The Fifteenth Chapter

For the second time in two days, Azrael dropped something that left me stymied. What would my father be important to anything? "What does that have to do with anything?" I asked.

He walked over and grabbed my hand. "Do you even know?"

I tried to pull away, but his grip was stronger. "No, I don't. Why?"

He shook his head. "I should've looked when we met. No wonder your connection to the power is so strong…" He reached into my hand, somehow, and pulled out some sort of glowing spheroid shape. "Every being has a magical tether. Magical beings such as angels, demons and gods, have one that leads only one place: Heaven. However, lineages tie the being to their direct predecessor, a parent or a grandparent, should the magic skip a generation. Now, because Heaven is closed to us, this tether won't go anywhere."

I flicked my eyes between him and the glowing ball. "Even though a portion of my power is on Heaven?"

He nodded. "The power of Death is separate from your power as an angel, and if my suspicion is correct, this tether will actually lead us to your father."

I asked, "How do you know it's not my mom?"

"Lineages among magical beings are handled differently. Angels and demons are patriarchal, while succubi and witchcraft are matriarchal. That's why there are more sorceresses and witches than sorcerers and warlocks." He pulled the tether to his mouth and whispered something at it. Then, he cocked his arm back and flung the tether outward. "Once it finds the source of your power, it'll draw their image to us."

Thandie was suddenly right beside us. "Soooo, my tether would lead us to Zeus?"

"It would, yes," Azrael answered.

Kevin, also having appeared out of fucking nowhere, asked, "Do normal humans have one of those, too?"

"No. The tether is magic in nature, and most of nature doesn't have magic."

That sounded like a poetic way of saying normal humans weren't special, but I kinda figured that was just a thing about angels. Normal humans weren't anything to look down on, but weren't anything to look up to, either. Kind of some sort of elitist inferiority complex, or something. It was weird and yet completely in character based on the angels I knew by name.

Naturally, Sam and Hadraniel wandered up and joined the fun as we waited for my tether to do its thing. I assumed that if it didn't return with the image of who my magical lineage came from, it would just return doing nothing. This whole thing seemed so stupid. Even if my dad, whoever the hell he was was a magical being, I didn't see what he'd matter here, unless Azrael's goal was to call him up and have him give me some emotional child support.

Unless he suspected my dad to be someone extremely special. Maybe all he had to do was learn who my father really was and he'd be in a better position to help me draw on my connection to the power. But that only left the question of, if he thought my dad was somebody important, who did he think my dad actually was?

And did I want to find out?

I had never considered myself someone who had "daddy issues". My mom had told me more than once that I was the product of a one night stand and that she'd never seen my father since then. Paul was the same, which led to us frequently joking that whoever our dads were, they must've known exactly which beer got Mom the most drunk. Uncle Travis had basically said as much one family reunion, though Mom never took it as an insult.

Maybe after all this time, I was afraid to learn who my father was. After all, he'd never tried to find that girl he knocked up sixteen years, two months and fourteen days ago. Well, plus nine months on top of that. Maybe he was so drunk that night, even he didn't remember who he slept with. Or that he'd even slept with someone. Hell, my dad could be 100% ignorant of the fact that he had a sixteen year old daughter who was really an angel and the personification of Death.

I was ready to piss myself when the tether returned and instead of proving a dud that didn't go anywhere while Heaven was locked off, it came back with an image. An image of a man. An image of a bald man. An image of a bald man with one earring. An image of a bald man with one earring who I'd met half a dozen times. An image of a bald man with one earring who I'd met half a dozen times and had eaten a sandwich in my kitchen.

Everyone around the little fading light was silent. Even Thandie and Kevin had each met the man one time, and Hadraniel, Sam and Azrael had all been in the same room with him millions of times. We all knew exactly who we were looking at.

There but was the face of God.

Azrael looked like he expected this, and he likely had. That little display of power I'd let off had likely been all the evidence he'd needed. Sam was stupefied. Hadraniel's face was one of outright disbelief. Amusement was plastered all over Thandie's face, and sweet, sweet Kevin just looked completely out of his mind.

I almost wondered what my face looked like.

Kevin was the first to speak after such a long silence I was afraid the world had broken. "We're all seeing God there, right?"

"Yes, you stupid twat, we're all seeing God," Hadraniel spat.

