Gold chains, stained dark and gritty from use, wrapped around Gabriel’s body. The sharp edges bit into the sensitive flesh of his ankles, wrists, and neck. Thinner chains were banded across his chest—not to confine him, but to weaken him. They worked.

Gabriel kneeled on the slopping floors of his dark cell. No matter how many times he thought of Abel’s punishment, he still didn’t believe he was in Hell. Just thinking about the angel turned Gabriel’s vision red. Abel was the reason he wasn’t on Earth looking for Michaela. He might have even found her by now if not for this outrageous punishment.

His anger gave him a renewed strength to reach up and tug on the chains at his chest. But he wasn’t strong enough. He dropped his arms back to his sides. He wanted to yell in frustration, but he didn’t even have the energy for that.

“Well, I’ll be damned. It is true.”

Gabriel looked up. He might have dozed off for a moment, because now Lucifer and Beliar stood on the other side of his cell’s rusting, crooked bars. A bare light bulb dangling in the prison’s hall was the only light shining on them

“I told you.” Beliar was Lucifer’s second in command. Everyone called Lucifer the devil, but it wasn’t true. Beliar was the true devil, and anyone who knew the demon didn’t make the mistake twice. The actions that gave Lucifer the misnomer were actually the deeds of Beliar. He did Hell’s dirty work, and he enjoyed it. Rumor was that he enjoyed it too much.

“The audacity of those holy angels.” Lucifer tsked, shaking his head. He smoothed a hand over his white collared shirt. “I’m sure you will make the best of this, Beliar.”

Beliar’s eyes were not black, but an unnatural neon green. He didn’t have the normal attributes of a fallen angel, because he wasn’t one. He was Hell’s own creation. Some said when Michaela had created Hell by driving Lucifer so hard into the ground a demon had formed from the dust, molten, and Lucifer’s spit.

“I will.” Beliar didn’t smile or leer. His words weren’t even very excited. It was the emptiness Gabriel sensed in the demon that worried him. His skin crawled as Beliar regarded him without an ounce of emotion on his face.

“So, Gabriel, how do you like your new home?” Lucifer asked. He peered around Gabriel into the small cell not tall enough for an angel to stand straight in and wrinkled his nose. “Do you need a cot? Or an air freshener perhaps?”

Gabriel didn’t respond. He barely had the energy to hold his head up. Lucifer noticed. He motioned to a fallen. Immediately, the angel stepped forward, making sure to give Beliar a wide berth. The demon propped against the cell next to Gabriel’s, sending the inhabitant cowering in the far corner.

“Yes, sir?” the fallen asked.

“Take off his chest chains.”

The fallen nodded and drew out a ring of keys. Eventually he found the right one, and with shaking hands, opened Gabriel’s cage with a loud screech. The fallen unwound the chains carefully. The links left behind sore, red burns on Gabriel’s skin. When they lifted, his chest loosened and he breathed deeply.

The fallen was about to exit when Lucifer held up his hand. Beliar straightened off the cell, his interest caught once again. “See, Gabriel, I have a little theory about Molloch’s death.” Gabriel stiffened at the words. “It was Michaela’s wing that pierced him and killed him, according to the reports of the fallen Archangels. But I know angels have stabbed others many times with their wings. Yet no one has died. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Gabriel didn’t answer, but it seemed Lucifer hadn’t expected him to. Lucifer nodded to Beliar, who entered the cell with Gabriel and the terrified fallen. Beliar picked up Gabriel’s limp wing. He was too weak to fight back.

“Kneel.” Lucifer commanded the fallen, motioning to the spot in front of Gabriel. “With your back to him.”

“Don’t do this,” Gabriel said as his awareness dawned.

“I have to know these things, Gabriel.” Lucifer smiled at him as the fallen got into position.

Sweat rolled between Gabriel’s shoulder blades. Gabriel was thinking about the bead of sweat when, without a signal from Lucifer, Beliar jerked Gabriel’s wing forward, over the top of his arm, and into the back of the fallen.

“No!” Gabriel yelled.

He watched the fallen sag forward. Beliar pulled Gabriel’s wing out, leaving behind a hole that oozed black blood in the fallen’s back. Lucifer crouched outside the cell and inspected the fallen.

For a horrible, sickening moment, Gabriel thought he had actually killed an angel. But the fallen moved on the stone floor and groaned. “Try again,” Lucifer said to Beliar.

The demon stabbed Gabriel’s wing countless times into the fallen. Gabriel did everything in his power to resist, but his efforts did little against Beliar’s strength. By the end, the fallen angel had countless stab wounds in his chest, stomach, and back. Gabriel had long since grown quiet and withdrawn.

“Interesting,” Lucifer said. Beliar drug the fallen out the cell and dumped him in the hall to heal. The demon wiped his bloody hands on his leather pants.

“You’re sick,” Gabriel said with his teeth clenched.

“Sticks and stones. But what I was saying was that this was interesting because I didn’t really believe any angel’s wings could kill another. I just had to make sure.” Beliar stepped away, and when he came back he carried two huge, bloody wings. Gabriel stared, noting the delicate swirl of the feather’s plume. He knew that swirl.

“I think it’s the bones in Michaela’s wings that can kill an angel. Perhaps because she was the first angel created. I had hoped since you were the created after her your wings would prove useful too.” Lucifer sighed. “Oh well. Beliar is going to sit here and fashion up some knives from your pretty little Michaela’s wings. Hope you don’t mind.” Lucifer beamed down at Gabriel, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were fixed on the ruin of Michaela’s wings.

Something snapped inside of him. He lost it. It wasn’t the control over his raging anger he lost. It was his good nature, his quiet, calm manner. He lost the angel he had been the moment Beliar stripped off Michaela’s precious feathers. In its place formed a solid ball of hate and rage, laying in wait with a cool, calculating calm.