Fic: A History of Heaven (Gabriel/Various Angels, R for this chapter) 16/59
For full notes and other chapters, please see the Masterpost.
Notes: Google “Gate to Hell” to find the inspiration for Sammael’s cave.
In this story, before Lucifer fell, his name was Sammael. He was not Lucifer in Heaven.
There is one other canon character operating under an OC name, but I wish for his identity to remain unknown.
Chapter Rating: R for a non-graphic sex scene at the end of this chapter
Chapter word count: 4,919
Chapter Summary: Gabriel looks for Sammael on Earth and finds the beginnings of Hell.
CHAPTER 16:
Welcome to Hell
Gabriel all but exploded out of Heaven, spreading his grace wide to blanket the entire Earth, everywhere and nowhere all at once. He yanked himself back together in front of a young woman with braided red curls and an infectious grin, reaching out to tweak her nose. “Sorcha! Hello, gorgeous!” These rough transitions, folding himself between planes, were brutal on his grace. They ripped huge chunks of energy from his grace, enough to take him down to a much more normal level. Gabriel didn’t feel ready to burst at the seams right now, and with any luck, he’d have a few days before he had to drain himself again.
Sorcha, the woman in front of him, laughed and flung her arms around Gabriel, kissing his cheek. Of all his vessels so far, Sorcha was definitely his favorite. She treated him like any other human, completely ignoring the fact that his true form was created solely of light and power and was in no way substantial enough to endure a hug or a kiss. He solidified his grace where her arms contacted him, so she couldn’t fall through him, and hugged her back. “Gabriel! It’s been far too long!”
Over the centuries, Gabriel had insinuated himself into Vindonnus’ family line as a sort of divine protector, a guardian spirit they could call upon whenever they were in danger. In exchange, he asked that they be prepared to accept him into their forms whenever he needed them. As the generations increased, many of the humans developed lower tolerances to Gabriel’s direct presence, requiring him to speak with them in dreams or visions only, but every five generations or so, one cropped up who could stand in Gabriel’s presence as easily as Vindonnus himself once had.
Sorcha was one of those rare few vessels that the angels had taken to calling their “true” vessels. Gabriel had met her before she was even born. Her mother had prayed to him when she was pregnant, asking for his blessing on her child. Gabriel had watched over her as often as he could, easing her pains and ensuring her husband could always provide for her. He’d reach inside her mother whenever Sorcha was being exceptionally obstinate, calming the growing child and letting her mother rest.
Eventually, Sorcha had been born, and she had recognized Gabriel standing vigil over her crib before she even recognized her own father. She prayed often to Gabriel, and called him her friend. Gabriel loved to slip inside Sorcha’s skin and take her flying. He had found a way to cradle her soul close to the exterior of his grace, so she could be aware of the wind in her face, could feel the beat of his wings as they soared above the ocean. Sorcha loved to soar like a bird, and her delight fed into Gabriel’s own. Once, he had even stepped back, withdrawing his grace so Sorcha could take control and try to fly on her own.
Humans were not suited for flying, as Gabriel discovered when Sorcha tumbled him into an embarrassing head-over-heels crash down a mountainside, but Sorcha had only laughed as Gabriel informed her he would never trust her with his wings again. How had she not seen that mountain!?
Sorcha was an adult woman now, married and mothered and widowed already. Gabriel had tried to save her husband when he was injured in a battle, but Sorcha had asked him not to. It wasn’t fair to the others who did not have a divine protector, she had whispered to him. If he was meant to heal, he would heal. Gabriel was not to intervene.
Gabriel loved Sorcha all the more for her selflessness.
“My apologies, Sorcha.” Gabriel pulled away from Sorcha’s hug to give her a little bow that never failed to make her giggle, her face scrunching up and deep dimples forming in her cheeks. “My own family keeps calling me away.”
“You’re here now. To fly, or do you have actual business?”
“Sadly, business. I need to find my brother; I suspect he’s on Earth again, but I’ll need a vessel.”
“You know I’ll always say yes to you.” Sorcha held out her arms, tipping her chin back. “Will you take me flying anyway?”
“Of course,” Gabriel said, reaching out to the golden link that formed between them.
When Gabriel opened her eyes, she was inside Sorcha’s body, her female body. Angels were genderless by their very nature, assuming the role of whatever vessel they occupied. Some, like Naomi and Anael, preferred female vessels and used feminine pronouns even outside of their vessels, but most defaulted to males. Gabriel herself preferred male solely because Vindonnus had been male. Nevertheless, she always enjoyed her time as Sorcha.
Gabriel had felt a flicker of Archangelic grace near the Great Sea when she had blanketed the world earlier. She would return there at the end of her flight, but first, she soared over the world’s oceans, letting Sorcha’s soul flood her senses.
Eventually, Gabriel turned and headed east, landing where she had felt Sammael’s grace earlier. It was gone now, just a lingering whisper that said he had been here, but that didn’t mean he was actually gone. He could have cloaked his grace and hidden, nearly invisible to angelic senses. She tucked Sorcha’s soul away, pushing her back into the sleep that would keep the woman safe from the burn of Gabriel’s grace. Once Sorcha was settled, Gabriel folded her wings and called out to her brother. “Sammael?” She looked around her, flapping her wings in annoyance and called out again. “Sammael, I said I would fly with you after the meeting! Do you still want to?”
“Do you?”
Gabriel turned sharply, coming face-to-face with a middle-aged human male. The man was excessively tall for a human, but then again, all of Sammael’s vessels towered toward the heavens. He was dressed in the Grecian style, with a long chiton fastened over one shoulder and belted around his waist, long brown hair, and a curly beard. There was no mistaking the Archangel behind those clear grey eyes, or the ripple of power emanating from his core. “Hello, Sammael. I thought I felt you around here.”
“Your vessel is female this time?” Sammael asked, closing the distance between them to prod Gabriel’s face.
“Sorcha is one of my favorites,” Gabriel admitted. “She’s a true vessel, and she loves to fly.”
“Her smile makes her face dent.” Sammael pushed his thumbs against Gabriel’s cheeks and smiled himself. “I like it. She suits you.”
“You’ve said that about all my vessels.”
“You always put care into your choices.” Sammael pressed a kiss to Gabriel’s forehead, his beard scratchy against freckled skin, before stepping back. “Shall we fly? There’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”
“Do you have to ask?” Gabriel asked, spreading her wings and grinning at her brother. She followed Sammael into the sky.
