Souls - XXIV

“Lucifer.”

You probably expected me to be coy, for them to have to torture me a bit before I gave them any information, but I have no allegiance. All I can focus on right now is my daughter and the whites of her eyes, exposed through the slits of her drugged and hazy eyelids. I just want her to be okay.

Michael sits back in a shocked silence. I think he had a script he expected to follow here and I just went off book. He glances to the other men in the room, he’s looking for advice. 

No one offers any.

He stands and claps his hands, “I did not expect that. I guess that explains that whole demon episode.” He paces about the room, looking to the ceiling, his hands on his hips.

“Well fuck, now I don’t know what to do. So you work for him?”

Nodding, I try to formulate my own strategy here.

“It’s a paycheck.”

“Do you know who this belongs to?” He’s holding the soul up, it sparkles through the tube at me.

“Yeah. Christ.”

Michael freezes. “Christ? As in Jesus?”

“You don’t know?”

“I told you, God gives us nothing to work with. In the fucking dark. Sometimes I wonder if I picked the right side. And what are you supposed to do with this?”

“Give it to him.”

“Who, Lucifer?”

“No, Jesus.”

“Wait, you’re telling me Lucifer is paying you to give Christ his soul back?”

“Yep.” I feel myself getting hazy from the drugs. All attempts on a plan, or at anything else seemed very unimportant now. I just want to close my eyes.

He lifts my chin up. “Don’t go to sleep on me now, this is just getting interesting.”

“Let my daughter go.”

“Do you know what happens when Christ has his soul? Hint, I know the answer to this one.”

I think I shake my head, but everything is spinning and going dark. Michael slaps me, my eyes dart open. I see it, he has fear in his eyes.

“No, I just do what I’m told.”

He sits back down in his chair and sighs.

“This is just a goddam mess.” 

I close my eyes. They think I'm gone, unconscious. But I’m not, not yet.

“Well guys, any thoughts here?”

They don’t answer. 

“Didn’t think so. This is a clear case of damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”

I fade away, but not into darkness. I fade higher, I’m lifting from my restraints  and through the roof, through the clouds. 

I am in space. 

A voice calls out, but it uses no words. It calls out in waves of whispers, sounds that are both impossible and melodic. I understand everything. 

I am not what I think I am.

A light flashes in front of my eyes, impossibly bright but soothing and compassionate. It moves down my body, caressing it as it goes. The warmth is orgasmic, I can’t help but moan. 

Then it is gone, it is darkness. A pain rips through my abdomen, pushing downwards and through me. My groin explodes under the pressure, blood, fluid, goo, and a translucent glob floats outwards back towards the Earth. I know that glob, it’s a soul.

I feel love. 

Looking down upon it, floating above that beautiful blue globe of Earth, everything is peace, everything is warmth.

Still smiling, wanting nothing more than to be where I am, I feel myself pulled downward with force. My ankle snaps under the pressure of being yanked suddenly.

I scream, the pain is primordial, untamable, indefinable.  My body rushes to the ground as gravity remembers its mission.

“Wake up.”

I feel the force of my body slamming back into it’s restraints. 

I open my eyes with a gasp. Michael is staring back at me, eyes bulging with the weight of conflict.

“Welcome back, sorry for the psychotropic trip. Looked like a real doozy. But ya have to use the drugs available ya know?”

My eyes are still rolling, trying desperately to find reality.

“Anyway, the boys and I took a vote, and I’m afraid you’re gonna have to die.”