Authors: Stephanie Jackson
“T
hat’s Ezekiel 23:19.” Dani said, laughing.
“It was my mom’s favorite quote when anybody brought up prostitution.”
Gabriel reached out to lay his hand on Sheena.
Dani grabbed a hold of his arm, “What are
doing?
”
“Sh
e’s a prostitute,” Gabriel said.
“I’m going to smite her and send her to Tartarus.”
“You can’t do that,” Dani said.
Gabriel said, “Yes I can, and the decision to do so is mine alone.”
Sheena just stood there staring at Gabriel with a look of wonder on her face.
“You’re gonna kill her just because she’s a
hooker
?” Dani asked. “I don’t know if you’ve looked at the job market lately, but gainful employment is kind of thin on the ground. If she has to sell a little pussy to get some bills paid, how does that harm you? Please don’t do this.”
“You don’t even like her,” Gabriel said.
“What’s that have to do with the price of tea in
China
?” Dani said. “Just because I don’t like her doesn’t mean that I want to see her
dead
. Please don’t
do this, Gabriel.
”
Gabriel looked from Dani to Sheena
and
dropped his arm.
As much as he wanted to smite this woman, he let her live, “Another day then,” he said, and then took Dani’s arm and led her away from the whore.
7.
“What is it with you and cemeteries?” Gabriel asked Dani when she led him into the
Greenwood
Cemetery
down the road from Five Points.
Dani smiled
at him, “My mom loved Riverview
cemetery
,
but
t
his graveyard is where I hung out with my friends when I was a teenage
r
.”
“Why
in the world
would you
hang out
in a burial ground?”
“To smoke weed or drink,” she said. “And to toast the grave of Sgt. Carter, of course.”
Gabriel looked confused, “Who is Sgt. Carter? I know of many humans bearing the name of Carter that served in the military, but none that were buried here.”
Dani laughed as she led him through the cemetery to Frank Sutton’s grave, “Wow, there’s something you don’t know? Frank Sutton played Sgt. Carter on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”
“Of course, he was an
actor
,” Gabriel said looking down at the small simple headstone. “I’m surprised that there isn
’t a huge monument to him. I kno
w humans love their celebrities.”
“I wonder
ed about that myself,” she said.
“But the rumor is he was one hell of a great guy, and humble to boot. They say he wouldn’t have wanted fan fair on his headstone after he was laid to rest.”
“But
you
found him,” Gabriel said.
“It wasn’t that hard,” she said, looking down at the grave. “Everyone who was born and raised in Clarksville knows he’s buried here. Frank Sutton was a home town boy, and home is where he lays in rest.”
“You know only his body lies here, right?”
“I know, but it’s symbolic.”
“I don’t understand why humans cling to the bodies of their dead,” Gabriel said. “It’s not healthy.”
“Maybe not, but it’s how we cope with death.” She couldn’t explain
it to him any better than that.
“What do
you
with your dead?”
“Angels?” he asked. “There’s nothing
to
do with the
m. Our bodies linger longer in H
eaven than they do on earth, but in the end we go the same way demons do. Only without the fire and smoke.”
“You just evaporate?”
“Essential
ly
,” Gabriel said. “My body may be mostly human, but angels are made of pure energy. Human
souls
are made of energy, but your bodies are made of matter. Humans decay, whereas our bodies simple dissipate after death.”
“You talk about death as if it’s simple.”
“It is for the person or angel that dies,” he said. “You’re
alive
, and then you
’
r
e
not. The emotional toll of death is a concern for the living.”
“Don’t you care about the
emotional toll
that death takes on the living?” she asked.
“No, it’s not my concern,” he said, and then looked at her. “Or it didn’t
use
d
to be before I found you.”
She glared at him, “Are all angels as cold as you are when it comes to humans?”
“I don’t
feel
that way anymore,
Dani,
” he said. “But to answer your question, unfortunately yes. There are not many angels that are so bold as to go against God, but a large portion of them look at humanity as the assembly line for God’s favorite toys.”
“That’s just jacked up. I may not have
believed
in angels before you showed up, but if I had I would have
assumed
that they’d be kinder than they are.”
“I told you that angels aren’t innocent, but not
all
angels feel that way about humans. Some see the
m as God does and proudly serve
humanity accordingly.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better about
the fact that most angels hate
me?”
“You have nothing to fear from them as long as Michael and I still stand,” Gabriel said and kissed her on the forehead. “Only one angel has made a move directly on humanity.”
“Who?” she asked, shocked. “When?”
“Asteraoth. He was a Seraph; better known in Heaven as a Fire Angel,” he explained. “Asteraoth tried to turn himself into a Kamikaze bomb. He’s the reason I was on Earth a hundred years ago.”
“What did he do?”
“He
flung
himself from Heaven and aimed his body at the Earth,” Gabriel said. “I caught him, but it was a close thing. He was probably only two thousand feet above the surface of the Earth before I got a hold of him. Even then, the damage was incredible. Trees were blown over for miles around
,
and you could
see
the shape of his
massive
wings
burned i
nto the Earth. Unbeknownst to me at the time, smiting a Seraph in mid-air can be a bit…unstable.”
