The howling wind and battering rain outside drudged together amiably to make the raven-haired even more sulky than he already was.
"Mammon, it's not a big deal. We could always have a bonfire another time," I comforted as I let the plate of chocolate covered strawberries and fudgy mocha brownies rest on the glass table.
"Yeah, I know but still! 'Spent all night collecting firewood for it." He threw some potato chips from the turquoise packet into his mouth, and chomped on them. "Just for it to fuckin' rain! Can't you tell your God to stop it?!"
"It doesn't work like that Mammon."
I sauntered over to granite counter near the fridge, twisting the microwave timer to make certain that the hot chocolate didn't brim over. I had decided to create different desserts to palliate his infuriation, but I was starting to think that I had made too much. I retracted the white cup, and used a small teaspoon to whirl away the froth napping on top. If we were humans, we would have had a disease by now.
Mammon crunched the poor packet into a recoiling ball, "I had this entire fucking day planned out! We were supposed to have a good time."
"And we can still have a good time," I answered as I sat on the two-seater couch and handed him the striped cup carefully. "It doesn't matter where we are. As long as we're together, I know we'll have a good time."
The wind bellowed at the apartment walls, perhaps to spoliate my statement of any ease.
"Guess you're right." The raven-haired sighed—the exhaled air cooling the hot chocolate—before kissing me, "You're amazing, you know tha'?"
"Yes, I know I am." I pecked him on the lips before pulling the fuzzy blanket over our lower halves. "What do you want to do?"
He took a swig of the drink, and then set it down on the rectangular table, exchanging it for the plate of bedizened strawberries. "You."
"What?"
"I mean, I wanna' do somethin' with you."
"Like what?" Mammon shrugged as his front teeth sunk into the chocolate chip wrapped strawberry, like a sharpened knife. I hadn't realised before, but a lot of his demonic attributes were making themselves prey to intuitive ones, "Your teeth are scarily sharp, you know that Mammon?"
"Want me to bite you? You into that?"
I vigorously shook my head as the flowering blush spoke something else. "It's just...I've noticed that a lot of your demonic traits are slowly coming back."
The raven-haired's eyes widened as if with an epiphany. He suddenly drew up his teal shirt, leaving one side covered, and the other exposed, and presented to me the black mark on his side—the same side that had those scars. "What...is that?"
"A demon marking, I'm guessing. It isn't the same as my old ones though."
The curved mark sort of looked like an axe stretched out of place, or a serpent standing upright. "Can I...touch it?"
Mammon smirked, "You sure this ain't an excuse just so you can touch me, huh angel?"
Because of him, I had a red mark all over my cheeks. "I'm joking angel, go ahead."
Although irresolute, I rubbed the black marking with my fingers, but winced as a burning sensation traversed my fingers, "It burns..."
"Then, don't keep touching it!" the raven-haired exclaimed, tugging my hand away and then, kissing my warm fingertips. "All demon markings are supposed to burn."
"But not markings in the human world," I replied. "This could pose as a serious problem, Mammon. Maybe I should...talk to someone who knows about this stuff better than I do."
He snickered, "What?...like a fuckin' demon doctor?"
"You never know."
We laughed jointly before Mammon slipped another sweet berry into his mouth, haply to keep his teeth from a stardom only seen by me.
"You wanna' watch a movie, or something?" he suggested as he placed the white plate atop the armrest, and filched a mocha brownie from its locus on the other place. "Can't really think of anything else to do, since your God decided to ruin my plans."
I let out the caged laugh in my chest, "Sure, Mammon, just don't scream like last time."
"Only if you come here." Mammon patted his blanket-indulging lap as he stared at me, smiling lecherously, "last time we watched a movie, you were all the fuckin' way over there."
"Well, on your...lap?"
"Why not? You're not gonna' buurn in Hell because of it, are you?"
"Possibly not," I responded, crawling over to him as the raven-haired held his hands out, as if I were a toddler waddling over to my parent. "But you might, for trying to make an angel sin."
Mammon grinned as I subsided beside him, warming his neck with my bare arms.
"That's not my lap, angel. Doncha' know your body parts?"
He wrenched my loath body into the aperture of his crossed legs before throwing the zebra-striped blanket over us again.
"You're too loud," I whispered, nuzzling the crook of his neck.
The wind continued ululating as Mammon turned on the television. It was nice abandoning myself in his warmth, and listening to the stormy weather knowing I was safe in his arms.
"I love you..." The raven-haired had kissed the top of my head periodically, to apologize for accidentally hissing and grumbling at the protagonist's naivety. I didn't mean to be on the brink of sleep, yet I hadn't been able to recover my hours of rest after that scurvy dream. But, I was glad he wasn't too annoyed with me—because I was dozing off, when we should have been insulting the characters together.
