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It was a beautiful morning in Heaven. Moxxie always cherished his walks to the office. The little angel turned his face toward the sun, bathing him in the warmth of God's love. Instantly, all his aches and woes disappeared and were replaced by a deep sense of comfort. It was better for waking up than coffee.
His walk would take him through the gardens, down a floating walkway above a menagerie where examples of all the animals on Earth were living in peace. Lions and zebras lazed about in the warm sun, oblivious to their natural enmity as predator and prey. In Heaven, all creatures lived in perfect harmony. It was inspiring.
Moxxie took a deep breath of the crisp morning air before heading up the stairs to the building.
C.H.E.R.U.B. was located at the end of the hall in a small office whose only window faced the dumpster behind Mother Theresa's International House of Waffles. Cherub was only a small startup in the blessing business, with relatively few clients and thus could not afford a larger workspace. With only four employees, they didn't really need the space anyway.
The room was dominated by a board desk in the shape of a cross, with enough seats for all twelve apostles, but only two of which were occupied by Moxxie's best friend and his girlfriend.
Keenie rushed up to Moxxie and planted a kiss on his cheek. The cherubic sheep nuzzled her angel boyfriend's cheek. Moxxie always melted at the touch of her soft wool.
"Another blessed morning of doing the Lord's work!" Keenie smiled cheerily.
Collin smiled at Moxxie as he sat down next to him. They had been friends since school. Now they were following their dreams of helping people and making life better for those on Earth. Moxxie sat down next to him and flashed him a little grin.
"Guess who saw the Mozart and Bach duet symphony last night?" Moxxie tried hard not to commit the sin of pride, but it was hard to contain his excitement. Several of the greatest composers in heaven, combined with an orchestra of the best musicians in all of history, performed a musical spectacle that rivaled in grandeur the heavenly chorus of angels who sang God's praises in the days before the Fall.
"I'm so happy for you!" Collin reached under the table and fistbumped Moxxie.
Cletus flew in with a broad smile on his face. "Good morning, everybody! I hope we're all ready for another day of spreading special blessings to the people of the world!"
Moxxie felt warm and fuzzy inside. This job was what he was always meant to do. He always believed that God had a plan for everybody, no matter how small or insignificant. He was just a dot in the grand design of eternity, and he was simply grateful to be allowed to play a small role in making the world a better place for everyone.
"Alright, so we've got three requests for blessings today. One is from a church in Guatemala, asking for help after an earthquake destroyed their community. Then there's a child slave laborer on the verge of death making Adidas shoes, but that's in some smelly country and I don't want to get my suit dirty." Cletus chuckled, snapping his suspenders against his chest. "Last is some old man about to commit suicide named…" He squinted at the paper, "Lyle Lipton."
"The inventor?! Oh my gosh! We have to save him!" Collin declared emphatically, "His technological advancements are making the world a better place! We can't just let him k-kill himself!"
Moxxie thought about it. Both those other options seemed like pretty worthwhile causes. Why was one old man's life worth more than them? Sure, his technology was incredible. His medical advances saves lives in hospitals every day. He owned three space stations and had exclusive mining rights to the planet Mars. But Moxxie was certain he had heard that name before, connected with much less savory things.
"Uh, Cletus? Isn't that the guy who invented a kind of fuel that's worse than gasoline just to 'teach the planet a lesson'? And he owns those rehab centers where they do horrific cybernetic experiments on junkies."
The three cherubs stared at their friend for a moment. Sometimes it was hard for them to understand the way their friend thought.
"Mox," Collin said gently, placing a hand upon his arm, "It's not for us to decide whether somebody is good or evil! If God wants him to live, it must be for a good reason."
"Yeah! And just think of how happy and fulfilled you'll feel once we've convinced that creepy old man to accept the blessings of life!" Keenie pointed out.
"But everything he's done - If anybody is doomed to go to Hell, it's Lyle Lipton!"
"That may be so," Cletus said, pointing an explanatory finger, "But everybody who is born, exists to serve a purpose. If we let him put an end to himself now, it could throw the entire cosmic balance into chaos!"
"And he might repent his sins! He could make up for all his bad actions and go to heaven!" Keenie beamed at the thought of turning a sinner into a saint. She always took great pleasure in walking her charges through the pearly gates before handing them off to the nearest heavenly social worker to do the actual paperwork.
"I know…" Moxxie sighed. Not every CHERUB job involved saving children from a burning orphanage, or curing an old man's cancer so he could live to see his grandkids graduate. Sometimes you had to save a gay-hating priest or a wifebeating monster. God's will was God's will. There was no use in questioning it. You had to take the good with the bad and accept it was all part of a higher plan, or you were on the road to damnation.
The rest of the briefing was spent brainstorming reasons to live and writing them down in Cletus's handy notebook. Every page had an affirming bible verse on it. Then the team would kneel down and pray to get ready for some serious military-grade redemption.
Lyle Lipton took a heavy, belabored breath through the tube in his nose, and let it out with a sigh of foul-smelling breath. He was connected to enough life support machinery to medically classify him as a cyborg. His body was mostly lard, but supposedly there was a little old man skeleton floating around in there somewhere. When he farted, the colostomy bag on his side inflated like a balloon. He knew getting old would be bad, but he never thought it would be this bad.
