Chapter Text
A cacophony of voices vying to be heard over the others flew about the chamber. The favor Mary was asking of God was quite a steep one but not all that unsurprising. Her hatred for anything and everything angelic in general was a never ending headache and this was just her latest stunt in a hell of a long string of them.
“Enough!” Metatron’s command echoed above everyone else’s voices enough to cease the arguing for the moment. “What say you, Queen Lilith?”
“I’ll go but I have a few conditions I must ask that you meet first,” I replied easily.
“Name them,” God rumbled.
“There will be no further interference from Heaven nor anyone that resides here. You will keep not only the Sins away from this battle but the rest of Hell’s residents away as well--this is not our fight nor is it our problem. The aftermath will be handled by those of us being sent to this shit show. Acceptable?”
“Quite,” Mary sneered, a cruel smile on her face. Metatron, Michelle, Rafael, and Gabriel joined me on the dias.
“Counter offer. Heaven will go along with the demands set forth thus far but we go with you to the fight,” Michelle stated. I raised a brow in equal parts questioning and shock at her offer and the willingness of all four to go to a hell of humanity’s making with me.
“How exciting! Three Archangels and one of Heaven’s Kings to go with the abomination! I simply cannot wait to see what the five of you get up to.” Mary was simply buzzing with a barbaric sort of glee I had not seen from her in quite a few years.
“If that is what you wish I will not argue. Shall we go?” It was in that instance that the floor dropped out from beneath our feet. We landed painfully rough on a grassy hill with a sheer cliff overlooking the ocean.
“As much as I hate it, I suppose it would be best if I went back to being ‘Michael’ for the time being.”
“Hang on a sec, doll,” I cut in before she could switch. “Women are able to be in the American Armed Forces. That being said, the men sure as shit ain’t fond of it being that way so for any rank we achieve we’ll have had to work at least twice as hard.”
“How the fuck do ya know this?” Rafael asked.
“I got bored and went down a research rabbit hole. I’ll tell you about it later if ya want. For now, I suppose I should switch things up a bit, don’t you?” I magically pulled a pair of hair cutting shears out and went to town hacking away at my long hair as quickly as I could before any of them had the chance to stop me.
“Hang on a sec!” Metatron grabbed my wrist, a shocked sort of horror at my actions etched into his face.
“You wanna do it for me, Mike?” I asked, giving him a pointed look. We both knew how unsteady his hands were. Especially when it came to things like this.
“Yeah no. Absolutely fucking not. That’s not my department so much as it is Misha’s anyhow. It’ll also look far less scuffed if she does it compared to you and me even more so.”
“Ugh, fine. Misha, care to take over?” I flipped the shears in my hand to offer her the handle. Michelle made short work of cutting my hair to a more masc look. I ran my hands over my head to clear at least some of the cut hair off my ears and neck as well as floofing up my hair a touch.
“You got that hedgehog hair now,” Rafael joked. I rolled my eyes at him as our papers and corresponding clothes thunked heavily as they landed on the ground behind us.
I took the note from the raven sitting just in front of the pile of clothes. Written in God’s neat scrawl, the letter was as short and to the point as all His other ones. I held it so Metatron could read over my shoulder. Sucked that we were getting separated but it did make sense given our individual abilities. It also gave me a hell of a bad feeling.
The last thing God had written was, It starts in a year. You all will stay alive until it is over but it will be difficult. I’ll see you all when it is over.
“That idiot really can’t keep a secret can He?”
“You of all people should know how it is to have a husband that’s shit with secrets, Lil,” Metatron mused sadly. He really does miss the Sins, huh?
“I’ll make dinner for our group and the Sins in Hadestown after this is over and done with. Well us and any strays we end up picking up along the way I should say. No getting out of it for any of us, ya hear? They miss you guys but the stubborn idiots refuse to reach out. I have asked and they genuinely don’t think any of you wanna hear from them after the whole Rebellion bullshit went down. They are hurting but then again how many of us got out truly unscathed from that?”
