“Can you save her?”
Gabriel scanned the wound. “I should be able to seal it up.”
He plucked a feather from his wing and started to lay it over the gash, but I caught his wrist. “Don’t.”
Gabriel’s mouth fell open. “Jordan, what are you—”
“If you heal me, the portal to Michael’s body will close,” I said through shallow breaths. “Let him go back.”
Michael shook his head. “No. No, I won’t do it. I will not be responsible for your death, Jordan!”
“It’s not your choice to make. I have to make things right. This is the only way to truly atone for the life I took.”
“Jordan, there is no way to know if the Father will accept this in place of the hundredth soul you owe,” Gabriel said in a pleading voice. Now that he was so near to me, I could feel waves of worry pouring off the angel and flowing inside me. So much compassion. I had never felt such a powerful sensation before.
“I know. Finish it.”
He raised his eyes up to Michael, whose face had crumbled into something between anguish and disbelief. My limbs were shaking badly, but I still reached up and touched the side of his cheek to make him look me in the eye. The strange metaphysical energy of his poltergeist form spilled across my tired skin and gave me enough power to speak clearly.
“This is what you were born to do, Michael. You’re an archangel. The people in this world need you more than I do.”
“What if I need you?” he whispered, almost as if he were ashamed of what he was saying.
I smiled. “That’s the most…beautiful thing…”
He pressed a finger over my lips before I could finish the V for Vendetta quote and returned the smile, though it was weak around the edges. “You watch too many movies. Goodbye, Jordan.”
His lips pressed to my forehead, a strangely soft tingle, before he got up and walked over to his body. Gabriel brushed the hair from my face and kissed the back of my hand, his lovely face heavy with regret.
“I will treasure you always.”
“Back atcha, Gabe.”
I didn’t see Michael enter his body. I felt it. It felt like sliding beneath the warm covers of a bed after a long day—safe, comfortable, alleviating. Death swept me up into its arms and carried me away to darkness where there was no pain, no suffering, and not a care in the world. I couldn’t have asked for more.
BOOK TWO: IN MEDIAS RES
Under his gloomy power I shall not long
Lie vanquished; thou has given me to possess
Life in myself forever, by thee I live,
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due
All that of me can die, yet that debt paid,
Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
Forever with corruption there to dwell.
—Paradise Lost, John Milton
Chapter 8
I had been expecting great leaping flames, sinister cackling, and maybe Peter Stormare dressed in all white to greet me in the pits of hell, but that didn’t happen. The first indication that I was alive was that I could see the ceiling fan of my bedroom. Then, like a tidal wave, I felt pain. Everywhere. My bruised hand, my punctured chest, my sore arms—the agony hit my poor senses all at once. I closed my eyes and just lay there until the sensory overload receded.
I gathered my arms beneath me to sit up. It wasn’t easy but I managed to prop my back up against the headboard. Michael sat in a chair to my right with his head resting on the mattress, slumped over asleep. Then, I noticed that his hand, which had been resting near mine, was emitting heat. Michael was alive. Alive.
Then why the hell was I?
I reached out towards him just enough to brush my fingertips over the back of his hand. Michael grunted and rolled his head to the side, peeking up at me through a waterfall of brown hair. A sleepy smile tugged at his lips.
“You’re awake.”
I cleared my throat a few times until I could speak. “You’re alive.”
He stood and perched himself on the bed, brow furrowing with concern. “How do you feel?”
I shrugged one shoulder, immediately regretting it as my chest wound stung. “Like I’ve been choked, stabbed, and handcuffed.”
“It could have been a lot worse,” Michael murmured, tugging aside the bloodstained button up shirt to reveal the heavily bandaged part of my chest.
“I know. Why wasn’t it? I thought I died.”
“You did,” he said in that same soft voice. “But after Father saw what you did in order to restore my life, He decided to wipe your debt clean.”
“So…when I die…I’m not going to Hell?”
Michael finally smiled. “You’re not going to Hell.”
A rush of relief flooded through me from head to toe. I lay my head back, resisting the urge to cry. “Thank God.”
“You bet I did.”