Howl [Alastair]

[ELIZABETH]

The Saints can't help me now

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An eerie silence settled over the barn. The only sounds were of gurgling fluid and heavy breathing. Lightning struck a few miles away and the thunder rolled in quickly after the brilliant flash of light. She shifted over the body of a man who was still somehow alive. Well she had used her own methods of divine intervention to keep him going. She smiled as she shifted over the body, straddling his ribs with her boots. Peering down at him she crouched over the man, who was a bloody mess.

She sat on the man’s chest and took a moment to wipe her bloodied hands upon her jeans. She stared at the man that was gasping for breath. He was missing a lung. It was around here somewhere in a mess of bloodied hay and farm equipment. Once she had found this wretch of a soul she had appeared in a flurry of fire. Part of the barn was already scorched. Here an there small little fires burned, being put out by the volumes of blood that were flowing out of the man’s open chest. It was unnatural to say the least.

She licked her lips as she reached back into his thorax and squeezed his heart. He cried out in pain and she just smiled. She tilted her head as she looked down at the man, her curly hair spilling over the side of her face, blocking part of it from view. Still, a strange light glowed between the strands of black and brown. Brilliant silvery light emitted from her eyes as her grace flowed freely through her vessel. She healed the man again, for the thirteenth time. He gasped and stiffed again as his physical strength returned. Though he knew now it was not good to strike her.

“Much better Mr. Lyle,” she said calmly as she leaned forward.

She smiled and let out a contented breath. As she gathered herself back together her silvery glowing eyes returned to a mixture of gray and blue. She pressed her hand back onto Mr. Lyle’s chest and dug her nails in. Bone snapped and flew through the air once more. He cried out in panic and pain, begging for her to kill him. She merely shook her head as she took a blade and slid it down his abdomen contentedly. He was being carved like a Christmas ham, but she kept him just on the edge of shock so that he didn’t pass out.

“Death is too good for you,” she said, her voice turning into a throaty purr as she finished, “But we have been at this for what…Thirty two hours, dear? Maybe you should finally have a reprieve.”

His hope built in his once again open chest. She merely smiled down at him and pressed her palm to his forehead.
“I wish you could get to see the joys of Hell, but that’s not your fate,” she admitted as she started to tear his soul forcefully from his body.
The way his voice rang out. Well, she was certain that was the most painful part of all. Another brilliant light filled the barn, duller than the last one though. She smiled as she held the soul within her hand.

There would certainly be no Heaven for him, no Purgatory to work of his dastardly sins, and not even a Hell. Purgatory was just too forgiving. Heaven would never take Mr. Lyle in. Hell, well, it could turn him into a demon. And what good would come of that? She would just have to smite him twice! So she held onto the little ball of light with a firm grip. She studied it for a moment as she slowly got up off of the carcass. She looked down at the body and kicked it with her foot so that it rolled over. She smiled as the soulless eyes were no longer staring at her.

Sure this wasn’t her old job in Heaven. There was only so much torturing of her own kind that she could take. Humans…Humans that were deserving of such wrath; well they were on her list. She licked her lips as she curled her fingers tighter around the ball of human soul, giving it a firm squeeze. She knew he could feel it. She knew he would feel his entire essence slowly get sucked away into a great abyss as she used him for energy purposes.

“Welcome Home Lyle,” she said to the glittering soul in her hand.

The angel’s eyes flashed silver, searching for something, as she sensed something…inhuman.

