In John's dreams Marty whispered into one ear, and Semila screamed into another. Without fail, he awoke drenched in sweat and panting. The grief wanted out, but John would not acknowledge his loss, his pain. He had to focus, he had to go back and save Sem. Not just save her, stop Grimsol. If he could stop Grimsol, these last few hellish months would be different. As he reached for the support bar at the edge of his bed and pulled himself up, his hand trembled, and he knew he couldn't do this much longer. How many nights could he go without rest? Today had to be the day he did it. If not, he'd take a damn pill, he swore it. Just for a few hours of peace. The boxes waited for him, and eggs and bacon on a plate someone had left just inside the door. No time for that now, he needed to find the bloody picture today, this morning. Get his plan into action.

#

At last he found it! He glanced at the fray-edged image in his left hand, then at the one in his right. The first had to have been taken the day before the other--the photo Semila had handed him in the black box. Yep, they looked almost identical--luckily Samantha had tied a pink ribbon on one of the pipes for a span of days, which happened to be during the time she had taken the photo Semila had stolen. This had to be the one.

The eggs and bacon lay cold and untouched on the plate. Days after dropping the lottery ticket at his own doorstep, John had started rummaging through the boxes to place where the photo had been taken, as it seemed Samantha had forgotten to write the date on this specific photo. He had thought it would be a few months back. Turns out it was nearly two years ago. For two years he'd been struggling to walk, to escape the black hollow of his soul, to escape Grimsol's wickedness, and finally he had done something other than be pathetic. Things were looking up, and he had a plan to save Semila. Mentally he ticked things off his list:

First, find the photo. Done. Second, get help from angels, or death, or someone upstairs with enough power to crush Grimsol. Point number two was vital. There was no way in hell John could defeat Grimsol without help, and he now knew that the Bible didn't kill the demon, only expose the truth of his form and weaken him. Maybe he could cart along a box of Bibles instead of trying to make contact with an angelic being from a realm beyond the natural?

Using the iPad, John spent the next few hours researching, first where he could get a box of free Bibles--a search he gave up within a few minutes because he couldn't figure out how he'd Blink them all into his soul--and then different mythology, theology and angel-ology, on what people thought angels were, who god was, how the supernatural worked, how beings from other realms could be contacted. Most of it was crap, chubby babies with wings, luscious women with soft whooshing robes. Gods with six heads and eleven arms, or with eight breasts and a desire for bestiality, or with the head of an elephant. Some said that Lucifer was the only god with power, others said YHWH was the only god. Some said Muhammad, others Buddha. John gave up searching gods. Who knew who was really up there? If, maybe, he could at least get help from some kind of angel, someone like Semila or Death? Searching further, he found some sites that said angels had four faces, or the faces of animals, or four wings. Some said demons were angels in disguise, come to save us all. Just as he was about to give up, he found an obscure blog with the right information. A man claiming that angels looked like us, that they appeared in different forms, and that Death stood in the middle ground between warring factions of angels and demons. This fit the closest with what John had seen and heard. The blog spoke about many things, the angelic and demonic realms, God, the powers at war in the heavenly places, even comatose experiences of a dark place.

Unfortunately the blog was anonymous--no name, no references to a city or country, no phone numbers or even references to names of any humans. Only angels and death. Comically, the site included a contact page detailing "how to make contact with angels" and "how to make contact with demons". When John clicked the "contact a demon" button, a big red popup box covered his screen reading "No, John. Not this one!!!!!!!!!!!".

Strange, the things computers could do nowadays. How had the website known it was him?

John clicked the "contact an angel" button, and tranquil music wafted from the iPad, followed by a ringing tone. Wait, was he phoning an angel? Right this instant? It couldn't be possible. It had to be a scam. The ringing tone went on for a minute, then cut into static noise. A voice that seemed very far away spoke after a pause, 'Hello, this is Gabriel's line...' The silence following seemed longer than was usual in conversations and scratchy static filled the space. '...Who is this?'

'Uhhh...' What was he supposed to say? He looked at the iPad screen and saw only darkness. 'This is John?'

The white noise went on, and he thought the person at the other end might have left. He was about to switch the iPad off, when he heard the voice again saying, 'John, he has been expecting your call. He will be with you shortly.'

The white noise and all sound from the iPad cut out. John switched the thing off and leaned back into his pillow. What the fuck had that been?

