“Seven thousand, eight hundred and forty two inmates have been set loose. Only one prisoner remains. Apep, the Egyptian snake god of Chaos. Mortal enemy to, and opposite of the sun god Ra,” said the voice of the archangel in my head, in a clipped, business first tone. His mouth moved as he spoke, but the words were being heard by my mind. Behind the archangel, the board lit up with a projection of an ancient rock carving of a vicious looking snake. “His presence in Pandora was something of a surprise, given that he has been a mid-level threat for us to find for several millennia.”

  “The time of the Egyptian deities has long since passed. Many have been forgotten, faded from the memory of mortals. New gods rose to power in their place. Whilst at his weakest, the sun god Ra was struck down by the Roman god Sol, with the support of Apollo and Apollo’s father, Jupiter.” The image behind Raphael changed again, this time to a gargantuan feline slashing with a claw the size of a small house at a man on a blazing red-orange chariot. A clouded and dark sky, with bolts of lightning crashing down around the sun gods. This photo looked clean for something taken while it was likely still B.C.E., as though it had been taken on a digital camera. Likely it had been provided by one of the gods present at the battle. I still stifled a giggle. It did, after all, look like a giant cat chasing a red dot*.

  *Who Daniel is referring to here as a cat is the god Basset, daughter of Ra who interfered in the battle to protect her father. She did not fall, however the power presented by the Roman deities at the solstice of their strength, and the Egyptians at the dusk of theirs, caused Basset to flee the field. Basset current status: [REDACTED]

  “Sol won the battle, and kept Ra’s power when returning to his identity as Helios. The death of Ra left Apep with no opposing force, no one to stifle his power. Without needing to pit his will and strength against his ancient foe day after day, the snake could bide his time. Over the following years...” Raphael stopped for a moment, during which his attention shifted in the direction of one of the walls. Without looking back at us he continued. “I’ll skip the next few millennia if you don’t mind?” This was said with a lighter tone than the history lesson. A soft chuckle went through the room, and some guards who had been holding themselves stiff seemed to let some of the tension creep out of them. I was one of those. I felt a whole three percent more relaxed.

  “Let’s say, in summary, that Apep has been misering his power for over two thousand years, and with no opposite to drain it, his reserves have grown to truly incredible levels. Why he has struck at us here and now we do not know, but he has. And so we are... Yes, Demitri?”

  A guard in the second row had raised his hand. The man came to his feet, bowing awkwardly to Raphael as he spoke. “If Apep is in the prison by himself, with no other prisoners left to provide power… and you yourself are here, umm, my lord. Then what is keeping him inside the prison?” I’d been expecting a Russian accent by the name and the size of the man, but he had quite a well spoken English accent. In fact, now that I thought of it, everyone here was speaking perfect English, with regional, British accents. It seemed very unlikely that this was a coincidence. Could those around me hear me speaking French or German? Or perhaps some long dead language that no one alive has even heard of. Probably Maisie.

  “Yes the prison would not have enough reserves to contain a full fledged god, though I suspect he either used a great deal of his stored power in getting here, or left a great deal behind,” Raphael replied. “Even with that in mind however, my brother Gabriel was kind enough to let me bully him into a cell for the duration of this meeting. It gives me some time to get things moving. I’ll be returning shortly to let Gabriel out and place myself in a specially designed cell that will allow me to coordinate things, whilst providing a temporary power source for Pandora to use . And speaking of…”

  The board changed again, this time it became a list of names, well over a hundred of them, each large enough for me to read them here in the cheap seats. I think the blackboard even grew a little to fit them all in. After a quick skim, I saw my own name there, and realised that it was a register of the assembled guard.

  “After consultation with my brothers, and a brief, fruitless interrogation of Apep, we have concluded that, for yet unknown reasons, the snake has sent the prisoners to the mortal world. I don’t need to tell you how disastrous the return of so many will be to the Earth. Ideally we would send a full angelic battalion to bring the inmates back, with myself and my fellow Archangels rounding up the greatest among them.” I could almost hear a sigh held back before he continued. “However, by our Father’s command, all angels at all levels are forbidden from interfering directly with the mortal world.”

