chimed in agreement. About Metatron shutting up, not about the wine.
“I was only trying to share my experiences,” Metatron huffed.
“Do you still think that this is wise?” Jegudiel asked Barachiel.
“You’ve been whining since the moment Michael first showed some balls,” Barachiel said. “It’s time for you to shut up, too.”
“There is a balance to Creation,” Jegudiel said. “Having a monopoly on the afterlife seems to me to be an invitation for trouble.”
“They haven’t invented a kind of trouble that I can’t beat,” Barachiel said.
“I fear we are asking for repercussions,” Jegudiel said. “Ones we are not prepared to handle.”
“Yeah,” Barachiel said. “Fear. That’s all you ever think about. Well tonight, for once, there’s no room for fear. We’re going to win.”
“Have I ever told you about the time that I finally categorized all the different types of fear?” Metatron said from his corner. “There were over three thousand five hundred and fifty-eight. It was quite fascinating, really...”
In Heaven’s locker room, Raphael was giving Michael a rubdown. The archangel was sprawled facedown on a padded table with his enormous wings outstretched so that the tips of their primary feathers brushed the ceiling. Raphael rubbed ambrosia into Michael’s powerful, corded muscles while Gabriel walked a figure eight in the far corner, hunched over his cell phone, wrapping up last minute details.
“Mmmf mf mf mft?” Michael said, from where he lay facedown on the table.
“What?” Gabriel asked.
Michael lifted his head.
“Are they here yet?” he repeated.
Gabriel held up a finger.
“Uh huh,” he said into his phone. “Okay.”
Then he hung up.
“They just came in,” he said. “They’re in their locker room now.”
“I am satisfied,” Michael said. “ How do they look?”
“The angels at the gate said they look pretty straggly.”
“Is the Fallen One with them?”
“No,” Gabriel said.
“Where is he?”
“We still can’t find him.”
“He can hinder our plans no more,” Michael said. “But I do not like loose ends. We should tie this up as quickly as possible.”
“I’m on it,” Gabriel said.
“See that you are,” Michael said, and put his face back down on the table. Then he lifted it once more. “Gabriel, never raise your finger to me again. When I ask a question I expect an immediate answer.”
“Yes, my lord,” Gabriel said, and he bit down on the anger that squirmed in the pit of his stomach. It was better to be a king in Hell...it was better to be a king in Hell...it was better to be a king in Hell...
Hell’s locker room hadn’t been cleaned since the night before and four laundry bins were stuffed to overflowing with damp, mildewing, sweat-saturated game uniforms. Three of the fluorescent tubes were out and one was flickering maniacally. The air was heavy and humid. Everything stunk.
Mary Renfro stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room wearing a bright red body stocking. It ran from her ankles to her wrists and covered her to the neck. With gold sequins stitched down the arms, up the legs, over her shoulders and down her back, swirling and whorling across every free inch of her, she looked like a handkerchief that had been used to stop one of Elvis’s nosebleeds.
“It’s missing something,” Nero said, and then he took a few damp sweat socks from the putrid pile in a laundry bin, rolled them into a ball and stuffed them up Mary’s sleeves.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. And then the smell hit her. “Ugh!”
“Now you have biceps,” Nero said. “ They look good.”
“Don’t talk about my body,” she said. “It’s – these really stink!”
She fanned her face, but that just wafted more of the horror smell up her nostrils. When Minos entered she was doing a complicated dance as she tried to pull the sweat socks out of the tight sleeves, while Nero tried to swat her hands away and both of them tried to avoid the stink.
“I need ta talk ta ya,” Minos said. He was dressed like Burgess Meredith in Rocky, with a white towel rolled up and stuffed into the neck of a gray sweatshirt. Nero had no idea where he’d found a sweatshirt in his size.
“Stop fooling with your outfit and listen to him,” Nero said to Mary. “It’s important.”
He pushed Mary down onto the wooden bench.
“Thank you for coming,” she said to Minos. “I need some kind of last-minute strategy intervention. Nero’s useless.”
“I keep telling you,” Nero said. “Wrestling was very popular where I’m from, it was just much more sensual.”
“Stop talking!” Mary snapped.
Tensions were running high.
Minos cleared his throat. Mary waited, expectantly.