A loud bang sounded, and a box toppled from another in the mess his room had become: photos scattered everywhere, cups and plates near the door, and a big mess nobody was allowed to come in and clean--not while he was busy with saving Semila. An arm struck out from behind the box, then there was a muttering as whoever it was slipped, presumably on a photo, and crashed to the carpet.

'Is it you, Gabriel?'

A grunt was the answer, and when the person did stand, he thought it couldn't be anyone other than Gabriel. He looked like an angel, with the glowing, the eyes that looked so much like Semila's hypnotic ones, a white robe... maybe it was the way he stood or the way he scowled that made him think of death too.

'You called?'

'Ah--' John sat. '--Yes, I did.' He stroked his beard once. 'No clue how I did, some website...'

Gabriel looked around as if he had other places to be.

'Listen,' John said, 'I don't know how it is I could call you, but now that you're here, I need your help.'

A stern look furrowed the angel's brow. 'Doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. I'm an Archangel, John. Do you know what that means?'

He didn't. He shook his head.

'It means--' the Angel pinched the bridge of his nose. '--let's just say, I have more important things to deal with than helping you.'

'Sure,' John said with a shrug, 'I can understand that, but I can save Semila. You know, my ex guardian angel?' John hoped Gabriel understood what he was talking about.

Realisation dawned on the angel's face, but then he frowned again and took a furtive step towards John, pointing. 'That's not allowed, John. That's not written in The Book.'

'So?' Too excited to stay seated, John got to his feet.

'Ahh, you can stand.'

'Yeah, for a while now. Have you been following me?'

There was an awkward silence.

'No, I haven't been following you, it's just, well, I kind of saved you, John.'

John was going to ask when, but as he thought about it, he realised some angelic force must have been helping him. He thought back to the black box, to the hate and confusion of his first few months awake, to the day at the memorial when he'd blacked out. Things had gotten better since that day. Grimsol wasn't haunting him anymore.

'Yes,' he said at last, 'it makes sense.' Meeting Gabriel's eyes, he stretched out his hand and stood. 'Thank you.'

Gabriel nodded and shook John's hand.

'Thing is, this isn't about me for once. Semila, she was my guardian angel--'

Gabriel rolled his eyes.

'So you knew her?

'Yes, I did indeed.'

'She died trying to save me, and now that I can, well, I call it Blink...'

Gaging the angel's response, John thought it leaned towards the 'what the fuck is that' side. 'Let's just say I can help her. Let me help her. Besides, I doubt her death was written in this book of yours either.'

Gabriel didn't answer.

'I'm right aren't I? This whole thing is a shit pile in a stampede, isn't it? Nothing's like it should be.'

The angel glanced out the window. 'Yes, you are correct John. How had I not seen this before? You are--' He met John's eyes. '--more correct than you know.'

With a laugh Gabriel looked up, as if he saw past the ceiling. 'Now I see what you're doing, what your plan's been all along.' A look of awe crossed his features. 'Most holy are you.'

John felt like a child looking in on his parents' intimacy and fiddled with the edge of his untucked bed sheet.

'So how can I help, Finnie?' The angel's demeanour had changed, a brighter glow surrounded him and a peacefulness was in the air.

'I need one of those black sword knife things, a big one. I'm going to kill Grimsol.'

Gabriel nodded. 'I'm coming with you.'

#

With the knife sheathed at his hip, Gabriel reached for John's hand. John patted the camera around his neck and took the angel's hand as he started spinning into the photo. The darkness was full of another force, but John tugged at Gabriel's hand and pushed himself to go faster in spite of it. He didn't want another injury to deal with on top of everything else. Fuck the darkness and Grimsol and his friends. They could all go to hell. Funny, he thought, they were probably from hell. At the last moment, just as he touched the filmy surface of the photo, a cold hand grabbed his ankle, and he screamed.

With a thwack, they hit a carpeted floor, skidding to a stop against a bed--John's bed. He'd assumed he would Blink to the box in his mind, but it hadn't worked.

'Shit!'

While getting up, John saw who it was that had grabbed his ankle. 'You!'

Death smiled. 'Come on John, I know you're happy to see me.'

Mexican music played in John's mind and his eye twitched.

Death sniggered. 'Riba riba.'

John lunged at him, intent on planting a solid one on his jaw, but Gabriel grabbed his arms and pulled him back. 'We don't have time for this, John.'

