Present
She pulls the knife from her chest as she smiles deviously, batting her eyelashes. She isn’t innocent, seeing as she’s a psychotic demon.
“Was that supposed to hurt?” she asks, obviously unfazed.
447Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiUDFNrjbdi
Six Days Earlier
I shot bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily, my heart pounding as if I had just sprinted a great distance.
“It was only a dream,” I told myself as I sat, a statue, in my bed. Slowly my heart rate and breathing returned to normal, and I reached to the bedside table, searching for my phone. Powering it on, I checked the time, immediately letting loose a few choice expletives when I saw that it was 7:13 p.m.
Late for a meeting, once again, I shot out of bed. I threw on a slightly wrinkled, pitch black, mid-length, sleeveless dress,and a pair of matching high heels. I pulled on a black blazer to hide my numerous tattoos. Looking in the mirror, I quickly pulled my unruly, bright blue hair into a tight knot on top of my head, and put on a cheap, vintage, black hat to hide it. I grabbed my phone, along with a few other things that are better not mentioned, and hurried out to my car.
Driving to the rendezvous location, knowing I was already late, I prayed to whatever “higher power” there may that there be no authorities along my route, as I was quite clearly driving at a speed above the limit.
I parked a little ways down the street in such a way that the license plate number was hidden. I checked for authorities before getting out of the car, as someone dressed as I am is considered to be moderately suspicious in this area. I walked into a small coffee shop just around the corner, and looked for a woman wearing a specific piece of clothing. It didn’t take long, as the piece of clothing was something fairly obvious, but something that no one else but myself would think to question if they even noticed what was “special” about it. It was a blazer not unlike my own, but was colored a dark grey and had a small pair of angel wings stitched into the back of the collar in black thread.
Walking over to her, a few people gave me strange looks for wearing a hat inside of a building, but I ignored it, acting as if it were normal for me to dress this way. I sat at the table, and almost immediately, the overall volume of the room lessened significantly. Or, at least, I thought it did. The woman didn’t seem to notice. People were lowering their voices, seemingly so they could hear the woman’s and my conversation.
“If you feel the need to speak, do so quietly,” I whispered to her, though I don’t think she cared.
She pushed a piece of paper toward me, one that had six words written on it:
^I have a job for you.
She also handed me a pen, and I realized that she would rather not speak at all.
*I’ll need a few things from you before I can consider anything.
^What do you need?
*Name of the target, appearance -- description, or a photo -- residence or place last seen, as well as any known ownership of weaponry, and any known relations with authorities.
^Name: Lily-Anne Jones
Residence: Somewhere on Fort Bennings Drive
Experience: Is known to carry some form of knife on her at all times; known to have had intimate relationships with police personnel.
*Given the circumstances, you understand that I'll need to hear an offer of compensation before I agree to anything.
^If you succeed, I’ll pay you $10,000.
I haven’t been paid that much for a single target in almost two years. But this is high-risk. She's too close to authorities. There’s always someone who tries to get me arrested, gods know my profession isn’t exactly legal.
*I’ll do it. However, if any law enforcement personnel show up at the scene and I find out that you or anyone you’re known to associate with is responsible, I’ll be expecting double, or even triple, the pay. And even that’s assuming I don’t kill you for exposing me.
^Obviously. Look, I just want this job done, and I want it done fast. If that means having to pay double because one of my idiot friends digs through my belongings and sends the police, then fine, $20,000 it’ll be.
Five Days Earlier
Once again, I woke up, heart rate through the roof, breathing heavy, from the same exact nightmare. Being in this line of work leaves much opportunity for memories such as those that cause my nightly terror.
I got out of bed, slightly stiff. Before I did anything else, I stretched myself out. What good is martial arts training if you’re too stiff to perform any of the moves? After stretching, I went about my morning as many normal people would. I showered, took care of the rest of my hygienic tasks, then dressed appropriately for my profession. Today, that clothing just so happened to be camouflage sweatpants,a black sports bra, and a camo-green muscle shirt. I decided to let my hair loose until I had to leave the building.
