“It’s deeply funny, very well written, both in terms of pacing and voice, and fast paced.” – Asa C. Page

“The Chosen by John Hartness is an example of all that is good and joyful in fiction. I love this book. It’s fast paced, very well voiced, and genuinely funny. ” – Keryl Raist

“What I will tell you is that this is a well written work that transcends genre. Its a great book that will keep you entertained on a flight with even a crying kid or two. Don’t grab it when you can’t sleep though. It will keep you going til the sunrise.” – Ken Prevo

See, told you. But if you don’t believe me, here’s a sample!

Chapter 1

I sensed him before I saw him. I always did. I was just sitting there, minding my own business, playing a little blackjack, when I felt his presence over my right shoulder.
I spoke without bothering to turn around. “Hi, Lucky.”
“Big A.”
I hated that. He always had to go there right away. And he was supposed to be subtle. Ass.
“Been here long?” he asked.
“A while. Playing a little cards. You?”
“Well, you know me. I’ve got a place here. I love this town. Everything about it just calls to me.”
“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere.”
I finally glanced over and gave him the satisfaction of a look. A new image for him this time around—red riding leathers, no helmet of course, black boots, black hair tied back in a ponytail and sunglasses. The sunglasses were kind of a given, I suppose.
“Nice outfit. You look like one of the cavemen in that insurance commercial.”
“Thanks. You, as always, look well put-together.”
I’d never been sure how to take his compliments, and I wasn’t in Las Vegas to think, so I just went for face value. I was wearing a worn t-shirt I’d picked up at a roadside store somewhere in Montana sometime in the past, and a thrift store work shirt with “arry” over the left breast pocket. I didn’t know if it used to say “Larry” or “Harry.” Neither was my name; I just gave Goodwill $2.99 for the shirt.
“Thanks.”
For once, he didn’t press the issue. He sat beside me and slid the dealer a hundred. We played blackjack together for a while, me playing green chips, him moving quickly from green to black to purple, all the way up to the yellow thousand-dollar chips in a couple of short hours. He lost just enough hands to keep from getting thrown out, but not quite enough to keep the eye in the sky from getting suspicious.
“A, looks like we’ve got company.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket? I’m not the one who’s been sitting here counting cards for three hours.”
“Yeah, but I’m not the one who took twenty grand in chips out of my safe deposit box this morning. Chips, I might add, that came from a casino that was demolished a couple decades ago.”
I hated that he always had more information than he rightfully should. To give him his due, he probably had people literally everywhere in town. But it was still annoying. I could admit that visiting a box that hadn’t been touched in years might raise an eyebrow or two, but I still blamed the attention of the lummox in the off-the-rack suit on my unwanted companion’s unabashed card-counting. Either way, the brutes in suits might have had a few questions for me that I wasn’t fully prepared to answer at exactly that moment, so I looked at my old pal Lucky.
“Keys?”
“Might I suggest California? I hear San Francisco’s nice this time of year, and you know how much you love seafood. Why not check out Fisherman’s Wharf? Visit Alcatraz, you know, see the sights a little. My bike’s out front. You’ll know which one. You owe me.”
“We’d have to be even for me to owe you. And we’re not even. This doesn’t even come close. Nowhere near close.”
“You really know how to wound a guy, Big A.”
“Bite me.” I grabbed Lucky’s keys from the table, tossed a green chip to the dealer, and headed for the cage. I spotted another security goon between me and the cashier, so I decided on discretion as the better part of valor, tossed a couple grand in chips into the air, and used the resulting pandemonium to make my less-than-subtle way to the exit. As I glanced back toward the table where I had left Lucky, I noticed that he and the two guards were having a beer and yukking it up like long-lost frat brothers, which for all I knew, they might have been.
He was right; I picked out his bike right away. It was a big, loud ostentatious black thing with flames painted on the gas tank. Subtle. I could have sworn the thing looked hungry. I put the key in the ignition—an apple key chain? Really?—and pointed the machine south down the Strip, putting California firmly behind me as Lucky had suggested.
Okay, so looking back on it, maybe opening a twenty-five-year-old lockbox wasn’t exactly the most under-the-radar move I could have made. I knew that people took out safe deposit boxes in this town all the time. But not all of them paid the rent on those boxes with automatic debits from numbered accounts. I’d just had the bad luck to run into the same security guard that rented me the box the first time, on his first day on the job twenty-five years ago. Little bugger had a good memory, that was for sure. I guess I hadn’t changed much since then. Okay, make that not at all. But I was still blaming Lucky. After all, he’d been taking the blame for things for millennia now, so what was one more little incident?
Maybe I should back up a little. This is as good a time as any for introductions. My name is Adam. No, I don’t have a last name. Yes, that Adam. No, really, you can feel for the rib if you like. But it’s better if you don’t. I’m ticklish.

