Chapter 22
Levi
No, no, no. Gabriel was gone. He was just… gone.
Levi knew from Gabriel’s face as he was disappearing that it was not the angel’s doing. He wouldn’t have left Levi like that. And for some reason, he wasn’t able to come right back, which he should’ve been able to do.
The fucking leadership team.
Levi’s tentacles uncurled, and he paced, his anger growing. They could not take Gabriel away from him. They couldn’t.
Levi loved the angel.
He loved how buttoned up Gabriel was. He loved that he could make Gabriel drop his perfect image and moan, whether it was during sex or while eating something really tasty.
He loved that Gabriel had a sweet tooth.
He loved experiencing new things with his angel, and he had meant it—even if he’d done them before, they were new all over again with Gabriel.
He didn’t just mean the sex (which was phenomenal).
He wanted to go to a concert and have Gabriel look appalled at all the human bodies smushed together and screaming, and he wanted to see Gabriel’s face when the music started.
He wanted to sit in front of a campfire with his angel and watch him taste his first s’more (which Gabriel would totally love).
He wanted to dance with Gabriel, even though his angel was too shy to do it in public.
They’d go to a club and watch the dancers, and then Levi would bring him home so they could try dancing in private.
He wanted to wake up with Gabriel, fall asleep with him, deliver messages with him, watch the sun rise and set… He wanted it all.
He loved Gabriel, and he hadn’t even gotten to tell him.
Levi would already be with him, only he had no idea where Gabriel was. He didn’t even know where the fucking leadership team was. It was Gabriel who could find anyone he wanted, not Levi. Levi wasn’t even technically a messenger, even though they’d given themselves a department name.
Levi stopped pacing, his thoughts focused on that.
They’d given themselves a department name. They’d created a department. They’d sent out a memo, and Levi had gotten responses. That meant it was an official department, didn’t it? And they were both part of that department. Didn’t that mean he should be able to find people, too?
He thought about Gabriel, but he had no sense of where the angel was.
He growled in frustration, starting to pace again. The damn, fucking, idiotic leadership team. He had a message to give them, that was for sure.
With that thought, he suddenly had a sense of them. Most of them, anyway, all gathered together in a conference room somewhere in Limbo.
Well, then, he guessed the department was official, because he could find people he needed to send messages to.
With that, he blinked himself right into the middle of the leadership team meeting.
An angel had been speaking, but they abruptly sat down when Levi appeared.
The angels were all on one side of the table, and the demons were all on the other, although he did note an empty chair on each side at the end of the table.
He didn’t give it much thought, glaring at the freakishly similar angels and then switching his gaze to the demons (who were also freakishly similar).
“To what do we owe this unexpected visit?” a demon finally asked.
“Gabriel is an archangel. You have no dominion over him. You’re middle fucking management, and he’s an archangel.” Levi was pacing as he ranted, his tentacles furling and unfurling behind him. They itched to grab and strangle one of the leadership team.
The leadership team sat staring at him, blank faced.
“In fact, you shouldn’t have even been able to make him be a part of a fucking partnership. How did you fuckers even accomplish that?”
“We did not demand it. It was a strongly worded suggestion,” an angel announced.
One of Levi’s tentacles grabbed the angel around the neck and lifted him from his seat.
The angel made a small squeak of protest, and Levi growled in response.
His tentacle really did have a mind of its own, and it wanted Gabriel.
RIGHT NOW. And if it needed to strangle a few members of the leadership team to get him, that was just fine.
The angel looked vaguely panicked and was grasping at the tentacle, but the rest of the leadership team didn’t look fazed or concerned at all.
Fucking clones.
“Where. Is. He.” Levi demanded.
There was silence (other than the strangled, choking sounds coming from the one angel). Another tentacle reached out, grabbing a demon from his chair and lifting him by the neck as well. The demon didn’t squeak quite as loudly as the angel, but their eyes bulged nicely.
Levi knew he was acting unhinged, but he couldn’t help it. He continued to choke the two and yelled at the rest of the team. “I will destroy the entire team if I have to. Where is he!”
The door opened—Levi hadn’t even been aware there’d been a door on the far side of the room. Everyone turned to look, and an angel and demon walked into the room.
They were leadership team… Only they weren’t. They looked… different.
For one, they had facial expressions, and they both looked vaguely alarmed. Also… Were those little decorations on their clothes? And their sandals? Skulls and flowers?
“Oh, dear,” the angel said.
The demon scowled. “What have you done now?” he demanded.
“I didn’t do anything but follow fucking directions, and now you assholes think you can take my partner away from me!” Levi shouted.
The demon looked at him, sighing. “I didn’t mean you. I meant them.” He gestured toward the rest of the leadership team, but they all stared, still expressionless.
“You aren’t supposed to be meeting without us present,” the angel said, also directing his attention to the rest of the leadership team.
No one answered them. The demon looked delightfully pissed off, and it made Levi happy that someone else was annoyed at the leadership team, too. (Even if that someone seemed to be part of the leadership team.)
The demon looked over at him. “What did they do?”
Levi was only too happy to rat them out. “They made the archangel Gabriel and I a Professional Development Partnership in order to upskill or some weird corporate bullshit.”
“Oh, dear,” the angel said again. He looked toward the table. “We do not have dominion over archangels and infernal kings. We even sent a memo reminding everyone of that.”