I powered on my computer, which is virtually untraceable, and searched the Jones woman. I found what appeared to be a relatively new fashion blog. Fashion? What else is this woman doing that my client wants her eliminated?
I continued my search, finding nothing but a few pictures on the blog previously mentioned. However, these pictures were strange. Not only are her eyes strange, different colors in each photo, but I could not find any evidence of her using contacts to do this. Her hair color was different in every picture, but it appeared to be hair dye, and that is not uncommon.
I noticed one other thing, however, in one of the pictures. Though her nails were painted a deep purple, I saw something under the edge of her nails in one picture; a dark, blackish sort of crust, along with a very slight reddish tint to the skin of her index and middle fingers of her right hand.
The picture was posted at 11:11 p.m. on January 14, 2015.
This, I believe, is residue from blood. But how did it get there?
Judging from the location, I suspected she used her index and middle fingers of her right, and probably dominant hand, to puncture the trachea area, or some other place, on another human being.
Murder. That’s why my client wants her dead. She’s a murderer. Perhaps one of her victims was a loved one of my client. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen this woman on the news at all. Perhaps my client, and possibly others, are simply tired of her getting away with it.
Then again, I could be completely overthinking it and have my information wrong. I doubt that’s likely, however. I’m almost never wrong.
Four Days Earlier
I woke up today just past 5 a.m. and immediately got to work once more. This time, however, I decided to dig a little deeper into this possible murder.
I searched for any missing persons dating back to approximately January 15, 2015, the day after the picture was posted on her blog, and likely the day after it was taken.
Several results appeared, and I was slightly startled by what I saw. The majority of the missing persons have been confirmed dead, all killed in a very specific and gruesome way. (For the sake of any squeamish readers, I won’t give too much of a detailed description. Just kidding. Anyone reading this is probably someone who has interest in what I do or what happened to this woman, so I’ll briefly describe what I saw.) Each of the missing persons had a puncture wound in their throats, in the trachea area. They had miscellaneous other injuries that all seem to have come from a struggle, such as smaller cuts, bruises, and the occasional broken bone. Just as I suspected.
I immediately thought of the stains on the Jones woman’s hands. I was seriously beginning to think that she murdered these men and women.
I looked further into the days they were discovered missing, wrote down the dates, then went back to the blog. I looked more closely at the pictures this time. In the majority of the pictures, she had brightly colored nail polish on, and in these pictures, I found nothing suspicious other than her strange eyes. But in the pictures in which she had on dark nail polish...
...stains. In the pictures where she had dark nails, I found the reddish stains. I got a different piece of scrap paper and looked up the days these pictures were posted, writing them on the new paper. Looking at both sets of dates, I was not necessarily shocked this time by what I saw.
All of the dates are within a day or two of the dates of one of the murders. This, above all things, made me very suspicious.
And so, I decided, that later tonight I should do some more up close and personal investigation.
Still Four Days Earlier
It was approximately 7:30 p.m., and I had just finished making plans of what I would be doing tonight concerning the investigation. I had been reviewing maps of the area around the target’s residence, planning possible routes of escape for both myself and the target, as well as seeking out the different police headquarters and marking their most likely routes to use if they were called.
All this now memorized, I pulled on gear more appropriate for my trade, which consists of waterproofed nylon black pants and shirt, a pair of knee-high black combat boots, bullet-proof vest, and a black hooded cloak to conceal my weapons and my rather distinctive hair and tattoos. On my person were a variety of weapons, such as multiple small, easily concealable guns, throwing knives, other types of knives meant for close-up combat, several poisons, as other things that are specially made, custom weapons that I’ll keep a secret.
I made sure everything was securely fastened to my numerous belts, garters, holsters, and other places (but we won’t talk about that) before going outside to my car. Now making my way to a popular coffee shop near the target’s home, I thought over my plans once more.
