Department of Spiritual Defense: Part Nine

At The Diner:

Edward stepped in, preceded by another man in a dark suit. Anthony recognized him from the hangar.

“You said you had something you needed to show me?” Edward asked.

The artist nodded and opened to the new drawing, turning it toward the older man.

“I don't think we stopped it.” he said plainly, his voice low, cold and deadpan.

Ed let out an exasperated breath. He took his time, examining each detail of the image that the younger male had drawn while in the trance state.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

Anthony closed the cover of the book as the waitress approached, and didn't answer the question until all three of them had ordered coffee, and sent her on her way.

“About an hour ago.” Anthony replied.

Edward sighed. He had wanted to give everyone time to return home and relax, thinking that by stopping the two demons, they had closed their very first case, but that didn't seem to hold true.

“Have you called the others yet?” Ed asked with another low breath.

Anthony shook his head.

“Go try to get some sleep, I have to figure out what we missed.” the man with the cane ordered after a moment, dropping money on the table, before standing, Andy following him back through the door and into the street.

Anthony hung around long enough to drink his own cup of caffeinated water. He dialed the same cab company he had used before, and on the way back to the hotel, he called Shayla, but that went straight to her voicemail. Once back at the building, he made for the elevator, stopping at the other psychic's room, knocking hard on the door. The sound startled her awake, and then came the disorientation. She hadn't had enough time to focus on building her walls.

Foreign thoughts and emotions flooded her mind, overwhelming for what seemed like forever. Panic, excitement, rage, lust. Everything. All at once. She focused, anchored herself. The pounding again.

'Come on...' Anthony's voice in her head, the panic accompanying it like a shot of adrenaline.

“One minute.” she called, starting to close herself off again.

She stood up and walked to the door to let Anthony in. The artist's face was grim and a little bit pale. He didn't say anything at first, simply opening the book to the image he had drawn a few hours earlier. The woman's eyes darted from one twisted, inhuman visage to another, to the flames and broken shapes of vehicles and buildings.

“Have you told Edward?” she breathed.

“He was the first person I called.” Anthony assured.

“We need to show the others.” she proclaimed, picking up the sketchbook and moving toward the door.

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In The Special Containment Unit:

Falielle was getting stronger again, his control of the meat suit he was wearing coming back rather quickly. The problem now was that the walls and floor of the concrete room were layered in carved sigils that kept him contained. Not only stuck in the room, but within the body he had stolen. No escape. He knew that the female was in a similar situation if they went to all this trouble. The sound of a distant door opening could be heard and then two sets of footsteps approaching. The door to his cell rolled wide, revealing the man from the hangar, leaning on the cane.

He was shackled wordlessly and herded into what looked like an interrogation room, complete with one way mirror. Behind that was a digital camcorder which Andy started before walking back around to join the others in the interrogation room.

“How can I help you?” the demon sneered.

“Why were you going to Crater Lake?” Edward answered with a question of his own.

“Vacation.” Falielle laughed.

His mouth was still open when the agent splashed holy water directly into it, along with his face. It felt as if there were acid searing through his flesh. Wiping at it only spread the pain to his hands. The pain faded after a moment.

“Why were you going to Crater Lake?” Ed reiterated.

“To see your mother.” the demon taunted.

More screams. He thrashed in the shackles, tried to evacuate the body, but an invisible pressure kept him contained. Was the whole building warded? He hoped not. His mind flickered to his companion. His lover and second in command. He wondered if she was being questioned as well. He didn't have long before a new kind of pain jolted through him. He looked down to see a crucifix being pressed to the bare flesh of his forearm. It felt less like fire and more like electricity flowing through him until the man pulled it away.

“I am going to ask again, and if you don't tell me, you're going back to the box.” the elder agent in the room said, then added, “Why were you going to Crater Lake?”

“You think I can tell you that? You might hurt me, even banish me but it pales compared to my fate if I open my mouth.” Falielle spat.

Edward sighed and shook his head.

“Get him back to his cell. We'll try again after a few hours.” he told Andy.

The younger agent hauled the demon up by his bicep and marched him out into the hall and back to the room he had awakened in. Then, he was alone again. Feeling just a little bit of desperation. He couldn't hold up to the torture, especially if they truly knew how to hurt those of his kind, which after that brief interrogation, he believed they did. He knew it wouldn't work but tried to escape the meat he was occupying.

Down the hall, his partner was trying the same thing, to little success. Both exhausted themselves.

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At The Field Office:

Adeline sat on the small cot in the basement. The other angel lay motionless on his own bed. Her eyes moved to the exit and she stood as quietly as she could, feet barely whispering over the tile floor as she made her way out into the hall, and from there to the stairwell that would allow her roof access once more. The chill of the air barely registered to her, even though she wore nothing beyond the borrowed shirt and sweatpants that had been offered to her. She didn't take flight, instead walking to the edge, placing her hands on the waist high barrier.

She could still feel the darkness, a thousand miles away. That meant that Michael could as well, but had said nothing about it, either to her or the humans that had been assisting them. Her eyes moved to the stars, staring up at the brilliant points of light that shown through the abyss above. Unlike the others who might be peering up into the night sky, she knew what lay beyond. Just outside of this tiny swirl of gas and matter that they called a universe. For a moment, she felt the urge to return home, to try again to cut through the Gordian Knot that bound the hands of her brothers and sisters.

