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The Devil May Care

Part 30

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

Some time had passed since he and Michaela had escaped from Heaven, and so far, there hadn't been any pursuit. Jesus didn't know if that meant that there would be none - something that he very much doubted - or if it meant that his father was looking somewhere else, or if they were just biding their time up there until the moment was right. For the moment, he didn't care all that much. For the first time in almost two thousand years, he was free from the cage of Heaven, and once more, he could do as he pleased.

The first thing that he had done when he reached the world below was to stand on the nearest church - at midnight, of course, as it would have been a horrible idea to try and say this during the day - and call out at the top of his voice "God sucks!"

When the lightning hadn't come raining down on him, he had continued 'cursing' his father, the tiger letting loose what a little bit of venom had turned into over almost two thousand years. It ended up being almost an hour-long diatribe that was cut short only when the puma archangel had reached up and pulled him further back from the cross that he had been leaning on, keeping him out of sight of the different police officers that had come to check out the disturbance that people had been calling in about.

Then, and only then, did Jesus feel better about himself. The element that he had not considered before, the utter defiance of his father that was required to get into Hell, had finally been done.

In the days that had passed since then, he and the archangel Michaela had settled into one of the larger towns in Mexico. It wasn't big and powerful, the way that the capital was, but it was out of the way enough that they didn't have to deal with some of the gangs that wandered through some of the other parts of the country. Cartels were a thing, and while they were still empowered by their Virtues, that didn't mean that they wanted to use them too often. Michaela, in particular, didn't want to go through the process of using their power, running, and setting off a continuous chase for their souls.

Jesus didn't think it would have gone that badly, but Michaela was the more experienced operator on the mortal plane, and he was going to bow to that experience for now.

Of course, living on their own in the mortal world was going to be expensive, and that meant that they needed to do something to be able to afford living space, food, and...well, everything. And with Michaela being the more abrasive of the two, that meant that Jesus had to step in.

He never knew that, on this day, he would finally find his true calling.

"Order up!" he called out, his words twisting with the power of a single, small spell to the local language. Charity, it seemed, was quite good for finding a way to make itself known. The tiger ran around from the kitchen to the waiter side of things, grabbing the plate and carrying it to the proper table.

The customers, ranging from foxes to jackals, nodded their thanks as he brought well-sauced plates to them, the harsh-sweet smell of pork mixing with the chilies and spices that were sprawled through the plates. He loved the smell, and he was grateful that he had the chance to enjoy the scent day in and day out.

Of course, he was cheating just a bit, but that was fine. As long as the -

"Jesus!"

Of course, that was said in the local way, too, with an 'h' at the beginning rather than a 'J', but he was fine with that. One more way of hiding. The tiger ran to the order window again, nodding at the boss, the chef, the -

Oh, the rather angry chef.

Oh.

"Get that fucking plate back and bring it over. You know you're not the cook."

"But it's just an -"

"Get it back before they taste it, boy. Now!"

The tiger did as he was told, running back to the table. He managed to swoop down, getting both plates before either of the pair waiting could have taken a bite.

"My apologies. I should have brought something different. My boss, he is terrified that I might have gotten it wrong."

"Ha! Clumsy boy."

The customers were fine with the error, as they always were. He carried an air of the Virtues around him, and he found that it made people rather happy with him. Even the angry chef would be happy enough in a few minutes. He walked back to the window, passing the plates back, and the mole in charge threw them in the trash.

"How many times, Jesus? How many times?"

"Oh, a few dozen."

"You aren't the cook, so stop trying to be."

"They're just ideas, my friend."

"Ideas that'll get you fired."

"Fine, fine. The plates?"

They were passed through, differently sauced, not as hot, and probably a little bit sweeter than he had made them. The tiger made a mental note of that and carried them back to the table, eager to get the food out and make people happy.

Most of his fellow servers were less than happy about the job, always complaining about the low pay, about the way that they were treated, about the fact that the chef was a tyrant - which he was, to everyone else - and that the place was a dump. All of those things were, of course, true, but that didn't mean that they bothered him to the same degree. As a matter of fact, Jesus was happier here than he had ever been in Heaven.

Well, except for one time in Heaven. Long ago, before things went to Hell.

He shook his head, grabbing another order and taking it to another table. He made another mental note of the food, how it was different to how he would have cooked it, and started to think that maybe he should invest in a notebook of his own, something that would make it easier to keep all these notes straight. He was bad at that, he knew, and he would only get it mixed up further if he didn't do something, but -

"Order up!"

