“I’m at home, where else would I be?” she asked as she seemed to move about. “Just waiting for a delivery. Why, did you want to do something? I’m free between about three and seven depending on when this guy gets here. Or you could come over here and screw me into a wall.”
Sex was a bad idea, but the moment she suggested it, the image was running through my head. Once was not enough. I didn’t care if Michael’s grace had been what brought Sera into existence. Everything that she was turned me on and drew me in.
“I… too have a delivery,” I said as I frowned and turned to the others, raising my hand for help. “I can’t leave until it arrives.”
“Sex toys,” Gabe mouthed. “Sex toys.”
“It’s a dildo,” I blurted out, then smacked myself in the face.
“Oh,” Sera said. “So after my delivery, I should come over and wait with you. We should test that right away. Just in case, you know. Flaws, problems.”
“Yes, you should,” I said.
I wondered where I would get said dildo delivery on such short notice. We could package up a box and send it out and have a random person deliver it to us. If we knew someone between us who worked for one of those companies, we could pay them off to make the delivery and make it look official.
There was little the rich couldn’t do, with the right money and the right person.
“Is Michael there?” Sera asked.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Why?”
“I’m just entertaining a new fantasy.”
“Oh?” I asked because I was struggling with what else I could say in response.
I knew where she was headed but then was not the time. I also didn’t want to have that conversation with Michael. Even after seeing me the night before, grace entirely in place and untouched by the world as he thought I should have been, I didn’t think he had come around.
He may have grown bitter, but not more open-minded.
“Mm, could you put him on the phone for me, please?” Sera asked.
I could hear the smile in her voice, which made me smile. I turned and held the phone out to Michael, who frowned at me, but took it.
When I had turned, he had been standing awfully close to me. I practically stepped on his toes when I had moved, and he had been looming over as if he were trying to hear what was being said.
As he turned away with the phone, I followed him. I was not quite so close, but he had my phone and was known to throw things when he got upset. And maybe it was possible that I was trying to hear what Sera was saying to him. I couldn’t hear her, just the murmur of her voice as she talked.
And Michael responding with, “Yeah, uh huh. Yeah. Oh yeah, uh huh. That sounds un-sanitary, dear.”
There was a pause. I only saw Michael’s back, but I did see the red that crept down his neck at whatever Sera was saying. There was tension all down his back, and for too long, he didn’t so much as breathe.
When he finally spoke, there was a little raise to his chest like he had suddenly remembered air was not optional.
“Well, that would certainly, uh, certainly be a new experience for me. Yeah, work up to it? Why would we work up to it? Well, what if I just know I won’t like it? No, no one ever did that to me. Well, why is that the first thing you think of when you see me? Most women just want to climb on my lap or my face… uh, oh, oh no, I’m quite good with my tongue. Mm, well, take that up with him. He knows how to use his tongue. Occupied, was he? How so? Oh, oh, yes. Uh, no, no, he may have said something about it.”
Michael turned back to me and held out the phone.
“She wants to talk to you.”
I took the phone from him and scowled, then turned my back on him and took several steps away. I knew he followed me because I was feeling for it. His warmth was right near my back as I moved away from where he had been standing.
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“A thing I’d like to do,” Sera countered. “Did you really tell him about how we had sex?”
“Uh, no,” I said.
Michael had witnessed it through the astral plane. Sera didn’t know that, however, and as Michael flicked me in the shoulder, hard, I remembered that and gritted my teeth. I grasped for the first excuse I could come up with to explain how Michael might have known about Toby, Sera, and me.
“It may be a story I have shared before though,” I said as I did a half-turn and glared at Michael. “Not the first time I’ve had a threesome where the extra has had me.”
“I’m not looking for a threesome where anyone is extra,” she said. “If you get my drift.”
“Sera, I have to be honest with you. While I’m open to all sorts, because I believe consensual sex and consensual relationships, uh… Michael’s more of a one-woman and marrying type of deal. And he’s really interested in you.”
It had to be said and done. Sera was supposed to be Michael’s grace, not mine. He had to be given every opportunity so he could have his happy ending. So he could make it back to Heaven again.
“He’s agreed to give it a shot.”
“Wh—” I turned on Michael and raised a hand in question, “what did you say to make him agree?”
