Rae Rae's last words, that there is a group of angels who want to turn the earth into a battlefield, hang heavy in the air for a moment. Suddenly they hear Trixie ask:
"Alex, why do you call Rae Rae General? I understand why she calls you her prince. You are the son of the King of Hell, so you are a prince. But why is Rae Rae your general?"
The boy chuckles on his barstool and says with pleasure in his voice:
"Oh, that. It started as a joke. Normally, Gabriel is the only angel who can travel between universes. Mom and Dad thought it would be a good idea for me to keep in touch with someone from this universe. Michael decided that Rae Rae would be the best choice. Not only because she is a woman and her job brings her into contact with small children from time to time. But mostly because Gabriel, Zadkiel, and Metatron are a little out of touch, to say the least, and have no idea how to handle a child."
Trixie laughed out loud and said, amused:
"So they are just like Lucifer! At first he didn't know how to behave either and tried to play fetch with me like I was a puppy."
Alexander's eyes widened, and a second later he burst out laughing so hard he almost fell off his barstool. With tears in his eyes, he said:
"Good thing I landed somewhere else, or I would have been barking right now! At least I would have been able to sit properly and give paws."
That was enough to make the others, except for Lucifer himself, burst out laughing. The devil snorted and suddenly seemed very interested in his cufflinks. Alexander rubbed the tears from his eyes and continued the story:
"Oh man, I can't wait to tell Cas, hihihi. Okay, so Michael chose Rae Rae because Lucifer and Michael are her favorite brothers and because she missed Lucifer so much. Mom and Dad asked A... euch...someone to give Rae Rae the power to travel between universes like Gabriel, and so Cas and I had Aunt Rae Rae, who came to visit us often."
It was obvious to everyone that Alexander had almost misspoken but had managed to recover just in time. He had almost mentioned a name that he clearly did not want to mention for whatever reason. But Alexander showed nothing:
"During her visits, Rae Rae always told us about all sorts of things, describing this universe, the Angels, Earth, and what she knew about the Demons and Hell. Cas once called her our spy, as in Rae, Rae Rae Double O seven and a half. That's why I know things about all of you, because Rae Rae told me about you. About her special bond with Ella and about the weird clique Lucifer has gathered around him here in LA."
He took another sip from his drink:
"Michael, on the other hand, is a military man, the general, the strategist. Although he never pushed or outright demanded that I would return to this universe one day, he realized that it might be important for me to learn more about the inner workings and politics as they play out in this Heaven. Just to prepare myself, in part, should I ever decide to come here, either temporarily or more permanently. The fact that I am my father's son means that I have inherited certain titles, so I would do well to know what it all means. So when I turned ten, he gave Rae Rae a new job. Her visits would not only be purely private and for fun. Part of the time would be spent in her new role as mentor, teaching me. Casiel, of course, could not resist a little banter and remarked that as a prince, I had my first official subordinate, referring to her as a general. Something that stuck. Yes, it is a sort of pet name that the two of us affectionately use to address Rae Rae, but it has since become much more, a real position. Now, you might think that this is a lot for a ten-year-old to learn. If I were fully human, I would absolutely agree with you. However, I am a Celestial, and our brain, our ability to process information, is much more developed than that of a human. Also, I am what you might call a history buff and a bit of a nerd, so I was naturally comfortable. Rae Rae went out of her way to satisfy my curiosity and my hunger for information."
Lucifer looked at Rae Rae and asked quietly:
"So you've known Alexander his whole life? Why did you never come to me and let me know I had a son?"