Chapter 2

I rode south a few hours. Just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, I pulled over to watch the sunset. And to think. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Lucky, or Lucypher if we wanted to be precise about it, to show up unannounced, but I hadn’t seen him in years. I wondered what he wanted. He always wanted something, and he usually got it. And it usually wasn’t good to be the one who gave it to him or the one between him and his goals. It was better to sit on the sidelines and watch the carnage, hoping not to get too much splatter on your shoes.
That’s what I’ve done for years—watch. I’ve watched the number of people grow from just a couple to billions of huddled masses, yearning for something or another. I’ve watched people kill each other over pennies in the street, and I’ve watched people give their last breath to help a stranger. And through it all, ever since the Garden, Lucky has been a constant. Always around, always goading something into action. I never know why or what he wants, I just watch.
But our last little interaction was different. For the first time in a long time, Lucky had been goading me. He wanted me to do something, and whatever it was, I didn’t want to do it. The last time I did something he wanted, it didn’t turn out so well for me, so I’d tried to steer clear of his maneuvering since then.
I sat for a while and watched the desert turn from a superheated wasteland to a patchwork canvas of light and rolling shadows. I liked sunsets; they carried the memory of the day before and the promise of the one yet to come.
Eve always preferred sunrises. She said they were more anticipatory, like a held breath before the day exploded like a sneeze all over the world.
Yeah, Eve’s real too. It all is, except for the bit about Lucky being a serpent. That was a little bit of poetic license on Moses’ part. He’d always been creeped out by snakes, so I think the whole serpent thing was just an underhanded way of making sure people overall didn’t like snakes any more than he did. Really, Lucky was our friend, and he was in the Garden with us from the very beginning. Several of the Archangels used to come visit; Gabriel, Ariel, Jophiel, and Metatron were there the most, but after we left the Garden, we saw more of Azrael than we really wanted to.
We really did all live there with all the beasts in perfect harmony. Everybody lived forever, nobody died, and it was all sweetness and light. But that couldn’t last, and it didn’t. Then the whole war in Heaven thing happened, and the angels didn’t come around much after that. When Lucky did come back to visit, he had another agenda in mind—one that changed things for us forever.
Lucky tricked Eve into eating the apple, and she shared it with me. We got kicked out of the Garden and headed off to the land of Nod to live all that stuff you’ve read about since you were a tadpole.
We were out on our own, cast out of our Father’s presence and betrayed by one of our best friends. Things were pretty tough for Eve and me for a long time, and eventually we parted ways. After a long time, and more than a few beers, I managed to forgive Lucky, and we reached an understanding of sorts, but Eve never let it go. Leaving the Garden broke something inside her that never healed.
I guess by now you’ve figured out that we’re immortal. Gaining knowledge of good and evil didn’t do anything to change the whole ‘living forever’ thing we started off with, even though we didn’t completely pass that on to our children. Don’t get me wrong; they lived a good long time. I watched more than one century turn with my kids, but eventually they grew old and died. It seemed that with every generation, they died sooner and sooner until eventually, Eve and I were alone. It didn’t matter what my buddy Clive Lewis wrote about all men being “sons of Adam.” That could never change the fact that my direct sons and daughters were gone.
There I sat, on a little hill in New Mexico, watching the sun go down and trying to figure out what Lucky wanted. He had suggested California, so of course, I headed east, but was that what he wanted me to do in the first place? Lucky was the original trickster, so for him to double- or even triple-think me into going exactly where he wanted me to go wasn’t out of the question.
As I pondered, the first star of the night came winking into view in the east, and I felt my answer. East. I had to go east, and I had to find Eve. Things were gonna get ugly.

Here’s what I have –

Pros – The title font is good, and it’s BIG. That needs to stay. It’s a striking color combination, the red background with the yellow letters. I like that and think it grabs the eye.

Cons – It says nothing about angels, devils, Adam, Eve, fantasy literature or anything like that. Angel fiction is very marketable, and obviously fantasy lit is as well, but nobody looking at this cover would have any idea what the book is about. That needs to change.

