by J. L. Myers
Fifty times broken and counting, but the first had been the worst.
Lucifer had screamed his threats in the beginning, promising pain and death as Cyrus descended upon Gabriel. With each snap of the smaller bones in her wings, he’d raged, thrashing as Cyrus smiled in glee. But then that first punch had taken Lucifer’s threats as Cyrus had soldiers pin him to the wall by his throat and arms, making him watch in silence as Cyrus moved onto stripping Gabriel’s body of torn cloth and then stripping her body of flesh too. His eyes had been wet, stray tears escaping despite how hard he tried to control them. But there was no need to act strong anymore.
They had lost. Everything.
Their freedom. Their safety. Their child.
Although watching Lucifer’s torture killed Gabriel, it still could not compare to the moment their newborn had vanished. Gabriel felt helpless. Trapped. She could not bear to lose Lucifer as well. She could not bear to stand by as he was broken over and over until there was nothing left to break. So she didn’t.
Having only one choice, one chance, Gabriel curled back into the shadows further. Sharp pains shot through her wings from multiple places as they were pressed into the rocky overhang, but she continued to squeeze back. Once draped in darkness, Gabriel reached behind her and plucked one feather free. The shaft was bent, the vanes twisted and crushed and wet with her glittery blood. She hoped like Hell this worked.
Holding the gray feather in her palm, Gabriel brought it to her lips, whispering her plea so quietly only angels could hear it. “Please, God, hear me now. Come to me and grant me one last gift. Free us of this place. Free Lucifer of this Hell.”
Lucifer’s roar had her eyes darting up. The skinning had begun, the first strip being cut from his shoulder and then peeled up from his muscles and dragged down as Cyrus yanked his flesh off in slow anticipation.
The feather in her palm remained.
Gabriel kept as still as death, only her shallow breaths ruffling the vanes. Was God truly going to forsake them? Was he really going to ignore her pitiful plea for help?
“Please. I beg of you. Enlighten us from this place like you did our daughter. Bring us back to her. Save us and I will do anything you ask, anything at all.”
“Anything?”
Gabriel gasped but clamped a hand over her mouth before the sound could fully escape. The feather was gone from her hovering palm, poofed into putrid smelling air as if it had never existed in the first place. Blocking her view of Lucifer as Cyrus started on the second strip that would run from his collarbone all the way down to his ankle, was not the beacon of light Gabriel had hoped for. Remiel stood in a pristine robe, covered from shoulder to toes. His hands were clasped before him, his eyes serene yet bright in this dark, gloomy corner and unwavering despite her nakedness. But even as Gabriel’s heart thumped at the shock and her fear rose of Cyrus noticing the angelic arrival, she knew that he would not. Remiel was not really standing before her in Hell with mirroring gray wings. He was merely a projection, an unearthly visitor of the spiritual kind.
“Anything,” Gabriel repeated as Lucifer’s growls of pain made her skin prickle. “Our daughter and escape from Hell for whatever God requires. I vow it.”
The light in Remiel’s silver eyes fell as he shook his head. “That cannot happen. Your child, for the good of Heaven…she is no more.”
Gabriel had to bite down on her fingers to keep from screaming out loud. Her throat choked and her eyes burned. The devastation of her breaking heart fell in unchecked tears. No…no! Since the moment her daughter exploded in an upward rain of light, Gabriel had held onto her hope. Their child, she couldn’t be dead. She had been alive in Gabriel’s arms, warm and humming with life. When her tiny hands had grasped instinctually to cling onto Gabriel, she had felt the most wonderful joy despite the threat that surrounded them. But then God intervened—to stop the prophecy, to stop the darkness that would rain when light and dark combined. He chose to end the existence her body had delivered in the perfect form of new and innocent life.
