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Abaddon feels the angels fall through her whole being. Though angels are far from pure, though Heaven has been corrupted ever since the Almighty ran away, leaving its hordes to wander about like a string of lost ducklings, there is still something in the smell of burning Grace that makes her sulfuric blood boil. Abaddon is powerful and Queen, Abaddon is the Knight of Hell to rule them all.
Yet, Abaddon finds that watching the bright trails of charcoaled wings makes something tug at the pit of her stolen chest, ghost of an emotion that resembles sadness in its purest form. Maybe is it the ectoplasm of her Father’s grief. After all, he was once the angel that shone brighter than the sun.
Morning Star, Morgenstern. L’Étoile du Matin.
She shakes her head to dissipate the thoughts. Let the old fool rest in his ice coffin, along with his Righteous sibling.
There is also something –something like curiosity. This she can rely on, this she can give in to. She wants to see it for herself. Her lips curl up in a cold smile as she skims a finger over her throat, repairing the burnt skin there, courtesy of Sam Winchester.
There are guests on her hunting grounds. Better be a good host.
She lets the pure light call her, lets its dying song whisper its name to her. Her eyes widen as she feels –something. Something she has only seen once.
Well, someone, rather.
“Oh, my,” she murmurs, caressing her blood-red mouth with the tip of a finger. “This is going to be interesting.”
***
She finds her in the middle of a clearing somewhere in Scotland. The weather is thick and humid, heavy with an unshed storm. It is the middle of the night, but Abaddon isn’t bound by such things as obscurity. On the contrary, she relishes it, lets it wrap itself around her skin like an ethereal cape.
The sparks of the angel’s Grace are flickering. Unsuspecting eyes would think her dead. And she is, in a way.
What worse punishment is there for a bird than to be earthbound?
Abaddon looks at the poor lump of human flesh on the ground, looks at the smear of mud on the pale cheek and the unseeing blue eyes, dried blood on her forehead. Naomi has once left her bloodied and defeated; has once beaten her on the battlefield, but Abaddon feels no victory.
There is something beautiful about a broken angel.
She kneels next to the body, frames the pallid features between her hands, and cradles the cold skin like a lover would hold a dying flame.
“You spared my life,” she says quietly. “You spared my life all these millennia ago. Why?”
There is no other response than the one of her memories, the bleeding gash on her stomach and the Warrior Naomi standing in front of her, breathtaking and merciless. She closes her eyes and welcomes the smell of her brethren’s blood feeding the Earth. This battle had been a thing of beauty and horror. Her meatsuit back then had dark eyes and dark skin, and was coated in blood. Angel’s and demon’s, there was no distinction as she yelled and slashed, wild with unrighteous fury. The ashes left burning trails down her throat and she loved it, simmering with an ancient lust.
Naomi’s blade had skimmed over her bare neck and Abaddon had smiled, tipped her head back, licking her lips to taste the grating sweat and the salty tears of her enemies.
“Go on,” she’d whispered; How weak she was at the time, despising everything, including her worthless life and her father, Lucifer the fool who had created an abomination carved in righteous bitterness.
It all comes down to Daddy issues, in Hell like in Heaven.
There is something broken in Abaddon, has always been, in the way she was created to destroy but not to hate. And when she had looked at Naomi’s stony face, perfect and doll-like, she had felt something.
But Naomi hadn’t sliced her throat open. Naomi had looked at her with her frozen eyes, judging and soft at the same time, and had turned around to plunge her sword in Mephistophele’s back.
Now, though, there is no battle, no blades and no screams. Only the silence, oddly peaceful.
Abaddon wants to burn this forest to the ground as she looks down at the shattered creature lying on the ground, once so powerful. Naomi has been the body controlling the limbs for so long, the brain and the tongue. She has manipulated and destroyed, she has ordered and executed.
Her wings no longer shimmer with the omnipotence of an absent God.
She closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of moss and rotten wood, and she knows what to do.
She has known all along, really.
***
Abaddon is the Destroyer, the Exterminator. She has been feared and begged, she has been adored and has reduced to cinders crowds of prostrated worshippers. She has reveled in the screams of those who dared rebel. Her power are absolute and limitless when it comes to pain and destruction.
When it comes to healing, though, Abaddon has to use other tricks.
Witchcraft has always been an old favorite of hers.
The fire crackles at her feet. The flames curl around her bare skin, leaving it untouched.
Naomi’s arms are splayed, forming a cross-shaped outline on the ground, and Abaddon sneers at the irony of it.
The forces she is calling are in no way heavenly.
On cue, the wind starts hissing around her and the fire becomes angry, alive. As her voice raises to spill the unholy incantation, she can feel the earth start to vibrate through her meatsack, down to its very core. The sensation is heady and more humbling than she had ever thought it would be. No Destroyer is more implacable than Gaia. Not even this greedy plague called humanity has managed to make Her kneel, and Abaddon knows better than to try.
