As Lord Shiva walked into their coffee lounge, his wife instantly ran towards him and threw herself into his arms wordlessly. He just smiled and held her for a time, and then they looked at each other, and he took her by the hand as they joined the others.

Shiva approached Vishnu, hugged him and whispered: “Thank you, my Lord. It helped”, as Vishnu clapped his back and smiled.

“I see you are stronger”.

“Somewhat”, Shiva grinned back. “It was a big motherfucker”.

“Language, please; there are children at the table”, Lady Lakshmi smiled, as Zee and Kay rolled their eyes.

Krishna smiled, then his smile froze, as his eyes defocused; then he smiled twice as brightly. “Guys, you won’t believe what just happened. Mahadev, you’re back just in time”, he grinned at Shiva.

“Judging by your tone, I assume it’s not another broken angel?”, Lakshmi prodded her husband.

“By your grace, oh Luck, it is not”, he grinned and kissed her. “We have two new additions to the family”, he smiled widely, and snapped his fingers.

Lady Zina and Lord Buddha appeared from the shimmer in space, and everybody was instantly around them.

“I’m so proud of you”, Shakti whispered in her daughter’s ear as she hugged her, and tears went down Zina’s cheeks.

“So, you’re the guy who managed to figure out the particle theory of karma, called Sanat Kumar by the name while there, or close enough, got initiated into vajra while incarnated into that stupid gel, formulated entire theory of detachment and divestment, and became a God half an hour after getting back here, simply from talking to my wife and daughter? It’s a great honor”, Shiva grinned at Buddha, shaking his hand and pulling him into a mil-spec hug.

“And you are the guy who just ate a super-demon for brunch, after reconfiguring the Creation the day before?”, Buddha hugged him back. “I am honoured to meet you, Sir”, he smiled.

They all sat at the coffee table. “You know that stuff you’re drinking isn’t really coffee, right? I had coffee on Earth, and it’s bitter and yukk”, Zina frowned from the memory. “We had to put all kinds of stuff, like milk and honey in it, to make it even marginally palatable. This stuff is incredible, however. Tastes like the love of God”, her smile widened.

“We know”, Vishnu smiled. “We just call it that”.

“So, Zina, Lord Buddha, what are your plans?”, asked Lady Parvati. “Are you together or…?”, she winked.

They looked at each other wordlessly, and held hands. “If you approve”, bowed Buddha. “I don’t know what we are, but I see her as my gurudevi, who taught me and guided me to greater wisdom. I never want to be separated from her.”

“I liked you since I first saw you, Prince Siddhartha”, Zina joked. “Now I adore you. And cut out the gurudevi business, please. If we’re doing this, I want to be a proper wife to you”, she curtsied to him and smiled as he hugged her.

“I officially call you husband and wife, then”, Lady Shakti smiled and hugged them both. “So, in danger of repeating myself, what are the plans for the future?”

“I want to continue serving as a Judge of Karma, that is if my husband and Lord approves”, Zina bowed to Siddhartha Gautama.

“Not only do I approve, but I would request Lady Shakti’s permission to join you. It is a most praiseworthy and compassionate job, and if you see me as worthy and qualified enough for it, it would be my honour to join your daughter there”, Buddha bowed to his mother-in-law.

“You are slightly over-qualified, but we need all the help we can get”, Parvati smiled and nodded, and his Title changed accordingly.

“This is quite fortunate, as we seem to have new arrivals”, Lord Shiva raised an eyebrow.

…

“So, you two were away for what, an hour, and not only did both of you become Gods, but you also got married, and Lord Buddha is now working here with us?”, Azrael scratched his head.

“She became a Goddess first; I was so amazed with her that I just followed suit”, Buddha kissed his bride’s hand and smiled.

“It’s too bad I didn’t bet any actual money on it, because I just knew it”, Azrael laughed. “Oh well. At least we have the most praiseworthy addition to the workforce”, he bowed.

“And I hear there’s been some new arrivals?”, Buddha bowed back. “And what exactly is the procedure?”

“Yes; you’ll see quickly enough. As for the procedure, it’s simple. The normal souls need compassion, healing and knowledge until they are well enough to be placed in the astral Earth, the place where you sat with Zina in that apple orchard. There they can think things through and see what they want to be and do next. Then there are the corrupted ones, the criminals who caused the normal ones to be traumatised; rapists, murderers, bandits, warlords, clergy. They are the actual problem, as one would want to rehabilitate them too, but they need to be really seriously sorry, not just fake it to evade the consequences. That’s where your legendary bullshit detector comes into play. Basically, if they are thoroughly corrupted and evil, throw them into the astral jail, designed exclusively for that purpose, and we’ll see what to do with them at some later point. Maybe they change, maybe we return them to Earth, see what happens and revisit. If all other options are exhausted, someone will wipe them out and purify the karmic mass, but that part is out of our hands. In case of the most terrible demonic beings, and we only had one so far, we call the Gods to deal with them”.

“Sounds good to me”, Buddha nodded. “So, basically, we treat them compassionately, but not beyond the limits of reason and good taste?”

