by Savoy, Skye
“I saved Stacy for just the right moment. I gave you the way into Ava and Big Mama’s world so we could find the perfect opportunity to elevate you to an immortal in human form.”
“You gave,” Hala’s eyes bulged, “gave me the way? I did the dirty work! I had to possess a balding florist, a behemoth of a sheriff, a flaky pseudo psychic, and, my personal favorite, a goat!”
“Don’t forget the dumpster.” Sam rolled the barb out like it was a red carpet begging to be walked on.
Morbid curiosity possessed me. I manifested a cushy sofa and plopped down to watch the theatrics. I’d only had a couple of shot glasses of my Lobster Bisque, so I summoned a bowl of popcorn.
Hala rejected his remark with a stomp of her foot. “I only did the dumpster in hopes of offing two birds with one stone. Your idea to possess the Sheriff in Ava’s house worked so well, you stupid fallen angel.” The demon stood nose to nose with Sam as if she dared him to say a word.
“If it wasn’t for this stupid fallen angel, you wouldn’t have found out about the chant and amulet!” Spittle from Sam’s mouth landed in Hala’s eye. “And, if it wasn’t for this stupid fallen angel, you wouldn’t have been able to get as far as you have in your escape from Lucifer’s service!”
A steady plume of smoke streamed from the demanding demon’s nostrils.
Sam’s demeanor softened. “Hala, Ava is the one. I brought her to you. With Suriyel, we finally have everything we need to make this work.” He reached for her.
She went into his arms after she hesitated to make certain he got the full effect of her pout.
“You know you love me no matter what. We are destined for each other, darling.” She caressed Sam’s face, leaving behind a dotted line of blood from her talons. “When we take care of her, we will be together for all eternity.”
How many thousands of years had they been going at it like this? Being emasculated by a demon wife for the rest of eternity may be Sam’s idea of a shindig, but it wasn’t mine. This was sick. Hell, I was sick.
Nausea replaced the anger that consumed me earlier. I sent the couch and popcorn into nothingness. I stood with my hands wrapped around my waist, and hoped I might have a chance at holding the contents of my stomach inside.
I fully intended to do the right thing and give Stacy her body. Not only had Hala devoured her soul, she started her killing spree with my mother and tried to kill Kitty for sport.
“Why now? Why my generation,” I asked and fought the bile that quickly surmounted my endeavors to restrain it.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Hala chastened, waving a dismissive, scaly hand in the air. “It’s nothing personal. It’s just that, for years I’ve been one of Luci’s favorites.”
Who calls Lucifer, Luci? It makes him sound tame like someone's great aunt who bakes chocolate chip cookies for toddlers.
“He assigned me the job of destroying crops and orchards and even villages with hail and wind. It’s been only in the past few centuries I’ve added pestilence to my repertoire and boy does he love that!” Claws clicked together as she clapped her hands.
I gulped and shot a sideways glance at the swarm over my shoulder.
“Sam dear, you’ll want to close your ears for this.”
Naturally, he ignored her.
“I was very accommodating to Luci in every way. He was really into BDSM, you know. The things he could do with whips and brands…”
I stared at my shoes, the locusts, and Sam staring at his shoes, anything to not think of sex with the devil.
“Mm. As a reward for my good behavior, he promised one of my descendants would be strong enough to evade death. If I could figure out how to possess this person’s soul and body, he’d free me from our uh…arrangement and make me immortal so I could be with my first and only love—Sam.”
“That’s very creative, Hala. The version you told me was that you got the idea to make a deal from Suriyel’s wife. Lucky for me, you succeeded where she failed.” Sam’s emotionless tone and glower led me to believe he didn’t feel lucky in the least.
“If you want to get technical about it, then yeah. The fact remains that I did it all for you and our son.”
“More like you did it to torture me,” Sam scoffed under his breath.
“I heard that!” Fire flared at her finger tips. Hala turned on Sam, ready to tear him apart. “That’s not the reason at all, although it could be fun.”
