“It’s Sarah here,” sighed the demon, but she smiled fondly, reached for the wrist of Father Ángel and leaned to kiss his cheek in greeting.“I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?Forgive me, darling.”Neither she nor Ángel seemed to fear anyone hearing them and piecing together their lack of humanity.“Your man has been looking everywhere for you, so don’t bother trying to hunt him down.He’ll come here any moment now.”There was some music playing from a speaker by the rows of liquor — popular radio music but its volume was quite low.
“Good,” said the priest, then turned to cross his arms over the bar, bending over it to call for a flustered man polishing a glass to make him an old fashioned.Then, Ángel tilted his face back to Gemory and asked, “Did you bring what I asked for?”
Reaching into a pocket of her dress, Gemory picked out a pack of cigarettes and said, “It’s behind the counter.”Then, she leaned in, whispered, “Heknows,” referring to the bartender hurrying to make the beautiful priest his cocktail.“He said he wouldn’t tell a soul for the right price.”
“Mm, you always think of everything,” the beautiful priest teased.“You always ask why I grant you so many privileges as if you don’t know how competent you are.”Cheeks darkening scarlet, Gemory huffed, looking away, and pulled a cigarette out of the box for herself, then another one.“They do say that if you need something done, send a woman.”
At that, Gemory giggled more timidly, then placed one cigarette between her lips and offered the other one to the priest.“Don’t think I don’t see how you’re trying to butter me up.”Just as Ángel took the offering, tucked it into his mouth, she reached for the lighter in her dress and flickered its flame.She leaned her face closer to the other.Both of their cigarettes, then, lit with a single spark, and the priest breathed in the tobacco just as the bartender returned with his drink.
“It’s why you’re here, Sarah,” the priest said, one hand coming around his whiskey cocktail, orange as the setting sun with a cube of ice sitting in the middle.He lifted his drink and picked the cigarette out of his mouth with the same hand he was using for the old fashioned, and he sipped.“Mm, you’re here to help me.”He caught a flicker over her eyes, something she’d probably strangled to smother, to not betray whatever she was pretending not to feel.“You wouldn’t like to be ordered to return to Hell, would you?”This time, she allowed fear to tug on her features, and the beautiful priest smiled at her.“Hopefully, you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t.Not… talking to anybody you shouldn’t.Because if I do find out that you know his whereabouts, Sarah… Mmm, well, who is to say?”Slipping the cigarette back between his lips, the priest turned to lean against the bar again, staring at the spinning slot machines.And he waited in the tense silence.
Dina returned to fiddling with his Bible as he walked, following the direction of Apsinthos.There were distant sounds, particularly of cars passing by and of distant humans and buzzing insects, dogs, but ultimately the roads were silent.It reminded him of Heaven, and he thought of what that girl Joana had said, how such horrible things had occurred here.As he stepped out of a neighborhood and sawgreenery and what appeared to be the slope to a river — the angel thought of how terrible things had occurred in Heaven, as well, and how quiet the city had become after that.He swallowed, thickly, and moved past a stout building of colorful, paper-like shapes — piñatas — hanging off the ceiling with a family still sitting around, chattering, working despite the nighttime.Dina was still accustoming to that — daily darkness.
Hesitatingly, the young angel walked toward the river and here, too, he saw life — a man and a boy at the bank, the older one fishing.The water didn’t rush ferociously, nor was the surface very high, but nonetheless it was an artery of water splitting the Earth.Dina approached the fern-filled shore, far from the humans, and crouched to touch the water.“Oh.”It was murky, almost thick, in a way he’d never felt before, and then he flickered his gaze upward, and at the other side of the river, he saw two figures on horseback.‘Like the princes in my stories,’ Dina thought, but they weren’t dressed in royal, bright garb and instead in dark green uniforms.
These horsemen — they stood still, and they might’ve been staring at Dina, as if waiting to see if the angel would try to illegally cross over.There was hardly anyone but these green horsemen on the other side of the river, where the homes seemed taller, less cramped.There were no fishermen on the other side, only horsemen.Fishermen versus horsemen.
Apsinthos asked, ‘Do you remember the last story in the Bible?’
At the casino, the man that the priest had been waiting for finally arrived; he had been looking for Ángel, just as Sarah had said.Sarah, Gemory, who had disappeared more than a few minutes ago.She was smart; she’d pieced together what the priest was here to do.He’d always liked her because she was intelligent; hopefully, she would continue to be and spill the secret that the priest really wouldn’t want to punish her for.But he could very well understand being unable to disentangle oneself from a relationship.After all, that was why the beautiful Ángel was here now.
“I didn’t think,” came the husky voice of an older man, breath brushing his ear, “you’d come.”A hand slipped to settle itself on the lower back of the priest.
“You said you’d pay for me to play with any slot I wanted,” answered the priest, huffing out a sigh, then sipping from the third old fashioned he’d had so far.“You’re not going to go back on your promise, are you?”
“Oh no,” said the man with utter warmth.“Play as much as you like, sweetheart.While you’ve been gone, I secured that share I was telling you about oh, what was it, last January?And the great arms deal went through, too, so there’s a lot of money being made, a lot of slots for you to play with.”
