Werewolf the Podcast: An Angel has Landed! (Episode 238)

Michael has arrived after being summoned by the Professor at the cost of the werewolf's hand. What on earth is going to happen? Now that the Angel is on earth. Erm. Find out in this week's exciting episode.

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Transcript

Eleanor

I don't think anything in the world can prepare you for the moment an archangel arrives. 

I don't think anything should be able to prepare you for the moment an archangel arrives. 

It's pretty unpreparable for in my humble opinion. 

You can study the texts, listen to the Professor's lectures, read the footnotes, memorise the footnotes of the footnotes—but nothing helps when the air suddenly tilts around you, as though some cosmic giant has leaned down to peer through the windows of your reality.

I felt it first in my chest.

A sort of tug, like the universe had reached in and plucked a thread inside me just to see if it vibrated.

Spoiler: it did.

The feather—his feather—was burnt, but it wasn't really burnt. It still shone there, but it wasn't there. 

Fire is warm, fire flickers, fire behaves. 

This was… immaculate. 

A perfect white feathery flame still existed there, clear as ice and sharp as remorse. 

It had swallowed the feather with smoke, with ash, without mercy.

And I dropped to my knees.

Not intentionally. 

Not dramatically. 

My legs just folded under me like they had heard a very old command and obeyed without asking my permission.

The room grew cold. Then hot. Then cold again. 

The candles guttered sideways as if fleeing. 

The hair on my arms rose. My heart forgot how to beat properly.

And then—

Light.

Impossible light. 

Light that felt aware of me. 

Light that seemed to be scrutinising my soul before deciding whether to keep it or file a celestial complaint form.

It wasn't shining from something; it was shining into being. 

Shapes moved within it—shapes that might have been wings or might have been physics giving up.

And then there was a figure.

A man, if you squinted.

An answer, if you didn't.

Perfect. Too perfect. A symmetry so exact my eyes watered.

A stillness no human could achieve without the help of death or taxidermy.

He looked at me.

His eyes—if that's what they were—were twin burning certainties.

Not fire. 

Not stars.

Something purer. 

Something older. 

Something that had never, ever needed to doubt itself.

My breath caught.

Actually caught.

I genuinely forgot how breathing worked. 

Oxygen went on strike.

My whole body shook.

I'd read about monsters. 

I'd actually met some.

I'd sat in a room with Lucifer, for Heaven's sake. 

I thought I knew how fear felt.

No.

This wasn't fear.

This was awe, sharpened into a blade and pressed gently against the throat of my soul.

And then he spoke.

'BE NOT AFRAID.'

Which immediately made me extremely afraid.

The words weren't sound, not really. 

They were meaning poured into me like molten gold. 

My ears rang from inside my skull. Tears spilt down my face. 

I didn't choose to cry—it was like my body was simply acknowledging he was too much.

His presence pressed against me like gravity with an agenda. 

I felt horribly small. Terribly mortal. Exposed in every way a person can be exposed.

He stepped closer, and the floorboards shuddered.

"YOU WHO CALL ME—WHY DO YOU TREMBLE?"

Why?

Because he was real.

Because nothing in my life, not even the supernatural parts, had prepared me for the sheer rightness of him.

Because some part of me—the deepest, oldest part—recognised him.

And I wasn't ready to be seen like that.

Wil

I knew the moment he arrived.

I managed to get up off the floor with the aid of Monty, who offered a hand.

Not in the way I had just offered my hand a moment ago, obviously.

I had to present my left hand to Monty for his firm Englishman's grasp because my right hand was staring at me from its puddle of blood two yards away.

'That must sting.' Said my wolf soul.

'A little.' I laughed as a sort of reply. 

As I stood, I had already torniquetted the stump and was happy to see that my miraculous healing powers were back. 

A little slow still, but the blood flow had stopped, and I could see the stump bubble and reform what had been there before. 

It would require my tattoos to have a little bit of a rework once healed because they never reappeared, which was annoying, but I really should not complain if my hand grows back. 

