They’d elected to remain in the mortal realm, outside of the angel world, and at that moment, they could have returned to Earth. But they knew Gregori’s army would only follow them there. It would follow them anywhere. And on Earth, innocent mortals would die.
It was best to face them here. It was their only choice.
“So here it ends,” said Juliette softly.
“I always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory,” said Rhiannon. She winked at Juliette, and the other red-head grinned winsomely.
“Right,” Jules said with a nod. “Me too, actually.”
Michael raised his sword, a glowing white weapon of absolute glory. “What do you say, boys and girls? If we’re headed for Hell, let’s take as many of them down with us as we can!”
The eight of them cried out in agreement, their voices ringing loud and clear to fill the black-flower field.
From behind them, a beat later, came another battle cry. Michael glanced over his shoulder to find Abraxos and the Adarians flanking them. They, too, held weapons they’d no doubt fashioned out of their returned angel magic.
Michael met Abraxos’s gaze, and the former army General nodded. Just once.
Brax supposedly had a woman waiting for him to find somewhere in the angel realm. All of the Adarians did. They could have returned at any time; the way was cleared for them. And yet they’d elected to remain there with the archangels and fight.
I pegged you wrong
, thought Michael. But he simply nodded back. It was gesture enough.
He turned back to face the oncoming slaughter a split-second before it descended upon them like a cloud of black. He braced himself, brought back his sword arm – and swung, meeting thin air.
He stumbled forward slightly, but righted himself at once and spun to swing again. This time, however, there was not even anything to swing at.
Silence filled the field.
Gregori’s army was gone.
Just like that, the thousands of dark soldiers had up and vanished. One moment, they were bearing down on the archangels and Adarians, and the next, there was nothing there at all but dandelion pollen and a cloud-filled sky.
“What the –” Confusion took over for Michael, and he turned in place. That was when he caught sight of the people up on the hill.
Sam and Angel were back.
But they weren’t the only ones who had re-appeared in the field. Down below the hill, at the center of the black dandelion field, stood Gregori.
He was dressed in dark gray slacks and a gray shirt, and it was the first time Michael had ever seen him without his white suit. For some reason, it made him seem a little less formidable. A little less frightening.
But it might have just been that Gregori wasn’t paying attention to him. His attention was on the woman several yards away.
Standing alone, wearing long white shimmering robes, stood a woman Michael had never before seen. Sandals adorned her feet, and like a new bride, she carried before her a small perfect bunch of snow-white dandelions wrapped with a string. She was medium-height and curvy, with olive gold skin that glowed with health, and long black hair that shimmered with the same. That hair had been intricately pleated behind each ear, and white dandelions had been weaved throughout it.
Her facial features were slightly familiar, and Michael realized she resembled Angel in a superficial way. Their eyes were the same shape, maybe. Or perhaps there was a magical air about them both, or one of mystery.
She had dark, dark eyes. And she was smiling.
The archangels, archesses, and Adarians turned to face the two people at the center of the field. Michael watched on in silence as Gregori gazed at the woman. He seemed lost for words. In fact, it seemed the man could barely breathe.
But when he did manage a breath, he used it to form a single word. “
Amara
….”
She laughed, very softly. “Hello Gregori.” Then she shook her head. “Still causing trouble, I see.”
Gregori stumbled forward to fall at the woman’s feet. Michael could tell the man was crying. His large body shook, his back bent, his head bowed low. The woman he’d called Amara leaned over and gently touched his cheek.
He lifted his head. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Her smile was warm, her gaze eternal. “Always, my wayward soldier. That’s my job.” She leaned further, and he wrapped his arms around her waist as she touched her lips to his.
The clouds overhead parted, and a shaft of light illuminated the couple. One by one, the flowers underneath them lightened. They turned from black to gray, then from gray to white. This transformation overtook the entire field like a ripple in a pond, spreading outward to shift every last dandelion back to its snow-white color all the way to the horizon.
Michael looked from Gregori and Amara to the couple up on the hill. Sam met his gaze, and Michael understood what the Old Man had done. He’d brought Gregori’s love back to life. He’d broken the angel realm’s strictest rule, and in doing so, in re-creating life and rekindling love, he’d given hatred a quick and sure death. That was what love did.
But he’d also sealed his fate as Samael. He would no longer take the position he’d once held; he would no longer bear the title “Old Man.” He and Angel would remain in the mortal realm as separate beings, right alongside Michael and the others.
Sam nodded at Michael, a small movement that was barely visible across the distance. Michael returned the gesture.
And out in the field of flowers, the dandelions at Gregori and Amara’s feet transformed one final time, shifting from white blooms to fluffy spheres of seed. The change rippled outward just as the first had, and before long, the entire field was filled with puffy wishes, waiting to be made.
A breeze picked up out of nowhere, lifting the seeds from their stems to send them floating gently away.
Epilogue
The “Oldest Man,” who was actually a
woman
, sighed a long and satisfied sigh. This last job had been a doozie. It had taken two thousand human years to complete, but as far as she was concerned, it had been worth it.
Long ago, by human terms, she’d caught word that Samael, or the “Old Man,” as he’d been called at that time, had been acting up. So she’d done what she always did when someone who worked for her wasn’t living up to their expectations. She took matters into her own, much more ancient, and much more capable hands.
