by C. L. Coffey
Crisis Mode
December 2nd
New Orleans
Zachary, the Zach-ass virtue, was droning on and I was struggling to pay attention. In part because he was repeating the same things over: how Cupid and I shouldn’t be running a House; how we were failing to do so anyway; and how the convent nearly burning down was our fault. The other part was because I was still recovering.
Four days ago we had managed to defeat Asmodeus. Asmodeus was one of two Princes of Darkness who lived in New Orleans, and he was also my charge’s boss. It hadn’t been easy. We’d lost a cherub in the process and I had been severely injured – had I been human instead of an angel, I would almost certainly be in a morgue. As it was, I healed quickly – bruises would disappear in hours, and I’d had broken bones heal overnight. Given that I was still feeling pain when I breathed (admittedly out of habit than a necessity), it was a good indication that I had been hurt far worse on the inside than I looked on the outside.
Only hours after defeating Asmodeus, a bunch of teenager had broken into the convent. Well, when I say ‘broken in’, what I mean is, they walked in through the unlocked front door. Angels, it turns out, are way too trusting. Once in, they’d stolen about half of the remaining weapons in the armory and then set fire to the place. We’d managed to get everyone out but the damage had been that great that we had temporarily relocated to the St. Louis Cathedral. When the fire department had finally given us permission to return this morning, Cupid and I had made the short walk back to the Old Ursuline Convent to assess the damage.
Twenty minutes ago, Zachary, his sidekick Savannah, Grace, Metatron, and Gabriel had appeared. We’d barely managed to get through the pleasantries before Zachary had launched into a tirade. I stifled a yawn and looked to Cupid. “How long is he going to go on for?” I asked him, using our psychic connection. “We could just tell them about Asmodeus and shut him up.”
The lead of the House had a psychic link with all the angels under him. He couldn’t read minds, but we were able to communicate telepathically – privately. Cupid blinked a few times, but refrained from looking back at me. He’d only had the ability for a couple of weeks, since Michael had died, and he was still trying to get used to it. He wasn’t the only one. “Let Zachary say his piece. If he doesn’t get tired of it, Grace will.”
I settled back, leaning my arm against the couch to prop my head up, and turned my attention on the rest of the angels in the room in an effort to keep myself awake. I had yet to meet an ugly angel. Hell, I had yet to meet an average looking angel. This room, the office I shared with Cupid, just off the library, was full of tall, exquisite looking creatures, any one of which could have a lucrative career in the movies or as a model.
Cupid was slim with hazel eyes and scruffy brown hair. Until recently he had dressed stylishly, but casual. He had an eye for fashion and loved to shop. He had been in charge of clothes, shopping for all the angels in the convent and although anyone of them could have worn a hessian sack and made it look good, he knew just what would suit them. These days, he had started wearing more and more suits – dark gray with pinstripes, making him look taller than he was. He looked good in them, but I didn’t think he suited them. Suits were Michael’s thing, not his.
The thought of Michael, or the lack of him, caused me to shudder involuntarily. He had been killed by one of the Fallen and I still couldn’t think about him without it sending a ripple of despair through me.
The motion, though slight, caught the attention of the other archangel in the room. Gabriel sat next to me and had been watching Zachary with a bored expression. From the previous times we had met, I gathered he had similar feelings towards Zachary as I did, only he didn’t try to hide them. Gabriel had deep green eyes – a few shades darker than my own – and black hair that he kept short and neat. He was the only angel in the room who was dressed in similar clothing to me. Black cargo pants and a form fitting black t-shirt which did nothing to hide his muscles. He arched an eyebrow at me, then, when I shrugged, glanced back at Zachary. “How many ways are you going to say that you don’t think this House should be run by Cupid and Angel?” he asked, boredom evident in his tone.
Zachary was tall and lithe, with his long blond hair pulled back into a bun on top of his head. Man-buns did nothing for me, but it didn’t look out of place on him. The virtue, who had been pacing between the couches and the two desks (Cupid’s which was currently occupied by Metatron, and mine which had Grace leaning against it), whirled around to glower at Gabriel, his nostrils flaring. “As many times as I need to, Gabriel.”
