News broke the next morning of the event out in the field, except thankfully no human saw us. Or if they did, Raphael used his grace to erase their memories, which was something angels could, and were allowed to, do. We weren’t caught on video and Sam did a time jump back to an hour or so before the fight, and reported the car as stolen.
No human would think that one of us was out in the field. They believed some criminal had gone out there, or perhaps a gang had some turf war.
Human technology hadn’t quite reached the point of knowing that we were lying, and the cars we drove as personal vehicles were not advanced enough to have GPS inside. We were not the sort of rich people concerned with being kidnapped or something. I, personally, would have welcomed a human who attempted to kidnap me. Could be fun, like those escape rooms, except on a more difficult setting.
It wasn’t until Sam began lending Grace cars that we had a vehicle smart enough to know where it was and who was driving it at all times.
Just in case.
Raphael could have gone back in time and reported his own damned car stolen, but apparently, he really didn’t want to tell the others. I hadn’t come forward because he had threatened me. Or maybe it was because he had asked me, maybe. He had never asked me to do anything before.
We all had our little secrets.
Like Gabe, who kept a house and I was fairly certain a woman. Separate from us all and always. I knew because I had seen the bills and caught him a time or two. I should have reported it to Sam, but it was one of those secrets. That you never shared, that you let them keep no matter the trouble or loss to yourself.
So, perhaps, I had kept Raphael’s secret out of love and respect.
In the end, him having grace changed nothing. He was still stuck on Earth, unable to return home. He had used his grace very little, what he had done, had likely been used to create our flesh. Without his grace, we might have been ethereal beings with no bodies.
After fixing our mistake, Sam just paced in front of us. That was all, just walked back and forth as Raphael and I sat on opposite sides of the couch, refusing to look at one another.
“What were you thinking?” Sam asked. “A…. a fight? A fight. I just, I cannot believe that you would fight. In a field. Near a city. In this day and age? Are you crazy? I thought you told me it was a small misunderstanding!”
He was apparently flustered because if he weren’t flustered, he would have spoken in a calm, even tone and taken a strip off of us like he usually did. Typically, when he got like that, he was worried about us, and I could entirely understand his worry.
The car exploded, we were almost caught, and we still hadn’t told him how we had gotten home. The strange thing was that he hadn’t asked how we got home. He had just shaken his head and gone to bed. The next morning he was still flustered.
Or maybe that was confusion. Maybe he was turned all around because he had grey hair, and Grace was pregnant. Perhaps he didn’t know what was going on and that was affecting his judgement.
“What were you thinking?” Sam demanded, looking between the two of us for an answer.
“He started it,” Raphael said.
Raphael sounded like he was still pouting over it all. I didn’t know why he was. I was the one who had puked the night before, and again this morning when I got up. I was the one being blackmailed into silence.
He was the one who could make me explode with a thought.
Literally.
Without my grace, Raphael could have pulled his at any moment and taken me out, but he hadn’t. All of our fights had been fair. What power I had, he had matched me but hadn’t exceeded it. He could have ended our ‘war’ centuries before but hadn’t.
Instead, he had tried to match me physically. He had taken his beatings and the mud in his mouth, with a kind of patience that I surely did not have.
“I don’t care who started it. No one ever cares who started it!” Sam roared. “Neither of you should be fighting.”
“It’s not like we can take our fight to another plane of existence,” I said.
And I really didn’t want to attempt that. Raphael would beat me on those other planes until I had my grace back.
“No, you can’t,” Sam said. “However, you shouldn’t be fighting at all. It’s unbefitting of arc angels to be fighting amongst themselves. Your vanities are getting in the way. Your egos are so massive that you both think you are untouchable. Morons. That’s what you are. What if there was someone out in those woods? Hm? What then?”
“They would have stepped into our wings,” Raphael said with his head lowered.
“Yes, yes they would have. What happened the last time your wings were on the physical plane, Raphael?”