'You're messing with my mind, fucker.'

Death held his hands up as if he were innocent. 'No comprendé.'

John screamed and pulled against Gabriel's vice grip. 'You asshole! This is all your fault.'

The smirk left Death's face. 'I was just kidding around, man. What's your problem?'

'Are you serious?' John screamed, 'What's my problem?' John looked at Gabriel, then at Death. 'You took him. You knew, and you still took him. You selfish pig.' John choked on fresh tears and collapsed as Gabriel loosened his grip. 'He's gone.'

Death, with his hands tucked into his sleeves, said, 'I'm sorry John. I don't choose who dies when, I just take them where they should go. I'm the middle man, not the villain.'

John didn't care about what Death had to say. The pain he had tried to ignore had finally got to him, and in the middle of a Blink too. Samantha had been right about the grieving. He struggled to swallow down the tears and wiped his eyes dry, standing. 'Let's just get this over with.'

'That's the spirit,' Death said. John glared at him, fists clenched.

'So what are we doing here?' Death directed the question at Gabriel.

'We're killing Grimsol.'

'Ah, fun. So where is he?'

'He's in the Black Box--I mean my soul--' John narrowed his eyes at Death '--but you were there dickhead. Why are you asking?'

'Oh yeah, course.' Death swayed on his ankles and whistled. 'Just wondering why we're here and not in your soul...'

John wanted to glare at him again, but he looked out the window just as their eyes were about to meet and started whistling again.

'He's right you know,' Gabriel said.

The frustration inside John built and he gritted his teeth. 'You think I don't know that? Just-- just give me a moment. I gotta figure it out.'

John started pacing up and down the room.

'I can help,' Death said. John ignored him.

At last, after trying every scenario and coming up with nothing, he gave in. 'Fine. How can you help, Death?'

'That's Sir Death to you.'

Gabriel scowled at Death who smiled.

'What is with your happy go lucky mood today?' John growled.

'Had Mexican for lunch,' he said and picked at a tooth.

'Can you stop with the Mexican references?' John waved a hand at Gabriel, who looked confused, while looking at Death. 'You're confusing him, and it's really getting old. Besides, we need to get down to business.'

'I've got this Johnny boy.' Death rubbed his hands together. 'Get ready for a Blink like no other.'

It seemed as if the world around John was being sucked into a vacuum. Everything distorted and disappeared into the horizon, leaving only black in its wake. And then, in the black, John heard his own whispers. Death and Gabriel appeared and the room greyed with low light. There he stood--his younger self--talking to the man he now knew was Grimsol, holding that black knife to his chest. Then Semila appeared and knocked the knife out of younger John's hands. It seemed that nobody noticed him, Gabriel and Death standing and staring. He didn't want to move or whisper, just in case Semila or his younger self noticed them. And he wanted to enjoy seeing Semila again. Such a bittersweet moment. Her eyes were still as hypnotic, even as she snarled and stuffed the bible in the demon's face.

Her gold tooth gleamed in the half-light, and John swore. God, she was hot. Was it wrong to want an angel, to wish she wasn't dead? He hoped not.

Grimsol's true form was exposed, and Death and Gabriel snuck closer to him, without Semila or John's younger self noticing. How were they doing that? He decided he had to get involved too and crept against the wall until he stood next to his younger self. His younger self looked at the Bible, Semila was cornered by Grimsol. It was now or never. John nodded at Death and Gabriel in turn, who crept closer and closer to Grimsol while John's younger self walked towards the Bible.

In the same moment that John's younger self ran at Grimsol with the Bible, Gabriel stepped close and swiped his blade through Grimsol's neck. Black, sticky liquid splattered Semila, Death and Gabriel, and John's younger version jabbed the Bible into the demon's back, looking shocked. Grimsol's body convulsed, and Death knelt with his palm spread over the demon's head.

That was when Semila noticed them. She locked eyes with John. 'Why are you here?'

John's younger version looked confused, and then he spotted the older John. 'Great,' he said, 'more strangers in my soul.'

But Semila stopped him with a hand to his mouth and stepped over Grimsol as she approached the older John. 'You fucker.' She laughed. 'You made it after all.' She paused, tilted her head. 'So why are you here?'

Gabriel answered; John was too enamoured with Semila's eyes, too busy trying to fight off the deep urge to grab her face and kiss her. Was it wrong to kiss an angel?

