Mike nodded curtly. The respect in his eyes was disconcerting, to say the least, and he launched himself into the air, his wings beating as he ascended.

“And now it’s your turn,” Pete remarked, shoving me in the direction of the same elevator I’d taken just hours before.

“Wait, I … I don’t understand. You … you want me to take over?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “We want someone who cares about the souls. Not about their religious celebrity.”

I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t care all that greatly about the souls, either, but I was being shoved into the elevator, and Raphe, and his scowl, and his large, feathery wings, crowded me.

“You better get rid of Her,” he mumbled darkly as my testicles dropped out of my body at the speed of the elevator.

“Or what?” My voice came out reedy, and I winced.

“Or you’ll get punished along with the rest of us.” His expression told me all I needed to know about Her brand of punishment. “Do you even have a plan?” He eyed me with distaste. “You don’t look like a man with a plan.”

“I do,” I lied.

Raphe didn’t respond, but his disbelief was written all over his face.

I wracked my brain. What could I do to depose a literal God? A God who, by all accounts, was wildly abusing Her power.

The elevator lurched to a stop. I was out of time. The doors swung open, and I had no idea how I was going to rid Heaven of its leader.

Raphe pushed me into Her domain.

* * *

She was painting Her bloody toenails!

While cherubs toiled, replacing the glass panels I’d smashed earlier, sweat dripping from their creepy little toddler faces in the blazing sunlight, She sat behind her desk, one foot propped up, a little bottle of pearly white polish in Her hand.

She looked up. Those silvery eyes flashed with surprise, but then Her lips widened into a lascivious grin.

“Crawling back already, I see? I suppose you want to apologise?” She sighed dramatically. “You can wait until my nails are dry.”

I stared at Her, disgust unfurling in my stomach. This being had been the source of nightmares for demon children for as long as I could remember. The bane of our kingdom, the reason we all struggled. I’d oftentimes thought that Father’s apathy was directly related to some deep-down fear in him that he could never best Her, could never wrest enough souls from Heaven to return Hell from famine.

And here She was, leisurely painting her toenails, overworking Her elderly cherubs, and telling me—the son She’d plotted with Father to spawn so that She could continue to live Her frivolous existence without the threat of war with Hell—that I must wait until She was ready to hear my apology?