by Aya DeAniege
“What was that?” Sam asked, putting a hand to his ear.
“I still have my grace,” Raphael said louder.
“All that and then you just say it?” I demanded.
Raphael gave me what might have been an apologetic look. Then he turned to Sam and waited for those damning looks. Sam gave his head a shake.
“That’s not possible,” Sam said. “If any of us still had our graces, we’d simply be dragged back to Heaven. As happened to more than one Heavenly Host in the past.”
That was very good cause to believe that we were all lacking our graces. It hadn’t occurred to me before, that that might be the reason why none of us had asked one another about our grace. The whole reason we had taken out our graces was so that Heaven couldn’t force us back to serve.
The whole reason of why Heaven didn’t force the graces back on us had something to do with the insertion of an outside object against the will of the receiver. At the most basic: forcing our graces back into us would count as rape in the eyes of Heaven, and no one was willing to risk Father’s anger to force us back.
“I removed a set of my wings so that they couldn’t drag me back because the guardians would attack me,” Raphael said.
Even my feather hadn’t gone unnoticed, but we had sorted it out. No one else had ever lost a feather but kept their wings, which had baffled the guardians long enough to stop and ask questions.
“But that would require—” Sam started.
“Throwing a love and glitter bomb into the cherub territory,” I said.
Sam frowned as his lips pressed together. Then he smiled at the mental image and even chuckled a little in an almost longing fashion. He reached up and rubbed his lips, smiling all the while.
The shadows appeared a minute or so later as he realized what such a thing involved.
“And when the Heavenly Host came down and visited upon you, and you turned them away, why did they not bring your wings with them?” Sam asked. “Wings are not inserted into us. It is not the same as us denying our graces. It would be perfectly legal.”
“I told them I wanted to help,” Raphael said.
“Help?” Sam asked.
“Help you all fix what you thought you broke.”
“Those are our things to fix, Raphael, not yours,” Sam snapped out. “You could have been in Heaven all this time, safe from all of this. Enjoying existence. Not down here, barely making it through the Dark Ages!”
“I’m not weak,” Raphael said.
“Yeah, he took quite a beating last night,” I said.
“I know he took a beating,” Sam said. “That’s part of the problem.”
Silence predominated over the room as Gabe walked in with a book. He was reading as he went. I cocked my head and read the cover as he moved toward Sam. It was a book on pregnancy for first-time fathers. Gabe stopped at Sam’s side, a frown creasing his brow as his lips began moving, reading the words.
“What, Gabe?” Sam asked, still scowling at us.
“Epidural is non-negotiable,” Gabe said. “Apparently.”
“It prevents pain from being felt during labour,” Sam said. “What’s the point of having a child in the modern age if you don’t get to choose for yourself whether you use the good drugs?”
Gabe glanced at Raphael over the book, as if to ask for help. He wasn’t in a helping mood, not backing up whatever it was that he and Gabe had probably spoken about earlier. Whatever it was, they probably thought it would affect something later on, but they would bend to Grace’s desire for an epidural.
“I’m trying to talk her into a water birth with a midwife,” Gabe said. “In a hospital, of course, in case anything goes wrong. She hasn’t quite made it past the whole being pregnant part of it. You also need to read the books yourself. Me reading them and telling you things is considered cheating and what men who don’t want to choose the name of their child does.”
Gabe finally looked up as Sam turned stiffly toward him, frowning at Gabe instead of us. Sam made a motion with his head toward the couch where we sat. Gabe made a grunting sound but didn’t look at us or acknowledge that we were there.
“You know Raphael still had his grace?” Sam asked.
“Have you seen his wings?” Gabe asked. “Either he’s the prettiest angel of all Heaven, or he still had his grace. Not my place to poke if you two didn’t see it. I don’t recall anyone asking me about it before so if you have a problem with my knowing it before, that’s your problem. I’ve got a mirror somewhere that you can look in if you’d like to see someone to place blame on.”
“That makes no sense,” Sam said.
“I’ve been up all night reading. I don’t need to make sense,” Gabe said.
“They were fighting over that fact.”
“No, we weren’t,” we protested at the same time.
Raphael’s phone trilled, indicating a message had come in. I turned to him, but he ignored it, focusing on Gabe instead.
“Why are you telling me that?” Gabe asked. “It’s not my fault you suddenly don’t have as much bite as you used to have. Might be the grey hairs, or the surprise at Grace being pregnant. We should be investigating you, not Sera. She’s Michael’s grace, case closed.”
Which was not what Gabe had said previously. He must have come to some decision since. Or he had decided that reading up on Grace was more important than investigating Sera.
I suppose, in a way, that was true. Sera would be sorted out, one way or another. Grace, on the other hand, had a long ten months ahead of her before she settled into her role as a mother.
“Witches are trying to bring her wings into the real world to steal the feathers and do something bigger,” Sam said.
“Sounds like a bad time. But it doesn’t involve me, and if anyone knew where Sera was, they’d be headed off for her instead of sitting on the couch.”
