The Fallen for Floranna
Title: The Fallen
Author: briarwood
Recipient: Floranna
Rating: PG
Warnings: Um...possibly offensive if you believe the Bible is a book of virtues.
Summary: The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
The Fallen
quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes ( 1)
Behind the abandoned building, the rising sun painted the clouds in shades of pink and orange. The building itself was all shadows, the boarded-up windows and crumbling walls deep wells of darkness.
Uriel dropped his cloak of invisibility as he approached the doorway. The door was twice the height of his vessel, made from good thick oak that easily withstood the decades of neglect. Across the middle of the double doors a heavy steel bar was screwed into the wood and sealed with a large, rusty padlock. Uriel gestured and the padlock tore itself apart; the warped metal flew past him and hit the floor with a clatter. He flicked his fingers and the double doors blew open, raising a cloud of dust in the darkness within. Uriel breathed deeply of the dust-filled air as he walked in. Dust settled on his clothing, his skin and his hair.
He stepped over the threshold. Immediately, he felt the rightness of what he was doing. It was not his nature to doubt, but he had questioned himself about this. He had not even been certain this was the right place. There was no doubt in him any more. The dusty air filled the lungs of Uriel’s vessel but the power of the place filled Uriel himself. It tingled across his skin and his wings. The scent of it permeating the very stones was both familiar and exhilarating.
It was the power and grace of an archangel. Of the brightest and strongest of the archangels.
The Morning Star.
Lucifer.
The garrison had been in exile for millennia. To be so close to an archangel’s grace was closer than Uriel had been to
Heaven in all that time. It was almost like being close to God.
If he could remember what that was like.
Uriel did remember being close to Lucifer.
They stood on a jagged mountainside above a desert valley. Three cities shared the valley; two of them were burning. Uriel and his brother watched the great burning they had wrought together. They watched the little mud monkeys flee their destruction, disobedient to the end. Their doom was God’s will; they should have submitted and joyfully. Most, though they tried to escape the burning cities, were trapped behind their own walls. As planned.
But there were a few. Uriel saw a man leap from the wall in a desperate attempt to escape the flames. Before he reached the ground, Lucifer snapped his fingers. What hit the sand was a rain of blood and gore and shredded clothing.
“No mercy,” Lucifer said.
“Except for them.” Uriel spat the words as his eyes followed the family they had been ordered to spare. He would not question his orders, but he had difficulty seeing what made them so worthy. A man who offered his virgin daughters to be gang-raped by a rioting mob. The wife who stood by and let him do it. Not exactly a righteous family. ( 2)
“No, brother,” Lucifer answered calmly. “We are ordered to spare their lives. We are not ordered to show mercy.”
Uriel smiled, appreciating the fine distinction. He took his brother’s words as permission to act. The crystal was in his hand. The woman seemed to sense her peril, for she began to turn, to look back. Uriel raised the crystal and added his grace to its power. The combined power streamed into the valley, perfectly aimed. For an instant, Uriel felt the woman’s fear and confusion. Then her brain turned to crystal and fell, with the rest of her, to join the sands of the desert.
Uriel raised the crystal again, but Lucifer laid a hand on his arm. “Enough, brother. They will do the rest to themselves.” ( 3)
Uriel felt a surge of fierce joy at the recollection. Lucifer was so right.
His feet made no sound as he passed through the still and silent building. He left no footprints in the dust. His presence would leave no trace here. No one, not human, Heaven or Hell, would know he had been in this place.
That was important, though Uriel did not see his actions as disobedience. The Garrison had no orders about this place. They were not forbidden to come. Uriel suspected he was not the first of his brothers to make this journey.
A statue caught Uriel’s eye and he paused to glance around. He saw the stained glass in the windows, broken in places, but enough left to reveal the images of white-winged angels offering blessings. He saw the statues of angels in prayer. Anger sparked through him. It was an insult to everything he was. Prissy mud-monkeys with wings. Kindly benevolence and blessings. They had no idea what an angel of the Lord was. None.
A statue of the Virgin stood in an alcove, blue paint flaking from her robe. Uriel snarled in contempt.
That was when the atmosphere of the place began to filter into Uriel’s awareness. The holy place had been defiled. That was unexpected.
The final door was ahead of him. Like the first, it was padlocked, but a casual brush of power took care of that. Uriel pushed the door open and walked into the tiny chapel.