The ropes have been unbound

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[ALASTAIR]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: #141310 url(http://i55.tinypic.com/nq6xix.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #88b496; border: 0px; width: 500px;, bTable][atrb=style, padding: 15px 20px 210px 20px; color: #b0c6b7; text-shadow: #000 1px 1px 1px;] "Now isn't that interesting?" Alastair leaned against a smoldering six by six support strut, arms crossed over his chest as he watched the angel do her thing. He was dressed in the same cheap blue dress shirt and dark brown slacks that the vessel had been dressed in when he took it, the clothing was functional and anonymous and that suited him fine. When it got torn or dirtied, he just made the mess go away, it was much less trouble than doing it the other way. "I could have sworn that your kind wasn't supposed to waste them like that. I mean, I'm sure he was delicious," and the slur of black enjoyment that the demon put on that last word was beyond obscene, "but isn't that supposed to be a treat for one of our Daddies, not you?" He'd traveled for miles to find this scene, following the whiff of blood and agony he'd caught in the air. If it was a demon, he wanted to co-opt him. If it was a human, he wanted to claim him. Alastair hadn't particularly considered the possibility of it being an angel, or a woman, and so was having to make some rapid recalculations now that he'd found her. Not that he let any of that show on his face or in his eyes. Demons lie, it's what they're best at, and Alastair could lie with a glance, a twist of smile, a mocking downturn to a word. "Aren't you going to get in trouble with your big brothers for daring to make your own decision about where that talking monkey's soul belonged? Not to mention for enjoying yourself so very...very much in the process of getting there." There was a leering appreciation in his scraped-glass voice, whether the methods themselves were ones he approved of he could admire the enjoyment with which the angel had broken the man down. Whatever the press releases said, Alastair had always known that the angels were cruel. He had that much faith in an orderly universe. But this scene as a whole baffled him. The dead meatsack hadn't been anyone who was on Hell's radar, at least not in any permanent way. And angels usually knew better than to shit where they eat. Usually angels came in, made their flashy point, and disappeared again without bothering to cover their tracks. Demons tended to take their toys somewhere quiet to work. This fit a pattern more human than either angelic or demonic, yet this woman was demonstrably not human and never had been. And so Alastair leaned against his scorched wooden strut, smiled a thin white slice of a smile, and watched the angel as though he had all the time in the world to wait on her answer. Rush is for the mortals, a thing like him ought to have more respect for time.

[ELIZABETH]

A man who's pure of heart and says his prayers at night

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As he spoke her eyes swiftly flicked to his direction. She looked at the demon and her skin bristled. The presence of her wings flickered for a moment as she listened to his question. She smoothed the worn black leather of her jacket, straightening the ends as she stared at him. She really just hated getting snuck upon, of course, she probably might have sensed him if she had not been so – involved.

The angel’s gaze turned into a flat and annoyed glare. She clenched the soul harder within her hand. Her palm and fingers were wrapped tightly around it to the point that most of the light was no longer escaping. The warmth of the object slowly started to cool as she finally decided to take it in. She shut her eyes for a moment, being able to ignore his remarks if only for a moment as she absorbed the soul into her silvery grace.

Even though she was…warped for one of her kind. She still did not know how to lie to him. So she stayed silent instead. She clenched her hand a few times as she got used to the feeling of it being empty once more. Her face was an emotionless mask at the moment. It was easy for them, to flip that safety switch and refrain from any physical facial adjustments. It came in handy. Even though her face was calmed and restrained, her eyes burned with her displeasure at his arrival.
“My brother has enough souls to play with. I’m sure that Lucifer will not miss a few of them,” she said finally.

Trouble? Elizabeth actually gave a half smile. The right side of her mouth tilting upward at the idea he pressed. She shook her head slightly. Her hands warmed and the wet blood dried quickly and flaked off the surface as holy fire coated her fingers. In an instant the fire was gone again. It was a different fire than one that came from burning holy oil. No that fire was a part of her, something she could control.
“They are too busy preparing for war to take heed of my actions,” she said coolly.

Still as he had brought it up something started to unsettle her foundations. Heaven’s finest interrogator had left home quite suddenly, in the midst of another great war. They were going to need her. They were going to want her back for their own purposes. She had to go into hiding. She turned her head, her eyes falling upon the corpse that rested along the ground. She would have to be, more careful. If a demon could find her, than other angels could too, and that disturbed her greatly.

She watched the demon for a moment, trying to figure him out, to tell his age. She had met several demons over the years. They were all very dead now. She pressed the palms of her hands together and started to drawn Enochian symbols along her vessel’s bones. Well, if anything else, it would help keep her off of Heaven’s radar. Dare she say it, she was thankful that he had driven her to caution. Once the carvings were in place she gave a faint smile of satisfaction.

She wanted a weapon. She was in no way going to withdraw her angelic blade while there was a demon around. Such a thing would have been suicidal. She was all for some serious self preservation. If it wasn’t for Michael marching off to War, she was certain that several of her siblings would have been looking for her. She had already decided that she would rather die than go back to Heaven at this point. They would not drag her back kicking and screaming. She had her pride.

“And what brings you to my end of town?” she asked the demon, mimicking his body posture as she crossed her arms under her chest.

