War of Wings (18 page)

“Michael, I will be back soon,” he said. “Take control here.” He flew away toward the woods, taking off before Michael had a chance to respond.

“Where are you going?” Michael shouted from a distance.

“The White Woods.”

The woods were nearby, and he reached them quickly. He started his descent into the midst of the white trees and landed without knowing where to go. The forest was thick with trees of all different heights and shapes, but they all had the same basic structure. The base and limbs of the trees were a pale, frosty white, sticking out like icicles, while the leaves were rich shades of green, red, and brown. Gabriel was in a remote section of the woods that was dense with plush foliage. The light, already dim, was even darker here beneath the canopy of the trees. He slowly walked around. He was looking for something and could even feel it drawing him closer, but he didn’t know what he was seeking.

He could hear movement. Very subtle, quiet movement, like a rustling of leaves in the distance. To his left, the grass was bent. Someone had just been there. He followed the direction of the bent blades and traveled deeper into the woods. “Hello?” he shouted. “Anyone out here?” His hands were shaking, and he couldn’t control it, which was odd since he wasn’t nervous.

Out of the shadows, an angel flew toward him as quickly as a branch was pulled back and released. He slammed into Gabriel, sending him tumbling over the ground like a skipped stone. The mighty angel, a cherub, followed after him and pinned his arms to the ground before he had even stopped moving. He was strong—not like Lucifer but powerful nonetheless.

“What are you doing here?” the cherub yelled in Gabriel’s face.

Gabriel did not raise his voice in response. “I am here looking for angels to join God’s army.” He surprised himself with his own composure. Not long ago, he would have reacted with a blow to the angel’s head.

“You should not be here. Leave us.” As he said it, Gabriel saw another angel peeking out from behind a tree. He heard the rustling of leaves all around. He then saw a virtue angel and thought instantly of his love. She looked like Arrayah from a distance, and her necklace glistened in the light. Then he saw another male six-winged angel near her and realized these weren’t just ordinary angels. Out of the five he could see, three were cherubim, one was a virtue, and one was a seraph. A powerful group.

“These are the final hours of God’s absence,” Gabriel said in a loud voice, making sure the others could hear him as well, “and we must decide whose side we are on. God will soon return, and those who follow Lucifer will be punished while those who stay loyal will be rewarded.”

“Look at me! We are on no one’s side.” The cherub pushed Gabriel’s shoulders into the ground before he rose up to loom over his face. With that, a new seraphim angel walked from behind a tree and uncovered her eyes. Gabriel squinted and raised his hand to shield himself from the light. The importance of this struck him hard. Here was a seraph who was still close enough to God that His light had not yet faded from her face. Michael had educated him all about it. She had to be the only one who still reflected God’s glory.

“It’s all right, Jasifer,” she said as she made herself visible. The cherub slowly backed off. As the seraph walked forward, many other angels made themselves visible. “What is your name, angel?” she asked.

“I am the archangel Gabriel.”

“You should leave,” said Jasifer. He was much larger than Gabriel, which was rare, and wore a metal plate of armor conformed to his body. He turned to the seraph. “We should send him away.”

“If he leaves, he could inform Lucifer of where we are.”

“I am not with Lucifer,” said Gabriel.

She paused to look him in the eyes. “You aren’t, are you? I am Thyaterra.” She was tall, lean, and radiant, with fair skin and blonde hair. She had been Lucifer’s closest companion for many years. Most angels knew of her.

“Nice to meet you.”

“It is nice to meet you as well. You are an archangel? What brings you here?”

“We have started a following to oppose the revolution. We seek angels to join us.”

“Do you know who you are up against, Gabriel?” Her voice was surprisingly kind.

“Yes, I do. Lucifer, the highest of the cherubim, and he has many followers now. Millions, I’m sure.” Whispers could be heard from angels behind him. There were far more of them than he had realized.

“Yes, he is the great cherub, but he is also the most powerful angel in all of Heaven, and God has left us for now. We came here hoping that He would return,” she said.

The angels gradually made themselves visible. Gabriel realized this was the hiding place for all of the cherubim, most of the thrones, almost all of the virtues, and some of the seraphim who hadn’t joined Lucifer. There were less than half of the upper classes left. They didn’t seem to have any interest in joining Lucifer. They were simply hiding.

