The Fallen
Chapter 20
"Then what is the point to any of it?" I voice my disbelief while wanting to laugh bitterly at the utter futility of it. "My banishment, Isabella being slain thousands of times before she could even live, IT WAS ALL FOR NOTHING!" I roar out the injustice of it to Michael; who only gazes intently at me, but doesn't respond.
His sudden silence incenses me, and tensing I release my wings preparing to take flight. "Either kill me or leave, you wretched beast!" I burst, the burning anger and acute sense of helplessness manifesting as contempt for my self-important brother. "Either way, I never want to be in your company again!"
And still the beast refuses to utter a word; he only continues to stare at me with an emotion I cannot decipher. But I have lost all patience for him, and just as I am about to launch myself into the hazy early morning Israeli skyline, I immediately detect the vibration of another.
Daniel.
Michael is immediately on guard, his expression hardening with repulsion. "How is the beast able to breach the boundaries of the city?" he snaps.
Before I can answer, Daniel makes somewhat of a crash landing into the sandstone cliff face of the chasm. He hastily pulls himself to his feet; short of breath and slightly manic. "Dashiel, I—" he begins when his gaze meets that of Michael's.
He momentarily freezes and takes a several steps back; his panic making him so clumsy he almost loses his footing.
"M-Michael," he stammers to address the enraged archangel before him.
Michael only sneers at him and raises his sword to strike him down. This is when I grab the sword Michael himself bestowed on me; the same sword I had woken holding in my grip.
In the next breath, I swing it between them, halting Michael's intended execution.
"You will not harm him!" I challenge him vehemently, placing myself directly in front of him.
Michael's gaze steels to mine, his expression hard and unforgiving, but before he can turn his sword on me, I drive the blade closer to the hilt of his, slicing through his wrist. It severs his physical hand from his arm where it almost immediately reforms, but not before his sword drops to the ground between us. His pride is damaged more than anything, that I—a lowly half-breed in his eyes—caught him off guard.
Immediately enraged, he advances upon me, gripping me beneath my jawline, his fingers cutting into my thyroid cartilage, as he draws me to him.
"Tread very carefully, Dashiel," he speaks lowly.
"Get your damn hands off me!" I demand, as I struggle to free myself, when he releases me; his gaze once more setting on Daniel.
"You have exactly five seconds to leave," he warns him, before he extends his wings and in a flash of light he is gone.
Daniel only stares at me for a pause too long, then appearing to pull himself from it, he thrusts out his hand to me. "Brother." There is a measure of relief in his tone; though, his thoughts are flooded with the motivating factor that set him after me and into the sacred land of Israel.
He's uncovered something.
I take it only momentarily before releasing him. "Follow me."
Michael remains close by, and his intolerance of Daniel being in the holy land is genuine. I was able to hold him off once, at my own peril, but I know him enough to know he won't be as generous a second time.
I launch myself northward, knowing I have to increase the speed I travel until I'm high enough into the atmosphere to prevent from being seen, and head south.
Flying at a pace Daniel can keep up with, I again make landfall on Mount Sinai, Egypt; eighty miles out from the southern-most boarder of Israel. Geopolitically, the mountain is biblically historic; the place where Moses received the Ten Commandments, and I led Daniel here solely out of a sense of anarchism. Michael wanted him removed from Israel; I took him to the nearest holy site outside of. It's childish, I know, but the harrowing ordeal of the last twelve hours with Raphael has made me recklessly apathetic toward my brothers, and after only ten minutes in Michael's presence I'm simmering with dissent.
Daniel lands heavily amidst the volcanic dust and rocks on a brow-section of the mountain beside me.
"How is Isabella?" I ask before he can draw a breath.
"She's doing well, considering," he answers even as I penetrate his mind for validation. His thoughts are brimming with her, of my human girl, her beauty, and her deep, haunted brown eyes. All from a bearing of brotherly concern.
The beast is unreservedly uneasy in regards to her fate. He couldn't save his beloved Sarah, but he believes if he can help save Bella it will unburden him of the guilt that's tormented him for centuries.
It will offer him an absolution.
"She's worried about you more than anything," he adds.
