Page 2 of Good Intentions

“I’ve come to request a favor,” Lucifer said quietly. His words echoed through the streets, though none below would hear it. Once, he’d been an Archangel. If Michael was the Father’s right hand, then Lucifer had once been his favored son.

“Why would I need a favor from the Lord of Hell?” I said it a lot more evenly than I felt. Could he see it already? Could he see my doubt? My pain that I couldn’t heal? I tightened my expression. “By my count, the Fallen already owe me enough favors, though who’s counting?”

Gusion smiled brightly at me. “Come on, Raph. A voiced favor from the Devil himself will come in handy one day. If anything, you owe me one.”

I resisted the urge to let out a bitter snort. He didn’t even know. “Fine. What do you need?”

“Help delivering a baby.”

I frowned. “There must be human doctors that can undertake this? Unless you’ve somehow managed to claim one of those firstborns that humans are so fond of promising you?”

Gusion laughed, even as Lucifer shook his head. “I wish they would stop. What would I want with a child in Hell?” He hesitated. “No, it is for a more…delicate matter. Please, old friend.”

I sighed. “Fine.” I could deliver a human child in my sleep. Maybe seeing a life enter the world will heal some of the heavy bruises that so much death left on my soul.

Latching onto their energy, I followed them across the world.

When we appeared in a room filled with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I hesitated. Was I walking into a trap?

When one launched themself at us, Lucifer sighed and froze them all. Then I saw the woman on the bed. Her soul reached toward me, and I knew she was so close to death that it would be mere moments before Azriel appeared.

I halted as her energy wrapped around me. I almost laughed. On the heels of that emotion was such a bitter sense of irony, I could have cried.

The child. She was here. My first regret in a millennia of regrets. Or perhaps, the only truly pure thing I’d ever done. I walked toward her, stroking my hand over her stomach. I’d heard whispers of Uriel’s folly. I had no idea that this is what he’d done. What he’d created.

The life inside her was angelic. The progeny of an Archangel. The sum of so many sins. Yet the child’s energy was so pure, like that of his mother. Neither of them had asked to be born. Both had continued to be wronged by angelkind because of my moment of weakness.

I looked over at Lucifer. Did he know? “You know I can’t do this, Luc. The idea that I would save either of these creatures would be to spit in the face of the Father himself.”

Gusion stepped forward, and I watched the color drain from his face as he took in my patient. His indrawn gasp was the final nail in my coffin. “It can’t be.”

I nodded softly, guilt and pain pulling at my body like a weight. “Yet it is.” His child. The one I stole.

Sending my power deep inside her, I could see the tenuous hold she had on life. I could refuse to intervene. Right the wrong that had plagued me for so long.

Gusion and Lucifer were arguing behind me.

Lucifer stepped up beside me, staring down at the woman like she was a ghost. “It cannot be,” he echoed.

Pain swept over me. The reason they had fallen was right here, in front of them. The child that had split the heavens, carrying another child who would surely split it again. “You see why I cannot help her, Luc. I have already defied the Father once, over another child who should not be.”

“She’s Gusion’s–”

“She’s my daughter,” Gusion said, drawing his sword and lifting it to my throat. “You will save her, Raphael, or I vow that I will slaughter you where you stand. You have stolen her from me once, I refuse to let you do so again. Save her now. Save them.”

I wanted to cry. I wanted to beg him to do it. Anything was better than this torment. “You can’t kill me, Gusion, otherwise I’d happily let you run me through.”

Her life force was weakening, and my power stretched toward her, urging me to heal her. Every day for centuries I’d fought this feeling, between knowing what I was tasked to do, and knowing what should be done. I was being torn in two.

Lucifer turned me toward him, something knowing in his gaze. He knew my torment. He pointed to one of the Horsemen. “That one says that the Archangel Michael already knows of her existence, and that of the child, so you can be sure the Father knows. They did nothing wrong, and have not slighted the Father in any way. There have been no orders about the girl or the child from above. You are free to do what is right this time, old friend.”

I shook my head, because Lucifer had always been compelling. It was how he’d gathered angels to him, who loved him so much that they fell with him. “And how could you know about the orders of heaven, Lucifer Morningstar?”

He smirked at me, and it was an expression I’d seen a million times since the dawn of time. He winked, like we weren’t discussing defying the orders of God himself. “It does not matter how I know, Raph. Just save the girl. You know in your heart that it's the right decision, that sentencing an innocent woman and child to death due to Uriel's abhorrent actions is wrong. It is the Legions of Heaven who have put her in this situation. Right the wrongs of your Brother, Raphael. It is the only righteous choice.” He paused, as if weighing his words. “Let us not pretend that we all don’t know what you do in the Middle East. You are constantly defying the Father’s plan, even if you aren’t using your gifts to do so.”

I froze as he poked at the wound in my heart. He was right. Every day I spent mending those who would have died without my interference was defying Fate and the plan. Why stop now? I sighed, and put my hand on Gusion’s shoulder. An apology, or as close as I could get. “Okay. I shall do this for you, my Fallen brother.”

I stood over the body of the child I’d once saved. We were irrevocably intertwined, me and this child of Angels. This Nephilim. This wasn’t going to be like defying my orders the way I did in war zones. This would be using the power given me by the heavens themselves to defy its plan. But I couldn’t find it in me to care. This was the right thing to do.