Angel Falls Read online

  “You’re in love? What’s her name?”

  “His name is Lenny.”

  I couldn’t stifle my laughter. Phaleg’s face turned progressively deeper shades of crimson, and I knew he’d explode soon if I wasn’t careful.

  “Why don’t we talk about this over drinks in FunkyTown?”

  * * *

  Turns out Lenny was a new addition to the ranks of lower angels, and was also, it seems, quite the piece of man-candy. I learned this over drinks as we camped out at the back of Stavro’s. This wasn’t the best bar in the Disco City, in fact it was the most boring bar I’d been to in a while, but that was good. Nothing to distract me from what was becoming a promising story.

  Phaleg was in love with Lenny, from the moment he saw him. It’s difficult when angels fall in love, particularly with their own kind. Look where it got me. For the most part, we all have to stay closeted. Don’t ask, don’t tell.[7]

  So. Lenny. Hetero-, Homo-, doesn’t matter, The Boss doesn’t want the employees fraternizing with each other. Phaleg was hovering near the Lake of Creation one fine day when Lenny emerged from the center of the pool, sweeping the golden hair from his face, tossing the water from his body.

  “I can’t explain the way I felt about him,” Phaleg said.

  “Let me guess. A little extracurricular activity during Guardian Time?”

  People make such a big deal out of guardian angels. Heaven’s sentries, guarding the innocent and the righteous. We just use it as an excuse to get out of the house. You punch out upstairs, head to Earth, do a good deed, and if you get a little sidetracked on the way back, well, we’re all salaried here, so who cares? People blame so many disasters and catastrophes on God, when it’s really just us slacking off. The Boss does his part, we just don’t always follow through.

  “There was a tornado heading for a packed church. We saved as many as we could.”[8]

  “And how many perished?” “Fourteen.”

  “Out of…?” “Sixteen?”

  “My Lord,” I said, crossing myself just to watch Phaleg grimace a bit, “Two? You only saved two before running off to romp behind the Rectory? Lenny must be quite the catch.”

  “I can’t lose him,” Phaleg said, his hand tightening around his drink.

  “So, the $64,000 question: what does Lenny have to do with this mysterious girl and the end of the world?”

  “It’s not the end of the world. It’s the end of everything. You know how He gets when it comes to His infallibility.”

  “Has it gotten much worse since I left?”

  “It’s perfect. He’s perfect, as He always has been and ever shall be. And she may ruin everything. A sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “Do tell. I haven’t been keeping tabs on the entry logs lately. Is she new?”

  “She’s been living here for a few cycles now. She’s spoiled rotten.” Phaleg flared one of his wings up and an image flickered on. “I did some investigating before I came to see you.”

  He flapped his wings once and a little slideshow began. There were newspaper clippings, tabloid reports, scenes from the living, others from the press corps of Angel Falls. All of them were different situations: swimming pools, movie stars, ski chalets, movie premieres. All of them featured a slightly gangly, vaguely androgynous blonde girl, trying her best to look like she wasn’t looking at the camera, failing to not be fabulous.

  “Aspen Biltmore,” Phaleg offered. “She’s a trust-fund baby. Her father owns several major resorts. She only had a mind for one thing.”

  “And I bet she got a ton of it.”

  “Seeing how many different ways she could spend daddy’s money. Must you make such base comments on everything?

  “It is my way.”

  “She bought her way into movies, TV, music, you name it. The only thing she had that was real in life was love.”

  “I disagree. Those boobs look real. No? I’ll have to get the number of her doctor. This the guy?” I gestured for him to hold on the photo of a stubble-faced Aryan poster boy, his chiseled chin threatening to slice any thumb foolish enough to brush the picture.

  “They died on the same day. Horrible crash involving a private jet and a school bus. Ironic, really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the cause of the crash. He was flying the plane. Going up while she was going down. Little distracted. And then, blam! And the cycle repeated: They died, and his soul went up, while hers went down.”

  “Were you and Lenny supposed to intervene?”

  “Not funny.”

  “Okay. This guy and whatserface…what exactly is it she’s doing?”

