Harut & Marut

Samael.

  Am I even mentioned in the big book? I haven't picked one up in centuries. I'd had interest, for a while, on how my deeds would be interpreted and represented in it. My actions were never that bad, for all I knew. Enoch always said I would go down in history as the Prometheus of Christianity. And I did, in a way.

  Hundreds of translations and re-writtings later, apparently I came out the villan, then I was forgotten. Along the same line, my name had once inspired respect and fear, now people only frowned and asked me how to spell it. The nun from this morning had been an exception. The way she refused to say my name and even tried to make it pass as it's misspelled version, made it very clear.

  She could sense something from me. The same way she felt something from the girl they had so willingly and even eagerly given up for me to look after. If only they knew what I knew.

I chuckled to myself.

Humans are not that bright. It's even more evident to someone like me who has been around for so long. They are like curious, greedy toddlers, destroying anything to get their way. Always fighting for everything over and over again. Even with heavens help , this race was bound to self destruction. They had done it before,  they were about to do it again.

  Anytime now.

Despite that, for some absurd reason, my brother had asked me to keep this girl alive. Ash would always go around doing senseless things just for the heck of it, or just to spite the others. It had been generations since I had such an interesting task. And here I was , willing to do anything in my power to keep this girl alive, whatever it was that threatened her existence. Whatever it was that made my brother interested. I don't usually ask too many questions when I get asked a favor, but this time I would need more info.

  I stood tall as I reached the school's main office and handed a sheet of paper to the secretary.

  "You're Samantha's new tutor?" She questioned.

"Yes, ma'am. "

She went over the information on the document several times before finally saying: "Aren't you a bit young?"

"Young?" I almost laughed, and it didn't go unnoticed by her. I cleared my throat. "Thirty two, ma'am, just turned thirty two last April."

'Give or take a few millennia...' I thought inwardly. 

  She did not seem to be convinced and I found myself silently hoping she wouldn't ask for an I.D. Maybe if I nudge at her mind just a little bit-

  "Yes," she finally said "One of the sisters called to inform you would  be coming. Sign these papers, class is about to be dismissed anyway. Last day of school is on Friday. But grades and report cards are already being delivered. Here. "

  She handed me a dozen pages to sign and squinted at my name. "...Mr... Samuel? Harut? "

I gave her my most charming smile and corrected "Samael."

   •                       •                       •

Twenty minutes, a lot of signing and an avalanche of teenagers later, Samantha and I were making our way towards our new house. She waited until we were well away from the campus before speaking.

  "Soo... New haircut, huh?" She observed nonchalantly.

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling strange now that the locks were shorter. I wasn't used to feeling my neck cold.

  "New town, new look. You think it fits me?" I arched an eyebrow at her.

  "You look like a gangster from the last century." She smirked.

"I'm pretty sure I asked for an undercut. " I frowned. 

   "So, you're my new tutor or sensei or trainer or something? Did you come to tell me I'm special and destined for greatness?"

   I hesitated for a moment until I realized she was being sarcastic.

  "I mean, I'm already an orphan, that's like the benchmark for superheroes." She rambled on. "Are you gonna go like 'yer a wizard , Samantha'? Where's your pink umbrella? "

  "It would be 'witch'. But sorry, no umbrella." I laughed.

  "So just a simple tutor." She sighed dramatically. 

"Yes, you could say that, in a way." I shrugged.

   "I've been in the convent ever since I was a baby, why would I need someone to look after me?"

  "Let's walk, our house isn't far." She frowned, but followed my pace. 

"It's not that you need someone to take care of you." I continued. "But the nun who looked after you left a will, she was in charge of all your legal paper work and-"

  "So she specifically asked for you to come get me ? "

  "Not exactly." I tried to choose my words carefully. " You knew the deal, you could not get out of the convent until the age of twenty one, otherwise you could never dispose of your money or receive the package that was dropped off with you. You will get both those things anyway, without having to stay there. Lets just say your be paying your sentence outside and under my care." I explained.

  "Are we relatives?" She asked.

  "Sort of." I admitted.

  "How? " She pressed.

  "It's kind of complicated, and I am not the right person to tell you the whole story. "

"Don't I have a right to know? " She said angrily. " The only thing mother Odelia would ever say was that I was an only child, that my parents had not been good people and that the only safe place for me to be was the convent."

  "That is correct, mostly. " I nodded .

  "Then how are we related? " She asked, frustrated.

  I ran a hand through my hair unsure of how to even begin to explain something like this to a simple human girl. " It's really complicated, I wouldn't know where to begin , but we'll get there, just give me some time." I offered.

She rolled her eyes. "I have a right to know, whatever it is you and everyone else is hiding , I can handle it. " Her nostrils flared. "Some dude with a creepy name turns up right after my former tutor dies, claiming to be my relative even though I'm not supposed to have any family, claiming to know about me but not willing to let it out. Where were you before? Why now? I don't know, but I'm feeling like I might get kidnapped and end up a sex slave in the Middle East pretty soon."

I chuckled at her dark sense of humor. " Give me a couple of weeks to get settled, then when can talk it out evenly."

  "One week." She countered. "Not a day more." 

