Chapter Text
Charlie felt the world around her blur again. The sound of voices dimmed as she felt her heart pulse in her head. Heat traced over her like a wave before fading as it all passed. She wanted to lean against Vaggie or ask for help, but she feared what would happen. Slowly, she eased her body back until her back gave a sharp throb as it made soft contact with her chair.
“Babe?” Vaggie’s concerned gaze immediately drew Charlie away from her pain as she tried to smile at her. “What’s wrong?” Charlie wanted to tell her; to speak up and admit how much pain she was in.
“You ordered a massacre!” Someone above them yelled, sending out a wave of soft white energy as the figure in purple robes flew over them. “Destruction! Slaughter! How was that not akin to what Roo is?” They demanded as Charlie bit her lip and tried not to throw up.
“She protected Heaven!” Someone else called back, floating down to stand next to Sera. Charlie absently wondered if they were related to Piamon with their Ars Goetian appearance. She couldn’t focus on them as her world tried to tilt and her body pulsed.
It felt like she was going to fly out of her own body. It was a mix of nauseating dizziness and pulsing heat every time an Archangel used their powers. The pure Energy made her feel like her limbs weren’t fully attached while at the same time as if sand was rubbing her skin. She could only assume her sister felt similar. Dowan was tucked under her shirt, sucking on her shoulder and pulling what little Demonic Energy she had to her. Charlie didn’t mind, Doe seemed to go past misery and closer to pain the longer they were in Heaven. The only way for her to stay at least mostly quiet had been for Charlie to hold her.
She kept telling herself it was only fair she protected her little sister, but the resentment and jealousy in her mind were insistent. A ripple of different Energies crashed over her, scattering her thoughts as she fought down the urge to groan.
“High Seraphim had no right,”
“She disobeyed!” Someone in orange interrupted.
“And you knew?” Another angel demanded.
The meeting had devolved into a mess of pointing fingers that had seemed happy to forget Charlie, Vaggie, and Doe. She should use the chance to get them away from everyone, away from such strong Angelic Energy.
“Charlie, look at me,” Vaggie’s voice was distant. Charlie forced her arms to tense and tried to sit up. Doe was silent against her, or was Charlie’s hearing muffled? Pain pulsed along her spine and neck while heat made rings around her arms. It was so much all at once, she needed to get away before,
… …
Vaggie had just enough time to tuck herself behind the sisters before Charlie slid from her seat and to the floor. Her skin was clammy, her pulse nearly non-existent under her hands, and her eyes were devoid of consciousness. Vaggie felt fear grip her throat as she ripped her shirt open to pull Doe away to find the baby girl in a mirrored state.
“Help!” She didn’t know who it was that yelled. Herself? An angel? No one?
Old training pulled her into action as she pulled Doe’s body to her ear, trying to hear the baby’s heart. Someone in green slid to Charlie’s other side, and gloved hands pulled her onto her side just as she began to vomit.
“I need a stethoscope and pressure cuff!” Vaggie heard as another set of hands attempted to grab Doe. She let out a scream at the action, yanking Doe away as she registered the person as Archangel Michael.
“Vaggie, we need to move.” The male said in a soft command. Vaggie shook her head, turning to look at Charlie as she was rolled back onto her back. “Raphael has her, we need to check Dowan.”
Vaggie was torn. She couldn’t leave Charlie. She couldn’t! But Doe was limp against her. Charlie would hate herself and Vaggie if she didn’t get her help. But that meant separating. What if they needed information? What if they hurt Charlie?
Vaggie wasn’t even aware she was biting her lip till she tasted ichor. “Vaggie,” Michael called her. Vaggie swallowed, forcing herself to push her emotions aside as she reached a hand to the other. “Forcas! Get a stretcher! Peliel, make a path!” The sharp tone was a sharp contrast to the usual hesitance, but Vaggie didn’t care as she felt for Charlie’s Energy.
“Lost it!” Someone called out from behind her. Vaggie turned in a panic, watching as the green-clad angel began chest compressions on Charlie. “Epi,” they said loudly as Charlie was given an injection. “I need a,”
Charlie gasped before they could say more. “Hey, Princess. We need you to open your eyes.” Vaggie wanted to fall to her knees in relief.
“Vaggie, is Dowan breathing?” Vaggie’s heart couldn’t take much more of the constant up and down. “Charl- Dowan may need help too.” Michael stumbled as Vaggie moved her arms to look Doe over.
The baby was gasping, eyes closed and lips turning blue while her body stayed limp in Vaggie’s arms.
“Raphael!” Michael’s sharp yell drew what felt like thousands of eyes as Angels turned to them. “Here,” he said. Vaggie didn’t fight as Doe was taken from her and thrust into the green-clad Angel’s arms. The figure didn’t even struggle, hesitate, or speak. In the span of Vaggie’s heartbeat, they took off with Charlie being pulled behind them.
