by Aya DeAniege
“You know what I meant,” he said.
“That we don’t know what I want of you, but that you seem to be willing to go so far as to have sex with me,” I said slowly.
“And I’m all right with waiting until you figure out what exactly it is that you want to do to me or around me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“We’re fighting because of… all kinds,” he said. “But I think it boils down to, back in Heaven, yes, I wanted to jump your bones. We’re also fighting because once here, once male, once in among the humans. We couldn’t touch or do anything. They did away with male friends touching so long ago.”
“No, they didn’t,” I said. “Plenty of countries allow male friends to touch. It’s weirdly just the western world that claims that touch is equal to sex and has resulted in a sex-starved people that probably leads to most of their frustrations.”
“What?” Michael asked.
“I think I’m starved for touch.”
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s touch you a bunch and then see how it goes.”
“What, why?” I asked.
“In the meantime, you probably change gender, and then I get to sleep with Sera more than you do while you adjust to the female form and maybe by the time you adjust, I get to sleep with two beautiful women instead of one.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said with a little nod. “Fair enough.”
“Sleep, Raphael. She’ll be out for at least a day, right? We can deal with the aftermath of all this tomorrow.”
We ended up sleeping together, Raphael and I. That was all we did, sleep. We weren’t even laying on the bed properly. We laid across it. Raphael curled against my chest on his side, and I wrapped my arms around him. I ended up facing the door, aware of every sound on the outside.
Gabe haunting the halls, making certain no one slipped in.
Despite knowing that Gabe was patrolling the estate, I slept quite well.
When I woke, I was just as confused as when we went to sleep. I didn’t express that to him because he seemed so much more comfortable. I had bungled the night before I know I had.
Maybe I should have just seduced him, but I failed miserably at it when I tried that. I had been willing.
He had been confused. Possibly overthinking things. But I respected that.
I regretted it, I mean, all that build up and we didn’t have sex?
But I respected it.
Just sleeping beside him, curled around him, that was enough to make me feel almost normal again. When I woke in the morning, it was strange. We went to breakfast, but it wasn’t until the plates were cleared that I realized I felt normal again.
Like a weight had been lifted. Like my pain had finally drained away. I couldn’t even put words to it. I just knew.
I feel better.
Raphael moved stiffly. He didn’t want to eat or drink or anything at all. He was hollowed out, and I knew that was a part of him doing his thing, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was also because of our conversation. I blamed myself for him not having that hop to his step that he always had.
After breakfast, I drew Raphael with me to Sam’s home office. We found him sitting with his head in his hands.
“What?” he asked, without looking up.
“We aren’t fighting anymore,” I said, motioning for Raphael to sit in the other seat. “We may have figured it out. In the meantime, I need you to turn me into a woman and just shut up about Raphael’s body.”
“What?” Sam asked his desk, then he looked up at us and gave his head a shake. “What?”
“I don’t want to change if it docks Michael,” Raphael said.
“So,” I said. “Just lay it on me, make me a woman. Then Raphael can be whatever he wants to be.”
“No,” Sam said. “He can’t.”
“Why not?” I asked.
Sam looked up at us, head still in his hands.
It was so unlike Sam, to look like that. He almost seemed human as he glanced between the two of us, head still in his hands. Something came over him, and he released his head and sat up, clearing his throat as he did so.
“So…” he said.
And Raphael and I just waited as Sam seemed to trail off, his fingers rubbing over absolutely nothing on his desk. We continued to wait as Sam cleared his throat and adjusted some papers.
“Sam?” I asked.
“No one is changing flesh,” he said, looking between the two of us. “I mean, the only one who could at this point is probably Gabriel.”
“Why?” Raphael asked.
Sam sighed.
“Are you drunk?” Raphael asked.
“Little bit,” Sam said.
“What?” I shouted.
Sam grimaced. His eyes flickered between the two of us, and he set both his hands on the desk as he settled something in his mind.
“Last night, I tried to change flesh,” he said. “It’s not happening.”
“What do you mean it’s not happening?” Raphael asked.
“I’m stuck,” Sam said, raising his hands in a pathetic matter before they dropped. “In this form. I’m just a human with a bit of angel in me. I’m stuck. It’s all stuck. I walked the astral plane, and I was basically a human doing astral projection.”
“Sucks to be you,” I said.
“No,” Raphael said, reaching out to smack my arm. “He thinks it’s Grace that caused it.”
“I do,” Sam said. “I love her, but I do.”
It clued in right then what they meant. Grace was grace. Sera was grace, therefore what was happening to Sam would happen to me too. She was pregnant, he was finding grey hairs and wasn’t able to shed his flesh. He was basically human.
“But Raphael’s wings are involved, not his grace,” I said. “He can still change.”
“He can do whatever he pleases,” Sam said. “If he can change flesh, good for him. I don’t know what’s going on, I’ve called Toby twenty times.”
“You’re stuck in your flesh,” Raphael said. “It’s not the first time one of us got stuck. Maybe Lillith did it. Remember? Month as a woman?”