Alexander and Rae Rae had expected the devil with his father complex to ask this question sometime during the evening. Alex was silent and let the angel answer. She took a swig of her tequila and refilled her glass first:
"There was nothing I or Michael would have liked to have done more than that, Lu. But Alexander's existence was the best kept secret in the universe. Believe me, there were days when hardly anyone ventured into the palace when Mi was having a bad day and his fear mojo was working overtime. Had Amenadiel and his group known of his existence, they would have demanded that Michael unleash Muriel and her hunters upon the earth to find him, as in the days of Mother's outbursts. We know you Lu. In response you would have emptied Hell and unleashed the Demons on Muriel and her troops to protect Alexander. The result would have been nothing less than a total open war between Hell and Heaven on Earth. The thing Humans call Armageddon. I think we are all tired of those Old Testament days and do not want a repeat of that massacre of the firstborns of Egypt. Imagine the carnage in a metropolis like Los Angeles among the innocent humans who would be caught between the two armies. When Amenadiel suddenly seemed to be settling down here in LA, we didn't think it was a very good idea either for him to find out. No doubt the city would suffer the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah if he was in the know of Alexanders existence. In the end, Mi decided that we would continue to keep our mouths shut and leave it to Alexander himself to make himself known when he felt the time was right. All I could do was spend time with your son and make sure he knew the truth about you and not those evil petty lies that Amenadiel and Uriel have been spreading among humans that now make mankind afraid of the Devil. The horns, the tail, the trident, the cloven hooves, that kind of BS."
Lucifer pondered the answer, and as he did, Chloe asked in utter amazement:
"Wait a minute, what do Sodom and Gomorrah and the Biblical plagues have to do with this? I thought those were just legends. And what does Lucifer's mother have to do with those?"
Mazakeen, who had been quiet until then, growled loudly and said:
"Back then, Mama Lucifer was an ice-cold bitch and pretty jealous that her husband dearest spent more time with his project than with her and their children. God himself is no innocent either in all that crap because he wanted to keep his Angels and his project completely separated..."
Alexander rushed to interject:
"Well, well, Mazy, that is hardly the language to speak about my grandmother, hihihi. Did our idiot devil ever explain that Charlotte Richards wasn't really Charlotte Richards for a while, and has he explained who Pierce really was since that debacle ended so badly?"
Ella shot up on the sofa:
"Lt. Pierce, the underworld boss? Who he really was? Charlotte? Who wasn't Charlotte?"
She looked accusingly at Lucifer and began to remove her shoe, causing the devil to turn pale. The little Latina said in a deadly serious tone:
"Somebody better start talking real clear real fast, or there will be beatings!"
Alexander and Trixie, who were intently following the lab rat's actions, couldn't help but giggle. The boy said:
"Hmmm, maybe I should wait five minutes or so to explain and just enjoy watching the Devil get beaten up by a little Latina and her Zapata hihihi..."
The next moment he was already regretting his statement when she looked at him piercingly, waved her shoe in his direction, and said sternly:
"Alexander Morningstar, a little reminder: I have two feet, therefore two shoes! Confess now!"
He swallowed audibly and said:
"Yes, ma'am! Okay, long story short. El, that's Grandpa's, God's real name, and that's why most angels' names end in El. Gabriel, Muriel, Azrael, Raphael. His wife, the Mother of Angels, is called Talia, better known to humans as Gaia. She used to have other names, but she likes and prefers Talia above all the others. Talia didn't approve of El spending more and more time in his, let's say, mancave with his humanity project. For Grandma Ta, her angels were the most important thing, and when Grandpa decided to make man in their image, well, let's say that news didn't go over well. It was one thing for him to create a new kind of animal; it was a whole different ballgame when he started to tinker with a mammal that would be fully conscious. Especially not when Grandpa revealed that mankind would enjoy complete freedom. So in that respect, they would get more than the angels. This news was the beginning of the end of their marriage. Grandpa seemed to favor humanity and spend more time with them than he did with Grandma, the angels, and the needs of Heaven. Grandma first tried to wipe humanity off the map a few times. Diseases like the plague and other pests and finally the flood. The flood was, no pun intended, the last drop for Grandpa, and he banished her to Hell. Not like Lucifer, who became the king of Hell, but as the most secure prisoner Hell has ever had."
Chloe couldn't contain herself and muttered:
"Oh wow; what a monster. Serves her right..."
Alexander, however, had heard her, and her words hurt him, and he said:
"You think so, Detective? Let's put it in a different light and see if you still feel the same way. Imagine that you are still married to Daniel. Your husband spends every free moment in the basement working on his hobby. Suddenly there seems to be no room for you, his wife, and no attention or time for Beatrice. And what is this hobby? He makes dolls that look suspiciously like Beatrice, but he spends all his time with them. To the extent that he seems to love these dolls more than his own daughter. How would you react to this behavior as a wife and mother? Could it be that you would be tempted to get rough with the dolls?"