Gabriel smirked, holding the black blade. 'We're saving you, Semila, though you really should stop with the cursing.'

Death, meanwhile, was chanting while holding Grimsol's forehead and hand.

'I don't need your saving, Gabe.' She spat on John's soul. 'Was doing fine without you.'

'No,' John said, his eyes glassy. 'No, you die Sem. If Grimsol lives, you die.'

Death's chant rose to a crescendo, and with a final shout he roared, 'You are bound!' The demon's head, body, and blood became ash in an instant, and Death proceeded to scrape it all together into a bag he pulled from his sleeve. 'I'm just taking this downstairs real quick,' he said to Gabriel who nodded.

Death walked away.

John called after him. 'Death... Thanks.'

He nodded and disappeared into the wall.

'The fuck?' Semila said.

John snapped a photo of the darkness, and the photo popped out with a white frame around it. He pocketed it. 'We need to go now, Sem. Can't stay or time will change too much.' John regretted having to leave, not knowing whether she would be alive or not when he got back to his own time. He grabbed her hand and sighed at its warmth. 'Take care of him.' John cocked his head at his younger self. 'And here--' He handed her the frayed photo of himself which she needed to give to his younger self. '--I know you need it.'

'Gabriel, let's go,' he said taking out the photo of himself--the newer one. Hopefully when they Blinked into it, the star would be there. Man, this was getting confusing. They grabbed arms, and Semila waved as the younger John gaped at them. They Blinked into the photo and floated lightly to a stop on the carpet in John's room. Nice.

John craned his neck, scanning the ceiling. Nothing. 'Fuck,' he said.

'You're not here,' Death pointed at the bed. He was right. The bed was made. Things looked different. But John couldn't be here with his other self. He had to get back to the time he'd come from. 'Thanks for your help, Gabe.' John held out his hand. 'I'll take it from here.'

Gabriel grabbed his hand with a firm grip.

'One last thing though... How did you know I was coming?'

Gabe's smile grew and his eye twinkled with a secret. 'You told me.'

This was breaking John's brain. 'How,' he asked, but the room was empty. John looked up at the ceiling, stumped and awed. Hopefully he could get back to his own time soon, before things got too crazy. Then he had an idea. It was fucking brilliant. It had to work.

He peeked out of his room door. 'Hello?'

'I'm in the kitchen John,' Mam called. Shit. He snuck down the steps and into the living room. Luckily Dad wasn't home. On the counter, the object of his desire lay. The album.

'I thought you were out for the day,' Mam called from the kitchen. A utensil clanged against a dish.

'Yeah,' John called, 'back early I guess.' He opened the album and flicked to a picture of himself on the day of his accident. Mam had put it in the album and shown him the day he woke up, trying to jog his shoddy memory. It hadn't worked, of course. He took the photo, looked once at himself, so young and happy, and then Blinked in.

#

There he lay, on the pavement, his younger self--bleeding and dying. People started running to help, and John joined them in his aged form. Nobody would recognise him. In his hands he held a photo that looked blank--a pitch black photo of a dark place he wished he didn't have to send himself. He stooped and flung the photo in his younger self's face, and he recalled that his younger self hadn't known what to do at that moment with the blank photo stuffed in his face. A few seconds passed, and John became desperate. If the younger version of him didn't Blink now, they'd die. 'Blink you stupid little bastard, Blink now or die!'

A flicker of recognition in younger John's eyes gave the older version of John a relief, and then he knew his younger self had Blinked, because his eyes closed. A doctor pushed John out of the way, and he realised sirens were blaring, red and blue lights flashing, people scurrying to help the teenager on the ground. Him. Job done.

He walked to the pavement, stuffed a hand in his pocket, and stroked the beard he was becoming fonder of as he watched himself. He hadn't got to see it the first time, and whether it was curiosity or a twisted desire to relive the pain that kept him watching until the ambulance's blaring had faded into the distance he wasn't sure.

Looking up, he found the star. Thank god. Hopefully the star would take him back to his own time. He Blinked out and arrived in his room once again. There was no way to tell whether it was in the correct time, so he grabbed an iPad from his bedside table and checked the date. 22 February 2023, 11h05am.

Sounded about right. 'Yes!' he fist-bumped the air. So where was Semila, if he was back in his own time and alive? Had he really saved her? His stomach flipped, and at that exact moment, the door creaked open.

© Steve Ford and Joy Cronjé 2018