Chapter 25 Gabriel
Gabriel
It turned out the demon’s name was Scowly, and the angel’s name was Cutie.
Even to Gabriel, that seemed somewhat absurd, but they said it with perfectly straight faces.
Gabriel hadn’t even known that leadership team members had names, now that he thought about it, and that’s when Scowly had explained that they normally didn’t.
These two had been named by Adam, and they had also been put in charge by Adam and Minos (with Yah’s approval, apparently).
Despite that, and despite the fact that Cutie had a name that would seem to match a “cute little angel dude,” they didn’t get much further in figuring things out.
“We had no idea what the leadership team was doing,” Cutie insisted. “We would not have let them call forth the Divine Herald and be so… so mean.”
Scowly scowled (it really wasn’t any wonder how he got his name), but he nodded his head in agreement.
“Okay. So if the leadership team went behind your backs to do this, then who in the DoS tipped them off to begin with? And, what is the DoS?” Levi asked.
Cutie and Scowly looked at one another, and then they looked back at Levi and Gabriel.
“You don’t know,” Gabriel said, the realization dawning. “You have no idea what the DoS is.”
Scowly scowled. “Well, neither do you. And you should know. You’re the Divine Herald.”
Cutie gave Scowly a little elbow bump, and Scowly added, “So maybe it isn’t a real department.”
“Who decides whether something is a real department?” Levi asked. “We made up DAMD—the Department of Afterlife Message Delivery—and that seemed to stick. I even got the ability to find people in order to deliver messages.”
Gabriel looked thoughtful. “It’s not that it isn’t a real department. I think Levi’s right—anything can be a department, and we’re proof of that. It’s that I don’t know which individual in the department sent the message, so I can’t get a fix on it.”
“Who says there’s more than one person?” Scowly asked.
Everyone turned to stare at him.
“What? You two made yourselves a department. If this angel is putting together soulmates, it seems likely that would be their entire job. Maybe they made up the department, like you guys. Maybe they just named themselves the Department of Soulmates or something like that.”
It was as if a bell went off in Gabriel’s head, because suddenly he did have a feeling. He was looking for the Department of Soulmates, and it was only made up of one person.
Levi grabbed onto his hand. “Of course. The Department of Soulmates. Can you get a sense of him?”
“I think I can,” Gabriel answered. “I have a sense of him now.”
“Good. We can find him, and then we can report back to Luce.”
That sounded good in theory, but… “He’s an angel, Levi. He’s more than likely in heaven. I’m not sure how far the bounds of our department can take things. We did designate you as being in charge of demonic messages, so I’m not sure you’d be able to go to heaven without… consequences.”
Levi frowned and looked over at Cutie and Scowly. “Can you guys do something about that?”
Scowly shook his head. “That’s upper management. I don’t think we have that kind of capability. If we do, we don’t know it, and the assholes that do know it wouldn’t share that information with us. The leadership team is trying to freeze us out.”
Gabriel felt alarm. Could things be so off track in the afterlife? “But… they were instructed by god themselves!”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out,” Scowly insisted.
Cutie did look worried, but Scowly was gazing at them with such a fierce expression that Gabriel thought maybe they didn’t need to worry after all.
Besides, he had other things to be concerned with. Middle management would have to sort themselves out on their own. He had a cute little angel dude to find, a message to deliver, and then a bargain to be fulfilled with the devil.
Of course, if Gabriel and Levi were soulmates, he supposed he didn’t need a bargain with the devil. But could the devil take away their soul-mated status? Gabriel simply didn’t know, and he wasn’t going to chance it. This seemed a small price to pay for an eternity with Levi.
“I’ll go,” Gabriel insisted. “I’ll meet you in the devil’s office afterwards. It won’t take long, I’m sure, and if I need you, I’ll deliver a message to you letting you know. They can’t prevent us from contacting one another.”
Levi was scowling now, and it almost made Gabriel smile.
Instead, he leaned forward, giving Levi a long kiss, tongues touching and teeth nibbling.