I suppose.

As I say, I knew he had arrived. 

Him the Michael angel thingy.

Not because of the light or the heat or the ridiculous celestial theatrics—

But because my wolf soul was snarling inside me. 

He really did not like this celestial thing. 

He snarled not in fear.

No, Fenrir doesn't fear anything.

He recognises threats like old acquaintances.

And Michael?

He's the oldest acquaintance of them all.

Or is it an enemy? 

Can an Angel be an enemy?

The air pressure shifted, like a storm rolling in but trying very hard to pretend it wasn't. 

Eleanor dropped to her knees—of course she did. 

Humans are pathetic in front of things like this—and even Monty looked like he'd swallowed a theological lemon. 

Although he always looked like he'd swallowed a lemon of some sort, to be honest.

The Professor… well, I'll never understand how he manages to look both guilty and determined at the same time.

The levels of light had dropped, and his archangelyness Michael stepped out of the light.

I recognised the bastard. We had met a few times before 

'Fore he is the protector of gods, mortals, and shit.'

Book of Wil verse who gives a fuck.

He was as smug a bastard as ever.

Even disguised as a man—if you can call that perfect symmetry a disguise—he radiated superiority. 

The kind of superiority only an immortal who's never once questioned his own judgement can manage.

He didn't look at me at first. 

Not properly.

Just a glance.

A flick of those burning, sanctimonious eyes.

Like I was something he'd scraped off his sandal during a pilgrimage through the mortal plane.

And that—

That made my hackles rise... more. Oh, how I hated this divine-perfection thing before me. 

I could feel Fenrir pushing at the inside of my ribs, a low growl vibrating through my bones. 

As I said not fear. 

Recognition. 

And because of the recognition, anger. 

The kind of anger that echoes across centuries.

Michael had escorted me out of Heaven once.

Escorted.

His word.

'Patronising git.'

Told me my 'beastly half' was lucky to still exist.

Told me 'I '—and this is a quote—

'Should be grateful the Almighty shows mercy to creatures like you.'

To creatures like you. Oh, how that made me want to hurt him. 

I killed many of gods children for those words once I got earthside again.

I kept my face still, because this wasn't the moment to do something horrific to... to... it. Although the desire to do so was beyond all of everything. 

Not yet. 

Not yet.

In my mind, I reassured Fen that we would... We would... I'll say it here, even if only to myself and my soul:

One day. I don't know how one kills an Angel. But I'm going to kill him. 

'We are going to kill him.' Came into my skull from my irritated Fen.

We were going to do it, mainly for no reason that can be justified. 

I was petty, and I just wanted to prove that it could be done.

And when I do, I swear the last thing he'll see is my big, warm, werewolfy and extremely toothy grin. 

The day is coming.

I bide my time.

But the day is coming.

Monty

Well.

This is all rather inconvenient when one needs the loo.

Light everywhere. Noise-that-isn’t-noise. Principally just another day at the office, I suppose, what?

Eleanor, Ben, and Sula all collapsed dramatically. 

Understandable. 

To them, this is something incredible and life-changing. 

To someone like me, it is just another wet Tuesday morning in my over-complicated life. 

I have to say I am never bored. Never bloody get to be.

Although I would like to give the boredom thing a try at some point. 

It would be nice not to live in interesting times.

Marjory and the Spaniels are all a chap needs, really.

I look at Wil as he looks at the Angel. 

I feel a wave of damed repugnance flow down my spine. 

Gosh, that Wil chap can really exude hate into the world. 

It is times like these that he shows he is more than a man.

His teeth chatter and bare like a dog waiting in excitement for a treat. 

That Angel is in for some bladdy trouble from that one in the future. Harumph

The Professor is calm and hides the fact that he is a man who knows precisely how bad an idea this is because it was, in fact, his.

I wonder what it feels like to be him in these moments.

Mostly, I follow orders. 

