I search for Raphael on battlegrounds, hospitals, battered women's shelters, and clinics; Shaman's huts in Africa, India and Australia; research facilities in America and Europe – all with no success. Some hold traces of his presence. I walk through hallways packed with the sick and dying, only to encounter an area of supreme peace and tranquility. People in those areas were sleeping, looks of pain-free contentment glowing on their faces.

It's when I encounter a litter of sickly puppies in an alleyway of Manila that I realize that I've been looking in the wrong places. Raphael has a special place in his heart for the collateral damage from human civilization – namely, any living thing that lived on Earth impacted by them. Which is to say, every living thing.

Think about that, Pops. You gave those ungrateful bastards stewardship over everything, and to this day they've messed up so badly that they're gonna need your help to fix it. Why them? Weren't we archangels good enough? I know, I know, I know...thy will be done. Luce always said so. We all thought it was just his hubris.

I soar over the southern Atlantic and notice something remarkable – at least ten pods of dolphins are skimming the waters, leaping, and chattering with each other. And at their head is Raphael, his wings wet and slicked back like fins as he rockets and somersaults, the spray shimmering silver-white in the warm Caribbean sun. He's laughing, and there's a beach not too far away where locals and tourists have gathered to point and marvel at their joyous display.

They can't see him, of course. But Raphael's gift of healing tends to bring out the best in everyone, and laughter along with great joy is a natural pairing. What they also can't see is that underwater, everywhere he passes, the coral reefs damaged by chemicals or temperature fluctuations are given new life or a boost to the life that's struggling to hold on. Fixing the innocents, Man's collateral damage.

Then he disappears under the water, and while the dolphins continue to frolic in the astonishingly blue water, I don't see him anywhere...only to be drenched by a gallon of water from behind me. I whip around with my soldier's reflexes and the speed of a Samurai, only to find him inches from my face, where he spits a mouthful of seawater in my face.

I draw back my fist, and then I look at his face. He hasn't seemed this child-like and innocent in I don't know how many millennia. His eyebrows are raised up high, almost to his holy hairline, and a colorful fish the size of a plum pops out between his lips and plummets downward to the sea. There's nothing else to do but laugh.

"How are you, Doc?" I ask. It's a private nickname that dates back to Sparta in its heyday.

"Still healing emotionally," he says, offering me some pineapple he's just halved. He has, it seems, a small hut on an equally small island...in the Bermuda Triangle, of course. Which is also smaller than most humans think. I tell him about everything that's happened.

"Our Sire and the Holy Family are still A.W.O.L. The little girl, whose wings refuse to let her reject them, is in the company of Lilith and Lucifer, who are stirring up trouble to force the Sire to act – namely show himself. Have I got that right?" Somehow, he manages to eat his pineapple pieces with all their juice intact, while I only manage to make a mess. Bananas I can handle. Go ahead – joke about that one. I can take it.

"Yes, 'spot on' as the Brits say."

"All right," he says, leaning back in his wicker lounge chair. "Let me remind you that in spite of his bottomless mercy, boundless forgiveness and divine patience, our Sire is occasionally a singularly cruel, eternally damning and infernally short-tempered prick."

Thunder crackles, and lightning strikes in sheets all around us, making every feather and strand of our hair stand on end. My sword is aflame, and Raphael's edged caduceus crackles with life-force. He rises and shakes it at the gathering storm.

"I REST MY CASE!" he shouts. Just as quickly, the thunder and lightning stop. But, to use the human phrase, 'the heavens open' and it pours. "Shall we?" asks my brother, flying straight upward. I follow, until we are well above the deluge and standing on clouds bathed in sunlight.

"You were saying?" I say, setting a leisurely flight forward.

"What I was leading up to is this: you say he's depressed. If you were depressed, what would you do? Where would you go? Who, if anyone, would you want to come with you?"

"You sound like one of those human psychologists," I say disparagingly.

Raphael sighs. "Is there not, in his autobiography, a line that says the Sire made man in his own image?"

"Yes, but that's..."