He made no response. I’m almost certain he knew what I was questioning about, but he was without emotion. Nothing told me what he thought of the matter, and I couldn’t ask him with Sera still on the line.
“I was just plain with him. I like you both. I don’t want to give up on either, and I’m not looking to add a third or fourth man to the mix.”
“That’s a little weird.”
“Well. It’s both of you or neither of you.”
She was his grace. Of course, Michael would say yes, it was practically blackmail. Though, Sera didn’t know that. He didn’t have much another choice, did he? To say no would be to deny Father, which would deny him entrance into Heaven.
But so would lip service.
What to do in that case?
If I said no, Michael didn’t get to be with Sera, if I said yes, Michael might pay lip service to her and our relationship, which would deny him entrance to Heaven. In no version of that could Michael win.
There was only one version that I would win, however. I made the selfish choice because if I couldn’t make a better choice for someone else, I’d make the better one for me.
“Okay, well, I had already agreed to that,” I managed to get out.
“I know you did, but now I hear hesitance. Is this because you two fight about everything?”
“Maybe…”
“Maybe,” Sera hesitated. “Hold on, I think my delivery is here.”
I listened as she answered the door. I heard her say hello, and some exchange, though the words were murmured, and I couldn’t quite make out what was being said.
“Hello, mother, I need to go,” Sera said into the phone.
And the call ended. I pulled the phone away from myself as the screen flashed and then went black. With the phone still held out, I turned to Sam and frowned.
“What happened?” Sam asked.
“She called me mother and said she had to go,” I said.
Sam swore. He reached into his pockets and pulled out his phone as his other hand seemed to continue searching for something. He looked at something on the screen as my phone went off. I glanced at the screen and saw the notification.
“Demon sign,” I said.
The phone went off again.
“Fallen angel sign,” I added.
And again.
“Fuck me. Dark witches must be ripping the fabric of reality.”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “They haven’t crossed over yet. They’re simply gathering. The witches must have decided on a place and time for their ritual. They’re going to bring the wings into the physical world. Their decision to start this has altered the fabric of the future.”
“They may be using dark magic,” Gabe said. “Hence the fallen angel sign. It’s a massive undertaking, pulling wings into the physical world.”
“Ripping the boundaries of the universe as they do so,” Michael said.
“Demons want to get through, fallen angels want the wings for themselves,” Sam said. “All the others would simply be trying to get through. I have three, nine—fifty? Messages from various small demons around the city. Good to know they’re that afraid of us.”
“What are they saying?” Gabe asked.
“That they have a lead on dark witches,” Sam said. “They still haven’t figured out our system.”
“So what exactly is the plan of the witches here?” I asked with a shake of my head. “Make a big fuss and hope we find the right location? They’re aiming for us, right?”
Any angel would do. Any Heavenly Host would do. That may have been why they were causing such a fuss. They knew that if they made enough of a fuss, someone or something interesting would show up. Michael had always been the one to deal them a blow because it was his mess to clean up.
“No,” Michael said. “They’re aiming for me. It’s my grace they’ve figured out how to use. Therefore, we’ll give them me.”
Dark magic couldn’t work on me, nor could regular magic unless it took on physical form. With my grace, the mortal magic couldn’t wrap around me. For Michael, for Sera, I had to go with him to end it.
“They likely spelled Sera to say goodbye to the one on the phone,” Gabe said. “She likely didn’t tell them who she was actually on with. Hence the mother comment. The witches have contacted me and would like to inform us that they have detected black magic.”
“Black magic?” I asked. “As in necromancy? Or are they mixing up dark and black?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Sam said.
“It could be multiple problems,” I said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Dark magic and angel’s grace in a spell. We strongly suspected that the kind of magic they used Michael’s grace for was based on his capabilities. Michael was a warrior known for smiting entire civilizations, and so the witches used that grace for destruction, war, and trying to capture other angels.
Black magic was the art of necromancy. The re-animation of the dead usually. It was the pulling of spirits back to the physical plane of existence.
And it made me sick in a quite literal fashion. The nature of it conflicted with my nature too much.
If the witches were using black magic and dark magic, I would have trouble.