Sammael may have wanted to show something to Gabriel, but he was clearly in no hurry. He led her in a meandering tour of the world, soaring over mountains, skimming fingers through the oceans, diving and twisting and gliding among the great canyons. Gabriel’s wings beat in time with Sammael’s, never once getting tangled or out of sync with her brother. Flying with Raphael was never this easy or this freeing. Her twin was always in the wrong place, cutting her off or scolding her speed. Sammael adapted to his flight partners, finding ways to turn even short jaunts into hypnotizing dances.
Every dance had its end, and eventually Sammael ended this one near a cave. Gabriel laughed at the location-hardly any distance at all from where they had begun. “You took the scenic route,” she accused.
“You weren’t complaining.” Sammael wound his arms around Gabriel and pulled her against his chest. “I love this world. It is so beautiful and fascinating: clearly Father’s best work.”
“But you can’t stand the humans that call it home.” Gabriel picked her words carefully, needing to make sure Sammael was calm again after the scene he and Michael had made earlier. She didn’t want to trigger another outburst. Sammael had never hurt Gabriel before, but Sammael had also never attacked Michael the way he had. Gabriel’s brother was changing, and she didn’t like it.
Sammael growled into Gabriel’s hair. “You misunderstand me. You all do. Human beings, in and of themselves, are not much more inherently flawed than any other creature crawling upon this planet. However, our interference with humans is what I cannot stand. Father’s insistence that they are better than us? The mewling attempts by the Seraphim to kiss ass and be the most pleasing? The way the Cherubim pick their favorites and conspire to breed them, as if there were some grand plan-”
“But there is,” Gabriel protested, leaning her head back to look up at her brother.
“Shh.” Sammael silenced Gabriel with a soft kiss. “We don’t know that. We must take it on faith alone.”
“But…” Gabriel frowned as Sammael rubbed his thumb over her lips, trying not to let him distract her.
“Let me ask you this, Gabriel. How do you know there is a plan?”
“Father said-”
“Did He?” Sammael moved around Gabriel to stand in front of her, raising one dark eyebrow. “Think back, little brother. Did Father ever say He had a plan?”
Gabriel opened her mouth but did not immediately speak. Instead, she replayed every conversation with her Father, every last exchange. The further back she remembered, the more she frowned, her face wrinkling above her eyes and pulling at her mouth. “Michael said as much,” she finally offered, but the defense sounded weak even to her own ears.
“And how does Michael know?” Sammael brushed cool fingers over Gabriel’s forehead. “Who told him?”
“…Father?”
“You sound unsure.” Sammael cupped Gabriel’s face and brushed another kiss against her frowning lips.
“It isn’t our place to doubt!” Gabriel burst out, pulling back from Sammael and wrapping her wings around her body, as if she could protect herself from His wrath if He heard them discussing this.
“Isn’t it?” Sammael’s hands slid along Gabriel’s back, finding the tense knots in the grace between the roots of nl her wings and gently rubbing them out. “Gabriel, we are as Father made us. He made us with the capacity to doubt and second-guess. It is not disgraceful to question Him. I myself have wondered in His ineffability many times, and Father has never struck me down. It’s not wrong to apply ‘logical thinking’ to His plans. If there is ineffability, then nothing we say or do can vary from what He wants us to say or do. If we have free will, the ability to make our own choices, affect our own futures, He simply cannot be controlling us with some divine master plan. Both cannot coexist, Gabriel. Either He wants us to doubt Him, or it is right to doubt Him. Either way, He cannot be upset about it.”
“Sammael…” Gabriel turned back to her brother, lifting her hands as if to push him away but thinking twice before touching him. Logical thinking was one thing, but this doubt went against everything Gabriel knew about her Father and how things were done in Heaven. It was wrong. Forbidden. Dangerous. Sammael had never suffered the full brunt of God’s wrath. Even in the Throne Room, when Sammael had incited it, Michael had shielded him from any direct effects. Gabriel was scared of calling it down on her again with this thinking, but her fear was all the worse because Sammael made sense.
“Come with me.” Sammael caught Gabriel’s hands and drew them to his face, kissing her fingertips before tugging her gently toward the cave. Gabriel followed.
The air in the cave was warm and heavy with misty vapors. Gabriel recoiled as her body registered the stench, lifting a free hand to cover her nose.
“Sulfur,” Sammael explained as they descended into the earth. “And other noxious gases. And decay. The smell is horrible, but it is a natural deterrent.” He gestured to the corpses of birds and small rodents they passed. “Nothing needing lungs can go far here. I have my solitude.”
“It smells disgusting,” Gabriel muttered, but she still followed Sammael. Their vessels did not require fresh air to breathe as long as the angels were within them. Gabriel would make sure she took many deep breaths in fresher air to clear Sorcha’s lungs before releasing her.
The older angel squeezed his vessel through a deep cleft in the rock. Gabriel gave up on breathing entirely as she followed. This next chamber was entirely toxic and clouded. Even her sharp eyes could barely see through the steam filling the cavern. A massive river tore through the stone, scalding water hissing against her toes and soaking her boots. Sammael’s cool hand around hers was a comforting familiarity.
“Where are we?” she asked, shouting so her human voice could be heard over the river.
“At the entrance!” Sammael called back. “Spread your wings-carefully now!-we’re going to fly!”
As soon as Gabriel unfurled her wings, the hot air rising from the river grabbed at her feathers, trying to yank her up. Sammael led her through the fog in a constant dive, battling the updraft. By the time they landed, their vessels’ clothing was soaked through and their sodden wings dragged on the stone behind them.
Gabriel shook herself violently, ridding herself of as much of the excess water as she could. Her core of fire revolted at the feeling of being so wet. Sammael might thrive in the water, but Gabriel found it heavy and suffocating.
This side of the river was far more comfortable, as the cave’s drafts blew the humid steam toward the entrance they had come from. Ahead, through another gash in the cave wall, Gabriel could feel the much friendlier dry heat of fire. She released Sammael’s hand and rushed toward it, trusting that Sammael wouldn’t have shown her such a temptation if it wasn’t safe.
Energy wrapped around Gabriel as she pushed through the gash, a web of spellwork pulling tight and pinching her grace painfully before it abruptly snapped free, letting her through. She stumbled, clutching at her chest with a cry of pain. A great emptiness welled within her, the complete and utter absence of her brothers, her Father. She was disconnected from the Host, empty, alone, falling to her knees against the warm rock, her fingers spasming and grasping for anything. After what felt like an eternity, a tiny spark of connection blossomed, raging against the darkness.
