The unknown drove the young angel to insanity. His lack of knowledge of his own past was infuriating for someone who was so meticulous about everything she did. She easily took hold of any bait she could; biting down and never letting go until her mind was eased. But she couldn’t do so with Ivar. No matter how much concentration Frankie put into examining his naked frame, memorising each embodied ink design on his skin to the very millimetre. Trying to piece together his past silently. The past few weeks had been difficult. Frankie doted on him. He was like a drug to her. A light at the end of the tunnel. He made her feel things she had no experience in. Try all she might; no negative energy could be felt towards him. And that frightened the angel to a state of vulnerability.
It was 2am on a Saturday. Frankie knew he would be home soon. Back from his depressing graveyard shift at the club. She wasn’t possessive, but most nights she would often head out just before he was due to leave, watching from the shadows of the rooftops to make sure he got back safely. It went against everything she knew. But it seemed like an instinct. As if he set off a part of her which she had purposely kept hidden away in the deepest depths of her mind. It was an uncontrollable emotion – having no previous exposure to it; she’d often come across bursting with emotion. It made her feel like a burden. But Ivar was yet to tell or show her confirmation of this. He fuelled the fire deep inside her; saturating every caring emotion a creature like her could show. She was a deadly creation. But with him, she crumbled.
However, tonight Frankie was preoccupied. Sat in her dark study with a dim table lamp which only just gave the blonde celestial enough light to read through the mounds of religious novels and blueprints which were laid sporadically across the desk. She was a woman on a mission to solve this niggling feeling at the back of his mind. There was something oddly familiar about his name. His real name. She remembered when he first told her. The name cut through her like a knife but the relevance of it was unknown. Frankie usually avoided reading any sort of religious books. It sung praises of her Brothers in Heaven. She’d even learned more about Raphael’s time in Heaven. Their correlation as brother and sister. Frankie often got bored when it came to reading mortal stories about Angels and Demons. So many misunderstood and twisted lies about her falling brothers. So many over-enthusiastic praises about those who still remained Holy. It was stomach wrenching to spend any longer than 10 minutes doing such a thing. The lies and deceit that she believed were written about her often brought on rage; a pile of torn Bibles, versions of the Book of Revelation, the Quran and Genesis which lay with crumpled pages on the floor. She had worked herself up several times that night, but she forced herself to sit there. Slumped over on the wooden chair as her eyes fell dreary. The yellow glow from the light didn’t help; icy blue hues struggling to continue. But she had to know. She had to understand their connection. Why his name burnt away at her core like a virus. He was a virus. He had got into her system and taken over. Infecting her with emotions which were overriding her hatred and anger for the world. It made her feel sick, but she was addicted. Beautifully infatuated.
Enoch. The book of Enoch was one she had always resisted reading. The book introduced the fallen angels, the Messiah, powers of Resurrection, the idea of the Final Judgement, and the ultimate Kingdom on Earth. All stories to the humans. But stories which she knew were only too true. Being an object of Heaven, she was proof that this book held relevance. It was one of the oldest but most important there was. Explaining the relevance of her fallen brothers, and the ones who remained loyal to her Father.
Parables after parables, Frankie scanned the pages. She drifted off a few times, but interested soon peaked as she stumbled across her name. She wasn’t often portrayed in the best light; with fair reason to this. She was hardly a saint. In her mind, she was just misunderstood. But the corrupt angel was considered worse than the Devil in the majority of the books she had used her celestial powers to destroy through her fits of rage when reading. Leaning forward in her chair, Frankie’s cranium slowly tilted, pushing her reading glasses further up the bridge of her nose as she began to concentrate on the early verses of the book. It took her back…
~
“F***ing let me go! What are you doing?!” Azazel squealed as her brother dragged her through the unforgiving desert. Her broken wings which she still struggled to control on earth twitched aggressively underneath her squirming frame.
“Raphael, I’m your f***ing sister!” She screamed, the heat of the blazing sun causing the tight metal chains around her ankles to burn into her skin, singeing the hair follicles and quickly causing blistering. Her squeals were unsettling. There was nothing more sinister than the cries of an angel in genuine pain. Hair quickly matting as each strand became tangled as it quickly brushed over the crack, sandy wasteland. But still, he didn’t listen. A man on a mission. A mission which was to stop her from her violent ways. Letting her loose on Earth was a grave mistake from God as she soon learned how easily influenced the Human Race could be. She was a genius. A young mastermind who had cracked a code in getting what she wanted.
“Enough is enough, Azazel. You were cast for a reason. You’ve had your chance. You’re destroying the world. You’re teaching Sin to Man. You’re giving knowledge to the fallen to take Man’s wives and daughters. You are handing out the finest weapons to those who do not know how to responsibly brandish.” Raphael sternly growled at his youngest sister as she continued to drag her weakened body through the dust until content with a spot which was far enough out in the wasteland for no man to wander. No creature to catch scent of.
And with that, Raphael bounded her. Azazel tried escaping, her wings trying all they could to gather enough power underneath them to pull her further than the few feet she had managed to hover. Aggressively flapping her feathers to try and escape; but it was no use. The sobbing mess that was Azazel only found herself tiring out underneath the scorching sun. She collapsed, wings crumpling underneath her as she silently cried. She refused to take blame. Her second betrayal from another angel.
“Rafe.. please..” Azazel whimpered for forgiveness. But by the time she glanced up from the dehydrated earth which swallowed her tears, he was gone. And she was alone. To live the rest of her days deep within the vacant landscape until Judgement Day, where she would perish under her father’s great wrath.
~
Her calves threw the chair back from the desk as her memories dragged her back to the past she had forgotten. Frankie grabbed the glasses and tore them from her face, lauching them at the wall before witnessing them shatter like fragile crystal. She gasped for air; as if she had just been heavily winded. Crouching down as she held onto the desk for support, Frankie howled. The grim realisation of who she had allowed herself to become so immersed within truly was. Was this God’s idea? To send the Angel of Healing to her time of need? Or was it just a twisted fate where her blind ignorance had caused her to fall to Raphael again, but in a completely different aspect. Tears uncontrollably streamed from her glazed eyes as the pain crippled her, falling forward onto her knees as she grieved. She mourned the pain she went through which she had forgotten about due to having a lucky encounter with some necromancers who freed her and wiped her memory. She bawled over her situation now; self-pity clouding her judgement so much that she hadn’t heard the door go due to her moment of distress.
“Frankie?! What the~” Ivar was quick to join her side, rightfully concerned as his deadly angel laid wounded. He seemed completely baffled in what this was all over. No correlation coming to mind as the copious amounts of books seemed to bypass the situation. As she was cradled, Frankie wept, burying her flustered, tear-sodden face into his arm. What would she say? Was she the one to tell him of his past? To remind him of their grave ending in a past life? To risk losing what they had now because of a bitter order he was demanded to carry out on her? So much animosity shrouded her. She couldn’t muster any words. So, for now, she cried. In the dying light of the lamp as she utilised the embrace she was in. After all, it could be her last.
