I blinked.
“But then again, Michael hasn’t taken any real interest in you, now, has he, child?” he continued. “I should not be surprised.”
Okay.
That was rude.
“Who in the Hell are you?” I demanded.
“I am the Gospel and the Truth. I appeared to Daniel to explain his visions, and I stood beside your father and defended the people against the Fallen and other nations. I am the Saint that appeared before Zechariah and Mary, predicting the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. I am the archangel who delivered Truth and Knowledge to Muhammad.” His wings lifted and spread out behind him, and there...there was something wrong with them. Inky veins streaked through the white, leaking what looked like tar. “I am Gabriel, the Harbinger.”
40
Shock rolled through me, feeling like I’d been thrust unexpectedly into freezing water as I stared at the archangel Gabriel.
“You look surprised.” His lips curved into a smile.
Instinct demanded I take a step back, but I held myself in place. “I don’t understand. You’re Gabriel.”
“Pretty sure he’s aware of who he is, darlin’.” Sulien looked over to where Roth and Cayman were.
I barely heard the Trueborn. “How could it be you?”
“How could it be me killing Wardens? Demons?” One whitish-blond brow rose. “Because it was me. My son kept an eye on things—an eye on you—but it was me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It had nothing to do with being wrong about Sulien and everything to do with the fact the Harbinger was Gabriel, one of the most powerful angels—one of the first to ever be created. But it suddenly made too much sense. The angelic wards and weapons. The ruined video feeds. It seemed so obvious, it was almost painful, but even I couldn’t understand how an archangel could work with witches and demons and kill not only Wardens but innocent humans.
“Ask me,” he coaxed. “Ask me why.”
“Why?”
His smile grew. “I’m going to change the world. That’s what all of this is about. What all of this has been about.” He gestured toward the archway. “The souls of the deceased. This portal.” He paused. “Misha. You. I’m going to change the world for the better.”
All I could do was stare.
His wings lowered, their tips nearly touching the ground. “Man never should have received the gift God bestowed upon him. They’ve never been deserving of such a blessing as eternity. That is what a soul grants a human—an eternity of peace or terror, their choice, but eternity nonetheless. But a soul...it does so much more. That is how one loves. That is how one hates. It is mankind’s essence, and man was never deserving to know such glory.”
“How... Who can say that man could never be deserving?”
“How could man be deserving of the ability to love and to hate and to feel when His first creations—us, His ever faithful and most deserving, the ones who defend His glory and spread His word—never were?”
“Because...you’re angels? And you’re not human?” I was so confused. So confused.
“We have auras. We have a pure essence.” He looked at me, those all-white eyes beyond creepy. “But we do not have souls.”
He turned slightly, looking to where Sulien was eyeing the demons, and then to the ceiling. “God has done everything to protect man. Given them life and joy and love. Purpose. The ability to create. Raised the Fallen to watch over them, and given them souls as reward. Has done everything to ensure that, when they leave this mortal coil, they find peace. Even those who sin can find forgiveness, and only the most evil and the most unforgivable face judgment. That will change. Mankind as we know it is at its end. Many of us warned God this day would come. There was no stopping this.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” I tried to keep an eye on Sulien as he nudged Cayman with his boot. “God—”
“God has believed in man, and man has betrayed God. What have they done since creation? What have they done with the gift of life and eternity? They made war and created famine and disease. They brought death to their own doors, welcoming it in. They judge as if they are worthy of doing so. They worship false idols who preach what they want to hear and not the gospel. They use the name of God and the Son as vindication for their hatred and their fear.” Gabriel tilted his head, his voice smooth and soft. “There has not been one minute in the course of human history that mankind has not made war upon itself. Not an hour when they do not take another life. Not a day they do not hurt one another with words or deeds. Not a week that they do not strip this land of everything God has given it to offer. Not a month where weapons created to destroy life do not pass from hand to hand, leaving nothing but blood and despair behind.”
Gabriel’s smile disappeared. “This world that once was a gift has become a revolting curse in which people are judged by their skin or who they love and not by their deeds. Those who are most vulnerable and in need are the most ignored or vilified. If the Son were alive today, He would be scorned and feared, and that is what mankind has done. Children kill children. Mothers and fathers murder their young. Strangers kill strangers by the dozens, and—the worst sin of all—it is often done in the name of who is Holy. That is what man has done since creation.”
Okay. He kind of had a point there. Mankind could be pretty terrible. “Not everyone is like that, though.”
“Does it matter when it takes only a small part of decay to rot and destroy the entire foundation?”
“Yes. It matters. Because while there are terrible people out there, there are many more who are good—”
“But are they? Truly? No one can cast a stone, and yet that is all man does.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’re wrong.”
“You say that, with your limited experience, when I’ve had thousands of years of watching man aspire to nothing? Watching man become so obsessed with the material and the fallacy of power that they will sell their own sons and betray their own countries to make a profit? Time and time again, I’ve witnessed entire nations fall and the ones birthed out of the ashes follow the same path as the ones before them. You think you know better?”
“I know enough to know you’re making broad—like, huge—generalizations.”
“Tell me, what festers in that human soul of yours? The need to make the world better? The desire to protect? Or is it consumed with carnal needs? Is it full of anger over his betrayal... Misha’s?”
I sucked in a sharp breath.
“It was I who came to him. I who was able to sway him and from whom he learned the truth. He knew what needed to be done to rectify this, and while you might have ended his life, you did more damage to yourself than you could have ever done to him. Your heartache. Your rage. It was your ruin. Your human soul is corrupt.”
The same words Sulien had spoken carried a different weight now. There was a heaviness of truth, but it was more than that. “Humans are complicated. I’m complicated, capable of caring and of wanting multiple conflicting things. Those things do not necessarily corrupt.”
“You’ve killed without guilt.”
He had me there.
“You’ve broken rules.” He stepped toward. “You, like the human side of you, are capable only of destruction. Man treats life like it means nothing but flesh and bone. Therefore it will no longer mean anything more.”
My stomach hollowed. “So, God wants this? Wants the end of the world?”
Gabriel smirked. “God no longer wants anything.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that the infallible has failed, and I can no longer stand by and do nothing. I will not stand by. There will be a new God as this Earth is cleansed and only the truly righteous will remain until they, too, cease to exist and none will be left when all is said and done. This beautiful Earth will return to how it was meant to be.”
I exhaled roughly. “And that God is you?”
“Don’t sound so dismissive, child. If I have learned anything watching over humans,” he said, sneering at the word, “it is that they will follow and believe just about anything as long as it’s easy.”
Well, yet again, he had a point. “I don’t think ending the world is easy.”
“It is when you don’t know it’s happening until it’s too late.”
I stilled.
Gabriel chuckled and the sound was beautiful, like rolling waves. “I will undo both Heaven and Earth, and no one will know until it’s too late, until nothing can be done. Then God will know that the words of the messenger were true.”
He sounded...insane.
Like, if he was some random person on the street, someone would call the police. But since he was an archangel, he also sounded downright scary.
“With this portal, I will open a rift between Earth and Heaven, and a being born of true evil and the souls who belong in Hell will enter Heaven,” he said, a dreamy look settling over his features. “Evil will spread like a cancer, infecting every realm. God and the spheres of all the classes will be forced to permanently close the gates to protect the souls there. Heaven will fall during the Transfiguration.”