Even with such an existential threat flung his way, D stood his ground. “You’d better watch who you’re threatening, birdies. I don’t take orders, especially from lowly, lower-middle management angels.”
The being known as Ada tapped her fingernails on the wood. “Actually, the ‘Big Guy’ isn’t in charge anymore. Sold his stock on this existence a long time ago. You’re now looking at the new co-COO’s of Glory Inc.”
Bill tapped his coworker’s lap and they both stood. “Well, we really must go. It was really nice to meet … It was great to …” His voice trailed off, and unable to lie, the beings known as Bill and Ada just got up and walked away. And from a distance, I could still hear them talking.
“Fine work. Some hang-ups aside, we really rolled with the punches back there.”
“I know, right? But how freaky looking are humans? I kept trying not to stare.”
CHAPTER 44
As soon as the two Enthroned vanished, so did the other angels. And suddenly I was sitting in an empty church wondering how everything was going to resolve itself.
It all happened slowly.
Slowly sunlight began to shine in through the stained glass windows.
Gradually a small congregation began streaming into the church. They filed into the pews and bowed and prayed, thanking God for a new day. A few people even came up to me and asked if I was okay. I lied and said I wasn’t.
“I got her. Move. Move!” D came and lifted me up. By then, the wound had started to bleed again. The pain began a steady crawl back into my system like a poison. He threw my good arm around his neck and tried to lift me up, but everything was rushing to me at once.
Realizing that I was dying and couldn’t move, D slipped my head onto his lap. He flicked his tail at the people around us.
“No one will bother us.”
And it did seem so. Either he wiped their memories of us or made us invisible because we were left alone.
“I want to call you reckless, a boiling hot mess, but I don’t want to insult other boiling hot messes that have nothing to do with this.”
The pain was reaching something unbearable. It was a sound. It was a violet heat burning my eyes.
I wanted to talk to him about what had happened—Barnem, Cain, the Enthroned. I wanted to let him know that I didn’t blame him at all. And that I was being reckless and I was being stubborn. But I knew that he either figured this out or didn’t care. Possibly a mixture of the two. Everything was ending now.
I mustered enough breath to ask, “What will happen to everything?”
“To the city? The world? Who knows. The angels all left. At least for now. Things outside are quiet.” He looked up at the shattered glass and the light made his purple eyes burn. “You said that Cain warned you that things will be different. Well that’s an understatement.”
The sun was doing something amazing. It had broken through the thick sky like a knife and the actual rays were golden … even glancing off of the broken skyscraper that had been toppled over onto another; even reflecting off of the translucent wings of the dragons making their way toward South Street and shining down on the charred rubble lying on the street. It made it all beautiful for some reason.
“Did I do the right thing, D?”
“Who knows?” he replied, honestly.
I attempted to laugh, but couldn’t find the energy to focus. “My parents. I tried telling them. I tried—”
“They’ll be fine.” D pulled the hair from my face. “I’ll make sure.”
There were tears in my eyes but I couldn’t wipe them; could barely keep them open.
“D?”
“Yeah, Grey?”
I wanted to ask about him. Wanted to tell him what the Shade inside of me had said. If he was going to seal it or devour it when I died. About Barnem. About Petty. About Donaldson.
“Yeah, Grey?”
“You still going to take over the world?”
D laughed. “Enslave humanity and make the world worship me as bringer of unholy fire and destruction? I dunno. I missed the season finale of The Stud, so I’m kind of just focused on that. I really wonder if Kindy won.”
My next blink felt like it lasted hours. When I forced my eyelids open, D was leaning in. Hanging just over my ear, he whispered to me, “I’ll see you in hell, Amanda Grey.”
It was odd trying to move my left hand, but I used the last of my energy to lift it from the ground. D sat silently, watching it ball into a mediocre fist. As the punch landed on his jaw with the mighty force of a thin ball of tissue paper, I quietly closed my eyes on the image of a demon smiling down on me.
Like someone puffing out the light from a candle, there was no gap between this and the release of pain in my body. As soon as this lifted, I opened my eyes and reached upward to grab D by his curved face.
But he was gone.
The church and the church steps were gone.
New York was gone.
I had awoken in a bed with thick sheets. The room surrounding this bed was decorated with wooden panels posted up against the walls which each held empty picture frames. Clocks with no hands ticked away. The wallpaper was red with gold loops all over. It was fucking hideous.
I hadn’t noticed him at first until he sucked his teeth and let out a sigh so big that seemed to change the temperature of the room— a large man sitting hunched over at the foot of my bed. Dressed in a gray pinstripe suit with white wingtip shoes, he sat with his back to me.
He turned slowly to face me and I let out a scream the moment our eyes met.
“Nice to see you, too, Grey,” Gaffrey Palls snarled. “Nice to see you, too.”
About the Author
Alcy Leyva is a Bronx-born writer, teacher, and pizza enthusiast. He graduated from Hunter College with a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) and received an MFA in Fiction from The New School. Alcy enjoys writing personal essays, poetry, short fiction, book reviews, and film analysis, but is also content with practicing standing so still that he will someday slip through time and space. He lives in New York with his wife and a small army of male heirs.
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