Hawaii, present day
So relaxed, Diletta hadn't felt in ages.
With her eyes closed and ears submerged to block out all sounds, she let herself drift with the gentle waves as the sunrays warmed the front side of her body.
Peace, finally.
"Diletta, get out of the water."
It was too good to last.
She huffed and rolled up straight until her feet touched the bottom and saw the archangel standing at the beach, looking at her with arms crossed.
"Why? It's not like I have somewhere to be."
"I do. Come out," he said and headed back to the campsite.
Yes, mom.
As Diletta swam to the shore, her mind raced to last night's events; after offering her the bracelet made of grace, Michael left without another word and retreated into one of the cabins, leaving her alone at the table, puzzled by his actions. She examined the delicate piece of jewelry for a few moments, before retiring for the night. The next morning, the angel-alarm clock came to wake her up, being his bossy old self as if nothing unusual had happened.
Diletta decided to go along with it, giving herself time to figure the man out. After all, he was a celestial immortal being, so the unexpected was expected. One thing was sure though: she would never ask anything about angelic business again. Apparently, it was his breaking point.
She removed the shirt she used for a swimsuit, still uncomfortable walking around naked despite Michael's indifference, put on her clothes, and went to look for the angel. She found him raking havoc in a cabin. "What are you doing?"
The archangel was ravishing closets, drawers, and cabinets, piling stuff up on a bed. "We are leaving tomorrow. I am looking for supplies and somewhere to put them." He stopped and turned to her. "But first things first. Come with me."
They were leaving?
"Why are we leaving?"
Taking her hand in his and ignoring her question, Michael led her outside, behind a nearby cabin, and pointed beside a barrel filled with their previous clothes. There, on top of a chopped tree trunk, lay the cross of the Faithful. Diletta had totally forgotten about it. She stared at the pendant, astonished that it hadn't been lost this whole time and through all that fuss.
"I was about to burn our stinking garments," said Michael, "and checked your pockets first. I remembered you had hidden a bottle of the mix in there,"–yet another thing she forgot–"and I couldn't have the substance released in the atmosphere." He pinned her with his gaze. "To my surprise, I also discovered this." He pointed to the cross. "Is it yours?"
He seemed pretty upset, and Diletta considered lying about it, but feared he might have lie-detecting abilities among everything else. "Yes."
"And you had it with you all this time?"
Well, dah. "Yes."
Michael approached the trunk and narrowed his eyes at the symbol of Christianity. "This cross has been blessed by one of my kind." He took it in his hand, the cross leaving a burn mark on his palm, much to Diletta's surprise. The angel dropped it back on the wood, his skin healing in seconds. "And it has been blessed especially for you. Who gave this to you?"
Diletta was gaping at Michael in a quite unattractive way. "I don't understand."
When the priest handed her the cross, she didn't believe for a moment his rambling about how it would protect her. She had just shoved the thing in a pocket and forgotten it there. And now she was finding out that the madman was actually telling the truth.
Michael sighed and shut his eyes; when he opened them again, the fire that reigned within had subsided. Perhaps he was making an effort to control his fiery nature. She remembered she had once read that Seraphim meant the burning ones. And the angel before her was their leader.
"Whoever blessed this cross made it so that no one but you could bear it. Not even me."
Diletta looked at him wide-eyed. That couldn't be true. Whoever did this had no way of knowing it was going to be her who would take on the mission.
Oh, shit. Remiel was right.
"It takes an archangel to give a blessing like that. And there are only so many of us." Michael approached her, halting only a few inches away, the smell of primrose attacking her in waves. "It's time you tell me how you ended up inside the base."
Diletta went near the trunk and looked at the cross wary, then carefully placed it in her palm, half-expecting it to burn her. Nothing. The iron was as cool as ever.
Shaken up by the angel's revelations, she dropped the pendant and stumbled backwards, collapsing against the cabin's wall. "The Faithful gave it to me."
Michael frowned.
"They are some crazy priests who want the angels to win the War. They are also the ones who gave me the directions I needed to free you."
The angel nodded and sat down beside her. The heat of his body enveloped her, his proximity sending wild, fluttering butterflies in her belly. She noticed his eyebrow lift in amusement.
Damn aura thing.
"Who brought you to Dulce? You said you lived in Rome."
Fortunately, Michael had his mind only on the matter at hand. Unfortunately, the conversation had led to Remiel and, for reasons unknown, Diletta was quite reluctant to mention him.
"An angel."
Michael took hold of her chin and forced her to face him. Every neuron in her body fired up, and when he smiled and brought his lips a breath away from hers, Diletta forgot how to breathe.
"I need more than that. Name. Description." He let her chin down and gazed at her.
Was he taking advantage of her attraction to him to manipulate her? The disturbing and more than embarrassing thought crept into her mind, flipping the switch of rage. Interrogated like a criminal, suspected even after everything she did, and now this.
