What would you trade your soul for?
The answer is simple for Jessa: nothing. Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty good with her best friend Taylor at her side.
But everything changes when the Devil--disguised as an attractive high school girl--comes...
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Lana didn't want to walk the grounds of the school, so instead we wandered off campus. Normally I'd feel some sort of anxiety about that—skipping class, going for a lengthy walk in the middle of the day—but with the Devil at my side, it didn't nearly feel as naughty as it should have.
"So," she said as we walked down the street, leaving Arlington High School behind us. "What do you want to know?"
Honestly, I didn't know where to start. Earlier that morning, I had had a panic attack at the thought of spending another second with her. And now I was willingly walking into a conversation with the most famous fallen angel in history.
I hesitated, unsure exactly how to word it. "Well... do you want to tell me about that fall of Lucifer thing?"
She glanced at me. She had a grim sort of smile on her face, something that made her look more sad than not. "I had a feeling that'd be at the top of your list." She looked up at the wide sky, clear from clouds. The breeze ruffled her hair, whipping it around her neck like a scarf made of black thread. "It's a bit of a story."
"We have time," I said. "Unless you actually wanted to go to gym."
"Hell no," she said, glancing both ways before crossing the street. "Trust me, I'm not into torturing myself."
We had just entered the main strip in town. It was a fairly quiet street, with just a few stores lining it. Once we started down the sidewalk, Lana started her tale.
"I was an angel once," she said. "I mean, I guess I still am, in some basic, genetic way. But that's beside the point. What's important to know is that angels aren't born—at least not in the way humans are."
As she said this, her eyes fell to a woman pushing a navy stroller down the opposite sidewalk. It was weird to see someone else on the street. With Lana at my side, I felt like I was in limbo, stuck in a land where no one else existed besides the two of us.
"Angels were God's first creation," Lana continued. "The oldest angels—Michael, Gabriel, and so on—were created before the big bang, out of the ether in the time before time. Apparently life was quiet back then, full of philosophy and endless musings. The angels would have chats with God about this and that, existence, the meaning of life, et cetera. The old ones said it was a particularly nice time. There were no jobs to do, no assigned purpose to fill your day. It was a time of quiet existence and easy reflection."
Lana slid her hands into the pockets of her grey sweater. "Then God started to make some changes. The big bang was apparently quite a spectacle, and the formation of stars and planets and asteroids gave the angels something new to learn from. Eventually, a few of the planets started to breed life, first simple amino acids and later little squirmy amoeba-like things. I came into existence around then. I didn't know too much at the time; like human babies, angels aren't born with knowledge. We need to learn. But I remember that even from a young age, I liked to observe the planets. I made a game of it, guessing what would become of them: whether the life would flourish or fail, whether a sun would grow too large and consume an entire solar system or not. Things of that sort."
