Dave vs The Devil (Original) - [Urban Fantasy/Comedy]

"Hey, Dave," Raphael said. He was still laying on the floor in the fetal position. "You don't happen to have a lollipop or something, do you?"

"No," I said. "Why?"

"Because I could really use something pleasant in my mouth after being ripped through Heaven's veil," he said.

I gave him a weird look.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said. "I'm just in pain."

"Ok," I said. "Let me see if I can do something about that."

I focused on his wellbeing and my compassion for his existence. Then the Crown of Corruption changed to the Wreath of Virtue and I gained the ability to heal. I pressed my hands against his chest and extended healing thoughts into him. A warm yellow glow emanated from his body and he relaxed his body.

"I appreciate the assist," Raphael said.

"Sure," I said. I put my hand out and lifted him up. "Now, why don't you tell me why you were stalking my son?"

"You have a son?" Raphael asked. "I was just trying to contact you, but I kept showing up around this small child who bore a vague resemblance to you. Whenever I tried to contact you, there was some sort of interference, and then I'd get redirected to your son, apparently."

"Huh, I don't get it," I said. "Why would there be interference?"

"You don't happen to have some sort of angel warding on your house or the building you were in, do you?" Raphael asked.

I thought about it. Technically, the control room was fashioned from part of Lucifer's castle. Maybe Lucifer put angel warding on his castle?

"Now that I think about it, maybe I do," I said. "I just didn't know it."

"Well, either way, I contacted you and we're here," Raphael said. "Where are we, by the way? This white room kind of reminds me of Purgatory, but it's much smaller."

"That's because I fashioned it after Purgatory," I said. "I had my chief engineer Valdrum analyse Purgatory to figure out how it could shut down teleportation, and then I had him build one for me."

"Why would Purgatory let you do that?" he said. "She's very protective of her things."

"Because her boyfriend works for me," I said. "Gives me an in. Her name is Purgy now, by the way."

"Huh. To both those things," Raphael said. "I assume Purgy was your invention?"

"It was," I said. "Wait, why do you say it like that?"

"No reason," he said. "So, was he an accident?"

"Don't talk about my son like that!" I said.

"I figured," he said.

"What about you?" I asked. "You have any 'accidents' out there?"

"A few," he said "Mark, Clark, and Shark. Shark is a woman. You'll never meet them."

"Huh," I said. It was my turn to say, huh.

"Her real name is Charlene, but she goes by Shark," he said. He shrugged. "Don't ask me why."

"So are we going to get to the point where you tell me why you were trying to contact me, or are we just going to chit-chat all day?" I asked.

"I need your help," he said.

"Let me guess, Lucifer is trying to take over Heaven," I said.

"Yeah, how did you know?" Raphael asked.

"Call it a hunch," I said.

"Well, I need your help," he said.

"Yeah, I heard you," I said.

"Are you going to?" he asked.

"I'm thinking!" I said. "I might be willing to help you, if you promise to help me in return. Normally, I wouldn't ask for it, but I'm in a bit of a pinch."

"Sure," he said. "Anything."

"I need you to keep an eye on my son," I said. "Keep him safe."

"From what?" he said.

"Fallen angels," I said.

"Fallen angels?" he asked. "I thought those devils were locked in the Abyss or killed."

"Really?" I asked. "I guess Heaven really has been cut off from Earth."

"What do you mean?" Raphael asked. "What happened?"

"It's a long story," I said, "but the Abyss was opened, the fallen angels got out, Samael and them killed all the world leaders and tried to take over the world."

"That wasn't that long," he said. "Sure, I'll help you. It's going to take a long time to get back to Heaven, anyway. Since it's cut off from teleportation and angel flight, we're going to have to access a backdoor."

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"How?" I asked.

"A Tower of Babel," he said.

"A tower of what?" I asked.

We were back in my control room. I had made all the introductions and Margaret seemed to get along with Raphael just fine.

He told me we had to make a tower, similar to the Tower of Babel from the bible, but in a very specific location, with very precise height measurements.

The door was a certain height above a specific latitude and it traveled around the world as it turned, so we'd have a brief moment to grab onto it as it passed.

Margaret was the logistics person, and my assistant director, so I had her talk to Raphael about the building plans. I had to pick Eli up from school.

[Margaret - Interview Segment]

"Logistics, logistics, logistics. Logistics."

When I arrived at Eli's school, he was sitting out in front of the school by himself. None of his so-called friends were around. Not even Suzy. He was crying, but when I landed, he tried to wipe away the tears.

"What's wrong, Eli?" I asked.

He immediately hugged me and buried his snotty nose and runny eyes in my shirt.

"Nothing," he said. "I'm just happy to see you!"

"Hey now," I said. "No lying. You know what we do with liars."

"We throw them in the fires," he said.

"That's right," I said. "Now what's wrong?"

"None of my friends are allowed to hang out with me anymore," he said. "Their Mommys and Daddys said so."

"Why?" I asked.

"They said I'm a half-breed," he said. "I don't belong here."

"What?" I said. "That's ridiculous! You belong here just as much as anyone else."

I pulled him into a hug.

[Dave - Interview Segment]

"If I get my hands on those parents, I'm going to do something to them and it won't be nice."

I flew home with Eli, crying in my arms. I'm sure the show crew got a lot of good close ups. They hired a new camera person named Flamshot, and she has a really steady hand. And wings. She flew in front of us the whole way home. Rude.