  The impact of the Archangel’s words settled over the seated men and women like a sheet of ice. A terse muttering broke out. Several seemed unconcerned with the plight of the Earth. They had long since left it, after all. A few, such as Lance, were staring at Raphael with rapt attention, not taking part in the conversations. Even more were shouting questions at the Archangel, all sense of awe at his presence lost. But amongst all those voices and people vying for his regard, none of them caught my eye as much as Maisie.

  The young guardswoman had come to her feet, which admittedly didn’t make much difference to her height. But her face, her face held more anger and sadness at once than I knew it was possible for a human being to contain. She stared at Raphael, her fists clenched. He had turned to meet her gaze, both of them held each other's eyes. They remained locked for an unending moment, one pair timeless and ethereal, one pair angry and all too human.

  “What's this about?” I muttered to the man next to me. He ignored me. Quite a few guards had now noticed the exchange, and a handful seemed just as confused as I was. The rest either had their attention locked on Maisie, or just acted like nothing was happening. As the room held its breath, the archangel broke the gaze and turned his attention back to looking at the guards one by one. An older woman, sitting next to Maisie (I recognised her as the guard who had come to get me in my cell), reached up and placed a hand on her shoulder. Maisie batted the hand away with one half its size, but it seemed enough to break her anger. She gave herself a little shake, nodded to the archangel whose attention was elsewhere, and sat back down. Raphael cleared his throat at the front and attention turned back to him. I’m not joking, we all heard the sound of a polite cough in our minds. Calm returned to the room and the shouting stopped. Hands were politely raised for Raphael’s attention.

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  “I’m sure you all have questions, but before I answer them, I must press ahead. My brother Michael has already begun assembling and equipping his team to assist on the mortal plane, but they are vastly outnumbered. He can field five crusaders in total.” A pause. “It’s his own fault for only recruiting men of unquestioning moral character and legendary fighting prowess from a list of people with grey morality.” He looked up at us. “No offence intended of course.”

  It might’ve been my imagination, but in the front row, I saw Lance shift in his seat. Maybe he thought he should’ve qualified for Michael’s A Team. I tried to reel in my ever wandering brain and remain focused on what the angel was saying, but hell, I needed to give myself a moment to assess what I’d heard so far.

  Firstly, that there were nearly eight thousand monsters, creatures, immortals, demi-gods and full fledged gods so terrible that they had to be locked up in the fricking afterlife, that were now back on Earth, probably annoying my mum. Secondly, I was trying not to speculate about what was going on in Maisie and Lance’s heads, that was their business… but I was bloody curious. Lastly, and this really shouldn’t have been the surprise it was, but Raphael mentioned his Father. That's… well, that's God. I knew there were gods, I’d seen a small part of the prison index… but this wasn’t a god, this was God. Singular, the one and only. Our Father who art in heaven. I know, I know, I’d been dead a day or so by this point, had met angels, and heard talk of heaven and hell, I should’ve put two and two together. But I was an atheist in life and hadn’t had much time to sit down and reassess. No one likes learning something they believed for twenty-something years was wrong, and I’m more stubborn than most*. I clocked back into what the voice in my head was saying.

  *Most boulders

  “What I need,” Raphael continued, “are volunteers to help Michael’s men bring the prisoners back. I need you, the guard of my bastion, to return to the mortal world and help hunt down those who escaped.”

  Silence. Absolute fucking silence. Some of the guards shared looks, but none of them spoke. I don’t think a single person let out a breath or shifted in their seat, but if they did then I assume I hadn’t shaken off my own shock yet. Before Raphael could speak again, Lance shot to his feet. Maisie was half a second slower in rising and a heartbeat later others began to rise as well. When almost fifty were standing, Raphael spoke again.

  “Wait,” he commanded, rising to his feet and waving his hands downward to suggest everyone else do the opposite. They sat back down, many faces locked in expressions of determination. Lance cast a look back over his shoulder at his older, smaller comrade. She gave no sign she’d noticed.

