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The door opened with a soft creak of its hinges, and the draft of air over her body brought Kheone out of her stupor. Her body was still boneless, and her mind untethered from reality. Without windows, she had lost touch with time.
Ten minutes or ten hours, it didn’t matter. She took a breath, knowing full well this could be her last and wishing it tasted of something other than musty basement.
“Hey, Blue. Found yourself a bit of trouble, I see,” a familiar voice whispered.
Not Michael. Shax.
That ludicrous nickname was now her favorite word in the entire universe. The way he said it filled an aching emptiness she had never recognized before. She opened her eyes and tried to smile, but it likely came out as a grimace. He knelt down next to her, brushing her cheek with his finger. Kheone flinched, but instead of pain, his touch was a warm balm, pushing aside a little of the anguish riddling her body.
“I know you don’t have a reason to trust me, but you have to. Michael is going to kill you. We need to go.”
Kheone opened her mouth and tried to form words, but an awful groan was all she managed. White-hot fire shot through her limbs.
“What the fuck did that dickwad do to you? Can you move?”
His eyes, brimming with tears, found hers. She tried to reach for his hand, to reassure him she would be okay if only they escaped. Her fingers twitched, but nothing else happened. Kheone felt warm tears of her own trail down her cheeks. Shax brushed them away.
“No time for explanations, anyway. I don’t suppose you can make a rift?”
She tried to shake her head, moving it a bit.
“No, I thought not. Michael is next door, but I don’t know when he’ll return. I will be as gentle as possible, but fast is best. Try not to make any noise.”
She blinked again, hoping he understood it as a sign of her consent. Shax tucked the blanket around her and picked her up in a smooth motion, cradling her close to his body. The warmth he radiated was far more comforting than the cool floor. Kheone gave a little sigh.
He carried her like a small child, though they were similar in build, out the door and down the hall. With his foot on the first step, he froze. Booted feet thumped on the floor above.
Michael.
Her heart sped up, feeling as though it would burst out of her chest. The tears came again. After millennia of loyal service, Michael had betrayed her. He had betrayed all of them.
Shax turned and began trying each of the doors down the hall. They were all locked, except the room they had left. He slid in and closed the door. Michael’s boots tromped down the stairs.
“Shh,” Shax said, placing her gently back on the floor where she’d been. “I have a plan. Trust me.”
He turned into a cat and hid in the dark recesses of the room.
What plan? Hide until Michael killed her, then escape when his attention was elsewhere? That would have been a good plan for him, not for her. But if he wanted to escape, why had he shown up in the first place? He had asked for trust. She had no other choice but to give it to him.
Her eyes met his, wide in fear. In his cat form, Shax could say nothing. He blinked slowly and twitched his tail. She blinked back at him, comforted by his presence. Even if this ended badly, she would not die alone.
The door opened, and Michael’s enormous figure filled the frame. Kheone squirmed under the blanket and tried to speak, even though her body throbbed and lightning shot through her organs. Anything to draw the archangel’s attention to her and away from the cat hiding in the shadows. Michael leaned against the door with a loud sigh and crossed his arms.
“This is not how I had hoped things would turn out,” he said. “I have made many mistakes in my existence, but none as monumental as killing Serel. If I had chosen another way to deal with his curiosity, neither of us would be sitting here now. I am truly sorry, my perfect angel.”
Kheone kept her focus on Michael and tried to get her voice to work. She opened and closed her mouth a few times before sound came out.
“W...w...why?” she asked.
Michael laughed, a cruel, dry sound. “I suppose I owe you an explanation. It is more than Serel received. Lucifer was right, Kheone.”
Blasphemy. Lucifer was jealous, and cruel, and so very, very wrong. For Michael to think he had a leg to stand on meant the archangel was corrupt, too.
“These humans are vermin. They do not deserve God’s love. Yet, He forced us to serve them. I spent ten thousand years trying to get them to follow God, to be kind and merciful. I led armies of angels against the demon hordes to protect the ungrateful wretches. I guided kings and queens, generals and warlords, all to protect the righteous. I recruited Guardian Angels to help, to whisper in the ears of these creatures in hopes they would fill the gardens of Heaven.”
Kheone knew this. She had been by his side through all of it, the first to volunteer. She did not see the humans as vermin. They were gloriously flawed, equally capable of so much good and miserable amounts of evil. A nudge in the right direction usually did the trick. Although she would not tell him so, Michael apparently needed the same guidance.
“All these years and all I had to show for my efforts was grief and exhaustion. I missed my brother. I spent centuries looking for a way to rescue him. Centuries. I found the spell to destroy the Gate. If I could get Lucifer out, no one could return him to Hell. We had a plan. I would free Lucifer minutes before the bomb exploded and call a retreat. It was supposed to look like the bomb killed me. No one would know we were free. After an eternity of servitude, we would kill whatever demons still lurked about and assert our dominion over the human race.”
Lucifer roaming the Earth without anybody strong enough to toss him back into Hell, and Michael egging him on was a nightmare that did not bear contemplation.
“Something went wrong. I struck the chains holding Lucifer, but the bomb exploded before he could escape and before the angels were safe behind Heaven’s Gate. Both Gates blew. So, I gathered the angels I could, killed what demons we found, and hoped we would adjust to our new lives. You certainly seemed to, fornicating with random humans.”
“I...I was looking for c...connection,” Kheone said, her voice quiet. Finally, a complete sentence. How else was she going to tell Michael to go to Hell?
“Had I known, I would have come to you earlier. And then Serel started digging into what happened. He would not let it go, so I laid a trap in the library with a small version of the bomb. I played on your obvious attraction to distract you from the investigation. You were the best lieutenant I had ever trained. For that alone, I am sorry I have to kill you.”
“I loved y...you,” she said, her voice a little stronger this time, the tears drying.
“I hoped to have you join us once you were mine. But I cannot risk it now. The Gates must remain locked. God would throw me into the pit to join my brother, and Lucifer does not take kindly to those who have betrayed him. And he would see my mistake as a betrayal. When I found Aeshma a few months ago, I proposed an alliance. I would stop any angel from trying to rebuild the Gates, and she would keep her demons away. Otherwise, we would be free to do as we wished. We sealed our bargain with a kiss which led to...other things. Ten thousand years of celibacy was foolish. I am a fool no longer.”
“She will betray you, too,” Kheone murmured.
“Of course she will. It is her nature, and I will kill her when she does.”
Michael drew out a dagger about the length of Kheone’s forearm. Its blade was the black of the deepest cave and glinted cruelly in the dim light of the storeroom. Its bone handle yellowed with age. A chill ran down her spine as he stepped toward her. The dagger sang of death.
“You have your explanation, Kheone. I am sorry this is how it must be.”