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He tapped the shoulder of the woman standing in front of him. “What’s going on?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “We’re being processed,” she said, her voice a monotone as flat as her expression.
“Processed?” His voice squeaked.
“Sorted out,” the woman explained, “to see where we go. Up or down.” His confusion seemed to spur a spark of interest in her. “How did you die?”
The man opened his mouth, but said nothing. He snapped his jaw shut and simply stared at the woman. She nodded at his shocked look. “You must’ve died fast,” she said. “The ones who die fast usually don’t have a clue when they arrive for Processing. Some don’t even know they’ve died.” She snickered, and turned back to her place in line.
The whisper of a memory brushed against the man, and he seized it. It was the memory of a shadowy figure who reached into his soul and wrenched it from his broken body, stealing from him the sound of a never-ending car horn and the smell of gasoline fumes. Now that he thought about it, the shadow had looked decidedly harried and pressed for time. The man could hardly blame it. Hundreds of people probably die each second.
The man sifted through the rest of his memories. He remembered swinging a baseball bat and striking out at the bottom of the ninth with two outs, bases loaded, the score 5-4 in favor of the visiting team. He remembered holding a golden-haired child and being displeased at the color of the child’s hair. He remembered being thrown from his horse as the animal spooked at the sound of cracking thunder. He remembered driving his BMW, and the way the headlights picked out the dull metal of a guard rail that was suddenly straight in front of him
He was confused. There were too many memories, too many for just one life.
“Name?”
The man blinked. He was standing before the wooden podium that had seemed so distant just a short while ago. The woman who had spoken to him earlier had vanished, along with the rest of the line in front of her.
Not hearing a response, the figure behind the podium flicked an annoyed glance at the man over the top of its spectacles. The man hastily dredged through his memories and came up with, “Smyth. Michael J. Smyth.” There was something else after his name that the man wanted to say, something that he used to say out of habit, but the man couldn’t remember what it was.
The figure dragged a finger down the length of a gigantic book resting on the podium. Michael stared at the being’s ageless and sexless face, fascinated by the way it seemed to be both masculine and feminine at the same time. It flipped through a few pages, until its finger finally came to a stop somewhere along the bottom edge of the book.
The being looked up from its book and peered at Michael intently, then glanced back at where its finger pointed. It shrugged and pointed at one of the two circles a few feet away, inscribed on what would have been the floor.
Michael’s feet moved of their own volition towards the circle indicated.
“Wait!” he cried out. He remembered what he needed to say. “With a y! Michael J. Smyth with a y!”
The figure at the podium arched a patronizing eyebrow at him. “As if I can’t see how many versions of Smith there are,” the being muttered sarcastically.
Michael barely had time to register a panicky terror of the unknown before his feet led him into the circle, and a brilliant glow surrounded him.
“Going up,” the being said dispassionately.
~*~
Michael found himself cleansed of the confusion of death, and all of his memories came flooding back with complete clarity and understanding. The car accident was his thirteenth mortal death and, according to how it has always been, his soul was required to serve either Heaven or Hell. If his deeds balanced good, he would serve Heaven until it was his turn to be re-incarnated into a mortal body, and the process of thirteen more lives would commence. If his deeds balanced evil, he would serve Hell until his debts had been paid. The first time Michael had reached thirteen, Hell had claimed him. Hell had claimed him every time after, until now.
Michael frowned, thinking over this last round of thirteen lives. He couldn’t remember very many good deeds. The memories that sprang alive flitted across his mind, most of them darkened by secrecy and guilt. The comparative brightness of one memory caught his attention, and as he examined it, he cheered up considerably. He remembered losing a bet and, as a result, being forced to donate a million dollars to a charity.
“Well hell,” Michael noted to himself cheerfully, “why didn’t someone just tell me I could buy my way into Heaven?”
“Because you can’t.”