Gabriel curled over, gagging on a spike of acid up her throat. But nothing came out. She had already retched up the fruits Lucifer had fed her before the birth of their child. Their dead child. Oh, dear God. The total obliteration of her heart made her choke on the putrid air. She wanted to die. To somehow leave this torture that was worse than anything Cyrus and his followers could inflict upon her. How could she go on? How could she vow allegiance to a power that would slay her innocent baby girl?
Her answer came as Lucifer let out a tortured scream. He choked back the sound soon after, but there it still was, echoing up the dirty cave and flailing the fire torches as if his agony was a tangible force.
Her child was no more—stolen. Murdered. But Lucifer remained. Once her total heart and soul, the man who owned the broken fragments was still alive.
And Gabriel could not stand an eternity of watching him suffer too. She couldn’t bear that, not when she knew she would have to reveal their child’s death as well. A death she could not blame on God, despite knowing the heinous truth. Doing so would only turn Lucifer even darker than he had already become. If they ever got free, he would never stop until he leveled Heaven himself. It would break him as surely as it had broken her.
“But as for yours and Lucifer’s freedom…I have an offer to deliver.” Kneeling down before her, Remiel leaned in close. His sad eyes said that he wished what he was about to say could be better, while the grim line of his lips promised this was the best he could deliver. His whispered words laid it all out in simple terms that could not be misconstrued. Conditions that would free them both eventually, but that came with a steep price and acts of servitude that had to be fulfilled first. “Do you accept?”
The price was too steep; the reward worthy but with its own severe drawbacks. But what other choice did she have? With Lucifer’s fire gone and no loyalty to be sought except for what they offered each other, they were alone. Trapped. Standing on the precipice of eternity in this putrid place, suffering endlessly until their last breaths—if that day ever came.
Remiel rose from his crouched position and tucked a hand behind his back. With a slight tug that had his lips pressing together, he brought his hand in front of him. One of his long gray feathers stood tall from between his pinned thumb and forefinger. Unlike him, it was anything but transparent, and as he twirled it, the light ashy vanes shed their tone to give way to iridescent white. “One pass. One escape out of Hell. One of you may leave, the other will remain. And the choice, as you know, has already been made.”
Gabriel lifted her weak hand, her raw arm aching at having to use strength she no longer had. The feather jerked back before she could snatch it from Remiel. His brow lifted. He needed to hear the words, her solemn vow. But she needed a guarantee that this would not be for nothing. “Once above, I need a safeguard. My survival linked to Lucifer’s. If he dies…”
Remiel closed his eyes, seeming to receive a soundless telepathic judgment from their maker. When his eyes opened, he threaded his fingers through his hair to push it back from his face as he sighed. “Your condition is granted. Though his survival will be at your hands if the time comes.”
Gabriel released her breath with relief. All that now mattered was protecting Lucifer for as long as she could. “I…” Lucifer choked back a scream. There was no other choice. This deal from God was as good as she could hope for. “I accept.”
“May God be with you.” Remiel touched her chin, a sad smile lifting the edge of his lips. “May his light keep you safe.”
A sudden flare of light penetrated Gabriel’s chest as if her own heart was creating the phenomenon. It spread out over her bared skin, covering her body in a gentle glow that, as soon as it was complete, seeped back into her skin. God’s power, His promise delivered, and then tingling sensations as her body repaired from the inside out.
Remiel vanished right before her eyes, leaving her view of Lucifer unobscured. But that wasn’t all she saw. Th
e feather, as real as her own, fell. It fluttered down, catching air and seesawing side to side. Gabriel snatched it with her bloody hands, eyes darting as she looked up fast. Lucifer’s eyes were shut tight with pain as Cyrus worked on stripping the flesh from his arms now. Neither of them had seen.
With a silent breath of relief, Gabriel dug into the dirt at the base of the rocky incline that she’d been hiding under. The feather filled the oblong hole and was covered completely.
