“Huh?” Now he’s snapping out of it.
“Look what they did to him,” I say. “Killed him just for trying. That is not me.”
Now I go off into my own mind, because I’ve had enough of the authority, and the torture, and the manipulation by the powerful. In this world or the next … or, if the father is right, the next one after that.
“I understand,” he says, “but that is not what they want.”
And I know what they do want. “They want an ocean of blood and sacrifice for their little reincarnation arena?” I say to him. “I’ll drown them in it.”
It’s a bold statement, but one that by now we both know I’m capable of. One thing they might not know up in Heaven—you go keeping a pit bull around as a pet, it’s only a matter of time before he gets pissed off and mauls you.
The father talks to me for a while after that, but I’m off in a conspiracy rant in my head.
Once I snap out of it, the first sentence I can comprehend is, “You have until the end of the seventh day.”
“And we’re on the sixth,” I say. “I got that. Cute, he—” Shit, now he’s got me doing it. “She builds it in seven and that’s how long I have to knock it down.”
But there’s still something on him. A little tidbit I can taste.
Then the father gives me the death blow. “Once we are all gone… If and when we come back… Nothing changes after that, no one will remember their past life, and we will all just do this over as someone or something else. With both of them as our masters … again.”
“Oh, now goddammit,” I say. “What kind of Hindu cow-shit is that? You don’t… Catholics don’t believe in that reincarnation crap.”
He cocks his head at me, looks me in the eyes, and raises his eyebrows. Then he points to the cross—crucified Jesus behind the pulpit. “He did.”
FURY
— XLVII —
WHATEVER DNA LIFE and that devil, Dal, gave me from their unholy “loins,” the father says I have a seriously overdeveloped sense of revenge and vengeance. Because when I finally figure out what I’m gonna do about all this, he thinks it’s pretty rotten, even for me. But if I had to put it in my own words … I’m just a sore loser.
Whatever it is, I make him spend the rest of the night rewriting what’s left of the “shalls” in his book—all the stuff that hasn’t “come to pass,” as he puts it. And I pass the time re-familiarizing myself with the other book—their Bible. Because if there’s one thing that is constant throughout the world, the universe, and eternity, it’s that the people who write the rules … never follow them.
It’s still pretty dark out when the father and I wake them all up. And they squawk and caw in protest as they pull themselves out of whatever cozy feelings they could claw from their dreams.
Kelly—sorry, “Salvation”—looks a whole lot better after a night of rest and, for better or worse for me, she’s downright chipper. We’ll see how she is after I give her the glorious news.
And Fury is Fury. “You’re such an asshole,” she says, “can’t we just sleep?” Then she stretches her wings out to full width.
I didn’t notice it before, but the little angel’s gray spiked span is wider than mine. That’ll either make her fast as hell or give her more feathers to fire. Whatever the wings do, it’s sure to be useful today.
She flaps and flutters her way back into the beams above the pews. Then she hops around a little until she finds a perch she likes.
When Fury finally roosts, I look up at her and frown. “Are you done, Paris?”
“What?” she says. “I like it up here. Go fuck yourself.”
The perching thing is probably left over from living in the loft above her parents’ penthouse, but her last statement reminds me that it’s been a while. And I instinctively look at Salvation. Not the right time, I think. Though, it’s always the right time, isn’t it? And I stick a little pinfeather in the idea—tuck that little prick away for after. If there is an after.
When Rain wakes up, her flicker turns back to blasting bright white light throughout the entire church. And we all recoil and caw and squint and look away from the wood timbers she’s perched on. I’m sure from the outside that the hole in the roof looks like a spotlight to Heaven. Or a super-duper shopping beacon at midnight on Dark Friday, beckoning the blasphemers to mow through more plastic from Chinasia. And I smile. I’ll need that judgmental, ranting anger later … today, of all days.
“I’m sorry,” Rain says. “I can’t help it.”
And from her it’s all honesty. The girl doesn’t know anything else. She is sorry, and I’m sure she would turn it off if she could.
Fury puts a wing over her face. “Like I said—sunglasses!”
“Quit your bitching,” I say. And then I show them all the little gifts I got to commemorate the dawn of a new day. Sounds too poetic for me, but it’s kinda sarcastic, too, so I like it. Decadent, like opening your gifts before Christday. Or the twelve days of Hanukkah, or whatever shit the mindless crack credits to celebrate.
And, yes, I realize they are bad thoughts, and they are blasphemous, and they make me damn near unlovable, but trust me, it won’t be the worst thing I do today … them either.
“I slipped out after the father fell asleep on his book, and I—”
“Where did you get sunglasses?” Salvation asks me.
And in the grand scheme, it doesn’t seem all that big a deal to me, but I know what she’s asking. “Uh…” I say, readying for the ass-whooping. “Ten talon tribute?” And I cluck out a little chuckle before I have to cover my mouth.
Salvation just looks at me in disgust. I remember that one, all too well. “You didn’t…”
“Oh, please,” says Fury. “He jacked them. Gimme mine. She’s killing my eyes.”
