JIM BUTCHER: SMALL FAVOR

Except that he wasn’t dead yet-and thinking like that was too much like giving up on him. I couldn’t do that.

I looked up at the podium, where Whoever would presumably be when someone was there delivering a sermon.

“I know that we don’t talk much,” I said, speaking out loud to the empty room. “And I’m not looking for a pen pal. But I thought You should know that Michael makes You look pretty good. And if after all he’s done, it ends like this for him, I’d think less of You. He deserves better. I think You should make sure he gets it. If You want to bill it to me, I’m fine with that. It’s no problem.”

Nobody said anything back.

“And while we’re on the subject,” I said, “I think the rules You’ve got set up suck. You don’t get involved as much as You used to, apparently. And Your angels aren’t allowed to stick their toes in unless the bad guys do it first. But I’ve been running some figures in my head, and when the Denarians pulled up those huge Signs, they had to have a lot of power to do it. A lot of power. More than I could ever have had, even with Lasciel. Archangel power. And I can only think of one of those guys who would have been helping that crew.”

I stood up and jabbed a finger at the podium, suddenly furious, and screamed, “The Prince of fucking Darkness gets to cheat and unload his power on the earth-twice!-and You just sit there being holy while my friend, who has fought for You his whole life, is dying ! What the hell is wrong with You?”

“I guess this is a bad time,” said a voice from behind me.

I turned around and found a little old guy in a dark blue coverall whose stenciled name tag read, JAKE. He was pulling behind him a janitor’s cart with a trash bin and the usual assortment of brooms and mops and cleaning products. He had a round belly and short, curling silver hair that matched his beard, both cropped close to his dark skin. “Sorry. I’ll come back later.”

I felt like an idiot. I shook my head at him. “No, no. I’m not doing anything. I mean, you’re not keeping me from anything. I’ll get out of your way.”

“You ain’t in my way, young man,” said Jake. “Not at all. You ain’t the first one I ever seen upset in a hospital chapel. Won’t be the last, either. You sure you don’t mind?”

“No,” I said. “Come on in.”

He did, hauling the cart with him, and went over to the trash can in the corner. He took out the old liner. “You got a friend here, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said, sitting down again.

“It’s okay to be mad at God about it, son. It ain’t His fault, what happened, but He understands.”

“Maybe He does,” I said with a shrug. “But He doesn’t care. I don’t know why everyone thinks He does. Why would He?”

Jake paused and looked at me.

“I mean, this whole universe, right? All those stars and all those worlds,” I continued, maybe sounding more bitter than I had intended. “Probably so many different kinds of people out there that we couldn’t count them all. How could God really care about what’s happening to one little person on one little planet among a practically infinite number of them?”

Jake tied off the trash bag and tossed it in the bin. He replaced the liner with a thoughtful look on his face. “Well,” he said, “I never been to much school, you understand. But seems to me that you assuming something you shouldn’t assume.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“That God sees the world like you do. One thing at a time. From just one spot. Seems to me that He is supposed to be everywhere, know everything.” He put the lid back on the trash can. “Think about that. He knows what you’re feeling, how you’re hurting. Feels my pain, your pain, like it was His own.” Jake shook his head. “Hell, son. Question isn’t how could God care about just one person. Question is, how could He not .”

I snorted and shook my head.

“More optimism than you want to hear right now,” Jake said. “I hear you, son.” He turned and started pushing the cart out the door. “Oh,” he said. “Can an old man offer you one more thought?”

“Sure,” I said, without turning around.

“You gotta think that maybe there’s a matter of balance, here,” he said. “Maybe one archangel invested his strength in this situation overtly and immediately. Maybe another one was just quieter about it. Thinking long-term. Maybe he already gave you a hand.”

My right hand erupted into pins and needles again.

I sucked in a swift breath and rose, spinning around.

Jake was gone.

The janitor’s cart was still there. A rag hanging off the back was still swinging back and forth slightly. A folded paperback book was shoved between the body of the cart and the handle. I went over to the cart and looked up and down the hall.

There was no one in sight, and nowhere they could have conveniently disappeared to.

I picked up the book. It was a battered old copy of The Two Towers . One page was dog-eared, and a bit of dialogue underlined in pencil.

“‘The burned hand teaches best,’” I read aloud. I made my way back to my seat and shook my head. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Grimalkin mewled from the pew beside me, “That your experience with resisting the shadow of the Fallen One has garnered the respect of the Watchman, my Emissary.”

I twitched violently enough that I came up off my seat an inch or two, and came back down with a grunt. I slid down as far as I could to the end of the pew. It wasn’t far. I bought myself only another inch or three before I turned to face Mab.

She sat calmly, dressed in a casual business suit of dark blue, wearing plenty of elegant little diamonds. Her white hair was bound up into a braided bun, held in place with ivory sticks decorated with lapis. She held Grimalkin on her lap like a favorite pet, though only a lunatic would have mistaken the malk for a domestic cat. It was the first time I’d seen Grimalkin in clear light. He was unusually large and muscular, even for a malk-and they tended to make your average lynx look a little bit scrawny. Grimalkin must have weighed sixty or seventy pounds, all of it muscle and bone. His fur was dark grey, patterned with rippling black fur almost like a subtle watermark. His eyes were yellow-green, very large, and far too intelligent for any animal.

“The Watchman?” I stammered.

Mab’s head moved slightly with the words, but it was Grimalkin’s mewling voice that actually spoke. “The Prince of the Host is all pomp and ceremony, and when he moves it is with the thunder of the wings of an army of seraphim, the crash of drums, and the clamor of horns. The Trumpeter never walks quietly when he can appear in a chorus of light. The Demon Binder takes tasks upon his own shoulders and solves his problems with his own hands. But the Watchman…” Mab smiled. “Of the archangels, I like him the most. He is the quiet one. The subtle one. The one least known. And by far the most dangerous.”

I sorted through what knowledge I had of the archangels. It was meager enough, but I knew that much, at least. “Uriel,” I said quietly.

Mab lifted a finger and continued speaking through the malk. “Caution is called for, Emissary mine. Were I in your position, I would speak his name sparingly, if ever.”

“What has he done to me?” I asked her.

Mab stared at me with iridescent eyes. “That is a question only you can answer. But I can say this much: He has given you the potential to be more of what you are.”

“Huh?”

She smiled, reached to the bench on the other side of her body, and produced my blasting rod. “The return of your property,” the malk said. “The need to keep it from you has passed.”