So help me out here, folks. Let me know what the book says to you – what images stick with you from the book?

Someday I’ll get back to actually, you know, writing again, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on trying to maximize my promotional stuff right now. I hope to have the second draft of Return to Eden:Genesis done by October 1. Especially since I just booked another design gig that’s going to lock up most of my free time in October, so if that book stands a prayer of getting out this year, I’d better step on it.

So please take a moment and click the widget below or on the right side of the page. Then click on Debut Author, scroll down to the bottom, and write in my name. When The Chosen pops up, click on it and vote!  And hurry – you only have until January 5th to make it happen! But you guys rock, so I have faith in your ability to click a button!
And thanks.

2010 Goodreads Choice Awards Official Nominee: Best Debut Author Write me in for Debut Author!

Keep looking, I’m still working on breaking even.

But I’m getting close. I ran the numbers for you a few posts ago, so we won’t go into that again, but we’re three weeks from the removed from the release of The Chosen and I’ve made $140 from the book so far.

Stunning, isn’t it? Now before you get all disheartened for me, there’s another $8 in Kindle revenues coming my way, and I haven’t gotten any reports from the Apple store yet, and likely won’t for a while, because those reports have to trickle down to me through several different accounting departments. So let’s call it $148 in revenue so far, of which roughly $30 goes to my editor (remember, she’s on commission with a cap).

I spent $521 on making the book happen, and I’ve recouped 28% of the cost of the book in the first three weeks. I’m pretty happy about that, actually. I know the real dollars and cents aren’t huge, but I figure by the end of the fall I’ll have covered the costs of development and production, and then will begin making money. Which is a pretty quick return on investment.

I saw something posted on the KindleBoards today that really summed up how I feel about the measuring of pennies that I’m doing right now. Someone posted something, and I’m too lazy to go look it up for attribution, that said that we’re looking at a tortoise and hare situation here. Serious writers will work on developing their backlist and promoting their work, while people who are looking for a quick buck will publish one book, get discouraged by the numbers that I posted above, and fade away.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to make a quick buck (or barrel of bucks). But I know that The Chosen isn’t going to be a huge best-seller. It’s not genre enough to be a fantasy novel, and it’s too genre to be a literary novel. It’s the kind of book that people don’t know how to categorize, and that means that selling the book will be all on me. And I’m okay with that. At the Arts Market last weekend, I told people that the book had a “no-suck” guarantee on it. If they bought the book, read the whole things, and hated it, I’d give them their $10 back. This served as a good ice breaker, and I don’t expect anyone to actually ever take me up on it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the book is pretty good. But it’s not marketable enough to be a huge seller. So I’ll learn a lot of lessons about publishing, and as the vampire novel comes together (a little less than halfway through) I can capitalize on the experience.

And maybe make a few bucks in the process. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, what are you waiting for?

Now I have to sell it. I’ve booked a pair of signings so far, and am trying to decide on a plan for a book release party. I’m also working up a plan for a blog tour, and would love it if those of you out there with blogs would open up your sites to me for a day to post about the book and the process of self-publishing and self-promoting. If you’d like to promote the book on your site, feel free to swipe the image below and link to my Lulu Storefront. Any love you can give would be appreciated. If you buy the book, and like it, I’d love it if you’d send me a note to that effect because once the ebook goes live on Amazon (hopefully September) I’m gonna need reviews to promote it there. I can’t offer payment for reviews like some big publishing houses do, but since I’d probably buy you a drink the next time I saw you anyway, I’ll offer up a free drink in exchange for a review.

I’ll be signing at the NoDa All Arts Market in September, and at the Newberry Oktoberfest in, well, October. Hopefully I’ll have more dates to announce here soon, but you can also keep up with all Chosen-related news on the Facebook page I set up for the book. So go order your copy now, and let me know what you think!

And I have decided to make a hardcover available, so there will now be three release dates for the book. Hardcover first, then paperback about a month after that, then ebook a little later. I’m not sure how long it will take Rob to get the ebook conversion done because I know he’s stacked up right now, so I’m still hoping for September. So hopefully for my birthday (next Friday in case you haven’t marked your calendars yet!) you’ll be able to order hardcovers. Then by Labor Day hopefully paperbacks and ebooks will be ready. I’m not sure how long it will take the ebook to be available in the Kindle store or iTunes, but it’ll be available on Smashwords as soon as the formatting is done. So now check out the cover by Lindsay, and lemme know what you think!