"Goodbye, my one true love," He whispered shakily, holding a picture frame in fragile, birdbone fingers. It was a photograph of the time he filled an olympic swimming pool with money, and gone swimming with his late friend Loopty Goopty. Victim of the same machine that stole his youth and turned him into this decrepit blob. The sight of his best friend’s lost smile made him sigh in despair. Maybe he would at least get to see him when he reached the other side.
Sighing, Lyle grabbed one of the many dangling tubes from his life support apparatus and tied it into a noose. It was good, surgical grade rubber. It wouldn’t snap under his weight. All he had to do was put it over his head.
In heaven, the four cherubs knelt in a circle, praying to God to open a portal and let them save this poor old man. Their prayer was granted in a burst of rainbow light, and the cherubs took wing and dove through the opening, appearing in Lyle Lipton’s lavish bedroom.
“I’m being haunted by orphan children! I hate filthy, stinking orphan children!”
“We’re here to convince you not to kill yourself, sir!” Collin said with a smile, “To grant you a blessing on behalf of those in heaven benefited by your amazing technological advancements!”
"Wait a goddamn-" The four cherubs turned at the sound of breaking glass. A demon in a long coat and a clown wig had just plunged through the window and was laying face-first on the floor.
This was the first demon Moxxie had ever seen. An imp, he guessed from the striped horns. They were the lowliest of all demons, according to the books he'd read. They shouldn't have been able to access Earth! Only a few royal demons had that ability, unlike angels who were free to visit the sinful world of mankind whenever they wanted (They mostly chose not to).
Next to the window, a door swung open and another demon walked in. This one was shorter and smaller, and judging by the curves of its body, a woman. Moxxie had never thought about it before, but he supposed it made sense. Everybody reproduced, even angels, though the process itself was generally looked down upon as sinful and a disgusting necessity for the continuation of life. Obviously, there were female demons out there, or Hell wouldn't have an overpopulation problem. Moxxie could see the crux of that problem every time the demoness swayed her hips.
He wasn't sure what he expected her voice to sound like. Distorted roaring, perhaps. He wasn't expecting the lilting drawl that came out, as thick and creamy as butter melting in the hot Georgia sun.
"Don't listen to these little creeps! I mean, what're you gonna do with all your money now that you're old and gross?"
"Is that a serious question?" Keenie scoffed, glaring down her nose at the demons, "He can spread his wealth around with the people of the world!"
"He can pay for new hospitals and schools!" Collin added.
"And even pay the lawsuits from his company's chemical spill in Belize-" Moxxie was cut off when Keenie slapped a hand over his mouth and shot him a sharp look.
"Yeah, right. Smells like he hasn't been out of bed in months," Millie made the mistake of actually smelling and vomited all over the $300,000 vintage shag carpet. Imp vomit is a highly corrosive acid, and soon the floor was smoldering.
"Life can be beautiful at any age!" Moxxie interdicted, grabbing the old man's hand and flapping his wings to fan the worst of the smell away from him, "We'll show him!"
The cherubs cheered. Cletus prayed to God for a portal while the demons used their unholy witchcraft and got there about five minutes before them. Unfortunately, delays in processing time meant prayers from the Earth often took a little bit longer to be answered than those made directly in heaven.
"God's gift of nature is a wonder to behold! Regardless of age, or wealth!"
The cherubs had brought Lyle Lipton, and by extension the imps, to an isolated valley deep in the mountains somewhere in the northwest. Cottonwood and dogwood and Douglas fir, girded in thick green moss like the beards of a race of tree-dwelling gnomes. The underbrush was too thick to push through, rising up like a wall around the clearing they were standing in.
Wildflowers poked up through the grass, here a stand of foxglove, there a patch of daisies. Fat little bumblebees darted from one flower to the next, bodies bright yellow like dandelions, their wings like gossamer.
The valley sides sloped up and away, to jagged peaks perpetually capped by snow. When the wind blew, it carried the snow's cold down the length of the valley, a welcome respite from the hot sun.
"Where's all the wildlife?" Cletus asked.
A hush fell over the group as they looked around, realizing with dawning dread that they hadn’t heard so much as a birdsong since they’d arrived. The trees seemed darker and more ominous now. Collin’s teeth were chattering loud enough to hear; Moxxie grabbed his friend’s hand and held it close, and that seemed to comfort him a little.
"Uh… I think I found something," Blitz put down his binoculars with disgust on his face. He handed them off to Millie, who in turn handed them to Cletus, and finally it was Moxxie's turn. What the angel saw turned his stomach. At the edge of the forest was an eviscerated carcass of some unidentifiable creature, all red meat and gleaming white bone. The earth around it was putrid with liquified fat and when the wind turned it carried the stink over to them.
"Ohhh kayyyy," Cletus said, putting on a cheerful facade, "I think we've had enough nature for one day! Now let's-"
A horrible noise now came up from the forest. It was the roar of some ancient and terrible beast, and yet something about it was horribly suggestive of a human voice.
Lyle Lipton's eyes widened at the sound, and the wizened old blob snatched the binoculars from Moxxie's unresisting hands. "You fools!" He gasped, "This is where I dumped all those failed experiments all those years ago!"
