Trent fought the urge to ask the complementary question, but lost out in the end. “And if I kill you?”
Ramón raised an eyebrow in surprise. “If you killed me, Trent, your soul would die.”
“So?”
“Only reason you’re still walkin’ and talkin’ is cause your soul is still hanging around. So maybe it’s hanging around in the wrong guy, but its still here.” Ramón tapped his chest. “But with it gone, you’d go to that same place that all the dead go to.” He glanced out the window, watching for a second as the snow swirled against the glass pane. “And you’d stay there.”
“Hell?”
“See now, those so-called ‘friends’ of mine just didn’t tell you anything, did they? No, not Hell, I’m afraid. That’s a place you get to go by invitation only. And you gotta have a soul to get past the bouncers. Heaven’s the same way. If you show up soul-free, you just stick around in the dark for the rest of time.”
“The dark?”
“Realms of Shadow. The Night Lands. Purgatory. Abaddon. Whatever you wanna call it. You stay there. Trust me... Hell’s a vacation in comparison. At least in Hell, you got something to do.”
Trent wasn’t entirely certain of the last statement, but the thought of death was enough to stave off any thoughts of attempting to take the life of the demon sitting in front of him. And that assumed he even could. Trent wasn’t so sure that Ramón was as powerless as he implied.
“So exactly what are you?” Trent asked.
Ramón smiled. “Now that’s where things get complex. We’re all angels, except you folks,” he paused and scowled. “And the shades, of course.
“We’re all angels, like I said, but some of us took different paths. The demons–they call themselves the nephilim–they started the First War in Heaven. They were prideful, figured they certainly were better than a bunch of lame mortals made from mud and dirt. God didn’t quite see it that way, so Samael and his friends end up in Hell. The higher-ranking folks, like your poker buddies, spend most of their time top-side, messing around in human affairs, but the rest of the demons–and their various minions–are still stuck in the fires below.” He looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “Or what’s left of them.”
“And you?”
Ramón seemed to ignore the question. “After the nephilim, you get the grigori. They’re a whole different breed. Started out as angels, just like the rest, but they got thrown out later, after Samael and his friends had already taken off. The grigori thought that God would like it if they consorted with the wives of man, if they infused angelic blood into the human bloodlines.”
Trent nodded. “Guess they were wrong.”
Ramón agreed. “God wasn’t too happy about that. In fact, He seemed even more pissed about that than about Samael’s pride. The demons at least got a kingdom to rule over. The grigori got nothing but chains. He bound them to Earth. I guess He figured if they liked humans so much, then He’d make sure they get to stay with ‘em. Permanently. And the grigori had poured so much of their celestial power into human blood that they were little more than humans themselves at that point. They become known as the Watchers, because that’s all they could do. Watch. For all eternity.”
Trent’s mind reeled with the information, before he realized that Ramón had never answered the question.
“So what are you?” he asked again.
Ramón stared out the window at the blizzard.
“I’m the only one of my kind. Not a demon. Not a grigori. But not an angel anymore, either. I’m something else.”
“What?”
“More coffee?” Ramón asked.
“What?” The sudden change of subject confused Trent.
“Can I get you some more coffee? Your cup looks empty.”
Trent looked down at the mug. He hadn’t really noticed that he had drained it clean. He frowned. “You still haven’t answered the question. And why were you on that plane?”
Ramón leaned back in his chair, glanced again at the snow-filled window, and then said, “You sure you don’t want some more coffee? This might take a while.”
“I’m fine. Answer me.”
Ramón shrugged. There was a long pause, and then he began to speak, his voice taking on a subtle, but different, tone. His words seemed older somehow.
“You see,” he began, “In the beginning, there existed but one God...”
“In the beginning, there existed but one God, who created Lucifer, the light-bringer, so that he might bring the Light of God to the world. From that Light, a shadow was cast, and all things were pulled from it to form this world. And those things that were named became all that we know–plant and beast and earth and sky. But the things that remained nameless became unto themselves a place of shadow, a realm of utter darkness and despair, where all things go after the Light of God no longer shines upon them. And a domain for those things upon which God’s light has never shone.
“And from the shadows Lucifer pulled the angels, drawing their shapes and forms and giving them all divine gifts from God Himself. And then, in order to please God, Lucifer formed a creature in His glorious image–a creature Lucifer named Man. But Lucifer, though he was the light-bringer, could not imbue his new creation with the true Light of God–-and so God took pity on Man and breathed into him a soul, that Man might live in the everlasting grace of the Holy Father.
“God, in His infinite wisdom, also sought to give another gift to angel and Man alike–the gift of free will. No longer chained to God’s almighty will, angel and Man could shape their own destinies and make their own choices. But Samael, the most powerful of God’s angelic soldiers, the leader of an army whose purpose was indeterminate, came to God, doubtful of the Lord’s omnipotence, and questioned that Man’s choices and fates should be unknowable. And so God created an entire host of angels to guide and shape Man’s destiny.
“God created many angels, who held dominion over every aspect of Man and nature. And then, God created me. I was known then as Ramiel.
