you what is righteous and good. The one you go back to when all others fail you. God is the love you give and the love you receive.”
He didn’t answer my second question, but I already knew his feelings toward my mother. They were similar to yours. You all hated her, but no one would tell me why.
“Do you know what I wish for you, Vincent?” Papa asked.
I glanced up into his caramel-colored eyes and shook my head.
“I wish for you to be kind. To do what you can to ease another’s suffering and consider others’ needs as well as your own. One day you may have special abilities like Henri, and I hope that when given the opportunity, you will use them for good.”
Papa once told me that all beings, even demigods like you and me, were worthy of redemption.
“Does Henri use his powers for good?” I’d danced around the question before but never asked it outright. Papa tilted his head and gave me a deliberate look, one that told me I wouldn’t like his answer.
“I still love him,” I said with a sudden passion. It flared at the most unexpected times, and I had little control over it.
“I understand,” Papa said calmly and patted my hand. “Perhaps that is our role. As the waves shape the shore, so do we shape the ones we love. And attempt to bend them toward the arc of goodness and light.”
Was that my job? To make you “good?” But you were good already. Perfect, in my eyes.
8
Henri
I was in the middle of a job when my thoughts drifted back to the conversation we’d had before I left—one about religion, redemption, and worship. I’d tried to maintain the delicate balance of supporting your theological exploration while providing my own agnostic viewpoint in a truthful manner. Religion had never benefitted me, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t benefit you.
And as I pondered your sincere concern for my everlasting soul, I was confronted with my immediate reality: the capture of a demon who was bleeding profusely from a wound I’d only just inflicted.
I was not a rank-and-file Imperium soldier but a mercenary, called upon to handle delicate situations where Azrael didn’t want undue attention. This was my penance for reclaiming my bloodborn body without his blessing. As Lena would argue, I took orders like a good soldier and didn’t ask questions.
This particular Grigori had taken up residence in an abandoned plantation house outside of New Orleans. He was shadowborn, a tribe known for their abilities to traverse realms and divine the future. The under realms were their natural habitat, but they’d been steadily expanding into the earthen realm. Shadowborn derived their power from absorbing the spiritual energy of human souls, and if they did not moderate their thirst, left their subjects as vacant as dry husks.
And this demon’s appetite was voracious. I’d only needed to follow the trail of dead-eyed victims to his hideout where they passed in and out, their bodies shuffling along as listless as ghosts. After that it was a simple matter of disabling the Grigori’s cadre of fate demons and stabbing the shadowborn in the gut, serving the dual purpose of binding his spirit to his natural body and incapacitating him enough that he couldn’t rob me of my soul.
But perhaps most unnerving was that this particular demon, who went by the name Orcus, was a longstanding ally to Lena. More than a decade ago, they’d worked together to reclaim her original body as well as my own, going off the intel Orcus gained from an informant inside the Imperium. All of this was made known to me by my Imperium contacts, and by extension, Azrael.
As if you knew I was thinking about you, my phone vibrated, and your name lit up the display. I wasn’t in the habit of answering calls during a job, but I worried there might be some emergency. I’d been stalking this particular demon for three weeks, and that was a long time for us to be apart. The demon gurgled wet curses at me while I answered my phone. Privacy was a luxury I could not be afforded, for I knew better than to turn my back on a Grigori elder, however compromised his condition.
“Henri,” you said with such exuberance that I was momentarily transported from my dreadful circumstance.
“Yes, Vincent, is something the matter?”
“No, everything’s fine. I just…” A brief pause and then, “I miss you.”