The manacle trapping Michael’s ankle released without warning. It clattered from where he sat at the edge of the looking glass down into the water his legs dangled beneath. A hum of energy stalled his thoughts of Gabriel and if she had survived and brought his head up. The stairs to Heaven glimmered as they appeared, arcing up within the circular room before fading back to invisibility.

Not a day had passed. The glow of the morning still beamed up through the clouds from Below. Yet the time had come.

God was ready—to deliver his punishment.

Sliding his legs up out of the looking glass, Michael stood tall for a long moment as water pooled at his bare feet. Still in his damp war clothes, his earlier dip in the pool had not freed him of the remnants of battle. Not that being cleansed of that proof would save him now.

With a deep sigh, he found the first invisible step and ascended the stairway to Heaven, each footfall heavy with the weight of his expectation. With each invisible step appearing with his reaching foot as the previous one vanished, he recalled the last time he had ventured up here. The day he had heard of God’s plan to banish Lucifer to Earth should he step another foot out of line. Michael had stolen away with that knowledge that was not his to have, and he had used it against his brother. Damaging Lucifer’s cell had been done on purpose. He had known the disgraced angel would rush to Gabriel, and he made sure Lucifer was caught breaking God’s orders to abstain from his forbidden desires.

Remembering the day he had encountered Lucifer with Gabriel naked in his arms felt like the fallen angel was reaching inside his chest and crushing his beating heart. Lucifer had never and would never deserve one as pure as Gabriel. He certainly would never own the right to defile her in the way he had intended. And now she had been taken from Michael, removed without any word of her ability to overcome the infection that wreaked havoc on her body. An infection she had sustained in her efforts to stop his intentions to kill Lucifer’s creations.

“Michael, you hover in silence, yet your musings are loud.” God’s voice filled with impatience and his almighty power was as loud as clapping thunder.

Snapping out of his memories and chasing them back to the dark depths of his mind, it was glaringly obvious that this summons was not to be a friendly one. If Gabriel had survived, he doubted he was about to be enlightened.

Michael composed himself on the outside. He took the last step into the vast expanse of light, head held high as he strode forward to stand before God’s pearly throne. Like last time, a hazy veil lay beyond the luminous throne, the fuzzy light obscuring all of Heaven that lay beyond. The hole that could appear at God’s will on the bright floor between Michael’s toes and where God sat in his brilliant glowing form was out of sight too. A hole to darkness that could swallow a soul without warning. Michael edged back. Since returning Gabriel to the Realm of Light, he had escaped any reprimand by God, but he knew one was coming. Michael had acted without instruction. With the angel sword God had entrusted him with, he had ventured below with the intent to end Lucifer’s life and that of all his created monsters.

God knew all he had done. He had intervened by saving Lucifer and sending the fallen angel to a fiery place worse than Earth. He had given those monsters a choice too. Out of all the ones that fell to Hell, only twelve knelt and swore their allegiance to God in exchange for life on Earth and the reinstatement of their humanity as the first of a new race. The race of vampires.

Michael bent down onto one knee. “I bow to your will, my God.”

The light that shone like a star itself from the pearly throne throbbed with a shock of blistering heat. A flood of power invaded his body, striking straight through his skin to his bones.

Michael refused the impulse to shelter himself. Instead, he turned his face to the side and gritted his teeth. A sudden shift as he palmed the hilt of his sword to keep steady had his eyelids flinging open. His hand on the jeweled hilt burned, light searing from the inside as if it were turning his bones to hot coals. A grunt barked from his lips—and the power shot out of his palm.

The angel sword beamed electric blue, humming with power too strong to contain. The weapon exploded in a rain of hot blue shards that melted into nothingness on the glowing ground.

