by J. L. Myers
The shard glowed blue, reminiscent of a weapon Lucifer could never forget or confuse. The angel sword. The shard’s ability to all but kill now made sense as all his foggy memories returned in all their joy and cruel severity. And now the shard was growing, shooting out at both ends into something curved and as long as his forearm. The blue glow dimmed, leaving a weapon resting upon Azrael’s palm. It was a dagger of sorts, with a grip in the middle and a curving blade with licks of metal curling out from each base. Filigrees were carved into each length in blue channels in Heaven’s old language. The flowing and joined symbols spelled out ancient words of power. From Heaven’s light to Hell’s fire, deliver back unto darkness.
Azrael held the weapon out, fingers remaining open as he hiked his brows. “A gift from God, to ensure your success. A success I dearly hope you achieve.”
Narrowing his eyes, Lucifer accepted the weapon gingerly, almost expecting there to be some horrid side effect that would attack him. When none did, he closed his fist around the central hilt—
One side of the blade suddenly shot out three times its length with chilling blue, while the other fell down in coiling red. Grass was severed and sizzled at the touch of glowing red, catching fire that flickered to life and then burned out as the wind fell dormant. A coiling whip of what looked like lava but was solid with the ability to wield it, and an elongated shaft of blue that buzzed with Heaven’s power.
“A weapon to catch the dead, and then to return them into yourself. Good luck, Lucifer.”
Azrael’s gray-stained white wings flung out, and he pushed up, lifting him up into the dawning sky before Lucifer could speak a word in return. With the angel’s light gone, the glowing red and blue weapon lit up far less, only offering a halo of light around him. As Lucifer’s grip loosened, the light vanished. But its power was indescribable. Unstoppable. As he too would be in his Earthly mission to restore order and save the woman he loved. Lucifer knew it as the sun broke over the surrounding forestry and a sensation settled over him. Reminiscent of the humming tingles that alerted him to angelic presence, a sharper stab of cold tingles rippled over his skin. A connection to the souls he now had to hunt down and retrieve.
Lucifer caught the mirror pendant in his hand, his thumb pressing over the flat surface. Gabriel’s soft whimpering reached his ears, and he kissed the surface. “I will save you, my love. Even if it is the last thing I do.”
Chapter Two
Six long months of searching had finally paid off. Michael hovered way above in the sky, backlit by stars while a hot summer breeze fanned his black wings and coal-colored hair. His mouth curved into a smile, and anticipation heightened his heart rate. “We descend and surround them. None are to be left alive.”
The warrior angels that battered their pure white wings to either side of him nodded without taking their eyes off the view below. Marching across the desert plain was their target, a swelling group of fanged men and women followed by hobbling mutated humans that hissed and snarled. They were hybrids and a good chunk of the deformed hellions that had risen.
So far there had been little to no bloodshed. But that was about to change.
Beyond the dust storm their marching feet kicked up, a sleepy town awaited. A few fires dotted the area between huts, and humans milled about in the warmer climate—until the first one caught sight of what was coming. And then the waiting was over. Led by no other than Darius, the evil spawn of Cyrus the Great, he punched the air with his fist and barked out his order. “Attack to kill!”
Words were shouted from the village, and the humans moved at once, rushing to arm themselves against the threat that was suddenly stampeding their way.
Michael knew they wouldn’t save all the humans. When he’d glimpsed the incoming threat, they hadn’t been close enough. Now there was no time to waste. His own order to descend was met with action, the hundred-plus angel warriors tipping forward and diving through the sky.
The wind whipped, lashing at their wings and war clothing. Michael’s long hair assaulted his face. But none of them slowed down. Sight remaining below, he saw before he heard the collisions. Men ran at the encroaching monsters as woman and children retreated into their huts. Primitive wooden and metal weapons slashed and swung—to no result.
In fact, even as Michael shot lower, the sounds of cracking bones and slashing skin never erupted. Over the roars and cries of attacking men, hybrids, and hellions, the reason was evident as the humans ran right through their attackers as if they were no more than dark mist.
“What on Earth?”
Darius barked more orders, and his followers swung around to advance again. The humans spun back around too, less certainty in their approach as they lashed out. Quickly they forfeited their attack, running to their huts and collecting their women and children to take off into the dusty night—right as the angels touched down.
With the town to the left and dwindling desert plant life to the right, the angels surrounded the Hell escapees on all sides in a wide circle, stalling their chase to take after the humans.
Michael grasped the sapphire-jeweled hilt at his side and withdrew the angel sword from the scabbard. The long blade blazed blue, adding an eerie light to the surrounding darkness. The humans’ meager weapons had failed, but the angel sword was not merely any weapon. It was forged from light and infused with God’s wrathful power, able to kill an angel instantly with one stab to the heart. A mere shard of this weapon had been enough to kill in Hell, God had confirmed, and these vile creatures were soon to fall at his hand.
The other angels unsheathed their own swords that sparked white with heavenly power. Not as powerful as the one and only angel sword, but still built to deliver a killing punch when stabbed through the heart.