“Arms deal…” the priest echoed, then tilted his face coyly at the man and didn’t react to his fingering of the jewels on the dress.“Deal to who?”The man specified.“I don’t suppose you’re doing this for more diamonds, as if they’re not all already yours.”But the priest was playing dumb; the arms funneling to the rebel groups would ensure that the diamond trade and all the enslaved children mining them would continue to be his.Some men must keep a foot on the neck of nations to remain upright; some nations must keep a foot on the neck of nations to remain upright.But pressing too hard might tip a man over, might tip a nation over.Even a nation like Babylon.
“Not diamonds, no,” he laughed.“You always make these leaps that I don’t understand, doll.”All roads lead the same way if you only know how to build forward.“And that isn’t all, there was another deal in that country you said you’ve been in.With the military.”
“It comes with provisions, I imagine,” mumbled the priest.Almost certainly a promise to keep the migrants from reaching Babylon, almost certainly to capture some expendable criminals and scapegoat them.It’s a delicate balance between pretending to help and pressing hard on the neck.
The man was laughing and ignored the beautiful one’s remark.“I have a question for you.You know about who.”It’d been ten years since the subject’s death; they didn’t say his name; it was always safer not to, even when they booked a casino, a house, a room privately.Friends, colleagues, were all talking, drinking, fiddling with slots, and the priest returned to watching the colors whirl.“I did some private investigating.All this time, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was hiding out in his home country with a new collection of children.”He’d been a sex trafficker.“I tried to hunt him down.He should know I’m a friend, I thought.I thought….he was too powerful to kill, even if he had enemies in every corner.I mean, all his blackmail, doll — he seemed untouchable.But then, I spoke to some authorities.”Quiet — “You were never the same after he died.”
“A girl can’t grieve?”Ángel chuckled, but he knew he was caught.It didn’t matter.What was more concerning was the arms deal — further violence in the town he’d started the day in might only cause trouble, not to mention that the strand of survival for Babylon was thinning.This would not help.He had to send a message to Babylon; he had to do this for reasons beyond petty annoyance with the blood diamond billionaire.
He was laughing again — the man, and he ran his hand up and down the slim back of the demon.“I missed you, I really did.The other girls aren’t like you.Not as charming, not as pretty.”It’d been a year since they’d last slept together, and almost a decade since the apex of their relationship, and the priest distinctly remembered how the man had said, ‘You must be an angel,’ as they’d laid together in the aftermath.The man hadn’t cared for the death of their colleague back then, too glad to be the one fucking the priest now.“But about… our friend.”
“The timing of his death did seem rather convenient, didn’t it?”
“I saw his body; the authorities showed me the pictures.”The man finally, draggingly, removed his hand.“And they lied about his suicide.”
“Can’t a man kill himself with three bullets to the head without conspiracy these days?”Setting down the cocktail, the priest hoped that the doors were locked, though they didn’t have to be; he would be quick.“And God forbid he burn his body to ash after his death too.”
The man, again, snickered, but this time with a touch of disbelief.“I told you that I missed you.And, listen, if you’re the one behind the untimely demise of our friend, you don’t need to worry.Whoever you work for — because I know there must be someone — let them know I’ll be their friend too.I’m a reasonable man.”
Finally, the priest lost his patience, and he slapped the hand that the man had tried to set on his waist with nails that seemed just a bit too sharp.Some wrinkled skin clawed off in gashes of deep, dark red.“Stupid fucker.I don’t work for anyone.”And the man hissed and jerked away, stumbling backward.
At the river, Dina flipped through the Bible again, as he’d been instructed to do.The pages were riddled with holes, and more than a few times, he had to swipe away at insects squashed between pages.Though it would normally be too dark to read, proximity to the border ensured ample light from posts on both sides of the river.Regardless, he squinted, and his lips mouthed the words he read silently, fingers tracing the bottom of the letters as he moved along the scripture.Despite being locked in a room with literature for so long, Metatron had primarily given Dina dictionaries, and when the angel had read the Bible, he had studied it for language, not meaning.And Uriel, too, had always discouraged Dina from reading it and called it ‘utter fantasy.’Now, he wondered what it all meant, why it mattered.
Dina whispered, “Then I saw the beast and the kings of the Earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army.But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf.”He turned some pages, then read some more, “The beast was given a mouth speaking arrogant and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.One of its heads seemed to have received a death blow…” He thought of the hole in Tadeo’s head, and then he blinked in confusion.
Just as the man in the casino snapped, “What the fuck was that?You stupid bitch.You gold-digging bitch.I know you did it.”He cradled his hand to his chest, but just as he opened his mouth?—
“Mm, is that…?”The priest looked at the bar, and he noticed the faint music again, the melody and its lyrics.“Oh, it’s the Harlot.”The gorgeous pop star, who was on hiatus to prioritize her health for some time.“I’m her biggest fan.”A smile began to curl on pretty painted lips, then a grin bloomed, alongside a flirtatiously raised bare shoulder.“I’ve been told I look just like her.What do you think?”The man looked utterly bewildered for a moment, but then he blinked once, twice — either because the realization was sinking in or because the priest had just hopped onto the bar counter, turned over, then disappeared onto the other side.As Gemory had promised, the weapon — a long, obsidian-colored assault rifle was tucked beneath the counter.
“What are you doing?”the man called.
