I
The loose tobacco stuck to his teeth again. He licked his lips and spat out as much as he could, before continuing to roll his cigarette. The batch from Saratoga was never good. Musky and tasteless. At times, luxury cigars from the coast would find their way to the H. He didn't smoke that shit, though. The Pledge-Breakers had made their bed with the devils, they could lie in it. A bunch of snake-oil promises from Voodoo worshipers. Nothing but war-profiteers. This tasteless crap he smoked was made by the hardworking Americans of his country in exile. From the soil of the last bastion of freedom. It would do.
The years had been hard on Daniel Price. His wife went into the ground three years ago from cancer, and his four children had grown up fearing him—and still did. He had made a career of terrifying his compatriots and opponents alike. Price was not a tyrant, though. He was a man of action, and men of action were always scrutinised. At the military institute in little Lexington, the first thing they had taught him was that bad decisions were better than none. He refused to believe that until he was forced to. Trapped in an abandoned subway, with injured officers, crying women, starving children. He made some tough choices then. Choices that will haunt him to the day he die. But Price was of the old stock. He would suck it up, and he would do whatever was necessary to get the job done. His allegiance was to the men who fought for every inch of these tunnels. For freedom.
They had made it through starvation, riots, and Marcus' death. All on the shoulder of those who believed in the greater good rather than their own selfish needs. They believed in humanity, this city. He had built it with his own blood, sweat, and tears—and more importantly—others. This metropolis had paid its due in suffering, and he would make sure it was for something.
"Good morning, sir." the soldier guarding the door saluted the Field Marshal.
"Morning, Private." He replied. The words creaked out of his smokey mouth. The sound of an early morning. "What's the condition of the prisoner?"
"Well, sir. The doctor is at a loss, but he seems ok."
"He?"
"It. Sir." the private corrected himself.
"Show me to it." Price said, biting down on his cigarette, and waiting for the guard to open the first set of steel doors.
The angel was crouched over, naked and chained to the wall by four large chains. Two on his hands were connected to rings in the ceiling, before coming back down to a gear winch at the feet of Major Oberst, who was standing at attention. The chains on its legs were bolted to the ground. The room smelled of ammonia and was scrubbed daily to the standards of H-City General Hospital.
"Hello, prisoner." Price said, trying not to smile.
The angel said nothing.
"We captured your friends the other day."
The angel said nothing.
Price signaled to Oberst and pointed to the chains. The Major nodded and tapped his baton on the steel wall.
The chains began moving. Slowly, but steadily, the angel was hoisted up and its arms spread out. Oberst pulled its long blond hair back so Price could see the eyes.
"This never gets old." Oberst said. "We could do this for a long, long time."
Price blew cigarette smoke in the angel's face. "Wouldn't hurt ya to talk to us."
The angel said nothing.
"The more you talk to me, the less you have to put your lips on every piece of munition we send your way."
The angel looked down at Oberst's feet.
Price turned his back on it and rolled another cigarette. "You see.... This is just a courtesy visit. We already have all we need. soon you'll be cemented into a hole in the ground. That is, unless you have a reason for me not to. I'm no immortal entity, but lying in a concrete tomb forever sounds like a nasty deal." Price put his hands on the winch and lifted the angel up another notch. "Weren't you here on a mission? From God?"
Silence.
"Well, Major," Price turned to Oberst. "I guess we're done here."
Oberst's jaw dropped as he stared at the angel.
"And so," the angel said, gathering strength, pulling the chains closer. "They have all gathered against the last city, where mankind is but a glimmer of its former glory."
It felt as if the oxygen was being sucked out of the room. Price's cigarette went out.
"Your enemies conspire against you, Daniel Anthony Price. They are marching towards your fortress as we speak. But you know this, you have waited for this. You hope the weapon will protect you. It will not."
The chains began bending.
"The Everlasting Host has sent me on a mission of utmost importance. For your redemption. For the redemption of all." The angel's eyes shone clear, so powerful that they seemed to glow. "You will let me go."
Price stood firm as a cliff in the storm.
His hand released the winch. The chains lost slack.
The angel collapsed back on the concrete floor with a thud and a racket. It groaned, still trapped. The soldiers watched on in awe. Price had none.
"Last time I checked," he said. "God was busy sipping margaritas in Heaven."
The greasy blond hair covered the angel's face. It struggled to raise its head.
"Father left heaven long ago." It confided. "But my brethren have not, and they come for me, with vengeance and conviction on their mind. They will turn your city to ruin in order to capture me. You must let me go."
Price bent down and looked at it. Whatever made it seem celestial was almost gone. It was hard to remember what had made it so menacing in the first place.
"Not a chance."
II
The rain poured down outside. The sound of thousands of droplets hitting the ceramic roof was like music to the Old Man. He sat in his kitchen gazing out on the sea, wondering about the path set before them. About when his time would finally come.
There was a bang on the door. The Old Man stood up, and signalled for the Djinns to leave the room.
"Hang on, I'm coming!" He called out as he made his way to the door.
The wood began to creak, and the latches snapped off. The Old Man hit the ground.
"My goodness!"
The door flung across the room and landed next to him. Splinters scattered around. The deafening noise of the storm outside.
"Where is he?" a voice spoke from out of the night. The figure stood in the doorway. Rain and lightning behind it.
"Who?" the Old Man stumbled to his feet
The figure marched in from the darkness and grabbed his neck.
"Do not play coy with me, Qayin Ben-Adamm."
The Old Man looked up. It was Zakariel, the Archangel of Araboth. His hair long and blond like his brothers. His eyes bright blue. Just like Cassiel's.
"Zakariel, what's going on? What are you doing?"
The archangel was dressed in a white tunica, his wings firmly packed on his back—creating the illusion of not being there. By his side hung a sheet, and in it a large medieval sword called Olyndicus. The Old Man remembered it from the days of Gomorrah.
"My patience wears thin." Zakariel said.
The Old Man brushed off the wooden splinters from his clothes. "Your patience may do whatever it likes. Your threatening behaviour means nothing to me."
Zakariel did not seem impressed by his reply. He raised his hand. "It is not in my power to see harm come to you, Qayin Ben-Adamm. It is, however, in my power to see harm befall everything you love. Where is he?"
As he moved his hand, flames began spreading in the kitchen.
"Cassiel is on his own path!" The Old Man shouted. "It's not for you to stop him!"
He could barely hear anything as the sound of the flames met the cacophony of the storm outside.
The three Djinns ran back into the room. They were of fire, and could quell it, but the angel looked at them and said, "no."
Swiftly Olyndicus sliced through the air, and off went their heads.
The Old Man fell on his knees. Aḥmar, Abyaḍ, and Maymun. They were of the exiled Si'lats. Traveled by the Light and Shadow to stand by his side. Long had they been his closest companions. Now they were gone from the world.
"I will raze this compound to the ground, alongside the rest of the Djinns you shelter. Where is my brother?"
The Old Man was in tears. He looked up at the archangel as arcs of flames licked around him. How cold and uncaring he seemed.
"Cassiel has gone to the last citadel of the humans." He heard himself say.
The greenhouse outside exploded from the heat. Zakariel walked out of the burning cabin and flew off into the night.
"He will find the Vulture!" The Old Man ran out after him. "The circle will be completed!"
Then he fell down on his knees and cried for the loss of his friends.