Fear gripped my heart. Did Lilith hate me? Hate men? I felt like a bug beneath her gaze, an ant. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure I wanted her around anymore.
“Ramiel …”
The voice whispered out of the Angelic Choir, just loud enough to be heard over the Worship of the Highest. The voice was Gabriel the Archangel, summoning me. On a beam of light, I descended to the Earthly Realm.
I found Gabriel atop one of his Priestesses. She was an attractive woman, appearing to be eighteen, but I could see her true age, forty-four. One of Gabriel’s gifts to his Priestess was eternal youth. She had dirty blonde hair, escaping from her white veil and blue eyes that stared sightlessly at the ceiling. She was too lost to the pleasure of Gabriel’s touch, the Ecstasy, to be aware of anything.
My manhood hardened and I envied Gabriel and his Priestesses. God had long decried it was sinful for an Angel to lie with a mortal. It was our greatest temptation, and so many angels had fallen to that sin and been cast into the abyss with Lucifer. And I understood how my brothers could so easily fall into that particular sin. Sister Theodora’s body was so enticing, so lush. I could peer through the shapeless, gray habit to see her round breasts and hard nipples, the blonde fur that covered the wet lips of her womanhood. My manhood ached to know her.
The only time an Angel could lie with a mortal was a Priestess, and then only to aid her in her holy mission. These days, that meant just Gabriel giving them the Ecstasy. Of course, Gabriel was doing more than just lying with the woman and satiating his lust. He was also rewriting her destiny. I could see the golden string of her life leading away from her into the future, see the silver strings Gabriel was adjusting to guide Sister Theodora on her mission. Gold strings were Priestesses, silver strings were mortals, black strings were Thralls, and red strings were Warlocks.
Finally, Gabriel finished both his adjustments of her future and his pleasure in her flesh. Standing up, Gabriel turned to face me. He appeared as a handsome man, well muscled, like the sculptures the Greeks used to make. A plain, white tunic appeared to cover his nakedness and a golden sword appeared on his hip, the sword of an Archangel. I had my own sword, silver, with sapphires, the sword of a Dominion.
“Ramiel,” Gabriel greeted, pleasantly. “Sister Louise Afra has been captured by the Warlocks. Lilith has been summoned and provides aide. The Succubus will soon arm the Warlocks against my Priestesses.”
I nodded, understanding. Once, demons were commonly summoned by the Warlocks and the Priestesses had to use other methods to stop the Warlock. More indirect, more subtle methods than the Exorcism used today. “I am to teach Theodora, then.”
“Yes, brother,” Gabriel said. He grasped Theodora’s golden string and followed it out a few hours to where a silver string intersected. “She must employ the Prayer of Avvah on this mortal.”
I grasped the string and examined the mortal life. In the mortal’s past and her future, the mortal’s string intersected the red string of a Warlock. This mortal was someone close to a Warlock and the Prayer of Avvah would make the mortal a trap that even a demon’s power could not detect. The two Warlock’s threads entwined about each other. They were lovers. But the Prayer of Avvah would drive a wedge between them. It was a good plan. Once the Warlocks had their falling out, they would be easier to deal with.
“There is one more thing,” Gabriel said. “Follow Theodora’s string back into her past.”
I followed her golden string back through her life, through the thirteen years she had been a Priestess, back to when she had been a Thrall. I found the thread that belonged to Sister Louise who rescued Theodora. Louise’s thread was no longer gold, but the black of a Thrall. I followed Theodora’s thread back to before she had been a Thrall, where here thread entwined with another mortal’s thread, her husband and lover. Three threads were born of their union, three children. Two were silver, but the middle child was red, a Warlock.
“She must not know,” Gabriel said. “Theodora must not know her daughter is a Warlock until the time is right.”
“We can’t send a mother after her own daughter,” I objected.
“There is no one else to send,” Gabriel said. “None in North America. Our resources have always been poor here. There is a Warlock in Europe and two in Africa.”
“But not to tell her is wrong!”
Gabriel fixed his ruby eyes on me. “You have your orders, Ramiel.”
And he was gone, ascending back to the heavenly choir on a ray of light. I stared down at Sister Theodora as she stirred, recovering from the Ecstasy. It was wrong not to tell her. Wrong to send her to fight her own daughter. I wanted to let the poor women know what she faced. I just had to have faith in my superior, in the Highest.
As much as I wanted to tell her, I would not. I was an Angel, a Dominion, and if I disobeyed an order from my Archangel, I would be cast into the Abyss. Only man could sin and find God’s forgiveness. Such grace was not for us Angels.
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