Angel Descending

by Ethan Cooper

  Now.

  Protect the child.

  3-43. The warlock. He knew. As he was dying, he used his last words to tell me. I thought he was talking about JACK, but I know now that he would never have called her a child.

  As if it were waiting for me to figure it all out, the static recedes, and the pain along with it.

  I was warned twice. I didn’t notice. Too busy surviving.

  So, 3-43 knew. Did the rest of the coven? 2-85 knows. Does JACK know? If she didn’t before, then it won’t be long before she will.

  This world makes victims of us all.

  From the moment I opened my eyes in that alley, that’s all I’ve been: a victim. I am being abused, and that’s not likely to stop. It’s one thing to be a victim; it’s another to bring somebody along for the ride. It’s not just me.

  (you can’t do this take care of it)

  (you can make this go away)

  No. No more.

  The world won’t stop the abuse, but I don’t have to be a victim. I’ll kill before it happens to me again. I swear it.

  Need to leave this place. Need to leave JACK. Need to try surviving without her again. The consequences of our current proximity are too dire, too severe. Maybe Kiiziiziixii will go with me. Not sure if that’s a good idea or why she would, but…I don’t know. What I do know is that I have no clue how to make this friendship with the wirewitches work. I’m not the person they think I am. Not the person I thought I was either. Thought I was a lonely, memory-deficient teenage girl. Turns out I’m a not-so-lonely, perpetual victim, static-infested, pregnant teenage girl with an inner killer and a scary back marking.

  I mean, what the fuck?

  Don’t know what to do, so I close my eyes and drift. I think about leaving them. Think about being out there on my own. Gonna be sick.

  If there’s a flame in my soul, it’s growing dimmer by the day. It’s going to flicker, flicker, flicker and die if I’m not careful. It’s darker than it was when I woke in that alley. And this time it’s not because of what I’ve done, but because of what’s been done to me.

  I got witchkissed.

  And at some point, somebody put a baby inside me.

  (she’s pure)

  (inside and out)

  (plus, she’s a maiden)

  Lethargy settles into my body like a warm blanket. It might be shock, but it feels too wonderful to fight. As consciousness begins to slip away, the recurring question flitters through me:

  What have I done?

  That’s not the question any more. Not ever again, dammit. But the new question is not as easy to answer as the old one. The past is easy to comment on, but who can answer this about the future:

  What am I going to do?

  I sleep. I dream.

  When I wake up, it’s like coming up for air while swimming in mud—everything’s slow. The world is a hazy blur, and my eyelids keep closing. My body’s in motion. It takes a while, but I eventually conclude that the repetitive undulation is because somebody is holding me and walking.

  And by the time I realize I’m being carried by Calamity Carl, it’s too late to resist an insistent slide back into unconsciousness. The last thing I see is that painted-on smile. As I go under, I can hear the tinkling of bells and a whisper in my ears: “You should have listened to me…”

  THE LONGEST HOUR OF THE DESCENDED ANGEL

  35/Strip

  Unknown/Unknown

  …

  …

  …

  …can’t open my eyes. Or perhaps I just can’t summon the will to do so. The night air is cold, but his body armor is smooth and warm, so I’m drawn toward it, huddling against him as he carries me. There’s a low, thudding sound, maybe my heart, maybe his…

  …

  …

  …

  …eyes closed, it feels like he’s spinning me around in circles. Fingers and toes tingling, muscles relaxed. Without question, I’ve been drugged…

  …

  …

  …

  …foot’s throbbing, but it’s more like pressure, as if I have a rock in my boot. Right now it feels like it’s a million miles away. In the haze of my delirium, nothing much hurts. Just want to feel warm. Snake my arms around him, snuggling closer, letting his heat seep into my body…

  …

  …

  …

  …thoughts of a wirewitch, a warlock, and a modie flitter through my consciousness. I should know their names, but I don’t. The part of me that knows I’m dreaming tries to recall their faces, but it’s like trying to grab motes of dust out of the air…