“Aren’t you going to pack, son?” I asked Cain on my way into the hall.

“I haven’t unpacked anything, so I don’t need to pack. I’ll meet you downstairs.” He got up, stretched, and headed towards the door in our wake. Myra and I tossed the few things we’d unpacked into our bags, and looked around the room to make sure we hadn’t forgotten any random firearms before we headed down to the car. She looked pensive, so I gave her a quick hug before we left the room.

“It’s almost over, isn’t it?” She asked, her face buried in my chest. That made her a little hard to hear, but it was worth it.

“Almost.”

“What will you do?”

“What do you mean? My Choice? I don’t even know what it is, so I have no idea what I’ll do.”

“No. I mean after. What will you do after it’s done. Are you going to leave me again?” She held me tighter, but I didn’t think her squeezing me caused the tightness in my chest.

“I don’t know, babe. I…”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. I’ve seen you thinking about it. I can see it whenever you look at me when we’re driving. When you think I don’t notice you looking. I can feel your eyes on me and I know you’re trying to decide if you’re sticking around or if you’re going to run again.”

“You’re right. I have thought about it. A lot. And I still don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve been putting off making that decision until this whole thing was behind us. And who knows? The kid might decide to blow up the planet and we won’t have to worry about it. We are going to DC after all. If there’s any place a slightly crazy right-wing preacher can get his hands on nuclear weapons, it’s Washington.”

“Or Tehran.”

“Yeah, there’s always Tehran. But the jet lag is such a bitch. DC is a better choice.”

“Fair enough. Let’s go finish saving the world. But we’re not done with this, buster. As soon as the world is safe, we’re going to have a long conversation about our future.” She stood on her tiptoes, kissed me lightly on the lips, and headed for the elevator. I watched her walk, both because the view was nice and because I was thinking about that conversation. And how I was gonna get out of that one without actually blowing up the world. Because that option was looking better all the time.

We gathered downstairs, and Michael met us in the hotel lobby. “I will not be accompanying you on this leg of your journey. I must go ahead and prepare the meeting place. Lucypher and I will meet you at the Washington Monument at midnight tomorrow night. Packing was a good idea, you should be able to make it there easily if you leave now.”

“Hey! It’s not that far to DC. If we don’t need to be there until midnight tomorrow night, why are we leaving now?” I was getting a little grumpy about not having the chance to spend a little happy fun time with Myra before the end of the world.

“I’ve seen how long it takes you people to get anywhere, and I assume that Eve will have to start at least one barroom brawl before you can get through Tennessee and Virginia.” Michael responded dryly.

“Nah. I think I’m good for a few days. Thanks for thinking of me, though.” Eve said dryly.

“Besides, I said I would be leaving immediately. I never mentioned you coming with me. That was your own erroneous assumption. If I were you, I would try to salvage some sleep out of this wretched evening and leave in the morning. I will see you there.” With that, he vanished. Not walked out and flew away, just vanished. Sometimes I wondered who was more irritating, my smartass kids, or smartass angels. I stood there looking stupid for a minute with my bag in my hand before I noticed that Cain was sitting on one of the lobby couches, no bag anywhere in sight.

“You knew?” I asked very slowly.

“I noticed that he didn’t mention us going, so I figured there was no reason to rush.”

“And you didn’t think you should share that with the rest of us?”

“You guys were so happy running around like chickens with your heads cut off, I didn’t want to screw that up.” He sat there and chuckled at us as the rest of us dragged our bags back to the elevators and up to the rooms. That’s when I realized we had a little monkey wrench in the works. One with tattoos and a pierced lip.

“Uh, Junior?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Uh, we don’t really have a room for you, I don’t think. I mean, we had a spot for Michael, but he doesn’t really sleep, so I’m not sure we have two beds in Cain’s room, so I don’t really know what we’re going to do about that. It’s really late and the desk clerk is already a little grumpy with me, you know the whole breaking into the pool, flying Seraphim and shotgun blasts in the middle of the night thing…” I trailed off lamely.

“Don’t worry, Pop. We’ve got it covered.” Cain chimed in.

“How?”

“Don’t ask silly questions, Adam. Now why don’t you and Myra toddle off to bed while Cain and I deal with sleeping arrangements for the children, I mean for Sidney.” I never trusted Eve when she was being solicitous, but Myra had a certain look in her eye at Eve’s offer that I didn’t want to ignore, especially if we were blowing the world up in 21 hours or so. So I did as Eve suggested, ignored the winks that were exchanged between Eve, Myra and Emily, and took my girlfriend to bed.