As soon as Lucifer’s torture was complete—as soon as they were alone—she would say her goodbyes…and kiss Lucifer for the very last time.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Michael felt the rumble that had made Heaven quake as if it were made of tangible land. He had been in the war room, readying his men for another mission below. Firstly, to check on the progress of their seeds. The time of their birth and aging could not come fast enough. Secondly, to eradicate more hybrids and the spawn of Lucifer.
Now his warrior angels were being sent below—not by himself.
Through Remiel, God had delivered his order. A new danger had come unto the Earth, a threat that could be the fall of Heaven.
But Michael was not to venture below on this mission to collect intel. He had been summoned to the center of the Realm of Light. The place in which they watched the world from in the safety and warmth of all that was Godly and pure.
Michael’s throat constricted the closer he got to his destination, each quick step through the glowing corridors quickening his pounding heart. Since he had already reported Lucifer’s spawn to God, there was only one new danger he could imagine his maker had come to realize. One form of creation that was explicitly banned and was considered an abomination should it ever be brought into existence. Even more so than relations between angels, the act of an angel and human laying together and what that would create—a diluted species not really of Heaven but so much more than Earth—was forbidden. It was blaspheme.
Punishable by something worse than death. Permanent grounding.
With his palms sweating, Michael knew he was already on thin clouds. His satin black wings were a constant reminder of how close he was to falling. God would never understand his reasons for doing what he and his warriors had done. But he would not repent. He would not regret any of it. A war the likes of nothing they had ever encountered was coming. The prophecy would come true. And with Lucifer’s spawn banding with the hybrids, they needed numbers above all, they needed a chance in this war against a growing army that dwarfed them more and more with each passing day.
Michael gulped and wiped the sweat from his brow. If God knew of his impending Nephilim race, would he order their extinction like he had for the hybrids and Lucifer’s offspring?
Through the glowing ornate arch, Michael lifted his eyes that had been staring at the lit path beneath his feet. He expected God to be waiting—or to arrive in glorious fashion with a beacon of brilliant white power and a blast of energy. But the air with its pleasant smell of a fresh summer’s day did not shift. There was no movement or even a hint at radiating power. The rounded looking glass that sat at the heart of the Realm of Light was vacant—of physical beings and of metaphysical ones too.
God was not here.
But that did not mean Michael was alone.
Less than ten yards away from the looking glass, the smallest movement caught Michael’s eye. There, inside the pool, the water rippled outward from the center, the small currents dying as they reached the gold edging. Centering the continuous ruffling of the water was…
Michael brushed his unruly dark hair back from his eyes to clear his view. “Impossible.” A basket of woven straw floated dead center, its gentle bobbing the cause of the ripples. What lay inside had his jaw hanging open and his rushing pulse slowing with shock. Pink-skinned and naked, with a dusting of pale golden hair was an infant. A baby. She was fast asleep, her breaths slow and steady as her tiny chest rose and fell.
Before he could utter, “How is this possible?” all sound ceased. A ringing sound pierced Michael’s eardrums that had him falling to his knees and covering his ears. When he looked up, his gaze darted to the child first, and a breath of relief rushed through him. She was still there, quietly awake with her sleepy eyes opening and closing.
But he was no longer alone.
Standing on the opposite edge of the looking glass was God in the human form of a boy. With his golden hair and angelic face, he brought memories of Lucifer to mind. And whenever Lucifer came to mind, so too did Gabriel. Suspicions and fears bubbled up as Michael stared back at the child. No. It cannot be. Not here. Not in Heaven.
“It can be, and it is,” God spoke, responding to words Michael had merely thought in his mind.
Having not gotten to the concealing part of their mission today, Michael was as open as a book, his thoughts bared as surely as that child was. This was the reason he’d been summoned here. Controlling his thoughts, he locked down things that needed to remain hidden. To keep his mind from wandering, Michael focused only on the child, on what her being alive and here above meant. Gabriel and Lucifer. The product of her laying down and parting her legs. The creation of the first angelic being, not through light but through love. Now she was here. A streak of guilt weighed down Michael’s thudding heart, knowing he had ordered this defenseless child’s death even before her first breath of life. But their child had not succumbed to dire threats. She had lived, and she had escaped Hell.
