Broken Wings: Genesis (19 page)

I tried to cover my nervousness
with flippancy. “What? I don’t rate a chariot of fire like Ezekiel?”

Maybe I was a little disappointed
outside the sarcasm. Here I had thought I might get my once in a lifetime
chance to fly. Oh well, things were the way they were. I stepped to the Gate.
Gabriel held out his arm in an indication that I should step through. I shook
my head.

“Uh-uh. You first, and then
Ke––Chaz and I will bring up the rear.” I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t
stranded in angel land without at least one of the Grigori. I wasn’t trusting
Gabriel to hold to his word. Maybe it was overly suspicious on my part, but I
wasn’t taking any chances.

Gabriel gave me an unreadable
look, but did as I asked. Ke glanced at me with a touch of nervousness before
stepping through the Gate. I guess he had a right to be nervous. He was going
home after how many years of exile? I’d be a bit edgy about the whole thing,
too, if I were in his place.

I looked to Chaz, who was dancing
nervously from foot to foot. “Ready, kid?”

He nodded. I turned back and gave
one last look to the priest.

“Goodbye, Father. See you on the
flip side.”

Father David smiled. Chaz and I
gave each other one last confirming glance that we were ready to do this, and
stepped into the Gate.

I’m not sure what I had expected,
but it was as simple as walking through a doorway. It was almost
anti-climactic. One second I was in my living room, the next, I found myself
staring out over the Crystal
City. Of course, that was
a climax all its own. The sun was bright overhead, yet the City was bathed in
the familiar indigo light I was used to seeing in my dream. The whole thing was
just as surreal as the dreamscape, though. And I knew the view well. A nervous
glance over my shoulder confirmed the feeling. We had just come through the
Thirteenth Gate.

A shimmer on the surface of the
Gate told me something else was coming through. I stepped back quickly, almost
bumping into Ke. Sariel walked through the Gate, followed by ten other angels,
that I assumed were Grigori. I thought some of them looked familiar from the
dreamscape last night, but I couldn’t be sure.

Everyone was crunched into a
single crowded space, and it took a moment for me to realize why. A host of
angels circled around us, stopping us from moving further into the City. The
expression on their faces, and on the faces of the Grigori matched each other
in stone stubbornness. Gabriel went to speak with the angels blocking our way.
He’d better do this right, or I was throwing myself back through the Gate. I
grabbed onto Chaz’s arm, just in case I had to pull the kid back through with
me.

A high-pitched squeal echoed
through the air, bringing surprise to all the surrounding faces. The next thing
I knew, I was being driven to the ground under the weight of a body. Arms
wrapped tightly around me in a big hug. I wanted to push away, but I was afraid
of hurting the wings that flapped rapidly in front of my face.

It was a minute before the pressure
eased up and the person holding me pushed back to smile at me with her cherubic
little face lit up in delight. I frowned, trying to remember––

“Arianna?” The name came from out
of nowhere, but I knew I had spoken it right.

“Ithane!” She squealed again, and
threw herself back into a hug, as though not wanting to let go.

For what it was worth, I guess I
had come home.

 
Someone actually took pity and helped to pull
the way-too-hyper cherub off from me. It was Sariel. The Grigori female now had
Arianna to one side of the Gate and was talking to her in soft, gentle
undertones. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it seemed to settle her
down.

Gabriel was talking to the
gathered angels in undertones, too. I could tell his tone wasn’t as gentle as
the one Sariel was using with the cherub. To each their own, I guess. It didn’t
matter one way or another to me, as long as it worked.

Chaz edged in a little closer. I
didn’t blame him. Looking around, I could see all these beautiful winged
beings. And yet, there was coldness to that beauty. These certainly weren’t the
creatures of love and light I grew up seeing depicted in pictures and statues.
There was an underlying darkness to them that was a bit unsettling.

