Page 13 of Winners, Losers, and Champagne Kisses
“You have to realize, archangels are the strongest of the angels magically and we have better weapons. Mortals are more familiar with us because we’re the ones who usually come here and appear to them. We’re pretty low on the totem pole when it comes to the hierarchy and theyloathethe fact that they know us and build statues of us.
“There’s only twelve of us and we’re all known to humans. None of us have ever met the Father. We get our messages from him as they get passed down to angels closest to our rank. We definitely questioned a few of them after that. Our idea was a good one. The Powers and their allies would have gotten retribution and the upper angels would have rooted out corruption in their ranks.
“No one would go for it. The lower angels didn’t want a trial without also getting rid of the hierarchy. The upper angels refused to even admit they’d done anything wrong and insisted the other Powers just misinterpreted the message because they aren’t as smart. It finally exploded into civil war.”
“No offense, but how does angel drama translate to them coming here and starting the Coalition?” Benji asked.
I think we all had that question, but I had a feeling we’d be even more confused if Michael just skipped to that.
“I’m getting there. This was thousands of years ago and we arestillfighting that war. The Powers knew that at any moment,the Father could come out of his grief and settle this. They lost their faith in him. They thought this whole mess could have been avoided in the first place if he talked to all his angels instead of a select few and honestly, they weren’t wrong about that.
“The Powers thought if he stepped in, he’d punish them like he did Lucifer instead of making it right, so they kept leaving our realm for research. They found the god-banishing sigil they gave the Coalition and have used against you and graffitied our realm with it.
“The Father was banished from his own realm. No one knows where he ended up and he won’t be able to find his way back until we destroy all the sigils. Not only were they everywhere, but they are hidden and our realm is vast. We’ve torn places apart and found another sigil on the third search. That sigil wasn’t meant for you. It was meant to keep the Father from intervening if he ended up here.”
“I’ve experienced that sigil,” Dionysus said. “You know something is there, but it’s invisible to you. I knew exactly where they were holding my mate because the address was available, but when I drove there, I couldn’t see it and I walked on the grounds where it was supposed to be and it was like it wasn’t there.
“I’ve only been banished with it once, but I ended up in Valhalla. I nearly got assaulted by a Viking for spilling his mead when I popped over there, but I’ve realm traveled before and was able to get back to the jail until my friends could break up the sigil.
“None of us have met your Father before because he’s never been really friendly with us. If he’s been banished from his home, he could be anywhere, but I don’t think he’s here. If he is, he’s isolating himself so the rest of us haven’t sensed him and tried to reach out.”
Dionysus ended up all the way in Valhalla? He brought me there a few times. We both loved it there. That was probably his shortest visit ever.
“I ended up in Duat and had to deal with a sulking Anubis because I didn’t want to play chess,” Hades said.
“I got sent to Mag Mell. It’s one of my favorite places, but I couldn’t stay,” Persephone said.
“My ass got dropped straight into Olympus and I got out of there as soon as I could. How’d the rest of you avoid having to see Zeus again?” Hephaestus said.
“Uh, no one knows how the god-banishing symbol works or the angels would have fetched their god to put an end to this because it spilled over to our realm,” Kat said.
“I’d say the evil angels should have read the user manual before they used that shit, but I’ve basically had to get on YouTube and watch videos of other people figuring shit out because most user manuals are useless,” Benji said.
Michael cleared his throat.
“Yes, anyway. It’s been long enough that we know the truth about other gods. Most of us have figured out how we were created, though several factions consider it lies and heresy. I know about fading. He was banished from his realm while grieving his son. If he hasn’t faded, he could just be done with us.
“The fading part is important because it’s where your Coalition comes in. The angels who banished the Father expected him to fight to come home. They didn’t want him, but they wanted him to want them. They expected an influx of miracles to alert everyone where he ended up.
“I’m pretty sure they were hoping since he couldn’t go home, the civil war would end because the upper choirs would leave to go be with him and they could have the realm to themselves to build a system they thought was fair. Which is completely unhinged because the Powerswantedto live in this realm andmost of the upper angels would terrify mortals. It’s why the Father usually sends the archangels to deal with them.”
“Sorry, but I’m still not understanding how three members of my pack became collateral damage for all of this. They dragged nearly every supernatural on the planet into this and they did nothing to the angels. Or why you’re waiting until now to do anything about it,” Cas said.
“Because I couldn’t. Like I said, the archangels are the strongest of the angels. We never picked a side of the civil war. We divided up. Some of us stayed and tried to mediate and the others have been searching for our Father. The ones that stayed were taken prisoner and had a feather stolen. We were tortured, and they tried to force us to fight for them.
“A lot of angels are dead. Our choirs are in much lower numbers than they used to be. Those of us who were being held prisoner by the Powers were able to get our feathers back and escape when they just abandoned our realm. We came here because we don’t want your realm to end up like ours.”
Well, fuck. That explained why I saw a lot of us in Michael and the scars. It explained why he didn’t come before now. I still had no idea why a good bit of people in this room had to go through what they did because the angels were having a civil war in an entirely different realm.
“Anyway, to your main question. Why they started the Coalition and what they are up to now. They are essentially children who are angry with their father and are breaking things. They were trying to get his attention so he would show himself, but they needed to create an enemy for the masses. They capitalized on mass hysteria that was starting to die down and basically threw gasoline on it.
“You were cannon fodder, and it didn’t draw the attention of our Father. They ended up pissing off entirely different gods who swooped in to fix it. There is no plan. I could hear everythingwhile I was their prisoner. They were pissed when the wrong gods showed up and put an end to this, and they just reacted.
“They are making it up as they go along. They were the ones who banished the Father, and they hadn’t destroyed any of the sigils that would allow him to come home. They constantly talk about how much they hate him, but they are hurt they didall this, andhe never showed up.
“Now that I know the other gods were banished to entirely different realms, he might not even know what’s going on here. The various realms are all connected to this one by belief. We can watch this one from certain rooms, but we can’t watch any other realms.
“If he ended up on a different realm and chose to make it his home, he might not have access to the room to view what’s going on here on Earth and he definitely wouldn’t know about the civil war.