The hour-long drive felt like it took only minutes. I parked my car in an inconspicuous spot, once again, then I began the rest of my journey on foot. Seeing a fire escape on a nearby multi-story building, I headed for the rooftops. Gracefully and silently running and jumping from roof to roof, I made my way to where the target supposedly lives. I scanned the street, and I quickly saw a rather large apartment building. Perhaps she lives here.
Before returning home, I decided to investigate the rest of the homes on the street, but I soon discovered that the street that this woman lived on is a rather long one. It extends outside the more urban area into a more suburban area, where there are free-standing homes. I did what any good investigator would do; I looked through the windows of the seemingly unoccupied homes. It didn’t take long before I found a place filled with photography equipment; cameras, a what looked like a homemade green screen, a computer that was left on with some sort of photo editing program on...
...Wait, I thought. The computer was left on. Who would leave a computer on with a program like this left up on their screen? Especially in the middle of editing the photo?
At that very moment, I realized I could be in a lot of trouble. I saw a widening beam of light through what I now realize is the open door of the room.
Someone’s opening a door.
I watched a shadow come out of the lit room, creating a tall shadow in the light beam coming into this room. Because of how the shadow of the hair looked, I guessed the person was a woman, but seeing as I couldn’t risk being seen, I placed a small camera in the corner of the window and ducked below the windowsill, slightly behind a small shrub, moving to the corner of the room. And now I wait.
It didn’t take long for the woman to get herself absorbed back into her computer program, and so I moved to the other side of the window to get a better look at the woman. This is when I discovered that cameras can lie without any sort of digital editing being added.
In the video feed, the woman had chocolate brown hair and a rather pale complexion. I couldn’t see her eyes because of the fact that I was looking at her back, but when she turned around to grab what appeared to be a USB drive, I saw that they too are a chocolate brown. Once again, I found myself wondering why my client wants her dead, but then I remembered the blood on her fingers and the fact that she was a murderer, and that put me back on track.
Slowly, I stood up and prepared to leave, but I tripped over a tree branch that I didn’t see when I came over here, and she must have heard the sounds of breaking branches and rather loud French expletives and stood up to see what made them.
No longer looking at the video feed and praying I could hide myself in the darkness, I saw that she wasn’t what the camera said she was.
Her hair was a bright blue, not unlike my own. Her eyes were like that of a cat’s, with vertical pupils and being a yellow-green color. Her skin was tinged green, but was so thin that her veins, which seemed to carry black blood, were easily seen.
It was a terrifying sight to begin with, but snapping back to reality, I realized that she had seen me, and so I took off, heading back to the rooftops, the coffee shop, my car, then finally back home. I made sure that no one followed me before calling one of my accomplices, demanding that she be here as soon as humanly possible.
Three Days Earlier
I didn’t sleep last night, as I was waiting up for my partner to arrive. The images of the woman were constantly popping up in my head, and this further prevented me from sleeping. The same questions continued to nag at me again and again.
Who is she really?
What is she?
Is she even human?
What is she doing living here if she isn’t human?
What does she want to get out of all the murders?
How do I kill her?
It was about 5:00 a.m. when my partner, Jessie, arrived, telling me via text that she was at my door, not wanting to draw attention to us.
Letting her in, she immediately saw something was wrong, but then again, she might just have assumed because I almost never call for help.
“Jack? What happened?” she asked, as soon as the lock clicked shut on the door.
(Before I continue, I should probably mention that, while I’m a female, and my name is Jackie, my partners always call me Jack. This is due to the fact that I’m named after my father, who’s name is Jack, and I apparently act a lot like him.)
“What happened is that I was sent to kill this woman.” At this point, I showed her a picture of the Jones woman from the fashion blog, one without blood on her hands.
“What’s wrong with that? If you didn’t want to kill people, then why’d you become an assassin?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to kill her. It’s that I don’t know how. Unless she’s had some serious work done, she might not even be a she.” I was beginning to sound frantic, even possibly panicked or afraid.