Michael turned, recognizing the imposing figure of the Archangel Gabriel. The Archangel folded his massive wings close to his body and approached him. Michael belatedly realized that he and the Archangel were actually standing on a huge expanse of puffy cumulus clouds, and the clouds seemed to support them with all the firmness of packed dirt. He glanced around, but it was the same view he usually saw through the small oval of an airplane window.
The Archangel Gabriel said, gravely, “I’m not sure how you were sent here, longtime servant of Hell.”
Michael bowed, theatrical and mocking. “I guess I finally managed to do more good than bad.”
The Archangel Gabriel merely tilted his head in a skeptical nod. “Perhaps.”
“You boys need to work on your decorating skills,” Michael said, sardonic.
“I’m less than impressed with Heaven so far. Where’re the streets
paved in gold? The Pearly Gates?” He snapped his fingers.
“And don’t I get a halo and a white dress or some shit like that?
I wear a size extra large, by the way.”
Michael heard
rather than saw the Archangel grit his teeth, and smiled inwardly in satisfaction.
He enjoyed getting under people’s skin, though ruffling the feathers of
one of the Archangels was proving easier than he had expected.
“You get these.” The Archangel held up a pair of white-feathered wings. “The feathers are the instruments to your angelic powers.”
Michael ran his hand along the pearlescent feathers. The wings were soft to the touch, rivaling his best fur. He made a mental note to find himself a feather coat if, luck willing, he became as wealthy in his next life as he was in the last one.
“Not bad,” Michael said with grudging admiration. “So how do I put ‘em on?”
“Turn around.”
Michael snapped a jaunty salute, barked “Yessir!” and whirled in an about face. He heard the rustle of feathers before he felt something slither across his back. He gasped, and arched his spine as tendrils of sensation burrowed into him, gripping and grasping and clinging and not letting him go. At last, he felt the tendrils catch hold of something deep within him, and quieted.
Michael drew in a deep breath. The action nearly toppled him over,
as he miscalculated his center of balance. Carefully, he folded his
wings across his back, and straightened. Strong hands gripped his
shoulders, turning him back to face the empty void of the Archangel’s piercing
blue eyes, and steadied him.
“I’m fine,”
Michael said with as much dignity as possible. He ignored his jellied
knees.
“It was close, I thought they would not take hold.” The Archangel Gabriel searched Michael’s face. “The wings attach themselves to the good within a soul. Perhaps you have something worth saving after all.”
For a brief moment, Michael saw a flicker of hope flare in the Archangel’s
gaze before it died and the chilling lack of emotion in the Archangel’s
expression returned. Michael stifled a shudder, unnerved.
The
Archangel Gabriel stepped back and pointed at the distant ground below.
“This is the mortal you have been assigned to.”
Michael followed the Archangel’s gaze. The haphazard grey and brown patchwork of the city below sharpened into focus like a telescope until Michael saw a serious-faced teenager walk out of the door of Starbucks, an icy drink in her hand. Michael snapped his gaze back to the Archangel, his mouth dropping in a soundless “o.”
“I’ve been put in charge of… of….” Michael sputtered, at a loss for words to describe his indignation. “… a baby! No, a teenage brat!” He gestured wildly. “She can’t be more than fifteen, and kids are terrible at that age.” Michael vividly remembered the children he sired in his multiple lives, each one even more ungrateful and unmanageable than the last.
The Archangel Gabriel firmed his lips into a thin, displeased line. “Age does not matter, hers is an old soul.” The Archangel paused thoughtfully. “As her guardian angel, you will come to know her more intimately than the mortals closest to her confidence. Perhaps, then, you will understand how very little of the true nature of souls does the mortal body show.”
Michael arched a skeptical brow, but said nothing. The Archangels’ pure morality prevented deceit, but he found it hard to imagine that the child below could have lived as many lives as he. Her innocence had been almost blinding.
The Archangel Gabriel frowned. “If it were up to me, I would not have assigned you to guardian angel duty, nor given you this assignment. This mortal requires delicate handling.” He pinned Michael with a warning look. “Your aura is too dark.”
