When Angels Fall

by Stephanie Jackson

  “Nephilim apparently transport better than full humans,” Michael said a few minutes later.

  “Did you get the Nephilim home?” Gabriel asked without looking up.

  “Safe and sound. Transporting her didn’t affect her at all,” Michael said. “And I wiped her memory. I didn’t see the need for her to carry the horrors of the day around with her for the rest of her life.”

  Gabriel nodded, still not raising his eyes to Michael.

  “Are you alright?” Michael asked.

  “Hell no, I’m not alright!” Gabriel finally broke, and sprang to his feet. “I ran! I’ve never run from anything a day in my life, but I ran today. And I damned near killed Dani to do it!”

  Gabriel’s wings unfurled from his back.

  “You didn’t have a choice,” Michael said, backing away from Gabriel. “You couldn’t have gotten her out of there any other way.”

  “Don’t tell me what I couldn’t do!” Gabriel roared, flexing his hands into fist. “Angels were involved in this bullshit today! There’s no other way that Cambion or those demons could have found us!

  The only way anything could have found us is if they were looking down from Heaven!”

  “Gabriel, I don’t think…” Michael said, but Gabriel’s patience snapped.

  “I DON’T GIVE A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK, MICHAEL!” Gabriel bellowed, causing the windows of Potter’s house to explode. He used his wing to sweep Michael to him. He grabbed Michael by the jaw and forced his head up, “You take your ass back up to Heaven and bring me the angel that did this!”

  Michael flinched, “Gabriel…”

  “If you don’t go, I will,” Gabriel warned. “And if I have to do it, it’s not going to be pretty. I will kick my way through those Gates. I’m fucked anyway, and we both know it. So if I have go up there, I swear before God, I’m killing everybody! Look into my eyes, Michael, and stop me when I lie.”

  Michael gazed at Gabriel in shock before saying, “I believe you. Alright, I’ll go. But can I tell you about the place I found for you first or are you too blood thirsty to wait? It’s a much better place than what you had in mind.”

  “Speak,” Gabriel said, pushing Michael away from him.

  2.

  Gabriel flew them to Woodlawn on the outskirts of Montgomery County as soon as the sun had set.

  The piece of property that Michael had chosen for them seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

  “There’s a diameter of a half mile surrounding the house and the people that live here won’t be back from Italy for another six weeks,” Michael had said.

  “Thank you. It sounds perfect,” Gabriel had said. “Now go find me that angel.”

  Dani still wasn’t awake when they got to the property that Michael had recommended, so he laid her on the couch of the vacated house and went to walk the grounds. It was miles away from any other human inhabitants so he didn’t have to worry too much about collateral damage when Lucifer finally rose.

  The yard itself had a good fifty yard diameter around the house; not quite as big as the clearing surrounding Potter’s house, but close. It was enough room for his purposes. He checked all of this without ever removing his eyes from the house. Nothing else was going to get past him.

  Gabriel walked back to the house when he saw Dani exit the front door and walk out into the yard.

  3.

  Dani woke up on a couch in an unfamiliar house. She felt a little tired, but generally okay. Gabriel had obviously come back in time to save her; again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that.

  Dani had never been injured this badly before, not even in the boxing ring. Of course, she’d never been chased around by Satan’s minions before, either. Though only two of her recent injuries could be blamed on them. Her ankle had been broken because of Michael and it was her own damn fault that she’d fell in the damn creek.

  But none of it would have happened if her name hadn’t have found its way onto Lucifer’s hit list. She looked around the house for Gabriel. He wasn’t there, so she walked outside. The brightness of the stars in the sky startled her. How had it gotten so late so fast? She didn’t see Gabriel so she walked out into the yard and sank down onto the lush lawn.

  Soon she was lying on her back in the thick grass of the front yard, staring up at the stars. When she was little girl and had a nightmare, her grandfather would take her outside, and they would lie in the grass and look up at the stars.

