Chapter 9 #2
Father ángel arrived in a city of fluorescent light, skyscrapers, and fortune, and at the airport, as expected, was a chauffeur.
After this, it was a half hour to the casino, each minute of which he spent with his eyes shut firmly, trying to make up for all the sleep he should’ve had on the jet.
It wasn’t enough; it was never enough. As the driver pulled up to a seven-floor, wide building, the beautiful priest opened one eye in a squint.
Though the arrangement had been to close the casino for a private event, there were more people than planned moving in and out of it, many older folk. Oh well.
Long ago, the beautiful priest had learned to accept collateral damage.
All humans died eventually, and almost all of them died miserable deaths.
And he didn’t often torture them, he was often quick, and there was something so comfortingly impersonal about a devil responsible for your death; there was nothing you could have done differently, it wasn’t someone you loved, it wasn’t the world that you hated.
It was something so much larger than you could ever know.
Tapping, his stilettos climbed up a line of steps toward the entrance into the casino, and he licked the gloss on his lips for a taste of its cherry flavor.
The double doors were guarded: security stood at either side, asking for identification from the priest, informing him that this event was closed.
Without a word, ángel retrieved a wallet from his purse, offered an I.D.
, and then smiled pleasantly as he was allowed in with another few taps of his heels.
Soon, he was crossing them over carpet, which was colored red-orange and decorated with yellow geometric shapes in a vague floral aesthetic.
Tassels of blonde hair bounced against his shoulders, curling toward the jeweled, designer necklace he wore, whose style matched his bracelets and dangling earrings.
As for his dress — it was a seven thousand dollar piece of pale lace beneath crystal embroidery, with some black bows on his shoulders, though one was, tastefully, on the verge of slipping off.
Coyly over his bottom, he held a clutch purse as he moved through a hundred people.
The slot machines were singing, whirring, but the priest headed toward the circular bar at the center of the enormous room first, where there was what appeared to be a young woman standing before the bartender, sipping from a tall glass with a salted rim.
Her nails were acrylic and half pink, half white, and her hair was a tender, soft pink in loose curls.
“Gemory,” the priest called, watching the woman jolt, then turn on her heels to reveal her short white dress with a low, V-shaped collar.
“It’s Sarah here,” sighed the demon, but she smiled fondly, reached for the wrist of Father ángel and leaned to kiss his cheek in greeting.
“I forgot to tell you, didn’t I? Forgive me, darling.
” Neither she nor ángel seemed to fear anyone hearing them and piecing together their lack of humanity.
“Your man has been looking everywhere for you, so don’t bother trying to hunt him down.
He’ll come here any moment now.” There was some music playing from a speaker by the rows of liquor — popular radio music but its volume was quite low.
“Good,” said the priest, then turned to cross his arms over the bar, bending over it to call for a flustered man polishing a glass to make him an old fashioned. Then, ángel tilted his face back to Gemory and asked, “Did you bring what I asked for?”
Reaching into a pocket of her dress, Gemory picked out a pack of cigarettes and said, “It’s behind the counter.” Then, she leaned in, whispered, “He knows,” referring to the bartender hurrying to make the beautiful priest his cocktail. “He said he wouldn’t tell a soul for the right price.”
“Mm, you always think of everything,” the beautiful priest teased.
“You always ask why I grant you so many privileges as if you don’t know how competent you are.
” Cheeks darkening scarlet, Gemory huffed, looking away, and pulled a cigarette out of the box for herself, then another one.
“They do say that if you need something done, send a woman.”
At that, Gemory giggled more timidly, then placed one cigarette between her lips and offered the other one to the priest. “Don’t think I don’t see how you’re trying to butter me up.
” Just as ángel took the offering, tucked it into his mouth, she reached for the lighter in her dress and flickered its flame.
She leaned her face closer to the other.
Both of their cigarettes, then, lit with a single spark, and the priest breathed in the tobacco just as the bartender returned with his drink.
“It’s why you’re here, Sarah,” the priest said, one hand coming around his whiskey cocktail, orange as the setting sun with a cube of ice sitting in the middle.
