EPILOGUE

Zachariah loved the view of New York City.

Every once in a while, when he actually had some down time—which didn’t happen that often, especially lately— he’d go somewhere that reminded him of the good humans could accomplish if they put their minds to it.

New York wasn’t Zachariah’s favorite city, but it was probably the one he enjoyed most of those that were left.

Of course, nothing could beat Edo in its heyday.

Or Rome.

Or Constantinople....

Zachariah sighed. He missed the good old days.

Still, New York had its charms. It certainly was the perfect intersection of all the things humanity did right: art, architecture, culture.

It exemplified a lot of what they did wrong, too. Especially now—but just at the moment Zachariah couldn’t fault them for it.

After all, if you can’t go crazy during the Apocalypse, then when can you go crazy?

He was sitting at the Top of the Rock, sipping an espresso. The restaurant was on the top floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza in the symbolic—if not geographic— center of Manhattan, in the heart of New York City. It perfectly symbolized what was best and what was worst about those silly little creatures with their free will and their craziness that Zachariah’s father adored so very much.

It was as if he was on top of the world.

From up here, on this cool, crisp, cloudless December morning, Zachariah could see the entire lower half of Manhattan, and past it to New York Harbor, Brooklyn, Queens, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, New Jersey, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The spires of the city reached for the sky at varying heights, creating a lovely pattern.

He couldn’t really see the people, and there was no air traffic either, so nothing cluttered the perfection of the buildings.

But that led rather perfectly to the bad. Still there was a gaping hole at the southern end of the island, where two of the city’s proudest structures once stood. And the event that destroyed them was why there was less air traffic over Manhattan. For that matter, Top of the Rock had opened up because the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 cost the city its Windows on the World.

It was just another example of how mankind had squandered what it possessed. The angels had had enough.

Humanity had pissed away the gifts God gave them, and the host wasn’t going to hold their hands anymore.

Zachariah had hoped the war would progress more smoothly. He hadn’t counted on so many betrayals by his brothers—Uriel, Castiel—nor that the Michael sword would be such a pain in the ass.

Just as his espresso cup landed in the saucer with a click, Uzziel was there across from him. None of the humans in the restaurant noticed—and even if they had, their recollections would have been that the large black man had always been sitting across from the broad-shouldered, bald white man.

“How’d it go?” Zachariah asked.

“Well enough,” Uzziel said. “I destroyed the angelus iuguolo, and the final Stone of Hyginus is with the others in Cordoba. We lost Ramiel, though.”

“Pity. And the rest of the operation?”

Uzziel smiled.

“The Heart of the Dragon has been banished, as you predicted.”

“Of course.” Zachariah nodded as he lifted his cup again. “I knew if word leaked to Castiel of the spirit’s return—and of the demons’ interest—that he’d let the two jackasses know about it.” He drank down the last of his espresso. “The Winchesters may refuse to play their parts as they should, but the least they can do is help us out in other ways.”

Uzziel’s response echoed his frustration.

“Isn’t there some other way?” he asked. “Can’t we just kill them and move on?”

Closing his eyes and leaning back, Zachariah sighed.

“Oh, how I wish we could. But no, they’re the chosen ones. Nobody else can be Michael’s vessel—or Lucifer’s. Nobody else would be able to handle it.”

Zachariah opened his eyes again, and stared right at Uzziel.

“The last thing we need to do is screw up the Apocalypse.”

THE END