For a brief moment I wondered if the damage Rahovart had done to her brain had been too severe to repair. Had the incredibly witty, brilliant and calculating Abihail given way to the handicapped ditz who believed their false love would conquer all? Not one to give up on the one I loved, I knew I had to permanently sever the parasite, Rahovart, from her heart.
“I’ll accept your deal if you sweeten the pot a bit,” I countered with a wily grin, knowing Etta had been so blinded she would take the bait.
“What do you want?” Etta asked suspiciously.
“His wings.” I growled, pointing downward to Rahovart.
“Yeah. That won’t happen. How about this instead? You keep the wing Pyro already ripped out, and I let your little boy toy here live.”
The same as her celestial husband, Rahovart, Etta snatched at the allurement with the erroneous confidence of a victory. I might have simply left well enough alone at that point, but curiosity had gotten the better of me.
“What makes you think I value his life over yours?” I asked, baffled by her last statement.
“Think about it. You can go another fifty years or more without an heir. But without Vetis, all the lies, illusions, and the world he built for you on Earth would come crashing down, setting you back hundreds of years. How many of your followers would remain loyal once your empire began to crumble? How long would it be until you stood before the Tribunal alone and unprotected?”
It took all of my self-restraint to keep from laughing hysterically at her ignorance of the inner workings of my operations. If any fool believed for a second that I would place so much of my worth on one soul, they deserved to be slowly tortured and left to rot in my lower dungeons. But not wanting to show my hand, I put up the ruse of defeat.
“I don’t have all night.” Etta demanded.
“Deal,” I whispered, winking at Pyro as I took Rahovart’s wing from his grasp.
“What? I can’t hear you,” Etta mocked.
“Deal!” I roared.
The foundation of the dilapidated brick house undulated, shaking the walls and cracking what windows had survived the earlier battle; more than I intended but proved a more convincing show of my pseudo-rage.
“See you in sixty years, Brother.” Etta jumped off Vetis’s back, leaving the feather in his chest.
The moron followed in her husband’s footsteps of ignorance.
“If not sooner, Sister.” I sneered.
Returning to my office, I took a seat in my gold inlayed and jewel encrusted throne. The time had come to pull out all stops, take off the kid gloves, and cease abiding by the rules. I would have to pull out an ace no one on either side wanted to be played. An embarrassment to Father and his ‘good book’, a threat to every power hungry Demon, and a menacing plague to man-kind, and Lilith, Guardian of Purgatory.
Lilith had been the Arch Angel Michael’s first wife. Once loyal to Father and to her husband to a fault, she had questioned nothing. Shortly after being sent to Earth to be the mother of the human race, Lilith fell to my ranks when she opted for the true free-will I offered instead of bowing to Michael’s dominance and Father’s plans. When she fell from the garden, her love for Michael morphed into pure, unadulterated hate for the male species. Her unwavering faith in the Almighty transformed into a masochistic mania for making him pay for her undeserved dismissal as the first ‘Eve’ and Michael’s forever wife, resulting in the loss of her children.
A rogue with an agenda to take down any male dominated society, Lilith and her band of male-hating Demons had blazed broad trails for women’s rights on Earth. Starting with a woman’s right to vote all the way to ensuring females outnumbered males by doing away with any male offspring. Though, due to my gender, I am a natural enemy to Lilith, she filled my halls with more useful souls than I had ever asked for. In return, I gave her opportunities to exact her revenge that she may not have been able to achieve running outside the borders of Heaven and Hell.
Lilith, come to me, my sweet. I called out to her. In a blink she appeared before me as if I were her servant.
“Still not kneeling to any man?” I jokingly asked.
Lilith’s cold, dead, black eyes stared back at me as she pursed her thin blue lips.
“What do you want, maggot?”
“Wondering when you’re going to lay under me and let me lick your beautiful Nubian skin clean of its filth. By the way, I love what you’ve done with your hair. The braids really suit you.” Loving her reaction toward alpha males, I filled the air with the scent of my testosterone.
