Chapter 19
Distant voices. Semi-whispered words he couldn't understand, words he didn't really care about. Above all, in that pitch-black darkness, a persistent but elusive feeling: the vague sensation that something ain't right, although he didn't know exactly why.
Coming out of the dark shadows, he slowly opened his eyes to wake up naked in a bed, covered only with a white sheet, inside an aseptic, luminous white room. Everything around him seemed hazy, confusing and out of focus, and he didn't have a clue of where he was, or how and when he got there. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his blurred vision, assuming he was back in Heaven, somehow, because the celestial, bright whiteness that hurt his eyes would always be a giveaway.
Hearing the distinctive voice of Baron Samedi caused a warm feeling inside, and the odd joy of realization: Death had survived. But, survived what, exactly? Not a clue. He couldn't remember. Moving only his eyes, he looked in the direction of that voice. He spotted the baron at the foot of that bed, talking quietly to The Voice of God, his friend Metatron. Both looked rather exhausted.
"I don't know. I'm not sure that shitty plan will work as well as you say, man," the baron said, always pessimistic and despondent.
"I'm telling you, God had a great idea for a new, rather gentle Hell: reincarnation," Metatron said, also keeping his voice down, but showing his usual enthusiasm for anything concerning The Almighty. "An endless loop of crap on Earth for the misbehaving souls, until they learn. I think is brilliant!"
"Some bastards will never learn. It will be a joke for them."
"If they don't learn, they'll keep reincarnating forever then, suffering the consequences of their acts in each new life through Karma. What can possibly go wrong?"
The Angel of Death snickered at that cocky remark. Anything could go wrong, at any time, and for any reason. It was a Universal Law: if anything can go wrong, eventually, it will.
Death and Metatron looked his way, surprised to see him awake and laughing.
"Az!"
Baron Samedi rushed to kiss the archangel, overwhelming him with his eagerness.
"Jeez, give him a break!" Metatron said, amused by Death's reaction. "He just returned to life from oblivion!"
"What happened? Where am I?" Azrael asked when Death held back a bit and let his mouth free to talk.
"Don't you remember?" Metatron said. Azrael just shook his head. "Oh, boy…"
"Fuck! Maybe we missed some pieces!" the baron said then, acting too anxious, quite on edge. "Are we sure we got them all damn things? How can we be sure? What if…?"
"Stop right there! God said we got all of his essence, each and every particle," Metatron interrupted, trying to reassure and calm him down. "And She is infallible, after all."
Azrael looked at them, in silence, trying to understand, but he was too confused by their words and the whole situation, which didn't make any sense.
"Az, my man, don't you remember how we collided in Hell to blow it apart?" the baron said while gently caressing his face with the back of his gloved hand.
"No, not really. Did we?" Azrael said, frowning. Blowing hell apart? Was that even possible? Then, considering the possibilities of the word "collided", he smiled while stroking the baron's arm. "Was it nice?"
"Yes, it was bloody fantastic, even better than the first time!" the baron said, grinning. "What a way to go!"
"Unfortunately, with that mother-of-all-explosions, you also blew apart into subatomic particles, scattered all over the universe," Metatron explained, "and… you ceased to exist. Like Satan, and all the other fallen angels."
Azrael lifted his ethereal right hand to look at it closely. It looked real enough for him, so… how did he ceased to exist, exactly?Was he a mere hologram now?
"Until now," Metatron added quickly, gently taking that hand to leave it resting back on the bed, tapping it a bit to acknowledge it was real, "because God had us combing each and every corner of the cosmos to find all the infinitesimal iotas of your essence, so She could put you back together, just as you were."
"Michael found the last specks at the Eye of Sauron, but it was a close call. You know those pesky black holes, how they tend to swallow anything that comes within fucking reach, and then is game over… We nearly lost that annoying dude over there! But our ginger Gal got all your pieces in the end, and here you are: looking brand new, but just as you were. Exactly the same."
Samedi lifted the sheets to look underneath, playing close attention to Azrael's middle section.
"Yeap, just as you were," he beamed, satisfied with the result.
ZZZ
"I can't watch this. I just can't," Diego said, standing to leave the viewing room at Cieloflix. "This is worse than torture!"
"I know it's hard," Elena said, stopping him, "but when we watch the living, we can influence a bit on their lives, transmitting them our positive thoughts and guidance into their conscience. For example, I watched how you got tortured in hell many times; it wasn't easy, but I kept sending you my love and positive vibes any chance I had, even if it looked totally hopeless. I want to believe the love I sent helped you to keep going, and that you didn't lose your mind like all the other souls in that horrible place because of that connection."
They had been watching Victoria for a while, witnessing how they cut her gorgeous hair when she arrived at that lunatic asylum, and how they had restrained her to do so against her will, without a hint of compassion, hitting her several times until she gave up. On top of that, watching how sad and lost Felipe looked like, alone at the hacienda de la Vega, wasn't easy either.
