Page 59 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
Slowly, the angel lifted its glorious head and closed its eyes. “Be at ease, mortal. I shall divine the nature of this being you have loosed.” Once again I heard that chorus of voices swell to life, and for a long moment the angel listened to its ineffable music. Then its glowing cerulean eyes snapped open. “Are you fucking crazy?” it demanded.
I hesitated. “Sorry?”
“I asked if you’re fucking crazy.” The angel’s beautiful mouth twisted with incredulity. “You freedThe-One-Who-Hungers?”
“Is that its name? Yay, we learned its name!” I gave Lex an excited look.
“Fuck this,” the angel declared. It flexed its shoulders and a shimmering hint of feathered wings unfolded from its back.
“Oh, I don’t think you can leave yet,” I told it apologetically.
“I knew this was a terrible idea,” Lex growled a heartbeat behind me.
The angel ignored us both. “I’m outta here,” it muttered, legs flexing as it leaped from the earth. Or, rather, as it tried to leap. All it managed was a little bunny hop. Its perfect face looked puzzled.
Wordlessly, I pointed at the iron chain that encircled it.
“You have bound me,” the angel breathed in realization. “YouDARE?” Its outraged cry rang against the walls like a hundred train whistles screaming together.
Lex and I both clapped our hands to our ears. “I’m sorry!” I called out. “I really am! But I don’t have a choice. This thing I freed—I think it’s bad! Like,superbad!”
“No shit!” the angel shouted in a furious chorus.
“But you can do this!” I insisted, hands lowering from my ringing ears. “You’re an angel!”
“I’m anintern! I answer the fucking phones!”
I digested this unwelcome news in silence. “An intern,” I repeated with just a hint of a question.
“Yes,” the glowing being muttered. The fight drained out of its slender form as, shoulders slumped, it stared at the floor. “I’ve been an intern for countless millennia. I can’t go up against an Abomination.”
“Hey,” I said soothingly, “sure you can. I don’t care that you’re an intern. You’ve got this!”
One luminous eye looked up at me. “How do you figure?”
I gestured vaguely in its direction. “I mean…even if you answer the phones, you’re still a celestial being filled with the power of the Almighty or whatever.” Next to me, Lex snorted softly. “You’re not afraid of some lame little Abomination, are you?”
Slowly, the angel lifted its head.
“And hey, a couple of weeks ago I was a lowly data analyst, stuck in a cubicle. But look at me now! Chatting with angels! If I can climb the ol’ corporate ladder, so can you.” Of course, my climbing that ladder had now imperiled the world, but I thought it best not to spell that out. “I believe in you, Sukariel,” I added earnestly.
“Are you shitting me with this?” Lex asked out of the corner of their mouth.
“Just go with it,” I muttered back.
Before us, the angel’s shoulders came back and its chin lifted. An unearthly breeze stirred its long hair as it gazed over our heads with a beautifully determined expression. “Thank you, mortal,” it said, its voice now a hushed and reverent hymn of innumerable tones. “You have reminded me of my true purpose: not to answer the phones, but to bring the light of Heaven to even the darkest of places.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “That’sright.”
“I can do this,” Sukariel declared.
I punched the air. “Yes you can!”
“I candothis!”
“Yes!” I shouted, clapping. When Lex didn’t join in, I nudged them with an elbow and gave them a meaningful glare until, with obvious reluctance, they offered a brief slow clap.
The gaze the angel turned on us was serene once more. “You’re a fucking moron, Colin,” it told me, “and if this chain weren’t here, I’d turn you into a pillar of salt.” That stung a little. “But your stupidity has granted me an opportunity to show my boss that I deserve a promotion,” it went on, “so I suppose I should thank you.”
