Dance of the Angels

Chapter 15

A scream of frustration was let out by the stressed teenage girl. Pushing a strand of hair out of her face, she headed into the living room and sat on the sofa. The room sway around her as she stared at the chips Ryan had brought for her. Gabriel and Ryan exchanged a weary glance before walking in after her.

“Are you okay? Gabriel asked while Ryan lingered in the doorway.
“No!” exclaimed.
“Okay!” Gabriel said with his hands up in mock surrender. “Just… please try to calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Clearly you’re not,” he muttered to himself, hoping she didn’t hear him. “I’m sure we’ll find him.”
“Like we’ll find Lucifer?” she snapped.

Sighing, Naomi realised she was being harsh. Spotting Ryan in the doorway awkwardly standing there, she leaned her head back and groaned.
“I’m sorry,” she said, releasing both of them were genuinely concerned for her. “I’m stressed out.”
“We all are,” said Gabriel as he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Well, just us two now.”

“And me,” said Ryan. He held his hand up to signal that he was still there. “I’m here too.” Naomi laughed a little. The tense situation calmed slightly so Naomi finished eating her chips. Gabe grabbed the remote and changed the channel to play the cartoons Naomi liked to watch.
“You like Scooby Doo?” asked Ryan.
“Who doesn’t?” she said as she stood up and scrunched the left over chips in the bag. Naomi headed into the kitchen to throw away her rubbish.

“Naomi?”

Michael.

He was back.

Naomi threw the left over chips onto the kitchen counter as she slowly walked over to Michael. She grabbed his arm, felt the warm of his skin and realised he was really standing there. Naomi hugged her brother tightly, wrapping her arms around him and never wanted to let go.
“Michael, you’re back.”
“Yes, I am.”

Gabriel appeared in the doorway and leaned against it, smiling as he watched the two celestials hug.
“So you’re okay?” Michael shrugged at him. “Did Father hurt you?”
“Not really,” he vaguely replied. “Father is irritated though.”
“Of course he is,” said Gabriel in a disappointed voice.

Naomi glanced at Gabriel and then back to Michael. Taking a deep breath, Naomi decided to tell Michael.
“I’m going to tell you now,” she said, making Michael furrow his brow at her.
“What’s happened?” he asked slowly as he realised something had gone wrong.
“Lucifer is gone,” said Naomi. “He disappeared last night or this morning and Sam has disappeared since this morning.”

Michael looked at them all for a moment with a neutral expression Naomi had never seen him with.
“Where’s Azrael?”
“She never came back,” Michael told Gabriel. “I think she’s still handling her reapers after the thing with Ryan.”

Michael hummed and nodded as he walked over to Gabriel and hugged him.
“Father’s done something to me, Gabe, I don’t know what he’s done,” he whispered so only Gabriel could hear.

“Wait,” said Naomi. “Um, what happened to Ryan?”
“He hasn’t told you?” asked Gabriel as he glanced behind him at the ginger boy on the sofa. “He should probably explain for himself then.” Naomi squeezed past Gabriel and Michael and sat next to Ryan.
“Can you give us some privacy please?” Naomi asked. Her brothers nodded and Gabriel vanished while Michael headed upstairs.

“Want to explain then?” she asked her friend.
“I thought you knew and I thought even if you didn’t, I didn’t want you to have to worry about me in all of this,” Ryan admitted.
“So what happened with Azrael and the reapers?”
“I was in the library and the reapers started to surround me. I think they were going to kill me but then someone in a cloak with a scythe showed up and ordered them away. At first, they didn’t budge but one of them grabbed my and she swung the scythe and it kind of… turned into this smoke thing,” he explained.

“She killed a reaper for you?”
“That’s what she did?” asked Ryan, surprised. Naomi slowly nodded. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t even know.”
“You must be important to something then.”
“I’m not important to anything,” Ryan said dismissively.
“What happened next?” asked Naomi, curious about what happened after the reaper died.

“Azrael’s hood fell off and she told me who she was and then a few more reapers showed up. They seem pretty serious about killing me but she handled them too but not with the scythe. Gabriel showed up, teleported me home and he disappeared,” he told her.
“Yeah, that sounds like Gabriel.” Naomi rested her head on her hand as she thought.

Not long after their conversation, the rain stopped and Ryan headed home after another apology. It left the three angels to themselves. Michael seemed to be back to his usual self as he sat in his usual spot on the sofa with the news on. Apparently the woman from the car crash was no longer in a critical state which was good.
“Is that all you do, Mikey?” asked Gabriel with a playful smirk on his lips. Michael didn’t look at him but nodded. As he went to make another comment on his older brother’s television addiction, he was shushed.

When the news repeated the information of the car accident woman (which was only about twenty minutes later), Gabriel spoke so he wasn’t shushed like a child.
“Why don’t you get a hobby?” he suggest.
“Like…?
“Knitting,” Gabriel said with a straight face. He smiled at his brother who was clearly not amusing. “I’m kidding, but you need something better to do.”

“My job is to look after Naomi and help her until she’s old enough to take care of herself,” he said in a monotone voice. Gabriel sighed but noticed the change. Usually he spoke with love and care and pride for their youngest sibling.
“You are Michael!” Gabriel said, exasperated. He then raised his voice at Michael: “You are the oldest angel in existence, the oldest and first archangel! You have raised every angel and you’re just wasting away on a fucking sofa!”

As the two began arguing, Naomi covered her ears and headed upstairs, hoping they would stop soon. She heard a door slam downstairs and as she went to shut the door to her room, she heard someone sprint upstairs. Gabriel.
“Thanks for not teleporting and scaring the life out of me,” she said. “But what do you want?”
“Does Michael seem a bit… I don’t know, off? A bit odd or anything?”

Hesitantly, Naomi nodded and Gabriel let out a sigh of relief, thankful it wasn’t just his imagination. He then grew worried as he realised something was wrong with Michael and it wasn’t his paranoia.
“He told me Father had done something to him but he didn’t know what,” Gabriel told her as he leaned against the doorframe.
“When did he say that?”
“He whispered it to me when he hugged me.”

Naomi looked now at her feet and wiggled her toes as she stood there.
“I think Father has done something,” she said. “I don’t know what but he has because he didn’t offer to cook me any food and normally he cooks stir fry or something.” Gabriel nodded as he processed the information.

“Just…” he started. “I don’t know, just be careful.”
“I’ll try,” said Naomi.
“Okay, you do that,” said Gabriel. “If he does anything else that’s… what’s the word? I can’t think of it.” Gabriel smacked his hand against the door frame as he got frustrated because he couldn’t think of the word he needed.
“Abnormal?” Naomi offered.
“Yes!” he exclaimed. “That’s the word!”

“You’re weird,” she muttered. Gabriel shrugged at her. “But I’ll tell you if he does anything abnormal.”
“Thanks. Promise you’ll be careful?” Naomi rolled her eyes at him as he stuck out his pinky finger. She locked pinkies and sighed.
“I promise.”