“What did you get into?” I asked, looking him over. It looked more like he’d been in a fight than excavating the remains of his arena.
Belial shrugged one shoulder. “Just had to put a few old bones back to sleep. What took you so long in the Second Circle? Get a little distracted?”
He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, but despite his teasing, he seemed distracted.
I just took his hand and led him inside. “Not in the way you’re implying. I found out a few things I’d like to look into later, but the messenger told me Michael’s awake-?”
I left it hanging on a question, waiting for Belial to confirm, but he just scowled.
“Are we upset that he’s awake?” I asked, confused by his reaction. This was supposed to be a good thing.
“If by ‘awake’ you mean eating all the food and drinking all the bottles of vintage whiskey this land will never see the likes of again… then yes, he’s awake.”
“Good,” I said brightly, pulling him along. “A drunk archangel is a loose-lipped archangel.”
Belial just shook his head sadly. “He’s drinking them like water, angel. Like water. Do you have any idea how many years I’ve been holding those back?”
The Chainlings guarding the door ahead were both peering into the room. It was impossible to make out their expressions under their hoods, but at one point they shared a glance, and jumped and straightened up when they saw us coming.
“I’ll get your more whiskey and you can age it for the next millennium,” I told Belial. “I just want to know what the Hell happened in Heaven. If there was any chance Gabriel was in on the plan with Satan, then we might be watching our backs for yet more enemies.”
For all my eagerness, I paused when we reached the door. I still didn’t quite like archangels, with the exception of Tascius, after years of being tormented at their hands.
But I’d never met Michael before. Trading information would mean having to give him the benefit of a doubt.
And even if he did try to raise a hand against me… well, he wouldn’t make it far after that, not with Belial at my back.
I stepped into the doorway and stopped in my tracks.
The archangel was sitting on a makeshift bed, his hands free but his ankles still in manacles. He had a plate balanced across his lap, piled with meat, and a tankard in one hand.
Azazel and Tascius were already in there, both of them watching him with incredulity.
“More,” Michael said hoarsely, holding out the tankard.
Azazel stepped forward, tilting a glass bottle until the last topaz drops fell into the outstretched mug. Behind me, Belial let out a small groan of dismay.
Michael held up the tankard and drained it, his throat working as he drank.
I just stared at him, feeling the same incredulity as everyone else, but this was what we had to work with. If he’d been awake for even a fraction of his time in the sarcophagus, he might’ve overheard discussions, plans, maybe even something Lucifer had said.
I decided to introduce myself, taking another step closer. It was hard to not assume the military formation pose of our Choir in the presence of an archangel, with my left hand clasped around my right wrist behind my back, but I was no longer of Heaven’s army, and I didn’t owe him my fealty.
“Hello. I’m Melisande. I’m not sure how much they’ve explained to you, but-”
Michael looked up at me and squinted. “But I’m in Hell, I missed the Apocalypse, and I’ve spent the last century sleeping under the Dragon’s flaming arsehole. We’ve covered the basics.”
I instinctively bristled, but tried to calm myself. I’d probably be in a foul mood too if I woke up in the Pit and was told I missed out on something that important. “Right. Now we have some questions for you. Starting with why you attacked someone you believed was Gabriel.”
Michael placed the tankard on a small table that had been dragged nearby, but his movements weren’t delicate. He moved like he held a sword in hand, nearly planting the mug right through the tabletop. “Because Gabriel was the bastard who told me Raphael was in Hell. I landed right in a trap. Now, why don’t you tell me why there’s a brand-new archangel in here with us? Who died?” I realized his voice wasn’t hoarse from thirst. He just had a deep, booming voice edged with rasp.
But my lips twitched at his question, almost splitting into a smile at the memory of Gabriel’s bloody demise. “We already told you this, but Gabriel died.”
“I’m his son,” Tascius added quietly, still watching Michael with a suspicious eye. “Nephilim-born.”
Michael paused with a leg of mutton halfway to his mouth. “Gabriel is… dead?” He sounded disbelieving, and clearly had zero memory of fighting Tascius the moment he was released from the sarcophagus.
“As a doornail,” I said smugly, but Michael launched to his feet, sending meat scattering and the tray clanging across the room.
“You deprived me of his murder?” he roared.
Within a split-second, Belial had me behind him, his teeth already lengthening and a deep snarl ripping through him. “You will watch yourself in her presence,” he growled, and Michael took a deep breath.
He couldn’t go anywhere with the manacles around his ankles, but his fists clenched and unclenched at his sides. His breathing was ragged, his wings trembling but tucked in against his back. Belial didn’t protest as I edged around him.
“Apologies,” Michael said stiffly. He slowly sat back down and frowned at the mess. “Fuck. Waste of good meat.”
Every second spent in Michael’s presence was opening a small crack in the back of my mind, one that started small and was growing larger by the second. He was an archangel, but… he drank, he swore. Things that were proscribed to the Choirs. Even Gabriel and his like had tried to hide their worst tendencies among others of their kind.
“I just wanted to be the one to rip the little cunt limb from limb,” he finally said.
I sympathized. Really, I did. “Tascius already did that. So, you can rest easy now- he’s dead and gone.”
The gears in Michael’s head were clearly turning. He looked up at me and squinted, his gaze running up and down and finally resting on my wings. “You were in Heaven, then? Did they ever find Raphael?”
I slowly shook my head. “Nobody was looking for him. We were forbidden to discuss his absence.”
“Forbidden by who?” he demanded.
I set my jaw, hating the memories. “Gabriel, of course. And Barachiel, Raguel, and Selaphiel.”
His lips twisted in a sneer. “I should’ve known. Raphael vanished years before Gabriel betrayed me, but those four… they were tighter than a virgin’s-” He cut himself off before finishing that sentence, catching Tascius’s narrow-eyed glare. “They were good friends. Let’s just say that. After Raphael disappeared, God became… distant. He no longer spoke to us as he had before.”
Michael stared at the ground, then raked a hand through his tangled hair.
“Then what?” I prompted gently, my heart pounding. Everything I’d feared was turning out to be at least somewhat true. Gabriel and his kind… they were the worst kind of traitors.
“I suspected foul play, that’s what!” Michael boomed. “For an archangel to vanish without a trace? Unthinkable. And God’s silence… he was turning his face away from us. But I was the fool who trusted Gabriel’s word when he said Raphael had been seen in Hell…” He shook his head. “Pure fucking idiocy.”