“Exactly”, confirmed the Angel of Death. “In any case, it would be cruel to let loose any unrepentant criminals among their victims and thus traumatise the poor souls further. That’s why the brig is there; hold them separately, revisit, think of solutions and treatments at a later date, and in the worst cases, flush”, he shrugged.

“And by the worst cases, you mean …?”, Buddha raised an eyebrow.

“People who would make the normal devils want to escape hell just to get away from them”, grinned Azrael, as Buddha laughed, and Zina held him close. “You didn’t see Uriel, or at least what he became, and be thankful to all the Gods that this is the case. I still have nightmares”, he shivered.

“In any case, I have the two of you to rely upon until I get the hang of it”, nodded Siddhartha.

“Speaking of which, here we come”, Azrael pointed.

Judge of Karma, Angel of Death; Azrael; crystal of vajra, male, was feeling much happier lately. It’s not that his job was easier, nor that it had caused him much discomfort earlier, other than that terrible instance of encountering the corrupted angel Uriel. The reason for improvement in his otherwise calm and collected disposition was that he was joined in his duties by the newborn angel, Zina, who was such a fountain of constant calm joy, that he couldn’t but be affected by it.

She was also extremely impressive. Not only did she attain crystallisation so soon after her almost fatal traumatic experience and subsequent miraculous recovery by the hands of two Goddesses, but she, due to being an old and rather large demon, crystallised to a more mature angelic form than is usual for the newborns, very much like Lord Azazel. And immediately afterwards, she continued growing exponentially in devotion to her Divine Mother, Goddess Shakti, and was now a large crystal of a profoundly deep blue colour, with large parts of her being violet to ultraviolet. Essentially, she was very close to the very summit of beings that could be found in Heaven, and if he had to bet on who will become the seventh God, his money would be on her. And, quite unexpectedly, she was so much fun to be around. Azrael smiled with profound contentment.

An expected shimmer in space occurred, and a being appeared before them, one of the souls who died on Earth and returned back to the astral plane, confused, traumatised, injured and for all intents and purposes insane. Only, Azrael understood that this expectation didn’t match the reality of what he was seeing, because the being in front of him, although obviously post-human, with typical signs of being stuck in a limited existence of a human body, was different than anything he had ever seen.

It was a clear, striking blue crystal of vajra, with pure, deep thoughts, analytical, deeply observant, deeply empathetic. “Zina, tell me I’m seeing this right”, he half-turned his attention to his partner.

“I know what you mean, but let’s talk to him rather than jump to conclusions, ok?”, she suggested, and he nodded in assent.

“Greetings, Sir. I am Azrael, Judge of Karma. I am here to assist you in your transition from Earth to the spiritual planes. However, since your nature and appearance are something I have never encountered before, I would ask you to introduce yourself and tell us about yourself. I must apologise in advance, because usually the deceased humans are in a state of shock, while I am calm and collected, but in your case the roles might be slightly reversed”, the Angel of Death smiled at the man.

“It is understandable”, the man smiled back. “I just experienced a painful death, but that is to be expected in that place, and is of little concern. As for who I am, it’s hard to say. I used to be asleep for so long, but then I awoke. I removed impurities on the four elements and extinguished them by transcending into the fifth. I used to be the Jewel in the Lotus, but now the Lotus is apparently gone, and I remain the Jewel. I used to be a prince, then an ascetic hermit, and then I gave even that up in enlightenment. I am the Awakened One, and I am not anything, for Emptiness is. I used to be called Shakyamuni, and they also called me Siddhartha Gautama. You can call me Buddha, the Awakened One, for my state and my name might as well be one.”

The two angels stood there in shock, their mouths open, and they looked at each other, and then back at him.

“You managed to attain all that down there? In Sanat Kumara’s hellhole?”, Azrael managed to collect himself enough to stutter.

“Ah, so that’s his name. I called him Mara, and I understood him to be the demon of illusion who owns and controls that place”, Buddha nodded. “I had serious difficulties with him there, because he uses every energetic projection and investment to power both your bondage and that place itself. The complexity of his traps is great, and he also adapts, so it’s not always the same. I am quite unsure whether this vision I’m having is one of his yet unseen traps, or it is a manifestation of my expectations and desires that I need to let go of, and transcend”, he mused.

“Oh, this place is quite real”, Azrael nodded. “I mean, it’s a construct made of astral substance, created by Goddess Karuna to accommodate the needs of deceased humans, and furnished by Lord Vishnu. We are actual beings, and not manifestations of your psyche, as you seem to think. We, however, are also confused and in a state of shock, which is why we will now invite the Gods to join us, because you are something none of us have ever seen, and this far exceeds the parameters of our job here”, Azrael smiled to Buddha and nodded to Zina, whose eyes turned inwards as she prayed to her Mother.

“Hello, my daughter”, Shakti smiled after the shimmer in space manifested both herself and three other Gods, who just happened to have coffee with her as the call came. “Ah, so this is the cause of your excitement, my dear”, she put her arm around the smiling woman’s shoulder, and looked at the man himself. “A perfect crystal of blue vajra, excellent analytical mind, almost perfect theoretical understanding of spiritual theory… and you developed it all yourself, in the deepest illusion created by the worst of demons? I am not merely impressed, Lord Buddha; I salute you”, she curtsied respectfully. “I am Lady Shakti, wife of Lord Shiva. It is an honour to meet you”.

