Free Plague of Angels by John Patrick Kennedy Page B

corrected Nyx. “I cannot order, compel, or lay hands on those who build His church. He didn’t say anything about anyone else.” She grinned. “The Devil is in the details, Tribunal. I will destroy His Christians, as surely as He stole Paradise from me.”
    “You are my sword,” He said, and love and warmth poured through the words. “You are my weapon on Earth, and with your power we will turn His flock away from Him. Use your strength, use your guile, use your knowledge of human foibles to break their bond with God and to weaken His hold on this world.
    “And when none of His followers remain, when there is no one from here to go to Heaven, then Earth shall fall to Hell, and I shall return, and you and I will set up a Paradise and rule it as King and Queen.”
    “How?” asked Nyx, glowing from the warmth in his words. “How will we create this Paradise?”
    “I will create the Paradise,” said Tribunal. “For it is my power that will make it come into being, and my strength that will hold it for all eternity. But I cannot do it without your help. I cannot create a Paradise on this Earth until God no longer has interest in it. When all His mortal children turn their back on Him, when no more of them come to His realm, only then will He give up on this world, and only then will I be able to recreate it in our image.”
    “What about Hell?” asked Nyx, remembering Lucifer, who was no doubt already scheming, now that she was gone. “Whose will that be?”
    “Yours, of course,” said Tribunal. “No one would dare take it from you. You will be ruler in Hell still, and share rule in Paradise, and God will be forever gone from this place, and we forever gone from Him. The one who threw you from His paradise will have no sway over ours.”
    The thought of being out from under God’s rule sparked a fire inside Nyx. She had been so long from Paradise, and though she claimed no need of it, still part of her wished to be there. To bask in the light of Paradise and to once more feel peace. To laugh with the other Angels, to kiss and frolic: not good, not evil, not innocent, not guilty.
    It had been a long, happy childhood.
    Then she had asked why God made all the decisions, why the Angels could not be trusted to decide their fates for themselves. She could no longer remember when the idea first occurred to her, or why. But it was the idea that sparked a war in Heaven and sent her to Hell.
    Though God still let us roam the earth. Nyx had always wondered at that. It made no sense to deny them Heaven only to give them access to Earth. Maybe that’s part of His punishment, she thought. To let us be part of His lower creations but not the higher ones.
    It wasn’t fair. She was an Angel. And now, she was beloved of God’s son.
    “Be my sword,” said Tribunal. “Let this be the day of your unsheathing, and let you reap a crop of death and destruction that will tear down the followers of God, and build in their place a temple to Nyx and Tribunal. And when all is done, when the followers of God have fallen away, then will you be sheathed again, and take your place by my side. Ruler of Paradise, ruler of Earth, ruler of Hell.
    “Will you be my sword and my Queen? Will you?”
    Nyx found herself shivering at the thought. To be free of God on Earth was one thing, but to no longer serve Him in Hell? For though she was Queen of Hell, she was still God’s servant, sentenced to punish his wicked for all eternity. What if she was free of it? What if there was no longer a need to serve Him? She could be free, and have a place in Paradise and rule at Tribunal’s side. But still… “What if we fail?” she asked. “If your Father decides that He will not abide His bargain, and comes to see what we are doing?”
    “He will not,” said Tribunal. “He does not know I am here, and I have set events in motion to prevent His other Angels from ever arriving on this Earth. There will be no Angels to send Him a message, and surely