Chapter 4: A Divine Introduction

Patrick hurried over to Mike's unconscious body, kneeling down and dabbing Mike's face with a damp towel from the shower.

Mike came to and screamed as loudly as he could, backing away from Patrick and pulling JC in front of him.

"What's the hell's going on here....who the hell are you...and why do you look exactly like my ex?"

Patrick smiled wanly. "I look like him, because I am him. I'm alive...again."

Mike's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out once again.

"He's taking this pretty well, I think." Patrick said as he got back up and went into the bathroom to re-wet the towel

An hour, and one more bout of fainting later, a very pale and shaken-looking Mike sat on the edge of the bed holding JC's hand and Patrick's hand.

"So...let me test my knowledge here....Lance...signed some contract and wished you back...not knowing that he was bargaining both your souls to this Sam guy...who you now think is the devil."

Patrick nodded. "That about sums it up."

Mike groaned. "But....but...what are you gonna do? I mean...your souls....the devil...HELL! This is kinda serious!"

Patrick nodded. "It's utterly serious. Nothing less than two souls hang in the balance here."

Mike looked at Patrick and his eyes widened. "You've got a plan? You know what to do?"

Patrick shook his head. "This isn't my field of expertise....I haven't got a clue."

Lance groaned. "Oh jeez! We're doomed!"

Patrick put his arm around Lance. "Not yet. I'll just need to call in some help."

JC looked at Patrick curiously. "Help?!? What kinda help? Who ya gonna call?"

Patrick giggled madly and shouted, "Ghostbusters!"

Chris snorted as the rest of the band groaned loudly.

"Just kidding!" Patrick smiled. "Lighten up guys! I'm alive for the next 30 days. I'll figure something out."

Patrick got up off the bed and knelt beside it and bowed his head.

"Gabriel. I need your help. The fate of two souls hang in the balance. Please Gabriel, come to my aid."

Patrick got up from the ground and sat back down on the bed.

"Gabriel?" Chris said. "As in....the Herald of the Lord. The Angel Gabriel that announced to the shepherds that Jesus was to be born in a manger and all that...?"

Patrick nodded. "Yep. That'd be the one."

Justin's eyebrow arched up suspiciously as he lay stretched across the one double bed in the room. "You really know the Angel Gabriel?"

"Yeah. Patrick and I are good friends, he keeps promising to introduce me to the Backstreet Boys....but I guess you'll do." came a deep, masculine voice from behind Justin. Justin jolted at the sound of the voice, but a hand on his shoulder kept him from tumbling off the side of the bed. Justin turned around and came face to face with a naked young man with long blond hair and blue eyes laying behind him, so close as to have almost been spooning him.

"Justin." Patrick said with a smile, "I'd like you to meet Gabriel."

Justin stared at Gabriel, open-mouthed in shock until Joey smacked him on the leg. "Um...I uh...me ju-ju....."

"Very eloquent, too!" Gabriel smiled widely and put his hand on Justin's face. "Good to finally meet you, Justin." Gabriel smiled and then leaned in and pecked him lightly on the lips in greeting.

Gabriel got up and walked over to Patrick leaving a stunned Justin Timberlake sprawled over the bed. "Well Patrick. Let me see that contract so I can see how deep in it you are this time."

Patrick held up the contract and smiled ruefully. "I've gone from ankle deep to hip deep in alligators in just a matter of hours."

Gabriel chuckled and then began to read the contract. Several "Ummmmm's" and "Ah-ha's" and "Ohhhh's" later, Gabriel looked up at Patrick and sighed.

"There's good news and there's bad news..."

Lance groaned. "Let's have the bad news first."

Gabriel looked over to Lance and frowned. "The bad news is that whoever wrote this contract for Samael is going to be impaled on a skewer and roasted over the hottest pit of hell for the rest of eternity. It's rubbish and if Samael had taken any time to read it....he'd have seen that by including Patrick's soul into the bargaining, he caused Lance to overstep his bounds. Lance absolutely cannot, under ANY circumstances, bargain with another person's soul. It's not really all that kosher to bargain with one's own soul, seeing as how it's not really yours to bargain with....it's God's....but asking Lance to bargain with Patrick's can't be done."

Lance's expression changed from misery to jubilation. "So it's not valid? Thank God!"

Gabriel shook his head. "Not so fast. The devil will most likely ask for arbitration on this matter. He'll most likely end up getting one of your souls."

Lance's face reversed itself immediately and he began to cry. "I knew it. It's all my fault."

Gabriel shook his head again. "Lance! This crying shit is beginning to wear thin. Buck up, man! We're working on it, OK?!?"

The rest of the people in the room gasped and looked at Gabriel in shock.

"I didn't think angels would cuss." Justin said quietly.

Gabriel sat back down on the bed and leaned back, putting his head with all that long blond hair into Justin's lap. "Oh....we do a lot of things that you wouldn't expect."

Justin's eyes widened and he began to blush.

"Gabriel. I think you're embarassing the young man." came a voice from the bathroom. As everyone looked to where the voice had come, an older man with a white-grey beard dressed sharply in a fashionable Armani suit emerged from the bathroom. Gabriel and Patrick both gasped loudly and immediately knelt down as he stood in front of the group.

"Guys" Patrick whispered in a hiss, "Bow down to the Lord."

JC, Justin, Chris and Mike genuflected in front of the man immediately, until they heard the crash from behind them. Everyone turned to see Lance and Joey passed out cold, looks of shock still etched upon their faces..

The Lord smiled and shook his head. "Baptists and Catholics. Always gotta be drama queens."

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Author's Note: If this story made absolutely no sense to you, you may need to read the first two stories that lead up to this one. "Gifts Of Love" and "A Boyband Christmas Carol"

-Billy Burrew