“As you wish.” Alana Catherine sat down on the dirt floor in front of the entity who should have and could have been her counterpart. That wasn’t going to happen. They’d both agreed. “I will give you a logic question—a riddle, if you will. If you answer it correctly, it will lead you to the destiny you have chosen. If you change your mind about your future, you can answer the riddle incorrectly and you can stay, but in ghost form. Do you understand, Uriel?”
“Forever you will be the fake Higher Power, but somehow you have assumed my throne,” Uriel said flatly. “I am the Higher Power—the real Higher Power. There will never be another like me. Ask me your riddle. I am ready.”
“Are you sure?” she inquired.
“Are you deaf?” Uriel hissed.
Alana Catherine gave the former Higher Power, who had embodied logic, one final gift—a riddle to end Its existence.
My daughter’s voice was clear and wise beyond her years. “Only one color, but not one size. Stuck at the bottom, yet easily flies. Present in sun, but not in rain. Doing no harm, and feeling no pain… What are you?”
Uriel laughed. It was not a pretty sound. It had been evil in life. We weren’t going to get a chance to see if It would have been evil in death. It had chosen no afterlife, and Alana Catherine had granted Its wish. The move was as cold and logical as it was compassionate and violent—a sum of all the parts.
“Dust,” Uriel answered in an icy tone with a crazed smile on Its lips. “The answer is dust. I. Am. Dust.”
In a flash of glittering magic that encompassed every color of the rainbow, Uriel got Its wish. The being was gone. It wasn’t a ghost. It was gone. It was nothing.
Chamuel seemed to the be only one truly upset about the loss of Uriel. Hemah’s expression was unreadable. Being a spirit guide wasn’t for everyone. I wasn’t sure that Hemah would work out well in the position considering how vile It had been in life, but maybe I was wrong. What It did today, helping me save my daughter, was not something I would have ever thought It was capable of doing.
Sometimes, it was fabulous to be wrong.
Alana Catherine stood up and brushed the dirt off of her clothes. One by one she hugged and greeted her friends and family. The biggest and tightest hugs went to Gideon and me. Nothing had ever felt so good.
“Can we go home?” she asked.
“YES!” Shitty Ritchie squealed. “I’m going to throw a dang dong party in honor of my lost pecker!”
“Okay” Alana Catherine said with a wince. “Sounds like a plan.”
“How in the actual fuck do we get out of here?” Candy Vargo asked, glancing around.
Jennifer, Alana Catherine and Shitty Ritchie looked at each other and laughed.
“We’ve got this,” Jennifer said.
“Hold our hands,” Alana Catherine added, extending hers.
“YES!” Shitty Ritchie shouted. “We will take you home because we are the MAN and the WOMAN and the other WOMAN!”
And on that vintage Shitty Ritchie note, we joined hands and readied ourselves to leave the Higher Power’s plane—a place where evil had dwelled for far too long. I hoped when all of thiswas said and done, the new true Higher Power would do some serious redecorating here.
After an eternity of awful, the plane definitely needed an upgrade. Looking at Alana Catherine, Jennifer, and Shitty Ritchie, I knew in my heart and soul they were the right Higher Power for the job.
“Ready?” Jennifer asked.
I smiled at her. “Born ready.”
Alana Catherine smiled. “Let’s go home.”
“Let’s.” I booped her nose.
I had my daughter and my friends back. Going home was the icing on the cake.
We’d proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything was possible. It just took luck, skill, timing and a heck of a lot of belief.
We had that in abundance.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
