Children of the Archangels

CHAPTER 21: AN ANGEL LOSES HIS TONGUE

When Mr. Faustin tossed two students out the window at SGA, Luke thought that was cruel. But the punishment that the young angel Jorahel was about to receive from his teacher for stealing the Book of Life would make Mr. Faustin's look like a slap on the wrist.

"You know that book is the Lord's record of all those blessed with life," the old angel said. "It is a book of his children. It was under my protection, and you were my student. Why would you betray me? What has Lucifer offered you that neither I nor the Lord can give?"

Jorahel looked like a student who got caught watching porn in the middle of class. His face flustered, his hands trembled. "We have so much knowledge," he stuttered. "So much to share, and yet we harbor it. Why is the Lord afraid to share his knowledge with all of his children?"

The old angel tugged at his robe right over where a heart would be if he were human. "Your love of the humans is a wonderful gift, one that Lucifer lacks. But it will also be your downfall." Meanwhile, around him, the red dust from the comet's blast was starting to fade away.

"At least I show them love!" Jorahel cried out. "Where was the Lord's love when they suffered from disease or starvation? We have the knowledge for cures and to maximize their food. But we harbor it—all of it. Why do we allow these humans to suffer?"

The teacher looked away from his pupil. Luke couldn't help noticing the hurt in his eyes as a film of water coated them. "The Lord's plan is a plan of love, even if it involves allowing them to find their own path."

"And yet he crosses off the names of those who don't follow the correct path!" Jorahel unveiled the Book of Life with many names crossed off with a line cutting through them. "All of these souls, damned because they didn't have the knowledge we have. They could've been saved."

"Knowledge isn't the key to salvation Jorahel," the teacher said. "It's the application of knowledge that saves a person from the fall. Just look at the first name in the book to understand this."

Luke was starting to like this old teacher. Lucifer, the right-hand angel of God, knew everything, and yet he still strayed from the path of righteousness. In fact, he created the path of sin, because before he charted the path, it was nonexistent.

Luke knew that deep down, Jorahel knew this too. But Jorahel shook his head. "No, even if one person abused knowledge doesn't mean we should deny it to everyone else."

"Yes, but this knowledge was not yours to share Jorahel," the teacher sighed. "You went ahead of the Lord's wishes. Not only did you give them writing, you gave them the gift of fire as well. Do you know how much danger you have placed the humans under in your efforts to save them?"

"Danger? I freed them," Jorahel stressed the word "free" as if his life depended on it.

"You diluted our language and my element for them which makes it easily corruptible. You gave them a taste of knowledge without sharing the entire meal. If you ask me, that's even crueler than giving them nothing. With this taste, you've given them a hope that can never be fulfilled in their state. Their minds are not like yours and mine. They are not capable of comprehending the incomprehensible."

"And that means we shouldn't try to help them? We shouldn't try to guide them? That they shouldn't even try to understand anything?"

The teacher extended his red sword and pointed it at Jorahel. "You are not helping them by giving them answers, you are only feeding their ignorance. An answer is nothing without the knowledge of how it came to be. Now, hand over the book now."

Jorahel looked down and saw the shield of a fallen soldier. He took it up and picked up his sword. "Teacher, I don't want to fight you." Luke saw it through the tears flowing down his cheeks that Jorahel meant what he had said.

But the teacher readied his sword. "Nor I, but I shall not let a fallen pupil of mine leave without proper punishment for his abuse of knowledge."

And the two fought, or Luke should say, the teacher fought while Jorahel defended scorching blow after blow. Jorahel's shield was covered in scorch marks from the numerous blocks he had to make.

Eventually, Jorahel was overwhelmed and collapsed to the ground. He gritted his teeth and cried out to the teacher in a voice that cracked with desperation. "Stop this! Please Uriel."

Luke's heart rose to his brain. He should've noticed by the flaming sword, wings, and electric hair that the teacher all along...

Was the archangel who adopted him.

"You have sided with Lucifer the traitor over your own master," Uriel spoke with the authority of a drill sergeant. "God has no more mercy for you."

Uriel slid to his right and positioned himself and his sword behind Jorahel. He flapped his mighty wings just once and allowed momentum to do the rest.

The sword sliced clean through the small wings of the young angel Jorahel. Luke knew the wings of an angel were like the soul of a human. Without them, he was no longer considered an angel.

Jorahel clenched his teeth and cried out in a broken pain that made Luke's heart drown itself in pity. Luke looked away but a spark of electricity forced him to turn back in the direction of Jorahel.

The beautiful wings of Jorahel crashed into the rusty ground and faded away. All Luke heard was the yells of Jorahel, and in between those yells were the sizzle of frying meat coming from the stumps where Jorahel's wings once were.

Tears seemed to never stop flowing from Jorahel's eyes. The pain he showed could give a masochist more than he bargained for. Luke knew this pain, because he has caused this pain. This was the power of the Undying Sear, a burn that would last forever at the same intensity it was dealt.

Jorahel bit his tongue and found enough strength to ask, "Why teacher? Why would you do this to your own student?"

Uriel's flames flickered and his body erupted in flames for a brief second. But Luke knew that those flames were a show of force that was covering the sadness tearing at the old angel's essence. "Enough of this," he quivered and did something Luke wasn't expecting.

He reached out and latched onto the screaming tongue of Jorahel. "You'll never be able to say your name again Jorahel. You are a pupil of God no longer." And with a simple swipe, Jorahel's tongue joined his wings in the dirt and disappeared.

Jorahel's cries went from being bellowed to being moaned. He gripped his face and curled up into a ball on the ground. Uriel reach down and took the small keychain book from Jorahel's robe. He then turned and started walking away, but not before turning and staring directly at Luke's eyes.

A flame danced in one eye, and a lightning bolt raged in the other. "Don't make me have to do the same to you."