"They put a lot of foster homes in place for me."

In the ward of Philadelphia Hospital, Billy. Batson sat in a chair next to Father Paul.

While peeling apples for the priest, he babbled and told the priest stories of his past.

The story of an orphan who was sent to foster care at a very young age.

"In the beginning, we sent me to a childless family, which looked perfect, the couple were decent people, the husband was a lawyer and the wife worked outside the home."

As Billy peeled an apple, he said:

"But in reality, it's just that it looks happy on the outside, and that family is actually full of tragedy."

"The wife and the husband sleep in separate rooms, and the husband must maintain a good image, and when he is angry outside, he will go home and vent to his wife."

"They quarrel every day, and occasionally they get into a fight."

Billy looked at Father Paul, who shrugged his shoulders and said:

"I was so young that I was so frightened by their arguments that I hid under my bed every day for fear that the crazy man would hit me. Then I couldn't take it anymore and ran away. ”

"That was the first time I ran away."

"For the orphans, it wasn't difficult, I ran back to the orphanage, told the nun about the family, and then stayed in the orphanage for a while."

Billy cut the peeled apple, carefully soaked it in hot water, and handed it to the priest.

He said:

"I don't really want to go to other families, I have a mom and she just didn't find me."

"So you run away from foster care again and again, and then you become a 'problem child.'"

The priest took a sip of the apple-scented hot water, and he held the glass in his arms, and said to Billy:

"You remind me of a girl who, like you, has been through a lot in New York."

"Is she looking for her mother too?"

Billy jokingly said:

"I don't think there are many kids who are as stubborn as me."

"No, quite a lot."

The priest closed his eyes and leaned against the head of the bed, and he remembered the children in Merlin's house.

Eric, Lorna, Daisy, Matt...

Those children were undoubtedly luckier than little Billy in front of them.

When they encounter darkness in their lives, they meet someone who can take them out of it.

After a while, the priest opened his eyes, and he said to Billy:

"A lot of children will happen to you like you, I've seen a lot of them, they give up on themselves, they grow up in grievances, and they are lured by the anger and darkness of society and go down the wrong path."

"But there are others, they have suffered something more terrible than what happened to you, but they were lucky enough to return to normal life under the guidance of good people."

"Listen to me, kid."

Father Paul put his hand on Billy's hand, and he whispered:

"I know you're confused, it's your obsession to find your loved ones, it's been through your life, but there's a lot more to this world than that, don't close your soul to this century, Billy."

"To embrace it, bravely reach out to it, you will gain a feeling, maybe friendship, family affection, and love in the future."

"I have a friend who told me that life's disasters are like shadows, they seem powerful and unbeatable, but it only takes a beam of light for them to disappear."

The 15-year-old sat next to the priest, his head bowed, not knowing how to respond to the priest.

He and Father Paul had only met once.

They don't really know each other very well.

After a few seconds of silence, Billy suddenly turned around, and the boy jerked to his feet and walked to the window, where he looked out at the empty lawn.

In his eyes, he could see a woman in a white suit, high heels, blonde hair, and a neutral face walking towards the priest's hospital room.

The woman was like an ordinary office worker.

But behind her, there were a pair of open wings.

White, like the wings of a swan.

A gentle light shone behind her, adorning her like a fallen angel...

No.

That's a real angel.

Billy turned around and said to the priest:

"She's coming to pick you up."

"Who?"

Fr. Paul was surprised and asked:

"Who's coming to pick me up?"

"Angel..."

Billy pointed out the window, and the boy said:

"I've never met her, I thought they were just legends..."

"I'm hiding something, Father, and I can see things that no one else can see, but only occasionally."

"Huh?"

The priest blinked.

He remembered some of the things Merlin had told him, some of the rumors that had been passed off like jokes.

"There are always people in this world who are gifted, and most of them will never come into contact with mysterious things in their lives, just like ordinary people's lives.

But if you add a little bit of luck, they'll really set foot in it. ”

A new world.

"The splendid world will open its doors to them."

The priest whispered what Merlin had told him.

He looked up at Billy by the window, and said:

"You're a gifted kid, that's why you're so upside down... It wants to see a story of breaking out of the cocoon and becoming a butterfly, so it makes you suffer. ”

"She's coming in, Father."

Billy was a little nervous, he didn't hear what the priest was saying.

All his attention was drawn to the angel who stepped into the air and passed through the wall.

The angel seemed surprised, too.

She seems to notice Billy's anomaly, but she doesn't say anything.

As she walked through the wall and into the hospital room, she reached out and stroked Billy's head.

It's like teasing a child.

Billy felt the warmth.

He watched as the angel walked up to Father Paul's bedside and looked at him.

At the end of his life, the world before the priest's eyes brightened, and he saw the light, and the woman standing in the light.

She was very different from the statues of the gods in the church.

She did not wear a gown, but instead wore a more modern suit.

The suit was worn on her, very decent, full of an ineffable, neutral, divine beauty.

"I'm Gabriel."

The angel looked at Father Paul, who was lying on the hospital bed, and she said:

"It's been years since I've personally picked up a soul to heaven... Paul, but you are special. ”

The priest was not nervous or excited.

Although as a member of the clergy, he should have been nervous or agitated after seeing God's miracles with his own eyes, he did not.

He was calm and calm.

He looked at the archangel Gabriel in front of him, and with his finger on the Bible, he whispered:

"Is it because I'm special? Or is it because I'm a friend of Merlin? ”

The priest blinked, he was like a child.

He said:

"He's a great man, isn't he?"

"Merlin. What Riley has done has spread throughout the worlds. ”

Archangel Gabriel shrugged his shoulders and said:

"But believe me, Paul, even without him, you still have the qualifications to ascend to heaven..."

