"Three people aren't able to decide for a group consisting of twelve." Kell said as we walked in, perhaps having held that thought on his mind since we left.
"Where is Lane anyways?" I said nonchalantly as I took a seat. "Anyways, like two or three of you are dead at this point and the rest are off spree murdering- though, I'd expect one or two of them to also be dead by this point."
"We still stand as a governing body that requires time to replace missing members and consult others on issues brought to us."
"This will be short." Michael said, but I noted something sore about his voice and raised a hand to keep him quiet.
"We would like you to surrender." I said as calm as I could muster, but I feared the sound of my heartbeat would somehow betray me.
"We?" Stacy said snidely.
Michael turned his head and looked at me, and I didn't want to meet his gaze. He knew I was lying, and I could see him struggle not to speak the truth. But he held his tongue.
The rest of the occupants in the room were waiting.
"Even if every angel in Heaven dies, even if you burn the city and wreak its walls- the Brothers of Blood will continue to live." My voice shook, and I found myself focusing on my eyes. Trying not to cry confused tears at my words. "They will live and die and live again. And there is no solution to that. They will kill you all."
The Brothers had nothing to say on the matter. Kell, still casually upset, leaned back. "I've dealt with the immortal before, and I swear, usually they're a bit nicer than this."
"When did you..." I started, but dropped the subject. "Heaven would like you to surrender before you waste any more lives."
"Why are you the one speaking?" Glenn said.
The Brothers behind me were still clueless as to why Michael had brought them here, and Michael himself had retreated to a state of serene stillness.
"It is my duty to do whatever Michael asks me to."
"With matters like these, I'd rather not hear anything from a man who can't make up his mind about what he is."
"I haven't changed." I said. "And I never will."
"What exactly are you asking of us then?" Kell said. "Lay out your terms."
I did not know about the future. That was supposed to be Michael's duty, to know what I never could of yesterday and tomorrow. But I looked at him, again, sitting by my side and I remembered how good I was at bullshitting answers.
"Stop your siege. Surrender your blades. Lose your weapons. Dismantle your army. End this war."
"What will you do then?" Stacy asked, perhaps asking about me instead of my family, but I choose to ignore that.
"Mourn our dead. You should too."
"So just like that then? End it all?" Glenn said sadly. She wasn't the sort to feel remorse over peace, so perhaps it was purely the era that she was going to miss.
"Yes." I said. I had been keeping my eyes narrow and sharp the whole conversation, careful not to cry or wince. But then I twitched my nose and gazed to the floor. "And let the angels come here."
"You want every angel to come to Hell?" Kell said harshly. The Brothers beside me had no reaction.
"To reap the reward of war, let us take your city." I told him. "...They need to get out of there."
"What will you do, Nichael?" Stacy said once more. I didn't even flinch at my improper name. I knew he had already forsaken me.
"Whatever Michael asks of me."
What was that saying again? It had been one of those things I thought mediocre when Tegan had read it to me once off her computer screen. 'Then before, now once more' She had said, sort of curious 'Is that a quote or something?'
I hadn't answered her, sitting on the floor with my eyes closed, wishing she'd just be quiet so I could pray to Michael uninterrupted.
'How would that sound in your language, Michael?' She had asked, slip up of my name going undetected to her-
But I called it out:
'Nichael.' I mumbled, snapping my eyes open to retreat to the roof. 'When you mispronounce who I am, you insult who I belong to.'
Then before, and now once more.
"The angels need to come to Hell." I said, and suddenly I realized I was crying- liquid was welling in my eyes, and I turned my head again to the ground only to realize it was just blood. "That is the final term."
Kell dragged a laptop across the table and spoke. "Moll?" he said. "We're done." He then turned back to me. "We'll get this in writing soon." His lips pursed, but he reached a hand out.
My hand was shaking with great movements, not even a series of small quivers but rather an aggressive back and forth that I could not begin to control. With my other hand, I gripped at the wrist to keep myself still. But then my shoulders began to shake as well, and Kell retreated his hand.
"Are you going to kill me yet, Michael?" I asked, turning to him with a mixture of blood and tears coating my cheeks.
"I liked you better innocent." He said.
He stood up.
Something on my shoulder broke, and the blood began to stain my arm. Michael was halfway out the door when he remembered to say something first. "I will come back soon."
"Michael." Raphael called to him, reluctantly following him but gazing towards me.
"Oh right." He huffed. Then he reached into the baggy pocket of his dress and pulled out a flask. He cradled my head with the delicate touch of his sun-kissed fingers and I felt something heavy slide down my throat. Blood, of course. But it had been distilled in some way, as to ensure the iron flavor was nothing more than that- the rest was the Grace I needed.
He allowed me a few sips, but then roughly let go, letting my head fall. I blacked out at some point, just for a few seconds, but it was long enough that I barely caught sight of Michael's feet as they exited the room.
"Michael." One of the demons said.
Without looking and without thinking, I corrected them:
"Creed will do."
I could still make out the sounds of Michael's footsteps.
I dragged myself after them, ears ringing.
Creed was not a man but the shell of one, but I could hardly argue hypothetical personalities in my mind in my current condition. Something felt like it had broken in my ear, for reasons I did not know, and my hearing had become dull and cluttered with a soft layer of emptiness.
I was trying to figure out who Creed was, angel or demon or human, but the cycle of thought seemed utterly irrelevant. But it circled my mind regardless, tossed about like a prevalent errand.
Creed was a follower, but Nichael and Michael had been too. I was learning nothing, so much so that I decided to give up on the endeavor- though perhaps that decision was influenced more by the fog of my brain.