“You’re losing your mind, Jack,” she stated, seeming to genuinely believe I was losing my sanity.
“No, I’m not,” I protested. “Okay, maybe I am. But not enough to imagine this. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t show you what I’m talking about. Not in a photograph anyhow. If you were to examine this blog of hers, you’d notice that her hair and eye color changes between almost every photo. They’re never the same twice in a row. At first, I thought this was just hair dye and contacts, and so I wasn’t suspicious, but then I went to find where she lived, as the client didn’t know her exact address. It didn’t take long. I set up a camera and watched from a concealed location near the window. Everything seemed normal. Just another fashion blogger making herself look thinner in her photos than she actually is, but that was before I tripped over a tree root and was seen. I didn’t realize who or even what I was looking at until I looked at the face staring down at me from the window because on the video feed, she looked like this.”
Throughout my “little” rant, I held up photos of the room with the photography equipment, and pulled up footage of her working on her computer in an attempt to prove that I didn’t edit the photos. These showed the woman with the chocolate brown hair and pale complexion.
“The woman I saw looking down at me from the window...I’m not sure that she was even a woman at all. Or, at least, not a human woman. Her hair was bright blue, but I saw no traces of dye. Her eyes were like a cat’s, but she very clearly wasn’t wearing contacts. Her skin was paper thin and a pale green. Her veins were clearly visible through her skin, but the blood they carried was not red, but blacker than black.”
“Are you absolutely sure,” she asked, “that you’re not losing your mind, Jack?”
“I’m sure. If you don’t believe me, you can come with me the next time I go information hunting.”
“And when would that be?”
“The soonest I can. Maybe tonight, but probably tomorrow.”
Two Days Earlier
It was midnight. Jessie and I were preparing to head for the Jones woman’s house in another attempt to gather information necessary to complete my job.
We both pulled on our gear. Mine was as described in my earlier entries. Jessie’s gear was similar to what you’d see a video game assassin wearing; full bodied, black, plain cotton, somewhat ninja-like. (I could go on, but there are more important things to write.)
We left my house through the front door as anyone would, but we didn’t get into a car as any normal person with common sense would in a city. Instead, we ran to the Jones woman’s house, silent as a couple of mice.
Upon our arrival, I warned her to watch where she placed her feet so she didn’t make the same mistake I did when I was here last. I saw it was mostly dark in the house as we made our way around to the back of the house where the photography room could be found. There was a dim light leaking through the window, but that didn’t come as a surprise to me.
Before Jessie could look in the window, I stopped her, saying that I’ll set up a camera and show her that first. And so I went about the short, quick process of setting up a tiny camera on the windowsill. It was only about a minute before I was showing Jessie a live video feed of the Jones woman working on her computer. This time, she had blonde hair and a tan, as opposed to a pale brunette. (Honestly, she looked like she was from Cali.) We only waited about two and a half minutes before Jessie wanted to look at “the real thing.” I shut down the camera and put it back into my belt before taking her over to the window.
She looked in the window and immediately turned white as a sheet.
“Okay, Jack,” she muttered, fear filling her voice, “I believe you now.”
One Day Earlier
I woke up at about 10:00 this morning to the sound and smell of breakfast being prepared. I got out of bed and dressed, then headed for the kitchen. There I saw Jessie making a mess of the counter, sink, and stove in a sorry attempt to make eggs and bacon.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked. I think I scared her a little, because she whipped around, pan in hand, dropping the half-cooked eggs on the floor. “Come on Jess,” I sighed. Clean this up.”
“But it’s your house,” she complained.
“I wasn’t the one who managed to get eggs on the ceiling, now was I? You made the mess, you clean it up.”
I walked out of the room and sat in front of my computer. While Jessie cleaned up the kitchen, finally ditching the idea of making breakfast, I was reviewing the plans I had made before. There were several errors in the routes, but I fixed them in less than a minute.
