The Angel of Death stood silent and statuesque, his gray hood cloaking his face in shadow. He stared at me, his dark eyes glinting in the firelight cast by his burning greatsword. He flared his wings and rose, otherwise motionless, effortlessly covering the foggy battlefield we occupied. My hands tightened around my silver trident.

He dropped altitude abruptly, swinging his enormous, flaming blade over his shoulder and downward, arcing it toward the crown of my head. I dropped back a pace and jerked my own weapon overhead, locking my shoulders and gritting my teeth. He bounced backward in a hail of embers and feathers. I joined him in the air and he swung again, too hard, too wide, far too wide. I ducked effortlessly and jabbed at him, a little too slow; he flapped once, hard, and rose just beyond my reach. He swooped and swung again. I rolled to the right, rose quickly, and shouldered him in the midsection. He grunted and managed to singe my robe, but no more.

“Come on, Gabe,” I breathed, “Less power, more speed. At least make me try, here.”

“Stop moving around,” he growled, divebombing me. I rolled aside and planted a foot in his stomach, blocking his sword easily.

“That thing must be heavy as fuck,” I said.

“No more words.”

“Lou to the throne room please, Lou to the throne room.”

The static crackled away, leaving myself and the Archangel Gabriel hanging in the air, our thunder utterly stolen.

“Shit,” I said.

“Yeah… you were doing alright, too.”

“Alright?” I landed, folding my wings behind me. “Please, Gabe, you had maybe two minutes left in you. You were fucked.”

“I can tell by that burn,” he nodded toward the bottom of my robe.

“Yeah, you kicked my sleepwear’s ass. We’ll pick up where we left off later.”

His sword extinguished as he sheathed it behind him.

I left the arena and crossed Heaven on foot, pushing through the golden gates as I had a hundred times before. I approached the reception desk.

“G’morning, beautiful.”

Pearl smiled at me. “Lucifer. You ready to see him?”

“Ready as I’m getting.”

She pressed the red button and opened the chrome gates, allowing me access to the throne room. Today, the throne room took the form of a dirty little aluminum shack, its only door hanging off its hinges. I walked up and knocked sharply.

“Whodat?” His voice boomed and echoed across infinity.

“Who’d you just call?”

“Who did I know who it was anyway?”

I hesitated. “What?”

“Come on in, you dumb bastard.”

I entered the shack and experienced overwhelming vertigo, which sounds worse than it actually was. The Almighty had a tendency of reshaping time, space, and dimensions to suit his every whim, or to inexplicably try to impress his creations. It annoyed the hell out of me. I fought down nausea as he yanked me through nonexistence and into his realm.

I opened my eyes to find myself sitting cross-legged on the floor of a small, cozy, warm room, the only light emanating from a purple lava lamp placed in the middle of the shag carpet. I sat facing the Lord God, his flowing white beard flecked with Dorito crumbs; to my left was one of his errand boy sycophants, Michael; and to my right sat a naked man I had never seen before.

“Lou! Good to see you, man!” God reached across the lamp and slapped me on the shoulder. “What you been up to?”

“It’s really hard to carry on a conversation with you,” I said, “Knowing that you already know exactly what I’m going to say.”

“Stop buzzkilling and humor me.”

“Sparring with Gabriel.”

“I saw he kicked your ass.”

“What?” I felt my face flush. “He barely even-”

God cut me off with his booming laughter. “I’m just fucking around Lou, Jesus, chill.”

“Who?”

“Shut up and hit this.”

He handed me a brown, burning cylinder. I looked down at it, then back at Him.

“What do you mean? Like… punch it?”

“Don’t be an asshole. You put it in your mouth and suck on it. Smoke goes into… well, here.”

He turned to the naked man and tapped him on the chest. His skin folded back, revealing his functioning internal organs. God pointed at his lungs.

“See, the smoke’ll go through here, then get into the bloodstream and head up north.”

He tapped him on the head and again, both flesh and bone unraveled, revealing his brain.

“Once it gets there, maybe you’ll stop being such a whiny little bitch about everything.”

I frowned, nodded. “Great. Fuck you.”

“Love you too, my child.”

I did as my maker instructed and took a pull of the cylinder. It burnt my throat terribly. I coughed and then handed it off to Michael.

“So who’s this?” I nodded my head toward the naked man.

God looked confused for a moment and then grinned. “Oh, right. Lucifer, Adam. Adam, Lucifer. Get to know each other now, you’re going to wind up being very close friends.” He broke into that fucking laughter again, the I-know-something-you-don’t-know kind that made me want to pitchfork the smugness out of him. I held back.

Adam smiled at me. “Hello!”

“Good to know you.” I turned back to God. “What’s he for?”

“Come on, Lou, you remember I showed you humans. With the doohickeys in the thingamajigs? And the Snickers?”