Michael shrugged, the action intended to dismiss his own misgivings as well as the Archangel’s. “I don’t make the rules,” he said, “And maybe you need glasses.” He gave the Archangel another flippant salute and walked to the edge of the cloud cover.
Gabriel watched as Michael leaped into the air and spread his wings. Flapping crazily, the newly-winged angel half-hurtled, half-glided towards the mortal realm. It would be a toss-up to see if the angel landed on his head or his butt.
Gabriel shook his head dubiously. “There has never been a mistake in Processing before,” he murmured.
~*~
The instant Michael landed on the hard, unyielding cement, he felt his
mortal’s heartbeat. The dull, insistent pulse throbbed through his
temples like a painless migraine. For the first time since he had
died, Michael felt warm. He glanced at his hands. They still
looked the same, chalk white and pale.
Michael spotted
his mortal sliding into the driver’s seat of an old, light blue Toyota
Corolla. He sped to her side at the speed of a thought and settled
himself comfortably into the passenger seat.
“Okay,” he muttered, “older than fifteen. Old enough to drive.”
The girl draped her arm across the back of his seat and swiveled her head to look out the back window. The car lurched backwards a few feet, then jerked forward as the girl braked too hard. She shifted the car out of reverse, hit the accelerator and sped towards the stop sign at the edge of the parking lot. Michael almost cried out for her to stop when the girl slammed on the brakes and calmly glanced from her left to the right, checking for incoming traffic.
“Jesus,” Michael groaned, “A stop-and-go driver.” He longed for his BMW and its smooth handling. Man, that car had been fun to drive. It’d also been the instrument of his death, but oh well.
The drive home was short, but allowed Michael more than enough time to attune himself to his assignment. He adjusted himself to the steady, constant thump-thumping of the girl’s heartbeat, and could already pick up the girl’s moods as well. It was a faint empathy at best, but empathy nevertheless. Michael didn’t fool himself into believing he cared enough to want to try to carry the empathic link as far as emotions and thoughts. Through bad luck or some madman’s perverse sense of humor, he had been given a burdensome assignment, and he just wanted the girl to hurry up and grow old so she could die and free him to be assigned to a more attractive mortal.
Michael’s lips curved into a private smile. Preferably someone who looked like Rebecca Romjin-Stamos. Michael still felt that idiot Jesse from Full House had lucked out, being the one to marry the gorgeous model.
The girl unlocked the door to her apartment, and peered inside. Michael glanced around at the sparse furnishings, unimpressed. The girl shrugged out of her jacket and disappeared into a bedroom. Michael heard the sound of recorded messages on an answering machine, all of them for Laura. From the unhappy mood the girl was in, Michael deduced Laura was not his assignment’s name.
“What a loser,” Michael muttered. He was starting to like this job less and less.
~*~
The girl bored him to tears. After a few days of tagging along after her life, Michael gave up. His mortal’s moods swung from depressed to sad to depressed to self-pity and back to depressed again. Occasionally, she’d sigh to herself and whisper a name in the darkness, usually when her roommate spent the night elsewhere. The girl obviously had a bad case of unrequited love. If Michael didn’t get away from the overwhelming dreariness of her life, he was going to lose his sanity. Disgusted, he struck out for the nudie bars downtown and consoled himself with the thought of nearly naked women.
Michael spent several days pleasurably watching the gyrating, dancing women of a gentleman’s club, and developing a fondness for a certain Raquelle. The brunette had both the curves and some pretty hot moves. Too bad she also needed braces, but as long as she didn’t smile too widely, Michael didn’t care.
He was particularly enjoying one of Raquelle’s dance routines one night when another angel interrupted him.
“Pardon me,” the angel said politely, “but do you guard someone here?”
Michael shook his head, then whistled as Raquelle threw a sultry look over her shoulder at the crowd.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Michael snapped, his gaze still focused firmly on the brunette.
The angel coughed. “You have the wings of a guardian. I was hoping you were here doing your job.”
