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Caelum Sky - Chapter 17

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Caelum Sky -17


"Eh!" I grunted at Raziel, scouring the various crap around the room in complete and utter boredom. He pretty much just gave up on trying to actively hide what things were about, what he did and didn't tell, as long as it didn't get personal. So I was free to point and grunt at what I wanted to know, and he'd tell me. This time, it was a small silver cross, about an inch high, with some sort of description on the bottom in a language I wasn't sure was real.  Flipping it onto the back, I could see it was a pin of some sort.

"You get that for graduating the Angelic Academy" He sat on the couch, half aware, half zoned out, late on a Sunday night.  

Snickering lamely, I placed the item back on the shelf, looking around curiously at whatever else I could learn.

Fourth months had passed since the goat demon, things remaining generically peaceful. Every now and then Raziel had to check in with Gauzier, what he'd exorcised, any problems he'd had, what he'd been teaching me. This forced the guy to actually teach me things, usually right before these meetings in an effort to keep up this whole ruse.  Gauzier didn't ask a lot of questions about me, and we were pretty keen on switching up the story on why I wasn't talking outright; we played the demon curse story for a month, then switched to I was in awe of his rank, then to just generally being shy. The general (who I learned, he was a "general" of sorts)  left it at that, still talking to me every now and then, but mostly keeping his business with Raziel, who ranked as an "Exorcist Assistant", which was pretty much bottom barrel.

I laughed at that until Raziel 'politely' reminded me that I was the assistant to the assistant, even lower then him; the dirt underneath that barrel in question. It still beat being scum.

Other then the time with Gauzier, or the time spent at the church, (which I sat outside for, that was a firm rule) Raziel and I would every now and then get really annoyed or frustrated with one another. It never got to a point of trying to cleave my head in half like it had that one time. He still had an impeding grudge against my whole supposed race, which if there was one thing I could tell you I learned, was that they didn't really teach a whole lot of tolerance. Considering I was still living in an exorcist's house, successfully, he tolerated me a lot more then any other angel would. So when the comments would come up, I'd duck out early, go roam about the rest of the house, reassuring myself the entire time that my existence here at all was due to him. Give or take.

The Priest (whom I found out was named Dave, though you'd never know it that both Raziel and I called him 'the priest' uniformly) turned out to be a haplessly interesting guy. No wife, no kids of course, dedicated to the church first and foremost, but he had a massive music collection. Katherine and Amber at the first house would turn on the radio from time to time, but didn't have an active collection of any sort. The priest did; varied, hundreds of artists, years of music all stored in this small reading room at the far end of the house.  The rest of his humble abode had typical priest written all over it, bibles, pictures of Jesus, statues, lumpy beads, but that music room, that was my sanctuary.

He remained dubious of pretty much anything in the house; one time I was running around with a green vase for some reason or the other, right past him, and he barely batted an eye. Raziel and I were tolerated like spoiled kids, whatever broke was replaced, whatever caught fire was extinguished.  At times I wondered if there was something wrong with him, or if it was that higher-living-order-existence elevated state of mind that allowed him to remain calm and serene at things even I wouldn't hesitate to throw a brick at. Of course, whenever a football game, or unfortunately, a hockey game as well would come on, that whole serenity would just be…gone.  He wasn't angry, just incredibly passionate, which always threw Raziel into some kind of rage fit in response. Knowing how to successfully dodge those fits, I'd either help him train in the backyard, or just go off and listen to music while he beat the crap out of the punching bag in the basement.

Early on my time there became routine, like an actual, living breathing life. I'd wake up, stretch out and wave hello to Raziel, who'd be busy trying to look like he just got finished doing something and not just staring off into space like he actually was.  From there I'd walk around a little outside, read a book or so, check out stuff on TV. Every now and then we'd all have to go on errands, sometimes to the shop/ Christian Science Bookstore, to church, groceries, go look at slacks, etc. It was a very simple life, a very laid back, relaxed considering the circumstances kind of life that I actually enjoyed. I had someone to talk to, or to at least grunt at, I had a place to live. It was a very good time.