"You tired, baby?"
"I'm not a baby..."
Mammon chuckled quietly before the doorbell rang, lassoing me away from my journey to the dream world.
"Who the fuck could that be?"
"I'll go check...," I said softly as I kicked off the blanket, and used his stiff thighs to help me up. As I fixed my wrinkled jumper, I somehow managed to avoid the angular table, and securely neared the door. I had stopped myself from stretching of any sort, or yawning, as I planned to go ahead with my doze after answering.
"If it's Claude again, I'm beating his ass!"
I chuckled before opening the door with as much force vital to show the guest that their visit wasn't exactly embraced, "Hello-"
"Good evening, Luka. I'm sure you missed me."
Even though I had attempted to bridle my shock, my eyes went annular on their own—partially at what they were wearing. They had a baby blue scarf around their neck, covering half of their face, and a large purple-navy parka—and a soaked umbrella in their hand to top it off.
"Hi...Helena."
The brunette tore the woollen scarf away from her face, as though she was testing whether I would recognise her or not. "Hi Luka...how are you?"
"I'm alright, a bit sleepy, but you?"
"I'm fine," she responded, taking her pastel folder from behind her back. "I have come here, on behalf of Ezekiel, about Mammon."
"Why?...What about him?"
Helena's eyes flittered over my shoulder, and alighted on Mammon. "Have you not checked your recent messages? If I am correct, Ezekiel sent you a text about it yesterday night...at ten thirty."
Her detailed report sort of worried of me, so I rapidly got hold of the phone in my pocket.
Ezekiel
I've thought about what you
said, and I'm going to dispatch a
couple of angels to search for him.
²²·³⁰
Ezekiel
I'm also sending Helena to ask
Mammon a few questions, so we
can take better action. Expect
to see her tomorrow evening.
²²·³¹
Ezekiel
I hope you're not mad at me Lukie :)
²²·³²
Damn it.
I wasn't mad at him, I was mad at myself for not constantly checking. Even if it was just an innocent questioning, I was due to tell Mammon that I had alerted the albino; I listed him to find out from me, and not a stranger. And soon enough, I could hear the raven-haired, with terrible timing in his hand, coming up behind us.
"Who's at the door?" he asked before snaking his arm around my width. His grip torpefied my whole body, and I could feel my core halt fleetingly. (I wished that it would stop beating entirely, because I knew that her dominion self could probably hear all the things going through my head.) I omitted to push his arm away tactfully, and play it off as a friendly gesture—even though, I was determined not to let Helena, out of everyone, find out about our relationship.
The brunette eyed the arm wrapped around my waist as confusion and surprise travailed to evacuate the colour from her face.
There was no way she would assume so quick...right?
Mammon had received the hint, and pulled me backwards to replace me with himself. "Is there somethin' you need lady?"
I pressed my back against the doorframe, my limbs trembling with fear as I gaped at the pewter green couch, where I nestled in his arms and kissed him brazenly. All of the things we had done to show our affection, had recrudesced to me in the form of a steel dagger, honed and ready to leave a cavernous wound, moving along my palpitating core.
I quickly ambled over to the couch, to kill off anymore of her suspicion.
"My name is Helena, not lady or woman, and I am here to ask you a few questions Mammon."
"Questions? About what? I didn't do shit," the raven-haired retorted.
"They are not accusatory, you have nothing to agonize over...May I come in?" Helena squeezed past Mammon, taking off her black stiletto heels after noticing the order of shoes on the bristly carpet. She threw her burgundy umbrella into the air, peeled off her parka and allowed it to drop before both had turned into dust particles whisked away by the fictitious breeze.
"Invite yourself in why don't you...," Mammon mumbled, kicking the door closed before leaning on the curved armrest next to me.
"I see you two have treated yourselves to some desserts. They look great," Helena complimented as she lowered her dark purple skirt to free the crease before sitting down, opposing us.
"T-thank you, help yourself to some Helena."
"It's quite alright, thank you though Luka." The brunette took out the lilac notebook from her blazer pocket slowly, as though to garnish it with mystique, "I do not want to take up much of your time, so I'll get right to the questions."
"I'm still fucking confused, questions about what?"
"Zalgiur," I whispered, smiling anxiously at Helena. Mammon narrowed his eyes at me as he crossed his arms.
"Correct."
If he was willing to cooperate before, he definitely wasn't now.
