The archangels strode in through the door with no sign they’d left so they could laugh at me. “Yes, my brother?”
“How long until her memory is impaired?”
“It will happen soon. She is resilient due to her determination, but she already loses focus. Belial does truly intend to garner favor with her as much as he can. He is masterful in his manipulations.”
The Devil grumbled curses. “I will destroy them all if they hurt her.”
“Yes, you will,” Michael replied, and without another word, both archangels disappeared.
“I don’t know about you, Lucifer, but that sounded rather ominous.”
“Yes, it did,” the Devil agreed.
The headache struck with blinding force, and my world narrowed to the misery of my existence. Much like the relentless waves in a storm-tossed sea, the pain crested, crashed, and surged, eroding away at me. Closing my eyes kept me from drowning, and every sound stabbed at me.
Little remained, save for the knowledge I’d paved my way to some dark hell.
A soft and gentle laugh broke through the agony and calmed the storm, reducing the thundering waves to gentle, soothing ripples.
“Hello, Darlene,” a still and quiet voice whispered to me. “Do not open your eyes quite yet. It is not time.”
Even if I wanted to, I doubted I could disobey Him.
The entire situation flustered me. It was one thing to deal with the Devil, but it was another to deal with Him.
My father would have given anything to be in my shoes, and I would have rather fled back to the general safety of the Devil and his sinful, spot massaging hands.
“Treat me as you would my fallen son, and you will find my presence is not as terrifying for you as you believe.”
Somehow, I had missed the memo He liked playing jokes on wayward mortals. “Are you sure about that? I mean, you’re here to tell me I’m about to go to hell, aren’t you?”
“While you are going to my son’s many hells, it is not for the reason you think. You have not fallen out of my favor.”
“I haven’t?” I blurted. “But why not?”
“Is it so hard for you to believe?”
I considered everything that had led up to the moment I’d been poisoned. “Well, yes.”
“You have not fallen out of my favor because your purpose was never to be a child of my heavens. You are a beloved creation, one born in adversity so you might thrive in adversity, just as my fallen son is beloved for all he is fallen. My fallen son’s domain is full of adversaries you will need to face.”
“Well, that’s one way to put it. He has lava for landscaping. Also, in case you weren’t aware, you have one dysfunctional family.”
While I could not see His face, I felt His smile, and it warmed me from deep within. “Yes, this is the truth. I do not usually interfere this directly, but this is something only I can do, so I will do it. My fallen son will make a mistake in a moment of passion, one thousands of years in the making—and a necessary one, for he grows beyond my original purpose. It is part of his journey, and it will become part of yours.”
“You are a master at being vague,” I complained. “Just tell me what I need to do, as I figure if you’re telling me something is going to happen, I may as well get to it. Have I died from being poisoned yet?”
“Not precisely, although your death soon comes. I am here to prevent that death from having permanence, but it will leave you changed. All I will do is bar you from crossing through the boundary between life and death, but you must face your death in this moment. I cannot break the universal laws, but I can bend the rules—and I will, for the sake of my fallen son, who has learned something precious.”
“What has he learned?”
“That he, like the rest of his brothers and sisters, is capable of what he has denied himself since the day of his fall.”
“What, the realization that you love him despite the fact he’s a bastard who hates doing what he’s told?”
He chuckled, and I became aware of His presence surrounding me, and He chased away the lingering discomfort with a wave of His perfect hand, which shimmered and came into focus while the rest of His body remained hidden. Something about his thumb bothered me.
“Your thumb has a third joint, like a finger.”
“Would a hand more like yours comfort you?”
I shook my head. After a moment of hesitation, I reached towards Him.
He turned His hand so I could better view His thumb, and like a moth drawn to a flame, I touched Him.
He radiated a gentle warmth, and His skin felt a lot like mine. My curiosity took a firmer hold, and I stroked my fingertips over the extra joint, marveling over how one little detail divided us, yet I couldn’t help but think His hands were somehow gloriously human despite being different.
“You were made in my image, but humans are as humans are. Humans bring change. Humans are change. Humans are a great many things, including defiant. Because my son fell, humans could be. My son’s fall is one of my greatest gifts to mankind, for I gave my son the freedom to fall—and thus the freedom for mankind to choose its own path. Sometimes, I believe I made a rather severe mistake.”
With the suffering I often witnessed in the world, I could understand why He believed our freedom was a mistake, and a rather severe one at that. “I guess I should thank him for that, shouldn’t I?”
“You should. You fluster him. You will continue to fluster him, and I find this amusing. He has his regrets. You will help him overcome those things with time, I am sure. That is part of your purpose.”
“I feel like my birth certificate should have come with a disclaimer that I’m a pawn in a game between your heavens and his hells. It would have been polite.”
“A disclaimer would have changed who you became, and that would have been a poor thing for all parties. You are as you need to be.”
“Is it true you can’t help my brother?”
“Do I possess the power to? Yes, but the method in which I could do so would destroy him in your eyes, and it is not the solution you desire at all. You were told the truth. The only one who can give you the outcome you seek is my fallen son. Of course, it will not be the outcome you expect, and it will undoubtedly vex you, but he will remain your brother, although perhaps a little more troublesome of a being than he was before. But your brother’s life will ultimately come at a price.”
I shrugged. “All things have a price. I expect to pay some fairly high prices for storming the hells and taking the place over. I’m sure Lucifer will get tired of being amused soon enough. At that point, I expect he’ll be carving out chunks of my flesh to feed to his various devils for daring to boss him around.”
“If by that you mean he will stalk you to gain access to your spots, yes.”
“He needs therapy.”
“Intensive spot therapy. You were created to be my fallen son’s ultimate temptation, after all. Your spots and forms are all my masterpieces. I am quite proud of the work I put into your making. I even went so far as to skirt one of the universal laws for my fallen son.”
“Will it hurt you to just call him your son?”
“He prefers the distinction.”