“I know that you fear Lucifer’s power is too great now, but God’s power will always be greater.” He felt Michael’s presence as if he was speaking for him. “We mustn’t let Lucifer gain power and numbers while we stand in limbo. We have amassed a large following for God, and we will stand up to Lucifer until God returns. And He will return soon.”

The angels looked at Gabriel, and he knew what they saw was faith and not fear. It was confirmation. Whether or not they accepted his message, he knew he was in exactly the right place.

“What makes you so sure that He will be back? How do you know that Lucifer will not overtake Heaven completely?” Jasifer asked.

Gabriel’s eyes went from Thyaterra, who was looking down at the ground, to Jasifer, who was staring a hole through him. A silence blanketed the woods as Gabriel searched for the words. They waited for him to speak, all of them, but he didn’t know what to say. The confident feeling that he had found his place was fading.

“Because I have seen what happens when this is all over,” Michael said. He stepped around from a tree behind Gabriel and came to stand beside him. He stared right back at Jasifer with pain in his eyes. “The fallen angels will writhe in an agony I cannot even explain.”

“You followed me,” Gabriel whispered without thinking.

“How would you know?” retorted Jasifer. He stepped closer to Michael. “This is ridiculous! Who are you?”

The angels were whispering to each other, sounding urgent and anxious. Gabriel felt uneasy and knew they needed to hurry. Michael went straight to the point.

“I am Michael the archangel. God showed me.”

Jasifer looked around at the other angels. “He showed you? God showed you what? You are an archangel!” He laughed and a few of the others joined in. “We don’t have time for this nonsense.”

Thyaterra walked forward and touched Jasifer on the shoulder. He backed up, and she approached the two of them. She focused on Michael. She was not laughing.

“Did God really show you this, archangel?”

“Yes, He did.”

“How?”

“In a vision, a dream.”

The other angels surrounding them grew quiet. Thyaterra moved slowly toward Michael with a soft expression until she was close enough to touch him. Searching his face, she found only sincerity. She looked down as a tear fell from her eyes and then slowly raised her head. Gabriel studied her every move, and he saw in her pain an echo of what he felt for Arrayah. It was comforting to know he wasn’t the only one, yet it was a painful reminder of all he stood to lose.

“Oh, Lucifer,” she whispered. “It’s true. What have you done?” Her eyes closed, several seconds passed, and then she looked back up at Michael. “You are with this angel Gabriel?”

“Yes.”

“We can stay neutral no longer. The seraphim will join you. Lead us to your army.”

Many more seraphim emerged from the woods and gathered around her. There was no hesitation. Some were male and some were female, and Gabriel was overwhelmed to see so many up close. They all moved so gracefully he couldn’t take his eyes off them. There were so many more than he had ever imagined.

Meanwhile a virtue angel moved her way to the front, holding the hand of another behind her. She stared up at Gabriel like she knew him. “The virtues will also join you,” she said. Then four others appeared. They represented the virtues of diligence, patience, kindness, charity, and temperance. Well, according to the necklaces they wore. Gabriel couldn’t help but realize the only two missing were Delia and Arrayah, chastity and humility.

The thrones followed right behind them. They were a large group of angels, draped in robes and jewels like the rest of their kind and popping out from the shadows of the white trees like rabbits. “As will we,” said Betheczar, one of their most influential leaders.

The cherubim all seemed uneasy as they were waiting for Jasifer, who was the last of their leaders to speak. Most of the cherubim had already moved closer to the group of followers, but none had spoken. They were awaiting Jasifer’s decision and Gabriel knew it.

“We will all stay together then,” said Jasifer finally. Thyaterra smiled at him, and he nodded humbly back. Gabriel let out a sigh of relief he had not realized he was holding.

“Lead the way, archangels,” Thyaterra said.

They walked through the woods to the southwest toward the Great Canyon Reef. Michael strode beside Gabriel, followed by thousands and thousands of angels. It was an impressive group. When they neared the edge of the dense forest, the two flew up through an opening in the trees, and a vast cloud of first- and second-tier angels followed.

