by Aya DeAniege
I took one wing and slammed it into the demon’s head. Another went into his stomach and upward, under his ribcage and piercing his heart. Only one of those was necessary, but the second wing driven into his chest cavity gave me such a feeling of relief, near euphoric pleasure, that when I pulled out my right wing, I slammed it back into his throat, toppling his head to the side.
No blood, because he didn’t have a body on the physical plane. There was the smell of Hell, however, which permeated the air. It’s a difficult scent to explain to one who had never visited those chaotic fields, but it was a very distinct smell. Not just sulfur or brimstone, not even burnt flesh and rotting disease, but something much more, deeper. Like the despair of the captives in Hell could be tangible.
I allowed the remains to tumble to the ground and watched them as they turned to dust and were blown away by the river of human life.
I am not an executioner, I am a mercy.
Looking up, I studied the buildings around me, wondering how many were watching. Our orders were not to kill demons. I had gotten a little carried away with that one, but he had been aiming for Grace again.
That was the first demon we had spotted in weeks, and I had done the stupid, impulsive thing and killed him before questioning.
I headed around the corner as if I didn’t care about my own stupidity. Grace was gone. Assuming that she went to the bus terminal, I headed that way, but when I rounded the corner for the terminal, she wasn’t there either. Grumbling, I slipped back to the office and into my body. I had just gotten settled in when my phone giggled.
Grumbling once more, I picked it up and stared at the screen.
“Are you following me?” Grace asked.
Startled, I turned the desk chair and took a selfie of myself with the work computer in the background and sent it to her.
“No, I’m not. Call the cops.”
“I’m fine, just thought I saw you is all.”
She had seen the demon.
As mangled as his portrayal of me was, she had seen him on that street. He would have been able to slip into her mind if I had been just a few seconds later. Or even if I hadn’t immediately killed him. He may have slipped deep enough that I couldn’t just remove the possession.
“Nope, sorry, been here working. Thinking of you, though.”
“Couldn’t have been you, now that I think about it. The guy I saw had wings. No, that’s not right. He only had wings on one side.”
A cold flickered in my stomach, one that spread up my spine, wrapping around it and trying to drag me down into the temptation of panic.
There was no way that she had seen me.
Humans who saw angels had their eyes burned out, lost their minds, brains bleeding out their ears and noses. They didn’t have the chance to walk several blocks and then send a text or two.
“There’s an idea, winged, half naked men dancing on tables,” I sent back.
“Turning Seraph into a gay bar?”
“No, why?”
“Because that’s what gay bars do.”
I frowned at my phone. I didn’t see how half-naked men in the little fluffy angel wings from Halloween costumes would only bring in gay men.
Surely it would bring in droves and droves of horny women. Watching them dance might even lighten the load for all of us.
“I don’t see it.”
“Maybe half and half?”
“I don’t see the appeal of a woman dancing about half naked on a table.”
“You’re a man.”
“That I am, but I can go anywhere to see that. What would make it special for us?”
“I don’t know. I’m not in the club business. I just mop the floors, remember?”
“True. Where did you go off to in a hurry?”
“School, have class in half an hour.”
“Have fun.”
I set the phone down and looked up as Gabriel slipped into the room. He frowned at me, then jabbed a finger over his shoulder.
“She won’t leave, says that we don’t know for certain that flies and flying aren’t connected. She said she’s not getting on a plane.”
Mary was always overly cautious. We had fought in the past about her being too cautious.
“And?” I asked. “You drug her and put her on the plane.”
Gabe knew that. It was standing protocol for dealing with Mary when there was an immediate threat. She could still die, she could be hurt and tortured, her soul could be dragged to Hell.
We didn’t risk Mary.
We’d risk her wrath, we’d drug her, tie her up, and throw her on a boat to another country, then take a beating on the other side for what we had done. But we’d never risk her safety.
“We aren’t allowed to do that to women in this day and age, and I don’t think it’s a good thing to do to Mary when we’ve recently introduced her to Lillith. Hell hath no fury like that woman scorned.”
“Gabe, this is Mary we’re talking about. Drug her and put her on a plane.”
“She’s not going to die if she stays in the city.”
“We don’t know that. Put her on a plane!” I shouted, standing as I did.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and raised his eyebrows at me.
“Mary is a grown woman and has decided to stay. Look, I want her safe too, but I have to agree with her. We haven’t seen anything on this level since the Dark Ages. It’s best we keep her close rather than send her halfway across the world.”
“Then it’s true?” I asked.
“Both parties running for mayor are tyrants. It’s affecting the federal elections. The murder rate of vigilantism is on a sharp rise.”
“Baal is clawing his way out of Hell.”
“No demonic activity otherwise, a couple of devils trying to wriggle their way in? Yeah, if not him then Asmodeus, but we’re pretty certain he’s still locked up to his neck in ice on the seventh level, and the signs don’t match him. You know, what with the sky not literally falling on our heads and all.”
