ARCHANGEL

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Also, Hillary will have to bone up on all the legislative actions in Congress along with getting up to speed on foreign policy. The President will expect his Secretary of State to be apprised of everything going on outside the country,” Catherine added. “Sister Angelina and I don’t really know what you two actually believe but we’re hoping you’re both more conservative than the demons.”

  “Chelsea’s birth changed everything for us,” Bill explained. “Up until then, we had been a couple of young radical dunderheads in college. Our daughter’s birth forced us to see everything in a new light. Many of the ideas we’d fostered in college seemed like complete lunacy.”

  “We were changing,” Hillary said. “Bill and I were planning on having another child when we were possessed. We’d already stopped seeing many of the goofy people we were involved with in college.”

  “I’m not sure we’ll be everything you’d like us to be,” Bill added, “but we’ll try to do what’s right.”

  “If we research what the demons were doing and do the opposite, we won’t be too far wrong,” Hillary stated confidently. “I want to get started right away after we spend time with Chelsea.”

  “We’ll be here at the Venetian for at least a week.” Raphael stood up. “I will contact Mr. Gorbachev and let him know about these new developments. In the meantime, I guess we’d better get going. Sister Mary Catherine and Sister Angelina will have to change into the same outfits they had on coming in here. I will return to our suite without going through your security guards. Goodbye for now, my friends.”

  In the blink of an eye the Archangel Raphael was gone, a sudden reminder of how different reality would be for the Clintons. Catherine and Angelina changed immediately into the clothing they had on when initially entering the suite. Catherine saw the surprised look on the Clintons’ faces as they leaned closer together.

  “You two must be a bit more than normal yourselves,” Bill said.

  “We have some small power over our clothing. No demon can remain in a person once Sister Mary Catherine lays hands on them,” Angelina replied. “We’re kind of learning on the job.”

  Hillary stood up and embraced first Angelina and then Catherine. “Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough.”

  “It’s more than enough.” Catherine shook hands with Bill Clinton. “We’re doing what we were meant to do. With your help, we will do even more.”

  “It’s been an incredible experience for us to actually meet the real Clintons,” Angelina said with enthusiasm. “Those demons really did a number on you two. It will take some time to undo the damage, but don’t despair if it doesn’t work out. Remember, Chelsea could give you some grandkids.”

  “I hadn’t even thought about that.” Bill embraced Hillary. “Maybe we will have a real second chance. We’ll walk you two out so the Secret Service knows everything is okay.”

  Outside the suite, Bill and Hillary Clinton shook hands again with Catherine and Angelina, waving at the Secret Service agents posted at the entrance. The agent who had escorted the two nuns into the suite now took up a guiding position for their return to the elevator. Once back in the main casino, Catherine took Angelina’s arm.

  “I’m starving, Muffy.”

  “Gee, there’s a shock. Let’s go talk to Raph and see what he wants to do. I’m convinced Carol set us up.”

  “I don’t know.” Catherine shook her head. “She would have to be an Academy Award winner to carry off that kind of performance with Raphael.”

  “You’re probably right but I’d still like to get Raph’s take on Carol’s part in all this. I’m a big fan of the old X-Files credo: trust no one. We need to wait for Abaddon too. Let’s order something off the room service menu.”

  “Sounds good to me. That was quite an experience with the Clintons?”

  “It all makes sense in a way, Cat.” Angelina steered Catherine around a middle aged man who did a double take when he saw the two nuns approaching him. “Between the two of them, they tried to tag us with universal health care, sold MIRV technology to the Red Chinese, put North Korea on the path to nuclear mayhem, and put the Terrorist head-takers in the driver’s seat on the road to 911. When you add in Bill’s constant moral lapses, I’m thinking…”

  “Chaos,” Catherine broke in. “They want to plunge the whole world into a chaotic mess, where eventually the people are willing to give up everything to a select few world leaders.”

  “It fits,” Angelina confirmed. “The people in the varied nations become so confused the whole world seems upside down. Their leaders allow unrestricted immigration, legal and illegal, along with political correctness and multi-culti nonsense.”

  “Businesses are first held up to esteem and then blackmailed, all while the governments keep the socialist welfare state humming along.” Catherine sighed. “We need to stop talking about this. It’s depressing.”

  “No can do, Cat.” Angelina led Catherine onto the elevator which would take them up to their suite. “If we don’t start getting out ahead of these things they’re going to take us out before the boys get there to stop it. Today was one close call.”

  “I figured I’d expelled my last demon.” Catherine followed Angelina out of the elevator, ignoring the two couples sharing the ride up. The people sharing the elevator looked at the two nuns like they had a third eye.

  “It’s a movie plot, folks,” Angelina called back over her shoulder before the elevator door closed. “Do we have to protect our secret identities, Cat-woman?”