  …

  …

  …

  …location has changed, the air is no longer cold, eyelids still won’t open. We’re ascending, and we do it for a long time. When we stop, it feels like he’s spinning me around in circles again. Stomach roils. I choke down vomit…

  …

  …

  …

  …falling, tumbling. Pain! I’m lucid enough to acknowledge that he just dumped me on the ground. Too delirious to interpret all the incoming signals, but I think my shoulder and my hip took the majority of the impact…

  …

  …

  …

  …groaning, eyes opening only to meet a kaleidoscope of intersecting blurs. The light from above is cycling slowly through the colors of a rainbow. He moves over me, his silhouette bathed in the hue-shifting cacophony.

  I try to talk, but what comes out aren’t exactly words.

  “You really should have listened to me,” he says, those red lines on his body flaring.

  Can feel him moving my body until I’m flat on my back, my legs together, my arms at my sides. He stands directly over me, one leg on either side of my thighs.

  Every time I blink, the world around me comes a little more into focus, but all I really care about is Calamity Carl and what he’s about to do.

  What he does is go down on his knees. Though he’s straddling me, he’s not actually touching me. I want to struggle, to wriggle out from under him, but whatever he drugged me with is still in effect. He can do whatever he wants to me, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

  (angel you’ve been

  here before why does

  this keep happening)

  His crown teeters on his head, one small shake from tipping off as he leans down, a single finger wagging in my vision. “We’re going to spend a few days together, and it’s not going to be fun for either of us. Best to get started on the unpleasantries while you’re still compliant.”

  Want to scream. Can’t.

  This world makes victims of us all.

  Which is why I have to lie here and watch as his arms slash across my torso, the blades on his armor cutting the clothes from my body.

  36/Purge

  Unknown/Unknown

  I come awake.

  Which means I’ve been asleep. How long have I been out? Can feel a layer of crust on my cheek, as if my nose has been running unhindered all night. Mouth feels like I’ve been eating dirt, and my tongue is numb.

  On my back, staring up at the color-changing ceiling. Can feel air movement across bare skin. The last thing I remember is Calamity Carl lifting away shredded strips of my shirt and placing them in a pile beside me. I’m able to move my neck, so a quick check confirms that my last memory was a real one. I’m on the floor, and I’m naked. The remains of my clothes are within arm’s reach. I push up on one elbow, amazed that I’m able to move again. I reach out, burying my fingers into the pile of material that used to be my shirt, my pants, and my undergarments.

  A wave of nausea threatens to send whatever’s in my stomach up and out. I lay my head back down and close my eyes. That helps a lot.

  (angel)

  (get up)

  (get up)

  (get out before he—)

  A shift in the air.

  (—comes back fuck)

  I feel it on every inch of exposed skin, as if
every molecule in this room was displaced.

  Eyes open.

  Calamity Carl is here, beside me, standing over me, his grin wet, almost dripping, as if he touched it up before coming here.

  The thought of him wanting to look nicer for me has my skin feeling like it’s being penetrated by a thousand needles.

  I’d cover myself, but he’s already seen everything I have.

  I’d run, but he’d catch me.

  I’d fight, but I’d lose.

  Not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how afraid I am of him and what he might do. He can hurt me at any time. He can kill me. Molest me.

  (angel how do you know)

  (he didn’t)

  He’s playing with me, like I’m his life-sized, blue-haired doll.

  (I’m here as his messenger. I’m doing this for you.)

  His hand extends down, some tiny object held between his thumb and forefinger. “You must be hungry. Here, eat this.”

  I’m reaching up and taking the black object from him before I can stop myself. It’s an ovoid pill, no bigger than the tip of my pinky.

  “Give me my clothes.” I really should sit up, stand up, do something other than just lie here.

  His head tilts toward the pile of scraps that I was wearing when he brought me here, however long ago that was. “Somebody broke them.”

  “I want new clothes then.”

