“Tell me why you came first,” said Satan, twisting to fold his arms over the center console and lean toward Baal.
“I missed you.”Baal hesitated, then he added, “And Moloch is causing trouble.”
“Ugh,” said Satan, and then, “You missed me,” to which Baal chuckled; it was warm, deep.“But what about Moloch?I’ve told you what to do about him and his followers.If you can’t manage these things, I’ll have Gemory take care of Hell for me instead.Do you want that?”
“The demons all miss you too,” replied Baal, glanced at Satan, and tilted his head.“And they’re asking a lot of questions.”At that, the devil let out another frustrated breath.“I just wanted to come warn you and to see you.”He returned his attention to the road as one of his hands reached over, claws gently tracing Satan’s cheekbone, down to his chin, grazing his mouth.The same mouth he’d failed to nicely trace with a lipliner on the plane, before Azazel’s voice had echoed in his head.
“You will return soon,” ordered Satan but didn’t fight Baal’s touch.“And you’ll take care of Moloch and reassure all the demons that I’ll be back within a month.”
“As you wish,” said Baal, obedient, proper, earnest.
Michael finally answered Gabriel: “We must do what the prophecy says.”
Uriel said: “That’s impossible.There are names and places all over that story that aren’t true of any existing things in the present we’re in.Are we supposed to take it all as metaphor?”He barked out a laugh.“If it’s all metaphor, then whatever fulfills each seal of the apocalypse can be utterly arbitrary.How convenient.”
Before Michael could snap back, Raphael interjected, “The Earth is enormous.Maybe we should all head in different directions.We must find those who will be saved by God first, shouldn’t we?”To him, that was what mattered most.“We should avoid the bloodshed for now.”
Michael shook his head.“I’ll head south to where the anti-Christ is, and you all should remain in Babylon.I’ll ensure he doesn’t interfere with the rest of you finding the good humans, and you three should take the army with you.”He faced the other angels, then he said, “The Holy Spirit will cloak you from human eyes until you reveal yourself willingly,” before returning his gaze to the princes.Raphael nodded, Gabriel looked away, and Uriel didn’t react at all.“And,” Michael added more unsurely, “there is also the devil to take care of.”
“To return to God?”asked Uriel, but Michael didn’t answer before he made to leave.
Far away, Baal and the devil fucked in the car.They lowered the front seats; Satan laid back; he allowed the demon duke, the regent of Hell, to kiss him all over.He wondered briefly what any passerby who managed to peer through the tint and fog of the windows would see.A beautiful priest with hair too long being devoured by a monster.Baal held the devil’s thighs as he drank, as if it were wine or as if it were blood, from between the beautiful one’s legs.Encouraging purrs slipped from between Satan’s lips, and he brought a hand to Baal’s curls to tenderly scratch at his scalp.He held him just as tenderly as Baal went to move over him, mount him.He kissed Satan, mouth still damp, and kissed deeper, and kissed softer.The demon prayed to Satan, for mercy and for love.And like God, the devil returned love as meager scraps off his dinner table.
Claws hugging Satan’s upper waist, prickling at his ribs.His hold was overly delicate, like the demon was the priest and it was Eucharist in his hands.Like fucking was sacrament.Rubbing his face against the devil’s neck, his face, pressing his mouth on his, parting it, asking for a tongue to snake inside.It was fucking, rough yet slow.Satan grunted, then cried out breathlessly at the burning in his core struck again and again, rocking his hips back against Baal.They kissed, once more.
“I love you,” Baal whispered as he always did, “Lucifer.”He still called him that, at times.
Sometimes, when Baal said that he loved him, Satan’s lips parted, quite prepared to say something back.It could have been that he’d developed the urge to say ‘I love you,’ recently, but why would that be?It was too late for love.It may be the end of the world, and all would be destroyed soon, including love.Yet, he kissed Baal slowly, like he really did enjoy kissing him.Maybe he did.At the end of the world, maybe he did.
Satan said, “You know that Lucifer’s dead, don’t you?”But maybe Baal was well aware, and it was just a ghost he loved.
Michael rode away on his horse, leaving the other archangels behind, heading for the land right across Babylon.His jaw was set.He thought of God.He thought of everything that he had to do.
The two demons laid in silence for a while before Baal removed himself, cleaned the devil, then fixed both their clothes.After this, he finished driving him to town, mentioning all the gasoline tanks in the trunk again that he’d gotten from one of Satan’s other few spies on Earth, of which Gemory was a part of.He mentioned, more tensely: “Asmodeus and Rosier are still missing.”
