by Meg Collett
“Kneel.” Lucifer commanded the fallen, motioning to the spot in front of Gabriel. “With your back to him.”
“Don’t do this,” Gabriel said as his awareness dawned.
“I have to know these things, Gabriel.” Lucifer smiled at him as the fallen got into position.
Sweat rolled between Gabriel’s shoulder blades. Gabriel was thinking about the bead of sweat when, without a signal from Lucifer, Beliar jerked Gabriel’s wing forward, over the top of his arm, and into the back of the fallen.
“No!” Gabriel yelled.
He watched the fallen sag forward. Beliar pulled Gabriel’s wing out, leaving behind a hole that oozed black blood in the fallen’s back. Lucifer crouched outside the cell and inspected the fallen.
For a horrible, sickening moment, Gabriel thought he had actually killed an angel. But the fallen moved on the stone floor and groaned. “Try again,” Lucifer said to Beliar.
The demon stabbed Gabriel’s wing countless times into the fallen. Gabriel did everything in his power to resist, but his efforts did little against Beliar’s strength. By the end, the fallen angel had countless stab wounds in his chest, stomach, and back. Gabriel had long since grown quiet and withdrawn.
“Interesting,” Lucifer said. Beliar drug the fallen out the cell and dumped him in the hall to heal. The demon wiped his bloody hands on his leather pants.
“You’re sick,” Gabriel said with his teeth clenched.
“Sticks and stones. But what I was saying was that this was interesting because I didn’t really believe any angel’s wings could kill another. I just had to make sure.” Beliar stepped away, and when he came back he carried two huge, bloody wings. Gabriel stared, noting the delicate swirl of the feather’s plume. He knew that swirl.
“I think it’s the bones in Michaela’s wings that can kill an angel. Perhaps because she was the first angel created. I had hoped since you were the created after her your wings would prove useful too.” Lucifer sighed. “Oh well. Beliar is going to sit here and fashion up some knives from your pretty little Michaela’s wings. Hope you don’t mind.” Lucifer beamed down at Gabriel, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on the ruin of Michaela’s wings.
Something snapped inside of him. He lost it. It wasn’t the control over his raging anger he lost. It was his good nature, his quiet, calm manner. He lost the angel he had been the moment Beliar stripped off Michaela’s precious feathers. In its place formed a solid ball of hate and rage, laying in wait with a cool, calculating calm.
13
Michaela wished she were dead, because for the second time, she fell through the air with Molloch’s hands tight around her throat. Her eyes bulged, and her body convulsed from lack of oxygen. She couldn’t see Molloch through the hair over her face, but she recognized the way he tried to kill her.
They would hit the ground just like they had the first time. Michaela waited for the impact, waited for the air to rush back into her lungs. When it did, it was instant relief. Her hair fell away from her eyes, and she saw.
It wasn’t Molloch who stared back at her with empty, dead eyes. It was Gabriel. He fell off her with the sound of her wing pulling out of his back. She had killed him.
Her screams filled the cavern as his feathers floated away.
“Michaela, wake up!”
Hands shook her body, radiating a warm, sticky pain through her back. It pulled her further out of the dream, and she looked up into a wild mixture of blue and pink. Michaela blinked until her vision cleared. The person shaking her was a human with blue eyes and bright, fluorescent pink hair.
“Oh, thank God, you’re awake. I thought you were dead until you started screaming, which was freaking me out, by the way. I’m Clark. Clark St. James, Descendant of Enoch, knight in shining…”
Clark’s mouth moved, but she was watching the air around him with a dream-like focus. It moved in shining, swirling motions.
“What are you?” Michaela asked before her vision grew blurry and reduced everything to blues, pinks, and flashing lights.
“Oh man, you have brain damage. I’m Clark. C. L. A…” she heard the human say before the blurriness gave way to a shuddering blackness.
Then she was lost in the darkness once again.
***
Michaela groaned.
Clark slept propped against the far wall, but his eyes flashed open, red and puffy, at the noise. Slowly, he stood, watching as Michaela stirred. Her body was buried beneath layers of mildewed blankets, her back wrapped with tight bandages. Her eyes were heavy lidded and full of pain.