"F-f-failed exp…" Collin was shivering like he was knee deep in snow, clutching onto himself for comfort.
"Yes, when I tried combining humans and dinosaur DNA," Lipton waved his hand dismissively, "Bad idea, as it turns out. But we live and we learn. I still made a tidy profit out of it."
The thing that shambled out of the forest had once been a man. It was about fifteen feet tall and covered in a patchy network of scales and pink skin. The body was lumpy like a bag of potatoes, like a badly stuffed children's toy. It stood bowlegged with legs that had either too many joints or not enough, ending in something uncomfortably similar to feet. It had something like a snout, with malformed jaws stuck permanently open, showing off an array of long, thin, razor sharp teeth. The jaws couldn't close because the teeth were too long.
Its eyes were human and full of agony as it opened its beartrap jaws and roared and broke into a loping sprint across the meadow in their direction.
"Millie!" Blitz called out, "Rocket launcher!"
The smaller imp reached into her handbag and pulled out a Panzerfaust-3 loaded with armor-shredding flechettes. She knelt and took aim and fired, and the rocket took off with a hiss of exhaust. The thing's chest exploded into chunks of meat, and the giant misformed cancerous organs fell out like so many greasy red tumors.
While they were dealing with the first one, the trees all around began to rustle, and even more of them stomped, staggered or stumbled out of the forest, setting eyes on the party and letting out voluminous roars as they charged.
The demons were fighting like, well, demons. The rocket launcher ran out of ammunition after three rounds and three dino-beasts splattered across the landscape, then Millie took up a battleaxe and started cleaving heads from shoulders, hands from elbows and legs from feet. The blood was soaking her from head to toe, yet she didn't seem to mind. Moxxie couldn't keep her eyes off her.
"Somebody! Heeeeelp!"
Collin's voice snatched Moxxie's attention. The lamb of god had somehow gotten himself cornered by a dinosaur, a twenty foot long monstrosity with two sets of legs ended in something disconcertingly akin to hands. The creature opened its mouth to snarl, and an impossibly long tongue darted out as if tasting the air, tasting the pheromones of Collin's fear.
Moxxie summoned his crossbow, cocking and aiming it with steady precision. He was the top marksman at the academy three years running. Only a few souls in all of heaven could beat him at sharpshooting. If pride wasn't a deadly sin, he might even think of himself as a damn good shot.
He put one through the monster's eye, causing it to rear back on its hind legs and roar, a deep throaty blast of rage and pain that shook the very ground beneath one's feet. The second arrow he put through where he assumed the heart to be. The golden angelic arrow hit hard and pierced deep, going through hard scales and muscles like the creature was just a bag of putty. It rocked from side to side for a moment, then fell over.
The death of the monster seemed to spur new courage in Collin, who summoned his own bow and began firing at the remaining dinos. He wasn't a very good shot, but he made up for it in enthusiasm. He kept screaming Bible quotes at the top of his lungs like a latterday David wreaking vengeance upon an army of Goliaths.
When there was nothing left in the meadow but steaming red carcasses, Moxxie sighed and allowed his magical crossbow to disappear. His hands were trembling. He had never killed anything before. It felt strange, and to his shame, it felt a little bit good.
The killing itself wasn't an issue. There were many biblical justifications for killing. This was a simple case of self-defense. Perhaps they should've done some more research rather than finding the furthest place from civilization and teleporting in blind to the dangers. Still Moxxie felt fairly secure on the damnation front. God would understand and forgive.
What made him uncomfortable was the thrill he felt. Every well-aimed shot gave him a tingle of satisfaction. It was how sports stars feel every time they score a goal. It was wrong. It was perverse.
Was this how the exorcists felt during their yearly invasion of Hell? If so… Moxxie shuddered. Questions arose within his mind whose answers went against everything he had always known to be true.
This wasn't the kind and merciful God. This was the God of slaughtered Philistines, the God who drowned the whole world and started anew when he felt his creation had gone astray.
Did that mean that God approved of this current edition of creation? That it truly was as Voltaire suggested, the best of all possible worlds? Moxxie couldn't ask Voltaire. Voltaire was in Hell.
Cletus and Keenie came out from where they were hiding behind Lyle Lipton's bed. They looked around wide-eyed at the carnage surrounding them. There were at least twenty dead monsters in the grassy meadow, and the wildflowers were already greedily drinking the blood. It was hot out and flies were already beginning to buzz.
"That didn't make me want to live at all!" Lyle Lipton cried out in frustration, swatting uselessly at a cloud of flies that had mistaken him for one of the corpses.
Cletus laughed nervously and pulled out his notebook. There were still a few ideas left. Moxxie and Keenie peered over his shoulders.
"Childhood wonderment sounds good," Said Keenie, who had suggested it.
"How about the Lyle Lipton Orphanaporium?"
That was Lyle Lipton's greatest contribution to philanthropy, the world's largest orphanage. Children were sent there from all around the world, where they would receive 5-star accommodation, world-class education, and a stringent adoption process that ruled out the chance of placing children into dangerous or unfit homes. It was one of the most respected charity organizations in the world. The cherubs opened a portal, and Moxxie noticed that Collin wasn't with them. He feared the worst, but he soon found him.