The hybrids and hellions cringed back and then one young man appeared through the throng. With dark hair, a thickening beard, and blazing red eyes, Darius showed no fear as he came to stand right in front of Michael. His hands were free of any weapons but remained tense, ready to claw through flesh. “We meet again, angel.”
“I see you are unprepared and out of luck. Ready to die, Darius?” Michael chuckled. This was too easy. “Killing you twice will be my pleasure.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
At that, Michael swung the angel sword. It blazed bright blue, creating a glowing arc as it sliced for Darius’s neck. The angels reacted too, jabbing and swinging their own swords. Darius ducked at the last second, evading the kill shot. He was as fast as he had been alive. But he didn’t fight back.
Sounds of battle resumed and there was movement all around.
Michael lashed out again, this time stabbing the sword forward. Darius spun out of the sword’s path, but Michael was ready, jabbing the length and catching air as Darius arched his back out of the way.
The noises around Michael changed as he continued to swing and arc the angel sword. Battle cries gave way to confused shouts, but then Michael scored a direct hit—as Darius presented himself and remained rooted to the spot. The angel sword found its mark, driving straight through the hybrid’s heart and coming clean out the other side. And not clean as in clear, clean as in…free of blood.
“What the hell?”
Darius smiled, looking down at the sword that bullseyed his heart. He should have been coughing up blood, becoming weak at the knees, and pouring a crimson waterfall from his chest. None of that was happening. And as Michael looked around, he knew why. Their weapons were useless. His angel warriors had discovered the same result. Clean swords skewered hellions and hybrids while angels shared looks of concern.
Michael returned his darting eyes to Darius. The man who had once ruled over Babylon stepped sideways—removing himself from the sword without even jostling the embedded blade. He laughed a throaty, deep sound. “Seems we are at an impasse. You cannot kill us. You cannot even harm us. But I promise you this, we will find a way to kill, and when we do, we will be unstoppable. Now, flutter off angel, time to report another
failure to your “all-powerful” maker.”
Darius walked forward, and Michael tensed, retracting his sword in preparation. But there was no need. The hybrid simply walked straight through his side, continuing on through the abandoned village. His followers were right behind him, eliciting gasps and sounds of surprise as they marched right through the barrier of angels.
With no way to attack the enemy and no other orders to execute, Michael lifted his chin and faced the warriors. “You twenty,” he said, motioning to a group of angels, “take flight and hunt down the vampires. Inform them of this revelation and deliver my order to hunt down every hybrid or hellion group they can find. As soon as those murderous creatures figure out how to kill, we need to be there to stop them. Now go.”
The twenty angels took flight, fanning dust up in gritty plumes.
Michael blinked to clear the grains from his eyes. He glanced sidelong at the shrinking group Darius led in the distance past the village. They were powerless now, but he knew that wouldn’t last. Michael had seen the prophecy. Evil was walking the earth, and it was only a matter of time before it was unleashed in Heaven, before the war to end all wars broke out. And he would not let all that was light die.
Michael closed his eyes, conjuring up the memory of monsters in Heaven as angels fell like stars from the sky. He breathed in deeply, and then nodded to the remaining angels that waited in silence for his command. “Return above.”
Another sigh brought the image of a round, innocent face to the forefront of his mind, the tiny bundle that was his curse and his saving grace. The Prince of Hell’s own child. And the child of the woman he had finally admitted to loving. Losing wasn’t an option, not anymore, not when he finally had something worth saving to lose.
Chapter Three
Michael stalled at the dead end that cut off the end of the long luminescent corridor. With one hand pressed into the wall, he laid his head into the crook of his elbow. His breaths were deep, but the hastened pace of his heart had nothing to do with coming from setting up his nephilim hideout, keeping his secret from God, or even their enemies below. With the vampires keeping a close watch, their influence had not changed. Right now, the fact that many of the hellions had branched off from the pack of hybrids was the furthest thing from his mind. Because he was here. Ready—well, not ready, but rather determined to go inside, to see the life that would one day be their savior…or their downfall.
Every day over the past seven years was the same, the visit, the molding, and every day the dread in the pit of his stomach grew exponentially.
What if he failed? What if he could not sway her to the side of light and righteousness? If Lucifer’s child chose darkness in the end, could Michael really do what God had tasked of him? Could he kill this child that was as much a spawn of the Prince of Hell as she was Gabriel’s?
With the angst in Michael’s body rising, firing through his veins like punches of poison, he dropped his arm and straightened. His face relieved itself of the anguish he felt, becoming an impenetrable mask as he pushed through the glowing dead end.
As Michael emerged through the warm haze, his bare feet felt the change first as smoothness was replaced by grit and cracked dirt. He smelled the remnants next, the smoky residue that permeated the air that had once been pure and cleansing. And then he saw her in the exact same spot he’d left her. The waterfall no longer tumbled clear water from its apex, but instead dribbled strands of brown down its rocky walls. The cave that had always been hidden was in plain sight, carved into the rock face. Dirty and sheltered by the overhang, there she was, nose buried in a long scroll that rolled out over her golden legs. Her brows were drawn and her bright eyes were narrowed with concentration, learning from their histories as he had tasked with a devotion that was second to none.
