It spoke in a deep hiss. “What makes you think I would want to go to Heaven?”
Michael stepped in toward the creature that was Damiel and let down his sword. His eyes ablaze and his halo flaring, he too was something to behold. I’m not sure if it was the sight of him or the danger he put himself in, but I had to remind my heart to beat.
“Because,” he said, “I remember who you are.”
Damiel stood transfixed, and Michael leaned in to place a hand on his opponent’s heart.
A golden fire blazed between them, engulfing and searing the demon. Screaming, Damiel writhed and squirmed in the heat of the flames, while Michael stayed cool. When the flames burned out, replaced by a golden light, Damiel’s skin turned a light bronze, as though an image had been superimposed over him. His features softened, hair returned to his head, his wings became feathery and light. This was who Damiel was. We were seeing his angelic self.
Then Damiel’s screams of pain turned to ones of anguish. His body shook as the grief consumed him, driving him to his knees. Underneath, the black being that he had become writhed in agony, but Michael held his ground, as though holding in place the image of who Damiel used to be.
“You can choose to be that again,” Michael offered. Beside him, Arielle stood impartial as a judge, her face a mask of calm scrutiny.
I sat up on the bed and closed my blouse, awed by the sight of them. The light shining from the two of them brought tears to my eyes. This was what Michael was, his purpose, and no matter how much I wanted him, my feelings couldn’t matter more than this. Nothing could.
The choice was Damiel’s now, as the demon part of him bucked and roiled like an angry tide. Yet there was another side of him that seemed at peace. As the demon stood again, these two halves seemed to battle each other in a struggle for dominance. The cabin’s small windows rattled, extinguishing candles from the force of it. Michael stood in the center of a beam of golden light, as though he were in the eye of a tornado.
“Has he chosen yet?” he asked Arielle.
She shook her head. “He’s without remorse.”
For some reason, Fatima’s reading from the day before came to me. I remembered her words in my head: You have been given a gift of love, and for it you must love, beyond anything you’d ever imagined before.
Love. In order for Damiel to have remorse, he needed to feel love. I needed to remind him what it was. Michael wasn’t the only one who needed to remember. Damiel needed to remember, too. Realizing this, I connected with a force I’d never felt before. It filled me, thrumming through my body like a huge river that connected me to all of life.
Everything I’d ever done, every mistake I’d ever made was seen, and it was strange, like having your life flash before your eyes. I recalled the anger toward my dad, the judgment I sometimes had for no good reason, the secrets I kept from my friends, and even breaking up with Michael. All of it. In that moment, it had all been forgiven. I just had to accept that it was so, and I could do what I needed to do.
It wasn’t about me anymore. I remembered my past life with Michaeclass="underline" how I felt because he gave up so much to be with me, how I felt I betrayed him when I didn’t tell him what Damiel had done. A serene voice in my head told me to stop blaming myself, that it was never my fault—and I believed it. Taking a deep breath, I let this feeling in as tears welled in my chest.
Then I was on my feet, walking toward them like I was floating, held in a giant spotlight. Michael’s eyes widened as I approached, first with concern, then with awe.
“Mia,” he said. “What…”
I shook my head and Arielle touched his shoulder to silence him. She motioned to me with her eyes and I could hear her inner voice, the one she used for telepathy, say to him Wait.
I didn’t have time to process how strange it was to hear her. Instead, I walked until I stood between him and Damiel, and I grabbed the demon’s hand.
Up close, he flickered, a broken filmstrip, alternating splices of angel and demon—beatific one moment, horrific the next. Facing the demon, I stared him down. “Love, Damiel. Do you remember it?”
I should have been terrified as the demon glowered at me, while the angel part cast his eyes down in shame. But I wasn’t. Not only was Michael there, and Arielle, but I was protected by something much bigger. I felt connected to them, as though I had been given a chance to do an angel’s work, even in human form.
Images of Damiel from millennia ago came to mind. He had once been gentle and fair—a being of love. I saw faces of the other Grigori who mattered to him, friends. “You loved God…and your brothers…” Then I saw my own face in that lifetime so long ago. “You even loved me, once.”
The demon snarled and raised a hand to silence me. Michael instinctively raised his sword, but Arielle held him back.
“You hurt those you loved, and those who loved you… And I know that it hurt you to do it. On some level, it hurt.” I squeezed his hand as the angelic part of him winced. Still furious, the demon glared at me—malicious but visibly weakened. Its weakness gave me strength. “Because you turned your back on what you are, and you have lived for so long now without love that you forgot what it’s like… But deep down you remember. I know you do. Deep down, I know you feel bad about what you did. Don’t you?”
I had the angel’s complete attention. Its eyes, full of tears, blazed at me through a golden light, while the demon turned away, and a voice unlike any I’d heard Damiel speak with before said a quiet yet resounding, “Yes.”
I knew exactly what I needed to say. I didn’t question it, and the words I’d heard Michael use before rolled out of me like music. “You are loved. You are forgiven. Everything you’ve done is forgiven.”
The angelic part of Damiel shook, slowly at first and then violently, as the demon struggled to be freed. Arielle said one word.
“Now.”
Faster than sound, Michael raised his sword and thrust it into Damiel’s heart, and the sword that did no damage to human flesh burned and seared the demon, leaving the angel’s image behind. The image itself faded quickly, having only been held in place by Michael’s focus. The demon let out loud, horrible shrieks as steam and black, sulfuric smoke escaped its body, deflating him. To speed the process, Michael raised his sword above the demon’s head and cleaved what was left of its body in two.
The entire room filled with a corrosive black smoke that stung my eyes and tasted of rotten eggs. Beneath it all was a flicker of golden light, a tiny sphere not much bigger than a firefly, but it grew brighter and stronger as it rose to the ceiling and hovered there.
Then a tear opened in the middle of the living room, as though the room itself and all the furniture in it was projected onto a curtain that was being ripped open. Behind that was a mouth to a different reality—a very dark and upsetting one. On the other side, I could hear moans of agony and roars of pain that made the hairs on my neck stand up. The tendrils of black smoke hanging in the air were sucked right into that mouth, slowly at first, and then building in speed as if the mouth were inhaling just the smoke—leaving everything else behind. It took seconds for the room to clear, and once it was done the mouth closed and the tear sealed itself. The room was ordinary again, and someplace far away I heard the clanging of an iron gate.
All that was left was the golden ball of light, which had grown to the size of a giant beach ball. It circled the room and hovered in front of Arielle, who smiled at it as though they were having an exchange I couldn’t hear. A moment later, it floated toward Michael, who bowed his head. Then it came to me. Not sure what to expect, I tensed.
Arielle placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right.”
Taking a deep breath, I looked at her and then back at the golden ball of light. It was warm and pure. As it approached, its presence tingled my skin.