Collin was kicking one of the dead monsters and screaming things that would probably be considered blasphemous if a heavenly warden heard him. He bashed it with his crossbow until it broke and just kept going. Moxxie came up and put a hand on his shoulder. Finally he stopped, buried his face in Moxxie's shoulder, and started crying.
"There there," Moxxie patted his best friend on the back, "You did good. You protected us. You're like a bible hero now." In heaven you could run into Ezekiel getting coffee, so that truly meant something.
"C'mon, Millie," The demon boss motioned her to follow through the portal, and she did, although not without casting a dark glance at the cherubs. For a moment, Moxxie thought she was looking right at him.
Millie. So that was her name. Moxxie stared at the imp in the torn jeans. God, those didn't leave much to the imagination. He had never seen anything like it, except in lectures on the sinful habits of mortals. Not a shred of modesty, and chastity was right out the window.
She was a demon, a monster who killed without mercy or compunction. She would probably kill Moxxie if he gave her a good enough reason. So why did his heart flutter whenever she opened her mouth to speak?
"Are you kidding me?!" Keenie rushed at Moxxie. She was looking down, and Moxxie followed her eyes to his groin. Oh. *Oh*. The angel had an erection straining against his robe. Instantly his blue face turned beet red in embarrassment and he bent over shifting his robe over his crotch to hide it.
"You can*not* be telling me you're attracted to that bloodthirsty demon bitch! Their kind is nothing but filth, Moxxie! They're all Satan's gross, dirty children! They only exist to torture shitty dead people!"
This was the face of Keenie that Moxxie didn't like. Underneath the ewe's fuzzy exterior, there was a bitter, hateful soul. When she got worked up over something, she could be as vile as the worst sinners.
Whenever she got like this, Moxxie found himself shutting down, retreating inside himself until the fireworks were over and it was safe to emerge. He would agree to anything, do anything. Moxxie had been reduced to begging on hands and knees for her not to leave him, on multiple occasions. She knew exactly how to manipulate Moxxie's feelings to get the outcome she would want. It was like playing piano, just a matter of hitting the right keys at the right time.
Normally, Moxxie folded up. He would retreat inside himself and utter whatever words would make Keenie happy, make her stop. But something had changed inside of him just now. Maybe it had been the spilling of blood. Maybe it was the big apple-shaped curve of Millie's ass in those bloodsoaked jeans.
Today, Moxxie would fight.
"It's not her fault that she was born a demon! No more than you chose to be an angel! You can't just hate somebody because of something out of their control!"
"No. But you can hate somebody for being a murdering, unchaste, red-faced whore!" Keenie spat.
"Do you ever get tired of judging other people, Keenie? Have you really got so little self esteem that you need to try to bring others down to your level?"
It felt good to speak his mind, to let her know what he had been thinking since the early days of this relationship. Moxxie supposed that he had always known Keenie was a bitch. He couldn't remember a time in their relationship that hadn't been marked by her judgemental outbursts. When had their relationship ever really made sense? It had always been a case of follow the leader. Keenie made the decisions. Moxxie had freedom of a sort, but it was subject to review and veto. Had Moxxie only joined the C.H E.R.U.B. because of Keenie? What would his life have been like without her there? What could his life be like without her?
Something dark flashed over Keenie's face. Moxxie took a long unsteady breath and prepared to weather the impending storm.
"Keenie, I-"
"Keenie! Moxxie!" Cletus called; He was eager to get out of the meadow now that the dead were beginning to rot.
"I'm not finished with you, Moxxie," Keenie hissed through gritted teeth, prodding him in the chest so hard he thought he was going to fall over. Keenie turned and flew through the portal, her wings buzzing like bees.
"Maybe I'm finished with you," Moxxie thought. It thrilled him and made him nervous. Could he stand to be a verbal punching bag for the rest of his life? Did he want to be nothing more than the angel boyfriend of a cherub girl with no ass?
Fuck, Millie had a nice ass.
Moxxie's boner came back with a vengeance. But as soon as he went through the portal, he lost it again, and this time even Millie's butt couldn't bring it back.
Lyle Lipton's Orphanaporium was located deep inside the Uluru Rock in the Australian outback. Lipton had rather infamously purchased it and carved it into a gigantic bust of his head like Mount Rushmore, only his sculptor turned up drunk and accidentally broke off his nose. The nose lay in the sand like the legs of Ozymandias.
The cherubs portal led them to a sparse steel room, narrow but very long, and lined with steel bunkbeds with no sheets. On each one a child sat staring at the ceiling, unmoving, unblinking. Each one wore an identical uniform bearing the logo of Lyle-Loopty Industries. All of them were very thin. Only one or two bothered turning to look at the entrance of the cherubs.
"What is this place?" Cletus asked in horror.
"My greatest accomplishment! A vast machine to crush orphan children's will and turn them into good, obedient workers. I've taken more orphans off the streets than every social services program in the world combined! Most of them are expended in seafloor mining operations or sent to the off-world industrial colonies. Others are sold as labor or food, or used as test subjects by my many companies. Good riddance to em! At least they're finally good for something!" Lipton smacked his hand with a fist for emphasis.