Come to think of it, I seemed to
recall the images of heaven being all light and fluffy, too. This place was not
shrouded in either light or dark. It was a lot more somber than I had ever
imagined it as being. But the surroundings seemed fitting for the beings that
stood around me. Creatures of neither darkness nor light, they just
were
.

Chaz leaned in to whisper in my
ear. “This place is a bit creepy, don’t you think?”

“Oh yeah.” I whispered back.

Then I stopped to think about it.
This wasn’t heaven. Who was it––Sariel? Gabriel? One of them had said something
about this being an
in-between
place. If that were the case, and the Crystal City was in place the last time the
Angels had their war where Lucifer led the rebellion of the Fallen Ones, then
some of the upset of the angels made sense to me.

Humans were given free will, where
the angels were not. Obviously there had to be some amount of free will going
on with them, or the rebellion of the Fallen Ones would never have taken place.
That was an interesting thought to ponder. Humans were also given the plush,
light-laden place to hang out in for eternity, if the stories of heaven were to
be believed. The angels were given the dusky streets of the Crystal City.
If this were the reflection of the principle of
as above, so below
, then
some of the hell on earth manifested itself here on these streets.

No wonder there had been a
rebellion. The thought hit me with amazement. It matched up with the constant
civil unrest that was a mainstay of the earth plane. Not to mention the
continual struggle of the upper class to keep the lower class in its
downtrodden place. I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was actually feeling
sympathy for
Lucifer
. I must be out of my mind. This place was having
some kind of an effect on me. It was the only thing that made sense.

The angels blocking the way to the
Crystal City were starting to stand down. They
weren’t going away, but at least they weren’t preparing for a street brawl here
and now. The looks on their faces were unfriendly, and I saw a few hostile
glances sent my way. Hey––I was asked to come here, and not given much of a
chance for refusal. I’d be gone as soon as I was done. I didn’t want to be here
any more than they wanted me here. A mutual bond of dislike was formed in those
early moments.

Gabriel came back over to me, but
his look was not a happy one. “Let us go. The Thrones will be expecting our
arrival.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Whatever you
say.”

Gabriel stared at me for a long
moment. I’m not sure what he was looking for, or if he found it, but he finally
turned and led the way down into the Crystal
City. Following along
behind him, so many thoughts raced through my mind, that I didn’t even pay
attention much to the city around me. For instance, all of these angels had
wings. Where were Gabriel’s wings? Was it because of his still being in human
form? If so, why had he not shed his human form before entering the Crystal City? Sariel must have, she had a full
set of wings flowing down behind her shoulders. They were not the beautiful
white color of most of the heavenly host that met us at the gate. Her wings
were a soft, powder grey, tipped in black. That was the same for most of the
Grigori. Their wings were varying shades of white to grey, but none of them
pure white.

The other angels, those from the Crystal City, had wings of white, but every once
in a while you could see a flash of color in their wings. I had a feeling that
it meant something, but couldn’t imagine what that could be. Arianna walked
along side of Sariel, holding the hand of the Grigori. She kept staring at me
with those wide, child-like eyes. It was disconcerting and heart wrenching at
the same time.

Part of me wanted to scoop her up
and hug her. The other part of me was creeped out. This was the being from the
nightmares that had haunted me from my earliest memories. If what I had seen in
the full version through Ke were true, she was also the cause of my demise as a
Grigori. I’m still trying to decide if maybe she hadn’t done me a big favor.
Looking around at these so-called higher beings, I couldn’t help but be glad I
hadn’t spent the last millennia or so having to deal with them. I’d been around
them for less than a week and they were already getting under my skin.

“How big do you think this place
is, Yesh?” Chaz asked with quiet awe as we walked for what seemed like forever
through the streets.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it was
huge.”

He cracked a smile. That was good.
After being met with such a warm reception, I was beginning to regret having
dragged the kid along to wherever
here
was. Another idea struck me and I
almost kicked myself for not having thought of it earlier. What was I thinking,
bringing Chaz to the Crystal
City? If they found out
he was one of the Nephilim from the Fallen Ones––I shuddered, not even wanting
to finish the thought. I stood up a little straighter, showing as much strength
as I could muster. The kid was under my protection and anyone that wanted to
get to him had to go through me first.

