Safe? The world is ending. I’ll never be safe again.
“We’re going to fly now, okay?”
If I wanted to disagree, Abaddon leaves me no time. Wings beat, gravity shoves against me, and I lose consciousness.
26
At first, I don’t recognize where I wake up.
Then I see the decadent four-poster bed, the black decor, the distinctive wings…
I blink a few times before jolting forward, catching the attention of the angel. He looks over his bare back, seemingly in the middle of stretching out his wings like an overgrown bat, and gives me the faintest trace of a smile.
“Good morning,” Abaddon crows, his voice still heavy with sleep. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took you here so that I could have the servants closer at hand if you needed help.”
My eyes stray to the unmade bed on my left side, and my lips curve downward. It looks like he…slepthere, beside me. Apprehension rises in me?—
“You were in very bad shape yesterday, Kae. Do you remember what happened?”
A nauseating wave of memory suddenly crashes into me. Literally, I feel like I might vomit, but I swallow the urge. Every muscle is sore, lingering with acidic pain of supernatural causes. I can’t even comprehend what happened to me.
“Michael,” I whisper.Hecracked the unknowable bridge between my soul and… the semi-sentient foreign body that co-inhabits my body with me, whatever it may be.
“He will get his due,” Abaddon finishes for me, his voice nearly a growl.
“I almost died. I should have died.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Michael, he caught the star, somehow. I was in so much misery, but I couldn’t miss my chance.” My eyes burn with emotion. “I… I tried to kill it.”
“Were you not ready to?”
“No,” I admit, shaking my head. “Even before I tried, it felt extremely wrong.Like I was supposed to protect the parasite, not harm it.”
I can hear the frown in Abaddon’s speculative hum of a response. “It’s possible the entity was manipulating your emotions to preserve itself. However, I can’t fathom why that would be, let alone how.”
Chills run up my arms. If the entity is somehow adapting to make itself indistinguishable from my own thoughts and feelings, could other things about it evolve? Does it want more control of me than it currently has? “Maybe I really am being possessed by a demon.”
“There is no such thing as demons.”
My head swings back in Abaddon’s direction. “What?”
“The concept implies dualism, where an evil creator exists in parallel to a good creator, with angels and demons as their equally black-and-white higher beings. That is objectively false; there is only the one true Creator. He is every color that exists, and every color that does not. His creations, made in His image, all have the capacity for good and evil. Every man, angel, and living being?—”
“Thank you, Abaddon, I don’t think I’m in any shape to be discussing theology right now. I’m fighting the urge to puke all over your bed as it is. My ‘what’ was just to make sure I heard you correctly. If you say demons aren’t real, then I believe you.” But even as I try to dismiss it, a thought occurs to me that has goosebumps rising on my arms. I have to know. “Though… what does that make the Adversary?”
His wings snap closer to his body, and he turns fully towards me, shortening the gap between us on the bed. “You say you do not wish to discuss theology, but you ask me to explain the story ofThe Falland how it fundamentally altered the relationship between humans, angels, and the Creator.”
“Right. Forget I asked.”
He does no such thing. “My kind used to be called the Watchers, for our duty was only to watch over mankind, not to intervene. But therewas once a group of angels who coveted the freedom of man. They strayed from the path of righteousness, descending from Heaven to experience the toils of Earth. They brought with them the now-forbidden knowledge, using it to elevate themselves amongst early human societies… And even though those angels still suffer the most severe punishment for their sins, their influence remains. As long as the scourge they left on Earth persists, then so does the Adversary. Only once the prophecy of Revelations is completed will mankind be cleansed of their sins.”
I stare at him in silence for a moment.
That’s me. I’m part of that prophecy. Thousands of years later, here I am, paying for the sins of a bunch of self-righteous, greedy angels… I’m paying for the influence of demons, essentially, but the Adversary is as intangible as it comes.
How are we supposed to defeat that? How are we so sure we’ll win? I’ve drowned in blood and suffocated on ash in my prophetic dreams. There will never in human history be a more miserable time to be alive. Not until our sun burns out, if we’re still around that long.
