six license to spill
🦇💋
THIS IS A HERO'S STORY, only, right now, after a long hard day's work at Mary Immaculate, Isabelle's leaning against her car, waiting outside a school called Midtown High. At lunchtime, Izzy had called her driver, an old guy called Ezra, and asked if he could drive her to see one of her friends after school. He said that's cool once she explained where — Izzy isn't allowed to leave New York, after Berlin, but it's fine, because New York is big enough for that to work — and, like that, Izzy's leaning against her car, with a little smile across her face.
She didn't have any time to get changed, but she hopes it'll be fine. She doesn't think she looks terrible. Mary Immaculate have an optional summer uniform, a dress the same plaid as the skirt, with the same pleats and a thick chunk of black fabric around the waist, like a belt. It looks pretty all right, Izzy thinks, but like, that's totally not because she got it tailored, to get a couple inches off. Because she didn't. Like, she absolutely did not do such a thing.
She hears the school bell ring; Izzy's got on her blazer on, still, so she takes her phone out of the pocket. The big doors at the school entrance open wide, one teenager managing to get out earlier than the others. It takes her a minute to realise, oh, wait, that's my friend! But, when she does, she texts Peter: On ur left ;-)
He gets out his phone, and he frowns. When he looks towards her, a smile spreads across his face. This is so cute. Her diary's gonna have a field day when she tells it this. And, like, Nate and Riley too... Well, Riley. Nate's too suspicious. He thinks Peter's a fully-fledged gold digger, which realistically doesn't make sense, but whatever.
"Surprise!" says Izzy when he's closer. She steps forwards to give him a hug, and Peter's smiling at her still, looking super surprised.
"Uh, hey!" says Peter. "What are you doing here?"
Izzy shrugs. "I was in the neighbourhood," she tells him. Good thing it's angels that can't lie. "And, anyways, I haven't seen you in a while."
It's true. When she got back from Berlin a couple of weeks ago, she was thrown straight into you need to sign the Accords, blah blah blah, and after that, Marie's kept her on such a short leash it's been virtually impossible to leave the upper east side. She's been meaning to get back to the haunted house, but before that she needs to go to one of witchcraft stores dotted around the city to see if anyone can explain to her what she's supposed to do. Like, everyone tells you how to use a Ouija board, how to summon a demon, but helping them? No one cares to give you that information... Arguably the information you should have, if you're even thinking about communicating with the dead...
But anyways. She's pinpointed a witchy store close to her apartment, but the owner's at a séance until seven so she can't go until then. She's got time to kill, pretty much. And Isabelle missed talking to Peter. She was worried it might be, like, too weird for her to find him on Instagram or something. Because, like, she wants to be friends with him, yeah, but she also doesn't want to come across as desperate.
Isabelle smiles at him. "So, what do you do, Mondays midtown?"
"Well, ahh," he begins. He looks a little awkward, still, and he looks around, and then back at the car, and then to the Mary Immaculate logo, and then back to his feet. "It's not that interesting..."
Izzy smiles at him. "I just wanna spend time with you."
"Really?" says Peter, a small smile spreading across his face.
"I think you're cool," says Izzy with a shrug. His smile grows, and quickly Isabelle opens the car door to speak to her driver, telling him that he can leave her there. He's cool with it, and as he begins to drive away, Izzy moves back, next to Peter.
She holds onto his hands for a minute, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. She grins. "So, Mondays midtown," she says. "Give me all the deets."
"Well," says Peter, and he's already a lot less awkward. "I'm gonna take the subway home, then I'm gonna get a sandwich, and then I'm gonna... uh, head out," says Peter, and he quirks his eyebrows at the last part, but she already gets what he means.
"I've never been on the subway before," says Isabelle.
Peter raises his eyebrows. "You've never been on the subway?"
"I don't even know if I've been to Queens before..." says Isabelle. "Maybe for, like, my dad's work a couple times." She smiles softly, and shrugs. "A little redhead caters to the family man vibe, you know?"
