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“Medrion’s city was just decimated by the Wretched. For his reduced forces to have the strength to overwhelm the Ebon Legion’s defenses so soon after, they must have raptured a distressing number of humans. And they won’t be the last. If he is in fact on his way here, he will rapture others before making the trip across the water.”
I couldn’t help but look at my hands. Where once they were clean and soft, now they were calloused and stained purple—from my fingertips down to my knuckles. I had received those marks for rapturing two humans of my own, the day I fell and landed on Earth, ragged, exhausted, starving.
I had no Light in me, no power, nothing to sustain me. The first mortal I ran into couldn’t see me, and when I touched him, something happened to him. He turned around to look at me, and in that moment of eye contact, his inner Light flared up and burnt out in a blinding flash.
The mortal died instantly, collapsed to the floor in a puddle of himself. I on the other hand,well, I somehow absorbed his Light and it had healed my cuts and scrapes. It had repaired the clothes I was wearing and brought color back into my skin. The worst part was it had felt… great.
Amazing.
The sudden rush of power, it was euphoric. Micah’s fears were well founded. I had no doubt Medrion was hopping between cities, stalking invisibly among humanity, burning out souls to feed himself and his forces.
But one question remained.
“Why?” I asked. “Why come all the way out here? It can’t be vengeance alone… Medrion isn’t stupid.”
“I hope I’m wrong,” said Micah. “But I think he wants to get into Heaven.”
“How?” asked Helena, the word practically leaping from her.
Micah paused. “I mentioned it earlier, but the unexpected arrival of angels cut our conversation short: there is a backdoor into Heaven, and I fear Medrion knows about it.”
Silence followed. His words hung in the air, alone. If there was a back way into Heaven, it made sense that only a cherub would know about it. What truly concerned me was Helena seemed to have no knowledge of it, why would he keep it from her?
“Alright, dramatic pause achieved,” Azrael said, her eyes rolling.
“Yes,” said Helena, “You’re going to have to elaborate.”
Micah nodded. “I thought I would give you all a moment to wrap yourselves around what I had to say.”
“We are wrapped,” said the Tyrant, anxiety lacing his voice. “Get on with it.”
“Well, there’s good news and bad news. When God died, Heaven’s Sacred Machinery fell silent for the first time since their creation. With the machinery inert, Heaven cocooned itself, kicking all the angels out and barring new entrants. Worse, we don’t know what happened to the human souls that were there when it happened.”
“That sounds like the bad news,” I said, “What’s the good news?”
“The good news is, there’s a way to push through the cocoon… but we’re going to need Light, and lots of it.”
“Light?” asked Helena. “How much?”
Micah’s expression turned grave. “I’m not sure. But I know we don’t have enough at this bastion alone.”
“That also sounds like bad news,” snapped the Tyrant.
“Yeah, Micah,” Azrael put in. “Two bad news to one good news is not a good ratio.”
“Allow me to explain,” said Micah. “The power needed for angels to go to and from Heaven is immense; more than any single angel has access to, even Archangels and Cherubs. Heaven’s Machinery provided the power for us to travel between realms. It produced so much, that travel was a trivial thing. But with the machines powered down, we need to find another way to gather the amount of Light need.”
“We can’t take it from the humans,” I said, almost dreading that he was about to suggest it.
“No! No, of course not. But I have a theory… that if we can gather enough angels, our collective Light might be enough to send someone back. The problem is we’d need so much Light… and I can’t even be certain it’ll work.”
“This has to be what Medrion was talking about when he told me he knew how to get to Lucifer,” I said. “We have to make sure we get there first!”
“The little boy is wrong,” the Tyrant barked. “If all we need to get into Heaven is Light, someone would have done this by now. Surely, there were enough angels in Meridian for Medrion to accomplish this.”
“He’s not a boy, have some respect!” hissed Azrael.
“Quiet, you two!” said Helena. “Micah… please, continue.”