It was quick work, and he needed to stay on his feet. He ran to the kitchen, and just as much, ran away from the old memories.

#

The day was over soon enough, and he left the restaurant on his own two feet rather on bike, scooter, or car. There was no point in getting a vehicle just yet. He and Michaela lived pretty close, so it was easier to avoid another bill and just stay in walking distance. He carried some of the leftovers in a bag, and stopped at a stall to pick up some chilies and peppers on the way back.

Just as he expected, as soon as he opened the door to the low house, he heard the sound of television. The loud, bouncy music that they had both been startled by was something that he had become accustomed to surprisingly quickly, and these days, he rather loved it.

His hips were swaying as he walked through the door, and he was humming along to the beat in short order as he walked into the kitchen.

"Anything good today?" he asked.

"Nothing yet."

"You watched anything but that show?"

"Telenovela, Jesus, telenovela!" she corrected him, shaking her head from where she sat on the couch. "Just get it right."

"I'll focus on getting the cooking right first."

"...Better plan."

"That's what I thought."

The tiger laughed, shaking his head as he started putting the food away. The leftovers would probably feed the puma before they fed him, but that was fine. He liked going through the different ingredients and trying to cook the things that he saw, and Michaela tended to studiously avoid those. She tended to prefer the real cooking, as she saw it, rather than the stuff that he did in imitation of it.

And to be fair, she was probably taking the safer route. His food was...not that great. Not yet.

The tiger hummed as he put the chilies and spices down on the counter, pulling out a hunk of pork. It was hard to get used to the fact that he was eating pig after all that time that God had been preaching against it, but he couldn't get over the fact that it was so surprisingly good. Once he got over the fact that eating it alone was something of a rule breaker, he found it hard to think of eating much else.

Then again, down here in Mexico, it was easier to play up the pork food. Chickens were the other common meat, and they were more expensive down here. Pork was just that much easier to get.

He started cutting it into chunks, thinking that a few bits of shredded pork tacos would be nice, maybe mixed into some rough salads? That might be tasty, though the greens were looking a bit wilted. Then again, probably best to get them used before they got any worse.

"What are you planning tonight?" Michaela asked.

"Just some food."

"Specifically, please?"

"Nothing that you'll want."

"Thanks for permission on the leftovers."

"You heard from any of your, um, friends?"

The Valkyries, he'd almost said, though he kept that word quiet. That might be enough to get God's attention. Their names were common enough down here that it didn't matter, though his was the more common down here, but saying something like that would draw Heaven's attention faster than anything.

Michaela shook her head.

"They've been quiet. As ordered."

"Good. We don't want them to get hurt."

"Yeah. I know."

"We did...you know...stir things up a lot."

"...I know."

That slight hesitation was all he needed to know that she wasn't as good with herself as she was pretending to be. The whole escape from Heaven had cost many angels their lives, and he knew that she took that personally. Very personally. He sighed; if he could take that guilt from her, he would, but there was a limit even to the power of Christ.

Shaking his head, he stayed in the kitchen, watching her as she watched the TV. He imagined that all the little dramas that came up through the telenovela shows that she watched were a way to keep that reality and that guilt at bay. The more that she could drown herself in the dramatic realities, the better that it was for her when it came to keeping all those deaths and bad thoughts away.

Certainly, after two thousand years where he had little choice but to watch the way that Lucifer had degraded, how the world had changed, he had every reason to understand that sort of guilt.

I could have said something against my father back then, and I didn't. I could have done that one little thing of cruelty, and I could have gone to Hell to be with him. Maybe then, things would have been better. Maybe then...

He shook his head. Whatever had happened in that time, it didn't matter anymore. He didn't have any urge to make his father's lies true in this world. For all the kindness and love that he showed to those that he encountered, he had no interest in becoming the savior that his father had built him up to be.

There was no need to save anyone but Lucifer.

He chopped away at the onions on the counter, ignoring the slight burn that followed as he got them into the pan. His body was not quite mortal, this time. It was sturdier than it would have been in the past, stronger and fortified by the Virtues, but that was the last thing that he had done aside from just oozing with the various Virtues anyway. The translation spell of Charity had been cast on the way down, as had been the stronger body, but that was as far as he had been willing to go, and as far as Michaela had allowed.

