Uriel stood in the deepest part of the city, the ending to a labyrinth of ruinous buildings forgotten by society and occupied by the evil they were raised to fear.
At his feet were several corpses, the burnt remains of demons spilling onto the dirty ground with their arms out in a final act of self-defense. He walked over the ashes and bones of those he wouldn’t be able to identify and stepped closer to the bodies of two who were less touched by whatever roasted them alive.
He bent down to examine them, grabbing one by the jawbone dripping with blackened flesh and eye-puss, and looking it over carefully. Lifting its chin, Uriel exposed the demon’s neck and saw it: a slash across the throat, not deep enough to kill but more than enough to summon a fury of breathlessness and disorientation, a moment of vulnerability.
Just like Leah.
Uriel’s eyes narrowed and looked down at the creature’s chest, seared skin opening up into a hole of exposed organs, the kill shot. Stabbed from behind and destroyed by the flames of whatever held power to do so.
Leah’s body had been too severely mutilated for Uriel to recall if she was similarly burned and killed the same way, but what weapon forged by demons could kill an angel and severe their soul? Souls harvested by Seraphim always return.
A breeze found in the alley, a gentle brush of an oncoming storm creating a flicker of light in a place where darkness consumed, and Uriel glanced at the source.
A feather.
He stood, and crossed the road of bodies where the feather rested under a piece of trash, laying in a puddle that reflected its glow.
Uriel picked it up, turning it over in his fingers, touching the smooth surface in a balance of astonishment and bewilderment.
The feather was silver, an odd color for the wings of any demon, but even Sraosha’s demons didn’t breed feathers so sharp and perfect. On its surface, under the light of a polluted sky, Uriel saw the scars of the past and the eyes of a traitor.
A noise interrupted his thoughts, an otherworldly howl in the distance.
Pocketing the feather, Uriel opened his wings and took flight in a shower of embers and ash, leaving the urban graveyard and the demons who died there.
Uriel scouted from the sky, searching over rooftops and looking down in between buildings. The baying grew louder, always in sync with the rush of a passing train or thunder in the clouds, a way for demons to stalk and speak unheard by people.
Perching himself on the ledge of a wall, Uriel heard the clicking of bones and the heavy panting of beasts. And he watched as moving darkness shifted into several solid forms crawling towards the edge of a lower building. His fists tightened, and his eyes tensed.
Naberius's Children.
A slight feeling of uncertainty crossed Uriel, an inability to think of a proper explanation as to why Sraosha’s Demons and the Children of Naberius roamed so freely.
"That son of a bitch broke my fucking nose! I'll fucking kill him."
Uriel looked down at the streets where the voice rose.
Not many humans wandered the streets on this side of the city, and it was strange to find two of them sitting under a flickering streetlight. Not waiting, but recovering and resting. One of them examining the other, who sat soaked with blood and hissing in pain.
“Found them.”
“Harmed the pet.”
“Tell Mingan.”
At first, their voices carried on like slow currents of water in a clogged drain, sucking in noises with heavy growls and wet snarls struggling to hold onto words. And one of them left the pack, sinking into shadows with Uriel following his movements until they were gone.
A scream rose from the streets, and Uriel stood quickly, stepping off the ledge and descending into a scene of carnage.
Both humans were already dead, throats shredded by claws and limbs torn off by fangs, blood flung across the streets, painting the pavement and littering gutters with loose flesh. Their organs were harvested, eaten up in large gulps by long jaws resembling the Master they were born to serve.
When Uriel landed near their feast, they turned to him and rose on their beast-feet, letting out cries of wrath and warning. Uriel shifted, warning them in return by spreading his wings and allowing his eyes to melt under the flames of his true nature as a Seraph.
Returning to all fours and tamed—for now, the hunt of demons began stirring. They chuckled, jaws drooling with thick red lines, fangs exposed in broad grins. Uriel kept his eyes moving, glancing at each one of them in different orders, knowing they were searching for a moment in time, a single second to seep into the shadows and attack him.
The bodies of the two men were nothing but scattered limbs and piles of half-eaten organs, a vicious sight to take in for anyone—angel, Seraph, or other demons—who considered underestimating the Children of Naberius.
Uriel returned their grinning mockery for a dark smirk.
They laughed, a gaggle of gurgling water that slowly morphed into the voices of the two men they devoured, untouched by any demon-sound.
“A Seraph, just as Naberius foretold.”
“Take him to Naberius, feed him to Legion.”
“Rip him apart.”
Their words were too desirous for them to ignore; they started forward and Uriel was ready.
But a cry broke the night, shattering all sound with the bay of a creature, not of this world and condemned in all others. Uriel watched the hunt turn their attention to the sky, and he did as well. All looking up at the massive form leaning over the roof of a nearby building, a demon three times the size of the hounds before him.
Mingan.
Long limbs reached over the edge, grabbing onto the wall and window to help her crawl down onto the streets; she was not hound like the rest—not entirely. Mingan had the deformed body of a woman forced to become the body of a beast; she had no muzzle, no beast-jaws, just the features of a human stuck in mid-transformation. Bones rearranged into a demon’s. Unlike the hunt she led and the Master she served, Mingan’s body was more loose skin than fur, covered in scars and pick-marks turning into abscesses. Her hands were mortal but long enough to wrap around his head with claws curving and pointing into different directions.
She smiled, a cruel grin lifted higher by the split in her cheeks, not by birth—but by blade.
“Ahhh, Uriel. Demon of the Hierarchy.” Her voice was many, a mixture of all her meals fighting for superiority; male and female, child, and even animal. “A Traitor Unfallen.”
Her movements were too much grace, stepping past her smaller subjects and walking closer to Uriel, but she knew better than to close too much distance too soon. And behind her, the others were speaking in their clogged-language.
“Just when I had almost forgotten the taste of Seraphim flesh.”
“Spilling blood at my feet is dangerous, Mingan,” Uriel smiled. “Because I’m in the mood to kill something.”
A laugh rose from fangs too big for her mortal jaw. “Must be done, had to protect him.”
“Him?” He questioned, but there was no answer, just the circling of her hunt after he focused too long on her words, and they surrounded him.
“I will savor this moment, Unfallen One,” She all but drooled at the anticipation of her havoc thoughts. “Tonight, I shall rip into your throat and drag you to Astaroth screaming.”
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