May still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright

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[ALASTAIR]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: #141310 url(http://i55.tinypic.com/nq6xix.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #88b496; border: 0px; width: 500px;, bTable][atrb=style, padding: 15px 20px 210px 20px; color: #b0c6b7; text-shadow: #000 1px 1px 1px;] Alastair threw back his head and laughed, long and loud and full of real, unaffected amusement. "You're a deserter. That's adorable. Running away from home right when you lot actually have something important to do and hiding out in the mud so that you won't get hurt. How darling." He shook his head, watching the angel with his lids dropped half-closed to veil the interest in watery blue eyes. No one had looked to find a turncoat in this war, angels who Fell usually did it for some ridiculous angel-ish reason like falling in love with a mortal or just having far too much compassion for the poor humans or getting all whiny because Daddy didn't hang around paying them attention any more. An angel going properly rogue, actually rejecting God and the Host, was rare. Rare and potentially precious, though he would have to be careful not to overplay his hand. All at once there was a lit cigarette in his hand, the paper black with red banding around the filter, heavy spiced smoke coiling up from the tip. Alastair didn't bother with actual cigarettes, this was the memory of a Bal Tiga he'd smoked in Jakarta in 1934. He'd rather enjoyed that trip to the mudball, so far as he ever did enjoy the Earth. The collapse of Dutch Imperialism had been a gorgeous period of brutality, and he and his barely had to do anything about it. If anything, they spent most of their time tamping down fires before they could get truly underway to make sure that the whole process stretched out over a longer timeline instead of combusting overnight. It all came of educating the natives, and what sad remains of the Dutch Empire hd plenty of reason to regret it as they woke in the night to find themselves tied to the their own iron beds, doused in pitch, and set alight. Lovely. He took a drag of the cigarette, posture still lazy and not at all graceful as he leaned against the fire-damaged support post and watched Elizabeth with hooded eyes. "I came because I smelled you." He could be honest, when there was nothing to lose. "Miles away I could smell you and your, mm, playmate. Organ blood, fearsweat, adrenaline. Smells better than chocolate chip cookies in the oven. And then there was you." His grating, too-high voice actually warmed with something other than amusement. If he were an actual man, even if he were a different kind of demon, it would be something like lust, attraction. "You're wearing sadism like a perfume, it's breathing out of your pores. I don't find that often up here, that kind of unapologetic cruelty. I had to at least peek in and see who'd started the party without me." The kretek in his hand sputtered and sparked, popping audibly when he lifted it and took another drag. It might be a memory, but it was a vivid one and Alastair had quite an imagination. The smoke of burning clove and tobacco coiled through the air, mingling with the hot-penny smell of blood and creating a scent that Alastair at least honestly savored. "So what did your playmate do to earn your not-so-righteous wrath? Or was he just in the right place at the wrong time?" If he'd been a betting man, Alastair would have guessed that there was some reason or other. Some rationale to let her believe that she was doing the right thing. Still an angel, and they always had to pretend they were doing things for a higher purpose, could never just admit that they liked to hurt and kill.

[ELIZABETH]

 

The hope of the righteous shall be gladness

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The angel’s eyes narrowed at his laughter. She furrowed her brows slightly as she had to listen to his expressed humor. She didn’t see herself as a deserter. She had never been a warrior, nor had she been a soldier. She sneered slightly and shifted her heel on the barnyard floor. Hay cracked under her foot as Alastair spoke. Her fingers curled into a fist slowly as she held her composure for a few moments longer. She had heard taunting before from other demons, in more…acceptable situations.

Her steely blue eyes flickered at the conjuring of the cigarette. There was a roll of complaint from her vessel. Renae had been a smoker in her day before this task, and the habit was not going away even with the angelic assistance. Her nose crinkled slightly as he spoke again. Smelled her? She knew that demons had a scent. She had no idea that angels also held some sort of scent as well. Of course they didn’t need to smell when they were without a vessel. As he spoke of the human she turned her head to look back at the sprawled out body. The blood had pooled and started to coagulate by now.

She gave a short laugh and shook her head. This wasn’t a party. Angels really didn’t know how to party, at least by demonic or even human terms. She shifted and put one hand into her belt. Her fingers lightly tapped along the hilt of a one of her many daggers.
“I assure you, this is no ‘party’, demon,” she said, her tone venomous but also slightly casual, “This is work,” she finished.

Now did she enjoy her job? Oh dreadfully so. She had not come to this, line of work automatically. God had certainly not created her with the specific purpose of torture, but she had been given a task. She had found her niche and she worked it well. She had been working that job even before the War in Heaven had happened. As she recalled her multitudes of memories she just happened to smile slightly.

“He was deserving,” she said coolly as she was purposely being vague for the time being.

