.”
Michael shrugged. “You didn’t want a heavenly sword. All the others are carved with David Stars, or crosses, or halos and angel wings, filigreed with gold.”
Laila took the sword in disgust. Cobwebs clung to the blade. “This sword would break if you cut butter with it,” she said.
“Learn to use it, and we’ll forge you a better one.”
Fine. He wanted her to use a sword? She’d prove she could use one and be done with. Maybe then he’ll teach her some real things, not games with rusty blades. Feigning disinterest, she suddenly leapt toward him, lashing the rusty blade. I’ll give him a scratch across the cheek, and we’ll see how tough he acts then.
So fast she barely saw him move, Michael blocked her blow, kicked her legs from underneath her, and she slammed against the ground. She found herself lying, his boot upon her neck.
“Nice try,” he said.
Laila stared at him, hissing, fangs bared. She hadn’t thought the old angel had it in him. “For a dour, reflective son of a bitch, you can move fast,” she said.
He reached down and helped her up. “You’ll be just as fast, soon.”
The day turned out to be one of Laila’s longest. Michael trained her with swords all day, whacking her all over with his blunt training blade. Laila cursed every moment, her curses echoing in the amphitheatre, and with every whack of Michael’s sword, she growled.
“Damn these stupid weapons,” she snarled, her muscles cramped. “Who needs swords? They’re ancient weapons. Give me bullets and bombs.”
Michael thrust his blade at her, forcing her to parry. All these moves—endless types of parrying, thrusting, slicing—made Laila’s head ache. “My brain hurts,” she complained when evening finally fell. “Enough for today.”
Michael sheathed his sword, and Laila tossed her sword aside with such disgust, that it flew out of the ancient amphitheatre and disappeared into the ruins of Caesarea. She hoped she never saw it again.
“You’re bringing back that sword tomorrow,” Michael said.
“Fine, fine, whatever. I’m off. I’m going to find Volkfair, and then I’m going to sleep for two days.”
“We’re not done.”
“I am.”
“That’s what you think. You’re not done with today’s training yet.” He tossed her a piece of bread and a bottle of water. “Take ten minutes. Eat and drink. Then we continue.” With that, he flapped his wings and flew to the highest seat of the amphitheatre.
Laila sat down, wincing, and stared at the dried bread. It looked a week old, but Laila was famished and bolted it down.
“You know, I’m not one of your recruits!” she called up to him. “I am Lucifer’s daughter. Don’t treat me like a private.”
“You’re new to Heaven’s army, so you’re a private,” he called down from above. “Now on your feet.”
“That was never ten minutes,” she called back. “And I’m not part of Heaven’s army.”
A heavy brick landed beside her, shattering. Michael stared down at her from above, lifting another brick. “The next one hits your head,” he said. “Stand up.”
He tossed the second brick, and Laila rolled aside, glaring at him. A human tossing a brick wouldn’t faze her; it would bounce off her harmlessly. But Michael was strong, and his stones shattered against the ground, faster than the speed of sound. Here were missiles that could break her bones.
“What the hell?” she yelled up at him.
“You’re too slow. The stones are going to get faster. So are you.”
He tossed stones at her until nightfall, and raced her through the alleys like a rat in a maze, and sent her to the bottom of the ocean after pebbles he tossed, and sent her into the sky to catch dust in the wind. The sun had been gone for hours when he finally nodded.
“It was a good day. Now go get some sleep.”
Laila rubbed her neck. “Sleep. I missed that. I’m going to sleep for at least twenty-four hours.”
He shook his head. “I meet you back here an hour before dawn. That’s four hours away.”
She yawned, stretching out her arms. “Four hours my demon backside. You’re crazy.”
“Bricks start flying again in four hours. If you’re not awake, they’ll crush your skull.” He turned to walk away, then paused and looked over his shoulder. “Oh, and Laila? That sword you tossed away? Find it and bring it back by the time we meet tomorrow. Goodnight.”
With that, he left her among the ruins of the ancient city.
+ + +
For weeks he trained her. If she wouldn’t wake up on time, he woke her with a kick to the stomach, and if she was still slow to rise, he gave her one hour less sleep the following night. All day he trained her with the blade, and for speed, and strength, and endurance. He’d toss a pebble into rocky fields and demand she fetch the same pebble within a breath. He tossed spears and knives at her, and chastised her for every rent in her clothes. He asked the impossible—that she stay dry underwater, grab stars, stop the moon—all so he could chastise her for failure. Throughout every day, Laila cursed endlessly, curses that wilted plants. She growled, hissed, spat... and yet she kept at it.
“You want to leave?” Michael asked whenever she ranted. “Fine, leave. But remember this: As harsh as I am to you, Zarel will be a thousand times harsher. As tough as this training is, facing Beelzebub will be a thousand times tougher.”
