The Angels from Hell

Lilea

"Crystilie doesn't seem to like you." Bezilda talked cheerfully as she walked Lilea and Ala through a door at the back of the wing room and down another corridor. "I can give you the basics but you're on your own."

Lilea smoothed down her dress, a tight black one down to her boots with a matching jacket and belt. She was the picture of professionalism yet inside, her head spun and her back prickled uncomfortably. Yes she had may not have acted in the best way in front of Crystilie but if she succeeded this could be a chance to redeem herself but everyone was talking to her like she was going to die on this quest and dead people didn't get second chances.

Then again, Ala, who didn't seem to care what anyone thought, her hair still a mess and wearing the same clothes as the day before, had signed. Crystilie had been so quick to choose Ala who there didn't seem to be anything remarkable about. She was just another demon spawned from nothing more than human sin. She didn't even want to go on this quest.

"Come with me." They hustled from one room to another, meeting no one.

"You've seen the wings. We have some basic angelic equipment. There are some outfits, accessories and weapons." Ala pricked up at this. She had been skulking behind Bezilda and Lilea and now she increased pace to match theirs.

"Weapons? Ones that can kill angels?"

"No, no, no," Bezilda seemed amused. "Kill angels? We want to avoid a war."

"They can kill us, but we can't kill them?" Bezilda's amusement turned serious.

"This is your mission girl. You want to discover what some angels have been doing, that's up to you but don't expect to be a welcome guest in heaven."

Lilea couldn't read Ala's expression. Bezilda returned to her usual state of pleasantness.

"These are your weapons." She opened another door to reveal a walk in wardrobe crammed in all corners with clothes, shoes, hats, bags.

"We're being sent to heaven?" Ala walked the extent of the room, her eyes franticly scanning the items. "We're being sent to heaven on a quest armed with accessories?"

"Not any ordinary accessories." Bezilda grabbed up a hat and revealed a microphone hidden under the ribbon.

"So that's it," Ala's voice rose slightly, "just send us out there even though we know nothing, even though I'm just a monitor. You haven't even told us what we'll be facing or what we should do." The ferocity in her words made Lilea step away from her. She could have been speaking in another language for all Lilea could comprehend. No one would ever speak to an elder demon like that. Only the most disrespectful, ill-mannered...Ala wasn't finished.

"You made me sign a document and won't even give us tools to protect ourselves. A murderer was bathed with heavenly light. He will go unpunished, and you don't care. No one else seems to care. You'd rather avoid paperwork than actually do your jobs. You'd rather send someone who has no chance of succeeding than take an actual risk."

"I didn't make you sign anything." Bezilda had snapped back to her deadly sombre manner. The shifts between grandmotherly figure and stony-faced woman with the powers of hell behind her made Lilea feel sick. "If you wanted to stay in your office doing the same job for the rest of eternity, you should have kept your mouth shut."

"I did my job, to monitor and report."

"And now to act under the directions of your superiors." Bezilda's voice had grown as quiet as Ala's had risen but it was the kind of quiet that seared through your ears. With a disdainful look at Ala, she grabbed two backpacks from the walls and shoved handfuls of clothes and hidden devices into them. She threw one to Ala and one to Lilea.

"Follow me."

"Of course, what next." Bezilda's quiet fury had made little impact on Ala. "Lead us to another room. Are you going to arm us with more hats or perhaps a nice bag?" There was no answer.

Lilea had to run to keep up with Bezilda. She marched past door after door, her eyes fixed forward. The walls around her changed, the delicate carving shifting into golden trim which changed to a pale wallpaper until this too was stripped away to reveal roughly carved black rock. Darkness was heavy in the air around here, concentrated on a spot right in front of them where the blackness solidified into a door.

A prickling feeling stretched from the scars on Lilea's back right down to her fingertips. There was something hidden in the shadows here, something powerful. Ala stopped. The fight in her seemed to deflate.

"This is it." There was a lot of unsaid words in that statement. Bezilda approached the door and ran a finger from the top to the bottom. At her touch, a cold breeze slid through the door's cracks and spread around the three of them making goosebump rise on Lilea's skin.

Holding her breath, Lilea watched Bezilda lean forward and open the door.

Lilea let out a cry of pain. White light had streamed from all directions with such force the darkness vanished instantly, and a scorching sensation spread across the entirety of her body. Before her eyes could adjust there was a second burst of agony that ripped through her chest like a knife wound. Bezilda's hand withdrew from where it had hit Lilea, and she caught a glimpse of a ball of concentrated light that had seemingly melted into her skin. Ala grunted and buckled over as Bezilda's hand shot out again with considerably more force. She shoved them both through the doorway. Lilea tried to say something, anything but the ground disappeared beneath her feet and the last thing she heard was the door slamming shut behind her.