Holy Wars: Chapter Thirteen

I Do Believe In This

In the end, the Metatron had to take me home seperately. I wanted to keep Murphy with me for a little while, and in any case she would have to be carried, and the door wouldn't understand which home to go to. So I picked up Murphy and he walked all three of us through the door and to my apartment.

"That really is a neat spell," I said, and it was; no interim time, just one moment in Jessie's house, through the door, and then my apartment. "I'd like to learn it."

"You can't," the Metatron said. "It's an angelic ability. Now put her to bed so you can ask me those questions I sense boiling up in your little head."

I wasn't quite sure if I'd been insulted or not, so I let that remark pass without comment and did as he said instead, kicking the door shut behind me, then stood looking down at Murphy for a moment.

She looked so small.

I should get rid of that shirt she was wearing. I couldn't tell her she'd died, and how was I supposed to explain the hole in it? Explaining the disappearance would be easier than the hole; just tell her I'd bled all over it and thrown it out. And how was I supposed to explain the gap in her memory? A knock on the head, I guess. Easy enough. She got knocked out, I got shot or something, Jessie Messiah'd and healed it, the blood on her shirt was mine.

I'd promised I wouldn't lie to her. But I couldn't tell the truth about something like this.

The Metatron could wait for a moment. I carefully tugged her shirt off over her head, then manhandled her into one of my t-shirts, trying not to look the whole time and memorizing it anyway. She'd kill me if she knew what I was thinking. I just said a brief prayer of thanks that her bra was unstained and whole, snugged the covers tight beneath her chin, and went back out to the living room.

At first, I thought the Metatron had left; then I found him across the room, bent over and having a staring contest with Mister. The cat was winning. I cleared my throat.

"Took you long enough," the angel said, without looking around. "Ask."

"Who sent me that letter?" I asked. "The anonymous one. The one that led me to Jessie."

The Metatron stood upright and gave me a faintly impressed look. "Ah. How interesting. I had expected something existential."

I waited.

He shook his head. "Very well. I did. Or rather, I had a muse inspire someone to write it and slip it through your door. One of your upstairs neighbors. And before you ask, no, we did not spread the word of Jessica's powers. The silly child told her mother over the phone, and a demon overheard, then went about selling the information to everyone it could find." The Metatron looked briefly thoughtful. "It must have made quite a tidy profit off that bit of information. Not that it's useful anymore."
Two questions answered, several to go. "Fair enough," I said. "Who hired those thugs?"

A nonplussed expression crossed the Metatron's face. "What thugs?"

"The ones who attacked my apartment," I said. "I'm just glad they didn't trash the place."

He cast his eyes to the ceiling, as if trying to remember something. Or perhaps asking someone higher. "The Order of the Blackened Denarii. They are weakened and frightened and dared not risk crossing the Messiah without having every one of them there, so they sent those who could not be injured by her power. I trust that is a satisfactory answer."
I shrugged. "Enough. They won't come after me, will they?"

"I've no idea. Should they choose to do that, it's your problem."
"Gee, thanks," I muttered. "And Murphy."
The Metatron's expression softened a bit. "She will live, and thrive. Trust your Messiah, Mr. Dresden. Jessica may not have the fine control to repair something like a shirt, but Karrin Murphy is totally unharmed."

I closed my eyes. "I see."

There was a pause, and then the Metatron said, sounding a tad uncomfortable, "Well, if that is all, I'll be going."
"Hey!" I took two steps forward and grabbed his sleeve. "Hey, wait a minute, one more question. Why me?"
He looked back at me, arched one thin, black eyebrow. "I'm sorry?"
"Why me?" I demanded. "Why did you pick me to look after her? Why not Michael, or Sanya? Someone already in your good books."
The Metatron smiled. "Mr. Dresden," he intoned, "God has a plan. Jessica Sloane needed you, it is true. But you needed her just as much. Good night."
And he vanished.

The first thought that crossed my mind—That bastard, he could've done that all along—was irrelevant. The second—And just what the hell did he mean by that?—was rather more so, but angels are tough to explain. Bob might be able to give me some insight...