Firelings don't usually have strong enough wings to support flight. They usually just kind of sit on their backs like vestigial appendanges, but Flamshot combined her fire abilities with her wings to maintain reasonably stable flight. I wondered if Lilith could do that. What was I thinking? Lilith could do anything.

The next day, I had Lilith discuss the logistics of building a Tower of Babel in the Las Vegas area with Assistant Director Drew. There were still a few abandoned lots and plots of land that just contained rubble from the when the city had been destroyed by Steve. Technically, it was the Steves as one being, but they weren't calling themselves that at the time.

Drew made all the necessary calls and got us a decent sized plot of land to make the tower. Yes, the latitude of the door traveled over Las Vegas for some reason. I argued with Raphael about that for a minute, but ultimately, he said he didn't control the location of the door. If I had a problem, I had to take it up with God and He wasn't answering calls right now.

So I grumbled and mumbled and accepted it. We couldn't all get what we wanted all the time. I was hoping it would be in some cool, exotic location, like the Amazon, but no, dirty old Las Vegas it would have to be.

Raphael called in some contractors who he introduced as Mark, Clark, and Shark.

"I thought you said I'd never meet them," I said.

"It appears I was wrong," he said. "I'm not infallible."

Two thin, but toned six foot tall unusually handsome men introduced themselves to me as Mark and Clark, and then a burly six foot five woman with sharp teeth, a thick neck, and a white spaded tail introduced herself to me.

"I'm Shark," she said.

"I can see that," I said.

"Haha, very funny," she said. "So, what are we building?"

"A Tower of Babel, according to your father," I said.

"Oh, Raphael isn't our father," Mark said.

"He's not?" I asked.

"Nope," Clark said.

"No no no no," Shark said.

"Well, you're his children, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes," they all said.

I thought about it for a second and then a thought occurred to me.

"Raphael isn't your mother, is he?" I asked.

"Yes," they all said.

"Oh. Huh," I said. That was surprising, but not outside the realm of possibility. I didn't know how angel physiology worked, and frankly, I didn't care to know. Seemed sort of private. "Ok. Well, do you think you can build the tower?"

"Sure as shit," Shark said.

She was looking up into the sky like she was envisioning the building of it.

"Yes," Mark and Clark said.

"So—" I began.

"Well, we better get to it," Shark interrupted.

"Right," I said.

Next was the Las Vegas or human school orientation. Eli, Margaret, Drew, and I went to the school in the late afternoon/early evening. We needed to Drew to explain some of the more peculiar aspects of Eli's parentage and nature without things getting out of hand, and us being thrown out or our heads put on spikes.

They showed us the classrooms. We met the teachers. Margaret and I even had to meet parents. I just mean mugged them all and made them go away. Actually, that's just what I wanted to do. I was nice and cordial, despite knowing that they would probably burn me at the stake if they knew what I was.

Eli, Margaret, and I were all wearing our illusion tech that made us look like normal humans, but Eli and I had to tuck our wings into our clothes, so people didn't bump into them. Just because we looked human, didn't mean our extra appendages weren't there.

I made Eli and Margaret tuck their tails away. I did the same. Not that people could see them with our illusion tech on, but tails often seemed to have a mind of their own. You never knew when you might accidentally hit someone with it.

I quite enjoyed some of their reactions to the reality show crew, who insisted on coming along, even though it was the human world.

"Oh, my word!" one such parent said. "I, Maribeth, have never seen something so audacious in my life!"

"Honey, you've been reading too much Jane Austen again," said what appeared to be her husband. He put out his hand, and I shook it. "Daryl Hapterfield."

"Dave Daverson," I said. I pointed at Margaret and then Eli. "And this is Margaret and Eli, Daverson, of course."

"Of course," he said. He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. He pointed at his wife and child. "This is Maribeth and Maribeth, Jr. Say hi Maribeth."

"Hi," Maribeth said.

"Hi," Maribeth, Jr said.

"I didn't mean for both of you to, you know what, nevermind," he said. "So what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

"Um, living here?" I said.

"Well, of course, but what made you move here?" Daryl said. "No one who grows up here stays, so you had to come from somewhere."

"Hmm," I said. I thought about it, and honestly, this was the best I could come up with. "Sin?"

"What?" Daryl said.

"What?" Maribeth said.

"Who?" Maribeth Jr said.

Margaret saw I was in trouble and stepped in.

"Sincerity and goodwill, of course!" she said. "Dave has a bit of a stutter. Sometimes he doesn't finish words."

She looked at me and gave me the "shush" eyes again. So I did. For now.

"So what's with the tv crew?" Daryl said. "Are you folks famous or something?"

"You could say that," Margaret said.

She trailed off, looking for something to say to further elaborate. It was my turn to save her so I stepped in.

"We're foreign dignitaries. Our country films their representative for transparency purposes," I said.

"Oh, really?" Maribeth said. "What country are you from? Any place I know?"

"That depends on what you know," I said.

Margaret stepped back in.

"We'd rather not say," she said. "Privacy and all that."

"Of course, of course," Maribeth said.

"Indubitably," I said. "Drew?"

Drew stepped up.

"The 'foreign dignitaries' have a private matter to attend to with the principal."

"Understood, understood," Daryl said.

They let us leave the room.

"What the fuck was that?" I said. "That was the creepiest conversation I've ever had."

"They did seem a little odd," Margaret said.

"I thought they were nice," Eli said.

I patted his head patronizingly.

"You'll learn," I said.

"Ok!" he replied.

"So shall we adjourn?" Drew asked.

The principal, assistant principal, and some teachers stared at us from down the hall, waiting. I gulped.