I shook out of my musings and focused on Michael. “Did you give Jehovah my message?” I asked him, referring to our earlier conversation where I’d promised to take over the world.

“I did.”

“And?”

“He will meet you on the battlefield at your leisure should you name the place and time.”

I stood taken aback. The battlefield? Fight? Jehovah? God? The same God I grew up worshiping and talking to when no one else would listen? I’d always known He was there, watching over me.

Still, I was angry. To wield such power only to have it suppressed. To have it caged when it could do so much good. I wanted to spout something super sassy, but nothing came out.

Michael seemed to sense my sudden inability to form a complete sentence. He stepped closer despite his angels tensing.

Reyes stepped closer, too.

“Elle-Ryn-Ahleethia, perhaps you’d like some time to think about it.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. I glanced down at the sword in my hand. It was ancient, and I got the feeling it had already seen many battles. Too many. I was here for a reason, and that reason was probably not to take over this world.

The sword disappeared, and I shouldered past Michael to do what I could, what I was allowed to do. I knelt beside the woman with the plate of glass in her neck. Since we were still incorporeal, she couldn’t see me. She held on to the glass, knowing that removing it meant certain death. Blood bubbled out of her nose and mouth, and the fear in her eyes, the sheer terror, wrapped its tendrils around my heart and squeezed.

Before she knew what was happening, I melted the glass, put my hand on her throat, and healed her. If that was all I could do, that was all I could do.

Michael stood over me. Reyes at his side, making sure he didn’t get too close.

“It will be harder for you now,” Michael said, “knowing what you know. What you are capable of. You are like an addict who has gotten a taste of heroin after years of sobriety. Only if you fall back into old habits, you will lose your family forever.”

21

I ran out of coffee this morning. Tequila seemed a reasonable replacement. Everyone is so pretty today!

— MEME

“What did he mean by old habits? If I am this god of war and I crave the blood of my enemies like others crave, say, coffee – just thinking off the top of my head – why would righting a wrongful death be forbidden? Wouldn’t that be a step in the right direction? I can see war being forbidden, or starting a revolution, or… whatever else war gods do, but righting a wrong?”

Dr. Mayfield sat on Spock, a logical armchair that cattycornered Captain Kirk, taking notes. I hadn’t seen her since I’d left her with Logan, the mischievous Native American vampire. She’d checked on her sister, traveled the world a bit, and now worked as a psychiatrist for the departed. And, apparently, for me.

“It makes no sense,” I continued. “But this bottle of tequila sure does.”

I turned it upside down and let the liquid scorch my throat. I’d never really understood why people drank when they were miserable. It only made matters worse in the long run. But for some reason, tequila seemed like the answer.

Surely, I was meant for more. And why would I agree to have my data banks deleted?

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked me. She had a blunt force trauma who needed her to analyze his recurring nightmare tugging on her shirtsleeve. My time had been up half an hour ago, anyway.

I nodded. “I’m glad you’re still working.”

She closed her notebook. “Me, too. I’ll check in on you tomorrow.”

I saluted her with the near-empty bottle as she vanished. Then I took out the pendant, the god glass, and held it in my hand. Rubbed the glass cover. Studied the intricate design.

If I couldn’t save people in this world, how could I save any in the next? The next being a hell dimension created by Jehovah for His rebellious brother, Rey’azikeen. My husband.

Two questions arose immediately when I’d first come upon this information: First, what kind of god builds a hell dimension for the sole purpose of imprisoning His brother? Second, what the hell did Reyes do that was so bad his own Brother built a hell dimension just for him? It was kind of like his very own Holiday Inn, only without the pool or room service.

Then again, what did I know? It could have been created with all kinds of luxuries. All kinds of amenities to make the long, lonely hours of an eternity in solitary confinement more bearable.

But my gut reaction to the words hell and dimension would suggest otherwise.

I ran my fingers along the warm surface of the pendant. I used to think that it was always warm because I carried it in my pocket, against the heat of my body. I later came to realize its warmth was probably more a product of what it housed. Maybe all hell dimensions were hot. I would think there would be a need for a cold one, or perhaps a really humid one, just to add a little variety.

The image of the little girl Eidolon had killed, so utterly terrified and unable to even move, flashed in my mind again. But Jose Cuervo came to the rescue. He was such a great guy.

I realized Reyes had been watching me spill my guts to Dr. Mayfield and get wasted at the same time from the comfort of Captain Kirk. He’d been drinking, too, but his tastes were a little more uptown. He was probably drinking scotch or bourbon or some other drink that sounded sexy when it rolled off the tongue.

I was pouting. I’d refused to take the comfort any of our furniture had to offer. Instead, we sat in a corner, Jose and I, brushing up on our bladder-capacity skills. So far, so good.

I stopped studying the pendant and studied my husband instead. Studied how he always folded his shirtsleeves in the evenings, or pushed them up, depending on the shirt, to expose his forearms. He did it on purpose. He had to know what his forearms did to me. And his biceps. And his shoulders. And pretty much every other part of him.