Chapter 9

If I could have crawled backwards away from Michael any faster I would have.

"Meg, I need you to listen to me," he called quickly catching up and grabbing my hand (which I pulled away almost as quickly). "I know this looks really bad."

"You just teleported us," I whispered hoarsely. "Humans can't teleport."

"No," Michael confirmed plopping on the cool cement next to me. "Humans can't but I can."

No. No. No. No. No. "But you can because you… you aren't human. You're an angel." Why did he have to nod instead of denying it. "You're an archangel. You're Michael. The Michael. Prince of Heaven."

"Yes," there was something in his voice that, if I didn't know better, I could have called guilt. "I was planning on telling you Meg, but I needed you to trust me more."

"Well now I know. And I'm leaving and if you try to follow me then… then… I have an angel blade swiss army knife!"

"You mean this?" the angel asked twisting the knife in his hands. "I've always said they need to give girls deeper pockets. And now that you're weaponless and stuck you have to listen to me."

"I don't have to do anything!" I growled standing and taking off for the nearest phone (because mine had gotten broken in my fall.) Michael, however, seemed to no longer have qualms about teleporting and I quickly found my lips barely inches from his.

"You can't just call your family and have them pick you up, Meg." Michael told me with a slight chuckle. "It wouldn't be very effective. I didn't teleport us, I sent us back in time to the last point where I knew it was safe."

"What do you mean?" I asked a chill creeping down my spine. Suddenly, I remembered that I'd just been attacked and that Michael saved my life by revealing himself. Maybe he really wasn't the worst of my problems. "Who… who was that?"

"Nobody good," Michael asked, but apparently my face showed how few omissions of facts I was willing to accept right now. (The number being, of course, zero). "Lucifer, my brother."

"No but he…" I was going to say he was in Hell, but Michael had gotten free from the Cage, which means Lucifer probably did too. "Michael, when are we?"

"Can't you guess," he asked with a chuckle. "The day the angels fell and my brother and I rose."

Shaking my head, I went back down to the ground. "But if you've both been free for 20 years then why haven't we known. I mean you, I guess you could hide, but Lucifer… why would he?"

"Lucifer hasn't been on earth for 20 years," Michael stated plainly. "The moment Metatron's spell freed me from the Cage I high tailed it up here, but the Cage is only one thing that kept Lucifer locked away. It was the strongest barrier between him and the world, but not the only one. It probably took him years before even demons knew he could be free and then he had to find a vessel so filled with hate…that one really wasn't that difficult I guess but, in short, Lucifer's return was a marathon, not a sprint."

"And. You. Didn't. Think. To. Tell. Anyone. That. He'd. Be. Coming. Back?" I asked with gritted teeth. How could Michael be so stupid!

"If I'd done that they'd know I was back," the ancient angel bit back with a sigh. "Then I'd be expected to be Heavens new leader and we proved before that I'm no good at that."

Call it maternal instinct; call it goodness, but the sheer weight of Michael's words made it impossible for me to hold my anger against him. He might be the eldest of all angels, but he sounded so young, so confused, and so human. "My dad once thought he was God," I told him in an attempt to cheer him up. "Maybe being a bad leader doesn't make you a bad person… or angel I guess."

Michael too seemed confused that I would comfort him, but shaking the worries and dust from his boots he looked around face grim. "There's something we need to do before we can return to our time, but Eve… you won't like it."

No. I probably wouldn't, but something told me Michael wouldn't be asking if we had any other options. "What is it?"

"It would be easier for me to show you than tell you," the angel responded with swift movements down the road. "The angels should begin falling any second now and…" just as he finished the first beam of light cascaded through the sky. For the first time I understood what my family said about this night. It was awful in all senses of the word. Beauty mixed with horror as I watched the tearing of wings, but it was what I heard that killed me. Screaming, unadulterated screaming. It was the sound of pure terror resonating at an inhuman pitch. Michael must have seen my cringing face because he spoke again, "Can you hear that Megan, the screaming?" My soul hurt so badly I could only nod in response. "Your family couldn't. Even Cas because he'd become human, but you're one of the special ones. You've been gifted with the burden of hearing the true voice of angels. I'm not surprised though considering…"

"Considering what?" If Michael thought he could keep things from me at this point then…

I didn't get to finish my raging thought before a chucking angel interrupted, "You were destined to be a prophet. Did you know that? We archangels used to rotate on who'd protect the active prophet and you were supposed to be mine. Of course Metatron made it so there would be no new prophets, but that's beside the point. You still have the natural empathy, spirituality, and gifts that prophets get even before they start hearing the word of my Father. You can hear angels when they're speaking within your ear range, and my brothers and sisters are now speaking for the whole world to hear, yet so few could. So many dead. So many dead."

Cas always refused to talk about Metatron, and the look in Michael's eyes told me why. Lucifer was the fallen son, but Metatron is the one who got thousands of angels killed and all of them tortured. He's the brother who turned on his siblings out of jealousy and anger. Metatron was the worst of angels, and they all knew it. Even thinking about that wayward son brought tears to their eyes because he was the mistake that could have been prevented had they only known.

"Enough of that," Michael decided when I noticed him brush a light tear from his pale eyes. "We're here. Megan, I know you have no reason to trust me, but you must. In about a minute an angel is going to come to you and ask if you'd be his vessel… and I need you to say yes."