A/N Penultimate chapter!

XIV

The void howling above their position at the top of the Seraphim Monument appeared unmistakably grey and navy to the other angels, but, in Ezekiel's eyes, it screamed with nothing but pure green. To be expected, perhaps, as the haze of his wildness climbed over his vision as a whole, raking it through with pulsating streaks of the disgusting acid hue, yet the color seemed to accumulate around the center of the clouded vortex, striking itself into a deep emerald rather than passive lime, shattered with the occasional dart of forked lightning as the demons still contained within squirmed and shrieked. For it was closing—closing around them like some furiously fanged mouth, eliminating them from contact with New York City and the rest of the humans' globe. Down on the streets, though Ezekiel didn't bother to glance and observe the action that he knew to be taking place, the other demons were dissipating—ripped away like sand in the wind, torn into nothingness, existing briefly as flares of glittering dust on the murky currents of air before falling into invisibility. Cries of relief rose up from the people gathered below—they were all overjoyed, burning with what they thought to be triumph.

Ezekiel, where he stood with his eyes alight, fists curled and wings thrashing, was far from triumphant.

For he—and the rest of the angels, from their unmoving statures in what should be a moment of victory—were all too aware of the price. As the fissure to Hell was closing, it wasn't only entrapping the weakened wisps of the frothing demons within it, but something else, much more pure, much more powerful, much more good.

Gabriel had not yet emerged.

A bitter taste began to rise under Ezekiel's tongue as the tempest churned ever closer to sealing itself perfectly away. He knew that there was no chance, that it was too late already to be wishing, and yet Gabriel had done a thousand and one things that his younger brother would have considered impossible in the past—there had to be a way. There had to.

The others, Ezekiel knew—once more without looking, for his eyes felt as though they would rip themselves out were he to turn them from the grotesque beauty of the sealing portal—had already given up. It was Raziel who clutched the staff that was working to stitch the sky back together, and though her downcast green eyes were invisible to him, he felt the weakness of her psychic presence shudder against him and slink down until it was barely detectable. She was ashamed of her doubt, yet still harbored it, as did the rest; Uriel was confounded, Michael stunned, Ramiel mourning. All in different stages of what would perhaps be labeled as grief.

Yet Ezekiel couldn't grieve. Not yet. Not while there was still a chance.

Brother, please—

And then, as if his raging unspoken words had somehow managed to perform their purpose, a faint form dropped from the last traces of parting between the dark grey clouds. It was little more than a blur as it rushed past the Monument and towards the already blood and ichor-stained pavement, yet the colors were enough—gold and red, blurred as the magnificent wing contraptions folded and curled in on themselves, defeated by Hell's heat, slipping into a weak glob of pure brightness—brightness that could never carry an angel upon it.

He heard Raziel's gasp, but beyond that thought nothing else of the others, or even of himself. His mind had reverted to its roguishly animal form once more as he thrust himself forth, wings battering the current that came with the now-closed portal's aftershock, and he felt a snarl of pure defiance—defiance against reality, against everything—pull through his lips, damning Gabriel if he were to fall, damning himself if he couldn't catch him. His wings slammed against the air again and again, assisting rather than countering gravity as he tumbled downwards, his arms outstretched—he knew that any attempt at levitation would be unnecessary and ridiculous; a prone angel was heavier than the whole of the planet, and would certainly rip him apart with any attempt to lift.

Closer. He was getting closer—and yet the fiery-hued blur was so fast, tumbling downwards, and it wouldn't stop as it hit the earth—no, the raw power contained within the angel's form would cause it to keep going, keep racing down, down into the ground, tearing its own pathway, until it at last found dark refuge in the molten core of the planet—and that would be Gabriel's end, for not even an archangel could survive God's own fire, so potent that he used it to forge the center of his most treasured creation—

Closer. Closer. And then, suddenly, before another thought could cross Ezekiel's mind, his arms were wrapped around the blazing hot form of his brother. The pull was magnificent, and though his physical strength—aided by his unnatural deformation—served as a bolster to that of his telekinesis, it was still all he could do to hold his trembling arms in place, to not wrench them away from the screeching burn of where Gabriel's wings were still white-hot with the blaze of the hellfire that he had only barely escaped.

