The Angels from Hell

Lilea

Lilea stumbled through the door of room 58, every muscle and joint aching. She had red circles on her palms where she had gripped the broom and her hair that was usually so perfect was nothing but a mess of loose strands sticking in all directions like she had been struck by lightning. Her legs threatening to collapse, she was just about to fall down on one of the beds when she noticed that Ala was sitting on it, quite relaxed.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lilea said, instantly fired up. Ala didn't look like she'd so much as picked up a mop. If anything she looked more composed than usual.

"How was cleaning?" Ala smirked, looking Lilea up and down. "You look like hell."

"Hell doesn't have anything to do with it," Lilea tried to keep herself standing righteously above Ala, but her legs were going to give away any second. "I've been working all day trying to keep our cover and you've been doing what exactly?"

"Solving the case," Ala said, excitedly jumping up from the bed.

"Oh you've solved it," Lilea tenderly took a step towards Ala, concentrating all her effort on keeping her footing, "congratulations, I guess we can all go back."

"Not yet," Ala said triumphantly, "but I have an in. Turns out the angels here are just as useless as the demons below when it comes to humans. They offered me a position as a junior monitor of human activity. If I can get them to trust me..."

"You were supposed to be cleaning," Lilea interrupted. She imagined Ala surrounded by angels, their blades drawn. One wrong word or action was all it took here. "We can't rush this. We can't do something stupid and get ourselves killed."

"The longer we say here, the more chance we will get killed. The human John Castillo could be enjoying a picnic in an orchard right now unless we stop this thing."

"He's just one human. You never even met him. We're not here to kill ourselves trying to punish him." Ala stepped towards Lilea, her expression hardening.

"Why do you want to end this mission at all?" she said, "You're in heaven, you have your wings. Isn't that what you want? You're just like all other angels here. You don't care about humans. You just couldn't stand the idea that someone lower than you might be promoted before you got the chance."

Lilea looked in Ala's eyes and thought she saw them flash back to solid black for a moment. Despite the pain in her legs, Lilea turned away from Ala and the two beds.

"I'm going for a walk. Don't get yourself killed before I come back." Lilea staggered out of the room. Before she closed the door, she glanced back at Ala who had sat down on the bed again. Ala didn't look up at her.

Lilea was so focused on getting away from Ala that she didn't register where she was going until she found herself in the same corridor where Raina had been carried off screaming. She hesitated outside the door. There was no sound inside. One day in heaven and Ala was a junior monitor of human activities while she had cleaned every staircase in the building. Lilea pushed the door open and stepped cautiously into the bedroom. The room was how she had left it, the covers on the bed straightened with the cushions neatly placed on top of them. There was no impression on the bed that Raina had returned nor was there any blood-like droplets. Unsure what she was looking for, Lilea opened the sharply carved wooden bedside table. It was empty. So was the matching table on the other side. She opened an ornate wardrobe and saw only one well-tailored grey suit and a pair of black shoes. Picking one up she saw that the underside of the shoes were worn down with the sole peeling away from the upper part of he shoe. Lilea turned around to see the huge room with all its designer furniture and the large window that overlooked the rolling green fields and then back at the shoes. She was about to check behind the wardrobe when there was the clear sound of approaching footsteps coming right to the door. Lilea just had time to hide under the bed before Lethe and an angel with a round face and shoulder length white hair entered.