  “We need to stay low key, Muffy, but it probably doesn’t matter.” Catherine chuckled at Angelina’s Cat-woman comment. “They’ll think we’re crazy anyhow unless they see us in action with their own eyes. The Clinton demons sure howled when they tried to take over our bodies. Were you afraid they could do it, Ange?”

  “Not for a second,” Angelina answered confidently. “I knew they could kill us. No way did I believe they could body hop us. Nice move on the Clinton’s when the demons were getting used to pain. You moved fast.”

  “They were really pissed then.” Catherine opened the suite door with her key. “Wow, I hear the TV. Raph must have went coach potato on us after he left the Clinton’s.”

  “I can hear you,” Raphael called out from the suite living room, evoking laughter from Angelina and Catherine as they walked through the bar area to join him. “I called Mikhail and told him about the Clintons. It really shook him up. I could tell he had no idea. He was going to fax us over the names of everyone he has seen or talked to since being free of his demon. When he gets finished researching all the ties his demon had been cultivating before we came along, he’s going to send some more names.”

  “Did you tell him we kind of follow along by divine guidance?” Angelina sat down next to Raphael with Catherine sitting on the other side of the Archangel.

  “I explained we are progressing through our missions in a rather unorthodox manner. Mikhail said he understood. It will still be to our advantage if we at least can keep a database with names and pictures using whatever Mikhail can supply us. I’m sure you two will come up with a database on your new toy.”

  “Toy?” Ange and I will show you how important having a first class computer is in this day and age, especially when you’re hunting demons with connection threads throughout the world.”

  “I apologize for my insensitive ‘toy’ remark,” Raphael said without a hint of remorse in his voice. “So, how did your debrief of the Clintons go?”

  “Raph, you cannot believe what a shock it is to realize all the crap the Clintons have been responsible for over the years was demonic in origin,” Angelina could not contain the excitement in her voice while grasping Raphael’s arm with both her hands. “Boy, there are going to be a lot of sore head left wing nut-cakes when they get a load of the new Clintons.”

  “This is really getting exciting now, Raph,” Catherine added. “In the space of less than a month, we’ve acquired friends in the highest echelons of the wo
rld. Our mission seems so much more… I don’t know…”

  “Doable?” Raphael interjected with a grin. “Oh ye of little faith.”

  “It didn’t hurt to get an upgrade from the dark angel, huh Cat?”

  “Shut up, Muffy!” Catherine blushed, looking away. “Abaddon should have been back by now. I’m getting worried.”

  “If anything happened to him I would know it Sister Mary Catherine. My brother will return more powerful than ever.”

  “Meaning what, Raph?” Angelina asked.

  “Those demons were the most powerful we’ve faced. When Abaddon vanquishes these demons he absorbs their power. Sometimes it is difficult for him to process the added power as when he tore through those demons on the wharf. He virtually hummed with power even though he had been injured. It was the main reason the Clinton demons could not break through my shield. I draw power from Abaddon. Lucifer drained me when I was defeated and captured by him. Abaddon has made me many times more powerful than I ever was before Lucifer’s imprisonment.”

  “If all that’s true,” Catherine asked, “why do you sound so uneasy?”

  “I…I don’t know if I can drain off what he accumulates in the Abyss,” Raphael admitted. “I am at a disadvantage in the darkness.”

  “We’ll buck you up, Raph,” Angelina stated positively, leaning her head against Raphael’s shoulder. “Now, on to the important stuff: did Carol rat us all out?”

  “I’ve wondered about that too, Ange. Honestly, I don’t know. Being with her was wonderful. As you both know such feelings can cloud the truth of things quite well, even with an Archangel.”

  “That settles it then,” Angelina stated. “Cat and I will go harness the bimbo and beat the truth out of her.”

  Raphael laughed. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Sister Angelina. The truth will reveal itself over the next few days. Let us await the return of Abaddon. Then we will deal with our other concerns.”

  “You do understand when you see her again, she’ll know, right?” Catherine asked.

  “She’ll know something has happened. She will not know anything else but what I tell her. Carol is not a demon. Anything beyond that point in reality she has absolutely no control over.”

  “What about payback?”

  “I am not a vengeance demon, Sister Angelina. If you wish for her to be burned to ash see my brother.”

  “I…I would never do that. Sorry, Raph.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for, Ange. Now, is there anything else?”

  “Food? Can we order in?”

  “Anything you want, Sister Mary Catherine,” Raphael answered. “I’m sure you’re both hungry after our ordeal.”

  “We’ll order in. Maybe Abaddon will return soon. What do you feel like, Cat?”

  “Steak and lobster?”

  “Good choice,” Angelina said, jumping up from the couch. “I’ll order it. You two put something besides the news on TV. They have a bar in here. How about a drink?”

  “I’d love one,” Catherine replied enthusiastically.