Whenever he spoke these words, Laila would grumble, glare, and keep evading stones, or parrying his blade, or lifting boulders, or outracing the wind, or performing whatever feat he imagined for that day. She stayed because day after day, despite the bruises and hunger and weariness, she was getting stronger. She could parry more of his blows, even land some of her own. She could lift and toss larger boulders. She could run faster, fly higher.
At nights, she collapsed exhausted and hungry and battered, Volkfair at her side, cuddled against her. Before she fell asleep for those blessed three or four hours a night Michael granted her, she’d whisper, “Soon, Beelzebub. Soon I’ll take your throne.”
Seven weeks after she began her training, Michael met her before dawn in the amphitheatre, and he carried a new blade.
“Throw away your old rusty sword,” he said.
Laila—gaunt, weary, and su
nken-eyed after weeks of heavenly boot camp—tossed her blade aside. It hit one of the amphitheatre’s tiers and shattered into bits of rust. “Good riddance,” she said.
Michael handed her the new sword he carried. His small smile was more evident in his eyes than on his lips.
“For you.”
Laila took the sword and unsheathed it. Three feet long, forged of dark steel, the blade glimmered a deep red. When Laila gave it a few swings, it raised tongues of flame.
“I like the fire,” she said. “Nice touch.”
“It suits you,” Michael said. His own sword was bright and glowing, a weapon of Heaven; hers was dark and fiery, half beautiful, half monstrous. The pommel was carved as a black wolf’s head—it looked like Volkfair—and the word “Haloflame” was engraved into the grip.
“Thanks,” Laila said. She gave the blade a few more swings, imagining herself swiping at Zarel. Bullets and grenades, made to kill humans, shattered against the Demon Queen’s scales. This blade, Laila knew, a blade forged in Heaven, would slice Zarel in half.
“You’ve earned it,” Michael said. “Now let’s see how well you use it.”
The new blade took getting used to. It was lighter than her old one, and balanced differently. By the end of the day, however, Haloflame felt like a part of her. Michael let her sleep for ten hours that night—”Because you’ve been such a good girl,” he said—and Laila slept with her new sword cuddled against her chest, dreaming of Hell.
+ + +
Under the cloudy night sky, Michael walked the cobbled streets of Caesarea’s ruins. The walls crowded around him, weedy and crumbly, winking with arrow slits. Columns that had stood for millennia had fallen the day Laila defeated Angor; they now lay shattered across the streets. Bats flew through the night, and the sea whispered, hidden behind the ruins.
Weariness covered Michael like a cloak, but he could not sleep. Training Laila had placed cramps in his muscles, fatigue in his bones, and doubt like sour milk in his stomach. Laila might hate me for treating her like a recruit, but I bet she’s been getting more sleep than me. Michael sighed. He was never one for much sleep anyway, preferring the night for contemplation. An owl called somewhere in the distance, and two fireflies hovered over a broken piece of aqueduct, then vanished. A demon hoof stuck out from a pile or rubble, a last vestige of the battle.
Two corporals on patrol came walking around a corner, swords drawn, helmets and breastplates polished. Michael nodded at the angels, whose faces paled at the sight of the archangel. They saluted him, stiff and dumbfounded, and Michael smiled once he had walked by them. Now if only I could inspire such awe in Laila too. As the thought of the girl lingered in his mind, his smile soured.
Laila. The girl he had sought all these years. The legendary creature who fled from Heaven and Hell all her life. I have you now, Laila. After so long, I have you where I want you, and now I fear the outcome of this war more than ever.
Around a pile of rubble, two smashed columns, a weedy wall, and more angel troops, Michael found the tent he sought. It was a simple tent, just white canvas pulled over wooden beams, a soldier’s tent. Typical, Michael thought. Raphael, though a great archangel of equal rank to Michael and Gabriel, had always sought the austere life, wearing but homespun robes, carrying a coarse olive-wood staff, living in a simple home even up in Heaven.
“Raphael,” he said softly when he reached the tent. “It’s me. Michael. Are you awake?”
Raphael’s voice, gentle and sad as ever, came from inside the tent. “I am. Come in, Michael.”
Folding his wings against him, Michael entered the tent and found his youngest brother sitting cross-legged on the ground, both his prayer book and flask open in his hands. Michael smiled despite himself. Though austere as a monk, Raphael indulged himself when it came to his cups. His flask was unadorned hide, but always contained only the finest spirits. It was tough growing up with two older brothers like Beelzebub and me, Michael thought. Who wouldn’t resort to drinking?
“Open bible, open flask,” Michael said, sitting himself down before the fellow archangel. “The two do go best together, don’t they?”
Raphael passed him the bible, which was open to Ecclesiastes, displaying an underlined verse. “I thought you might visit tonight.”
Michael read aloud the line Raphael had underlined. “‘The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’ Now there was a morose one, Koheleth.”
Raphael sipped from his flask. “The man knew a thing or two about this world.”