“Not escaped.” God, in his young form, bent down to the water’s edge. He waded a hand through the water, adding to the currents the small floating bundle made. “Removed. Though not without consequence.”
“The new threat?” Keeping his thoughts far from his earlier fears, Michael came closer, meeting God’s white eyes that although they had no pupils or irises, he could feel were keenly set on him.
“Removing such power from Hell came at a price. One I anticipated, but a price none the less.” The base of the looking glass gave way to transparency, revealing an early morning sun that shone golden light over the land—as deep, jagged fissures pumped out black, volatile mist. “The souls of Hell have risen. The Earth floods with them as we speak.”
Michael sucked in air but bit his tongue before he could question why his warrior angels were only being sent on a mission to collect data. Clearly taking action from the start would be wiser and necessary to save the lives of God’s humans that were now under the threat of a new and nasty danger.
“You judge too easily, Michael.” God shook his head, the boyish softness to his face hardening to something so much wiser and more powerful. “Yet you of all my angels should understand that actions have consequences.” His milky eyes narrowed, and Michael felt tingles all over his black wings, a warning and a point made. “One cannot act without clear insight into the repercussions, lest he wishes to risk unsettling the order of all of existence.”
Bowing his head in apology, Michael brought his palms together in a show of servitude. He did not like where this conversation was going. Merely thinking about the repercussions planted a knot of dread in his stomach. Stealing a fleeting glimpse up at the small bundle, he still felt the guilt and disgust with himself for what he tried to do to Gabriel and her unborn child. A child that was innocent but for the fact that Lucifer was her father. The words that tumbled from his throat and off his tongue tasted like char. “Then what is to come of this child?”
God’s boyish face dropped a fraction, his empty eyes falling on Michael’s. A ghost of a smile stretched his blushed lips. “That, my angel warrior, is up to you.”
“Me?” Michael shot a glance to and from the child. His unease over this unexpected summons had been dead right.
“Yes. You. You know of the prophecy, Michael. You know what will come of us all should it come to pass. This child is the catalyst. The key to our destruction.”
The angel sword appeared in Michael’s hand, returned with a glorious flare of light since God confiscated it after his attempt
to kill the unborn child. Michael gasped, almost dropping the sword before his bicep bulged to hold the weight and his fist tightened around the sapphire-encrusted gold hilt. And then he was in the water, right next to the floating basket. He hadn’t moved an inch of his own accord, but he hadn’t needed to. God was in control, his buzzing power coiling through Michael’s body and beaming from his pale skin in a full-body halo. The water shimmered around him, vibrating as it seeped through his war clothes and soaked him from the waist down.
“You want me to…?” Unable to say the words, Michael could not tear his eyes away from the tiny bundle as she cooed and lifted a hand as if reaching for him. She was—breathtaking. A pure being in the form of a newborn, the first ever to come into existence. Her dusting of hair was more silver than gold, a trait from her mother. But her skin was warm of color, rather than pale in pallor. One of Lucifer’s traits. She had a small nose that hinted at the slope Gabriel sported, though her chin was not pointed like Gabriel’s was. There were no feathered attachments to be seen, and her eyes as they smiled up at him held his gaze. Not silver-blue. Not even the red Remiel had revealed could dominate Lucifer’s eyes with flames. They were violet ringed in silver. An amalgamation of Heaven and of Hell. Not purely light, but not entirely darkness either. As the weight of the sword in his hand became almost unbearable, making his muscles twitch with strain, Michael saw beyond the color of her eyes. The way they blinked up at him and the honest goodness that beamed trust and hope, that was all Gabriel. The most remarkable trait to pass on. His voice was that of death as he uttered, “You want me to,”—he gulped—“kill her?”