“Someone got nailed to a cross, and you were written into a bunch of books as a bad man,” Raphael said to his lap.
Because he still had his grace.
If a human walked through my wings, I had to wonder what would happen. We had been told since the beginning of time to keep humans out of our wings. Whether they believed or not was up to them, not up to us. But that warning had been created for those with grace. If I had no grace…
Could I weaponize my wings?
That was a thought that entertained me for a few minutes.
On the astral plane, actually on most planes of existence, angels could use their wings as weapons. It was just on the physical plane that we had yet to figure out how to do it.
“Michael,” Sam barked at me. “Pay attention to the present.”
“Sorry,” I said, giving myself a shake.
“You two made a mess. Again. Why are you still fighting? What could be so damned important? Well?”
“Nothing,” we both said at the same time because we knew that was the answer he wanted.
“Something is still being fought over. What was the fight last night over? Sera, again? Michael, you had lead for an hour, and something blew up. How can I head off on my honeymoon, when I can’t even trust you while I’m in the same city as you?”
“You can trust me to lead,” I said.
I turned to Raphael for help. Just because I kept his secret, didn’t mean that he could throw me under a bus, or to the wolves, or any other version of that saying. Our fight did not affect my ability to lead us. Raphael glanced at me, then focused on Sam.
“You can,” Raphael said. “We weren’t fighting over Sera.”
“Then what were you fighting over?”
“Nothing,” I said with a shake of my head. “Just, we were talking about possible things that might have caused Sera’s wings, and then it escalated.”
“We know what caused Sera’s wings,” Sam said. “Witches tattooed them on her back, that was what Raphael was sorting out. What we haven’t sorted out is what the witches are planning to do with the wings.”
“Really?” Raphael asked.
“It’s pretty evident to me, anyhow,” I said. “They want to harvest the wings the way they did my feather. Wings are a lot more powerful than a feather.”
“I don’t think it’s just the set that they’re after,” Raphael said. “They know something is coming from Heaven for the wings. I think they’re going to bring the wings into the real world and hope to snag themselves a Heavenly Host. Can you imagine what they’d do if they could ride one of them to Heaven? Or to slip into their shape?”
Even Heavenly Host had grace, just not to the extent that we did. One of them would have more grace in their entire body than I did in a single wing. Not by much, but they would. Gaining that, the witches would grow bolder.
“How long do we have before the wings start emerging into the physical plane?” Sam asked. “Are we talking a ritual and forcing them out, or could the infusion of the wings into the soul-slash-grace of Sera’s being cause the wings to emerge?”
Raphael was quiet for a moment. He looked down at his lap and massaged the middle knuckle of his right hand with the thumb and forefinger of his left. I saw the blank sort of look as he struggled to figure it out.
“Wings plus grace equal angel,” I said. “Right, that’s the basics of it. Wings plus grace equals angel. You can’t wear the halo unless you have both, right? It’s the only way into Heaven.”
“The, no,” Sam said. “You can get into Heaven with just a set of wings or just grace. It depends on a lot of factors.”
One could get into Heaven with just magic, technically. If they wanted to die, being erased from the universe entirely.
There were guardians of the gate, who knew which wings belonged to who, and which grace belonged to who. If anyone was found to be in possession of the weapon, grace, wing, or halo of another, they were immediately attacked. One had just enough time to flee before death.
Heaven might be vicious, but it was not entirely without mercy.
But the way Sam said it, it sounded like he knew of another way. One that he must have been holding back, despite all our time on Earth.
“So, we don’t need our grace, wings, and halos to get back into Heaven?” I asked. “Because I thought we did.”
“A halo is an object of Heaven powered by our grace,” Raphael said. “So, no, you don’t need it to get in. It’s… it’s kind of like a phone?”
Sam pointed at Raphael, then stuffed his hands into his pockets as he turned to me.
“He’s got a point. A halo is a bit like a phone. But, let’s say they want the feathers and not the angel. If Sera turned into an angel, we’d all be in for an ass kicking because she’s the type of woman to not take stupid as an answer to a question. Means the witches won’t risk the wings getting too deep into her.”