Sammael’s cool fingers wrapped around Gabriel’s arms, drawing her off the floor and cradling her against his chest. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Gabriel whimpered and turned into Sammael’s chest, clutching at his grace, trying to draw it inside her to fill the hole.
“The first time is always the most unsettling,” Sammael continued, rocking her in his arms, pressing his cheek against her forehead. “Just breathe, Gabriel. You’re not dying. You’re safe. Just breathe with me.”
Gabriel still didn’t need to breathe, but focusing on the rhythm of her brother’s lungs and trying to match it with her own helped distract her from the gnawing ache within. Slowly, she let herself relax against Sammael, smoothing her fingers over his chiton instead of trying to pull it from him. “Sammael… what was that?” she asked, once she found her voice again. “What’s happened to me?”
“Protection.” Sammael answered. “It’s a gate, to keep unwanted forces out.”
“Unwanted forces?” Gabriel wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands-tears had slipped out. She hadn’t cried since that time when she was in Vindonnus, with Michael and Sammael wrapped around her. “Sammael, I can’t feel the Host anymore!”
“Sometimes, I’m not certain the Host is on my side.” Sammael looked solemnly at Gabriel. “Or Father.”
Gabriel pressed her hand over her chest again, staring up at Sammael. “You cut Father out of our spirits!”
“It’s locale-based. Pass back through the gate the other way, and His presence will flood back in. Temporary discomfort, nothing more.”
“This is a bit more than discomfort!” Gabriel sat up on her own, glancing back at the gate they had passed through. The rock wall stretched far above them on this side of the gash, impossibly tall for how deep they were in the earth, disappearing into the dark above. Sigils, Enochian, some she knew, most she didn’t, were carved into the stone, painted over in dried blood. The markings pulsed, breathed, with a sickly light, oozing pus down the rock. The wall was wrong. Gabriel couldn’t read all the signs, and the overwhelming sense of wrongness echoed within her bones. She was the Messenger of Heaven, knowing every language that ever was and ever would be. She did not know this one. “Sammael…”
“Most of it is my own creation,” Sammael murmured, sliding himself against Gabriel’s back and resting his chin on her frizzing curls. “No angel, nor Father, can enter this place without my express permission. They cannot sense anything done or said in this realm.”
Gabriel could pick out her own name carved into the rock, one of the few markings not infected. Sammael had written her into the wards already, granting her permission before she even knew to ask.
“This is where I would go when Michael had you spy on me,” Sammael confessed. “You could still have followed, but you never tried.”
“I wasn’t very good at it,” Gabriel admitted. “I don’t like spying.” She reached for Sammael’s arms and folded them around her, needing him near. He was the only other angel this side of the gate, the only angel she could feel inside her. She needed to keep him close, trying to control the gnawing emptiness. “This is… you made all of this? Yourself?”
“It’s a new dimension,” Sammael said. “I cut a hole through the plane, fashioned it roughly after Heaven in how it is rooted and supported.”
“That explains the size discrepancies.” Gabriel glanced up at the too-tall ceiling again before twisting around to look into the rest of the dimension. She gasped, her jaw dropping open involuntarily at the sight. “Sammael!”
Reaching out of the shadows above, heavy roots grasped for life. They coiled around soaring columns of bone, digging into the cracks like misshapen tendons. Yellow sulfur crystals encrusted this canopy, glittering darkly in the gloom where they weren’t melting from the searing heat, turning into blood red droplets that spattered against the ground, pooling together, running in little rivulets across the blackened stone. Delicate arches of giant rib cages stretched overhead, futilely trying to hold back the trees, with ancient spines above and below leading the way deeper into Sammael’s realm. A rich orange glow beckoned to Gabriel from deep within the cavern, the promise of molten rock and stone.
Sammael helped Gabriel to her feet, walking backwards along the bony path to draw her along by her hands. The great roots groaned as they approached, shaking molten sulfur that speckled over their wings. Gabriel drew hers in tight against her back, easing closer to Sammael. “Is it safe?”
“As long as I’m with you, nothing here will hurt you,” Sammael promised.
“What if we’re separated?”
Sammael squeezed Gabriel’s hands. “We won’t be.”
That was hardly reassuring, Gabriel noted, as the enormous ribs creaked above her from the weight of the ancient roots. “How did you make all this?” she asked, giving up any sense of dignity to press firmly against Sammael. He chuckled, sliding his arm around her waist and turning to walk at her side.
“I stole materials wherever I could.”
“The bones are massive, like…”
“Dinosaurs.” Sammael confirmed the suspicions in Gabriel’s mind. “I slipped back through time, to when the world was burning. Everyone was too busy mourning the loss to notice an extra angel scavenging through the ruins.”
“It’s gruesome.”
Sammael shrugged. “It was necessary. Where else could I find the supports I needed in the size I wanted? I don’t have Father’s tools. It’s not easy to create stuff from nothing. I needed a base to start with.”
“The roots?” Gabriel asked, pointing up and immediately drawing her hand back as a fat sulfur droplet fell on her finger.
“Woven between the planes, to keep this one anchored to Earth.”
“The sulfur?” Gabriel showed Sammael her red finger, and Sammael chuckled, lifting it to his lips to kiss the slight burn off her skin.
“That, I can’t keep out. It comes from the river at the entrance. I’ve just let it collect where it pleases.”
“And that?” Gabriel nestled closer to Sammael’s side, pointing ahead to the orange glow they were headed toward. Now she could hear a dull roaring too, like a waterfall.
“Ah,” Sammael said, grinning. “That is something I put in just for you.”
The Archangels stepped through a slow rain of sulfur drips, emerging onto a wide rocky ledge spreading before a curtain of burning magma streaming into a deep pit. A spiral ramp of charred bone and rock, splashed with more of the liquid sulfur, curled around the flow, down and down and down, until even the bright molten rock couldn’t illuminate the darkness enough. Gabriel burst ahead of Sammael, racing right to the very edge of the ledge, her wings stretched to keep her from falling forward. “Sammael!”
“Do you like it?” Sammael asked, coming up behind her, his hands resting over her hips.
“It’s amazing!” Gabriel loved magma, loved seeing the power her element had even over solid, unmoving rock. There wasn’t much chance to observe it on Earth’s surface unless she dove into the deep craters of volcanoes. Lava wasn’t quite as fun: it cooled and hardened before she had a chance to thoroughly appreciate its beauty.
