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Chapter 66

Miramuel and Remufel thought their hiding places inside the office with Rheabeth and Jack were perfect. But suddenly both of them were dragged up and out, through the ceilings, into the sky at a tearing pace and, with rapidly increasing acceleration, back up into Heaven.

"Wait!" Mir screamed. "Not yet! Let us go back for another hour, and then you can do what you want!"

Remufel fought and struggled against the unseen hands. "You can't pull us out of this now! They need us!"

And then the two of them were in front of Gabriel, and flanked on all sides by archangels with angry expressions on their faces.

"You already know what you've done wrong," Gabriel said. "How dare you ask to compound your iniquity?"

"But Averial's in trouble," Mir said. She clasped her hands in front of her and said, "Gabriel, you've got to let us help her. If we don't pull her out of this, she's going to end up back in Hell. And Lucifer will destroy her."

"You can only hope your fate when you arrive will not be worse."

Miramuel froze. "You're . . . sending us to Hell? What about the judgment of the All-Forgiving?"

"Do you beg forgiveness for interfering on Earth?"

"No."

"Do you admit you were wrong in associating with Averial?"

"No."

Miramuel then gave Gabriel and the angels who had snatched them to Heaven her reasons for interfering as she had. She didn't leave out anything: not her feeling that this was her single window of opportunity to rescue her friend, not her certainty that Averial could be prevented from worsening her position in God's eyes, not her love of her lost friend.

Gabriel listened without comment, then turned to Remufel. "What about you?"

"I have nothing else to add. What she said goes for me, too. We did what we thought was best."

Gabriel glanced to the other angels, then back to Miramuel and Remufel. "You'll have plenty of opportunity to think again once you're in Hell." He looked coldly from one to the other. "You knew the rules when you broke them. Your reasons don't matter. God's rules, after all, are rules . . . and I'm sure that the Glorious Almighty, when He returns, will agree."

And then Miramuel saw a flash of light, followed by unremitting, unbroken darkness, and she felt terrible pain . . . and unimaginable fear.

 

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Framed