I tucked the letter into the back pocket of my jeans so I could dig through the different sets of clothes. It didn’t take me long to give everyone their things. Metatron was more contemplative than usual but I suppose I couldn’t be surprised.
“You promise?” Rafael murmured. I help up my pinky.
“Pinky promise.” Rafi wrapped his pinky around mine, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“You’ll put us to work, won’t you, Lil?” Gabriel piped up, a knowing glint in his eye.
“But of course! I’m not cleaning the entire place on my own when I can get my victims—I mean lovely volunteers—to do it for me.”
“Of course you would,” Rafael rolled his eyes.
“We’re getting fed though, right?” Michelle asked, anxiously fidgeting with her fingers.
“Obviously! Who do you take me for?” I grouched, offended she even considered I wouldn’t feed them.
“Someone that could have very well spent far too much time with Satan,” she replied dead serious.
“Why, pray tell, would I spend any time outside of what I must with the one Sin that refuses to this day to help any of the other Rings purely because they are not his own and thus not his problem?” I snarled.
“What?” Gabriel asked, voice stricken. I took a deep breath as I thought over my next words carefully.
“He takes the anger he has for Heaven and what happened after the Fall out on the rest of us. I have tried time and again to get him to talk about it but all I get is how the other Sins and myself have failed but not what’s actually bothering him. I… don’t know what his deal is but I do know that he is hurting. That still does not mean I wish to be his punching bag.” I turned away from them to stare out at the water.
“Don’t you turn your back on us!” Michelle grabbed my elbow and forced me to look at her again as she continued, “What the fuck gives you the right to even think you know what it was like?”
“Why do you presume I think that?”
“Why wouldn’t you? You’re the fucking Queen of Hell! You’re the reason any of them even started to think about Rebellion in the first place!”
“Don’t you dare pin this on me. Not when you haven’t got the first fucking clue what it was like. Then again, it ain’t like any of your kind has ever bothered listening to me so I won’t try getting you to now. Go home, Michelle. It’s clear how you feel about filth like me.”
I pulled my arm from her grasp, snatching up the bundle at my feet. I took all of about three steps before someone else grabbed my wrist, albeit much more gently this time, and stopped my progress forward.
“What are you talking about? No one’s ever so much as whispered that you ever came back to Heaven after the Rebellion,” Rafael choked out.
“I met with Sera. She said you all were too busy to deal with me. That I should consider myself lucky to have even been allowed to speak with her. God only knows what that means but… yeah. I begged her to speak to God about granting an audience with the Sins. She… she laughed in my face, man. Like it was all one big joke. I haven’t gone back since. Never told the others either.” Tears fell in steady rivulets down my cheeks.
“That’s not everything, is it?” Metatron asked softly.
“No. They also told me to deal with detoxing from Adam’s venom and to heal everyone - myself included - by myself. It was the first time I had ever been made to feel so… well, worthless. I never went back to Heaven until today. It hasn’t changed.”
“I am… so sorry,” Gabriel sincerely stated. “You did not deserve it. Not even a little bit.”
“Thanks. We’ll work on making it better when we all get back home. Can we just… drop it for now?”
“She… Sera knew? This whole time she never said a word and… she fuckin’ knew?” Michelle’s voice broke on the last word. “How could she not tell us?”
“There wouldn’t have been any advantage for her to do that,” Metatron growled. “Keeping us all away from each other worked out in her favor far more. We’ll make this right as soon as we are able to, Lilith. You have my word. Hell, I’ll even sign a Contract with you that it will be fixed.”
“The Contract is unnecessary in this instance,” I declined, turning back to face them once more.
“But—” he started.
“A handshake will suffice. Keeps everything off the record as well. I would like one blank favor to call in at a time of my choosing in exchange for my help in righting this wrong.” I held out my hand for him to shake.
“Deal.” Metatron shook my hand. A flash of golden light flared between us as the deal was made official.
“Now, how about we survive this World War, hm?”
“Why are you helping us?” Rafael asked.
“I have a score to settle.”