He pulled back, saw the shocked faces of Cutie and Scowly—had they never seen anyone kiss before?
—and then he transported himself away, focusing on the sole member of the Department of Soulmates.
He was in an office. It was plain white, as all angelic offices were, only this one had equations—numbers, symbols, letters, and weird patterns—all over the walls. There were also books, papers, and folders scattered across every available surface.
There was an angel facing away from him and writing on the back wall, only he didn’t look very angelic.
He had disheveled brown hair that was maybe a touch too long, his robes were wrinkled and slightly crooked, and he was a short little thing who was slightly…
pudgy (but in an adorable way). Usually angels had perfect physiques—why wouldn’t they?
—but this angel looked like he didn’t care about staying in shape.
He could understand why Arioch had named him the “cute little angel dude.” He was a cute little thing, and Gabriel didn’t think he would’ve used that term to describe any angel.
The angel was also quietly mumbling to himself. Something moved at the bottom of his robes—was that? No, it couldn’t be. Gabriel must have made some sort of sound, because the angel turned around with a gasp.
For heaven’s sake—was that a button done up in the wrong hole? Gabriel was left speechless as he stared at the anomaly before him.
“Oh! You’re here! That’s wonderful!” the angel said, actually giving a little clap with his hands, like he couldn’t contain his excitement. “Although I didn’t mean to call on you quite yet.”
He was so… cheery.
“Oh! And pardon the mess. I’m so sorry about all this,” he said, motioning to the detritus that was scattered everywhere.
The angel actually came around the desk and started grabbing items in his arms out of the chair, dumping them into a corner of the room.
Why didn’t he just blink and organize things?
“Do have a seat, please. If you’d like to, of course. Would you like some tea? It’s been ages since anyone has come to visit the office, you see, so I haven’t tidied up in a few decades,” the angel explained, still bustling about.
It was all so… odd.
Once the angel had cleared the chair and a portion of the desk, he motioned Gabriel to sit again. So Gabriel sat. The angel went around the desk and sat in his own chair, folding his hands on the desk and looking pleased with himself.
“How is Levi? I’m surprised he didn’t come along,” the angel commented, looking around like the demon would suddenly appear.
That snapped Gabriel to attention.
“You’re…” Gabriel started, but he didn’t know quite how to finish the sentence.
Luckily, the angel chimed in. “Oh! Of course! Introductions! I’m Joe, the Director of the Department of Soulmates. And you’re the archangel Gabriel.”
“You’re the only person in the Department of Soulmates. That’s how I was able to find you without a name. And Joe? Your name is Joe?” Gabriel couldn’t wrap his head around that. Angels were not named Joe.
“You found me because I have a message, didn’t you?” Joe asked, sounding slightly unsure now.
“I have a message for you, actually. I found you based on your department.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Joe mumbled to himself, grabbing a marker and scribbling something on a piece of paper. “I don’t think that changes the trajectory of things, of course, but there’s quite a bit spiraling out now from the original equations…”
Gabriel watched as he scribbled some more things down, mumbling about the “current state of the infrastructure” and the “increasingly difficult yet essential pairings.”
Gabriel let the angel—Joe—work for a few minutes while he gathered his thoughts. He looked around the room, but he really couldn’t make any sense of all the writing on the walls. Whatever this angel was doing, it was beyond Gabriel’s understanding. He wondered why god or the devil couldn’t see him.
“Lucfier is looking for you,” Gabriel finally said.
That startled the angel enough that he stopped what he was doing and looked up. “What?” he asked, obviously confused.
“Lucifer, the devil, is looking for you. I was sent to give you a message.”
“Oh. No, I don’t think that’s a wise course of action,” Joe said, as if he could change the fact that Lucifer had a message for him.
“You are to appear before them,” Gabriel stated.
Joe stared at him.
“That’s the message. ‘You are to appear before them.’ I believe he meant himself and god.”
“No, no, no. That won’t do. Nope. Not at all,” Joe said, going back to scribbling things down, mumbling while writing. “I hadn’t realized… But of course I should have… But at least you and Levi are paired.”
