“Archangel.” It was single word, but loaded with power and history.
He blew out his cheeks and then whistled slightly. “Well, there’s no sense aiming low with lies, is there?”
“I know. It’s sort of like entering the army as a general. Unheard of, to me, but I was wondering what the point of something like this might be, you know, if it was really happening.”
“That’s the best angle I’ve heard in some time. Generals.” He shook his head ruefully. “Well,” and he rose to his feet, “it’s time for something cold to drink. Let’s finish this inside, and I’ll give you a little feedback on the military structure of hell as I see it.”
And I went into a Catholic church with a volleyball player-turned-priest, who was giving me order of battle advice about a supposedly mythical beast. Just another Floridian afternoon.
17
The Archangel Davis
Alone again, Davis sat mute in the stillness of his studio, surrounded by the tools of his passion, his life, all save one. Rudy, who had just blithely announced he was leaving, giving no reason and no hope for a tearful reconciliation, though in truth, Davis had suspected that this was just a stop for his lover and not anything permanent, despite the dalliance having lasted six months. No matter how badly he had wanted exactly that type of stability, he always sensed the cliff looming, coming closer to his feet.
Rudy, eternally thin and tanned, impeccably fashionable, rarely employed but desired by all and invited to every club or event nearby, a must-have for any social occasion, like a shiny status symbol with a blinding smile and tousled blonde hair.
Rudy, who walked into Davis’ studio to look at his jewelry and never left, who convinced Davis to come out to his parents after nearly thirty years of quiet bravery and shame, only to have his parents embrace him to mute his sobs. He didn’t even know if he missed Rudy; he was just numb with the inevitability of the loss, the months of heat between them, and then the long, slow arc of distance that grew as he felt Rudy pull away, incrementally, to move on somewhere else, to belong to someone else, but not Davis. He felt the first tears fall on his workbench, drying instantly among the dust of silver and ground turquoise, and tiger’s eye and bit of flux and all the myriad of things that he used to make his livelihood, although in truth, he would have done it all these years for free. And now he would return to his bench, his stones and metal. Alone. No, focused, he thought. Or so he hoped. For some artisans, pain was a catalyst, but gentle Davis, who had been introspective and pleasant since infancy, had doubts that he would ever produce the things that had bought his life, his simple studio, and what things he owned. Rudy had left little behind, but Davis was beyond caring.
He registered that the door to the studio opened and heels clicked on the polished concrete. I should have locked the fucking door. I’m in no mood to sell. I have nothing left to sell, he thought, skimming the drain and feeling the hurt begin to constrict around his chest. This would not end well, it seemed.
“I’m not open.” His voice sounded strangled in his own skull, or maybe he was just projecting the blackness of his mood. He looked up and saw the woman, as out of place in his rough and tumble workspace as Rudy had been. Her beauty was much more refined, deeper than the external shine of his ex-lover, and there was a heft to her refinement that Rudy could not have carried, ever. She waited a fat second before she spoke, taking his hand from the table and patting him kindly. Oddly, he wasn’t offended. She seemed to mean it, a new sensation for Davis.
“I’m not here to buy, Davis.” Her voice was compassion personified, with undertones of wisdom. Patience. Something else older, too. He didn’t bother to ask how she knew his name; it was on the door. But he sensed that she knew much more about him than that simple fact. He felt exposed in her sight, but not threatened.
“Before I offer you a life and a place to heal—away from here, you should know that Rudy is going to die on June 11,” she began in a factual tone. He jerked fully alert and stared. “Drug overdose. Our Rudy is quite the party boy when he isn’t pretending to be a Bohemian lover, but he’s going to meet his end in a nightclub bathroom in Denver, swimming in his own vomit on a white tile floor while hundreds dance the night away on the other side of the door. Does that make you sad?”
Davis thought carefully. She would know a lie in a second; he sensed it without even looking into the depths of her dark, gold-spangled eyes which flashed with a hint of laughter as she delivered the news of Rudy’s impending death. “No, I’m not. And I guess you already know that I’ll go with you, away from here. Will I get to make things? I don’t want to leave all of the past, just the part with him.”
Now she laughed, rich and full of conspiratorial flattery, bringing him into the beautiful fold of her joke. “Oh, I want you to make things. Beautiful things, Davis, and you’ll have materials that kings would shed their blood for, all at your fingertips.”
Davis rose and went to her, where she held out her arms to him and stroked his hair like a mother, delicate, loving. Taking the pain away as only she could, one touch at a time. “I will protect you as no one ever has before. No pain. No fear. Only my light and your beautiful hands. Can I have them, Davis? Will you create for me?” She murmured to him, her breath sweet and warm.
The first tears fell as he let go, his chest loosening, the pain fading, chased by her assured warmth. “Yes, my hands, all of me, of course.”
She pulled him even tighter, her presence inhabiting him completely. “Hands first, Davis. You give me your skill, and I will give you all of the time in the heavens. The rest of you I will take, and you will thank me for it. Eternally.”
“You’re like an angel” he muttered into the fragrance of her hair, black and silken against his cheek.
