Free Demonic Designs (To Absolve the Fallen) by Aaron Babbitt Page A

his own.   And, like the hawk that you are, you will swoop in to make a catastrophe of his first venture alone.   With any luck, he won’t have any friends around to help him either.”
    “You realize that Jeremiah will kill me when he realizes what happened.”
    Patheus lowered her to the floor.   “It will not be your responsibility to deal with Jeremiah.   There is another who is far more equipped to handle that situation.   Jeremiah thinks Metatron dead, and this will be advantageous to us.   The tides of battle have once again turned.”

    ***

    After eating at a fast food restaurant, Jeremiah took Alex to a car wash, where Alex did, in fact, clean the demon’s car.   Jeremiah watched with faint amusement.   Alex had asked what the demon would do if he simply declined to wash and vacuum out the car.   Jeremiah merely replied that Alex was going to do it one way or another.   The question was: what else would the boy do with Jeremiah in control of his actions?
    “Well?”
    Jeremiah threw his cigarette to the ground and stated, “I suppose it’s good enough.   Though, if I were paying you, you’d be fired.   Let’s go.   We have many things to do.”
    “You’re an asshole,” Alex observed as he climbed into the car.
    Jeremiah also got in the car, started it, and waited a moment before replying, “Because I had you wash my car?   Oh, Alex.   I’m afraid your innocence will be shattered after all.   Never forget this: I am a demon.   And, if the worst thing I do to you, or make you do, is wash my car, consider yourself lucky.”
    With his door shut, Jeremiah cleared his throat.   “Okay,” he began.   “Where were we?   Oh, yes.   I remember.   The prophets and my team were the only ones left to defend Eden against Lucifer.  
    “You may not believe this, but even angels can be intimidated.   You need to understand that Lucifer commanded all angels at one point.   I didn’t have the faintest idea what I would do to combat him.   He knew all of our maneuvers; he’d created most of them.   To make matters worse, I didn’t have the support of the citizens of Eden, only the prophets.   Even they didn’t seem to care what we did, as long as we stayed out of their way.   Actually, I generally assumed that they knew more about what we were doing than we did.   God spoke to them on a regular basis, whereas He only gave us orders.   That’s all we ever were to Him: tools.   You were His pride and joy—ours, too.   We were happy that you had His attention, but it made the situation difficult when we didn’t.
    “But we had faith.   We patrolled the area, ever-vigilant for Lucifer’s minions, but they never came.   The prophets ministered to the people of Eden, and, slowly, many began to follow.   The people were seeing things they couldn’t explain.   In the course of a decade, some had created what would become the first religion, aside from the abomination Lucifer was pushing.   It was strong, too.   It was playing a role in the government of Eden, and the people were pressing for the prophets to actually rule the growing township.   It was not our place to interfere, but we knew that if the prophets were allowed to control Eden, Lucifer would never stand a chance of absorbing it into his twisted schemes.
    “As I said, the prophets were exhibiting powers that we never thought they would be able to master.   Many of those powers have been written about in your holy books, and many of the stories were lost to time.   You are beginning to understand the power of sight, a power that some of them possessed as well.   There were healers.   Some of them could even sway other people in ways of the mind—they understood logic, philosophy, and basic science of course, but we were also seeing telepathy.   And we did what we could to make them appear all the more powerful.
    “There were mortals who feared the prophets, so much so that we had to step in on more than one