Already, Ezekiel's wings were straining—they weren't out of danger yet. Gritting his teeth with enough force to snap a human's spine, he forced himself to stagger his own fall, pump his wings now in the opposite direction and ignore the angry tear of the wind against them—his feathers were being ripped away, flying, yet he was still in the blank mindset of a beast, and he knew that the practically trivial injury didn't matter, not when it allowed him to save both Gabriel's life and his own.

It seemed agonizing ages before he finally managed to settle to the ground, folding onto his knees, breath coming swift and bitter and, somehow, tasting of green. His arms dropped without his permission, and Gabriel, previously cradled between them while supported by his shoulders and the crook of his knees, tumbled to the ground and over the cold pavement, landing askew on his back, wings broken below him, eyes half-closed and chest unmoving.

Ezekiel's eyes blazed with silent lightning. The form of his fallen brother was horribly limp, achingly still—if he were regarding a human, he would know that it was too late. Yet Gabriel did not require the movements of his human shell for such a fragile function as to stay alive—he could still be there, buried, shivering beneath the weight of the terror and the fire that had so recently lashed themselves against him...

Ezekiel barely heard as the other angels landed behind him—all four of them, wings softly fanning the air. His teeth remained clenched tight as he stared down at Gabriel, only cinching harder at Raziel's muffled gasp and Michael's cold sigh of resignation. Once more, they were easy to believe that it was too late, that there was nothing they could do for their brother. Yet Ezekiel was wiser than that—he had proved them wrong once, in any case, and surely it couldn't take much to do it again, just to bring him back from the brink—yet what did he need? Ezekiel's mind, flaming as it was, could not settle enough for the brief resolve of such a question, and so he wondered furiously, his hands knotting into fists once more despite the strain that it resulted in—he knew that he had knowledge sufficient to bring his brother back; why, he was one of the most educated angels in all of God's ranks, despite his status—he was aware of much, overwhelmingly much, enough so that he often felt as though his skull was about to burst from the weight of it—and yet now, when he needed it, his transformation and seething emotion alike turned traitor to his logic, forcing it down, leaving him with nothing but pure instinct; pure, brutal instinct.

And so he screamed.

The scream of an angel is akin to no sound of the human world. In contrast, the unleashing of a human's voice, the sound necessitated to rip their chords apart and fill their throat with blood, race their heart into overdrive and destroy their very essence—it is a whisper to the cry of an angel. And Ezekiel, even now, was still no regular angel, but instead one whose powers had been magnified and amplified by the half-destruction of his grace, morphing him into something deadly, something that walked the line between angelic and demonic—something that, now, hurled through all the streets of New York City, brought every human to their knees, rattled against the glass panes of the towering buildings and splintered them into dust. It was mighty—it was godly, and he felt nothing but its weight in his throat and his lungs, surging through every vein, until his delicate human vessel strained wildly against its own laws of physics, desperately fighting to rip apart even as the unadulterated surge of Ezekiel's raw power held it together—held it together and did more, extended, curled inside of Gabriel's un-beating heart and wrenched it, forced the broken angel into awareness, so that his eyes sprang wide and his mouth fell open with a gasp that was silent against Ezekiel's cry.

When the green-eyed angel's lips finally stilled, the rush that arrived was mighty—his howl was still resonant in its echoes, and, in the absence of its sheer power, he felt himself tremble, on his knees without knowing how he got there—he was aware in only the faintest corner of his mind that his sight was no longer saturated with green. Everything he possessed, before directed towards Gabriel, was now focused on keeping himself conscious and breathing—he had seen the gleam of his brother's golden brown eyes, and that was enough to tell him that his job was done, that he had shown Michael and Raziel and the others that there was hope left... confirmed for himself that he had suffered no loss beyond that consisting of the many human lives crushed over the past few hours.