“Who are you?” The words came out achingly slow and quiet.
“Clark St. James,” he said. Michaela licked her lips. “Do you want some water?” Clark asked.
Michaela nodded. Her eyes fluttered closed as if she couldn’t hold them open any longer. Clark crossed the room to his pack and pulled out a canteen. He was surprised to find his hands shook slightly as he worked to unscrew the lid. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he walked back to Michaela. He told himself it was perfectly normal to be intimidated by the first fully conscious, talking angel he’d met.
“Here.”
Clark kneeled, easing a hand behind Michaela’s head to lift her up. Her skin gave off a chill that worried him. He brought the canteen to her lips, and she took a long drink, letting the water spill from her shaking lips. The canteen was empty when she finished.
“Thank you.”
“Yeah. Are you hungry?” he asked, walking back to his pack.
Michaela shook her head, wincing.
“I’m starving,” Clark mumbled, rummaging through candy bar wrappers and potato chip bags. He came up empty.
“You found me in the cave, right? You’re a Descendant.”
Clark made a noncommittal noise as Michaela weakly looked around the room.
“Where are we? How long have I been down here?” Michaela asked. Her voice was still raspy even after all the water she had drank.
Clark hesitated. “A Descendant safe house a little east of Lexington,” he said. It wasn’t a complete lie. It wasn’t the exact truth either. “You’ve been sleeping for a couple days.”
“A couple days? That’s too long. Is Gabe here? I need to see him.” She stared at him expectantly, making Clark uncomfortable. He hadn’t thought about this part. His mouth opened and closed a few times as if he actually had any idea what to say.
“What about the others? Are they here too?” Michaela pressed.
Clark stayed quiet. He shifted under her unwavering attention. His eyes slipped away to the one window in the room. He cleared his throat.
“Where is everyone? Why are we alone?” she asked. Her voice grew smaller and weaker until she whispered, “What’s going on?”
“A lot has happened, Michaela,” Clark answered tentatively. He pulled the one rickety wooden chair a few feet from the cot and sat, straddling the back of the chair.
She closed her eyes, but not before he saw the tears pooling. She turned her head away and murmured, “Where is Gabriel?”
She looked too broken to be an angel. Beneath the layers of blankets and her dirty hair, she seemed frail and failing. Her skin was so pale that Clark detected a glint of gold underneath. It probably looked magnificent in the sunlight but just made her appear even sicker than she was in the dim light of the cabin.
“I don’t know,” he started, unsure if she was strong enough yet to hear the truth.
“Please.”
Clark jerked up from the chair and paced away. He was completely outside his element. He would have killed for a drink. His mouth was like cotton, his tongue a lead weight in his mouth.
Don’t say anything, he told himself. If he opened his mouth, he might say something stupid and mess everything up. He turned back around. Her eyes were the palest of blues behind the sheen of tears.
“They say you planned the rebellion. That you knew what was, like, happening or something. Now, don’t look at me like t
hat, okay? I’m just the messenger. My dad, the Keeper, told me all of this. Anyway, the Aethere took control of Heaven. They told the Descendants that you and the other Archangels had fallen,” he blurted. He couldn’t make himself shut up. His words ran together. “But the other Archangels are missing, so no one knows who is actually fallen.” Clark sucked in a deep breath. “The Aethere say the Archangels helped you plan the rebellion. There was talk that they knew where you were hiding. Gabriel was brought before the Aethere.” He ran out of steam. “They sent him to Hell.”
Clark watched Michaela warily. Every emotion had slipped from her face, leaving nothing behind but a blank mask. Clark wondered if she had heard anything he said. He waved his hand in front of her face.
She unfroze. Her gasp was like a dam breaking, like she had forgotten to breathe. Her fists clutched the edges of the cot. “So he’s not here?”
“No,” Clark said slowly. “He’s in Hell.”
“He’s not coming?” Her eyes begged him, like Clark could produce Gabriel out of thin air. It broke his heart.
