War of Wings (20 page)

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ucifer drove his elbow up into Gabriel’s forehead like a hammer blow, and Gabriel was momentarily stunned. The sky and the field switched places. Cool grass brushed his face. Pushing himself up with one hand, he saw God’s side charging from his direction. The sky was so thick with angels that many were forced to run across the field; he could feel the vibrations through his palm. Buried traps and snares clamped shut on angels’ legs or drove spikes through their wings, but the armies rushed on. Michael also rushed to his aid, but Saraquel and Abbeus grabbed his wings from behind as he reached for Gabriel. Gabriel stretched out his hand but never made contact. In a flash, the two armies collided in the air and on the ground with a crushing force that shook the Provender. Saraquel and Abbeus took cover as angels crashed together all around them, dropping Michael in the process. It sounded like thousands of explosions going off all at once. Sword hit sword and armor rammed against armor in a steady rain of blows. The war they feared most had begun.

Mere seconds had passed. Where was Lucifer? Gabriel looked but could not find him. All around him, angels from both sides tumbled into each other with astonishing speed. As wave after wave collided, the contact seemed like it would never end. He then spotted Lucifer, who had been swarmed by the radical group they recruited near the geyser. The fight was a blur of flying arms, wings, and weapons. A dozen black-armored angels swooped up on Gabriel, and he drew his sword and blocked a flurry of blows as they passed. He knocked two of them out of the air, and the others kept on, smashing into another cadre led by Bretabian. Gabriel could hardly focus. Angels were screaming in anger and pain all around him. It was the loudest Heaven had ever been.

Sparks flew from striking metal, and small fires lit the grasses. Soon the fields filled with noxious smoke. Gabriel felt heat beneath his toes and saw his boot was on fire. As he stomped it out, he noticed Azrael darting past him, his scythe drawn. There were angels all around and innumerable battles raging, but Gabriel felt compelled to stop him. He had an idea where Azrael was going.

“Azrael!”

He kept running.

Lucifer broke free from the angels piling on him, knocking them viciously away with mighty swings of his sword like he was cutting down trees. He leaped into the air and hovered about twenty feet up, and Gabriel looked up just in time to see the cherub rushing down at him with a vicious blow. Gabriel met the blow with his own sword, but the impact still knocked Gabriel’s blade back into his own chest plate and drove him off his feet and into the ground.

Lucifer’s armored boot slammed down onto Gabriel’s stomach, forcing him deeper into the dirt, and his sword pressed against Gabriel’s blade until the inner edge began to sink into his chest plate. Gabriel was pinned. He could see Michael fighting Saraquel close by, their swords locked.

Michael saw him. “Gabriel!” He broke the deadlock and kicked Saraquel in the side. Saraquel charged again, and Michael met him with an upward slice that spun him off his feet. Saraquel’s necklace was cut and went flying, its Alexandrite stone landing near Gabriel’s free hand.

Lucifer leaned low over Gabriel, his face a snarling mask of fury that was no longer remotely angelic. Unbelievably Gabriel’s armor was beginning to dent in from the pressure, to crush him within it. Michael called his name again and ran toward him, but Abbeus tackled him from behind. Michael struck him twice in the jaw and rolled free. More blackened angels were flooding in around them.

Straining, Gabriel’s fingers touched the chain of Saraquel’s necklace in the grass. Lucifer leaned even closer, his eyes wild with rage and furious pleasure in this moment, his unfathomed strength crushing Gabriel. Gabriel grabbed the necklace and swung it hard, whipping the stone directly into Lucifer’s eye. Lucifer howled and reared back, and Gabriel kicked him in the chest with both feet. Lucifer flew off, and Gabriel staggered up. He was seeing spots.

Through a blurry haze, Azrael was visible again for a moment, charging across the field. Gabriel jumped into the air and pumped his wings hard. He was nearly flattened again by a group of thrones flying by at breakneck speed, but he weaved between them.

“Gabriel!” Lucifer shouted from below. He began to leap into the air in pursuit, but Bretabian and several other seraphim came flying out of the fray. Bretabian raised a broadsword high and charged at Lucifer. Gabriel turned to search for Azrael again.

The weapons Lucifer’s side was using were different from any design he had ever seen. They were various shapes and forms of axes, swords, and even scythes, but they all had one thing in common: a curvature of the blade. Lucifer’s army wore ornate helmets and new armor, and many had large shields. They were prepared for full combat. This war’s outcome was predetermined.

Gabriel picked Azrael out again, a dark figure flying low across the field. Looking farther out, he could see Raphael. Gabriel flew faster, dodging battling angels in the air, and soon closed in on Azrael. He dropped down and was about to block Azrael’s path when something took hold of him from behind.

