Surprise, Exorcise, Vanish Chapter 6

“What’s your name? When did you arrive? How are you liking things?”

“Emily.”

“Do you have a favorite song? Or maybe a favorite color? Ooh, how about your favorite food?”

“Emily.”

“Have you made any friends yet? Oh no, you just got here. But I can help you-”

“Emily!” The High Seraphim’s words cut through to the girl vibrating in front of him, who stopped doing so at the tone her name had been spoken in. The angel that Leo had called Oscar snickered, and a couple of the others were smirking at the young woman’s antics. “Wait until afterward, please.”

“Don’t worry,” Ontos said to the young woman. “We can talk later if you want.”

“Okay! I’m Emily, by the way!” She held out a hand.

Ontos gently shook it. It was hard not to smile in the girl’s presence, what with her radiating joy. He was trying not to think too hard about how he was somehow perceiving emotions and concepts. That was a headache for a later time when he had time to-

No. No, it really didn’t have to be. It was something he could use, here and now. Maybe.

He glanced around the room, at the other seraphim. Besides the radiant star of happiness and joy and half a dozen other positive emotions all but vibrating in place in front of him, he felt a mix of emotions from the rest. Apprehension was readily apparent, followed by touches of wariness and confusion.

Warmth and compassion from Leo. A heady mix of exhaustion, exasperation and irritation from Coffee Cup. Again, he could sympathize with him. The ophanim was utterly unreadable, save for that overarching feeling of venerability. Leo’s raven-haired twin was likewise unreadable. Oscar, as Leo had called him, radiated curiosity and anticipation.

None were strictly identical in their emotional ranges, thus none had identical viewpoints. There were politics there, perhaps some friendly or even sibling rivalries. Most of them wanted to learn about him. Coffee Cup had probably been dragged out of bed for this, possibly literally. Wariness and aloofness, mostly of himself.

Good, that meant they were all smart. It was a good idea to be wary of a retired spook, especially one so recently… cut loose from the Agency as he had been.

One by one, the other angels in the room congregated to the long table at the center, taking seats. Ontos felt a tug on his robe cuff. It was Emily, leading him onwards.

“Come on, you can sit by me.”

Ontos nodded, following the girl. There were thirteen seats at the table, the large one at the head no doubt meant for the towering Sera, and twelve more conventionally sized high-back seats along the sides. Basic arithmetic meant nine of those would be filled, counting himself.

He let Emily lead him to a pair of seats on the right side. He wondered about the rules that dictated where people sat. There were always such rules in these sorts of environments, corporate, governmental or otherwise. Sera was undeniably at the top of the hierarchy. The issue lay with where the rest fell. He already knew where he himself fell; at the bottom.

For a moment, Emily, the angel Leo had called Oscar and the yet unnamed ophanim traded glances, before the latter two sat together on one side. The hierarchy reorganizing at his arrival, it seemed. Ho would have to remember to ask about it at a later point.

“We can sit here,” Emily told him, pointing to the two chairs in the middle on the right. “There’s plenty of seating, but it’s better to sit close to Sera.”

Ontos nodded, sitting down. The chairs were both corporate and regal at once, as if some ancient conclave of kings had gained a fondness for boardroom aesthetics. It was far and away the most comfortable chair he had ever sat in though, far more than the one in his old office back in Virginia.

After a moment, the rest of the others had all sat down as well. To his left, Emily. Across from him, Oscar, who flashed him a toothy smile and gave him a meek wave. To his right and Oscar’s left, four more empty seats. Looking at them, he got the strangest impression of regret. There was a story there, in those vacant seats. He was sure of it.

“Well,” Sera began, “I won’t keep all of you for long, and thus I will keep things brief. I am aware that I have taken some of you away from more pressing concerns, be it your work or otherwise.” Coffee Cup chose that moment to loudly yawn, before stifling it with yet another swig of said cup.

“With that said,” Sera gestured to Ontos himself, and he felt every eye in the room fall onto him, “There is a new face amongst our ranks. This is a rare event, and I would prefer all of us to be together to make proper introductions. Ontos?”

All eyes on him. That was his cue.

Ontos stood from his seat, a breath already drawn and held to speak. “I am Ontos,” he spoke clearly and firmly, giving a short bow as he did. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintances.” He sat back down. Short and brief, no point in waxing at length.

“All right,” Coffee Cup said while moving to stand, “Well, now that that’s done with, I got this vacation to get back to-”

“Gabriel, sit down.”

“Never mind then,” the now-named Gabriel did so. He tried to take another swig from the cup, but it had been emptied on the last. He sighed, the cup glowing and dissolving in golden motes like his own food wrapper had. Sera wasn’t afraid to flex her authority, Ontos gave her that. Considering the… characters present, an authoritative presence seemed mandatory-

He remembered what He had spoken to himself about. He had almost forgotten, as caught up in things as he had been. Funny, He had even mentioned that he might forget. Ontos remembered where he was, why he was here. These people, this… gathering of demigods, they were his-

Ah. That’s the right word.

