Fallen

Chapter 9

Man, for a little slip of woman Eliza had a pretty mean right hook! Her punch had taken the feeling right out of my hand! I know that shouldn't have been the first thing on my mind after delivering such earth shattering news, but damn! I had to shake it for a few seconds to get the tingling to stop.

"Can somebody please tell me who Abaddon is?" Eliza asked furiously. I looked to my friendly neighborhood priest.

"I'm assuming you haven't gotten very far in your teaching then?" I asked. Nathan nodded. I shook my head in disappointment. "What have you been doing all this time?"

"Hey, she's been on the road a long time. She needed some rest before we got into the heavy stuff," Nathan replied defensively. I shook my head again to drive my disappointment in further.

"We don't have time for this. Do you want me to tell her, or do you want to do the honors?" I asked pointedly. Nathan sighed.

"You go ahead." he said. I nodded, expecting the answer. This was a topic that Nathan wasn't so fresh on either. After all, the Princes weren't a topic to be discussed in normal conversation. I turned to our new student and set to explaining.

"Nathan has told you about demons, right?" I asked. Eliza nodded. Good, so he'd at least started on the basics. "Well, there are different types of demons. Some are stronger and higher ranked than others, but then, above all of them, you have the Princes, the leaders of the demon race and the rulers of Hell. Abaddon is one of them."

"And I'm assuming that's bad," Eliza deduced. I nodded.

"Yeah, worse than bad," I replied grimly. "Abaddon hasn't been on the playing field for over ten thousand years. That somebody was trying to contact him now doesn't bode well."

"But why now?" Nathan asked thoughtfully, tapping his chin. "The front has been pretty quiet lately. Why would anyone want a Prince to get involved now?"

"I don't know," I answered him. "But it can't be a coincidence that a Sword appears just when somebody is messing around with the Prince of Gluttony."

"Do you think they will try to summon him?" Nathan asked in fear. I shook my head, quickly denying that horrifying possibility.

"No," I replied surely. "This wasn't a summoning. This was like a phone call. Believe me, if somebody was trying to bring Abaddon up from downstairs then there would have been a lot more death and destruction going on. One dead guy isn't going to cut it."

"Still, that somebody has already been sacrificed," Nathan said in despair, crossing himself. "May God have mercy upon the poor soul."

"I hope he's listening," I replied, neither sarcastic nor sympathetic. "Because the boys upstairs are scarily silent on the matter. I even tried calling Ruth. Nothing. This kind of thing should have them jumping."

"But it doesn't," Nathan mused, his face a mask of thought. "Most intriguing."

"Not the words I would have used, but okay," I replied, turning my attention to the only out of the loop person in our little band. "The angels are supposed to be working on stuff like this. They contacted Nathan and I when you appeared in the city, but they've been really, really quiet about this."

"You're telling me that angels are lazy?" Eliza asked like it wasn't a shock. "What a surprise."

"They may be lazy, but something like this is like lighting a bonfire under their collective ass. They should be jumping," I answered her, pacing and still trying to figure it out myself. How had this gone unnoticed?  "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to clean up their mess for them. Again, but I'm definitely billing them for this."