Good Angel

by A. M. Blaushild

  Maalik was quiet for a while. It felt unnoticeable in the darkness, the silence, like time had ceased to exist in the recesses of their dormroom. She hadn’t been looking at his face before, and though she had shifted over to match his theoretical gaze, there was only the faintest blue of moonlight. Finally, he said: “No, there isn’t, and I’m not going to be a fucking idiot and answer any further.”

  “You’re never going to Fall, Maal. You know?”

  “I don’t know. None of us know our fates until they’re over. I could die, if That Someone Else wills it.”

  “Shush. I’m trying to justify something crazy to myself.”

  “That you made a good choice today, whatever it was?”

  “The thing is, I think I already know. I’m just worried others won’t.”

  PART II

  HELLBOUND

  7: How To Be Loved

  HER SCHEDULE WAS under the door in the morning, face down and with her name on the back. Maalik was already gone, and she hoped this was a sign he hadn’t looked at it. Her schedule hadn’t changed much, with her human classes every other day, standard magic classes three times a week, and Rituals twice.

  Rituals was now earlier in the morning. And, lest it not be forgotten, it was Demonic Rituals now. Demon magic was probably either impossible or extremely tricky for an angel to learn, but she still had it. And then: Introduction to Soul Commerce. Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning she no longer had a day off. At least in theory she was capable of the studying side of this. Just not the actual soul stealing, most likely.

  It was going to be hard to hide, it occurred to her, all of this. Her textbooks, her sudden need to attend class at different hours, the fact she wasn’t learning what Maalik thought she was...

  Oh well! She’d cross that bridge when she burned it, or something like that.

  Her first class began in an hour or so, so she went down to get breakfast, keeping her eyes peeled for Archie as she did so. The actual logistics of going to class were starting to dawn on her; there was absolutely no way to hide she was an angel taking a demon class. She might be able to lie and say she was just observing, but only for a day or two, and even that was highly suspicious.

  Well, maybe there was one way.

  “Maalik! How are you? You’re... good at magic, right?” She slid up close to him, by his side instead of directly across. Shamsiel regarded her with knowing eyes. This surely wasn’t the place for it, but Iofiel was struck with wondering how much Maalik told his friends, and if anything they had talked about last night had found its way to the breakfast table. It was equally as likely, however, that Shamsiel was merely a shifty looking angel every day of the week, scandalous information or not.

  “I haven’t done much else but healing in ages, but yes.”

  “Can you...” She dropped her voice to a whisper, nervously looking at the others sitting nearby. Shamsiel leaned forward with a grin, one leg up on the bench before him like he was readying to climb onto the table. Nuriel, a few seats down, had her head in her hands and watched with mild interest. Iofiel cupped her hand around Maalik’s ear for extra security. “Hide my halo for me? And wings? I haven’t learned how yet, and I need —”

  Maalik stopped her by pushing her away from his face gently. “This is for that thing you’re not supposed to be doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it involve... humans?”

  “No!”

  “Demons.”

  “No!”

  Maalik sighed. “This is really supposed to be something you do on yourself.” He pulled her halo from out of the air. It was just a physical little disk most of the time, and when it wasn’t gently floating above her head it ever so slightly pulled back towards her, like a magnet.

  Maalik rolled his eyes, leaning back a little before quickly muttering something celestial. Proper angels were able to do this without a word, only through thought. With a few circular movements and a bit of applied pressure, Maalik damped the light from her halo, compressing it out of sight. He let go of what looked like nothing, but Iofiel could still feel its presence as it dutifully returned above her head.

  He got to work on her wings, which took longer, a few sets of basic spells being set around them. When he was done, he sighed again. “This won’t last forever. You know, you won’t blend. You’re a little too... obvious for that.”

  Iofiel leaned back and grabbed at her back experimentally, the smoothness a little more discomforting than expected. She could still feel her wings, itching from some other plane and tempting her to draw them out again. But that had to wait.

