He glanced over at the crucifix suddenly, as if it had spoken to him. Auburn curls brushed the hard angle of his broad shoulders and fell loosely across his muscular back. Flecks of red-and-blue light speckled his black designer trench coat.
The hazy light of the cathedral seemed to illuminate a ghostly form underneath the image of Morningstar. It was as though his clothes were a thin gauze wrapping. Underneath another image glowed. A frayed tunic hung limply across his naked shoulder. It was pure white in places, but dark soot stained most of the fabric to a dull shadowy gray.
Hovering on the edge of consciousness, I could see a glimmer of enormous wings, the span of which must have reached twenty feet. Like the tunic, they were blackened and tattered. Almost completely featherless in most places, a few patches of white clung stubbornly to wounded flesh. The angle of one of the wings was askew, and the sharp edge of bone poked out, painful and raw-looking. He held the broken wing close to his body, as though it were still tender.
"You've been reading too much Milton," Morningstar sneered in my direction. Snapping back into focus, the trench coat solidified. Like a blanket thrown over a lamp, it blocked out most of the image, but I still saw a bright light glowing at the center of his chest.
"Don't fool yourself with such romantic images. We aren't even crafted from the same stuff as you. What I truly am you can't comprehend, just as you can't comprehend God." Morningstar's brown eyes bored into me. "Though in so many ways you are more like God than I will ever be."
My head felt light. I was hallucinating, clearly. "Michael?" I rasped, "Where is ... ?"
"He's left you in my more-than-capable hands, Deidre." Morningstar dusted off the edge of the altar and sat on it. "It seems Michael needed some time to think."
"Get off the altar! Get out of my church!" Eion yelled, rushing down the processional toward the altar dias. In his hands he gripped a gilded cross like a spear.
Morningstar recoiled as though someone had slapped him. Heat rose on his cheeks. "Your church?" Standing up, he snapped his coat out behind him. "You would do better, priest, to remember by whose grace you were elevated from animated clay to the likes of gods."
Eion stopped at Morningstar's admonishment. His hands trembled, but he remained firm. "This is His church," Eion repeated. His unfinished vestments hung loosely around him like a dressing gown. The fire in his eyes contrasted the vulnerability of his undress. "If you are ... what you say you are, you don't belong here," Eion commanded.
Morningstar's back straightened. I saw fists clench at his sides. Then, with a forced breath, his shoulders relaxed. "We are all God's creations. I belong here as much as any, perhaps more. I was the first, the best."
"Yes, you were." Michael stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the morning sun. His shadow stretched nearly the length of the processional, its edges protectively touching Eion's shoulder.
I tried to sit up. My shoulder came away from the altar cloth with a wet sound. I no longer felt any pain, or, rather, I felt as though the pain was distant from my consciousness. Morningstar's hand touched my chest, pushing me back down. The pressure of his hand seemed to anchor me in the present. I wrapped my hand around his and held on as though my life depended on it.
"I was and I still am." Morningstar sat back against the altar, his hand resting lightly on my stomach. "What you can't stand, dearest brother, is that even now, after everything, They still love me."
Michael's jaw flexed.
Then with a shrug, he said, "Thank you for bringing Deidre safely here. I'll take over now."
"Dismissed with a shrug? Fuck that." The hand on my blouse balled into a fist. I was jerked upright. "I could kill her and destroy your plans."
I tried to pull away, but my body no longer seemed to be under my command. I could hear someone gasp and murmur a prayer. It had to be Eion, because Michael pounded toward the altar. A crackle like flame brushed my consciousness. I turned my head toward the sound.
Large pure, white wings billowed from behind muscular shoulders. The feathers were fanned out, completely obscuring the church from my view. Looking twice his size, Michael held a flaming sword in one hand ready to strike.
"Sheathe it, Captain," Morningstar said with a smirk. "I have no intention of cowering like a snake at your feet."
"I'm willing to bet that I'm faster than you."
"You are?" Morningstar's voice was full of surprise. "That's an awfully devilish risk you're taking."
Michael said nothing, holding his position.
I groaned. Using all my reserve strength, I pitched myself forward, trying to distract Morningstar. My arms flapped against him uselessly. He laughed. Still gripping my blouse, he pulled me closer. The smell of patchouli and sweat overwhelmed my senses. It was a strangely appealing yet repulsive smell, and not at all what I expected from the dapper Morningstar.