  “I’ll have whatever you two have. I doubt Abaddon would mind us having one in his honor.”

  “Are you going to try out the dice tables any time soon, Raph?” Angelina called out from the bar.

  “I must admit I am sorely tempted to play a little. I’d need Abaddon as backup for something like that.”

  “We could back you up Raph,” Catherine suggested. “We’ll set a time limit for you and stand right at your side.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “I say we go down to the casino after we eat.” Angelina set a tray of glasses and three beers down on the serving table in front of the couch. “We need to take our minds off our missing Archangel.”

  “What if he reappears in the casino?” Raphael poured for them from the bottles. “That would be a bit of a diversion for the rest of the casino crowd.”

  “So what?” Angelina shrugged, plopping down again next to Raphael. “I know we aren’t supposed to fly around on your backs in full Archangel regalia but most of these folks who see something out of the ordinary write it off to an illusion anyway. Besides, did you know the casinos don’t allow video or still cameras in the casino.”

  “Yes but everyone has a camera phone,” Catherine reminded her. “Still, the worst that could happen is a few shots get out to the media and they figure it’s a magic act. C’mon, Raph, we can’t sit here all night pulling our hair out.”

  “Very well, Sister Mary Catherine, we will venture into the casino after our meal. This beer is very good, Sister Angelina.”

  “They have the bar stocked with a few different imported beers and just about every kind of booze known to man. The food will be at the door in about forty minutes.”

  “To Abaddon.” Raphael lifted his glass in a toast.

  “Abaddon,” Catherine and Angelina repeated quietly, clinking their glasses into Raphael’s to toast the missing Archangel.

  After the meal arrived the three companions ate at a leisurely pace.

  “How did you two get together?” Raphael asked.

  Catherine and Angelina exchanged puzzled looks.

  “Oh, I see, the two of you think I picked through your minds each time I touched either of you, huh?”

  “I figured you absorbed the information and knew all about us,” Catherine admitted. “I guess I took for granted facts not in evidence, huh?”

  “Don’t get all huffy about it, Raph. What do you want to know? Cat and I’ve been together since we were teenagers. We ended up in the same foster care home for a while before graduation. Catholic Charities were affiliated with our foster parents. I had a few bad experiences with guys I knew in the foster care system and Catherine was already a Saint, so naturally…”

  “I always loved the church,” Catherine broke in defensively. “I didn’t force you to go along with me after graduation, Muffy.”

  Angelina grinned. “Calm down. I loved it too. If I’d been in doubt they would have weeded me out at the convent. I just hung around next to you and let your aura help me through the hard times.”

  “Very funny. Anyhow, we were assigned to Father Joseph’s parish in Boston where we met Sister Sarah.”

  “Father Joseph was very driven. He had spent a decade researching exorcisms,” Angelina explained between bites of food. “We were attracted to his intensity. Sarah, Cat, and I jumped at the chance to go with him to the Holy-land. You know the rest.”

  “What happened to your parents? You said…”

  “Mine died in a car accident when I was twelve,” Catherine broke in. “They didn’t have any extended family. I ended up in foster care.”

  “My Mom was on the street. The authorities took me away from her before she inadvertently hurt me. I was only three. The foster care homes were like heaven compared to being with her. When I tried looking her up after high school they told me she died of an overdose two years before that. It was good karma to get hooked up in a home with Catherine. I was starting to take after my Mom.”

  “We already told you about getting involved in politics with the older folks,” Catherine told Raphael. “They kept our interest up in everything. I…I have to admit, life as a nun before Ange and I became involved with the politics was getting… well…”

  “Boring,” Angelina finished for her. “We still had a couple of years in training left before we could have taught school. I’m sure things would have livened up with being able to influence a younger generation.”

  “So you were bored with the Lord’s work, Sister Mary Catherine? You and Sister Angelina needed more challenges in your calling I take it.”

  Catherine smiled guiltily. “It’s not as easy being pious twenty-four/seven as many people think. We wished to do so much more. Our decision to seek more adventure ended with us in our own private purgatory, tortured by those sub-human wretches...”

  “You mean be careful what you wish for?”

  “Not exactly, Raph - we endured a
nd now we’re in battle head to head with evil. It’s what I always imagined and so much more.”

  Catherine blushed. “I…I feel as if maybe I’ll ruin everything with this… this desire to be with Abaddon.”

  “You need to quit feeling so guilty about anything which gives you pleasure,” Raphael replied, covering Catherine’s hand where it lay on the table. “When the Lord chooses one of us for a task he does not turn his back on us because we act in accordance with our nature.”

  “It was in your nature to spend years gambling in squalor, Raph?” Angelina asked with false innocence.

  “Thank you for that lovely reminder, Sister Angelina.” Raphael pointed his right index finger at Angelina who immediately squealed. She pitched backwards out of her chair and rubbed her bottom.