Chapter 2
“Don’t Fear the Reaper”
Blue Oyster Cult
~~~
A Still-Dark, Still-Deserted Truck Stop,
Halfway Between Here and There,
But Nearly an Hour Later.
“SO, WHAT YOU’RE saying then,” Jake said, “is this is a whole new concept?”
The angel nodded. “Exactly.”
“And that makes me, what? A guinea pig for your experimental pleasure?”
“A potential emissary. For the benefit of mankind.”
“Have there ever been any other emissaries—potential or not—set up to benefit mankind?”
“No.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured. Guinea pig.”
Azrael scrubbed his hand across his face in a frustrated gesture so fundamentally human, Jake couldn’t help but smile. His curiosity got the best of him. “Am I allowed to ask how long you’ve been an angel?”
“Ages. Eons. Forever. Long, and long, and long.”
A profound weariness in the angel’s voice left Jake ashamed of his own petty behavior. He toned down the sarcasm and snark. “Has it always been this difficult?”
Azrael stared off into the night, lost for a few moments in thoughts and memories Jake couldn’t even imagine. He spoke again, his voice soft. Distant. “It has always been difficult, but it used to be straightforward. Good or evil. Right or wrong. Not this total chaos. Or so much misery and suffering and obtuse, misguided conviction that there is only one right path. Death and destruction was not quite on such a massive scale, either, with senseless violence growing day by day.”
He shuddered and swung his head back toward Jake, his blue eyes dark with sorrow. “Do you have any idea how many more people there are today, compared to before? Let me enlighten you. Countless numbers. Countless! Yet, the population of angels has not increased one iota.”
“What? How can that be? Don’t people who go to Heaven become angels?”
Azrael glared. “Certainly not!” He shook his head at Jake’s astonished expression. “How can you have been such a good man and yet not know this? Do they not teach these things in your houses of worship anymore? Did you really picture Heaven filled with harp-playing angels perched on every cloud, watching over those left behind?”
Jake’s face burned. “I’ve always believed in something bigger than myself, but I hadn’t given a great deal of thought to exactly how it all worked. I wasn’t imagining quite the cozy picture you just described, but I’m sure you’ll be delighted to fill me in on how it actually is. And please do use every opportunity you can to remind me of just how insignificant and stupid I really am.”
“No. I am not allowed to fill you in, as you put it. Certainly not about what the afterlife entails. In other words, while I will assess your significance and intelligence as I see fit, I will not tell you what Heaven is like. And do not ask me about any loved one who has passed on, either.”
“Classified, I suppose?”
“You could call it that. What I can tell you is that Heaven is not filled with angels. We are as we have always been—a finite number, each of us created for a specific purpose—and we have never, ever been human.”
“Oh. So, my mother isn’t watching over me?”
“I did not say that. I said she is not an angel. I will not tell you where she is, what she is doing, or how she is doing it. Do not bother asking. But let me make this very clear, Jake. Whatever she is doing, she is not doing it as an angel. And do not look so miserable. She is probably better off. Being an angel is hard work at the best of times. Today, it is . . . well, that is why we are having this conversation in the first place.”
Neither of them said anything for several long minutes, then Jake sighed. “I have a lot to learn, don’t I?”
“If you are to succeed at this, yes, you do. But I fail to understand why this is all so confusing to you. You seem extremely ill-prepared and lacking in the basic concepts we are dealing with. Did not Simiel and Raguel explain all of this at your first meeting? Or at orientation? You were supposed to be fully instructed in why we want and need emissaries in the first place, and how we will decide who is eligible to become one. Plus, it appears you do not understand what you will have to do to meet our requirements. The rules, in other words. Were you asleep during the whole thing?”
“Asleep? You’re joking, right?”
The cold stare Azrael leveled in his direction let Jake know just how unlikely it was that Azrael ever joked about anything. His voice crackled with frost. “Elaborate.”
Jake scratched his head. He could tell the angel that the so-called orientation session had been roughly akin to getting tossed into a tank with a couple of hungry sharks while bleeding from open wounds, but maybe he should cut back on the insults. He decided to go with a more accurate explanation of how it had all gone down. That was plenty bad enough by itself.
