In The Arms of an Angel - 26. Chapter 26 - Two Sides of the Same Coin

Michael knelt and stared in shock at the two angels who
stood before him like twin stars. Passa’el, with his dark hair and dark eyes,
and Uzzi’el with hair like gold and eyes of blue. Not that he could see the
colour of their eyes. He wondered if they realised there was a rainbow light
glowing from their eye sockets making it seem as if their bodies were merely
receptacles for some unearthly being made only of rainbows.

Power radiated from the two angels who stood, hand in hand,
silent and still. There was no anger in them, no condemnation. Their faces were
calm and their stance relaxed. Blue sparks and little arcs of electricity ran
up their arms from their joined hands and that strange, multi-coloured light
poured from them, forming bonds that he didn’t bother to struggle against.

“You know you can’t bind me for long.” Michael smiled, his
angel smile. “Soon I will be free and you will die. Neither of you has the
power to hold me for long and certainly not to defeat me.”

“True,” Uzzi’el said in a voice that was calm and gentle.
“Neither of us has the power to defeat you, but both of us do.”

“What do you mean?” Michael laughed at him boldly, certain
of his own power, his ability to see this arrogant young fool and his mate
crushed under his heel. He’d made a big mistake in leaving their destruction in
the hands of others. This time he would take care of it personally.

“You’ve told me, twice. Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?” His patience was beginning to wane. He
hated being confined and he hated even more that his men were seeing him on his
knees in the dust. Come to think of it, why weren’t they coming to his aid?
Cowards. He’d see them pay for this.

“Once, a long time ago, we stood before you as we are now.”
Passa’el took up the conversation with the same gentle tone. “Only that time,
we were the ones in chains. You were our judge and executioner. You condemned
us for our support of humanity and took it on yourself to carry out sentence
without even referring to The Council. You tore my soul from my body and cast
it down to wander among humanity for eternity, to witness their excesses and
nature, with no power to influence them. I was doomed to wander, unable to move
on, unable to return home.”

“My punishment,” Uzzi’el continued smoothly as if they were
one being speaking with one voice. “was to suffer his fall through our bond and
then the forceful breaking of our connection. You thought it would break me,
and it did, for a while. I remember, just before the deed was done, you looked
into our eyes and told us that together we were powerful, more powerful perhaps
than you, but alone we were nothing and would never be anything other than a
whisper in the night.”

“Yes, I remember that.” Michael shivered with delight at the
memory of the power he’d wielded over the pathetic, broken angels. Oh how
they’d pleaded, begging to be allowed to suffer their punishment together, or
to take the punishment of the other to gain reprieve for their lover. He’d taken
such great pleasure in tearing them apart, plundering the power of their love. How
delicious it had been to watch Uzzi’el writhe in the dirt, screaming out his
pain, his loss. The image had stayed with him for quite a time, but in the end
he’d forgotten.

“And then, not a week ago, when the probes of your enforcers
were still in my brain, you allowed me respite from their torment long enough
to torment me yourself with what you were going to do to my ‘pathetic band of
miscreants’. You stood before me and said that if only Passa’el were still with
me, perhaps I would have had a chance. Of all, we two were the only ones who
might have been able to defeat you. Alone, I was an annoying irritation who
would soon be nothing more than a mindless drone.”

Micha’el remembered that, too. He smiled at the memory.
Uzzi’el, bound and helpless, his eyes wide with pain and fear as the enforcers
invaded his mind and took it apart, piece by piece. He should have waited until
those eyes went blank forever, but he had been too eager to crush the rebel
army.

“It was the sound of Passa’el’s name that freed me, that
allowed me to shake off the power of the enforcers and flee. I believed that
Gabri’el would be searching from me, but when I couldn’t find him, I fell and
couldn’t stop falling. It seems that the seed you’d planted in me when you
spoke Passa’el’s name was enough for my soul to find him and take me to him.”

“But how…how did you find your way back?” He addressed his
question to Passa’el.

“That is a question I can’t answer. The universe works its
miracles and who am I to question?”

“Who indeed? You’re a no one.”

“Indeed, Alone I am no one. I am nothing. But we are
together now and nothing will ever part us again. We are one and nothing will
stand against us.” He looked at Uzzi’el at precisely the same moment Uzzi’el
turned his head to meet him. Their eyes met and an explosion of rainbow light
washed over Micha’el in waves of unbearable sweetness.

For the first time in as long as he could remember,
Micha’el; Archangel, warrior, leader of the celestial armies, felt fear.