Lucifer ripped Gabriel violently from the sky, digging his own heels into the ground to stop the archangel’s flight. Then he leaped forward into the air and hurled Gabriel into a line of charging angels from the opposite side. Gabriel smashed through eleven angels before he stopped sliding along the grass. The white on his clothing was covered in green stains, and he spit a rough chunk out of his mouth. He climbed shakily back to his feet, bracing his hands a moment on his knees. Lucifer closed in on him again, but Michael and another angel were flying in from the side. They lunged at Lucifer, but he spun and sent them both to the ground with a blow from his massive wings. Before they could get up, five other black-armored angels attacked with swords and axes.

Lucifer drew his ridiculously ornate sword and advanced on Gabriel. Only Lucifer would carry such an extravagant weapon, Gabriel thought. He was trying to summon up the energy to even draw his own.

Nearby, Azrael had reached Raphael, and it looked like they were having a heated conversation with Raphael as the aggressor. Gabriel forced himself to run toward them as Raphael fell to his knees with his hands together. He was probably pleading for forgiveness. Despite what he had told Raphael, Gabriel did not think he would receive it. There was only one angel in Gabriel’s way—it was Lucifer. Gabriel would have preferred any other ten angels in Heaven.

“Raphael! Get up!” Gabriel shouted across the field.

“Raphael is gone, Gabriel!” Lucifer moved directly in his path. “Azrael has him now! There will be no more forgiveness—angels must pay for what they do. They will all be held accountable, including you.” His eyes were blood red. A darkness surrounded him that Gabriel could not even explain. He realized now why Arrayah was so afraid. They did know something the rest of the angels didn’t, and he had a feeling Raphael was about to find out what it was.

Gabriel ran at Lucifer with all of his might. Using just his wings, Lucifer sent a powerful gust of wind that knocked Gabriel on his back again. Where was this power coming from?
He got up as Azrael raised his scythe over the archangel, his friend, on his knees. Gabriel charged again, and this time Lucifer tackled him to the lawn, gripping Gabriel so tightly that he couldn’t move.

“Watch, Gabriel! This is what will become of all of you!” Lucifer held him on the ground and jerked his head back by the hair, forcing him to face Azrael’s raised scythe. Gabriel struggled as he watched Raphael’s mouth moving. He couldn’t make out the words. The pain in his back and shoulder deepened as Lucifer pushed him harder into the ground.

In that northern grassland, Azrael’s long scythe came down hard on the back of Raphael’s neck in the small crease that separated it from his flexed wings. It was the same spot on the back where Lucifer’s feathers had fallen out, the marginal coverts. Gabriel stared in horror as the blade ran straight along Raphael’s spine, severing the soft tissue at the fragile base of his wings like a spiritapple being opened from its top. The blade sliced all the way down. Raphael let out a shrill cry that was deafening as it raced through the vast corridors of Heaven. His severed wings fell to the ground behind him, and he toppled over lifeless.

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very angel stopped fighting as soon as they heard the shriek. The piercing cry was so intense that those nearby dropped their weapons and covered their ears. Lucifer let go of Gabriel to shield his ears, but Gabriel couldn’t move to get away; they were so close to it that his vision blurred and his head rang. Gabriel tried to scream or at least thought he did, but he could no longer hear.

After a few seconds of staring over his bloody creation, Azrael looked over at Gabriel and smiled. It might have been at Lucifer—Gabriel wasn’t sure—but it fueled a roaring fire inside him. The life that was once in Raphael was gone. The glow had disappeared from the two pieces of his body.

This was the secret that Lucifer kept. Angels could have their wings separated and life force drained by severing the marginal coverts down through the base. Now a countless number of angels had seen exactly how it worked. Worse, nearly every angel around him who witnessed this revelation was on Lucifer’s side. This was planned all along, Gabriel realized. They knew to follow Azrael and see what would happen. They had been told this would be the turning point in Heaven.

Lucifer looked across the field at his masterpiece, Azrael. Lucifer had killed animals, but now he’d done something so much more important. He had convinced another to take life. Even better, he had convinced an angel to take the life of one of his own kind.

“Now you see what happens to those who oppose us!” he called to his armies. “You all have the power Azrael just displayed to his enemy. Now let’s take the wings of every angel against us!”

Immediately all of his followers charged back into battle with a roar that echoed throughout Heaven. They began aiming for the top of their opponents’ wings with bloodthirsty cries. Kaldeczar, the throne, held Uriel’s arms as Saraquel sliced through his wings. Lucifer felt almost dizzy with anticipation of what would happen next. Heaven and the cosmos was theirs to take. Was God really gone for good? He grabbed a passing angel and ripped his wings off with his bare hands, tearing through the base like he was shredding paper.