He lifted his drink and picked the cigarette out of his mouth with the same hand he was using for the old fashioned, and he sipped.
“Mm, you’re here to help me.” He caught a flicker over her eyes, something she’d probably strangled to smother, to not betray whatever she was pretending not to feel.
“You wouldn’t like to be ordered to return to Hell, would you?
” This time, she allowed fear to tug on her features, and the beautiful priest smiled at her.
“Hopefully, you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t.
Not… talking to anybody you shouldn’t. Because if I do find out that you know his whereabouts, Sarah…
Mmm, well, who is to say?” Slipping the cigarette back between his lips, the priest turned to lean against the bar again, staring at the spinning slot machines. And he waited in the tense silence.
Dina returned to fiddling with his Bible as he walked, following the direction of Apsinthos.
There were distant sounds, particularly of cars passing by and of distant humans and buzzing insects, dogs, but ultimately the roads were silent.
It reminded him of Heaven, and he thought of what that girl Joana had said, how such horrible things had occurred here.
As he stepped out of a neighborhood and saw greenery and what appeared to be the slope to a river — the angel thought of how terrible things had occurred in Heaven, as well, and how quiet the city had become after that.
He swallowed, thickly, and moved past a stout building of colorful, paper-like shapes — pinatas — hanging off the ceiling with a family still sitting around, chattering, working despite the nighttime.
Dina was still accustoming to that — daily darkness.
Hesitatingly, the young angel walked toward the river and here, too, he saw life — a man and a boy at the bank, the older one fishing.
The water didn’t rush ferociously, nor was the surface very high, but nonetheless it was an artery of water splitting the Earth.
Dina approached the fern-filled shore, far from the humans, and crouched to touch the water.
“Oh.” It was murky, almost thick, in a way he’d never felt before, and then he flickered his gaze upward, and at the other side of the river, he saw two figures on horseback.
‘Like the princes in my stories,’ Dina thought, but they weren’t dressed in royal, bright garb and instead in dark green uniforms.
These horsemen — they stood still, and they might’ve been staring at Dina, as if waiting to see if the angel would try to illegally cross over.
There was hardly anyone but these green horsemen on the other side of the river, where the homes seemed taller, less cramped.
There were no fishermen on the other side, only horsemen. Fishermen versus horsemen.
Apsinthos asked, ‘Do you remember the last story in the Bible?’
At the casino, the man that the priest had been waiting for finally arrived; he had been looking for ángel, just as Sarah had said.
Sarah, Gemory, who had disappeared more than a few minutes ago.
She was smart; she’d pieced together what the priest was here to do.
He’d always liked her because she was intelligent; hopefully, she would continue to be and spill the secret that the priest really wouldn’t want to punish her for.
But he could very well understand being unable to disentangle oneself from a relationship.
After all, that was why the beautiful ángel was here now.
“I didn’t think,” came the husky voice of an older man, breath brushing his ear, “you’d come.” A hand slipped to settle itself on the lower back of the priest.
“You said you’d pay for me to play with any slot I wanted,” answered the priest, huffing out a sigh, then sipping from the third old fashioned he’d had so far. “You’re not going to go back on your promise, are you?”
“Oh no,” said the man with utter warmth. “Play as much as you like, sweetheart. While you’ve been gone, I secured that share I was telling you about oh, what was it, last January? And the great arms deal went through, too, so there’s a lot of money being made, a lot of slots for you to play with.”
“Arms deal…” the priest echoed, then tilted his face coyly at the man and didn’t react to his fingering of the jewels on the dress.
“Deal to who?” The man specified. “I don’t suppose you’re doing this for more diamonds, as if they’re not all already yours.
” But the priest was playing dumb; the arms funneling to the rebel groups would ensure that the diamond trade and all the enslaved children mining them would continue to be his.
Some men must keep a foot on the neck of nations to remain upright; some nations must keep a foot on the neck of nations to remain upright.
But pressing too hard might tip a man over, might tip a nation over. Even a nation like Babylon.