Chapter 1: Worse than Armageddon?
November 25, 2006 AD, 5:50 P.M.
Apartment
Why am I writing in here?
I wasn’t planning on starting a diary.
I’d made myself a solemn vow, actually. No more writing my thoughts down where Archangel Ramiel might find them. Especially after what happened last time.
But then... today happened.
And if I don’t get my thoughts on paper, I might explode.
I barely know where to begin. It sounds like the bad lead-in to a joke: an angel and a demon walk onto an elevator. Next thing you know, there’ll be something about the Antichrist and the beginning of Armageddon, and the sad part is, that would almost—almost—be better than what happened.
For the record, I didn’t mean to kiss him.
That is... I didn’t not mean to kiss him, either. It wasn’t like he grabbed me, applied superglue to his lips, and then applied it to my lips, and then stuck our lips together. It was definitely a ‘consensual’ kiss, as they say here on Earth.
A consensual kiss that went on FAR too long...
...
...I need a drink.
Not that kind of drink! What kind of angel do you think I am? No, I was obviously talking about an infusion of ambrosia mixed with holy water.
And I’m going to get some.
Going.
Right now.
Yes.
6:13 P.M.
Okay, I have a steaming cup of ambrosia tea next to me, my favorite CD of choir songs is playing, and I feel a little better. Enough—I think—to control my tendency to blather nonsensically into this dollar-store notebook.
Don’t get me wrong, I still intend to blather.
But I shall do so rationally, with poise and grace, as is befitting of a proper, magnanimous angel.
6:16 P.M.
Fact #1: I only received my human body three days ago.
It’s a good body. Not that I’m an expert on the matter, but it seems to do all the right things, like breathing and pooping and circulating blood.
One thing I’m especially impressed by is how it continues to breathe even when I’m not thinking about it. I was terrified I might kill myself by falling asleep and asphyxiating, until Archangel Ramiel reminded me about respiratory control centers and how God planned for everything and that He wouldn’t just create a being that died the moment it fell asleep. Which makes sense, since otherwise humans would die from insomnia. I just can’t get over how cool it is!
Fact #2: It’s my third day on Earth.
My apartment is on New York’s Upper East Side, and I’m LOVING it! I’m finally done with most of the paperwork. For the most part, my neighbors are delightful, although one misguided soul keeps leaving passive aggressive notes asking me to stop playing my choir music so late at night.
Fact #3: I have no mana.
For our first two weeks on Earth, as part of the ‘acclimatization experience’, HQ makes us fully human. They leave us with a phone to send messages and an emergency backup seal we can break if things go really wonky, but the expectation is that we should first try to figure things out on our own. This experience is supposed to be punishment, after all.
I blame my lack of powers for why I failed to sense the demon.
6:19 P.M.
I saw him, of course.
He was hard to miss.
Hell had given him the tallest human body I’d ever seen, with wavy brown hair and forest-green eyes and cheekbones so sharp they could’ve sliced an onion.
At the time, I had no idea he was from Hell. I simply thought he was a dapper human who’d decided to step on the elevator at the same time as I did.
We were in the high-rise where I’d been ordered to report for my second mandatory orientation. I’d been to a similar orientation the day before, and it was incredibly dull... or rather, an opportunity to practice the key virtue of patience, as my Remedial Goodness Counselor likes to say. They’d given us a slideshow on our duties, virtues to practice, and things we were forbidden from doing—I kid you not, the list was at least a thousand items long—and then our preceptor had asked us, in sympathetic tones, how we were adapting to our time on Earth.
I told him it was wonderful. I was being one hundred percent honest, but the git—I mean, our wise, esteemed mentor—had the audacity to lecture me on the perils of sarcasm and its incompatibility with the greater good.
A lecture I’ve clearly taken to heart, as you can see.
So I wasn’t looking forward to Orientation #2. I was also running late, which probably contributed to my failure to notice my fellow elevator passenger was Obviously Evil™.
I pressed the button for the 79th floor and tucked myself into the corner to make room for the newcomer.
“Hello there!” I said.
In response, the man-I-now-know-was-a-demon shot me a devilish grin.
Something I didn’t specify earlier: there was a shortage the day I received my body. The higher-ups in Heaven usually distribute male bodies to us Delegates on Earth, due to sexism, men being taken more seriously, etc. But they were fresh out of man-bodies when I got to Body Distribution. The only body left was a young woman with curly black hair. The angel manning Body Distribution apologized profusely for the lack of options, but I didn’t think twice about it. I was just happy to be getting a body at all.
I didn’t realize—until I was faced with what humans considered an intensely attractive young man—that this body might have certain... physiological reactions to being smiled at.
My heart started racing.
My cheeks grew hot.
And it became even harder not to babble.
“I see you’re going to floor 71!” I said brightly. “You look like you probably work in this building, judging by how fancy this building is, and how fancy your suit is, and the fact that fancy buildings and fancy humans tend to go together! What floor is 71? Do you work there? Are you gainfully employed here, as they say on Earth?”
Before angels come to Earth, we take a crash course in how to pass as humans. It was lucky my fellow passenger wasn’t a real human, because I failed every aspect of that crash course in the span of three sentences.
The man-I-now-know-was-a-demon studied me with interest, weighing his next words. “I’m in Acquisitions and Procurement.” A smile played about his lips. “But I don’t actually work here. I’m only here to make life miserable for the CEO of the company that does.”
“Oh.”
I had no idea what ‘Acquisitions and Procurement’ meant. But our preceptor told us for our outreach project, we’re supposed to save as many souls as possible, and I was certain this man would make a good project. His job sounded money-related, and anyone with that expensive of a suit had probably done questionable deeds in his life.
“Making life miserable for people doesn’t sound particularly rewarding," I said.
“Trust me, it’s delightful.” His eyes caught mine and held them; I felt myself flush. “As a matter of fact, it’s probably the most satisfying project someone in my line of work could ask for.”
That should have set off alarm bells, but I was too intent on seeing him as a misguided-yet-salvageable soul to think about the implications of what he’d said.
“Reveling in others’ misfortune might make you happy in the moment,” I said earnestly, “but in the long run, does it bring you joy?”
“Shockingly enough, it does.” He smirked at me, dimples creasing. “You must be new. Have you been on Earth long?”
“Are you also an angel?” I blurted.
...
I’m cringing just thinking about this.
...
Yes, my powers are gone.
And, I was not—shall we say—at my best from a physiological standpoint.
But the fact that I could mistake a demon for an angel, especially after everything he’d said up to that point, suggests something is terribly, horribly wrong with my moral compass.
Apparently my fellow passenger was thinking along similar lines, for he burst out laughing.
“No,” he said. “I’m a demon. Can’t you tell?”
The elevator, like my brain, chose that moment to die.