  “Do you watch any of your subjects down here?” Phaleg roared. “You’re supposed to be toiling! Tormenting the souls of the unfortunate—”

  “It’s too much work! Live and let live. Or not live and let, whatever. They don’t bother me, and I don’t bother them.”

  “IT’S YOUR JOB TO BOTHER THEM! YOU ARE THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS!”

  “Yes. Thanks for that. And let’s use our inside-voices, not our angel-voices, yes? Just fill me in, I’ll find her, and that will be that.”

  Phaleg was turning an uncomfortable shade of Pure. I knew what it meant. His halo was about to flare. He was being paged, and his dime for this little trans-dimensional phone call was almost up. He grimaced as the Holy Fire circled his head. “I must leave soon.”

  “Somewhere a bus full of nuns is going over a cliff because you stopped here to tell me that Muffy Vanderbilt—”

  “Aspen Biltmore. Her name is…” he exhaled and focused, his eyes radiant as molten lava. “Lenny faded. There’s no good way to explain it. He lost his grip on his place in Heaven. We were strolling through the nebula. He looked at me and I looked through him, and he said ‘She’s trying to break in. She’s going to destroy everything.’”

  “And what am I supposed to do about that?”

  Phaleg stood and flared his wings, his halo igniting to a blinding fury. “Find the girl.”

  “Could be difficult.”

  “Difficult? You control this entire realm, your whim is your—”

  “Yeah, yeah, it doesn’t quite work that way. I’ll figure things out. Mickey’ll know something.”

  “Mickey?”

  “The old guard. Runs a casino up on the Bunny Slopes of Valhalla.”

  “You know,” he said, “Those slopes were supposed to be where the damned tread for all eternity, naked but for the chains of sin that wrap their necks.”

  “You are all such a bunch of wet-blanket sadomasochists!”

  “You must stop her.”

  “Why? This happens every millennium or so. Someone loses the one they love, and then begins the long haul to climb out of Hell to be reunited with their love. Or, they come down here to pull their loved one from the eternal lake of fire, or whatever… You know, Hercules did it. Xena, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t worry about it. These things are cyclical. If Lenny’s fading now, he’ll come back eventually, either down here or up there. It’s the way things are.”

  “She’s cheating. Yes, people have made the journey before. On their own merits,” Phaleg was almost vibrating with rage now. “But this little gold-digging harlot has stolen thirteen different anima crystals from different souls. She’s essentially tunneling under the wall that separates unworthy souls from Paradise. Is any of this getting through to you?”

  It was. The possibilities were starting to play through my mind. She might be able to make the Long Walk with stolen crystals. Certainly when the guardians challenged her, she’d be able to pass with flying colors, having no attachment to her past deeds. But at the gates, she’d have to deal with Pete. He’d never open up for her. Her soul wouldn’t check out as clean at all. But if she found a way to bypass that, then the gates would open for her. Maybe I could just sneak through. On the other hand, if one person could do it…

  “Shit! If she gets through, then everyone will want
to take a shot. I’ll be spending all my days and nights policing the borders.”

  “That’s your worry?” Phaleg shrieked. “If she gets through, everything will be up for grabs. All of your soiled souls will make a push through at once, and Michael will be waiting to push back. There are still old gods wandering your lands here. I’m sure they’d love to take a crack at Redemption as well. And that means absolute War. You remember what happened last time?”

  “No, can you remind me again?”

  “Your sarcasm was one of the reasons you wound up here, you know. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I want my love back. And the only way to make sure that happens is to stop her from finding a way through to her love. Find her and you save the world. Find her and save yourself.”

  “Save me from what?”

  “Eternal damnation!”

  “Bit late, huh?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice,” I murmured. “And I say, maybe today is my lucky day.”

  “If you’re thinking about making a move to take the throne, forget it. You should worry more that the Old Guard and your legions of the damned don’t destroy The Boss or drive Him into hiding.”

  He had me. No Boss could very well mean no me , or at least, no me as I know me. You know?

  “Crap. I hate playing the hero.”

