God's Gone AWOL

[3] Bribing Bellhop Boy

The coordinates led to a tall hotel in a large city somewhere in North America. Due to the time difference between there and Micaiah's house, it was still dark when they arrived. However, thanks to the sheer size of whatever metropolis this was, the clouds overhead glowed pink with the reflection of a million different human-made lights. Nothing was dark in this kind of place, even at such a late hour. There was a strange artificial beauty to it —the amount of physical light humanity brought to the world.

Under the proud, golden, LED display lights of the hotel entrance, Atticus and Bentley scrutinized their location for quite some time. The hotel was of the pretentious variety: a shining black building that stretched so high into the sky that even Atticus, a creature of the air, got dizzy when he tried to look up at it. The people meandering in and out of the automatic glass doors were all dressed somewhat formally, so it was difficult to tell who was an employee and who was just wealthy. Everything reeked of carpet solution, expensive perfume, and capitalism.

As though checking the building's ID, Bentley lifted the paper containing the coordinates up, then lowered it back down again. Her eyes focused on the hotel.

"Are we sure this is the place? Why would the Prince of Hell be staying at some mortal-made hotel?"

Before Atticus could come up with a reason, they were interrupted by a distant chorus of people screaming. Both Bentley and Atticus were already on guard, turning to face the location from which the horrible sounds were emanating. Instinctively, the angel conjured his blade, but lowered it after only a second. For once, these weren't screams of terror or rage. If anything, they sounded excited or delighted. Similar to the screams of children playing at a birthday party. Atticus raised an eyebrow and tucked the blade away quickly.

The source of the noise was a black SUV trying to pull into the crescent hotel loading zone. Or rather— it was the large crowd of people chasing after the SUV and getting in its way. Most of the people in the crowd were young individuals waving signs and carrying posters, but quite a few of them looked to be with the media; wielding cameras of all different shapes and sizes. They were moving too quickly and chaotically for Atticus to get a good look, but he could pretty much guess what was going on.

It seemed they had a celebrity in their midst.

The SUV pulled up to the curb and immediately several people in suits appeared, either from the entrance to the lobby, or from the car itself. All were marching towards that passenger door with a purpose, like the guards of a royal palace preparing to open the carriage door for a beautiful princess hiding inside. Those valiant soldiers dove headfirst into the crowd, and were surrounded by a sea of squealing fans and paparazzi, pushing and shoving to get closer to whatever idol was trapped in the back seat of the car. Like a hoard of mindless zombies, they pushed forward relentlessly, even as the poor security and staff members tried to push them back.

The whole scene was in chaos. People climbing over each other to get closer, pushing and shoving, pulling and tugging. The person inside the SUV either had to be someone who was extraordinarily talented, or someone who just had extraordinary looks. Either way, someone like this turning up at the exact same time as Atticus and Bentley couldn't be a simple coincidence. So both were on high alert, watching the mayhem with cautious expressions.

Heaven had enough big names that every angel was forced to remember. Few human names were ever great enough to reach the ears of the Heavens. Plus, Atticus wasn't exactly the sort of person who was on top of Earth's current celebrity gossip, so he had to wrack his brain for any mortal celebrities of the modern age. But, suddenly his question was answered for him by someone in the crowd.

"Lucy! Lucy please can I have a selfie!?"

Lucy.

Oh no...