“They’re going to rip the wings into the physical plane and harvest them,” Raphael said. “To practice, to bring one of us down.”
“We have no grace, but our wings are still useful without it, as was proven by Michael’s feather.”
When I ripped out my grace, I disconnected it from all that I was. Even the feather that the witches still held would have been without grace. In theory, it should have been utterly useless to them. It should have been the end of the dark witches, but still, they went on.
I swore. As I did so, Raphael pulled out his phone and sent off a message. I assumed it was to Sera and asking her where she was.
“If you two hadn’t been fighting last night, she would already be here,” Sam said. “Safe and away from the witches.”
“We know we messed up,” I said.
“Good,” Sam said. “It’s good that you know that you messed up. Now, what were you fighting over? Truthfully this time, or I’ll have your heads.”
“He tried to force my wings out,” Raphael said.
“And?” Sam asked, drawing out the word. “Why was that a fight? Just pop them out, let him figure it out and put them away. Wings are an important part of our being. Human hair, it’s like human hair.”
“That’s what I said,” I said.
“Some humans cover their hair,” Raphael protested.
He said it loudly and at a higher pitch than normal. He should have known that Sam wasn’t going to fall for that nonsense.
“Some do,” Sam said. “But that’s because of religious reasons, not because they’re ashamed of their hair. Ease up on that a little, Raphael. I tell Michael to ease up all the time.”
The last was said because Raphael had huffed, folded his arms and glared at Sam. That didn’t change how accurate the words that Sam spoke were, only how Raphael perceived them. There had been more than once when I had been told to leave off when I had wanted to continue.
“Yeah, apparently the sex, drugs, and pornography haven’t affected his chances of getting back into Heaven,” I growled.
Raphael gave me a look that should have cut me to the bone. It was filled with that fury and hatred I had only seen in his eyes once before. In that time we didn’t speak of, didn’t dare think of.
When the Healer had taken up the mantle of Warrior and had changed the world.
“We all knew that before,” Sam said. “But I’m happy that you’re seeing it that way now, Michael. Even if it took this long. We aren’t bad people. We had a bit of addiction in our pasts, we got over it and made amends with the world. That doesn’t explain why you wanting Raphael’s wings out resulted in that kind of destruction.”
Raphael glared away from both Sam and I. From the tension in his body. I wondered if he expected me to tell Sam precisely what had happened. I looked at Sam and gave my head a shake.
Sam’s head moved just slightly to the side. He frowned at me, eyes narrowing as he seemed to sum me up. His jaw even set to one side, like a human trying to puzzle something out.
“Raphael,” Sam said, turning to him. “What the hell happened that Michael won’t even tell me? You two tattle on one another like schoolyard children, but no one wants to tell me what’s so damned important about last night that you fought like that?”
“I still have my grace,” Raphael whispered.
“What was that?” Sam asked, putting a hand to his ear.
“I still have my grace,” Raphael said louder.
“All that and then you just say it?” I demanded.
Raphael gave me what might have been an apologetic look. Then he turned to Sam and waited for those damning looks. Sam gave his head a shake.
“That’s not possible,” Sam said. “If any of us still had our graces, we’d simply be dragged back to Heaven. As happened to more than one Heavenly Host in the past.”
That was very good cause to believe that we were all lacking our graces. It hadn’t occurred to me before, that that might be the reason why none of us had asked one another about our grace. The whole reason we had taken out our graces was so that Heaven couldn’t force us back to serve.
The whole reason of why Heaven didn’t force the graces back on us had something to do with the insertion of an outside object against the will of the receiver. At the most basic: forcing our graces back into us would count as rape in the eyes of Heaven, and no one was willing to risk Father’s anger to force us back.
“I removed a set of my wings so that they couldn’t drag me back because the guardians would attack me,” Raphael said.
