43. Pax

T hese people had been my neighbors since Cas found me on the side of the road and brought me home. I’d babysat some of them when they were younger. Some of them had seen me when I was just so messed up and straight from the Coalition. I wasn’t as feral as Benji, but I definitely took some shit out on other people because I couldn’t do a damned thing to the Coalition until now.

They were all good people. Benji and I weren’t the first strays Cas had brought home. Some of them stayed and some of them didn’t, but the entire village came together to get them what they needed.

I already knew they’d do that for everyone we brought back home. We had plenty of empty houses. There were several built just in case someone new moved in or for when kids grew up if they wanted to stay. Everyone knew Benji’s parents had been taken with him, so they were going to make them feel at home.

It was the angels I was worried about. I got why Cas invited them to the party. We needed to get the humans to stop wanting to hurt supernaturals, but the entire supernatural community was currently furious at the angels.

We had every right to be. We all lost a lot. I was around several gods and none of them could restore my eyesight. I was slightly bitter about it, but I didn’t know once we found our center, I could see through their eyes. I could finally watch a movie and yes, I’d happily sit through Gremlins 2 since Benji loved it.

I pulled Cas aside when Benji came back with his parents and all of his shadows and they wanted to fawn over Medusa. I got it. She was amazing, but I needed to talk to Cas.

“Cas, the angels and Yahweh aren’t the average supernatural or god. They live on an entirely different realm that it’s not safe to go back to yet. Unless we do something really stupid, our lifespans are long enough to establish wealth and buy properties. We don’t kick our kids out and disown them for the same idiotic reasons humans do. When they are ready to leave, we set them up.

“None of these people have been here long enough to do any of that. Even if they had all of that back home, there’s no telling what kind of state it’s going to be in. Even if they got currency, they can grab while they are destroying sigils, they can’t exactly use it on this one unless it’s something common like gold. Is this some kind of audition to let them stay here?”

Lucifer had been lurking against the wall. He thought we couldn’t see him and that he was being sneaky, but we both knew he was there. Cas could scent him, and he might be in the shadows, but I could still see his aura. Cas didn’t react because I didn’t. Lucifer was trying to figure out why we invited them, but his intentions weren’t bad.

“Listen, I used to find these people completely insufferable and yeah, I’ve got some daddy issues, but I’ve evolved and apparently, so have they. I happen to have money and properties and so did the other angels who fell with me.

“I can’t speak for the other angels, but I can help them assimilate and give them a place to live. We didn’t have currency back when I lived there. Everything was barter. That might have changed because I’ve been gone a very long time. I have a feeling they are going to be terrible with money because the rest of us were when we first ended up here permanently. Mammon lost all his sheep as soon as he got them multiple times.

“They are also going to have a massive public image problem, which is kind of my thing. People come to me all the fucking time to help them reinvent themselves, but if they are a shitty person who did shitty things, I tell them to get fucked.

“If someone fell on hard times and they need my help to get back on their feet or they have the talent, but not the package, I help them get the package. Quite literally, all those people need to reinvent themselves for various reasons and I can help.”

“Is this one of your deals?” Cas asked. “I’ve heard you don’t work for free.”

“My deals are pretty one sided. The people I’m making them with get a lot out of it and I get a small thing I enjoy. In this case, it’s the right thing to do, but I wouldn’t be mad if you talked me up to Alecto a bit.”

Yeah, I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole. If she didn’t want to be with him, that was her choice. He might have to choose between her and managing Meatball Hellscape because I completely got why she wanted nothing to do Orion Onyx.

But it was a solution. Our group was good at putting together covert rescue missions on the dark web. We didn’t have to worry about public image because Cas didn’t need an excuse to be an amazing person and Benji had one of those faces where he could do whatever the fuck he wanted and everyone loved him, anyway.

Cas held out his hand.

“Best I can do is see if Medusa wants to talk to her sister about you. I’m not getting between sisters, especially when they can scramble your brains if you piss them off.”

Lucifer grabbed Cas’s hand and shook it with a massive grin.

“It’s one of my favorite things about her since she won’t talk to me and let me get to know her.”

Lucifer had it bad, and it was sweet. And it solved a few major problems. But changing supernatural minds about angels was going to be everyone’s job, and we needed to start doing that tonight.