Lilith’s nostrils flared as she pulled her scimitar from its sheath and ran it across my neck until the point came to rest on my jugular notch.
“My dear, you’re so uptight. You know I am simply playing with you. I have a job for you that will benefit us both equally.” I swatted away her blade.
“And what job is that, maggot?” Lilith sneered, revealing her jagged, black, rotted teeth.
“You know I love your pet names for me. Whisper it in my ear.” I said, toying with her.
“I haven’t the time for your perverted games. Get on with what you want.”
“All business. Such a pity. Oh well. You were once the revered mother of man, wife of Michael, Sister of Abel and Kane, and first daughter of the Almighty. Now you’re some kind of twisted, black rat, hybrid that dwells under the landfills of the celestial worlds—”
“I know what I was, and I know what I am. I don’t need an editorial of my history.”
“If you’d let me finish, love. What would you say if I told you I have an opportunity for you to hit Heavenly Father, and not just Michael, but all the Arches where it hurts them most…the ones they love?” I leered at Lilith waiting for the reaction I knew would come once my words resonated within her.
Lilith’s eyes widened with curiosity. “I’m listening.”
Having just witnessed the allegiance and loyalty Etta had toward ‘family’, I knew it would be ‘family’ that would tear her apart. With Lilith in my pocket, it had come time to end the shenanigans once and for all.
Chapter Two Ra
“This is taking too long. We’re going to be late…again.” I whispered to Gabriel as we sat in our morning meeting. Gabriel responded with a hard kick to my ankle causing me to groan.
“Something you wish to add, my son?” Father’s voice boomed overhead, though he had been standing directly in front of me. Gazing around the war room to break his eye contact, I saw everyone looking at me.
“Uh, no, Father.” I sheepishly responded.
“Somewhere more important you need to be?”
Although I did find this morning’s security meeting redundant, I had been unable to bring myself to tell Father I was in a hurry to get to Etta’s. I promised her I would pick her up to go shopping for a wedding present then take her to work, and schedule permitting, help the Arches with Gabriel’s surprise bachelor party.
I had already missed Etta’s college graduation, John’s Marine Corps retirement party, and had been more than fashionably late to Gabriel’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Every time I’d get ready to go, a marauding group of Demons would be on the loose or perhaps some schmuck somewhere in the world would need a healthy dose of reality, making juggling the life between Heaven and Earth taxing. It might not have been so bad if I hadn’t had one wing weaker than the other. After Pyro had cut out one of my wings from its base, Amy had been able to give me a new one. Since then it had become the main target on every battlefield.
Taking more than its share of hits, it had made flashing not only slower but more strenuous, to the point of exhausting. Even more tiresome had been trying to hide my handicap from the others and Etta. If word got out that I had been unable keep up with my duties, I would be pulled from the Arches and given a desk job, halting any and all visits to Etta, period.
“No, Father.” I repeated.
As he continued his speech about being alert, on guard at all times and all that jazz, in my head I
counted the minutes until Etta’s wake up time. 6:26 a.m. 6:27a.m. 6:28 a.m. Etta would be awake in two minutes, and I would be in a world of trouble. 6:29 a.m. Father finally spoke the most magical words ever.
“Dismissed.”
With less than a minute to spare, I knew I’d have to push hard in order to make it to Etta’s before her alarm went off. As I rushed toward the door, Father calling my name brought me to a screeching halt. So close. I stood near the door with my head down as the other Arches left the war room. I knew all too well what staying behind meant. Though the wrath of Father was something to be feared, I feared Etta’s more.
“What is happening to you, my son? If you are not falling asleep during the meetings, you are in a rush to get out of them.” Father placed a hand on my shoulder.
His palm pressed against a deep wound I had received during an attempt to sever my wing. I had been hiding it from Father and the Arches, scared the wound alone would put me in the rear with the gear. Holding back the urge to cry out in pain, I grunted instead of daring to open my mouth to give Father a proper answer.