… …
Michael picked at the ridges of scar tissue on his hands, pulling and scratching as he listened to his siblings. Raphael had sent a messenger a few minutes previously to explain their nieces were alright. He wanted to know more, needed to know more. What had caused her to fall over? Why was she so ill? Was it because of him? Was it because of the food they had eaten? Or had it been a combination of things? He bit his lip to stop the flinch of pain when he felt his right hand sting.
“The matter isn’t that simple,” Uriel spoke up. “We need more information before we,”
“You would End a Soul for the damage they already face Judgement for?” Jerahmeel demanded, flaring her wings.
“I think we are at an impasse,” Gabriel admitted in a neutral tone.
The room fell silent, each of the siblings shifting to settle in their chairs. The room was rarely used, each choosing to either speak in person or ignore the others. Michael chose to look over the room their Father had made.
The walls of the heptagon room were painted to show each of them. Uriel’s orange wall showed a scale of balance, Gabriel’s yellow wall a rolled scroll, and Raphael’s green wall portrayed a staff with wings. Azrael’s indigo showed a set of glowing paths, and Jerahmeel’s violet wall showed love and compassion between different Souls. His eyes lingered on the once-red wall that had portrayed Heylel. It was covered by heavy velvet, but he knew beneath it showed a burned wall that had once depicted a rising sun with a sword pointed to the sky. If he were to turn and look at his wall he knew the once ombre blue would be covered in patches of mismatched plaster and the thrown results of a bucket of paint. Once it had shown a sword pointed down with a shield. It had made him proud and filled with purpose. Now it reminded him how he was unable to protect. He hated it and what it meant.
“Should I call for a meal?” Gabriel questioned in the silence. “Without Raphael or Azrael we,”
“No, we need to settle this.” Michael interrupted, “I, we need to return Heylel’s children to their home. Without worrying if they will live to be seen again.” He pulled his hands into his lap, focusing on the throbbing of his right hand. “Adam is also a threat. He’s made himself the leader of the Guardians, pulling them from who they should be and pushing them to become,” he made a disgusted face, “Exorcists.”
“On Sera’s orders. She will be punished. Adam is not,” Uriel was interrupted by Gabriel.
“Both the High Seraphim and Adam were equal in their involvement. We cannot simply let Adam slip to the side.” Michael nodded, eyes flitting to look at his sister Uriel to see her listening. “My investigation shows that the two began their, movement,”
“Don’t sugarcoat it, brother. They were committing genocide .” Jerahmeel sneered. “The Ending of Souls was led by the ‘Father of Humans’ and his own Guardian.”
“Yes,” Gabriel admitted with a raised hand. “But the question isn’t just punishment. It is also, how they came to that conclusion.” Michael nodded at his eldest brother’s words. “These, exterminations, they began sometime during the rise of Greece. A formal meeting was made to add annotations to Heylel’s contract to allow them around the era of Crusades and then again during the Carnatic War.”
“What were the annotations made?” Uriel questioned with a passive ruffle of her wings. Gabriel hummed before simply pushing a scroll to his left for her to see. “You retrieved a copy of their contract?”
“I did,” he nodded, “Tell me what you see.”
“Protection for Souls born to Hell, agre-” Michael tensed as Uriel stopped speaking. “This can’t be,” her tone of disbelief had all of them turning to look at Gabriel.
“In exchange for the protection of those born to Hell, Lucifer Morningstar agrees to close off access for Sinners to enter any Ring aside from his own.” Gabriel quoted while folding his hands and propping his elbows onto the table. “The amendment created the overpopulation of the Ring of Pride.”
“You mean,” Michael felt his stomach turn. Gabriel nodded but did not look at any of them as Uriel reached for another scroll.
“The second states that Adam himself is forbidden from attacking any Soul Named and/or Claimed by the sovereigns of Hell and its ruling body. In exchange for their protection, neither Lilith the First Woman, Mother of Demonkind, and Queen of Hell nor Lucifer Morningstar, Father of Pride, and King of Hell will aid their people during the purge of Sinners for twenty-four hours.” Michael tried to fight the bile rising up his throat. Jerahmeel seemed to do the same. Uriel’s tanned complexion had turned white, her citrine eyes resembling reptiles, as she forced the second paper out of her hands.
“The truth,” Gabriel stood and moved to the wall hidden by velvet. “Heylel had no choice. He was forced and paid the price. Yet, a loophole remained.”
“His children,” Jerahmeel whispered. “His children could stand in! They can fight, they,”
“Are children,” Michael interrupted. “Charlie has no instinct to fight and Dowan is a baby! He would risk? Oh Father forgive us.” Michael panicked as his thoughts raced. Heylel had left a loophole of possible protection for the Souls of Hell, but in doing so had left his children to fight for him.
