The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Six and a Half (Draft 3) "Spirits in the Material World"

"Aren't you off-mission here?"

The voice was unfamiliar, but Morpheus wasn't surprised by the question, having sensed two Angelic presences as they arrived. He turned his head slowly from the recovery room where Steven lay to see how they had manifested. "Wouldn't you be more out of place, Father Jerah and Dr. Chandra from Respiratory Care?" Morpheus gestured to their badges.

"It's a Catholic hospital," Zerachiel said. She was manifesting flesh in the form of a young male priest and his light brown skin was shades darker than her usual snowy tone, but the black eyes and wavy hair were much the same.

"He's breathing." Gabriel frowned. She'd manifested with darker coloring, but her body was the same shape Morpheus had seen before. "St. Clare's doesn't have a Maternity ward."

"But they are affiliated with a volunteer program."

"With a dress code," Zerachiel said with a slight lilting of Father Jerah's full brows at the trousers and blue Oxford shirt Morpheus had formed for Tyron.

"Now who is off mission?" Gabriel glanced sidewise at Zerachiel.

"It doesn't seem young Master Smith's style," Zerachiel said. "He looks like an Evangelical about to offer a pamphlet."

"Aren't we all evangelicals in a sense, Father?" Morpheus asked.

Zerachiel nodded. "The Lord works through us all. Still, I wouldn't mind candy-stripe or plaid coming back."

"We can pray." Morpheus smiled.

"Speaking of," Gabriel said and waved a hand toward the door to the nearby recovery room. A narrow window offered a view of Steven's room where Julien was currently sitting bedside.

"The nurses are saying it's a miracle he survived, much less showed signs of recovery so quickly."

Zerachiel voiced a low hiss. It wasn't quite the sibilant vocalization of the Seraphim but something like a brush tapping a cymbal or maybe a flame being doused.

"Not surprising in a hospital with history of financial trouble owned by a religious order." Gabriel glanced across her shoulder to Zerachiel. "But no significant number of Humans will believe it."

Zerachiel hissed again which Morpheus took as annoyance.

"Is it a miracle?" Morpheus whispered.

"Not in the sense that anyone interfered recently," Gabriel told him.

"The man hasn't been mortal for two Earth years." Zerachiel looked up. "Otherwise, I should have been very cross with you for telling the Human to avert his gaze."

"But I knew..." Zerachiel's eyes seemed to tug at his very soul. It was like looking at Mother, except it wouldn't just be his own reflection he had to face. "I knew he must be alive later. You were there. Or will be."

"Also." Zerachiel finally lowered her gaze.

Morpheus drew a breath.

"Nergal says no further apparitions of soldiers who died from disease, unless you get his permission."

"Nergal." Nergal was a feature of the background at family gatherings, but Morpheus remembered him once being close enough to introduce himself as a Regent.

"Between this and your apparition there's a potential for a Blessed Joseph Ripley, maybe even a Saint."

"But approval of an institution on Earth isn't what makes a soul a saint...?" Morpheus honestly wasn't sure. Children of Night dealt with underlying balance, not matters of earthly faiths, unless they were more than Children of Night.