"Mike, I don't think 'image' refers to just looks. It refers to thoughts and actions, too. Maybe even abilities. Think about that. It means that if humans are like Dad, then Dad must also be like humans. That suggests he can make mistakes in judgement. He might even do the wrong thing every now and then."

"That's blasphemy, Raph. Heresy. It's also dumb and stupid."

"Really? Think how difficult it is for any one human being to admit they made a mistake! Remember the dinosaurs?"

"Yeah. Conversations were very one-sided, and mostly about food or sex. Or food and sex. And dull."

"Remember how the Sire agonized for eons about starting over? That meteor saved him from deciding. He could have stopped it, but he just let it happen. Isn't it possible that we're approaching another meteor moment, only this time it's humans destroying themselves? So much for that gift of 'free will'!"

"You've got a point there." It actually makes a lot of sense. Pops never admitted to failure, even when it was obvious even to us. Raphael turns on his back and puts his hands behind his head, floating through the cumulonimbus clouds.

"All he has to do is a enlighten a few potential prophets, nudge events onto a more enlightened path, and presto! The world is saved, mankind evolves, and we can all relax a bit."

"You're forgetting he tried that with the Son. Mankind back then nailed him to a cross. Nailed him to a cross, Raph. What would happen today?"

He sighs deeply. "They'd crucify him all over social media, debunk his miracles with equally miraculous science, and lock him in an asylum for years of therapy. Yeah, I know." He pauses. "They wouldn't kill him, though."

"There's a big group of disturbed Americans who are under the misapprehension that their president is the Son's second coming. I wonder how Jesus feels about that?"

"I imagine they're all slated for a one-way trip to Hell."

"There is no Hell, brother. Only oblivion," I correct him. "Have any of the Trinity or Mary spoken to you since they vanished?"

Raphael is silent for an unnaturally long time before finally saying, "I'm the Archangel of Healing," he says with an almost imperceptible undertone of grief, "Yes. And only recently. I literally cannot tell you any more than that, so don't even bother asking."

There's a tear tracking down his face. He really can't tell me, and I can see from the look in his eyes that he's already told me everything that he can. I wipe the tear away, placing my larger wings around him. "Will you come back to Heaven with me? Everyone's there, except us."

"And Luce?" asks my brother.

Now it's my turn to pause. Lucifer was always Pops' favorite. They'd spend eons talking about...whatever it was they talked about. So, when Pops made him take the blame for things that weren't his fault, I thought 'serves him right!' When he was cast out of heaven, my other brothers begged me to make him see reason. But the damage was done, Luce's pain was an open wound, and I foolishly thought that I'd take his place as favorite.

But no – soon after, the reality of Pops' inexplicable action made all of us keep our distance. It was a rift we couldn't mend. Only Pops could do that. Raphael kept nagging me to talk with Luce, to show that all of us supported him. Angels can smell a lie before it's even made it past your sphincter of a mouth.

Luce let our human cousins run wild with his story. The Devil was all a human fabrication, Hell and eternal damnation the human race's own creation. And Luce just let it keep going, remaining himself no matter how they tried to twist and warp him with their horror stories. Considering how humans changed the Cherubim, it must take untold reserves of strength for him to not grow horns, or cloven hooves, and simply remain sane. Anger can be a powerful source of strength, and also a very dangerous one.

Being the warrior archangel, I had a chance to see human nature in all its glorious yet sometimes gory variety, observing War's victors and vanquished through the millennia. Not much has changed about fighting, with one big exception. You can kill a million people, and never have to see their faces up close. Projectile weapons – arrows, spears, trebuchets, cannons, guns and atomic bombs – made killing easy and impersonal. Victims become faceless targets, not people. Look at Vuelda. Forgive me, my mind's wandering.

"I'm pretty sure he'll be there after we arrive. You know how he loves to make an entrance!"

"Sorry about soaking you," Raphael says with a grin.

"Oh, I'll get you for that, don't worry!" I mean that, too. We archangels take practical jokes very seriously.