THE CHALDEAN ORACLE

Freeing Ishtar

Chapter 2

             The man, well Fallen Angel, who had said those words, standing on the other side of the glass was smiling at us almost from ear to ear but not showing teeth. The smile was a bit unsettling. Okay correction is was damn straight scary.

             Florence grabbed my arm, jumping up and down beside me. "He's hooooot," she whispered or what counts as whispering for her which was close to some sort of hissing sound. It was like she had a problem with her vocal chore and was unable to lower down her voice.

            Gotzone leaned forward to glare at her a little, while I rolled my eyes—trust Flo to notice that—and took a better look at the man on the other side of the glass.

             Tall, brown hair, wearing a long sleeve white shirt—more exactly a bloody around the spot on his stomach that had been stabbed and dirty white shirt—that hid all of his skin, not showing the Greek letters or well apparently tattoos in his case, the beginning of a bear, brown eyes... nothing from him really screamed "I am eviiiiil" aside from the scary smile. And well, taking into count the way everyone around me seemed to tense did show it too. I could almost feel it, the threat coming from him. Something in me seemed to have been triggered saying "you gotta cut the head off that dude right now."

             Lovely.

              Mr Nacachi sighed and came to stand between us and the glass. "Now everyone, don't mind him. So this is,"

             "Mister Nacachi" the Fallen Angel cut our teacher, "the Arche who had to go under court because he killed one of his Ishim student out of boredom during one of his lecture."

             I had never seen the expression that appeared on Mister Nacachi's face before in my life. "I did NOT... we were under attack, the student got struck by a lance, I did not kill him!"

             People around were trying to keep from laughing. Mr Nacachi's rant did get boring after a while... Plus his voice was getting a little high pitch from getting worked up here.

             "Keep telling yourself that," the Fallen Angel grinned, looking at his fingernails like he was bored.

             "You don't know anything about this!" Mr Nacachi almost shouted.

             Some one got their panties in a notch...

             "Oh I know something," the Fallen nodded for emphasis "I was there."

             "You weren't in the court!"

             Okay this time his voice was definitely high pitch. But I'm pretty sure he was right though. The court Mr Nacachi was talking about was the Supreme Court in the Khaos, were all the Angels and God were staying. When an Angel did something wrong or right and some thought they deserved a reward for it, that's where he would be judged by one of the twenty four Elders or Thrones; the Angels making judgements. You had to be pretty high up to be an Elder. And you needed to have sixteen Greek letters.

             "But I was around," the Fallen added "And I still stand by the argument that you killed that kid out of boredom. Arches suck."

             Something was weird. Every time the Fallen Angel spoke I had a tingling feeling in my neck and head. Maybe that was some Fallen Angel skills. It was the fist time I saw a live one after all.

             "And you think you're better," Mr Nacachi challenged.

             This was getting entertaining.

             "Well I'm obviously hotter than you, that's a fact." He made a annoyed-slightly-bored smile, one where he closed his eyes, stretched his lips on both side but didn't show any teeth and leaned his head on the side a little. The whole operation barely lasted more than three seconds.

             Condescending.

             "And cooler," he added and proceeded to go right in front of the glass, both hands on it, moving his head towards and away from it fast, almost bumping his head on it making grimaces and bleeaaah sound, sticking his tongue out. "It'd be totally epic if I could start levitating right now while doing little flappy wings movement with my hands on the side, wouldn't it?"

             Fallen Angels couldn't fly because like Ishims, they had no wings. They had wings when they were Angels but somehow they had been ripped off, whether by them or someone else, that wasn't important, they just didn't have them anymore. Angels when they came on Earth often took material form, just like Mr Nacachi had a material form right now, and so when they did, most of the time they kept their wings, especially if they were warrior Angels. And so, that's how they could get ripped off. They could have been sentence to have them ripped off by the Elders too. But technically if they went back to the Khaos, with the Holy Spirit, they could grow them back. If they weren't sentence to exile. But a sentence to wings-ripped-off-and-exile usually was close to being turned into a Demon. Because Angels wanted wings, they were made to have wings and so if they couldn't have white ones, they settled for black ones.

             In my mind that sentence was kind of cruel, I mean that was bound to hurt like a motherflapper! But the other sentences were the Tartaros which was the deepest dungeons of the Underworld and you go completely bunkers if you end up there, or the Gehenna which was the equivalent of the Hell of the humans but for Angels or Demons, or Ishims too actually, oh and Limbo was in the possible sentences too. In the Limbo you can't remember the last word you just thought, so it's kind of a bad place to be.

             Cruel and stupid because here, on Earth we killed them. So their sentence quickly turned to death sentence. And then they'd go right back to Tartaros, Gehenna or Limbo. Or if for some unknown and probably impossible reason they had a good heart they could go to Zion; the Heaven of the Spiritual beings.

             "So, obviously this is what happens when anyone of the Angel variety consumes drugs..." Mr Nacachi sighed motioning towards the weird-acting man.

             "Oh wait," the Fallen yelled bumping his fist on the glass that separated him from us, "didn't you also try to sell your virginity on ebay?"