  Her grandfather would point out the different constellations to her and she would recite them back to him. Right now she could see Cassiopeia, The Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, and several others she could name off the top of her head.

  She’d almost died today; she figured that qualified as a nightmare. She tried to take comfort from the stars as she had as a child, but she couldn’t concentrate on the constellations. Her mind kept turning back to her near death that day. She could see the pool of blood clearly in her mind.

  Gabriel walked up and looked down into her face, “What are you doing?”

  “Wondering if I can see Heaven from here,” she said.

  He laid down on the ground next to her on the grass, “You can’t. Heaven is always above you, but it’s in a dimension that the human eye cannot see. All you can see from here are my Father’s other creations; the stars, planets, and other worlds.”

  Dani turned her head and looked at him in surprise, “God made other worlds?”

  “My Father created many worlds,” Gabriel said. “But none more loved than Earth.”

  “Can I ask you what Heaven looks like or would that question be out of bounds?” Dani asked.

  “You can ask. Heaven looks rather like Earth only much larger,” Gabriel said. “There are green rolling hills and clear blue waters. Food is abundant and more flavorful than anything here on Earth.

  “There’s not as many white fluffy clouds as humans seem to think there are, though. And I don’t personally know a single angel that owns a harp,” he said in a teasing voice.

  “Oh, ha-ha,” Dani said and punched him softly on the shoulder. “How big is Heaven?”

  “That’s hard to explain,” he said. “Let’s just say that all the empty space you think exists between the stars isn’t exactly empty.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That’s awful big.”

  They stared at the stars in silence for a few minutes before Gabriel softly asked, “Are you alright, Dani?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “You fixed me up right as rain, as always.”

  “I know you’re alright physically,” Gabriel said, capturing her hand in his. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant. I don’t know yet, and I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said before turning the conversation. “What did you mean the other night when you told Wes, I saw this same situation befall Cain and Abel; I don’t wish to see that happen to you and your brother?” Dani asked. “I thought Cain killed Able out of jealousy? That doesn’t really apply to the situation that Wes and his brother are in.”

  “Cain was jealous of Abel’s relationship with God, but that’s not why he killed him,” Gabriel explained. “Cain found his wife dead on the ground one day and killed Abel for murdering her.”

  Dani said, “But Wes’s brother didn’t kill Wes’s mate.”

  “Abel didn’t kill Cain’s wife, either,” Gabriel said. “She fell and struck her head on a rock. But Cain couldn’t accept her death as an accident, so he blamed his brother for her death and took his life.”

  “Where did they even get wives?” Dani asked. “If there was only Adam and Eve, then a whole lot of inbreeding had to go into populating the Earth.”

  Gabriel laughed again, “That’s not how it worked. God created Adam and Eve, and they begot Cain and Abel. When they reached breeding age, God created wives for them. When Cain and Abel had children, God created husbands and wives for them, as well.

  Gabriel explained, “This continued down the line until there were enough h
umans to populate the Earth on their own. The Bible told of Adam and Eve, but left out the detail of how they populated the Earth. Even the story of Adam and Eve isn’t even the whole story. It was originally Adam and Lilith.”

  Dani was confused, “Who’s Lilith?”

  “Lilith was Adam’s first wife,” Gabriel said. “God made Adam and Lilith from the dirt of the Earth. But Lilith was prideful. She became frustrated with Adam because he expected her to lie beneath him at his command. She felt she was equal to Adam because God had created them both from the same dirt. When Adam forced the issue, Lilith refused him and left the Garden of Eden.

  “God then took a rib from Adam and created Eve as his new wife; a wife that would be subservient to him because she was of him.”

  “So what happened to Lilith after she left the Garden?” she asked.

  Gabriel looked uncomfortable when he said, “I reaped her soul.”

  “You did what?” Dani said in astonishment. “How could you do that?”