He felt Gabriel's warm hand on his forearm as if from a distance, a vague nudging, even as the fingers closed in a definite, nearly vice-like grip.

"That was hellish," Gabriel declared.

"Would you say so?" Ezekiel's tongue was heavy, and it was a wonder that he even managed to twist such words out from between his lips, yet they were there, hovering in the air that still trembled with resonant traces of his scream. "That's... kind of you."

"It's a good thing, right? I mean—I'd truly bein Hell right now if not for you... I would, wouldn't I? Don't remember much other than... well... dropping the bomb. Literally."

Ezekiel looked up, then, and he only realized once he had to blink the tears away that they were present at all; still, Gabriel's grin shone vivid through the veil of dust and saltwater, and he patted Ezekiel's shoulder heavily with the hand not already clutching his wrist. "You could damn well easily have torn yourself apart with that, you know. No need for such a risk on my part. Assuming it was for me, of course—you did want to bring me back, yeah? That wasn't some sort of celebratory roar at my long-awaited demise?"

"I wanted to bring you back," Ezekiel managed to get out, the words barely scratching his raw throat. Impossibly, Gabriel's grin widened.

"Excellent. Wouldn't want to have disappointed you. On that note—portal closed? We good?" He glanced around towards the other angels, all of whom were still standing, though the expressions with which they gazed down towards Gabriel—as Ezekiel now noted, finally glancing up—were far from stoic. Even the usually cold Uriel had something close to a smile playing across his lips, and his eyes were greatly softened from their usual flinty state.

"It's closed." Raziel was the one to confirm it, and Ezekiel only saw now that she was still clutching the staff that had done the job—as a precaution, perhaps, or otherwise because her body was simply glued with too much firmness into its state of shock to relent enough for a release. "It's closed, and the demons are gone... it is over."

"Over." A sigh shuddered through Gabriel's lips, and he let his eyes drift shut again for an instant, a look of utter content settling over his features. "That's good to hear. Bit wearisome, taking care of all these humans, don't you think? Wonder if they'd be more help if they grew wings, themselves." He shifted his shoulders in a slight shrug, and, apparently through the moment, noticed then the state of his wings—their previous delicate craft was now little more than a heavy smear, gold and crimson streaked together into a metallic glob of heat and scorched metal. "Oh. Well. Maybe there's a little left to be done."

"I'm sure our Father will have no reluctance in healing you, after the service that you've done him and all of us," Michael spoke, his voice little more than a rasp. His blue eyes shone surprisingly gentle as he regarded his younger brother.

"I didn't do it for you—or for him," Gabriel snorted, almost absentmindedly reaching over his shoulder and beginning to alter and tinker with the destroyed wings, as though he could simply put them back into place with a few careful twists. "I did it for the people, right? Could've let all of them die, if the bomb stayed. We'd've been fine, and there'd be enough of the planet left so that Dad wouldn't be too pissed. I didn't want to see them vaporized, though... for everything they've done, they're not all that bad, you know?"

"I don't particularly know that," Ezekiel found himself murmuring in response, and Gabriel laughed, a rich and sonorous sound that couldn't have been more soothing despite its half-raucousness.

"Well, maybe you'll find it out eventually. For now, though—celebration time, am I right? There ought to be something good around here... some way to show our appreciation for justice being restored and all that... hey, maybe the humans are in a cheery mood, too. Think any of them have ever partied with an angel?"

He was rambling, even more than was typical of his fleet tongue, and it was easy enough for Ezekiel to see that Gabriel was still scared, even through the euphoria that now swamped him. He knew what it was like to encounter death so nearly that it felt like a physical entity brushing up against one's shoulders, tangling in wings even as they curled and protested—he knew how it implanted the deepest of chills, one that would linger, never fully leave as the centuries stretched by. Gabriel would have to adjust to that, as well—and yet he would. Ezekiel had no doubt that his brother was strong enough to recover, someday.