"As I ask these questions, I hope that you will be honest with me, Mammon," she warned gently, brushing away fallen strands of hair, "if you're not comfortable replying to one, that's fine, but try and answer all of them. Do you understand?"
The raven-haired threw another perturbed stare my way, and then sighed, "I...understand."
"How is it that you know Zalgiur?" A fountain pen appeared in-between her slender fingers.
"Met him on the streets one day."
"And, what happened?"
"Why are both of you fucking doing this? What the fuck is this about?" Mammon asked curtly, but I could tell it wasn't aimed at Helena.
It was aimed at me.
The brunette mused me as I stuck my gaze to my knees. I craved to hide myself from her abashing eyes, from Mammon's eyes, but I couldn't. She could probably hear my core beating a lot faster, almost like it was calling for help I didn't know I needed.
"I can assure you that...Luka had nothing to do with this," she suddenly proclaimed, "our leader is currently looking for Zalgiur, and...since you're a demon in the same town as him, we came to the conclusion that you would know about him."
I couldn't help but smile, and call forth a sigh of joy; Helena had possibly just saved our relationship, unknowingly. And it wasn't only me that was alleviated. Mammon released the same sigh, as if he had caught my own from the air. "Please, Mammon, think about the others."
"I...was gonna' jump him." She began writing. "But somehow he know and, told me to join his gang."
"What was he like to you?"
"Like the dad I never needed. He was hell-bent on makin' me stronger, because I was like him."
"How many people are in this gang?"
"The last time I heard, it was aroun'...thirty."
"Do you know where Zalgiur is, or may be?"
The raven-haired shook his head, looking away, "He changes his hideout a lot, but I know it's somewhere underground."
"Do you have any...evidence to support your claim that he is in fact the leader?" Helena questioned as she put down her pen, meshing her fingers together.
"No."
"Any certain people that might know where he is?"
"No."
"That is all my questions for now, thank you for cooperating Mammon." She smiled at both of us before shutting her notebook—the pen inside evaporating—and standing up. "If you have any information to add, please contact me."
"Wait." I faced Mammon, and then dragged my index finger along my right side, nodding my head towards Helena. The raven-haired fought with himself over it, but eventually brought up his teal shirt reluctantly, and turned around so the black mark would be before her. "A demon marking appeared on his body, and it isn't one of his old markings...It's a foreign one."
The brunette seemed sore concerned, "When did it appear?"
"This mornin'," he answered as he glanced at it. Helena advanced towards him, her hand jutting out.
"I wouldn't touch it if I were you, it burns."
She shook her head, like she couldn't believe what her dominion ears were hearing. "May I take a picture of it?
"Go ahead." A golden camera, with the symbol Ezekiel had on both eyes, landed on her palm. It was sort of like a messanger, whatever photo you took would be sent to the owner—which in this case, was Ezekiel. "By the way, what the fuck does this mean? I don't get why a mark appeared."
The camera's bright flash went off, illumining his side and making him flinch.
"Think of it as a beauty mark appearing. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but I shall analyse it further," she responded. "I'll be going now. Luka, may I speak with you at the door?"
"Oh, sure..."
I followed behind the brunette, waiting as she stepped into her heels and shortly, opened the brown door.
"About Mammon putting his arm around your waist..."
My core plummeted ten floors down, but I tried to maintain my breathing. I thought Helena would have forgotten by now, especially after I prayed that she wouldn't utter anything about it the full time she was here. I felt like collapsing; a sweat had taken over my skin, and my head was throbbing because all of the thoughts flailing around.
"Your core went up by eighteen beats.."
At this point, I was close to cutting off my core of any air.
"Which tells me that you were uncomfortable," she added. "Mammon has always been...rather touchy, and I know that you don't like confrontation but seriously. You should tell him you aren't comfortable."
I was no longer ladened by the Heavens, Hell, or Earth; I felt free. It almost seemed like all an angel had to do to escape an impasse, was pray.
"Thank you...for the concern, but it's okay." I stamped a shaky smile on my face. "I'm glad you're here. It's nice to see a familiar face other than Ezekiel's."
Helena guffawed at the remark, "I know, his face gets irritating sometimes. Anyway, the yeti ordered me to tell you that he was sorry, and hopes that you aren't angry with him. It's surprising to see someone as smug as him apologising."
I grinned triumphantly, "Tell him I'm not mad at him, and thank you for listening."
"Of course," the brunette chirped. "There's something else I must tell you."
My eyebrows rose, "What is it?"
"Luka, you mustn't say this to him," Helena urged, abruptly changing the language from german, and staring at me raptly. "Those marks you saw...they appeared because Mammon has been possessed by another demon."
I stared at her wide-eyed.
What?...