My hand rapped against the front door. After an awkward minute passed, I knocked again. The door was yanked open and an angry, annoyed Gabriel stared at me. His eyes quickly softened.

"Ardia? Are you okay?" His eyes flicked from bandage to bandage. "Where's Death?"

Standing outside, I explained what happened with Jacob and how I ended up covered in injuries. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Dad's doing something. He said he'd be back by ten, but he hasn't showed up yet. Oh, uh, do you want to come inside? It's probably really cold right now. The majority wanted winter weather for the next week."

"Thanks." I walked inside. "You know I can't feel temperature right? I mean from you guys I-" Gabriel's arms fastened around me and his wings folded around us. It felt nice, but I eventually had to pull away, not wanting to make it awkward.

"Come on. I know you want to talk to my dad, but if he doesn't come back for a while you're going to get uncomfortable," he said. As he lead me through the halls, his soccer pajamas turned into one of those old timey robes angels are usually depicted in. While we walked, he talked about everything thing and nothing. His wings fluttered the entire time. The hem of his robe dragged on the ground behind him, allowing Perry to hitch a ride. Where Perry came from, I had no idea.

We came across a set of stairs that led up, up until we came out onto the second level. My eyes were wide. From here, you could look over all of Heaven, even over the large walls. The ocean of light had changed for the night. Inky black whirlpools covered it, allowing only small specks of light to glow. Gabriel grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a worn, deeply scarred door. He knocked.

"What do you want, Gabe?" Michael asked, even though the door hadn't opened.

"Can I come in?"

As a response the door swung inward. Gabriel walked in and I followed. Michael sat on his bed, while a girl around my age with short brown hair sat on a chair. A sword rested by her side.

"Did we receive another saint?" she asked. Despite her speaking one of the variants of the celestial language, she had an unmistakable French accent. "Did she die in a coal mine teaching the slaves about Christianity?"

"This is Ardia, she's-"

"Ah, so this is the girl Dad was telling me about."

I turned my head. Sitting in the corner of the room, wearing sandals and a flower crown sat a guy I'd never met before. His eyes, unlike the angels, weren't unnervingly blue and his long hair didn't reflect light either. He stood up and walked over to me.

"It is nice to meet you, Ardia." He kissed my forehead. "I'm Jesus."

"Dude, lay off with the formalities here. She's not a five year old."

"Michael, you may be older than me-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, weren't you the Word that was with Dad?"

Jesus rolled his eyes. "You act like you didn't exist. I'm the youngest out of all of us. Aside from Ardia."

"How old are you guys?" I looked around.

"In terms of biology, I'm twenty-four, Jesus is thirty, Joan's like fifteen or sixteen, Gabriel, well, that really depends on his mood." I raised an eyebrow, and Michael explained. "We don't have a static age. We're fully immortal, we can't be killed, so we choose how old we want to look."

"And we're stuck at the age we died." Joan sighed. "No thanks to you."

"I'm sorry, it's not my fault the Church decided to try you as a witch."

Jesus sat back down and patted the arm of the chair beside him. I walked over and sat down. Even with the distance between us, I could tell he smelled like wood.

"How often does this happen?" I asked, watching as Michael and Joan argued. Gabriel covered his ears as their voices raised. I was tempted to do the same, but they instantly quieted.

"Enough for me to have written out the whole argument." He passed me a sheet of paper. It was fairly accurate, only a few sentences were off. "I love my family, but sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing." He rubbed at his wrist. His sleeves barely hid the identical messy scars. "Teaching everyone about the glory of my dad's kingdom and how righteous and just angels are. I was created to atone for the original sin, something my brother caused, but the religion founded with my name has given rise to even more sins. Justifying murder, persecution, prostitutes in-"

"You said love everyone, dude. You don't get to say anything." Michael broke away from his argument turned calm discussion to say that.

"I was going to say bringing prostitutes into a different denomination's church, dude." Jesus smiled, but it quickly fell. "I feel like somewhere along the way, people forgot about the love everyone no matter what thing. People persecute my brethren because they don't believe I was the Messiah. People persecute my cousins because they believe I was a corruption of the faith, that I was a prophet, not the Messiah."

"Hey, not to change the subject, but while I'm here. Were you an only child?"

"Why is that always the question I get asked?" he mumbled. He shook his head. "I had siblings. Quite a few of them. I never quite understood the whole thought process on how my mom remained a virgin after my birth. Joseph is my step-father, meaning they got married and-"

"For God's sake, Jesus! We have three children in the room, shut up!" Joan looked at him. I stared at her, disbelieving. "When you were a prophet and a martyr you spend a lot of time with Jesus. Becoming a saint just means I have to spend more time with an insufferable hippie."

"You led a war!" Jesus smacked his hands together. "I taught pacifism."