“No one is coming, Michaela.”
The tears finally came and were immediately uncontrollable. Her body convulsed with sobs muffled behind her hand. The cot rattled as she folded in around herself.
Clark reached out a hand, letting it hover in the air, unsure. “Michaela?”
He stood, letting his hand fall when her sobs grew into tortured, muffled shrieks. He drew back, retreating through the door and out the cabin. He sat on the steps and stared at the stars while he listened to her wrenching cries.
14
Michaela struggled to open her eyes, which were swollen and raw from crying. She was too exhausted to pull herself up even a fraction. She looked for Clark, ready to ask for more water.
He stood unmoving at the window with hands clenching the sill, his eyes unblinking into the night. Michaela didn’t see him breathe. The edges of his profile blurred slightly, like she was looking through rounded glass. But it wasn’t just his face—the entire room was hazy behind the density of the unmoving air.
“Clark?” she asked. He didn’t move. His mouth hung slightly open, caught in between breaths.
The doorknob turned, splintering the quiet. Michaela froze, unable to look away as the old door swung open on stuttering hinges until it banged against the wall.
The space of the doorway was illuminated where it should have been dark. She expected the inky depth of a fallen’s glare. The black glint of dagger-like feathers should have cast gleaming shadows across the cabin’s floor.
Instead, the white luminescent feathers of a holy angel brightened the stilted particles of air in the room. His gold eyes seemed to break apart into tiny shards of golden dust as he took in her dirty, bloodied form on the sagging cot.
Michaela’s heart raced to catch up from where it had left off. Her fear dropped away, and a huge smile broke out across her face.
“You found me.” Her voice cracked, breaking across the thickness filling her throat.
Gabriel slipped into the room, crossing to her with barely a whisper of sound. He crouched beside her and lifted his hand to her face. His fingers were cool as they trailed across her cheek, stilling at the bruise he found there. His eyes settled on the others that formed an angry circle around her neck. Slowly, he shook his head. The sadness had not left his eyes, even though Michaela’s heart thrilled in her battered body.
Gabriel looked to Clark across the room. Michaela saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes. If anyone would know a Descendant, it would be a messenger angel like Gabriel.
“No, Michaela. I haven’t found you.” His voice was heavy.
She struggled to understand. Her mind told her that Clark still hadn’t moved, nor had the air, but she refused to listen.
“But you’re here. You’re here with me. Gabe, I feel your touch,” she said. Her hands clutched at the cot.
“I’m channeling you. I came through your dream while you were still sleeping. I had to know where you are. I needed to know you were safe.” His grip on her chin tightened when she tried to shake her head again.
“No, Gabe. Look, we are in a safe house. I don’t know exactly where it’s at, but we are close to Lexington, I think. Clark brought me here. He is the Keeper’s son. This cabin…” Her words ran together as her panic reached high tide. Gabriel waited until she lost herself completely and quieted.
“I can’t get to you,” Gabriel said with slow, hushed words.
“But you’re here. We can go home. I know I messed up.” Her voice broke over the words as she cried. “Please,” she begged. “I want to go home.”
“Michaela, I’m sorry.” Gabriel’s jaw flexed like he wanted to say more.
Michaela barely saw him behind the sheet of tears. Hiccups bubbled from her clenched mouth. Reality shattered her delusion. If she were to wake up, Gabriel would be gone. All angels had the ability to draw themselves into another’s dream, but because Gabriel was a messenger angel, he was especially good at it. He was so good it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like he was here, and if he was here then they could figure this out and go home.
But he only channeled her from Hell.
She fully realized then what Gabriel’s sentence meant. She was alone, and for the first time in eternity, they were separated. Her tears turned to gasping, silent weeping. If Gabriel was in Hell for something he hadn’t even done, she wanted to fall asleep and never wake up again, because she doubted the purpose of a life without him.
Gabriel reached for her and pulled her against his chest that felt so solid against her tear-slicked face. She wrapped her arms around him fiercely, holding him as tight as she could. The motion should have doubled her over with pain, but it seemed as if even the hurt stopped with the time. Gabriel caught her, tucking her into him like a fold of fabric.