I followed the Brothers. They left the building, and returned almost immediately, and I followed their trail with the loyalty of a soldier. Michael would look at me, I think, but other times I was sure I had simply been in the way of his eyes.
I did not speak, and they did not speak. We walked through the city streets, and the Brothers surveyed what would soon belong to the angels. There was a single path to trek down, a full circle that brought us back to the start again. A number of moments later from when we had begun.
Michael remembered then that there was still work to attend to, and we returned to the conference room, expected and overdue. Time only dawned on me then. The passings of the last few hours was already wiped from my memory.
Kell sat next to Kelsey, the former partners positioned like they were having an intense conversation, but they were utterly quiet. Lane was next to Kelsey, gripping his arm protectively. Glenn was reading, but I noted how she kept twirling her hair and how the cover of her novel indicated it was likely meant for children.
Stacy was calm, while Moll and Logan sat tense and semi-injured across from him. The new Gemini, Blair, and Noel were missing. In the hospital.
I had been listening more than I had been speaking, but I was having trouble remembering what had already been said. "No deaths then?" I asked the room.
Gabriel had been speaking, and he stopped to look at me with such a neutral expression that I had trouble believing he was offended.
"We'll see about Blair." Kell said with a scratchy voice. He looked to Kelsey once before standing up and approaching the brothers. "Your terms need to be written down properly. But we'll accept them."
"It's not my job to decide this." Michael said, and fell into a chair sideways, draping his legs over the arms. "I thought Nichael had done all that?"
"He only stated that the angels had to come to Hell."
"Yes. That is our term then."
"...It's not wise to favor the enemy, but you have the ability to demand much more."
Michael sighed loudly. "I do not feel fatigue, but I have a feeling everyone here is pretty tired. Let's call it a ceasefire. And meet again at the usual spot."
"I suppose you're referring to the meeting house on Earth? Fine. We'll pull the details then." Kell walked back to his chair, still keeping an eye on Michael. "I'll admit I'm fucking exhausted. You got that part right."
"Who... wouldn't." Glenn mumbled, but her weak voice suggested it was only the beginning of a thought. A finger was warily pressed against one of the many scars on her face.
Raphael and Uriel had never seemed to take to heart how to convey a worrying personality like the erratic Michael or silently calculating Gabriel. Instead, the two seemed hyper and incredibly bored at the solemn half-silence the room was left to fester in. Raphael in particular was staring obtrusively at Moll.
"Molly Montalto?"
"Manly." She said immediately, but I briefly saw her face shift.
"Oh, guess your mom got remarried in whatever cycle you're from. I'm- we're from before all that though, so obviously you don't remember us." Raphael was really blabbing on, but Michael appeared apathetic to whatever damning evidence of prior humanity he was producing. "You used to babysit us when we were kids, which I guess is very irrelevant to whatever life you ended up living now, but maybe it's like, a fun fact?"
The other demons seemed aware, but tired. What time was it again?
"I liked you when we were younger." Michael said, in between chewing on a pen. "Always liked your hair."
Moll consciously ran a hand through her hair, but retreated it suddenly, as if she was worried someone had seen. "You took my daughters."
"Did I? It's all one long coincidence, I think. The demons did it first."
"You knew me before the angels did. There's no coincidence there." She said, her voice weak for a moment. But she raised it a moment later. "My daughters are gone now."
"I didn't take them."
"Nichael took them. Which is the same as saying you took them."
Michael finally glanced at me, meeting my eyes.
"You're absolutely right."
There was quiet. Then Moll spoke again, back to her confidence. "I think I'd like to take them back."
"You phrase that like it's some kind of consideration, if you'll reclaim your kids or not." Raphael said. "Sort of funny wording."
"As much as I'm fond of them, I also never actually met them. So you have to imagine it's a lot like doing something you'll know will only further complicate your life, but feel you have a sort of an obligation to."
Most of the room had long splintered into quiet conversation, not caring what happened between the small circle of the Brothers and Moll. Even among the Brothers, Uriel and Gabriel had become distracted.
"Are you saying that you don't care that I kidnapped your children?" Michael said.
"Oh, of course I care. I care about them just as much as I would someone else's kids." She gave a sharp laugh. "Does that make me a terrible person? I've yet to be called one."
"I love children."
"I'm sure you do, Michael. And I do too. But I'm twenty six years old, and that's pretty young for a demon. I love my daughters on the principle that, as my daughters, I ought to love them. But again, I've never met them. You can't fault me for a little bit of apathy on that front. Children are cute, but costly and a pain to deal with."
"Does that mean I get to keep the kids?" Michael smiled, perking up for the first time in hours and reminding me of some sort of cheery dog.
"No!" Moll laughed, harsh and self-conscious. "Fuck no. I said I cared about them like they were someone else's kids, right? That means, I don't know, a safe and nurturing home environment. Nichael said he found them an orphanage. I'll have to check that out before I full-out abandon them."
Michael laughed too at that, hard, but I couldn't discern why.
I didn't dare to leave his side, but at one point I made eye contact with Kell, and I slipped away to speak with him without any thought at all.
And emphasis on that, for I could not think of a single good question to ask this monster of a man and killer of my brothers but this: "Do you have a lighter?"
He did not, but Kelsey did.
The two of them were looking at each other warily, but not in quiet, and when I looked at the combination of their expressions I knew I recognized the emotion there- the confusion of what to do when someone you took for dead had lived after all.
It was fairly common in Heaven.