“Zachary is making a very important point,” Savannah cut in. Of all the angels, she was the shortest, but even then, she was probably only a couple of inches shorter than me – or she would have been, if she wasn’t wearing heels. Although she had warm, honey-colored eyes, the Asian virtue had an arctic demeanor.
“A point he has made eight times since he arrived: you don’t think Cupid and Angel should be running the House. Can we please let someone else take the floor?” Gabriel suggested. I hadn’t really had much to do with Gabriel, but he’d seemed friendly enough when I had met him. There seemed to be some history between him, Zachary and Savannah – or maybe all the virtues – but I didn’t know what that was. He looked to Grace. “Why are the virtues here?”
“Why?” Zachary scoffed. “Because their actions,” he waved his arm towards me and Cupid, “Made headline news around the world. Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying?” The virtues were Heaven’s PR, and much as it annoyed me to admit it, we had caused a bit of a commotion, and there was reason for them to be there. I just wished they’d sent someone else.
“I started to, and then I got bored,” Gabriel stated. He glanced at me, and I just stared at him wide-eyed. I certainly didn’t disagree, but I was far too chicken to admit to that.
“They capsized a container ship, put half the Mississippi shipping industry out of commission, and half of the media outlets are reporting terrorism,” Zachary listed, taking great pleasure in doing so as he stared at me.
“And don’t forget the ship’s crew who ‘miraculously’ found themselves safe on the dock,” Savannah chimed in.
“The other option was to let them drown,” I shot back at them.
“The humans were removed from that ship by the cherubim,” Cupid eventually spoke up.
“What were the cherubim doing there?” Zachary asked. “What were you doing there?”
Cupid glanced at me, but I indicated he could take the floor. It was he who deserved all the credit. “Defeating Asmodeus,” he said, simply.
The room fell into a stunned silence.
“Asmodeus?” Grace repeated, finally. It was the first word she had spoken since they had arrived.
I nodded, proudly. “Cupid took him out.”
“Well no one expected you to do it,” Zachary sniped.
“Enough!” Grace snapped. “We are here for answers, not personal attacks.”
My hands curled into fists – so far, all it seemed that Zachary and Savannah were doing was launching personal attacks on me and Cupid. Gabriel’s hand wrapped around a fist, squeezing gently. I looked at him, and caught a very slight shake of his head. I blew out a breath but it wasn’t until I relaxed my fist that Gabriel released me.
“I think you should start at the beginning,” Grace continued, this time addressing Cupid.
“Angel received information that Asmodeus was planning something at the Port. We discovered he was taking a shipment of something – something that required Fallen guards. We defeated the Fallen there, and unfortunately, the Port suffered in the process.”
I had learned the hard way that when the Fallen were killed, their bodies exploded. It was more like a balloon popping – on a much larger scale – than a giant fireball, but the force had been strong enough to capsize a containership. The force had also caused a few containers to explode – with flames…
“We think Asmod
eus was already on his way there to watch over his shipment, but he attacked Angel,” Cupid continued. “When I had the opportunity, I killed him.”
That opportunity hadn’t come a moment too soon: I had barely held my own against the Prince of Darkness. If Cupid had waited only seconds longer, I would have been dead. Permanently dead. Asmodeus and the two other Fallen I had been fighting (and their exploding bodies) were the reason my body was still healing. I had done a lot of fighting over the last few weeks, and not had enough time to rest up properly. So much for being able to rest when you were dead.
“That is incredible news,” Grace told Cupid. “Though you are sure it was Asmodeus?”
“Yes,” Cupid and I responded simultaneously. “It was him,” Cupid confirmed.
“You took out one of the Princes of Darkness? I’m impressed!” Gabriel congratulated us.
“So impressive you destroyed half of New Orleans in the process,” Zachary snarked.