Buddha looked into the Lady’s eyes with deep insight and discernment, and his mouth opened in shock. “Wow. I would bow back, my Lady, but I am not sure if such a gesture is respectful enough, and worthy of what I just felt. In my experience on Earth, the gods seemed like irrelevant, self-serving beings that feed off sacrifices and provide worldly benefits in order to promote more sacrifices, all of it being irrelevant for one’s liberation. I am used to pointing my mind at something, and it dissolves into components, showing itself to be illusory. In my presumption, I took the liberty of touching you with my mind, expecting you to dissolve as an illusion, showing the underlying calm of blissful emptiness. However, my mind touched you and broke, the way a stone breaks hitting a harder stone. It’s as if vajra, the fifth element, the jewel of my awareness, is like mere air compared to what I touched, but it is not at all what I expected. You are not cold emptiness of a higher order. You are not a deeper state of nirvana. You are kind, compassionate, playful, powerful, but that’s not the right word. You are powerful in such extreme ways, it blows my mind when I try to wrap it around that. You are a God in a sense where everything one would think of as a God feels like a laughing stock in comparison. My Lady, I apologise for my presumption, and my only explanation is that you are to a Buddha what Buddha is to a dormant soul in deep illusion”, he bowed deeply to the smiling Goddess.

“I like him, Mother”, Zina turned to Lady Shakti and smiled.

“We all do, kid”, the Goddess rubbed her daughter’s shoulder. “He’s so far the most impressive being that emerged from all of this, and I expect we’ll have lots to talk about, as his understanding of spiritual mechanics, formed in that place, might in fact contain improvements on our knowledge”, she nodded, as Buddha bowed back even more deeply in return.

“I would be honoured to be of service, Goddess. And, after I think about everything more deeply, and gain better understanding about the rest of Reality, now that my mind is unconstrained by flesh, I will certainly have questions”.

“And we will be glad to answer them, Lord Buddha”, Goddess smiled at him, and other Gods nodded. “But for now, I will be leaving you with my daughter Zina, because she looks like she wants to talk to you”, she grinned.

Lady Lakshmi nodded a greeting to Buddha smilingly, and turned to Zee and Kay. “He used to be one of those dormant souls we usually call the sheep, and then he awoke. Now, he is one of the most impressive beings I have seen so far”. She looked at Lord Azazel in particular. “You were right to say that good things might come out of this horror after all, and that souls need a proper shakeup”, she curtsied.

“And you, Mother, were fully justified in warning us not to mock the sheep, nor to speak casually of the dangers and horrors”, he bowed back.

“I am glad we are all in agreement”, smiled Lady Shakti, and shimmered away, as the other Gods nodded a farewell and followed suit.

…

“I must again apologise for my presumption, Lady Zina”, Buddha mused. “Before, long before, I can vaguely remember existing, without any aim or purpose. I was, and that was enough for happiness. I was hardly anything, and it didn’t bother me in the slightest. In my earthly life, everything was ignorance and darkness. I encountered ignorant and often cruel kings and noblemen, pompous and utterly ignorant priests, ignorant people conducting their worldly affairs in darkness, all suffering terribly as poverty, old age, sickness and death ruled the world”.

“After my awakening and transformation, I saw that I am seemingly the only truly enlightened one, and started teaching. Fools challenged me; the wise listened. The only wise people I encountered were those wise enough to become my disciples and learn dharma.”

“And then, I saw you and your friend Azrael. He is much like myself, made of vajra, a buddha in his own right. I’ve seen his mind – it is calm, settled, hard as diamond and lightning. He is also old, incredibly old, and has other jewels on him, of darker colour, signifying his great achievements. I instantly liked him and felt great compassion for his sincerity, humility and kindness to the suffering souls he assists daily”.

“You, my Lady, are even stronger, more powerful, harder. The colour and hardness of vajra that makes your karmic body is greater than his, or mine, and yet you are so humble, kind and lovely, with no attempt to project authority or distance. How did you attain such admirable qualities of spirit?”, he asked the daughter of Shakti.

“You told me how your spiritual path went, Lord Buddha, so it’s quite appropriate that I tell you about mine. You see, I used to be a demoness, for untold millennia, or eons even. They used to call me Vipera, the venomous bitch. In my endless boredom, I entertained myself by molesting other souls, and inventing cruel pranks for them, so that I and other demons would have a laugh”.

Buddha raised an eyebrow. “I find this hard to believe, my Lady, as there is nothing of the sort that I can identify in you, but I guess that is how true spiritual transformation works”, he nodded.

“Yes. At one point, I naively and thoughtlessly chose to test out Sanat Kumar’s new world, Earth. I was born there and all my memories were inhibited. I didn’t know that I was supposed to be a demoness, and I knew nothing about cruelty and malice, as my family loved me and treated me with great kindness. I was soon married, and my husband also treated me lovingly and with kindness. As this became the norm of my life, it also became my true self of choice, something I wanted to be, and defend against all threats. I also experienced terrible suffering in life, but that had nothing to do with my choices; it was merely a threat, an evil that happened against my will”, she explained.