“I call it home,” Sammael murmured into Gabriel’s ear, squeezing her hips.
The smile fell from Gabriel’s face as she turned to face Sammael, taking a step back that nearly tipped her off the edge. “Home, Sammael? Home is Heaven, with Father and Michael and all the Host.”
Sammael’s good mood evaporated as quickly as Gabriel’s had, and he turned away from her with a roll of his eyes. “Heaven has not been my home for over a century, Gabriel. You know that.”
“How can this be a replacement?” Gabriel demanded, throwing out an arm, her other hand pressing over the hole in her chest. “It’s empty here, Sammael! Where is your family? Your brothers? Your partner? You’re alone here. It’s…” She looked over her shoulder, at the magmafall, then back to the rooted forest and bone. “It can be… very nice here, but it cannot be home. An angel is not meant to be alone.”
“We’re alone in Heaven!” Sammael argued. “Alone when we are shunned and scolded for having a dissenting opinion.” He turned sharply back to Gabriel, his eyes blazing in the glow of the magma. “Alone when we are silenced for voicing concerns. Alone when we, the oldest beings in the universe, are treated as no more than disobedient children!”
“Maybe you feel like that,” Gabriel said quietly, “but I-”
“Why don’t you ever protest when Naomi tries to have you replaced with her angels?”
Gabriel folded her arms across her chest defensively, her wings bristling at the mention of the Seraph’s repeated attempts to oust her from her job. “I trust Father will-”
“Why do you let Raphael constantly belittle you and ruffle your feathers?”
“Raphael is just-”
“Why don’t you ever protest when Michael leaves a mess for you to clean up? Why don’t you ever demote Zachariah when he picks a fight with the pagans? Why do you bow and offer praise to a Father who nearly scraped your mind clean?”
“Sammael, that isn’t fair!” Gabriel cried out, recoiling from Sammael’s harsh questions, her arms tight against her body.
“It angers you!” Sammael took a step toward Gabriel, wings flared aggressively but not turned to battle. Gabriel backed away as far as she dared without taking to the air, balancing on her toes at the very edge of the ledge. “You swallow it down, but I see how you cringe. You hate being overlooked, counted as insignificant, as just the Messenger, smallest and weakest and youngest of the Archangels, a passive little human-lover with no spine of your own.”
Gabriel took another step back onto open air, flaring her wings to check her fall, but Sammael grabbed her around the waist and snatched her back onto the ledge. He spun around, backing her into one of the columns of bone and pressing in close. His cool hands smoothed over her hair, her skin, as he leaned in close to press his forehead against hers
“You say nothing because it ‘isn’t our place,’” Sammael murmured, resigned sorrow replacing his harsh tone from earlier. “You let our brothers run roughshod over you because to protest is to disobey, and to disobey is to disappoint, to be punished. Possibly even by death.” Sammael met Gabriel’s eyes, their noses bumping together. He turned his head to brush his lips over the dried tearstains on her cheeks, impossibly gentle now as he wrapped his grace around her. Sammael was sad for her. Gabriel could feel her brother’s empathy and love swelling against her own grace, and she knew he was undeniably on her side.
“Sammael, please,” Gabriel whispered, reaching up to grasp Sammael's arms. She didn't know if she wanted him to stop or to never let go, to push him away or pull him closer. He made the decision for her, leaning in to press their mouths together, lingering kisses that caught at her lips, coaxed her open beneath him. Gabriel's fingers clenched and relaxed, and then she slid her hands back, curling them around his shoulder blades, holding him close.
Sammael's fingers ran down Gabriel's throat, brushing over her pulse, catching in the collar of her dress. He pushed her sleeves down, over her shoulders and arms. The cloth caught on the swell of her breasts, but he gently tugged it free, baring her to her waist. Gabriel arched her back away from the bone, pressing into Sammael's hands. “Please,” she whispered again, against Sammael's lips.
“I value you, Gabriel.” Sammael's voice was low now, a conspiratorial whisper against her ear, caressing the sounds of her name over her grace. “I love you. I can see your worth.” He punctuated each statement with a kiss, finding his way back to her mouth. “Stay with me, here. Be my partner. Rule this anti-Heaven at my side.”
Gabriel's legs were spreading under the gentle pressure of Sammael's weight, and he stepped even closer, pressing into the cradle of her hips. His hands slid lower still, over the bunched fabric at her waist, down her legs. He caught her skirt and pulled it up as he spoke, his fingers delving beneath the rising hem to skim up her inner thighs, leaving cool trails against her skin that made her shiver.
“Here, you would be revered. Loved. Cherished. Respected. Here, you don't have to hide your doubts. You'd be encouraged to question.”
“Here, I am alone,” Gabriel murmured against Sammael's lips. “Empty.” She kept her eyes open and fixed on his face even as she felt him press up between her legs. “Sammael… I'm scared.”
“I have you, Gabriel.” Sammael held her gaze as he slid two fingers into her body. “We are not alone if we are together. I am yours, as you are mine. You will never be empty so long as I am here to fill you.”
Gabriel gasped, squeezing her eyes shut as Sammael's thumb rubbed forward. She whimpered her brother's name, felt him swallow the sounds as he leaned in to kiss her again.
Yes hung heavy in Gabriel's throat as she rocked against Sammael's hand. Yes screamed through her head as she grasped at his chiton, pulling it loose. Yes whispered in the rustle of her wings as he pulled his fingers away and buried himself inside her, joining them together.
But No had Michael's green eyes. No had Cariel's smirking voice and Castiel's hopeful little smiles. No had her brothers' songs and a graceful wing broken at Sammael's hands. Yes and No battled through Gabriel's spirit, her grace, and she screamed into Sammael's mouth, into the curve of his neck.
Sammael groaned Gabriel's name, adulations, worship. He ground her against the bone with every thrust, one of her legs pulled up around his waist.
When they finally collapsed together in a sticky puddle of grace and human sweat, their wings were stained red from molten sulfur. Gabriel was openly weeping, and Sammael gathered her close. She pressed against his chest as his wings closed around her, sheltering her, just as he always had, as he always promised.
“Shh, little brother,” Sammael murmured against Gabriel's hair. “Don't decide right away. Don't. Stay here; let me show you more of what I made. Just stay with me for now. Think about it. Pray, if you think it would help. Don't make a hasty choice. I don't want you to regret anything.”
Thank you, Gabriel thought, closing her eyes and letting her tears fall. She was safe with Sammael, even here, in the midst of his own little world. She would always be safe with him.
