Chapter 15
“Don’t be difficult,” Joana’s father had told her the night before.
“Get your boy to deal with this shit or else you’ll see what I do to you.
You don’t know how good you have it. Your mother and I would have killed for all the things you have — that nice phone, those new shoes.
Don’t let that boy kill more soldiers but have him find out why they tried to kill those people. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, dad,” she’d said. “I’m sorry, dad.”
The words had echoed in her skull that early morning from the backyard of Tadeo’s home, where she often slept in a hammock beside where they had their lavadero, a washboard utility sink; many times, Joana would help Tadeo’s family with running the soap over the ridges of the board side before laying clothes there to begin scrubbing.
Joana had more than enough laundry to painstakingly do in her own house, but sometimes she’d snicker at the thought of her mother forcing her eldest brother to help instead.
If nothing else, bringing the money to the family meant she didn’t have to do the dishes so much anymore, didn’t have to worry about mopping after her youngest siblings.
She could be a person, not just a daughter.
But selling her soul really hadn’t been what she wanted once.
The last few days she’d been holed up in Tadeo’s family’s house more than ever, wondering, ‘What the fuck is going on? What the fuck am I going to do?’ The soldiers had attacked two priests and several migrants, killing three of them, in the face of a thousand witnesses, including the patrol at the other side of the border.
Up north, the story was that the traffickers had infiltrated the state forces across the river, that it was the criminals that had ordered it.
But Joana knew that wasn’t the case — even without calling the kingpin, she knew that he wouldn’t have ordered something like this.
What for? Criminals are quite deliberate with violence, but if Joana had gathered anything from the televisions, it was much easier to believe that they were irrational, indiscriminate, violent monsters. Demons, they called them.
But even demons are deliberate; they are purposeful.
‘I’ll have to,’ she thought, ‘keep Tadeo down.’ She would tell Tadeo to lay low for a few weeks, that the massacre was a punishment from the state for what Tadeo had done to the soldier; after all, maybe it was.
Then, there was a sudden, sharp whine nearby, then a snort. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said out loud, wheezing out a cough like she were in the midst of smoking as she fought against her hammock to get back on the ground of the yard. “God fucking dammit, Tadeo.”
At the other side of the house, past the front yard, nearly on the road but with one foot still over a cracked sidewalk, Tadeo was breathing in nervously.
The sky clung to darkness and warded off dawn, the rays of the sun at the horizon exceptionally dim; it might be a cloudy day for once.
Beside him, an Azteca mare stood tall with dark brown skin and an even darker mane, as opposed to the much lighter, milky-coffee color of the saddle that the young man was adjusting.
The angel Dina was standing right in front of the horse, eyes wondrous as he tapped her snout.
When the door slammed open, crashing against the edge of the adjoining wall — Tadeo didn’t dare turn, though Dina did immediately.
“Stupid fuck!” Joana yelled even though one of Tadeo’s uncles and his grandfather were hurrying behind her, telling her to lower her voice or she’d wake everyone in the neighborhood. “Do they know, Tadeo? Do they know you’re trying to take your ass to Hell?”
“They already know everything,” Tadeo replied stiffly, tugging on the saddle a few times just to check its firmness before setting a foot into one of the stirrups. Grunting, he lifted himself, throwing his other leg over the mare’s back to mount her.
Dina stared at Joana tensely. He hadn’t forgotten what he saw at the club, and he’d begun to bite his tongue in recent days after she’d snapped at Tadeo to not even consider leaving the town for the sake of the Watchers.
Even that soldier Tadeo had tortured had been sent on his way already; Dina had awkwardly stood nearby as Tadeo spoke with the other young man outside the hospital, urging him to return to his family, to get himself uninvolved for his own good.
There had been no progress in Apsinthos’ apocalyptic plans thanks to Joana’s manipulation.
And, now, the angel fluttered his wings, partly hoping the star in his head would make the snide comment he had the urge to grumble.
When Apsinthos was silent, however, Dina spoke: “Joana.” He tried to speak calmly, authoritatively — the way Uriel always did. “The end of the world is at stake. Tadeo must do this.”
“Bullshit,” Joana snarled at the angel, stepping up to him, tilting her head up without cowardice to Dina’s divine presence.