  “Thanks!”

  “This is going to be nothing good,” Maalik said. The other angels around them, though for the most part doing their duty to ignore all this, seemed to agree. It wasn’t too rare for an angel to hide their halo or wings— having a solid halo like Iofiel’s was seen as unfashionable and wings could be an inconvenience when it came to crowds and tight doorways. It was just odd for another angel to help hide them, and a bit suspicious. And those nearest, though friends of Maalik, had heard that something a little off was going on.

  “Should I change my hair color?”

  “Just go.”

  So, she did. Off to swindle souls! Her brief study of the school came in handy, and she arrived in class five minutes early, trying her best to look sullen and demonic. So far, no one had taken any kind of explicitly hostile aim at her, though there were looks. Perhaps because she’d missed the first few days of class? She did have deep blue hair, but some demons had bluer skin and others had plants growing out their heads. In comparison, maybe she was too plain.

  She sat in the back, near the wall in an effort to blend in. There were about two hundred other students in the lecture hall, a narrow and stuffy room with a low ceiling and two fireplaces on either end. The professor was already here, a petite woman with three small eyes who was currently sitting on her desk, legs dangling above the floor, writing something on a clipboard. She looked at Iofiel several times.

  Archie came in moments before the mark, and Iofiel enthusiastically waved him down. When he shuffled in next to her, she gently held his hands for a few seconds. Class was starting, so she didn’t dare speak, but she hoped her smile was enough. This was a bad decision for her, but it was going to be nothing but good for him.

  That was a promise. And angels never failed on their promises.

  Class began, and the best part about it was that they were starting with theory, not any magical logistics. The worst part seemed to be everything else. This was easily as bad as Rituals had been, but at least with that she knew Maalik or any other angel could’ve explained it to her. Asking a demon for help was out of the question at this point, besides Archie, who seemed to fare worse than her.

  The professor — Ms. Starken or something like that, Iofiel only heard her name once — had immediately leapt into a speech about the morals of the soul trade, and then a discussion about various ways to close deals, evidently based on the previous night’s homework. The latter Iofiel had half an ability to follow: blood contracts were one of those ‘things’ she simply had been born knowing, and the idea of a soul also being bought via writing, a verbal agreement, or sex, made enough sense too.

  Archie took notes all the while. Iofiel was mostly along with him, madly lost early on, but he was also taking notes on... well, everything. Words he didn’t know that Iofiel took for granted. She had kind of laughed when she noticed he’d written ‘soul= small energy humans have’. But he’d heard her, and looked up sadly, eye wide, and...

  So, there were a lot of differences between them. She’d help him after class, if she retained any of this herself. Wait. Was struggling this much even normal? Was she maybe a bit of a slow learner? That wouldn’t do!

  “It’s always about an exchange, but never an equal one.” Ms. Starken had a habit of over enunciating every other word, leading to the feeling she was extremely pissed with the class. “You provide the ene
rgy to replace their soul. You make their wish come true. You lay the foundation for collection. All you receive in return is a single soul and a good mark on your record. Humans are stupid. You want them to pay for it.”

  Lectures did not seem to suit Iofiel’s often exuberant tendencies, and as much as she wanted to pay attention, she found herself drawing spirals on notebook paper. At least she did know the basics concept of soul selling, even if was from a more angelic perspective than the professor was now telling.

  “In all our magic, we are still unable to perfectly understand the human mind. Part of your training here at the University will be a walkthrough of human history and culture, but even with this, you must seek to understand how they think, and why they think. To get a human to sell you their soul, you need to offer them something they want. They are rash, unintelligent creatures, but somewhere along the way they learned a distrust of demons.”

  A wise one, at that, Iofiel thought to herself. She scratched out a little note (Humans are bad, trick them) even though she didn’t agree, and returned to filling her paper with abstract shapes.