But something began happening far more often; we'd have to go help exorcise a ghost or a demon somewhere. Their exorcism business had been doing so well that they began to earn a reputation; we began to be the team that was called when a particularly stubborn demon would come about. (Go fig)  That brought up a new batch of problems. Originally, there was a system. The three of us would go to a house, search around, find the demon.  I'd give the thumbs up if it was a good demon I could talk to and convince to leave, thumbs down for a bad demon that needed to be exorcised. It felt like cheating, like deceiving my own side, but I had to accept that with each demon, it varied. Some called me a queen, some called me a slanderous bitch. See? Varied.  

With more then one exorcism team around, our actions had to be carefully planned, mingling with other angels. They varied too, some were incredibly nice and a little regretful of their jobs, and some took it to a level that was the stuff of nightmares. But to them, demons were demons, no matter the case.  I couldn't judge a good or bad demon any longer; I just had to chop up whatever was there like the rest of them; and more then a few times, the demon in question was some variation of homesick animal refusing to leave its master. Watching angels bash that kind of demon's head in over and over again, it'd tear me apart, make me bitter, made me numb.

After a while, I had a hard time associating myself with any demon; it made the job easier to do, but it felt like part of me was slowly getting choked to death. I'd laugh with the others, I'd help pour the holy water over a screaming, dying soul;  I began to lose touch with what was actually going on. It was only after I saw Raziel glaring at me as I laughed at some poor demon that I really felt that horrible guilt all of a sudden, stopping me cold.  I didn't participate much in the exorcisms for a while, just hung out with the priest and whomever he was interviewing. It killed a lot of my energy, a lot of my moxie. Soon after that, I found myself sitting through a few sleepless nights, staring off into nothing, same as Raziel. My mind was becoming a fateful little trap that wouldn't let a single thought go, and especially not the ones I regretted.

I remember one night especially, staring straight at the ceiling, mind racing as he came over by the doorway, arms crossed.

"There's stupid people everywhere, you know."  I jumped a little, looking up and sitting to the side of the bed quickly, rubbing my hair with a grin trying to offset that I was existing in my own little hell. "You don't have to kill the good demons, just to fit in"

Furrowing my eyebrows, I cracked a small laugh, how this talk seemed like one your parents tell you about the annoying kids at school. How if they all jumped off a building, if you would too. I also laughed a little that now there was more then just bad demons to him, there were good ones too. He was actually starting to see more then one side of this.

"I'm serious. I'm not telling you to go join up with the rest of the demon brethren or anything, but have some sympathy."  The laughing stopped. I sat straight up, shooting him a sort of wide eyed 'who would say such a thing' glare, feeling my eyes twitching a little, my appalled  glance fading quickly. He was right; I knew he was right. Raziel nodded a little and looked around, sliding the pike from the wall.

"It's about that time" Ugh. 3 am. Raziel liked the duty about as much as I liked getting my skin peeled and melted from my back. Resting my head in my hands I waved him off. Maybe I needed a good dose of what things really were all over again. Maybe I needed to find my bearings on this world.

"Not tonight" I said faintly, getting up from the bed and walking through the basement.

"You going to be okay?" He called cautiously; it was the first night I had ever denied wanting to stay human, choosing my once thought grotesque form over humanity.  I nodded a little, swaying my head back and forth. My eye caught on the smoke by my feet, whisking up behind me, awkward to be out in the open for the first time in months. Parts of me missed this form, what it was capable of doing, what I kept sealed away each night. I originally thought of it as a horrible, grotesque demon face, but after some careful prodding, I managed to get some mirror-time in this form as well. It wasn't SO bad, it certainly wasn't human in any way, but if nothing else, it was a very expressive dinosaur-looking face. I could live with that.

Back in the brisk air and back to being a good seven feet tall, I shot to the roof, spending the night watching the stars. I was alone for a few hours, time to think things over, to sort it out, settling my mind.  Sitting peacefully, serenely, the light began to peak up from the horizon; Raziel joined me shortly after that to watch the sunrise.



