Water was spilling all over inside Irene’s room. The carpet was soaking wet as Irene laid out multiple towels on the floor. She turned to her formerly dead friend and said, “I don’t know what to do. Whatever spell I try to use to stop the water doesn’t seem to do anything.”

Damian looked around and said, “What if we just got out of here? You can get your parent’s car keys and we can go off somewhere, just the two of us.”

“I don’t know, I don’t want my room to get flooded,” said Irene, “But I guess there’s nothing I can really do to stop it anyway.”

“Let’s just run away,” said Damian, “Snatch your Mom’s bank card, withdraw a few hundred dollars, and we can live on our own.”

Irene was very tempted to do this. She had been wanting to move out of her parent’s house ever since she turned 18, but she didn’t have the financial resources to justify it. But now that Damian was here, it felt a lot more feasible since she wasn’t going to be alone. “Okay,” she finally said, “Let’s do it.” She had never taken a risk like this before in her life.

At that moment, the door knob began to turn.

Irene looked over at Damian. “Hide!” she whispered.

Damian crawled under the bed.

Irene quickly grabbed her Dad’s other outfit from her bed and tossed it into the closet. She got on the floor, grabbed a towel, and tried to continue soaking up the water from the carpet. She rehearsed in her head what she’d say when her mom walked in: Hey Mom, I think a pipe burst under the floor ‒ there’s water everywhere!

But when her Mom entered, something felt different. The whole atmosphere of her room seemed to change, but Irene wasn’t able to pinpoint how. Mrs. Groves was wearing her normal pajamas, but attached to her waist was the sheath containing Steve’s angelic sword, which he had loaned to her. She pulled out the sword, revealing its shining white blade, which lit up the whole room with a blinding light that felt brighter than the sun.

Irene had to turn away her eyes from the light, but as she looked back at her bed, she noticed something odd about Damian. The sword’s light shone so bright that the bed seemed to become translucent, enabling her to see him through it. But when she saw him in the light, she instantly realized that it wasn’t Damian at all.

“Who are you?” Irene asked the spirit.

Before the spirit could respond, Mrs. Groves swung the shining sword at it, and a stream of white flames shot out of the sword heading straight at it. For a split second, Irene saw a glimpse of the spirit as it was pummeled out of her friend’s body.

As Damian’s corpse collapsed to the floor, the evil spirit was knocked back into the spiritual realm, invisible to the naked eye. It cursed and said, “I’m not going to give up that easily!” But before it could make another move, Saint Patrick and Saint Valentine tackled it onto the ground.

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“I know this fellow,” said Saint Patrick, “He always be trying to hijack my feast day for his own personal gain!”

The spirit slipped itself out of their hands and tried to make a run for it. But it was blocked by Steve and Damian.

“Not so fast,” said Steve. The angel summoned his flaming sword, which flew over from Mrs. Groves into his hands.

The spirit stopped and turned around, but the two saints were right behind it. Seeing that there was no way out, the spirit realized it was defeated. It got on its knees and begged, “Please don’t send me to the Abyss! I’ll do anything for you.”

“You have the right to remain silent,” said Saint Valentine as he handcuffed the spirit, “Everything you say can and will be used against you.”

An angelic police car pulled up, and an officer got out. “Thank you, gentlemen,” the angelic officer said, “I can take it from here.”

The two saints handed the spirit to the officer, who put it in the back of his police car.

“Nice work, Steve,” the officer said to the guardian angel, “This one’s been wreaking havoc for decades. And sorry to hear about your loss.” The officer gave a solemn look on his face as he glanced over at Damian.

“Actually, I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” said Steve as he smiled at Damian.

The angelic officer was about to go into his car, but then he turned around and said, “I almost forgot, your supervisor wanted me to tell you that he has a new assignment for you. He wants to see you in the morning at the third hour.”

“Thanks,” said Steve. He turned back to Damian and asked, “Want to go back and actually enjoy the party now?”

Steve drove the ambulance with Damian and the two saints back over to the church, where they ate some delicious food and participated in some intriguing conversations. Damian got to hear about some of the extraordinary adventures of Saint Nicholas, which made him look forward to Christmas even more.

It was sunrise when the party started to die down, and people gradually began trickling out of the venue. At this time, Damian started looking around for his former guardian angel. He looked in the outer courtyard and on the dance floor, and he finally found the angel in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Steve,” said Damian.

The angel turned around and smiled, saying, “Hey, what’s up?”

“So, now what?” said Damian, “I mean, that was fun and all, but I really don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I mean, where do I even go?”

“Oh right!” said Steve, “It’s funny, I forgot you died yesterday. My routine dormition procedure was interrupted by last night’s situation, but we can finish it all now. We have just enough time before my meeting at 9:00. Let’s go to my car.”

The sunrise became even more breathtaking the higher up the ambulance flew as it went through the stratosphere, heading back to Paradise.

The angel looked over at the boy and said, “I’m sure you have countless more questions I haven’t even begun to answer.”

Damian nodded.

“Well, rest assured, you’re going to get used to life in this realm,” said Steve, “And some day, you’re going to get your body back, and it’ll be like waking up after a nice long nap.”

“What is there to do until then?” asked Damian.

“Oh, there is plenty of work to be done,” said Steve, “First, you’ve got your funeral that you probably want to be there for. Humans often find it interesting to hear what others say about them after they’re gone. After that, I already enrolled you in some educational courses that will give you a good foundational understanding of the present state of our reality. And I also talked to the saints and found someone who can help train you three times a week.”

“Train me for what?” asked Damian.

“For the day of the Lord,” said Steve.