Author's note: I did not like the way I ended the last chapter so I chopped off the end of the previous one, added it to the beginning of this one and expanded the story.

Ah! Lost Angel ch10:

A tragic comedy.

Before his death, my father tried to explain the differences between Shakespeare's tragedies and his comedies. The best I was able to glean from all his explanations was; if the hero dies, it's a tragedy, if he lives then it's a comedy. Since I am still here, I guess this next story is a comedy but you will not catch me laughing.

It had been about six months since the incident at the cross, the snow on the mountains was long since melted, spring had sprung and summer was in full scorch. I was enjoying a lazy morning sprawled out on the bed in the caretaker's shack that I had come to call home. As I was contemplating what project I needed to get done today, I was startled out of my reverie by the doorbell. I was just rolling out of the sack when I heard Urd's soft voice call out to me from downstairs, "I'll get it." This surprised me a little, as I thought that she was still in Japan. Eased from the necessity of getting dressed in a hurry I actually took the time to examine my choice of attire, selecting some Bermuda shorts and a mesh over shirt along with some leather sandals for my feet.

As I was still dressing Urd's voice came traveling back up the stairs with a curious question. "Honey, did you call out for a hooker?"

"Uh, no, why do you ask?"

"Well there is some woman here dressed up like a tramp insisting on talking to you."

"Describe her for me." I asked curiously.

"Big hair, big boobs and big butt."

"Sounds like my ex-wife." I told her.

"That's who she says she is."

"Crap," I thought to myself as I realized that whatever she wanted it wasn't good. Looking out the window of my second story bedroom that overlooked the entrance, I could see that Kimberly, my ex, was in a faceoff with Urd having fixed her medusa like stare upon Urd that for reasons Kim could not fathom was not having any effect on the Daimakaicho's firstborn.

"Honey," Kimberly said as she tried to provoke a response from Urd, "It's about the company. Can I come in so we can talk?"

"I'm sorry dear," I answered her in kind, "But I have this thing about letting bad karma into my household. If it's that important go around back to the boat dock and I'll join you in a minute."

Hurrying downstairs, I caught Urd's eye as she walked by and asked her, "Trouble?"

"For you no, but for her… well her fate will be what she makes it."

Smiling at me, she waved her hands and transformed her flattering white mid length blouse and jeans into an even more flattering white one-piece bathing suit. Picking up a tray of three glasses of green tea that had not been there earlier she motioned for me to open the door for her as she carried them to the table where my ex-wife was patiently waiting. Placing the tray on the table, I observed as the tea stalks in the glass selected by my wife, which until then had been standing upright, suddenly change their orientation, now floating on the surface.

"Does she have to be here?" Kim asked me frostily.

"Yes she does," I answered, "if only because I want her to be."

"Relax," Urd told her, "today I'm here as your bodyguard."

"And why, pray tell, do you think I need a bodyguard?" Kim asked her.

"You should know the answer to that better than I," Urd told her gravely, "but if you insist on playing dumb you can suffice it to say while that sometimes, bad things happen to good people for no reason, it's more often the case that bad things happen to bad people because they deserve it. I'm just here to keep the latter from happening, if I can."

"And what is it that you fear is going to happen to me?" Kim asked her snootily.

"That all depends on the karma of the person and over that I have no control," Urd answered her sadly.

Hoping to prevent their conversation from degrading into the macabre I interjected myself between the two and asked Kim her reason for stopping by.

"It's your company," she began, "the problem is this…"

I will not put her conversation down word for word in this journal simply because there is no need. In essence, she told me that due to her and her lawyer boyfriend's mismanagement of my company and its manufacturing processes they were seeing an inordinate amount of product returns and warranty claims. So many in fact that the company's financial health was in jeopardy. As a result and with the reluctant agreement of her boyfriend/partner, (AKA my ex-lawyer.), she was here offering to hire me back as a consultant in order to help them get the plant back on its feet.

To say that I was sorely tempted would be an understatement and there are some aspects of my old life that I still miss, being head of my own business one of them. Nevertheless, my old life was over and I was now living a new one, one where Urd and World of elegance were the new center of my existence. So, not even bothering to consider her offer seriously I turned her down flat. This in turn caused my ex to up the ante now offering to make me a junior partner. When I turned her down again she upped the ante even more offering to make me a senior partner with "special incentives." Turning her down again she began to beg, then plead and when that did not work, demand that I come back because I "owed it" to her.

