Demons And Angels

Part 1

He slithered quickly across the floor of feet. And slithering is the correct way to describe his movements; he was a snake, after all—literally. And since he was male, you could also refer to him as 'he'.

There were both upsides and downsides to slithering across a fully packed dance floor. People never expected a snake to be there, so he went unnoticed. However, drunk people were very unpredictable. Being struck with a stiletto heel was not something he wanted to experience.
While dodging the heels and other types of shoes he could not name, he had a thought. Regular snakes might not think in the same way as this particular one, but being a snake was just a temporary state for him.
Was this a success?
This could either be insecurity or a realization of what had just happened.
He was supposed to bite a man who was in the way of his business, but for some reason, he had hesitated. And while he had taken a few seconds to think about what he was about to do, there had been a fight over who had looked sideways at some girl. A fight had begun and ended with the man banging his head on the bar, resulting in his death from head trauma.
Mission accomplished, in a way; the man was dead, but it had not been because of the snake.

A very broad heel moved in the air and barely missed his tail. What he didn't expect was that the heel in question missed the floor, causing a woman to fall down beside him. Instead of a heel on his tail, he got a handbag on his head. And of course he was eye to eye with the same woman. Screaming started and soon there were chaos everywhere. At least it left him with quite a bit of room since everyone was trying to avoid him. He slithered into the bathroom to get changed. 

He always needed a bit of a stretch after turning back into a human. This included sticking his tongue out. It was both a bit of a habit when leaving the snake form but also to make sure it wasn't still snake-like. A man waited outside the bathroom stall.

"And how do you think that went?" The man's voice had always been annoying to him. It was just a fraction to high pitched to seem realistic for a full grown man. But it might also be because of his somewhat nervous aura surrounding him. He'd always been that way, ever since they met. As if he wasn't sure what would happen next.

"Well, he's dead, isn't he? What does it matter to you? You were supposed to guard him, asshole." His head hurt and he combed his hair with his hands to try and get his hairstyle in order. He always liked having his hair perfectly disheveled. He straightened his suit jacket, trying to get rid of the feeling of a handbag on his head. 

"Don't look at me, my shift ended moments before that. I just stuck around because I saw you on the floor. There isn't that many black mambas in the US." He wiped down his jacket as if he had been dusty. But the guardians were always impeccable.

"You've always been so perceptive, Gideon." He looked at the bright male in front of him. Gideon was as usual dressed in different shades of white. White suit with a cream colored tie. It was their signature after all. His name was supposed to mean 'great warrior' but it was quite the cosmic joke. He was always a bit unsure of everything. Almost as if the great divine had a sense of humor.

"Well someone has to be. You are getting a bit sloppy Marbas." Gideon held the door to the bar open for the both of them.
"Sloppy? You call that sloppy? It was your side who could not protect that man!" Marbas took it as a personal insult that Gideon insinuated that he had not done a perfect job. He knew that it was not his work that had made the man die, but it was still the outcome he was after.

He strode out of the bathroom and went up to the empty bar.
"Our job was done the moment he sent that report to the media. Now the company will have to take action against polluting the lakes around their mines." Gideon followed close behind him and looked a bit like a lost puppy.
"And there goes my money." Marbas took a bottle containing some sort of whiskey from the bar and started chugging it down.
"Money? Since when do you need money?" Being a guardian angel didn't mean that you weren't allowed to drink alcohol, but Gideon saved that for desperate times. He simply took a soda from behind the bar to be friendly.
"Do you know how much my apartment cost? It's not cheap living in the city you know. No, you wouldn't know. You're probably somewhere in the woods in some stinky old cabin."
Sirens and strong lights started to appear outside and Marbas put down the empty bottle. He wasn't even close to being drunk, a demon needed more than just a bottle of random whiskey for that.

Gideon rolled his eyes at him which made him even more frustrated. Then he simply stated "I actually upgraded my cabin to a neat little place in the city. It wasn't that expensive. I only sold one Picasso for it. Didn't you use to have a valuable collection of Hieronymus Bosch?"

"I don't need money per se but that's not the point! You ruined my plan!"
Marbas apartment wasn't that special or expensive. When he'd approached a realtor about buying an apartment and having no budget in mind there had been hundreds of viewings before he had found the perfect one. The realtor had almost given up after the 115th viewing, but on their way out a neighbor had left their door open when moving out old furniture. Marbas had stepped inside and simply stated "I'm buying this" and it was done. The apartment was neither modern nor old; it existed somewhere in between. High ceilings but it was not painted completely in white and with some personal items it had been perfect. It had big walls for his art collection and had not been ruined by technology. The seller was actually one of the last tenants who had refused to sell their apartment for luxury remodeling. The poor realtor, who had wanted to show big expensive apartments to get a massive commission, had to settle for a modest one instead. After that he had blocked Marbas' number.