“I never set it down.”
“Wait one bloomin' second.” Austin stood up. “Are you talkin' 'bout killin' God?TheGod?”
Jesus removed his John Lennon glasses and leveled his brilliant blue stare on Austin. “Yes.”
Chapter Seven
“You can't kill God!” Austin screeched.
“Austin, he's not the God you think he is,” I said gently. “He didn't create the world and humans. He is not your father; he's an Atlantean. And you saw what he did. Jerry got those Angels amped up on apples and sent them after us. He's not a good guy.”
“Still, he's God.”
“And he's my dad, but his wrath is legendary,” Jesus said. “Literally biblical, you dig? We can't allow him to take his fury out upon the Earth again.”
“Again?” I asked. “Did the flood really happen?”
“An area of the Middle East, mainly Mesopotamia, was flooded,” Re said. “The rest of us wouldn't allow Jehovah to hurt our people. We surrounded the region in a ward and held back the water.”
“Damn,” I whispered. “What a dick.” Then I grinned at Re. “Also, well done on the rest of you for protecting humans.”
Re winked at me.
“Now you know my struggle,” Jesus said. “It's hard to meditate on love and joy when your dad is such a downer.”
Austin slowly sank back into his seat. “We're killing God.”
“A god,” I said. “We're killingagod.”
“We're going to try,” Odin amended. “For the good of the world, we must.”
“I'm having some conflicting emotions,” Lucifer murmured.
Jesus laid a hand on Luke's shoulder. “I get it. Just feel through it. You gotta accept the pain before you can let it go.”
“I'm sorry.” Luke laid his hand over Jesus's. “I know you're conflicted as well. But your father was my friend a long time ago and despite all he's done, I still remember that friendship. And,”—he paused to grin—“it's been fun to mess with him over the years.”
“Luke, to end the last war, he forced you to become the Devil and Mom to become his—”
“Don't you dare say a bad word about your mother!”
“I would never,” Jesus said gently. “But my father made it a condition of your truce that she go back to him and conceive me. Both sides were suffering great losses, but he would have continued the war out of spite. I was born from that negativity, and I've spent my entire life trying to overcome it. The weed, the meditating, the free love, all ofthis.” He waved a hand at himself. “It's all to raise my vibrations and separate myself from him bad juju. But there comes a time when peace fails and flowers wilt. I can't meditate this away. I must take a stand against my father at last.”
A tear slipped down Luke's cheek. “You should have been my son.”
“That would have been . . .” Jesus swallowed roughly, his Adam's apple bobbing. “But it is what it is, and if we want things to change,wemust change first.”
“I don't want you to change, Jesus. You are too good for this.”
“Luke, my father nearly destroyed our pantheon the last time you two went to war. Now, Az is threatening his power, the only thing he holds dear. Azrael, your son. The son he wanted me to be—powerful, deadly, and feared. An Angel who could rule the world if he so desired. He blames me for softening our religion and stopping the blood sacrifices. I am a thorn in his side while Azrael is your pride and joy. My father envies you. Just as you say I should have been yours, so he believes that Azrael should have been his. And since he is not, he is yet another barb of indignity in my father's side. Jehovah will not stop until Azrael is dead. He isn't after you anymore, Luke. He's after your son.”
Lucifer blinked his diamond eyes slowly, the shine in them matching the sparkles in his white feathered wings—one of the few physical features that differentiated him from Azrael. But those sparkles looked menacing all of a sudden, sharper. Diamonds made to cut, not adorn. The Devil lifted his deadly wings, narrowed his ferocious eyes, and said, “Jehovah must die.”
“It von't be easy,” Kirill said. “He never leaves Heaven.”
“He'll leave if he turns Heaven into Hell,” Torrent said.
“The point is to avoid that,” Teharon said.