“True…” Gabe said, texting on his phone. There was a moment of silence, and then the phone pinged. “There’s only one event happening at the moment. They’re relatively certain it only just started, and are gathering coordinates now. It’s… they’re wondering if you let me loose in a music store.”
Sam smiled at Gabe, who glared back at him.
“It’s not funny,” Gabe said.
The last time Gabe had been in a music store, a world war had been brewing. We didn’t know it at the time, but he felt it, and Heaven was alerted.
“Lighten up, it’s quite amusing to everyone else,” Sam said.
“If I didn’t know whether your skin was stuck, I’d hit you,” Gabe growled.
In Heaven, Gabe could play any instrument except his trumpet. On Earth, doing so heralded coming war and destruction caused by the humans.
“We need to go,” Michael said, motioning to the door. “Universe ending devastation? Demons being let out of their area, to our area? Any of that ringing any bells?”
“This is not the apocalypse,” Gabe said in an annoyed and bored tone. “I’d know if it were the apocalypse.”
“Apocalypse is a fairy tale,” I added.
“You don’t know where you’re going yet,” Sam said. “Wait until we know. Then you can go off like a rocket. Gabe?”
“Apparently waiting,” Gabe said with a shake of his head. “I told them I wanted it updated to track witches. This is what happens when they don’t update it because they’re afraid of men.”
“You’ll take Raphael with you,” Sam said. “Since they’re his wings, if they do manage to break through to this plane, they’ll automatically return to him. Right, Raphael?”
I was going to go even if Sam tried to stop me, but it lightened my heart to hear him agreeing with my thought. Even if his reason for me going wasn’t the same reason I wanted to go.
“I think so, in theory,” I said. “We’ve never had to return wings in the physical plane before. The witches probably know by now that we’re involved with Sera, so why not just call us?”
“Because our numbers are unlisted,” Sam said. “And Sera has some complicated locking on her cellphone.”
“Fingerprint and then a pattern,” Gabe said without looking up from his phone. “I tried accessing it at the wedding because Toby told me I should learn what I can about her. No-go. Witches can’t use her phone to call us.”
“Call her,” Michael said. “Phones unlock when you get a call.”
I shrugged. “Worth a try.”
Bringing up Sera’s contact information, I gave her a call. The phone rang three times before it was picked up, but nothing said on the other side of the call.
“This is Raphael Angelica,” I said. “I believe you have something of mine.”
I looked around the room as I waited in the silence. On the other side, I could hear them breathing. I knew that they had heard me, and they were considering their options. They wanted Michael. He was the one that the original dark witch had stolen the feather from.
“We will text you the address of where you can pick it up. When we’re done with it.”
The call ended.
I swore and slipped my phone into my pocket. I tried to remain calm, but the fear was creeping in. Sera’s soul was made up of Michael’s grace. If she died, he would have his grace back. Which would be a very bad thing for the witches.
The witches didn’t know that, though.
And if Michael received his grace because Sera died, somehow I didn’t think that would count as him passing a trial. Father was a lot of things, but killing innocent women wasn’t something Heaven condoned.
“They won’t tell us until they have completed their ritual,” I said. “By then it will be too late.”
“Then they aren’t after Michael,” Sam said. “They must be after the wings themselves.”
“Which haven’t been cared for in ages,” Michael said. “The threads of fate alone would be something of a boon for them.”
“Why are you saying it like that?” I asked.
“When this is done, and you have your wings back, and I have my grace, we’re trimming your feathers,” he snapped. “That’s disgraceful, an arc angel walking around like that. Might as well be a human who didn’t shower for three days and then went out in public.”
“It’s not like hair!” I shouted back.
“It is,” Sam said. “But I also agree with Michael. Though, at the same time disagree with him. Yes, the wings should have been groomed, no, it’s not Raphael’s fault. What is going on in Heaven that the wings of an arc have fallen to disarray? They were cared for, weren’t they?”
I could only shrug and shake my head in response. I didn’t know what had happened to my wings in Heaven after I had left. One would assume that they had been taken care of, but there was no way to know for certain without being in Heaven.
“Toby would know,” I said.
“Got it,” Gabe said, raising his phone a little. “Witches are stupider these days.”
“Why do you say that?” Sam asked.