  “Would you have had me let her wander the land, apart from the only other person on Earth?” Gabriel said. “She would have died cold, hungry, and alone. My way was better for her.”

  “If you say so,” Dani said and looked back to the stars. “So women were created to serve man? That kind of sucks.”

  “Man and woman were created to be equal, but they needed to work together to seed the Earth. Lilith was unwilling to do that,” Gabriel said. “So Eve, and several generations of women following her were created to be subservient. After the population of the Earth was assured, God removed that particular characteristic from woman and made her equal to man again.”

  “At which point men all over the world lost their shit,” Dani said. “Men to this very day are using any means necessary to make women Do as they say. Buddy was a prime example of that.”

  “It was never meant to be that way,” Gabriel said. “Women are supposed to be cherished by men, not treated with cruelty.”

  “Maybe, but that’s not how it works out for a lot of women,” Dani said and looked back to the stars.

  2.

  Gabriel watched Dani watch the stars. He tried to see them through her eyes. They were beautiful from Earth, but there was no mystery in them for him. He knew what other worlds were out there because he’d been to them.

  He knew what creatures resided on these other worlds because he’d seen them. Dani would be able to see them for herself when her time on Earth came to an end, but that wouldn’t be for a very long time. Gabriel would see to that.

  He wondered if Dani would find a human man to love when he was gone. He wanted her to be happy, but he found the idea of her lying with another man disconcerting. It was irrational to feel that way because he wouldn’t be around to see it, but it was how he felt.

  Gabriel knew she would be upset when he was gone, probably pissed at him as well, but she was young, and life on Earth for a human was long. She would surely find someone else to love. And that man would treat her well.

  But until Lucifer rose, she belonged to Gabriel and no one else.

  He rolled toward her and pulled her up against him, “I love you,” he said softly.

  “I love you, too,” she said, and kissed him.

  He made love to her in the soft grass. He drank in her moans of pleasure. Lightning lit up the clear night sky. Gabriel was angering his Father, but he paid it no attention. His Father would see that Gabriel’s life would end soon anyway, and so he was going to make love to Dani as often as possible and damn the consequences.

  3.

  They were lying side by side in the grass awhile later when Dani started to shake.

  “I don’t understand it,” she said and sat up. “I feel fine.”

  Gabriel sat up and pulled her onto his lap, “You are fine. It’s just the adrenaline from the fear of almost dying. It can take a few hours to start to wear off. It’s perfectly natural to get the shakes when it does.”

  He was rubbing her back when something struck the ground in front of them hard enough to shake the ground beneath them. Whatever it was left a small crater in the ground. She stood on shaky legs to look into the hole, but Gabriel pulled her back. Michael landed in the yard a moment later.

  “I believe you requested the presence of Sraosha,” Michael said with a small grin, yanking a naked dark haired angel from the hole in the yard. “Ask and you shall receive.”

  “You caused the mayhem today?” Gabriel said. “I’m surprised, Sraosha. You’re an Angel of Obedience. That means you’re supposed to be obedient.”

  “I don’t have to be obedient to you anymore, Gabriel,” Sraosha said bravely, but Dani noticed that he couldn’t bring himself to look Gabriel in the eye. “You no longer hold rank in Heaven.”

  “We’re not in Heaven right now, Sraosha. And I promise you that your life is about to take a nasty turn,” Gabriel said and turned to Michael. “Take Dani in the house. She’s been through enough today; she doesn’t need to see this.”

  “I’m not going anywh…” Dani tried to say.

  “Take her into the house whether she wants to go or not.” Gabriel ordered Michael.

  Dani decided to go with Michael peacefully so as not to upset Gabriel anymore than he seemed to already be. She didn’t know what was going on with him, but she knew hanging on by a thread when she saw it; she’d been there herself, and Gabriel was doing just that.

  She turned on Michael as soon as they got in the house, “What in the hell is going on?”

  “Gabriel is pissed,” Michael said. “I thought that was fairly obvious.”