"Hey! This one has a My Little Pony!" Blitz had climbed onto one of the bunkbeds and was wrestling with a child for a small pink horse. Blitz prized the wailing orphan's fingers off it one by one. The child kicked him between the legs and he went flying across the room.
Millie helped her boss up and dusted him off. The child still had the horse.
"Okay, okay. Fuck," Cletus reached into his coat for a cigarette and lit it with a shaky hand, trying not to look at the gaunt-faced orphans, "This old guy is a piece of shit, but we need to focus on doing our job. It's not our place to judge him, that's God's job. We just have to find some way of keeping his decrepit ass from committing suicide the second we turn out back! Suggestions, people?"
The cherubs were silent. Collin had gone up to a young boy and was waving a hand in front of him, which garnered no response.
Cletus took a long drag from his smoke and held the cigarette between his lips, letting it droop. The cherub seemed to have gained forty years in an instant. He stared down at the notebook and drew a big X through childhood wonderment.
"Let's… Let's get as far away from here as possible," Keenie suggested, though it was more a demand than a suggestion, and not one the others were likely to disagree.
Moxxie felt the rage building. He wanted to scream. Wanted to kick something. To kill something. Someone. That someone was sitting up in his hospital bed with a big smile on his face for the first time all day. Lyle Lipton looked around at the nightmare candyland he had created, and decided it was good.
Moxxie summoned his crossbow, and realized what he was doing and unsummoned it before anybody could see. His hands were shaking. Something was wrong with him, very wrong. He was an angel, born in heavenly, and taught all his life to love God's children. It was hard for Moxxie to muster up love for Lyle Lipton. The best he could manage was enough mercy not to kill him immediately and send him to Hell where he so rightly belonged.
This brought out other thoughts. Dark, heretical thoughts about the nature of a God who allowed such things to happen. The sort of thing that would land you a one-way ticket down south with the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer and everybody who died with unpaid library fines.
Moxxie shuddered. His world was crashing down around him. Keenie was looking at him and he felt her judgement boring into his soul. He wasn't sure he could stand having another conversation with her. He knew one was coming. He could argue or he could fold. Or…
Millie.
He shook his head so hard it gave him whiplash.
"Outer space! There are no monsters or child slaves in outer space!"
This time it was Blitz who opened the portal. Even the demons didn't want to be here any longer than they needed to. The cherubs swooped through the opening, followed by the IMPs, and Moxxie followed last, ducking through the closing portal just before it shut.
The portal came out on a desert of red sand. The sky was a hazy blue and stars could be seen sparkling through the translucent firmament. Mars stretched out endlessly to the horizons, unutterably vast and ancient and dead. No life ever existed here. No life ever would. It was a tomb world, a kind of Hell where even demons feared to tread.
"Oh, hey, Mars! My boyfriend brought me here once. We fucked right over there," Blitz pointed to a rock which had some uncomfortably un-Martian stains.
Cletus tried to divert attention with a shaky laugh, “We're 40 million miles away from all of life's problems! Isn't this just swell, Mr. Lipton?"
Lyle Lipton smiled even bigger than when he saw the orphans. Putting a hand over his eyes to block out the faint sunlight, he peered at a small gray shape in the distance.
“My Mars colony! I’d almost forgotten about it among all my other business ventures - I do hope the mining facilities are running at full capacity.”
"Let's go visit and see how the colonists are doing!" Cletus suggested. A relieved smile crossed his face. At last, something that wouldn't turn out to incredibly fucked up. Space exploration was pure. It was good. God was in favor of it, or so they said in heaven. God is an astronaut. At the very least, there wouldn't be any more orphans.
Cletus portaled them into the heart of the colony.
Lipton City was the crowning jewel of human exploration in space. All the world's space agencies were involved in its construction. The station was crewed by astronauts of every nation of Earth. All five of the world's trillionaires had mansions here, built inside vast geodesic domes that loomed up and cast shadows upon the plebeians at the center of the crater.
And of course, it was all staffed by orphan slaves.
“Wha… What is this?” Collin stammered.
“My Martian coprolite mine! This entire planet is one giant space-turd left behind by an even more colossal creature! A true leviathan of the cosmos, whose digestive system left behind rich mineral ores just underneath the surface, waiting to be exploited- I mean, utilized, by a handsome and incredibly wealthy explorer such as myself!”
“But… The children!”
“Orphan children are the best kind of labor! They don’t complain, they don’t ask for pay, they don’t unionize,” Lyle Lipton spat the word like a curse, “And when they’re all good and worn out, we just flush ‘em out the airlock!”
Mistaking the horrified expressions of everyone present as financial insecurity, Lyle Lipton clarified, “Oh, don’t worry! My Orphanaporium purchases them in bulk from the social services systems of third world countries. No more drains on the system!”
Blitzø was finally tired of this game. "Alright, that's it. You're fucking dead, bitch." He reached into his coat for his flintlock.
"Oh no, you fucking don't! We're saving that shitty old fucker's life whether he wants it or not!" Cletus took point and summoned his bow, nocking back a golden arrow and taking aim at the leader of the demons. Blitz ducked and rolled as an arrow shot past his head.