“Oh, child, not like an angel,” and he felt her smile against his face as she held him. “I am the brightest angel.”
18
Florida
Father Kevin left me sitting underneath an enormous, sprawling ficus tree, its limbs reaching outward with greed toward the afternoon sunshine. He returned from the parish building with two tall bottles of sparkling water, each with juicy wedges of orange camped on the neck. I watched him plunge his wedge down into the bottle and take a long pull, followed by a noise of satisfaction as he looked around the grounds. There was a feel of order but friendliness, as if the pageantry of the Church had reached a compromise with the subtropical location and produced an island of calm and cheer in the midst of the coastal sprawl. Squinting upward, I admired the tree, and we sat in companionable silence for a moment as cars rushed around us, held at bay by the lawns.
“It took me ten years to become a priest.” Father Kevin began to speak, in a teaching voice I recognized as a veteran of Lutheran schools. There was a certain synergy between his Church and my own upbringing, despite the legends of letters being hammered on doors in order to announce a great ideological schism. The statement of his education was neither prideful nor reserved but delivered the facts about an immense task that had no doubt consumed many late nights at studies. I couldn’t have possibly endured that type of devotion to learning, unless it was about women, maybe, or sports. I respected his dedication.
He took another appreciative sip of the water. “I spent a full decade in sober, scientific approach, learning about the teachings of a man who is the son of God, made real, but whose influence, it may seem, is failing. For the cynic, that’s a losing bet. And yet, as I began the long, grinding slog through treatise and lessons, all designed to impart to me an ability to translate the love of Christ into understandable language, I could tell that I was only beginning. In point of fact, being granted the collar was rather anticlimactic, once I realized just what type of journey I had begun, both spiritually and intellectually. These journeys, or aspects of my own personal discovery, rather, are, to some people, mutually exclusive. You know people like this, who are close to you even?”
I was left short by his presumption. I couldn’t reveal
the nature of our household and the fact that we most certainly understood the nuances of the known world and the shadows beyond it. I simply sat, attentive, until he went on.
“You asked me a military question, of sorts, and how it relates to a—let’s call it a process, for now, a process that results in the corruption, or further corruption, of human beings and their respective souls. Correct?”
“Perfectly put,” I agreed.
“I think it might be better to address the root cause of this offer and begin in a more general fashion. Let’s start with these generals, of a fashion. You know who the archangels are, I presume?”
“I think I do. But I suspect I don’t know as much as I should.” My knowledge of the generals of heaven was limited, and it wouldn’t hurt to learn, I reasoned, sitting in the sun under the shade of the ficus.
“Well, we can already make one assertion about this person who is harming others. He or she is a liar. A complete and total fraud.” His voice took on a ripe tone of disgust. I looked at him, a bit shocked, as we had moved quickly to this condemnation without much in between.
“How do you know that, based on what I’ve told you?” I was confused and hoping he wasn’t going to turn from the friendly priest before me into an unrelenting didactic.
“Simple math, Ring,” he began with confidence. “If this is process has happened more than once, the entire premise is a lie because there are a limited number of generals in any army. So this person—,” and he looked at me quizzically, so I broke in.
“It’s a she.”
He nodded once and went on, without pausing, “—she is offering the cheapest, most worthless gift in creation, something that is not hers to give. And that tells me, by logic alone, that she is very likely completely unencumbered by morals or ethics, let alone a conscience. Do you see?”
“You’re quite close to the truth. And yes, I do see your point. Logic wasn’t my strong suit in college, but it should have been obvious to me,” I said.
“Don’t be hard on yourself. This leads to me to my next point of contention with this unseen woman who troubles you. Do you think she is a demon?” he asked with all seriousness.
I coughed and spat water onto the concrete, pounding my chest to clear it. I hadn’t quite expected that leap of logic, and it seemed at odds with Father Kevin’s relative youth. I quickly realized that my assumptions were leaving me unprepared, and possibly offensive, to the obviously intelligent man before me. He waited patiently while I regained my breath, and then I answered him, at some risk to my credibility, with one word.
“Yes.”
And he gave a sad smile beyond his years, and said, “I thought so.”
19
It was the golden hour of early evening when I walked into the house, greeted by Gyro’s bulky, affectionate presence as he demanded several minutes of my attention before relenting and retiring to the couch. My Wagoneer was gone, which meant very little since everyone seemed to drive it except me, but I saw Wally’s door ajar and went to tell her about a newly arranged dinner event with Father Kevin. My motion stopped when I saw her nude figure, sleeping, with the last hurrahs of the day’s sun casting her in an orange glow that made her incandescently beautiful. She stirred, lightly, as someone might do when they know they are being watched, and then sleepily called me over to the bed. I lay next to her, slipping my hands over the flawless expanse of her body, her legs, and letting my fingers come to rest on her breasts, with nipples hardened by my brushing fingers. I was going to tell her something, I think, but then she reached back and began to remove my clothes, giving me all the invitation I would ever need as I entered her from behind and we rocked slowly, easily, until I felt her tighten around me and her breath adopted the shallow gasps of a woman in perfectly welcomed agony. I gave myself permission, too, just then, and afterwards, we lay under the whirling blades of the fan in that most intimate form of semi-sleep that lovers can know and the rest of the world can envy. I kissed her neck and asked her if she would like to have a dinner guest the next night.