His hands paused against her back. She held her breath. Instead of her wings, he found the thickness of bandages beneath Clark’s loose shirt she wore. He leaned back, his gaze sending prickles of heat dancing down her neck.
“Who did this to you?”
“Lucifer.”
Gabriel growled. The noise was like a whip, snapping through the air. A shudder slid down her spine.
“I deserved it, Gabe. I killed…I killed Molloch.” The words fell out. She didn’t know how she said them aloud when she could barely say them inside her own head.
His hands tightened around her arms. The muscles of his body flexed rigidly beneath her hands. In the dim light of the cabin, his eyes deepened to dark amber. The muscle along his jaw convulsed wildly. If the air had not been burdened with time, it would have been afire with his fury.
“You didn’t deserve to have this done to you, Michaela. Do you hear me?” He waited, eyes burning into hers, until she nodded mutely. “And I will make them pay for what they did to you. Do you understand?” She nodded again. “Now tell me what happened.”
“He took me to the Watchers’ cave and wouldn’t let me leave. We fought. I don’t know what happened. He was there one minute, choking me with this bottomless hate in his eyes, and the next he was dead. Gone. My wing tip had stabbed him, and I didn’t even know.”
“It was an accident, Michaela. You couldn’t have known the bones in your wings could kill an angel.”
“What?” Michaela thought she must have cotton stuffed in her ears, because Gabriel’s words barely reached her. She couldn’t arrange them in a way to make sense, but Gabriel didn’t stop to explain.
“That’s why I can’t feel you, because your wings are gone…” He stayed silent for a few moments. Finally he said, “This is better actually. The Aethere won’t be able to find you and neither will the fallen. Do you hear me, Michaela? Don’t trust the Aethere,” he said, looking back into her eyes.
But the pain in her back started like a hollow, echoing beat of her heart, distracting her. The snake she had inherited from Molloch’s darkness slipped around her spine, slithering upwards. Gabriel seemed
to be shouting at her, but she didn’t hear the words. He shook her again, rattling the pain loose inside her body as time started passing again.
“Michaela, stay with me.”
“It hurts,” she moaned.
Michaela began to slip away. Gabriel was losing hold on her dream, and a bottomless, dreamless unconsciousness was tugging at her ankles, pulling her back under its still waters. The air shifted around Gabriel’s face, which was fierce and determined.
“I know, but you need to hide, okay? The Aethere are hunting you, and they won’t stop,” he said. He jerked his head in Clark’s direction. “Let the Descendant protect you.”
“Why are we hiding?” she whispered. “Why is this happening? I don’t understand,” she whimpered.
“Michaela, you have to listen to me. Stay in hiding. Don’t talk to anyone. No matter what you hear, stay away from the angels,” he said. His grip was tight on her arms, tight enough to leave new bruises. “Especially the holy angels.”
“Take me with you,” she pleaded.
“I can’t, baby,” Gabriel said, his voice tight.
“I’m so sorry,” Michaela sobbed. Her mouth was thick with mucus and tears that clogged her throat. “I should have waited. I should have never opened those gates.” Her voice broke. She clutched at Gabriel’s simple linen shirt soaked from her tears.
“Stop it,” he said firmly. He rocked her against him, holding her a moment longer. “Promise me you won’t let them find you. Promise that you won’t try to fix anything.” He waited until she nodded against his chest.
Gabriel lifted her face to his. She didn’t understand until his lips touched hers. It was a simple goodbye even though she held his mouth to hers for a moment longer. She didn’t open her eyes when he pulled away. His sigh was a cool breeze against her face. Then he left, and the dream was broken.
15
Clark sat with his back pressed against the opposite wall and watched Michaela sleep. At least he hoped she slept this time. When she wasn’t thrashing around and shouting, she laid still as death, barely moving enough to breathe. It had been nearly a day since he had left her crying on the cot. When he had returned, she was unconscious once again.