“But how did you deal with suffering? Surely it must have been an issue for you?”, Buddha enquired.

“It was, indeed. Four of my seven children died early. I grieved and cried for them, and those were dark times. Also, my life ended in a terrible way, when bandits came, killed my husband and two sons in the fields, entered our house and bound me, and forced me to watch and listen as they took turns raping my daughter, my youngest child. I tore myself away and tried to fight them off, but they killed me”, she finished darkly.

“How did you deal with this horrible experience?”, Buddha whispered compassionately.

“I didn’t. My soul broke completely. I locked myself into a memory of rocking my baby daughter to sleep, forever, and that is how I would have died, if not for Lady Shakti. The last thing I remember as darkness started to take me was her holy presence all around me, saying “no you don’t”, as she flooded my soul with incredible bliss and light that comforted me, faded out the trauma and the loss, and brought back my memories of life before Earth, so that I could remember and integrate myself. She also showed me the blissful nature or Reality, showed me how I chose to partake in it with my choices of love and kindness in my human life, and how I chose to stand against it in my cruel and harsh life as a demoness. Her love and compassion literally stitched my soul together as I was breaking apart, and I held on to her light and gained new life”, she finished, glowing brightly.

“You are right to put accent on the issue of suffering, Lord Buddha”, she continued. “Suffering is a terrible problem, and the trauma would have ended my existence as a soul, if not for my Mother’s compassion and immense skill in spiritual healing. However, in hindsight, the love and kindness that I experienced are what informed my choice, for them and against everything that threatens them. They are both the reason why I suffered so much when everything was taken from me, and also why I am the person you see before you, because I embraced my Mother and loved her with all my heart”.

“This goes significantly against my beliefs and experience, which both say that attachment is the door to suffering, and in order to avoid suffering, one needs to let go”, Buddha thought out loud.

“But you also taught compassion, if I am not mistaken?”, she argued. “How can one do both? How can one care enough to feel compassion, and let go enough to not feel suffering if the ones you care for are hurt?”

“And also, the Gods do not share your outlook on suffering. They don’t think removal of suffering is a worthy goal, in itself. I’ve seen Gods in tears, and as we speak, my Mother’s holy husband is suffering in solitude and silence, transforming evil karma of a terrible being that had to be destroyed; by choice, not by accident. Gods are not transcendence of suffering; rather, they are transcendence of indifference”, she argued strongly.

“You want to say that I’m throwing out the baby together with the dirty bath water, my Lady?”, Buddha smiled.

“Yes, and I’m glad that we can both understand the analogy, having both been human”, she smiled at him. “I think the point is to embody and manifest the qualities of the unmanifested Absolute, brahman that is sat-cit-ananda. As you become sat-cit-anandamaya, made of qualities of sat-cit-ananda, you are truly living your purpose, which is to be of God”, argued the deeply violet lady Buddha, daughter of Light. “Of all things that are sat-cit-ananda, the devotion and worship of That, which is worshipful and worthy of highest devotion, is what manifests God the most, so that the unmanifested God can say “yes, I am That, and That is what I want to be as a person”, and that is how Gods are born”, she argued as her nature transformed, and the wellspring in her heart opened in fullness, as she remembered her Mother in all of her glory and kindness.

The Buddha was powerfully shaken by the forcefulness and conviction of the enlightened Lady beside him, because this wasn’t some ignorant person telling him the usual nonsense. This was an almost-Goddess, a Buddha herself, a crystal of spiritual light deeper and stronger than his own soul, and her words resonated with such reality that he stood there in sheer awe of her, feeling what she conveyed and the reasons behind it, and he also remembered Lady Shakti, and what he felt when he did his usual “test for reality”, and found something Reality itself is based upon, that shook him to his core like nothing else. Those were not ignorant, attached people spouting nonsense that needs to be released so that nirvana can be. The lovely Lady Buddha across him had thoughts and emotions that were nirvana, emptiness of illusion and attachment, and yet fullness of blissful, delectable joy and clarity of vast, enormous consciousness and understanding of things he was only starting to consider, and his own heart opened in worship and admiration of her, bowing deeply to her lively yet profound spirit, and even more to her Mother, the Goddess whose smile haunted him, as it contained such depths of transcendence and power combined, that his carefully cultivated aloofness crumbled into dust, like a dam that released a flood in his soul, as he worshipped the greatness that was such, that his own greatness never dared to even dream of its existence.

“Lady Buddha, I bow to you, again and again. Please teach me and guide me”, he whispered to the almost-Goddess who choked in ecstasy, and touched her forehead to his own.

“God is the endless delight, endless wonder, reality beneath everything that is real, goodness beneath all the good things. He is the love behind suffering, and bliss, truth and wonder in love. See how I drink it”, she invited him, whispering as her consciousness blended with the deeper reality of God, and God loved being Zina so much, that they could no longer be apart, and was no longer the formless brahman, but Zina the Goddess, touching heads with Buddha in his second enlightenment, as nirvana, the ultimate fullness empty of all that is worthless and superficial, desired to be the wise person who worshipped Goddess Zina.

And so, the Gods were eight.

