Death Angel

Chapter 9: Escape

“I can do it too?” I asked.

“Yes, silly, and had you known that, Rina Tanaka would not have been a problem for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Good to know.”

“You’d have known that had you not left my side, cherie,” Death gently reprimanded me.

“But to activate a Nether Void powerful enough to stop an archdemon, well, that requires a Nether Void from yours truly.”

I nodded.

“A word of caution, cherie,” Death said. “Once I activate my field, there’s no guarantee it will stop Azazel. She’s an archdemon. She would also have the power to transcend time and space. And her powers may well be greater than mine.”

“So if it doesn’t stop her, what then?”

Death breathed in deep. “We engage, Vanessa.”

“We engage? You just told me not to pick a fight with this one!”

“Its not like we have a choice now, Vanessa.”

I understood what Death meant in that moment. Implicitly. It was like business. I had to calm myself and make a split-second judgment call in a high-risk situation. Problem was, the stakes were even higher in this new game. Failure in this scenario meant eternal damnation. For me.

“Ok, D, I call it. Let’s do it.”

“Ok. this is going to be just like your encounter with the vampire, only this is one bad motherfucker we’re facing now.”

“Glad to know your mastery of our language extends to the vernacular, Richard,” I chuckled. “Let’s show this demon bitch what we’ve got then.”

Death smiled.

The world turned very quiet just now.

It was eerily similar to the first time I had met Death. Time stopped and everyone ceased moving. The world became deathly still. People, animals objects, places, and shapes. Everything just froze, suspended in time. Even the wind stopped blowing. I could hear my own breathing in the stillness.

So this was the Nether Void. I really needed to learn how to pull that off. It would have come in handy during the fight with Rina that’s for sure.

But there was also something else I felt now. A hideous presence, as if evil were masking itself. I felt a wave of revulsion. It swept over me, threatening to overpower me. I felt like retching.

“You feel her presence now, don’t you cherie?” Death asked. “The Nether Void also unmasks hidden things: demons, vampires, ghosts. Whatever is out there hiding in the open, disguising themselves in the human world are unmasked by the Nether Void.”

Death took out his Scythe. “We have to be prepared cherie, for any eventuality.”

I nodded, taking my own Scythe out, readying it.

“Okay cherie, now the real challenge begins. Let’s make a run for it!”

I didn’t need any more encouragement than that. I ran like mad. I ran for my life. As if my very soul depended on it, and in truth, it did.

A high-pitched wailing sound followed behind us. “She’s onto us Vanessa, run even faster!”

I had a surreal feeling just then, moving twice as fast as I normally could while the world was frozen in time was a disquieting experience. People, faces, places all frozen in time as I sped past them. I couldn’t bear to look back. I knew what it was that stalked us now, knew the nature of the beast that preyed upon us. I could only hope that Death knew what he was doing.