22. Medusa

I didn’t know much about what kind of magic the angels had. Lucifer kept that tightly under wraps. He liked being mysterious. Michael had only given us a brief overview. We were going to have to sit down and have a better talk because I knew this was going to come down to a fight.

I had way more senses than I would have before the fates got involved. I had my fury powers, but I still had my snake senses. When the rest of the archangels came in, I instantly knew that Michael and Lucifer were wrong about something major. Ariel, Jophiel, and Gabriel were all women. I could sense that with my snakes.

I could tell with my fury magic that they chose to keep that a secret from everyone because they didn’t want to be treated differently. Things had been different when they were self actualized and they never really had the chance to get better because of the civil war.

Benji and Cas could tell because they were shifters. Pax probably could because of their auras. Dionysus and the rest of my god friends would know and they wouldn’t say a damned thing because it wasn’t their place. There was only one god I was worried about outing them.

“My children, I apologize things ever got to this point. I’m sorry for the secrets you felt the need to keep. You don’t have to go back when we fix this. My particular afterlife is broken. Satan agrees with me. When I’m done here, I intended to put measures in place to try to fix it.”

I appreciated what he said and what he didn’t say. I was guessing Ariel, Jophiel, and Gabriel agreed. His intentions were good, but I wasn’t sure how much he could do about the system. He had no control over it. It was up to the masses to change things and the individual where they ended up. It would take a seriously talented therapist decades to convince someone they didn’t belong in Hell when they thought they did. And convincing the people who self actualized themselves to Heaven when they would have ended up in Hell if the system actually worked the way everyone thought it did? Yeah, those people weren’t going to believe. They had a vested interest in not believing that.

“Thank you,” Gabriel said. “Michael said I was needed to deliver a message. I haven’t done that in a very long time and I’ve never been given one straight from you. What do you want me to say?”

“And I’m sorry for that. If I needed you to deliver a message to this realm, I should have had the courtesy to give it to you in person. In this case, the message should be yours and not mine. I didn’t live through any of this. I’d never presume to tell you what to say or feel about it.”

“You want to change the afterlife, but what about us?” Raphael demanded.

“Well, none of you are technically my children. I didn’t create you and I didn’t sire you. We fell into this role with me as the disapproving Father who controlled your lives. I tried to be what I thought a father was, but I was too controlling. Lucifer rebelled and it hurt. I tried to change things and made it worse.

“It's time for you to be your own people. You might need me to sort this, but you need to figure out who you are without me. You’re all strong, powerful people. Figure out where you want to live and what you want to do. If you want to help me try to fix the afterlife, then do that. If you want to start a dog rescue in the middle of nowhere, you can. There are plenty of winged supernatural creatures. Go marry one and create hybrid babies. Be happy.”

“You’re nothing like I thought you’d be, but in a good way,” Michael said.

“Before Gabriel does their statement, all of you need to read the comments online. Like, seriously, read the room,” Benji said.

Yes, definitely. We needed all the facts. And after we did that, they were telling us everything we needed to know about fighting angels.