Wings, Flings, and Demon Kings || COMPLETE

Chapter 17: Going to Hell

December 2, 2006

9:12 PM

Hell

All my life, I was taught that the only doors that mattered were the two pearly gates at the entrance of Heaven, tasked with keeping out evil and villainy, bestowed with His grace and His blessings.

Those teachings, I realize now, were utter codswallop. Because no door I have ever encountered could possibly be as life-changing as the tiny door Casziel led me to, in the dim recesses of Ramiel's basement.

The door was small, barely visible against the gray cloud pillars, hardly large enough to let a penguin through, let alone a full-grown angel. But the good thing about being incorporeal is that size for angels and demons is a little more fluid than size for those with an actual, metaphysical body. The size of the gap did not matter quite so much as the fact that the gap was not warded by mana against my egress.

Casziel paused at the exit, his face furrowing into a frown. He gestured for my notebook, and when I handed it over, he frowned into it and wrote:

Be careful.

"I will," I assured him. "Thank you, Casziel."

He nodded, a jerky tilt of his head, and then pressed on the door. The cloud pillars parted to reveal the sky, indigo-dark with the promise of evening.

I stopped on the threshold, suddenly overcome with remorse. I wanted to ask Casziel if I could help him. If there really was no way he could follow me, out into the open sky, with all the enchantments keeping him here. But by the time I turned, he was already hurrying back up the stairs, a ghostly presence against the sweeping gray pillars of the mansion.

Perhaps he already suspected what I was going to ask him and wanted to spare me the disappointment of an answer.

Or maybe he just wasn't fond of goodbyes.

Whatever the reason, he was gone before I could open my mouth, and I was in too much of a hurry to think about following him.

Instead, I peered out at the darkening sky, crossed my incorporeal fingers, and leaped.

I had only been flying two minutes before I ran into Archangel Ramiel.

9:48 PM

Some people use "run into" carelessly—in an offhand, 'I encountered him on the street' kind of way. But when I run into someone, it is no casual encounter. It is a full-force, head-on collision that leaves both parties dazed and befuddled and wondering which way is up.

Ramiel hadn't been paying attention to what was above him, and I had been so intently focused on the Heavenly Gates that I hadn't spared much of my focus on what was below me. That is one danger of flying: you have to keep track of three dimensions, instead of just two. As my feet collided with Ramiel's face, he recoiled. I leapt backward as well, and for a moment we froze, the only sound the beating of our wings against the stillness.

The sun was setting by now, drifting down towards the horizon, and the clouds glowed with the colors of evening. The dying light seemed to stain Archangel Ramiel's wings a deep crimson. A short distance away, other angels flitted by on their end-of-day commute, barely seeing us as they skimmed the lavender clouds with their wings.

Archangel Ramiel was first to speak.

"Nirael," he said. "What in Heaven's name are you doing out here? I'm quite sure I told my guards to lock you in your room."

My mind stuttered with panic. The Heavenly Gates were still miles away. I could try to dart around him—but he was the better flier, and the open sky left no place to hide.