"Not to be rude, but what's your deal? The whole Virtue and Sin thing, I mean," I said.

"Oh. Um, normally we share the spotlight and work in harmony. That's Purgy. We become one mind. It allows us, being Virtue and Sin, to assess if souls are ready to ascend to Heaven or not. But sometimes during moments of strong emotion, like when you made us laugh, we fall out of balance, and one takes over," Virtue explained. "Speaking of, are you feeling ok? Do you need water, coffee, a back rub?"

"No, I'm ok thanks," I said.

I supposed that was the virtue side coming out. Offering gestures of kindness, I mean. I could see how—while not being as disruptive as Sin—that could be problematic. Especially when they're trying to be impartial toward souls.

"Actually, on second thought, I will take some coffee," I said. "I feel like I'm in for a long night."

"You are," Keir said. "Especially since you let Judas get away. Hopefully, God can find him and smite him before he does too much damage, but he's a very dangerous character. So who knows?"

"I don't," I said. "And yes, I know that's a rhetorical question. I'll leave Judas to God or Jesus. Despite the danger Judas poses, Cain seems like the bigger problem for now. Speaking of, do you know where he is?"

"Yes, actually, I do. Or rather, I can find out," Keir said.

He went over to the control panel and started working on it. After a few moments, a large red 'C' appeared on the screen. It was somewhere out in the Nevada desert.

"That's Cain?" I asked, pointing at the 'C' icon.

"That's his mark. It acts as a tracking device. It also gives Cain's location, but if he were to remove it, the mark would just give a signal from wherever he left it," Keir said.

"So there's no way to know if he's removed it yet or not?" I asked.

"No. That's why you need to get there as soon as possible. I stalled you because I was afraid of Judas entering Heaven, but since that cat is already out of the bag, there's no point in me delaying you any longer," he said.

"Ok," I said. I looked at Virtue. "You're going to be at the party after I save the world again, right?"

"You're inviting me? Or Purgy?" she asked.

"I'm inviting all three of you. Virtue, Sin, and Purgy. Whoever shows up," I said.

"Ok, sure, I'll go, but why?" she asked.

"There's someone I want you to meet. I feel like you would be a good match. He's a demon, so he's got all the hedonism of Sin, but he's actually a really nice guy outside of the bedroom—not that I've ever seen him in the bedroom. I feel like he would be able to match your dual nature," I said.

"He sounds perfect for both of us. Sin can have the bedroom—bleh—and I'll have the intellectual conversations," Virtue said. "What's his name?"

"Nigel. Nigel Hellthorne," I said.

"I can't wait to meet him. Now go get Cain! Don't waste another moment here!" she said.

"Right," I said. I tried to teleport to the location on the map with the glowing red 'C', but nothing happened. "Didn't work."

"Oh, yeah," Virtue said. She pressed a button on the control panel. "It should work now."

"Ok," I said, concentrating again.

"Wait!" Virtue exclaimed.

"What?" I asked. What was wrong? It sounded urgent.

"Don't forget your coffee," she said, handing me a mug of hot coffee. The mug said, "Happy endings are better than sad ones."

"Uh, thanks," I said, trying to teleport away. This time it worked. I teleported into the middle of the desert in Nevada, holding a hot cup of coffee. In the blistering hot desert.

I took a sip. Wasn't bad. It was actually pretty good. Nice. I looked up from my coffee and saw a fist rocketing at my face. I instinctively tried to shield my face with the mug.

The mug exploded as the fist hit it and boiling hot coffee spilled onto the person's hand.

"Ow! Shit!" Cain exclaimed. He shook the hot coffee off his hand.

"How does that hurt you?" I asked. "Aren't you supposed to be invincible?"

"It doesn't do any damage to my body, but hot coffee still hurts like a motherfucker!" he said. "Hot coffee hurts everyone! How do you not know that?"

"I don't know how I didn't know, but it's good to know now. I'll save that for later," I said, making a mental note. "That aside, why did you attack me?"

"Aren't you going to try to stop me?" he asked, confused.

"I mean, yeah, but we can talk things out first. Violence doesn't always have to be the first move, Cain," I said.

"Oh. Uh, ok. What do you want to talk about?" he said, as the wind whistled through the cacti. He had a full beard and was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. And shoes. He was also wearing shoes.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"How about the fact that you owe me a decent cup of coffee," I said, crossing my arms.

"Besides that," he said. "I'll send you the money through that phone app. Do you have that phone app?"

"Yes, I do, and what I wanted to talk about is how you can't remove your mark, Cain," I said. "It will destroy the fabric of reality."

"What are you talking about?" Cain asked.

"If you remove the mark, God's judgement will break and he'll basically lose all his godly powers," I said.

"How is that possible? He's God. It should be impossible for him to lose his powers," Cain said.

"God's judgement is supposed to be absolute, so if something were to somehow break it, it would break his ability to judge. If his judgement didn't work in this instance, why would it work in other instances? At least, that's how I was told it works," I said.

"This doesn't make sense. Samael didn't tell me about this," he said, holding his head.

"Who's Samael?" I asked. The name sounded familiar, but I didn't remember where I knew it from. It had to be biblical, but what part?

"I am Samael," a dark booming voice sounded behind me.

"How ominous," I said, turning around.

Behind me stood an enormous person. He stood at about 6'5" and rippled with muscle. He had long, dirty blonde hair and amber-colored eyes. He wore robes and sandals like he had just walked out of a painting of Jesus. But not one of the good paintings. One of the ones where Jesus wasn't detailed very well.

"What the hell? Why do you look like Jesus?" I asked.