It finally dawned on Michael that this was the first person to speak to him since the Archangel Gabriel, and he dragged his concentration away from the stage. A well-proportioned young woman stood beside him, her hands clasped demurely in front of her. Michael would have thought she was an employee at the club, if not for the glowing halo floating in the air above the woman’s head. She didn’t have any wings though, a discovery that mildly surprised him. He thought all angels had wings and halos and all that other shit.
Then again, he didn’t have a halo either.
The other angel’s eyes narrowed, and Michael realized his stare was placed a little too low. He quickly shifted his gaze higher to the woman’s face.
Seeing the question in his eyes, the angel said simply, “I am Sera. I’m not a guardian angel, therefore I don’t have the wings. I’m a messenger angel.” She glanced pointedly at their surroundings. “I had a message to deliver here, but then I noticed you and decided to pry. I hope you don’t mind.” Her tone suggested she didn’t give a damn whether he minded.
Smirking, Michael gave Sera a once-over, visually stripping her bare. “You want anything I got, all ya gotta do is ask.” He winked. It felt good, being able to interact with a woman again.
Sera ignored the comment. “Where’s your mortal?”
His shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “Probably moping around her apartment, as per usual,” Michael said lightly. The throb of his assignment’s heartbeat blended into the background with the rhythmic pounding of the dance music in the strip club, along with the blur of days and nights he had spent there. As long as he could feel the pulse, his assignment was still alive. That knowledge was enough for him.
“You’re not helping her?”
“She’s not in any danger, she’s just depressed. She’ll get out of it eventually.”
“What if she doesn’t?” Sera lightened her tone to match his, a mocking imitation. “What if she kills herself?”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh please, that’s so melodramatic.”
“It still happens.”
Uneasy, Michael shifted on his feet. He hadn’t thought that his assignment might commit suicide. What was the story again, where a girl had stabbed herself after her boyfriend had been poisoned or something? He had never been much of a literature buff.
Sera assessed Michael’s uncomfortable look. “You don’t know how to help her, do you?”
He opened his mouth to deliver a belligerent bluff, but the wise serenity surrounding the other angel warned him that she’d see right through his load of bullshit. “Never been a guardian angel before,” he said instead, not knowing why he suddenly felt ashamed of his previous demonic employment.
“Ahh, you’re new.” Sera nodded in understanding. “Well, the most obvious advice I can give you, based on what I’ve heard from others, is that you have less feathers than you think.”
Michael furrowed his brow in bewilderment. “What does that mean?”
“Your powers come from your feathers,” she explained. “Every time you draw upon your angelic powers, you lose feathers depending on how much power you draw. They’ll grow back within a few days. If you draw too much power at once, you’ll burn out some feathers permanently. And if your mortal gets into a situation where you need more feathers than you have…” Sera spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “Sometimes, they weren’t meant to be saved.”
Michael glanced sharply at the other angel. “Then what’s the point to being a guardian angel if there’s some other force deciding whether the mortals live or die?”
Sera raised a questioning eyebrow. “Don’t you know anything? You’re guarding your mortal from the forces of darkness who would tamper with Fate. It’s the classic Good vs. Evil scenario.”
“Oh.” Michael thought about it for a moment. “That sounds cheesy.”
A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of Sera’s mouth. “I know. Life usually is.”
She reached out and grasped Michael’s chin. His surprise at feeling her touch paralyzed him and he stood helpless as Sera forced him to look at her, her searching gaze roaming over his face until it finally caught him in a compelling stare.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Sera asked, softly.
Michael met her stare levelly. “A woman. Kinda cute. Maybe with some attitude.” He glanced up at the circlet floating above her head and smiled crookedly. “And a halo.”
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That’s it?”
Michael’s gut tightened in a premonition of dread. “Am I missing something?”
Sera released her grip and stepped back. A faint line of doubt marred her otherwise smooth forehead, but her wide brown eyes gave away nothing. When she finally spoke again, the messenger angel’s voice was carefully neutral. “Angels reflect only the good in souls. Demons reflect the evil.” Sera’s mouth twisted in an ironic, knowing smile. Michael suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that the messenger angel knew more about him than he thought. “To me,” Sera said, “your eyes are kind.” She turned away to watch the hooting patrons and dancing girls, falling into a contemplative silence.
