Wings and Tears: Part Ten

 

            The angels stood from their various places throughout the streets. Shocked, they each looked at each other. Duo’s father, who had had no desire to watch the embers of the funeral fires, quickly came from his house. “Is everyone ok?!” he demanded. “Uriel! What happened?”

            Uriel turned to look at him, “Your guess is as good as mine. It…it felt like Lucifer…” The Reaper’s eyes narrowed. “But…that’s impossible!”

            “That’s what I thought. As anyone gone to the church?” They quickly started moving down the street, around them flabbergasted angels were slowly recollecting themselves.

            “Michael barricaded himself inside.”

            “What of the human they brought back?”

            Uriel shrugged, “Michael put him in the church as well. Raphael!” Uriel bent to help his comrade up. Raphael’s white robe was covered in the black soot of a fire.

            “What…what?” the confused angel asked.

            “That’s the question we all have. Come on.” Together they ran to the church. Angels had already gathered at the locked doors.

           

            “Michael!” Michael turned towards the sound of someone calling his name. It was his old nameless friend calling for him behind the church’s doors.

            “What’s going on?” Lucifer asked, his voice low and frightened. “What happened?” Luc dimly raised a hand to his stomach, to the hole in his green shirt. He felt the unbroken flesh under the blood stained cloth. “I…did I?…”

            “Yes.” Michael looked at Luc lovingly, “You died in my arms. But I brought you back. Luc, I brought you back!”

            The Spirit in Wufei’s body was silent, apparently not fazed by this lack of recognition.

            “What?” Luc’s eyes were confused, his voice was so small. Michael could barely hear him over the hollering voices outside. “Michael, this doesn’t make sense. I’m so tried…” He closed his eyes. Michael looked at the Spirit.

            “He will be exhausted for a few days,” it said, in its echoic, all-in-one voice.

            “How many days?” Michael demanded, and then winced from the headache that sprung into his head.

 

**

 

            Outside the other angels reacted to the headaches that raged against the skulls.

 

            On Earth Duo looked at his son, “What do you mean?! Lucifer can’t be back!” he said.

            Solo winced, “Not so noisy,” he complained, hands moving to his temples.

 

**

 

            “Three days,” the Spirit responded, “And those headaches will last a couple of minutes.”

            “Great,” Michael muttered, his eyes narrow with pain. He turned back to his husband slowly. Luc had already fallen asleep. Michael smiled, and bent, ignoring the protests in his head, to pick up his love. Luc opened his eyes slightly and moaned. Michael carried him down the aisle of the church. The Spirit followed them. “Could…could you open the door please?” Michael asked, his voice still a little thick with the headache.

            The Spirit nodded and looked at the doors, they blew back as if he had placed TNT in front of them. The angels standing in front of the church dodged the broken wood with surprise. Michael looked at the Spirit.

            “I guess when you do things you aim to impress.” Michael joked. The Spirit looked back at him, his face was apathetic. “Right.” Michael said to himself and readjusted Luc in his arms. Luc moaned slightly and clung to him. The angels outside stared at him in shock as he exited the church.

            “General!” his nameless friend called and caught up to him as Michael passed, wincing a little from the throbbing inside his skull.

            “I have to get Luc inside, can’t you see he’s asleep.”

            “He is supposed to be dead! What happened?” Duo’s father demanded. He looked uneasily at the Spirit that was walking beside Michael.

            “I brought him back. Look I’ll explain everything, but first, just leave me be. OK?”

            The nameless angel nodded and stopped walking. He watched Michael pace away.

            Michael tired to move quickly into his house. The Spirit trotted next to him. He entered his doorway and quickly moved to the bedroom. He laid Luc on the white and comforting bed. Then he moved quickly to remove the torn and bloodied shirt. He removed the shoes and socks on Lucifer’s feet. Luc moved softly in his sleep.

            Michael stood back to look at his husband. Specks of dried blood were littered over his pale torso. His blue jeans were stained as well. Michael debated with himself a second before he removed the pants. He kept the boxer shorts on and then covered Luc up with white sheets and blankets. Michael noticed how Luc’s naturally pale body was whiter because of the blood loss. He could also see the blood and dirt that lined and stained his precious skin. Luc’s blonde hair stuck out oddly with dried rainwater as well. Michael ran one of his tan hands through the yellow strands and mentally promised his husband a bath. Then he turned to look at the Spirit.

            “Watch over him, please.” Michael told it. “Make sure God doesn’t come to drag him back down to Hell.” The Spirit slowly nodded. “Thank-you.” Then he turned back to Luc’s sleeping form, kissed the dreaming forehead.

            “We are curious.” The Spirit said.

            Michael turned, “We?” The Spirit only titled its head in response. Michael sighed. “What is it?”

            “Why do you use such words with us? ‘Please’. ‘Thank-you’. Those words are not for us.”