“Where? Who?” Her voice was plump with residual lust, and I reveled in the huskiness of it.
I pulled her against me and held her for a second, waiting, and then told her softly, “Father Kevin will be here at six.”
I could not have launched her higher without a rocket booster as she leapt up, chest flushed red and shrieked, “What?” in a voice that had suddenly become very Argentine, Catholic, and very transparently guilty.
“Do not joke with me! I would not have made love to you and Risa in the same day if I had known—”
“You little tramp. My, what a busy day at the office,” I commented, in my blandest tone possible.
“Enough! He is a priest and I am Catholic, a bad one, yes, but a Catholic, and he will, he will . . .” She grasped at a word that her post-orgasmic fog was cloaking from her guilty mind.
“Smell it on you?” I offered helpfully. Unlike Wally, my carnal guilt was well at bay. I still ogled her as she bounced about the room, frantically waving her hands and looking delicious.
“Stop looking at me like that. You just had me! And I, oh, I will have to have wine so that I can seem to be decent. Lots of wine,” she finished, defeated by her own frustration as she sagged back onto the bed.
“Are you ashamed? Seriously?” I poked her in the ribs, half kidding.
“No. Not now, not anymore. I am just caught off guard. A priest. In our house. I wonder what Risa will think?” She laughed and then added, conspiracy in her voice, “I cannot wait to see what she wears.”
“That’s the spirit. You know, we don’t have to tell him we’re lovers. We do actually have separate rooms.” I couldn’t wait to tell her why Kevin was coming over for dinner. That alone would be cause for alarm to her and Risa, who were even more guarded about our career than me. I knew that Risa would be home at some point, so I pulled Wally back onto the bed where she burrowed her face into the pillow with mock shame and then, with a furtive smile half-hidden by the sheets, asked me if I wanted to join her in the shower. I followed her to the shower with purpose. Scrubbing the sin from her was the second most important job of the evening, right after making her feel just a bit dirtier.
20
From Risa’s Files
Ravenna, Anno Domini 452
Daughter,
You continue to please me, although I sense that your spirit remains rather buoyant given the chosen nature of our work. No matter, we have nothing but time to see if you distill into something sweet or sour. Of course, I have been accused of having a perverse palate, but never in my presence, and certainly not more than once by the same lout.
As you may have learned, I have been quite busy here in the decaying husk of the empire. Such swirling currents of betrayal and shifting allegiance, I hardly knew where to start my merry harvest, but the opportunity presented itself soon enough. I am now an empress of sorts, and the history of the young mother I replaced was already colored with sin. I merely completed her tendency towards gestures of dramatic effect by sending a marriage proposal to an intelligent but over-reaching horseman from the East.
This has been a deeply satisfying experience for me. My value as a shamed princess was outstripped by my strategic worth, as well as the general atmosphere of unrest between dozens of warring factions. My little overture was merely the fulcrum upon which a massive war was pitched, and daughter, I may never see such carnage again. Would that you could have walked the killing grounds! Chalons was fanned by more crows on that day than I thought possible. The inevitable birds of death found the field to their liking, as did I. I still smile when I think of the clouds of black wings wheeling over shattered Roman, Visigoth, and Ostrogoth corpses, and horses, oh, so many stiff-legged beasts bloating in the heat, it almost made one overlook the enormous count of dead Huns, some still seated on their rugged little ponies. All dead. All mine. And all solely because of my actions.
Let my success here be remembered. Let farmers turn the
soil with plows for millennia and puzzle at the bones and the armor—relics shattered on that day, but still giving mute testimony to my enduring cleverness. Most of all, let this description remind you of my rising power. Do not fail me. Feed well, and avoid the Light. I demand it of my children, and I have ever-growing plans for you.
Your Mother,
Honoria
21
The Archangel Tyler
“Do you swear?” Dara asked for the third time. She was so close to saying yes. If he had to smile one more time just to reassure the stupid slut, he thought he might puke. She was trash, a complete nobody. He was two grades ahead of her and she was adopted, for fuck’s sake, she didn’t even belong in this neighborhood, not like he did, anyway. His dad was important and his mom didn’t do anything except work out and tell his sister she was getting fat every time the cow came back from college. It was almost ten o’clock and he had to sneak back in his room, so if Dara didn’t lift her shirt and let him get a squeeze of her giant tits, then the whole night had been a colossal waste. He’d already spent two hours listening to her drone on like an idiot about whatever seventh grade girls did for fun, but it all sounded like total bullshit, so he just nodded and smiled whenever she would come up for air when he was done kissing her, or if she ever stopped talking. He reached out, clumsily, because damned if he was going to wait anymore. He wanted to tell Austin what those things felt like whether Dara was in the mood to show him or not. What was she going to do, tell on him?
“What the hell, Tyler?” His hand stung from her slap and the room got hot. His face flushed as she stood, straightening her loose shirt and pointing at the window. “Get. Out. You are so gross and rude. Out. Now!”
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