God had left her behind with the sinners, so she would sin. But, she hit bottom after going on a drunken binge with two men she met at a Catholic sponsored conference on Poverty in the World of Change. She woke up naked in a hotel bathtub. As she hurried to leave, she discovered one of the men was dead from an overdose of barbiturates. Cawood was already struggling with the new realities of dying and the thought of becoming one of the walking dead was too terrifying. And for a time, she was scared straight. For a time, the fear brought her back to her faith.
She took this new passion for life to the lost souls in the streets of the City. They would shuffle out of their despondency long enough to listen to her loving words about God and faith, and while salvation was rare, she spoke the Word of God, and speaking it gave her the strength to remember her vows.
She spent the following years praying with ragtag groups of the lost and homeless, and revived her Bible studies. She worked at mission houses and shelters. Cawood even began to think that the Word held the answer for the Change-a reply to its dark challenge. Trials defined a person’s faith. And understanding the trials became her passion.
While working at a methadone clinic on Level Two she stopped on the street one day to speak to a group of forever-teen addicts who hung around looking for handouts. They’d given her the predictable guff, but she had hope for one of them who had hesitated before walking away. As she bent to retrieve her bag, a man stepped up to her. He was tall, blue-eyed and wore a deeply creased frown on his face. “You have Faith, Sister! Hallelujah!” Then he blushed. “I hope you don’t mind. I overheard what you said to those poor unfortunates.” He continued to blush. “Inspiring.”
“Thank you, sir.” She had studied his demeanor. His head was large, his visage somewhat wasted. “God’s love is the answer.” She gave him a longer glance. “You’ve accepted this, brother?”
“I have, and share the message with all His world. And I shall ever strive to do so. This darkness assails us from the outside and we must not allow it into our hearts. The sun no longer shines on us from above so those of us who remember it must remind our brothers and sisters who have forgotten. For the Light remains!” His thick lips moved expertly around the words.
“Sometimes they only see the clouds that cover it,” she had said, the man’s gaze was open and honest.
“That is why my mission is to building a shining beacon for all the world to see. A Lighthouse of Hope so the storm gripping the world will claim no more of our brothers and sisters on the rocks of despair. We must light the way.” He reached out a hand, and she clasped the warm flesh in hers. “I have seen the passion with which you speak. And you speak while so many are silent. That tells me there is a will to live inside of you, and a will to live is evidence of hope. I need that hope if I am to accomplish what I struggle so long to do alone. Sister, let me tell you of my mission for it comes Heaven sent, and I can carry this only so far alone. I think you will agree that there is but one choice for us.”
And Reverend Stoneworthy had told the sister of his mission. All of it: his fall from grace, the Angel and the Tower. He had already done much work, and the plans for the Tower construction were being drawn. But resistance among the gathered faiths slowed things. With her help he could expedite this mission. So compelling was the light in his eyes, so seductive was the passion of his revelation that Cawood saw this as a penance for all, and so she committed herself to the difficult task ahead.
She dove into the work like a heaven sent shower and scrubbed herself clean with endless meetings and protocol. Together, with the help of like-minded people of God from the four-corners of the earth, they labored to raise the funds to build Archangel Tower, and in its construction-they believed-the introduction to the manifesto for salvation.
And they succeeded. Combining their passion for God had made them unstoppable in their ability to influence and innervate. Gradually, the Tower grew slowly at first, growing in speed with each passing year-as its magnificence was understood. For as the structure grew, so also did its image as a beacon of hope. Stoneworthy’s mission became the mission for all. Within Archangel’s thousands of rooms would be headquarters for the world’s religions. Theologians would be called there to study the Change, to divine its meaning. Archangel Tower reached out to God.
Dark waves of guilt buffeted Cawood’s mind. Rest Your weary ones. Bless Your dying ones. Soothe Your suffering ones. Pity Your afflicted ones.
“Hello?” Juanita’s face moved close; a smile played at the smooth corners of her mouth. “I hate to interrupt.”
“I’m sorry.” Cawood smoothed her hair. “Just thinking.” Damn it, Able.
“Well, you just snuggle in here.” Juanita’s lithe body pressed hot and close. “I’ll try to get your full attention.”
Cawood felt a tingle run through her body from the base of her spine to her breasts. “You’re so sweet.” Her nipples rubbed the Mormon’s. “I’ve just had an idea.”
“What could that be, Sister Cawood?” Juanita’s hands explored her belly. “Oh, dear, I must thank Able. It is pleasant being your distraction.”
And as they embraced, Cawood fled from her lies and her faithlessness. She immersed herself in sin until it felt like drowning.
13 – Employer from Hell
Felon hated the cold. The chill wind that tore at him rode the crest of a Winter rain. The frigid weather system was plowing through the day like a glacier, dire and destructive. Its impact diminished or increased in relation to your location in the City. The City population created heat and certain elevations in the Levels trapped it. The metropolis had its own environment, and it all revolved around humidity and the dispersal of water dropped by incessant rains. The middle Levels were warmest, the upper Levels, ironically, the driest and the lowest, were the coldest. The damp air flowed downhill.
The assassin pulled his overcoat tight around his chest and spat a curse. Of all the sensations, cold was worst. He hated the cold because he couldn’t prepare for it. They could forecast the temperature, but they’d never be able to tell him how cold it would feel. And the Change made it entirely unpredictable. He couldn’t even count on seasons. His business depended on speed and sensation. He couldn’t afford to be constricted by thermal underwear and wool suits. Gloves were out of the question.
Felon clenched and unclenched his bare hands like he was strangling the air. The fingers were numb; but the gripping action moved the blood and kept them supple enough to work the. 9 mm automatic in the large front pocket of his overcoat. He was on his way to meet a Demon. Instead of his client’s luxurious Level Five office, he’d been given instructions to meet in the basement of a six-story parking garage on Level One-which had to be one of the coldest places in the City.
He parked his rental car two floors up, and descended the rest of the way on foot. He’d be an easy target in a car within the cramped confines of a parking garage. A pedestrian couldn’t be parked in and gunned down.
Felon took no chances. His client had exceptional taste, followed the rules of the Unholy Compact, and dealt fairly in the past. But he was a Demon, and by his nature unable to easily accept restrictions. The Unholy Compact was a book of laws that balanced off the equation of the Bible.
Fallen followed the letter of the Compact like jailhouse lawyers, convicts who studied law to force their own release. Knowledge and command of all the loopholes in Cosmic law was a driving force in their Infernal lives.
Demons were ungoverned twists of passion, and subordinate to Fallen for that very reason. They paid lip service to the Compact, but were not bound by it. They adopted affectations of sophistication to counter the perception that they were subordinate. A Demon once explained that they were powerful beings that predated human civilization. They evolved alongside humanity from dim dark beginnings and were around before the Egyptians, the Romans, or the Stone Age Britons invented their complicated religions. Ancient humans actually begged them to play God. The association corrupted them all eventually. The arrival of the One God created a psychological self-destruction felt by all.
This God and his followers called Demons evil, and cast them in the Pit. But something must have happened to the One God, because the Change came and ended their long period of bondage. The Angels had returned, and Fallen walked the earth in little disguise. But the Unholy Compact remained as an ancient agreement that all feared breaking in case that brought the One God’s return.