            “Do you oppose politeness?”

            The Spirit thought for a moment, “No.”

            “Then what’s the problem.”

            “When you came for us, you threatened Wufei. You did not use words like ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’.”

            “No I didn’t.”

            “Explain.”

            “You are the Spirit allegedly with the power to destroy God, you figure it out.” Michael smiled. “Just watch him, please.” The Spirit nodded. Then with one more kiss on Luc’s face Michael turned and left.

            When he went back outside there was a group of angels waiting for his explanation. He sighed and looked at them.

            “A long time ago, if some of you will remember, the angels that named themselves Duo and Lorelei created a Spirit with immense Power; Power that was rumored to even surpass that of God. When Duo was tempted by that Spirit and Power Lorelei placed it in a warrior, who then passed it from conception to his child. Chang Wufei is the descendant of that warrior. I preformed a ritual, using a liquid that brought that Spirit out. That Spirit, fully exposed now tore Luc’s essence from each of us and placed it back inside of him.”

            “And you didn’t even warn us about what could happen?” Uriel asked.

            “The headaches are gone, what are you worried about?”

            “Michael, think of the consequences! Do you think this won’t affect Luc? Michael, he died!”

            “I know this! He died in my arms!”

            You do not have faith in our Power. Uriel thinks that Luc will be aversely affected? You once believed God could do everything, but He can’t, no one can do everything. However We are closer to having that ability than He is. Have faith in us, the only affects of this will be Luc’s exhaustion and those headaches you experienced.

            The angels looked around them, surprised. The voice of the Spirit had been speaking inside their heads, telepathically. Michael smiled.

            “You confuse me with your Proper and pro-nouns Spirit,” Michael said amused.

            You are the Archangel and General of Heaven, you figure it out.

            Michael laughed.

 

~~

 

            The moonlight flooded into room. Michael carefully crawled into the bed. He slid into the covers. His eyes were staring at Luc.

            “Thank you.” Michael whispered to the Spirit, glancing at it. Its eyes glowed in the darkness. “Do you need--”

            “I do not require sleep.”

            “Oh, ok.”

            Michael lay next to his sleeping husband. Luc moved slightly in his sleep. His relaxed face turned to Michael. Michael moved his hand to push some of his blonde hair from his face.

            “I love you,” he whispered quietly to Luc. Luc’s eyes were moving rapidly behind his closed eyelids, he had started dreaming…

 

 

 

            “Are you going to sit like that forever?” a familiar voice asked.

            Luc looked up from his wrenched position on the throne of Hell, looked at her. There she was, brown hair and eyes, Hispanic-type skin, white wings folded neatly behind her. She smiled brightly at him.

            “Amanda?” he asked confused, “But…but how? You’re dead.”

            She laughed, hair fell from her shoulders. “You should be too, but you’re not. You’re right now lying on Michael’s bed. I envy you.”

            Luc smiled, it had always been the joke between them. God had created Michael too perfectly…

            “Don’t you remember? You woke up on the altar of the church.” Luc thought and then slowly nodded. She smiled, “Good.”

            “But that still doesn’t explain how I could be talking to you…you don’t exist anymore.”

            “You’re dreaming, my love.”

            “God wishes,” he responded to the title.

            She laughed, “I suppose He does.”

            “Amanda…” he said the English name softly. She, Michael and himself were named the day they were created. They were the only angels assigned names like that, all of the other named angels had to work for it. However, she never had shared her name with the other angels. God had insisted that they kept their names secret, until the humans came, and Amanda had never done anything the humans had been told about. In fact, only Michael’s affection had saved her life on many accounts. In the end however, she ended up killing herself.

            “Yes?”

            “How…how did you die? I never knew, just one day I felt you enter me and I knew you were gone. I cried for days and prayed to God for Him to just give me some answer.”

            “God stopped listening to your prayers a long, long, long time before I killed myself.”

            “It-it was suicide?”

            She looked at him sadly, “You should ask Michael when you wake up…I…don’t want to talk about it.” He nodded. “So…how did you like my daughter?”

            “She looked nothing like you.”

            “No, she definitely took after her father…Luc, please, look after my widower. He’s so broken. She and Duo broke him even before I died. I’d weep for him if I had eyes. Please, when you see him, say…say that Mandy told you that she loves him.”

            “Mandy?” he raised one of his eyebrows. “You weren’t supposed to share your name.”

            “You’re not the only one who broke some of the Lord’s rules.”

            “What really did happen?”

            She paused, “I saw the future.”

            “Your daughter said the same thing.”

            “I know…”

            He looked at her for a moment. “Why are you in my dream telling me things I don’t know?”

            “Maybe this is more than just a dream…please, Luc just sit and listen to me. Oblivion isn’t has simple as we thought it was.”