The Angels from Hell

Ala

Ala found that if she stuffed her monitor at the bottom of her cleaning bucket, she couldn't hear the excessive buzzing. In her old position as human monitor the rooms had been small, the benefits limited and barely anything worked but at least she could do things her own way. No matter what manager she had resided under, she had made them all respect her. Her buzzer, on the other hand, did not. At first she had rushed to each location, terrified that an angel would burst out of nowhere and realise her true identity by how she held a mop but nothing of the sort had happened. No one even seemed to notice her. Reluctantly, Ala had to admire this part, whether or not intentional, of Lilea's plan. If she cleaned a little and ignored her monitor's buzzes, she could sneak around this building unseen. She peered around an office door. Inside was a space about the same size as her own office with two stiff backed chairs crowded around a desk that took up most of the room. The screens that covered the walls were flashier, sleeker. She doubted that angels had a whack-it-until-it works protocol here. All the screens were dark, and everything was so quiet that Ala could hear her own heartbeat in her head. She vaguely wiped at the doorknob with a cloth as she closed it and moved on.

The next room was near identical except in this one, the screens were turned on. Ala slid into the room. It was empty though unlike the previous room Ala could see signs of life. There was a mug next to one of the chairs and there was a remote like the one Ala had used in the supervision department resting on another chair. Looking at the screens, Ala's spirits couldn't help but lift. The unfamiliar rush of fear and embarrassment at being so incompetent compared to Lilea, lessened and a calmness spread across her. Without a doubt in her mind, Ala knew that each screen was showing real time footage of people down on Earth. She even recognised some of the locations and to her amusement noted the difference in camera angle from how she could see the scenes here compared to in her old office. Ala could see an old couple stretched out on a park bench from a near bird's eye view. It was almost the exact angle from which she had watched a young man get stabbed a few decades earlier except her camera had been slightly lower. With growing excitement, she saw the old woman starting to convulse, clawing at her neck where a piece of food had become stuck. These were the same scenes of death she had watched for thousands of years. Ala drew closer to the screens and scooped up the remote, freezing the image of the old woman. There it was. The flicker of bright, white light briefly illuminating the woman's face. At least this was at it should be. She always liked to study who was going to die a few months in advance to ensure no premature deaths were being unnoticed. Ala recognised this woman as Mary Thomas. She was the kind of woman that deserved a free ride to heaven. A retired schoolteacher who spent her free time cultivating a community garden, this woman was about as far away as one could get from John Castillo. Ala looked around her at the cramped office and wondered what heaven looked like for the humans who were brought here. She had never seen the damned souls in hell beyond glimpsing them through the fence, but she had heard their screams. Was John Castillo right now somewhere near her snacking on grapes and leaning back in golden armchairs? Ala gripped the remote control so tight that it left button shaped impressions on her hand.

The door snapped open behind Ala. She reflexively flung the remote away from her and grabbed at her broom, idly leaning against the desk.

"What are you doing?" Two angels stood behind her. They were both wearing the same grey suits Raina and Lethe had been wearing but Ala could see that theirs were distinctively shabbier and made of courser fabrics. One of them was holding another mug. She wondered longingly if it was coffee. Both angels looked tired even though it couldn't have been midday yet in human times and there was something in all their eyes that reminded Ala of her colleagues Marla and Jerim down in hell. She doubted they had been in the job for too long, perhaps only a thousand years. Hastily, Ala stepped away from the desk.

"I was just cleaning." Remembering what Lilea had said, she lowered her eyes to the floor, trying to ignore the blood rushing from her face.

"Are you done?" Said one of the angels, a dark skinned man with a shaved head and serious expression.

"Yes, absolutely." Ala bended her head lower. The other angel in the group didn't seem to have even noticed her at all. Ala was just about to retreat as fast as she could out of the room when she overheard one angel talking to the other.

"Hang on I think there's a problem here," the other angel with shoulder length white hair and a particularly circular face was saying. He examined a book like Ala's as he spoke with all the names and causes of death scribbled across it. "This woman is meant to die of a heart attack." With interest, Ala looked at the screen the angel was referring to. On it, she could see a middle aged woman in a floral dress hunched over a toilet bowl.

"She is," Ala said before she could stop herself and the angels turned to her.

"Vomiting can be a symptom of heart attacks in women. You can see she is clutching at one of her arms. Pain in one or both arms is another indication. She has been experiencing fatigue for the last few hours and the recent visit of her brother has been causing her heightened levels of stress. So there being any error or demonic interference is less likely."

The two angels stared at her, looked at the screen and back to her again.

"How do you know this?" One of them asked. Ala's thoughts raced around her head. She tried to appear calm, forcing her hands not to fidget and her feet not to pace.

"I notice things as a cleaner," she said blandly. Ala saw that they looked unconvinced. Desperately she tried to think but their gazes seemed to look straight into her mind directly at all the excuses she could think of, and Ala realised that none of them would be enough.

"I'll prove it to you." Ala said, confidence growing in her voice. "The real screen you have to watch out for is that one," Ala pointed at one right near the middle. "That is Edward Barnes, a politician that has been accepting bribes from lobbyists. Except, I bet it wasn't just his voice telling him to throw votes given the distinct change in his behaviour one year ago. Usually, this wouldn't be important for a department that just examines deaths. Afterall, you wouldn't think there would be a connection between a little demonic corruption and dying by being hit by a bus." The two other angels were still staring at her with perplexed faces, but their expressions were shifting every so slightly to interest. Ala hurried on. "The only problem is that due to him taking bribes he bought an apartment in walking distance from his work. He doesn't take the bus anymore. In fact, his new route to work doesn't pass any bus stops or lanes significantly limiting his chance of being killed by one. So, unless I am very much mistaken I would make note of an error in the original life calculations. He is visible on the screens, so he is going to die today but most likely by a car rather than a bus." Ala looked over at the two angels, "I, uh, look in here often."

All three of them turned their attention directly to the screen. With immense satisfaction, Ala watched the scene play out. Edward Barnes in his silk lined suits and fancy leather briefcase, crossed the road to the neighbouring office buildings. Just before he reached the other side, a sleek BMW tore through the red light and hit him. There wasn't a bus in sight. The two angels looked back at Ala.

"My name is Josiah," the serious angel said.

"And I am Darius," the white haired angel nodded smartly at Ala.

"Have you ever considered doing something other than cleaning," Darius asked and for the first time since Ala had woken up with her hands tied, she knew what she was supposed to do.