Desolation Comes Upon the Sky

Hollow Lie

Ahh! Sorry for the long wait, but the start of spring semester has had me all over the place.

July 14th, 2014
Rexford, Idaho

Alex dumped a half-eaten plate of lo-mein into the trash, knocking the ceramic dish against the side to dislodge the remaining noodles. She chanced a look up at the clock: one-thirty. She was back to working full shifts, and so her day was barely half over. "There's a new customer." Melanie poked her head into the back. "He's at table three."

"Okay." Alex stacked the plates beside the sink. "I'm taking my break afterwards, though. I'm starting to get hungry." She wiped her hands off on her pants before she followed her coworker out to the front. Alex grabbed a menu and made her way back to the far booth where their newcomer was seated. "Hi, welcome to Lucky Chin's." She began her spiel as she set down the menu. "What can I —" The words died in her throat as she looked up into her guest's eyes, and she took a half-step back, fist balled.

"What can you do for me? Good question." Crowley pushed the menu away and motioned to the seat across from him. "Sit down."

Alex didn't move. "What are you doing here?" she hissed, casting a quick glance over her shoulder. "This is my work! What if you got spotted? You can't —"

"I'll do what I want, thank you." The demon cut her off as he put his hand on a small stack of folders. "Good work with that angel, by the way. How about we start rehoning those skills?"

He slid the folders over to her, but Alex refused to pick them up. "You mean like hunting?" She scoffed at the concept. "That seems a little below you, don't you think? Why?"

"Because if you're going to be doing my dirty work, I need to make sure you're capable of doing it. Consider it on-the-job training." Crowley pushed the folders to the other side of the booth, and made a move to stand up, but Alex stopped him.

"Wait, wait, wait, you can't — you can't just throw it at me like this. I don't have a car, I don't have access to any information — hell, the only weapon I have is a handgun with three bullets."

Crowley's eyes flashed at her tone. "Figure it out. You'll report to Jackson when you're done." The King of Hell rose to his feet and walked away, leaving Alex staring after his dark, stocky figure.

"Wait!" she hissed after him. "Who? Jackson as in 'hot-laundromat' Jackson?" Crowley disappeared, leaving her question unanswered, and Alex sat down at the now-unoccupied table with a shake of her head. "Great."

"Did you say Jackson?" Mel's head peeked around the corner, her brown eyes sparkling with interest. "Where? And where'd that creepy guy go?" She frowned to see that he was nowhere in sight and stepped out from behind the dividing half-wall. "Weird." Her gaze fell onto the stack of folders that now lay in front of Alex. "Did he leave those behind?"

"What — yeah, yeah, I guess so." Alex tried to push them away out of Mel's prying eyes, but her coworker wouldn't have it. Her hands were on them in an instant, and Alex tried to protest. "I don't think we should —"

It was too late. Mel had already opened the first one up and was staring down at the Missing Person's report. "Whoa," she breathed out. "I think I've heard about this girl on channel 9! Do you think this guy's a cop?"

"You shouldn't be looking." Alex quickly closed the folder. "Isn't that like a ... a criminal offense or something?" She set the stack down on the booth next to her. "I'm sure he'll come back for them once he realizes he forgot them. I'll take them to the back until then."

"You're no fun." Mel walked away, leaving Alex to slowly shake her head as she called over her shoulder, "This is why your life is boring."

"If only you knew." The words were spoken too quietly for the retreating woman to hear, and Alex took the moment of silence to pull the folders back up onto the table and flip through them. There were three in total, all females ranging between the age of sixteen and twenty eight. They didn't seem to have an immediate connection, and, much to Alex's dismay, no bodies had yet turned up. "Dammit." The ex-angel gathered the files up under her arm. She would have to look over these much more closely if she wanted to glean any sort of information. This would have to wait until after work.