Fallen Angel

"Rise and shine, princess," a deep voice murmured next to her ear. Rhyanidd moaned and reached for the covers, pulling them over her head to block out the sunlight that was glaring through the window above her head.

"I don't want to!" she whined, followed by a groan. "My head hurts." Carell clicked his tongue disapprovingly and tore the comforter away.

"That's what you get for trying that watermelon vodka. You know you shouldn't drink." He wrapped his long fingers around her pale wrist and pulled her out of the bed. "Come on, birthday girl, I made you breakfast."

Before she had a chance to protest, Carell swept her into his arms and glided up the stairs into the dining room. The scent of sausage and pancakes would have had Rhyanidd driveling any other day, but this morning it made her feel sick. "You don't actually expect me to eat that, do you?" she asked in a nauseated voice.

Carell chuckled. "Of course not, sunshine. That's for me. I made you coffee and dry toast."

"You're an angel."

He raised a light eyebrow and laughed, a crisp, bright sound that made Rhyanidd's heart flutter. “Who told you?”

Rhyanidd wrapped her arms around his neck and blessed his lips with a kiss. “It came to me in a dream.”

I woke with a jolt, the credit for which I gave to the residual roar of thunder that was growling above my bedroom.

You made the heavens and the stars, everything, come on, how hard could it be—

I switched off the CD that I’d fallen asleep to and rolled out of bed. If a storm was coming, it was time to get to work. He fed on fear.

I licked my lips, sun-burnt and chapped, and slid across the hall into the bathroom, where my black clothes hung on the door. Another roll of thunder crackled above my house, and I could swear that the wind carried his scent. I breathed it in until I was dizzy, longingly hanging onto the intoxication it wrought. Don’t lose your head, Rhyanidd. Even as I said it, my blood was rising, forcing my heart rate higher, and choking the breath from my lungs.

My eyes shifted to the photo in the corner of the mirror; Carell’s blue eyes stared down at me, their disappointment clawing at my dancing heart. I lifted my nose slightly and sniffed at the air; he was close. Very close.

I glared back at the picture defiantly and wrenched my hair into its tight ponytail. I’d let him down for the last time.

Night cloaked the street oppressively; the stars were hidden by clouds, the streetlights by a thick fog, and my own vision was hazy with hate. His smell was close, mingled horridly with that of a human—one that was slowly being drained of his life force. I closed my eyes, and, with a shout of pain, the skin on my back tore open at the shoulder blades, giving way to the wings forcing their way into the air.

I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a tinted car window, saw the poisonous darkness that was creeping closer to my body, and allowed myself to long for earlier days, when my feathers were white and my transformation painless. When I was still untainted, holy, behind the safety of the pearly gates that protected my kind. But those days were long gone, and now, like a cancer, my own wings were turning on me, destroying me.

A fork of lightning grounded somewhere behind me, and the air reeked with the smell of sizzling human flesh. I took flight toward it, knowing that I could find him nearby.

The smell and the lightning led me true. I crouched in the shadows, and watched him work on his latest victim. The electricity had fried the young man’s battered body, black and slowly oozing drops of crimson liquid. The monster above him worked tediously, peeling charred flesh from pink muscle with a diabolic glint in his eye. Bile churned in my stomach as I gazed upon this meticulous dissection, and I resisted the urge to shudder. Any movement could be deadly.

I closed my eyes while he feasted and slaked his bloodlust, unable to stand the sight of what had once been a Godly vessel now devouring the very thing he had been sent to protect.

I am a fallen angel; the earth is my home. I went away from the light because I preferred the comfort of the shadows and the night.

A soft chuckle found its way past my defenses, and it was a sound I was startled to hear. Black eyes stared into mine, and blood dripped from his fangs onto my arm. I opened my mouth to scream, but my thoughts were cut off.

I woke groggily, with a headache, to the sight of harsh fluorescent lights.

“Rise and shine, princess,” a whisper commanded from somewhere behind me, sending shivers down my spine.

“Where am I?”

“Don’t you recognize home anymore, beautiful?”

My wings were still extended; I could feel them pressing into my back, and I struggled to sit up to relieve the pain it was causing.

He chuckled. “Oh, my sweet, your time is running out.”

“So is yours,” I spat.

He ran a cold finger down my face, and I didn’t have the strength to pull away. “Such fire for a waning soul.” He stood and came around behind me, untied the ropes binding my wrists, and lifted me to my feet. “Time to earn your place in Heaven,” he sneered, his face contorted garishly. There was dried blood caked to his fangs, and on his lips.

“Go to Hell.”

He smirked, and the blood cracked and flaked, falling to the floor. “Make me.”

I moved as fast as I could, but he was quicker, stronger, and he knew me better than I knew myself. Before I’d taken three steps, he had his arm locked around my neck, his fangs against my throat.

“What are you going to do, Carell? Are you going to kill me?”

“It’s Aiden now. Carell died.”

I refused to believe that. He was in there somewhere, behind those heartless eyes and the fangs.

“Why did he go?” I asked. I needed to keep him talking, keep his fangs away from my neck, until I could figure out how to do this.

“I answer to no one but myself, and I choose what I believe.”

Anger flooded my veins, and I spun to face him. “A poem? You based your desertion off of a poem?”

“The poem simply said what I felt.”

“That’s a lie.”

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back. “Don’t ever say that again.”

I whimpered and nodded acquiescence. “You’re hurting me.”

“Good.”

He let go of me and threw my head back. “I don’t think I’ll kill you just yet. Go sit in the corner. I’m going out for a bit. Don’t try to escape, because I’ll just come and find you, and then I’d have to kill you sooner. And we don’t want that, do we?”

