THE CHALDEAN ORACLE

Freeing Ishtar

Chapter 6

The fact that I was now standing all alone in an alley with three Demons and a Fallen Angel was almost as scary as how familiar the Fallen Angel’s voice had sounded to me.

            How could it be flapping familiar? I had only seen him once?

            He walked past me and towards the two Demons still standing in front of me. They were backing up. Why were they backing up? They were Demons. He was just a Fallen Angel.

           And that flapping bastard had taken the dagger tied on my back when he had walked past me. I was so screwed!

           “Look, I know how you’ve just got out of prison and you need to get some,” the Fallen Angel started to say, pointing them with the dagger. Even if this was a life or death situation his flapping voice made me feel all gooey like. Get a grip Clea! “But there are tons of decent strip clubs here guys, and Saint Catherine’s full of hookers so why don’t you just go there? I mean the Gay village’s just screaming for studs like you. Keep your eyes open for the rainbow on Beaudry station, once you see it you know you’re at the right place.”

           My eyes widen in disbelief. With what I knew of the Fallen Angel in front of me that shouldn’t have surprised me, but those were Demons in front of him, Demons. He was really insane, wasn’t he?

           Both of the Demons answered at the same time, their voice both equally furious. “You dare mocking us?”

           I shivered with fright. Why was he pissing them off like that?

           I had to leave, and I had to do it fast. This was the kind of distraction I had been looking for. But when I looked back, the Demon that the Fallen Angel had flung away was still there, getting back on his feet and in front the two other Demons and the Fallen Angel were there. And on both my sides there were buildings, and unlike my little brother, I could jump high enough to reach the emergency stairs to get to the roof and even if I could I wouldn’t have the strength in my arms to lift me up.

           If I survived this I would so start doing arms exercises.

           “Hey, I’m not the one judging your extracurricular activities,” he took a few other steps forward and I could hear the smug smile in  his tone, “I’m just saying that girl over there,” he pointed back at me with the dagger “you’re not touching her. Ever.”

           Oh flapping hell. Should I be scared? I should be scared right? Because I was definitely scared right now, scared and frozen on the spot.

           “We’ll do whatever we want with her,” a voice echoed behind me, a voice much too close. I looked back and the Demon that had been thrown away was merely feet away from me, and I could see his face now, his wide smile and dark eyes, a stare that simply couldn’t be human.

           The Fallen Angel turned around. “Step away from the lady, Fungus!”

           “You calling me Fungus,” he groaned. If he took one more step he could probably grab me by the arm and kill me.

           I didn’t want to die, not now and especially not kill by that abomination of a Demon!

           “See, the way things usually work is that when I make someone scream in a high pitch girly voice like you just did,” the Fallen Angel walked back towards me as he spoke, and even though his tone was casual his expression was not. He was flapping scary. The Demon was backing away. “That person is my bitch and if you’re my bitch I get to call you however the beep beep beep I want. Fungus.”

           The next second the metal cover of a trash can was flying straight towards the Fallen Angel.

           And he just flung it away with his hand like it was a fly. The sound it made when it rebounded on the building was ears-covering worthy.

           The Fallen Angel laughed, without humour. “Is that the best you got? What are you going to do next? Throw a Cheerio at the back of my head and expect it to hurt?”

           “Are you aware of what our wrath can trigger, arrogant fool,” the two Demons behind us groaned.

           For one second my hand had lifted a bit, to grab the Fallen Angel, like I was scared and needed to hold on to someone. Luckily I realized my action before I did it because that was just a bad bad bad idea.

           What I needed to do right now was to find a way, any way, to get the flap away from here!

           “Oh my god! HIDE YOUR VIRGINS EVERYONE!” The Fallen Angel covered his cheeks with his hands, in faux terror “Boo hoo. Like I give a crap. In ten minutes you’ll all be dead anyway.”

           The certainty with which he said that made me confidant for a second. I mean, why would he be facing Demons if he didn’t have faith that he could actually kill them all? Unless he had a death wish or something…

           Please God, please make sure that that Fallen Angel doesn’t have a death wish.

           Where was Kalvin anyway? And Sofiel? Or any other Angel or Ishim for that matter!