When Gabriel and Michael approached the reef with a massive army soaring gracefully behind them, the angels who had been waiting for them to return stared with disbelief. Two archangels were leading an enormous flight of high-ranking angels. It was an image not soon to be forgotten in the minds of the loyal. Heaven had truly been turned upside down. What you did, where you came from, what you looked like, and even what class you belonged to—these things no longer mattered. Every angel was equal. It was apparent in that moment to everyone that they were all in this together. Gabriel could see it on the faces of the angels below him, and his hope grew ten times inside him.

As Michael, Gabriel, and the hierarchs swooped down, the other scattered angels hurried back from recruiting those lounging around the reef. Gabriel and Michael landed at the shoreline, and the crowd of hierarchs floated down all around the Canyon Reef, touching down on the sand or in the water wherever there was space. The number of angels was too many for Gabriel to guess. Behind them, the canyon falls thundered down, but no one was diving off them or even sleeping on the sand—they had everyone’s attention now.

The seraphim stayed close together as they flew in, thousands of six-winged beings as white as snow with touches of grey. The cherubim followed, all of them in impressive armor adorned with jewels. Some were tall, some short, some were thick and others thin, but they were all intimidating. The thrones were mixed with the rest of the hierarchs, but the glow of their golden crowns made them easy to spot. As the group of hierarchs landed, hundreds of other unconvinced angels who had been splashing around the reef now hurried over. Instantly Michael and Gabriel’s army had grown significantly.

When Michael landed, Gabriel gave him a look of approval though he wasn’t surprised that Michael had felt the need to watch over him once more. “Thanks for being there. You saved me again.”

“You would have convinced them. I just wanted to help you speed it up.” Michael smirked, and Gabriel knew something was coming. “And anyway, you always drag things out.”

Gabriel chuckled. “You’re a terrible brother.”

“That’s more like it. You are too.”

Michael approached Jasifer, and Gabriel’s focus shifted to a virtue angel walking up in a flowing, light-blue dress. She had long brown hair, and she wore a necklace like Arrayah’s that read
Diligentia.
She had round cheeks and kind, turquoise eyes.

“I am Gabriel,” he said.

She gazed into his eyes. “I know. I have heard of you from Arrayah, my sister. It is nice to meet you. I am Merithah.”

“Sister? But I have seen her sister, Delia.”

“There are two of us.”

“Oh.” Gabriel held his tongue for once, realizing that Arrayah had talked so much of her relationship with her sister Delia but had never mentioned Merithah.

“I know what you are thinking. Arrayah protects Delia, not me. Our relationships are different. Delia is in love with Lucifer and won’t let him go. That is why Arrayah is involved.”

“Because she also loves Lucifer?” He didn’t want to ask it but couldn’t help himself.

“She loves you, Gabriel. She told me about you the last time I saw her.”

Gabriel didn’t know what to say. His mission suddenly seemed less important than going to Arrayah immediately. “She’s spoken of me?”

“Oh, yes. She said all good things. You and Lucifer have been all she’s talked about.”

Gabriel cringed. His mission became clear again. “Have you seen her lately?”

“The last time I saw her, she was telling me about Lucifer’s new way of thinking. Then she talked about you. She wanted you to join them and said her feelings were becoming strong for you. There was something she needed to tell you, she said, and then she had to go.”

“I have seen her recently. I was hoping she might have left him by now. We need to get her away from him because I know in my heart she is better than this. I don’t want something to happen to her, and she is not safe with Lucifer.”

“Is she in danger?”

“All of the angels following Lucifer are,” Gabriel said. “I believe she wants to get away from him, but she is frightened.”

“I hope we can help her, but she won’t leave Delia. I miss her already.”

“We will save everyone we can, including Delia.”

Merithah’s smile dropped away. “Delia can’t be saved.”

Gabriel was unnerved by this reply and wanted to press her for more, but the angels around the water looked anxious. It was time to move. Some of the larger battle cherubim appeared particularly unhappy, especially Jasifer. A throne angel accidentally splashed him, and he picked the angel up clear out of the water and deposited him on his other side. The throne never said a word except to apologize for the splash. Perhaps Jasifer didn’t like to get wet.