There are deities you just don’t want to get on the wrong side of.
The chanting goes on, and on, until the first rays of dawn cleanse the obscurity, wash away the darkness. Abaddon is tired, worn out, even.
Yet she doesn’t stop.
She doesn’t stop until Naomi’s chest heave, and she blinks washed out blue eyes at the pinked rise of the sun. Her breath sounds excruciating, harsh and hissing. Her skin is pale, lips tinged with a bluish shadow.
But when she sits down and looks at Abaddon, Naomi’s face is as stern as it ever was.
“Appolyon,” she says. Her voice is even, but doesn’t conceal her disgust. Abaddon laughs and shakes her head.
“No, sweetie, I go by Abaddon, these days.” The fire crackles menacingly and she calms it with a flick of her finger. “After all, we have to live with our time. I’ve heard you became a bureaucrat.”
Naomi’s head snaps up and the glare she sends her way would terrify the fiercest demons. But Abaddon doesn’t budge. Doesn’t try to help, either, when Naomi staggers to her feet and looks down at her hands. She sees the realization worm its way through the angel. Her eyes widen with incommensurable pain, her mouth agape.
“My wings,” she whispers. “My wings. I can’t feel them.”
Abaddon shrugs and shoves her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket.
“That’s because they’re burnt out, love. That was quite the spectacle, all these angels falling down on Earth. Almost made me tear up.”
Naomi lifts her head, meeting her gaze. Something is shimmering in her eyes, something Abaddon can’t quite read. “All the angels?” she repeats quietly. She closes her eyes and breathes in. Something is rumbling under their feet, something powerful and uncanny. Then, Abaddon sees the sparks of Grace come alive under Naomi’s vessel, and she barely has the time to close her eyes before they light up the clearing.
Naomi’s yell is deafening, almost drowning out the buzzing blast of Grace. Abaddon hears the rage, she hears the anguish, too immense to be comprehended. She should rejoice in them, should bask in the suffering of this broken thing, but for some reason, she can’t. There is something twisting in her chest, like an impossible heartbeat.
The shout echoes in the forest, along with a flutter of wings. A terrified owl, probably. Abaddon cracks an eye open and, for a second, she can only see white everywhere and she hisses, her true form curling in on itself protectively. But Naomi is here, swaying on her feet.
“Screw this,” she mutters, and steps forward hastily, catching the angel’s arm before she falls. Naomi is babbling in Enochian, eyes glazed over and for a split-second, Abaddon thinks the loss has made her lose her mind.
“Really?” she spits, shaking Naomi’s arm. “Really? You’re just going to stand here and take it? Some soldier you are.”
Naomi’s gaze gains a little focus and Abaddon is hit with the irony of the situation. She is in a forest in the middle of nowhere, giving a pep talk to a grieving angel. She blocks the thought with a sneer.
“I’m talking to you, angel!” she yells, slapping her cheek harshly. Naomi blinks, but doesn’t react.
The second slap is so strong that it would have beheaded a human. As it is, Naomi yelps and slams her hand to Abaddon’s chest.
“That’s more like it.”
“What do you want,” Naomi hisses, face twisted in a furious scowl. Abaddon snickers and flutters her eyelashes.
“I want to rule the world,” she says. “And a new haircut.” She slides closer, impossibly closer, until the tendrils of Naomi’s Grace brush against her true form. She tries to hold back a shiver.
“I can think of one thing or two I want to do to you,” she purrs in her ear before nipping slightly at the lobe. Naomi stands stock-still, unnaturally so. When Abaddon takes a step back, smirking, she sees something beautiful. Naomi’s pale cheeks are tinged with pink, her mouth slightly open. A virgin.
Figures.
“Not so wrathful, now, are we?”
Naomi blinks a few times and closes her mouth, looking thunderstruck. She looks nothing like a soldier, now. If Abaddon didn’t know better, she’d think her inoffensive.
She does know better. She has seen her in all her glory, once. The sight was holy and pure like the silvery glint of her blade.
“Why did you help me?” Naomi asks, voice calm and low.
Abaddon doesn’t smile. For the first time in her life, she forgets to lie.
“Because I hate being in debt.” The words are quiet with the sheer effort of baring a little piece of her broken being. She grins to cover it, feral.
“Now, if you don’t mind, Hell isn’t going to conquer itself.”
Naomi tips her head, and her eyes are serene. Her Grace is thundering under her almost-translucent skin, like electricity running into her veins, betraying her emotions.
“We will see each other again,” she says.
As Abaddon disappears in a flutter of scabbed wings, the only thing she can think is I certainly hope so.