The Angels from Hell

Dani

Alone and unable to sleep, Dani flicked through channels on the hotels bulky tv set. Some kids show, a talk host rambling on about grocery prices, the rolling credits of an eighties film and a news room with a blonde news anchor was speaking about...

Dani's heart stopped.

"An update from Hobart about a recent arson case. After an anonymous call, new light has been cast onto the criminal behind not only this case but several across the southern hemisphere ." The screen behind the blonde news lady revealed a photograph of Dani's old workplace barely recognisable as anything more than rubble and ash.

"From the caller's information, CCTV footage was unearthed that revealed a woman by the name of Danielle Briceno was behind the recent case. Police officer David Fletching told the news last night that he had matched Briceno's description to fired employees of three other businesses that had been set ablaze causing millions of dollars in property damage. Officer Fletching even reported that this Danielle Briceno may even be behind a case over a decade ago where three people were killed. The only survivor, six year old Danielle Briceno, was originally a suspect but lack of evidence forced police to release her to relatives. Carla Briceno-Diez and Oliver Tate, aunt and uncle of Danielle Briceno said to reporters, 'I would not be surprised. That girl was always trouble and has been setting fires since she was born. I hope the police find her and give her all that she deserves.' Danielle Briceno is believed to have fled to Australia and police are on her trail." The screen showed a slightly blurry image of Dani standing outside her old job with a container of gasoline.

Dani's sat on her bed in shock. She had never been so careless to be caught on CCTV. At every job, she had a different name, a different hair colour, a different personality. No, there was no anonymous caller or police officer that could have tracked her down. Her image was replaced by news of a tropical storm in Darwin and then a story of a young boy who had drowned in a pool, but that CCTV footage seemed permanently plastered over her eyes.

She was fucked. She was really fucked.

Sitting in this dank hotel room she half expected the door to break open and for handcuffs to click around her wrists. Had anyone seen her come in? There had been the receptionist. Leaping up from the formless bed, Dani ripped the curtains shut and paced the room's perimeter. Should she leave? Would it be safe to leave? In England or Spain, Dani could disappear for sure but as would her life savings. Life savings. A conversation had pushed itself back to the forefront of her mind. If she signed the papers, she would be dead in a week and in heaven instead, what use were life savings? Her relief was fleeting.

If a week was all she had left she was damn sure that it would not be spent in jail. Dani leapt back onto her bed, bruising a point on her hip where a loose bed spring stuck out oddly in the mattress. She breathed in the pain.

Her mind turned to the words of her aunt and uncle. In her head she saw a house, white concrete, blue tile roof. Two children were playing with the garden hose, squirting it everywhere but the neat rows of flowers.

"You got me. I'm all wet." The boy wrestled the hose from the girl, his red-blonde hair sticking to his forehead.

"I'm too fast." The girl, a few centimetres taller than the boy, ducked as a jet of water streamed above her and she ran, squealing to the other side of the garden. "You can't get me."

"Do not think about coming in all wet." A man leaned against the doorway, concealing his laughter. His floral printed clothes were neatly ironed, the beginnings of grey hairs left undyed in a shoulder length, ungroomed style. The children ran towards him, and he grabbed them up in his arms, soaking himself in the process. A woman emerged from behind him and in the afternoon glow, her red hair looked like rays of sunlight through clouds. She draped a loving arm over her husband and swept the damp hairs from the eyes of the little girl. "Looks like you won't need showers tonight," she laughed but the laugh grew distant, and the scene faded, replaced by the faces of her aunt and uncle.

"That girl was always trouble," the image of her aunt had said. As the hours passed Dani's memories slipped into dreams where the barriers of reality gave way to the darkness beneath. She saw her families' faces crumble into ash, their cheeks sink into charred bone, their bodies buried under the roof of where the house had been. She could not escape, could not force herself to wake up. She was trapped in her own head with everything she could not forget.

In the distance, an angel was watching the window where, behind the curtains, Dani slept. His appearance flickered, one moment a man in a dentist's blue scrubs, then a moustached police officer and a young girl in an apron. The flickering grew and the angel became restless on his feet. His wings flapped unconsciously raising him above the pavement. With shaking hands, he dug into a pocket and drew out a tiny vile. Inside was a red liquid, darker than blood, brighter than blackness. He allowed a few drops to spill onto his tongue. His transformations stopped. He floated back down to the ground in the shape of an old man, returning to a dignified figure of immortal refinement, silhouetted in the dark against a crescent moon hanging low in the sky.

His eyes did not leave Dani's hotel window, but his other hand dug into his pocket and drew out a phone. He held it oddly, an unfamiliar implement of human design and rang a three digit number.

"Police," he said, "I have some information you might like to know regarding a certain human woman."