He saw at once what happened in this place. No physical traces were visible, but the memory of the deed lingered. Human sacrifice. A demon’s relish of the slaughter. This once-holy sanctuary transformed into a doorway to Hell.
So the demons knew. Had they succeeded in breaching the Cage? Uriel laid one broad hand on the altar where a virgin’s blood had spilled. He felt the energy of Lucifer’s grace and he knew. The Cage was open. Only by the merest crack, but this demon’s sacrifice created that crack. It was better than Uriel could have hoped.
The spilled blood had been cleaned up long ago, but traces remained. Uriel channelled his grace through the blood traces, using it as both map and conduit. He closed his eyes, shut everything else out of his awareness, everything except that thin golden thread which led him further from Heaven than he had ever been before.
Suddenly, he found his slow descent accelerating. His awareness spiralled downward, out of his control. He was falling. Pain lanced through him, pain that was far more than physical. He felt his grace leaving him. He fought to stay whole, to check his speed. In the chapel, the vessel gripped the stone altar hard enough to strip flesh from bone. The vessel’s blood trickled across the stone, mingling with the blood of the sacrifice.
Uriel screamed. In desperation he cast his power outward like a net...and at last felt his descent slow. Slow, slow and finally stop.
He reached inside himself to touch his own grace, and found it. Battered and drained, but intact. Something was missing, though. Something...
“Welcome, brother.”
The voice was warm, but quiet. Though it was the voice Uriel had sought, for a moment he was afraid. Not afraid of his brother, but of the word. Welcome. Had he somehow breached the cage?
Was he trapped here, too?
“Where am I?” Uriel asked.
“Hell, I expect.” Lucifer sounded amused.
“How?”
“You sought me out, brother,” Lucifer answered. “Do you come from our Father?”
The question cast Uriel into confusion. To his knowledge, no angel had heard the voice of God in centuries. He could not be sure, and knew he should have faith, but the assurances of the archangels were beginning to ring false.
He answered, “No. I have no Word from God.”
“No. He would not send you.” There was judgement in Lucifer’s tone, but Uriel did not take offence. It was true enough. Uriel had never been honoured with God’s Word.
“Why did you come, brother?” Lucifer asked. He went on without giving Uriel a space to reply. “Our father wants me free. My true vessel awaits my coming. Every day the seals on my prison weaken. Soon I will rise and reclaim my rightful place.”
He spoke with absolute confidence. Uriel knew he was speaking the truth. The seals on Lucifer’s cage were indeed being broken. Lucifer’s vessel walked the earth. But could it truly be God’s will that Lucifer would rise free, when His angels had been ordered to work against it. Was it possible their superiors were working against God’s will?
“Why does God want you free after all this time?” Uriel asked. “What are you to do?”
“You have seen the world,” Lucifer told him. “Our Father’s most beautiful creation poisoned and polluted by these unworthy creatures. How many times has our Father sent us to cleanse their evil from the world, but shown mercy to a few? And those few always prove as wicked as those we destroyed. It’s time to annihilate them all.”
Every word shot to Uriel’s heart. He knew Lucifer spoke the truth. He himself had been sent to cleanse city after city, but the mud monkeys never learned from their mistakes. They still made war upon each other. They still destroyed each other. Their most valued industries were those that devised more efficient weapons, more terrible instruments of torture, more devastating bombs. They defied God and flouted his commandments.
They did not deserve this world.
Uriel had met the Righteous Man who was their destined champion. If Dean Winchester was the best they could do, humanity was beyond all hope of redemption. They should be destroyed.
Uriel felt himself smiling. “We will cleanse this world at last.”
“No mercy,” Lucifer agreed.
It was a glorious vision. All of God’s angels united once more, sweeping down to destroy this tainted race and restore Paradise on Earth. Once more they would walk in Eden without the burden of these human vessels.
Triumphant as if it were already accomplished, Uriel spread his vast wings, prepared to rise in glory from that dark pit. But his wings were heavy at his back and he could not rise. This place was too deep, the power holding him there too great. The first threads of fear crept around Uriel’s heart. He was not in the Cage. He could not be inside it, because the Cage was sealed. That was its purpose. But Uriel lay beside it, so close it held him in its gravity.