Next...
Notes: Google “Gate to Hell” to find the inspiration for Sammael’s cave.
In this story, before Lucifer fell, his name was Sammael. He was not Lucifer in Heaven.
There is one other canon character operating under an OC name, but I wish for his identity to remain unknown.
Chapter Rating: R for a non-graphic sex scene at the end of this chapter
Chapter word count: 4,919
Chapter Summary: Gabriel looks for Sammael on Earth and finds the beginnings of Hell.
CHAPTER 16:
Welcome to Hell
Gabriel all but exploded out of Heaven, spreading his grace wide to blanket the entire Earth, everywhere and nowhere all at once. He yanked himself back together in front of a young woman with braided red curls and an infectious grin, reaching out to tweak her nose. “Sorcha! Hello, gorgeous!” These rough transitions, folding himself between planes, were brutal on his grace. They ripped huge chunks of energy from his grace, enough to take him down to a much more normal level. Gabriel didn’t feel ready to burst at the seams right now, and with any luck, he’d have a few days before he had to drain himself again.
Sorcha, the woman in front of him, laughed and flung her arms around Gabriel, kissing his cheek. Of all his vessels so far, Sorcha was definitely his favorite. She treated him like any other human, completely ignoring the fact that his true form was created solely of light and power and was in no way substantial enough to endure a hug or a kiss. He solidified his grace where her arms contacted him, so she couldn’t fall through him, and hugged her back. “Gabriel! It’s been far too long!”
Over the centuries, Gabriel had insinuated himself into Vindonnus’ family line as a sort of divine protector, a guardian spirit they could call upon whenever they were in danger. In exchange, he asked that they be prepared to accept him into their forms whenever he needed them. As the generations increased, many of the humans developed lower tolerances to Gabriel’s direct presence, requiring him to speak with them in dreams or visions only, but every five generations or so, one cropped up who could stand in Gabriel’s presence as easily as Vindonnus himself once had.
Sorcha was one of those rare few vessels that the angels had taken to calling their “true” vessels. Gabriel had met her before she was even born. Her mother had prayed to him when she was pregnant, asking for his blessing on her child. Gabriel had watched over her as often as he could, easing her pains and ensuring her husband could always provide for her. He’d reach inside her mother whenever Sorcha was being exceptionally obstinate, calming the growing child and letting her mother rest.
Eventually, Sorcha had been born, and she had recognized Gabriel standing vigil over her crib before she even recognized her own father. She prayed often to Gabriel, and called him her friend. Gabriel loved to slip inside Sorcha’s skin and take her flying. He had found a way to cradle her soul close to the exterior of his grace, so she could be aware of the wind in her face, could feel the beat of his wings as they soared above the ocean. Sorcha loved to soar like a bird, and her delight fed into Gabriel’s own. Once, he had even stepped back, withdrawing his grace so Sorcha could take control and try to fly on her own.
Humans were not suited for flying, as Gabriel discovered when Sorcha tumbled him into an embarrassing head-over-heels crash down a mountainside, but Sorcha had only laughed as Gabriel informed her he would never trust her with his wings again. How had she not seen that mountain!?
Sorcha was an adult woman now, married and mothered and widowed already. Gabriel had tried to save her husband when he was injured in a battle, but Sorcha had asked him not to. It wasn’t fair to the others who did not have a divine protector, she had whispered to him. If he was meant to heal, he would heal. Gabriel was not to intervene.
Gabriel loved Sorcha all the more for her selflessness.
“My apologies, Sorcha.” Gabriel pulled away from Sorcha’s hug to give her a little bow that never failed to make her giggle, her face scrunching up and deep dimples forming in her cheeks. “My own family keeps calling me away.”
“You’re here now. To fly, or do you have actual business?”
“Sadly, business. I need to find my brother; I suspect he’s on Earth again, but I’ll need a vessel.”
“You know I’ll always say yes to you.” Sorcha held out her arms, tipping her chin back. “Will you take me flying anyway?”
“Of course,” Gabriel said, reaching out to the golden link that formed between them.
When Gabriel opened her eyes, she was inside Sorcha’s body, her female body. Angels were genderless by their very nature, assuming the role of whatever vessel they occupied. Some, like Naomi and Anael, preferred female vessels and used feminine pronouns even outside of their vessels, but most defaulted to males. Gabriel herself preferred male solely because Vindonnus had been male. Nevertheless, she always enjoyed her time as Sorcha.
Gabriel had felt a flicker of Archangelic grace near the Great Sea when she had blanketed the world earlier. She would return there at the end of her flight, but first, she soared over the world’s oceans, letting Sorcha’s soul flood her senses.
Eventually, Gabriel turned and headed east, landing where she had felt Sammael’s grace earlier. It was gone now, just a lingering whisper that said he had been here, but that didn’t mean he was actually gone. He could have cloaked his grace and hidden, nearly invisible to angelic senses. She tucked Sorcha’s soul away, pushing her back into the sleep that would keep the woman safe from the burn of Gabriel’s grace. Once Sorcha was settled, Gabriel folded her wings and called out to her brother. “Sammael?” She looked around her, flapping her wings in annoyance and called out again. “Sammael, I said I would fly with you after the meeting! Do you still want to?”
“Do you?”
Gabriel turned sharply, coming face-to-face with a middle-aged human male. The man was excessively tall for a human, but then again, all of Sammael’s vessels towered toward the heavens. He was dressed in the Grecian style, with a long chiton fastened over one shoulder and belted around his waist, long brown hair, and a curly beard. There was no mistaking the Archangel behind those clear grey eyes, or the ripple of power emanating from his core. “Hello, Sammael. I thought I felt you around here.”
“Your vessel is female this time?” Sammael asked, closing the distance between them to prod Gabriel’s face.
“Sorcha is one of my favorites,” Gabriel admitted. “She’s a true vessel, and she loves to fly.”
“Her smile makes her face dent.” Sammael pushed his thumbs against Gabriel’s cheeks and smiled himself. “I like it. She suits you.”
“You’ve said that about all my vessels.”
“You always put care into your choices.” Sammael pressed a kiss to Gabriel’s forehead, his beard scratchy against freckled skin, before stepping back. “Shall we fly? There’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”
“Do you have to ask?” Gabriel asked, spreading her wings and grinning at her brother. She followed Sammael into the sky.
