Angel of Chaos

–1–


Any offspring judged to be Nephilim shall be terminated. Reinstatement of the sire into the angelic ranks is pending, blah, blah, blah.”

Okay, so Gabriel didn’t really say the “blah, blah, blah” part, but he might as well have. I’d much rather have gouged my brains out my ear with a dull knife than sat through this Ruling Council meeting, but it was part of my duties as the Iblis — the leader of the demons. You’d think Satan would be able to shirk this sort of thing, but the big angel beside me ensured I sat through every boring second. There was no hiding from him. I’d tried last month and he’d found me in a Dutch brothel, dragging me naked down the very hard wooden stairs before gating me to the meeting. Yes, I’d remained naked for the whole interminable thing, since I haven’t figured out yet how to create clothing. Not that any of the angels cared. They were far more interested in the other, much newer, additions to my anatomy.

I swept a wing back and forth, the tip tracing a gentle figure eight across the beige carpet. Like steel to a giant black–feathered magnet, every angelic eye in the place watched. They were cats, riveted by the red light of a laser pointer. I expected them to pounce at any moment.

One did. Power radiated from the angel beside me, almost painful against my skin. He reached out with his spirit–self, caressing along my non–corporeal self.

Stop. You’re driving us all crazy. Poor Rafi is on the verge of a heart attack.

He wasn’t the only one. The new guy hadn’t taken his eyes off my wings since I’d arrived, and Sleepy, or was it Sneezy, looked ready to shoot a load into his pants.

Two angels had gone missing from the Council while I was away in Hel. New Guy had taken one spot, and an empty chair held Uriel’s place. Gregory refused to discuss their whereabouts or the circumstances of their absence, claiming it was an internal matter.

I glanced over at him, lifting a finger to run along the ridge of one of his primary wings. The guy had six of the things. Even hidden from sight, I could “see” his and the other angels’ wings. They appeared as wispy tracings of golden light here in this physical plane, visible only to angelic eyes until they were revealed in corporeal form in their feathered glory. I’d learned to hide my own too, but every so often my control slipped and a pair of huge black wings burst into being, knocking all sorts of shit over. I didn’t even try to hide them at the Ruling Council meetings — it was too much fun watching the angels drool over them.

Cockroach. Stop. Now.

Uncharacteristically, I heeded the warning note in my beloved’s voice and relaxed my wings, holding them still. One by one, the angels around me focused their attention back to the stacks of papers before them.

“On to the kill report.” All the angels turned their stacks of paper to the appropriate page as Gabriel continued. “We have several items of old business to review before we move on to recent occurrences.”

I doodled on my documents, wishing I had a Danish nearby, or at least a donut. This meeting really needed a food fight to liven things up a bit.

“… long overdue. All in favor?”

Did sloths have tails? No, no they didn’t. I was going to draw one anyway.

“All against?”

I raised my hand. No matter what it was, I was pretty sure I was going to be against it.

“Oddly unanimous. Shall her punishment begin immediately following the meeting?”

Wait — what the fuck? “Whose punishment? Not mine. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Well, beyond killing an angel and exploding an entire island.

Gabriel lifted his fists up, only to bring them down hard upon the table. “The four–nine–five report for Joseph Barakel?”

I frowned. “Who the fuck is Joseph Barakel?”

Rafael put a restraining hand on his brother, who had turned an interesting shade of red. “The human in Northern Virginia who you claim died of natural causes in your presence? The one with a seventeen golf handicap and elastic–waist pants?”

Oh yeah. I’d thought he was the human sent over to guard Amber by her elven mother, but it turns out he was just a socially inept pedophile and murderer.

“It was natural causes. Why is this still coming up in meetings? The guy had a heart attack. Happens to humans all the time.”

“It’s not the death itself that we’re judging at this point, but your tardiness in delivering the revised report.”

New Guy. Pretty balsy of him to bust my chops when he’d only been on the Ruling Council for a few months. I glared at him, and he squirmed, dropping his eyes and fiddling with the papers in front of him.