Chapter 39

Wow, my firstborn daughter, I thought as I held little Adah in my arms before turning her back over to the midwife. My sweet wife, Xia Delan Clarke, so petite as always did not look as if she could have endured that grisly business of labor to bring our baby into this world, yet she clearly did. She was drained, sweaty, and weak from loss of blood, but she managed a faint smile as the doctors attended to her. Then Michael came over and touched her forehead, somehow granting her some of his strength and vitality, that of a celestial being.

“She is a prematurely born child. She will need all of the help that she can get,” Michael told me after I thanked him.

“Looks like what’s left of the resistance in Richmond will need it, too, but it’s a bit too late for them,” Bubba Joe Mackenzie remarked after finishing his little quickie with Agnes Culver.

That was when I heard a gunshot, which caused us to turn our heads. Godwin Marx lay dead, Warren Buckner standing over him with an evil grin on his face as he turned his shotgun to face each of us. Michael instantly felled Buckner with a single stroke of his flaming sword. With his last gasp of breath, the dying turncoat and assassin gave a Nazi salute and croaked, “Heil, Eckart!”

“Well, that settles his motive, doesn’t it?” Agnes Culver sneered, clearly more frightened than her brazen bravado suggested.

“Motherfucking Nazi living right among us and we never had a clue! Almost makes you wish that Hell still existed. Almost,” I grimaced before letting the midwife hand little Adah over to Xia Delan.

“I wouldn’t make that big of a deal of that place. It was always somewhat overrated. Trust me on that. I ran the place for a good while. I should know,” another voice interjected itself.

“Lord,” Evie instantly prostrated herself before our newest guest: Satan.

“Satan! I should have guessed that you should your face whenever you got bored with ruling Atlanta,” Michael smirked.

“Chill, girlfriend ... you don’t serve me anymore ... nor do you have to, though I have plenty of other of the old staff on board with me. Anyway, governing Atlanta is a lot more fun than administering Hell. I can promise you that much. Not as many screams from tormented souls, just as an example. Not as much fire, smoke, and brimstone, either. Definitely not as much darkness.

“And there’s no overall crimson glow or whatever you want to call it hanging in what passed for air down there. Yeah, good riddance to Hell. I’m done with that place. Forever. Anyway, I just want to congratulate the Prophet on the birth of his firstborn ... child. Human child, that is. Nothing against little Cain here, though. He’ll grow up to be quite the little walking, talking flamethrower, no doubt.

“I must say that I’m very pleased at the decline in traditional, mainstream religion in the wake of Doomsday and the rise of what’s clearly emerging as the top dog sect. The weak, corrupt, stale dogmas of the past, giving way to the bold new path of the future. I’m very impressed by that. The absence of Methodists to object to your ... desecration of that local legacy of John Wesley and Francis Asbury is a rather delightful example of this turn of events. Not that Asbury or Wesley were bad people ... for Christians,” Satan scoffed a bit as he raised a glass to me.

“In any case, here’s to the local Prophets who will give theocracy a much better name as they help bring the Nazi goons down to their knees where they belong!” Lucifer winked as he downed some excellent champagne.

“Here, here!” Ted added, even as he felt Marcy sucking his dick.

“Congratulations to the brides and bridegroom as well! Didn’t mean to forget you guys,” the Devil laughed just before he vanished.

Satan wasn’t wrong about the demise of Christianity in large parts of the world, and it wasn’t limited to that religion. Other faiths were also in decline, particularly Islam, due to the rise of Havenism and other, rival sects. Areas of sectarian dominance remained, especially Utah and central Arizona, controlled by the Mormons, not to mention upstate New York under Powerball’s bizarre brand of Calvinism and the slight plurality of New Jerseyans who were part of the local rite of the Catholic Church (virtually independent of the two schismatic branches of Catholicism these days).