“Annabelle. Come.”

The sound of the voice only barely roused her, and she ignored it.

“Let’s go. Come, now.”

Then she recognized the voice. It was one she hadn’t heard in a while. The guide voice.

“Huh?” she said. She had a small jolt that perhaps something was wrong with Joey, that he needed her, but her eyelids were so heavy, like anvils were holding them down.

Then there was a grip on her arm, pulling her. “We must go.” The voice sounded irritated.

“Where?” Annabelle grumbled. “I’m so tired. I can’t.”

“We must talk.” The body the guide voice was attached to yanked her so hard she felt like she was falling out of bed, but instead she landed on her feet. She was suddenly wide awake and she saw she was no longer in her bedroom.

She was in a massive, wide-open room that reminded her of an airport customs checkpoint. There were endless lines of people snaked around roped-off lanes, surrounded by tall beefy men in a bright white version of a security suit. They all had white, feathery wings. The crowd of people was restlessly waiting for their turn at a long row of desks where more people in white with wings addressed them one by one. On the desk was an old-fashioned scale that balanced silver cylinders on either side to compare their weight. Each desk was also flanked by two portals, and a guard would escort the person to one or the other after their apparent analysis.

Someone beside her cleared his throat and Annabelle jumped at the sight of the tall man standing there. He had shoulder-length, wavy, dark brown hair and wore a white collared shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows and white pants and boots. His wings were folded neatly behind him.

It was obviously a dream.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“The Hall of Judgment,” the angel said in the voice of the guide she’d heard her entire life. “Everyone who dies comes here, and their eternal fate is decided.”

“You mean, like, if they go to Heaven or Hell?”

“Yep.”

Annabelle looked out at the people again, almost all of them so nervous, some asking the guards what was happening, where they were, why they were there. She had the same questions.

“Am I dead?” she asked, terror rising up.

The angel chuckled a little and shook his head. “Of course not.” Then his voice became serious. “But it’s very important that we talk. That’s the only reason you’re here before it actually is your time to return.”

Return? “I’m confused.”

“I know. This is the first time a live guardian angel has had to be recalled, so it’s a bit of a big deal. Don’t be embarrassed if you get a lot of stares. I’ll show you around a bit while we talk, but I’ll need to get you up to Verchiel pretty quick. Follow me.”

This is the strangest dream ever. “I’ve heard your voice my whole life. What’s your name?”

“I’m Raphael. An archangel.”

Annabelle had read about archangels in the Bible, but only Michael and Gabriel had been mentioned. “There are more archangels than what’s in the Bible?”

Raphael smiled. “Yep. It’s rare for Protestants to know who I am. Catholics do. They call me a saint, which is kind of nice, but I like to just think of myself as an angel. Think about it: do saints have wings?” He pointed to the feathery appendages on his back.

Looking behind her, she tried to see if she had them too. “You said I’m an angel, but I don’t have wings.”

“You haven’t been granted them yet since you live on Earth. Once you return after your assignment is complete, you’ll get them.”

“My assignment?”

They arrived at a glowing cloud of smoke next to a small, white marble pillar with a golden switch on it. It could be slid up and down to three different choices, numbers one through three. Raphael chose three and motioned for Annabelle to follow him into the cloud of smoke.

She felt like she was being carried upwards for a few seconds, then back on her feet. A light push on her back made her step forward and out of the smoke. Before her looked like an endless sea of desks, a massive office that had no walls other than one giant window with no end on either side. The window looked out onto a sunny meadow full of flowers. Each desk was occupied by an angel, both men and women dressed in white casual clothes, each with a smaller set of wings on their back. On one side of their desk was a printer of sorts, not electronic but more of a delivery system that spit out white parchment. The angel would read it, then put it into a small box, choose something on a slider similar to what operated the elevator, and the parchment disappeared.

“What is this place?” Annabelle whispered, afraid that the working angels might hear her, even though they chatted with each other quite a bit, giving the office a cheery din.

“The prayer center. Every prayer comes here first, and these angels direct them to the correct angel in the higher levels.”

“So these angels are the ones that hear my prayers? Or read them it seems.”

“Not yours, no. They come directly to me.”

Annabelle looked at him, surprised. Her prayers went directly to an archangel.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Raphael said. “Think of me as your direct supervisor. Your job on Earth is very important, so it’s crucial your prayers get to me immediately.”

She took in the scene more. Every prayer really was heard. “It seems like a tedious job,” she said. “I guess I always thought of Heaven as a paradise where you didn’t have to do any work.”

Raphael chuckled. “Don’t worry. These are angels created here for this purpose, and we take care of them. They have shifts, they’re allowed to talk and be friendly with each other, and they get to enjoy different scenery out the window. They are quite efficient that way.”