Now, I thought, How am I going to kill this...thing?
Soon enough I decided to go back to bed, but was woken up by a donut-bearing Jessie.
“What in the name of-” I was interrupted by having a powdered sugar covered donut shoved into my mouth. Almost immediately I spit it out, coughing. “Are you serious Jess? You almost choked me!”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, her mouth full of donut.
“Chew and swallow before you talk, okay?” I swear, she’s like a little kid, and I’m the sorry soul that is her mother.
We talked for a while after that, discussing the best ways to take out the Jones woman, if I can even call her that anymore. We decided on a “two wave” plan. I would go first, and if I hadn’t taken her out by a specific time, Jessie would come as backup.
By this point, it was about noon, and so we went about the rest of our day preparing for tomorrow night.
Earlier Today
I was anxiously awaiting the time that Jessie and I had discussed yesterday. I paced my bedroom, and when that didn’t satisfy my anxiousness, I ended up pacing in every single room of my house, with the exception of the attic. Back and forth and back and forth I walked, constantly glancing at the clocks as I did so.
Finally, after this went on for two hours, I sat on the couch and tried to relax. I turned on the television and eventually settled on a documentary about ancient Rome. Even though I already knew everything that was contained in the ninety minute documentary, and that some of the information was false, I somehow found myself watching the whole thing, then followed it up with some very inaccurate documentaries about the Greek gods and goddesses.
Before I knew it, the clock struck 10:00 pm. It was almost time.
I rose from the couch and began to get ready. All of my protective gear was put on, all of my weapons stored in their appropriate spots, all of my body except for my face concealed.
I left the house and took off running toward the Jones woman’s house, arriving at exactly 11:00. All was going as planned.
I crept around the side of the house to the photography room, and I noticed that the computer was turned off. Not sleeping, but turned completely off.
That’s strange, I thought, but I proceeded to set up cameras in all of the windows anyhow.
Following a thorough sweep of the house via the cameras, I noticed that it appeared that she was sleeping. This I also found strange. Every other time (most are unwritten) I have visited in the middle of the night, in fact later at night, she had been awake. She had always been sitting at her computer, editing photos, adding them to her blog.
Something at the very edge of my vision caught my attention. Turning toward it, I saw an owl, and so went about my business. I carefully, and silently, opened the window to her bedroom, climbing in.
Not knowing what will or will not kill this...this thing disguised as a woman, I drew with my weapon of choice--a Glock 43 handgun. I took a few steps back, as to not get any blood on myself, and took aim straight at the sleeping woman’s forehead. Just as my finger was pulling back on the trigger, her eyes shot open and her mouth twisted into a devious grin. Right before my eyes, she began to change.
(Now, I suppose you’ll be thinking right about now that she’s turning into some sort of ghastly, horrible creature straight from the deepest parts of Hell. And you’re right. But I guarantee your image is wrong, so just trust me and keep reading.)
Her shockingly sharp features softened to the point of looking human, her hollow cheeks filled themselves, and her deep-set eyes coming forward. Her oil-slick black hair faded to blonde, brightening itself to an electricity-like blue. Her skeleton-like figure seemed to inflate itself with muscle mass, and her 5’9” dancer-like figure faded as she shrunk to 5’5”. She changed until everything that identified her as herself was gone, and replaced with everything that identified me as me.
I was looking at a perfect reflection of myself.
I stood there, frozen, in her bedroom, shocked beyond all belief. How am I supposed to kill myself?
That’s precisely when it occurred to me.
She knows that many people fear death.
And those that long for it rarely have the guts to kill themselves.
Present Time
Now not wanting to use the gun for fear that I’ll be discovered, I put it away, trading it for a small collection of throwing knives. I first throw one off to the side of her, making her look to the side, laughing at what seems to be my “horrible” marksmanship. As soon as she was distracted, I took aim once again, and threw another knife.
She looks down at the knife sprouting from her chest, the black blood oozing from around the wound the only reminder to me that I am not looking in a mirror.