I expel my breath, feeling my forehead knot heavily in response. The degree of anxiety he's subconsciously projecting over Bella is increasing my own. It isn't conducive.
"Tell me what you know," I state, forcing my thoughts from her.
"I've found a Rabbi, a prophet who has in his possession a missing book from the Tanakh. The book of The Sons of God. There is a prophecy..." His voice is rushed, urgent, but his mind is chaotic and overrun with so much information it isn't coherent.
"Where?"
"Zimbabwe," he answers as the exact location is transmitted through his thoughts, along with an image of an old, silver-haired African Jewish man.
"Meet me there," I direct him, launching into the air without a moment's hesitation.
The man, this Rabbi, lives in rural Zimbabwe on Lake Chivero, and as I scan through the minds of the town's people, it is evident he is a well-respected man of his tribe. Not only a village elder and holy man, but a Shaman of sorts.
I land brazenly out in the open, amidst a collection of thatched-roof, circular stone huts, without retracting my wings.
The villagers freeze in various degrees of shock and awe, while many fall to their hands and knees in open reverence. They are superstitious, deeply religious people, and unlike the cynical breeds of westerners, their minds are not in conflict over procuring a more acceptable conclusion for what I am; something to justify a lifetime of godless behavior.
They're in full acceptance; a Host of the Lord before them.
If only they knew.
"Rise and take me to your priest," I speak in the native Bantu language to a young male who falls at my feet.
Immediately obeying, he stands, even as his legs openly quake, and leads me through the village to a hut that sits separated on the edge of the small town's clearing.
Inside sits a man who appears in his 70s, wearing western clothing, with a blue and white tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl, draped around his shoulders, and a navy yarmulke placed on his head.
The man, and the entire village, are members of the Lemba Hebrew people. Direct descendants of the Israelites, who 2500 years ago after escaping captivity in Babylon, travelled from Israel into Africa before marrying their women. And Like many venerable Jewish peoples throughout the world, the Lemba tribes are in possession of ancient manuscripts.
Unlike the villagers, the Rabbi displays no shock upon my arrival. He was expecting me, having already met Daniel, I extract from his mind. He's well prepared.
Clasping his palms together, he bows his head. "Shalom Aleichem, ach," he greets me, referring to me as his brother in Hebrew, and while his native language is Shona, he also speaks English.
I nod respectfully and sit down on the woven mat on the concreate floor, where he gestures. Then, without moving from his own position before me, he reaches for a large clay jar and carefully pulls a rolled parchment from it.
In both hands he offers it to me, emphasizing the sacred importance of it, before again bowing his head.
Like the Dead Sea Scrolls it is made up of vellum and papyrus, and is incredibly well preserved considering it is scores of centuries old.
Unrolling it delicately, I begin reading. It is written in an ancient Paleo-Hebrew, and speaks of a prophecy behind the story of the fallen angels; of the injustice of the swift condemnation of the guardians of man, by God Himself.
"Come to me my wayward sons," I read hastily out loud to myself. "For by His blood forgiveness and salvation I have extended to you."
The story continues of a rebellious son, who wields the power of God to restore His Heavenly Host. "For demons will turn to dust and angels will fall, and man will yield to madness," I continue, as my mind races to decipher the meaning. "But only all three can hold the power in his hand. Three days in the tomb, from Hell to Heaven, the son rose, but on his last breath, in three days, from Heaven to Hell shall thee be sent."
My heart stills as a sense of inevitability filters through me. I am in full understanding of what the text speaks, and it can only be referring to me. After all, I am neither angel, nor demon, nor man, but all three. If the prophecy is true, through the covenant of the Son's sacrifice, I will have the ability to wield the power of God, the power to restore; to restore the fallen to their positions among the Angelic Host; and to restore Bella's soul to her.
For three days, I will wield this power, and then I will go to Hell.
What I have not grasped, however, is by what vessel such power will be granted to me.
"Do you see?" The rabbi speaks up, breaking me from my moment of distraction.
"Yes, I see," I answer, my voice quiet, as my thoughts once more wrestle with a stranglehold of confusion and uncertainty.
The covenant of the son. The Messiah was nailed to the cross for the transgressions of man, then died and rose to Heaven. His blood...