"Definitely," says Peter, nodding. He looks at the car behind her, and the uniform she's wearing, and she thinks he notices the embroidered picture of the Virgin Mary on her blazer, because he starts to laugh. "Wait...?"
"It's funny, isn't it?" says Isabelle with a grin, and he nods. "Wanna see me near the stick-thingie?"
It takes him a second. "A cross?"
"They go upside down," she whispers excitedly.
Peter's eyes widen. "No way!"
"What the hell," someone says. Isabelle looks to the side, and there's some kid in Ralph Lauren with his eyes wide and his jaw on the ground. She glances to her side, and the smile disappears from Peter's face, looking awkward again. She frowns. This is weird. The boy looks at her, like he's watching the Met Gala for the first time, or something. "Aren't you the girl that got kidnapped by Nazis?"
Isabelle nods. She's already ready to come out with the whole "But thanks to the US government's hard work and dedication..." speech she's, like, memorised. It hasn't changed since that Satan-awful interview on Good Morning America. At least she thinks it was that one. Izzy doesn't like the news. Either it's bitching about her dad or it makes her feel like someone with a, Satan forbid, McMansion. Even the idea gives her shivers.
But, before she can begin to commend the government for something they couldn't actually sort out, the boy turns to Peter. "How do you know her?"
"The, uh, Stark... Internship..." says Peter, scratching the back of his neck. He glances across at Izzy, hoping she'll play along, and she nods.
"Some of it's uptown, and Stark's a family friend," says Izzy with a shrug, lying without batting an eyelid. Peter looks surprised. It's almost like she's, you know, the literal spawn of Satan?
Apparently that answer's boring, and the kid walks off, shaking his head. Isabelle glances at Peter, and frowns. "Who's that?"
"This guy called Flash," says Peter.
"Flash?" says Izzy, raising an eyebrow.
Peter nods. "Yeah, uh, his family's really rich..."
"Please, he's in Ralph Lauren," she says, and she laughs, shaking her head. Peter looks partly confused — there's a tier when it comes to designer, and Izzy refuses to accept otherwise — but partly happy? By the looks of things she's made fun of a bully. See? Izzy's a hero even without the get-up.
Izzy holds onto Peter's hand, and walks towards the school gates. "So," she says with a smile. "The subway. Oooooooh!"
🦇💋
SO MAYBE ISABELLE DIDN'T NEED to experience the subway. Luckily she left her bag in the car (and considering her school bag today was a Birkin, it probably was a good thing she forgot it, considering she went on not just public transport, but public transport famed for muggings. Like. It happened in Glee once.) so no robberies could happen. Peter also gets out his earphones and they share them (Izzy might just cry) but, like, aside from that, the subway's sort of scary and weird smelling.
Around half-six, the two of them are sitting on a rooftop in Queens, both in their superhero 'fits. Izzy really likes the new Spidey one. It fits him, like, so much better... Anyway.
"So I'm waiting for Mr Stark to tell me that he needs my help," says Peter, and he looks at his phone. Izzy can't see his face, but the eyes on his mask have narrowed, meaning he must be, like, perplexed, or something. "Do you talk to Captain America, or anything?"
Izzy shrugs. "Not really. I mean, he's a war criminal now, so."
Peter nods. "Oh, yeah..."
"He'll call you eventually," says Izzy. "I know it."
He snorts. "Is that, like, another power you've got?"
She shakes her head. "The devil can only see the present."
"... Cool," says Peter, and Izzy laughs.
"Oh, I'm sorry my powers aren't cool enough for you!" she says, giggling. "What with your, uh, bad feeling tingle. Your... Peter tingle." And then Izzy bursts out laughing, because hi, she's fifteen.
"It's not called that," says Peter.
Izzy's grinning behind her mask. "Does your tingle warn you of super bad school tests, too—?"
"Oh, OK, Dracula," says Peter, and he starts to laugh.
