Chapter Thirty Two: Sachiel

It was a crazy idea, I know. I had no idea what the repercussions would be, if any. It seemed like both the right and wrong thing to do. I just couldn't shake the core of my identity. I was an angel, a good guy angel, but stuck in the wrong place. I was free from Lord Adremelech and I wanted my last moments as myself to do something good in the world. I felt bad for Wendy. She was tangled up with a whole bunch of Devils and didn't even know it. She didn't deserve it, either. I had seen her file and all she was is a good person-- a super duper good person.

So, I thought saving her life in her very first near death experience was the right thing to do. From reading her paperwork, she drowned in a pool as a very little child. I didn't read all the details. She was in the deep end of the pool and it was the kind of the tragedy that happened every day, all the time.

I stood a moment to take in the scene. It was an unstable place, since it was just her timeline, her memory. It was sometime in the 1980's, and everything in the country-club was well polished, white, and fabricated. The pool was an unnatural, chemical blue and Wendy's flotation device was made of petroleum based neon-colored plastic. I didn't like it here. It felt like a Low Place, somewhere near Hell's vibrations. Nothing here was natural or organic. Even the music was upbeat and made to be consumed. I caught some of the song lyrics:

"I smell like I sound, I'm lost and I'm found

And I'm hungry like the wolf

Strut on a line, it's discord and rhyme

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you"

Everything felt off and strange. However, there wasn't anything natural about time travel and I wasn't particularly good or skilled at it. I was only here because I was granted the access based on the paperwork. I knew I was unable to travel anywhere else. I could feel the invisible boundaries around me, like a big glass dome. I had access to her memories on file and had some limited permissions, but nothing else. Though, I don't think either Lords Azazel or Adremelech had anticipated that I would actually interfere behind their backs and meddle like this.

I stood in the background and made doubly-sure that I couldn't be seen this time. I placed layers and layers of spells of invisibility and camouflage onto my being. I definitely didn't want the risk of being seen. I saw Wendy floating on her plastic raft, her backside facing me. I saw her looking intently at something, but all I could see facing her direction was a wall of green hedges. Yet, she seemed to be talking to something or someone. Even if it was a spirit or a ghost... I should have been able to see.

I could sense she had the usual assortment of fairies around her at a distance. Since she had fairy heritage, it wasn't unusual for her kinfolk to be near, especially as a child. This didn't seem like that. I feared stepping closer in case whatever it was could sense me in some way. But, from what I scanned in her file she should have been alone in the pool. That's what caused the mistake. No adult was around to rescue her the first time.

I drifted across the way, pretending to be a cloud. I knew I couldn't be seen, but I felt that if I focused on truly being nothing, that it would help. As I rounded my way across the pool, I could see what young Wendy was talking to. It was a man, tall and lanky with red hair and a brown suit. He stood on the pool's edge, crouching down to be closer to eye level. Strangely, a small orange floated in the water between them. I could see young Wendy looking up into his face and babbling, as a child would.

I couldn't hear what was being said. She was supposed to be alone, that's what was in the paperwork. Wendy's first near death experience happened in the country-club pool, where she slipped off her plastic raft and drowned. Since no adult was acting responsibly and watching her, it was too late by the time she was found. She moved on into a different timeline and continued her experience as a human, only with a little damage done.

This wasn't what was happening. Someone either meddled with her timeline or her files. It was obvious to me who the culprit was. Lord Azazel, master of time and angel of death, of course! When I squinted and truly focused, I could see the tall, redheaded man in the brown suit was Lord Azazel, just with a transubstantiated body. A fake human suit. It could pass the test at a glance, but if anyone truly scrutinized him, they would take him for a wax manikin or a living sculpture. Transubstantiation bodies have an "uncanny valley" look to them. They never work for long. They aren't 'real.' They are made of meat but they have no history-- no mother or father or signs of use and flaws. There can be other things wrong with them, too. According to the Creator... they are sort of rule-breaking. It always causes issues when a demon makes a flesh suit. In addition, they are expensive. It takes enormous amounts of energy to make it work. Not just any entity could do it. Even I was unsure if I could muster the strength and energy to appear in front of a human with a fully fleshed out person-like body.

So, it seemed it was special that Lord Azazel approached this with a fake human avatar. What was so special about Wendy that he had to fabricate her files and visit her in a person suit? The answer was unfolding right before me.

I gasped. I watched as Lord Azazel kicked the plastic, pink raft out from under Wendy and then reached over to hold her head under water. I wanted to stop him. I wanted to scream out. This was her memories, so I couldn't truly do either. Nothing in the files said he did it. Nothing in the paperwork indicated that Lord Azazel did it himself, on purpose. It was supposed to have been an accident. I watched as bubbles broke over the surface of the water as if that small area had begun to boil. Then, I had to look away.

