Elizabeth was sitting at home, but not because she didn't have any other plans. She'd canceled all her other previous engagements so she could sit at home and think. When Liz had spoken to Yuri on the phone, she didn't think Yuri believed that the pavement melted up to cover Liz's feet or that the mystery man had disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Yuri didn't even seem to remember a new guy at all, in fact, and she was completely in disbelief when Liz told her about the phone number.

“867-5309, Liz?” Yuri had said apprehensively over the phone. “That's a song, sweetheart. Do you have a fever? It is a song I've always hated though. So annoying...” Yuri agreed with Liz that she should stay home and rest.

Liz lived with her grandmother in a single story house. Her real mother had been a heroin addict. She was somewhere roaming the streets at that very moment, looking for a way to make more money to buy more drugs. Her mother had given her up during elementary school. It was for the better, supposedly.

After a dull, unproductive evening, Liz retired for the night. Her room was a breath of confusion. An entire wall was plastered completely with magazine pages. Cut out stars and moons littered the opposite walls. Art projects and paintings hung on nails and tacks. Plain white walls stuck out from behind the cut outs and artwork.

It was after she'd changed and turned off the lights that she climbed into bed. Not long after that did she hear a slight tapping on her window. It was only 10:45, too early to be sneaking out. She got out of bed with mumblings of relaxation and approached her window.

Standing in her front yard was a man – no, a 15 year old boy – wearing long white robes. A golden tassel was tied around his waist. His long, glistening hair was the color of bronze silk. From his back grew two massive, feathery wings. A surreal glow seemed to be coming from his perfectly tanned skin. In his hands he held a picket sign that read Apocalypse Now! He seemed to be protesting some unknown injustice.

Liz opened her window and yelled out her window, not afraid of waking her sleeping grandmother. “Who are you and why are you in my front yard?”

“The Apocalypse is coming! Choose your side little lady!” he yelled back at her. The roundness of his face made him look very childlike, but he was still attractive. Pale blue eyes glittered at her.

“Riiight,” Liz replied. “Could you give me a minute, please?”

“Sure,” the boy answered boredly and his picket sign drooped a little. Liz ran to the jeans she'd worn that day. They'd been thrown carelessly onto the ground. After a little groping she pulled a rectangular piece of card stock out of her pocket and lifted her bedside phone off the receiver. She dialed the number slowly but surely. 867-5309.

“I knew you'd be calling me,” a confident voice answered on the second ring.

“Nice try,” she said, “I haven't thought anything about what you said earlier, but there's some boy in my front yard wearing a white dress and wings. Is he one of your friends? If so, you better tell him to get lost before I call the police for trespassing.”

Liz heard him groan on the other line and then the phone went dead. She blinked at the phone before putting it back down and returning to the window. Now, standing in the moonlight with the boy was the mystery man from earlier. They seemed to be deep in an argument. Liz scrambled out of her window with ease when the young boy began poking his picket sign at the hot guy in a threatening way.

“Hey, hey, hey,” she called as she approached them. They stopped in mid-sentence and looked at her. “What's going on out here?”

“Make the right decision Elizabeth!” the angel cried at her before turning his attention back to his enemy. “Get thee behind me Satan!”

“Oh, I'll show you Satan,” Mystery man growled at the winged boy and lunged for him. The boy beat at him with his sign.

“Boys! Boys!” Liz yelled and ran over to them. She grabbed the older guy by the back of his shirt and held fast to the boy's sign in an attempt to pull them apart. “What's this about?! You will tell me now.” She glared at them.

“He's trespassing!” the guy from earlier said and pointed at the boy. “You should have him arrested!”

“You're trespassing too,” Liz responded and poked him in the middle of his chest. It was like poking the side of a mountain, cold and hard. “Why is this happening? You're bad luck.”

“Elizabeth,” the younger boy begged at her, “Please listen. The Apocalypse is coming. You have to choose – good or evil. You can help us. Make the right decision. Please! There will be great rewards for you in Heaven!”

“See, what did I tell you earlier, Liz? The Apocalypse is coming,” the older guy said and grabbed her wrist. “Make.the.right.decision.” He said through clenched teeth as he gave her wrist a sharp squeeze.

“Unhand her you fiend!” the boy said and whacked the guy over the head with his sign.

Liz pried her wrist loose and examined it. Finger marks; Might leave a bruise, but most likely not. “How is it you two know me but I don't know you?”