  * * *

  I have a brief confession to make. I have two anima crystals – a perfect pair. Nobody, not even me, can see inside of them. They’re no bigger than the standard issue that everyone else gets when they come here. Any number of years ago, anytime I felt like it, I could have hefted my crystals up and made the Long Walk. I just didn’t feel like it. No, I got here, saw the grey wasteland spreading out before me, eternally hot and cold, lightless and painfully bright, and I thought: “This place has potential.” I love a fixer-upper, I can’t help it.

  I said the same thing to The Boss when he gave me the grand tour of his “sentient garden” project. Seven “days” he toiled on all that greenery and planetary alignment, and he needed to show it off. Frankly, I was extremely impressed. It was, in a single word, Perfect. Every being on the planet, every plant, every rock, every insect, volcano, river, blade of grass, you name it, was perfect and served its purpose. The Boss even made a carbon copy of himself to watch over the whole thing. And then they made a friend for the carbon copy, and the whole great perpetual motion project got started.

  It was Perfect. It ran precisely, and did what it was built to do, a Purpose I cannot put into words, for I am not Perfect. Boy, am I ever not Perfect. But the planet was, the whole project was, so perfect that The Boss knew he could walk away from the whole thing and it would run its course perfectly.

  Which got me to thinking about potential. I saw the “world” as a whole series of questions. It was perfect because it was designed to be so. There was the Great Reptile Development, which would set the stage for the Mammal Movement, which would then spring off into the Lesser-Beings World-Building Endeavor. And I was plagued with questions, “What if?”, and “How about?”, and “He’ll never see this one coming!”[9]

  I got the idea from looking at a clock I’d just finished building for my office. What if the pieces of a machine realized that they were pieces in a machine? What if they became aware of the possibility of a life doing something other than turning in place? After a little getting-to-know-you small talk, I put forth the question to the Woman (the more reasonable of the pair). That’s as far as I got before The Boss booted me from the Project. So now, the cogs knew they were cogs. I had taken a Perfect machine, one built for a single, solitary purpose, and I had made every component think: “What am I doing? And why? And, more importantly, I need to mesh with the other cog over there…”[10]

  The Boss always told me to be aggressive, take action, be a self-starter. I mean, back in those days, you had to be, because He was constantly starting projects. He didn’t have time to micro- manage. Do you think he appreciated my input? All my input got me was sabbatical; reacquisition assignments in the lower quarters of existence, where decayed societies were losing their grip on Spiritual Properties. Reclaim, redevelop, gentrify!

  The inside joke at the office was that I was so low on the chain of command I’d be eating dirt for all eternity. But I shot through all of my projects. Hades took a day (not counting the extra week it took to pump out Tartarus). The eight levels of Jigoku were nothing. By the time I reached Kurnugia, I started to notice something. Here were places, built by the collective spiritual psyche of widely disparate climates and continents, and yet they were similar. Different languages, great distances, but still, the afterworld was becoming a metaphysical McDonald’s. No matter where you went, you’d find the same things on the menu, with a few regional flavors thrown in. Deep pits. Fire. Ice. Torment. Travel. Pain. Anguish. All of this, because of one interaction between me and a couple of horny kids.

  The guilt I left them had mutated, spread, and evolved. Societies were creating my image over and over, deciding what I’d like to do with them after death. They remembered me, somewhere in their little pre-soul cortex, and they wanted to get back together with me. I think. I was like the cool uncle who gave them beer once and was thereafter banished from family gatherings.

  During a reacquisition of the Viking territories, I was hanging on the tip of a branch somewhere near the bottom of Yggdrasil, and it came to me. My greatest revelation: Hell was speaking to people in a way that Virtue couldn’t. People wanted to get to Heaven, sure. But they really wanted to see Hell. As much of it as possible, preferably while they were alive. They just didn’t want to stick around.

  I would report back to The Boss at the end of every project, let Him know what I was seeing on Earth, kept Him up to date on the reclaimed spaces He could use for His future work. Then I made the grand mistake. The one thing he couldn’t tolerate.

  I got in a little tiff with one of the new management. I felt my position was threatened. So I went back to The Boss, and I asked for a promotion, which for me, meant doing the same job as Him. I wanted to be a partner in the company. His response was, quite literally, a kick in the pants.