Sam’s complexion changed from angry to pallid as fast as the high striker game at the Europe County Fair. I guessed torture wasn’t his idea of foreplay.
“I guess you could say I got bored. It was tedious waiting for Sam to come up with the right ancestor. I decided to take matters into my hands.” The demon inspected the claws on her left hand. “Your mother was a random number.”
Big Mama was many things, but I never described her as random. Kitty? Definitely. “Your mother was a tough old bitch.” Sam’s stance reminded me of the old men at my uncle’s gas station as they told tales to the other old geezers who wasted away on the benches by the oil can stand.
“She was hard to kill. We finally drown her in that little pool. Why is it that so many fat, elderly people have those kiddy pools in their yards?”
“Yeah, I didn’t really want her soul or her hideous body. That reminds me. I had to possess a motorized cart to make her fall over into the pool. Then, there was the huge, sweaty old lady I took over to hold Big Mama’s head under. What was her name?”
“Ida,” I supplied through the cold sweat that formed a mustache above my upper lip.
“Fine. I’ll just add those to the ‘Disgusting Things Hala Has Possessed’ list. Now may I continue?” The anger riding on each word made me wonder why he wanted to go on with the story. Hala clamped her lips together tighter than a Vestal virgin’s legs.
“Kitty was a little too eccentric. You were too much like your mother to bother with. Stacy was my preference all along. I liked her morbid fashion sense.”
“Was my face red when you turned up as the chosen one,” Sam admitted.
“Yes, weren’t we surprised?” Hala’s voice was as flat as one of those pennies kids paid a $1 to send through the ringer machines at the Cracker Barrel.
“What you did wasn’t very smart if you ask me.” It was hard not to crack a smile at the shocked expressions on the faces of the gruesome twosome.
“We did not ask you,” Sam replied, acerbically.
“I know, but what if stealing my soul, the amulet, and Stacy’s body doesn’t work? Your direct descendents will end with Kitty.” I snorted. “Believe me, she and Robert aren’t having any more kids.”
“Well then, let’s make this work,” Hala growled.
Every nerve in my body moaned a collective, “Oh, hell,” when she shucked off Stacy’s form.
It was so dark during the séance, I missed the full effect of her demon form. The red, scaly lizard-like creature before me was in harsh contrast to the Sam’s white surroundings. Her body was disproportionate to the two sets of wings, one smaller than the other, precariously positioned on a hump between her shoulder blades. Her tail dangled between her cloven hooves. With such dazzling beauty, I can see why Sam still loves her after all these centuries.
Butt stomping action was called for in a situation like this. I crept away from the maniacal being to give myself room to manifest a weapon. I tried to call a sword once during practice. It didn’t go very well. A tree branch, oar, and pole from the high school track team appeared in that order. Suriyel gave up and let me borrow his sword. It was yet another thing a fallen angel was never supposed to do.
I imagined the plain blade of bronze to match the color of Suriyel’s eyes in my hand. It worked! I tried not to show my amazement at my accomplishment. Only the owner of a fallen angel’s sword can summon it. Ancient glyphs shimmered on the sleek blade. The leather bound handle seemed made for my small hand despite its heavy weight.
“Oh, Ava, you really don’t want to use tha
t.” Hala giggled at me. At least I thought it was laughter. It sounded more like a gurgle coming from behind two sets of pointy teeth.
“Your mama didn’t teach you not to make fun of other people, did she?”
I refused to be giggled or gurgled at. The blade swooshed through the air as I brought it down where her head would have been if she hadn’t flashed herself to the locust swarm.
“You really shouldn’t kill her. Not right now, I mean.” Sam’s voice trailed off as I whirled to face Hala.
“He’s right. You have to see the surprise I brought for you.”
“I don’t like your kind of surprises.”
Hala hissed, unhinged her jaws, and snapped her head back. One look at her third row of shark teeth made me even more unwilling to stick around to see what my present was. Unfortunately, my body refused to move. It was fight or flight, and my chance at a pair of wings was long gone.
The demon beckoned her buzzing, crawling, winged babies away to her. She sucked them up like a Hoover until there was nothing left but a black mass on the floor.