“I have the location because the witches took Sera’s phone with them. I simply traced the phone, and that tells us where she is in a general sort of way and then, of course, you two do a little legwork but I don’t think you’ll need much work to find them. Light in the sky or any other sort like that. These are universe wrenching events.”
“Where, Gabe?” Michael demanded.
“I’ll text you the coordinates once they stop moving, but it looks like they’re headed north of the city, to a less populated area, obviously,” Gabe said. “Take the highway, and you’ll be well on your way. Have Raphael drive. You have your weapon, right, Raphael?”
“Yes.”
“There’s nothing else that we need to know about you or what went down in Heaven?” Sam asked.
“No.”
“Are you certain?” Gabe asked. “Because I don’t want to take another walk through Hell.”
“I’m certain that I know nothing else about Heaven, or what is going on,” I said. “I didn’t leave anything else behind.”
“Okay,” Gabe said. “You two had best head out then. Try not to get each other killed. And remember these are witches you’re dealing with.”
“We’ll remember,” Michael said, motioning to me.
I followed him out of the room and headed immediately for the front doors. We then had to walk to the garage to get the car, which took about ten minutes. But we had abandoned the driving companies a year previous. Grace thought it was a waste of resources and had asked that we spend the money on something else.
Instead of having drivers, we had raised the minimum wage for all of our employees by two dollars and gave raises to all the long-term employees. We ended up paying well above the minimum wage enforced by the government, and our turn over had dropped sharply.
The only time I regretted that decision was right then when having a driver would have made a great deal more sense and would have saved us a ten-minute walk.
In the garage, we slipped into my car, and I drove immediately. I had to drive the speed limit, which didn’t help my mood any, and I knew it wouldn’t help Michael any either. There was an awkward silence inside the car that stretched on and on.
When Michael’s phone began ringing, I sighed out in relief.
He pulled out the phone and answered it with a grunt. Then basically grunted his way through a conversation. At the end of the call, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and continued to glare out the windshield, rather than tell me what had happened.
“Well?” I asked.
“What happens if we don’t succeed?”
“She dies and goes to Heaven. The witches die because Heaven will come down on them, things go back to normal.”
“To us,” Michael said.
“I think that’s something to discuss on the off chance that we fail,” I said. “We are angels of the Lord. His chosen few, the best protectors of Heaven and the innocent. We don’t have a plan. We never do when we have to go after witches.”
“That’s true,” he said.
“So… after. After this all. We’re successful. Then what? Then we just share Sera? She’s super weird. You notice that?”
“Made by Father to get to us,” Michael said. “I mean, if she were a normal woman and asking for this, I’d seriously wonder if she were crazy. But Father made her to be my grace and then your wings just sort of got attached. She’s feeling the pull that Grace has toward Sam, but for both of us because she is parts of us.”
“Does that make it masturbation every time Sam and Grace have sex?” I asked.
Michael was quiet a moment. “Does that mean Sam is right, and I’m attracted to you?”
I flushed in embarrassment, and the awkward silence returned.
“I get Sera, you get the witches,” I said finally, as we left city limits.
“Excuse me?” Michael demanded.
“I save Sera, you deal with the witches,” I said a little louder than before. “What did you think I meant?”
“Uh, nothing,” he said. “That’s a good plan, solid plan. I deal with my mess. You save the woman who probably needs a healer. What if they overpower me?”
“Then I’ll save you too,” I said in an annoyed tone. “Don’t make me save you, Michael. It’d just be sad and pathetic. Do that thing you do. Witches have less magic than a knight of Hell does, you’ve taken on them before and won.”
“In Hell, not on Earth,” Michael said.
He pulled his phone out and looked at the screen. “Turn up here, just past the sign. They’re about ten minutes away.”
I turned where he directed. Then I shut off my lights and allowed the moon to guide me.
“What is with witches thinking the moon will lend them power?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Michael said. “But it certainly makes it easier to sneak up on them. Is that a blood moon?”
“No, I think it might be a blue moon. I think that’s what Grace said. If it were a blood moon, it’d be a lot redder and we would have known something was going on before it did.”
“Right, dark witches,” Michael muttered with a shake of his head.
“Up here, that opening in the trees must be where they are.”
“I don’t see any Heaven-born light,” I said.
“Let’s hope that means they haven’t started yet.”