"Hey! You awake?" He flicked me in the back of the head as I suddenly realized I was still standing in front of the cabinet  staring hollowly at the items on the shelf, reminiscing.  Shaking my head out a little I laughed, awkward and embarrassed. Raziel shook his head at me in response, not actually angry but a little bereft of the wind that blew threw my ears sometimes.  Since I had stopped exorcising my own kind, I was slowly getting back to what I'd consider normal, more relaxed, more curious on everything around me. The priest's photo albums, especially, were a treasure chest of strange, odd little tidbits about the people he had known. It was all fascinating to me.

Raziel shook his head again, grinning a little. He really was a nice guy everyday but Sunday. He meant well; I was starting to see my whole exorcism as a series of massive misunderstandings on both our parts. Being resilient to being killed also helped that situation.  We had a system, mostly a series of whistles, grunts, pointing and other little mouth-noises that weren't quite words. It wasn't the same as talking one on one, but it helped him understand a lot more of what I was saying, now that everything wasn't being taken as a threat.  And when I was really desperate to say something more complicated, I used the paper. A no brainer-right? Well, trying to steady a piece of paper with a floating pencil's a lot harder then it seems, and trying to write with the thing was like dipping a toothpick in ink and calling it a writing utensil. Eventually we got a whiteboard; I don't like to use it.

We laughed a lot. More accurately, I laughed a lot at his expense, and he'd laugh at my idiocy. In all honesty, I could say we had fun teaming up. The paddle-weapon made various returns into the world of exorcisms, only for one blow, or one parry.  For the most part, though, he did most of the work- exorcised 90% of the demons pretty quickly, I helped when necessary.  Most of my job was being the demon-o-meter. Made me feel important, choosing who lived and who died. Most of the time they lived. Every now and then, though, there'd be a really vile, dishonest evil thing to possess a house, and I'd have to think of the welfare of the people over what I regretted doing.


"Did you get that? Hello? Dammit" The end of the pike jabbed at me lightly in the head, snapping to reality once again as I realized I was staring at him, mind off on another tangent.  He leaned closer, snapping his fingers in my face as I glared back, snapping fingers in his. "Oh, well then, what did I just say?" My mouth shut tight, looking side to side, regretfully bowing my head and submitting that yeah, okay, I wasn't listening.  Raziel was suiting up.

"Alright, well, once more, there's another call."  He slipped on his chest plate, adjusting the thing to fit like it wasn't a big, heavy chest plate that even a king would find just a little too glitzy.  I pointed to my wrist. "Yeah, it's late, but it's a pretty interesting call"  I wandered back to the couch and sat on the arm of it, leaning against the back.

"What makes it interesting is that the reports are of some large, dinosaur-like demon terrorizing a house. Sound familiar?" I practically shot to my feet. It couldn't be; this couldn't be the same damn me-demon that I fought with the first time. Raziel grinned, nodding his head a little, "See, it pays to actually listen to what I say. The real kicker is that it's right in the same neighborhood you came from."

My hands were frozen, my mind racing with a bag of questions.   I flailed my arms around, looking back and forth like there was something I could do to hurry us along. The rest of the armor sat in a pile in the corner; I rushed over to it, grabbing a shoulder- plate and two pointy shin-guards, dashing across the room and up the stairs.

"Dammit, get back here, I need those!"



The Ford roared to life, backing from the driveway as the priest ran over details like he had done a thousand times before.

"The mother called me in a panic, says that things have started haunting her house in just the last few weeks.  Apparently she's in the middle of a new haunting right now." The priest put the car in drive, snapping his head over to Raziel as he finished putting on his armor.  "Is this related to what happened some months back?" I looked quickly to him, then to Raziel. The angel looked over his shoulder to me, who leaned forward with utmost anticipation. I had always wondered just how he managed to smooth my living in the house over with the priest, especially if I assumed Raziel asked him to call my family to invite them over.

"Possibly."

"Is…that…associate of yours in this van right now?"  The priest looked a little more threatening in his direction. Must've looked strange from an outside perspective.