“Right,” Sam said, straightening. Then he frowned and shook his head. “But why would she do that? Lock me in this form? She knows I’m not leaving it while I’m with Grace.”
“Then why did you try?” Raphael asked. “It seems like the kind of thing Lillith would do, but then get upset with you for trying to slip out, even if it’s just to see if you can.”
“Nope.”
The new voice made us all stiffen. Sam’s eyes went a little larger as I stared at him. Raphael tuned first. As he moved, I did to.
Behind us, Toby stood. He had his hands crammed into his pockets and an impish smile on his face. It was the same look that I had once seen on the faces of imps and pixies who played their tricks on the rest of the Heavenly Host.
“What kind of Host are you, anyhow?” I asked.
“I’m just a messenger,” Toby said, his smile growing. “You can’t shoot the messenger, Michael, that’s Heaven’s law.”
“Shoot the messenger for what?” Raphael asked.
“I come from Heaven bearing messages,” Toby said.
“No, really?” Sam said. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the past two days.”
“I only have to come when she calls, not you, Samael,” Toby said with a shake of his head. “You aren’t the leader of Heaven’s armies anymore, not since you made your decision. And you won’t take up the mantle again until after Grace ages and passes away of natural causes. Per our agreement.”
“Our agreement said nothing about me ageing.”
“How were you expecting to get back into Heaven?” Toby asked. “If she dies before you, she’d just sit outside the gates. No one can claim her, but no one can help her either. If you die first, you still don’t have your grace back, which means you wait outside the gates until she returns. It’s the choice you made.”
“Why not just wait for her to age
and when she passes away, I just get my grace back,” Sam protested.
“That’s not Father’s decree. You chose to love a human. You can’t also choose not to experience life with her as she ages and then dies. That’s not how it works.”
“Fine, you’re stuck,” Raphael said. “You age and die with Grace. It’s kind of cute. That doesn’t explain how she’s pregnant, why would he do that?”
“Do what?” Toby asked with a shake of his head and a shrug.
“Make Grace pregnant,” Raphael said.
Toby’s head shook again.
“Father didn’t do that,” Toby said. “You both wear human flesh, but you also hold grace. Guys, come on, it’s basic biology. Angel parts plus angel parts make angel parts. Heaven is excited, I have to say. So excited about the new addition to Father’s army.”
“Excuse me?” Sam asked.
“Okay, for the stupid among you. Angels are non-gendered beings, right? None of you have the bits required to make babies because Father never gave them to you. Why do you think He let this go on so long? You four are supposed to be breeding pairs for a race of angels. He didn’t tell you after the whole bit with the Garden. He was worried you’d end up not doing what you should have done.”
“If we were supposed to be breeding pairs, we would have had breeding bits,” Raphael said.
“Cherubs reproduce without them,” Toby said. “Then they grow and become the Powers, who are vessels for the power of creation, one day exploding into a glory of new life. It’s a part of Heaven, and you were never meant to be just four. What if one of you died? Or got dragged down to Hell? Heaven would be weakened. No, this was always on the books.”
“Grace is carrying a baby angel?” Raphael asked. “How can she birth that without exploding? There was one rumoured angel birth three thousand years ago. The resulting monster is what humans have based myths off of.”
“A light witch who got too close to a guardian. Thankfully she survived the process.”
“There are no light witches,” I said. “They’re just women who wear white, and never use magic.”
“No,” Toby said slowly like I was stupid. “A light witch is a witch who uses no magic. They don’t use magic because they don’t know it exists, and they don’t believe it exists. Don’t believe in Father or Heaven or Hell either. A line of women tracing from today and stretching all the way back to the tribal era. Their only purpose in existence is to live, breathe, and continue on their line.”
“You’re really going to make us ask?” Raphael asked.
“A light witch is the counter to the dark witches. There must always be a balance to magic. Unlike the universe, there can never be a tipping point for magic, it’s one of the only rules that no witch can break, no matter how hard she tries. Michael had his feather stolen, all that time ago, by a human girl, I mean, technically she was a woman of her tribe, I guess, but she was young. When he left, she found herself a mate and did what humans do. She had two daughters. One followed her mother’s path, the other did not, and so light and dark witches were born. One used the feather of an angel to create magic. The other lived, existed, and carried on her line. That’s all.”
I was confused why Toby was bringing up light witches. They sounded just like regular humans. Perhaps better than ordinary humans because they never got involved in magic, which meant they couldn’t cause a lot of trouble.
“What’s this to do with us?” I asked. “You want me to end the light witches too since the dark witches are gone? Is that it?”
“No,” Toby said. “You didn’t so much rip out your grace as you disconnected it from yourself.”
“That’s what you do when you rip it out,” I snapped at him.
“No, you can scoop out your grace like a human can shave their head. It’ll grow back. Samael and Gabriel cut out their graces and used magic to keep it out. You, my friend, scalped yourself. Grace couldn’t grow anymore, but also it couldn’t be traced back to you. If you hadn’t done that, the dark witches would have turned you to their side, and this would have been a much more twisted story. The witches used your feather, which was tied to your grace and has, thus, been slowly using your grace over the centuries. Every time they use grace, it goes up—poof—like a little flame. Then it floats in the world until one day, it’s carried on a wind, and the light witch steps into the cloud of astral smoke. She breathes in, and the grace is no longer available for the dark witches to use.”