A beautiful young woman, seemingly in her twenties, sat under a tree in the astral Earth, holding her knees to her chest in thought. Zina looked at her, and a great love opened in her heart. She knelt by her side.

“My Goddess, do you mind if I call you ‘Mother’? Since you saved my soul, that is how I feel about you; I think of you as my mother, who gave me life once more”, the older-looking woman, seemingly in her forties, all-but-sang to her Lady.

“Of course I don’t mind, my dear daughter”, Lady Shakti smiled, looking not at all like she gave birth to Time itself, and yet, that’s exactly what she looked like. The older woman fell into her Goddess’ arms and embraced her. “I never loved or admired anyone as much as I love and admire you, Mother”, she choked with emotion, drinking the nectar of her devotion, and completely losing any sense of time and space. When she opened her eyes, they were no longer under the tree. There were blue crystalline angelic beings all around them, and as she became aware of herself, she saw that she was one of them – deep blue, but smaller than Azazel used to be when he ascended.

“Oh”, she whispered in her holy Mother’s ear, still holding her, still drinking her devotion.

“’Oh’ indeed, my sweetheart child”, Shakti smiled and messed her hair, and Zina laughed. “Zina, you are my great comfort in all that’s been going on lately. Looking at you and what you’ve become makes me happy despite all, and I thank you for it”, the Lady purred.

“Please bless me so that I always remain yours, holy Mother”, Zina whispered, and Lady Parvati kissed her forehead in assent.

“I demand to see Lord Marduk”, a dark, arrogant and seemingly violent soul demanded.

“I don’t know what you are talking about”, an angel appointed to greet and process the deceased responded. “I know of no such person. Are you even aware of who you are, where you are and what is happening to you?”

“Of course I am aware, unworthy scum”, the demonic creature answered. “I am Ashurnasirpal the Mutilator, second of the name, and you better bring me before Marduk, before I have you skinned alive, you wretch”, he threatened darkly.

Azrael the Judge thought what to do about this one. This was by far the worst example he ever saw; most corrupted, most powerful, made of something that looked like soul crystal, only black. Not black like the blessed shivaratri, the stuff wielded by Lord Shiva, which was black in the way mind of God that is to give birth to Light is black. This was black the way concentrated evil and hatred would be black, were they to take crystalline form. It was as if an angelic being was corrupted into something nastier than his past experience told him was possible, and he was very old. This was above his pay grade, so he turned his mind inwards and prayed to Lord Shiva to come to his aid.

Shiva instantly appeared from the shimmer in space. “Hello Azrael, nice to meet you”, he smiled. “I see you’re having some issue here”.

“Yes, Boss”, Azrael smiled and bowed to the Lord. “Here is something I have never seen before, and I decided I better call you”.

“Are you Lord Marduk?”, the dark demon inqured.

“No”, Shiva answered. “And let me see what we have here. This is a terrible criminal, Azrael. He seems to have skinned people alive, impaled them and murdered them in all kinds of terrible ways intended to increase and prolong their suffering. He ruled with fear and intimidation, gouged people’s eyes out, had their noses and fingers cut off, burned them alive and so on. His crimes are numerous, and he even made inscriptions to brag about them, in order to intimidate others. And do you know who this terribly deformed creature is?”, Shiva turned to the angel.

“Don’t you dare talk about me as if I’m not there, you worthless scum!”, the demon growled, moving towards them as if to attack them.

“Enough of this”, said Shiva, raising his hand and freezing the demon in place.

“I honestly don’t know, my Lord. He looks made of material I have never seen before; it’s as dense as vajra, but black, evil and corrupted in incredible ways I have never witnessed before. Honestly, if anyone told me such a thing could exist, I would have refused to believe it, because it contradicts everything I know about spiritual substances”, the angel shrugged helplessly. “How can this creature even exist?”

“I’m afraid it can exist, and I’m afraid we’ve seen the first of the most terrible things that have come from Sanat Kumar’s evil experiment. You see, this is your former colleague, angel Uriel”, Shiva shrugged with profound sadness. “The others need to see this as well, because I am afraid my beloved sister Lakshmi proves to be of immaculate foresight”.

“May all the Gods and everything that is holy be forever at my aid and have mercy upon me, because this is the worst thing I have witnessed in my long life”, Azrael whined in utter shock, staring numbly at the Lord.

…

“Fucking hell”, stuttered Lord Vishnu. His Lady stared at the frozen figure, as if reading from its memory, and wept wordlessly. Shakti grew pale and started shivering, while Zee and Kay just looked at each other in terror. “Fucking hell indeed”, confirmed Lord Shiva. “If there were an encyclopedia of some kind here, if you looked up under ‘fucking hell’, a picture of this creature would be there, staring at you menacingly”, he managed to make a sour attempt at a smile. “What do we do with it?”, he asked, looking at his family.

“Destroy it outright, without remainder, and someone would have to purify the kalapas because the substance is incredibly toxic”, said Lady Shakti, her voice shaking slightly. Lakshmi nodded in assent. “I approve wholeheartedly. This is the most evil thing I have ever seen: an utterly corrupted angel turned into a super-demon; more evil, warped and demonic than even Sanat Kumar, and all of the astral demons taken together; in fact, compared to this abomination, the astral demons look like naughty children throwing rocks at birds. This is worse than Satan, and it can’t be allowed to exist in any shape or form”, she shivered, as everybody nodded in assent.

