Prompt 3 PDF

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Summary

A short story based on the prompt: Everyone has a guardian angel, except you. No, you have a guardian demon. They deal with everything in a much more violent fashion, but ultimately? They are much more effective. Why?...

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PROMPT: Everyone has a guardian angel, except you. No, you have a guardian demon. They deal with everything in a much more violent fashion, but ultimately? They are much more effective. Why? Aniel had never been much of a demon, at least not in Hell’s opinion. The worst she ever did was annoy people. Maybe it said something about her, that despite being a demon, her angelic tendencies still shone through. It certainly wasn’t helpful for her ward, though. Trinidad Rosario-Velazquez was an interesting case. An intriguing one, to be sure. Aniel still wasn’t sure why she was assigned to protect this one. Trinidad was certainly more than capable of defending herself against angels and demons, given her and her brother’s demigod nature. “Aniel?” The young one’s voice broke the demon out of her thoughts, uncharacteristically small. “Hm?” Aniel turned towards the girl, tilting her head down and slightly to the side. True forms were so troublesome. She would take human form in a heartbeat if it didn’t mean that she’d be accused of becoming attached to the damn species. “Armageddon can’t happen without us, can it?” It’s more of a statement than a question, seeking confirmation. Aniel had told the pair of twins the story piecemeal throughout their journey to outrun the impending apocalypse. Heaven and Hell had failed rather spectacularly in carrying out Armageddon according to the Ineffable Plan the first go-around. Now they were trying to have a second go at it, by planting the deadly sins and the heavenly virtues around the globe. It was just their luck that one of those pairs happened to be born twins and didn’t want to fight each other. She wasn’t even supposed to make herself known to them, just keep an eye on them to make sure everything was going smoothly. She disobeyed that order, obviously. The angel that was meant to watch over Trinidad’s brother was already dead and gone, killed by Aniel herself. There was no doubt both sides had caught wind of that by now, or at least getting suspicious about the angel’s radio silence. “No,” Aniel responded, her throat suddenly dry. “It can’t.” She kept a careful eye on the starry night sky, watching for shooting stars that signaled the arrival of an angel. None of them would be kind to her. They would spare the twins, but only for their self-interests. It was a terrible thing to think, that the very beings meant to be benevolent towards humanity would strike them all down if it meant following the Plan. “Okay,” Trinidad said, the girl seeming so scared and so unsure. Aniel wished sometimes that she didn’t have to do what she did to protect her. Trinidad was so young , barely in her midteens; she didn’t deserve to see the violent way Aniel dealt with the angels that tried to condemn her. Neither did her brother, but fortunately, he was sequestered away somewhere where he didn’t have to see it happen. But damn it all, the former angel found herself caring about the twins. She’d been an archangel once, right up there with Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel. Yet she’d Fallen for asking too many questions, for daring to ask why humanity needed to suffer so needlessly at the hands of

the Almighty simply because it was ordained so. Her angelic brethren were always so blindly faithful, so blindly loyal. If anything, Aniel was glad to be free of them, even if by Falling, she’d only trapped herself in grungy, miserable basement miles below sea level and so unthinkably far below the Almighty. A distant boom sounded not too far from where they were, and immediately Aniel was on her feet, with Trinidad hidden behind her. An angel, no doubt. “Run,” she growled at her ward, and when Trinidad protested, her wings flared up in hellfire. Trinidad fell silent with a gasp, turning on her heel and running like hell. The ground burned beneath her feet, daring the angel who’d arrived to even try to approach. “Raphael.” “Don’t call me that,” Aniel snapped, drawing a sword from the ethereal plane. “Don’t ever call me that—” Raguel’s eyes gazed back, seeing right into her. Searching for the girl, for her brother. “You were strange in heaven, too. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any less of you as a demon.” Aniel snarled, baring her teeth, willing the hellfire higher. “Strange for loving humanity like we were supposed to, Raguel?” The name burned in her mouth, bitter and resentful. Raguel, the archangel of justice; of fairness and harmony; of vengeance and redemption. How ironic that the archangel of redemption is sent after her. “I’m not here to kill you, Raphael,” he says softly, voice ethereal and sweet in a way that Aniel didn’t believe. He was afraid of her. They all were. It was why Heaven rarely sent their own after them. She was no seraphim, but she’d been powerful as an archangel, for all that she’d been the healer of the four primaries. “Aren’t you?” Her voice went quiet, terrifyingly so, low and threatening. Aniel stepped forward, brandishing her sword, which was now ablaze with hellfire. “Are you not the angel of justice? Go on, then; serve me the justice I’ve been due these past millennia.” Raguel didn’t answer at first, his many eyes unblinking in the light of the fire. “I won’t fight you, brother. Were we not brothers then? Or have you shed that part of you, too?” “Shut up!” Aniel lunged forward, swinging her sword straight through Raguel, ignoring Trinidad’s strangled cry. Over, and over, and over— Until Raguel’s body was laying in shreds at her feet, his holy blood seeping into the ground. There was her brother’s precious justice served. Wiping her sword clean of the blood, she allowed the hellfire to die down, its embers still emanating the scorching heat. Trinidad crossed over, peering at Raguel’s dead body. Glancing up at the demon, who’d never hidden her animosity towards the archangels of Heaven, the girl couldn’t help but wonder at Aniel’s past. “Forgive me, dari alahi,” Aniel murmured, soot shaking out from her wings. Trinidad had the feeling that the words were not meant for her. Her demon was so rarely shaken and yet Aniel seemed shaken now, a chord struck in her that Trinidad couldn’t even begin to understand.

Aniel turned then, her feet damp with the blood beneath them and soot still raining from her wings. “Who were you? Before, I mean.” “It’s no business of yours, child,” Aniel responded, not even sparing Trinidad a glance. “It’s not important anymore. They cast me out a long time ago.” “He called you Raphael. He called you brother; I would imagine that’s pretty important, Aniel—!” “Don’t.” Trinidad fell quiet at the command, letting Aniel pick her up and place her on her shoulder. Aniel had never been much of a demon. That much was true. If there was any time that Aniel would tell the truth, it would be to admit her inadequacy in Hell as she had been in Heaven. The hands that made and fashioned her were the very same that cast her out, and for what? She asked too much, she knew that. It would be grating on anybody. But it still stung to know that the Almighty’s eyes no longer watched her, that They no longer thought of her in such a way. That was the problem though, wasn’t it? No more questions allowed upstairs. None of them would ever know the reasons for her Falling. Not like she did. She thought she would be done with it all after so many millennia. She supposed she never really would be....