My thoughts continued to wander
until we arrived at a large, even colossal structure. I was betting it was
close to dead center in the city. Outside the enormous ornate double doors that
barred entry, Gabriel finally stopped. Without turning, he stood there for a
moment. While I watched, his form began to blur. I thought it was a trick of
the light at first, but then a second Gabriel moved away from the first. The
second Gabriel had wings––full, beautifully pure white wings, the tips of the
feathers seeped in blood red.

The winged Gabriel turned to the
first Gabriel. But the first one no longer looked like the Gabriel I had seen.
He was still about the same size in body, but his hair was shorter, his
shoulders a bit more stooped, and his face bore no resemblance to the Gabriel
that had been with me this whole time. The mark was gone from his neck.

It dawned on me that this was the
human host that Gabriel had taken. The over powering aura of the Archangel must have changed the outward appearance of the
man to fit his own image. Interesting. The thought had never occurred to me.

The human looked up at Gabriel
with confusion in his eyes. Gabriel looked down and met the man’s gaze. He
placed the palm of his hand against the man’s forehead, holding out his arm to
catch him when he sank into a blissful, unaware state of sleep. Without even
straining himself, Gabriel lifted the man gently into his arms and laid him
down on a bench outside the doors.

Back in his form as the Archangel, he was a lot more intimidating than he had
been in the human host. Past all the bravado I had been wearing like a shield,
it finally sunk in that at any given moment, Gabriel could have squashed me
like a bug. Any of these angels could. I wouldn’t go down without a fight, but
I’m not sure how much damage I would mete out against the power that surrounded
me.

I also realized I hadn’t done the
Grigori any favors by letting them come
home
for a visit. Within the Crystal City, they were now eleven to tens of
thousands of angels. Their belief in me must be pretty strong to put themselves
in the hands of those kinds of odds. This whole thing took on a different level
of meaning. I was sinking fast into the harsh reality of what I might be up
against and it was almost too overwhelming to comprehend.

Gabriel nodded to the guards at
the doors and they swung them open to allow us passage to the interior of the
building. We entered––me, Chaz, Gabriel, the Grigori, and all the other angels
that had met us at the Gate. At first glance, I didn’t think the hall could
hold us all, and yet everyone kept filing in. There seemed to be room to spare.

It was like a processional, with
Gabriel leading the way to the far side of the hall where a raised dais held
seven very large and very intimidating angels sitting on Thrones, overlooking
the rest of us. Gabriel went straight to the dais, and went down on one knee
before the Thrones. As the other angels poured into the room and found places
to stand, they too went down on a single knee of respect. Chaz started to mimic
their postures, but I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw the Grigori still
standing. I chose to stand with the Grigori. Somehow, I felt that to kneel
before these beings was to acknowledge their superiority over me. They might be
powerful, but I wasn’t feeling in the mood to be intimidated. Chaz stopped
halfway to his knee, looked at me with uncertainty and stood back up at my
side.

“Insolent.” That single word came
from the female angel on the center throne.

She looked at me with distaste,
and I wondered whether I should have played along until I had gotten the lay of
the land. It was too late now. The angel in the center, obviously the leader
amongst the seven Thrones, lifted her hand to allow the angels in the hall to
come back to their feet.

“What is the word, Gabriel?” She
decided to ignore me and go straight to her champion. That didn’t bother me.

“This is the one, Delphia. This is
the incarnated Grigori, Ithane.” Gabriel spoke with respect to the angel in the
center.

“So our assumptions were correct,
then.”

“It would appear so.”

Her eyes narrowed, looking at the
circle of Grigori behind me. “Why have the Guardians returned?”

The Guardians? Did she mean the
Gate Guardians? Was that how Sariel had chosen the Grigori who stood at my
side? They were all past Guardians of the Gates to the Crystal City?