It was at this juncture that Urd had had enough; rising slowly from her chair Urd fixed her green eyes on Kim's and said. "Miss Kimberly, you have your answer and further discussion of this subject is unnecessary. It is time now for you to take your leave."

For a second I thought Kim was going to make trouble but the look on Urd's face was enough to dissuade her. Urd politely escorted her around to the front of the house and we both watched her from the front door as Kim got into her car and drove off. As I shut the door behind me, I heard her car as it screeched to a halt then furiously backup into the courtyard. Shortly thereafter Kimberly began pounding on my door angrily shouting obscenities incoherently while she did so. Tired of being polite I threw open the door and screamed furiously, "Dammit no means no!" I was fixing to let loose with a full-blown tirade when I noticed that she was pointing a small pistol at me. Frozen in terror I saw her finger squeeze the trigger and… nothing happened. In frustration, Kimberly pulled the trigger again, this time something did happen but not what she expected. Instead of a bullet between my eyes, the gun just exploded, turning her manicured hands into hamburger while leaving me unscathed.

An instant later, almost as if she knew this was going to happen, Urd joined me in the entranceway with a small first aid kit in her hands. Looking at me with a sad expression she sighed and began to gently bandage the hands of my would be murderer.

"I guess I should thank you," I told Urd shakily as I watched her wrap my ex-wife's wounds.

"No need, that wasn't me." She said seriously, "That was the System Force!"

"The System Force, how?"

"When I had Daniel spec it out for me I only adjusted the parameters so that the System Force wouldn't cause us any trouble, all the other protections I left in place. If I had to guess, what probably happened just now was that Yggdrasil forced a one-in-a-million misfire to happen, causing the first bullet to lodge in the barrel. When she tried to cap you the second time that round had nowhere to go so the weapon just exploded, I'll know more after I review the data runs."

"Is she going to be okay?"

"No doubt, her hands are going to be seriously scarred and she most likely will lose her trigger finger but sadly for her she will live."

It wasn't what she said but how she said it that puzzled me about Urd's last statement, for although her words could be considered vindictive the sadness in her voice was unmistakable. Urd really felt sorry, not for me but for Kimberly whom she really believed would be better off dead. It didn't take long for me to figure out why.

"I guess maybe we should call an ambulance or the police or somebody?" I suggested.

"Don't bother," Urd told me grimly, "Mother will be along shortly."

"Your mother?"

"Yes, I caught a hint of Hild's brimstone perfume on her just now. Your ex probably had a contract with her and she has just failed to deliver. And as we both know my mother doesn't take kindly to failure."

It was about this time that my delayed adrenalin rush kicked in and my world became surreal as I tried to make sense of all the emotions I was feeling at that moment. Just reflecting on the shear absurdity of the situation is enough to give me a headache even today; here was the woman I loved calmly bandaging the hand of a woman I once loved who had just tried to kill me, the latter having been aided by the mother of the former.

Noticing the sad look on my face Urd admonished me, "I wouldn't feel too sorry for her if I were you. None of what she told you was true. Her lawyer boyfriend saw the writing on the wall months ago and took a hike. There is already a motion in the works to force KCSE into bankruptcy. Her plan was to put on the damsel-in-distress act in order to seduce you into buying the company from her for what on the face of it would appear to be pennies on the dollar. However, she is the beneficiary for the insurance and the building where your company is located is riddled with deadly hazards, some due to neglect others placed there deliberately. She was going to seduce you, make love to you right there on the factory floor, then let you fall victim to one of those hazards, even planning on going so far as to push you into one should you not find it quickly enough on your own."

Looking over to where Kimberly lay I could tell simply from her expression that what Urd said was true.

"How do you know all this?" I asked in dismay.

"I'm the Yggdrasil system administrator, so I know everything," Urd explained flatly. "About a month ago, she popped up on the System Force radar as a potential threat when she began searching for you. Seeing as how you are my boyfriend and I love you and all that I decided to inquire as to her motivations."

Stunned I asked her, "You're telling me that for the last month she has been seeking me out just so she could kill me and you knew about it!"

"That's right," Urd assented, "and the System Force has been protecting you by keeping her from discovering your whereabouts."

"But why didn't you tell me!"

"Because there was no need too! Desperation was her motivation. All that needed to happen was to keep the two of you apart until your company went in to litigation! After that it wouldn't have mattered to her anymore."