I expected her to belch a couple of wings or some antennae out. My senses were on high alert. An anguished moan that came from the thing the bugs left behind made me shriek. Sword held high in the air, I prepared myself for the worst. Bats, locusts, wind, hail—there was no telling what else Hala the Destroyer had in her crop decimating arsenal.
My pulse began to beat in triple time as a figure, clad in a black, hooded cloak rose, unsteadily, to its feet. The creature staggered slowly toward me. I stood my ground, ready to whack its head off or electrify it. Pale, thin hands snaked out of the robe and pushed the hood down to its shoulders.
“Oh, my God!” My heart rammed itself into my esophagus. “Suriyel!”
The skeletal Angel of Death from the story books instead of my beautiful warrior-angel stared back at me. His skin reminded me of cornhusks on tamales. His luxurious, iron colored hair hung, lifeless, about his face. Pain radiated from his eyes, yet they glowed with life as if refusing to give in to the fate of his body.
“You see, this is what happens to fallen angels when they are very bad. They are locked away from the light until they turn into ghouls and become responsible for escorting souls to hell,” Sam explained like he was reciting a nursery rhyme to a preschooler.
“But, it’s only been a day!”
“What do you think happens when you’re cursed by an Archangel?”
The sword dangled at my side. I reached a trembling hand out to touch him and stopped. It wasn’t right for him to pay such a heavy penalty.
My hesitation, although only an instant, was long enough to give Suriyel the wrong impression. Despair rolled off him in seismic waves as he turned away.
The force of my body wrapping around his gaunt frame knocked him to the ground. My cry of “no,” was muffled in his robe. Frail arms enfolded me. His body shook with sobs, which yielded no tears.
“Baby, it’s gonna be okay. I’m here,” I cooed and smoothed his brittle hair back.
I don’t have a clue how to make it okay, but it doesn’t matter. I just know I have to because I love him more than anything in life or afterlife.
Hala and Sam stood united together watching me cradle Suriyel on the ground.
“Huh, it’s a good thing I got to him when I did. A few days longer, and he would have been ‘Skeletor,’ only without the muscles and purple hood,” Hala remarked.
“I told you he wouldn’t be guarded. They usually dump them in that dark hole in the center of the Earth and forget about them for a few weeks,” Sam offered in his copious knowledge of all things malicious.
Suriyel disappeared before it got dark when we practiced, and kept the lamp on the time he stayed over. I felt light when he and Sam stuck me into Stacy’s body. Suriyel used light to heal Senator “Elvis.” I needed to manifest a healing light without those two noticing. I counted on my fallen angel to help me kick our captors into that same holding tank permanently.
Suriyel opened his blue lips to speak. I leaned in closely to hear his barely audible words. “The amulet, protect it.” His body sagged from the effort of the four words.
I held him tightly and wished we were anywhere but here, his body entwined in mine.
Suriyel touched the spot between my eyes where the amulet rested. I felt the heat as it warmed. My “ah-ha moments” were rare and sometimes arrived with more of a “ha.” I pressed my forehead against the brittle bones over his heart and called upon the amulet to heal him. His heartbeat was faint as I channeled what I hoped was the curing power of the light.
I couldn’t tell if it was working. I didn’t want to raise my head. I risked getting caught by the demonic duo who stood inches away from us. They bickered about who had to do the most work to spring Suriyel out of prison.
Suriyel’s sharp intake of air didn’t interrupt the intensity of their argument. He pulled me closer into his chest until I crushed him. He never spoke. I felt his pulse begin to thud faster in time with his heart. He became solid as if the healing power I projected inflated his atrophied muscles.
Hala whined something about being exhausted then broke away from her squabble with Sam. “Awe, would you look at the love birds? Disgusting isn’t it?”
“Reunion time is over.” Sam flung me away from Suriyel with a cold blast of air.
“Aw, hell.” It felt like a Band-aid ripped off of raw skin. I stopped and willed myself over to Suriyel, who remained in a heap on the floor. I sure hoped he played possum, and my transfusion of healing light worked.