She’d allowed herself to become one of his creations – a woman named Lilith who was actually not too shabby a job for a beginner. Then she’d let things play out as Samael wanted them to, just to see. The rumors had been correct, unfortunately. The Old Man was unfeeling, uncaring, and undisciplined. He’d cast her out for speaking her mind against him, which was bad enough considering anyone in any of the angel realms had every right to speak out against their leaders. She ran a democracy after all, not a tyranny.
But she’d internally and silently shrugged off Sam’s belligerence and gone along with it, allowing him to believe he’d been successful in casting her down. He was
sooo
much more powerful than she was. Yadayada. She needed time to figure out a way to bring him back down from his high horse, and she sort of needed a vacation anyway. Maybe Earth, which was within Samael’s designated realm, would be the break she craved.
On Earth, however, things became complicated. Jobs always
did
become complicated. It was never any other way once humans were involved.
She smiled when she thought of them. They were her favorite inhabitants of the non-angel realms, despite their shortcomings. They were so
small
, and yet they possessed the remarkable, seemingly impossible capability to be so very
large
.
Well, up in his own world, Sam continued to make a mess of things, sending down “reject” angel after “reject” angel, and Lilith realized she needed to speed things up a bit. It was time for him to learn his lesson.
But as luck would have it, just as she was considering intervening, he went and made his own bed, making promises in his knee jerk reaction to accusations that he was heartless. He created the archesses, forecasted a Culmination to bring an end to this point-proving session, and then ripped himself in two before casting both himself and his other half down as fallen angels just like he’d done to everyone else.
This is where Lilith
did
intervene.
Samael was on the right track. He was willing to make some changes in order to see whether Michael’s accusations of him were founded. That was a start, and it meant he was redeemable. Good help was hard to find, and where possible, Lilith wanted to preserve her leaders once they’d finally worked themselves up to that rank.
She wanted to help Sam.
So she created the Mansion for the archangels and even sent Max to watch over them. Max was her own personal Guardian angel, the man who had attended her and protected her for thousands of years. To do this however, she had to wipe his memory as well. It was a seemingly small gesture on the face of it, but for her, it was admittedly difficult. She had missed Max all this time.
The Mansion and its Guardian were a blessing to the archangels in the worst of times. Some nights, just having a place to lay your head at the end of the day was enough to keep you going, and Max was always there for them.
The rest was more or less history.
All in all, she was pleased. Sam had learned his lesson. While it was true that he had in the end broken the angel realm’s cardinal rule as a result, she knew good and well from her own experiences that sometimes there was just no other way.
Plus… she’d known he would do it. Deep down, she’d known the good in him was that strong. Hence, he may not realize it now, but down the line, at some point in the future, he would be allowed back in the angel realm. She would keep a window open for him and a light on. But that would be then. Tor now, he was content where he was.
It was Angel that had done it. It almost always took a woman. He and Angel were
right
together. The goodness she’d absorbed in the mortal realm finally completed Sam, giving him the depth he’d been sorely lacking.
Lilith smiled to herself and opened the refrigerator. She pulled out a perfect, nearly frozen bottle of Welch’s grape soda. She twisted the top off and listen to it hiss pleasantly before taking a long, refreshing drink straight from the bottle. Her smile became a grin. She really did enjoy humans.
Sometimes, life could be sweet.
“One thing I don’t quite understand,” came a voice from the other room, reminding her that Max was waiting on a drink of his own. She pulled out a Jaxian ale, a drink he’d loved long before she’d sent him to watch over the archangels, and she unscrewed the top for him.
Then she returned to the other room to join him.
The house was a copy of the Mansion he’d lived in on Earth. Or, rather, the Mansion on Earth had been a copy of
this
house. It was the house Max had called home for eons.
“What’s that?” she asked as she handed him the ale and took a seat on the couch across from him.
He stared at the bottle, and memories flooded his handsome features. “I remember this. It’s been
ages
….”
“Yes, it has,” she said, smiling. “So drink up!” she took another swig of her own soda.
He grinned before taking a long pull off the top of his bottle. Then he choked and coughed, and ale went spewing in every direction.
Lilith tried not to laugh, but failed. Max wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and shot her a watery-eyed look of reproach. “I forgot what a kick it has.”
“Your tastes have softened over the last two thousand years,” she told him jokingly. “But you’ll get them back.”
He chose to set the bottle down rather than fight with it again. “Why was the Mansion on Earth falling apart? And why was it letting people in? Like Abraxos?”
Lilith shrugged. “It was part of the lie we’d all created for Samael’s plan. And when that plan began to come to its culmination, the story fell apart. Hence, so did the Mansion and all of its defenses.”
“It was a façade,” Max nodded.
“Yep,” said Lilith. “And it crumbled.”
He met her gaze, and his expression turned a little sad. “They don’t remember me, do they?”
She looked down. “I’m afraid as far as they’re concerned, you never existed.”
Max nodded, and sighed. “I understand. It’s best that way. Though they’re going to have to find their own places to live now.”
Lilith chuckled. “I think that’s the least of their concerns. They’ve got evil to fight. What was it Gabriel said? ‘Earth needs its heroes’?”
“Aye,” Max said, mimicking Gabriel’s thick brogue and grabbing his beer the way the Messenger Angel always did. He lifted it high in toast. “I’ll drink to that.” And he did.
And once again, ale went spewing everywhere.
The End.
Look for Heather Killough-Walden’s other bestselling series, such as the NYT and USA Today bestselling paranormal romance series, The Big Bad Wolf!
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