THE CHALDEAN ORACLE

Freeing Ishtar

Chapter 1

Three words kept popping in my mind that afternoon.

Field trips suck.

"And now on your left you can see a carbonated conserved body of a Low Level Demon. The lower leveled demons can't possess human bodies nor can they alter your thoughts and other thinking process since they don't have spiritual forms, only material. They are just... lions of some sorts, guardians dogs of Hell or to High Level Demons here on Earth or in the Sheol. It has happened that a Middle Level Demon allied with an army of Low Level Demons, but usually it's to overthrown a powerful Demon, nothing to do with us. So the one we have here is actually a shedu. The female is called a lamassu. The shedu were seen as protectors by Assyrians, they put representation of them at their doors. But the one here is definitely not just a representation. He used to help us until he rebelled and..."

Mister Nicachi was rambling. He always started to ramble when he could show off his knowledge. He couldn't show us any physic laws but when it came to tell us all about demons and their underlings he was the one to call.

Field trips sucked. I never really enjoyed them.

Someone always got lost and we had to wait hours for them. Like the last time, Johnson Jones, prick name to start with, decided that he wanted to climb on freaking top of the T-Rex in the science museum we were at, using his invisibility ability, but when he got on top, got scared and started to flash like some cheap Christmas decoration. Because of him we had to wait, first for him to get down and then to wipe the minds of that memory of anyone who had seen. Needless to say I hated Johnson Jones.

We also had to stay up and listen for hours to the tour lady and we couldn't lean on hour desk to sleep. If you had asked me I would have rather have PowerPoint of those or invite a few in our class. It's not like any caught Demon would have a chance against a pack of teenage Ishims who were just waiting to prove to all the spiritual spheres that they could kick some asses.

My fellow school colleagues and I are Ishims which are basically cool human beings with angelic abilities that protect the world from demonic threats. My life sounds like a bad movie trailer in my head. I can actually hear the deep voiced guy say it : Since the dawn of time, there have been Ishims, manlike beings with angelic abilities to assure balance and protect mankind against demons, dun dun DUN.

Basically, we're like cheap Angels, the equivalent of a fake Gucci purse when compared to the real deal. We're not really Angels, we just have some of their abilities. We couldn't counsel God, met in person. We can't take an immaterial form. We can't even fully grow our wings. There's not enough Holy Spirit in us. We just have enough to kill demons.

Ishims have been on Earth for centuries. The first ones we're conceived like Jesus, way before him though. The Holy Spirit, God's magic little fairy dust, did all the work. Three thousand were born that way. And they started to make babies the normal way from then.

Everyone in this class is the child of two Ishims. If both your parents aren't Ishim you go to a lower school, but generally we don't mate outside our kind because our level of attachment is too great for humans. A normal human wouldn't completely get us. Also, it is completely forbidden for humans to know anything about us. Well okay, the Demons opened their big stupid mouth sometimes so some did know about Angels and Demons and all, but very few actually knew about Ishims. So a human and an Ishim together is not really common considering if they are together the Ishim as to lie to him. But it happens.

Personally, I don't know my parents. I was dropped at my adoptive ones' footsteps when I was a newborn baby. This is not an unusual thing. A lot of Ishim parents do it because taking care of a child takes them away from the task at hand which is hunting down and killing all evil. I don't really mind. And they choose a good home for me.

Even though I don't know my parents, I know they were both Ishim. For one thing I have my family's ring. Every Ishims have rings with their family totem on it. My family name is Ivory and therefore I have the elephant ring.

I also bare all the marks of an Ishim; the birthmark on my right ankle which represents the Greek letter Alpha, the two lines on each side of my spine of my back that are the beginning of my never growing wings and the other birthmark on my back at the level of my heart in the shape of the Greek letter Omega. I have the Alpha and the Omega on me, the beginning and the end. We all do. Higher level Angels have more Greek alphabet on them. Apparently the Archangel Michael is the only one to have the entire alphabet. I have never met him so I couldn't say if this is true. A child who would only have one Ishim parent would only have the Omega birthmark, only the end.

"... helping Gabriel. Now is there anyone who remembers what rank Gabriel is?" Mr. Nacachi asked.

Last winter we had gone on a trip to Rome for a sort of conference with hundreds of other young Ishims. The only thing I did remember about the Angel is that he sounded a bit like a wuss... no offence or anything...

"Anyone? Oh yes, Mr. Likos?" Mr Nacachi smiled, looking towards the tall, sometimes scary looking black haired boy.

"He's an Exousies" Gregory answered.