"I kept them from cussing and visiting prostitutes, more than I can say for you."

I laughed and nearly fell of the chair. Scratch that, I fell of the chair which made every single injury hurt worse, and I decided to lay on the floor.

"Are you okay?" Jesus asked.

"Not in the slightest. How mad do you think Death will be about the cloak?"

"Very. He's had that thing for as long as I can remember."

"Yeah, you're screwed. As much as Death cares about you, he's not going to he happy you stole it," Michael said.

"I didn't steal it. He told me to take it."

The entire room went silent. Jesus, Michael, and Gabe looked at each other. They moved into a huddle. I caught snippets of their conversation.

"-secret love child-"

"-dating her or-"

"-maybe like-" Whatever Gabriel said made Jesus and Michael shake their heads. It was weird seeing Michael and Gabriel so serious, especially considering the platypus laying on top of Gabriel's head.

"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?" I asked Joan. She shook her head.

"It's weird. Michael is only this serious during training." We stared at them in wonderment as they continued in quieter tones. She eventually added, "You heard the part about secret love child too, right?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. When I was alive I looked like my parents, so I doubt it. Plus I've seen what happens when he touches a mortal."

"How'd you die?"

"Is that a question you ask someone you just met?"

"There's probably not a lot of overlap anywhere else. Unless you want to help me compare how heavenly school is different from modern schools. Do any of your instructors ever argue with each other based on knowledge two thousand years apart?"

"Uh, no? But we did have a substitute start crying because of my class. Wait, are you still in school?"

"God believes in having saints taught whatever newly dead instructors are willing to teach us. He debates on having us fight alongside the angels during the final battle, which is why I keep training with Michael."

I nodded. The entire time we had been talking, so had the others. They were still in their huddle, but based on what I caught the conversation had shifted topics. "So is he a good teacher?"

"Yes. What about Death? You're his apprentice I take it, so how well does he teach you?"

"His idea of training me is to hand me a scythe and let me figure out stuff by myself."

"Sounds like him."

"Are there any weird things I should know about Heaven or the Bible?" I asked.

Joan smiled. "There isn't really much, except it's so fun watching scholars react to seeing all sorts of different things. They think that since there is no evidence, things cannot be true. There is no evidence of angels and demons on Earth, but as you can see they exist."

The huddle broke apart and Jesus sat back down. "Joan makes a good point. So many books and records have been lost to time. Everyone wants to believe I was celibate my entire life, but why? It's not like that's the way you get into here. You get into here by not being a horrible person. You know follow the Holy Laws, follow mortal laws, all of that stuff. Seriously, like as long as sex workers sign a paper saying they won't offer services to angels they're allowed in here. So why wouldn't I have a relationship with a couple women? Not at the same time obviously, but still."

"Okay, moving on. Since I need to get back on the clock soon, do any of you have a way for me to do this job better?" They stiffened. "Don't you dare get into another huddle."

Michael sighed. Gabriel hopped onto the bed and curled up.

"Ardia, I'd love to help you. I really, really would, but Uriel told me what Death told him. The balance is in so much danger that I've been pulled to my sword. If we offer any assistance, the balance will fail. I'm sorry, but my dad would tell you the same thing. The most help I could offer you is a parfait and maybe some wine." Michael took some sort of metal contraption and a hammer from his dresser.

"You keep that thing far away from me," Jesus said, scuttling onto the back of the chair. "I will take your bed apart and rebuild it so it will be the most uncomfortable thing for you to lay on."

"I have wings, that's not hard. Hey, Jesus, if you don't feel like bottling up some of your blood, how do you feel about performing a seventy-third miracle in front of mortals?"

"I thought there were only thirty-something?" I looked between the two of them. Jesus cautiously moved from the chair over to me; he kept his eyes on Michael.

"I told you, Joan isn't wrong. I performed more miracles than were recorded, but according to the Church those never happened. Hold still." He kissed my forehead again. This time something coursed through my body, healing every one of my injuries, including the small scratches from the cat. "I'm assuming you're going to go visit our older brother to try to enlist his help. Be careful, and if you're ever up here again I can take you on a walk on the lake. Maybe introduce you to my mom or my step-dad. I think you'd get along with Mary really well."

"Uh, your mom Mary?"

"No. Father, why do there have to be so many Marys? The Mary who paid for a lot of the traveling we did. The Church called her a prostitute, now they say she isn't, but we ran low on money a couple of times and, well, on your way you go." He tapped my shoulder.

In an instant I disappeared in a bright flash of light. I scowled, especially when I realized I was, in fact, standing in Hell. Wandering around without being able see wouldn't be fun on Earth, in Hell where there are plenty of demons and lava pits it's even less so.

"I thought I sensed something."