“When it comes your time, I’ll be certain to remember that,” Sam said.
“When it finally comes to my turn, I’m almost certain that you will be wheelchair bound with grandchildren, so no, I do not expect your help at all,” Gabe said. “Are we done?”
Raphael’s phone went off with another trill, indicating yet another message. Still, he ignored it.
“I think we’re done,” Gabe said. “Oh, has anyone seen Toby? You know…”
“The guy that could explain it all?” Sam snarled. “No. He’s surprisingly missing again. Grace hasn’t been able to get a hold of him either. I told her that he’s drinking in a corner somewhere because Raphael told him it was only a one night stand.”
“Good excuse,” Raphael said with a little nod. “Just tell him that when we find him again.”
“What’s on your phone?” I asked. “Is it Sera?”
Raphael picked up his phone and played on it for a few moments before he set it on his lap, face up. He shrugged.
“Raphael, who was that?” Sam asked.
Raphael sighed and looked away. “My old agent wants to know if I’ll do a special movie.”
“Need new flesh,” I said.
“I’m not ashamed of being a pornstar,” Raphael said. “I had fun doing it.”
“But you’re constantly making that face when they message you now,” I said.
“Quit pushing me,” he protested.
“Just make your decision already, it’s not that hard. You want to be a woman that looks kind of like you do as a man,” I said.
“Why?” Sam asked. “Would that make things easier for you, Michael?”
My face heated up in frustration as I realized what I had just said and how it might have sounded to Sam. Like I had been fighting with Raphael because of sexual tension between the two of us. Or like I was furiously masturbating in the bushes, watching him bathe.
Like that Adam fellow.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said, lifting my hands to stop them from making comments on it. “That’s not what I meant at all. I only meant that I know he’s vain about how
he looks and would want to keep those features and I think it’s obvious to everyone here that he wants to switch over to being a woman for a while.”
“But that would mean you become a woman too,” Raphael said. “And you wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”
“Don’t let that sway your decision,” Sam said. “If you want to be a woman, be a woman. Michael is going to be one to get him out of his comfort zone.”
“I’d make a fabulous woman,” Gabe said. “Attractive as could be. All the boys would want me, that’s the saying, no?”
“No,” Sam, Raphael, and I said at the same time.
Sam took in a long, slow breath. He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, then gave his head a little shake. After a moment of silence, he looked up and over us.
“Did it occur to anyone that the wings the witches have attached to Sera might belong to Raphael?” Sam asked finally.
More silence followed his statement. I glanced at Raphael, who had paled considerably. He was always paler than the rest of us, but he turned white as a sheet as Sam looked between the two of us.
“No?” Sam asked.
“No,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that. There are a lot of wings available for the taking if you know how. Including fallen angels who still retain a pair or two. Why would it be Raphael’s?”
“The witches said the angel who owned them wouldn’t notice they were gone,” Raphael said. “Or something of that sort.”
“And this was all arranged by Father,” Sam said. “It’s very possible that those are your wings, Raphael. Your wings being grafted into Michael’s grace. Which could create a new angel. Father was very clear. Fall in line, or we will be replaced. You two need to figure this out before either the witches succeed and we’re all screwed, or the witches fail, and Sera becomes an angel.”
Fall in line or be replaced was new information to us. We had been told that there would be one like Grace for us as well, that salvation would be offered to us, if only we recognized the chance and took it.
“Arc grace and arc wings would make an arc angel, I assume,” Raphael said. “But I have my grace so. I’d be fine. It’d be Michael who died.”
“Sure, it might be,” Sam said with a shrug. “But your wings would become a part of Sera, which means that you could never again return to Heaven. Is that what you want? To be down here for the rest of eternity while the rest of us are up in Heaven?”
“No,” Raphael said.
“Then fix this,” Sam said sternly.
Raphael’s phone rang, startling all of us. He leaped up, taking the phone with him as he headed around the couch, answering the phone.
“Sera?” he demanded. “Where are you?”
“I’m at home, where else would I be?” she asked as she seemed to move about. “Just waiting for a delivery. Why, did you want to do something? I’m free between about three and seven depending on when this guy gets here. Or you could come over here and screw me into a wall.”
Sex was a bad idea, but the moment she suggested it, the image was running through my head. Once was not enough. I didn’t care if Michael’s grace had been what brought Sera into existence. Everything that she was turned me on and drew me in.
“I… too have a delivery,” I said as I frowned and turned to the others, raising my hand for help. “I can’t leave until it arrives.”
“Sex toys,” Gabe mouthed. “Sex toys.”
“It’s a dildo,” I blurted out, then smacked myself in the face.
“Oh,” Sera said. “So after my delivery, I should come over and wait with you. We should test that right away. Just in case, you know. Flaws, problems.”
“Yes, you should,” I said.
I wondered where I would get said dildo delivery on such short notice. We could package up a box and send it out and have a random person deliver it to us. If we knew someone between us who worked for one of those companies, we could pay them off to make the delivery and make it look official.