"Yes, that is correct. So as I was saying, the shedu here helped..."

Exousies are the bearer of conscience, meaning that little annoying voice in the back of your head telling you not to do something. Yah, that was them. They usually kept their immaterial form, just to communicate with humans to stop them from doing bad things or protecting them. Though if they had to they could fight Demons. And they had a total of ten Greek letters on them.

There is a great deal of levels when it comes to spiritual beings.

For instance, Mister Nacachi, like all my teachers, is an Arche. The Arches are actual Angels. They have their wings and five more Greek alphabets letters on them then us. They are always in their material form, meaning a tangible body, unlike the higher sphere of Angels, like the Exousies previously mentioned, which usually stay immaterial, in spirit. The Arches are the educators and the guardians of the realm of Earth. They are here to teach us Ishims but also human beings, inspiring all living things to arts and science. Mister Nacachi is more of an "art" type of Arche.

Now below Arches in the ranks but over Ishims are the Malakhims. They are the messenger Angels but also warrior Angels to help us whenever we Ishim go for a hunt for a tedious demon. Malakhims usually have five Greek alphabet letters on them in total but some have more depending on exploit they did, people they saved, number of demons they killed...

Kyriotites, higher up Angels, higher then Exousies or Arches could also fight with us if they bothered. But usually they fight on their own, and they fight much much more dangerous Demons then we do so personally I rather not fight with a Kyriotite.

A great deal of Demons are Malakhims that decided they wanted to work for the "dark side". They got tired of God or wanted to mate with humans or anything in the likings. You can decipher a Demon from an angel by the color of their wings. Angels have white wings, and Demons black. The second they make the conscious decision to detach themselves from God's spiritual spheres their wings switch colors. Free will. They decide that they want to be demons and therefore they become so.

Another way to become a Demon is to corrupt a pure soul. Some people decided to put canons as to what makes the man wicked but the truth is fornication will not corrupt your soul if it doesn't affect the pureness of your soul, if you are still a good person to the core. If you can be virtuous and do any good deed, you're good. No Deadly Sin really is as long as you stay pure, as long as your soul still shines. That's kind of weird to say but it's the truth, some Ishims and all Angels can see that, apparently it's like they're shining, maybe kinda like the star in Stardust when she's happy. Definitely not like Edward though. But I can't make a perfect analogy because I don't have that gift, I can't see pureness of heart.

The goal of every Angel is to keep everyone's heart pure. The goal of every Demons is to turn every hearts wicked. Because souls are what fuels Holy Spirit. Human soul to be more exact. Once a human dies, if he has a pure heart, his soul will go in Heaven. There he is in a state of perpetual dream. Everything he wants he can dream of. So when humans dream here it's a little glimpse of what Heaven can be like. And while he dreams like that, his soul feeds the Holy Spirit, the energy that makes us Ishims and every Angels able to make miracles and have inhuman abilities. Without human souls fuelling it, we'd be screwed.

Now, if your heart is not pure then you go to Hell. A perpetual nightmare. And your soul will be fuelling the Demon's reserve of Holy Spirit making them stronger and more dangerous. Satan was once a high ranked Angel in charge of Hell and he hated it. So at one point he decided to say "go fly a kite I'm becoming a free agent" to the institution. But he kept the key to the damn place and so God lost the Holy Spirit the souls in Hell gave him. When Lucifer learned that Satan had rebelled she decided that she wanted to do the same thing. Lucifer was one of God's favourite child. She was beautiful and a real daddy's girl. So she had access to all of which makes God so powerful. And so the skank stole a bunch of things. Spells, incantations, power to create, the list is endless, I don't even know how most of those things work and honestly it scares me a bit to think Lucifer was able to get so many because to this date we don't know everything she took. So I rather not think about it too much.

And that was the story as to how the Demons started. After that other Angels followed. It was around the same time that some Angels decided they wanted to take human woman too so they all kind of teamed up together, but Satan is the leader and Lucifer is his bitch.

My little Angels and Demons fact rambling was stopped again when I heard Mr Nacachi ask, "Joseph what is the most common mistake humans make about the Underworld?"

The tall blond haired boy who was a few feet from me answered automatically. "They think it's the same thing as Hell, when in reality the Underworld is a prison for spiritual beings. Not Satan's Hell."

"Very good, very good. So as I said, this shedu was in the Underworld for two centuries before..."

I tried to keep myself from swooning and sighing out loud and staring at him for longer than appropriate.

Damnation...