"Nonetheless she did find me," I shouted at her angrily, "she just came after me with a gun for crying out loud!"

"That's only because mother told her where to find you!" she cried, "Dearest, I can protect you from many things but not Hild, not my mother. If she wants you dead then you're… dead and there isn't anything I can do about it."

I could see by the expression on my beloved's face that she had just made a very painful admission. "How hard it must be for her," I thought to myself, "to be gifted with all this mighty power and know it still might not be enough to protect the ones you love."

Walking up to her, I put my hands around her slender waste. "Don't cry," I whispered in her ear, "there isn't a single mother in the universe who isn't convinced that the man their daughter is with isn't good enough for them. In Hild's case, I think she might have a point, but I do know I love you, enough even to risk the occasional assassin's bullet if you will just stay by my side."

"Sometimes you say the most romantic things." Urd whispered as she melted in my arms.

A few minutes later Hild did indeed stop by for a tête-à-tête with her daughter. Gently removing my arms from around her waist Urd kissed my hands before joining her mother out on the boat dock leaving me alone with my ex wife as she cowered silently in the corner nursing her injured hand.

Once safely out of ear shot Urd cut to the chase, "Mother," she asked in a very peeved voice, "why did you put out a hit on my boyfriend?"

"Urd'ie sometimes I think that you forget I'm the CEO of Hel." Hild began as if she were explaining the obvious, "Surely, you must realize that a woman in my position must always be on guard against usurpers and all the other political upheaval that comes with the job. This, of course, causes me to worry about many things and to constantly… reevaluate my political liabilities. Now one potential liability that I never used to worry about was my little girl. At least that was the case until Horace took you out with that cheap shot. Now, in all honesty, after that little learning experience, I am sure that you will not make that mistake again. However, what about Kendal? He still doesn't have a clue what he has got himself into."

"Mother, I told you about the contract I have. Yggdrasil and the System Force should keep him safe."

"The operative term there is should, and for me that just isn't good enough, I needed to know you had all your bases covered."

"Now you know," Urd told her softly.

"Now I know," Hild repeated, as she froze her daughter where she sat. "But there is still one test that Kendal must pass without any help from you."

Standing regally Hild walked over to where my ex-wife was laying in the foyer, grabbed her by the hair and gave me a meaningful look almost daring me to say something. As she waited, my ex let out a mournful wale.

"Honey pleeaassee don't let her take meee! I swear I'll do anything you ask… anything at all… I'll be your good little girl… I'll be your slave… I'll leave and never come back! Just stop her, please just stop her… save me… save me… please save me… pleeaassee!"

I never in my life wanted to help someone so much as I did her, this poor deluded woman who had just tried to kill me, but something inside was telling me that if I so much as looked her direction all bets would be off. So, I just stood there motionless and held Hild's gaze with my own while my former wife begged for her life, her cries for mercy ripping at my heart like knifes.

The why of it all.

Now being the ruler of the demon realm Hild is of course a master manipulator. To Hild, her subjects, the mortals, and every other living being are nothing more than pawns in an impossibly large and complex game of chess. Don't get me wrong now, I'm not saying that she doesn't care about them; in fact quite the opposite is true. However, she has no empathy; no feeling for what an individual might be suffering because of her actions as she strives for the greater good of her realm. That leaves all who know her with the impression that she is cold and ruthless caring only for that and nothing else.

However, a few also know that the sole exception to this rule is her daughter Urd. Hild loves her daughter, and she wants her to be happy, of that, I have no doubt. This being Hild's only weakness makes her daughter a target and Hild is painfully aware of this fact. Now as long as she stayed up in Heaven or down in Hel Urd was safe, but the silly goddess had managed to get herself banished to earth where she was vulnerable and apparently has every intention of remaining. Now Hild could have dispatched an army of demons to drag Urd down to the safety of Hel, but rather than seal her daughter away from harm Hild did exactly the opposite, appearing to have cast her out alone and defenseless into the cold harsh reality of the mortal world leaving her to her own devices. Hild even sent a powerful first class demon named Mara to harass Urd, leaving few to dare question just how ruthless the Daimakaicho could be.