That thought rewound and wrote itself in blazing letters across my brain. "Shit, Bob!" I exclaimed, threw the trapdoor open and damn near hurdled the stairs.

Bob sat comfortably in his normal place, totally ignoring me.

"Bob?" I asked, panting a little. Hey, you try going from zero to sixty down a flight of stairs.

"What?" he asked, without the orange glow coming on. "I'm sleeping."

I took a deep breath and sank down to sit on my stool. "Sorry. Thought you got left behind. There were...complications."
Bob's eyelights flickered on immediately, and he watched me with something like concern. Still no idea how he manages to do that with a face that's just bone. "I don't like that tone, Harry. What do you mean complications?" He paused, and added, "It got something to do with that blood?"

I looked him straight in his nonexistent eyes. "It's Murphy's," I said, and told him the rest of the story from there.

Mercifully, he didn't interrupt. This was not a story I wanted to backtrack or explain. Hell, it wasn't a story I wanted to tell twice.

"...so she's upstairs," I finished.

Bob's eyelights shrank and grew, and I got the unnerving impression that he'd just waggled his eyebrows. "In your bed."

I sighed. "Not one of your better efforts. Yes, in my bed. I'll be sleeping on the couch."
"You're no fun." He paused again, then said, "Harry, are you okay?"
"I don't know. I think I will be, I just..." I looked up the stairs again.

Bob was still watching me when I turned back towards him. "Only, you said you believed." His voice rose a bit, interrogatively.
I shook my head. "Not in God, not exactly. I know there's something up there, I just don't believe."

"There's a Messiah," Bob pointed out. "And you just said you talked to an angel."

"Look, just because I've seen an angel doesn't mean I believe in God. It's too...too immediate. It'd be a bit like believing in the mailman."

"The original quote is postman," Bob said.

I raised an eyebrow at him, and I actually have eyebrows to raise, so it was a bit less astonishing. "You've been reading Pratchett? Not your usual fare."

"I have to refresh my endless supply of wisecracks somehow, you know." The orange lights in his eyesockets narrowed. "Harry, seriously. Answer the question."

"Technically, you didn't ask one," I said. Bob snorted, and I added, quickly, "But all right. No, I don't believe in God. But there's a living woman upstairs that says some miracles are true." I hesitated a minute.

"So..." Bob prompted.

I looked him in the eyesockets. "I don't believe in God," I repeated. "I do believe in Jessie. Someday she's going to work miracles and I just hope I'm still around to see it." I stretched, heard my neck crack, and got off the stool, heading up the stairs. "Good night, Bob."

"Good night, Harry," Bob said, and with a sly grin in his voice, added, "Jessie bless you."
I paused at the top of the stairs. "You know what, Bob? I think she did."

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Final Notes

Harry Dresden and his usual suspects belong to Jim Butcher, as does the world this is set in. The Metatron, Bethany Sloane, Jay and Silent Bob, and the concept of the Last Scion belong to Kevin Smith and View Askew. Jessica Sloane belongs to the ages and authors of fanfiction everywhere, though she was gracious enough to start with me. The Voice was very kindly lent to me by Terry Pratchett's Death.

I want to thank GG Crono, for his endless support, courage, and patience with my bitching, Dark Puck for suggesting several turns of plot, all the aforementioned authors and creators for letting me play in their sandboxes and you, my reviewers, for encouragement and enjoying this piece.

The most special and heartfelt of thanks to the ever-lovely, ever-patient Prisceille for sharing her time and Dresden Files expertise to beta this monster (emphasis on patience, folks. This took well over a year to write from conception to finishing touches). She stuck with me the whole way, through weird phrasings and canon-breaking chapters; it's entirely due to her that it's finished at all. She deserves about eight million more thanks than I can give her, so you, dear reader, are going to have to help me out.

Thank you.

Rosethorn/TigerKat

PS: There are a couple of Easter eggs in this story: a Monty Python reference in chapter 9, and a Firefly reference in chapter 10 (chapters 10 and 11 as numbered by FFN). You get cookies for the latter and a pony for the former.