“My name's Adley. I'm an angel, sent by the holiest of holies to ask you to stand by him in the coming days. We need your help, and you need ours as well whether you know it or not,” the boy took a breath as if he'd been holding the words in for a while.

Liz looked at the older guy expectantly.

“Jareth,” he replied simply. Liz waited for him to continue or go on a rant like Adley had just done. He just stared at them, completely calm. “What?”

“Aren't you going to explain why you're here?” Liz asked him.

“I already told you. Or have you forgotten?” He looked down into her face. “I'm the good guy here, Liz. Don't listen to that little boy over there. Good guys don't come and stake out on your lawn, without your permission, waking you up at all hours of the night. And what do you have to show for this annoyance that he's caused? Nothing at all, except for some promise of eternal happiness or whatever.” He rolled his eyes as if the notion were ludicrous. “I can give you happiness now.” In a flash he had taken her wrist, the same one he'd squeezed earlier, and placed a glistening diamond bracelet around it. She stared at it, open mouthed, looking at the way it glittered in the moonlight.

“I can't take this,” she said and began trying to undo the clasp. Jareth's hand covered her own.

“Sure you can. It's a present to remind you what's in store. There's plenty more where that came from, just join us.”

“Don't listen to his trickery, Elizabeth,” Adley said. “He can only provide you with temporary, materialistic satisfaction. You crave eternal happiness, don't you? Choose our side and you can spend the rest of eternity with greater gifts than you can ever imagine.”

“Ask him about the journey there, Liz. It's riddled with pain and persecution. You have to suffer to reach the prize if you choose to go with little angel face over there. Choose me,” Jareth whispered in her ear. “Our path to eternity is lined with everything you want, no pain.”

“No pain, no gain!” Adley yelled at him and stuck out his tongue.

“Can't I have some form of trial period with each of you?”

Adley and Jareth looked at each other. Adley turned his head to the side and twisted his face as if he were thinking. Jareth’s face remained effortlessly smooth and cool and handsome.

“I am confident enough that you will see the correct path to take,” Jareth spoke.

“So am I!” Adley proclaimed, as if arguing a point. “The path to Heaven, of course!”

“ Right,” Liz said, “So you guys can sort out who gets me first and all of that jazz.” Liz was proud of herself for coming up with a solution to the problem. She was also enjoying the attention, but didn’t want to completely admit it to herself. “Oh, but I would like to say that there are boundaries.”

“Like what?” Jareth asked, looking curious and amused.

“I’m not sure yet, but I’m sure there is something I won’t do.”

Jareth’s eyes narrowed slightly, but a smirk played across his lips. He looked breathtakingly handsome and also very, very dangerous. “So you will build your conditions as our arrangements come about then?”

“Um, yes.” She looked at them. Adley didn’t seem alarmed. He was propping one forearm on top of his picket sign, not looking the least bit dangerous. “But right now I need to get some sleep, so you guys scram. I’m sure you’ll know where to find me.”

Adley nodded once with purpose before poofing away in a cloud of white smoke. Jareth didn’t move; he simply stood in his spot with the same wolfish grin on his face.

“You are a conundrum, Liz,” He said as he strode toward her. His long, pale fingers began to twirl a lock of her hair. “But you don’t want eternal glory, do you? You could be very powerful in Hell, maybe even rule next t o Satan himself. How would you feel about that?”

Pictures played through her mind: herself sitting in an elaborate onyx throne draped with jewels, thousands of minions chanting her name, all the riches and money in the underworld (if they even had any).

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said, snapping out of her daydream. “You can’t win me that easily. You’ll have to go through a trial just like Adley.”

“I know,” he replied smoothly, “But just so you don’t forget about me,” he slipped a large, silver ring onto her left hand, ring finger. Perched on the top of a silver base was a huge ruby. Liz tilted and turned her hand in the darkness, watching the moonlight glisten off of it. “Keep it until you make your decision. It looks lovely against your skin.” He stared into her eyes and she could feel the tug of him, urging her to make a decision.

“I know all your tricks, and you won’t win me over that easily. Have you forgotten that I’m a master persuader?” she tried to slip the ring off her finger, but it wouldn’t budge. He laughed at her.

“I just thought I’d give it a try,” he said. Liz blinked and he was gone. The ring still sat on her finger; the bracelet was still wrapped around her wrist.