She pulls the knife from her chest as she smiles deviously, while batting her eyelashes. She clearly now is not innocent, seeing as she is a psychotic demon.
“Was that supposed to hurt?” she asks, clearly unfazed.
I, however, cannot help but stand there, shocked. If a knife directly to the heart didn’t kill her, what will? I thought. Before I could answer my own question, she was hurtling toward me.
She tackles me to the ground, hands wrapping tightly around my throat. Her outward appearance may be an exact mirror of me, but her physical strength is much greater. I lay on the ground, my vision slowly starting to go dark as her steely grip tightens around my throat, cutting off my air entirely.
My watch starts to beep. It’s now exactly midnight. Jessie would be here soon, so I only need to hang on until then.
With all the strength I can muster, I push her up off of me enough that I can tuck my feet under her chest. I kick her off of me, throwing her back into the wall. Without a second thought, I jump out the window, hoping I’ll even the playing field if her and I aren’t confined to her little bedroom.
It’s almost a minute before she comes out the window after me, and when she does, several of my small throwing knives immediately sprout from her chest. Once again, she pulls them out, her black blood oozing down her chest. This time she isn’t laughing, though. She growls at me, her image faltering slightly.
Out of nowhere, Jessie jumps down from a tree and starts shooting at her, landing several shots right in the center of the small circle of holes my knives had made just seconds before. She stumbles back, clearly hurt, but she doesn’t fall. She lunges at Jessie, who shoots off the ground, backflipping over me, landing perfectly in a position reminiscent of Spider Man. Jessie was successful at avoiding injury, however now the attention of...well...me...was on me. With no hesitation, she was coming right at me, attempting to rip out my throat just as she did to all her other victims.
She just barely grazes my skin, and while there is no serious injury, it hurts like hell. My skin feels like it’s burning, and I find myself on my knees, tears in my eyes, because of it.
I hear a blood curdling scream, snapping me out of the pain-induced fog, and I immediately see Jessie, too, has been cut by the razor sharp claws of this demon thing. The marks are black, and it smokes. I was right about the acid-like burn under my chin after all.
Shaking, I struggle to my feet, a faint light around me. As the light gets steadily brighter, Jessie looks at me and screams, though I don’t know why.
That is, until I see a look of pure terror in the demon’s eyes, and I see my reflection in a window.
The very first thing I see are the wings; magnificent and large, feathered but streamlined.
They’re angel wings. Bright blue angel wings.
Though I’ve always known that my parents are related to just about every magical entity that you can think of, and are in fact “magical entities” themselves, I have always been their one non-magical child.
As I marvel at my newfound power, I fail to see the demon coming at me once again.
Charging at me, in a state of angered terror, she growls, turning my attention toward her once again. Just as I turn, she rakes her razor sharp claws across my chest and up my shoulder. I remain mostly unfazed, choosing to ignore the burning, throbbing pain that courses through me.
Still unsure of how to get rid of her, I make yet another feeble attempt at killing her with a throwing knife, hitting the circle of marks from all of my other failures. She flinches, clearly hurt, but does not falter. She charges me again.
I panic. I don’t know how to kill her. I can’t get out of the way fast enough now that I need to compensate for the extra weight of my wings. She catches my wing and drags me back, hurling me to the ground. Next thing I know, she’s sitting on my chest, my arms pinned to the ground by her knees. I hear a gunshot, and then my sight disappears, and the skin of my neck and face begins burning. I feel a weight lift off of my chest immediately after hearing a deafening shriek.
What’s going on? Why can’t I see? I think to myself as an arm grabs onto mine and starts dragging me away. I hear sirens in the distance. What’s happening? How long is it going to be until the cops get here?
“Jack? Jack!”
I immediately recognize Jessie’s voice. My mind is fuzzy, yet running a mile a minute because of my lack of sight.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I hear you. What’s happening?”
