Wings that Guard Me

Chapter 4 Raphael

Five years later

    I have been searching this whole world for this "independent thinker" and I think I have finally found her. Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not impressed. Is this tiny little twig of an angel really the best they can throw at me? Honestly I'm bored already. This little mission is going to be a lot easier than Lucifer made it out to be. Almost two hundred years of hard work and fight my way through the ranks and I'm practically handed this one on a silver platter. It just isn't fair!
I search my mind for any reason at all to let this play out because I'm more bored of Hell than I am of this job. And then it comes to me; "know your enemy." If she is such an independent thinker then you should know my enemy, and know them well, before I attempt to take them out. Failure is not an option. So I'm not taking any chances on this job. After all it did take me five years just to find her. She's better than most Righteous at staying hidden from a fallen, at staying hidden from me.

    I don't even have a lot of proof that she's the one I'm looking for. But I know, somehow I know. She doesn't stand like a Guardian, she doesn't check her perimeter, she doesn't look tense. She already has the easy stance of an overly experienced, but she's the youngest greenie I've seen. Ever. And I've been doing this for near two hundred years.
I've heard the stories about what life is like for those Righteous airheads. I've heard the horror stories about their schools, their training. We don't have anything like that. We are raised and taught to do two things, cause chaos and bow to Lucifer. Once we are old enough we are thrown out of the family cave to fend for ourselves. It's supposed to toughen us up, or the ones that survive. Kids get kicked out too early don't have the wing strength to save themselves is they slip at the lip of an acid pit. And once a child gets caught in the acid they are never seen again, but we know they're still alive.

    The training those feather heads go through to prepare them for their life on Earth is easier than a walk in a park for us. They only have about a hundred years of harsh conditioning, we have our entire lives. And the others wonder why I prefer it on this cold rock.

    I call on my sharp eyesight and look closer at the angel I'm watching. Her movements are so easy anyone would mistake it for her being relaxed, comfortable. Surely she can't be that stupid. I break off a twig from the branch I'm perched on and tighten my fist around it until I can feel it burn. Then I throw the smoldering stick at the window of the room she's in.

    It hits home like I knew it would. And that's when I see it. Her body tenses up and her eyes jerk to the window, her wings tense and ready to be used. I pull the darkness tighter around me and watch her through the glass as she attempts to find me through it as well.

    It's like she knows I'm here. I know she can't see me, but I know she knows I'm here. It's written on her face. Her jaw is tensed and her mouth is one hard, cold line, her eyes are narrowed with one eyebrow raised as if taunting me. Oh yeah, this job is not going to be like any other job. She can sense me, and she's got personality like no other angel I've met. It's like she doesn't hold fear.

    I threw the stick to watch her reaction. Any normal guardian that has some years on their reputation knows the sound of a twig hitting a window and doesn't bother to look. But she looked, proving she was a greenie. And she knows I'm here, she obviously has more power than they originally though she would have if she's low enough ranking to be a guardian. In almost every way she proves she isn't a Righteous. But her halo is plain as her violet eyes, as plain as the piercings on her face. Her wings aren't damaged that I can see and are that lovely just off white color. She has to be one, but there are so many signs that she can't be.

    I think I'm going to enjoy this job more than I originally planned.