“Are we?” Gabriel interrupted. “Are we soulmates?”
Joe looked up at him, surprised. “Well, of course you are. You’re already all bonded and everything,” he said, motioning toward Gabriel, as if there was something to be seen.
“I don’t need a deal with the devil to be with Levi?” Gabriel asked, wanting to be sure.
He had fulfilled the deal—he had delivered the message. He just wasn’t sure that Joe was going to follow it, and he didn’t know if that was a deal breaker.
“Nope! Nothing can separate you two. You can go where he goes, and he can go where you go. It’s all rather simple.”
Perhaps it was simple to someone who had advanced equations written all over his office, but it wasn’t simple to Gabriel.
“But… I’m an angel. He’s a demon.”
“Yup! And now you both have access to all parts of the afterlife. Although, really, I’d imagine you’ll be staying topside most of the time. Levi does prefer it up there, and you seem to be having fun.”
Joe talked like they were all friends, but he was quite sure neither he nor Levi had ever met the angel.
“Have you been watching us?” Gabriel asked. There was no censure in his voice, but the angel (he had a hard time thinking of the man as ‘Joe’) blushed anyway.
“Well, I have to keep track of the equations, don’t I? But I don’t ever watch anything intimate. I wouldn’t want to invade anyone’s privacy.”
Gabriel just hummed, and the angel blushed even brighter, looking even more awkward. This was all so… odd. Gabriel had a hard time wrapping his head around it all. They stared at each other for a moment.
“Will you go and see them?” Gabriel asked.
Joe looked thoughtful at that, and Gabriel could almost see his fingers twitching to grab a pen and start calculations.
The angel seemed to realize something, because he got a satisfied look on his face. “He didn’t specifically say who ‘them’ was!”
“Well, no, but he clearly meant—”
The angel didn’t let him finish, raising a hand to cut him off.
“They weren’t clear at all, thank goodness.
I’ll go see a different them, then. It will need to be both someone from the underworld and from heaven in order to fulfill the message…
” Joe sighed. “I guess it will need to be the leadership team. They’re the most likely ‘them.’ They’re really such a hassle, though, and I haven’t figured out what to do about them. ”
“There are two members that aren’t like the others,” Gabriel supplied, unsure why he felt the need to help this angel. “Cutie and Scowly,” he added.
Joe looked surprised. “Oh. Huh. I hadn’t seen that.
I suppose it would be best if I checked that out then, because two named leadership team members didn’t show up in my equations…
But, you know, things have really spiraled out in so many directions that I can’t keep track of it all. It’s a good thing, though. I think.”
Joe was nodding, and Gabriel found himself nodding along with the angel.
“Well, you’ll be wanting to get back to Levi, I’m sure. I do have a message for you, as well. It’s a little early, but I think that’s okay. You’ll need to deliver it to Yah and only Yah. Levi should be there, of course—he’s your soulmate—but no one else. Not for this message.”
Gabriel stared at the angel as he handed over a parchment that he pulled from a drawer in his desk. He looked it over, and he couldn’t hide his surprise.
He wondered about giving a message to god from an angel that seemed hidden from both god and the devil.
He wondered about the Department of Soulmates.
What was the endgame? What was the purpose of all of this?
He wouldn’t be a party to giving a message that would cause harm, and he thought that this one might, even if it was inadvertent.
Joe seemed to know what he was thinking. “Sometimes a little hardship is necessary, but the result makes it worth it, don’t you think?”
If he meant having a soulmate, then yes, it definitely did make it worth it. Gabriel didn’t think he would give up Levi for anything, even if it meant something terrible for the rest of existence. He had found his soulmate, and he wouldn’t let him go. Still, he had to ask.
“What are you doing here? What’s the purpose of all of this?”
“Why, saving the universe, of course,” Joe replied, and then the angel looked back down and started scribbling notes, effectively dismissing Gabriel.
Saving the universe. Well, Gabriel couldn’t argue with that, could he?