“That’s… But…” Sam stammered. I wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say.

“You seriously believe God’s my dad?!” I exclaimed.

Azrael shook his head. "It's not a matter of belief. Though, the fact that the tether found him suggests he's here on Earth instead of Heaven. That would suggest Karael has more control up there than I thought."

"Can we get back to the fact that my father is God, please?"

He walked over to his cooler and retrieved a bottle of soda. “You’re acting as if the man doesn’t have needs like any of us do.”

“The idea of God coming down from Heaven to have a one night stand just seems a little… Absurd, to be honest.”

“He has troubles, just like anyone. And you’re not the first child he’s had that didn’t know they were God’s spawn. Believe it or not, Jesus didn’t know until his mid twenties.” He let out a little laugh. “Of course, he’d died and come back once by then.” He picked up his chair from where it had fallen over and sat back down on it. “The question now is whether or not God Himself knows.”

Thandie asked, “How would God not know about his own daughter?”

“It’s not unusual. The man’s had a great deal of children, and keeping track of them isn’t easy, even for someone omniscient.”

“How many other kids?” I asked.

“Certainly you’ve heard the story of King Arthur?”

Kevin coughed. “Are you saying that every assumed virgin birth throughout history was God getting drunk and forgetting to use a condom?”

The idea that my own boyfriend was describing what was increasingly looking like the actual story behind my conception that way was both hilarious and insulting at the same time, but I kept my mouth shut for now. Hell, if it wasn’t me we were talking about, I probably would’ve made the same joke. Holy shit, what if I really was the result of God forgetting to use a condom? The idea of that was almost worrying. This could be the one time I was happy Trojan Man didn’t come to the rescue.

I took a deep breath. “Okay, so far, I’m finding out my half-siblings are Paul, the brother I’ve lived with for fifteen years; King Arthur, the mythical British hero; Michael, supposedly the most badass archangel the Bible knows; and Jesus Christ.”

Azrael smiled. “That’s not even half of the collection.”

“How many times has God refused to keep it in his pants?”

Thandie laughed. “Now you know how I feel.”

Sam elbowed his brother in the gut. “Now that I think about it, doesn’t Dani look kinda like Sariel?”

Hadraniel nodded. “Right. I actually see a bit of resemblance.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Just this cute girl we went to school with back in Heaven. She had a crush on Ronny for a little while, but he was too busy going after Sennoi.”

Hadraniel glared at him. “What the hell are you on about?”

Azrael spoke up. “Back to the subject at hand, this explains your proficiency with the power of Death.”

I walked over to him. “Okay, but what does it matter? So I’m more magic than I thought I was, and apparently have been my whole life, how does that help with me getting up to Heaven to kick Karael’s ass?”

He took a long drink. “Very simply, really. Your connection to the power is strong, stronger than any has been since I wielded it. Your own natural magic ability is obviously what helped the power stay connected, and it can be used to augment and strengthen your bond to help you break through Karael's locks."

“And how am I supposed to, what, link my uber-natural God-given magic with my connection to the power?”

He took another long drink. I was pretty sure he was using his own magic to make that soda keep refilling just so that he could do that. “Concentration. Determination. The first thing we’ll work on is how to avoid that shockwave.”

---

The sun had started to set and I was completely out of energy. Ten hours of trying to strengthen my connection using my natural magic, and the only thing we'd accomplished was a training montage that Thandie was editing on her laptop just to impress her computer graphics teacher. I honestly wanted to be in the room when she handed that assignment in, because I wanted to hear what the teacher said about the 'special effects'.

I was face up in the beach sand, not even capable of moving, I was so wasted. I could only assume this sort of thing would've been easier for me if I'd known before today that I was God's little girl. Then again, I wondered if I'd have even lost the power if I'd known that. There were new variables in this equation that I wasn't all too happy to have to incorporate.

Kevin was off with Hadraniel and Sam, getting dinner. With Thandie doing little other than filming me doing magic crap that left scorch marks all over the beach and Azrael just sitting there watching me do it while occasionally interjecting some kind of wisdom or instruction, that made it pretty damn quiet for the most part, which only made me think about things.

Azrael walked up to me and looked down at me. "C'mon, get up."

I didn't budge. Instead, I simply said, "Tell me about Karael."

He looked surprised. "What?"