I kept my gaze averted for only a moment. I couldn't bring myself to look over at her floating in the water. But, I had to. I pulled myself together to see the child Wendy. Lord Azazel didn't stick around. As I looked over again, I watched him open a portal and leave. He didn't lavish in the evil act. He just did it. Lord Azazel was gone. He killed for fun and then left. Like a reptile, he had no empathy at all. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't help it. I had to save her. It was why I was here. Now that he was gone, these precious few seconds were all the chance I had.

Would this make a new timeline, I wondered? In the files, it mentioned something about her entering a new timeline where she was saved by a relative at the last possible second. I hated reading the details of how a human's body died. I just knew she died, so what did it matter? I wished I had studied it closer, I thought as I grabbed her hand and pulled her to the pool's side. She wasn't in there long, I thought. I wanted as little damage done to her psyche as possible. She didn't deserve to be tortured. She didn't deserve to be traumatized. Like Maria, she was a very, very good person. She was a precious thing the Creator had made. There was no one else like her.

What was the point of all this, why did he do it? I had no one to ask but myself. I wasn't even sure if it was worth sharing with Lord Adremelech, but he was the only one I had to tell. I used my gifts to pull the excess water from her lungs. I restored her breath. I knew I barely made it, but I prevented her from dying. There was no need to cross over into the new timeline. There was no need for that damage. Lord Azazel, I knew, just wanted to hurt her.

I brushed my thumb upon her forehead. I wanted to leave a small mark, just for protection. I wanted to be alerted if something like this were to happen again, especially from Lord Azazel. I wanted the mark to be hidden from detection, if anyone were looking. It was a small gift, from my angelic heart to her. Wendy laid upon the concrete at the pool side, wet and unconscious. Soon, her uncle would find her and take her inside. The song continued to sing its poppy, upbeat lyrics through the radio:

"Burning the ground, I break from the crowd

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you

Scent and a sound, I'm lost and I'm found

And I'm hungry like the wolf"

I knew it was time to leave her memory. Since she was unconscious, the memory itself was becoming exceptionally unstable. I found myself glancing back at the pool, pulled in by the very saturated colors. The pool itself was a bright, cerulean blue. Wendy's raft was a florescent pink. Everything in the 1900's looked fabricated and stark. Thus, I noticed an orange bobbing in the contrasting water. I saw it before but wondered where it came from. Did Wendy have it with her as a snack on the raft, I thought? It didn't seem right. It didn't feel like it belonged in the memory. I felt like it was physical proof that Lord Azazel had meddled. Not that anyone asked to prove myself, but I felt an urge to pick it up. It felt like confirmation that it happened.

I reached out for the floating fruit. The walls of the memory were closing in, so I had to be swift. It was a small orange with bright skin, unblemished and perfect. Then, I made my own door to leave. From the corner of my perception, I could see Wendy's family was walking out towards the pool. They would find her fully conscious and unharmed, as if she was never even close to drowning.

A small part of me wanted to wander off. Somewhere outside her memory. I don't know where I'd go, so I didn't. I immediately returned to Lord Adremelech, with some new information in hand. I wasn't going to tell him that I saved her, or that I put a layer of angelic protection over her spirit, but I was going to tell him the truth. I was going to inform Lord Adremelech that Lord Azazel has mysteriously meddled with her.

The second before entering Lord Adremelech's lair filled me with trepidation and dread. I felt like I could choose to be a part of him or just myself-- if only I would just run. But I couldn't. Maybe I didn't want to. I felt like he was right-- it is much easier just to join him than stand alone. I did not understand how Lord Meresin could do it. I did not want to be wholly responsible for the world's ills. Yet here I was, a Devil. Evil. Part of the Satan. I was a fallen angel. The only way out was to have Lord Adremelech take the reins. I didn't want to be a bad guy. So, I held my breath and knocked, informing him that I had returned and fulfilled my mission.

"Come," I heard a booming voice in my head. Lord Adremelech's giant, black gates swung open, allowing me inside. I wasn't sure if to expect a molten lava throne room or a modern, heartless office. Both were perfect expressions of Lord Adremelech. This time I entered a place I had never been to before. It was wall to wall filing cabinets, an endless library of information.

I felt so overwhelmed by the perfect symmetry and endlessness of the room that I nearly fainted. I didn't need to ask what it was. I could feel it. This was the place inside Lord Adremelech that he kept every contract, every deal, he ever made with humans. Lord Adremelech had perfect record of everything. The Devil was in the details, he would say. Unlike Lord Azazel, Lord Adremelech was always specific in his deals. He liked dealing with numbers. He especially got along with the human record system of money. It was like looking inside his brain.