There was little the rich couldn’t do, with the right money and the right person.
“Is Michael there?” Sera asked.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Why?”
“I’m just entertaining a new fantasy.”
“Oh?” I asked because I was struggling with what else I could say in response.
I knew where she was headed but then was not the time. I also didn’t want to have that conversation with Michael. Even after seeing me the night before, grace entirely in place and untouched by the world as he thought I should have been, I didn’t think he had come around.
He may have grown bitter, but not more open-minded.
“Mm, could you put him on the phone for me, please?” Sera asked.
I could hear the smile in her voice, which made me smile. I turned and held the phone out to Michael, who frowned at me, but took it.
When I had turned, he had been standing awfully close to me. I practically stepped on his toes when I had moved, and he had been looming over as if he were trying to hear what was being said.
As he turned away with the phone, I followed him. I was not quite so close, but he had my phone and was known to throw things when he got upset. And maybe it was possible that I was trying to hear what Sera was saying to him. I couldn’t hear her, just the murmur of her voice as she talked.
And Michael responding with, “Yeah, uh huh. Yeah. Oh yeah, uh huh. That sounds un-sanitary, dear.”
There was a pause. I only saw Michael’s back, but I did see the red that crept down his neck at whatever Sera was saying. There was tension all down his back, and for too long, he didn’t so much as breathe.
When he finally spoke, there was a little raise to his chest like he had suddenly remembered air was not optional.
“Well, that would certainly, uh, certainly be a new experience for me. Yeah, work up to it? Why would we work up to it? Well, what if I just know I won’t like it? No, no one ever did that to me. Well, why is that the first thing you think of when you see me? Most women just want to climb on my lap or my face… uh, oh, oh no, I’m quite good with my tongue. Mm, well, take that up with him. He knows how to use his tongue. Occupied, was he? How so? Oh, oh, yes. Uh, no, no, he may have said something about it.”
Michael turned back to me and held out the phone.
“She wants to talk to you.”
I took the phone from him and scowled, then turned my back on him and took several steps away. I knew he followed me because I was feeling for it. His warmth was right near my back as I moved away from where he had been standing.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“A thing I’d like to do,” Sera countered. “Did you really tell him about how we had sex?”
“Uh, no,” I said.
Michael had witnessed it through the astral plane. Sera didn’t know that, however, and as Michael flicked me in the shoulder, hard, I remembered that and gritted my teeth. I grasped for the first excuse I could come up with to explain how Michael might have known about Toby, Sera, and me.
“It may be a story I have shared before though,” I said as I did a half-turn and glared at Michael. “Not the first time I’ve had a threesome where the extra has had me.”
“I’m not looking for a threesome where anyone is extra,” she said. “If you get my drift.”
“Sera, I have to be honest with you. While I’m open to all sorts, because I believe consensual sex and consensual relationships, uh… Michael’s more of a one-woman and marrying type of deal. And he’s really interested in you.”
It had to be said and done. Sera was supposed to be Michael’s grace, not mine. He had to be given every opportunity so he could have his happy ending. So he could make it back to Heaven again.
“He’s agreed to give it a shot.”
“Wh—” I turned on Michael and raised a hand in question, “what did you say to make him agree?”
He made no response. I’m almost certain he knew what I was questioning about, but h
e was without emotion. Nothing told me what he thought of the matter, and I couldn’t ask him with Sera still on the line.
“I was just plain with him. I like you both. I don’t want to give up on either, and I’m not looking to add a third or fourth man to the mix.”
“That’s a little weird.”
“Well. It’s both of you or neither of you.”
She was his grace. Of course, Michael would say yes, it was practically blackmail. Though, Sera didn’t know that. He didn’t have much another choice, did he? To say no would be to deny Father, which would deny him entrance into Heaven.
But so would lip service.
What to do in that case?
If I said no, Michael didn’t get to be with Sera, if I said yes, Michael might pay lip service to her and our relationship, which would deny him entrance to Heaven. In no version of that could Michael win.
There was only one version that I would win, however. I made the selfish choice because if I couldn’t make a better choice for someone else, I’d make the better one for me.
“Okay, well, I had already agreed to that,” I managed to get out.
“I know you did, but now I hear hesitance. Is this because you two fight about everything?”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe,” Sera hesitated. “Hold on, I think my delivery is here.”
I listened as she answered the door. I heard her say hello, and some exchange, though the words were murmured, and I couldn’t quite make out what was being said.
“Hello, mother, I need to go,” Sera said into the phone.
And the call ended. I pulled the phone away from myself as the screen flashed and then went black. With the phone still held out, I turned to Sam and frowned.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“She called me mother and said she had to go,” I said.
Sam swore. He reached into his pockets and pulled out his phone as his other hand seemed to continue searching for something. He looked at something on the screen as my phone went off. I glanced at the screen and saw the notification.
“Demon sign,” I said.
The phone went off again.
“Fallen angel sign,” I added.