“I disabled her, but she isn’t dead. The cops are coming, and we need to get out of here.”447Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4lgboCndvj
“Jessie, I can’t see. Last I looked, you can’t walk. We can’t get away.” Only after I say it do I realize how full of despair and anger my voice is.
“Jack, I’m fine. It’s just a scratch.” She utters this with full confidence, her facade not faltering for a second, but I know she’s lying.
At this time, I feel a hand touch my face, wiping at my eyes. The burning of my face stops, and I see a small light.
What in Hades? Who’s doing that?
The light begins to grow, like it’s falling on me...
...but then it stops, and I see that I’m laying under a street lamp. Of all the places I could have landed, I landed in the light, where I can be seen. The whole point of coming out here, at night, in the dark, wearing all black, is to not be seen.
I shakily get to my feet and run right back over to the demon, just trying to get out of the light. I still don’t know how to kill her, but I decide to try something I never would have thought of before, that I never would have even considered.
I pray.
I pray to whatever holy person there might be out there.
To who or what restored my sight.
All I ask for is the knowledge to finish the job, to send this horrible creature back where it came from.
And after no more than a minute, a lightbulb turns on somewhere in the back of my mind. I know how to kill her, but I don’t have what I need: a weapon made of some sort of blessed material, whether it be wood or metal. Maybe Jessie does, or maybe even one of my other associates, but there isn’t enough time to try to go searching.
Then it occurs to me. My grandfather gave me a dagger for my last birthday.
And he tends to use Godly blessed metals to craft his weapons. (I know, I know, crazy coincidence, right?)
The unfortunate part, though, is that I don’t have it with me.
The sirens are getting closer and closer. We’re running out of time. Because Jessie can’t walk, I pick her up, and I start running, not caring who sees us.
We end up back at my house, and I start to ransack the place, looking for my birthday present. It doesn’t take long to find it, because I’m actually pretty organized, believe it or not.
I leave Jessie here, and I take off running once again, heading for the demon’s house. I know that the police will have arrived by the time I reach it, but I don’t care. I’ve got to finish this job.
When I get near to the house, I climb a tree in order to have a better vantage point. The place is infested with police officers, and there is an ambulance parked out front, and I can’t see in. The demon is nowhere to be found. I can’t get to the front of the house without being seen by about thirty police officers, and so I stay where I am, observing only.
That is, until I spot the demon getting loaded into the ambulance. I jump out of the tree, earning myself the attention of about thirty officers. I hang in the air for a moment, not realizing what’s happening until I start seeing flashes of blue out of the corners of my eyes. My wings caught me. I hover in place, my wings beating as if on instinct, seemingly possessing a mind of their own.
As soon as they caught me, they give out, sending me on my originally planned path down to the ground. Immediately after touching down, I shoot off towards the ambulance, hoping I get there in time. I get very close to the ambulance before the paramedics see me coming, and they jump on what might be their only chance to close the doors and drive away, but I get there before they get the chance.
I jump into the back of the ambulance, and the demon shrieks, but isn’t able to move to defend herself because of how the paramedics have secured her to the gurney. One of the paramedics begins to abandon ship, jumping down out of the ambulance and getting out of the way of the police, who I expect are going to shoot me.
Before they can shoot me, I plunge the hopefully blessed-metal knife into the demon’s chest, and right before my eyes, she bursts into flames and seems to collapse into herself like a miniature, shrieking, flaming, black hole. All that was left of her was a rather small pile of black ash on the gurney where she used to lay.
No gunshots sound as everyone seems to freeze in place, staring in horror at the pile of soot that used to be the woman they were sent here to save. I find myself staring at the black spot on the gurney in a state of horrified amazement.
“I did it,” I mutter to myself. “I actually did it.”
At this point, everyone is staring at me as if I have three heads. As I try to exit the ambulance, everyone seems to snap to attention. The police now have their ready-to-fire guns pointed at my face, ordering me to drop the knife, put my hands in the air, and--well, you know how it goes.
ns 15.158.61.48da2