Joseph Leon. Joseph is the definition of perfect. Everyone wants Joseph. Why? Well for one thing he is hot as Hell, and when I say that it is a totally plausible comparison because the eviller a Demon his, the hotter. The real Demons though, not the Lower Level crap. Anyway... Joseph is the complete opposite of evil. He's perfect. Perfect curly blond hair, a little on the yellow side that are just begging you to brush your fingers threw, maddening green a little yellowish eyes that seem to be able to pierce to the very core of your soul, tall lean body... He stays quiet in class, only speaks when important, always has this wise, calm smile on his face, brings an aura of peacefulness around him. For human girls a boy that shows his chest and his all testosterone and man-whore jerky like is hot and irresistible. For Ishim girls it's the angelic one we want. And that's what Joseph is. He's perfect and he's pure and he's kind and we all need to confess a lot after staring at him for too long.

But of course Joseph doesn't know I exist. Luckily he doesn't know any girl exists, or if he does doesn't show any preferences for any of them so that's a good thing. If he was human I'd asked myself if he was gay... oh who am I kidding, I ask myself if he's gay as an Ishim too... I mean most Demons were bi after all, it's not a shocker!

Rambling...

That happens a lot when I think about Joseph.

"Next up we will see a still living Fallen Angel caught about a month ago by a group of Ishims helped by three Malakhims." Mr Nacachi said, moving towards another corridor.

"Fallen Angel? You mean Demon?" Florence blurred in a typical Flo tone. One that means "what the heck are you going on about". My five feet two inches best friend has a neck at blurring things out and jumping up and down for no reason, though she's been strangely calm since we got here. She hates field trip too.

"No I do mean Fallen Angel. He didn't trade his white wings for black ones. He's... in a middle state if you want..." Mr Nacachi didn't seem exactly convinced when he said that.

"What's his rank... when he was still an Angel?" Gotzone, my other best friend asked standing by my other side. While Flo had a neck at blurring things out, Got had a neck at tripping on things. I didn't know anyone as clumsy as that boy. If there was a way he could trip and fall on his butt he would. If there was a way he could accidently hit the school principal on the back of the head and knock down the entire cheerleading squad, though we didn't have one in our school, he would too. As I said, clumsy.

"We don't know, his body is covered with tattoos on the spot where the alphabets letters should be and either way he wouldn't let us anywhere near him to count them, and he took care of all electronic devices that could scan him or take pictures of him. He obviously knows how things work in here so he has to be familiar with such facilities therefore he's probably a used-to-be guard Malakhim. We're still coming up with hypothesis at this point, and he's not being very cooperative," Mr. Nacachi explained while he stopped in front of a cell separated from us with a glass.

"And he's standing right here and he can hear you. He can speak too, and I think that if you give him a large amount of alcohol he can dance around shaking his butt in a very promiscuous way if you ask nicely."

Woah...

[A/N: Okay so I'm throwing a lot of info on you guys, so if you don't understand something, need clarification, think I should write things differently feel free to share your opinion. I'm always open to suggestions! :P And I love to ramble on and on about this story so don't worry about asking questions!

*ADDED

So following Lucky4 advice I'll put a list so you guys can understand a little bit better the Angel's ranks. (from the highest to the lowest)

Archangel : Michael. God counsellor and closest son. Twenty four Greek letters.

Seraph : Twenty-two Greek letters. Protector of God's throne. Bodyguards. If you come close to them without permission you are poisoned. Can cleansed someone wholly with their heat. Direct communication with God. If you want to see God you have to pass through them first. They're the security agents.

Cherubim : Twenty Greek letters. Always immaterial. Keep the gates of Heaven and watch over the souls, make sure they are okay.

Elders or Thrones : Sixteen Greek letters. There's only twenty four of them. They make the judgment. Judges to Supreme court.

Kyriotite : Fourteen Greek letters. Rarely ever show themselves to the humans. Stay immaterial. Rule over all the lower angels. Can decipher them from the glowing orb of their swords. Can also fight the none material demons. They go head on against Demon. Start the fights and are very dangerous.

Exousie : Ten Greek letters. Bearer of conscience. They're the little voices in your head telling you not to do this or that. They don't usually fight against Demons, just try to communicate to humans to stop them from doing bad and protecting them. But if they have to they will.

Arche : Seven Greek letters. Teachers to Ishim and humans. Inspire all living things to many things such as art and science.

Malakhim : Five Greek letters. Messenger angels and warrior ones. Fight material demons and sometimes immaterial but very rarely. Help the Ishims.

Ishim : Two Greek letters. Manlike beings with angelic attributes that assure the balance and protect mankind against evil.