godsamongmen_excerpt

The angel spoke. Luke gritted his teeth—the angel’s voice didn’t seem to come from the body of the angel. It seemed to come from inside Luke’s mind. The voice trembled and rumbled inside his mind. It wasn’t a voice. It was a force of nature. It was the crash of thunder. The ferocity of an avalanche. The destruction of a supernova.

Opus, the voice rumbled. It felt like the fabric of space and time was twitching to produce the sound. Luke fell to his knees, clutching his head. He heard the voice sigh, and it was like a cold wind whipping snow off of a mountainside. The immense feeling of power seemed to shrink back from an infinite distance and coalesce in the figure in front of him, and the angel spoke again, this time with a new voice, impossibly deep and rich, but also, a normal voice.

“Opus,” the angel said again, “where did you get that weapon?”

Luke didn’t answer—he didn’t have to. He just thought about what he had seen earlier, about the death of the warrior and the demon, and the angel shifted suddenly and sharply inhaled, as if reading his thoughts.

Luke found his voice. “Who are you? What was that thing? Why is it after me? Is my sister ok? Where is the door? What…”

His voice died. He stood there, trembling all over, held in place by the riveting gaze emanating from the form in front of
him. The angel was studying him, studying him intensely, and his wings twitched back and forth excitedly.

“Child,” the angel said, each power-laden syllable causing the air to throb and pulse. “I am Michael.”