The Lord did not care?
At those words, Maurice's heart sank into the Bottomless Abyss. The church's Radiance remained sacred and dazzling, but cold, fear, and panic seized him and swallowed him like the waters of a deep sea.
When the people of Universe Country had asked for help and been refused, he had felt a flicker of worry, but part of him had also watched with detached interest.
There were two reasons.
For one thing, it had not happened to him. It had happened in a country far from his own.
For another, America was different from Universe Country.
Universe Country was an Asian nation. Its people were a different race who had migrated from another universe. Americans were white. They were Anglo-Saxons, God's lambs.
As messengers of the Lord's will, angels might refuse to help other peoples, but surely they would not refuse God's lambs.
Yet Simon's words—"The Lord does not care"—made him realize something with a jolt: in God's eyes, were Anglo-Saxons no different from anyone else?
Maurice looked at the church bathed in Eternal Daylight, then at Angel Simon, who had once been human but no longer seemed so. His voice came out low and bitter.
"Does the Lord not care about us?"
He gave a self-mocking laugh as soon as he said it.
Why should the Lord care about us? Because we are believers? The almighty Lord did not even care about a morning-light angel like Lucifer, let alone believers.
But if even the angels will not help us, what can we do?
Maurice lowered his head in humility.
"Your Excellency Simon, what price must we pay for you to help us drive out the Evil God?"
The Lord may not care about us, but we care about ourselves.
*When the going gets tough, Americans