"In this age of materialism, there are very few pure souls like you, and you are the treasure of the Lord."

"Now, it's time for you to go home."

"Merlin saved the world."

The priest felt his soul detached from his body and asked:

"Did he also ascend to heaven?"

The archangel shook her head, she showed a strange expression, and she said:

"He, he's not in our hands."

"So he's still alive?"

There was a hint of undisguised delight on the priest's face, even though the archangel did not answer his question.

"Wait a minute, Your Excellency."

At the moment when the soul left the body, the priest suddenly remembered something very important.

He prayed to the archangel to give him a little more time.

Gabriel may seem like a good talker, but perhaps it was also because Father Paul was special.

Anyway, his soul was sent back into his body in the next moment.

The priest sat up on the hospital bed, and he turned to Billy as he stood aside. Batson beckoned.

"Come here, kid."

The priest took something from his wrist and carefully placed it in Billy's hand.

It was a very delicate bracelet.

Underneath the bracelet, there is a cross made of red crystal, which looks a little weird and doesn't look like someone like a priest should wear.

"It's something that a friend deposited with me."

The priest shook Billy's hand, and he said to Billy:

"Because it happened suddenly, if you could, Billy, I would like you to send it back to St. Matthew's Church in New York and give it to Sister Maggie."

"Or just send it to Queens and give it to a guy named May. Riley's wife, who is her brother Merlin. Riley's... Relic. ”

He looked at Billy, who was a little overwhelmed.

It suddenly dawned on the priest that a 15-year-old, orphaned child, would probably not be able to do what he said.

He sighed and reached out to pat Billy on the shoulder.

He said:

"Forget it, kid."

"Give it to my parishioners and tell them to protect it, and if Merlin is still alive, someone will surely come and take it."

"I'm sorry, kid, but I've entrusted you with a weight that shouldn't be on you."

Father Paul's tone became hoarse, and he coughed a few times.

At the last moment of his life, he shook Billy's hand, and he said to the child, who was with him and had only seen him twice:

"You have a soul that has been through a lot but is still strong, a precious soul, and you have gifts."

"Hold on, Billy, don't be defeated by the darkness of life, you are destined for a wonderful life."

"Goodbye, kid."

The priest lay back on his bed, and he stretched out his hand to say goodbye to Billy.

With a satisfied smile on the priest's old face during his last breath, he folded his hands over his chest.

In Billy. As Batson gazed, the priest's soul rose from his body.

He took the hand of the Archangel Gabriel, and in the surging warm light, in the reverberation of that light chant, Father Paul and the Archangel disappeared into the ward.

The moment he disappeared, he turned back to Billy and waved goodbye.

"Child..."

In the moment of silence, when the light was shattering, the gentle voice of the archangel suddenly sounded in Billy's ears.

She said:

"Don't tell anyone else, including what you have."

"It's important, much more important than you think, a broken fate is still running, and this time, it chose you..."

"What a lucky little one."

A few minutes later, the doctor and several nurses rushed into the room, but Father Paul had already left the world with a smile on his face.

"The angel took the priest."

Billy clenched the bracelet in his hand, and with tears in his eyes, he looked at the priest, and he said to a nun with a sad face:

"He's home."

—————————

A few days later, Father Paul's body was returned to New York, and the whole of Hell's Kitchen was plunged into grief by the sudden revelation.

Father Paul has lived in this neighborhood for decades, he has helped countless people, and in the eyes of the believers in this neighborhood, Father Paul is definitely a perfect person.

On the day of his burial, the church was crowded with people who came to pay his funeral.

"He's dead..."

In St. Matthew's Church, which was filled with grief and weeping, Zatana, dressed in a black dress, looked at the coffin placed in front of the church in disbelief.

She wears a pair of black sunglasses on her face.

She said:

"So suddenly."

"Do you suspect that other forces are involved in this?"

Icarus's voice rang in Zatana's ears, and she said:

"Someone with the same purpose as us, all coming for Merlin's Horcruxes? News leaked? ”

"No, it can't be."

Miss Magician said in a deep voice:

"It's impossible for this matter to leak out, until now, only you know about the Horcruxes, and I didn't rush to Father Paul because of this thinking, I don't want to attract the attention of others."

"But the bracelet is missing."

Icarus said in a cold voice:

"I don't think it's a coincidence that the hospital's surveillance broke down in the first ten minutes of the priest's death."

"Maybe it's heaven..."

Zatana squinted her eyes at the priest in the coffin, and she said:

"I contacted Liana, there is no soul of Father Paul in the borders of hell, he did not pass through there, so he went to heaven, and to enter heaven he needs angel guidance."

"Maybe it's the hands and feet of those angels."

"They took the Horcruxes?"

Icarus Says:

"Do you have a way to get into heaven?"

"Yes, but it was risky."

Miss Magician shook her head:

"And I did a divination before, and the bracelet should still be on the earth, but you also know that everything related to Merlin is difficult to get a definite result with divination."

"One thing is for sure, though, there are people who don't want us to find Horcruxes at this time, but they don't want to be hostile to us, and they're using this method to stall for time."

"So what now?"

Icarus asked irritably:

"Can you wait?"

Zatanna hesitated for a moment, then she held a bouquet of white flowers and walked towards the priest's coffin.

She placed the white flower beside the coffin, and she whispered:

"The last time Merlin met me, he told me not to rush, and maybe he expected it not to be smooth sailing."

"If something happens, he'll find a way to re-enter the dream and contact us."

"He didn't show up, which means that things aren't as bad as we thought..."

"I'm looking for the bracelet, and you continue to do your thing."

"Anyway, don't panic..."

"It's useless to panic."