God's Gone AWOL

[4] Salamander Sculpture

It was the late evening in Paris. The sun was already down and the streetlights were starting to flash on one by one, guiding the ways of the last few little cars beetling home from each of their owners' average eight-hour workdays. From somewhere in the sea of buildings came a lonesome wail of a siren, but other than that, the city seemed rather dull in it's pre-bedtime state. Nothing really exciting was happening.

Inside the Cupboard, it was mostly the same. Not a single customer had stepped inside throughout the duration of the day. This wasn't unusual. Even during the heavier parts of the heavenly war, when resources and information were in heavy demand, the Cupboard only saw about five or six customers a week. The reason for this being: most creatures that wielded magic had little need for simple things such as shops or money. If a demon needed something as simple as a jump-rope or a pack of gum, all they would have to do was wave a hand and any material object would just conjure itself out of thin air.

There were only a couple exceptions to the rules of conjuring: books and specific magical objects. For example, if an angel wanted the Holy Bible, they would need to get their hands on a physical copy, whether by finding it or by copying it down from memory. And it was the same if they wanted something like the special harp that Lucifer used to play during his time in Heaven; they couldn't just pull some random harp out of thin air because it wouldn't be the same. They would either have to summon the thing, or search for it out in the world somewhere.

And THAT was where the Cupboard came into the picture, because collecting random books and oddly specific magical artefacts was precisely its job. However, even with millions of angels and demons crawling across three of the four realms, very few deities of any variety needed much in the way of stuff. But the Cupboard would always remain in business, as it was not human-run, and therefore did not really need to follow the human rules of economics.

However, there was still a lot of paperwork to do. Which is what Frances was working on while Atticus and Bentley were away. Their head was bent low, filling out form after form beneath the warm, flickering candle on the counter.

Meanwhile, Hazel was pacing around the room, trying desperately to come up with some explanation for why she was in France of all places. Owen had just called her in a fit of panic, demanding to know where she was and why she had seemingly evaporated from Atticus' house the night before.

"Your dad's been blowing up my phone for, like, the whole day. he thought I kidnapped you or something!" Owen's voice buzzed through the speaker.

"Oh god, I'm sorry. I should have texted him." Hazel rubbed the space between her eyebrows.

"And where's Atti? Are you with him right now?"

"Atti? No —well yes. He's not here now, but he'll be back I think,"

"Hazel, what's going on? Where are you?"

She wracked her brain for any way to explain what had happened without making herself sound completely crazy. After a long, hesitant pause, she just decided to tell a flat out lie.

"I— ah. Something came up with... my family. Grandma and the church and whatnot. I'll explain when I get home,"

If it had to do with her grandma, wouldn't her dad already know about it? Hazel instantly regretted the lie she made up, but thankfully, Owen had very little capacity for critical thinking so it sailed completely over his head.

In fact, Owen didn't even have the chance to reply because right at that moment, a ringing sound from the door at the top of the stairs announced someone's arrival. Although she couldn't see who it was, Hazel could still see the very pointed look Frances gave her as soon as they heard the sound. Just that one look alone was enough to send chills up Hazel's spine.