I stood there, woozy and drained from the transfer of power.
“Because you were responsible for collecting my bloodline, I was forced to stick by your side watching the glorious Suriyel try to regain favor from Archangel Michael.”
Sam’s foot collided with Suriyel’s femur. It sent me into a summoning fury. The fireball I lobbed merely singed the corner of the evil angel’s wings. Hala laughed. Suriyel remained immobile in a fetal position.
Sam’s crazed cackle reminded me an awful lot of Hala’s. One shove from his combat boot sent Suriyel flopping over onto his back. I knew how much the prissy angel hated to get dirty. I manifested paint balls to distract him and prayed that Suriyel would get up.
Pow! Pow! Pow!
One by one, they splattered all over the evil fallen angel’s black leather pants and black shirt. The pink and purple paint in his hair reminded me of a demented version of Bozo the Clown.
He launched a bolt of electricity at me. I drew strength from the amulet, threw my hands in front of my body, and deflected it onto Hala. She blew across the room. Fury propelled her back to tower over me. She invaded my personal space with breath worse than the pestilence she carried.
“Ooh, gurl, have you ever heard of putting cloves in your mouth? I see you got them on your feet, so you could just insert foot in mouth.”
I didn’t wait for her furious response. I brought the sword down toward those cloves and cursed when she nimbly moved away.
“If you don’t stop, I’m going to possess someone, and kill your sister. Since you’re trapped here, you won’t be able to stop me.” Acid dripped from her mouth onto my shoe as she spat her threat at me.
Glad the only black shoes in my niece’s closet were steel-toe combat boots. There was something to be said for the durability of Emo-Goth fashion.
“In case you haven’t guessed, I really, really hate you right now.” I put my hands along with the weapon behind my back in surrender—temporarily.
“You don’t know what it is to hate.”
I didn’t want to waste energy and break out the compound cuss words on her. An immaculate Sam caught my attention as he rested a shiny spiked boot on Suriyel’s larynx.
“It thrills me to no end to think that I’m the reason you’ll never be reinstated to your former glory.”
Uh-oh. Now’s a good time to send out a mental “bat signal” for Big Mama. If she isn’t at a barbeque with Roy Roger
s or a fish fry with a one of the Popes, she just might show up.
“I’m the one who urged Michael to check on you since I was, quote unquote, so worried that you hadn’t shown up for the last few soul collections.” Sam applied more pressure to Suriyel’s throat. The action elicited a strangled breath from me instead of my angel.
“Big Mama, you better set your GPS to my thought waves and get the hell over here with some serious backup!”
“Darling, why don’t you wait to crush his windpipe until after he tells you how to make me immortal?” Hala’s left hoof made an impatient tapping noise on the floor.
There was a “yes, dear,” in Sam’s expression before it became hard again.
“This is so tiresome. You can end all of this by giving me the amulet and the spell.”
“I will never give the amulet to you,” said Suriyel as he grabbed the leg that pressed his windpipe into his spine and wrenched it one hundred and eighty degrees. Sam howled in pain and collapsed on the floor.
“How many times do I have to tell you? It was only good for one use.”
Rage radiated from Suriyel in scorching waves. He pinned me with magma colored eyes narrowed to slits and beckoned for his sword. I gladly let it fly from my hand to his.
“Ava was the only one worthy of its power. Not you and certainly not your beast.”
My entire body did the football stadium “wave” as my fallen angel climbed to his feet to loom over his betrayer. His body was restored, except for his pale complexion and beautiful black wings
“I don’t believe you! We are going to try for ourselves. You are going to say the spell with Samael,” snarled Hala as she came unglued.
“The only words I am going to say are the ones that will banish you for eternity.”
“You and what army,” pinged through the room as she stretched to the height of Europe’s only four story hotel. She stomped like Godzilla toward Suriyel and hesitated slightly when I set fire to her leg.
Sam attacked Suriyel like he’d been launched from a cannon. The clang of metal as they exchanged blows was deafening. A flurry of steel, hands and black clothing ensued.