Even my feather hadn’t gone unnoticed, but we had sorted it out. No one else had ever lost a feather but kept their wings, which had baffled the guardians long enough to stop and ask questions.
“But that would require—” Sam started.
“Throwing a love and glitter bomb into the cherub territory,” I said.
Sam frowned as his lips pressed together. Then he smiled at the mental image and even chuckled a little in an almost longing fashion. He reached up and rubbed his lips, smiling all the while.
The shadows appeared a minute or so later as he realized what such a thing involved.
“And when the Heavenly Host came down and visited upon you, and you turned them away, why did they not bring your wings with them?” Sam asked. “Wings are not inserted into us. It is not the same as us denying our graces. It would be perfectly legal.”
“I told them I wanted to help,” Raphael said.
“Help?” Sam asked.
“Help you all fix what you thought you broke.”
“Those are our things to fix, Raphael, not yours,” Sam snapped out. “You could have been in Heaven all this time, safe from all of this. Enjoying existence. Not down here, barely making it through the Dark Ages!”
“I’m not weak,” Raphael said.
“Yeah, he took quite a beating last night,” I said.
“I know he took a beating,” Sam said. “That’s part of the problem.”
Silence predominated over the room as Gabe walked in with a book. He was reading as he went. I cocked my head and read the cover as he moved toward Sam. It was a book on pregnancy for first-time fathers. Gabe stopped at Sam’s side, a frown creasing his brow as his lips began moving, reading the words.
“What, Gabe?” Sam asked, still scowling at us.
“Epidural is non-negotiable,” Gabe said. “Apparently.”
“It prevents pain from being felt during labour,” Sam said. “What’s the point of having a child in the modern age if you don’t get to choose for yourself whether you use the good drugs?”
Gabe glanced at Raphael over the book, as if to ask for help. He wasn’t in a helping mood, not backing up whatever it was that he and Gabe had probably spoken about earlier. Whatever it was, they probably thought it would affect something later on, but they would bend to Grace’s desire for an epidural.
“I’m trying to talk her into a water birth with a midwife,” Gabe said. “In a hospital, of course, in case anything goes wrong. She hasn’t quite made it past the whole being pregnant part of it. You also need to read the books yourself. Me reading them and telling you things is considered cheating and what men who don’t want to choose the name of their child does.”
Gabe finally looked up as Sam turned stiffly toward him, frowning at Gabe instead of us. Sam made a motion with his head toward the couch where we sat. Gabe made a grunting sound but didn’t look at us or acknowledge that we were there.
“You know Raphael still had his grace?” Sam asked.
“Have you seen his wings?” Gabe asked. “Either he’s the prettiest angel of all Heaven, or he still had his grace. Not my place to poke if you two didn’t see it. I don’t recall anyone asking me about it before so if you have a problem with my knowing it before, that’s your problem. I’ve got a mirror somewhere that you can look in if you’d like to see someone to place blame on.”
“That makes no sense,” Sam said.
“I’ve been up all night reading. I don’t need to make sense,” Gabe said.
“They were fighting over that fact.”
“No, we weren’t,” we protested at the same time.
Raphael’s phone trilled, indicating a message had come in. I turned to him, but he ignored it, focusing on Gabe instead.
“Why are you telling me that?” Gabe asked. “It’s not my fault you suddenly don’t have as much bite as you used to have. Might be the grey hairs, or the surprise at Grace being pregnant. We should be investigating you, not Sera. She’s Michael’s grace, case closed.”
Which was not what Gabe had said previously. He must have come to some decision since. Or he had decided that reading up on Grace was more important than investigating Sera.
I suppose, in a way, that was true. Sera would be sorted out, one way or another. Grace, on the other hand, had a long ten months ahead of her before she settled into her role as a mother.
“Witches are trying to bring her wings into the real world to steal the feathers and do something bigger,” Sam said.
“Sounds like a bad time. But it doesn’t involve me, and if anyone knew where Sera was, they’d be headed off for her instead of sitting on the couch.”
