The Letter 'B'

Abbadon

August 15th 2014
The silent lull of the evening breeze was being disturbed by the hustle and bustle of human civilization. Again. Abbadon sighed from a park bench. These humans never seemed to take a day off. It had been several decades since he last had to deal with these two-legged animals. Back then they spent most of their time hunched over their desks writing letters. Now every single human in sight was hunched over tiny glowing boards of varying size, repeatedly poking them with their thumbs.

Abbadon sighed again. There was just no helping these creatures. Totally irrelevant anyway. The humans weren't what he was there for. He was on the hunt again. For a cambion this time. Abbadon smiled to himself. It had been at least a century since he'd gone up against a fellow half-demon. The cambion, much like the nephilim, were seen as an abomination in both heaven and hell and they spent a good chunk of their long lifespans being ruthlessly hunted by the forces of both sides.

Most of these cambion and nephilim, half demon and half angel respectively, often spent much of their lives in hiding, trying as much as possible to blend in with the humans they looked so similar to. Some of them were able to pull it off, and they lived and died naturally without ever showing up on anyone's radar. Some of them weren't so fortunate. There was always some sort of slip up they never fully anticipated, like walking too close to a demon without realizing it.

Once their scent was picked up, that was it. The hunt was on. These hunts were one of the few occasions when both sides opted to work together, sharing resources and information, all born from a mutual need to rid the very universe of these...mistakes. Abbadon knew somewhere in his heart that he probably shouldn't hold the cambion in such high contempt. Being one of them himself, he had no idea when hell would decide they no longer had need of his services and turn the hunt against him.
He shook his head and pushed the thought out of his mind. Most of hell was busy with attempts to invade the mortal world anyway. Beelzebub's first order as the new ruler of hell had been to seize control of earth from the grasp of humans. He hadn't counted on their resilience. Or that they'd receive help from heaven. For almost three hundred years the main demon army had been held a few kilometers outside the Gate of Solomon that the demons used to cross into limbo.

The tactics of the humans had actually impressed Abbadon. In addition to holding the demons near the gate in limbo for so long, they even had specialized forces they called Verses, some of which actually foraged into hell itself in search of information and general weaknesses to exploit. Abbadon had watched most of the war play out, and he still wasn't entirely sure the humans weren't acting alone, without some form of demonic guidance. The idea of demons working against each other wasn't entirely unheard of.

Abbadon glanced at his watch. Time meant nothing to an immortal—as a concept, it didn't even exist till the humans came around—but the cambion he was hunting kept to a very rigid pattern on this particular day of the week. He glanced across the street just as his target stepped out of one of the many buildings lining her side of the road. It was a little girl, probably around seven years old, with her blonde hair tied up in pigtails.

Abbadon felt a slight tug in his chest as he recalled a distant memory. He'd had a sister once, and she'd had blonde hair, same as his target. Same as him. He felt a small spark of hesitation at having to kill this cambion that reminded him of a little sister he barely even knew. He shook his head again. Whatever his feelings might be on the matter, that was still a cambion, and he still had a job. "Hesitation only leads to death." He reminded himself as he got off the park bench. He made his way toward the little blonde girl with renewed purpose. He would not enjoy this, but it had to be done.

As he walked he suddenly became aware of the humans around him. Their panic was rising. He became even more aware of the fact that the panic was being directed at him. He found out why a few seconds later. He'd stepped out onto the road and a bigger variation of the horseless chariots he'd been seeing all day was suddenly barreling toward him at a frightening speed.