I opened my eyes a second later and Lucky was still sitting there, calm as could be, with a little grin twitching the corner of his mouth. He stood, turned slowly around, and reached out to Eve, snatching the shotgun from her hands like you’d take a lollipop from a toddler. Then he wrapped both arms around her and picked her up, twirling her around and laughing like they’d just been reintroduced at a party.

“Oh, Eve, I have missed you! No one since the Garden has had such a fire! I am sorry I haven’t called on you since then, but I’ve been dreadfully busy. You know, wars to starts, pestilence to spread, famine to sow, death to deal, and all that awful pale-horse Revelation garbage. But it’s good to see you, and I promise to come chat with you and little Cain in a few moments, once I’m done talking to the boys here.” With that, he spun a shocked Eve around, patted her on the butt, and shoved her over to where Cain and the other women were standing staring at us.

“Yeah. About that, Lucky. We might want to move this conversation inside. After all, you did just have a giant frigging glowing angel fly off over the pool, and Eve just shot you. Those things tend to attract attention these days. So why don’t we all adjourn to my room, and you can tell everybody what you’ve got to say to me and Junior?” I picked up the bag of beer, grabbed Junior by an arm, and started making my way into the hotel.

“Probably a good idea, Adam. The local constabulary may be making an appearance soon, and it’s probably better if I’m not seen. Something about a bar fire earlier this evening…” He followed us into the hotel, and I stood waiting for the elevator with the Prince of Darkness and a twenty-something tattooed redneck street preacher who was supposed to save the world. If he could keep his eyes off my daughter’s tits long enough to do it.

When we got to the room, Lucky led Junior inside, grabbed the bag of beer, and shoved me backwards out into the hall, shutting the door firmly in my face. I hammered on the door for a minute, but Lucky just called out a few profanities and I finally gave up. I walked down the hall to the room Eve was sharing with Emily, and knocked on the door. They let me in after a second, and I joined Eve, Emily, Myra and Cain in the small room. It was more than a little cramped in there with just a couple of beds and one chair, but we all managed to find someplace more or less comfortable.

After a long moment Emily piped up. “What do you think he’ll do to Sidney?”

“Nothing.” I replied. “If he wanted to hurt the kid there are a lot better ways, sneakier ways that won’t get him in deep shit with Father. My guess is he’s telling the truth, that he just wants to talk to the kid. He’s probably got a lot riding on whatever Choice the kid makes, and he’s looking for an edge.”

“You actually think he’s telling the truth? He’s the Father of Lies? His name is synonymous with deception and misdirection? What makes you think that he’s telling the truth?” Myra asked incredulously.

“Because it’s what we don’t expect. I’ve seen him use this trick before. He tells you the truth when you expect him to lie, and then he can lie with more impunity when it suits his purposes.” I said. “He’ll probably keep the kid in there for a while, make friends with him, fill his head full of just enough truth to confuse him, and send him back to us thinking that Lucky’s just a guy who’s gotten a bad rap in history.”

“Yeah, he’s a fuckin’ prince.” Eve muttered.

“Yeah. Look, babe, I’m not exactly a fan, either, but I can’t kick his ass and you can’t shoot him, so we’re kinda stuck right now.” I was getting a little frustrated, and Lucky had all the beer, so I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Myra sounded frightened as I reached for the handle. “You’re not going after him, are you?”

“Nah, I know better. I’m gonna go get some ice and a soda from the vending machine. Anybody else want anything?”

“I’ll go with.” Emily hopped up and stood beside me. We got out into the hallway and she looked up at me. “Now tell me straight, what do you think Luke, er, Lucky is doing with Sidney?”

Crap. She had it bad. “I really don’t think he’s going to hurt him. If he’s supposed to make a Choice I don’t think Lucky can hurt him, or everything goes all screwy. I mean, he’s capable, but I don’t think he’s allowed. And there are some rules that even Lucky won’t break. Don’t sweat it, honey, Junior’s gonna be fine.”

“If you say so.” But she still sounded a little dubious.

“Don’t sweat it. You don’t get to be this old without being a decent judge of character.” I tried to sound cavalier, but I don’t know if I pulled it off.

“You got to be that old because you’re immortal, not because you’re a good judge of character.” She pointed out. Smartass kids.