Michael felt grateful for the lull, as he leaned his head against the wall. His own gaze stared into nothingness, the club and the dancers and Raquelle all forgotten.
The messenger angel saw kindness. He remembered the emptiness he had seen in the Archangel Gabriel. Was that all he was good for, then? Nothing? But the wings had taken a hold of something.
Michael shoved himself away from the wall and straightened. “I’ve gotta go,” he muttered, avoiding Sera’s eyes, and fled from the decadence he had wallowed in for the past week.
A fleeting smile flitted across Sera’s lips as she watched Michael’s hasty retreat. “Message delivered,” the messenger murmured.
~*~
A voice older than time spoke with the sparkle of light and hope. ** He’s beginning to question himself. **
<< He has always been Hell’s creature, and he will remain so, >> another voice replied. The second voice lacked the radiance of the first, shrouded in mystery and darkness, but matched the timelessness of the first.
** We shall see. **
~*~
For the first time in days, Michael felt the steady throb of his mortal’s heartbeat without the accompaniment of blasting music. It was stronger than he remembered it, a little fast and uneven. Michael frowned. Something was wrong. He crossed the threshold of the apartment faster than was strictly necessary.
His mortal was just leaving. Michael noticed the miserable near-tears expression on her face and almost opened his mouth to ask what was wrong before remembering she wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Goin’ out for a bit,” the girl muttered to one of her roommates, who was seated at the dining table near the door.
The young man hardly looked up from his racing magazine as he said around a mouthful of cereal, “See ya, Jenn.”
Jenn. It was the first time Michael had heard her name. Somehow, knowing her name drew him closer to her, and he followed her flight from the apartment with a mixture of concern and bewilderment.
She slammed her car door and heaved several gulping breaths. The sheer intensity of her turmoil rocked through him, and he bit his lip. He felt her anger, her panic, her pangs of loneliness, her yearning. Michael sat beside her, uncomfortable and rigid. He didn’t know what the hell he needed to do to soothe her.
There was nothing defensive about her driving. She drove wild and
erratic, forcing Michael to lose a few feathers keeping her safe.
She flipped on the radio. The music acted like a soothing balm upon
her open wounds, and she calmed down, though Michael could still sense
the chaotic misery of her thoughts.
She parked
her car on a lookout over the ocean and remained perfectly still for several
minutes, staring out at the dusky sky and crashing waves.
“God, I’m so stupid.”
Michael jumped. The sound of Jenn’s voice startled him, and he rustled his feathers nervously. She banged her forehead gently against her steering wheel, beating in time with her words. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!”
Jenn sighed, and leaned her head back against her headrest. Even though he knew she couldn’t feel him, Michael reached out. His fingers brushed over and through her hand. Jenn’s thoughts quieted and, after a few moments, she turned on the ignition again. He breathed a sigh of relief.
That night, Michael sat by Jenn’s bed and watched his mortal sleep.
~*~
The day brought new revelations to Michael. He watched over Jenn with what he fancied as genuine concern, and learned to read the multitude of emotions she sent out. Her feelings were strong and easy to read, he just hadn’t taken the time to understand them before. With this new understanding, Michael could almost detect auras, catching glimpses every once in a while. The progress spurred a sense of pride that was unfamiliar to him because he had not experienced it in quite a while. Michael thought back to the last time he had been proud of himself, and shook his head. Too long ago.
Michael also learned that Jenn was pregnant.
The revelation startled Michael. He had gotten the impression his
mortal barely had much of a social life. Apparently, she had just
enough of one to get her into trouble. Michael could see the stress
Jenn’s predicament put her through. Halfway through college, the
added responsibility of parenting would impossibly complicate her life,
to say the least. Yet, the prospect of abortion clearly left Jenn
unhappy.
