Love at the end of the world
A short short collection featuring:
Angel wars
Bite me
The Wiccan tree
by Amanda Steel
Angel wars
Ariel hid in the midst of some industrial sized bins while two archangels passed by flying not far above the ground.
“Humans are disgusting,” she thought to herself as the smell reached her nostrils, “still that's no reason to wipe them all out of existence.”
She knew that the only ones standing between the remaining archangels, and the humans were herself and the handful of surviving angels who had chosen to help her in what seemed like a doomed quest to save humanity. It had been thousands of years since all the angels had lived in unity. Looking after humans had been their number-one priority, but after God had just left one day, without giving warning or indication of where he was going the archangels had tried to lead while waiting for his return. Over a hundred years later, they had been forced to admit that God may never return and in order to keep all the angels focused on one shared goal Michael had announced that they would attack hell. God had always forbidden this when he was around and some angels had taken more convincing than others. Ariel remembered the determined look on Michael's handsome face as he had explained to her importance of the task. Heaven was open to attack if it became knowledge that God was no longer there. The only hope they stood was to attack first and wipe out the whole of hell. It seemed over ambitious but if anyone could lead this attack, it was Michael. While preparing to attack hell Ariel and Michael fallen in love. Neither expected to survive after the war between heaven and hell. They had lost many angels in the battle, but ultimately they succeeded against hell. Ariel had allowed herself to think maybe she had a future with Michael. She remembered her last conversation with him before most of the archangels and a handful of the lower beings had declared their loyalty to Michael.
“You can't do this,” Ariel had protested.
“The archangels need a mission this is all that's left,” Michael had defended his plan. “They're only going to destroy this world themselves given time.”
“Then work with me to save the humans from themselves,” Ariel had pleaded.
“They can't be saved,” Michael argued, “they're too far gone.”
“And then what? Just say you destroy humanity, what next? You kill all the other angels?”
“Only if they get in my way,” Michael announced.
“And what about me? What if I disagree with this, what if I decided to get in your way?”
“This is more significant than love,” he had declared.
“Killing is not more significant than love, how can you say that?”
“To answer your question, if you choose to stand beside me, I'll protect you with my own life, but if you go against me, I won't hesitate to kill you.”
Ariel was jolted back to the present by the sound of an angel screaming which she recognised as Muriel. She leapt up and was flying toward the sound at full speed, two hundred metres down the road and right above the junction, passing humans going about their daily lives, oblivious to the angels around them.
“No!” she cried out as she arrived too late to save Muriel.
Michael withdrew his dagger from Muriel's chest. He and Gabriel stood and stared at Ariel. For a moment, Ariel almost thought she saw remorse in Michael's eyes, but it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived. Gabriel said something to Michael which Ariel couldn't make out.
Michael shook his head and subsequently warned Ariel. “This is your last chance, don't let this be you next time. He and Gabriel flew away leaving Ariel to stand over her friend and allies lifeless body.
“I'm so sorry,” she wept, “they will pay for this; I swear it,” she declared while trying to forget the second in which Michael had looked like the Michael that she had known and loved. He had changed. Ariel had to remind herself of that. She had to think of him as a different angel to the one she knew back then. She told herself that she needed to focus on the fact that Michael had just killed someone she cared deeply about.
Ariel scooped up Muriel's limp body and flew towards the abandoned house where she had been successfully hiding herself and the rest of her faction.
“What happened?” Raziel demanded as Ariel arrived back at the house with Muriel in her arms as she set her down on the small area in the only room which was carpeted.
Raziel was the sole member of Michael's faction who Ariel had managed to convince to join her and sometimes she sensed that he wondered whether he had made a mistake.
“Michael,” Ariel said his name as though that one word explained everything.
“We need to make a move and soon,” Raziel told her sternly, “before this happens to all of us.”
“Raziel I know you're scared we all are," Ariel began.
“Of course we're all scared,” Raziel cut her off, “we should have made a long time ago when there were more of us,” he accused. “I left my post to fight with you because I believed in the cause, but what good is a cause when there's nobody left to fight for it?”
“Don't you think I know that this should be over already?” Ariel questioned, “I had hoped we could end things peacefully.”
“You had hoped that you could talk Michael round,” Nuriel entered the room and dived straight into the conversation, “and look where that got us, that night when you went to talk to him, we were ambushed and our numbers were greatly depleted and now we've lost our sister Muriel, who's next?” he questioned.
“Nobody,” Ariel announced, as she spread out her wings which radiated pure white light and spanned seven feet in each direction. “We will not lose anybody else in this war. We attack Michael's faction tonight and they all die, every last one of them.”
“Well that's more like it!” exclaimed Kabshiel, “what's the plan boss?”
Ariel smiled in appreciation at the support and hoped that the others would also throw in their support.
“I'm in,” Tagas took out his dagger and lifted it in the air as a sign of support.
Ariel listened as one by one the members of her small faction voiced their support, then she began to relay her plan.
As night began to fall Ariel and her faction surrounded the house occupied by Michael and the others. Ariel was grateful for the fact that Michael had gotten too arrogant and hadn't felt the need to ward this place like she had with the warehouse she occupied. Not having to track him down had given them one less thing to do while preparing for this. Everyone was in position, Ariel, Raziel and Nuriel at the front of the house, while Kabshiel and Tagas were at the back of the house and Ansiel and Dumah were at the side of the house ready to enter through the basement window.
“Let's go,” Ariel said.
Raziel and Nuriel followed closely behind Ariel as she kicked in the door without even checking to see if it was unlocked. She knew what she was doing, a loud entrance would send more enemy angels in her direction, drawing them away from the other entry points where the rest of her faction would be coming through. Her guess was that Michael would be protected as the leader and ordered to stay back, meaning one of the others could sneak up and kill him. She also felt better knowing it wouldn't have to be her. Ariel felt that she would rather kill all the other enemy angels by herself than have to kill Michael. She also knew the rest of her faction didn't trust her to kill Michael, how could they when she didn't trust herself?
“You didn't heed your boyfriends warning then?” Gabriel taunted her.
Ariel punched him in the face, “he's not my boyfriend,” she protested while Zadkeil and Sabrael approached. Ariel waved her dagger at them ready to take on
all three if needed.
“We've got this,” Raziel told her.
Ariel nodded and turned her focus back to Gabriel.
He charged at her with his dagger and almost struck her, but Ariel managed to swerve at the last second, while he stumbled Ariel used all her strength to shove him at the wall so hard that it left a big dent, then she charged at him in the same way he had done to her. However, the main difference was she didn't miss. The dagger went straight into his heart and he died almost instantly.
Raziel and Nuriel were still fighting. Ariel went to help them.
“There should be more than this,” Nuriel said.
Ariel knew what that meant. “That means the others have more to deal with.” She looked torn between staying to help Nuriel and Raziel and going to help the rest of their faction.
“Go!” Raziel shouted, as though giving her permission to leave them.
She ran through the house, following the sounds of fighting and arrived in the back room in time to see Kabshiel and Tagas dispatch of Michael's angels, then she turned to deal with a third angel whom Ariel didn't recognize.
She decided they could handle this and made her way upstairs nervously knowing that if Michael was in the building, he would probably be there. Her heart beat faster as she reached the top, almost hoping he wasn't there. She could hear the sounds of fighting