“That’s what I thought, but I wanted you to see it first and tell me what you think, and I’m glad we agree”, he opened his palm and the frozen super-demon broke apart into dust, turning into a terrible black smoke that looked like it was made of a million microscopic black holes, and was absorbed into Shiva’s body. Shiva looked unwell, as if crunched under a terrible burden or pain. “I must leave you now and take some time off to deal with this, because this is not health food by any means”, he smiled weakly, as if it hurt him to think or talk, and shimmered out of their presence.

“Great Lord, conqueror and destroyer of all that is evil and impure, I salute you and bow before you, again and again”, whispered Lord Vishnu, and all the Gods and Goddesses bowed in silence.

Angel Azrael stood there, still petrified in shock, with his mouth agape, knowing only that he just witnessed the death of an Eternal, and, even worse, that it was a good thing.

“Fuck”.

The war room looked more austere than the typical coffee lounges the Gods used for their private meetings; also, it was more formal. They cordoned a section of the astral world for that purpose, because it was agreed that they had to use the lowest level that all three species could normally visit on their own power – astral, angelic and Divine. Since angels and Gods could easily travel to the astral plane, and astral beings couldn’t travel anywhere else, the matter was quickly settled.

It wasn’t a war one would expect – Gods vs. demons, or any such thing. No, it was Gods, angels, demons and all other beings together, against one single person armed with a superweapon.

At the table, all of the Gods were present, as well as three of the angels that witnessed the carnage, because the rest of the angels, volunteers of course, were tasked with assisting the injured souls that kept popping up from Earth, since time was a strange thing, and Earth was exceedingly deadly.

Also, there was someone quite unexpected in attendance.

“In the name of all present, I am glad to greet a survivor and witness of Sanat Kumar’s terrible crime: Vipera the demon”, Lord Vishnu bowed to the woman sitting beside Lady Shakti.

“If it is at all possible, I would implore you to address me as Zina. This was my name in my earthly life, and I now feel it reflects my personality, emotions and choices much more accurately than my demon name”, the woman bowed back and smiled.

“Of course, Zina. But considering the terrible spiritual conditions you were in during our last encounter, I must admit that your present state is nothing less than staggering, and I mean it in the best possible sense”, he smiled. “Please, we would very much appreciate your report on the whole ordeal, and then we might have questions”.

“Well, I have Lady Shakti to thank for my present state. Her kindness, as well as spiritual magic of the kind I never even suspected was possible, is the reason for my recovery. For some reason, she took me under her care, diminished my trauma, allowed the memories from my past demonic life to resurface, while subduing my freshest, most traumatic memories, which allowed me to survive the ordeal and integrate the experience in a positive way. I also bow to Lady Fortune, who was very much with me in all of this”.

“I know this might sound shocking to you, but other than the terrible end of my earthly life, I found the experience quite rewarding and healing. As a demoness, I was, honestly, a terrible person. They called me Vipera, or venomous bitch, for plenty of good reasons, as I was mostly engaged in bullying, backstabbing and harming people who had the misfortune to be around me for whatever reason. I was spiritually sick, bored and nasty, and continued being so mostly out of routine – I was this way today because I was that way yesterday and the day before and the year before. I saw no need, and even no way to change”.

“And then I carelessly joined that newly opened world, and all my memories were gone. I didn’t know who I am, I didn’t know where I am, I didn’t know anything about my past self, and therefore what patterns to repeat. When I was born, my parents loved me and took care of me. This was the first time in a very, very long time that somebody loved me, mostly because I was such a nasty person, that nobody had a reason to. I was surrounded mostly by other demons, who were as nasty as myself, and when I met other souls, it was to bully and insult them, trying to please myself and impress other demons”.

“But as my parents and elder brothers loved me and treated me with kindness, this new state of affairs became my new normal, a routine I repeated today because I experienced it yesterday and the day before. I loved other people because that’s how we treated each other. Treating others rudely or nastily just wasn’t something that was done in our family, or in the neighbourhood. When I met my husband, I experienced a new, different kind of love, and I liked it a lot. I especially liked sex, although pregnancies and childbirths were hard. Sure, I experienced loss – four of my children died in infancy, but the love I felt for all of them was more than worth it. When I look at it now, I feel that my demon life was a colourless, dreary experience devoid of any true joy, while my human life was a combination of deep, fulfilling emotions, of many different kinds of love, kindness and pleasure, combined with a few terrible moments of loss, when my children died, and especially in the horrible end of my life, when I seemingly lost everything. However, Lady Shakti expanded my consciousness far beyond my normal limits and showed me the interconnectedness of lives and their persistence beyond the mortal form, which I couldn’t experience or even dream of in my human life. This wider perspective allowed me to accept loss, and understand that what I gained in that life defined me positively to such an extent, that I consider it my true life, in which I was actually born as the person I am now. It allowed me to interrupt my demonic routine, stop what I was doing, experience something radically different, and discover that this, in fact, is what I want my life to be like in the future. I would definitely not want to repeat being born on Earth again, with all those terrible limitations and ignorance, and with all the terrible things that could happen to me there, as I still have nightmares about Tamara being raped, but I would certainly prefer to build my future life along the lines of my life as Zina, rather than Vipera, which is why I changed my name. This is all I can think of at this time, and if any of you have questions, I will be glad to answer them”, she concluded.