The leadership team remained silent. The creepy fuckers. Well, except for the two who were still vainly struggling in his tentacles. With a sigh, he dropped those two. That hadn’t been getting him anywhere, anyway.
The demon with skull decorations glanced at Levi. “We’re terribly sorry for any misunderstanding. You don’t have to follow the directive, of course.”
“That isn’t the problem!” Levi announced, starting to pace again. “We did follow the directive. We worked together. We became more efficient, and we even started a demonic message delivery service!”
“Demonic messages are also handled by Gabriel,” a leadership demon drone announced.
“And such a service was not approved by management,” another drone added.
“That isn’t the point!” Levi ground out, his tentacles waving about again. He was satisfied to see that a few of the leadership team members flinched away a bit.
The angel who had walked in—the one with the little flower decorations—cleared his throat. He looked nervous and not like an asshole, which was a totally different look for the leadership team.
“Well, umm, what seems to be the problem, then?” he asked.
“The problem is that the assholes over here dissolved the partnership! We don’t want to be dissolved! Give him back!” Levi demanded.
The demon and angel looked at each other, and the leadership team drones just stared at the three of them.
Finally, a leadership team angel spoke up. “We dissolved the partnership, but we didn’t do anything with the archangel.”
“If you choose to continue to work together, such an act will not be sanctioned by the leadership team,” another one added.
The skull-decorated demon scowled, and the flower-decorated angel looked aggravated as well.
“They can work together if they want to,” Skull Demon announced.
“Leviathan is not sanctioned to deliver messages,” one of the drones announced.
Levi growled, but Skull Demon put up his hand, stopping Levi from murdering a few leadership assholes.
“You said you created a service? Something… official?” Skull Demon asked, and Levi was not imagining the emphasis the demon put on those words. He was staring at Levi like he wanted to tell him something, but obviously he couldn’t say whatever it was in front of the leadership team.
Something official. Of course. The leadership team loved official shit. They couldn’t go against something official, could they?
“Yes. The Department of Afterlife Message Delivery.”
The Flower Angel looked pleased and nodded. “That’s very official. A department. So clearly you are a messenger demon, and thus you should be afforded all the rights of a messenger, and obviously we support interdepartmental alignment.”
Skull Demon, however, snickered. Levi heard him mutter under his breath, “Damned.”
Then he realized, it wasn’t the word “damned,” it was D-A-M-D—the acronym of their department.
Levi wanted to bang his head against a wall.
Fucking Arioch. He was obviously missing a preposition or something in what he told them.
They weren’t supposed to tell some random people that they were damned.
They were supposed to tell the leadership team, or someone else, that he and Gabriel were DAMD, as in the Department of Afterlife Message Delivery.
“We’re both DAMD,” Levi blurted out.
The leadership team was still just sitting there with no reaction, but Flower Angel and Skull Demon were now staring at him as opposed to them.
“We’re both the Department of Afterlife Message Delivery. So, we can’t be separated, because we’re in the same department,” Levi explained to those two. (He was beyond caring about the rest of the team at this point.)
“Ah, of course,” Flower Angel said.
Skull Demon almost looked like he was going to smile, but then he stayed true to form and went back to scowling. He aimed it at the rest of the team again.
“So, clearly you are a sanctioned department, especially if memos have already been sent out. So you will, of course, continue to be able to work together,” Flower Angel told him.
“Good,” Levi said, relief flowing through him. These two were obviously reasonable. “That’s good. So where is he?”
“Who?” Flower Angel asked.
“Gabriel.”
Flower Angel looked over at the leadership team, who all stared blandly back.
“What did you do with the archangel?” the scowling demon finally demanded.
There was silence, and Levi had the thought that he would literally prefer to spend a few centuries in the pits as opposed to having to deal with these assholes on a regular basis. Finally, finally, one of the team spoke up.
“We did not do anything with the Messenger of the Lord. We simply revoked the partnership. Perhaps the Divine Herald chose to leave, since obviously we do not have dominion over him.”
Levi was pretty sure there was an attitude behind those words, and he resisted (barely) the urge to strangle the drone who had spoken.
“He did not leave willingly. I could tell by his face. He was transported away.”
One of the drones sniffed, and Skull Demon and Flower Angel looked vaguely uncomfortable.
“What?” Levi asked.
Flower Angel, who was giving off definite puppy dog vibes, clearly didn’t want to answer, so Levi looked at Skull Demon instead, raising an eyebrow.
“We cannot forcefully transport an archangel or an infernal king. That is strictly upper management,” Skull Demon admitted.
“I’m sorry,” he added. “The team rescinded the partnership, but they didn’t take the angel away.
That had to have been… Well, there’s only two people that could have been, and I’m afraid you can’t get in to see the more likely choice. ”
Levi was lost for a moment, and then it clicked. Skull Demon was talking about god and the devil. Those two were the ones who could transport Gabriel, and Levi couldn’t go to heaven to speak to god. There was some bullshit rule about demons not being in heaven and angels not being in hell.
Well, then, he’d go talk to Lucifer, and he’d figure out how to get his partner back. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that.
He was going to make a deal with the devil. His boss. The one he hadn’t seen in a few centuries when he’d sort of stopped showing up for work.
This ought to be interesting.