Azrael stood, his white robes lightly brushing the cracked alley floor. His voice was quiet but sharp.
"This isn’t your business, vampire."
Cain stiffened, fangs still half-bared. "You think just because you glow and float that I’ll back off? It attacked her. I want answers."
Azrael didn’t blink. His gaze was steady. Cold. "It’s not a matter for the living. This is angelic jurisdiction now."
Cain’s hands clenched. He took a step forward.
Then Mabel grabbed his arm. "Cain. Don’t."
He looked at her, frustrated. "You saw what it did."
She leaned in close, whispering low. "They’re not just angels. Look at the shimr. That’s not ornantal. That’s Michael. And Azrael. And Uriel. These aren’t watchers or ssengers. These are Heaven’s blades. Archangels. If they’re all here... we stay the hell out of the way."
Cain exhaled through his nose, sharp and bitter. But he backed off.
Michael finally turned toward Eamon. He studied him again, as if seeing deeper now. Not just a man with a rifle, but a man with sothing dangerous in his bones. Purpose.
"You stopped it," Michael said. "With sothing not even Heaven forged."
Eamon gave a shrug. "Didn’t know I’d be doing Heaven’s job tonight."
Michael stepped closer. His wings flared slightly, just enough to remind everyone who was standing in front of them. "Co with us."
Eamon raised a brow. "To where?"
"Heaven," Michael said. "We’ll give you access to our vaults. Our blueprints. Materials. Ti. You’ll make more of those shards. In exchange... you get one wish."
The alley went quiet.
Cain blinked. "You’re offering a vampire a wish?"
"Not just any vampire," Raphael murmured. "A craftsman. A threat deterrent. And possibly... insurance."
Uriel looked to Michael. "Gabriel?"
Michael gave a nod.
A mont later, space folded with a ripple. A soft golden glow stretched open beside them like silk tearing sideways. A man stepped through.
Gabriel.
He didn’t speak at first. His presence was calm, light. But his eyes—like blue fire under glass—scanned everything fast.
"Status?" he asked quietly.
Michael gestured toward the creature. "Contained, not stable. We’ll take it back. You’ll take him."
Gabriel looked at Eamon. Then gave a single, respectful nod.
"Bring him," he said simply.
Uriel stepped toward the creature. She pulled a scroll from her robes and unraveled it over the body. The script on the parchnt lit up, symbols twisting like they were alive.
Chains of light burst from the scroll and latched onto the creature’s limbs. Each link humd with divine rhythm, pressing into the creature’s skin and sinking deep. Its body twitched, but it couldn’t move.
Azrael knelt and placed a hand on its chest. His fingers glowed with a dull red hue—judgnt magic, rare and ancient.
Michael closed his eyes, lips moving in silent command.
A pillar of golden fla blood above them, reaching for the sky.
Eamon stepped back on instinct.
Cain and Mabel shielded their eyes.
The light faded.
The creature, still bound, floated slightly off the ground. Hovering.
Michael looked at Eamon one last ti. "You’ll be returned once the shards are ready. Think carefully about your wish. Heaven doesn’t make that offer twice."
Eamon said nothing. Just gave a slow nod.
Gabriel raised a hand. The golden rift reopened.
He looked at Eamon. "Follow ."
The vampire hesitated. One last glance at the others. At the alley.
At the city.
Then he stepped through the light.
It vanished behind him.
Michael turned. "Let’s move. Before it rembers how to break seals."
Uriel and Azrael lifted the bound creature between them. The scroll remained glowing beneath it, binding it like gravity.
Raphael took rear guard.
Together, the archangels rose from the alley, wings unfurling. No words. No sound.
Only light.
Then they vanished.
Only Cain, Mabel, and the scent of burnt pavent remained.
Cain stared at the empty air where they’d been. "We’re gonna see that thing again, aren’t we?"
Mabel nodded slowly. "Yeah. And next ti... we won’t be ready."
Heaven
Heaven wasn’t what Eamon expected.
No pearly gates. No choirs. No endless white light.
It felt like walking into a mind—vast, layered, tiless. The sky above stretched too far, too deep, like it held mories older than creation. Everything shimred, but not in a loud way. More like the air was made of soft whispers and breathing light. Mountains floated in the distance, upside-down and spinning slowly. Rivers ran through the sky like threads of glass. And at the center, far off, a tower rose past the clouds—black stone wrapped in gold veins, pulsing.
Gabriel walked ahead, not speaking. His coat didn’t move with the wind. There was no wind. Eamon kept pace, boots hitting the smooth path with an echo that didn’t bounce. The ground beneath him changed as he moved—crystal, grass, sand, then marble. Like the world hadn’t decided what it wanted to be yet.
They passed a tree that bled silver from its bark. A woman with no eyes sat beneath it, humming a song without sound.
Eamon said nothing. Just kept walking.
Finally, Gabriel stopped.
A platform stretched out over a chasm that looked like the end of everything. Floating above it was a forge.
Or sothing like one.
It wasn’t fire-based. It burned with mory, not fla. Shapes moved through it—not sparks, but monts. The birth of stars, the falling of cities, the rise and end of prayers. The forge pulsed with all of it.
"This is where you’ll work," Gabriel said.
Eamon stared.
"You’ll be given blueprints by the Archive. A script angel will bring them."
Eamon turned to him. "What exactly do you want built?"
Gabriel looked at him, calm. "Shards. But not like the one you used. That one only restrained it. We need ones that kill."
Eamon scoffed lightly. "If it can even die."
Gabriel nodded. "That’s the part we don’t know. But that’s why we brought you. You’re not one of us. You see cracks in things angels think are flawless. You make tools for impossible situations."
Eamon stepped toward the forge, the heat—or mory—wrapping around him. "What’s my deadline?"
Gabriel smiled faintly. "Before it wakes."
A pause.
"And the wish?"
"You can cash it in once you’re done. Anything within reason."
Eamon chuckled. "Define reason."
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Then he turned and walked away, vanishing into the distance without a sound.
Eamon stood there, alone now. Just him and the forge that felt like it was staring back.
He reached into his coat and pulled out the broken shard—the one he’d fired into the creature. Still humming, faintly. It had survived the journey. Sohow. He placed it on the forge’s edge.
And the forge responded.
Light curled around it like fingers. The shard hovered, spun slowly. A faint image appeared in the fla—him, years ago, standing in a crater. Alone. Bloody. Crying. A different city. A different ti.
The forge showed him what it rembered of him.
Not what he wanted to see. But what was true.
Eamon rolled his neck and pulled off his coat. Dropped it over a nearby stone.
The forge waited.
He reached for the tools laid neatly on the platform—tools made of light and bone, ti and truth.
And he got to work.
No prayers. No guidance.
Just tal, mory, and silence.
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