Chapter 1
As far as he could remember, the Garden wasn't anything spectacular as one would like to imagine. The ground underneath was soft and moist with patches of fresh grass but he cut the sole of his foot on the occasional small and rough-edged pieces of rock often enough to remember that it wasn't perfect. Regardless, it wasn't its imperfections but rather its ludicrous pretense at perfection that irked him to the point of leaving the place once and for all.
He was the first to leave.
But not the last.
-
Raziel still prayed sometimes. At this point, most believed God to have abandoned them all but as she watched and even helped Fury finding them one by one, she knew she had to suspect something better than pure coincidence behind all this, perhaps someone more cruel and powerful. She watched warily as 'Tony Stark' sauntered in with his mouth half open as if he was about to say something. He stopped dead in his tracks when he took notice of the others in the room. He turned his head slightly to meet her eyes through his tinted glasses.
There was a cold smile on his lips as he said, "My, my, I thought you were supposed to be the keeper of secrets, Raziel."
Even if it wasn't for the fact that he rarely called her by her real name and never when they were around humans, she could easily sense his anger radiating like an electric current in the air.
"This is important. Believe me, you want to know about this."
"You think you know what I want?"
He sneered in contempt.
"Please don't blame her, Lucifer."
Raziel didn't see Michael rising to his feet but now he stood tall, looking directly at them with his calm and solemn blue eyes. It was another 'pure coincidence' that they had managed to find him in the darkest part of the Arctic Ocean barely a few month ago. They all thought he was gone forever with the Garden. Lucifer gritted his teeth but she wasn't sure if it was at the mention of his name or the voice of Michael, perhaps at both. He slowly turned around to face Michael.
"Well, isn't this a surprise? I thought you were dead, you know."
"I wouldn't have wanted to disappoint you but I'm afraid our Father might have other ideas."
"Oh, no, no, Michael. That's such a hurtful accusation right there."
As Lucifer spoke flippantly, his eyes discreetly scanned the whole room taking in the information. Ramiel stood at the corner with his thickly muscled arms crossed in front of his chest. His human form was surely the most imposing one among them though it didn't matter much. When Lucifer's eyes skittered across Raphael, Raziel could detect the barest hint of a smile on his lips before it was gone. Across the corner where Ramiel loomed over, Nick Fury observed the suspicious group with his best poker face. Coulson and Hill was on his either side. They appeared as composed as ever but Raziel knew they must feel terribly confused on the inside.
There was a sharp pause before she heard Lucifer asking Michael,
"Is that Azrael behind you?"
Michael's expression closed off instantly and it was in a strained voice when he curtly answered,
"Yes."
"What's wrong with him?"
It was extremely rare to see Michael angry but Lucifer always seemed to know all the secret codes to rile him up. It seemed nothing much has changed even after the millennium they spent apart from each other. Because the topic of Azrael was precisely the one thing that Raziel could imagine would make Michael truly upset at the moment. She didn't think Lucifer was even aware of it but still, it was an uncanny ability of his.
"There is nothing wrong with him."
Michael's dangerously low voice echoed with enough power to make the humans in the room cringe. Considering who those humans were, Raziel thought it would have made other people fall to their knees. However, Lucifer didn't bat an eye as he glided around the towering angel in front of him.
"Hey, kid."
Michael's patience finally snapped and he yanked away the other angel by the collar of his perfectly tailored suit but Lucifer's unblinking eyes was already riveted on the unresponsive figure at the table.
"Where the fuck is his other wing?"
It was barely a whisper but the effect of it was nothing but that. The room fell into heavy silence. All of them, including Azrael, had their wings neatly folded in which meant they were invisible but Lucifer doubtless could feel the half of Azrael's grace missing.
Azrael was Michael's most trusted brother for as long as anyone remembered. He used to be full of good-natured mischief. He was loyal, quick-witted and one of the best warriors of God although he preferred to hide himself in Michael's shadow. Raziel always had hard time gauging Azrael's true capability. Michael's shadow was such an enormous thing, after all.
"Humans, wasn't it?"
Hostility gleamed in Lucifer's wide, brown, innocent-looking eyes. At the corner of her own eyes, Raziel saw Coulson and Hill tensing up despite their best efforts. Everyone in the room have heard or read about what happened to the famed Tony Stark in Afghanistan. An angel in human form wasn't unbreakable, once outside of the Garden, they were as mortal as they could be, haunted by the ghost of time, flesh and bones that bleed. Lucifer have been on earth for more than a thousand years, the very first one to leave the Garden.