Keenie tackled Millie and the two rolled, fists to claws, kicking up a cloud of red Martian sand.
Collin was using his newfound confidence from the earlier engagement to fire wildly at Blitz and anything else that moved, including orphans and the various billionaires and trillionaires who lived here. Elongated Busk took an arrow through the brains and Jeff Bexos ran so hard into a door his bald head split open.
Moxxie summoned up his bow and scanned the battlefield.
Cletus was chasing Blitz, shooting arrows while the demon fired his flintlock with low percussive booms. Collin was trying to help, but the most he provided was a distraction. His arrows kept narrowly missing Cletus, until Cletus took his crossbow away and went after Blitz, screaming, with bows akimbo.
Millie and Keenie were locked in combat. Moxxie aimed his heavenly crossbow but was unable to pick out his target. They were rolling too quickly, smashing into buildings and overturning rover vehicles with their impact, exchanging blows that would've felled a mortal but only left bruises on their paranormal bodies.
Then Moxxie caught sight of the crane. A construction crane loomed high above their little battlefield in the middle of the colony's main square. It had a load of girders hanging from it. At this distance Moxxie thought he could put an arrow through the cable holding it up. If demons were anywhere near as durable as angels, the impact would be enough to just incapacitate Millie. For some reason, demon though she was, he wanted to make sure not to kill her. Aiming high, he prayed it would work and squeezed the trigger. The arrow flew straight and true, severing the cable. It plummeted down toward the angel and demon.
Taking flight, Moxxie swooped in, grabbing Millie by the waist and flying off as he watched his girlfriend struggling under the pile of girders. The cable securing them had broken on impact and she was still trying to push the steel beams aside when she looked up and saw him, holding the imp close as if for protection.
"Nice save, choir boy," Millie chuckled, then leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Moxxie was at first startled, but he soon melted into the kiss. When Millie slipped in her tongue, he did the same. She tasted incredible. There was a spiciness in her mouth like she had just eaten a hot ghost pepper, yet Moxxie suspected that was normal for imps. He could get used to it.
Millie pressed him into another kiss and this time, Moxxie was all in from the start. The entire world melted away, the battle, the orphans, heaven and hell. All that existed for Moxxie was this sweet woman and her kisses. Her mouth on his felt right, like two jigsaw pieces locking into place. He never wanted to let go.
But he had to. Cletus and Collin had together managed to corner Blitz, and the imp had lost his gun. All he held was a jagged dagger and the determination to take one of the cherubs with him when he died.
Millie gasped and punched Moxxie hard in the nose. The angel fell hard to the ground as Millie sprinted over, drawing a small machine pistol with a magazine as long as her arm. Shrieking like a hillbilly valkyrie gone berserk, she sprayed ammunition in their general direction.
Nobody noticed in all the excitement the old man rolling down from his bed, landing with a thud and a small cloud of dust, and picking something up from the red sand. As Millie ran past, Lyle Lipton clotheslined her with the butt of Blitzø's pistol.
The flintlock was far too big and heavy for his frail hands, and it wobbled uncontrollably. The only way to steady his aim was by jamming it right into Millie's back, between the shoulder blades. The demoness stiffened as the barrel dug into her flesh. What happened to demons after they die? Moxxie wondered.
"I want to live! I'm going to live! And if you don't get out of my way, the red bitch is going back to Hell the hard way!"
"Moxxie!" Cletus called over his shoulder, "Let's send these hellspawn back where they belong and get the fuck home!"
Moxxie raised his crossbow towards Blitz. The imp closed his yellow eyes. He had such a strange expression Moxxie had never thought he would see on a demon. Regret. Hopelessness. Sorrow. Not for himself, but for another, for this red faced demon bitch in her ragged jeans and crop top. Were they friends? Did they love each other? Were demons capable of love?
"I'm sorry I got us into this, Mills," Blitz sighed.
Moxxie turned the crossbow from Blitz until the golden tip of his arrow was pointing an inch away from Lyle Lipton's head. Moxxie heard a distant voice and realized it was Collin shouting "No!" But Collin was too far away to stop him. Moxxie squeezed the trigger and watched the arrow bury itself deep in the old man's skull. He made a small nose between a grunt and a gasp of surprise, and then he toppled forwards with a heavy thunk. Millie scrambled away in time to avoid being flattened by his bulk.
Blitz grabbed his gun and wiped off the old man smell on his jacket. Millie on the other hand was a brutal murder machine with or without a gun. With Keenie still trapped under the clanging girder beams, this meant that the two sides were evenly matched, two cherubs versus two demons.
And Moxxie, standing alone with the empty crossbow. His hands shook uncontrollably. The crossbow fell and he dropped to his knees. He turned to look up, his eyes burning in obvious pain. His friends just stared at him, horror gripping their hearts.
"Moxxie, what have you done?" Cletus whimpered, holding his crossbow up like a talisman to ward off evil.
Moxxie moaned. He was burning up inside. He knew what was happening to him. He was Falling.
Flames burst forth from Moxxie's mouth, scorching the angel's pale blue face. His pale blackened and crackled and fell off like a layer of old soot, revealing red skin underneath. Not the red of raw exposed muscle, but the deep demonic red of an eternity of hellfire. The sheer agony made him howl. It was like being skinned alive with a cheese grater. The pain went down to his bones, into the heart of his soul as it twisted from the angelic to demonic.