"I can look like anything, Dave," he said. He transformed into a nude form of Nimby, but without hiding any of her parts. He got the skin color slightly wrong, though. She looked a little more orangish-red rather than red. "Do you like?"

"That's disrespectful and you should be ashamed of yourself," I said, getting angry.

Samael transformed back into badly formed Jesus and said, "That's a hell of a way to speak to one of your betters!"

"You're my better? In what way?" I asked.

"Well, I'm a fallen angel for one and you are a human," he said.

"How does that make you better than me?" I asked.

"Angels, even fallen ones, are better than humans," he said.

"Nuh uh," I said.

"Yeah huh," he said.

"Nuh uh," I said.

"Yeah huh," he said.

"Um, fellas, can we talk like adults, please?" Cain asked.

"Yeah!" Samael and I both said.

"Hey! Stop it!" we both said.

"No, you stop it!" we said.

"No, you stop it!" we said again.

"Fine!" we said and turned away from each other.

Over my shoulder I said, "So what's the deal? Are you the big bad evil guy I have to defeat? How did you even orchestrate all this? The circle breakouts with Genghis Khan and Judas. Even with shapeshifting, it couldn't be as easy as just walking in dressed as a guard, could it?"

"I didn't walk in dressed as a guard. I walked in dressed as you," he said, emphasizing his point by transforming into an ugly version of me. He didn't get my chin right. It was too small.

"Ok, but that couldn't have been it, right? There was more to it, I bet," I said.

"There was. For instance, I had to infiltrate your staff," he said. He transformed into Chef Demi from my kitchen staff. He got the eyes wrong. They looked like toad's eyes.

"Oh, so that's why my burgers started tasting like shit," I said.

"What do you mean? My burgers are fine," Samael said.

"Your burgers suck. Even your toasted bagels could use to some work. I don't know how you screw up toasting a bagel, but you managed it. I've had roadkill that tasted better," I said.

"Oh, come on! How hard is it to flip a burger or press down a toaster?" He said.

"I don't know how hard it is for most people, but apparently it's hard for you," I said. "Wait. Is that why Nimby has been hitting on me so much lately? Because you replaced good natured Demi and started pushing her?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

"No! Well, maybe! But she wasn't doing what she was supposed to! She didn't read the handbook!" Samael protested, slapping one of his hands into his other hand.

"You bastard! How dare you mess with my staff! Chef Demi better not be dead, or I'll shove my hand so far down your throat, I'll pull your butthole through your mouth!" I roared.

"I'd like to see you try!" he said.

"You killed Chef Demi?" I said.

"No, Chef Demi is fine," he said.

"Oh, ok. Good. I'm still going to kick your ass!" I said.

"Do it!" Samael said.

"I will!" I said, rolling up my non existent sleeves.

I teleported behind him and pulled out sword Steve, but sword Steve wasn't there. Aw, shit. I must have lost him in Hell. If Purgatory had collected him, she surely would have given him back to me. So instead, I punched him in the back of the head.

"Ow!" he said, holding his head. "Why'd you have to do that?"

"Because I'm kicking your ass," I said.

"I was kidding," he said. He turned around, performing a twisting kick that slammed into me and broke my arm.

"Fuck!" I yelled as I fell and tumbled to the ground.

"Not so tough now, are you, loser?" Samael said.

"Who are you calling a loser, loser?" I said.

I used my karmic rebalancing ability to take the bad luck from breaking my arm into good luck for my attack. Then I teleported in front of him and slashed at his head, hoping to cut it in half.

My fingers and fingernails dug into the skin on the side of his head and then across his face, leaving a huge gash that gushed blood. I failed to cut his head in two, though.

He felt his face and his hand came away bloody. "How dare you mar my pretty face!" he yelled.

"That doesn't make sense! I've never actually seen what you really look like!" I yelled.

He punched me in the chest, sending me flying back and breaking a few of my ribs. I landed on the ground several feet away, next to where Cain was standing. I looked up at him.

"Why are you just standing there? Help me fight! He wants to break God's judgement! He might end the world!" I screamed at him.

"Dave, I can't. I just can't do this anymore. I want to die. I need to die," he said, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"That's just it though, Cain. You won't cease to exist when you die. You'll go to Hell and be tortured there for all eternity if you do this. Do you want that?" I said.

"Wait, what? What do you mean?" he asked.

"It's obvious, isn't it? You either have to do good things and ask forgiveness for the bad things, or you just do bad things and ask for forgiveness for those things to get into Heaven, right?" I asked.

"Right," he said. "I'm following."

Samael was walking incredibly slowly and ominously toward us, allowing us to have this back-and-forth conversation. It also helped that he had punched me more than twenty feet away from him.

"If God's judgement is broken, he can't forgive you for this final misdeed," I said. "You'll go straight to Hell. Please, for the love of God, don't let that happen! Just because I'm the administrator of Hell doesn't mean I want to see people go there."

"Oh, shit! You're right! I want to die, but I want peace, not eternal torture!" he said.

"Who does?" I asked, coughing up blood.

"No one, that's who," Cain said, clenching his fists and bringing them up into a fighting stance.

"I'd like to meet this 'no one' person you speak of sometime when I'm not dying," I said.

"Jokes. It's always jokes with you, Dave," Cain said.

He walked forward to meet Samael. I didn't think I could get up. I could do some teleporting shenanigans, but I'd only get in Cain's way. This was his battle. I had to let him fight it.

Cain threw a punch at Samael and Samael caught his fist. "Cute," he said.

Samael grabbed Cain by the throat and threw him straight up in the air. Just straight up. Nothing fancy. Cain disappeared from sight. He must have thrown him into the freaking stratosphere. Holy crap. I'd never seen strength like that.