“I get that you didn’t exactly want him, but why?"

He rubbed at his bald head. "I'm not entirely sure how to answer that."

I sat up and spun around to face him. "You said something about him being dangerous."

He sighed. "Yes. He wasn't meant to be born, and because of that, he ended up gaining a bit more power than he was ready for at a very young age."

“Is that how angels work? The less you’re wanted, the stronger you are?”

He shook his head. “No. It had to do with his mother.”

“I thought you said angel lineages were patriarchal.”

“And that is the case, but that’s only when just one of his parents is a magical being. That’s why I immediately ruled out your mother as the source of your power. You had to ask what if your mother was who your magic came from. It’s almost impossible to not know if your parents are magic.”

I shifted to sit cross legged. “So, if it was Karael’s mother that was so important, who was she?”

“A witch. A very powerful witch. I didn’t know until the day she left the boy on my doorstep. And after a small demonstration, she disappeared from my life again.”

“What… Um… What did she do to demonstrate?”

He looked away from me. “I’d rather not. I’m not a man who believes beauty is only on the outside, but it stops people from glaring at you when you need to go to the shops."

That… Didn't sound good. But the idea that he'd hidden his injury wasn't lost on me. And it made me understand why he'd never really cared for his son. The woman who birthed the kid had treated him like absolute shit and left him with a son he'd never asked for. There were broken homes with stories happier than this one.

I thought back to my own new circumstances. That both Karael and I came from parents who never really had any intention of being together was not lost on me. One of the big differences between us was that I had at least one parent who wanted me, and the other probably wouldn't want to disown me.

I wondered what would have happened if I hadn't become Death. Would I have learned about my powers naturally? Would I be even more like Karael and eventually revolt against Heaven for my shitty life? I didn't even have a shitty life, pre or post Death, but would that opinion have changed if I was Daniel the Unwanted Son of God? Should I really be thinking about this when that was a life I’d never be stuck with again?

Would I be the one concocting this plan to split Heaven from Earth if I hadn't become Death?

It still wasn't adding up why Karael wanted to do this, though. He had plenty of reason to hate both his parents, clearly, but why cut Heaven from Earth and leave God wandering around Asia? There was something I was missing, and I couldn't figure out what it was.

Azrael continued: "I can't tell you anything about after I left him with Raziel. The man is good at keeping secrets, and whenever I'd ask about the boy, Raziel would merely tell me he was doing fine." He scoffed. "Fine. The bastard's gone and locked us all out of Heaven, all because he was unwanted."

I shook my head. "That can't be all of it."

"How do you mean?"

I stood up. "He feels unwanted, yeah, but he could've used the power to hurt you or his mom at any point in the last seven months. And he waited for a time when Sam, Jubril and God were all on Earth, all people who could stop him." Those were all the pieces I had to this puzzle, and even saying them out loud didn't make the picture clear. "What is in Heaven that God and the archangels would be guarding?"

The look on Azrael's face suddenly contorted into pure terror. "That son of a bitch… He wouldn't…"

“Wouldn’t what?”

He knelt down and started drawing an outline in the sand. “Did you ever read any of the texts that came with the job?”

I shrugged. “A little.”

“What exactly?”

“Mostly just the basics that human holy books are the interpretation of magical beings and not an exact depiction of history.”

He nodded. “Then you should have read about the Well.”

“Yeah, plus you mentioned it when you were talking about that Darkness.”

“Good. Then you know the Well is in Eden.”

“Yeah, but… Eden’s on Earth, isn’t it?”

He looked up at me and nodded again. “You studied a bit more than you’ve suggested. Eden is on Earth, but it’s also inside a pocket dimension that exists between Heaven and Hell. Only those truly worthy are to be allowed into Eden, and that access is only granted through God Himself or one of the archangels.”

“And with the power of Death, Karael is an archangel now. Locking God and the rest out of Heaven just meant they couldn’t stop him when he made his way to Eden. Okay, but what’s in Eden that he would be stopped from getting to?”

“The Well. And the only reason to go to the Well is because he’s somehow found the Darkness.”

"The thing that was Black Plaguing the angels still exists?"

He nodded. "It was difficult enough to stop, practically impossible to destroy. God hid it in a place only the Horsemen were allowed to enter. Karael's temporary ownership of the power must have granted him access." He stood up. “If he believes he can access both the Darkness and Eden, then we don’t have as much time as I’d hoped.”

