I only glare at him, unwilling to play into his game.
“No,” he eventually continues for himself. “Because paradise is the ending, not the beginning. Michael and I were only ever meant to ensure duality. To balance Order and Chaos.”
He’s saying he’s Michael’s equal.
“If that’s true,” my dry throat cracks, “and I’m not saying I believe you, butifthat’s true, then what would you even hope to change? You’re both here again, aren’t you? Why not leave well enough alone?”
A piece of a serpentine smile threatens to overtake Azael’s lips, as if I’ve played right into his plans by asking that.
“Earth is only a tiny speck of the Creator’s universe. He entrusted us to maintain the planet’s duality, but guess who failed to do that by having me locked away for a couple of thousand years?” He leans forward, his face suddenly hardening into a deathly seriousness. “Think about it. What is the nature of Order, and what is the nature of Chaos?”
As much as I’d like to write off everything he’s saying as propaganda, it eats at me.
Nothing about the angels has ever had a clear right or wrong. But Order and Chaos—entropy and extropy—thatI can see.
It makes too much sense. Chaos leans toward natural progressionand free will; Order leans toward controlled perfection. And if Michael is the side that favors control, then he’d stop at nothing to eliminate the other.
“Domination,” I answer. “You’re saying he wants domination.”
The devil is already breaking through my walls, and I’m sure he senses it as much as I do. His eyes smolder as they stay locked onto mine, holding me captive as much as my shackles are.
“History is written by the victors, and I do not intend to lose again.” His voice drops into a growl that is near feral.“Iam the only force stopping Michael from bringing the entire world to its knees with an apocalypse thathe is causing.”
I feel a dead weight sink inside me.
Michael committed genocide once. What’s to stop him from doing it again? He holds every angel in Elohim in an iron grip. If he wanted to burn the world down, he could do it ten times over.
Dear God, please tell me that isn’t true.
It can’t be. It was too easy for Azael to break my resolve, and nothing is ever that simple with angels.
I stick my chin up, looking down my nose at him, as if that’s any bit convincing. “I don’t believe you.”
“Liar,” he proclaims immediately, disdain dripping off his tongue. “Tell me, how do you plan to live with yourself after you open the Abyss? How will you sleep at night as every nonreligious human being on the planet is being tortured, all because of you? Even the children?”
Bile rises to the back of my throat just at the thought, but I force myself to swallow it down. I avert my eyes and respond unevenly, uncertainly, “The children are innocent. They would be spared.”
“From God’s eternal judgment, yes, because babies aren’t evil.” Azael’s lips twitch as he holds back a snarl, abject fury blazing in his eyes. “But who commands the locusts to do his bidding? Have you not read it in Revelation?”
My gaze stays firmly fixed on the wall. “Abaddon would never harm children.”
“Fool. You know nothing about the angels you keep company with!”He snaps forward and snatches my jaw, forcing me to look at him. “Do you think Abaddon and Semyaza evacuated all the children from Sodom and Gomorrah before destroying the cities? Do you think that Michael spared a single child when he slaughtered everyone in Adonai?”
My eyes blaze with hatred, but I can’t respond with his fingers pressing into my cheeks so harshly.
He lets go, leaning back, but no less furious. “You do, don’t you? Well, let me be the first one to tell you that theydidn’t.If you don’t believe me, I’ll take you to the old nursery in my ruined city and show you all the bloodstains we keep as a reminder.”
I cover my mouth, gagging?—
“You are not allowed to puke in my vehicle,” Azael warns. With a brush of magic, the urge completely dissipates, and my physiology drops back to a nice, normal baseline. “You’re confused, but you’re not heartless like them. I suppose we can thank your human upbringing for that. Still, you’ve done well to listen, and now we have some time to spare. Ask me whatever you’d like, and if it’s in my power to answer, I will.”
I hate how much I understand the story of Eve now.
Azael is a slippery, vile snake, but he offers the Tree of Knowledge. I have questions that nobody has been willing or able to answer. If this is my reward for appeasing my captor, it would be a waste not to take advantage of it. And there’s one question that I’ve been dyingto know since the beginning…
“Why me?”
He looks smug and satisfied with himself, knowing he has me exactly where he wants me. “Only the power knows why it picked you.”