For now, though, they had other things to attend to—things which certainly didn't involve partying, as Raziel pointed out with a curled lip and a raised brow, apparently caught between endearment and exasperation.

"Perhaps the celebration will come later. For now—there is still Lucifer to attend to."

"Ah. Lucifer." The easy brightness drained immediately from Gabriel's features, leaving an itching bitterness in its wake, and Ezekiel felt his own breastbone clench and splinter with coldness at the thought of the brother that they would have to confront. "Would it have been too much to ask that he be tossed in the portal, too? Well. Guess we can't have everything in life. Is he... pacified, at least?"

"Pacified is one word for it." It was Ezekiel's own tongue that was laden with the syllables of confirmation, and he felt a warm smile curling his lips once more. It was his own work, after all, that placed the Devil in the position that he now maintained. "He is... well. Little better than dead, but I do believe at least one of you mentioned that killing him would render ourselves no better than he is."

"The time to fight him will come," Michael agreed with a quick nod, "but not yet. The Apocalypse, despite Lucifer's better intentions, has not arrived. And until that day is upon us... I am not hesitant to postpone the final battle that it will deliver."

"Postpone that all you want, but we've got to settle this right now," Gabriel declared, heaving himself half to his feet. He teetered slightly, and a wince clasped his features as he strained, slowly pulling in the ruined slabs of metal that had once been his wings. Ezekiel felt a throb of sympathy, aware that it must be agonizing to sheathe the disfigured masses, but Gabriel managed to without releasing more than a half-suppressed breath of exhaustion. Without the anomalies protruding from his back, he looked almost normal once more, despite the scowl darkening his features and the pale, starchy hue of his skin. "That hurts. Come on, I want to show him what pain feels like."

"We are not going to punish Lucifer, only capture him," Michael reprimanded calmly. "It is best that you keep that in mind."

"'Course I'm keeping that in mind, but I'm allowed to fantasize," Gabriel grumbled in response. "He deserves whatever I could give him."

Michael chose not to respond, rather to Ezekiel's relief—despite the fact that he had been fairly isolated from his family for several centuries now, it didn't take much to remember the constant fiery feuds that ignited all too often between the two archangels. Instead, he nodded and turned, walking rather than flying—perhaps out of courtesy to Gabriel—around the edge of the monument. Ezekiel followed, his own footsteps slightly more hesitant—though he knew that he had been far from merciful upon Lucifer, he couldn't remember precisely what he had done, unable to strain his recollection past the oppression of the green haze. He knew he would see soon enough, and yet still felt an overwhelming reluctance, perhaps no more than the usual associated with his actions in his other form—he was afraid of the beast he became, perhaps more so than anyone else, and he dreaded to observe whatever havoc it had wreaked, even as he knew that it could hardly be anything but good, when performed upon so dire a villain.

Michael was the first to round the corner, with him following. His breaths were slow and steady, his eyes half-shut as he turned—and, for an instant, anxiety seized his stomach for a reason that had nothing to do with the terror of his alter-ego; rather, for the barest instant it appeared that Lucifer was gone entirely, vanished from his previous spot on the ground.

"What—?" he began, fear rearing inside his chest. If, after all this, they had just let the Devil get away—if he wasn't defeated, if they...

"No... look," Michael sighed.

Ezekiel looked, and his breath froze. Lucifer wasn't gone at all—instead, he was slumped against the edge of the monument, his previously grand golden form reduced to little beyond a shadow. He appeared, to his brothers and sister, just as small as one of the many humans lying broken on the pavement that circled and extended around them.