Sammael may have wanted to show something to Gabriel, but he was clearly in no hurry. He led her in a meandering tour of the world, soaring over mountains, skimming fingers through the oceans, diving and twisting and gliding among the great canyons. Gabriel’s wings beat in time with Sammael’s, never once getting tangled or out of sync with her brother. Flying with Raphael was never this easy or this freeing. Her twin was always in the wrong place, cutting her off or scolding her speed. Sammael adapted to his flight partners, finding ways to turn even short jaunts into hypnotizing dances.
Every dance had its end, and eventually Sammael ended this one near a cave. Gabriel laughed at the location-hardly any distance at all from where they had begun. “You took the scenic route,” she accused.
“You weren’t complaining.” Sammael wound his arms around Gabriel and pulled her against his chest. “I love this world. It is so beautiful and fascinating: clearly Father’s best work.”
“But you can’t stand the humans that call it home.” Gabriel picked her words carefully, needing to make sure Sammael was calm again after the scene he and Michael had made earlier. She didn’t want to trigger another outburst. Sammael had never hurt Gabriel before, but Sammael had also never attacked Michael the way he had. Gabriel’s brother was changing, and she didn’t like it.
Sammael growled into Gabriel’s hair. “You misunderstand me. You all do. Human beings, in and of themselves, are not much more inherently flawed than any other creature crawling upon this planet. However, our interference with humans is what I cannot stand. Father’s insistence that they are better than us? The mewling attempts by the Seraphim to kiss ass and be the most pleasing? The way the Cherubim pick their favorites and conspire to breed them, as if there were some grand plan-”
“But there is,” Gabriel protested, leaning her head back to look up at her brother.
“Shh.” Sammael silenced Gabriel with a soft kiss. “We don’t know that. We must take it on faith alone.”
“But…” Gabriel frowned as Sammael rubbed his thumb over her lips, trying not to let him distract her.
“Let me ask you this, Gabriel. How do you know there is a plan?”
“Father said-”
“Did He?” Sammael moved around Gabriel to stand in front of her, raising one dark eyebrow. “Think back, little brother. Did Father ever say He had a plan?”
Gabriel opened her mouth but did not immediately speak. Instead, she replayed every conversation with her Father, every last exchange. The further back she remembered, the more she frowned, her face wrinkling above her eyes and pulling at her mouth. “Michael said as much,” she finally offered, but the defense sounded weak even to her own ears.
“And how does Michael know?” Sammael brushed cool fingers over Gabriel’s forehead. “Who told him?”
“…Father?”
“You sound unsure.” Sammael cupped Gabriel’s face and brushed another kiss against her frowning lips.
“It isn’t our place to doubt!” Gabriel burst out, pulling back from Sammael and wrapping her wings around her body, as if she could protect herself from His wrath if He heard them discussing this.
“Isn’t it?” Sammael’s hands slid along Gabriel’s back, finding the tense knots in the grace between the roots of nl her wings and gently rubbing them out. “Gabriel, we are as Father made us. He made us with the capacity to doubt and second-guess. It is not disgraceful to question Him. I myself have wondered in His ineffability many times, and Father has never struck me down. It’s not wrong to apply ‘logical thinking’ to His plans. If there is ineffability, then nothing we say or do can vary from what He wants us to say or do. If we have free will, the ability to make our own choices, affect our own futures, He simply cannot be controlling us with some divine master plan. Both cannot coexist, Gabriel. Either He wants us to doubt Him, or it is right to doubt Him. Either way, He cannot be upset about it.”
“Sammael…” Gabriel turned back to her brother, lifting her hands as if to push him away but thinking twice before touching him. Logical thinking was one thing, but this doubt went against everything Gabriel knew about her Father and how things were done in Heaven. It was wrong. Forbidden. Dangerous. Sammael had never suffered the full brunt of God’s wrath. Even in the Throne Room, when Sammael had incited it, Michael had shielded him from any direct effects. Gabriel was scared of calling it down on her again with this thinking, but her fear was all the worse because Sammael made sense.
“Come with me.” Sammael caught Gabriel’s hands and drew them to his face, kissing her fingertips before tugging her gently toward the cave. Gabriel followed.
The air in the cave was warm and heavy with misty vapors. Gabriel recoiled as her body registered the stench, lifting a free hand to cover her nose.
“Sulfur,” Sammael explained as they descended into the earth. “And other noxious gases. And decay. The smell is horrible, but it is a natural deterrent.” He gestured to the corpses of birds and small rodents they passed. “Nothing needing lungs can go far here. I have my solitude.”
“It smells disgusting,” Gabriel muttered, but she still followed Sammael. Their vessels did not require fresh air to breathe as long as the angels were within them. Gabriel would make sure she took many deep breaths in fresher air to clear Sorcha’s lungs before releasing her.
The older angel squeezed his vessel through a deep cleft in the rock. Gabriel gave up on breathing entirely as she followed. This next chamber was entirely toxic and clouded. Even her sharp eyes could barely see through the steam filling the cavern. A massive river tore through the stone, scalding water hissing against her toes and soaking her boots. Sammael’s cool hand around hers was a comforting familiarity.
“Where are we?” she asked, shouting so her human voice could be heard over the river.
“At the entrance!” Sammael called back. “Spread your wings-carefully now!-we’re going to fly!”
As soon as Gabriel unfurled her wings, the hot air rising from the river grabbed at her feathers, trying to yank her up. Sammael led her through the fog in a constant dive, battling the updraft. By the time they landed, their vessels’ clothing was soaked through and their sodden wings dragged on the stone behind them.
Gabriel shook herself violently, ridding herself of as much of the excess water as she could. Her core of fire revolted at the feeling of being so wet. Sammael might thrive in the water, but Gabriel found it heavy and suffocating.
This side of the river was far more comfortable, as the cave’s drafts blew the humid steam toward the entrance they had come from. Ahead, through another gash in the cave wall, Gabriel could feel the much friendlier dry heat of fire. She released Sammael’s hand and rushed toward it, trusting that Sammael wouldn’t have shown her such a temptation if it wasn’t safe.
Energy wrapped around Gabriel as she pushed through the gash, a web of spellwork pulling tight and pinching her grace painfully before it abruptly snapped free, letting her through. She stumbled, clutching at her chest with a cry of pain. A great emptiness welled within her, the complete and utter absence of her brothers, her Father. She was disconnected from the Host, empty, alone, falling to her knees against the warm rock, her fingers spasming and grasping for anything. After what felt like an eternity, a tiny spark of connection blossomed, raging against the darkness.