Michael watched
as time and again, Jenn reached for the phone, dialed a few numbers, then
paused just short of dialing the last digit and hung up. He could
guess who she was afraid to call – the father of her child. Her emotions
rioted from terror to relief at the thought of unburdening herself to self-anger
every time she tried to dial the number. Michael tried willing her
to complete dialing, but his angelic powers stopped there. Exerting
one’s will over another’s required finesse and experience that only the
most powerful beings could attain. Besides, it was a breach of Heavenly
etiquette.
Ten weeks into the pregnancy, Michael finally decided to do something. Still caught in the agony of indecision, it seemed like Jenn was just going to let things be for now, but if something was to be done, it was best to do it soon. He was her guardian angel, wasn’t he? It was his job to take care of her. Since the logical thing for Jenn to do was not to carry to term, but her morality prevented her from making that decision, Michael took the decision from her.
As Jenn fell into a restless sleep one night, Michael stood from his accustomed resting place by her bed. He gazed at her troubled form, her brow wrinkled and the corners of her mouth turned downwards in a slight frown even in sleep.
He had grown used to seeing the faint augmentation to Jenn’s aura lately, a side effect of the new life growing within her. While her own aura was a woven swirl of pale buttercream yellow, lavender, and light cyan, the augmentation was pure white and untouched by the experiences of life. He studied how the weavings of the new aura intertwined with Jenn’s own, gaining strength from her support. Loose and fragile, the bonds were meant to be temporary, supporting the child’s soul as it waited for its mortal body to ready itself for a soul.
Michael could not allow the new life to progress that far. He had
come to see the potential in Jenn, and knew she would most likely mature
into a wonderfully kind and giving woman with a stubborn tendency towards
optimism. Her pregnancy could destroy the fragile self-esteem Jenn
worked so hard to strengthen.
Michael took
a deep, steadying breath and reached out with both hands, the tips of his
fingers barely brushing the edges of Jenn’s aura. He grasped a few
strands of her aura and gently pulled it apart until a single white strand
was exposed. Michael nabbed the white strand between two fingers
and tugged. The strand stubbornly remained intact and like a living
snake, writhed in protest. He yanked harder.
His wings shuddered, and a white feather fell. But the white strand had broken free, and misted away into oblivion. Grimly, Michael gritted his teeth and worked through the rest of Jenn’s aura, trimming away the white and ignoring the sharp stings that accompanied every feather molting from his wings. He hoped he knew what the hell he was doing.
As Michael yanked the last strand of white, he suddenly felt a tremendous loss. The life within flickered out, and light faded to darkness.
~*~
<< So >>, the voice spoke smugly from the darkness, << what do you think of my creature now? >>
The other voice replied with unruffled calm, ** His intentions were good, and that will have more bearing on his soul than his actions. **
<< He chose Darkness over Light. >>
** He chose Death, and Death is neutral. **
The voice of darkness grumbled. << Technicality, >> it said accusingly.
~*~
Michael opened his eyes, feeling strangely empty. The familiar décor of Jenn’s bedroom was gone, replaced by the same grey void he had first arrived at for processing. Lilith and the Archangel Gabriel stood before him, their expressions grave. Michael wondered idly what business his old demonic boss had here and flexed out of nervous habit.
His wings did not respond. Michael caught his breath as he realized he didn’t have any wings, and his ears ached for the pervasive sound of a heartbeat that was no longer there. A tight knot of dread settled deep within his stomach.
“Michael,” the Archangel Gabriel said without preamble, “you have ended a mortal life prematurely. More than that, you’ve ended the soul’s life.”
Michael blinked, startled. “Souls are eternal. They don’t die.”
Lilith laughed, her seductive voice soft and musical. “You unraveled the soul of your mortal’s would-be child,” the demoness said, her bewitching smile tinged with morbid amusement. “Caught halfway between life and the afterlife, the soul did not have the sense of self it would have received from either phase. The soul was unable to reform itself.”
Michael paled. “I was trying to save her,” he said, lamely. “Her life would’ve been ruined.”