           “You think so,” the two Demons asked, again exactly at the same time and with the same tone, smiling mischievously.

           It didn’t take too long for me to understand why they seemed so smug because the next second something seriously flapped up happened. They started to both move their shoulders and backs in a very weird way and it seemed like something inside of them was trying to get out, and then there was the sound of flesh tearing.

           They weren’t two anymore but four.

           Okay, now I was seriously worried.

           I looked at the Fallen Angel with probably desperate eyes, while he just looked at them, half smiling.

           “Make that fifteen.”

           And then he lunged at them.

           The speed with which he did it was inhuman. If I had blinked my eyes I wouldn’t have seen him moving—where Fallen Angel supposed to move so fast?

           He jumped on the closest Demons, grabbed him by the hair and in one swift movement chopped his head off.

           The Demons definitely hadn’t seen him coming.

           The Demon behind lunged himself at me. I just had time to drop on the ground and roll away.

           I got back on my feet fast, cursing the stupid Fallen Angel for taking my dagger.

           The Demon smiled at me, hands up on his sides, while I backed away slowly.

           I probably couldn’t outrun him and anyway I knew that after one kilometre and a half I’d probably need a break.

           If I survived this I’d start seriously running.

           The Demon was about to lunge again but then a blade was sticking out his stomach, while he stared at me in surprise. The blade disappeared and his knees buckled and he fell on the ground.

           The Fallen Angel bloody dagger still in hand, grabbed his head and smashed it on the ground and looking at him said, “stay down for a second please, I’ll get right back at you.” He looked up at me, smiled a scary smile and turned around throwing the dagger right in the face of one of the three Demons still standing.

           I looked at the scene in horror. Without weapon, he was screwed.

           One of the Demons lunged at him, and the Fallen Angel dropped one hand on the ground, flipping his body up fast just in time to catch the Demon coming his way by the neck with his calves and the sound of bones breaking echoed in the alley.

           With the movement he swung the dead Demon—nice to know that breaking neck was as efficient to incapacitate a Demon—towards the last one standing who avoided the body at the last second.

           “You don’t scare me,” the Demon said.

           The Fallen Angel laughed. “You peed in your pants, in my book that‘s called being scared.”

           The Demon pointed his finger at the Fallen Angel, backing away as he approached. “Why are you even doing this? Why are you fighting me? We’re on the same side! You should be fighting the Angels! You should be fighting her!”

           Oh oh… Why was he bringing this up? Because he was obviously right about that…

           This would have been the perfect time to run the flap away but I couldn’t move… and I wanted to hear that answer, just a little bit…

           The Fallen Angel snorted. “Seriously dude, I’m not going to be your butt body, I don’t play in that team.”

           “You’re fighting the wrong person,” the demon yelled and he sounded scared, very scared. I would be too. I was scared right now and I wasn’t even the one about to get kill. Though for all I knew, maybe I was next on the killing list.

           “Want to know what I hate the most about Demons?” The Fallen Angel took one lightning fast step and wrapped his fingers around the Demons throat. “They think they know everything.”

           He did something then, I don’t know what exactly, he was touching spots on his neck though and the Demon went limp on the ground.

           Okay, that was very comforting… not.

           The Fallen Angel turned around and smiled at me, one scary smile. “Well that was fun.”

           I’m dead, I’m sooo dead!

           He walked towards me and I backed away, my back hitting the building after two steps. But he didn’t go after me, instead he just bended when he reached the Demon he had smashed the head and patted his shoulder.

           “So, how’s it going Fungus?” the Demon’s eyelids shuttered opened and he groaned. “Don’t take it the wrong way Xezbeth, you just annoy me a lot you know, because of all those fake tales you go around telling.” He patted his cheek. “Don’t make that face, of course I know all about it. So, here’s how things work, I’m going to snap your neck and then you’re going to go back to Sheol and you’re going to tell Luci to back the hell off. Simple right?”

           Woah, what was that all about?

           “You can’t keep on going like this; you know that, don’t you,” the Demon said, almost happily, scarily happily, the way only a Demon could blood covering his teeth.

           “That’s where you’re wrong. Now go home, and remember, Luci, get lost, alright?”