Sammael’s cool fingers wrapped around Gabriel’s arms, drawing her off the floor and cradling her against his chest. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You’re okay.” Gabriel whimpered and turned into Sammael’s chest, clutching at his grace, trying to draw it inside her to fill the hole.
“The first time is always the most unsettling,” Sammael continued, rocking her in his arms, pressing his cheek against her forehead. “Just breathe, Gabriel. You’re not dying. You’re safe. Just breathe with me.”
Gabriel still didn’t need to breathe, but focusing on the rhythm of her brother’s lungs and trying to match it with her own helped distract her from the gnawing ache within. Slowly, she let herself relax against Sammael, smoothing her fingers over his chiton instead of trying to pull it from him. “Sammael… what was that?” she asked, once she found her voice again. “What’s happened to me?”
“Protection.” Sammael answered. “It’s a gate, to keep unwanted forces out.”
“Unwanted forces?” Gabriel wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands-tears had slipped out. She hadn’t cried since that time when she was in Vindonnus, with Michael and Sammael wrapped around her. “Sammael, I can’t feel the Host anymore!”
“Sometimes, I’m not certain the Host is on my side.” Sammael looked solemnly at Gabriel. “Or Father.”
Gabriel pressed her hand over her chest again, staring up at Sammael. “You cut Father out of our spirits!”
“It’s locale-based. Pass back through the gate the other way, and His presence will flood back in. Temporary discomfort, nothing more.”
“This is a bit more than discomfort!” Gabriel sat up on her own, glancing back at the gate they had passed through. The rock wall stretched far above them on this side of the gash, impossibly tall for how deep they were in the earth, disappearing into the dark above. Sigils, Enochian, some she knew, most she didn’t, were carved into the stone, painted over in dried blood. The markings pulsed, breathed, with a sickly light, oozing pus down the rock. The wall was wrong. Gabriel couldn’t read all the signs, and the overwhelming sense of wrongness echoed within her bones. She was the Messenger of Heaven, knowing every language that ever was and ever would be. She did not know this one. “Sammael…”
“Most of it is my own creation,” Sammael murmured, sliding himself against Gabriel’s back and resting his chin on her frizzing curls. “No angel, nor Father, can enter this place without my express permission. They cannot sense anything done or said in this realm.”
Gabriel could pick out her own name carved into the rock, one of the few markings not infected. Sammael had written her into the wards already, granting her permission before she even knew to ask.
“This is where I would go when Michael had you spy on me,” Sammael confessed. “You could still have followed, but you never tried.”
“I wasn’t very good at it,” Gabriel admitted. “I don’t like spying.” She reached for Sammael’s arms and folded them around her, needing him near. He was the only other angel this side of the gate, the only angel she could feel inside her. She needed to keep him close, trying to control the gnawing emptiness. “This is… you made all of this? Yourself?”
“It’s a new dimension,” Sammael said. “I cut a hole through the plane, fashioned it roughly after Heaven in how it is rooted and supported.”
“That explains the size discrepancies.” Gabriel glanced up at the too-tall ceiling again before twisting around to look into the rest of the dimension. She gasped, her jaw dropping open involuntarily at the sight. “Sammael!”
Reaching out of the shadows above, heavy roots grasped for life. They coiled around soaring columns of bone, digging into the cracks like misshapen tendons. Yellow sulfur crystals encrusted this canopy, glittering darkly in the gloom where they weren’t melting from the searing heat, turning into blood red droplets that spattered against the ground, pooling together, running in little rivulets across the blackened stone. Delicate arches of giant rib cages stretched overhead, futilely trying to hold back the trees, with ancient spines above and below leading the way deeper into Sammael’s realm. A rich orange glow beckoned to Gabriel from deep within the cavern, the promise of molten rock and stone.
Sammael helped Gabriel to her feet, walking backwards along the bony path to draw her along by her hands. The great roots groaned as they approached, shaking molten sulfur that speckled over their wings. Gabriel drew hers in tight against her back, easing closer to Sammael. “Is it safe?”
“As long as I’m with you, nothing here will hurt you,” Sammael promised.
“What if we’re separated?”
Sammael squeezed Gabriel’s hands. “We won’t be.”
That was hardly reassuring, Gabriel noted, as the enormous ribs creaked above her from the weight of the ancient roots. “How did you make all this?” she asked, giving up any sense of dignity to press firmly against Sammael. He chuckled, sliding his arm around her waist and turning to walk at her side.
“I stole materials wherever I could.”
“The bones are massive, like…”
“Dinosaurs.” Sammael confirmed the suspicions in Gabriel’s mind. “I slipped back through time, to when the world was burning. Everyone was too busy mourning the loss to notice an extra angel scavenging through the ruins.”
“It’s gruesome.”
Sammael shrugged. “It was necessary. Where else could I find the supports I needed in the size I wanted? I don’t have Father’s tools. It’s not easy to create stuff from nothing. I needed a base to start with.”
“The roots?” Gabriel asked, pointing up and immediately drawing her hand back as a fat sulfur droplet fell on her finger.
“Woven between the planes, to keep this one anchored to Earth.”
“The sulfur?” Gabriel showed Sammael her red finger, and Sammael chuckled, lifting it to his lips to kiss the slight burn off her skin.
“That, I can’t keep out. It comes from the river at the entrance. I’ve just let it collect where it pleases.”
“And that?” Gabriel nestled closer to Sammael’s side, pointing ahead to the orange glow they were headed toward. Now she could hear a dull roaring too, like a waterfall.
“Ah,” Sammael said, grinning. “That is something I put in just for you.”
The Archangels stepped through a slow rain of sulfur drips, emerging onto a wide rocky ledge spreading before a curtain of burning magma streaming into a deep pit. A spiral ramp of charred bone and rock, splashed with more of the liquid sulfur, curled around the flow, down and down and down, until even the bright molten rock couldn’t illuminate the darkness enough. Gabriel burst ahead of Sammael, racing right to the very edge of the ledge, her wings stretched to keep her from falling forward. “Sammael!”
“Do you like it?” Sammael asked, coming up behind her, his hands resting over her hips.
“It’s amazing!” Gabriel loved magma, loved seeing the power her element had even over solid, unmoving rock. There wasn’t much chance to observe it on Earth’s surface unless she dove into the deep craters of volcanoes. Lava wasn’t quite as fun: it cooled and hardened before she had a chance to thoroughly appreciate its beauty.