“Makes me hate my job even more.”

“That is one of the things I want to talk to you about.” His voice sounded suddenly serious, and Annabelle was certain she was about to be reprimanded for using her powers on her patients.

Raphael led her down one side of the office, and the movement caught the eyes of angels they passed. They all stopped and gaped at Annabelle. She blushed and forced a smile. She did not belong here no matter what Raphael said.

There was a wall of separated offices that she hadn’t seen before. Each room was large and labeled with a name. She saw Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, until arriving at Raphael. There were more rooms farther down as well. “How many archangels are there?”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“There are seven of us. I’m sure you’ve read the book of Revelation, right?”

“Of course.”

“There’s a verse in there that mentions the seven angels that stand before God. That’s us. Come in.”

Raphael motioned for Annabelle to enter his office and she did so slowly. It was just as white as everything else she’d seen. She realized her purple shirt and blue jeans made her stand out more than her lack of wings. There was a marble desk similar to the ones the worker angels used, but much larger, and another part of the room had white couches and chairs. The walls were adorned with paintings of Jesus appearing to be healing people. “Those paintings are beautiful,” she said. “Showing Jesus’s wonderful work.”

“Yep. They all symbolize and inspire me for my own work. I’m the archangel of healing, if you haven’t figured that out yet. Hence why you have direct contact with me.”

“My powers come from you?”

Raphael nodded and motioned to the couches. “Sit with me.”

Annabelle did as told, sitting on the most luxurious couch she’d ever sat upon. The archangel sat at one across from her, his expression impossible to read.

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I,” she said.

This brought a tiny smile. “Not exactly. There are…issues that are problematic enough that you needed to be brought here to discuss them. You know, it’s extremely rare that we ever have to send a guardian angel in the flesh. Usually they are all invisible, but sometimes heavy-duty work needs to be done, and an angel must be created in human form.”

“So…I really am an angel. I’m not dreaming this.”

“Nope. You purposely were placed on Earth with no knowledge of your actual origin. With the guidance of an archangel, your discovery of your powers are kept secret, and you live your life like any human would while completing your assignment. Usually this goes fine, no issues. This time, though…”

“Is it because I sinned? A really big sin? I prayed so hard for forgiveness, I’m really sorry. I know it was wrong.”

“It’s not because of that. That…was definitely not expected from you, but it seems you have taken a bit more advantage of your free will than any of your predecessors. But there are much more important things to worry about.”

Annabelle remained tense. “It’s because of my sister, isn’t it. I remember you telling me she was my purpose. I failed her.” Her eyes began to well with tears.

“That was one thing.”

“There’s more? Is it because I let Joey be with those demons? You said he was my new purpose and I ruined that too.”

Raphael held up his hands. “Listen. I don’t want you to feel like you’re here to be reprimanded or punished. Allow me to explain everything first.”

Annabelle nodded, sitting back on the couch.

“Your purpose on Earth has changed many times over your life. That’s very rare, and usually only one change is necessary, but you have needed three. Well, technically four after you meet with Verchiel.”

“Who’s Verchiel?”

“One of the Angels of Powers. Anyway, your original purpose thirty years ago was to share wisdom and be a guide for your adoptive father. And mother by proxy. Cerviel, one of the Angels of Principalities—they guide groups of people, nations, institutions such as the church—became aware of your father’s steps toward fame along with his gradual straying off the true path of faith. The path that God intends people to follow. It became clear that if he was not guided properly, he might become out of control and teach people the wrong things, to lead them down a path that, though supposedly in good faith, would actually send them the wrong way, if you get what I mean. A simple, invisible guardian angel would not be enough. So, you were created and sent to him.”

Annabelle thought about her childhood, her teenage years, how she always had Bible verses and wise words spill into her head to tell her father whenever he seemed to stray. Now it all made sense. Except it had stopped working.

“I failed that,” she said. “He stopped listening to me. I tried so hard, I really did.”

“I know. You did so well in the beginning. You made us all very proud.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Raphael’s smile seemed forced. “Your purpose changed for the first time before that, however. When your sister began to stray, getting into trouble while you were both young, your healing powers were needed. All guardian angels naturally have those powers, they just aren’t always necessary. I ‘turned them on,’ so to speak, and that along with your wisdom helped keep her safe.”

“Until it didn’t.”

Raphael nodded.

Annabelle covered her face, unable to stop her tears. “I am the worst angel ever.”

“No.”

“My dad has gone crazy telling people to kill in the name of God, and my sister is dead. I am the worst.”