Companions.

“Moving on, proper introductions. Ontos, you’ve already met Leo and Emily. To my right is Azrael,” she gestured to the raven haired angel sitting to her right, who nodded in his direction. “Azrael manages the Reapers, and his ministry is responsible for shepherding souls from Earth.” 

“To my left, Gabriel,” she gestured next to the now-named and tired looking angel. “He manages Heaven’s Information Ministry.” Gabriel smiled a tired smile at him. He’d definitely been dragged here against his will. He understood all too well.

“To his left, Michael,” the serious angel nodded at him, his expression as stony as ever. “Michael is the Commander of Heaven’s Royal Guard. You’ve already met him.” Ontos spared a moment to wonder what foe would require Heaven to have a standing military presence. Something to ponder about later.

“Next, Galan,” she gestured to the ophanim. “He administers Heaven’s Justice Bureau, which manages legal affairs in Heaven.” Ontos got the impression of a nod from the faceless angel. The idea that Heaven would need police, judges or lawyers almost confounded him. But there were people here, and people never changed.

“You’re acquainted with Leo already,” a gesture towards the Angle sitting on the other side of Emily. “Leo manages our Health Ministry, and is responsible for matters regarding healthcare and physical wellbeing in Heaven.” He hadn’t seen anyone that looked sick, but there was probably more to what Leo did than a doctor.

“Next, Emily,” The girl grinned at the mention of her name. “She doesn’t have a formal office or position, but for now she works alongside me, and helps to entertain the citizens of Heaven.” Either a protege of the head of the table, or merely the newest member that has yet to prove themself.

“And last but not least is Oscar.”

“Hey there, a pleasure to meet you!” Oscar smiled and waved at him from across the table. Ontos suspected he had almost as much optimism as Emily did.

Sera glared at him for his interruption, but just for a moment. “Oscar manages Heaven’s Civil Affairs Ministry. In other words, he helps manage its governance.”

A… bureaucrat? But considering the rest of the people here, their apparent roles, Heaven needing a managed bureaucracy made sense. That was something he could work with.

Ontos smiled and nodded. “Again, a pleasure to make all of your acquaintances.”

“Well now, unless any of you have anything to add while we are all assembled here, I will adjourn this meeting.” No one else spoke, and with that, Sera nodded. “Again, thank you for your attendance today. And Gabriel, enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

On that cue, the others rose from their seats. Ontos did as well, though he wasn’t sure what would come next. Gabriel was obviously in a particular rush. He sleepily waved at Ontos before departing ahead of the others.

“I’ll see you later Onni,” Oscar waved to him, following a couple of the others towards the doors.

What?

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Oscar’s got nicknames for all of us!” Emily explained. “If he’s already got one for you then that’s a really good thing.”

“I see.”

“Ontos, may I speak privately with you?” Sera called to him. It wasn’t a request, despite the phrasing. “Leo, Michael, Emily, you three as well, please accompany me to my private office.”

“Of course,” Leo said. Michael simply nodded, hand ever resting on his sword pommel.

“Don’t worry, we aren’t going far,” Emily’s smile reassured him. Again, Sera took their hands and enveloped them all in her wings. Again, a glow of golden light and they were somewhere else. This time, they were in a richly appointed office of some kind. The decor was similar enough to the conference hall, albeit with less gold and more silver and soft blue.

“The meeting before was a formality,” Sera began to explain. “The rare time when a seraphim joins the fold, we welcome them together.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I certainly do feel welcomed. For the most part, at least.” He could still feel Michael’s dagger-edged glare on him though.

Sera sighed. “Michael, you can relax. Ontos is not a threat to us.”

“He reminds me of-” The seraphim caught himself mid-sentence. It was almost imperceptible, but whatever was left unspoken had made the others flinch ever so.

“I apologize if I made a bad impression.” Ontos said. “That wasn’t my intent.”

“Don’t-” Again, Michael caught himself. “Don’t. You don’t have to. I just…” The angel sighed.

“How about we all sit down?” Leo gestured toward the nearby sofas and armchair. “Get more comfortable at least?”

“Agreed.”

The plush sofa was every bit as comfortable as the office chair had been. Emily plopped down next to him, Leo and Michael across from them. Sera sat down in the oversized armchair in between.

“You look a lot alike.” Leo said.

“Like Sera and Emily?”

“Indeed.”

Ontos shrugged. “I am still getting used to my new appearance. I looked much different, before.”

“He sent you here, didn’t He?”

The intonation of the first word caused eyebrows to raise. The weight that word carried here? Almost impossible to quantify. She knew, then.

Ontos nodded. “He did.”