“No!” screamed a voice behind him. As Lucifer turned, a heavy shoulder crashed into his stomach and drove him to the ground. It was Gabriel. He had forgotten briefly about the archangel. No matter. His feeble tackle would not accomplish anything. Lucifer twisted his arm around the stubborn archangel’s neck and pulled him up to his knees. It was time to dispose of him once and for all.

“You’ve lost, Gabriel!”

“This isn’t over, and I will not let you take her down with you!”

“Well, you won’t be around to see what happens.” Lucifer grabbed one of Gabriel’s thick wings and worked his fingers in for a strong grip. As he prepared to rip, Lucifer was smashed into from the side. Gabriel flew from his grip, and Lucifer slid on the ground for almost a hundred feet with a large body on top of him. His right wing dug a track in the ground, pulling up grass and dirt the entire way. It was Jasifer. One of his own kind and commonly considered the strongest of the cherubim. Well, he knew the reality. There wasn’t an angel in Heaven that could match his own strength.

Jasifer’s cherubim stormed through the crowd, but their number was still insignificant. Seven of them swarmed Lucifer as he lay on his back after Jasifer’s vigorous tackle. They were like the vultures that flocked to dead corpses Lucifer left on earth. They thought they had Lucifer pinned.

He reached deep within for the fury he needed. As they struck him, forced down his limbs and wings, and pinned him to the ground, he felt something raging up in him. For a moment, he thought of God’s Son. He blacked out for a brief second. When his vision cleared, the cherubim were flying in different directions like an explosion had gone off. His arms and wings were fully extended, nothing was holding him. God had nothing compared to this power. He felt drugged on it, sick, unbalanced, but overflowing with strength. He was unlocking secrets God didn’t even know. The power of his antivirtues was so much more destructive than God’s virtues could ever be.

Jasifer had been knocked loose with the rest of them. Lucifer rose to his feet and saw Gabriel running at him again. Persistent fool. Lucifer easily sidestepped, grabbed Gabriel by the throat, and lifted him into the air. Jasifer charged again from the other side, but Lucifer caught him by the neck with his left hand. He held both of them up, squeezing until he thought he might close his fists and twist their heads free from their bodies. Lucifer felt weightless. He stretched his scaly wings to their full extension. It felt as if they were growing that very second. They extended so hard that the pressure hurt to the point of pleasure.

“Why is your God hiding?” he shouted. “Why hasn’t He helped you yet? Call to Him now and see what happens!”

A black sea of his angels flooded the field behind him howling battle cries and cheers for Lucifer. The grass was littered by bloody wings and lifeless bodies. It was his dream coming to reality, and he truly knew God was gone. Now it was time to destroy the rest of those who opposed him. He listened to every shout of praise and knew he deserved them and so much more for what he had accomplished.

Gabriel and Jasifer grasped at their throats and flapped their wings desperately, trying to free themselves from Lucifer’s grip. Lucifer squeezed the pitiful angels’ throats more tightly. He felt like killing them both without delay, but he also wanted to relish the spotlight. Every angel in his vicinity was watching him single-handedly overpower two of the opposition’s most powerful warriors. He wanted them all to see his strength. He wanted every single one of them to remember this moment always. God was overthrown, and Heaven was now his for the taking.

“I dare you to come back now, God! I dare you to show me the Son you think is worthy of overtaking me in rank!”

Saraquel stepped forward and looked straight into his eyes. The proud smile on the face of his most loyal follower said it all. Lucifer felt the energy of the two struggling angels in his grips start to dwindle. Saraquel’s grin disappeared at something behind Lucifer, so he quickly turned to see what it was.

Thyaterra approached from no more than three hundred feet away surrounded by a large huddle of warrior angels. She was the type to attempt to fight, but she was always protected against her will.

A sharp pain suddenly went down Lucifer’s spine, and he dropped the two in his hands and fell to his knees. He grabbed for the base of his wings and realized Jasifer had struck at his marginal coverts. How could he have been so distracted? How did one of the angels in his hands even obtain a weapon?
He was furious, but as he looked around holding his neck to ease the pain, he realized Jasifer and Gabriel were gone.