However, appearances can be deceiving and the facts of this matter are indeed quite different. Although she is rated as a first class demon Mara is an idiot, so rather than harassing Urd, who is only a class two goddess, Mara only manages to amuse her. The end result was exactly what Hild intended and using Mara's unbroken string of failures as an excuse Hild sent an avatar of herself, (The little 12-year-old version of Hild that I met at the Skull and Rainbow.), to personally oversee her activities. This in turn, allows Hild to watch over her daughter while appearing to do exactly the opposite.

When my ex-wife first started plotting to kill me the event was red flagged by Yggdrasil and by means of their information exchange system Hild was notified too. By itself, Kim's intentions to do away with me were of little worry, the System Force protective measures being adequate to keep me safe. That all changed suddenly when in desperation, Kim called upon the dark forces to aid her in her mission, thereby setting in motion a series of events that eventually led to my ex-wife's demise.

Now because of the fact that I was Yggdrasil protected, the local demon contractor was prohibited from closing the deal and up channeled Kim's request to upper management for determination. Upper level was reluctant to sign off on it due to my association with Hild's daughter and kicked the request all the way to the top where it finally landed on the desk of the Daimakaicho.

Taking ownership of the request Hild sought out my ex and did something unheard of: She tried to talk Kim out of it! Hild even went so far as to explain in excruciating detail the nature of the forces aligned against her and the consequences of failure. Nevertheless, my ex-wife could not, or would not, believe that my love for Urd would make me immune to her machinations, persisting until Hild reluctantly entered into a simple Life-for-a-Life contract with her.

In doing so, Kim unknowingly had placed Hild in a serious bind. Even though Hild does not give a tinkers dam about me, she does care about her daughter's happiness and Kim had just forced her to close a deal that, if fulfilled was guaranteed to strain her relationship with Urd past the breaking point.

"That's the big problem with using a performance based business model," Urd explained to me later, "It doesn't leave you any wiggle room."

If I had been given enough time to puzzle things out, I might have been able to save my ex. The demon realm being a profit driven business after all. However, had I entered into a contract with Hild to spare Kim's life it would have meant that Kim would remain on the surface world and her Life-for-a Life contract with Hild would remain in force, a constant threat to my life, Urd's happiness and Hild's budding relationship with her daughter. (Not to mention her profit and loss columns, Hild still smarting from the hit she took when she traded Horace's soul to save mine.) However, Hild had absolutely no intention of leaving herself exposed one second longer than necessary and because of Kim's abysmal performance, (Not to mention in order to insure her daughter's happiness,), she was Johnny-on-the-spot ready to collect Kim's soul as soon as she defaulted, intending to close out the contract ASAP before Kim could try again.

That was the nature of the warning look that Hild was giving me even as my ex begged for mercy. So in the end the only thing I could do was what I did do, NOTHING! Hild having left me no other option but stand there as she took my measure using my ex-wife's screams for a yardstick. When, at last she was finally satisfied I was a worthy enough companion for her daughter Hild broke her gaze from mine and dragged my ex-wife screaming down into Hel.

As soon as her presence faded, the spell that held Urd vanished and she ran fearfully back inside the house. Seeing me still standing she took me in her arms and began softly crying. Whether it was from fear or impotence or just frustration her tears stinging my cheeks was the straw that broke the camel's back, it all just became more than I could handle and I broke down and began to cry as well.

"I know how much it hurts, I know." Urd whispered soothingly, "sometimes the hardest thing you can do, is do nothing at all."

Softly as if from far away, I heard World of Elegance's voice in my mind as she wrapped me in the safety of her powerful wings. "As it was then so it is now, the promise made still holds true; I shall let no harm befall you."

Author's revised last word. That should do it for this story for now, as I have mentioned before this story exists in a different form over at fiction press. It was in the manga section titled Snow Angel, but since the completion of this story, I have pulled it back, renamed it, revised all the chapters and moved it over to the romance section. The new title is The Angel in the Snow. (Google search term Ironrod/angel in the snow.) Due to the very heavy traffic over at that site, you will not be able to find, The Angel in the Snow anywhere nears the top of the list.(Thus the reason for search term.), So far, the only way I have been able to locate it on the fiction press site is to do a search by author. As you begin to read it, you might think that you are reading the same text as was written here. However, there are significant divergences that become more pronounced the deeper you get into it. Keep in mind that Snow Angel was published first then later edited by me to fit the constraints of the Ah! My Goddess universe. As of this writing The Angel in the Snow is still a work in progress and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.