The theme is angels as a variant in the World of Darkness. This and similar stories of mine present angels more as mythological beings, and their relationship to Man, God, demons, and each other in a much more dark and cynical perspective than is typical for the subject. Thus the treatment is more in keeping with modern gothic themes, and has something in common with books like Good Omens, films like the Prophecy, and games like In Nomine. Therefore it might not be suitable or enjoyable for those with strong convictions and beliefs about angels. - This story is part of an ongoing chronicle at my web site (see profile) using a shared character. If you would like to contribute to this chronicle, please stop by. Otherwise, any helpful hints and critques are most appreciated. - Cheers, Sol.

Prelude

"Sarah, do not do this."

Sarah observed the distant tower of Ehanam burning in the twilight. Yes, twilight, for darkness was descending on Heaven for the first time in her memory. Ehanam's once pristine white stones, chiseled from the dreams of elohim and polished with song, were now burnt black. The stones cracked with a thunderous roar. The sound of breaking stones echoed across the valley as they plunged into the lake below. The heat from the fires burned the grass and torrents of flame pouring from the boiling sky lay waste to the land. As the tower, beautiful even until the end, collapsed into the lake below it, more stinking columns of steam were sent skyward, blotting out the stars that peeked through the choked sky less and less frequently. Other fires, other battles were raging. Legions of elohim flew skyward in columns of battle. Heaven was at war, and the enemy was her own.

"I... I cannot help you."

When she had spoken these words, it had been true, so she had thought. But dark doubt had grabbed hold of her, and shown her a face of hypocricy, one she hated and could not bear to see, her own. The cries of dying elohim screamed from above. All Sarah could do was gaze down at her hands, stained red with dried blood. Distracted, she gazed at the lumpy flesh of the digits that had carried the spear, her spear. This raw base flesh that the choirs now wore, it was nothing like her true self. She had once been sinuous and sleek, awesome and radiant. These were the bodies of the new children of Heaven, mere animals until of late. Elohim were now remade in their likeness.

"Sarah, we were deceived. Ashorn is the traitor. He flies with Lucifer and we did not know. We would not have have taken up arms against the One. It is Ashorn who tricked us. You must believe us."

But she had believed him, sadly. But belief was not enough. First came duty. The Word had been clear. The traitors must be destroyed; or at the least, be driven from the heavens.

"Those who followed Ashorn are damned by the One. You have been judged, and you are all known as traitors now."

Her words had been a brand, a burning doom to both Raal and Ranl, elohim she counted as her dearest friends.

A little while ago...

Time. Sarah reached out, trying to touch it. It hadn't really always been there. Intangible, she herself perhaps had a part in its creation, singing it into being. But who thought then what their voices were doing, what was happening all around them. Now it was a gulf, a divide, this alien essence called Time. On one side, the past, where this terrible sadness that was part of her now did not exist. She wished she could escape from Time and go back, but it was a part of everything, seeping into each bit of existence until everything was bound by it.

"Sarah, we are one, you and I."

Ranl had stepped forward. Sarah had been swift, as the Word had commanded. Her spear was the vengeance of the Word, and the One. And Ranl's blood, her lifeforce now trapped in liquid as if she were an animal, it flowed, staining the ground. Flowers grew where it spilled. A pool of spreading red blooms covered the ground as Ranl sagged into their midst, pain written on her face.

"Go!" Sarah commanded, unable to bear it any longer. "I will not slay you if only you will leave."

Raal stepped down, cradling Ranl, his wings drooping over her to shield her ears from the sounds of the dying all around them. When he looked up at Sarah, the burning fire of her branding glittered like madness in his eyes. If her words had been false before, Sarah's spear had made it truth. Raal hated the One who had commanded this.

"Come with me," he held out his hand. "Don't live this hypocricy any longer. When the Word is so binding that it enslaves you even from the freedom of truth, it is not fit to serve."

Sarah stepped back from these blasphemous words, holding her spear aloft. "Go!" she cried out. "Go, and take Ranl away from here before you are both found." Raal had proven himself a traitor after all, but she could not fault him for it. His expression showed what she was feeling as well.

"Ranl is dead." Raal let her go and the auburn-haired angel slipped into the blossoms that were beginning to fade. Her great wings, now turning grey, rested bent, at an angle. Through a gap in the blossoms, a stoney green eye stared back at Sarah.

"Dead?" Sarah did not comprehend this strange word. It was something that only touched parts of the Symphony, never the choirs. She gazed at the blood on her hands, coating the shaft of her spear. She looked again at her friend, Ranl. There was a terrible stillness in her. Light faded from Ranl's body and shadows grew all around her.

"I did not mean..."

"I know," Raal said. His voice was cold and bitter, and it held more malice than Sarah could have suspected in him.

"But you can be saved. Come with me. We shall flee here and make better dreams, you and I."

Sarah help up her spear, a strange moisture like rain running down her face. Animal feelings she did not know and which she had no control over were running through her.

"Look at you," Raal said, his voice mocking and cold. "You bleed sorrow as Ranl bled life. This is mockery. I see that now. The One is not all in the Universe. You know that, Sarah, as much as I. You, Ranl, and I used to talk of such things in the courtyard, by the blue fountain at Ehanam. You remember. You were the greatest doubter of us all. Now how strange does it seem that you are guarding the Word against I who defended It once against you."

Raal held out his hand and stepped forward. Sarah started to let the spear slip from her hand and tentatively reached for what he offered her. Then Sarah heard voices above, a flight of cherubim sent to reinforce the flanks. Frightened by their appearance, Sarah brandished her spear and lunged forward.

Raal's sword was out in a moment. Her spear broke under its weight and in a strange irony, she fell, slipping on the dying glossy flowers born of Ranl. Raal held his sword to Sarah's throat. The animal fear in her grew. Ashamed as she was, she could not control it. She looked up into his eyes, and then offered her his throat, not out of bravery, but that the fear would end. She prayed to the One that she had almost betrayed that she be granted as easy a death as she had given to Ranl.

Raal's sword touched her throat, cold and burning like ice, fueled by his grief and sadness. But the cold bite left her skin and Raal stepped back. Sarah looked up to see his eyes leaking the same moisture as hers had given. He held up his hand, his eyes lost in sorrow. He gazed back to Ranl and then to Sarah and then he turned, his great wings unfurled as he launched himself into the sky, fleeing toward the Marches before more of the Host could arrive.

"Sarah!"

Sarah turned, the backs of her wings warmed by the distant fire of her home's ruin.

"Where is your spear?" Uriel seemed strained, almost distracted.

"I... I lost it," Sarah confessed.

Well, no matter. A true warrior does not need a weapon if clothed in the Rapture. "Go now, and bring the justice of the Word unto the enemy." But perhaps thinking better of what he said, Uriel handed her the mace he was carrying.

He disappeared, perhaps to get another weapon, perhaps on some errand that did not need a weapon. Sarah turned to the sky and her great wings beat aloft. Trapped as she was in this human guise, she flew up, her physicality moving heavily through the darkness. In the distance, blurred by smoke and fog, small figures fell like snow from the clouds.

story by Solanio