“As a former demon myself, I would certainly like to encourage you in your choice and congratulate you on your excellent recovery from your terrible ordeal. You probably remember me as Azazel, the huge old black demon”, he grinned, but with great tenderness.

Her eyes went wide. “You are Azazel? But you are now a God!”, she exclaimed.

“Exactly, Zina; which means that the road ahead of you is wide open, and you have many great possibilities, if your current change is a sign of things to come”, he smiled. “However, I would now like to underscore something of great importance: Sanat Kumar intended to do great evil with the design of his world, but it seems that, at least in this case, he accidentally did something good. He intended Zina to be separated from the recollection of her true self in order to make her susceptible to the pressures of his world, but in her case, her former life was something that actually needed to be suppressed in order for other options to manifest themselves. I know that my beloved parents are overcome by guilt for their participation in creating this nightmare, but I would use this case to restate their original argument: that this is an evil, but other greater evils warranted its creation, and if some good already came of it so early, and in the worst scenario Sanat Kumar could have come up with, having all spiritual connections blocked in entirety, now with my Father’s modifications this might eventually result in even greater good, in the end”, Blade of Discernment concluded.

Other Gods nodded in appreciation, and Lady Lakshmi decided to have a word. “May I just say that I warned you that this will be no laughing matter? Nobody wants to be told ‘I told you so’, but I told you so. I approved of the project, not only because of the impeccable character of the three Gods who devised and implemented it behind my back, but also when Lord Shiva brought me up to date and informed me of all that had been done, and why. However, I noticed, and will keep reminding you until you are utterly bored of me, that some things that will come out of this will be tragedies, even if it now became obvious that good things can come out of it as well. In Zina’s case, we can see exposure to an earthly life with all its limitations as a form of psychotherapy. However, this is so only because she was also healed by the Goddess of Light, the Power of God herself, whose competence and skill are matched only by her great compassion and beauty”, she smiled at her sister, who tried not to blush too much. “Also, she had my blessing to find the way through this, which must have been of help, even if I say so myself. Harm that was done to her soul prior to the expert treatment by ostensibly the most competent healer in the world, was grim, and I will remind everybody here of how Lady Shakti herself was inconsolable yesterday, considering Zina a lost case. Her recovery was a miracle, and I would strongly advise against having miracles as a strategy”, Lady Fortune concluded her word of caution.

“Hear, hear”, Lord Vishnu tapped the table. “I would agree that we were exceedingly lucky here; part of it being the number of the afflicted souls, that was still quite low, which made it possible for two Goddesses to address an individual person with utmost care and absolute competence. However, what if it were a thousand? A million? Imagine having a million heavily wounded souls arrive in a day, and considering the cruelty of that place, that is not out of the realm of possibility. How would we treat them, and I think we all agree that we must help them in every way we can?”, he looked at the assembled Gods and saw their nods.

“I would also caution against generalising this case, as it might prove to be a statistical anomaly, rather than a rule”, voiced Michael. “Let me just remind everyone here that people we’ve been dealing with generally tend to be victims of murders, victims who have by all accounts lived peaceful lives minding their own business, and once we get to deal with the murderers themselves, we might encounter a different picture. Imagine a soul that has adopted such a path in life – for instance, those who murdered Zina and her family. They would either be tortured by guilt, or completely warped and evil because those actions actually reflected their newly made spiritual choices. We’ve seen how Zina was changed by her experiences there. It’s obvious that incarnation on Earth has transformative quality. It is reasonable to assume that transformation can go in all kinds of directions”, the angel concluded.

“That’s a valid point”, Lord Shiva nodded. “And while we’re there, have you been encountering any of the negative examples? Souls that have been turned to evil?”, he enquired.

“In fact, yes. There has been one bandit that got in a fight with another and was stabbed with a knife and died”, Gabriel answered.

“What was his soul type?”

“Now, that’s a pickle. It was one of the stagnant souls that are often referred to as ‘sheep’”, the angel nodded.

“That’s unexpected”, mused Lord Vishnu. “One would assume that demons would get to be bandits, the sheep would work in the fields and angels would, I don’t know, be philosophers, artists and religious teachers”

“Apparently not”, Zee scratched his chin. “Which makes me think in two possible directions. First, the body does its own thing, and the soul is merely a witness, a canvas upon which the image is projected. It assumes the role and then takes either the blame, or expects reward for things that in reality had not been the results of its actual choices. Or direction two, that we don’t know much about what a soul would do given the options. Basically, demons don’t seem to be very much preoccupied with going around and doing evil things to others. Zina enjoyed family life to the point where it completely transformed her outlook on life, for instance. Take a person who is energetic, vital, but ignorant and bored to tears. They will do all sorts of mischievous things if they lack direction. But give her direction, and suddenly all that energy goes into her family and the result is happiness and peace. Also, those sheep are not good just because they aren’t doing any harm in the astral plane. They are indifferent and passive. Put such a person in a situation where a body will do something evil by default, if not steered away from it, and such soul will just go along with it, picking the easy choice, which in this case would be violence and evil”, he mused.

