Page 30 of Under His Wings

“Not inside!” Nathaniel yelped, his arms flailing. “I’m never going to get the stench out from the furniture!”

Nobody paid the traumatized owners of the club any attention as they muttered under their breath about the biggest bill in the history of Hell and Heaven while Abaddon continued the process until there was nothing left of the traitor.

“Now, let’s deal with the other one,” Abaddon announced darkly.

“My Lord, please save me!” the angel fell to his knees, shaking with fear in front of Gabriel after such a display. “I know what I did was wrong. I just panicked! And after it worked... I felt guilty, so I sent Zachariel to you. I didn’t want him to suffer. Please, believe me.”

“But he did,” I said, my teeth bared. “He suffered a lot and he is still suffering because of your spell.”

“I will undo it! I will do anything. Just, please, have mercy, don’t let him touch me.”

“Oh, Abaddon? You will call him merciful after I get my hands on you, you deplorable—”

“Hellion,” Zach stopped me in my tracks with just one word. He faced the angel responsible for his torment. “Free me from the spell.”

Tirael nodded hastily and crawled to Zach on his knees. He took Zach's hand with shaking fingers and let his power flow until sigils made of light became visible on the skin. Then they broke.

When Zachariel curled in on himself, hands clutching at his face, I scooped him into my arms, I tried to offer assurance as the memories rushed back in, but I had to let go.

My lover’s wing burned.

He is falling after all, I thought. I didn’t know if this was really a conscious choice on the angel’s part, or maybe an instinctual one. There was a chance it was just fate being cruel and disregarding his wishes... Either way, I hated seeing him go through this, to suffer and scream as fire left the bare structure of his wing, now devoid of any feathers. We all knew they would grow back black.

But wait...

Zachariel’s left wing didn’t go up in flames. It remained a pristine, angelic white.

“Holy cow! Is he both an angel and a demon?” Nathaniel exclaimed in the ensuing silence.

“Did you... damn, this h-hurts... did you think Heaven could get rid of me so easily?” Zachariel panted out. “I’m here to stay, b-bitch.”

As I propped Zach up as best I could, taking care not to touch his injured wing, I had a feeling the sentiment was directed at all the angels and probably all the demons too. I truly knew how to pick them, huh? Never a boring day with my angel being the center of chaos. I was proud of him and his ability to befuddle the upper ranks.

As it was, Gabriel and Abaddon were talking furiously, the angel gesticulated wildly while the demon had his arms crossed over his chest, his stance firm as a rock. The conversation would probably run for ages but Abaddon delivered a one-hit punch.

“He should come to Hell. You have mistreated him enough.”

Gabriel deflated.

“We should ask him what he wants. Zachariel?” he said and looked towards us with eyes I swear to god were filling with tears. Ha, so he was aware Zach had good reasons not to choose Heaven and managed to pull his head out of his ass far enough to actually consider Zach’s opinion. Maybe there was some hope for him after all.

“Heaven or Hell? Or maybe... both?” Abaddon asked bluntly.

I could see sweat bead on my lover’s forehead but he managed to lift his head up from my shoulder and stared straight at the Archangel and Archdemon.

“Neither.”

I was as shocked as everyone else at the declaration. Did that mean he wanted to stay on Earth? But he would have to return to a higher plane sooner or later to replenish his power.

“I know that I’m young compared to all of you. I’m a newcomer and I don’t pretend to know everything about angelic and less demonic society but I can see how many faults both have. You are set in your old ways and while humans progress you are happy to stay stagnant or even regress. While you do that your people suffer. And one of the biggest offenses is the lack of communication between sides.”

“We meet on diplomatic talks with the other side...” Gabriel said, his brows furrowed.

“Please, Michael and Lucifer have refused to meet for millennia now. They handle everything through other Archangels and Archdemons and I for one am sick of it,” Abaddon scoffed.

“And that doesn’t account for regular people who want to talk peacefully or have a dispute with the other side.. Did you consider how you are getting the items for your markets? The merchants have to sneak around to deal with their counterparts and if they get screwed over there is nothing they can do because there is no real trade treaty between Heaven and Hell. The higher ups are busy pretending the relationships between demons and angels – be it for business, politics, or personal – don’t exist. But they do, and our people have to hide or are taken advantage of,” Zachariel said, his hands trembling slightly. If this didn’t finish soon I was going to drag him from this room kicking and screaming to properly bandage him and make him rest.

“That’s true,” the stoic voice of Kreshadon piped up. “I have seen angels and demons come to my kink club to do business or just talk as friends because they felt that this was the safest place they could do it. There’s really nowhere else that has even a tentative, unofficial neutrality like our place does.”

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