The Archangel Gabriel crossed his arms, unmoved by Michael’s weak defense. “Her strength of character would have been tested,” the Archangel said sternly, “and her child was meant to live.”
Michael lowered his eyes. “What happened to Jenn?” he asked softly. His entire body tensed as he waited for an answer.
The question hung in the air for a ponderous minute. Lilith’s eyes narrowed, and the Archangel Gabriel looked to the demoness.
“What do you care?” Lilith snapped.
“I want to know.” Michael raised his head to meet her annoyed gaze, his jaw set stubbornly. “What happened to my mortal?”
The Archangel Gabriel shrugged. “She has died and moved on to her next life. The hemorrhages from her miscarriage were severe and discovered too late to save her.” The Archangel’s matter-of-fact tone reflected no accusation, but Michael felt the sharp stab of guilt all the same. His tampering had forced the miscarriage the way he had intended, but his mortal had died as a result. His stubborn stance wilted, the tension draining from his bones, and he looked away from the judgmental stares of the two high-ranking beings before him.
“His aura flickers with light,” Lilith murmured. The demoness seemed strangely deflated, her usual sultriness muted. Her soberness alarmed Michael more than anything else and belatedly, he wondered what was in store for him now that he had lost his wings.
“His aura is still too dark,” the Archangel Gabriel said flatly. “Michael’s mistake was in giving his initial instead of his full name. The clerk looked up Jay instead of J. He never belonged in Heaven in the first place.”
There was a long pause before Lilith said, “He doesn’t belong in Hell now either.”
The two beings looked at each other, one serving the Light and all things good, the other a mistress of Darkness and chaos. Although for eons they had opposed each other, at this moment both seemed to be at a loss.
“I will take him,” a third being stepped from the void. The man tossed an amused glance at the two opposing beings. “Assuming there are no objections.”
A moment of stunned silence followed. The man looked around mildly. “Why so surprised? Where else would he go?”
The Archangel Gabriel nodded to the third being, a sheepish flush spreading over his cheeks. “I had not remembered that you, also, have minions.”
Lilith gave both male beings an irritated look, then sighed with resignation. “Fine,” the demoness muttered. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Michael in a familiar embrace. “You were one of my best messengers,” she whispered in his ear, “but I’m disappointed. Thought I taught you better.” She smiled. “You should’ve taken advantage of an innocent like that one.”
“Oh dear,” the third being murmured as he noticed the Archangel Gabriel’s outraged expression.
Lilith stuck her tongue out at the Archangel Gabriel, then winked as the Archangel’s eyes widened. “Come down and play with us sometime,” the demoness called out, then misted into smoke. The smoky tendrils brushed against Michael’s lips in an ethereal kiss before spiraling towards Hell.
The Archangel Gabriel let out a grunt of disapproval. “You have been a most unexpected element in our midst,” the Archangel said. He rested his solemn gaze on Michael.
For the first time, Michael saw something other than emptiness in the Archangel’s eyes. He saw compassion and warmth.
The Archangel Gabriel watched the surprise steal over Michael’s face, and smiled. “Be well,” the Archangel said, swirling into a ray of light that raced heavenwards.
Michael looked to the being that was left, more than a little dazed.
Death laughed, and gestured for Michael to follow. “You have a lot to learn. Let’s get to work, shall we?”
Michael fell into step beside his new boss. “Yes, let’s.”
~*~
The voice of Light laughed, delighted. ** I win. **
The Darkness growled. << The wager stipulated that he would stay in Heaven, once he had been diverted there. >>
** The wager was that being good or evil is not inherent and can be learned. Your creature of Hell learned to care and acted out of concern for someone else instead of himself. As a result, his soul was unfit for Hell. **
<< And still unfit for Heaven. >>
The Light smirked. ** Technicality. His soul was still changed, regardless. **
<< Bah. He was weak and worthless to begin with. >>
** Mm. ** Wisely, the Light held back a retort. ** New game? **
<< I pick the wager this time. >>
** Fine. I choose the soul. **
<< Done. >>