  Well, actually, Michael delivered the kick. We were all out, me and a group of Michael’s pals, ostensibly doing some sightseeing near the new outer rim of the Known Universe, near the Verge of That-Which-Is-Not-Yet-To-Be, when Michael and his pals gave me the bum’s rush. Right out the door, and down I went.

  Very funny, I thought as I fell from Grace. Har-de-har-har.

  I awoke on a vast grey plain, near the mighty river, and I watched the recently dead mill around hopelessly, search endlessly for their exit, their goal, their…whatever it was. Two figures stood shrouded in the mist near the water. They were male and female, although physically not quite like the other souls that inhabited the place. I pegged them as Higher Beings right off the bat. The gentleman was having a little bit of a spat with his lady, and both eyed me warily.

  “Hello?” I offered.

  He said, “I am Mictlantecuhtli, ruler of the Land of the Dead. You will be judged…in a minute. Hang on.”

  The lady elbowed him, and he continued, “This is Mictlancuatl, my lovely wife. Ruler of the Land of the Dead. You will be judged soon. We’re just heading out over…that way, but we’ll be back. All right then?”

  Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancuatl, Mr. and Mrs. Land of the Dead. Mrs. M grabbed her man by the hand and trudged towards me. I heard Mr. M mutter under his breath, “I’m telling you he looks like trouble. He’s not who you think!”

  About thirty feet away, she stopped and nudged him forward. I’ve always been able to make others nervous with my piercing, manly eyes.[11] I stood to greet them and tripped over the shiniest, heaviest piece of polished enigma you’ve ever seen. My anima crystal. I picked it up.

  Mictlantecuhtli raised his hand and asked me, “Where have you come from?”

  “Shouldn’t you know that if you’re here to j
udge me?”

  “It is a test!” Mr. M shouted. He looked me over several times. “You’re not like the others. I was just…You know, it’s something I say. Pre-scripted banter. Keeps things moving nicely.”

  “Heaven,” I told him. “Thought I’d take a break, look around here, see how the other half lives, you know…”

  “I knew it!” Mictlancuatl paced nervously behind her husband.

  Mictlantecuhtli shuffled his feet for a moment, then asked, “What do you do for a living?”

  “Reclamations. Renovations. You know why I’m here,” I said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I bring the Light of the Almighty, I shine it forth so that truth may be illuminated like a great beacon of hope. I am, or was, until recently, The Light. And you know what happened?”

  I took his blank stare as license to continue.

  “Nepotism! His Son! Not even on the job for thirty years and He’s promoted! Granted, He’s highly qualified, very talented, but doesn’t…shouldn’t seniority count for something ?”

  Feeling dashing, I slung an arm around Mictlantecuhtli’s shoulder. It was then I started to realize that holding on to my anima crystal was making me feel quite drunk.

  “You know, I tried to talk to Him once about all of it. Out in the desert, away from His adoring throngs of fans. He didn’t listen. Spun the whole thing a different way when He got back to the village. He gets a crowd around him one day, and you know what He tells them? He says that I… I tried to tempt Him ! The nerve! And then later, He tells some of His little groupies, ‘I am the way and The Light’. All of a sudden, just like that, He’s The Light. I’m demoted! So I go back to The Boss, and I tell Him what’s what, and BAM! Here I am. That, my ashen friend, is where I’ve come from, and who the Hell are you?”

  Mictlantecuhtli scratched his chin for a moment. “We have to go fishing now. I wish you luck on your brief stay here.”

  “Oh, you and your thick rotting skull!” Mictlancuatl screamed. She pushed past her husband and knocked the crystal out of my hand. “Men! They never ask for directions! What my husband is unwilling to say, O blonde one, is: We have lost our hold on this land. We used to care for the souls of Humans. But as of late, more and more immortal beings have been arriving. Everyone’s been warning us about you! It’s been nothing but arguments for the past few millennia. Mr. Bossy here wants to stay and wander. He wants to reclaim this land. Couldn’t stand up to one lousy frog-demon who kept pissing on our lawn, but now he wants to reclaim the whole thing! Me? I quit! I want out.”