Rose of Sharon

We arrived in the Summerlands at midnight, part of our long journey through Etheric Eurotrip. Arietta ended up drawing a Stalin mustache on Jesus with her mascara – he had shaved in the morning – and Jesus told a long, elaborate sex joke about Jonah fucking the Whale:

"And then, Jonah asked, my Whale Wife, why do you smell like seafood? And the Whale Wife replied: "Haven't you met a woman before?""

"You stole that from Gabriel," Samael muttered.

"I'm pretty sure Gabby doesn't tell lewd Bible jokes," I smiled, looking at the will-o-the-wisps on the moors with wind-shredded, bent over ghost trees that gancanoghs haunted with leanen sidhe. A banshee wept by a river, washing bloody clothes. "That's the bean sidhe! Granna always said the O'Connor's had one, who cried out a wail when Greatgranpa Allister died and gave her mother a heart attack! I'm too hick Irish for this place!"

"It is where the fey live," Samael smirked. "Want to run off to a barrow and haunt it, worm?"

"That's racist, just like all the other stereotypes Hell's supposed 'king' has," Arietta sighed, dotting on mauve lipstick onto her thick brown sugar lips. She closed her camera ringlight, then took a selfie with Yeshua. "Just because Shannon is Irish doesn't mean she's a Good Neighbor."

"She acts as spastic and girly as Maeve," Samael opined. He lit a Marlboro by spitting sparks onto it, rolled down the chilly window, and breathed smoke outside. I coughed.

"I'm a teenager. You don't understand girls much, idiot," I defended myself.

He winced. "I'm good with women. Better than Adam. What kind of Millennial Harry Styles rip-off wears chinos?"

"At least he doesn't wear Boomer Dad Rock ripped tees and mom jeans under his reaping robe," Arietta huffed.

"I'm Gen X!"

"I'm a hippie, transcending time on space on the fruit of the shroom," Jesus said sagely, making moony eyes at the cloudy skies. He yawned, then tapped my shoulder. "Hey, Shana, can you get your man to pull over so we can camp? Nothing like a night in nature! I'll make a skincloth tent for you, Eve, like I did for you and Adam in the Garden."

"Wait, that was you?" I said, aghast.

"Blech," Samael belched. "Get a room. Fine, Pincushion Urchin, we can pull over, there's a spot by the river over there."

"Pincushion Urchin?" Arietta startled. Her gold eyes glistened under a moonbow, and her curling black hair twisted as wolf ears poked from her face. "I should seriously report you to dad. Abusing God and minors."

"Y'know, Jesus is a living pincushion, with the nails/pins, and somehow, he overthrows every table in the Temple, has tantrum fits at fig trees, and kills my legions by driving them into seabound pigs. Bitch man never gave me a refund on my militia I sent to tempt him, or gave me a payback on my man Simon Magus. Stupid bellboy Pete the Cheat," Samael grinded through his molars. He pulled into a grove of lavender and we set up a skincloth camp, with Jesus materializing sacred, fleshy tarp from his back pocket. Samael and I shared a tent, and Arietta and Jesus shared another – hopefully, as friends. Or maybe he fancied wereladies.

Samael sat us in his tent, pulling out sleeping beds and blankets and pillows from the Yugo trunk that Jesus had packed. He fluffed my pillow then pulled me into our joint sleeping bed. His body was warm, and he cuddled me, stroking my hair to the small of my back with long, muscled, guitarist fingers, making sure his talons were delicate and drew no blood. I sighed, melding with his chest – he smelled of banana sunscreen.

"Sam, I thought you were trying to tan?"

"I gave up. I'm a ghost. Woo. Woo. Woo."

I laughed to high hell, then rolled so we were frontward spooning. He dwarfed my five foot nothing frame, nearly seven feet, and he wrapped his legs around me. "You are haunting me, yes."

He held me to his chest. "You haunt me throughout time and space, Chavah, Shana. I'm so glad we get this life together."

"Samael, who exactly is the Shekinah?" I asked quietly.

He squeezed me, then played with my midriff, blue eyes starry, tendrils of his robe lacing around me like black midnight satin. "Asherah, the Mother Tree. What the menorah represents. The Tree of Life, whose roots I tend in the Cave of Souls."

"Have you ever… met her?"

He smiled tenderly, his lips grazing my brow. Under the banana sunscreen, oranges and cloves, tobacco smoke, and a spicy musk. "No, only dreamed of her. But… inside of you, it feels like I come close."

I shuddered. Then began to cry.

"Shannon, Shannon, what's wrong?" he whispered fiercely. "I'll slaughter whatever scares you. Is it that dick Christ with his tents of dandruff?"

"No, I… I think I had some sort of horrible dream… of Lucifer and Michael. Samael, what happened to Michael?"

"You know how I'm a snake?" he pried gently.

"Well, yeah, the Nachash."

"Michael has a beast form like me, the Lion of Judah. When we caused the war between Heaven and Hell… YHWH cursed us. They say "true love's kiss," will break the curse, but Michael has no time for women, and you are the closest thing to the Shekinah I have, but like Judas, I am damned for all time."

"That's a Jesus Christ Superstar quote."

"Have to say I love the sixties. It's when I grew out my hair." He winked an icy eye at me, then nuzzled my neck. I shivered in delight.

"Can anybody fix you guys?"

"YHWH. But he's… something else. Maybe a golem, Emet."

"Truth in Hebrew?"

"The Divine Child. Christ, quite literally, if I know."

I fell into a fitful sleep, and Samael whispered in my ear: "I promise I'll save Michael, my Rose of Sharon. I'll save the world for you."