The Angels from Hell

Ala

Ala finally understood all the hype about going up to Earth. Every manager and coworker in hell had listened with raptured attention to stories of demons that had gone up to Earth to tempt or corrupt humans, but Ala had spent everyday for thousands of years watching humans from inside her office. She thought she knew everything about humans and had seen everything there was to see of Earth. It was not an alien place to her, in many ways it was similar to hell except brighter and there were trees and stuff. She couldn't see what was so enticing about a place so full of death. Every day, she watched good people die and bad people get away with murder or ignore others in pain. It was just a place for people to show whether they were good and bad so they could be rewarded or punished in the afterlife. Going down to heaven now was the best way to find proof of this operation. She had found Dani in that hotel room, had spoken to a human for the first time and a damned human at that and she had never been more exhilarated and perhaps, just a little confused. Dani had seemed normal. From her experience with the damned, they rarely cared about the cost of their actions. Ala knew that humans were complex and that they were not divided into fundamentally good and evil but when they died it was heaven or hell, there was no in-between. In the hotel where Dani was staying, everything had been comfortable. The fabrics were soft, the light was neither compressing darkness or blindingly intense and everything seemed so new and unexpected. It would be hard to become bored of Earth.

When she had returned to heaven, her eyes had stung from the sudden brightness. Deleon had stared at her suspiciously when Darius had mentioned her former role as a cleaner. It had made her think back to Lilea. She was sure that Darius was going to arrest her at best, but she had kept smiling and after a tense moment he had turned away. Ala had walked in the opposite direction until she gathered that enough time had passed and lopped back around, planning on returning to the closet they had entered heaven through to see if there was any sign that Lilea had escaped. She didn't want to think about the alternative.

Before she had reached the closet, the screaming had started.

She ran towards the sound but not soon enough. By the time she reached the corridor, it was empty, and the screaming had stopped. Hairs rising across her skin, she wandered past each door, wanting to know what happened but not wanting to draw attention to herself. Through one door near the cleaning closet, she heard Deleon's voice. He was talking with what sounded like a group of angels, all speaking in trembling voices. No one sounded in desperate need of aid.

It occurred to Ala that with Deleon in this room, no one was in his office. If Lilea had already left, there was no time limit on checking the closet. If Deleon had captured her, this might be her only chance to search his room. She rushed to the door and flung herself inside. The first thing she saw was that a bookshelf had been shifted out of position and, stepping forward, she nearly let out a cry of relief to see Lilea standing within a hidden space where the bookshelf had been. Instead, she had kept her voice level, almost disinterested.

"I thought you left," she said, "fancy seeing you in here." Lilea glared at her.

"Sorry to disappoint you." Ala hesitated at the bitterness in Lilea's voice. Perhaps she had come across too harsh. Lilea sounded much more like the manager she had first met and not the apologetic version that had pulled her by her wrist.

"Hey, same side," Ala said raising her hands. "I'm glad you're still here. We have a lot to do."

"Yeah, sure," Lilea said, though her voice remained odd. Ala realised that it was not her managerial voice at all. Ala supposed it might have been a little thoughtless to leave in the morning without waking Lilea and spending all day away with the angels, too consumed with her own plan to think much of Lilea. Something seemed to have happened, not just Deleon returning but more than that. Lilea sounded hurt.