How could they have done this to the Lord God—the Creator of all there is? His thoughts raged as he lashed out at the thick vegetation, the vestiges of battles he had so recently fought still raw and bleeding upon his mind. His anger spent, Paradise burned around him and the barriers of growth fell away to smoldering ash. Camael beheld a clearing, void of life except for a single tree—and the one he was searching for.
Belphegor stood before what could only have been the Tree of Knowledge—large with golden bark, and carrying sparsely among its canopy of yellow leaves, a forbidden fruit that shone like a newly born star in the night sky.
“Belphegor,” Camael said, stepping through the burning brush and into the clearing. In his hand he still clutched his weapon of fire, and it sparked and licked at the air, eager to be used.
Hand pressed to the tree’s body, the angel Belphegor turned to glance at him and smiled sadly. “It’s dying,” he said, returning his attention to the tree. “And it will be only a matter of time before what is killing it spreads to the remainder of the Garden.”
Camael stopped and glared at his fallen brethren. His anger, though abated by the destructive tantrum, still thrummed inside.
“It’s His disappointment,” Belphegor said, again looking at Camael. “The Creator’s disappointment in the man and woman—it’s acting as a poison, gradually killing everything that He made especially for them. I’m doing my best to slow the process, but I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before it is all lost.”
Camael gripped his sword tighter and spoke the words that had been trapped in his throat. They spilled from his mouth, reeking of anger and despair. “I’ve come to kill you, Belphegor.” He wasn’t sure how he expected the fallen angel to react—perhaps to cower with fear, or suddenly flee deeper into the Garden—but it appeared that Belphegor had already accepted his lot.
“I’m glad it’s you who has come for me,” he said casually, moving away from the tree toward Camael.
Camael pointed his sword, halting the angelic fugitive’s progress.
Belphegor stared at him over the sputtering blade of fire. “If it is time for me to die, then I accept my fate.”
The Powers’ commander seethed. How dare such a sinner surrender without a fight. How dare he deny me the wrath of battle. “You will summon a weapon and fight me,” he snarled.
Belphegor slowly shook his head. “I did not fight in the war and I will not fight you, my friend,” he said sadly. “If you are to take my life, do it now, for I am ready.”
Camael wanted to strike the angel down, lift his fearsome blade above his head and cleave the traitor in two, but something stayed his hand—the question that had plagued his tortured thoughts since the war began. “Why, Belphegor?” he asked, his body trembling with repressed anger.
The fallen angel sighed and sat down in the shade of the Tree of Knowledge. Camael loomed above him, his blade of fire poised for attack.
“I did not want to fight,” Belphegor said, picking up a dry stalk of grass and twirling it between his fingers. “For either side.”
“He is your Creator, Belphegor,” Camael spat. “How could you not fight for Him?”
The fallen angel turned his gaze up to Camael and the look upon his face was one of resignation. “I could not even begin to think of raising a weapon against my brothers—or my Creator. If that makes me an enemy of Heaven, so be it.”
“It makes you a coward,” Camael said, tightening his grip upon his weapon’s hilt.
“Is that really how you feel, Camael?” Belphegor asked without a hint of fear. “Have you come for me not because of what I did not do—but for what you did not have the courage to do yourself?”
The words were like a savage attack, weapons of truth hacking away at Camael to reveal the painful reality. There had been so much death, and he could see no end to it.
Camael swung his blade and buried it mere inches from Belphegor. The ground around the weapon began to burn.
“Damn you,” he hissed, pulling the sword from the smoldering earth and stepping back, his steely stare still upon his foe. In his mind’s eye he saw them, the faces of all he had slain in the battle for Heaven, a seemingly endless parade of death marching through his memories, and it chilled him to his core. Once they had been like him, serving the one true God—and then came dissension, sides were chosen and a war begun.
“You must be made to answer for your crimes,” he said as Belphegor rose to his feet.
“Haven’t we been punished enough?” the fallen angel asked. “Rejected, forced to abandon all we have ever known to live amongst animals—most, I think, already suffer a fate far worse than what awaits at your hands.” Belphegor moved closer. “Death at your hands might even be considered an act of mercy.”
Camael placed the tip of his sword beneath Belphegor’s throat and the flesh there bubbled and burned—yet despite this, the fallen angel did not pull away.
“We were brothers once,” Camael whispered, staring at Belphegor’s face twisted in pain. “But no more,” he said as he pulled the blade away. “It will be as if you were destroyed by my hand.”
Belphegor gingerly touched the charred and oozing flesh beneath his chin. “Will this mercy be bestowed upon the others as well?” he asked, his voice a gentle whisper.
Camael turned and prepared to leave Eden.
“How many more will have to die?” Belphegor called after him as Camael reached the edge of the clearing. “When will it be enough, Camael?” the fallen angel asked. “And when will we finally be allowed to show our sorrow for what we have done?”
Camael left the Garden of Eden, never to look upon it again, Belphegor’s questions reverberating through his mind. He did not respond to his fallen brother, for he did not have the answers, and he had begun to wonder if ever he truly would.
aerie, present day
The sight of Belphegor stirred memories Camael had not experienced for millennia. Pictures of the past billowed and whirled, like desert sands agitated by the winds of storm. The angel warrior quickly suppressed them.
“Hello, Camael,” Belphegor said, standing on the sidewalk in front of a boarded-up home. “It’s been quite some time.”
Camael looked closely at the fallen angel before him; he appeared old, almost sickly. It was common for angels that had fled to Earth to allow themselves to age, to fit in with their new environment, but Belphegor’s look was more than that.
“I executed you,” Camael said, remembering the day he had stormed from the Garden of Eden without completing his assignment.
“Is that what you told your Powers’ comrades—did you actually tell them that I died at your hand?”
Camael recalled addressing his troops before their journey to Earth. He remembered telling them, the lie already beginning to eat at him, the doubts about their mission, seeded by Belphegor, already starting to sprout. “I was their leader, they would believe anything I told them.”
“And now?” Belphegor asked.
“Now they would like to see me as dead as they believe you to be.”
The old angel studied Camael’s face, obviously searching for signs of untruth. “I had heard that you left them, but was still saddened that it took as long as it did.”
“It was when I read the words of the prophecy that I realized it wasn’t the way,” Camael answered. “There had already been too much death. I began to believe that a new future for our kind rests in the hands of a half-breed—a Nephilim, chosen by God.”