Death: Glory and Gore

The great general waits in the innermost sanctum, his back to the glass door. He kneels before the altar, head bent. I can hear the hush of a whisper, but not the words as he prays. His wings shimmer barely out of sight; trying to see them more clearly is as though I am peering through a golden stained glass window. A figure, rising above a dragon, sword drawn, wings outstretched. Divine armour glints in the light of heavenly fire.

I wait. One does not interrupt prayer, much less the prayer of the eldest of the archangels, the very one that commands the forces of God.

“Death.”

Michael has stood and turned to face me. I fall to one knee, a fist over my chest, head bowed. “General.”

“You may stand, Death. There is no need for such ceremony.”

I rise.

“It has been some time since we last spoke,” the General lets his head tip to one side, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Yes,” I reply. There is little else to say, and I fear to speak more would betray my unease.

The last I saw of Michael was in the humans’ 1945. So long and yet so short a time -- I have found time a funny thing for us. Some moments it will fly away like Silver, others it will pause, barely managing to pass a second, let alone days or years. I suppose, ultimately, time is irrelevant for us, Horseman and archangel alike.

“Your newest War is performing adequately.”

It is not a question.

I nod. “He is young, but I see a good deal of promise in him.”

“There is always promise,” Michael replies.

“Of course.”

I know little of the process by which a Horseman is chosen -- know nothing, even, of my existence before I was as I am, or if I even had such a thing. We do not know how we are made, nor even who we are beyond our title. Before today I felt nothing of it: was there a point in knowing? Would it change anything other than, potentially, my ability to hold my creed and perform my duty?

Let us remain in the dark of what is beyond our title and its history, I believed. We are what we are. We are Horseman. All we are is our title.

“He reminds me of you...before--” Gabriel’s words eat at me, but I push them aside for now.

“You are here about the human,” I say.

“Nothing eludes you, does it?” Michael shakes his head, something like a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth and his shoulders briefly shake up and down in silent laughter.

“Quite the contrary,” I reply. “I have found myself feeling as though I am clawing blindly in the dark through the entirety of this situation.”

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“You did not speculate?” he lifts a brow. “Not even after Gavri’el revealed to you the truth of the...boy’s parentage?”

The General speaks the last two words as if they pain him to even think that Lucifer fathered a human -- or, I suppose, a human-seeming son. But what do I know of the dynamics of the eldest and the youngest? The highest and he who fell the hardest? Perhaps it is not pain, but anger in that long exhale.

There is no point in guessing or in stumbling around in the dark. What does it matter the relationship of Heaven and Hell to a Horseman -- even moreso to me? Ultimately, I am there to tend to the aftermath when such disputes spill over to humanity.

Something reminds me, too, of time: Gavri’el. The old name, one I have only known one besides the archangels to use. My first War...how old he was. Older than even I am now.

“He told me, yes,” I reply. “I admit, I was...surprised.”

“As was I,” Michael folds his arms across his chest, the pommel of the sword at his hip catching the light. “Moreso that he had avoided detection for so long as opposed to that Lucifer disrespected our Father in such a way.”

“Your Father?”

“Lucifer has always despised humanity -- despised our Father’s love for his most multitudinous and fragile creations. To desecrate them in such a way…” he shakes his head, face tight with deep anger that rolls off him in waves. It laces every word, burning through each syllable like the aether around him that flashes a little brighter. “It is the ultimate and deepest offense.”

“I see.”

How terrible the existence of the archangels -- how terrible the existence of God. To forever know Their sons fight each other, and that the once most-loved hates Their greatest of creations. Though which does Lucifer hate more: creation or Creator?

“Do you?” Michael sighs, looking up towards the great ceiling. I join him, though what exactly he looks for, I know not. I see only the silent guardians of the angelic sculptures. I see only the veins of the unpainted marble. We both stand there, looking up towards Heaven and Michael says, “Do you see the truth of the situation? Has the revelation yet struck you?”

Revelation. That word...this feeling…

As if by instinct, my scythe appears in my hand. I stare at it, gripping the long handle tightly.

“Yes,” Michael exhales, “you have felt it, though you could give it no name -- or, perhaps, dared not.”

It...could it be…

“The Apocalypse is nigh.”

The Apocalypse. Not an Apocalypse...the Apocalypse. The Great Revelation spelling the end of the current world. Voice slam against my mind, as though someone put their hands either side my temples to crack open my skull as one does an egg and pour within it all the voices in Heaven and Hell and the Earth alike so that I am filled to the brim with sounds of regret, pain, dread, fear, exhilaration, and violence.

...I am Alpha and Omega...

...he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks…

...and I will kill her children with death…

...Come and see.

“How can this be? So suddenly--”

“A Revelation -- your revelation, in fact. This...creature hid his existence for nearly twenty-one years. Made all the world believe him to be human.”

Believe to be human?

I frown, “What...more is it I must know of him, General?”

“That that human is not so at all. That he is the antikhristos -- the antichrist.”