It was time to take the Fifth. "He never told me his name."
"You're lying."
Diletta shot up, hands on her hips. "I am not telling you. What are you going to do? And what difference does it make, anyway?" She shouldn't be provoking the burning one, but since he offered her the bracelet, she felt quite safe. And brave.
The archangel rose slowly, the amber in his irises changing to gold, his palms turning into fists, his wings unfolding. Diletta backed away, debating her former resolution. But after shooting her a lethal glare, Michael took a long breath, shut his eyes, and when he opened them again, the wings disappeared from his back, as did the fire in his gaze.
He was really making an effort, she would give him that.
"The cross is also a tracking device, Diletta. I need to know, for both our sakes, who is stalking us."
Wait, what?
A surge of panic flooded her insides, her heartbeat accelerating. Michael had a damn good point, but more out of instinct than out of reasoning, Diletta believed that by mentioning Remiel, the archangel would go ballistic. Maybe she should approach this one baby step at a time and watch his reaction.
"Well, he had black hair. And black eyes."
Michael took deliberate steps towards her, forcing Diletta to backtrack until she hit the wall of another cabin. He towered above her, intimidating and intoxicating.
Her plan wasn't going very well. "And also black wings."
The angel surrounded her, placing an arm on either side, trapping her in place. "That means he was a Fallen."
The way the word fallen fell from his lips told Diletta that despite Remiel's protests when they met, she was right about them being foes.
She hoped the grace bracelet would live up to the hype.
"He was also very handsome."
Why on earth she said that, Diletta had no idea. It was the first thing that popped into mind in an attempt to say something, anything, instead of revealing Remiel's name. But when Michael threw a punch at the wall, ripping it open, she instantly regretted it.
"Why are you protecting him? Did you have sex with him?"
Stunned, all she could do was stare at him and blink. Of all the weird things the archangel had said so far, this was the most outrageous. A gorgeous being like Remiel having sex with a wreck like her! She would have tumbled over and laughed her guts out, if the swirling of the amber gold inside Michael's irises didn't reveal he was enraged.
"Of course not."
"Why not? You find him very handsome, as you so effortlessly stated."
When did the discussion go from who was stalking her to who was fucking her? Diletta saw the dance of fury in the angel's eyes, the violent flexing of his muscles that threatened to tear the t-shirt apart. Why did the idea of her having sex with Remiel bother him so much?
Diletta threw her head down. But of course. The Supreme Commander probably found it despicable for an angel to sleep with someone so inferior. The thought - for reasons she suspected - stung.
So fatal felt his judgement, that instantly all expectations died. Like a sliding door, it shut in her face, leaving her wondering what lay on the other side forever out of reach. Left outside alone, she decided to give the conversation its proper nuclear end.
"His name was Remiel," she said, ignoring the angel's question.
Michael stilled.
Trapped as she was between his arms, she too stilled and waited for his explosion. But it never came. Instead, Michael backed off, mumbling to himself. "That does not make sense..."
The vicious rollercoaster train of thought, that had her plummeting down into her personal hell of depressive assumptions, derailed violently as curiosity overpowered every other notion and emotion. As the archangel started pacing back and forth troubled, Diletta followed behind like a puppy. "Why Mi- Supreme Commander? What's going on?"
He abruptly stopped and turned around, resulting in her crashing into his chest.
"Ouch!"
"Are you sure about the Fallen's name?"
Rubbing her head, she nodded. "One hundred percent. Why doesn't it make sense?"
Michael gazed at her in silence until finally snapping out of the trance he was in and composing himself. "That is of no concern to you." He took off towards the cabin where he found him earlier, casually giving orders as he went, as if the surreal conversation they just had, never happened. "Prepare yourself, for tomorrow we depart. And take that cross with you."
Diletta stared motionless at his retreating figure, unable to follow the speed with which the angel changed moods and attitudes. When she finally caught up, she grabbed the cross, slipped it over her head and rushed to the cabin, marching in as determined as someone who doesn't walk straight can. It worked, because Michael stopped what he was doing and focused on her.
"Okay, Supreme Commander, I understand I can't ask about angelic business, but will you at least tell me why you are keeping me with you? I think I deserve to know that much."
There, she said it. In a formal, civilized way, so unlike her.
Michael didn't seem to appreciate it, though. "Why? Would you rather be somewhere else?" Crossing his hands behind his back, he approached with the grace and deliberation of a predator. "Would you rather be with handsome Remiel?"
If Diletta didn't know any better, she would swear he was acting like a jealous boyfriend. But she did know better; it wasn't a lover's tantrum but his animosity towards the Fallen. She let out a resigned sigh and watched it stumble on the angel's shirt.