I spun around and raised my scythe. I couldn't see who it was, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

"You can put that down. Death wouldn't let me live it down if something happened to you."

"Wait, Lilith?" I asked.

She laughed and long spindly fingers wrapped around my wrist. Unlike Luci's comforting warmth, her fingers were ice cold, to the point where it hurt. I wondered if it was a defense against the lava or if it was supposed to shock her victims. "One of the doves sent you didn't they? Where are you trying to go?"

"Luci's place. I need to ask him something." Given the response I got in Heaven, I doubted I'd get anything different, but when you want someone to do the opposite of what angels would do, go to the devil.

"I'm going to pretend you didn't call him that, because if I hear you say that then I'm supposed to attack you. Come on, there are worse things than me in here." She led me along pathways, though dragged was a better term. It felt like my arm was being pulled out of socket, and my feet barely touched the ground.

"You know, you're pretty nice for a demon," I said, blinking as my night vision began to come back. Her glowing eyes turned down to me and she released my wrist. One finger restes under my chin, tilting it up so I stared into her glowing eyes.

"I used to be human, bit that doesn't mean I'm any less of a demon. If it weren't for Death, I'd just as soon bite your face off."

"Noted."

Some sort of twisted sound made its way from her elongated chest. It took me a moment to realize it was laughter. A soft shimmery glow coated her figure within moments her height shrunk to be barely taller than me. No horns, no flaming blue hair, normally proportioned limbs, her skin no longer had the luster and color of obsidian.

She easily passed as a mortal. Green bangles offset her rich copper skin, while bright streaks of blue popped from her dark hair. Even her eyes held no unnatural glow, instead, even in the hellish lighting, holding a warm, friendly glow. A plunging neckline revealed part of her sportsbra, and the reasons why the bra I was wearing was too a size too big. Seeing the pants she wore, a pair of short shorts, I had to ask a question.

"Does Death get hand me downs from you?" I asked.

"He was wearing shorts again, wasn't he?"

"Does he do it a lot?"

"Unfortunately." Lilith sighed. "Even being the 'mother' of incubi and succubi, I think that's a bit much."

"What was with the air quotes?" I asked as we passed into the first part of Luci's palace. It was exactly as it was the first time I visited with Death.

"Having kids is different for demons. We have suckers, like on plants. They appear randomly through Hell, leeching off of our energy until they can manifest on their own. I try to cull as many as possible, too many problems remembering for Anti-Christmas."

"So you don't-"

"Oh, we can. But you know what praying mantises and black widows do, right?" She grinned. She stopped outside of the final barrier. "I'm going to leave you here. I was in the middle of searching out one of those little babes. I'm gonna find it, kill it, and take back what it stole from me." My horror must have shown, because she laughed. "I told you, I'm a demon, no matter how human I used to be. I never ate the fruit from the tree, but I was cast out because I wanted to be equal to Adam. I had kids, the angels killed my kids, so now I kill other people's kids, simple."

She walked away, form shifting back to the demon one. I took a deep breath and walked through, emerging at the foot of the staircase. I walked up, noting that my feet didn't splash in Kool-Aid.

Luci lounged on his throne, tail resting over his legs. It twitched and some demon cat leapt at it. A red barrier appeared around Luci, blasting the demon back.

He didn't look up at me. "I take it you talked to Lilith?"

"Is she serious?"

"Yeah. She murders kids for kicks and giggles. Can't blame her after what my deadbeat dad did to her, and to women. Not even I would've put that kind of curse on you guys," he said. He sat up with his wings in the strategically placed slots. What did you want anyway? Where's Death at?"

I was getting tired of being asked that. After a brief explanation, Luci rubbed his chin, lost in thought. Wings hit the air and Anser landed. He opened his beak to say something, but Luci glared and flicked his fingers towards him.

A red glow surrounded Anser, leaving a human hoose hybrid standing in his place; wings were the only thing to remain of his goose form. Blue light reflected off his pale goose down skin. Beady eyes, filled with all the contempt of a full goose, stared at me. Within a second, he turned back into a goose.

"Sorry. Can't help you," Luci said. "Anser, get rid of her before she tries to ask me why."

"Oh, so first you force me into a hybrid form, and then you want my help?" Anser's neck grew and grew, until it looked like he had an entire python for a neck. He started ranting and the more he went on, the worse his appearance became. His beak grew longer, sharper and with ominous points ontop.

"Get rid of her." Luci's eyes flared and he flashed his teeth. Anser twisted his neck to look at me. I didn't like the look on his face.

My hand tightened around my scythe. Anser rushed me, beak open to reveal his tooth-lined tongue. "Bye!"

Chapter: 3,066

Book: 66,881

How'd you like the chapter?

I typed this all today, and uh, yeah. I'm tired.

See yah