“Yeah, if I was, I probably wouldn’t have ended up hanging with all those Mongolians back when Genghis Khan was running roughshod over most of Asia. I just thought he wanted to ride around and party. Who was I to know he wanted world domination? My Mongolian was never that good anyway.” That at least got a giggle out of her, and we took our ice bucket and armful of soda cans back to the room. We were there for another hour or so before there was a knock on the door and Sid came in, looking awfully pale beneath his tattoos.

Emily leapt to her feet and rushed over to the kid, ushering him to a seat on the bed. I got up and out of the way, as did her mom. Cain tossed him a soda while Eve looked down the hall to see if she could catch any glimpse on Lucky’s location. I kept an eye on her, hoping she wasn’t going to try and put another slug into the fallen angel. Eve’s never been known for restraint, and sometimes it seems like her motto is “if at first you don’t succeed, shoot it again.” I didn’t need the attention, or the redecorating bill on my credit card. You’d be amazed how hard it is to keep a good credit rating when you don’t officially exist.

“What happened? Are you okay?” Emily asked.

“I’m fine. We just talked. Well, he talked. I listened.” Sid replied.

“What did he have to say?” I asked. “Remember, junior, deception is kinda his whole gig.”

“He talked about a lot of things. A lot about my Choice, and what was going to happen depending on what I Choose.”

“Did he happen to mention where you’re supposed to make this Choice, because we’re kinda flying blind right now.” Cain asked from the chair.

“Washington.” Michael pushed his way past Eve and into the room. “The Choice shall be made in Washington, DC. I will be leaving immediately.” The angel looked pissed, so I didn’t even bother with my standard snarky comments.
I just nodded to Myra, grabbed my room key from Junior and we headed to our room to pack. Emily and Eve started tossing things into a bag, and I glanced over at Cain, who was still sitting in the chair watching all the action.

“Hello Adam. Hello, Sidney.” He looked for all the world like something out of a Hemingway novel, all white linen suit and Panama hat. The sunglasses were there, of course, the sunglasses were always there.

“What are you doing here, Lucky? And isn’t Michael going to have some objection to your being here?” I asked, looking around to see if the archangel had clued in that his eternal adversary had joined our little pool party.

“I’m here to meet young Sidney, of course. And I could care less what that self-important ass objects to. Hello, Sidney. Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m…” I was probably going to fall into the pool and drown myself laughing if he said anything about wealth and taste, but that was the moment that Michael took note of our new addition.

“LUCYPHER!!!!” He bellowed, rising straight out of the pool like a missile from a submarine. His benign human guise vanished in a thought, and what we got was a whole lot of pissed off archangel, charging across the top of the water at Lucky swinging a six-foot long flaming sword. I shoved Junior into the pool and dove in after him, swimming as fast as we could to get away from the coming scuffle.

If you’re never seen an angel in their natural form, then it’s a little hard to explain. But since I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen one, I’ll give it my best shot. Think a glowing blue-white Shaq, only bigger. A lot bigger. Like seven and a half or eight feet tall. Bald, a little like the blue guy from the Watchmen movie, only bigger, and without genitalia. Leave me alone, it’s the kinda thing you’re gonna
notice. There are wings, and they are huge. Humans can stretch out their arms and the distance from fingertip to fingertip equals their height, within an inch or so. When angels stretch out their wings, the distance from wingtip to wingtip is more like ten or twelve feet. So now picture a glowing eight foot tall Shaq with a 12’ wingspan running across the surface of a swimming pool swinging a sword that would give Braveheart a little twinge in his kilt, if you get my drift. I think you can see why we dove for cover, literally.

To his credit, if Lucky had veins, there was ice water in them, because he didn’t flinch in the face of the Angelic Express about to run him down. He just stood there patiently, and when Michael got close, he did some kind of judo/ninja thing and suddenly Michael was flying across the parking lot. The wings helped him control his descent, and he made the turn before he crashed through anything important, like our car, the front of the hotel, a random fence or two, anything like that. As Michael wheeled around and flew back at Lucky for another shot, Lucky unfurled wings of his own and took to the sky.

“Is this the place, then?” He asked, stopping Michael cold in midair with one sentence.

“Why are you here?” replied a very pissed off angel.

“I wish to speak with the Chosen. Do you then change the terms of our meeting?” Lucky persisted.

“You must leave.” Said Michael.