His eyes hurt so he squeezed them shut, and when he opened them again the whites had turned completely yellow. The world seemed different now, colors he perceived less vibrantly. Through the flames he could see his cherub friends huddling together in fear, hiding behind the largest cover which happened to be Lyle Lipton's body. Even the imps were standing back, not sure what if anything to do. Moxxie was utterly alone.
Moxxie's wings burst into blue flame, the immense heat searing away the feathers in an instant, flesh sizzling; Moxxie's wings burned down to the bone, and the bones fell to dust in the swirling wind of flame, leaving just cauterized stumps. He kept trying to flap them, to put out the fire that was eating away his ability to soar through the heavens. If anything it just made the flames worse, fanning them across his white linen robe.
His was not as dramatic as Lucifer's fall, but every bit as agonizing.
A spot in the center of his chest was burning. Hollowness replaced it, an empty void where once he had felt the voice and love of God. Moxxie saw God turning away from him - Or was it he who turned from God?
Life had been so clear once. He had known who he was and what he was. He had a home and a family and a community made up of angels and every good human being who ever lived since the dawn of creation. Now what was there for him? An eternity of hellfire and torture with the sinners?
The imp girl? Millie?
Moxxie recognized the deadly sin of lust, but it was far too late to worry about that now. Thinking about her made him think about Keenie, and the knife twisted in his gut. What she must think about him… The fact that he would never have to hear another of her rants again was a perk, but it didn't make him feel any better.
Moxxie wondered as he fell, was this the inevitable outcome? Is everything preordained? He felt like he had been trapped, forced into his action by circumstance. Moxxie couldn't have let him kill Millie. The old son of a bitch had it coming. But in truth, in that moment he could have chosen not to intercede and let it play out. He almost wished he hadn't. Tears streamed down his face, vaporizing to steam in the intense heat of the flames licking at him.
Amid it all, Moxxie remembered he still had tickets to the Brahms concert next week. He supposed they would go to waste now.
Moxxie thrashed on the ground, unable to beat out the flames that were coming from inside him. The heat was so intense that none could go near him. Even the imps found themselves held at bay by the flames.
At last Millie couldn't stand it anymore and tried going to him, but this was no ordinary fire to which imps were immune. By the second stride her skin started to blister, and the tips of her hair began smoldering. Blitz had to rush to drag her back before she too could burst into flame.
It took a long time for the flames to die down. Moxxie breathed slowly, in and out. Reality slowly came into focus around him. Shapes, colors, images. He looked up and saw his friends, and some part of his brain told him to go to them. He reached out with a red claw and dragged himself forwards. Cletus, Keenie and Collin just stared at him, hugging one another for protection. When Moxxie got a little closer, they split apart as if any one of them could suddenly turn on the others, as if his very presence was pestilence.
Moxxie coughed and black bile splattered the sand. He coughed some more, and felt better and got to his knees and stood. He wobbled for a moment. His legs were all wrong. Looking down he realized why - From normal human legs, he had those oddly recurved goat legs. He was going to have to relearn how to walk. He took one step and then another, and fell on his face in front of Collin.
Collin stared up at Moxxie with wide, horrified eyes. "Mo-M-Moxxie, yo-you-you're a d-demon now!"
The cherub scampered back against the wall, terror framing his face like a deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck. Moxxie felt a stab in his heart at the fear in his best friend's eyes.
"Collin, I…" Moxxie started to say, but he just couldn't find the words.
"P-p-please don't kill me," Collin whimpered. There was a hissing noise and Moxxie realized the cherub had wet his pants.
"I'm sorry, Collin. When you get back to Heaven, tell them I…"
"Tell them you're a monster! You k-killed that p-poor old man!" The hurt and fear in Collin's eyes was too much to bear. Moxxie had to turn away.
They had been best friends all their lives. This morning, they had been best friends. Even an hour ago. And now it was gone. What had seemed immortal had perished by a single split-second decision. Nothing would ever be the same for any of them. Worlds swing on such axis.
He couldn't go with his friends as they opened the portal and disappeared home. Moxxie watched them go and saw through the portal, as his last glimpse of heaven, the white cloudstuff terraces along the Avenue of Saint Bartholomew. And then it was closed and all that remained was a lingering whiff of heaven's pure air.
Moxxie's sins more than outweighed the blessings he had brought into the world. The scale dipped firmly on the side of damnation. He would never be allowed back into Heaven. He would never feel the warm light of God washing his face in the early morning. In a long line of angelic ancestors stretching back to creation, he was the only one to have fallen.
At some point in the thrashing Moxxie had grown horns, and he noticed dried blood around the base where they had ripped through his scalp. His halo had gotten stuck on one. It felt so thin and fragile now that the heavenly magic was gone. No longer glowing, it looked more like a cheap brass ring than a golden halo. The metal bent easily in his hands; With a grunt, Moxxie snapped the halo in half and let it fall forgotten into the trash which littered the floor
Moxxie felt more alone than ever before. Not only had he thrown away his friends, his lover and the only home he'd ever known; He was cast down, damned, removed from the presence of God. There was an emptiness inside him now. He never realized it before, but part of the warmth he had always known had come from the God himself, his unending love for all of his children. That love was what gave life a meaning and a purpose, or so he had always been told. And now that was gone, Moxxie was hollow.