"Sir?" I asked, peering around the place. Each filing cabinet was identical, and every single one was labeled. It seemed he kept family clusters together. It was all so organized. Thousands of years of family linage, trapped under his thumb. People generated money and the money fed into his core system, his energy. I knew this place was feeding into his machine. I was amazed he let me in here. I then realized this would soon be a part of me, too.

"Sachiel," said Lord Adremelech. I jumped. His voice was level to my ear. He appeared beside me, suddenly. His voice was already so broad and loud that it shook me to my core when it was so near. It was as if a massive kettle drum exploded inside my head. "you've returned so soon."

"Because it didn't take me long to find that the paperwork Lord Azazel had given us is falsified. At least, he was leaving things out about Wendy. It seems like there is a lot here," I said as I presented him with the briefcase. "but he's changed things."

"What do you mean?" Lord Adremelech replied, gruff and baffled. He took his human like appearance, with tawny colored skin, a big, broad frame, and scarlet red hair. He also had catty yellow eyes, more feline in presentation than Lord Azazel's serpent eyes. Except this time, he seemed wildly exhausted. Lord Adremelech almost seemed run down, which was unusual in my experience. Maybe there was a reason we were in his file room.

"Well, I went back on Wendy's timeline to her very first near death experience, since I wanted to see who she was from the bottom up. She drowned in a public pool. He left out the fact that he himself was the one who drowned her."

"What?" Lord Adremelech asked flatly. It wasn't that he didn't hear me, it was that he was in such disbelief. Emboldened, I went on. "Look, I brought you evidence," I said as I took the orange from my pocket. Then, I passed it to him.

Lord Adremelech turned the orange over in his hand. I could tell that he was examining it for residual energy. He likely could feel what I felt about the orange-- that it did not belong. It had a strange energy signature.

"This is definitely an artifact from Azazel," Lord Adremelech mused thoughtfully. "well done," he said, lifting his eyes to meet mine. "It almost feels of death, which makes me think of Azrael. I was well aware that working with him might be a trick. He's the trickster brother. I just don't know what to do about it. He's the only one that could ever defeat me. But this... orange unfortunately doesn't give us the workings of his mind."

"So, what do we do then?" I asked, looking around. "What is all this?" I wondered, gesturing to his files. His expression hardened. I almost regretted asking him.

"Everything is destabilizing. The Veil is thinning. The Void is... consuming and opening at an alarming rate. I'm... I'm destabilizing. So I must... I wanted to reinforce it. I had to centralize. And I had to make some cuts. I had to let go. I had to..." Lord Adremelech trailed off, looking wide-eyed and frantic. I knew what he was saying so there was no need to push him. "but at the same time I can't stop consuming. I can't stop growing," he uttered. "I'm... it's like I'm addicted," he admitted quietly. "Whatever I let go I immediately replace and then some. But all of it is killing me. I can't control it."

I reached up and tried to pat his massive arm. His avatar wasn't as detailed and realistic as Lord Azazel's. It was much larger and more decorated. It was more of an exaggeration of what a human looks like. His belly was too big and he stood nearly ten feet tall. His hair was a manufactured red. He decorated his body in gold rings and chains. Yet, all I could see was how small he was. He was overwhelmed. Not a single being could handle the burden of the Devil. Now, the weight of it was collapsing on his shoulders. There he stood as Atlas, alone to hold the load which Lord Azazel left.

"I'm going to see her," he announced boldly.

"Who?" I inquired, blindsided by the change of mood.

"Wendy of course," he grunted, as if annoyed by me. "I believe you and you did an excellent job investigating. I find it difficult to hold my consciousness in those higher vibrational dimensions.

Even Earth wears on me quick and I have to go back to these putrid places. I'm just not made to exist in Heaven anymore, so I accept my fate. I didn't want to waste my energy trying. It's good that I haven't eaten you yet," he grinned weakly, as if genuinely appreciating me.

"What... what are you going to do with Wendy?" I asked, mildly horrified on her behalf. She reminded me so much of Maria. I did not regret saving her life, even if it seemed meaningless. I wanted to hold onto her briefcase and keep it from him. All I could see in her files were things Lord Azazel hadn't falsified: she was a good person that vibrated on a high level. She was an artist and a good mom. She didn't deserve attention from the Devil in an attempt to ruin her life.

"I'm going to see what all the fuss is about," he replied forcefully, as if offended that I asked.