“It could just be a knight.”
“Except Grace’s dream, Sam.”
“What’s he want with her? He never went after Lillith.”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Well, figure it out,” I said. “He walks between the waking and sleeping worlds. I can’t protect her when she’s asleep, that’s not what I do. And he taught you all he knows. You’re not going to reach her before he does.”
“There’s one other option. We do know a witch.”
“We erased her memory.”
“That’s… not the witch I’m talking about.”
“I’m not allowed to work with Lillith. Father made it quite clear what would happen.”
Gabe sucked in a sharp breath.
“Okay. I work with her instead.”
“She will eat you for dinner.”
“Yes, I know she dislikes me, I will deal with that. But together we might be able to keep Baal out of Grace long enough to figure out why he’s trying to get in, in the first place.”
“Protocol says we have three days,” I said.
“And then what?”
“And then I do what I was made to do.”
Gabe turned an odd shade of gray and looked away. “Oh.”
“I will be very displeased if it comes to that, Gabriel.”
“We well understand, brother.”
After school, I gave my landlord my written notice for moving out, then headed into my apartment and looked around.
It was a lot smaller than Lilly’s place, and as I looked around, I finally saw the flaws.
There were weirdly warped and bubbled marks on the ceiling from what I thought was water damage. The cupboard doors in the kitchen didn’t shut, and the apartment door wasn’t flush with the floor.
You know, like a door really should be?
I had placed a rug at the door to narrow the view of the inside of my apartment from the creepy people next door.
The e
lectrical outlets in the kitchen and by the door didn’t work, and I couldn’t get the landlord to fix them. Only three burners on the stove worked, and the rack from inside the oven was missing, and I had never been able to use it. The hot water came out smelling funny but only in the kitchen. I had been boiling water for dishes.
And that was just the kitchen.
My apartment sucked
The flaws were fine, though. It was what I could afford at the time, and I spent very little time in the apartment itself, just sleeping and the like.
I made the mistake of walking into my bedroom.
The window was yellowed because it was double paned and there was a leak on the outside pane. Water collected inside then eventually evaporated or oozed out the inside somehow. Around the window was the bubbling of water damage and dark little bits here and there.
I was even stupider and leaned in before I realized that my window was covered in mold.
With a shudder, I pulled away and looked at the bed. I just didn’t want to touch it. Or almost half my stuff.
I pulled out my phone to text Lilly and see if I could just crash at her place until the move.
Instead, I found a text from Sam.
“Are you home?”
“Yes?”
A second or so after I sent the message, there was a knock on my door. I headed that way and yanked it open, putting on the meanest face I could.
Sometimes people went door to door, begging for money and, thanks to the crack under the door, they could see into my apartment and knew that I was home even if I didn’t answer the door. It was just best to answer in a annoyed fashion.
Standing outside the door were several men in coveralls. They had stacks of flattened boxes with them.
“Are you Grace?” one of them asked.
I frowned at him, then nodded once.
“Who are you?”
“We’re from the Downtown Moving Company. We got an order for some boxes and moving supplies for you, and are to offer to help pack if you’d like it.”
“I can’t afford that,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Paid for by a Sam Angelica.”
My phone trilled, as if on cue. I lifted it and frowned at the screen and the preview of the text, before looking over the phone, to the men.
“Give me a minute?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
I closed the door and dialled Sam’s number.
“What the hell, Sam?” I asked when he picked up.
“Well, I didn’t think you were a flowers sort of girl. I bought you something useful instead,” he said.
“Flowers would have been less expensive,” I protested.
“You can get flowers for under five hundred dollars?” he asked.
“You are not that spoiled,” I said sternly.
“If it makes you uncomfortable to have them pack your items, simply take the boxes and do it yourself. Or I could come over and visit, and we can pack together.”
I looked around my apartment and realized with a sinking feeling that I didn’t want Sam to know where I lived. I didn’t want him seeing the apartment and judging me because that was all I could afford and it was starting to fall apart.
“No, you know what, I’ll get them to pack,” I said finally.
“Grace, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Sam.”
“I’m coming over there.”
“No, don’t come over!”
“You don’t sound all right,” he protested. “At least let me take you to Lilly. Moving can be a big deal, you probably shouldn’t be alone, especially with a bunch of men you don’t know packing all your stuff up into boxes while you try to decide if it’s safe to take those items because it might be infested with roaches.”
“No, I have a fly problem, not a roach problem.”
Silence on the other side of the phone.
Then: “I’m coming over.”
He ended the call, and I sighed out. Then I turned and opened the door, motioning into my apartment.
“Please, come pack my stuff,” I said. “Besides the bed, the furniture can stay. It was mainly here when I got here anyhow.”
“You need new furniture?” one of the guys asked. “We get stuff all the time, the owner gets to the new place, and it won’t fit in the door, or they decide they don’t want it. We have to take it when that happens.”
“My new place is fully furnished, I’m moving in with someone,” I said.
