This is a WIP. It’s not been completely edited but wanted to get an opinion. Thanks all,
Shelly
“What have you done!” A voice exploded into the room. His voice. The Almighty’s.
I couldn’t help but keep my head lowered and watched blood seep out of the chest wounds in the human. He deserved it. The woman and I should’ve done this sooner. Besides, it was my appointed job to protect children. How can one truly protect without taking out the source of evil.
A burst of laughter came from behind me. “I told you, angle boy, told you we’d end up being buddies. Looks like you’ll loose your place in heaven as one of the good boys.”
“Shut up, Phil,” I said, looking up at the woman. Tears poured from her eyes and dropped into the blood pooling on the side of the man’s body. Her fingers loosened around the gun and it fell into the red liquid. She wiped her hands off on the front of her shirt, bowled over, and let out an agonizing moan.
“The baby,” she cried. She lifted her head and stared into my eyes. Not that she could see me but her pupils cut right through me. The human eye cannot see angels unless we allow it.
“Ariel,” the Almighty called again. Yeah. I knew I went against His orders but I had to save the little girl. I found it hard to be like Gabriel. Business-like. Unattached to all humans. This was the proper thing to do. Stay unattached but I love every child I’ve ever been assigned to.
“Aren’t you going to answer?” Phil asked. “Afraid?”
I looked away from the woman and back at the demon. His head tilted from side to side and his split tongue slithered quickly out of his mouth.“Thought I told you to shut up. Take the evil human’s soul and get. Out. Of. My. Sight.” My patience wore thin having Philatemes around. He’d been hounding me for weeks. Taunting me ever since we’d met.
“Don’t you wish to come join ranks with my master? I mean, there’s no way the big guy’s going to let you enter his Kingdom ever again. You know that.”
“Let’s get something straight, no matter what the Almighty decides I’ll never join ranks with you or your horde. I’m not like you and never will be. Your kind disgusts me especially when you believe its okay to prey on vulnerable humans especially the babies and the children on earth. It makes me sick to think the Almighty considers your kind access to the human world.”
The demon grinned. “You know why I like you, angel boy?” He pointed his claw-like finger into the air. “You say whatever’s on your mind. Bad. Good. Indifferent. And, you don’t even care what your master thinks. Kudos to you, buddy.” He walked toward the human’s bleeding corpse and stooped beside it. Black-like tentacles streamed through his body and wrapped themselves around the dead man.
The woman screamed, writhing beside me, holding onto her pregnant belly. The baby would be here soon.
“Looks like another human soul ‘s about to be born,” the demon said. He closed his eyes and breathed in sucking the soul from the dead man’s body through his dark extensions. The body went hard and turned blue-grey. The stench of sulfur filled my nose as I watched a mist surround the demon, the human’s wicked soul.
A bright light flashed around us. My brothers’ wings surrounded me and the presence of the Almighty engulfed the room. The glow warmed me on the outside but chilled my insides.
“You need to come with us,” my brothers said in unison, grabbing my shoulders.
I raised my hand mid-air to shake myself loose of their hold. “No,” I said. “This baby needs to be delivered safely. This woman needs me.”
The woman squealed and panted more. Knees bent, she heaved her chest forward and blew out air in the midst of a loud wail. Sweat soaked her forehead.
I looked up into the Almighty’s light. It’s heat warmed my skin. “You can’t possibly expect me to leave her here like this?”
“The woman has sinned, Ariel. No thanks to you,” He said. “She has consequences to pay for her actions and so do you.”
“Not until I deliver this baby and make sure she’ll be okay.” I turned to look at Philatemes.
He shrugged and loosened the body his tentacles sucked from. “Good luck, buddy. You know where to find me.” He flailed his arms in front of him like a magician and disappeared along with the human’s dark soul. Glad he left.
I looked back into the glowing warmth, my Commander in Chief, while my winged brothers encircled me and the woman. “Can you not have pity on this woman? The baby? Have you no real mercy?” Something wet ran down my cheek, a tear perhaps. My emotions were getting the best of me these days. Angels weren’t supposed to be entitled to these.
“Why did you defy my orders?” The Almighty choked out His last three words.
“I’ll answer that after I deliver this baby.” I turned back toward the woman and ripped her skirt down the center, letting down the veil that hid me from her sight.
The thrashing woman’s sudden wide eyes said she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. An angel. She grabbed both my wrists. “Oh, thank God,” she screamed. “Thank God!” Her head laid back onto the bloodied carpet.
“Seize him,” the Almighty said.
My brothers grabbed my arms, and my wrists slid from the woman’s clammy grip.
“No!” I yelled, struggling to free myself. “Where’s your mercy? You. Can’t. Do. This.”
“Take him to my courtroom. There he will be tried fairly before I decide his fate.”
My mind urged my wings to unfold but somehow my brothers wrapped me in my own feathers. They were my vice for now. It paralyzed my body along with the fading screams of the woman in labor.
As I felt my body be lifted to the sky, I sent my mental energy out to the woman. Since I couldn’t be there to help her, my force would. That’s all I could give. Another power gifted to angels.
