Heaven, Hell, and Earth

Chapter 22

Meanwhile back at the bureau, Vaggie had given herself quite a time cleaning up Angel and dealing with Alastor once again sneaking out, against the rules. With Angel constantly fussing during the bath and teasingly trying to get her to touch him, and Alastor resorting to black mail to keep her quiet, they were just impossible. Not only impossible but irresponsible, devil may care, arrogant, reckless, and down right aggravating. It was a miracle that she had managed to live under the same roof as them for this long and they were both still breathing. Why if she didn't have such a strong sense of reason, she would have flung them both out a window years ago.

"What am I going to do with them?" She thought to herself as she changed into her purple colored pajamas. "Here they are in their twenties and they still act like twelve year olds, honestly do men ever really grew up?"

She sat down on her bed and proceeded to comb her white hair out with a brush. Carefully untangling all the knots and keeping every strand in place.

"I wish Charlie was here." Her inner voice spoke. "It's not easy being the only girl in the group. Some days I could really use her help."

She had just finished fixing her hair for bed when door to her room slowly creaked open, however she didn't see anyone come in. 

"Who's there?" 

But there was no answer. She stood up from her bed and walked over to look through the doorway. There was no one in sight.

"Angel is that you?" She asked. "Or Alastor? Are you two trying to scare me again?"

Once again no answer came.

"Come on guys, you know how this ends. You may get me to scream but you two always walk away with a black eye and a bleeding nose."

Still nothing.

"You two are not funny."

She closed the door and re-approached her bed, but she stopped suddenly when a familiar scent entered her nose. The smell of smoke. The smell of something smoking. But it wasn't tobacco or cigarettes or a pipe. It was pheromones. Moth pheromones to be exact. 

Vaggie suddenly felt her stomach drop and her heart rate pick up. It had been so many years, but she would never forget that scent. Never. Even when she had tried to countless times. 

"No." She thought to herself in terror. "No it's not him. It can't be. I'm just imagining things or this is a nightmare. There's no way in Hell he could be here. He could never find me here."

"You always did look so ravishing in purple."

As soon as she heard that smooth and silky voice, her breath stopped, her blood ran cold, her body turned stiff, her heart became rapid, and she lost control of certain organs. The voice came from behind and it felt like an eternity had passed when she finally turned around. Strangely though she still saw nobody.

"No I'm not really here." The voice continued. "I will give credit to the fools here, they put up an excellent barrier.  I can't get in physically but your anntenae allows you always hear my voice and know when my presence is near. And I can see you but you can't see me."

Her eyes began to desperately scour the room for what that voice could be using to spy on her.

"Quite the fetching creature you've grown into. You have Mother's figure but you sadly still have Father's eyes. I never could stand his eyes. The way they always looked at me with shame, disappointment, and disgust. I hated them on him and I hated them on you."

Vaggie raised a trembling hand to her left eye which had always been hidden by her hair.

"Did you honestly think that I would never find you? You thought that you could just run away and that would be the last you'd ever see of me? Well I never stopped looking for you. I knew I'd find you someday and at long last I have. Now I just need to get to you somehow."