           And the Fallen Angel’s hand wrapped around the Demon’s throat and he snapped it in a goosebump triggering, hair rising sound of bone crushing. When I say snap I literally mean snap in half like the head was bubbling towards the back in a very awkward and scary angle.

           Those hands could snap my neck like it was just a twinge between his fingers.

           The body twisted and weaved on the ground and then it was like a shadow bursted out of it and flew upwards.

           I swallowed loudly and looked towards the empty street on my left, out and away from this alley.

           Could I run?

           No I couldn’t, because the Fallen Angel got up on his feet again, and walked towards me. I couldn’t back away more, I was completely pressed against the wall.

           The way he looked at me as he walked, with a huge smile, in the dark alley, all we needed right here was blood dripping on his chin and we had the perfect scenario to a new bestselling vampire movie.

           He stopped inches from my face, frowning a little bit. “Have we met before?”

           Okay woah… Was he drunk or something? Or maybe he really hadn’t been looking at me. Because I was sure, this was the Fallen Angel I had seen the other week, still wearing the same bloody white shirt with define thick muscles underneath, with wavy brown hair and the beginning of a bear definitely showing—it had grown since I had seen him—and brown eyes looking at me, large shoulders, square chin, full bottom lip—woah stop analyzing him Clea.

           “The tour,” I said in a small voice, much smaller than I had intended.

           He laughed a soundless laughed that only moved air out of his nose. “Silly girl, I meant before that.”

           I lifted my chin, and looked at him with I hoped, confidence. This was a Fallen Angel, he had killed five Demons right in front of me, but I was an Ishim, I was born and trained to kill him, plus my big brother was bound to arrive in any seconds. I narrowed my eyes at him. “If we had I’d have already killed you.”

           “Mmhmm, I highly doubt that” he answered, laughed and smooched his lips at me.

           I’m officially completely freaking out. Get him away from you, now!

           “What was that all about,” I asked and nodded my chin towards the last Demon he had killed.

           “Well, the two first ones, or well four, it’s just one Demon, a Doppelganger, you know you Ishim have cute skills,” he tapped the tip of my nose with his index when he said that and it felt like electric courant had ran through me, “well Demons have their warriors with cute skills too. What do you even learn in school these days?”

           I sucked at school, no need to rub it in. And anyway I didn’t care about those, I cared about the one he had been talking with, the one who had been possessed. He had killed an innocent bystander. “But that one, he was possessed. Did you really need to kill the human host?”

           He laughed again, shaking his head. “Moro mou, this is not Supernatural. You can’t just exorcise by mumbling a bunch of crap in Latin. There’s tying up and scratching involded…” he wiggled his eyebrows, “very kinky really. The human will be dead anyway… honestly what do you learn in school?”

           The muscles in my jaws tensed. “We don’t do exorcises,” I answered harshly.

           “Of course you don’t, because you’re an Ishim.” He smiled more.

           This was amusing to him?

           “What do you want,” I asked, my tone cold.

           Way to go Clea!

           “A lot of things.” His smile became… kinder I think. “Here’s you dagger,” he placed it in my hand “you might want to wash it, Demons stench and all.”

           I looked between it and the man standing in front of me. It didn’t take me one second to know what I had to do. A little voice in the back of my head told me exactly what that was. I moved fast to stab him.

           But he was faster. He grabbed both my hands, lifted them up, holding them against the wall behind me, moving closer. His breathe was moving the strand of hair that had escaped my pony tail. “Hmm, feisty, I like that.” His lips were so close that I could feel their warmth on the skin of my cheek “What’s your name?”

           I tried to twist out of his grip. Was he going to rape me or something like that? That was what Fallen Angels and Demons did after all… Through my clenched teeth I spit, “none of your business.”

           He laughed again. “Wow, your parents really most have hated you. I’m Levi,” he snapped his teeth at me.

           And just like that he jumped up, grabbing bars from the emergency’s stairs and ran up towards the roof.

           I stood there, eyes wide opened, unable to tear my gaze off of him.

           When he was out of sight, I fell on the ground, back leaning against the building, still holding on tight to the dagger.