  She glared at him, “I can see that he’s mad. What I want to know why?”

  “Gabriel hasn’t told you what happened after you took your little nap today, has he?”

  She listened as Michael told her about the demons at the burger joint and about Gabriel transporting with her.

  “And then Gabriel got the idea in his head that an angel had to be working hand in hand with Hell to have pulled off what they did,”

  Michael explained, “And he wasn’t wrong. Sraosha is the one that stepped forward to confess his guilt.”

  “How did you get him to do that?”

  “If you threaten to kill enough angels, the guilty one will always come forward,” he said.

  “One of them will,” she said.

  “What?”

  “One of them will come forward,” she repeated.

  “Why would you think more than just Sraosha was involved in this?”

  “Gabriel said that Sraosha is an Angel of Obedience,” she said. “To be obedient, you have to answer to someone.”

  “That’s a good point,” Michael said.

  “So who is Sraosha obedient to?” she asked. “Find that angel and you might get some answers.”

  “Damn it,” Michael said, rubbing both of his hands down his face in frustration. “Sraosha is outranked by literally hundreds of other angels. It could be any of them,” he said and looked quickly back at her. “Gabriel can’t know about this. It will drive him insane, and I don’t know what he’d be capable of.”

  “Do you really think it hasn’t already occurred to him?” she asked. “Do you really think he’s this pissed about one insignificant angel? And wouldn’t it have been easier to just have you deal with him? Gabriel wanted to be alone with Sraosha.”

  “Which is why he wanted me to take you into the house,” Michael said, realization dawning on his face.

  Dani nodded her head, “How do you think their conversation is going right now?”

  Michael turned and bolted from the house. She followed him out onto the porch and was sickened by what she saw going on in the yard.

  Gabriel had used his sword to chop Sraosha into several pieces. Sraosha’s arms and legs had been cleanly sliced away at the elbows, shoulders, hips, and knees. There were tears of pain running down Sraosha’s cheeks; he was very much alive, but he wasn’t making a sound.

  She was willing to bet what might
be left of her life that he couldn’t make a sound. She knew for sure that Michael and Gabriel were good at taking that particular ability away, and they were quick to do it.

  Gabriel was glowing slightly and had what appeared to be a heat shimmer surrounding him. He was casually raising his sword to chop off another piece Sraosha.

  “Gabriel, no!” Michael yelled and launched himself at Gabriel’s back, knocking him to the ground.

  Gabriel jumped quickly to his feet, flung Michael away, and turned on him, “This is not your concern, Michael.”

  “You’re my concern,” Michael said. He started circling Gabriel while still staying well out of his reach. “We’ve done a lot of things in our lives, Gabriel. We’ve both killed our share of angels, demons and humans. But we’re not Lucifer, brother. The one thing we do not do is torture.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m starting to see the allure,” Gabriel said, spitting on the ground near Sraosha’s head.

  They were so intent on each other that neither one of them noticed Dani until she stepped in between them. She had to stop this before Gabriel did something he would never forgive himself for.

  Michael gasped, “Dani no, don’t touch him! He’s not safe right now. Just back away from him.”

  “I’m not afraid of Gabriel,” she said.

  “She will never be in any danger from me! I honor her!” Gabriel snapped. “She’s the reason…”

  “For this?” she interrupted him. She stepped in front of him and laid her hand on his chest. “Is this what I’m to be remembered for in Heaven? As the woman who led the great Archangel Gabriel into unspeakable acts? This doesn’t honor me, Gabriel; it shames me.

  “This is not who you are,” she said. “This is who Lucifer wants you to be. Don’t give him that. Even if it cost my life and the life of this world, never give him that. End this, Gabriel.”

  4.

  Gabriel’s anger blew away at her words. He looked down at Sraosha and saw what Dani and Michael were seeing, and he was disgusted with himself. How had he allowed himself to come to this point? Dani was right, this was not who he was.