Even so, he was still unbelievably powerful and she didn't doubt it for a second. In fact, the only reason his body didn't perish throughout the torrents of time was he was that powerful. It was simply that even an angel like him felt pain when people pulled out his nails, burned his skin, rubbed salt in his wounds in his much human body. He definitely couldn't survive from countless shrapnel punctures in his heart. Lucifer was many things but he was never faithful so they said he saved himself without wasting a single breath on prayer.
Michael finally slackened his tight grip. He did it very slowly as if it pained him to do so. Raziel took pity on the angel and stepped forward.
"Yes. Maybe. We don't know."
"What kind of answer is that?" Lucifer snarled impatiently.
"What they did to his brain and his left wing was far too crude for anyone who possesses sufficient knowledge about us. They wanted to use him as a weapon, that's for sure. If it was one of us, they would have done it without the unnecessary damage."
"One of us? What are you talking about? Why would any of us want to chop away others' wings?"
"That's what we wanted to talk about."
She then glanced at Raphael who smiled tiredly. He seemed almost shy in his ever tentative and careful movements. His downcast glances and old pair of glasses added to the unassuming impression which was ironic, seeing how he was constantly pressing down on the raging urge for blood and fire in him.
"Raphael."
Lucifer's eyes softened at the sight of his oldest friend and dearest brother.
"It's good to see you again, Lu."
"I'd say the same if I wasn't so mad at you right now for not visiting me for decades, disappearing completely off the radar and all the while, apparently you were hanging out with your new best friends! But okay, we can talk about my hurt feelings later. Tell me what's going on, Raph."
"There were recently incidents of some angels who have become unstable, violent, hostile,"
Lucifer raised his brow at that as if he didn't see how it answered his question. As far as he was concerned, lots of angels were unstable, violent and hostile. Everyone called him those and much more. Raphael didn't bother to pause and continued,
"To an absolutely uncontrollably extent. It's a viral disease which can be contracted only by our kind and we suspect the cause to be, at least partially, prolonged exposure to the air on earth. Human technology is not equipped to even detect it since the virus doesn't exist as long as human perception is concerned. On the other hand, we can readily discern it with our eyes. The infected have yellow rings around their irises which spread inward as their condition worsens. But this isn't only our problem now because those infected pose a great threat to humans."
"That didn't make sense, like, at all. Prolonged exposure to the air? I've been exposed to it longer than any one of us."
"That's not how it works, you know that. Anyway, the few whom we've monitored so far have been the 'earlier ones' to come here."
Lucifer frowned at the ground in bewilderment and disbelief.
"The 'earlier ones'? What the,"
His frustrated complaint aimed abrupt broke off and he slowly lifted his head up to stare into Raphael's eyes again. Raziel already knew what he would find in Raphael's eyes, the chilling glint of faint gold.
"No. You're kidding. Tell me this is a joke."
Raphael offered him a sad smile.
"Sorry, Lu."
"Since when?"
"It's been a while. Mine develops at a much slower pace which gave me some time to figure it out. No, really, my body still heals much faster than others and I think it's trying to heal itself, stunting the growth of pathogens as much as possible. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."
"And you're telling me now because?"
"Gabriel has contracted the disease."
Ramiel's sudden voice boomed inside the closed space like thunder. It was obvious to any onlooker how restless he had been from the start. He wasn't usually like this but the news of Gabriel's worsening condition shook him terribly.
"He hasn't been himself."
He didn't try to hide the agony he felt as he bit out the words.
"He's my, our, brother. We must save him however we can."
Lucifer remained unresponsive for a couple of seconds. Then he took off his ridiculous glasses with one hand and rubbed his face with another, hiding his expression from view.
"Wow. That is a lot to take in, guys. Especially after our, I dunno, a thousand years of estrangement."
No one said anything. The silence lasted for a long moment before Lucifer opened his mouth again with a sigh.
"Okay, okay. I get it. You still blame me for leaving but you want my help so you're giving me another chance. If it was any other day, I'd stick to my principles and damn you all to hell but honestly I'm too confused and tired now to lie about not caring. First thing is first, though. Don't ever call me Lucifer because it makes me sound like I'm in an extremely unpopular death metal band and believe me, it's unpopular for a reason. You can just call me Tony, got it? Second, someone get me a measuring device already because there is no way, no way I'm leaving that kid without a wing. I don't understand how you people can be so insensitive sometimes."
Raziel thought she saw Azrael's eyes flickering to the direction of Lucifer's voice for a brief moment.