I find thinking for oneself to be ponderous and a little undignified once you wear the uniform of the Great British RAF.

And of course, this fellow has arrived.

Michael.

Archangel. Commander of the Heavenly Host, apparently. 

And absolutely the sort of thing that would give themself that title without irony or doubt.

Honestly, the moment he stepped through the blinding light as though he were emerging from his own theatrical fog machine, I thought:

'Oh, good lord, he's even taller in bladdy person, and that is utterly unnecessary.'

The symmetry is unsettling. 

No one should be that symmetrical unless they are computer-generated or an Olsen twin. 

Yes, what, you see, I can reference modernity when required. Even if that modernity is some twenty years ago, it will bladdy do.

Michael's entire presence feels like it was designed by a committee that had never met a human but insisted they could 'capture the essence' of one.

I thought he would have met plenty of humans in his time to base his idea on. 

Although he is so self-assured and haughty that he probably thinks he can do human better than any human can do human.

He has arrived as the kind of man who walks into a room and immediately makes you want to straighten your tie, even if you are not wearing one. 

He radiates judgment. 

Not even directed judgment. 

Just… ambient judgement. Like standing next to a cathedral that disapproves of your shoes.

And that voice.

'BE NOT AFRAID.'

Oh, marvellous. Yes. Very reassuring when delivered in a tone that rattles the windowpanes and likely sterilised the first three layers of my skin.

What I want to say is:

'Would you mind terribly not shouting? This is a university office, not the Day of Reckoning.'

But one must be diplomatic with celestial beings.

And also—if I'm being brutally honest—very careful.

I know luck protects me, but even I suspect she might draw the line at instigating fisticuffs with the Archangel Michael.

Wil's glaring at the Angel like he wants to take a bite.

Eleanor's trembling like someone who's met awe for the first time.

The Professor looks like he's already regretting everything he's ever done.

And me?

I'm simply thinking:

I hope to God He wiped his shoes before stepping onto that rug.

It's antique Persian. And bladdy expensive.

The Professor

There are moments in a scholar's life—rare, unwelcome, but necessary—when theory becomes practice.

When the ink of ancient manuscripts no longer suffices, and one must test the hypothesis with one's own blood, breath, and stubborn conviction.

Well, in this case, not one's own blood. 

I mean, I could have used my own blood, but please do not make that apparent to the Werewolf. 

That would be another bad thing happening on a bad day filled with bad things. 

Another bad thing I really could do without.

I mean, his hand would grow back. 

How could he hold that against me? 

A little joke there. Hold his hand against me.

Tonight, I crossed a line. 

I mean, I like crossing lines. 

Sort of my job, to be honest, but this was not a line. 

It was a LINE.

Hmm! It will bring interesting results.

You see, I did not pray for Michael to come.

I did not petition him.

I made him come. 

Yes, demanded his presence.

I summoned him.

Ah. A little thrilling to be able to summon such as he, but it brings around a lot of new possibilities. 

Most of those possibilities are not great for my immortal soul, to be honest. 

But that soul is already sort of fucked at the moment anyways.

And in that decision to summon an angel, I joined a very short list of humans—nearly all of whom ended badly—who dared to compel an archangel to appear in a locked office in the Midlands on a Tuesday morning.

My hands were steady.

They were always steady.

Years of practice at looking and sounding like I knew what I was doing had beaten my hind-animal-brain into mental subjugation.

Not the three F's of fight, flight or freeze for me.

My three F's were:

1. Feign the fact that I was not frightened. 

2. Fake, looking like I knew what I was doing. 

3. Front it out, whatever happens.

The feather still tried to flame. 

It was gone, but its... soul still resided on this plane and glowed. 

'And he maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flame of fire.' — Psalm 104:4

Yes. Quite.

The feather... soul. Michael's feather soul lay on the brass plate before me.

The actual feathers remains, burnt and stinking, the way only burnt feathers can.

The feather had been stolen, illicit, and still faintly hummed with the residue of Heaven's bureaucracy.