No reason to put out a sign saying 'We're here,' as she put it.

Soon, the pork was cooking, and he made his way to the living room. She made room for him on the couch, and the senseless show continued in front of them. He watched it for a few minutes, trying to put it together in his head, but all it seemed to be was more insanity.

"Why do they act like this?"

"It's mortals taken to an extreme," she said.

"And you like that?"

"Mortals live life. I'd like to see what that's like."

"Well, we might as well be mortal, at this point."

"And that is why I'm watching. If you understand the extremes, then you understand the minutia. All you have to do is shrink it down."

"You're always on the job, are you?"

"Someone has to be."

"You're not a General anymore, you know," he said, shaking his head. "And mortals aren't our enemies."

"No. But demons are, and they'll be..."

"...You can't even say that anymore, can you?"

Michaela shook her head. It was a slight thing, barely there, but she did. They both knew the truth. Heaven was the enemy now, and they would be more likely to find an ally in a demon than an enemy, depending on just who they saw. The way that they had escaped Heaven had made them enemies of God and Gabriel, and likely every other archangel in existence. They didn't know what they were going to do from now on, but they were going to have to do it without guidance and without allies.

At least, for now.

He looked at the TV again, trying to think of how they were going to move forward. Much as a part of him would like to simply die and go to the world below, he knew that it wasn't going to be that easy. Not this time. They had managed to get free, yes, but there was something different. There wasn't that same feeling that he'd gotten from the world when Lucifer had been in charge when he had been put on the cross.

Something had changed in those two thousand years, and he'd missed it. He needed to find out what it was, but that would be nearly impossible without either a Room of Seeing, such as he'd had in Heaven, or the aid of someone down here on earth. One of the mortals that had been practicing the magic of the old world, perhaps, something that had faded, as far as he was aware.

Not gone, as he could feel that power in the air from time to time, but it was never strong enough to lead him to someone that used it. But if they were going to find out what was going on, and he was ever going to find a way to talk to Lucifer, then they were going to have to find someone with that power.

Because something had changed, and he had no idea what it was.

Jesus eventually went back to the kitchen, stirring the meat and adding some seasonings to it. There were a number of different flavors that he could give to the pork, something that fascinated him after being locked in Heaven so long and needing nothing. He could make it taste like something hot, something cold, something salty, something sweet. A hundred different possibilities, narrowed only by their budget.

"By the way, how much do we have in our account at the moment?" Michaela asked.

"Um..."

"...You didn't."

"I might have spent a bit more."

"Jesus...please..."

"It was just a few different spices."

"How many different spices?"

"...A dozen?"

"Jesus..."

"It's just an experiment. I want to see how I can do. And my boss doesn't let me do that at the kitchen."

"You know that this is supposed to be temporary. We're living alright at the moment, but if someone finds us..."

The plan had been to settle in, build resources, and then get to a place where they could start figuring out what they needed to do next. The various Valkyries were supposed to be doing the same, and were, to a greater or lesser degree of success. Most of them were at least pooling a bit of money together, and Jesus was supposed to see to it that it grew by being the best of them, by making people happy enough to donate out of love for him.

And he did that...most of the time. The problem was, he tended to spend it. Ever since discovering the sheer variety of food that had come about in the last two thousand years, he had been eager to experiment with all of it, to see how it could grow, be different, be more interesting than just the random slop that he could get from the different restaurants.

It meant that their account kept draining, too, putting off their departure and any furthering of their plans.

Michaela groaned, rubbing her forehead. Her hand twitched towards the side of the couch, a habitual movement that hadn't stopped or slowed down in the last few days. The sword of war that she had stolen from heaven was under the couch, and she had reached for it more than once in the first night when they heard something outside. It was a weapon that was still full of power down here, something dangerous enough to handle any thief.

For that matter, Jesus was relatively sure that it could handle most mortal armies, if it was fully unleashed. The former General of Heaven had been given great powers and weapons, after all, and she was meant to use them against anything that threatened her, Heaven, or the line of Christ.

At least, that had been the original intention. It was hardly used that way now. It was more of a way to keep the couch propped up.

Jesus sighed.

"I'm sorry. I'll do better this week."

"Is that another lie?"

"..."

"You can do that now, you know," she said, looking over her shoulder. "You might not have noticed, but I have."

"What do you mean?"

"You said that you'd save money."

"I meant it."