Chloe answered without thinking:
"Dolls are not people..."
Alexander immediately retaliated with his own words:
"And humans are not celestials. The gods and angels are timeless and eternal; they possess powers that humans can hardly imagine. If one wants to be harsh, then yes, humans are no more than puppets, a toy to mess around with, and when you grow tired of them or outgrow them, you leave them gathering dust in a corner somewhere."
To emphasize his words, he made a ball of light appear in his hand. The brightest, warmest light the people present had ever seen; it looked like he was holding a small star in his hand. He closed his fist around the light until it was no longer visible. When he opened his hand again, the tiny star had turned into a beautiful little piece of crystal, reflecting all sorts of colors. Trixie had watched the scene with her eyes wide open, and when she saw the crystal, she let out a soft gasp:
"Wow! It's beautiful!"
Alexander winked at her and let the crystal gently float through the air toward the girl, who grabbed it and held it in her hands as if it were something priceless. He looked back at the detective and continued:
"Humans are time bound. Their life span is nothing compared to that of an angel or the gods. It is over in the blink of an eye. One moment you are here, and the next you are dust and lost to history for hundreds of years. Yes, humans have consciousness, you have feelings, humans are capable of great things. You create incredible art, music, write beautiful books, and your dreams are beyond inhibition. I love humanity for what they can create and at the same time I loathe humanity for their capacity to destroy. But to gain this understanding, the Celestials must first spend time with you. Get to know you, learn what makes you tick. Only then will they learn how special, how precious you humans are. Grandma Ta never spent time with humans, because that was Grandpa El's project, and he shielded it. The same goes for the vast majority of angels, they also did not know any better. It was not until Lucifer began to spend more and more time in the Garden of Eden that some of the Angels began to show an interest in humanity. The result was that a Nephilim would appear sporadically. Something that shocked Grandma Ta beyond belief. Her beautiful, perfect Angels indulging in her husband's disgusting hobby. This was something she had to eradicate at all costs. An abomination that had no place in the perfect whole she and her husband had created, something unnatural."
Alexander's harsh words had caused an uncomfortable silence in the penthouse until Lucifer said:
"Well, luckily Mother is in her own universe now and can't cause any more misery."
Rae Rae nearly choked on the swig of tequila she had just taken, and Alexander straightened his face and said:
"Hmmm well... Not quite right, Lucifer..."
The devil's face flushed, and he said sternly:
"What do you two know about Mother that I obviously don't?"
Alexander raised his hands in a soothing gesture:
"Let me get back to you on that, okay, and answer Ella's question first, before everything goes haywire and she hits us with her shoes."
Lucifer looked rather angrily from Rae Rae to Alexander and back and said:
"This better have a good explanation after all the agony it cost me!"
"Don't worry, Diablo mío, it's a very good explanation. Okay, back to Charlotte. The Goddess was able to escape from Hell after Grandpa locked her there. She had no physical form, so she needed the body of a human who had just died. Charlotte Richards was involved in the underworld as a lawyer. One of these characters killed her, and her soul went to Hell, while Grandma was able to return to Earth and take over Charlotte's body. Eventually, Lucifer sent her to a whole new universe where she could create whatever she wanted and hopefully be happy. This prevented an open war between Grandma and Grandpa if Grandma Ta had returned to heaven. The moment Grandma Ta left Charlotte's body, the real Charlotte's soul was unexpectedly sucked out of Hell and put back into her body, giving her a second chance. Unfortunately, that did not last long as Pierce, aka The Sinnerman, showed up and eventually killed Charlotte, after which Amenadiel took her to heaven. Pierce was not only The Sinnerman, the infamous heavyweight of the underworld. He was, in fact, none other than the biblical Cain, son of Adam and Eve and mankind's first murderer."
Ella had listened to the story with her eyes wide open and her mouth agape and said:
"¡Qué cabrón! I take it he didn't just disappear and we found a dead body double at the scene?"