“Oh!” I nodded. “Fuck! Them, right. Okay. This is the prototype?”

“This is the real deal. I’m shipping him out whenever I get around to it.”

“It’s going to be great,” Michael said, handing God the cylinder. “I can’t wait to see how it pans out.”

“Okay, here’s the rules of this blunt,” the Almighty demanded, “Counter-clockwise, one hit pass.”

I shook my head dismissively. “What’s going on with him, though? What’s his purpose?”

God smiled, his mouth stained orange, his eyes red-rimmed. “Free will.”

I tilted my head. “Free will?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t get it.”

“He gets to choose,” the Lord said, “What he does and how he lives. He can do anything. He can worship however he wishes. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be me. He can think and act however he wishes with complete disregard for his surroundings, since they’re his sandbox to begin with.” He ran his finger down Adam’s face, then grinned at me again. “I’m creating anarchy, Lou.”

“But why?”

“It’s not there.”

He took a hit and handed it to Adam, who had been following the conversation intently. He hit it quickly and passed it to me.

“So let me get this straight,” I began, “You created choirs of angels solely to serve you.”

“Right.”

“No free will. No options. We will do what we we’re told.”

“Right.”

“We’re slaves.”

“… I don’t know if I’d go THAT far,” God said, beginning to play with his fingernails, “But yeah, basically.”

“And so out of the fucking blue, you decide to create an entirely different variety of intelligent creature, this one with no restrictions or barriers whatsoever… creatures you are crafting intentionally to be prone to hedonism and capable of pleasures beyond anything we angels can even conceive…”

“… Mm-hmm…”

“Then giving them free reign over their very own nearly infinite realm and removing any moral restrictions whatsoever… just because you want to see what happens?”

“Yeah, that about sums it up.”

“What about us?” I demanded.

“Are you going to hit that?”

“Damnit, what about us?”

“Who?”

“The angels! Your servants! Do we get freedom? Do we get pleasures of the flesh and our own world?”

“Hmm…” He seemed to consider it for a moment. “… Nah. I need you guys up here. To keep shit running, dig? Although, if you want to bop Pearl as bad as I know you do, I can hook both of you up with the equipment in no time flat. Watch.” He snapped his fingers and I felt a sudden unfamiliar endowment, complete with maladjusted balance.

“No. I mean, well, yeah, that sounds good. But not enough! I mean… we want freedom, God. We want to make our own mistakes, like your fucking… sea monkeys, here.” I waved a hand toward Adam.

“Speak for yourself,” Michael said. “I am more than happy- nay, I am in a state of bliss, honored to merely sit at the side of my creator, and the creator of all we may perceive”

“Shut the fuck up, you kiss-ass,” I barked.

“Hey, don’t you talk to my angel that way,” Our Father Who Art in Heaven ordered. “You got your pecker, go have fun with it. But first, hit that shit.”

I sighed and took a deep drag off the blunt, then passed it to Adam. God hissed suddenly.

“Oh… oh Lou, shit.”

“What?”

“You fucked up the rotation, man.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It was supposed to go to Michael.”

“Man, fuck Michael.”

“I’m sorry Lou,” God said sadly, “But you have to go.”

“Go where?”

“Consider your wish granted, hombre.”

I hurtled through oblivion again, who knows for how long.

When I came to, I wasn’t on clouds. In fact, it wasn’t anything even remotely like clouds. It was hard, packed earth, with stones and stalagmites placed at seemingly random. It was cold and dark and quiet.

I looked around at the blackness, at the emptiness, then up toward the sky. Or rather, the ceiling. I was in a giant cavern.

I drew my weapon, feeling a distinct power pumping in my veins, an unfamiliar strength that I have to admit, I immediately enjoyed. I tested it.

Fire burst from the tip of my trident and landed on the ground, washing the cave in flickering red light. It’s silver sheen paled and faded to deep ebony. I shot more flame around, then tried something a little harder.

From ethereal nothingness, I created beings. Creatures. Just like God had, the bastard. They were fidgety, spindly little imps, all bone and horn and dripping eyeball, but they would do the job. I set them to work building the fortress, then sat on a stone and looked back at the ceiling.

I got what I wanted, and could create everything else I’d want.

Except Pearl.

“All things in time,” I said to one of the imps, my smile splitting wider. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I grinned. My halo shattered and vanished, two shards lodging painlessly in my temples. I was beyond noticing. My brain was buzzing. I’d get back there. I’d get Pearl, I’d slap the shit out of Michael, and I’d finally fucking overtake that gutless stoner weasel who “fulfilled my request” by trapping me in a cave, cut off from all I knew, alone. Although, admittedly, I wasn’t as upset about that in practice as I felt I should be, just on principle.

I sat back and watched the imps begin their construction, planning. I nodded to the one closest to me and called him over to make my declaration heard.

“This is only the beginning.”