Billy had never been on a ship during his life, and he didn't think this counted. The absence of the feel of the sea air sweeping his hair, the fine mist of spray on his skin, left the experience a hollow and sad affair. Sean and Lindsey looked like they were enjoying the experience quite a bit.
They had left Samhain's Enfer Sur Terre plantation during the night, and had gotten to watch the sunrise in the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Sean and Lindsey seemed to consider the moment as a once in a lifetime romantic opportunity and had broken into passionate love making right there on the deck. Billy wondered why they hadn't been more discreet before realizing that they were, after all, technically alone.
When the moment finally passed, Lindsey retired to the boat's master bedroom for a good long sleep while Sean retook the helm. He didn't seem to be in any hurry to get anywhere, never consulting the compass or a map, just heading further and further out to open water.
Billy, trying to think of a way to open conversation other than to openly comment on what he'd just witnessed, asked, "Why do you trust Samhain so much? Enough to kill for him?"
Sean took his time, considering his answer, "Sam has done more for the sake of humanity than you know, more than I can even grasp."
"He tortured and murdered humans for centuries. He's still killing humans. you do it for him." Billy accused.
"The worst thing for humans is other humans. It's the same question that you've asked with your friends time and time again: You have the ability to go back and kill Hitler as a baby, prevent the holocaust from happening. Do you do it?"
"Yes." Billy conceded reluctantly.
"Caligula, Pol Pot, Osama Bin-Laden. Any other of the hundreds of examples of mass murderers in the world. Those are the kinds of people we are exterminating. Sam has been around for centuries. he knows what to look for and how to stop it. We're not murders, we're surgeons carefully excising the rotten flesh that infects the whole."
Billy couldn't think of any possible response to that. It was evident from Sean's fervor on the subject that he truly believed in his cause, in what he had been doing.
"Who's your next target then? Where are we headed?" Billy asked eventually.
"Eventually New York." Sean said, pulling up GPS on his phone for the first time. "But considering what waits for us there, I was thinking we might hit up Cuba first, or maybe the Bahamas. Lindsey deserves a few days on a beach for all the shit we're about to put her through."
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Oh, really?" Billy snapped, "Don't mind me, I'll just float around and watch you two bang some more."
Sean chuckled. "You got somewhere you need to be? Trust me, meeting Bune will not be the high point of your afterlife."
Billy felt annoyed. "I suppose meeting Samhain was supposed to be the high point? Why the fuck would meeting a demon be any worse than meeting a fallen angel? Aren't they just as bad? Lucifer himself was supposed to be a fallen angel."
Sean adjusted their course to match his phone, then sighed heavily. "OK, afterlife 101. What do you know about the war in heaven? Did you ever read revelations?"
"I never opened a bible in my life. But, I know that the war in heaven was supposed to be when Lucifer was cast out of heaven."
"That's right." Billy said, making himself comfortable in the captain's seat, as if settling in for a long lecture. "Satan and all those who fought along side him were thrown out of heaven and cursed by God himself. They became the first demons. Bune, who you will have the vast pleasure of meeting, was one of those.
"But, there was another group of angels that left heaven. Thousands of years later, after the death of Jesus, hundreds more angels fell to earth, not as cast outs, they left of their own will. Samhain was one of those angels, and they are very different from the first batch."
"Why did they leave?" Billy asked.
"God gave up on humanity two thousand years ago and hasn't looked back since. The angels that left then are those who disagreed with that decision. The angels that felt it was wrong to leave humans at the mercy of the demons cast out millennia before."
"Why would God give up on us? What did we do?"
"You really never did open a bible did you? There is this small story in it about how he gave us his only son and then we tortured him to death."
"Didn't God forgive us for that?"
"That," Billy said heavily, "is wishful thinking. You have a child. You sold your soul to save her from disease. what would you have done if she'd died in agony at the hands of an angry mob?"
Billy didn't say anything. He didn't much like the implications of his answer.
"The most Jesus's pleas did was to stop God from purging the earth then and there. He has not heard a prayer since."
"Fuck me." Billy said quietly.
"Yeah, fuck us all." Sean said, just as somber. "If it weren't for the angels from the nosedive, as they call it, we'd have killed each other off centuries ago."
They both stared into the distance as the waves lapped gently against the boat. The sun was bright and the sky was clear. It was obviously going to be a wonderful day. Billy stood there on the deck of a millionaire's yacht in the tropical sun and felt as cold as the grave.
After a few moments of this, Sean plopped himself in the captain's seat and opened the throttle.
"Well, fuck it." he said as he adjusted his course again. "Now I feel like getting fucked up on a beach for a few days."