“Zachary,” Grace said, her tone low and dangerous. “I won’t tell you once more: I will ask you to leave.”
“Forgive him, Grace,” Savannah spoke up. “The defeat of Asmodeus is nothing short of wonderful, but in doing so, this House has created a worldwide PR disaster. We simply do not have enough angels or miracles to right this.”
“The people of this city are stronger than you give them credit,” I told her, remembering something Michael had once told me. “Regardless of what has happened, or what is happening, this city fights.”
“That’s the whole point,” Savannah told me. “This House should not have put them in this position.”
“You are both right,” Cupid jumped in. He had been perched on the arm of other couch, but he stood up. “We created this mess, and we will clear it up. Without the aid of any miracles,” he added.
“And just how do you propose to do that?” Zachary asked, folding his arms. The look on his face told me he thought we’d be more likely to build a staircase to heaven than to fix this mess. “You could probably explain the damage at the Port, but you removed humans from a ship and transported them to land.”
I looked to Cupid: I wanted to know the answer to this too. I certainly hoped his approach wasn’t going to be the same one he took with Leon. He turned, calmly, to face Zachary. “Not only did we defeat Asmodeus, we also took out several other of the Fallen. More important than that, we did it without losing a single human life.”
“Cupid is quite right,” Gabriel agreed.
“Cupid didn’t answer my question,” Zachary retorted, giving him a pointed look.
“This is not getting us anywhere,” I muttered, impatiently.
Grace nodded her head in agreement. “Zachary, Savannah: thank you for your time. We can handle this from here.”
“But this is a PR nightmare!” Savannah objected.
“You’ve already established that there are no miracles available for this, and I agree that it should be the local House that deals with it,” Grace explained. Her voice was firm, but I could tell from the way she had narrowed her eyes at the two virtues that they were beginning to irritate her. She clearly had a high tolerance level.
Thankfully, Zachary and Savannah seemed to catch on. They shared a look with each other, before bowing their heads respectfully at Grace. Finally, they vanished. Beside me, Gabriel let out an audible sigh of relief, but it was Cupid who spoke. “Thank you.”
“Do not thank me, Cupid,” Grace corrected him, her tone as cold as it had been for Zachary and Savannah. “Even though you have defeated Asmodeus and several other Fallen, Zachary made a valid point: you exposed yourselves to the humans you are supposed to protect. The only reason I am allowing you to clean up your own mess is that it appears no human is able to identify what removed them from the ship. The both of you,” she pointed at Cupid and myself, “Will ensure that there is no fallout for Heaven from your actions, and you will both ensure that the city does not suffer from this. If the seraphim have to step in, I can assure you that you will no longer hold control over this House. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” Cupid responded.
When she looked to me, I quickly nodded my response. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Before I leave, I have one last question: have any of you heard from Raphael?”
When the three of us shook our heads, she frowned, “It has been spoken, so let it be recorded,” Grace said, this time directing her words to Metatron.
It was easy to forget he was in the room as he scribbled away in the small book, his eyes never on what he was writing, but rather, what was happening in front of him. The single earing stud in Metatron’s ear glinted as he bobbed his head. He was tall, black with a shaved head and like Grace, looked dressed for a boardroom. “We are done here,” he confirmed, the pen still moving.
“We will be in touch,” Grace announced. Then, as quickly as Zachary and Savannah had disappeared, so too did Grace and Metatron.
I sank back into the leather couch and released a long breath. “Wow,” I muttered. I looked to Cupid. “Do we need to be worried?”
Cupid’s normal relaxed demeanor was still oozing stress as his back remained straight and his jaw tense. “No, but it’s going to take some effort to return New Orleans to normal.”
I shook my head. “I meant about Raphael. No one has heard from him, right? Don’t you guys share a connection with Grace?”
“Grace? Thank goodness, no,” Gabriel said, shuddering. “Archangels share a connection with the members of their House. We report into Grace, but nothing upwards. That’s why we hold meetings like we do. I’m sure Raphael is fine. Paddy would have said something if he hadn’t been in touch.”