My options were die at that moment or die later. Neither was welcomed, but at least if I chose the latter, I could take him down with me. I found a mirror and checked the progression of the toxins invading my wings. I guessed that I had two hours to do this right, and I’m sure he was quite aware of that fact.

I searched the warehouse for a weapon. A wooden stake in the form of a cross was the foolproof method for getting rid of a vampire, so I was currently informed.

Time to play hide-and-seek.

If it weren’t for the adrenaline, I might have fallen asleep waiting for him to return. From my hiding spot, I could see him enter, look around for me, and sigh heavily.

“Are we playing games now, princess?” he called into the empty space. I stayed silent as he strolled from one end of the warehouse to the other, subtly casting glances at the piles of boxes, trying to catch a movement as he had in the alley.

”This could be amusing, but you’re only wasting your time. The longer you play, the less time you have to kill me.”

He was right and I knew it. But if I waited for the right moment, I wouldn’t need much time to stab him.

“Do you know what he told me before he died? Your little lover, Carell? He said it was about you: he came to me because of you, because you wanted him to be perfect, to be an ideal, and all he wanted was to be himself. No rules, no curfew, no leader. He didn’t even love you.”

It’s a lie, I told myself. He’s trying to get a rise. Carell loved me, and he knew that I only ever expected him to be himself, the best version of himself that he could be. I never asked him to be perfect, and he returned the favour. Carell left because the beast before me had been brainwashed.

He was moving boxes now, looking nearly frantic as he searched for my hiding spot. Not knowing where I was meant that he was forfeiting his control, and it was not sitting well with him. This side I recognized as Carell, though he may not have been aware that it was showing.

He kept talking as he moved about the floor, but I tuned him out. The only thing left to concentrate on was my task, the one I had been given before rebirth and had remembered at the age of sixteen: to kill the demon named Aiden, Lucifer’s servant, lest he wreak havoc on the world and inspire sin. I had never dreamt that the demon would take my guardian, but my duty had not changed.

I had been cowardly for long enough. It was clear that the man in Carell’s body was no longer Carell, and it was long past time that I summoned my courage and did what I needed to do.

He passed my hiding spot quickly the first time, but he had slowed to take a closer look on lap number two. I took this as my opportunity. When he had just passed, and his back was turned, I leapt from behind my cover and raised my arm to drive the stake home.

He was too quick for me, once again. The wood was millimeters from piercing his skin when he spun, wrapped his hand around the end of the weapon, and stopped its motion with a force that jarred my elbow and chattered my teeth.

“That’s not nice,” he remarked coolly, and I could feel the blood drain from my face at the murderous glint in his eye. I’d already seen that look once tonight, and its victim could not explain how unpleasant it was. “Now see, you’re ruining my lovely schedule here.”

“Just get it over with,” I retorted, though I held onto the dagger.

“I think I’ll just let nature take its course.”

He turned his back to me and I lunged again. He was ready for me and dodged the attack, tripping me with his foot as I stumbled past. I tumbled to the floor and the stake went flying out of my hand and across the warehouse.

“I thought we’d been over this before. You need to learn some manners, Rhyan. Killing the host before he’s eaten dessert is frowned upon in most cultures.”

He bared his fangs and knelt over me, pinning my arms to the ground and tilting my chin up. Pain like nothing I’d ever experienced, not even when my wings had begun to poison me, shattered through my bones. I screamed, a long, shrill noise that set his teeth on edge if the pressure with which he closed his jaw was any indication. The pain went beyond excruciating: numbness began to set in, and my mind went hazy. It occurred to me that he wasn’t turning me, and he wasn’t possessing me; he was poisoning me.

My right side was already going numb, but I had my wits about me enough to remark on his cruelty: he hadn’t started near my heart and let the poison paralyze that. No, he had to make sure that I died slowly and painfully. Anger rippled through me. There was no way he was going to leave this warehouse alive. Not again.

He removed himself from my chest and I could breathe again, though I knew there was very little time until his poison paralyzed my lung. The dagger was lying just out of arms’ reach, and I had very little strength as it were. Reaching for the stake might cost me the energy I would need to kill the demon.

My vision was beginning to blur. It was now or never. I began to creep my hand up toward the cross lying on the floor above my head, and my final prayer was said in hope of help. I prayed that he would not see me, would not notice my plan. I prayed that I would have the strength to do what I had not yet been able to. And when my fingers closed around the handle of the cross, I wept and thanked God for listening to my request.

His back was still turned to me, and my legs were numbing. I struggled to my feet, the feeling in which had been reduced to pins and needles, and hobbled over to my victim.
He turned at the last moment, but it was too late. My aim was true, and the cross burnt its way through his skin. He fell into my arms with a shocked look on his face and we tumbled to the floor together. I struck my head on the concrete floor and saw the stars dancing in front of my eyes. The Lord was pleased with me, and had come to take me home.

He was shaking in my lap, writhing in agony, his eyes closed and jaw clenched.
“I… I…” He stopped for a moment, appeared to collect himself, and made a final attempt. “I am just a… fallen angel, yet… by my choice I did fall. And if… I had the chance to change my fate… I’m not sure if I could… make the call Think of me… how you wish… I can live with your… hate. But I am no longer… a prisoner… behind those pearly gates.”

He let out an unearthly howl of pain as his body arched, taut and trembling, and his eyes flew open. Blue orbs stared blankly back into mine, and then a last shuddering breath washed across my face.

Tears were dripping from my eyes and off my chin. One landed on his cheek, but I didn’t even have the energy to wipe it away. My arms once again around my guardian, the holy vessel, I welcomed sleep with the knowledge that I had finally, after too many failed attempts to number, avenged Carell.