“There’s no massacre happening right now,” the good priest grumbled.“What I mean is that we might get attacked.I was just hearing about some cars that were stopped by criminals and got their gasoline stolen.”
“Oh dear,” said the beautiful one.“I’ll pray a Hail Mary, in case.”Again, the good priest sighed.“But don’t worry so much, brother.We’re almost there.”He nodded his head at the bridge coming into view, though they were headed for a large building across the street from it.“Look, there’s so many soldiers.”Dozens of men were stationed both at the immigration building that the migrants had to be processed through and by the bridge entryway, brandishing their hefty firearms and camouflage.
“A lot of them,” Toño replied, less cheerily, then jostled in his seat when one of those soldiers was stepping up to the road before them, lifting a weaponless, gloved hand, palm facing them in a halting gesture.“Oh, what do theywant?”
“For fuck’s sake,” added the older man in the back, to which the beautiful one chuckled.
“Hey now,” Toño tried to coax them, shifting the van into parking.“Don’t stress.”Other soldiers were approaching now, perhaps eight or nine.“I’ll talk to them,” said the good priest, almost insisting.“I’ll talk to them—” As he rolled the left window down, the first soldier was already commanding:
“Out of the vehicle.All of you.”
“We’re from the shelter on Private Street, and we have,” Toño tried to interject, “an appointment with the migration office.Look, I have documentation for everyone here.Ángel, can you pass me the folder I have on the side there?—”
“Out of the vehicle, now,” repeated the soldier, firmer, then banged his hand on the side of the car with a metallic thud.“Hurry your asses up.”His sharpness chilled the blood of every human in the van, including the good priest, whose eyes widened in confusion, but when he opened his mouth, the soldier lifted his long firearm, pointed the barrel between Toño eyes.Instantly, those in the back drew a breath, and the infant hiccuped with the first bubbling of a wail.Again: “Get out of the fucking car.”
Swiftly, calmly, the priest Ángel clicked to unlock the van and urged with a quiet voice: “Everyone, step out of the car.To the right.”The left had the most crowding of soldiers, and Satan was certain the migrants realized this too, as they didn’t hesitate to hurry in the direction he indicated, almost stampeding over one another.Meanwhile, he remained in place, waiting for the soldier to lower his gun away from Toño, and he listened to the radio.
“The president has reportedly retracted his statement—” Static was seeping out like blood from a wound.“He trusts that—” It was a nation like Babylon, up ahead.To those headed there, Heaven and Hell, at once.“It was—” Slowly, the man began to trail the end of his gun lower, lower, before he grabbed the handle of the door, wretched it open abruptly.“It was a misunderstanding, according to the Speaker of the House, but there is something to be said about the complete lack of government control at the border.A recent massacre of soldiers outside the border town of?—”
“Wait—” the priest Toño tried to say again, but he was grappled at the collar of his button-up, then yanked out.
“You get out too,” the soldier snarled at the devil.“Get out and put your hands up.”
The beautiful one didn’t hesitate, reaching for the handle, turning it, pushing open the door, and stepping out elegantly.He raised his hands to the back of his head, stepping away from the vehicle, toward the migrants they’d brought with them, standing off the road, off the sidewalk, over the grass.Behind them, there was the decline of a hill that led down to the river that the border bridge loomed above.Each of the migrants was cowering, some hunching, hands over their head.The woman with the infant was low to the ground, curled over her now screeching child, while the father was holding his daughter behind himself.As Satan stepped toward them, he also saw — across the river — horses, four horsemen patrolling the border.All they did was watch.
“To the river,” shouted the soldier who was shoving the good priest toward the group.“All of you.”Now, there was begging, one of the women crying, pleading, shaking her head and putting her hands together, but another one of the soldiers shot at the sky with a horrible, curt boom that made nearly everyone scream, lower their bodies more, begin shuffling back and toward the bank, feet unequally sinking into the mud so that they all staggered.
Satan followed, eyes maintained on the horsemen.There was another figure, high over the bridge to Babylon, hovering over the river in a blinding shine of divine armor.Great wings were spread behind him the color of the Earth, and a bulky sword was over his back, handle by his helmet.And as the devil priest followed the people into the cold rush of the river, first dampening his socks, then his exposed ankles, then seeping through his pants — he saw that this figure was dressed in a reddened cloak.It was quite ridiculous, almost anachronistic — but as was the glow over his head, as were the wings spreading out from his back.Yet, no one was reacting.Couldn’t they see him?