  His crown shakes back and forth, even though his head isn’t moving. “Not yet. First you swallow that.”

  Bringing the pill to my lips, planting a kiss on it, I mouth my favorite obscenity at him and jerk my arm to the side. I make sure to keep my eyes on him the whole time. Can hear the pill ping against something in the distance. Haven’t really studied the room yet, so I’m not sure what it hit.

  When he sighs, it’s a tired whisper in my ear, tinkling bells and all: “When will you stop being a child?”

  He walks away. I let my head turn his way, getting my first real look at that side of the room. The ceiling, with all those color-changing lights, ends right at a wall entirely made of glass. The glass is dark, but I’m not sure if that’s because it’s been colored, or if it’s just night outside. Calamity Carl bends down, retrieving the pill from the floor. The red lines in his armor flare as he turns back. By the time he returns, kneeling beside me, grabbing my chin, the lines are so bright I’m squinting in order to keep looking at him.

  He’s bending over me, but the only contact between us is his fingers on my chin. “It will hurt if you resist.”

  So I don’t.

  (victim)

  He pries my mouth open and pushes the pill in, clamping my jaw shut until he senses me swallow. Without any sort of liquid to chase it, the pill sticks in my throat several times before I’m able to force it all the way down. It leaves a strange, tingling aftertaste on my tongue.

  Calamity Carl brushes a finger across my forehead, moving stray strands of blue out of my vision.

  “Don’t,” I plead.

  He rises, a sharpened shadow against a field of shifting light. “You should start to feel it soon. I’ll be back tomorrow to clean up.”

  The tingling in my throat starts as he walks away. There’s a hiss, like the sound of a door sliding open and then closed, but I’m already clutching my stomach because of the pain. It feels like something sharp crawled inside me and started rolling around. My entire gut clenches and releases. Skin goes warm then cold, then starts to fluctuate between the two extremes. I’m sweating and shivering, clawing at my belly and my forehead at the same time. Can feel that tingle in my jaw and then my mouth is flooded with saliva that tastes like metal. Have to slam my eyes close because everything’s—

  bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!!

  —spinning, and hurray the static’s back. Nausea follows, of course it does, because Calamity Carl poisoned me, and that means I’m going to vomit, and fuck it’s gonna be bad.

  Manage to roll to one side before the first of it comes. It’s the worst sort of all-consuming purge—a coughing spasm that sends a geyser of gray green mess splattering onto the neoplastic floor. The smell of it pulls more from me. The second and third convulsions are so violent, I feel something tear, searing pain shoots up my spine. One hand, slides through warm, syrupy muck. Cosmically gross. There’s a brief respite, a whole six seconds where my body tries to make some sense of what’s happening to me. My back is screaming, the muscles there refusing to relax. A tight squeezing sensation takes hold of me. It’s low, moving down my abdomen, then lower still. Tighter and tighter. A scream escapes my lips, but then there’s sort of a popping sound and suddenly the pressure in my gut bleeds away like air from a balloon. I’m throwing up again, even as everything goes loose between my legs, betraying how desperate my digestive system is to rid itself of all matter. Writhing, my body voids itself through all available conduits.

  The stench of vomit and waste an inescapable presence in my nose, I whisper a fervent prayer for a higher being to take my life.

  Not sure if I ever get an answer, but there’s a bzzzzzZZZZt!!!!! and then blessed blackness takes me.

  37/Cleanse

  Unknown/Unknown

  BLINK.

  Kneeling, drinking water from a cool stream. It’s sweet, running down my throat, filling my belly. When I lift my head, I realize that I’m still thirsty. I lower my head again, sucking water from my cupped palm. When I can’t drink any more, I rise, only to realize that I’m thirsty again. As I lower my head and drink, I finally notice the sensation of warm liquid flowing out between my thighs…

  BLINK.

  God, I’m thirsty.

  BLINK.