The problem was, none of them would listen to her. They would listen to Michael, but he seemed to have his own ideas on how to manage the situation. This was when faith should have made it easier for her to trust him, but it was taking her actual effort to do so. Doubt had taken root in her heart, a gnawing, uneasy feeling. Along with that came paranoia. Did the elder angel have his own agenda? Was there a reason he had neglected to ensure the door was closed?

Those questions, and a hundred more ran through her mind like the world's longest run on sentence. She let out a long sigh and turned to walk back inside, pausing when the door opened. The man who stepped through was not the blonde that she had been expecting, but one of the humans. Andy smiled and gave her a polite nod as he reached into the inside pocket of the tailored suit jacket, extracting a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He sparked up on of the sticks of tobacco and chemicals, leaning on the railing next to her, but not speaking.

“Is everything okay?” she said after a few moments, the question feeling heavy and forced in the chill, early morning air.

The agent took a long drag, and breathed out the carcinogenic cloud of smoke. It was almost a sigh.

“I'm really not sure. It looks like we might have to turn around and head back West.” he replied, voice low and smooth.

She sighed as well. She had suspected that something was going on due to the elevated activity level in the building, the cosmic creature much more in tune to the energy that resulted from heightened stress and even excitement. She nodded.

“That might be for the best. I feel something's not right.” she confessed, an invisible weight lifting from the angel's shoulders.

“Yeah. Me too.” the human replied, though he didn't mention the drawing.

He stubbed out the cigarette and turned toward the door without saying anything else, in fact. He closed it behind him, and descended the stairs back into the building, moving aside when he saw the blonde man coming in the opposite direction. He nodded as they passed one another, but the angel ignored him. For a moment he paused and considered reversing and trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. The chances of being discovered were too high so he went back to the room where his belongings were being stored.

He was starting to pack a bag when the phone on the small table began to ring.

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Somewhere In Oregon:

The boy's body had grown hungry. One disadvantage of a living host, and why Falielle, and most other demons chose to inhabit the recently deceased. He hadn't had the privilege of having contact with devoted humans however, and he was no loyalist to either side of the festering conflict in what the humans called Hell. He was simply an opportunist, a lower level demon who was subservient to those of the ilk of the ones who had left the door open behind them. He simply wanted out. Away from it all.

Being what he was, possessing the boy was taxing. Keeping him suppressed took more energy than the beast had anticipated. It was wearing him thin, making it harder for him to remain anchored. It considered stabbing the body fatally in order to end the struggle, but truth be told, that was a last resort. The plan was to release the child when he found a more suitable host. Preferably an adult body. This arrangement had been pure survival and opportunity. How could he pass that up? A chilling smile crossed his face as he spotted a new opportunity.

He had been looking for a place to hide as the sun rose, taking refuge at a deserted service station, using his enhanced strength to simply snap the lock on the back door as he turned the knob. The place was dusty, and moldy, but he could hide here, he decided. Another biological necessity reared its ugly head. The need for sleep. He found a box that contained old beach blankets. There must have still been stock around when the place shut down. He used a few of those as a sort of pillow and another to cover his body, sleeping on the floor, in the far corner of the room.

His eyes closed, and for the first time in over three hundred years, the demon in the boy's body had a dream. It wasn't his own however, all of the scenery and insinuations of people formed from the mind of the child. It was still enough to unsettle the unholy thing and in that moment, the hooks he had in the boy weakened. Suddenly, he was cast out, un-tethered, and angry. He considered re-entering the child, but instead, decided to move on in his spectral form, at least until he found another host. Even in that ghostly state, it took him almost a day to reach a small town called La Pine.

It was a secluded town that mostly seemed occupied by farmers. Most of those would be too strong willed for him, but he sensed something here. A soul suffering, crying out for help. It was like a broadcast signal. Easy to pick up with the right tuning, but harder to pin down the source. He found a shadowy place in the back of a building to settle, his faint figure practically disappearing into the gloom. When the sun set again, he began his search for the one who was putting off the delicious pain that he couldn't ignore.

He found the building it was emanating from. Just past the town, a singular building sat on a bluff. There were roads to and from it, but after dark, it was sparsely populated. That made it easy for the demon to simply sprint through the gloom, up the hill, a flash of movement in the shadows before it hesitated. The radio station was surrounded by lights. It may not have been the most powerful demon ever created, but it was fully capable of walking through that. The problem was, it would be mostly visible.

A humanoid shape with the legs of a goat, barely there, but absolutely real, flashed across the single monitor as the camera picked up its movement near the door. The lone security guard didn't notice it, and even if he had, would have dismissed it as a glitch. In the studio, Aaron Darby bobbed his leg in time with the song coming through the headphone over his right ear, awaiting his cue.

As soon as the On Air light came on, a bloodcurdling scream was broadcast over the airwaves.

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A Thousand Miles Away:

The phone had seemingly took on a life of its own, between calls with his direct superior, the Pentagon, several politicians in Oregon and Washington, and a couple of strange reports coming over the wire. Edward was tired. He was irritable, and the rage had brought on one of his headaches. He swallowed a pair of the pain pills he kept in his pocket and sighed. He might have to let the blonde angel lead the charge on the Portland return, as he had a feeling that he would be needed elsewhere. Already there were things happening in Nevada.

It seemed as if the darkness was spreading east like an infection, and the only directive he was being given was to stop it. When he asked for resources, however, there was foot-dragging and excuses from those involved. The pounding in his head got worse.

He wanted to scream, but kept it contained, biting on the inside of his cheeks.