God's Gone AWOL

[10] Purgatory is Opening

Heaven.

An army of nearly a thousand angels had gathered, facing a gaping maw of blue light. It was swirling and sparking as bolts of lightning shot outwards from the gateway's unstable barrier. Mixed expressions crossed each individual face as they processed the dangerous sight before them. However, not a single soul dared to back away at a time like this. They were about to open the gate to Purgatory, and at a time so crucial in the history of Heaven, none would dare to risk the shame of cowardice.

Due to the fact that no angel had way or reason to visit Purgatory, the gateway was kept far away from the busier locations of Heaven. It was stuffed in some marble corner where nobody ever thought to check on it due to the mere irrelevance of the whole realm. It was a place for the dead, and the great, big, spiraling portal of blue electricity was neither exciting to maintain, nor pleasant to look at. Thus, it was pushed so far back in everyone's mind that nobody had even thought to set up a guarding system around it.

And it was precisely because of this, that Camael and Nathaniel were able to rally their troops and plan their rogue invasion without any hindrance from their fellow angels.

Their army was made up of a whole bunch of random choirs. Some were present simply because they had exceptionally large personal grudges against demonkind, but most were serving under a choir leader who either admired or was somehow indebted to Camael. She had brought her own choir along, of course. But she herself was only in command of around thirty angels. Thus, both her and Nathaniel had pulled a few strings and gathered up as many soldiers as they could without drawing any unwanted attention from the higher-ups.

Even though they had lost track of Atticus, and suffered a rather obnoxious defeat at the hands of Bentley Hellbourne, there was no excuse for calling off the plan. Even before they had discovered that Atticus was capable of wielding God's soul, they had already decided to invade Hell through Purgatory. It just so happened that it would be easier with Atticus around to do all of their dirty work for them.

So even though Atticus had run away, renewed the anti-tracking spell on his body, hidden himself somewhere that was warded beyond Heaven's reach, and established Bentley Hellbourne as a body guard, he would certainly come crawling back out eventually. Anyone who was familiar with Bentley knew that she wouldn't allow Heaven to storm her home realm. Even though she tried to avoid Hell as much as possible, everyone knew that she was a demon at the end of the day. She would certainly come out of hiding in an attempt to stop the invasion, and naturally Atticus would follow. So they figured they might as well just continue with their invasion plan, and do their best with whatever challenges they had to face.

It was this thinking that led Camael, Nathaniel, and a thousand other angels to the gateway of Purgatory for their chaotic and unorthodox secret mission. The former, along with around a dozen other angels, all stood at the front of the crowd.

Each one was busy pouring as much divine energy into the gateway as possible, desperately trying to force it to open. But because it was a sealed rift between realms, the amount of energy required to open it was far more than anyone possessed. Some looked weary, some looked nervous, some looked rather ill. But all of them continued channeling their spells forward.

Beside them, Nathaniel stood with a little blue book folded in his arms. He was wise enough to avoid using his own power to open the gateway, but he wasn't compassionate enough to stop the other angels —even as they visibly damaged their own bodies in their attempt to break the stubborn lock of Purgatory.

Pursing his lips, Nathaniel gave Camael a sideways glance. Although her features were still strong and determined, illuminated by the bright glow of her eyes, the grip on her spear was just a little too tight. A couple of the less powerful angels were already suffering from the gate's backlash. Several were bleeding from various places, and some were physically being held up by their own choir members. Originally, the army behind them had been buzzing with a lust for blood and a desire for glory. However, now that they were seeing their own fellow angels struggling just to open a magical gateway, their hearts were starting to waver slightly, and many were beginning to doubt whether they should really be involved in such an affair to begin with. But many had been bribed or threatened by Camael, so they were quite trapped.