Page 86 of When Monsters Fight
TWO MONTHS LATER
New Hope City stretched out below me as far as the eye could see. The view from the Freedom Tower was impressive, proving how much could change, how much could be accomplished by the will of the people.
The monsters were gone.
Gehenna was sealed once more, and humanity was beginning to thrive. The people had a new governmentheaded by the leaders who had kept the majority safe in their time of need. Storm, Oliver, Bee, Mira, and several others had come together to create a council and form a new democracy, where the people who’d had their voice taken away were given it back.
My watchers and I had helped, but our work here was done.
It was almost time to leave.
“Hey?” Bee said joining me on the pinnacle. “Gabriel said I’d find you up here.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
She came to stand beside me. “It is. It truly is.” She sighed. “Do you have to go?”
This place, which had once felt like home, was beginning to feel more and more alien to me as time passed. I was changing, becoming whole, becoming who I was meant to be, and that being didn’t belong on this world.
Still, I’d miss the people. I smiled and turned to face her. “I will come visit, and one day…one day you’ll be with me.” I looked up at the sky. “Up there.”
“You best make sure I get a decent view.”
“You know I will. No matter what, you and I…we’ll always be friends.”
She pulled me into a hug, and I breathed her in, sweet and slightly sweaty and wholly human. Unlike me.
She broke the hug and reached up to push my hair out of my face. “How soon after the ball do you have to leave?”
“At dawn.”
Her gaze flicked over my shoulder to my wings, and I folded them tighter against my back. They were a beautiful silver which shimmered blue in certain light, but I was still growing into them. They felt too large, too elaborate, unless I was flying. Then…then they felt just right. I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of hiding them yet, but Gabriel said that skill would come with time.
“What do you think Lucifer has planned for you all?”
“I don’t know.”
Nerves fluttered in my belly because my sister had been cryptic in her message asking me and Gabriel to return to heaven. Gabriel and I were the only celestials left in the city. The other watchers had returned a week ago.
Kabiel and his scouts had been the first to be summoned back. Kabiel, fully restored, had a sharp beauty that never failed to pierce my heart. But he’d kept his distance, and I was grateful for it, because there was the threat of something there that I wasn’t ready for.
Baraqel and his team were summoned next, and finally Shem, Bastian, and Sarq. Tumiel and Zaq had been given leave to stay here in the city as representatives of heaven, and a direct line to Lucifer should the humans ever need one.
“Did you try on the dress I had made for you?” Bee asked. “Did it fit?”
I hadn’t had a chance to. “Not yet. But I’m sure it will be fine.”
“I made sure there was space for your wings.”
“I’m sure it’s perfect. And you? Is Tumiel escorting you?”
She blushed. “He is. He…he asked me to marry him.”
My heart leapt for her. “That’s wonderful!”
“Mira and Zaq are getting married too.”
A regular human marriage, not the twisted bonding that the Dominion had forced on the humans. There would be no more procreation between celestials and humans. The Nephilim had been called to heaven where Lucifer had assigned them celestial roles.