“Look at me when I am speaking to you!”
Taking a deep breath, I turned to Him keeping my head down, so he wouldn’t see my eyes water.
“Lift your head!” Another boom erupted.
Hearing Him so angry, I snapped my head up, tears or no tears. Seeing me on the verge of balling, Father assumed he had caused it with His tone and relaxed.
“I apologize for yelling at you, but if you wish to act as if you are a child I will treat you as one. You cannot keep going on the way you have been, my son. You have been too distracted as of late, putting your brothers at a great risk on the battlefield, not to mention your behavior. I admit I laughed when they told me about your appearance in Alabama, but it is not what I would call a proper message delivery. Now, talk to me. What is troubling you?”
I had messed up my mission in Alabama. A religious cult had been running around recruiting teenagers to do their dirty work. In the name of God, they were breaking into homes and robbing them to fund their “church”. After a botched home invasion, an innocent family lost their lives. This didn’t detour the group. Instead it fueled them as they spread the message the people had died because “God wanted them to”. I can tell you Father never ‘wanted’ anyone to die. Though it was necessary, Father hated every death he watched his children suffer.
But Father called Uriel and me to the war room just as I had returned home from visiting Etta and had been preparing to go to sleep for the first time in a week. Father had instructed us to go and show the group the path they had chosen was one of false prophecy. I dreaded the trip. Message deliveries had the potential to take anywhere from a few minutes to days. With Father wanting every member to receive a personal message from Him and them being over ninety members strong, it would take too long.
So, Uriel and I popped up on the group during one of their evening masses. Wanting to get it over with so I might catch a few hours of sleep to help heal my wound before my tuxedo fitting later in the day, I charged the room swinging my sword, chasing the cult members around their church yelling “Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not kill! These are the words of God! Repent infidels! Repent!” I broke quite a bit of furniture, put a few large holes in the walls, and made a few men urinate in their pants, but no one got hurt. Needless to say Uriel thought I had gone mad and reported my mental break to Father. Though it had been an unorthodox method, from the reports I received afterward, it had worked and I had been able to get a decent night’s sleep.
But the results weren’t the issue, my performance had been. If I was going to get out of this rut, I would have to be honest with Father.
“I don’t know what to do, Father. Between my duties here, my job on Earth and trying to keep my commitments to Etta, I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in days. I constantly feel weak and can’t seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds.”
“Did I not warn you of this? Was it not you who told me you would be able to handle it?”
I had hoped Father would put his arm around me and tell me ‘there, there’ but as usual, He had done the opposite. Being agents of our own free will, any positive or negative effects of our actions were solely our own doing. Of course, Father would always help us when needed but with so many to help, sometimes he would skip over a few, leaving us to figure it out for ourselves. But right now if He had any intention of stonewalling my promise to Etta, I needed Him to give me a little more than an ‘I told you so’. I needed definitive reasoning as to why.
“Yes, Father, but you don’t understand. I’m scared if I don’t keep going I’ll lose her again. Why would you ask me to do that when it is all I have ever fought for?” I withheld my concerns about my title as Arch and the ongoing issues with my wings.
Had I said the slightest word hinting about my injuries, Father would have poked and prodded until I would be left with no choice but to show him how badly I had been hurt. Simply unfurling my right wing felt as though it was tearing the skin from my back.
“I don’t understand? Every second that passes I watch hundreds of my children walk out of those gates either to their life on Earth or in Hell, not knowing if I will ever see them again.” Father lowered his head as he rubbed his brow.
“It’s not the same. You can’t control what we do. I can control this. All I have to do is keep going. You don’t know what it’s like to lose so much, to get it back only to risk losing it every time you turn around. I’m walking on eggshells here and with every step I hear them cracking more and more, Father.”