“When it comes your time, I’ll be certain to remember that,” Sam said.
“When it finally comes to my turn, I’m almost certain that you will be wheelchair bound with grandchildren, so no, I do not expect your help at all,” Gabe said. “Are we done?”
Raphael’s phone went off with another trill, indicating yet another message. Still, he ignored it.
“I think we’re done,” Gabe said. “Oh, has anyone seen Toby? You know…”
“The guy that could explain it all?” Sam snarled. “No. He’s surprisingly missing again. Grace hasn’t been able to get a hold of him either. I told her that he’s drinking in a corner somewhere because Raphael told him it was only a one night stand.”
“Good excuse,” Raphael said with a little nod. “Just tell him that when we find him again.”
“What’s on your phone?” I asked. “Is it Sera?”
Raphael picked up his phone and played on it for a few moments before he set it on his lap, face up. He shrugged.
“Raphael, who was that?” Sam asked.
Raphael sighed and looked away. “My old agent wants to know if I’ll do a special movie.”
“Need new flesh,” I said.
“I’m not ashamed of being a pornstar,” Raphael said. “I had fun doing it.”
“But you’re constantly making that face when they message you now,” I said.
“Quit pushing me,” he protested.
“Just make your decision already, it’s not that hard. You want to be a woman that looks kind of like you do as a man,” I said.
“Why?” Sam asked. “Would that make things easier for you, Michael?”
My face heated up in frustration as I realized what I had just said and how it might have sounded to Sam. Like I had been fighting with Raphael because of sexual tension between the two of us. Or like I was furiously masturbating in the bushes, watching him bathe.
Like that Adam fellow.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, lifting my hands to stop them from making comments on it. “That’s not what I meant at all. I only meant that I know he’s vain about how he looks and would want to keep those features and I think it’s obvious to everyone here that he wants to switch over to being a woman for a while.”
“But that would mean you become a woman too,” Raphael said. “And you wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”
“Don’t let that sway your decision,” Sam said. “If you want to be a woman, be a woman. Michael is going to be one to get him out of his comfort zone.”
“I’d make a fabulous woman,” Gabe said. “Attractive as could be. All the boys would want me, that’s the saying, no?”
“No,” Sam, Raphael, and I said at the same time.
Sam took in a long, slow breath. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, then gave his head a little shake. After a moment of silence, he looked up and over us.
“Did it occur to anyone that the wings the witches have attached to Sera might belong to Raphael?” Sam asked finally.
More silence followed his statement. I glanced at Raphael, who had paled considerably. He was always paler than the rest of us, but he turned white as a sheet as Sam looked between the two of us.
“No?” Sam asked.
“No,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that. There are a lot of wings available for the taking if you know how. Including fallen angels who still retain a pair or two. Why would it be Raphael’s?”
“The witches said the angel who owned them wouldn’t notice they were gone,” Raphael said. “Or something of that sort.”
“And this was all arranged by Father,” Sam said. “It’s very possible that those are your wings, Raphael. Your wings being grafted into Michael’s grace. Which could create a new angel. Father was very clear. Fall in line, or we will be replaced. You two need to figure this out before either the witches succeed and we’re all screwed, or the witches fail, and Sera becomes an angel.”
Fall in line or be replaced was new information to us. We had been told that there would be one like Grace for us as well, that salvation would be offered to us, if only we recognized the chance and took it.
“Arc grace and arc wings would make an arc angel, I assume,” Raphael said. “But I have my grace so. I’d be fine. It’d be Michael who died.”
“Sure, it might be,” Sam said with a shrug. “But your wings would become a part of Sera, which means that you could never again return to Heaven. Is that what you want? To be down here for the rest of eternity while the rest of us are up in Heaven?”
“No,” Raphael said.
“Then fix this,” Sam said sternly.
Raphael’s phone rang, startling all of us. He leaped up, taking the phone with him as he headed around the couch, answering the phone.
“Sera?” he demanded. “Where are you?”