And before I let the trouble train leave the station—because today we just need to get to it—I throw up a pair of deep gray, dark-black-mirrored sunglasses, complete with adjustable neoprene strap. Fury snatches them in midair and inspects them with a caw of approval. And she puts them on, adjusts the strap, and looks right at Rain, testing them.
They must pass, because she says, “Suh-weet.” And Fury is smiling and bobbing her head and she caws. “You look good, girlfriend,” she says to Rain. And just when I think she and I might be able to come to some sort of middle ground, she looks back down at me through her new sunglasses and says, “You—still a asshole.”
Whatever sunglasses do for the appearance of a human, on a dark gray, onyx-shining, anger-filled angel… Fury looks scary as shit. Her eye sockets look like the Queen of Hearts’ big black orbs. And today, little Fury is gonna be fine.
I give Salvation hers—deep gray with a bright red logo. Then the father gets a pair—black with white, of course. And finally I toss a pair up to Rain and put my own blood-red ones on.
It’s the first time I’ve seen my little girl smile since they rolled her into the ER on the rainy night she died. And she’s still bright as light gets, but at least I can see the dimples in her little cheeks. And however old she was when she thrashed and threw her own father out of Purgatory, this young lady is one brilliant ball of bright. The pure white sunglasses with sunshine orange mirrored lenses make her look even more benevolent.
And Fury is the first one to comment. No surprise there. “They all match?” she says. “Shit, her logo’s even gold. What are you, gay?”
“Hardly,” I say. And I got nothing beyond that, because Bible or not, I’m not even going there.
Kelly-Salvation isn’t one to get glazed over with gifts. “Can you just tell us all what’s going on, please? Because, I know you—you don’t hand out presents for nothing.”
And I get a guilty look on my face, and the next thing she says makes me speechless. It’s hard to do.
“Yeah, I see you there,” Salvation says. “We’ll get to you clawing me half to death and choking your daughter later. Right now, spill it, soldier, because I’m in no mood for one of you
r little wild-hair adventures.”
And spill it I do, gallons and gallons of blood red, bad news… . Depending on how you look at it, I guess.
Despite the clucking and cawing, I can tell that they all fundamentally understand what I’m saying. But understanding doesn’t make the doing any easier. Never has, never will. As a matter of fact, the hard part’s always in the doing. That’s why everyone talks about how shitty things are, instead of picking up a shovel and digging through the crap.
Then the father finally speaks up. Until now, he’s been content to watch and wonder about the finality of his own fate. At least, I figure that’s what has to be on his mind. But then he says, “It is far easier to talk of righteousness…”
And we all stop and look at him, waiting for some profound wisdom to help us through it.
What he delivers is short and sweet, but it doesn’t make anyone feel any better. “…than to walk its prickly path.”
Now I’m staring at him—melting down whatever mercy might have crept back in the door with Amy and Kelly—because I know what he has to do. And I think his statement is more to psych himself up than it is to help any of us come to grips with the task.
“That is … beautiful,” Rain says.
She has no clue. Innocence. Wish I could get mine back.
“What book is that in?” I ask him.
“Book of Benedetti,” he says.
Salvation laughs a little. She remembers how he used to be, and that little tidbit is classic Father Ben. Way back when he knew how to interpret the Word for the good of his flock. Now, he’s trying to laugh his way back to his broken faith.
He chuckles and says, “But I will give you something a little more pertinent to the current cross you must all bear. Ephesians, six-twelve.”
“Afeesa what the…?” Fury says. “Can we just get on with it?”
I don’t think tourette-girl has ever seen the inside of a church. At least I can… Yeah, I’m full of shit.
“All in time,” Rain says to her. “Let the father speak.”
And whatever is going on up there in the rafters—I don’t have a clue—but my little Rain is getting a handle on how to calm the fury inside of … well, Fury.
And when Salvation and I close our mouths, the father continues, “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
And I’m thinking he’s full of shit again, because that is just way too… And I warned him about the literal already. I lean over and whisper in Salvation’s ear, “That shit’s not in the Bible, is it?”
“It’s Father Ben, Jake,” she starts to say. And then she raises her eyebrows at me, like I’m talking during the sermon in church. I guess that’s pretty much what I’m doing. “Shh … Jump.”
The father hears me and, I mean, I told him we needed to turn the tables on them, but this is some Revelations shit, right here. “Holy shit, Fath—”
“Or maybe you prefer some Corinthians,” he says. “Chapter ten … three through five, if I remember.”
And now he is just in the zone. I can hardly reconcile this version with the flask-sucking boozer I had to pop off his little tin tit. But he doesn’t care about my disbelief, or judgment, because his is crystal clear. He says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh…”
And now I know why he wrote the book. I also know that he’s ready for it.
“…but they have divine power to destroy strongholds.”
And I raise up my left wing and—
— XLVIII —
THE LOUD CAW and then the screech shakes the father’s entire church. And then the words, “I’m sorry.” But it’s not my voice speaking, and Fury swoops down from her perch and cuts the father’s head off with one lightning fast thrust of her wing.
And blood spurts from his neck and his head rolls across the floor. And then his body slams down in the middle of the aisle to the pulpit and blood continues to pump out his neck, while the rest of him jerks and his nerves kick his legs and feet—his last earthly protests as a man.