             Mr Nacachi showed all the signs of being on the verge of dashing threw the glass to rip his heart out. And I was covering my mouth to keep from roaring with laugher.

             "If it makes you feel any better I betted forty bucks on you."

             Mister Nacachi's face was bright red. I didn't even know it was possible to make an Angel turn red like that. "You know what? I'm sure you became a Fallen Angel because God couldn't endure you. You must have gotten on his nerves so much that he didn't want you around in Khaos anymore."

             The Fallen Angel stopped moving completely, slapped his hands on his mouth and then on the glass, leaning forward, sticking his face on the glass making farting noises with his cheeks and lips "Oh my GOD! How did you guess it?"

             Our teacher suddenly looked a little smug. "And you aren't becoming a Demon because no one can endure you in the Sheol either."

             Sheol being the place where the Demons are staying if they're not on Earth causing catastrophes. Angels live in the Khaos, Demons in the Sheol.

             "Naw I'm not becoming a Demon because I have a restraining order on Lucifer. She butt-raped me with the horns she bought for her Halloween costume last year. I'm irresistible you see and she wouldn't take "no you crazy lady" for an answer..." he trailed and then covered his face with his hands and started to sob "And it's a really touchy subject for me to bring up like that..."

             Talk about bipolar...

             Mr Nacachi narrowed his eyes. "You're annoying."

             And the Fallen Angel stopped sobbing and smiled directly at him. "And you obviously got molested by a Care Bear, but I'm not one to judge."

             And that did it, everyone started to laugh.

             Except our teacher.

             "Alright, I think you spoke enough. Order students or you'll have to write a two thousand word essay on the Limbo!" That effectively shut us up. "So as I was saying, this is the Fallen Angel a group of Ishims and three Malakhims caught about a month ago. What is the usual rule about Fallen Angels?"

             A boy raised his hand and recited, "Behead them on sight because they are Demons on the making."

             Usually, Fallen Angels didn't stay Fallen Angels too long. A century, two at the most. And it was easier to kill a Fallen then a Demon.

             "Yes, yes very well. Now they didn't do that because they were able to catch him and wanted to get information from him."

            "How's that working out for y'all?" the Fallen asked in a very strong southern accent.

            Mr Nacachi ignored him. "So far the results have been inconclusive. We don't even know his name. So next step would be to ask Angels around if they knew him, before Fallen that is, that could give us info, and then if we still don't get anything then it's decapitation."

            Decapitation because it's the way to kill any kind of spiritual beings. Though Fallen Angel can't technically get immaterial or fuel up on Holy Spirit in the Khaos for Angel or Sheol for Demons, they can still heal pretty fast to any kind of fatal wound. So if you cut the head off then you're pretty sure that it can't be sewed back up. There are few weapons that exist, though very rare that don't require beheading and that can kill spiritual beings, but as I said, very rare. Now, if they're immaterial though, you're screwed and you better run the flap away or call like a wimpy kid to his mommy for a Kyriotite to help because I'm not betting any money on your life there.

             "So, that's about it. Any questions?"

             "What would be your advice on the best way to catch a Fallen Angel" Gregory asked. He was looking towards the prisoner so I guess he was asking the question to him.

             The Fallen Angel did that stretch lips without showing teeth, leaning head on the side and closing his eyes smile again. "I'm not good at giving advice but can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"

             Gregory and quite a few people rolled their eyes.

             "Fine, personally kidnap my aunty and I'd turn myself in. You know, trade prisoner. That's if my aunty wasn't a total kick ass super high level Ishim hunter. Because yes, there is such a thing as an Ishim hunter, kaboom!" he made a kaboom motion with his hands there. What was he, four years old? "Then I'd advice waiting until the Fallen Angel ends up ass up drunk in an alley. That happens a lot when he wakes up to wine every morning. But I'm not an alcoholic," he said and changed his tone of voice to a whiny annoying on the verge of crying one, "I can stop whenever I want"

             "And that will be it for this part of the tour," our teacher groaned. "Next we will see two real live Demons. Now those were a lot harder to catch" he added with enthusiasm and started to walk towards another hall.

             I followed the group, Florence and Gotzone walking a little bit in front of me, but before turning to get to the other hall, I looked back to the Fallen Angel and he was looking at me like he was seeing a ghost. Both of his hands were pressed against the glass, like somehow he could pass through it.

I frowned, and took a step towards him, away from my class.

And then he breathed "Clea?"

What the actual...?

I opened my mouth to say something but he spoke before I could. "How is this even possible? How are you alive? How can you be here? Clea? Clea?"

How did that Fallen Angel know my name? And what did he mean, "how are you alive"? What was going on?

Suddenly, he punched the glass keeping him away from me and it cracked. I backed away, my eyes widening. Holy mother of all... 

It all happened pretty fast afterwards. Ishim guards got into his cell, trying to restrain him. He incapacitated three of them in less than five seconds. Alarms started to blast, more people got in his cell, and other guards pushed me away, telling me to leave with my group.

And all the while he kept screaming my name.