“Ah,” they all said all too knowingly.
I thought about correcting them, but I just didn’t want to. If they thought I was moving in with Sam, maybe they’d treat my stuff better than if they thought I was moving in with Lilly.
“Oh,” one of them said, moving into the hall and out of sight for a moment, then returning with a smaller box. “This is also for you.”
I frowned but took the box. I went to the kitchen as they began setting up and pulled out a pair of scissors, cutting the tape across the seam. Opening the box, I peered inside.
And swore.
I took a picture of the bouquet of flowers and sent it to Sam.
“Sorry, some women say they don’t want flowers but do.”
He had also gotten me flowers, the bugger.
I pulled the bouquet out by its glass vase and set them on the counter. It was a bit of an odd arrangement. It looked like it had sage in it and I didn’t recognize any of the flowers, but it was pretty in a weird sort of way. No roses or daisies for me, no Sam had had some unique arrangement made and sent to me.
Having no idea what was in it, I took a picture and sent it to Lilly. She knew all kinds of weird plants and flowers and all their various uses.
“Sam?” Lilly sent back in a text.
“Yes, he also sent movers and is on his way here,” I sent back.
“You’ll have to sleep on the couch. The room isn’t clean yet.”
I was in the middle of writing a protest when her next text popped in.
“Don’t give me lip. I fully support that man doing all sorts for you,” There was a moment of silence as I glared at my phone, then the next text arrived. “Lock you up and throw away the key.”
“Not funny,” I responded with an angry emoji.
“Wait, I think I have an air mattress. Might have a condom, but it’d be expired.”
“Still not funny!”
“Offering toys wouldn’t be funny, as all I have are eighties novelty toys. The kind for children.”
I slipped my phone away before the conversation could devolve anymore, and looked up as one of the movers came toward me.
“We’d like to pack the kitchen,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, moving toward the door and out of the way.
I watched the men pack up my apartment. A few brief months on my own, almost nothing of what they were packing was mine and chosen to be mine. It was mine now, from inheriting it or salvage from the curb. I had made these things my own, but they had never truly been mine. They were the remains of other peoples’ lives, forced into the places of my life, made to work in the mishmash that was my life.
Nothing was mine, nothing had ever been mine, but I made a life there anyhow.
“Grace?” Sam asked from the doorway.
I pulled out of my cloud and turned toward him. He leaned against the open door and smiled just slightly.
“You, uh, thinking of me?” he asked, his smile growing wider.
“No,” I said, turning back to my apartment.
“Grace?” he asked again, forcing me to turn back to him. “Are you all right?”
I gave myself a shake. He was there immediately, arms wrapping around me, pulling me close. He held me, and I did not cry, I just sort of stood there against him, uncertain what to do. I didn’t understand what was going on, why I felt the way I did.
“Okay, we’re going to take your arrangement and go find Lilly, how about that?” Sam asked, pulling away just slightly. “Yes, that’s what
we’re going to do. I don’t do well with a confused female. Crying, angry at me because my face is stupid, I get that. Confused because you don’t know what you feel or why you feel what you feel, that’s outside of my abilities.”
“Retreat to safe ground?” I asked.
“For both of us, Lilly knows a great deal more about emotion,” Sam said, pulling away to go to the kitchen.
He plucked up the arrangement, vase and all, then returned to me and thrust it into my hands. With a pat on my arm, he pulled me out of my apartment.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it. They’ll pack everything, deal with everything.”
“That’s my home, Sam.”
He stopped just at the top of the stairs and closed his eyes. I swore I saw his lips moving, him counting to three. Then he took in a long breath and turned to me.
“Holding onto a home that, frankly, needs to be nuked into the end of the world, may feel safe and comforting, because it’s what you know, but sometimes we need to do that and to move on to grow and find ourselves as people.”
“That’s what that was,” I said as I burst into tears. “I tried!”
“Oh, honey, no, that’s not what I meant, shit, I’m bad at this.”
I wiped at my eyes with my bare hand, which didn’t do much besides wipe the tears all over. My tears ended, dried up almost immediately when I realized that Sam was on his phone.
He seemed to be glaring at it, then he looked down the stairs with anger, before he forced the expression away and met my eyes.
“I asked Ralph for help, he told me to suck it up,” he grumbled.
“Help?” I asked.
“On how to remove my foot from my mouth,” he said. “Look, I wasn’t trying to make it seem like that wasn’t a home that you built. I mean, look at this place. It looks like sad and pathetic vomited all over the place, it looks like a sad, depraved sort of building. Your place was clean, and I saw no pests.”
As if to emphasize his point, a cockroach scuttled up the wall behind Sam, rushing toward the ceiling and disappearing in a crack along the wall.
“I’m not saying that that was a bad place, or that you didn’t make the best of what you could scrape together. I was just trying to say that… That I trust Lilly with my life, I know that if she’s invited you into her home, she’s going to take damned good care of you, even if that means throwing me down a flight of stairs.”