Leo’s eyes widened, Michael’s jaw went slack. Emily’s smile beamed, and she made a sound that verged beyond human hearing range.

Sera seemed to relax, a smile spreading across her face. “I am glad He’s still here for us then.”

“Lady Sera?”

“He sent you,” Sera began, a hand settling on the smaller woman’s shoulder. “Like he did with Emily, so many years ago now. When Heaven’s source of joy had forsaken it, he brought forth Emily to be a new source.”

Ontos nodded, pretending to understand. Emily did seem to be a veritable font for joy.

“He no doubt believes you could satisfy some need that Heaven has,” Leo spoke. “It’s the most reasonable and logical conclusion.”

“As for what, well there have been… recent events, that have…” The woman faltered, seemingly unsure of what to say.

“In brief Ontos,” Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, “My wayward niece rallied the Sinners of the Pride Ring behind her to repel a series of ongoing exterminations against the residents of Hell, perpetrated by the Exorcists and their now slain leader.”

“Michael-”

The seraphim cut off his superior. “And she was successful, both at stopping the annual culling and at killing said leader of the Exorcists, albeit with the help of my brother. There, Sera,” he glanced at the woman, “I saved you the trouble of stammering through several minutes of exposition.”

“I see,” Ontos said. That explained a few things.

“But do you?” Emily asked. “But Michael left out the part about how the Sinners can be-”

“Emily, Michael, enough,” Sera raised her voice at them. “Please. One thing at a time, I don’t want to overwhelm our newest member, not when he just arrived.”

Leo sighed. Emily looked dejected. Michael crossed his arms, sinking further into the sofa underneath him.

“For an intro into the geopolitics of this place, it’s good enough.”

“You think?” Leo asked.

“I would like to,” Ontos shrugged. “Sera, Leo, you think I have a purpose here?”

The High Seraphim nodded. “Why else would you be here?”

“Well you aren’t wrong. He thought I could do something for you.”

“Wait, you… conversed with Him?” Leo asked.

Ontos nodded. “I did.”

--==--

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” They said, pointing at him. “Do you know how when someone makes a mistake, and then they make more mistakes on top of that mistake, and you just end up with a mess at the end if it?”

“I do.” He had an idea where the conversation was going.

“Well, in brief, one of my seraphim made a mistake. And then more mistakes. And well, I need someone to help me fix matters, and to stop her from making more mistakes.”

“Go on.” He now knew for sure.

“Straight to the point,” They smiled. “Well, in the most basic terms, she made a decision without, how can you say it, all of the relevant information? And because of that decision, things blew up in her face. Well, all of their faces, really.” They rubbed their chin. “I’d have probably laughed if I was someone else, or if it had happened to someone else. But I can’t, not really.”

He himself understood. On more than one occasion he’d been forced to clean up such messes, that wouldn’t have even happened had the one giving the order listened to peer advice or at least been bothered to read an intelligence brief. Or wasn’t a chickenhawk. Or wasn’t psychotically insane.

Messes like how Los Angeles turned out. Messes like that blackened cathedral appearing over Downtown LA, like legions of monsters tearing through the city and slaughtering everyone in their path. A lot of lives could have been saved had a handful of morons not bungled the initial response so spectacularly, hadn’t tried to micromanage good people to their deaths.

“Wow, you might have some deep seated anger issues there,” They noted.

He himself would have sighed if he could. “If I had gotten the chance for a do over? I would have personally killed the President, his psychopath VP, that lunatic that was the Secretary of State and made sure the House Speaker was put in charge. A lot fewer people would have died.”

They tapped their chin before laughing wholeheartedly. “Yeah, that guy was an ass.”

“Which one?”

They just laughed. “Yes.”

“I see. It’s strange how you’re agreeing with me. But I don’t think you want to hear me lament about could haves or should haves though, or my homicidal regrets.”

They nodded, continuing. “Just think of it as going to confession. But anyways, what I was talking about. Honestly, I don’t blame her for messing up, it’s ultimately my fault in the end. I won’t try to ramble on forever, but it all stems from how once upon a time I got angry at someone I held near and dear, and things got out of hand.” He looked despondent, for a moment.

“I think I understand.”

“Maybe. You’re honest, I like that. But for you to have a chance to truly understand? You would need… so much exposition,” They emphasized that last part with outstretched arms. “But basically? I want to give you a chance to do what you’ve, deep down, always wanted to do. And while you’re doing it, make the world a better place like you wished you could.”

“I wanted to retire.”

“Yes, but only after a lifetime of unfulfilled dreams and regrets.”

He thought about it. They had a point.

Once, a long time ago, he’d dreamed about transforming the Agency. It was a pipe dream of course. By the time he’d risen to a place of power in Langley, the Agency had been mired in countless embarrassments and controversies, bogged down in the mire of bureaucracy and special interest groups, and a cemetery’s worth of skeletons in its closet.