It had no right to be in my possession.

But right has never bothered me in any of its countless variety of meanings.

The feather had burned whilst accompanied by words read from the Maleforcorum and, of course, Wil's blood.

My throat was sore from that reading. 

It felt like the results of shouting and screaming for one's side at the rugger.

To describe the summoning. Hmm!

It was like...

Erm... It was...

It...

There is no metaphor I can offer to make you understand that moment.

The flame did not consume.

It adjudicated.

It judged.

The feather burned the way truth burns when held too close to the human mind: clinically, cleanly, and without apology.

Everything went silent.

Not quiet.

Silent.

The kind of silence described in 1 Kings 19:12—that 'still small voice,' except devoid of gentleness.

The silence before a verdict.

I should note, academically, that summoning an angel requires understanding contradictions.

In Sefer ha-Razim, angels do not come without divine sanction.

In the Book of Tobit, Raphael comes simply because he 'was sent.'

In the Testament of Solomon, Solomon subdues angels by commanding names and seals older than Eden.

In the Zohar, angels ascend and descend constantly, almost bureaucratically.

In the 3 Enoch, humans may see angels only if transformed.

And yet—

Here I was, attempting a synthesis of all four traditions.

A patchwork of incompatible theologies stitched together by a genius or a madman. 

I have been personally accused of both of those traits, and I am willing to accept that I have both in spades.

History has predominantly shown that genius and madness are often both required to change the world, or in this case, change the worlds.

I accept mad. 

I try to accept genius, although I would never insinuate that myself.

I am English after all, and we never toot our own trumpets.

Also, the other thing that you have to add to those two traits is being brave enough to apply the ideas that are born of genius and madness.

Although some would argue that stupidity would come before such a thing as bravery. 

The room bowed inward. 

The walls of reality had flexed. 

The arrival of a being such as this was a lot for reality to accept.

They had not flexed physically. 

They had flexed ontologically. 

The walls did not want to break; they just seemed unsure whether they were still meant to exist or not.

The floor shuddered, not from movement, but from the same uncertainty.

Michael noticed me.

I felt it like a nail being driven into my cerebellum.

A sharp pressure in my head and a reality so sharp and bright it momentarily blinded me, as though a celestial accountant had just located my name in a ledger and circled it with distaste.

The light on his arrival had not just been light.

It was a... a brightness that made Matthew 28:3—' His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow'—seem like the timid understatement of a traumatised witness who lacked appropriate adjectives.

The light did not illuminate the room.

It rewrote its reality with this being now in it. 

The air vibrated its displeasure as it made space and dealt with the pressure changes of this unwanted arrival.

The page edges of Liber Malifercorum were singed slightly and curled as if trying to flee.

I reached for the half-filled teapot to change its purpose from bringer of oral refreshment to that of an inadequate fire extinguisher if the book burned. 

Even the chalk lines of the summoning circle, designed with the precision of Solomonic diagrams and Enochian geometry, were crawling and showing discomfort at this being's arrival. 

And then he came through.

Michael did not enter the room.

He did not descend.

He declared himself, breaking through the boundary between celestial and terrestrial as though it were wet paper.

His true form—

Oh, there are no words in English for it.

Barely any in Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic.

I rely here on Ezekiel, on Daniel, on Jubilees, on the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, and on fragments from the Apocalypse of Abraham that academics pretend not to have seen.

He was:

Lightning having an opinion.

A storm given intent.

A weapon shaped like obedience.

A being made of injunctions, not anatomy.

Wings—plural in meaning, not number—spanned dimensions human grammar has not bothered naming.

His halo flickered in frequencies that made the metal on my desk buckle into gentle, fearful shapes.

Space itself shifted aside with the polite desperation of a subject making room for a king.

His voice ruptured the air.

'SIMON DE MONTFORT.'

If I were to write what he spoke, it would be in all capitals.

And in reality, that fickle thing, it was not spoken.