“Paddy!” my eyes went wide. I’ll admit, I had forgotten about Paddy. Paddy, a tiny Scottish female with long, natural red hair, and better known to the world as St. Patrick (yes, the St. Patrick), was Raphael’s second-in-command of their House in Dublin. She was Raphael’s partner in every sense of the world. They had come to New Orleans a couple of months ago, to investigate a lead that thankfully, had led nowhere. They had both stayed on to help out after the cherubim had left, until Michael had been killed. Raphael’s way of dealing with it had been to disappear, leaving Paddy behind. To help us destroy Asmodeus, she had gone to Australia to see if she could find a lead on just what kind of trap could keep an angel prisoner.
“I spoke to Paddy,” Cupid assured me. “She said she will remain in Sydney with Remiel a while longer. This House isn’t in a state where we can have her here, anyway.” He looked to Gabriel. “Are you planning on staying?”
“I figured I would see what damage the fire had done and see if I could lend my expertise there,” Gabriel replied.
“You have experience at cleaning up after a fire?” I asked, dubiously.
Gabriel half turned on the couch to face me. “No, but I know woodwork and carpentry, and my guess is you’re going to be have your hands full with the after-mess that was Asmodeus.”
I couldn’t help but examine the clothing that Gabriel was wearing. Warrior, yes. Carpenter, not so much. “Woodwork?” I repeated.
“I may have spent some time with a carpenter or two,” Gabriel grinned. When the doubt remained, his grin faded and he looked to Cupid. “Really?”
“I thought we were doing better,” Cupid sighed in disappointment.
“Oh, for goodness sake,” I snapped at Cupid. “I am well aware of who Joseph was, Cupid. What I’m struggling to believe is that even if he devoted his life to training you,” I gestured at Gabriel, “That you now suddenly know enough to be able to restore a four hundred year old building.”
“Woah!” Gabriel protested, holding his hands up. “I said help. Clean up, help out with a lick of paint… maybe even replace a floorboard or two. Certainly not restore a convent. You’re going to need professionals for that. Professionals that I’m happy to help oversee while you two are busy trying to fix everything else.”
“Shall we see what the damage is?” Cup
id suggested.
As far as the fire department was concerned, this was the first time any of us had stepped foot in the convent since the fire had been put out four days ago. In reality, we had returned to the convent shortly afterwards, but only to check something in the armory. I’d hoped to quell a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, but had instead confirmed something I had been avoiding for weeks. Along with a large portion of our weapons, Lucifer’s sword had been stolen. When I had seen the gap on the wall, along with Michael’s sword, now nearly back to its original white, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Lucifer was alive.
I was also certain that he was using the body of Luke Goddard. Luke Goddard was the teen pop sensation who was apparently cutting his world tour short and returning home to Louisiana following a family tragedy. I was willing to bet that tragedy was Asmodeus’ death.
The office, which backed onto the library, was mercifully at the other end of the building to the armory, and had been spared of any fire damage. The heavy oak doors had been closed at the time, so the worst problem in both the library and the office was a light, lingering smell of smoke. As soon as we stepped out into the hallway, our nostrils were assaulted by the charred remains of the far side of the building. A thin layer of grey ash seemed to cover every available surface. As we walked down the corridor, our footprints leaving a trail, the ash was kicked up into the air so I could see the small particles dance in the sunlight.
It tickled at my nose and I fought to keep back the sneezes. “Jordan will be happy,” I muttered to no one but myself as I swiped a finger across the bottom of a picture frame. The effort turned my fingertip black. “He loves dusting.”
We passed into the main entrance and the welcome desk Cupid had once favored. The ash was getting worse, little piles building up in the corners, but so far the damage was limited. Even the beautiful cypress wood staircase seemed to have escaped any structural damage. There was evidence of many more footprints here, but looking at the heavy set prints, it was likely they belonged to the fire department.