“I know.Go fetch them,” said Satan, quieter, curled up against the window and tired.“Have Asmodeus punished for it.And I will return to Hell, soon.Soon.Once I finish here.”The devil’s children missed him, needed him.He’d never been absent without so much as a visit for this long, but he could feel his phone buzzing in his pants, one of many phones.Many lives; it was difficult to remember the most important one.
Before arriving at the rectory, Satan finally hid his blonde hair, and he applied the correct brown eye contacts and adjusted his makeup to appear like an honest young man.Baal tried to help with the dozen gasoline tanks, but Satan ordered him to stay hidden in the car.And so the devil priest brought all the tanks into the rectory’s garden on his own, ignoring the sounds of the migrant shelter nearby.It was already morning, after all.“I’ll,” the devil began once he realized he needed to hurry along this farewell, “be home, soon.”
“Please,” Baal replied.“Hell needs you.”Satan smiled at that, blew him a kiss, then slammed the door shut so that he could head to bed.
The next morning, Satan, the beautiful priest, was awakened by the good priest, Father Toño, shaking him.“Ángel!”he shouted.“Ángel!You’re okay— Oh Father in Heaven, you’re alive.”He was trembling, lowering himself onto the mattress, hands refusing to leave the devil’s shoulders for even a second.“You don’t know how afraid I was.I called you a thousand times, Ángel.Are you crazy?Don’t ever do that again, brother.Please, don’t ever do that to me.Where were you?”Staring with eyes slightly widened, Satan said it was just two, three days, that he’d been in the larger city down south to speak to the prior bishop he worked under.Father Toño, however, sighed, finally loosened his grip but still didn’t let go.“I never told you, but the priest that was here before you — disappeared.He was kidnapped after he tried to protect some of the migrants against the criminals.They took him.I pray every night, Ángel, that he isn’t really gone, but until God tells me otherwise, there is just my memory of him, a good man.A great man.And there’s you.Please.Answer my calls if this happens again.”
“I will,” said Ángel, the devil, and smiled a little.“You don’t have to worry about me, Toño.Even less with that boy, Tadeo.”Father Toño flinched, as if in shame.“Come with me.Let me show you the gasoline tanks that I brought from the city.”
“Oh?So you know about the gas?”Father Toño pulled back as Satan slid away from him.“That’s good.There are some migrants that need to be driven to the border today.I wanted to do it myself, and there were some soldiers I was speaking to for gasoline, but this works out better.Thank you, Ángel.”
Ángel rose from the bed, heading for his window, peeling back the curtain, staring at the sky.“Mm, God whispered to me about the gas.I’m glad He did.”He felt Father Toño tense again and smirked.“I’ll join you on the drive.”Satan always enjoyed the role of priest; a few centuries ago, he’d managed to reach the papal bed and gotten fucked on it.Priests and pastors and religious men hadn’t changed at all since then, no matter how much the world beneath their feet did.
After this, they both went about the morning, had service, ate, then went to the shelter, the larger hall next door, where families and some lone individuals, totaling two hundred, ate the meals that the few nuns and some volunteers had prepared.Walking between all the plastic tables and chairs, the two priests began gathering those due for the immigration office.It was half a dozen people only, four adults, two children.Gently, the priests urged them to follow to a large van.
Michael the angel arrived over the border and hesitated.He guided his blood-colored horse toward the bridge out of Babylon and gripped the reins tightly, listening to the excessive honking of the cars heading up north and those heading south.In between the vehicles, he landed, then rode steadily, careful to avoid touching anyone.A few humans were selling across the southern part of the bridge — particularly women in long skirts, as well as children.They offered artisanal trinkets, some beaded earrings, and candies.A man nearby cleaned a car’s windows, then knocked on the driver’s door to ask for coins.
It was not the first time that Michael had seen this, and it was quite the familiar scene in general — humans traveling, humans and their commerce.But it’d been an eternity since he’d been tasked to destroy this, to harm them.Stopping, he decided to climb off his horse, setting it at the center of the bridge, before he flapped his wings.Michael rose into the air and breathed out nervously.
In the migrant car — a little girl was chattering with her father in the creole language of the island they originated from, a young indigenous boy who’d left his home alone sat with a middle-aged woman he’d met in a caravan, who was talking to another woman, who held a crying infant, and there was a quiet older man.On the radio, there was news.Before them, there was a nearly desolate road.The beautiful priest stared at each of the pedestrians they passed, many whose gazes lingered.“Hm,” the good priest was sighing, “maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”
“You’re right,” said the beautiful devil.“One of us should have stayed behind in the shelter.There could be a massacre happening right now, and we’re letting it happen.”