She wondered if she should tell him anything more than that or not. Her eyes narrowed again as she studied him. The urge to light up her own cigarette rolled under her diaphragm. Her nails still lightly scratched the surface of the mahogany handle of her favorite dagger. Demons could not be trusted. That was what Heaven had told her. Of course Heaven also told her that deserters would be punished. She saw that happen every day. She shut her eyes for a moment as she remembered the first time she picked up a blade, to hurt one of her own kind.

“My wrath is righteous and just, demon. I make sure to see that souls upon earth are deserving of their fate. Do not mistake that,” she said as she watched him.

Her fingers lifted from the blade hilt and she finally gave into the craving. She lit up a cigarette. No lighter was required as a silvery flame shimmered at the end of the cancer stick. She inhaled and held the breath before slowly exhaling with a contended sigh. Still she did not know exactly to whom she was talking to. She did not follow the ranks in Heaven, nor the demons within. She knew of some of the eldest demons, such as Lilith. Still, his name and general essence escaped her base of knowledge.

“I am the one that held angels to their oaths, demon. This task upon Earth, is very close to my original calling,” she spoke fondly as she took another deep breath.

The expectation of the wicked shall perish

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[ALASTAIR]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: #141310 url(http://i55.tinypic.com/nq6xix.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #88b496; border: 0px; width: 500px;, bTable][atrb=style, padding: 15px 20px 210px 20px; color: #b0c6b7; text-shadow: #000 1px 1px 1px;] Oooh, angelic scorn. It made Alastair laugh harder, and for once it was real ameusement, nothing of stagecraft in it and the only menace was the simple fact that everything about the demon dripped menace, wrongness, an atavistic sense of bad. It was perhaps his particular genius, even more than his skills or his viciousness or his loyalty to the ideals of Hell, Alastair was just wrong. He could never passed unnoticed among the humans, could never fool his own kind into thinking he was just another member of the throng. He drew the eye with his very wrongness, and everything he said and did radiated his foul and alien nature. "Righteous. Just. Of course it is." The scorn was easy to hear, even with his voice so grating and strange. Unnatural, anyone who didn't know what he was would think it was an affectation. That or the result of some unfortunate malformation of the throat; no one so tall and with such breadth across the hands and jaw should have such a high, forward-placed voice. Nasal, metallic, it probably wasn't even possible for it to sound pleasant. He gestured vaguely toward her with his cigarette, the spicy harsh smoke coiled back toward his face. "Whoever that poor bastard was, he was a sinner, I'm sure. Due for an eternity of infernal torment." A beat. "Except he won't have that, will he? Because you decided to intervene. You. Not your Father, not mine, but you. You felt that you were fit to decide that whatever fate or destiny lay ahead of that man, it should be cut short. Because your wrath is righteous. Because he was deserving." Alastair took a deep drag of his cigarette, pulling the not-smoke in with a pleasure that was entirely real, no matter that it was a wholly intellectual exercise. "There may have been redemption ahead of him. A single act of good that would wipe clean whatever naughty little pranks he'd gotten up to until now. He could have had another child to be born of him, whose grandson's granddaughter would redefine beauty. You don't actually know. You just decided to co-opt the prerogative of Heaven and Hell both, and then steal the soul on top of it. But your wrath is righteous. And he is deserving." A slow smile spread across his face, twisted and smirking and mean. "Admit it, Angel. You just wanted to. Whatever this man did, you're just using it as an excuse. You wanted to hear the screaming. You wanted the feel of blood splashing up onto your wrists. You were made to hurt, and now that you've run away from home you miss it. Worse than quitting smoking, isn't it? Needing to hear them cry, beg. Needing to watch the despair rise up, and take them through the stages of it. Rage, fear, bargaining, acceptance, and then that last beautiful moment when you break back through the limp submission and get them screaming all over again, make the pain brand new." He watched her through dropped eyelids, lazy and lacivious. "Tell me, darling. Was it good for you?" He was baiting her, yes, but he was also intrigued. Could he really have found his opposite number? The bright and bloodstained doppelganger that he'd given up believing was actually out there? It wasn't in Alastair to regret his solitude, but he also couldn't help but be fascinated by the sight of an angel with blood clotting up in her hair and the evidence of her cruelty splashed around the entire area.

[ELIZABETH]

Counting bodies like sheep

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The angel’s eyes narrowed as he laughed more. She didn’t care for the sound. Of course, any amusement from a demon did not usually settle well with her. She shifted her weight on her boots, scuffing the heel on the floor. Idly she rolled the cigarette in her fingers and took another drag from it. She turned her gaze from the demon and watched the silvery blue smoke roll away from the end of her cigarette. She found comfort in it, letting it ease her mind from the troubles that the laughing demon had caused.

