Alcohol & Economics - Something Dangerous - Part 3

Uriel was having an absolutely amazing and productive day. Gabriel was off in the Mythical Plain, stalking some half breed girl with unruly red hair, with his soon to be consort following him like she should. Michael was elbow deep in public affairs, holed up in the creator’s office for the past sixteen hours. Uriel had the entire hall to himself. Granted, half of the place was covered in paperwork the other two buried him with, but still. Peace and quiet was always welcome, but absolute silence was even better. Uriel kicked back with a photocopy of file number 734-65 and a mug of sweetened chamomile tea, sighing contently. If he wasn’t bothered, he might just decimate the huge backlog of open cases. As it turned out, he had to violently kick that thought aside when Raphael waltzed into his office unannounced, a reluctant Crypt not too hot on his heels.

“Oh no, don’t you even think about it, Raph. Get Trouble out of my office, I want nothing to do with whatever he’s involved in.”

“What if I tell you that I’m looking for a troublesome case to get him out of Heaven for the long term?” Raphael asked, using Uriel’s desk as a chair. Crypt hovered at the door, just out of earshot and ready to bolt the moment he was dismissed. To say that anything relating to the tribunal building made him nervous was a vast understatement.

“No.”

“I’ll handle the paper work-”

“No.”

“- and getting it approved by Michael and his creator.”

“Alright, fine. Here,” Uriel, a sucker for having his work done for him, thrust two bright red folders into Raphael’s hands. He then proceeded to push his fellow archangel toward the door. “Now out, or I’ll bury you in so much paperwork you won’t be able to see the light of day for a decade!” The door slammed shut behind the two.

“Alright, now to bother Michael and Ra…” Raphael muttered, digging his heel into the gravel walkway.

“They’re in his office,” Crypt supplied. He didn’t understand what Raphael was up to, but if it got him the hell out of Heaven for awhile, he was game. All the white and lack of activity was starting to get on his nerves. Raphael turned toward Michael’s office, only for Crypt to shake his head. “Not Michael’s, Raphael.”

“Whoops, my bad.” Raphael ran his hand through his hair, possibly to force order into his perpetually chaotic hair; Crypt didn’t know or care to venture a guess.

The inner courtyard was unsurprisingly deserted. The only ones there on Sundays were the poor unfortunate academy undergraduates assigned cleaning responsibilities. Crypt looked around, and ventured a guess that they hadn’t gotten that far, or were blowing off their duties in favor of less menial tasks. If angels were allowed to gamble, he’d have put money on the latter.

Raphael, however, seemed hell bent on getting rid of Crypt, as he all but ran toward their maker’s office before coming to a sudden stop. He ran his hand through his hair again, and stood up a little straighter before venturing a light knock. Once, twice, thrice the sound echoed through the eerily silent courtyard, only adding to the pair’s nervous unrest.

Crypt waited, and released a breath he wasn’t aware he had held when there wasn’t an answer. His god must still be upset with him, he concluded, and let out a dejected sigh before stealing one of the red folders from Raphael’s grasp. The archangel glared at him in return, but made no effort to retrieve the file. Crypt put a few meters worth of distance between them, just in case Raphael changed his mind, before settling down against one of the two sun stone obelisks in the courtyard and busting open the file.

At first, nothing struck him as particularly troublesome. Girl, twenty, parents deceased. Then the small details began to sink in, or the lack of them to be precise. Like how the file folder was red, a color reserved for someone directly related to one of the Archangel’s new interests, but there was not confidentiality tape, which was required for most surface-bound cases under twenty-one years of age. The girl was a Guardian herself, though their jobs were hardly similar. She had even graduated from Weather Stone Academy, one of the most difficult mortal guardian academies in the surface world to date. On average, each starting class would see half their starting students dead before graduation. Crypture had never seen a case for someone who had successfully graduated Weather Stone in his 12,000 working years in Heaven.

“This is what Uriel deems a ‘troublesome’ case?” He wondered aloud, shuffling the various sparsely filled pages; no pictures, almost no description, not even a past. There was absolutely nothing usual about this file, and Crypt got the distinct feeling that the other mirrored this one.

“Yes, but these two are special.” Crypt froze at the response to his rhetorical question. He looked up to see his creator, Ra, in all the glory his humanoid form would allow with the head of a falcon. Crypt was awestruck for several moments, as it wasn’t every day that gods socialize with lower beings, before realizing that Ra was waiting for him to spit out words.

“Why is she- why are they special?” He couldn’t help it, Crypt’s curiosity was a horrible thing and he was always thankful that Bastet, the goddess of cats, wasn’t his patron god.

“You can decide that for yourself,” He turned to Raphael, who was deep in a suddenly dropped conversation with Michael. “Raphael, I will grant your request, but on one condition.”

Crypt gulped. His creator couldn’t possibly be thinking…

“Titus must accompany you on this task.” At that very moment, damn was not a satisfying enough word to use in response.