  "Sounds fair. " I nodded in agreement. The conversation died out. I'm not good with uncomfortable silences.

"So, Samantha Ravendale" I said slowly "That was an interesting name. Is it ok if I call you Sam?"

  "You're one to talk about interesting names." She scoffed. "And was thinking of calling you Sam." She added, bitting her lip thoughtfully.

  "Well, that could get confusing very fast." I laughed.

   "Well , is Samael Harut even your real name?"

  I turned to her, amused by her insistence to get as much information from me here and now. "You could say, that, yes."

  "Weird," she frowned " You do know what their meanings are, right?"

  'I gave meaning to the names.' I thought to myself, but simply nodded.

  "Samael, the angel of death? " She continued "Even known as Lucifer in some translations of the Bible? " 

  "Things often get mixed up in history. Sometimes men get judged when they're confused for their siblings." I said simply.

  "That's not all." She went on. "Your last name, Harut, if I am to guess it's real, it's mentioned in the Qur'an along with Marut. The two angels sent to test humanity."

"What is their story?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

  "They became jealous of what humans where allowed to do and get away with, claiming that it they, Harut and Marut, had the same free will they'd be able to avoid sin. "

  "And did they? "

  "No. " Samantha twisted her mouth to a side, causing a dimple to form in her cheek. "They eventually fell for the same lust. "

  "Lusts. " I corrected. "but they did not ask for free will, Angels already have free will. What they don't have is the permission to be down here , on Earth. But I'm surprised you know some of these things. "

  She shrugged. " I've always been interested in mythology. Greek, Roman , Catholic, it's all just mythology. Just us humans who have the need to believe in someone bigger than us to thank for success and blame for every failure." 

  "So you don't believe in a God?"

  "I do think there must be something , maybe they did exist. So many legends with the same or similar recurrent characters throughout so many cultures can't be a coincidence. But I'm not attached to a specific faith, if that is what you mean by 'believe in'. "

  "That's quite a philosophy." I said, slightly impressed.

  "It's not a philosophy, it's just my opinion." She said flatly.

   "I'm guessing the sisters did not agree with this 'opinion'?" I 

wondered, curious of how someone raised by nuns could have such a blasphemous view on things. Maybe there was something bad in her after all.

  "None of the nuns were happy with it." She said. " You saw how the were so glad to see me go. They didn't exactly like me. Mother Odelia was the only one who seemed to tolerate me. She raised me and even gave me a last name as if I was her own."

  "Were you fond of her? " I questioned.

  "A little, maybe. I don't know, like I said , she tolerated me. That was all the love I knew growing up. And then she died last night. "

   "And what about the other nuns?" Now it was my turn to press for further information.

  "What about them?"

   "You said they didn't like you, why?"

  "I don't know, really. I mean, I became all sullen and hostile in my early teens, when their rejection finally dawned on me. Before that I swear I tried my best. And nothing hurts more than trying your best and still not being good enough. I was just a kid. So when grew up a little and saw how things were, I became pretty bitter and indifferent. "

  "Sounds fair." I shrugged. "You treat people the same as they treat you."

  "Yeah, " she sighed. "It was a relief to finally get out to highschool. I had been home schooled up to the ninth grade."

  "Got to make any friends?"

  "Not really." She said, straightening her bag strap over her shoulder. "But at least I got to live a little. "

  I could only imagine what 'living a little' would mean to a teenager like her. Luckily I didn't have to find out because she didn't elaborate and we had finally reached the house.

   "Well, this is it." I stopped.

  She came to a halt right beside me in front of the modest white house. The front yard stretched for a couple of feet, carpeted with green grass. A river stone path lead to the small four step stairs, and then a small porch lined with wooden railing.

  "It's nice. " Samantha observed.

  I smiled and tossed her a set of keys I had just fetched out of my pocket.

  "I get my own key? Cool." she looked genuinely surprised.

  I felt something warm in me seeing her smile at such a simple gesture. 

  "Sure, now come on, let's get settled. "

   Inside, the house wasn't that big, but I liked it that way. Modest. Upon entering you could see a nice decent living room to the left, leading to a dining room and then the kitchen. To the right, plain naked wall with only two doors , each leading to one of the bedrooms. The wall of the dinner created a hallway several feet long at the end of which you could see another door , this one leading to a large closet.

  I dropped our bags on one of the couches that adorned the place. The furniture wasn't in its best state , but it came with the house and I preferred it that way instead of having to go buy everything needed to have a house function.

  I slumped down on the couch next to the bags and propped my feet up on the coffee table.

"Pick a room." I offered.

  "The second one, down the hall" she said instantly, apparently having already thought about it.

" Sure, make yourself comfortable. Each room has its own personal bathroom."

  "And how long are we gonna be here?" She asked.

  "Im not really sure yet." I said truthfully.

   "Well... Since it seems like we're gonna be in each other's faces from now on, " she walked slowly a across the room to lean on the windowsill that divided us from the dinner. She looked at me and tapped her nose several times, as if I should mean something.  "How about we talk about the elephant in the room? "

  I frowned, she bit the inside of her lip. "And what elephant would that be? " I asked, truly confused.

  "You're an angel. Where are your wings?"

  Well... Fuck.