  “Do not tell them what you are. I hope Hell hasn’t been light on drilling this into your minds: humans are not to know what we are. They have many names for beings like us. Learn what they desire most, and formally approach them with your offer. Do it alone, and leave no evidence. I assume you can guess some of the risks?” Starken, straight-backed and tall, paused for a moment. “That was a question I expect an answer to.”

  After another empty pause, a few hands went up. Around the room, answers were given (“Dogs” “Security cameras” “Smartphones” “Other humans”), and then after another second of silence, Starken continued:

  “Yes. Some humans will accept your offer, others will always refuse. You must leave no evidence that you ever existed either ways.” She cleared her throat. “You may lie about what you will give them, but we have standards. We do not take souls by force. We do not take them by threat. We will go over later in the year the exact nature of limitations Hell has for soul reaping.”

  Iofiel nudged Archie lightly, and whispered, “Can you ask why?”

  “Huh?” He didn’t turn to look at her, still listening to Starken and taking notes.

  “Why don’t demons lie or really steal souls?” It was a fact that rung in Iofiel’s head as true, something she’d been born knowing. But why not? She was glad they weren’t, but why wouldn’t a demon pull a knife to a human’s neck and force them to sell their soul for nothing at all?

  “Why don’t angels grab souls and take them straight to Heaven?” Archie whispered back.

  “We’re the good ones.”

  “It wouldn’t be fair,” Archie said, answering both questions. He tapped a fingertip against the wooden desk, which Iofiel took as a sign for her to shut up.

  They were on payment now. “The best way to seal a contract is skin. Blood is very traditional, and may work better as a form of psychological assault on some humans, but it can be messy and leave a sure scar. A pinch of skin or hair should be enough to work the proper ritual spells. Sex used to be used in some branches of Hell, but we no longer want deals being sealed this way. Now. What is an acceptable leverage for granting a human’s wish?”

  This felt like a trick question. Iofiel must not have been alone in thinking this, as there was yet another long pause before a demon slowly raised their hand. “The soul?”

  “Of course. What else?”

  Iofiel gently poked Archie’s wrist. “I know this one. It’s babies. Hell also takes first-borns. Raise your hand!”

  He glanced back at her cautiously, but when she flashed a confident smile, he raised his hand, the first to do so.

  “First born children?” He couldn’t hide the uncertainty in his answer.

  Starken narrowed her eyes. “No, it is no longer proper to accept children.” She seemed to stare at Archie for a long time. “Human culture has evolved to the point where many humans are satisfied either not having children or adopting, meaning they may promise us a child and never have to deliver. There are some demons who work in parts of the world who swear by it, but I find human-born demons too expensive a commodity.”

  Archie was frozen from the attention of the class, and Iofiel by extension was too. When Starken turned away, she tried to mouth ‘sorry’ to him, but wasn’t sure he saw.

  “The answer I was looking for was nothing. We only want souls,” Starken continued. “We give the human what we want, and then, after you write a report to your superior, preform the needed ritual spells to give them their wish. Depending on the level of their request, this may be it for you. In some cases, you will have to follow up your benefactor spell with a curse bind. This is an advanced form of magic not all of you will be able to replicate, and is suitable for any wish that is… liable to be noticed. Name a few common human desires.”

  This time, the class was comfortable enough to quickly raise their hands and name a few. (“A child” “Money” “Love” “Beauty” “Political success” “Health”). Iofiel, who knew a few common things humans prayed for, whispered a few to Archie, who kept his hand raised. Eventually he was called on and got to recite “Artistic recognition” without incident, which she hoped made up for her accidentally embarrassing him last time.

  Starken went into a review of binding spells, covering the basic theory. As Starken noted, it was a class of spell well out of their league until around third year.

  Binds were spells which locked a being to obey a certain set of conditions, or else a secondary effect would occur. In soul selling, it was used for curses, a way to set a countdown on a human to ensure a sudden, assured death. Even though it was from the non-physical school of magic, something angels had a natural affinity for, angels had no use for binding. It was a sinister, strange magic, forcing someone to obey your will.