  Fully awake, arms above my head, I’m being dragged across the floor. Staring down my naked body, watching the heels of my feet paint soiled streaks across the floor. My foot is bleeding again, so there are dashes of red leading from my heel back to the dark stain that marks the spot where I’ve spent hours in agony, unable to summon the strength to even crawl out of my own filth. Can feel it crusted all the way down my thigh. Chunks of unrecognizable, partially digested food are splattered across my torso, one particularly ostentatious piece stuck to my left nipple.

  BLINK.

  Falling, then impact. My wrists go numb. Ducking my chin is the only thing that prevents the back of my skull from hitting as well.

  BLINK.

  Calamity Carl is staring down at me, one hand resting against the wall. I hear a click, followed by a banging sound, then the floor seems to vibrate.

  “If you hurt my child—” I start, but rest of my sentence is swept away in a devastating spray of cold water.

  BLINK.

  It’s a shower. A real water shower. Didn’t know those still existed unless you happened to live near a waterfall. My legs aren’t exactly working, so Calamity Carl locked my knees and is holding me against the wall with a firm hand on my sternum.

  But get this: the water’s warm.

  I can’t help it, I let out a low moan.

  “…last time somebody… hand there…killed’em.”

  Not responding, he continues scrubbing my body down with a sponge that feels like it has rough pebbles embedded across its surface.

  It hurts, especially when he cleans the more sensitive parts of my body. But I can’t remember the last time I had a warm water shower, so I’m wrestling with the pleasure my body is trying to take from this.

  Head lolls forward, hair in my eyes, the water blasting us from several directions. I’m looking down my body, which is pink from his attentions. The floor has a drain, into which flows a soapy, brown-green river.

  BLINK.

  Spinning. Hand between my shoulder blades as he shoves me against the wall. I get my face turned sideways, so it’s my cheek that hits instead of my nose and teeth. I feel a boot against my instep, then my legs go wide. The sponge makes quick work of my back, then I’m gasping as it goes between my legs.

  BLINK.

  His fingers combing through my hair, massaging somethi
ng into my scalp. It feels good. I hate myself for that.

  BLINK.

  On my back, on the floor of the shower, enough control of my arm that I’m able to wipe water and hair from my eye. Calamity Carl is on his knees, holding one of my feet—oh, the one that’s been bleeding off and on ever since I woke up in that alley.

  The gentleness with which he’s cradling my foot sends a tingling sensation zigzagging up and down my spine.

  Splayed before him like this, I have no secrets. I vow to gouge out his eyes one day. Even if it turns out he’s an android behind that mask, I’m going to tear out his optics for everything he’s done to me.

  His fingers close around my ankle, immobilizing the limb.

  (not good angel)

  One of those blades on the back of his hand goes right into my heel. It hurts way more than it should; it’s like he’s shoved my entire leg into a vat of acid. I thrash as much as my body lets me, but his grip on my ankle doesn’t allow me to do much else. I scream and scream because he’s leaving the blade in there. Even though I can’t see the wound, I see a stream of blood pouring out.

  Vision’s dimming, but just before it goes all the way, I watch that thin red line of my most precious bodily fluid turn black.

  Okay, what the fu—

  BLINK.

  38/Shackle

  Unknown/Unknown

  Stomach rumbles so loud, it wakes me up. In reflex, my hands go to my belly, where they encounter material instead of skin. That brings my eyes open faster than anything.

  Arm muscles complain, but I use them to push myself to a sitting position. Clothes. I’m wearing clothes again. They’re simple—a sleeveless shirt and shorts, both as blue as my hair—but they’re soft against my skin, and…they fit. Hand drifts to the hem at my right shoulder. The fabric sliding under my fingertips is something I want to sink my whole body into. A quick check confirms that my bra and panties are blue too. Only the simplest of minds would resort to making every piece of clothing the same color so that they’d match. Or perhaps Calamity Carl is just teasing me. Whatever, at least I have clothes on.

  Also, now that I’m sitting up, I can see a shackle around my ankle.