“We agreed that I could speak with the Chosen as often as I desire until the Choice is made. Do you break the terms of our agreement? Shall we finish this now?” I wasn’t sure what Lucky was talking about, but the formality in his tone led me to believe that this was a pretty big deal.

“I do not. Our agreement stands.” Michael said through clenched teeth.

“Then leave me to talk with the Chosen. As is my right.” With that, Lucky proved that he was either incredibly brave or had a lot of faith in Michael’s word, because he turned his back on the sword-wielding giant glowing guy and glided down to where Junior and I were pulling ourselves out of the pool. Michael let out a low growl of frustration and flew straight up until he vanished from sight. I was pretty sure there were going to be some cell phone calls to the National Enquirer around Nashville that evening. I stepped between Lucky and the kid, who was trying to look brave but only managing to look like a very wet, very scared skinny kid with a face full of hardware and expensive ink on his arms.

“Lucky, what do you want with the kid? I’m not gonna let you hurt him.” I wasn’t feeling too secure in my own ability to stop him, but I figured it was worth a shot. It worked about as well as expected. Lucky laughed as he landed on the edge of the pool and came over to us. He reached into the bag of beer, popped the top on a PBR, and tossed one to me as he sat down on one of the pool loungers.

“Sit down, Adam. We both know you can’t hurt me, and if I wanted to hurt you, I’d find much more interesting ways of doing it than just kicking your ass all over the parking lot. I want to talk to Sidney here, and you might as well hear this as well.” I sat. He was right, and I knew it. And he knew I knew it, so there wasn’t a whole lot of point in trying to act all tough against the First of the Fallen.

“What was all that about?” I asked, waving my hand in the general direction of the pool.

“That? Oh. Well, Michael and I have had a disagreement for a long time, and before too long, we’re going to find out which one of us was right. And he gets to be the one to set the place for our final duel. I just asked him if he wanted it to be here. He decided against it.” Just as I was about to demand more details, I saw a shadow move across the water, and I looked up.

“Eve, No!” I got the words out, but not in time as Eve came up behind Lucky with a sawed-off shotgun and shot him square in the back. The sound was enormous, and I shut my eyes against the muzzle flash and any Lucky-bits that happened to spray on my face.

“What if I screw it up? I mean, I’ve spent so much of my life as a punk kid, getting all pierced and tatted up to try and be different. And now you guys come along and say that I am different, but that it doesn’t have anything to do with how I look, or with the fact that I like punk music and still believe the Bible, or any of that. That I matter just because I’m me. That kinda makes me think my whole life is a waste, you know. I’ve spent all this time inventing myself, and now you guys tell me that fate of the world is in my hands, and it’s got nothing to do with any of the stuff I’ve tried to become.” He looked almost anguished, and I guess I could understand. It couldn’t have been easy being different in the South growing up.

“I dunno, kid. All that stuff you did probably has more to do with you being Chosen than we’ll ever know. Well, any of us except for Michael, who kinda has the hotline to the Father. But he ain’t talkin’. So you gotta think that everything you went through went into making you who you are. All the decisions you made and all the ones that people around you made, those are all part of what make you unique. So without any of that stuff, you’d just be another funny-looking street preacher getting your ass kicked in bars. If that helps at all.”

“It does. Thanks. But how will I know when it’s time to Choose? And how will I make the right decision?”

“I don’t have a single idea. But if you come up with the answers, will you let me know?”

“Why?”

“Seems you’re not the only one with a Choice coming up, Junior. I’m not just chaperoning this ride because I’m older than everybody else. Apparently my time as the observer is about over, and I’m gonna have to make a Choice of my own. And I don’t know a damn thing more about it than you do.”

“But what about the last time?”

“What last time?”

“When you chose to take the fruit from Eve. When you were thrown out of the Garden of Eden.”

“That was Eve’s choice, not mine. Me taking a piece of fruit from my wife was a little-C choice. She’d already been confronted with the big one, and made it.”

“Do you regret it?”

“What, getting tossed out of the Garden?”

“Yeah. Do you?”

“Every single day, kid. Every. Single. Day.”

“What was it like?”