  As class was dismissed, the professor rattled a reminder about a field trip at the end of the semester — some real-world education about human society. They’d be going to the western United States for this, Iofiel noted down, though she wasn’t sure she’d be able to attend.

  After class, Iofiel stayed behind with Archie for a few minutes. Both had a class immediately after this, on practical demon magic, but...

  “Did you get all that?” Archie asked, head in his hands.

  “We did start late,” Iofiel said.

  “Two days late! It’s not even like. The words are getting to me, but I don’t know what they mean, or how they all fit together.”

  “I’m sure it’ll make sense with time. I got most of it, I think,” Iofiel said, looking at her notebook. It was mostly shapeless doodles.

  “And you’re not even a demon!”

  “No, but angels do tend to know these things anyway. Since we’re so staunchly against it and all. Huh. Really hope taking this class doesn’t mean I have to kill someone by the end of it.”

  “This is awful,” Archie moaned, aggressively stuffing his notes into his backpack.

  “Come on, we’ll just study together this afternoon. I’ll probably need help with magic anyway.”

  “So do I!”

  “Okay, so we’ll struggle together. Hm. We should... Do you have a roommate?” Their next class was nearby, but they walked slowly, and then paused outside the door. “We could use a demon who’s actually good at this kind of thing to help us.”

  “No, I live alo —”

  A demon suddenly leaned over. They were outside the classroom, near one of the sandstone colored walls, and she literally leaned over Archie, her hand about half a foot over his head. “Hey. I heard that.” Her voice was low and a bit scratchy.

  “What?” Iofiel had jumped back a little at her sudden intrusion.

  “You kids are shit at being demons. Which makes sense, as neither of you are demons.” She had pale red skin, and large maroon horns that started below her hairline. A very demon-y demon. Thick, curly hair amassed on her legs like leg warmers, and her tail ended i
n a precise arrow-head point. Iofiel was nearly expecting cloven hooves, but she was wearing regular flats. “Santiago. I’m in your class.”

  “This is Archie,” Iofiel said, and then realized she didn’t want to introduce herself. So she didn’t, and left that hanging.

  “I already know what you are. What’s your name?” She had jagged sharp teeth and dark red eyes. Yep. Really the most demon-like demon Iofiel could imagine.

  “I’m a bit scared,” Iofiel confessed, “You know, this isn’t...”

  “A good idea. Sure. But I’m not blind, birdbrain.” Santiago was chewing something as she spoke. “I’m not trying to threaten either of you kiddos here. I just heard you’re having a hard time, and I’m being a nice fucking Samaritan and trying to help. If you ever need someone to help go over your notes, talk to me. Easy.”

  “T-Thanks.” Archie ducked away from under her arm, and stood by Iofiel. “But we’re fine, I think.”

  “No. Seriously. I’d like to know your deal — ‘who are these weirdos,’ et cetera et cetera. So I know you’re freaking out right now about this upperclassman approaching you, but, honestly, stop. Let’s meet up in the library sometime.”

  “You kinda sound like we have to,” Iofiel said.

  “You don’t, but you know what?” Santiago paused for a few seconds. “Yeah. You do. I’m forcing you to let me help you. Tomorrow. Seven-thirty. Be there.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Iofiel asked.

  “Did you miss the part where I called you weirdos? Seriously. Little babies, an imp and an angel, trying to be proper demons. Fucking hilarious. Fucking pathetic. Fucking... sad? I want to believe in you, though, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been around a long time. If you haven’t heard about me, you will soon enough from some shady third party. Really. Ask your friends.”

  “Thanks, I think?” Iofiel watched as Santiago slinked off, easily spottable by her height and horns. Now that she thought of it, she’d definitely seen her before in the halls. A few thousand went to the University, sure, but all in all that wasn’t much.