There was one person who could still fill that hole.
"So, loverboy," Millie ran a hand along his horns, drawing him up close enough that he could feel her breath on his neck, "Wanna show me how y'all fuck up there in Heaven?"
"We, uh, kinda don't," Moxxie admitted, "It goes against the virtues of Chastity and-"
"In that case, why don't I show you how we fuck in Hell?" Millie licked her lips and Moxxie was certain that a rumbling sound was coming from somewhere deep in her chest. She was purring.
Blitz came up alongside and wrapped an arm around the two of them, inserting himself between the lovebirds. His teeth were the same yellow as his eyes and Moxxie wondered if demons had toothpaste. He sure hoped so.
"So, Moxxie, was it? You did some pretty fine shooting back there. Almost got me a couple times, ya lil fucker. How would you like to work for me?"
"W-work for you?" Moxxie said, taken aback.
"Yeah, sure! IMP is always looking for promising new assassins, and you've shown me you've got some serious chops. If you think you can pull the trigger on humans instead of trying to save their miserable lives, we have a spot open for you."
The idea didn't repulse him as much as it would have before, but neither was he ready to say yes. He had taken a life, it was true, but the idea of killing humans for a living, murdering in exchange for money, still seemed like a leap too far. But if he was going to spend the rest of his life in Hell, he was going to need a job of some sort… And this one had a perk in the form of a psychotic murder-sex machine named Mildred.
"I'll think about it," Moxxie told him, and Blitz laughed and slapped him on the back and then broke away to grab a souvenir or two.
Moxxie and Millie stepped through the portal together, leaving behind Heaven and the Earth and the past.
—----
Three cherubs sat in a holding cell in the fortress of the Holy Inquisition. The cells were precisely ten cubits square and made of pure marble. There was no door and there were no windows. No escape. It was rumored that these holding cells were not in Heaven at all, but located somewhere in between Heaven and Hell, a vast underground limbo full of souls hanging in the balance.
A portal opened in the center of the room, and Inspector Deerie of the Holy Inquisition floated through, her feathery wings flapping wind in the small enclosed space.
"Sooooo, guys, your case has been reviewed by the High Council of the Inquisition, and there's some good news, but there's also a little bad news to go along with it. You know how it is, life is like a box of chocolates," Deerie gave an aw shucks expression. When there was no response from the imprisoned cherubs, she coughed and spoke very quickly, "Anyways. Bad news is you're all being banished from Heaven and forbidden to ever return on pain of, well, pain."
Three cherubs fought and lost a battle against despair. Deerie had to step back suddenly to avoid the splash zone from the waterworks that erupted from Cletus. Keenie clenched and unclenched her fists; Suddenly she slammed a fist into the wall so hard cracks spiderwebbed through the marble. Collin on the other hand, just rocked back and forth in his corner, muttering some childhood prayer to himself.
"Aaaaaanyway, the good news is you guys aren't being fucking executed for your involvement in killing a human being whose survival was *personally mandated by God*, and allowing an angel to defect to Hell. An actual angel! Do you have any idea how rare that is? The last time that happened it sparked the late medieval wars of religion!"
Deerie signalled and two beefy seraphim came through the portal. One grabbed Collin and Cletus by the neck, the other held Keenie in both hands, since she was thrashing and trying to break free, gnashing with her teeth like a deranged she-bitch. She was literally frothing st the mouth, spittle flying as she alternatingly damned Heaven and cursed Moxxie. They took them to the portal that looked down upon the lake of fire.
"You three won't be any more trouble to anyone down there. Maybe you'll even see your traitorous little friend. If you do, tell him to get fucked with a crucifix. Do you have any idea how much paperwork I've got to do because of him? Honestly!" Deerie stalked off, and the cherubs were thrown bodily through the portal, and they plummeted all the way to Hell.
Collin hit a demon's cabbage stand. The produce broke his fall. The proprietor began to freak out only to become Keenie's landing pad, slamming into the ground so hard most of his body became a bloody paste on the lamb's pink skirt.
Cletus landed headfirst in a nearby garbage can. When he pulled his head out, he found that he had horns now. He learned this because one of them had speared a rotten fruit which was now dripping putrid liquid in his eye.
"Guys, guys," Keenie stood up, dusting herself off and wringing blood from her skirt, "If we capture that traitor Moxxie, Deerie will have to let us back into heaven!"
"Let's get that fucker!" Cletus pumped his fist.
"D-damn you, Moxxie," Collin sat among the broken splinters of the cart and the cabbages turned to coleslaw by his fall. Something strange was happening in the little lamb's brain, a transformation not unlike what Moxxie had experienced. There was something harder in his gaze when he looked up. A glint of steel. The suggestion of something wicked and lethal in the eyes of such a cute and cuddly creature was disquieting to his friends. For just a moment the cherubs felt like a prey animal locking eyes with a predator in the moment before the pounce.
"I'm in."