Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“Yes. And Lucifer was so hurt and so defiant, and if you knew him… I was certain he’d rally them eventually, and he did. But so many are lost and sad. That’s what they don’t tell you about true hell. It’s really just being full of regret and remorse for eternity.”
“You wanted to give Mammon a hug today, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head. “He’d never allow that, and really, it would hurt him, his pride and whatever peace he’s forged for himself, to have that moment of vulnerability.”
“Have you ever seen Lucifer again? After the fall?”
“Only once in…ages. He was as brilliant and beautiful as ever, but his eyes blazed with hatred.”
“What did you do?”
“Oh, I waved,” he said, chuckling. “And of course he scowled like only he can.”
“Maybe someday all will be made whole again.”
“Perhaps,” was all he said.
Michael—whom I never saw, but Raphael told me all about—was trying to figure out what to do about love. It was not something he’d ever factored into his black-and-white view of creation as a whole. He had no idea that love was fluid and changing. But Raphael loved a human and Remiel a demon, and since neither of those things was supposed to be possible, Michael needed time and silent communion with the universe to figure out what to do.
“It could take a while,” Raphael said with a grimace.
“What does that mean?”
“You know how Leith never just buys something, like a TV or an alarm system?”
“Oh God, yes,” I groaned. Just thinking about Leith’s “research” made me nuts. Three years to decide on the exact right car would have made me crazy. Simon’s patience was infinite.
“Michael’s like that. He needs to do research for possibly a thousand years, and then perhaps he’ll come to a decision.”
I couldn’t even comprehend that amount of time. But in the meantime, Raphael was marked by his black wings that also, in the right light, at certain angles, could be mistaken for gold. It was a trick of light. “His punishment,” I said, smiling at him, “seems to be fluid as well.”
“He’s hard to pin down—his thinking.”
“He gave you his sword,” I pointed out. “His flaming sword. How angry at you could he actually be?”
“He’s not anymore. I’m forgiven, but I knew I would be.”
“You knew?”
“I’m his favorite. I get how his mind works—well, most of the time.”
“I bet he wants you to stay.”
He shook his head. “Now that he knows where I am, it doesn’t matter. All he has to do is keep an eye on you.”
“I sound like your weakness.”
“No. You’re what makes me strong,” he said, but he whined a bit at the end.
“What is wrong with you?” I teased him, laughing.
“I miss being home,” he almost whimpered. “Everyone is there but us.”
But I wasn’t ready to broach that question with him mostly because I didn’t want to know the absolute, irrevocable answer. Because if it was bad…I could wait. “Speaking of, how did you manage that?” I asked him, changing the subject from that of our home as we walked through what was now Remiel’s. I’d been there such a short time before, but I could say, with total confidence, that it felt very different now. Everything seemed alive and vital. The walls that had been perfect were now overgrown with ivy and wisteria. In fact, everything was verdant and in bloom, the hydrangeas that were everywhere having flowered in unimaginable colors. “How did you send Leith and Ryan home?”
“I didn’t trust Gabriel, not after what he did to you,” he said, his voice going cold. “I couldn’t have them hurt. I sent them back the same way he sent Simon and Julian.”
“Because you both have the same power.”
“It’s similar, but not exactly the same. He moves things in the blink of an eye,” he said with a grin I liked seeing. “Mine is a bit more…bumpy.”
“I love that,” I told him, and kissed his cheek.
Looking around me, I noted the beautiful overgrown bougainvillea, the hibiscus, and the gorgeous climbing roses.
“I love all the flowers. And the rain.”
I wasn’t the only one enraptured with the rain. I watched others lift their faces in happiness and hold their hands out to catch the drops.
Anahel, Raphael explained to me, not being an archangel, hadn’t allowed anything to be different than in other heavens he’d been to. He wanted perfection. Remiel, confident of his place in the heavenly host, an archangel himself, allowed nature to run its normal course, and suddenly there were storms and weeds and mud.
“I love it here now,” I told Raphael.
“So will the people.”
I asked him endless questions as we strolled and talked day after day, and he was patient and answered them all.
Eventually, Gabriel came and apologized to me.
“You didn’t know,” I told him. “What does an angel know about love unless he’s loved in return?”