“I held dominion over prophecy and fate. I was given charge over the souls that would come for judgment in the final days. I saw the past, present, and future of all things. And I stood beside the throne of God, one of His most cherished advisors. And my wisdom came to take precedence over even Lucifer’s, who then fell into the shadow of the Heavenly Kingdom.
“God bid me show fate and future to early man, that he might record prophecy in tomes and scriptures. I was the first Prophet. God bid me show Man the consequences of actions and the dangerous duality of free will. And I did.
“Then, it came to pass that the angels of heaven began to plot. Some, under the direction of Samael, sought to challenge God himself for the throne of heaven. Others, led by Semyaza, had begun to find in their hearts lustful desires for the Race of Man. Worried, many of these angels sought my counsel that they might know of their own futures. At first, I was hesitant to do so, but soon I found the demands of so many thousands of angels overwhelming, and I ceded to their wishes.
“Angel after angel came before me, seeking the knowledge of their fate. And those who had true reason to worry did indeed see the consequences of their actions in the visions that I bestowed upon them. They saw the fiery wrath of an angry God looming in the distance. They saw the War and the fall from Heaven and Holy Light. Those under Semyaza’s influence saw the mutual execration and the binding to Earth for all eternity. And all who came before me were distraught.
“Finally, Samael himself bid me come to his chambers, asking for a vision of his future. I gave without hesitation, for at the time I did not know of Samael’s hatred and malice. To me, he was the holy light-bringer, greatest of all archangels, and his command unto me was like that of God Himself. In the vision that I presented to Samael, he saw himself indeed as ruler of a mighty kingdom. But it was not as he might wish. The kingdom he would command was not Heaven, and the angels he would rule over were no longer glorious in their beauty. He saw a vision of the first War. He sa
w his glorious, shining armies dashed upon the shores of Heaven. And he saw a vision of Hell.
“Frightened by the vision myself, I quickly left the chambers of Samael and fled to my own. Never had I seen such horrors as were to come and I found myself stricken with sorrow. For a century I remained in my chambers, silent, heeding not the calls of angels or even God Himself, a decision that would ultimately bring me out of God’s favor. The prophets of Man were spoken to by others, then, who told them sometimes truths and sometimes lies. And all the while, Samael’s hatred for me grew.
“Finally, Samael devised a plan to remove my visions from his mind. He desired that I be destroyed outright. He beseeched God to banish me from the Light for telling the lies that he believed I had told. But God refused.
“I believe that that was when Samael first found himself truly skeptical of God’s omnipotence. To Samael, whose pride was greater than his reason, my visions were clearly untrue, and God was protecting me because He favored me. Samael devised another plan.
“Into my chambers he burst, his holy visage bearing tidings of sadness and shame. I did not know then that it was all an act and I asked him immediately of the cause. He informed me that God was pleased with the visions I had shown to the angels, but that He wished a greater test for his celestial children. He said that God wished I should tell the angels otherwise, that my early visions had been false. He said that God wanted to test their faith.
“I was unable to refuse an order that had come from the captain of God’s angelic legions, even with the visions I had seen of Samael’s fate. God had seen fit on many an occasion to test the faith of Man, so it seemed natural that He would do so with the faithful of heaven as well. I spread my lies among the angels then, telling them of my errors, telling them that I–who had dominion over all true visions–had been wrong.
“The hatred of me grew and the name ‘Ramiel’ became a curse among the celestial host. The angels who had once succumbed to worry were bolstered by my disgrace and sought to begin their scheming anew. Samael seeded them with the lie that if I had been wrong–one of God’s direct advisers–then perhaps God was no more omnipotent than I. And as unbelievable as it might seem, the Prince of Lies planted a seed that sprouted true.
“I do not know if Samael ever came to believe the visions I had shown him. In some ways, I believe that perhaps he did understand, but his pride refused to accept his own fate. In any case, as with many prophecies, his was self-fulfilling. When Samael and his armies rebelled, the War in Heaven was horrible. It was a time echoed on Earth by the most fearsome of storms and the most horrific of plagues. And as the rebel angels fell, their names became demon, but never again angel. And for that, Samael cursed me with the last of his holy words, that I should never again see the Light of God myself. And his curse rang true.
“For a thousand years I toiled in heaven, unable to see the Light or hear the words of the Lord God. I held council with the young angel Semyaza, who had concocted a new plan to win back the Lord’s graces in the wake of Samael’s fall. I attempted to convince Semyaza of the error of his ways, for he and his kind believed that God would find favor in angels if they would take upon them the wives of Man. He believed that Man with the blood of angels would be a greater creature, even closer to God than the base Man that walked the earth.
“This is what Semyaza spoke to me, and to his fellow angels. He and his followers were jealous that Man could produce more of its own kind, an ability no angel possessed. And with the demons banished from God’s sight, the angelic host had grown smaller by a third. Many of the grigori–for that is what Semyaza’s converts would come to be called–acted out of fear more than lust.
“But I truly believe that, at the core of Semyaza’s being, his motivation was one of lust, and nothing more. Regardless of his motivation, all who acted were judged accordingly.