"Did you?"

"..."

"You said that you'd do your best. Are you?"

"..."

Michaela shook her head, turning back to the TV screen. The puma's tail twitched back and forth as she watched her shows.

"I'm not that much better. I should be doing something, too, but all I can do is...this."

"You could go out, save people."

"Save them by killing others, and send them down to Hell? No thanks."

"You're a soldier," he said, seizing on the chance to distract himself from his own problems, his own hypocrisies. "You could just protect people."

"I have a sword, Jesus. They have guns."

"And you're an archangel."

"In a mortal body."

"And?"

"And that means I can still be shot to bits. I'm saving my fights for the ones where I'm really needed, not just wanted."

"But if you save people -"

"I'll still be putting bodies in the ground."

Whether it was the guilt from before or something else, she was focused on death far more than she used to be. He knew that she'd carry it for a while, but he hoped that this would stop soon. Both the guilt, and the insight.

He looked down at the pan. The realization that he had been lying wasn't one that sat well with him, he had to admit. He had been trying, he told himself, had been trying very hard, but had he been trying to do the things that he was supposed to be doing?

Had he ever been trying at the things that he was supposed to?

He realized that he was starting to slip down into introspection, something that he had been trying very hard to avoid for the last two thousand years. The first hundred had been full of it, lacking anything else to do, and he had done his best to avoid it then, too. At the start, however, he hadn't had a floor that could function as a Room of Seeing, though, so he ended up looking inside more than he liked.

And what he saw was self-shattering.

Jesus had seen that he had been useless in Heaven, downright useless against anything that his father had done to Lucifer. More than that, though, he had been a figure that walked around and did...nothing. Oh, he might have inspired love. Oh, he might have done things that made the angels happy. Oh, he might have listened to them, but did he do anything to make it better?

Did he care about them?

Or did he just care about Lucifer, his fallen boyfriend?

Even when the Brightest of them had been part of Heaven, when they had been together and living and loving in secret, Jesus had been the one that held back. Not for any good reason, not for any specific set of principles, but because he didn't want to rock the boat. He hadn't done anything in the relationship, either, merely been the person that had talked. Talked. That was all he did. Lucifer had done the work. Lucifer had changed everything, and he had been the one to juts watch.

Watch and fail.

Not a top in the bedroom, not a loving bottom, either. I just let it happen and enjoyed what I got.

He jammed the knife down into the counter, shocking himself and Michaela out of their own thoughts. They stared down at the blade, and then at each other, the surprise writ clear on their face. Jesus shook his head, pulling it free.

"I need to stop thinking about things."

"Watch this. It's pretty brainless."

"I thought you liked the drama?"

"I do. But that doesn't mean it makes a lot of sense."

"Really? Then why watch it?"

"Well, because the lead is just absolutely hilarious. You see, she starts out by being this quiet person, right? But she's already spying on all the other members of her family, judging them, and she's constantly on the verge of a breakdown because of what Amil is thinking of doing, and -"

Jesus smiled despite himself. He didn't have a clue what Michaela was saying, but one thing was for sure. She was a lot more involved in the drama of the telenovelas than she wanted to admit. As he settled in, knowing that the food would burn and not entirely caring, he rested his chin on one hand and let her run wild.

He sat in a restaurant five miles away from the son of God, though he didn't know it at the time. Instead of eating, he looked down at his food, measuring it in his mind. The scales that had been his symbol at one time had long-since become something more along the lines of a mental calculator, something that examined and read and understood.

Of course, the apocalypse was still well off, he could tell. The air didn't have that desperation to it yet, though the raw stink was still quite heavy. It was starting, nudged by the current events, but the divine, infernal, and eldritch had not yet pushed it to the tipping point from which there would be no escape.

However, that just meant that he had more time to enjoy it in the process.

The measuring became boring, and instead, he turned his attention to someone else in the restaurant, someone that was gathering a to-go meal. She looked familiar, and for good reason. He had known her, or rather, been made aware of her.

Beulah...

One of many names of the escaped ones, this one had come to rest not far from where he had come to be. She was soft-looking, a tabby cat of a disguised angel, and one that looked like she was enjoying herself far more than she should. She had gained weight since coming to the world below, and she looked intent on gaining more with the order that she had taken in.

He wondered, on some level, if she and the other self-named Valkyries believed themselves better off in the world below. God had implied that they were certainly less than regretful, less than penitent for their actions. They had not tried to come back, and not one had prayed to their former master for forgiveness.