Lucifer shook his head and deliberately looked away from Chloe, then said quietly:
"No, he is dead; the body was really his, Cain. When the net closed around him and a large part of his empire was about to come crashing down, he lured the detective and me into a trap. A fight broke out; I killed him to protect the detective, but that was the moment she saw my devil face and took a... euch... vacation."
Ella could clearly read between the lines that there was much more to the story but wisely decided to keep away from that for a while. It was Trixie who unwittingly provided the necessary distraction:
"Oh bah, that creep and Mom almost married that slimeball. Eeuwww...imagine the very first murderer in history as a stepfather...eeuwww..."
Alexander chuckled at her words and said:
"Yeah, and in the time between Abel and his eventual demise, he wasn't exactly a sweetheart. On the other hand, I would dare to say that his eventual criminal behavior was in part due to Grandpa El."
Everyone sat and looked at him, trying to figure him out, and finally it was the Devil who asked, baffled:
"How on earth did you come up with that?"
Alexander said with a grin:
"Simple, giving him that curse that he could not die made him lose all fear and inhibitions. I heard he tried to settle down once or twice, start a family, and do the right thing in the hope that El would lift the curse. But losing the ones he loved again and again broke something in him. It did not matter whether he did good or bad; the result was the same. Therefore, he pursued an easy life and easy money, taking what he desired or needed without regard for others. I can tell you this: if I had been his lawyer, he would have been acquitted of Abel's murder, and the rest of the BS would most likely not have happened!"
For a moment, it seemed as if Lucifer was looking at the blue screen of death at this statement from his son, who declared:
"Think of it this way: before Abel died, the concept of death and murder was unknown among men. Abel was the first man to exchange the temporary for the eternal. So, at that very moment in time, no one knew that if you hit someone hard enough with a stone on their nugget, that that person would in fact die. All in all, it would be another eternity before your Father finally bothered to give mankind a set of laws in the form of the Ten Commandments that would make them see in writing that murder was a big no-no. If I were his lawyer, I would have argued that God could not find him guilty of murder for the simple reason that He never said that people could die and that murder was wrong. If you do not tell a small child that stealing a gumball is wrong, how is that child to know that it is doing something wrong? I think Zadkiel as the chief justice would agree with my reasoning. If there is no law in existence, then there cannot be a crime. It's that simple. To quote one of my favorite YouTubers, It's never a war crime the first time..."
Everyone looked at him in utter disbelief, but as usual it was Ella who pleasantly surprised everyone by bursting into a fit of laughter:
"I can just picture it. A sapling smarty-pants telling God, Sorry, but you can't punish Cain because you never said what he did was wrong and was not allowed. Too bad, better luck next time..."
The picture painted by Ella drew gentle laughter from the others, but Lucifer was focused on something else and asked:
"To be honest, I had never thought of it that way before. Let's just mark it up as another one of Father's mistakes to add to his long list of mistakes. For someone who is supposed to be omniscient, it seems to me that he has been suffering from dementia for quite some time. But what about Mother, and why did you two react so strangely?"
