--Variety--

"From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth."

-Genesis 11:8

Sydney, Australia.

He skipped across rooftops, a blur of delirium to eyes weary from a day of work. Not that many would admit to seeing a man with wings and a face like heaven. Not anymore. Not since the institution of madhouses and sublime psychosis. Oh, how they loved to shun the different!

He stopped for a moment. Admired an opera house. Leliel was right to despise them and theirs. Humanity had ravaged this world. Swarmed over every inch to kill it like a slow plague. And the more advanced they became the worse the devastation grew. Twenty thousand years this planet had survived. In the last two hundred they had crippled and nearly killed it, exploded in population and raped the earth itself for every drop of profit.

God, he thought, kill them soon.

"Get a taste of yourself?" a whiny voice laughed. Lucifer jumped without meaning to, then scowled quite loudly. "You look like you just swallowed a lemon."

"What are you doing here?"

"Snooping," the rat admitted. "I showed up for my weekly racquetball game with Az and couldn't figure out why he had a such a shit-eating grin. Coaxed it out of him that you were back."

"Racquetball?"

"Yeah. Game with two racquets. Bounce this rubber ball against a-"

"Shut up, Gabriel," he snapped. "I know what the game is."

"Hey, hey! You've been gone awhile and back for a whole week." Lucifer glared at his happy face, his sharp, pointed, ugly face. But of course he was a seraph, so he wasn't actually ugly. Damned God. "Thought you might need help catching up."

"I have caught up perfectly well. See how good my English are?"

That made the runt laugh, and despite his irritation made Lucifer as well. Watching his littler body shake, the noise, so familiar, wiped away whatever hatred he wanted to feel. Gabriel was small for an angel, several very visible inches shorter than Lucifer, his brown hair tight and curly. He even seemed thinner and more wiry instead of the natural musculature all his other brethren displayed. The freak.

"How did you not know I was back?"

"You know me. Heaven gets old quick."

"So you have bummed your way around this world for a while. How appropriate." He brushed at his pure white sleeve, thinking it discolored. The clouds were all dank and dark now. "So you are friends with Azazel…"

"Course. Kid's a champ. Eye of the tiger, all that."

"You have gotten more annoying. Congratulations."

"Gotta roll with the times, Luci. Adapt or die. All that philosophical jazz."

"Let me guess," he said with a sly smile. "You drive a Jetta to your nine-to-five white collar job, listening to the weather reports and talk radio on the way. Are enthralled by the threat of terrorism and the ever-changing global market. And pretend to be an enlightened individualist while in reality you are nothing but a deluded drone so confused by the sudden absence of meaning in life that you cling to whatever stability you can find. Am I close?"

"Actually, I still fly to my bar. But otherwise you're spot on."

The seraph sighed, rolled his eyes, wished this little pest would be gone so he could examine that opera house up close.

And that was when he caught it. A scent in the air. A horrible scent, like sulfur and vomit all mixed with excrement.

"So why don't we-"

"Move along, Gabriel."

"Don't bother them."

"I must have misheard," he stated. "Say again."

"I know what you're going to do. Don't do it."

"Why, Gabriel! Are Nephilim not the unholy offspring of our kind and theirs? Did God not send a flood to destroy them all once? Flightless, they could only drown with the maggots!" He laughed. "It seems I only do God's work."

"Murder is never God's work."

"Ha. You never met Elijah, did you?"

"They never did anything to you," Gabriel argued.

"They exist, do they not?" he returned. "Why are you so concerned? Angels are designed to eradicate the half-breeds. We hate them with a racist passion we all embrace. So what created that soft spot in your heart? Bed a girl and get clumsy, Gabriel?"

"You're a dick, Lucifer."

The purer angel disappeared. And with a frustrated sigh the less pure angel did as well. Off to right some wrongs, burn some witches, and do His work no matter the century or complaint.