Evangeline.
Michael had named her himself. Partly angelic from her Heavenly mother, and partly touched by darkness…partly evil. Evil angel. The name had come to him and he had not been able to displace it, despite his hope for what she would become.
In the years that had passed, she hadn’t aged as a mortal would. Not being mortal, he guessed he should have expected the difference. But being the first ever angel born and not created, there was no prior knowledge to go on. She had lived for close to eight years, yet she resembled that of a four-year-old, still maintaining that soft padding over her arms, legs, and face that a young human child would.
Crossing what had once been lush wild grass speckled with a rainbow of colorful flowers, Michael made his way around the still water of the large pond.
Evangeline’s eyes widened as she saw him—though not with the excitement he normally saw in them on his daily visits. No. Now she looked fearful. Looking side to side in her cave and then behind her, she dropped to her knees and folded her arms over her legs. The papyrus scroll fell from her clutches, curling up and rolling away. At the same time, the glowing chain fastened to one side of the cave rattled with her movement, being tugged from the clasp that restrained her ankle. Since she’d started walking, her life had been moved to this secret place. No one besides Michael visited her. No one really even knew of her existence. Michael hadn’t wanted to chain her up like a beast—she was merely a girl, a child, an innocent—but he’d had no choice. He could not be here all the time, and he could not risk her getting out or escaping.
“Good afternoon, Evangeline.” Michael eyed her as he came closer, climbing the rough rocks to reach her elevated level at a prolonged rate, rather than flying right up to her. The higher he got, the more his long feathers brushed over the uneven terrain, and the more anxious he felt. “Are you not pleased to see me this day?”
Evangeline looked around again, shifting in her crouched position, arms spreading out as if trying to shield something. Michael had lost sight of her the closer he got, but her face came into view as he climbed higher. The shock of silver tears in her eyes fed the dread in him and spiked his pulse. A single tear slid free. “It was an akident.” Evangeline’s bottom lip quivered, and her bad pronunciation jabbed at Michael’s heart. With his minimal time spent with her, Evangeline’s language was juvenile. The fact that he often failed to correct her in a feeble hope of clinging to her childlike innocence hadn’t helped the matter.
And then he saw the cause of her worry as his head cleared the flat ridge and he clambered up to face the mouth of the cave. Michael’s mouth gaped at the sight. He did not know what he had expected to see, to find, but it certainly had not been this.
All around her and even spanning back from where she kneeled, the once barren charred land had changed. The ash coating was still there, but through the soft black and gray debris was something else. Something more. Life. Plant sprouts grew out from where she sat like her mere presence had forged them into existence. There were vibrant blades of grass and then longer stems that led to healthy flower heads with white, yellow, and purple petals.
Michael could hardly find words to speak through the shock. “You…you did this?”
Almost shaking now, Evangeline pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her pudgy arms around her propped, dirty legs. The dark smudges on her cheeks were streaked clean with the falling of her silver tears. “S-sorry, Father.”
Michael stopped breathing. Stopped moving too. Father? She had never called him anything other than Michael before. He had never insinuated that she was his. That he had created or even owned her. But he was responsible for her. She lived now because he had accepted the burden of raising her the right way, Heaven’s way…and to end her life if he failed.
And now this?
Michael fell to his knees before her, capturing her wet, dirty cheeks in his hands. She was a mini replica of Lucifer in all her warm tones and long, wavy dark golden hair. The hint of silver that streaked her long tresses was all Gabriel’s, and so were her features: soft, understanding, sincere, and hopeful. She had her mother’s eyes too, and she was crying out of fear…of him? Of what she had done? She was so sheltered
here, she had never seen a living plant before. The only life she knew was her own and his.
“Do not be sorry. Not for this.” Wiping away Evangeline’s tears with his thumbs, Michael felt the first glimpses of hope deep down in his soul. A being with the power to create beauty and life from the death of ashes could never be bad. She couldn’t be their damnation. “I think it is beautiful.”
Damn him, he almost teared up too as her sullen eyes dried and her quivering lip turned upward from a frown into the hint of a smile. “You like my…my…?” She frowned, not having the vocabulary to finish the sentence.
“Your garden? Yes, Evie. I really do.”
“My gar-den,” she sounded the word out, and then her eyes lit up like stars. Her little arms flung out wide and she threw her small body at Michael, capturing him in a hug that was as warm and destroying as a bear’s. “Ank you, Father!”
Michael stiffened. He had done so well to keep her at arm’s length, to remind himself every single day of who she was and where she had come from. Mostly, what she may one day become.
The destroyer of Heaven.
But this affection, this trust, the fact that she could create life out of death…it gave Michael new hope. Even more than that, her nature and the love she had for Michael despite him imprisoning her, it touched his heart. He had cared for this girl since she was a newborn. He’d watched her grow, and every now and then he allowed himself to hold her, to give her the physical connection she was missing from her mother. And now he could no longer deny what twined through him like a weaving rose bush with thorns that twisted and burrowed into his heart. He cared for this little girl. He loved her…unconditionally.