Father’s body stiffened as he leveled a cold, hard glare on me. With a dark plume of fiery vapor, Father burst from his angelic form. Cowering from his violent rage, I stumbled backward until a marble column in the middle of the war room prevented me from retreating any farther. Black smoke encircled me and the pillar as lightning strikes cracked through the sooty cyclone.
“How dare you try to compare scars with me! You have no clue what I go through. I have gained and lost more than you can ever fathom! If you think you can control how Etta or anyone else feels you are sorely mistaken, my son. Do you believe I am so helpless that if I wanted to I would be unable to keep you all here under my thumb? Oh trust in the fact, Rahovart, had I seen eye to eye with Lucifer I would have done more than take away free will. But the risk is worth the reward. I know when my children return home it is because they chose to. It is because they do love me and their life here. If Etta feels true love for you, than being late to a few dinners and parties isn’t going to change it. If you’d quit looking at the time, you would see that. Now go, before I get really upset.” A tremendous surge of air ripped open the gold and iron gate of the war room.
Not only had I questioned Father but I had made it out as though my problems were larger than His. In my self-loathing pity party it had never crossed my mind what life must be like for Father. The hurt and loss he must go through on a daily basis. Though only a handful of us were actually created by his hand, the rest of our population came to be from sanctioned unions; we were all His children.
He loved us all with no favoritism but made sure each soul received the nurturing they needed, no matter what. Even when a child he’d sacrifice His time and energy on would betray Him, He would be there for them if called. But with His immense power, it was easy to forget that the same as His children, Father had emotions beyond stoic and reserved. It had not been my intention but it had been obvious my words deeply wounded Him. The realization of my actions brought a cloud of shame over me.
“Father, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—.”
“Go!” Father roared as a flash of lightning struck the jamb of the door.
I bolted for the exit when Father called out to me.
“Rahovart,”
Too terrified to face Him but also too scared by what would happen if I didn’t, I turned around at the speed of smell and waited for Him to continue my reprimand. As if a hurri
cane had been sucked into a human sized bottle, Father returned to His angelic form.
“Ye—yes, Father?” I stuttered.
“Tell Etta I send my congratulations on the new job and not to worry, she’s going to do great.”
“I will, Father.” I humbly replied.
With a bow of Father’s head, I knew it was safe to leave without further angering Him. Opening the door, I found myself faced with a dozen Angels standing outside, eavesdropping on Father and me. Forging a path through the crowd, I set out for a safe place to flash when I heard a whisper in the crowd.
“Told you he was unfit for duty.” The feminine voice snarled.
Using every ounce of restraint I possessed, I ignored the comment and continued walking to my home with my nose in the air until another whisper caught my attention.
“He’s nothing more than Lucifer’s spy. It’s just a matter of time before he falls again and sees to damning our souls to the depths of Hell beside his Demon loving whore, Etta.” The voice hummed.
Months of suppressed rage, frustration and aggravation came to a head in an instant.
“Oh! Holier art thou that pass judgment against me, you sickened fiends of false witnesses and gossips. You think yourself so pure? Unable to transgress? Look at yourself… standing around like statues, waiting for fresh gossip to spread like a plague. You’re all nothing more than weak sheep that rely on the sins of the strong to protect your souls. I pray you never know the pain or sacrifice of losing your tarnished feathers!” I roared at the encircling crowd.
The looks of disgust and surprise were abundant. In a final act of defiance, I protruded my tongue out of the corner of my mouth and extended my middle finger before flashing to Etta’s room in hopes I hadn’t missed her.
The trip to the Divad home had taken me longer than usual. The wound on my shoulder had been becoming increasingly more painful, weakening my flashing abilities. As I expected, Etta’s room had been empty. I glanced at the clock radio. Florescent green numbers flashed 7:10 a.m. Knowing Etta and her ‘If you’re five minutes early, you’re ten minutes late’ motto, she had already left for her first day of work.
The Angel Side Page 2