“When the grigori took mortal wives and produced their children, the peoples of Earth cried out. The children of the grigori were mightier than the mightiest man, for they bore angelic blood and divine power, and this power served to corrupt and twist many of their desires. The pure of the mortal lines became oppressed beneath the heels of the mighty half-breeds and they beseeched God, through the mortal prophet Enoch, to destroy their oppressors. And God, for the second time, administered His awful punishment upon his own celestial children.
“God bound Semyaza and his kind, the grigori, not to Hell, but to Earth, that they would be chained to the firmament for all eternity. And Semyaza, remembering my warning, sought to punish me as had Samael–for a drowning man often attempts to take his companions with him into the deep.
“In their last conversations, Semyaza told Enoch, who was to later become a great prophet at the side of God, that it was I, Ramiel, who had told the angels that their futures were of glory and righteousness. It was a lie, of course, and one that God would know.
“But in His inscrutable wisdom, He heeded Enoch’s words and did indeed move to banish me from the Kingdom of Heaven. He stripped me of my rank in the heavenly host and threw me from the Light. Not chained to Earth like the grigori, but unable to enter Hell–for Samael bears a mighty grudge to this very day–I found myself in the one place that all things go when the Light is no longer upon them–the places of shadow, suspended between Heaven and Hell for all eternity.
“I was bound there, languishing in the everlasting darkness for many ages as they passed across the Earth. I witnessed not the Great Flood, nor the rebuilding of the race of Man. It was only when the grigori entered my dark prison that I saw a way to escape.
“It seemed that Semyaza, never content to abide by his earthly chains, sought and discovered a secret way to move between the realms of shadow and the mortal world. I watched the grigori come and go for many of your mortal years before I chanced my escape. The places of shadow were–and still are–no easy realms in which to survive. The very natures of the places seek to strip one of all remembrance of things past and all hope for things of the future. It is a place where dreams die, nightmares are born, and death waits ever-patiently for the end of all things. It is a purgatory for mortals who are lost after death. A prison for angels upon whose wings the Holy Light shall never again shine. The realms of shadow are filled with those creatures that never received names, and they harbor eternal bitterness over that fact. I spent many ages walking in the unending black, hiding and staving off attacks from the nameless ones as they attempted to rend away my existence. And so I planned my escape carefully.
“After Semyaza had come and gone, I made my way to the place within the shadows where he had entered, hoping he would return there once more. The places of shadow do have a sort of geography, though it is ever-shifting, and the points of entry from this mortal world seem to be fixed in the shadows where unnatural death has reigned, at least for a time. My assertion was correct, and the king of the grigori did, indeed, return.
“My mind filled with the fury of what Semyaza had done to me. I attacked with all my strength, tearing his blackened wings and leaving him broken upon the shifting landscape of the shadow realms. And then, my murderous deed completed, I came back into the mortal world for the first time in millennia.
“Though I had defeated the king of the grigori, it had taken all of my strength and had been no easy battle. I decided it was better that I should hide in this world for a time, and so I did. Only a few mortals, and none of the fallen host, knew of my residence in this realm for yet another age. And then, on a cloudless night in the middle ages, I heard the voice of God once more.
“God spoke to me in a dream and His voice was cold, distant, and pained. He told me of the Flood and the sins of Man and angel alike. He told me of His concern for the realms of shadow, for things that were left unnamed seek always to return to this place, where all things have a title. He instructed me that I should begin a hunt–a hunt for those things that had tormented me in my captivity in the dark, a hunt for the angels who had told lies in my name–and that I sho
uld never cease until another took up my cause. I had become His angel of retribution, though I still know not of the fate of the angel Gabriel, who had held that position before me. I took to my task with eagerness and ferocity. I took it upon myself to protect His children, the race of Man.
“For centuries, I hunted the creatures of the dark realms–the shades–and those grigori who would seek to gather their foul assistance. I had mastered the means of their destruction and learned many of the secrets they kept, even from God Himself, though I doubt anything is truly kept from His eyes. But as the centuries wore on, I found that my divine gifts, though still mostly intact, had been changed during my times in the shadow realms. No longer could I tell the future of a man and my visions became increasingly sparse. In their stead came a gift for changing fate, rather than knowing it. And I used this new talent as my weapon of the hunt.
“That was, until you stole it from me, Trent. Now, I sit here, in my house, waiting for the days of judgment, at which time I believe God will take me back to His side, for I have done as He desired, and I have given up the hunt now that another has arrived to take up my cause. It is as He said it would be, and I–of all of the angels–still know the truth of prophecy.”
Trent sat in stunned shock. At first, he didn’t know how to respond to such a tale, though he had a number of burning questions. Finally, he selected one and posed it to Ramón–who had once been called Ramiel.
“So you think I’m the one to take up your hunt? To kill shades and grigori and the angels who cheated you?”
Ramón lit a cigarette, took a long puff and looked out the window at the blowing snow. Where his voice had taken an almost regal tone in the telling of his tale, it now slipped back to the friendly colloquial that Trent had become used to.
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