“You simply weren’t prepared for there to be interference. That was a mistake on our part. But to be fair, we really didn’t expect a powerful demon to appear and basically ruin everything.”

This only gave Annabelle a slight comfort. It wasn’t entirely her fault. “The one that attacked Miranda?”

Raphael nodded.

“But she only got attacked because I couldn’t protect her like I should have. I tried to convince her to stay away from that guy, but she didn’t listen. Then she got dragged into something awful and now…”

“I know. It is considered a failure. Your assignment with your father had already been considered a failure by that time, or at least had very little hope of succeeding, leaving only your sister as your assignment. At her passing, naturally you were to pass on as well. That assignment was over.”

Annabelle gasped. “That’s why I almost died too. But then you told me—”

“You were given an emergency reassignment. To protect the boy. We knew that he was a demon, and would likely be extremely powerful, so if we could keep him subdued and away from the rogue demon, Earth would have one less dangerous creature roaming around.”

She thought about how hard she had tried to keep Joey on the righteous path, so certain that she could get him passage to Heaven with strong faith. Now that was looking less likely simply because of what he was.

“I failed that too,” she said. “I let him be alone with a group of demons that wanted to take him. They tricked him and lured him and I just let it happen.”

“No. This assignment is not considered a failure, and is still ongoing. You have actually done excellently with it.”

Annabelle stared at the archangel. “Seriously? Leaving him with a team of demons on the daily is not considered failing?”

Raphael shook his head. “Verchiel will discuss that in more detail. He has a lot more intel on all of that. Though I’ll still be your main contact, as those angels in the second sphere of Heaven don’t usually have direct contact with Earth, he will be the one to give you your new assignment. Concurrent and related to your current one. I only do the healing stuff. Which, by the way, you need to cut it out with using them on people other than your direct assignment.”

“But it helps my patients feel comfortable. I don’t actually heal them with it, just ease their pain. And I keep it hidden.”

“Regardless of that, you need to stop. It’s actually surprising that you are able to control your powers on your own. That’s never happened before. I could cut you off from it, but that might hamper things if you’re in a pinch. Also, I highly suggest you quit your job.”

Annabelle gaped. “But why? I need a job and nursing is so natural to me.”

“This job is too stressful and will hinder your ability to complete your new mission, or so Verchiel tells me. Quit the job. And if you follow Verchiel’s orders, which…I warned him you will likely argue, money will not be an issue.”

“I’ll just magically get money and be able to pay my bills and support Joey?”

“It is technically magic. Be open to it. And I am under orders to monitor you much closer and be more insistent in my communications. You need to listen to me when I speak to you. Understood?”

Annabelle nodded. She didn’t like any of this. She’d ignored Raphael quite a few times, and she was tempted to do it again. But now that she knew what she really was, she truly had no choice.

“Can I ask something?” she said.

“Of course.”

“My entire life you’ve always warned me of danger. You told me when Miranda needed help, and when Joey needed me. Like when he was thrown into the pool at Yellowstone. But why didn’t you tell me not to let him be with those demons? Did you not know they were demons? That they intended to hurt him? Is it only danger that is occurring that I get warned about?”

Raphael smiled. “Verchiel was not concerned, therefore neither was I. Instead, I assured you that he was safe. You felt that, didn’t you?”

She remembered the strange feeling she got about wanting Joey to always be with Jack, that he was safe with him. “You mean that wasn’t me being controlled by demon powers? That was you?”

This time Raphael laughed. “You were never controlled by demons. Neither was Joey.” He stood. “Come with me. Based on these questions, you need to talk to Verchiel now. He will have all the answers.”

Annabelle took that to mean she should shut up now and followed Raphael in silence back to the smoky portal, ignoring the curious stares of the angels they passed. Raphael chose option two on the pillar and once in the portal they were in another location within seconds. This area seemed much smaller at first, though what seemed to be a foyer was quite large, again made of bright white marble. There were three corridors that led from the foyer: the one to the left was labeled Powers in gold lettering, the one straight ahead was Dominations, and the one to the right was Virtues.

“I know you’re going to ask what this place is,” Raphael said. “In short, this is the second sphere of Heaven. My supervisors, in a way. Have you ever heard of the nine choirs of Heaven?”

Annabelle shook her head.

“Well, the angels we saw working on prayers are the ninth choir, the lowest and closest to Earth. Us archangels are in the eighth, and the Principalities, like Cerviel who assigned you to your father, are the seventh. Here are the next three, and the one we’re going to, Angels of Powers, are the sixth.”

“I never imagined Heaven to have such a hierarchy. I’ve always been taught that it’s simply a paradise for eternal life. But it’s so much more than that.”

“Yep. Let’s go. Verchiel is waiting.”