“If Tadeo leaves this place, everyone’s lives will be in danger.
Haven’t you seen how the soldiers don’t give a shit about us?
If Tadeo leaves, and the criminals notice he’s gone, they might take the chance to worsen the violence again. ”
“I won’t be gone that long,” Tadeo grumbled.
“It’s just three or four days on horse, and freeing the angels trapped beneath the Earth should be simple enough.
We’re not going to Hell, just halfway there.
” Joana laughed meanly, but Tadeo adjusted himself, looking down the road, not letting her interfere.
Dina, meanwhile, turned his head back to Tadeo’s family as they moved to tell Joana that Tadeo could make his own decisions.
His grandmother and one of his aunts were appearing at the doorway as well, and Dina was sure Tadeo’s mother was probably in the living room, listening as much as she could.
Distantly, the angel could hear a dog barking, and he tilted his head to see one such creature — slim and hairless — on the roofing of a home nearby.
“Tío,” Tadeo called to his uncle. “I’ll bring her back to you as healthy and happy as you lended her to me.”
“It’s no problem, mijo,” his uncle said quickly, stepping toward him, patting the mare’s behind.
“Just stay safe.” Most of Tadeo’s family didn’t really understand where he was headed, but with an angel by his side, they assumed they had no choice but to support him.
And as Dina heard the other members of his family wishing him luck and waving, asking if he was sure he’d packed everything, Dina adjusted the hoodie he wore, as well as the jeans.
He’d been offered a hat like the one Tadeo often wore, but he preferred the hood.
“I’ll be back soon,” Tadeo reassured his family. He had a backpack, which the angel had watched him fill with water, food, and ammunition the night before.
“You’re going to fuck everything up,” Joana said sharply, and though Tadeo visibly swallowed, he took the reins and wished her farewell.
With a tug, the anti-Christ guided the horse into a steady walk forward, and Dina followed on sandaled feet, glancing back over his shoulder at the waving family.
They said, “Goodbye, Dina!” as well, making him startle at first, then jerk his hand up to wave it back.
The grandmother shouted, “Take care of our Tadeo! May God bless you!” The angel realized he no longer knew if he was blessed, and as he went after the young man down the road, turning a corner into another neighborhood, he fiddled with his fingers nervously.
“Are you sure this is the right way, Dina?” Tadeo’s voice leaked into the angel’s thoughts as they traveled together, a few neighbors peeking out of their windows, looking up as they ran a broom over the sidewalk.
There weren’t many soldiers, but they stared at him, too, from corners.
Few cars populated the streets, as well, as the gas shortage grew tighter and tighter.
Cargo trucks continued to pass, through, headed to Babylon.
‘It’s not far from where the anti-Christ was born,’ Apsinthos had said, ‘at the coast. Many years ago, a drill cracked the Earth there, and it gushed black blood into the ocean. The crack was so deep that it opened a wound into Hell. The Beast must’ve climbed out from there before it entered the boy. ’
Yesterday, Dina had heard this in the bathroom with a bucket of water, a cup, and soap, naked and crouched on the flooring, wet hair over his face as he listened to his love.
‘Isn't Tadeo the Beast?’ Each droplet that rolled from his body and landed on the tile was loud as a gunshot, and he shivered.
He didn't like the water here — too rough, all the Heaven crystalline smoothness missing.
‘The Beast is inside him, but Tadeo is not the Beast; he is the tool of the Beast, an anti-Christ.’
Once they’d left the town behind, they turned off the road and onto grass, and the angel spread his wings and began to fly overhead.
Only then did Dina realize how long it’d been since he’d flown — stuttering from left to right, focusing too much on the balance of his wings when he’d once flown like instinct.
Nearly, he missed the start of Tadeo's questions.
“So what is Heaven really like? Is Jesus there? Is St. Peter at the gate? Is our Mary of Guadalupe there? How is God? How does He feel about all of this?” For hours, Dina deflected questions or offered half-answers or admitted he knew nothing.
He tried to emphasize that he wasn’t a great angel, just one that cleaned the house of a prince.
“But that’s a great thing, isn’t it? To look after the house of an archangel?
And God has sent you here, which means He has great plans for you, Dina. ”