Perhaps, after this, they might.

The hyena stood from his booth as the tabby cat walked out of the restaurant. As he walked by his plate, it went from full to empty, the very moisture sucked free from the cracks of the plate. The room darkened for a moment as he walked to the door, then became light again as he left it behind.

He followed the cat, leaving behind him more suffering than one might have believed. Those that remained standing as he walked by, rather than bent over and groaning, were quick to run to sate new needs. He ignored them, focused more on the alleys, on the paths that the disguised angel took.

She turned, and so did he, taking the alley before the one that she did. It was a way of throwing him off, he knew, a way of trying to leave him behind and try and double-back on a pathway. Oh, she knew that she was being followed, and why not? He hadn't been subtle. He had no need to be.

He waited at the crossing of the two different alleys, waiting for her to come by. She did, of course. The poor little fool didn't know the first thing about fleeing for her life.

Grabbing her from behind, the hyena held her throat with one hand and her mouth with the other, covering the latter and squeezing the former. He leaned in, whispering in her twitching ears.

"Do you deserve this, I wonder?" he whispered. "Heh...deserve it...As if that matters, in the long run. Some gain what they do not deserve, and some never receive what they always did. It's a world that doesn't care about you, run by a man that cares even less than that. All that matters to him is his power, and that will never change."

"Mmmph? MMMPH?!"

"You don't need to know me, Beulah."

She stiffened against him. He had said her name, and her angelic name, not merely the mortal one that she had taken on. He squeezed that little bit tighter, reminding her that she wasn't going to get free, making it that little bit harder to breathe.

"You can feel it already, can't you? That air that you 'deserve'. It's already fading, isn't it? Your lungs. They're so...hungry..."

He could taste it in her breath, in her stance. She was already gasping for it, shivering as she tried to breathe past the grip that he had on her throat and over her mouth. She couldn't get the air that she needed. Her heart was beating faster, more panicked, making it worse for her.

"Ah, and there...there's the next part...Starving mind...becoming more and more panicked as you can't get the air you need..."

"Mmmph...mmph..."

"Wasting it, getting rid of what little you have left."

She stomped on his foot, but it was so weak that he felt nothing. He chuckled in her ears, giving her a soft lick to the back of the neck. She shivered against him, her body rattling against his. Oh, yes, such a lovely sound, one that was made all the more enjoyable, all the more terrifying for her as it grew louder. She had lost weight in his grip, becoming slender, becoming skinny, wasting away.

"Rattle for me, dear. Rattle away..."

She couldn't even groan against his hand anymore. Everything that she'd had, everything that she'd been was slowly falling away. Her skin was drawn tight to her bones, her muscles wasting as the fat disappeared from her gut. She didn't have the face of an angel any longer, but the face of a drawn wastrel, someone that was slowly breaking down, wasting away, becoming little more than nothing.

He stroked his hand across her throat, slowly loosening his grip, but it did nothing for her air-starved lungs. Her heart was beating less and less regularly, fading, tapping rather than thudding.

"Weakened by hunger..."

"Ah..."

"Lessened by it..."

"...ah..."

"Killed by it."

And she fell, fading as she did. The body of the Valkyrie became as nothing, and she faded into dust. He watched with a smile of pure satisfaction as she disappeared into the ether, not even merely discorporated, but utterly destroyed. There would be no angel to return to Heaven, no soul brought before judgment.

No. She had starved, and now, she was gone.

The hyena adjusted his sleeves, brushing off the dust that clung to his coat before returning to the streets. His smile showed every tooth in his mouth, and he knew that he looked terrifying. That was the intent, after all.

He whistled, and a car came to him, stopping with a horn-honk that faded into a strange, but familiar rhythm.

"Thank you," he said, petting the top of the car before getting in. "To the nearest hotel. I feel strangely famished..."

He smiled all the way, and the people on the street groaned as the car passed, struck by something that they did not understand. It didn't matter if they did or not. He could spread this wherever he went, and he looked forward to seeing the results.

The End

Summary: Jesus and Michaela try to start an average life on earth, and find themselves both affected by their own, more selfish needs. Elsewhere, the angels might be in more danger than they thought.

Tags: no sex, puma, tiger, cat, hyena, pain, death, drama, happiness, cooking, modern fantasy, series,