“I call it home,” Sammael murmured into Gabriel’s ear, squeezing her hips.
The smile fell from Gabriel’s face as she turned to face Sammael, taking a step back that nearly tipped her off the edge. “Home, Sammael? Home is Heaven, with Father and Michael and all the Host.”
Sammael’s good mood evaporated as quickly as Gabriel’s had, and he turned away from her with a roll of his eyes. “Heaven has not been my home for over a century, Gabriel. You know that.”
“How can this be a replacement?” Gabriel demanded, throwing out an arm, her other hand pressing over the hole in her chest. “It’s empty here, Sammael! Where is your family? Your brothers? Your partner? You’re alone here. It’s…” She looked over her shoulder, at the magmafall, then back to the rooted forest and bone. “It can be… very nice here, but it cannot be home. An angel is not meant to be alone.”
“We’re alone in Heaven!” Sammael argued. “Alone when we are shunned and scolded for having a dissenting opinion.” He turned sharply back to Gabriel, his eyes blazing in the glow of the magma. “Alone when we are silenced for voicing concerns. Alone when we, the oldest beings in the universe, are treated as no more than disobedient children!”
“Maybe you feel like that,” Gabriel said quietly, “but I-”
“Why don’t you ever protest when Naomi tries to have you replaced with her angels?”
Gabriel folded her arms across her chest defensively, her wings bristling at the mention of the Seraph’s repeated attempts to oust her from her job. “I trust Father will-”
“Why do you let Raphael constantly belittle you and ruffle your feathers?”
“Raphael is just-”
“Why don’t you ever protest when Michael leaves a mess for you to clean up? Why don’t you ever demote Zachariah when he picks a fight with the pagans? Why do you bow and offer praise to a Father who nearly scraped your mind clean?”
“Sammael, that isn’t fair!” Gabriel cried out, recoiling from Sammael’s harsh questions, her arms tight against her body.
“It angers you!” Sammael took a step toward Gabriel, wings flared aggressively but not turned to battle. Gabriel backed away as far as she dared without taking to the air, balancing on her toes at the very edge of the ledge. “You swallow it down, but I see how you cringe. You hate being overlooked, counted as insignificant, as just the Messenger, smallest and weakest and youngest of the Archangels, a passive little human-lover with no spine of your own.”
Gabriel took another step back onto open air, flaring her wings to check her fall, but Sammael grabbed her around the waist and snatched her back onto the ledge. He spun around, backing her into one of the columns of bone and pressing in close. His cool hands smoothed over her hair, her skin, as he leaned in close to press his forehead against hers
“You say nothing because it ‘isn’t our place,’” Sammael murmured, resigned sorrow replacing his harsh tone from earlier. “You let our brothers run roughshod over you because to protest is to disobey, and to disobey is to disappoint, to be punished. Possibly even by death.” Sammael met Gabriel’s eyes, their noses bumping together. He turned his head to brush his lips over the dried tearstains on her cheeks, impossibly gentle now as he wrapped his grace around her. Sammael was sad for her. Gabriel could feel her brother’s empathy and love swelling against her own grace, and she knew he was undeniably on her side.
“Sammael, please,” Gabriel whispered, reaching up to grasp Sammael's arms. She didn't know if she wanted him to stop or to never let go, to push him away or pull him closer. He made the decision for her, leaning in to press their mouths together, lingering kisses that caught at her lips, coaxed her open beneath him. Gabriel's fingers clenched and relaxed, and then she slid her hands back, curling them around his shoulder blades, holding him close.
Sammael's fingers ran down Gabriel's throat, brushing over her pulse, catching in the collar of her dress. He pushed her sleeves down, over her shoulders and arms. The cloth caught on the swell of her breasts, but he gently tugged it free, baring her to her waist. Gabriel arched her back away from the bone, pressing into Sammael's hands. “Please,” she whispered again, against Sammael's lips.
“I value you, Gabriel.” Sammael's voice was low now, a conspiratorial whisper against her ear, caressing the sounds of her name over her grace. “I love you. I can see your worth.” He punctuated each statement with a kiss, finding his way back to her mouth. “Stay with me, here. Be my partner. Rule this anti-Heaven at my side.”
Gabriel's legs were spreading under the gentle pressure of Sammael's weight, and he stepped even closer, pressing into the cradle of her hips. His hands slid lower still, over the bunched fabric at her waist, down her legs. He caught her skirt and pulled it up as he spoke, his fingers delving beneath the rising hem to skim up her inner thighs, leaving cool trails against her skin that made her shiver.
“Here, you would be revered. Loved. Cherished. Respected. Here, you don't have to hide your doubts. You'd be encouraged to question.”
“Here, I am alone,” Gabriel murmured against Sammael's lips. “Empty.” She kept her eyes open and fixed on his face even as she felt him press up between her legs. “Sammael… I'm scared.”
“I have you, Gabriel.” Sammael held her gaze as he slid two fingers into her body. “We are not alone if we are together. I am yours, as you are mine. You will never be empty so long as I am here to fill you.”
Gabriel gasped, squeezing her eyes shut as Sammael's thumb rubbed forward. She whimpered her brother's name, felt him swallow the sounds as he leaned in to kiss her again.
Yes hung heavy in Gabriel's throat as she rocked against Sammael's hand. Yes screamed through her head as she grasped at his chiton, pulling it loose. Yes whispered in the rustle of her wings as he pulled his fingers away and buried himself inside her, joining them together.
But No had Michael's green eyes. No had Cariel's smirking voice and Castiel's hopeful little smiles. No had her brothers' songs and a graceful wing broken at Sammael's hands. Yes and No battled through Gabriel's spirit, her grace, and she screamed into Sammael's mouth, into the curve of his neck.
Sammael groaned Gabriel's name, adulations, worship. He ground her against the bone with every thrust, one of her legs pulled up around his waist.
When they finally collapsed together in a sticky puddle of grace and human sweat, their wings were stained red from molten sulfur. Gabriel was openly weeping, and Sammael gathered her close. She pressed against his chest as his wings closed around her, sheltering her, just as he always had, as he always promised.
“Shh, little brother,” Sammael murmured against Gabriel's hair. “Don't decide right away. Don't. Stay here; let me show you more of what I made. Just stay with me for now. Think about it. Pray, if you think it would help. Don't make a hasty choice. I don't want you to regret anything.”
Thank you, Gabriel thought, closing her eyes and letting her tears fall. She was safe with Sammael, even here, in the midst of his own little world. She would always be safe with him.
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