Can't Fix Cupid

My job now consists of staying in the processing center and being a glorified line monitor.

Some more neds pop up. Humans, vampires, fae, trolls, even a centaur by the looks of it. He stumbles on his hooves before looking wildly around. “Yeah, yeah. You’re dead. Welcome to the afterlife. Please move forward to the back of the line.”

I swear, his ghostly form pales a little bit when he sees how long it is. We can’t see to the front. Hell, we can’t even see to the middle of it. It’s just an endless snake of zig zags, as far as the eye can see, spanning the enormous building and fading into the distance like a cloudy mirage.

“I know,” I tell him with a conciliatory look. “But it’s not like you have anywhere else to be, am I right?”

He wrinkles his nose at my distasteful joke before clopping away.

Cariel sighs. “You definitely did not just bestow Grace on his soul to ease him into his transition, angel.”

“Trix,” I correct him. “For the thousandth time in six months, my name is Trix.”

He shakes his head. “And like I told you before, angel. Not anymore. Your angelic name is Muriel.”

I scoff. “Fuck that.”

The gold band around my wrist starts to burn in warning at my expletive. “Ouch!”

Cariel smirks and tsks under his breath. “Still haven’t learned your lesson.”

I glare at him as I think very unangelic thoughts. I picture my ghostly fist punching straight into his hairy gut. I don’t care that he’s four times bigger than me, I’d still hit him if I could.

More souls pop up, a few of them rowdy. I blast them with an overly intense bout of ambrosial Light to calm the fuckers down. They scramble away real quick, shielding their eyes as they go.

I turn to Cariel in triumph. “There, I embraced the shit out of my Light just then.”

Cariel sighs. So judgmental.

My band burns again, but this time, it starts to glow too, and a message pops up on it. I’m being summoned to a supervisor.

“Uh oh.”

Cariel glances down at it, not looking the least bit surprised. “Bad luck, Muriel. I wonder if they’ll terminate you for good?” he muses.

I bristle, but honestly...he’s right. They might actually terminate me. It’s not like I’m excelling as an angel.

“Peace be with you,” he says with a shit-eating smirk on his face as I turn to head to the angel offices. He shines a little Grace over to me to be a jackass, but I bat that shit away like an annoying fly and flip him off over my shoulder. I get burned again. Worth it.

I fly my way past the snaking line of souls and then veer off to head to the hallway that has clouds for floors and harp music playing over the speakers. Light shines from above, too bright to look at directly, and a little bit of golden glitter hangs in the air. It looks beautiful. I hate it.

My band said to go to office number two, so I fly in front of the door. I fidget with a white feather on my wing and hover nervously. Is this it? Am I going to be popped out of existence for good?

I don’t regret becoming an angel. But I wish I could forget what it was like being a cupid—what it was like being with him.

Maybe they’ll terminate me, and I’ll cease to exist. Maybe that’s what should happen, because I don’t know how much longer I can stand this. It’s like my soul is severed. I just don’t have the heart anymore.

Before I can really work up my level of nervousness, the door slides open, and a male angel stands before me. He’s smooth, shiny, and drop dead gorgeous, in an impossibly perfect kind of way.

He has golden hair and white wings like me, but he’s impressively large, and the loin cloth look is really working for him. Wow. It’s like he has a third leg down there.

“C

ome,” he tells me.

“Gee, I usually need a little more warm-up than that, but I’ll do my best,” I joke nervously.

I don’t think he gets it, because he doesn’t laugh. Or crack a smile. Or do anything other than blink. Sheesh. It’s like these angels can’t appreciate a dirty joke. Never had that problem with cupids.