Rain and Salvation screech in surprise, and then Rain shines brighter, if that’s even possible. And Kelly screams and tries to look away. But I make my angel, Salvation, look back, because today … this is as good as it gets.
Salvation hits me in the chest with a fist. Then she looks back down at the father’s body and she says, “Why did you…?”
And Rain stares at the body, like she’s never seen death before. Maybe she hasn’t. I don’t know much about what she’s done since she’s been an angel. But then she’s looking at Fury and me, and she realizes that I knew it was going to happen. Well, I knew, but it was supposed to be me that did it.
“Why, is right,” I say to Fury.
And it almost looks like Fury feels … bad. She shakes the blood off of her wing, and then she mutters at his body, “Miserable old cocksucker.” And she looks back at me and she’s wild with anger. “Don’t you even start! I knew that was coming. I’m surprised they didn’t. I could smell that on him like, before he started spouting from the Bible. Believer bullshit. You knew he couldn’t go with us.”
Then Salvation gets it—the sacrifice. “Unless he—”
“Unless he is an angel,” Rain says. And she understands, too. And there goes her innocence, fluttering out the hole in the roof.
There really was no way around it. By the end of this day, the father’s severed head will seem like a paper cut.
And I know Fury is just trying to reconcile who she is now and what she has to do, because this is the same kind of blind rage she had toward her father. It’s not her, it’s that little helpless feeling inside her—knowing the truth, hating it, and living with it anyway. “Fuck it,” she says. “Anyways, he was your friend.” She flutters up into the rafters with Rain. Then she hops to her perch. “Like, I did you a favor. Now, are you telling her the rest, or do I have to do all the work?”
Fury—she was probably listening to us all night, pretending to sleep under her wing cocoon. In any case, she is dead on. Maybe not for the reason she thinks, but she is right. And I look up at Rain and say, “You have to take the father’s soul up—”
“You’re sending her up there?” Salvation says. “I don’t think I’m—”
And before this goes all “Reality Rerun,” I need to nip it in the bud. “She’s the only one who can get in and bring him back. And we’re gonna need him.”
“You are so full of shit,” Fury says. “You don’t want her to have to see you—”
“Enough!” I screech it out pretty loudly. Louder than I wanted, and all the stained glass in the church erupts and showers down to the floor in a rainbow of razor blades, shattering what’s left of the denial in the room. “She’s going up, and we are going to work. I told you what we have to do. Time to do it!”
The debate and protesting that follows from Salvation finally gets interrupted when the low moaning sound mixed in with church choir music starts emanating from the father’s decapitated husk. And I can see his soul squiggling and squirming its way out of his lifeless cocoon. And now we got no time left.
“Rain,” I say it in my father voice. If I even have one left. Probably comes out like more of a mean teacher, because I get a wing to the ribcage from Salvation. So I dial it back a couple of feathers and say, “Take the father’s soul up to the arena, get him his wings, and bring him back here. That’s the exercise. Nothing else, nothing extra … just get it done.”
And with no protest at all and not another sound out of her, my little bright ball of light is down from the rafters. She clutches up the father’s moaning and writhing soul and heads out the hole in the roof. And then she’s gone.
And I shouldn’t be—I’m still not sure if our job is worse than hers—but I’m happy that she’s g
oing up there, because now … we gotta gut the garden.
— XLIX —
THE GOOD NEWS, I tell Salvation and Fury, if the father and I have it figured right, a “day” of creation, or judgment for that matter, is not necessarily twenty-four hours. It’s more like, as long as you need to get the job done.
In the Bible and the Book of Blood, time is relative. “How else do you think she built it in ‘seven days?’ ” the father told me. Remember that, I tell myself.
But the bad news—the other thing the father is right about—none of it is permanent. For some of them it’s too bad. I wish it was longer. But eternity looks to be an everlasting assfuck by the same souls on the next round. That is, unless we can kill the powerful people that are responsible for all this. Then maybe, just maybe, humanity’s got a chance at redemption.
It’s a strange thing—archangels killing for the Word. The first ones in the street and on the roof were instinct, like a little baby learning to crawl. But this… Once I figure it out—get good at it—the whole thing actually gets harder. Practice makes perfect sense in most things. Not this.
It’s not the mercy, mind you. There are so many people on the planet that need killing… Probably why we never got around to fixing anything. I mean, where do you put the piss, shit, and disposed plastic from ten billion citizens, moaning and crying for more? I guess you could build a shit-rocket—send the whole mess into the deep depths of space. But then who are you, really? The Rural Zone guy in the trailer park next door, throwing his beer cans and bottles over the fence so his neighbor has to pick it all up?
I like the ranting. Always have. For some reason I think it’s funny to state the obvious to people, and then watch them squirm as they try to deny it. Ten billion people… Jesus Christ!
The magnitude of the task gnaws at me the most. I mean, how do you free ten billion souls in one day? Not to mention clean up afterward? Never mind all the animals, plants and fish, too. Though, come to think of it, we got a good jump start on the animal extinction issue, so hey, things are looking up.
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