Authors: Stephanie Jackson
“What are you going to do, Gabriel?! You know you
can’t
…”
Gabriel didn’t hear the last of Michael’s words. He’d vanished on the spot, taking Dani with him.
1.
Gabriel transported them back to Potter’s property. Seve
ral of the residents ran toward
them when they saw Dani.
“Stay back,” he warned as he laid Dani on the ground. “Leave us in peace.”
The few vampires and hunters that had come forward backed away and left them alone in the yard.
Dani had blood running from her nose, ears
,
and mouth. Gabriel flew into ac
tion, healing all the damage
he’d done to her internal organs
by transporting her. When he’
d done all he could do and was sure that she would live, he sat back, put his elbows on his bent knees and dropped his head.
He tried to take deep calming breaths, but they weren’t working. He could feel rage boiling under the surface of his skin. Gabriel had been angry before,
but rage was a new emotion for
him and he wasn’t sure he could contain it.
“Nephilim apparently transport better than full humans,” Michael said a few minutes later.
“Did you get the Nephilim home?” Gabriel asked without looking up.
“Safe and sound.
Transporting
her didn’t affect her at all,” Michael said. “And I wiped her memory. I didn’t see the need for her to carry the horrors of the day around with her for the rest of her life.”
Gabriel nodded, still not raising his eyes to Michael.
“Are you alright?” Michael asked.
“Hell no, I’m not alright!” Gabriel finally broke, and sprang to his feet. “I
ran
! I’ve never run from anything a day in my life, but I ran today. And I damned near killed Dani to do it!”
Gabriel’s wings unfurled from his back.
“You didn’t have a choice,” Michael said, backing away from Gabriel. “You couldn’t have gotten her out of there any other way.”
“Don’t tell me what I
couldn’t
do!” Gabriel roared, flexing his hands into fist. “Angels were involved in this bullshit today! There’s no other way that Cambion or those demons could have found us!
The only way
anything
could have found us is if they were looking down from
Heaven
!”
“Gabriel, I don’t think…” Michael said, but Gabriel’s patience snapped.
“
I DON’T GIVE A DAMN
WHAT YOU THINK, MICHAEL
!
”
Gabriel bellowed, causing the windows of Potter’s house to explode. He used his wing to sweep Michael to him. He grabbed Michael by the jaw and forced his head up, “You take your ass back up to Heaven and bring me the angel that did this!”
Michael flinched, “Gabriel…”
“If you don’t go, I will,” Gabriel warned. “And if I have to do it, it’s
not
going to be pretty. I
will
kick my way through those Gates. I’m fucked anyway, and we both know it. So if
I
have go up there, I swear before God, I’m
killing
everybody! Look into my eyes, Michael, and stop me when I lie.”
Michael gazed at Gabriel in shock before saying, “I believe you. Alright, I’ll go. But can I tell you about the place I found for you first or ar
e you too blood thirsty to wait?
It’s a much better place than what you had in mind.
”
“Speak,” Gabriel said, pushing Michael away from him.
2.
Gabriel flew them to Woodlawn on the outskirts of
Montgomery
County
as soon as the sun had set.
The piece of property that Michael had chosen for them seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.
“There’s a diameter of a half mile surrounding the house and the people that live here won’t be back from
Italy
for another six weeks,” Michael had said.
“Thank you. It sounds perfect,” Gabriel had said. “Now go
find
me that angel.”
Dani still wasn’t awake when they got to the property that Michael had recommended, so he laid her on the couch of the vacated house and went to walk the grounds. It was miles away from any other human inhabitants so he didn’t have to worry too much about collateral damage when Lucifer finally rose.
The yard itself had a good fifty yard diameter around the house; not quite as big as the clearing surrounding Potter’s house, but close. It was enough room for his purposes. He checked all of this without ever removing his eyes from the house. Nothing else was going to get past him.
Gabriel walked back to the house when he saw Dani exit the front door and walk out into the yard.
3.
Dani woke up on a couch in an unfamiliar house. She felt a little tired, but generally okay. Gabriel had obviously come back in time to save her; again. He seemed to be doing a lot of that.
Dani had never been injured this badly before, not even in the boxing ring. Of course, she’d never been chased around by Satan’s minions before, either. Though only two of her recent injuries cou
ld be blamed on them. Her ankle had been
broken because of Michael and it was her own damn fault that she’d fell in the damn creek.
But
none
of it would have happened if her name hadn’t have found its way onto Lucifer’s hit list. She looked around the house for Gabriel. He wasn’t there
,
so she walked outside. The brightness of the stars in the sky startled her. How had it gotten so late so fast? She didn’t see Gabriel so she walked out into the yard a
nd sank down onto the lush lawn
.
Soon she was
lying
on her back in the thick grass of the front yard, staring up at the stars. When she was little girl and had a nightmare, her grandfather would take her outside
,
and they would lie in the grass and look up at the stars.
Her grandfather would point out the different constellations to her and she would recite them back to him. Right now she could see Cassiopeia, The Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt
,
and several others she could name off the top of her head.