Rae Rae deliberately looked at the tips of her feet because she really had no idea how the devil would react to this piece of information. Alexander took a deep breath and said:
"Well, okay, it's like this. You wanted to stop Grandma from returning to Heaven and going to war against Grandpa to get her children back and make everything the way it was before the humans showed up. Being trapped in Charlotte's body caused her to be limited. She realized she was starting to make the same mistakes again and made a decision. She agreed to your plan and left for an entirely new, dark, and cold universe. But instead of starting to create a new existence in that universe, she slowly sank into depression because she was irrevocably separated from you, the angels, her beloved children. She had no way of getting back and would never see any of you ever again. Rae Rae told me what had happened on Earth, and I convinced Dad and Mom to check on her. I didn't know her personally, but twist it any way you want; she is family, and family is important to me. She is my grandma after all. They noticed that she was not well at all and that even her divinity was affected; it was beginning to fade because of her grief and loneliness. Mom made sure to create a kind of mini-dimension on the border between our universe and her universe. A place she could visit if she wanted to, but where she had no powers. Just to stay on the safe side. Family and trust only go a certain distance; control is better, especially in the beginning. The first time I met her, Cas was there, but Mom and Dad were also there to keep an eye on her while we interacted with Grandma. We talked a lot, got to know each other, and had a lot of fun. When they realized that Grandma Ta was absolutely no danger to us, they let us loose so that we could meet her as often and as long as we wanted. It was sad to hear some of the stuff she had to say; it hurt Cas and me to hear how much pain she was in. I learned that her time and punishment in Hell were much, much worse than you can imagine, Lucifer. Her Hell loop was a real nightmare. Trust me, your Demons and even our Maze here could not have come up with a more painful and heartbreaking punishment. No wonder Mazi could not get to her to break her. That what she lived in in her cell was way worse. She was forced to live again and again as a human being, happily married with children. But each time she lost everything she loved. With each plague or disaster, her husband and children were killed before her eyes. Scenario after scenario with the same terrible ending for thousands of years, tens of thousands of years according to the passage of time in hell. Yes, the Loops taught her humanity and the value of man, but she also lost her husband and children thousands of times to disease, disaster, and war. From the plagues to the Flood, the Crusades, and all the way to Auschwitz. Her Hell loop evolved with time so her punishment would never be static but would adapt over time. Grandpa really has no filter and absolutely no idea that his idea of punishment is sometimes the worst possible torture. Maybe deep down he means well, but the fact that time means nothing to him makes sure that he does not apply time to the punishments he deals out. It would be as if the detective made Bee sit in a time-out but left her there for years instead of a short amount of time."
The adults in the room heard very well how Alexander addressed Trixie. Calling her Bee instead of Trixie or Beatrice. They had also seen the two youngsters on the balcony talking and having a bit of a laugh. Especially Ella was glad to see that the two got along, that Alexander would not be all that lonely in a strange universe. In the meantime, Alex kept talking about his grandmother with a fond smile on his face:
"Her existence in her new universe threatened to become an empty existence, unable to build anything new. She felt a sense of immobility as she feared losing everything once more. At the request of Casiel and me, Mom and Dad agreed that she could leave her empty universe behind and come live with us. She now has a small house with a large plot of land where she has a bunch of animals that she takes care of. But she also helps Chamuel with a well-defined problem that regularly arises in the human fields. The souls of some young children cannot be immediately placed with relatives. Think of the children who die in the chaos of wars and in areas of drought and famine. She has taken it upon herself to temporarily care for some of these young souls and offer them a home on her small farm until the children can be placed more permanently. She is very happy now as a temporary foster mother for these children and absolutely happy to be around us and to be a grandmother to Cas and me, trying to spoil us rotten."
The description of his mother's punishment in Hell made Lucifer turn pale. He stammered:
"I didn't know... I never knew it was that bad...maybe if..."
Alexander understood what his father meant, but he wasn't going to let him get away with spewing some kind of platitude as being not aware of the magnitude of the punishment.
"It's no wonder you didn't know anything, Lucifer, because you didn't even bother to look her up in those thousands of years. How did you justify your behavior to simply ignore her? Oh yes, she stood by silently when your father condemned you to Hell, so you thought it poetic to return the favor and ignore her in turn, not speak to her. And when she was on Earth, you were not inclined to listen to her either, because you were preoccupied with other things. I don't want to say that the feeling you had of being wronged was a false one. You were greatly wronged by your Father, and you have every right to be angry about it. I'm just saying that trying to get back at someone with the same coin is usually petty and never leads to learning anything new. And as far as coins go, every coin has two sides; there are two stories to every event."
The devil had an unidentifiable look in his eyes and asked in disbelief:
"Are you genuinely attempting to convey to me that Mother, the ice queen, the woman who had the potential to make Machiavelli cry, is truly content? That she has found peace on some kind of farm with a bunch of animals with slimy, dirty, wet noses, that she volunteers to be some kind of foster mom, aka a soccer mom, and spends some of her time being a grandmother?"