“Send him to hell, and risk having him turning into one of your kind? I would just have to smite him twice then. The method you speak of would not be very…efficient,” she said as her gaze shifted back over to the taller man.
“Unlike your kind, we can see into the future, demon. Do you think I wouldn’t look ahead to that? The benefits of his death outnumbered any good he might have done in the end,” she hissed angrily.

She rolled her eyes at his speak of redemption. She had seen redemption, and it was certainly a rare occurrence. She rested her left arm at her side for a moment before resting her palm against her hip. She took another breath off the cigarette, holding it before letting go. Her eyes flashed at him as he spoke once more. She curled her fingers slightly, popping a few of them in the process.

She had listened to demons try and get a rise out of her over many thousand years. Ever sense their creations she had listened to them talk upon the rack. She had heard their spiteful words, their lies, and their twisted phrases. It was going to take a bit more than just that for him to find her anger. Still something he said unsettled her. She loosened her hold on the soul, letting it merge with her Grace finally.

“You speak as if you know a thing or two about this, demon,” she said as she took a step forward.

Who was this demon? Certainly a lower class one wouldn’t have bothered to show themselves. She wanted to know who she was dealing with. She flicked the finished cigarette from her finger, letting it sizzle out in the drying blood. She looked at the facedown body. In a second brilliant white light glowed from it as the brilliant holy fire took another victim.

She watched the holy fire burn the corpse that lay upon the barn floor. She kept her attention partially on the fire, making sure that it didn’t consume the entire barn. She had done enough destruction to the building. Eventually she would repair the building, not leaving a trace of the man, or that she had ever been here; as it should be.

“Why are you so interested in my business? If seeing this disturbs you, I could always return to hunting down your kind and doing the same? That would seem to be more ‘fair’, I suppose,” she sternly threatened.

At this point, if demons left her alone. Then she would leave them alone. She didn’t need both Heaven and Hell after her. His last question rang in her ears. She gritted her teeth slightly. She had enjoyed herself, as horrible as she knew that was. Still, if she had not found some joy in it, she would have burned out at her job long ago. She would much rather do this…to a human or a demon, than her own kind. Seeing angel after angel upon the rack had worn her to this point. Besides, she had never spoken to God. Doubt had riddled her down to this.

To the rhythm of the war drums

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[ALASTAIR]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=valign,top][atrb=style, background: #141310 url(http://i55.tinypic.com/nq6xix.jpg) center bottom no-repeat; outline: 1px solid #88b496; border: 0px; width: 500px;, bTable][atrb=style, padding: 15px 20px 210px 20px; color: #b0c6b7; text-shadow: #000 1px 1px 1px;] "The benefits outweigh the costs in your judgment," Alastair pointed out. You looked into the future, you decided not only whether his soul would ever redeem himself, but whether any casual action or situational decision he ever made in his lifetime would trigger another person's destiny. And then, let's not forget, you decided that you should keep his soul for his very own self instead of allowing it to flow to where it belonged." He was grinning at her now, wide and offputting. "Don't mistake me, Angel. I don't care how many humans you kill in your quest for gratification, and you seem to have done your work with a certain amount of--" he gestured around them, "artistry that I don't expect from your kind. I'm just trying to get you to admit that there wasn't any justice or greater plan in this. You wanted to murder a man, and so you found an excuse that your tattered conscience would accept and got to work." His head rolled on his neck, the joints too flexible and his adams apple too protuberant, the movement ugly but there was also a smoothness to it that may have been Alastair's version of being sensual, or even aroused. "And I know enough about it to know why you couldn't resist. After a while it's like your skin itches for the touch of a man's insides. The smell of blood, those quivers moving through their meat. Even the kill isn't better, nothing is better than taking a man and playing him like an instrument. Composing a symphony of gasps and sobs and screams. The smell of sweat in the air--painsweat is so different than the sweat of work or even fear, isn't it? Not sour, but tangy. Like copper and lime." Looking her over, he smiled at her with that too-wide mouth, the teeth that always looked like they ought to be stained around the gums with blood. "I am Alastair. You've either heard of me or you haven't. And you are an exile, a rebel, or a criminal. Or some combination of all of them." His tongue-tip traced across his bottom lip. "So which is it? What's your story, Angel? Satisfy an old, bad man's curiosity before you go flitting off into the night, taking your stolen prize with you."