She’d almost died today; she figured
that
qualified as a nightmare. She tried to take comfort from the stars as she had as a child, but she couldn’t concentrate on the constellations. Her mind kept turning back to her near death that day. She could see
the pool of
blood clearly in her mind.
Gabriel walked up and looked down into her face, “What are you doing?”
“Wondering if I can see Heaven from here,” she said.
He laid down on the ground next to her on the grass, “You can’t. Heaven is
always
above you, but it’s in a dimension that the human eye cannot s
ee. All you can see from here are
my Father
’
s other creations; the stars, planets
,
and other worlds.”
Dani turned her head and looked at him in surprise, “God made other worlds?”
“My Father cre
ated
many
worlds,” Gabriel said.
“But none more loved than Earth.”
“Can I ask you what Heaven looks like or would that question be out of bounds?” Dani asked.
“You can ask. Heaven looks rather like Earth only
much
larger,” Gabriel said. “There are green rolling hills and clear blue waters. Food is abundant and more flavorful than anything here on Earth.
“There’s not as many white fluffy clouds as humans seem to think there are, though. And I don’t personally know a single angel that owns a harp,” he said in a teasing voice.
“Oh, ha-ha,” Dani said and punched him softly on the shoulder. “How big
is
Heaven?”
“That’s hard to explain,” he said. “Let’s just say that all the empty space you think exists between the stars isn’t exactly empty.”
“Wow,” she said. “That’s awful big.”
They stared at the stars in silence for a few minutes before Gabriel
softly
asked, “Are you alright, Dani?”
“I’m fine
,” she said, “You fixed me
up
right as rain
, as always.”
“I know you’re alright
physically
,” Gabriel said, capturing her hand in his. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. I don’t know yet, and I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said before turning the conversation. “What did you mean the other night when you told Wes,
I saw this same situation befall Cain and Abel; I don’t wish to see that happen to you and your brother
?
” Dani asked. “I thought Cain killed Able out of jealousy? That doesn’t really apply to the situation that Wes and his brother are in.”
“Cain
was
jealous of Abel’s relationship with God, but that’s not why he killed him,” Gabriel explained. “Cain found his wife dead on the ground one day and killed Abel for murdering her.”
Dani said, “But Wes’s brother
didn’t
kill Wes’s mate.”
“Abel didn’t kill Cain’s wife, either,” Gabriel said. “She fell and struck her head on a rock. But Cain couldn’t accept her death as an accident, so he blamed his brother for her death and took his life.”
“Where did they even get wives?” Dani asked. “If there was only Adam and Eve, then a whole lot of inbreeding had to go into populating the Earth.”
Gabriel laughed again, “That’s
not
how it worked. God created Adam and Eve, and they begot Cain and Abel. When they reached breeding age, God created wives for them. When Cain and Abel had children, God created husbands and wives for them
, as well
.
Gabriel explained, “This continued down the line until there were enough humans to populate the Earth on their own. The Bible told of Adam and Eve, but left out the detail of
how
they populated the Earth. Even the story of Adam and Eve isn’t
even
the
whole
story. It was originally Adam and
Lilith
.”
Dani was confused, “Who’s Lilith?”
“Lilith was Adam’s first wife,” Gabriel said. “God made Adam
and
Lilith from the dirt of the Earth. But Lilith was prideful. She became frustrated with Adam because he expected her to lie beneath him at his command. She felt she was equal to Adam because God had created them both from the same dirt. When Adam forced the issue, Lilith refused him and left the Garden of Eden.
“God then took a rib from Adam an
d created Eve as his new wife; a
wife that would be subservient
to
him because she was
of
him.”
“So what happened to Lilith after she left the Garden?” she asked.
Gabriel looked uncomfortable when he said, “I reaped her soul.”
“You did
what?
” Dani said in astonishment. “How could you do that?”
“Would you have had me let her wander the land
, apart
from the only other person on Earth?” Gabriel said. “She would have died cold, hungry, and alone. My way was better for her.”
“If you say so,” Dani said and looked back to the stars. “So women were created to serve man? That kind
of
sucks.”
“Man and woman were
created
to be
equal
, but they needed to work together to seed the Earth. Lilith was unwilling to do that,” Gabriel said. “So
Eve,
and several generations of women following her were created to be subservient. After the population of the Earth was assured, God removed that particular characteristic from woman and made her equal to man again.”
“At which point men all over the world lost their shit,” Dani said. “Men to this very day are using any means necessary to make women
Do as they say.
Buddy was a prime example of that.”
“It was never meant to be that way,” Gabriel said. “Women are supposed to be cherished by men, not treated with cruelty.”
“Maybe, but that’s not how it works out for a lot of women,” Dani said and looked back to the stars.
2.
Gabriel watched Dani watch the stars. He tried to see them through her eyes. They were beautiful from Earth, but there was no mystery in them for him. He knew what other worlds were out there because he’d
been
to them.