"Yes." He let the secret escape, or what I assumed was a secret escape.  The priest grumbled some more, shaking his head and looking into the rearview mirror like I'd pop out of thin air.  Who knows, maybe if he said my name three times, I would.

"I trust you know what you're doing" He said flatly.

"Yeah, me too" I glared at him, even though this was technically on my side. Raziel shot me a glare, pointing his finger at me that was generally the non-verbal rule of 'you shut up' as I  cracked a laugh and buttoned my lip for the rest of the ride.



Walking up to the place, it certain had the same sort of eeriness to it. The house was modern, a little strangely built, but pretty modern. There were no graveyards; it was close to my original house, but far enough away that I didn't recognize anything around me. Maybe this was just a new, similar demon; maybe it was actual brethren. I began to get excited; what if this demon was just like me?

"Don't get your hopes up" Raziel was behind me, leaning on the pike and inspecting the house from outside. Looking to him I gave him a little squint before just looking back to the house. He was getting good at reading expressions, advanced to a level that almost made it creepy.

Leading the way like a sparkly band instructor, we entered into the house, immediately recognizing the sound of screams coming from the second level.  We both looked to the stairs, seeing a woman suddenly darting across our view, a large, massive, familiar skeletal face and hazy black form in tow. Raziel hesitated on the stairs, looking up towards the demon before back at me.

"Isn't that…" he said, completely dumbstruck. My head nodded faintly.

It was the same…damn… demon. What I saw, same skull-shape, same… everything. It was impossible! I felt the house shudder; chill like the cold radiated from the walls. All the energy in the household rippled, that awareness, that recognition; I knew we had been spotted; I knew that this entire thing visit would be personalized, just for me. It was a trap.

"Well well!" the house suddenly boomed, whispering out from every darkened corner and blacked out room.  "I've waited oh so long for you, my little runaway."  Where was it?

"What did it say? What does it want?" Raziel hissed at me, holding the pike in a ready attack position. Scattered and frantic, I pointed to myself repeatedly, feeling the jolt of energy suddenly through my elbows. There wasn't enough time to react as the demon burst through the wall, snapping me up tightly.  Landing hard on the floor it turned, busting through a few more walls before leaping clear into the outside, running full out on limbs that were clear as day. The house began to shrivel from view. As we slowed back to a walk it became shrouded in shadows once more, spitting me arrogantly onto the grass. There was no other time where I wished I had my demon body handy. For just a few moments, we were alone. The demon lowered its head, tiny beaded eyes furrowing at me.

"I'm sick of this, alright? I've played your little game the first round, and now this little mission of yours has to stop. I mean, seriously, exorcising your own kind? Is that what you're so desperate to lea- " The demon's mouth snapped closed, letting out a sigh as we both heard Raziel jogging after us, armor clinking, not far now. Off - balanced by the ease of the conversation I got to my feet, crossing my arms. I couldn't even begin to gather myself to try and understand why this demon knew me as well as it did.

"Hey! Leave her alone" he wagged the weapon in the demons direction. The shadowed mass looked at it, snarled a little before darting forward and biting directly onto the pike head itself. He grabbed the handle with both hands, trying to pull the weapon from its mouth as the demon snapped the pike off where the metal latched onto the wood. The demon bit onto the very edge of the pike head, grinning with a twisted piece of metal jutting from its mouth before throwing it back into the turbine of teeth. Chomping down again, the demon spat the hunk of scrap off to the side, twisting its body around to display itself proudly at doing so.

"Demon matters. Piss off for a few minutes, junior" The demon spat out in plain English, same old thick accent. Glittering bits of metal fell from its teeth, gleaming. Raziel stood there in unabridged shock, glancing hollowly at his holy weapon, now just a frayed stick and a metallic jumble.

"You… you're not the same demon from before, are you?"