“Be it as it may, we’ll have to do something about those souls as they come back”, Lakshmi interjected. “Imagine a gang of murderers being executed by the king for their crimes. They come here, return to the astral plane, and now they have all sorts of new ideas about things they could do to the innocent souls here. Imagine hardened murderers and rapists being set loose among the normal souls. They would be far worse than demons. For all their flaws, the demons seem to be limiting their activities to mocking and bullying. Also, those former humans, they seem to have a completely different “taste” to them, compared to souls who haven’t had a human experience. Maybe we need to accommodate for their differences?”

“That’s a good point”, nodded Kay. “So let me see what we need now. We need qualified and willing people to welcome the souls coming back from Earth, de-traumatise them, help them integrate their past and current selves, and then see where to put them. We also need to modify the astral plane, because the nursery seems very poorly suited for the new role; too many soul types would intermix and interfere with each other’s purpose. How about this: we sequester a part of the astral plane to serve the purpose of post-human integration, where the souls that used to be human could live in an environment that looks somewhat like Earth, with trees, sunsets, houses and forests, the good and normal stuff, only without imposed limitations, murderers and rapists. And regarding those, we would also need another section of the astral plane dedicated to holding those until we decide what to do with them, since we have to assume there will be cases that are so evil they can’t be allowed to intermix with normal souls, and if we’re not ready to outright destroy them immediately, we can hold them there until there’s some more permanent solution”, she said seriously, as the other Gods nodded in assent. “Lord Shiva, Lady Shakti, please give me your permission to create those sub-planes using your powers”, she looked at them and bowed. They smiled and nodded, and she closed her eyes. Golden light of her jewel flashed across the astral plane. “It’s done”, she smiled, as the angels looked at each other in awe.

“So, by the grace of our lovely Lady Karuna, we have two new astral sub-planes now; the astral Earth, and the astral jail”, nodded Lord Vishnu. I will now do the initial interior design of the astral Earth”, he added, and his eyes lost focus as he looked within. A blue light flashed and a screen appeared above them, showing a heavenly scene of pastoral beauty; green meadows, lush forests, houses arranged in small towns, and cute animals here and there. Another flash, and the post-human souls were transported there, along with an angel or two to help them adjust. A third flash, and an administrative building appeared, along with all of them transported there, together with the war room and everything, without actually noticing anything changing. “Done. Now, we have to deal with the issue of judges, or therapists, if you like. It would need to be something more permanent than the current arrangement, and we need to consider necessary qualifications”, he finished.

“If I may, I would suggest those judges or therapists to be people who have survived Earth successfully, and have a human experience, so that they could better understand the people they are dealing with. There might be emotional nuances of the experience that wouldn’t be understandable to someone who hasn’t gone through it”, Zina voiced her opinion.

“That’s a valid point”, nodded Lady Shakti. “Also, there’s the issue of competence; it must be someone who is experienced in figuring out truth from illusions, appearances and lies, meaning someone with strong analytical and discriminative abilities. It must also be someone compassionate and kind, because they would be dealing with injured souls. Also, it must be someone with patience and a propensity for nurturing and healing, but also someone who is able to make hard choices quickly and dispassionately. I would recommend that only the crystallised souls be considered for the assignment, for two reasons. First is the level of power and competence inherent to that status, and the second is to give them something useful to do, and a way to gain experiences that could prod them in new and unexpected evolutionary directions”, she smiled.

“I think that’s quite reasonable”, Michael answered, and other angels nodded.

“I would volunteer myself for the job, once I attain crystallisation”, said Zina. “I had children of my own, so I would know a thing or two about patience, nurturing and healing, and I also have a human experience behind me, so I think I could empathise with them better than most”.

“That’s actually a great idea”, Lady Shakti smiled and ran her hand through Zina’s hair, as Zina laughed. “You’re a lovely mom and you’d do great”.

“So, I think that’s settled”, smiled Lord Vishnu. “For a position of judges and healers, we need crystalline angelic beings with proper qualifications and temperament and preferably with a human experience behind them, and when Zina crystallises, which I think won’t be a long wait considering her current status and progress, she would be absolutely welcome to the job”, he nodded to the still smiling woman.

“I have a question”, Lord Shiva looked at the angels. “Do we so far have any fatalities?”

“So far, no”, Michael nodded seriously. “Zina was the closest to being fatally wounded, but Lady Shakti managed to pull her through, due to her immense power and expertise; nobody else would know what to do, honestly. The rest of them were seriously traumatised, but are integrating their past selves into the experience and are doing reasonably well. However, we are still early into the whole process and I wouldn’t rush into triumphalism at this point. We are yet to see how the incarnate angels do”, he warned. “They might do better than others, or they might be a disaster of unseen proportions”.

“Good point”, nodded Shiva. “So, now that the serious business is behind us, unless anyone else has questions, we might as well go to the next item, which is coffee”, he smiled.