It was pronounced.

Declared.

Like a line in a cosmic decree.

'YOU BURN MY FEATHER.'

The others behind me stiffened.

They heard a voice like rolling thunder.

I heard the deeper register beneath it.

The real voice.

The one described in the Odes of Solomon:

'His voice shook the foundations; the depths answered Him.'

It took effort to smile and not smirk.

'Yes,' I said, adjusting my spectacles. 

'I,' Oh, and it felt like it was only me. 'I rather did.'

Michael's form intensified.

Angels cannot scowl, I think, but if they could, they would do it exactly as he did then.

'YOU SUMMONED ME AGAINST MY WILL.'

'Of course I did,' I replied, trying to use a tone that pertained to bravery rather than a tone showing the reality of the fact. 

That fact being, I was on the verge of soiling myself. 

'If you had come willingly, I'd call that a social visit. This is... is a demand for your time.'

His wings flexed.

Several of the laws of physics resigned in protest.

'You are on my plane of existence, so no more of that.' I continued. 

'You are somehow bound to this circle; you may pretend it does not restrain you. But it does.'

'I designed it after the Seventh Sphere diagrams in Raziel. Your signature is already etched.'

'Oh, don't worry, I don't really understand how it works either.' I smiled a faintly reassuring smile.

'It seems to be binding you for now, but don't fight it because I have no idea if it can cope with that.'

Michael flickered—lightning in the shape of disbelief.

'YOU PRESUME TOO MUCH.'

'No, I don't.. I say that with great respect, I add.' I said. 

'I presume just enough, and I add the caveat, respect, because that is how it is offered.' 

His presence pushed against me, heat and pressure building in waves, the kind that in old texts make prophets faint.

The heat was that  which Daniel 10 causes Daniel to collapse when faced with an angel, 'whose face was like lightning.'

I remained standing.

Unlike Daniel, I was prepared, not overawed, just awed.

He glared—if a storm can glare.

'You show me your true form,' I said quietly, 'because you know I can withstand it. Because you know I will not be cowed. Because you know'—I stepped forward, the chalk glowing beneath my feet—' that I summoned you. And you bloody well had to come.'

Michael's wings crackled, ripping tiny seams in reality that sealed themselves immediately.

I felt his irritation and something more. Affection?

I felt his frustration at the limits placed upon him by names, seals, feathers, and law older than he is.

'You will answer my questions.' I said, tone precise. 

And you will not attempt any... you know... angelic nonesense. You know better.' In my mind, I added. 'I bloody well hope.'

He leaned in.

Light, heat, power.

A force that had once escorted Wil out of Heaven by the scruff of his soul.

'YOU COURT DANGER.'

'And you court insolence,' I replied. 

I was really pushing it here. 

I was going to regret this in the future, but that was the future.

So something for future Simon to worry about, not me, time Simon.

'Yet here we are.' I told him. 

I was not talking to Michael. I was telling him. 

Oh, the power. 

Oh, I was so going to pay for this. 

A long, electric silence from the Angel.

An Angel showed resignation. 

Thrilling for me.

Then, very quietly, in a voice that sounded like an avalanche having second thoughts—

'WHY HAVE YOU CALLED ME, SIMON?'

Here, finally, was the moment.

All the worlds of all the scriptures held their breath:

The watchers of Enoch.

The princes of Daniel.

The angels that stand by the throne in Revelation.

The ten classes of angels in Maimonides.

Even the rebellious hosts that the Book of the Secrets of Enoch implies still whisper across the void.

I exhaled.

'Because,' I said, 'I... want...'

'No... more than that.'

'I... demand from you.' The power was going to my head.

'I demand that you tell me...'

'YES', said Michael.

'I demand all... ' I held a dramatic pause and pose.

'All five numbers and the lucky stars for this Friday's EuroMillions. It's one hundred and two million.' I told him.

His face set into disbelief. 

I could see the anger building inside him, he was just about to give me an Angelic tsunamic tirade when...