"Aww, why would you say that?" Its voice suddenly jumped in octaves, clearly feminine. Clearly very close to my own. I took a step away; looking around for some sort of help, some way out of this. There was more fight in me when I wasn't in a weak form like this, more anger, more revengeful as I'd always been, but I had nothing. The demon hissed at me, jabbing her head practically next to mine. "You don't fit in here, you know it. Quit this stupid charade while you're ahead,  save you, save him, save all this bullshit that's in store for us all."

"I don't know what you're talking about" I folded my arms before quickly un-folding and using it to point angrily, "Now, as your queen, I demand you show me your real form, not this half-baked in-between you've got here" I muttered the words before I knew what they meant. In-between? The demon laughed, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, there's still hope for you then, isn't there my queeeeen?"  The demon bowed, black shadows quickly dropping from its shoulders as she rose up from it, gaining height, gaining mass. The hazy demon was essentially a floating skull demon head, accompanied with insect-like legs that shot out from the middle/ but this…this actual form was a thousand times more terrifying. At least three times the size of the first form, it was massive. The body was a dull, darkened red a few steps from black, with a great row of spines/ horns coming up from behind it's head, tapering out onto the body, with one very large giant horn in the middle of its face.  The head was dinosaurish  like mine, the snout stumpier, tail shorter,  the nose almost more pushed up with one loose ring hanging from it. Two massive teeth shot from the bottom lip that hung saggily from the corners of her mouth, but what was really noticeable was the white scar-like tick marks all over her body. Each one of its legs had two large protruding bone-spurs from the sides of it's ankles, back toes gathered up on one another to make a sort of jumbled peg.  It's body was almost like a horse, the legs were thinner, body overall less muscular or bulky as mine was, but standing at least twenty five feet tall it didn't matter.  I used all my will to look over to Raziel, who had taken more then a few cautionary steps away, eyes flared wide in complete terror.

"There, my queen, how does that work for you?" The voice thundered from the sky as I wondered how embarrassing I could risk asking it to go back to the small, hazy looking skull monkey it had been.   The demon eyed me with supreme annoyance, bending all the way back down by me to give me the same snarl as before, magnified. "Look at yourself! You call this an existence? Playing assistant to an exorcist?  Have a little dignity!" I suddenly snapped from my awed trance.

"My existence here is my concern, not yours, or any other demons, so butt out!"

The demon gave out a very girly, indignated gasp that almost broke my anger.

"You say that like I haven't…. " she trailed off, biting on the own side of her mouth, "You stubborn brat.  Why I bother with you…" Her tone suddenly wavered with emotion, snapping back to the cold, heartless tone of the gigantic demonic beast before me.

"You're coming back with me. I'm not wasting anymore of my time playing babysitter to you!"

"Babysitter?!" I stomped forward, hands on my hips. The idea of a giant dinosaur demon thing was surprisingly comfortable; distantly familiar. "With all the destruction you've caused, all the torture you've put me through, I hate to see what you do to your loved ones!" The demons head snapped quick to me in real anger, glaring with tiny, beady little red eyes.

"So that's how its going to be." It grumbled low, shrinking a little in size to something a less massive and more dexterous.  "You stupid, spoiled little brat. Always playing human!" She reached out and grabbed me, holding onto me tight.  Quick on her heels she spun around, pointing me in Raziel's direction, which remained frozen in place.

"Has your little loverboy here seen all the tricks you can do?!" The demon began to laugh manically, thumb submerging into my spine, a feeling that felt nothing short of a thousand sewing needles going into my eyes.  It began to shake me, my body changing like someone was flipping TV channels, my perspective and features (that I could see) changing too. I suddenly became taller in one, shorter in the other, fatter with the next, vision full of long blonde hair after that, shorter once again before switching back to how it had first been, my regular human/demonic body.  Tiredly looking up to Raziel he looked completely baffled, even farther away as the demon brought me close to her face.

'This is your very last chance. Come back to hell with me, or stay up here and suffer though more heartache and loneliness then anyone deserves" Her voice was almost sympathetic, sad.  It didn't switch back.  Heaving for breath I curled my lip, glaring at her.

"Never, demon" The she-demon glared at me for just a second longer, before pointing me back in the angel's direction.