“What do we do, Father?”whispered a young woman, one of the migrants, who was cowering against the beautiful priest’s side.Behind them, the soldiers were still barking orders, telling them to sink deeper into the river, lifting and pointing their guns again.Satan didn’t look at them, instead touching the woman gently at her upper arms, whispering for her to be careful as they trudged through the river water.
Then, he murmured: “Do as the soldiers say.Do not be afraid.”The angel in the sky fluttered his wings, approached, watching, but his gaze seemed fixated on the beautiful priest.Suspicious, curious.They could never quite hide from each other — Michael and Satan — whether behind a helmet or behind a painted face.They would always feel one another — nearby.
“What’s going to happen?”
Releasing her, Satan moved past the migrants, who called after him, heading toward the bank again, where the good priest was holding up his hands, still demanding answers.“You!”called one of the armed men.“Get back in the river!”
“The rivers will run red with blood,” the beautiful devil mused; it was a line in the Book of Revelation; he would know; he’d known it in every language, in every time, since John first wrote it.He watched the soldier who’d spoken twitch, finger shuddering against the trigger, barrel pointed at the devil.Other soldiers shouted, turning their weapons to Satan, as well, and just as Father Toño started stammering, demanding the other priest step back — the devil spoke once more.With both hands raised by his head, palms facing the soldiers, he stepped before Toño, though not without brushing past him, whispering the word, “Left.”
“Ángel?”the good priest helplessly called.
“Ángel,” echoed the devil, feeling a looming presence, a shadow trailing closer until it sprawled by his feet.“There is one with us now.”Slow, a smile began to bloom across his lips, curling them back, exposing perfect teeth.He reached into the pocket of his cassock, gripped the stout revolver hidden there, then twisted.Right above, there he was: the cloaked figure with a silver helmet obscuring all of his face and chains dangling from one hand.However bulky the angel's armor was, Satan caught a sliver of exposed skin between chest plate and head, aimed, shot.
The harsh bang was followed by the hiss of the bullet, then the splatter as it cut right through the angel's throat.Blood, strings of meat, flesh, from Michael the archangel, dribbled onto the river, staining it like oil in sea.Though the humans couldn’t seen him, they saw the red of his blood and the ghost-silhouette of a body.But, as shouts rang all around, Satan didn’t linger, didn't even stay to watch the saint flutter erratically in the air, plunge down what amounted to two stories.He did, however, catch Michael's helmet jerk in his direction, so sharp his neck might’ve snapped had it not already burst.
The devil took off, sprinting to the right in the few seconds that he had before any of the armed officers, at either side of the bridge, could recover from the shock of a killed ghost.The bangs of more shots were quick to follow him, as well as the burn of grazing bullets.Shrill screams surrounded him, all of them.Michael yelled out, choking on the blood in his mouth.
But the devil ran like it was God after him.
CHAPTER15
“Don’t be difficult,” Joana’s father had told her the night before.“Get your boy to deal with this shit or else you’ll see what I do to you.You don’t know how good you have it.Your mother and I would have killed for all the things you have — that nice phone, those new shoes.Don’t let that boy kill more soldiers but have him find out why they tried to kill those people.Do you hear me?”
“Yes, dad,” she’d said.“I’m sorry, dad.”
The words had echoed in her skull that early morning from the backyard of Tadeo’s home, where she often slept in a hammock beside where they had theirlavadero, a washboard utility sink; many times, Joana would help Tadeo’s family with running the soap over the ridges of the board side before laying clothes there to begin scrubbing.Joana had more than enough laundry to painstakingly do in her own house, but sometimes she’d snicker at the thought of her mother forcing her eldest brother to help instead.If nothing else, bringing the money to the family meant she didn’t have to do the dishes so much anymore, didn’t have to worry about mopping after her youngest siblings.She could be a person, not just a daughter.But selling her soul really hadn’t been what she wanted once.
The last few days she’d been holed up in Tadeo’s family’s house more than ever, wondering, ‘What the fuck is going on?What the fuck am I going to do?’The soldiers had attacked two priests and several migrants, killing three of them, in the face of a thousand witnesses, including the patrol at the other side of the border.Up north, the story was that the traffickers had infiltrated the state forces across the river, that it was the criminals that had ordered it.But Joana knew that wasn’t the case — even without calling the kingpin, she knew that he wouldn’t have ordered something like this.What for?Criminals are quite deliberate with violence, but if Joana had gathered anything from the televisions, it was much easier to believe that they were irrational, indiscriminate, violent monsters.Demons, they called them.
