Angels & Magic: A Bonus Collection Page 8

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  1

  When Mehmet Was Called Lucifer

  “Another malformed embryo,” the angel announced, indicating the blight buried in the groves of crystal leaves.

  A shiver ran up my spine as I considered the lopsided egg that stood out from the rest by its misshapen curves and dismal size. In all my years, we’d never had so many angels born without wings.

  “Shall I put him with the others?” the angel asked. When I didn’t respond he urged, “Lucifer?”

  “No,” I said with a sigh. “I must take this one.”

  The angel raised a white brow. “Very well.”

  I plucked the warm egg from its vine with a hard snap. Every muscle in me tensed knowing what needed to be done. I’d been warned the cost of my compassion. Told that the malformed children weren’t angels at all, simply a bad crop that needed to be destroyed.

  Even with its sickly yellow hue, the shell gleamed and the child wiggled within with anxiety and strength. This was why I faltered. This was why I cared.

  “Be still, young one,” I said under my breath as I drew the egg to my chest. The child stilled, as if calmed by my voice. I grimaced, for that only made my heart clench harder. How could the Divine make us do this to our own? How could no one see the error of this order?

  The assisting angel retreated, off to find another malformed child to rip out of paradise.

  While I stood there alone, I wondered what I should do next. I hadn’t the first clue of exactly how to cast a child out of Heaven. Only the likes of Gabriel and Michael were ever permitted to venture beyond the golden gates.

  Briefly, the thought surged of stealing the child away and hiding him amongst the sleeping lambs and lions, ready to reveal him when he was grown and could speak for himself. How the other angels would realize I was right! The wingless ones weren’t invalid or malformed, just different.

  And most of all, he could reveal this wasn’t part of some grand plan we couldn’t understand. This was a mistake. What a legion I could build to stop such madness. I cradled the egg in my arm and my feathers quivered in anticipation of flight.

  But then reality hit me. Would angels really listen to reason, even if the truth were staring them right in the face? No, the solution didn’t lay here. I had to let the child be cast to Earth. It was once a barren land, but now it must be filled with so many just like him, those who knew what it was to be shunned. There lies the army I could build.

  Squinting, I searched past the blinding sun’s rays filtering through the branches. The sun that never set always gave me a headache, and even in the roots of Heaven it not only found its way down, but also bounced off every leaf of crystalline foliage like a spectrum of insufferable, white heat. It made finding fellow angels a chore. Though I could hear them crunching through the soil and the pluck, pluck of unborn angels being snapped from trees, all I saw was blinding white amplified by crystal leaves.

  And while I was surrounded by my own kind, I still felt like an impostor. I’d come straight from the seventh layer and glistened with radiance from being in the presence of the Divine. Among the trees, I was in good company, the branches themselves reflecting with metallic glints. And, like the foliage, I held a malformed life in my hands, waiting for an angel to snap it from my grasp.

  I finally spotted them as white wings bobbed through the angelic orchard. Their grey robes and broken spirits made them seem like drifting leaves, long dead from their branches. With a sigh, I made my way towards them. The crunches and crackles that sounded from my steps were unnerving, to say the least. I chose not to dwell on it, not wishing to know what composed the soil I trod upon.

  With a sharp whistle I alerted the other angels to my presence. Of the three, I found what I was looking for. The angel was Hallowed, and he stood out by his peculiar, shining eyes. He parted from the group and greeted me with a short bow.

  “Malformed?” he asked, pointing at the egg cradled in my hands.

  I stared into his pupilless eyes, searching for some whisper of the soul hidden within. It was said a Hallowed angel held the truest power amongst us. Though, if one spent any amount time with one, they’d see how the Hallowed were nothing but an ember with just enough life to accomplish the Divine’s bidding like a mindless thrall.

  As if he’d heard the insult, his eyes blared at me with a molten gaze. He waited, rigid and stiff, for me to make my move. The only thing that mattered to him was the mission of casting the failures out. Hide the flaws. Drown the mistakes.

  With a measure of restraint, I buried my anger. Hallowed would not be welcome in my army.

  Without another word, he reached to take the shell from my hands.

  “No,” I breathed. “The Divine commanded I send him down myself.” A lie, which most believed an impossible act. But I’d found out I could lie eons ago, the first was when I’d told the Divine “I love you.” That’s how I knew that even I, the greatest of all angels, was also a mistake.

  The Hallowed withdrew his grasp, accepting my lie without contest. “Very well.”

  We made our way to the center of the forest. I’d tried this way before, but hadn’t seen anything but trees. Yet with the help of the Hallowed, the invisible barrier lifted and revealed a jagged and hideous pit, looking like a blackened crater gouged out by hatred and rage. And when I thought of how it’d been created, that was likely true. When defective children began to appear in our ranks, the pit had been born of the Divine’s verbal command, a gaping hole in which to cast down our failures.

  A cold breeze filled my lungs as we reached the edge, followed by a wave of nausea that made me question if I was ready for this.

  “I must do the rest,” the Hallowed ordered.

  Resolve hit me. I’d found the crater, the place where failures belonged. “Please, be careful,” I urged as I handed over the shell.

  He didn’t respond, didn’t seem the least bit concerned for the helpless angel inside the encasement. Instead of chucking it in the darkness like I thought he might, a low hum reverberated in his throat. He crouched and held out the egg until it hovered, as if his voice had made it weightless.

  The egg wavered over the abyss momentarily. Light emanated from the Hallowed, swirling through his fingers and zipping through the air, filling the egg until it gleamed like a miniature sun itself. For a moment I thought he was attempting to right the wrongs, to give the child wings and bless him to live with his brothers.

  Instead, the Hallowed raised his chin sharply, and I watched in horror as the shining embryo plummeted to the depths below and was engulfed by infinite shadow.

  The Hallowed breathed a heavy sigh. “The barrier will remain open until you return. I must tend to the forest.” With a curt nod he turned and left, leaving me to stare numbly at the crevasse.

  When he had gone, I drew in a deep breath. This was where failures belonged. This is where my army would build. I closed my eyes before tossing myself into the pit.

  2

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