Death's Apprentice

32

My hand rapped against the front door. After an awkward minute passed, I knocked again. The door was yanked open and an angry, annoyed Gabriel stared at me. His eyes quickly softened.

"Ardia? Are you okay?" His eyes flicked from bandage to bandage. "Where's Death?"

Standing outside, I explained what happened with Jacob and how I ended up covered in injuries. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Dad's doing something. He said he'd be back by ten, but he hasn't showed up yet. Oh, uh, do you want to come inside? It's probably really cold right now. The majority wanted winter weather for the next week."

"Thanks." I walked inside. "You know I can't feel temperature right? I mean from you guys I-" Gabriel's arms fastened around me and his wings folded around us. It felt nice, but I eventually had to pull away, not wanting to make it awkward.

"Come on. I know you want to talk to my dad, but if he doesn't come back for a while you're going to get uncomfortable," he said. As he lead me through the halls, his soccer pajamas turned into one of those old timey robes angels are usually depicted in. While we walked, he talked about everything thing and nothing. His wings fluttered the entire time. The hem of his robe dragged on the ground behind him, allowing Perry to hitch a ride. Where Perry came from, I had no idea.

We came across a set of stairs that led up, up until we came out onto the second level. My eyes were wide. From here, you could look over all of Heaven, even over the large walls. The ocean of light had changed for the night. Inky black whirlpools covered it, allowing only small specks of light to glow. Gabriel grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a worn, deeply scarred door. He knocked.

"What do you want, Gabe?" Michael asked, even though the door hadn't opened.

"Can I come in?"

As a response the door swung inward. Gabriel walked in and I followed. Michael sat on his bed, while a girl around my age with short brown hair sat on a chair. A sword rested by her side.

"Did we receive another saint?" she asked. Despite her speaking one of the variants of the celestial language, she had an unmistakable French accent. "Did she die in a coal mine teaching the slaves about Christianity?"

"This is Ardia, she's-"

"Ah, so this is the girl Dad was telling me about."

I turned my head. Sitting in the corner of the room, wearing sandals and a flower crown sat a guy I'd never met before. His eyes, unlike the angels, weren't unnervingly blue and his long hair didn't reflect light either. He stood up and walked over to me.

"It is nice to meet you, Ardia." He kissed my forehead. "I'm Jesus."

"Dude, lay off with the formalities here. She's not a five year old."

"Michael, you may be older than me-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, weren't you the Word that was with Dad?"

Jesus rolled his eyes. "You act like you didn't exist. I'm the youngest out of all of us. Aside from Ardia."

"How old are you guys?" I looked around.

"In terms of biology, I'm twenty-four, Jesus is thirty, Joan's like fifteen or sixteen, Gabriel, well, that really depends on his mood." I raised an eyebrow, and Michael explained. "We don't have a static age. We're fully immortal, we can't be killed, so we choose how old we want to look."

"And we're stuck at the age we died." Joan sighed. "No thanks to you."

"I'm sorry, it's not my fault the Church decided to try you as a witch."