The Song of the Serpentine Angel

6 | The Salacious Scorpion

Silence hung in the air like weights. His heavy breathing painted clouds in front of his face as stumbled through the snow. Oskar pressed his hand to the cut on his arm as well as the one that went diagonal across his chest. The world twirled and swayed, and the edges of his vision seemed to be threatening to turn black. He gritted his teeth and pushed through the pain. Azrael's body lay off to the side—its head was long gone, having been ripped off in his rage. Oskar stared down at the motionless body of the man he'd been trying to protect. John...He couldn't be dead, could he?

He groaned in pain as he bent down to get a closer look at John.

"Hey, there was an explosion over there! Someone call the police!"

Panic gripped his heart. He quickly grabbed John's body and shadow stepped to the abandoned warehouse he'd been staying in for a good three days since he'd come from California. The chill of Chicago would take quite a while to get used but he could handle anything the elements threw at him. Oskar carefully dragged John's body onto the makeshift bed (which consisted of a stolen mattress and a stolen blanket) in the furthest corner of the warehouse. It was in relatively good shape, and he figured nobody would ever find him here.

Oskar dropped to the floor beside John with a grunt and wiped at the sweat on his forehead. He'd lost too much blood and the wounds were from an angel weapon at that. He fumbled to open a bottle filled with viscous, grayish liquid. When he managed to put it to his lips, he gagged at the horrible taste that followed but forced it down. His wounds sealed up immediately afterwards. He looked from the bottle (it still had some of the liquid within it) to the still motionless man on the mattress beside him.

"If this gets me caught up in a mess I don't want to be in, I might actually kill someone."

Oskar put the bottle up to John's mouth.

▬

5:55pm

Grant Park, Chicago, IL

Snow crunched beneath his feet as he walked through the chaos that had befallen the park. Sirens shrieked in the dismal air, announcing the presence of the police. He could hear the faint shouts of the officers telling the morbidly curious people to back away from the crime scene. Yellow police tape decorated the area like someone's sad attempt at a murder scene. Well, he supposed this was a true murder scene considering what had transpired here. Standing just outside of the yellow tape, he watched as the evidence collection technicians scrapped away at whatever blood that could get from the concrete and snow.

                The irony of their situation as mortals never ceased to amaze him—they had no idea they were dealing with beings far beyond their comprehension. Demons, angels, and more supernatural beings were far more than biblical stories and fairytales could ever hope to encompass. He lit a cigarette and watched the humans scramble. He wasn't really here to observe but he had time to waste. Puffing out a ring-shaped cloud of smoke, he cast an uninterested eye on a mortal woman who wandered close to him. He could hear her elevated heart, see her dilated pupils, and the flush that decorated her face.

                She was going to do this...at a crime scene?

                "H-hello—"

                He rolled his eyes. "I'm not interested in anything you have to offer."

                Her face fell. He turned away from her, indifferent to what reaction his words would draw from her. He slipped past the police tape and headed toward the blood that had been spilled on what had once been pure, white snow. To mortal police officers, this was just an abnormal murder in the middle of a park, but—to those such as himself—this was a common sight for angels and demons who got into scuffles with each other. He crouched down to get a better look at the angel's body and his eyebrows raised in interest. Its head had been ripped clean off of its body. He wondered what demon did this. It couldn't have been the demon who'd practically bled out. He could sense the faint traces of two separate demons here.