"Please, what is my part in all this?" The one question she wanted to ask since they flew away from Dulce. Her heart started thumping quicker as the angel studied her for a few more seconds and then went back to his task.
"It seems I have underestimated your species," he said while he tossed sheets and pillowcases inside a closet. "I need a human in order to understand humans better, and you are the only one I can trust."
All things considered, Diletta didn't expect a confession of love. She really didn't. And yet, even though Michael had just told her he trusted her - and the words should have brought her solace - her heart sank. She struggled to comprehend why the disclosure of his intentions left her feeling so disheartened.
Maybe because she was nothing more than a pawn in the great General's intergalactic chess game, another soldier to use in his un-holy war. Maybe because the siren song of hope had kept her under its spell, secretly anticipating something different. As the saying goes, hope is the last to die.
After having killed everything else.
Diletta raised her chin and threatened her eyes not to water. Not in front of him. "I see. And may I know where we are going?"
Michael stopped and turned to look at her, frowning. Perhaps she had overdone it with all that formal speech shit.
"Clearly, I have plenty of understanding to do since, right now, I am unable to comprehend why what I've said made you so sad."
Diletta stood motionless and rigid, hands crossed behind like the good soldier she was. No matter how much her pride screamed, she couldn't find a single thing to say to that.
To her relief, Michael decided to drop it and return to his task. "We are going to look for my siblings."
It took Diletta a moment or two to absorb what the angel said. But then realization washed over her, the monumental moment in future time a hurricane thrashing her out of the self-pity downward spiral right away.
She was going to meet all the Archs. All of them.
"You know where they are?"
"There are only a few places they can be, and we'll start with the most probable."
She did dream in the past of traveling the world. It would be better if said world was not in ruins and at war, but whatever, she'd take what she could get. "And that would be..?"
Michael huffed, gazing satisfied at a backpack before throwing it aside.
"Antarctica."
********
Angels don't need to sleep, even in their lesser form that Earth's lower dimension requires. They can, but don't have to. So for the past couple of nights, Michael swam in the ocean, trained, meditated, plotted, analyzed, and then entered Diletta's cabin when she was deep into Morpheus's realm. And watched her sleep.
Many times during those hours, the small-framed human tossed and turned in her sleep, mumbling, sniffing, hyperventilating, as she battled against her inner demons - the broken pieces of her life that haunted her and wouldn't allow her a moment of peace.
Michael would then sit on the bed and place his palm on her heart, letting a small amount of grace slip in. At once, the girl would relax and smile in contentment.
And Michael smiled content too, reluctant to leave her side.
It was such an hour, right before the morning they would depart for Antarctica, that he once again sat serene beside her, after soothing her tormented spirit, and watched her.
Just watched.
Under the dark cloud of depression, the little spitfire had one of the most beautiful auras he had ever seen. And he had seen a lot. He led the lost out of Purgatory, after all.
Millions upon millions of souls - engulfing the living beings as auras while in their material bodies - had paraded in front of him. But rare were the times he stumbled upon one he couldn't look away from.
And Diletta's was among those precious few.
Trapped inside her physical form, its limitations, disabilities, and reflection in the mirror, the little human failed to see how beautiful she really was.
But he did see. Before his eyes, a sea of bright hues and brilliant tints, a salvo of iridescent shades, ebbed and flowed and rose and fell and then boomed again in a majestic rhythm, enchanting his gaze - it was a dazzling dance, a symphonious swing engulfed in a blaze of radiance, beaming, breathing, burning with light.
Especially when something made her happy. When Diletta was happy - when her aura pierced triumphant through the fogs of despair - she was a sight to behold.
Dwelling on such thoughts that brought peace to his spirit, Michael was about to rise and leave when the human shot up and looked at him wide-eyed.
"Diletta? Are you alright?"
She was staring at him like a deer caught in headlights, her lips trembling and her eyes watering. Alarmed, he let his grace scan the grounds for any form of threat. Nothing. Not a living soul in the vicinity besides the two of them. "What's troubling you? Did you have a nightmare?"
His little human kept looking at him, her eyes now fountains of emotion, letting rivers of tears stream generously down her cheeks.
"You are Michael," she said.
He frowned. "Of course I am." What was wrong with her? She was acting as if she was seeing him for the first time.
"You are archangel Michael. You are here. It is really you."
Her aura exploded.
And right there, before his astonished eyes, Michael saw a soul glowing golden like his grace, identical to his own once-golden wings; the color they forever lost when Lucifer fell.
Right there, at that moment, Diletta's spirit sang in flawless tune with the Divine Light, the source of all life. Her soul vibrated in perfect harmony and absolute unison with his grace. And she was weeping endless tears, trembling with joy - humbled, grateful, ecstatic, bathed in wondrous, overflowing, breathtaking bliss.
"It really is you," she whispered in a voice filled with awe and passed out, Michael catching her in his stunned embrace.