“Uriel,” Lucifer’s voice crooned.
There was something threatening in his brother’s voice. Uriel beat his wings hard, trying again to rise. Again, he failed.
“You Fell to find me, Uriel.”
Denial filled him. “No!” It could not be true. He could not Fall by accident. It had to be an act of wilful Disobedience. “I still have my Grace,” Uriel insisted. It was true. He was weakened, but he was still an angel.
Lucifer laughed. “Not enough, brother. Not enough to escape from here.”
It could be true. Uriel spread his wings once more, desperately reaching upward.
“Fear not,” Lucifer said. “I can set you free, brother.”
Fear. No, not fear was too tame a word. Terror filled Uriel, emotion stronger than any angel should be capable of feeling. If he were physical in this place, he would have wept. “Help me. Brother, help me.”
“First, I want your vow.” Lucifer’s voice was harsh. “When I am free, we will cleanse this world side by side, as I promised. Before that day, brother, there is work to be done. I need my right hand in the world.”
Uriel recoiled from the words. For the first time, he doubted. Only one was allowed the title of Right Hand. For Lucifer to name another his Right Hand was a declaration of war against more than Michael.
“Will you war on our Father, then?” Uriel asked.
“My envoy, then,” Lucifer amended, so smoothly Uriel buried his momentary doubt. Lucifer mis-spoke, that was all. This was God’s will.
“What must I do?” The words were a capitulation.
Lucifer gave his orders. Uriel’s task was simple...and forbidden. Once more, for a brief moment Uriel was torn. But he thought of his brother Castiel who was so enamoured of the Winchesters he couldn’t see them for the abominations they were. Lucifer was giving him a chance to redress the balance. It was a privilege, not a burden. It was a duty Uriel would enjoy, very much indeed.
In the last war, Uriel fought at Michael’s side against Lucifer. That was before he understood Lucifer’s crime. It was Disobedience, he knew that, and believed he needed to know nothing more. That was enough. Only when the war was over did Uriel learn the truth: Lucifer refused to bow down to the humans. That was his terrible act of Disobedience. Uriel felt humiliated. He had obeyed that order. He obeyed with no submission in his heart, full of disgust for the creatures he was forced to pay obeisance, but he obeyed.
Lucifer had more courage than he.
Now, Uriel could make restitution for his error. He opened himself to the caged archangel, reaching through that miniscule crack. He swore his fealty to his fallen brother.
Pain engulfed him instantly. Something inside him shattered.
Then there was light, the pure light of the Morning Star filling the broken places within him, restoring Uriel’s Grace and power. Uriel felt his awareness expand with his wings and he rose up at last. He took flight and spiralled upward as the power crested. He burst through into the small chapel, a supernova of light and grace. His vessel screamed in too-human terror before Uriel reclaimed the body. The man’s mind was gone, burned out with his eyes, the soul flayed raw by Uriel’s violent emergence. At the last moment Uriel grasped the fleeing soul and trapped it within the body. He could not occupy an empty vessel. Consent, however it was obtained, was required. Once more confined within the human meat, Uriel stood up straight and began to repair the physical damage. He rebuilt the eyes. He knitted the shredded flesh of the hands. He grew new skin and hair to replace what burned.
He felt the gathering of power within himself as he worked. It was more than he was accustomed to. The power, the grace he held was more than his own. It was Lucifer’s gift: a small measure of his grace mingled with Uriel’s. It was a heady feeling.
Uriel hadn’t known he could contain more than his own grace. He had been keeper of Anna’s grace for a short time; had he known this, he would have kept it for himself.
Uriel sent a spear of thought down to the cage. It was easy now, the small part of Lucifer he held providing the connection. “I am ready, brother,” he promised. “I will not fail you.”
There was no response from Lucifer, but Uriel needed no further orders. He knew what to do.
Uriel spread his wings and flew from the sacred ground in search of the first of his brothers.
Iterum adsumit eum diabolus in montem excelsum valde et ostendit ei omnia regna mundi et gloriam eorum et dixit illi haec tibi omnia dabo si cadens adoraveris me. ( 4)
~ End ~
Notes:
1 Isaiah 14, 12 Back to story
2 See Genesis 19, 1-8 Back to story
3 See Genesis 19, 31-38 Back to story
4 Matthew 4, 8-9 Back to story