“Would he have left a crater like Lucifer did?”
“No, Seraphim are a different type of angel,” he said. “They were never meant to be on Earth and as such, they have no Earthly body. If he had
actually managed to touch the E
arth, he would have ignited it. Humanity would have been destroyed
in an instant
.”
“Why would he have done such a thing?” she asked.
“I don’t know and if anybody else knew, they didn’t tell me,” he said. “I stopped him, which was the end of my concern for the matter.”
“Why did you stop him if you weren’t ordered to?”
“Because it was the right thing to do,” he said. “And God would have wanted me to do so.”
“That’s a lot of trust to have in someone He had banished.”
Gabriel shrugged, “Maybe.”
“Wait a second,” Dani said, doing some quick calculations in her head. “Was Asteraoth the cause of the Tunguska Event of 1908 in Siberia?”
Gabriel nodded, “He was.”
“Scientists have theorized that it was an asteroid that exploded before hitting the earth, but no fragments have ever been found.
Others think that it had something to do with extraterrestrials, but nobody’s ever found out
exactly
what happened there.”
“Now you know,” Gabriel said.
“And I’m not a terrestrial of E
arth
,
so technically
,
it
was
done by an extraterrestrial.”
“I can’t ever tell anyone the things that you’ve told me, can I?”
“You have free will, I can’t stop you from telling anyone whatever you wish,” he said with a small smile. “But I would advise against it unless you favor years of psychiatric care.”
“Donna would…”
“She would humor you at most, but she would never truly
believe
you,” Gabriel said and raised an eyebrow at her. “Would
you
believe you?”
She thought about it for a few moments, “Point taken, but I still think Donna would believe me.”
He laughed, “On your own head be it then, but never say that I didn’t warn you.”
“If she doesn’t believe me, then you could just show her your wings. That should clear the matter up fairly quickly.”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” he said, looking away from Dani.
She looked at him. She felt as if he was hiding something from her. But if he was there was
no
way he was going to tell her what it was.
“So…did you stick around after the Tunguska Event?” she asked to pull him back into the conversation.
“For awhile. I helped repair some of the damage Asteraoth’s fall had caused,” he said. “It was only fair seeing how I caused the damage. It
destroyed
homes miles away from t
he near crash, so I helped fix
them.”
“
You
didn’t cause that damage,
Gabriel,” Dani said.
“Asteraoth did.
”
“If I had caught him sooner
,
the damage to Earth could have been avoided entirely.”
“You take a lot of unnecessary shit onto yourself, did you know that?” she snapped in frustration. “If you had
missed
him completely we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now because I never would have existed. Lighten up on yourself.
“
You
saved
my planet
,
and from what I remember from school, there was no loss of life from the Tunguska Event; which I will now always think of as the
Asteraoth
Event. Or am I wrong about the loss of life? No one was able to get to the site until thirteen years after it happened.”
“There was a massive loss of animal life, but no human life was lost.” Gabriel said.
“Then why do you feel like you could have done more?” she asked. “When is
what
you do going to be enough? When will you be happy about the role you’ve played in the survival of humanity up to this point?”
“When Lucif
er is dead,
” he said, looking at the tree line at the back of the old graveyard. “Excuse me a moment.”
She watched nervously as he stepped several feet towards the trees and pulled his sword from the sheath on his back.
What now?
she thought.
“Valoel, come out,” Gabriel demanded. “You can’t hide from me.”
A beautiful, albeit naked, angel stepped from the trees. He had light brown hair and his wings were pure white tipped in a deep
burnt orange. He was carrying what appeared to be a stone bowl in his hands. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head to Gabriel.
“I wasn’t trying to hide,” the angel said demurely. “I was just giving you a moment of privacy. I didn’t want to intrude on your conversation.”
“Why are you here, Valoel?” Gabriel asked, putting his sword back in the sheath.
Valoel rose to his feet, “I was just bringing a gift for the Daughter of God,” he said, holding the stone bowl out to Gabriel. “May I?”
Gabriel took the bowl from Valoel, sniffed the contents and handed the bowl back to him, “If you wish.”
Valoel turned to Dani, bowed his head to her
,
and handed her the bowl.
Dani looked into the bowl. The substance inside was as blue as the sky. It looked almost like cotton candy, only it was swirling and had no more consistency than a cloud.
She looked back up at Valoel, “What is it?”
Valoel looked into Dani’s eyes and the deepest feeling of peace she had ever felt washed over her, “It’s Ambrosia,” he said, smiling at her. “It’s food,” he added when Dani continued to stare at him in confusion.
“Try it,” Gabriel urged her.
She looked down at the swirling cloud, “How?”
Gabriel said, “Just dip your fingers into it.”
She dipped her finger into the bowl and was amazed when the mist clung to her skin.
“Taste it,” Valoel said.
She popped her finger into her mouth and was surprised by the taste that spread across her tongue. She could taste cream, and sugar, and fruits, and many other sweet tastes that she couldn’t identify. There was nothing to swallow. Once the cloud like substance touched her tongue, it was gone.