“So I’ve heard. Yet our old friend spoke of humans, not of angels or demons.” Michael shut the bible, a little stronger than he had intended; it slammed shut with a boom and raised dust. He sighed. “Here, brother, the race will be to the swift, and the battle to the strong.”
“Hence Laila.”
Michael nodded.
An iron candelabrum stood in the center of the tent, its three candles low. Raphael stood up, rummaged through his chest for more candles, and soon new fire burned, though there was little to see aside from a cot, the chest, and books upon the floor. Though many angels on Earth used crude generators to feed batteries and light bulbs, mimicking the humans, Raphael clung to the old ways, a collector of candles instead of lamps, quills instead of pens, prayers instead of curses. He had woven his robes himself, rough woolen homespun, like some ancient human prophet wandering the hills.
“And is she the swift, Michael?” the great healer asked, turning those eternally sad eyes toward his guest. “Is she the strong in this battle between us and our brother?”
“A battle between Heaven and Hell,” Michael said, watching shadows dance in the candlelight like tiny demons. “That Beelzebub is our brother is coincidental.”
“Be that as it may, the girl has done well.” Raphael sipped his spirits. “She won us this city.”
Michael sighed, shaking his palm to refuse the flask Raphael offered him. “I’ve been training her. It’s been... bothering me. Does that make sense to you?”
Raphael shrugged. “You’ve been working her hard. Boot camp is never easy, especially not for a hotheaded wunderkind. It’s natural that you’d feel guilty for giving her a hard time.”
Michael snorted. “You haven’t spent enough time with her, Raphael. Leave Laila alone, and she mopes, weeps, drinks herself half to death while contemplating suicide. Boredom with our friend Laila leads to melancholy. When I work her like a dog, I don’t give her time to think. I bet these are the only few weeks in her life when she hasn’t cried, prayed to die, or sunken into drunken depression. The training’s good for her, and she knows it. That’s why she stays.”
Raphael placed the bible atop the pile of books on the floor. A wind from outside shook the tent walls. “And yet still you come to me tonight speaking of guilt.”
Michael wondered why he even wore his armor tonight. He was so used to being the soldier, to wearing his things of war, that he could not leave his tent without them, not even within their camp. He watched the candles. “I’m old, Raphael. Immortals we are, and our bodies stay young, but I feel old. Ancient. These past twenty-seven years aged me more than two millennia before them, I think.”
“Earth can do that.”
Michael placed his lance across the floor and gazed at it, its shaft smooth after years of use, its blade polished countless times. “We are soldiers here. Myself, my men, Laila. Killing demons is one thing. Laila doesn’t quite fit into the demon category, though, does she?”
Raphael raised an eyebrow. “You train Laila to fight. You train all your soldiers to fight. That doesn’t mean you are killing them.”
“I send most angels to fight shades, lowly beings of scales and horns. I’m training Laila to face off against the devil and his wife.”
Raphael patted a fold out of his cloak. “If there wasn’t a chance she could succeed, you wouldn’t be wasting your time with her.”
“A chance, yes. A one in a million shot.” Michael raised his gaze and
stared into Raphael’s eyes. “Laila is strong, don’t get me wrong. She’s powerful in ways few are in Heaven and Hell. Can she take over Hell? Can she win this war for us?” Michael sighed and shook his head. “In the forests, in her exile, she might have lived a few years longer, might have even grown old until Beelzebub or I won this war and destroyed the planet for her. Am I training her for an early death, Raphael?”
Raphael stared back levelly. “You might be. That’s what training soldiers is. You know this more than anyone.” The healer leaned forward. “Michael, you’re my older brother. I know you. This is not what’s bothering you. You never had qualms about sending anyone into battle and danger. What’s troubling you?”
Michael looked away, staring at the wall of the tent. He’s right, of course. That’s not what’s bothering me, is it? He reached over, took the flask from Raphael, and drank deeply, the spirits hot in his throat and stomach. “You have always been closer to him than I am. Gabriel too, but especially you. When we were kids, Beelzebub and I rarely had the patience to sit and pray, but you... you could always speak with him.”
Raphael shook his head. “God loves us all, Michael, healers as well as soldiers.”
Michael laughed mirthlessly, too loudly, the sound jarring in the tent. “Yet you healers have the easy work, never risking any harm to the soul. It is we, the soldiers, who face trials and tainting every day. I am sending Laila to her death, Raphael, and I’ve sent many to their deaths before her, and I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t bother me, and I feel not an ounce of guilt or pity most times. Someday, Raphael... someday this war will end, and I will return to Heaven, and I worry, Raphael. I worry that when that day comes, those gates will be closed to me.”
Raphael lowered his head. “Earth is a trial, Michael. We made it that way, didn’t we? It has tested mankind for many years.”
Anger suddenly flared in Michael, and he slammed his fist against the ground, surprised at his rage, surprised to find his eyes close to tears. “It was never meant to test angels.”