  “None will volunteer until you know the risk,” Raphael continued. He didn’t retake his seat, in fact the stool had vanished the moment no one had been looking at it. Instead the archangel had begun an awkward side step around the stage, as though he was trying to pace while still looking at us. “At the time of your deaths, you left the physical world behind, and your souls transitioned to this plane of existence. Returning to the mortal world will be difficult. New bodies would have to be constructed to contain your souls, but they would not be true bodies such as you had in life. They will offer your souls no protection, nor passage to purgatory upon their destruction.” The voice got slower, as though Raphael was picking his words very carefully.

  “If you return, you will appear as you do now, with all the limitations that came with life. The least of the foes you’ll face however will be far beyond the skill of an average mortal, and should you be killed you would be forever lost, your soul destroyed. Unable to return here or remain in the mortal world. You would simply cease to exist. It is that fate that those of your company who were unfortunate enough to be in the halls of Pandora during the escape now endu—.” The Archangel's voice seemed to fail him toward the end. I felt the urge to say something reassuring, but what exactly do you say to absolve an archangel of guilt?

  Lance glanced over his shoulder at Maisie again. She nodded at him before they both stood as one. Raphael cast his eye about the rest of the room. There wasn’t quite as much enthusiasm this time. Guards were fidgeting all around the room, refusing to meet the angel’s eyes. Many looked visibly panicked at the thought of being wiped from existence for eternity. In their defence, chances were high quite a few of them had long since earned a ticket upstairs, and had been staying on just to rack up the score a little bit.

  Still though, a few got to their feet. Guards I’d seen but hadn’t spoken to yet. Richard, the balding guard struggled to his feet. The old woman next to Maisie who’d come to the cell to find me stood. The man sitting next to me stood up sharply, which was odd since he hadn’t been in the first wave that stood. The next to stand was one of Lance’s followers. The big man nodded at him, then eyed the others in his entourage. They all without fail found something else to look at, as though they were children standing innocently by a broken vase. When they continued to remain seated, Lance turned away from them, and clapped the standing man on the shoulder. The man had short, brown hair, and though of a height with Lance, not as muscular. Lance must’ve outweighed him by ten kilos minimum. The look on his face showed he’d expected the others to stand up with him, even the approval coming his way from Lance couldn’t wipe away his nervous smile, as he cast more than one look back at his chair.

  I don’t remember standing up. I just saw a chance to get back to Earth and before I knew it I was on my feet. Sure I’d have to help dodge an apocalypse and everything, but a chance to go back... It was only once I’d already stood up, that I realised what I’d done. A few heads turned to look at me and I did my utmost not to make eye contact with any of them. Lance however, did more than just glance sceptically at me.

  “My Lord,” he said to Raphael while gesturing back towards me. “My Lord, he is too new, and this happened hours after he first came here. We cannot rule out that he had nothing to do with the outbreak. For all we know he let Apep in.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I was not on speaking terms with Apep, or any Egyptian gods. Nor Roman gods, Greek gods, Nordic gods, or Hindu gods. In fact, I was not pals with any deities at all. If we counted fiction then maybe the Nine, or perhaps the Pokemon gods, but unless the prison's inmate list was weirder than I thought it was, I doubt we could count them. Raphael turned to face me, and without speaking, asked me a question. I nodded, lying that I was sure. Raphael turned back to Lance.

  “Daniel here was confirmed asleep in his quarters at the time of the escape. He was nowhere near Pandora proper. If he had been, he would not have survived.”

  The look I received from the guards felt a hair's breadth less hostile. Except for Lance. He turned his full body towards me now, and was staring at me in the way a hawk stares at an unsuspecting field mouse. Raphael had not said that he was certain I had nothing to do with the escape, and that omission had not slipped past Lance undetected.

  Another slow look around the room from the Archangel yielded no further volunteers. A beat, and most of the names on the board behind him vanished. Only the names of those of us who had stood remained on the board. Those of us who had put our deaths on the line.

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