“Look, I get that the intentions were good, okay? But that pair of guys assigned to the job were so busy arguing between themselves over how stupid the whole idea was, and how insulted they were at being put in charge of something so far beneath them, they never really explained anything to us at all.”
“Is that so?” Frostier still.
“Pretty much. And they weren’t quiet about it. In fact, they screamed and ranted, and threw things around.”
“Threw things? Like?”
“Well, like lightning bolts. And a couple of yard-long icicle spears. They seemed pretty focused on that, and not so much so on the four, terrified people huddled in the corner. We had all we could handle just trying to keep from being caught in the crossfire.”
Azrael’s mouth tightened. “I see. Did they stop screaming long enough to explain anything to you at all?”
“Well, the dark one with the yellow eyes was too busy shouting that the end was probably coming, and everyone would, and should, die.”
“That would be Simiel. He is often described as the angel of death, a role he seems to relish a bit too much at times. He has his functions, but perhaps he was not the best choice for this task. What about Raguel? I expected him to have a balancing effect on Simuel.”
“He did start by trying to calm things down, explaining to Mr. Prepare-to-Die that he wasn’t giving this a fair chance.”
“Yes, that sounds right. He is the angel of justice, after all, at least in most doctrines. His main job is to keep everyone in check, even fallen angels and demons. It should have worked.”
“It did for about five minutes. After that, he was too busy trying to keep the other one from frying us with the lightning, or putting out all the fires that kept popping up everywhere. Honestly, whoever it was who thought those two could teach us anything—”
“That would be me.”
“—was brilliant.”
Azrael’s eyebrows shot toward Heaven, and the left corner of his mouth lifted. “Nice try.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open. “Wait. Are you smiling?”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. You smiled. A bit.”
“I do not . . . do smiles.”
“Too bad. It wouldn’t hurt now and then, you know. Sometimes people are easier to work with if they aren’t cowering in stark terror, worried about all the smiting and cleaving.”
Now the right corner of Azrael’s mouth gave a twitch, like it was thinking about curving upward, too. “I will take that under advisement. Are the others as confused as you?”
“I haven’t seen them since that day. I’m not sure if they’re still, uh, in the program.”
Azrael heaved a long sigh. “That is unfortunate. They were good choices.” After a moment or two of silence, he spoke again. “It would seem I owe you an apology. I should have known better than to turn this over to anyone else. The whole thing was my idea, after all, and getting approval to try it out was not easy. However, I was called away to take care of an on-going emergency on another continent, and I trusted Simiel and Raguel to put aside their differences long enough to handle this for me. That might have been a miscalculation. You know, we have an old saying in Heaven. ‘If you want something done right, do it yourself.’ I am sorry I was not there for you.”
“Funny. My dad had that same old saying. Usually turns out to be true. But it’s not too late to fix this, is it? I mean, I felt great about helping the people I met, especially Hunter. Even if I, um, fudged the rules a bit. It was wonderful to see him later, doing so well. What I’m trying to say is, if you still want me after the way I behaved earlier, I wouldn’t mind starting over.”
“No?”
“No. It would be nice to make a difference, even one person at a time. Can’t you explain to me what it is you expect? I picked up a few things, in between lightning bolts. I know the free will thing is non-negotiable. We can’t interfere with that. And I know I have some minor powers at my disposal, but I have to be careful when and where I use them. What else do I need to know? Surely you can give me the basics? You wouldn’t by any chance have a handbook or anything, would you?”
He stopped rattling on. Azrael contemplated him with a completely different expression on his face. The angel looked surprisingly benevolent and gentle, the way angels do in stained glass windows and marble sculptures. He looked . . . holy.
For the first time since Jake awakened in that purple-gray room, things finally made sense to him. Everything that had happened over the last few months was real. It was all real. Blunders or not, he worked for the angels, now.
No, he worked for Azrael, and it felt right. In fact, it felt downright good.
The Write Stuff 