God's Gone AWOL

[6] The Flower Field

In the blink of an eye, an entire week had passed.

It really did feel like a blink of an eye when compared to the endless lifetimes of the immortals. A week on Earth, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't very long at all. Since Heaven didn't make any dramatic moves in the war, or show up at Micaiah's door looking for a fight, things were pretty peaceful for a short amount of time.

Most of the days were filled entirely with research: research about Purgatory, the ability to manipulate and potentially destroy souls, plus any information as to why Atticus could harness the power of God Almighty. Even though Reuben hadn't banned them from the Cupboard, the whole group collectively decided not to bother him or Frances while things were still awkward between them. They had lost their treasure trove of books and knowledge, so they were forced to search the globe for information and gather it wherever they could. It was tiring, and it took a while thanks to the targets on everyone's backs. And in the end, there was hardly any information on what any of them were looking for to begin with. So all and all, their search was pretty unfruitful.

They had found a couple of spells that were of interest. The destruction spell of Sodom and Gomorrah looked promising as a candidate for destroying the fragment of God's soul. There were some other powerful destruction spells as well, but most of them were oddly specific to certain things; such as cities with a certain percentage of prostitution per capita or armies with ten thousand men —yes, it had to be men. And Atticus had discovered a type of control spell called the "Leash of Bab" —awful name— which he was considering casting on himself in case his secret got out and Heaven came around asking him to be a weapon. But then he discovered the main array for the spell had to be carved directly onto his eyes. So that idea was quickly tossed out the window and everyone returned to their endless research.

Additionally, there was also the fact that Hazel was still in Hell. Every now and again, Xander would pop back in and assure everything that things were alright. Apparently, Smythe was benevolently working with her to see if she could recreate her control of loose souls that had sparked back in Paris. Although Atticus didn't like the thought of her being trapped in Hell like that, he could at least feel some reassurance knowing that she was being taken care of. It would be quite a headache to explain to Owen if he ever asked where his girlfriend had been for the past week and a half. But as long as she was safe and nobody knew she was descended from a Nephilim yet, things would be alright.

And other than that, things were actually pretty great. Micaiah was very kind and hospitable, constantly offering to help in any way that she could. When Atticus offered to get out of her hair and find another safe-house, she very firmly insisted that they stay, claiming that she could already tell that there wasn't anywhere else they should go. So Atticus, Bentley, Lucifer, and occasionally Hephzibah or Xander were all able to enjoy the oncoming European summer in peace.

If he wasn't reading ancient tomes, scanning the dark web, or testing out ancient magic rituals, Atticus was usually frolicking in nature or helping Micaiah bake more gluten free desserts.

A little ways down the road from Micaiah's stone cottage, Atticus had discovered a wide, open daisy field. Every day, thousands of the little white and yellow flowers would fold open to bask in the fresh light of the sun. Of course, like literally everything in the entire United Kingdom, the daisy field probably legally belonged to one of the local human residents living somewhere nearby. But Atticus wasn't human, so he didn't need to adhere to human property laws. Every day, Atticus would conjure up a violin or a cello or some other form of instrument and wade out in the middle of the field to bless the glow of nature with a prayer of music. Although relaxing and frolicking amidst the flowers didn't exactly help the anti-war effort, it helped him feel at ease —something rarely felt by anyone since Bentley's return.