"How about one last trick" It said lowly, like someone forced it out of the demon. Her thumb jammed back into my spine before pulling out, dropping me hard onto the ground. Instantly, my senses began screaming at me. "Why don't we try the real thing for a bit, see how life actually feels?"  --- Real?

I felt the grass around me. Felt it. Little hairs tingled on my skin as the wind blew past me. Looking at my hand I only saw solid flesh, no visibility behind it and no transparency. I was real, alive. It all would've been a gift, any other time. I looked over to Raziel, seeing him, though faint like a hologram.  He leaned over and swiped a hand right through my head, my body reacting like a cold chill as my eyes bugged from my sockets.

My insides felt like they were full of needles, hands began to shake, jittery as I dropped to my knees.  No, no I wanted this, wanted to feel everything like I pined for in my dreams, but my body wasn't stable. It couldn't handle the stress, trying to cope with a necrotic body suddenly full of working systems. I felt myself begin to shut down, coughing into my hand and finding it covered in blood.

"Isn't life wonderful" The demon growled at me, a slightly stronger view of it as it sat there, watching me suffer.  My body began to shake, desperate for food, water; my thoughts began to cloud on themselves as I only propped myself up with my arms, blood dripping steadily from my eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

"Neri!" I could hear him faintly, clear, but soft, even though he was shouting. Heaving for breath I could barely bring myself to his gaze, vision quickly darkening. I heard him shout to the demon, panicked.  "By the divine grace of our good lord, I demand you stop doing this!"  The demon only laughed.

"Please, we're like cockroaches. You on the other hand have no business addressing me with anything less then the utmost respect, you little insect." Raziel was suddenly yanked out of view as the demon snapped him up, holding tightly onto the angel in her mouth.

"Stop!" I coughed out, voice echoing loudly around me, trying to get closer, trying hard to see through the black mist that was quickly overtaking me. A quick little shock from the demon brightened everything back up, setting back my body shutting down by a few minutes.

"Oh, you're going to want to see this" the demon said evilly, biting down harder on Raziel. I could see him struggle in pain, eyes begin to widen in fear as I crawled to get closer.

"Stop! Don't…"I gasped for air, desperate for options; I couldn't let him die, couldn't be responsible for any more violence like this. "I'll…fine…go with you…and… just don't…" coughing again, the cold, icy stare of the red-eyed demon looked over me pitifully, no joy on its face, no pleasure in what it was about to do.

"Those chances passed. I'm only doing as I was told to- welcome to your master plan" The demon suddenly bit down with everything it had as he screamed out in pain, body snapping in half and falling from the massive demon's jaws.  I couldn't move, couldn't breath as he lay as two bloody lumps of angel, rolling a bit. His eyes were half open, gasping for air once or twice before quickly shutting, resting, the body letting out one last sigh. This couldn't be real, it had to be a trick as I saw him lay there, halved, very dead. After a moment the body began to blow away with the wind like condensed ash, disappearing to nothing.

Tears began to fall from my eyes, bloody red tears.  I couldn't stare away from where he had laid, to even recognize that the demon had suddenly vanished, to see that I was not alone in the yard, to understand anything but devastating horror.  My body made the decisions for me as I slowly slumped to the ground, collapsed over myself as my heart gave out, dying.
Chapter 16: [link]

Chapter 18: [link]


This isn't really a cliffhanger, before you go YOU LEFT WITH THIS CLIFFHANGER? I mean, she's not going to chant some shit and he's just back, we don't DBZ this storyline, no sir. Though it does kinda end on a downer, just in time for christmas! Yaaay!

I also didn't want this story to be full of little fluff chapters, filler episodes. Though there will be flashbacking in the future to cover that 4 month gap of activity. I mean, this is her story, not his. *crosses her arms* and there's lots more other factions of it that I haven't gotten to yet.

Anyways, Merry Christmas, all.
© 2009 - 2024 ALRadeck
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sunwukung22's avatar
Raziel noooooo!!! he was only 400 years away from retirement!!!!!