"I can't help but feeling responsible for all of this! If it wasn't for me, none of this would be happening!"
"That's not true, Diego," Don Alejandro said. "It's not your fault."
"Father, can't you see you would still be alive if I had not taken on the role of Zorro?"
"Really, Son? Probably Ramón would have killed us both a long time ago if it wasn't for you. Don't forget there was a reason why you created Zorro on the first place: to fight the rampant tyranny and injustice you found at Los Angeles when your returned from Spain."
Diego sat down in front of the screen again. He touched the face he loved so much, that desperate face crying a river in a corner of a dark room full of crazy, scary people, all truly out of their minds. While he did so, he concentrated on sending the now bald Victoria all the love he kept inside, which was a feeling so powerful, it stirred something deep into her soul and made her look at him through the screen, calling his name.
"Diego?"
The screen blew up then, exploding in a thousand pieces. Diego landed heavily on his back, with his hand on fire, burning out in a purple flame.
"Diego!" Don Alejandro cried, rushing to help him. "What have you done?"
"Nothing! Just what mother said: sending Victoria all my love!"
"Oh, my God! This is a first!" Elena said, tapping onto Diego's hand with her skirt to put out the fire.
A blaring alarm went off then in the building, and all the screens went white at once.
"Shit," Diego muttered, looking at the smoke spiralling out of his charred hand. "What in the name of…?"
ZZZ
The little Girl with wild, red hair tiptoed into the room, giggling, and climbed onto the Archangel's bed. A quick glance at Death and Metatron prompted them to make some excuses, leaving the room swiftly to give them some privacy. After they left, the Girl offered her minute hand to help Azrael to sit up, resting on the pillows, and then She handed him a new flower, a strange specimen even more beautiful than the first one.
Azrael took the flower. Encouraged by the Girl, he inhaled its aroma. As the sweet scent hit his nostrils, he suddenly remembered everything, all at once: going to hell with De Soto, the attacks and the hard punishment he had endured from Satan and the other fallen angels, the final explosion, when he ceased to exist, as Metatron put it, and the nothingness that followed. Everything.
It felt like a punch on the face.
Taken aback, Azrael let go of the flower, but the little Girl quickly stretched her arm to catch it before it fell off the bed. Then, while holding onto the flower, God talked in that odd language of squeals, explaining everything, starting by how She had wanted to get rid of Hell for a long time, because it was a disgrace, but She couldn't do it herself because She had given humans free will, and it was only their own fault they had ended up there through their sinning. Besides, all the fallen angels that populated the Inferno had enough time for ages to repent and seek her forgiveness, but they never did such thing, forever getting further away from the Light and Love, and enough was enough; something had to be done. However, there was a unique, fallen angel in Hell who deserved a chance of redemption: Iblis. The Archangel she still loved, who had always been the apple of her eyes until he disappointed her with confrontational disobedience. She had always wanted to forgive him and welcome him back in Heaven, but rules had to be followed, and he could only return once he had knelt before a human. So, giving Azrael a human companion on that dangerous mission in hell served two purposes: finding Diego de la Vega undetected, and making Iblis understand that kneeling in front of a human wasn't a big deal, opening the door to his return to Heaven before he would be blown apart with all the others.
"Wow," Azrael said, amazed. He already knew the role De Soto had played by sneaking into Hell under the radar, because the demons would never monitor for humans trespassing into the Kingdom of Darkness, but he had missed the importance of giving Iblis a chance to redeem himself. Then, it became clear to him The Almighty had never been fallible by mistakenly allowing Diego de la Vega's trip to Hell. That apparent flaw was also part of an elaborated plan. Yes, God definitely had mysterious ways…
Next, She moved onto expressing how much She had trusted him for that mission, and how sorry She was for all the pain he had to endure, culminating with the ultimate sacrifice of giving up on his eternal life. Her kind words put tears in the Archangel's eyes, filled with unconditional love. It had been difficult, a truly titanic task, She said, but everybody in the Celestial Army had done their best, specially Michael, riding the Universe in an unprecedented search to find all his particles so She could put him back together.
"Thank you. Thank you so much my Lady. As always, you did a great job, because I feel fine, reborn, like brand new," Azrael said, looking at his hands again. It wasn't completely true, because he still felt so tired, but then, the Girl took his hands and blew softly onto them, passing on a pure kind of love so intense that knocked him out for a second time, but only for a few seconds. When he came to, he was dressed once again with his simple, peasant clothes, and felt his energy levels totally restored.
She kept talking then as he got out of bed, but soon he had to interrupt her, thinking he had misinterpreted the squeals.
"Excuse me. De la Vega has done what?"
God repeated the words.
"Blimey. We have to do something about it!"
ZZZZZ