Early on, as the specter of Communism loomed and set the course for abiding some of the worst dictators humanity had to offer all in the name of containment, before suspicion from elsewhere on the Beltway had caused the other intelligence agencies to keep the Agency at arm’s length? It could have course corrected. Could have been forged anew.

It was a new millennium when he entered into the deputy directorship. He had done his best, as that specter of Communism faded and gave way to the far more horrifying specter of fundamentalist Islam in all its myriad flavors. By then, as the government ossified and the neocons ran amok, it would have taken an act of God to course correct.

He looked at the being before him. Huh, maybe…

“See, that! Right now, you’re asking ‘what if?’ That’s what you're about, you’re perfect!”

He said nothing for a moment. “So what’s her name?” He asked. “To whom am I your messenger?”

They scratched their chin. “I’d tell you her name, but you wouldn’t remember it after we parted ways here.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’d be here forever if I tried to explain the ontological nature of it. Just think of it as a quirk of this place, how we’re talking, and leave it at that. Don’t worry, you’ll remember the broad strokes, and you’re as clever as they come. Enough to figure out the rest. Fill in the blanks. You get the picture.”

He got the impression that They were being cagey about details. Which one he didn’t want to hazard a guess to. “What can you tell me then?”

They smiled. “I can maybe tell you one name, swing things to use a metaphor. It starts with Adam.”

“Who?”

“The first Adam.”

“Huh.”

“Yes, that Adam. In my absence, he thought it would be a great idea to try and cull sinners down in Hell, in the misguided belief they could or even would rise up against the rest of Creation. He even had Heaven's smiths forge weapons designed to give immortals a final death. That was the status quo for a long time, Him and his merry band murdering to their hearts’ content.”

“But eventually, the Sinners had enough, and they rose up against Adam. He died, at the hands of the daughter of a certain seraphim of mine. Well not quite, it was a regular Sinner that dealt the final blow. But that daughter does get a share of the credit. She faced him in combat, even if she had been outmatched. Funny enough, I like her. Her dad raised her well.”

They sighed. “As well, there’s also that ongoing mess with Adam’s firstborn son and his so-called ‘children’ down on Earth. They’ve been causing a lot of trouble with their squabbling. But don’t worry about that right now, that’s another thing entirely. Funny though, I think you already have an idea of that.”

He nodded. A self-described baron he’d made an acquaintance of had name dropped him. But They were right, it was a topic for another time.

“So, you need someone to fix this before it gets worse. Stop things from getting any more out of control. Do I got that right?”

“Yep,” He smiled, “Got it in one.”

He would have sighed if he could. They needed a fixer. He was more skilled at preventing problems before they occurred, keeping plans on track so to speak. No one really could call themselves skilled at fixing problems after the fact at the Agency. Although to be fair, what the agency considered a problem could vary considerably.

Nevertheless, he steeled himself. “I am going to need things.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already got the hard things covered,” They grinned. “The woman I’ve been speaking of is pretty stubborn, and she’s going to need a message shoved in her face. But don’t worry about that. When you do meet and speak to her, she’ll understand.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.” It was the honest truth. He really wanted to meet the piece of work The Creator themself was wanting him to help.

“She’s actually quite nice once you get to know her. I did leave things in her hands after all. That, and she raised a certain pint-sized seraphim into a simple and honest soul,” he chuckled. “With that out of the way, well, you do you. Just do what comes natural and I think you’ll be fine.”

“Just do what comes natural.”

“You got it.” They snapped their fingers. “Oh, and one more thing. You’re gonna need a new name to get in the front door, literally speaking.”

A new name? “What’s wrong with mine?” He asked, confused.

“It won’t be in the book,” He grinned. “Besides, the old one doesn’t fit you anymore. Trust me, it’ll make sense in due time.”

He himself nodded. Realized in surprise that he could, that he once more possessed a physical form.

In a manner of speaking. He glanced at his hand and arm and startled at the amorphous and fuzzy blur where they should have been. Like a three dimensional version of television static. He could ‘feel’ the limb, but it lacked definition and solidity.

“Don’t worry, Your new body is still a, how can I say it, work in progress? I’d need to use fancy ontological terms to explain what’s going on anyways.”

“Exposition?”

“Oh, oodles of the stuff,” They chuckled. “Well, I’ve run out the clock. It was fun speaking to you. Oh, and be sure to tell the rest of your new companions I said hello. They’ll love knowing I’m still keeping an eye on things back there. Just let them know I’ve been personally dealing with something important and you’ll make their day.”

Companions? “What do you mean by that?”

Somehow, he could feel things begin to fade to white and darken to black simultaneously. “Well that’s the timer. Like I said, you’ll figure it out!”

Things faded to blinding darkness, and for a time he knew nothing else.