“It was a lot like you’d expect from the stories. It was peaceful, mostly. We had plenty to do, we were raising crops and learning about the world. We were exploring our surroundings, and exploring each other. You know, doing what young people do. There were lots of animals around, and we got to play with some fairly exotic pets, but it wasn’t all sweetness and light. It’s not like we had pet lions babysitting antelopes and everybody was vegetarian. The animals still had to eat, and so did we. I killed my fair share of beasties, and it’s a lot easier now to go to the grocery store than it was to butcher a water buffalo. And when there are only a few people in the world, there’s not a lot of help to get a water buffalo onto dry land so you can butcher it in the first place. So it was nice, but the best thing was just being around the Father.”

“So you really were in direct contact with God?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, he didn’t come down and walk around in a long white robe or anything, but his Presence was always there. And if I had a question, I asked. And he answered. Now sometimes his answer was ‘you’re a bright boy, Adam, figure it out,’ but it was an answer. That’s what I miss the most, just that connection.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” We sat there in silence for a few minutes before he piped up again.

“Adam?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“Cain.”

“Yeah, what about him?” I was afraid we might be heading into dangerous territory here, but I figured I owed it to the kid to let him know about the folks he was supposed to save the world with.

“Did he really murder his brother?”

“Abel? Yeah, he did. As far as we can tell, Cain actually invented murder. Not many people can claim to have their own Commandment, but my boy was always an overachiever.”

“Do you take anything seriously? I mean, he killed your son, and now you’re traveling with him. I don’t think I get that.”

“I probably don’t either to be real honest with you. But you gotta remember, in addition to having killed my son, he is my son. And I love him. That’s what being a father means, you love the little shit no matter what. I managed to forget that fact for a long time, but I’ve been reminded here recently.”

“So is he a good guy or a bad guy?”

“Yes.”

“To which?”

“Both. Look, there’s no question that Cain killed Abel. And there’s no question that it wasn’t the best thing that’s ever happened in any of our lives, but it just might be that it had to happen for a bigger reason. And I’m not gonna pretend to be smart enough to understand that reason, but after all these years, I’m not gonna ask too many questions, either.”

“Do you trust him?”

“With my life.”

“Okay. I guess that’ll have to do.”

“Good deal. So what’s your story, kid? What is it about you that makes you the Chosen? Are you the offspring of a Seraph and a mortal woman? Are you the Dahli Lama of Tennessee? What is it?”

“I’ve been asking myself that question ever since you picked me up off the sidewalk. I mean, I hate to question the wisdom of an angel, but do you think it’s possible that Michael may have picked the wrong guy?”

“Nah. He’s been too smug about the whole thing for him to harbor any doubts. And his intel is usually pretty good on these things.”

“Okay, then. Well I have no idea. I try to live a righteous, Christian life. Maybe that has something to do with it?”

“Can’t imagine it hurts, but it probably isn’t a big part of the process. After all, I’m not the least bit Christian, and apparently I’ve got to make a Choice soon myself.”

“You’re not a Christian? How can that be? I mean, you’re Adam, you’re right out of the Old Testament yourself. How can you not…” I cut him off there.

“Junior. Take a deep breath. Now let’s remember, I am the Old Testament. I predate Christianity by about 50 millennia, give or take a couple thousand years. I met the Carpenter. The Nazarene was a good kid, but he wasn’t the first or the last to speak that speech, so I’m not inclined to follow some hippie kid just because he says the Father loves us all. I know the true face of my Father’s love, and I know I don’t need an intermediary to get me there. All I need to do to talk to God it to talk to him. I don’t need to do it just on Sundays, or just in rooms with a lotta stained glass, or just through a mouthpiece. Now I liked the Carpenter. He did some good things, and he had a fantastic speaking voice. And I was a big fan of that water-into-wine trick. But I’m a little more old school in my religion. A little more direct, if you get my drift.”

“I never thought about that.”

“You probably never thought you’d be sitting around a swimming pool drinking beer with the main characters from Genesis, a dog-paddling archangel and a couple of waitresses from Texas, either.”

“Good point. Hey, thanks for talking to me. I was kinda freaking out a little.”

“No sweat. I’ve gotten kinda used to people freaking out lately. Including me.”

“You?”

“Yeah, me. Look, kid. I don’t really know what we’re coming up on right now, if it’s the end times, or what. But there’s a lot of new and different stuff happening, and when you’ve been around as long as I have, you some to understand that there really isn’t that much new stuff to happen. So when new things come in clumps, it’s a little disconcerting.”

“Makes sense. Now, um…I guess I’ve just got one more big question?”

“Shoot.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“You know, I have no idea.”

“Maybe I can help with that.” Shit. That was not the voice I wanted to hear.