His thin chest moved in slow, shaking breaths—in and out, each one accompanied by a gentle rasping noise. A dark green collar was drawn up around his face, and the only bit of visible skin was the back of a hand, yet it was enough for Ezekiel to see that it was devastatingly pale, far more so than Gabriel's, whitened until it was the hue of marble, its similarity to the stone further heightened by the streaks of silvered grey that it was struck through with, a violent contrast to the sparkling gold that had surged through him before. Greasy dark hair hung around his bent head, casting shadows over his trembling form, and his shoulders trembled—he looked, for everything, like a terrified child.

Michael was the one to speak first.

"Brother."

There was a slight stir in the shaking body, a shudder of the skinny legs that lay strewn over the ground. Then, gradually, the collar was drawn down to reveal a face—a waxen face, skin drawn so tight over the features that it strained, rendering Lucifer with the grotesque appearance of a skull—the only aspect of his visage that implied any life, in fact, was his eyes: swiveling orbs the shade of diluted mercury, they sat in heavily shadowed sockets, the faintest hint of light obscured in layers of darkness. Once more, no gold was to be seen—gold being the color of the Devil's power; the figure that Ezekiel and the others gazed upon now was Lucifer stripped of his strength, reduced to skin and bone, until he was something near human.

And Ezekiel had done this.

I did this. The realization coursed slowly, steadily through his awareness. He had done this. It was true—and what he felt, to his nagging distrust of his own broken soul, was far from shame. He was proud—proud as he gazed upon the once-mighty creature that he had brought to ashes.

I did this.

"Brother," Michael began again. "You have been defeated. It is time that we return you to Hell. Where you belong."

"Is it?"

Lucifer's voice was yet more alarming than his appearance, if such a thing was possible. It worked like a knife under Ezekiel's collarbone, until his own throat ached with the mere thought of what the Devil's must be experiencing. The words escaping the pale, trembling lips were those of something dead, or something that should be dead—horrifying in how measured they were, like dry wood dropping steadily into a waterless creak, barely stirring the hot air, making no noticeable impact when they hit bottom.

"Yes. It is. You were offered a place among us, respecting and coexisting with the humans... our Father gave you as fair a chance as the rest of us, my brother, and you failed. You have earned your place below the Earth."

Ezekiel could only marvel at the calm confidence that Michael's sorrowful words still managed to carry. He was, at least in part, regretful—for the Lucifer that he gazed upon now, triumphant as his weakness rendered their victory, was pitiable—pathetic. He clearly dreaded his return to Hell, and Ezekiel had to resist the threatening apology that gnawed at the inside of his chest, pleading that they forgive their brother, allow him the second chance that he never received—yet they couldn't. God would never permit it, and even Ezekiel's own more rational mind was well aware that it was a risk they could never dare to take, especially after seeing Lucifer rise again, observing with their own eyes what devastating horrors he was capable of orchestrating. Michael was right. The only place for Lucifer to go now was Hell.

"...Very well." Lucifer's head fell again, and his shoulders shook more powerfully than ever—for a moment, it crossed Ezekiel's mind that he was lapsing into some sort of fit, but then he heard it—the gentlest whisper of a scratching laugh, pouring onto the pavement, so fragile that Uriel turned away in what could have been sorrow or disgust. Ramiel's eyes drifted shut, his jaw tensing, and even Michael lowered his stare—only Gabriel, Raziel, and Ezekiel continued to watch as the Devil was gasped in the throes of his own shattered humor, dragging forth a bitter cynical triumph in the midst of his defeat.

"So good wins once more," he managed to choke out, the words caught between a catch of his breath that could have been sobs just as easily as chuckles. "As it must always be; as the storybooks dictate. Your God's tyranny will return... my demons shall curl back into their dripping pits, and I? I will reign over them—I will torture them, as I will torture every tainted soul, and their muscles will rip deeper, their sweat pour forth richer, their screams rise higher... for that is what you have reduced me to, angels. It is all I have left. Remember that—remember that, my sister, my brothers, as you revel in the perfect paradise of your wretched victory."