Instead of Alexander, it was Rae Rae who answered:
"Yes, Lu, Mother is very happy in this role without her divine powers! Yes, it did hurt for a while to have to see her like that when I think about what kind of mother she is now toward those poor kids and what kind of mother she was to us. But it is worse than that. All the angels in that heaven have gained at least five pounds, especially Fuzzie, because she has discovered a hidden talent. She is a phenomenon in the kitchen, baking the best cakes and cookies I have ever tasted. Something no Angel can resist, and believe me, I know firsthand! But most of all, she is the best grandmother ever for Casiel and your son Lu, and she makes the twins happy. What more could you ask for?"
Without a word, he nodded and emptied his glass. He had a lot to think about when he was alone in the penthouse later.
"Well, Grandma came to live with us, not wanting anything to do with her status as a goddess anymore. She just wanted to live a quiet life in our heaven and be our grandmother. That's why she poured half of her divine powers into Casiel and the other half into me. She is now just a Celestial like any angel, but less powerful, and she seems perfectly happy."
The devil's head jerked up:
"She has given up her divine powers? You have half of her powers?"
Alexander saw in the Devil's eyes that the implications of this dynamic were becoming clear in Lucifer's cranium, who finally, hesitantly, put them into words:
"You are bound to the throne of Hell because you are my son, the son of the King. After I made my intentions more than clear, the throne has anchored itself to you to the extent that you could make a secondary throne for Maze. The throne in Hell normally can only be controlled by a celestial; no Demon can ascend it. So you have all the powers of the throne of Hell and then some."
"True."
"Because you are my son, the son of an archangel, you are also bound to both thrones in Heaven, those of Father and Mother."
"You are getting warmer, diablo mío."
"Michael has confirmed your title of Prince of Heaven before the entire host. There is only one other prince in heaven, and that is Michael."
"Warmer."
"Even though Father has banished Mother's throne from the throne room, he cannot destroy it without destroying half the universe. Mother has partially poured her power into you, which means that her throne, wherever Father may have stored it, has been reactivated and that throne fully answers to you."
"Careful, you almost burned yourself."
"I was the Crown Prince of Heaven. The expected heir to take over Father's role and Michael as my twin would become the guardian of reality. The Demiurge ruling the universe to ensure it would not dissolve into nothingness."
He thought for a few seconds and then said quietly:
"Michael could not confirm your claim to the title of Crown Prince. His outward reasoning is that he wants to leave it to Father because Father is the only one who can confirm your title. But these are just words, and he was telling the truth. He can't confirm your claim because that already happened the moment Mother transferred some of her powers to you."
"Very well, Lucifer, you are red-hot, and I do not want you to get burned."
The Devil's eyes widened, and he said almost inaudibly:
"Your explanation that you want to get the majority of the shareholders' votes on your side is just something to lull everyone to sleep. You already have the vast majority on your side, and you have an ace up your sleeve. Something that not even Father can stand up to."
"Careful, Lucifer; soon people will think you're not really an idiot."
"But how?"
"Who did I grow up with? Who do I call Mom and Dad?"
Trixie answered in Lucifer's place, unaware of the weight of her words:
"Your mom and dad are the God and Goddess of the universe you call home."
"Half-pint is right, Diablo Mio, the God and Goddess of another universe, a God and Goddess who, like in this universe, each have thrones. Thrones to which my twin sister and I are bound. Not in the way that all of their angels are bound to those thrones. Bound to the power of the thrones because we are the crown princesses and the crown prince of that universe. Combine that power with the power of your throne in Hell and the power of Grandmother Ta's throne in Heaven, and I think I'm in a pretty strong position to initiate a conversation with your Father and demand that there be changes that will benefit everyone. Not just for the angels, but for hell and the Demons, and ultimately for humanity, to lead them away from the path of self-destruction. No more segregation, but equality for all species, equal rights to a better future."
It was Ella who quietly asked the question that was also playing in the heads of the others:
"Holy shit, Alexander... How powerful are you then?"
Before Alexander could answer, it seemed as if someone thought it was time to play the spoilsport. Linda's pregnant belly suddenly lit up bright gold, and she muttered startled:
"Oh...Oh God, what is happening?"
It was as if spotlights were turned on in Alexander's eyes, and his warm smile could be seen from a mile away. He jumped up and placed his hands on the pregnant belly. They immediately took on a golden glow as well.