There are very few physical remnants preserved today that pertain to the blood of the Messiah. One is the shroud of Turin, the second the Sudarium of Oviedo, the third, fragments of the cross from the crucifixion, and the fourth, the Spear of Destiny.
Shaking my head in rising frustration, I continue reading. The story concludes with the rebellious angel, who after restoring the balance between Heaven and Earth, is cast down to the pit, while interwoven throughout are verses from the Old Testament prophets, Malachi, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Micah. The book itself ends with Isaiah 53: He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
"By his wounds we are healed," I murmur to myself, as I theoretically mesh the clues together.
The Messiah received several wounds. The first from his scourging, the second from the crown of thorns, the third, the nails driven through his wrists and feet, and the fourth, the spear that pierced his heart.
He was pierced…
In an instant I am on my feet, the swiftness of my movements startling the rabbi.
"Thank you, brother," I hastily blurt out in Hebrew, handing the scroll of parchment back to him, before I burst through the open doorway to his hut and project myself into the sky.
I mean to head off Daniel's arrival knowing at best he'd still be somewhere over the Sudans, but it's Michael I again inevitably encounter.
He interjects from above, advancing on me swiftly. Grabbing my wings, he forces me to make landfall with him on a mountain range in the northern region of Uganda that borders Kenya.
My initial impression is that he intends to punish me for exposing myself to the Lemba tribe, perhaps even to kill me, but his expression quickly dissuades my concerns. He appears...anxious, and Michael never portrays an emotion that eludes to weakness.
Never.
"I have to warn you, brother. If you wield the spear for any reason, no matter your intentions, it will destroy you. It is not a part of your clause for salvation! It has its own covenant, and it is binding."
I open my mouth to speak, but falter; Michael's heedfulness is disconcerting.
He continues, "It is to ensure the beasts don't use it to their own advantage, nor any angel who seeks to subvert our father and His laws again."
"Will it return Bella's soul?" I put to him; nothing else matters to me, after all.
"Our father's power is limitless, as you know, Dashiel," is all he volunteers as his gaze lowers.
"Then I have no other choice. I will willingly suffer an eternity of Hell if it saves Isabella from it," I assert resolutely; I will, and he knows it.
"You are going to your own destruction," he concludes, shaking his head minutely to himself, as his eyes once more seize my own.
He's not telling me anything I am not already aware of. I have long known of the existence of the Spear of Destiny. Every angel and beast under Heaven and Earth knows of it; though, none would ever be so foolhardy to even contemplate wielding it. As the weapon that ended the Messiah's life it holds infinite, immeasurable power.
I naturally assumed that if I so much as touched the spear I'd immediately become fallen; as would any other angel; Michael included. The power of God, after all, is so immense it would destroy anything that attempted to control it. There is no being under Him who could contain it.
What I wasn't aware of, however, was any prophecy pertaining to me, nor could I even conceive of the notion that I, out of every Son of Man ever created, would be able to fully utilize its power. For three days, no less.
I have yet to even ascertain whether there is any truth to the prophecy; though, Michael's admission is proof enough.
"It's my choice," I remind him, squaring my shoulders; daring him to stand in my way.
He half nods in acknowledgement even as his entire expression darkens. "You do realize that while you hold the spear there is no power in this universe you will not be in possession of. If you wanted, you could kill me and every member of the Angelic Host in existence. Use that power wisely, Dashiel."
"I intend to," I reply in a quiet voice.
"Though," Michael adds, a small smirk creeping across his face, "if I suspected those were your motives you wouldn't live long enough to find it."
"Are you aware just how narcissistic you are, brother?" I reply, my voice lightening.
He laughs and reaches out to grip my shoulder in a rare display of candor. "The moment you touch it you will be beyond my reach, so I bid you farewell, Dashiel."
A/N: Thanks for reading and if you'd like, let me know your thoughts.
Til next week.
xoxo
PS: FFn is chucking a hissy and for whatever reason won't let me edit this chapter to add my AN at the beginning. Oy vey... I just wanted to thank everyone for their support and let you know I appreciate every review and fave, even when it's not altogether positive.