Chapter 14
Imogael
I had come down with a bad case of dependence, and I wasn't a fan. Being incapable of existing away from Scott's arms was not acceptable, and it was something I really needed to get over, and soon. It was fine to be in love with him, but it was another thing entirely to be obsessed or unable to be happy away from him.
So even though my teeth were chattering while I paced around the living room, I still did not go back to him. I let him learn what he needed to learn from the contents of the safety deposit box, letting him learn the truth. Whatever that truth was.
We already know that Joey Oregon was behind the murders, but I needed to know if Seraniel had anything to do with them, too. Part of me couldn't believe that an angel would ever let himself be used for the death of a human, but I also knew that Seraniel was barely a step above Lucifer in his opinion of humans.
He found them to be arrogant, self absorbed, and generally unworthy. That opinion was why he had spent so much of his life working with Hell. It was a punishment, meant to teach Seraniel humility. It only really served to make him more angry.
I wondered if Scott intended to kill the person behind all of this. It seemed unlikely that there was any other option. Joey had killed Starr, as well as Jin and others. He needed to pay. I just didn't like the idea of Scott killing him.
The way I was pacing was bound to wear marks into the wood below my feet. Stopping, I sighed. I needed something to do, something other than walking back and forth, lost in thought. But what was there that I could do, without Scott's help? How would I have dealt with a problem like this in Hell?
There weren't problems like this in Hell. There was a court that knew everything you had done, and ruled for or against you based on your past and your future. If you were found guilty of terrorism, you were sent to be eaten by Lucifer, for instance. That was also the punishment for theft. And murder. And pretty much everything else.
If I ever got back to Hell, that would probably be my fate, too. The other demons would no longer turn a blind eye to my fucking an angel, since I had also started fucking a human. I was pretty much doomed, but you know what? It was worth it.
But then I began to wonder. What did humans do when faced with demons? Then my next move became clear: I would put up protection spells, ones that would keep unwanted humans out. These same spells had been used for centuries to keep the damned out of certain parts of Hell, so I knew they were effective.
Using my finger and my breath, I started with the simplest spells. I would breathe on a piece of glass, then write out wards against intruders. It was important to get glass first, since it broke so easily. I went around the living room, promising to get the other rooms after, breathing onto the glass to steam it up.
Hell's written language is loopy and ornate, but I had learned it since I was but a demon child, so I wrote it fast.
After the windows, I decided to do the front door. I stepped up to it and thought about which spells would be best for wood. I couldn't carve anything into Scott's door without asking him first, but I could burn it into the flesh beneath the polished surface of the wood.
Just as I was starting the ward, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on the street. My head flicked to that side, and I squinted. There was someone one the street. He walked closer, and I saw the dark skin. The large wings. I heard the flutter of feathers in soft wind.
Seraniel.
Moving over to the window, I watched him as he stepped closer, stopping halfway down the street. He was watching me through the window, too, but he didn't move even one step closer than that.
The vision of him was no longer partially see-through. That meant that it was really him. Not just an apparition. That was Seraniel, in the flesh, on that road. He looked pale and sickly. My heart broke just to see him like that. Did he need my help?
I watched him for a while longer, but he truly did not move from that spot, and I realized I would have to make the first move. I stepped to the door, opening it and stepping outside into the cool night. The same breeze that was brushing past his feathers made my bright hair dance behind me.
Shutting the door behind me, I started to walk towards him, but he only floated further away. His long, black arms reached out to me, beckoning me to come closer. Inviting me into his warmth. My feet kept me moving forward, never once looking back. I had to get to Seraniel, to make sure he was okay.
“Seraniel, stop moving! Let me see you, I need to know if you're okay!”
He groaned, and with his groan, I blinked. I heard his wings flap, felt a gust of wind, and heard Scott shout my name. All in the blink of an eye, those things happened.
And even as I was still half-lidded, I heard a loud bang and felt a sharp, piercing pain in my abdomen. I reached down to touch it. Felt the hot liquid pouring from the hole. I knew I had been shot. I looked up, and it was no longer Seraniel in front of me. It was one of the men that Scott had tried to kill. Seraniel was gone.
Seraniel had worked with that man, and allowed him to shoot me.
I collapsed onto the ground, unable to even cry out in pain. Unable to do anything at all.
Scott
I was already standing up when I heard the door softly open, the hinges squeaking, and then the click of the front door closing again. Wondering if Elise had decided to step outside for some fresh air, I thought I could join her. Fresh air might have cleared my head a bit.
The living room was empty. “Elise?” I called out, wanting to be sure that she was outside and not that she had just come in. My stomach was growling. “Should have made dinner,” I grumbled, reaching for the doorknob.
That was when I saw Elise through the window. She was walking down the street, following someone that I couldn't really see. If wasn't that they were visible, but that my eyes blurred when I tried to focus on the person. They shifted to either side of the person, but never settled right on their body. It was disorienting and annoying, but worst of all, it was worrying.
“Elise!” I shouted, stepping out of the front door, but my voice seemed stifled. The air was thick, like on a hot and humid day, but it was cool outside. Nothing was making sense. The wind smelled faintly of roses.
Working up to a jog, I tried to reach her, to pull her away. Something wasn't right with the situation. I couldn't understand it, and Elise seemed agitated. What would have possessed her to go outside? Who was it that she saw, that I couldn't see?
Maybe it was her abuser, or the angel or whatever the fuck actually happened. Maybe she was confronting him. Was that something I should interrupt? I tried again to look at whoever it was that she was standing in front of, but she was blocking my view. I stepped to the side.
I heard the bang before I ever saw the gun. I screamed her name just before the bullet hit her. The air rushed out of her, but still she stood, and then I saw the person. I saw the motherfucker that had just shot Elise.
Nicholas Never, according to his passport, but I knew him as Sloan. He grew up a mama's boy but went wrong when she died. He was the motherfucker that started the rumor about me fucking Joey's girl.
He was behind all of this, way more than Joey was.
Elise crumpled to the ground just as I reached her. Blood was spilling from her body, dripping onto the cement of the road. “Oh Jesus. Oh fuck, Elise, it's going to be okay. Press down on your wound, stop the bleeding.” I glanced from her blood to Sloan.
“Go!” Elise screamed in my ear. “I'll be fine, just go get him! Get him, Scott!” Elise pushed me away from her, her strength surprising me enough to force me onto my ass. Sloan had turned by then and was running down the street.
I faltered, looking to her once more, but her glare sent me running after him. I chased him off of my side street, then onto a main street. He turned past the corner store and into an alley, but when I turned down the same alley he was gone.
“Fuck,” I yelled, rubbing my face and letting my breath slow for just a moment. I had to get back to Elise, before anyone else showed up or she bled out. I don't know how she thought she was going to be fine. She clearly fucking wasn't. She was bleeding to death.
I had to get back to her, and fast. If anything happened to her because I ran off, I would never, ever be able to forgive myself. She was everything to me then. Just that she got shot by someone from my past was enough to almost make me… well, suicidal.
She deserved better than what I could give her. She deserved better than this shit life, living in constant fear of a gun or a fire. I knew she would never agree, but she deserved better than me. I was no good. No good at all.
When I got back to my street, for a moment I was worried because it seemed empty. Really, she had just dragged herself back to my front porch and was waiting for me. A few of the neighbors were watching from the window. Her streaks of blood followed the trail she took.