Had that not been what their Father had done with Joshua? Send a son to fight for him?
“We don’t know that that is the case.” Uriel’s forced calm mattered little to Michael. He needed to get his shield. He needed to sharpen his weapons. Heylel forgive him, but he would not let his family face slaughter.
“Micha,”
Humming interrupted whoever had spoken. The doors slowly opened to reveal a figure dressed in the common threads of a shepherd with indigo wings speckled in white ash. If not for the shimmering of power around them, they could easily pass for a Winner.
“Hello siblings, I have arrived!” Azrael greeted with a wide smile that lowered at the lack of joy around him. “What happened?” The brunette asked before he was shoved aside by another late sibling.
“Can one of you come get the stupid Guardian? I am going to sedate her otherwise!” Raphael snapped while waving their arms around. “And Mike? Get your feathered butt to the clinic. I’ve told you not to scratch your hands!” The siblings all looked over at Michael as he flushed and tried to pull his sleeves over his hands, realizing only then he had gouged into them and they were bleeding heavily.
“How are our nieces?” Gabriel asked with a half smile as Jerahmeel and Uriel began moving. Raphael rolled their eyes at him before crossing their arms and lifting a hand to rub their face.
“Wings! The girl grew wings!” The exasperated tone was ignored as Jerahmeel let out a high squeal of excitement. “Oh no you don’t! Jera, I swear to Father!” Michael watched in bewilderment as his sister lifted into the air and took off with their sibling chasing after her on foot.
“We have nieces?” Azrael questioned as Uriel grabbed Michael’s arm. “When did we? Gabriel?”
Michael was pulled more than led down the hallways to the exit. His mind worked to function and only seemed to snap out of it when Uriel smacked his other arm. “No touching.” She ordered as a single orange bind pushed his right arm to his chest and she kept ahold of his left. “Raph already has to heal what you just did.”
… …
Abaddon approached the Gates of Heaven with an annoyed air. Lute watched with a careful eye as the figure brushed past Peter without a word. She knew the half-son of Seth was welcome to Heaven, but he rarely showed. According to Adam, Abaddon hated that neither his father nor his immediate family had appeared in Heaven.
Adam had been so happy to see his grandson. He had danced, partied, and sang for days when Abaddon had appeared. Then he left. Adam admitted he may have pushed the male to forget the others. But they were in Heaven, in paradise! Yes, Adam missed his family, but now he had Abaddon! That had to mean that more of their family would arrive. Abel, Seth, Aclima, Azura!
Lute didn’t know why Adam had been the first Human Soul in Heaven. He had told her how he buried so many of his family with only the hope that he’d see them again keeping him sane.
“Lute,” a voice of stones rubbing together made her tense. “Still following my Gran’da?”
“Why are you here Abe?” Lute demanded as she landed behind him and folded her wings. The tall male tilted his head back to stare above them before rolling his shoulders.
“Don’t. I’m not,” he started before shaking his head. “I’m here as a favor. I ain’t staying.” He told her as he finally looked at her with a face that looked as if Adam had been mirrored but with eyes of solid white. “Since y’know so much, where’s Princess Charlotte, Princess Dowan, and their Guardian?”
“In court.” Lute spat before crossing her arms to glare past him at a building. “If you’re taking the whores and their spawn,”
“Not. Another. Sound.” Lute scrambled to break the hold Abaddon had her in. Her nails slid against the armored skin with no luck of purchase. Her feet kicked uselessly against the male’s legs with pain flaring briefly when he used a knee to land a blow to her lower back. “My favor is just to get them home. But I will hurt you,” he grabbed one of her wings, “badly, if you keep talking like that.”
“You, wouldn’t!” Lute gasped out, trying to look around them for a weapon or person that wasn’t there.
“You wanna try?” He growled into her ear. Lute continued to struggle for a minute, not wanting to give the man any relief of her giving up before going still. “Good. Tell Gran’da I came by.” He ordered before shifting and throwing Lute away from him.
Lute’s wings flared out to catch her and she winced when one gave a painful twinge. “Abe!” She yelled as she rolled over in the air, but the other was already gone. She knew from previous attempts that trying to find him now would be futile. “Shit.” She muttered before changing course to find Adam.
If Abaddon was there to retrieve the Princess and her cohorts, then there was a chance they could still cover everything. Ideas and plans moved in Lute’s mind as she went to the shadowed edge of Heaven where Adam preferred to stay.
The Archangel’s knew about the Exterminations, but if they could convince them that they were protecting Heaven? Lute knew Adam had a copy of the contract showing that Hellborn were safe, and they weren’t attacking any other rings. Pride was where the Sinner’s were! They weren’t the monsters. It was a simple thing of control. If there were too many wolves, the rabbits would vanish.