Quickly he turned toward Thyaterra’s circle of fighters. That dark fury rose up in him again although this time he did not black out. As they came at him, he knocked them down with crushing strikes and backhands to each body as if they were powerless stalks of wheat. When he had pummeled each to the ground, he walked among their groaning forms and ripped their wings from their bodies one by one, absorbing Thyaterra’s screams. She ran at him, and he pushed her onto her back. His forearms were crimson with blood. He turned to look at her as he severed the last angel’s wings. The ripping tendons of the angel seemed to be mirrored by Thyaterra’s heartstrings, and he savored the feeling as both broke. Shiny tears poured from her like water from the Falls of the Canyon Reef. Finally, the last angel grew stiff and still, only an empty shell, and he turned once again to his lost love. She had left him when he needed her most. She deserved this.

“I told you it would end this way!”

She struggled to muster words through her sobbing. “You are disgusting, Lucifer! I don’t know who you are, but you are not of Heaven!”

He wanted to rip her heart from her chest in revenge for what she had done to him. “You’re right, I am not of God’s old Heaven. I am a revolutionary.”

“No, you are a deceiver. Do you know what you have become? Look at yourself! What happened to you?”

“Don’t stand there and pretend you have no idea what happened to me!”

“I don’t! Nothing can justify what you have done!” she shouted. “And now you will have to live with your decisions. How could you do this? Look at the blood you’ve spilled. Look at what you have made of Heaven and its wonderful angels!”

“You of all angels know exactly why this had to happen.”

“Why, Lucifer? Because of your arrogance?”

“I gave my life to servitude for His love and got nothing except His betrayal! Love is a weakness bound to destroy the souls of the ignorant. Why would you love a disappointing God like Him?”

“Because He loves us too,” she cried. “Love is the only thing that matters, Lucifer. You pervert its role in the heavens. You have done all this with pride and arrogance, not love!”

“Look around you! I am the one who was right!” He turned around in all directions, holding his arms out toward the bloody scene. “Don’t tell me how to think. You have no answers!”

Injured, beaten, and lifeless angels lay everywhere, but so many continued to fight that beyond the body-strewn patch the giant grassland was barely visible. The vast majority of angels still standing or flying sported the black of his army. Thyaterra was watching something down the field now, and he followed her gaze to see Michael still upright and fighting, holding off six angels who were trying to take his wings. One jumped on him from behind and started delivering punches to his head. Michael was forced to the ground. Lucifer smiled, waiting for Michael’s wings to be severed. Not far from him lay Gabriel, pinned with his face in the grass, covered by a dozen angels. It was ironic that Thyaterra’s eyes found those two when Lucifer had lost them. Why was everyone drawn to these two archangels?

“You see?” said Lucifer to Thyaterra, and he turned back to face her. “Where is the pathetic God you love so much now? Where is His all-important Son?”

She closed her eyes and lowered her head. Lucifer felt something shifting inside and realized that even now he waited for her to join him. In his core, he still yearned for her approval. Was it possible he still yearned for her love? He could not let himself feel this. It was weakness. It must be destroyed inside himself. For about a minute, she looked down and softly prayed, and he waited, allowing her this time. She had lost everything. He could grant her this. When she opened her eyes, she looked not at him but over his shoulder.

“Yes. I do see,” she finally said.

In the distance, coming from the east, the darkness uncovered a large group of angels who were new to the battle. It was an entirely fresh, pristine, powerful army. The large, tightly uniform group was led by a striking leader decorated in shards of glowing gold. Lucifer realized it was the one group he had been searching for, the class of angels he could never reach. It was Rametheus and the powers.

He shifted back to Thyaterra and saw her soft lips form a smile. “Why are you smiling?” he demanded.

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank you, Father.”

The army of powers was clearly armed and organized. They flew in tightly ordered ranks, and as they neared, they swooped down to land in lines, seamlessly continuing their advance. They were fully armored with helmets and shields, and every single one carried an enormous golden axe. When all had landed on the field, Rametheus dropped down ten yards in front of his army and raised his golden axe high in the air. At this gesture, the angels pounded the ends of their axes to the ground twice in unison and let out a battle cry. It shook the heavens. They came down in two hundred vast rows of golden warriors stacked thousands of angels deep.

As the powers neared, three hundred thousand lower-class angels stormed down from the skies behind them to swell their ranks. They had been outfitted with swords from the powers’ armory. As these armies neared, most of Lucifer’s angels in black rallied to meet them. Lucifer vacillated between Thyaterra and the new army. He didn’t want to leave her, but he knew he must lead this charge.

He wondered agitatedly why she looked so confident. He finally grunted and took off, flying straight at Rametheus. The bulk of Lucifer’s massive remaining army charged as well, falling into rows behind him. These new angels needed to be dealt with, but their numbers were still not nearly enough to challenge Lucifer. He would make their leader bleed himself. He would stack his wings right on top of Gabriel’s and Michael’s.