As the blistering flare in front of him died off, Michael looked up, cradling his throbbing hand. God’s human form stared back at him with empty white eyes, an adolescent boy that with his golden skin and hair resembled the archangel he had tried to kill. God lowered off his soaring throne, his face, though angelic, betraying no emotion as he neared Michael. In his blue and gold robing, Michael was shorter only because he remained down on one knee. God’s youthful and small hand, unblemished and free of callouses or scars, reached out. Michael cringed but did not retreat. “For your attempt on Lucifer’s immortal life, you are to venture below for mass cleanup. And you are not to return until when and if you are summoned. Until I decide on your penance to undo what you have now set in motion is paid. But first…”

The light that haloed God dulled momentarily. Any thoughts Michael had on his expulsion fled with rising apprehension as a bright spark rushed to God’s extending finger—that touched Michael dead center on his forehead.

Sudden voltage surged through Michael at the contact, so powerful that it should have thrown him across the expanse of light. Instead, he remained rooted to the glowing floor, feeling as though his foot and knee were pinned down with spikes. Eyes snapping shut at the torturous pain that tunneled through him, images flashed in Michael’s mind. At first, he saw that scene again, the one with Lucifer bared naked and Gabriel in his arms. He saw as the other angel’s hand slipped between her legs, gliding higher and higher. The image shifted without warning, morphing and changing. No longer in Gabriel’s scorched garden, Michael was surrounded by glossy black floors, walls of charcoal, and fire that burned up all around in a circle that created a trap of the two beings inside. Yet they were not worried or even concerned. On a bed of satin black, Lucifer lay with Gabriel, his body wedged between her legs as he groaned in pleasure.

“No, they cannot…”

Before Michael could complete his words of disbelief, or even clamp a hand over his mouth to shove the spike of bile up his throat back down, the sight vanished. He saw Gabriel screaming atop that black bed, writhing in agony, and then—anarchy. Battle cries and weapons clanged as they were deflected from flesh. Watching desperately to see if Gabriel would survive, the answers were washed away with a blink that brought light to his vision. Heaven, it was the same as it was now, and yet it was not. The calm and quiet was gone. The seclusion. Lucifer’s red-eyed monsters were everywhere, armed and attacking all they could get near. Angels, so many angels, hundreds more than the twelve archangels that existed now. And they were falling. With each one that was run through with a sword, the glow of Heaven faded with the loss of their light. And then, one by one, they started to fall, tumbling from the blackening sky in a flurry of broken wings and feathers.

Michael gasped as he returned from the images that had been delivered into his mind. Collapsing as God’s power shot down to take out his legs, he fought to push himself back up but only managed to prop up his torso. Forgotten were his thoughts of his expulsion and undetermined punishment for acting without command. It was clear that there were much more important matters to see to than his step out of line. He wanted to question what God had shown him, if he had somehow set this in motion as his earlier words suggested, and how it could even occur with Lucifer imprisoned in that fiery place below the earth’s crust. But he held back, trapping his tongue between his teeth. He was already in deep water. And with or without the knowledge, the result had been clear. Lucifer’s actions with Gabriel would bring about their end and the death of Heaven.

Which meant, Gabriel had survived her infection and would continue to do so.

Despite the danger to them all, Michael’s heavy heart lifted a fraction.

Returning to his throne, the boy’s form brightened until all that remained was God’s glorious light. Michael desperately wanted to know what action they, and more specifically he, could take to stop this outcome. But he kept quiet. It was not Michael’s place to question God, it was his place to serve.

Finally, when Michael was about to give in and speak, God’s voice, as it always did in his light form, boomed inside his head with power and finality. “Now that I have shown you what the future holds, what will you do, Michael, warrior of mine, to prevent the total annihilation of Heaven and all who reside herein?”

Michael brought his hands together, his servitude and renewed need to protect Gabriel along with all of Heaven not wavering for even an instant. “I will do as you command in any manner you determine. I will be your hand and you will be my guide. Whatever the action needed, I am your driving force now and until my last breath.”

“I accept your pledge as my one true warrior, a warrior that will create and then train an army to rival all who seek to destroy our light.”

The ground vanished from beneath Michael—and so did Heaven.

Suddenly below a blinding sun, he flung his battered wings out, catching his body before the uprush could crack bones and drag him down. Hovering and alone, he was left with a sense of utter confusion.

How would he possibly create an army?