“Sera,” Raphael gasped.
“Everywhere the dark witches go, the light witches follow. They don’t know why, they never think about the decisions they make, but they do it. Every time a bit of feather was burned up, a light witch picked up her life and moved, to make her way through the remains. Sera’s line has been recollecting your grace since you lost your feather.”
“And it just so happened that she’s collected it all?” I asked. “That seems planned.”
“It was planned, this has all been planned. Don’t get me wrong, and like I told Sam, you could still seriously fuck this up. You could end up without your grace and locked out of Heaven for all eternity. Father will replace you. He will make a new arc to join in the original four. Because only you four can reproduce. Your children will not have that capability.”
“You told Sam this was happening?” Raphael snarled, turning on Sam.
“A condition of Grace not being splattered across the sidewalk,” Sam said. “Either way, I get my grace back at the end of this. There’s no need for her to die.”
“But if she dies, she goes to Heaven,” I said.
“There’s no human in her,” Raphael said with a shake of his head. “Only the flesh is human. There’s no soul. Grace can’t go to Heaven, can she, Sam?”
“No,” Sam said. “No, when Grace dies, she just dies. The only part of her that lives on is inside of me, just like Baal is gone. I made a choice, and I don’t expect you two to understand.”
“When Sera dies,” I said, turning to Toby.
“Like all light witches before her, she simply dies,” Toby said. “There’s no soul to the line because there’s no room for one. The first couple of generations, we even didn’t know their function. Father asked us to keep them alive to watch. He wanted to know if the lack of an eternal soul would make them more dangerous. It didn’t. Their lack in faith of Heaven made them choose based on their experiences of one life and the fact that they believed everyone only has one life. They were unique among the humans.”
“Great that you were able to experiment,” Raphael said. “That doesn’t answer any questions.”
“Actually, it does,” I said. “Sera is my grace like we suspected. Her family has always had my grace. It’s been on Earth this entire time. The question then is, does Sera have all of my grace?”
“No,” Toby said with a shake of his head. “If she had all of your grace, the wings wouldn’t have attached to her, no matter how much dark magic they used. You’ve retrieved the last bit of your feather, and it’s now an astral smog. The light witches, however, cannot absorb that into their being. They’d explode like when we tried possessing humans. She holds it, but it isn’t her and isn’t whole. Her child will be your grace.”
“Dibs,” Raphael said.
“What?” I demanded. “No, we’re self-replicating, not—oh shit, he said breeding pairs.”
“That would make you the woman,” Raphael said.
I swore.
“I do need to make it clear, though,” Toby said. “Heaven will never publicly support polyamorous relationships. Too many men have used that in the past to abuse women. We just can’t risk it. We understand that there are those who will love how and where they love. Some relationships are more than just man and woman, or any combination of consenting human adults, but we cannot give you our blessing.”
“We didn’t ask for it,” I said.
There were a few seconds of silence as Raphael seemed to look around.
“How do we get the win
gs off of her before she passes them on or something?” Raphael asked. “Every time she orgasms they go deeper into her.”
“You do need your wings back,” Toby said.
There was a long silence. Toby was smugly looking at Sam’s desk, at least I assume it was smug. Everything about him had always made me want to punch him in the throat, but I had resisted because he was Grace’s friend. Around her, he was just a regular guy. Little strange, but not an impish little beast.
“How do we get his wings back?” I demanded.
“The ink used to link them to Sera was created with your grace,” Toby said with a motion to me. “As long as your grace exists on the human planes of existence, the wings will be linked to her.”
“Sounds like we have to get Sera to have a child, then drown the baby,” Raphael said.
“I’m not doing that,” I said.
“Really? You were standing by while that man killed his son in the name of Father.”
“It wasn’t in the name of Father, he was crazy and thought he heard a voice from Heaven. There’s a lesson in that, don’t listen to the voices in your head.”
“Or,” Toby said, raising both his hands as if asking a question. “What if we weren’t morons about it? What if you two start using your grace on Earth? Little things, like fixing the Lei lines, and the hole in the ozone. Maybe use that influence you’ve created and start shifting them away from the destruction they’re about to bring down on themselves?”
“That’s against Father’s wishes,” Raphael said. “Humans need to make their own mistakes. No matter what else, they have to do that for them. We can’t dig them out of their holes.”
“The world will die if they continue down this path,” Toby said. “And Father’s opinions on creation have changed. There’s a war coming, boys. One that will wreak havoc in Heaven, Hell, and every plane of existence in between.”
“And we will fight in that war,” Sam said. “But if Father wants us to change the course of human history, He can come down here and tell us to do it Himself.”
“Father’s a little preoccupied like He always is,” Toby said.
“Did you lose Him again?” Sam asked.