I sighed. "Alright. What do I do?"

---

The lot of us stood there as Azrael paced in front of us and explained what we'd just figured out. Hadraniel and Sam almost looked ready to kill something, which, I suspected they may want to do to Karael, really. He was trying to poison angels as had been done so long ago, and I figured that didn't sit well with them. Kevin just stood there, squeezing my hand to let me know he was there. Thandie looked like she didn't know what to do.

That was pretty much true of all of us.

“Alright, now that we all know what’s at stake, what my bastard of a son is doing, now’s the time we all need to give Dani as much encouragement as we can.”

“What will that do?” I asked.

“Hopefully help you hone your connection to the power. Then, once you're in Heaven, you need to find Karael immediately, and retrieve the rest of your power. With luck, that should be all you need to do to stop him."

I took a deep breath. "Okay. I guess this is the moment of truth."

Hadraniel put his hand on my shoulder. “You’re ready for this.”

Sam followed suit. “This fuckhead’s got nothin’ on you, Dani.”

Thandie was next. “Kick his ass, girl!”

Azrael came fourth. “Lives depend on you.”

Last but not least was Kevin. “I’ve known you could do this for years.”

I nodded to all of them, then stepped away from them just on the off chance I let out another one of those mega shockwaves. I closed my eyes, took another deep breath, and concentrated on getting my ass to Heaven, and nothing else. I kept that one singular goal in mind as I knelt down and let my fingers touch the sand beneath me. I couldn’t feel the sand, so I hoped that was a good sign.

And then I heard his voice in my head.

”What is this?” he asked.

I felt a smirk come to my lips. ”Saddle up, asshole, Momma’s comin’ to see ya. And I want my power back.”

I opened my eyes and the swirl of energy from before was radiating out from my body yet again, but this time, I felt in control of it. I didn’t actually know what was different. Maybe it was just that I knew everybody believed I could do this. I mean, my father was God, after all, and belief was kind of a big thing with him, so maybe my magical power was also tied to it in some way. Honestly, I didn’t much care.

The energy swirl expanded, but not outward, just forward. It then suddenly snapped back into nothing but a doorway, a single round opening that was Earth on my end and Heaven on the other. Not just any part of Heaven, either, but God’s office. Great. Maybe my power was already tying me to the man I’d found out was my father.

I stood up and stepped forward, into the opening. There was a strange sensation, like I’d just gone from a pressurized room to the bottom of the ocean floor. It faded almost instantly, but it still felt weird as hell. I rubbed at my arms to clear the goosebumps from my skin. I couldn’t actually tell whether the goosebumps were because I’d finally made it, because I was scared, or because it was actually kinda cold in God’s office when he wasn’t there. Whatever the reason, I made a mental note to remember how I did what I’d done and to wear long sleeves in God’s office.

After a few seconds, I felt some little surge in my body. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but it could be a little of my power returning to me now that I was in the same plane of existence as Karael. I sort of hoped that was all it was. I didn’t want to think about the possibility that he might have actually come up with a way to take what amount of the power I had away from me. Nor did I really even want to think about why I’d even thought that was a possibility.

I looked around and walked over to God’s desk, where an intercom mic sat embedded on the right hand side. I pressed the talk button and said, “Hey, Karael, I’m here and I’m ready to fuck you up. Hope you’re not about to run away scared.”

A few moments later, his stupid Texan accent came over the intercom. “Oh, I ain’t runnin’, babe. Thanks for showin’ up just when I needed ya.”

Just when he...

My thoughts were disrupted when a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. Karael and his creepy ass half a skull mask was just suddenly there. I couldn’t see his mouth, obviously, but the look in his eyes was pure pleasure, like he’d just gotten everything he wanted for Christmas.

He grabbed me by the neck and then picked me up and slammed me down on the desk, hard. Splinters and maybe a pen dug into my back like little pinpricks, and I was certain I felt blood. The pain rolled throughout me, reminding me an awful lot of that time I’d tried to show Paul how to ride a bike and ended up crashing head-first into the windshield of Mr. Farris’s car. I was lucky I hadn’t needed stitches that day.

Karael leaned down and pressed a finger to my lips. “Congrats, darlin’. You just played right into my hand.”