'I'm fucking with you, Michael.'

The Angel gave an expression of complete confusion mixed with compounded incredulity.

'You are not the only one moving pieces on the board, but I need to know why you are trying to erase Lucifer.'

The thunder in his form stilled.

For the first time, perhaps in millennia, Michael hesitated.

And that— that was worth all the danger in the world.

I could see him thinking. That perfect brow knotted.

'BUT I AM NOT.' He said.

'WHY WOULD I WANT TO REMOVE ONE SO VALUABLE AND ONE WHOM I LOVE SO MUCH AS MY LUCIFER?'

It was the first time he had acknowledged her presence by regarding her with... Well, it looked like a loving glance.

She gave him a nod.

I looked at her, then him. Shit.

He cannot lie.

Shit!

He can not LIE!

The thought slid into my mind with the precision of a scalpel, clean and cold. 

Even with Michael's radiance roaring through the room—light behaving like a living thing, the walls bowing inward as though trying to kneel—my mind kept working. 

Thank God for academic instinct; it was the only shield I had.

Angels cannot lie. Not won't. Can't. 

The way fire cannot freeze and stone cannot float. Okay, most stone before you get pedantic about pumice stone. 

Angels cannot lie.

Aquinas said as much, didn't he? 

Summa Theologiae I.58.5: 'The will of the blessed angels is incapable of swerving from the Divine Good.' And lying—true lying—requires a perversion of will. 

A deliberate turning from what is.

An angel cannot do that without ceasing to be an angel.

The Midrash goes further. 

'An angel has but one mission, and he cannot deviate from it.' A being whose every breath, every flicker of existence, is aligned to truth cannot twist that truth into falsehood. 

The Qur'an says the same: 'They do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, but do what they are commanded.' No rebellion. No deviation.

And the apocrypha… oh, the apocrypha has always whispered it more brutally than the canon. 

The Liber Maleficarum, trembling on my desk like a guilty animal, phrases it perfectly:

'The Upper Choir may speak in shadow or in unbearable clarity, but not in falsehood; for untruth would unmake them.'

There it is. 

The entire theological consensus, from polished church fathers to half-mad desert mystics to the book currently humming like a wasp nest on he desk:

Michael cannot lie.

Michael cannot deceive.

But he can withhold.

He can omit.

He can answer so literally that the truth becomes a trap.

He can remain silent where a human might beg to speak.

If he pauses—

If he looks away—

If he chooses one phrasing over another—

—then the truth behind it must be worse than the silence.

God help me, that means every gap in his speech is a cliff edge I've been walking beside without noticing.

A strange confidence settled in my chest. A scholar's arrogance, perhaps. But also a revelation

.

He cannot lie to me.

But he can let me destroy myself if I ask the wrong question.

That's the game, then. 

Not truth against falsehood.

Truth against omission.

Precision against cosmic restraint.

And I suspect—no, I know—that this is the only advantage I'll have in the minutes ahead.

Because if Michael is here unwillingly…

…then the truth he has withheld must be apocalyptic.

Right the question. He has to answer. How do I phrase this?

The question must:

Close all avenues of omission.

Require a binary truth.

Include everyone Michael could be working with.

Reference intent, action, and consequence.

Be structured so silence equals confession.

Bind him through heavenly mandate. 

Here goes.

'Do you, or any being with whom you knowingly share alignment, counsel, mandate, intention, or desired outcome,

seek now or in any unfolding future

to dethrone Lucifer Morningstar,

assume dominion over Hell,

or alter its rightful rulership—

by action, by abstention, by influence, or by design?'

'NO.' Instantly returned

'What?'

'NO.'

'What do you mean. No?'

'I MEAN NO.'

I again took my hand to my bristly chin for a rasping stroke as I thought.

'Well. That means that... Erm, that means'

'Well, that means that...'

'Ah shit! Well, that means... I have not got a clue as to what the fuck that means?'