"Does your tingle go off if I try and, like, kill you?" says Izzy. She stands up, and she reaches out for his hands, to pull him up. He gets to his feet, and she puts her arms around his neck, like she was planning to, like, choke him, or something. She's giggling too much, though, for any of it to seem intimidating. "My teeth are abnormally sharp, maybe if I bite you—"
"Well you're... not... a threat," says Peter.
Isabelle stops pretending to kill him. She stops giggling, too. And she would look at him, but the mask is in the way, so she quietly steps backwards, and she puts a hand on her heart, thanking Satan her mask covers the majority of her cheeks, because she is blushing so hard, right now.
"Shit, Pete, I thought vampires were supposed to be the smooth ones," says Isabelle. She thinks he's smiling, or something, because she hears him make that little scoff noise some people do, when they smile. She thinks it's cute. She also wishes she could see his face, like, properly.
Peter awkwardly looks down at his hands, before he turns back to her. "So, uh, what are you doing, over the summer?"
"This," says Isabelle, with a shrug.
"Oh, cool," says Peter. "Maybe we could hang out, if you want."
Isabelle smiles. "I'd like that."
She looks down at her phone. It's getting close to seven now. That witchy store should be opening soon, and she needs to go there and figure out her game plan with the haunted house. She feels bad leaving it this long, even if the ghosts don't know any difference. Izzy knows the difference and it's eating away at her.
"I need to ask a witch uptown about a haunted house," says Isabelle. "But I'll see you soon?" Peter nods. "Maybe next time, I don't know, I can show you around uptown. Properly. Obligatory shopping trip, and everything."
"Oh, I can't really afford—"
"But I can!" says Isabelle with a smile. "You want it, you got it." And then she winks at him.
"No, I couldn't..."
But how else can I show affection?
"Oh," says Izzy. "That's fine! I get it..." She looks at her phone. "I should be, uh, heading off, now..."
Satan. This is embarrassing, Izzy thinks, as she awkwardly hugs Peter goodbye. She doesn't know what to do now... And she guesses that she would, eventually, have to deal with friends that don't like having things bought for them... Or, at least, have accepted that Izzy doesn't know what else she's supposed to do. She hugs people, sure, but that's not the same. How can she show someone that she values them, that she appreciates them? By telling them? Yeezus, that's totally out of the question.
Izzy thinks this is why her, Riley, and Nate work, she decides, when she turns into a bat and starts flying in the general direction of the Empire State Building. (It's easy to see from far away, and from there you can get to Central Park — it's a good way to navigate, when you're a bat and can't check your phone.) Like, by this point, Riley knows that Izzy doesn't mean it in a nasty way, she just likes to buy people things... And Nate's different, because Nate's like her brother. Riley's like her sister — they're practically triplets, let's be real — but Izzy still buys Nate stuff. Sometimes Nate does the same for her, but for him it's not as important, to buy people things to show his love. Sure, he's girl-crazy and will drop serious cash on the most love-inducing date of all time, but that's different. That's planning things, doing something special. Nate plans the best trips. Isabelle buys the best clothes. Both are showing their love, through money, but it's different.
So what does Izzy do now? Does this mean that, like, Izzy can't hide behind the golden, glossy wall of money? Does this mean that Izzy will have to, like, find another way to show affection? What does she do?
Izzy supposes it makes sense. Peter doesn't seem like the type to like people buying him stuff... Or maybe just expensive stuff, considering Izzy has bought Riley a Birkin before. She gets the vibe that it's not a pride thing, but more it's the fact that he feels bad. Because she remembers what he said, when he bought them those sandwiches, in that little deli.
"You literally paid for a private jet, the least I can do is buy you a sandwich."
See? That's all the proof Izzy needs. Peter, in her mind, feels guilty because, hi, Izzy is stinking rich, and he feels bad, her paying for his stuff. Which makes sense. A lot of people feel guilty about that. Izzy remembers when Elijah was dating that one girl at college and they really struggled, because she felt bad, him paying for everything. Izzy hopes that, maybe, Peter realises that Izzy doesn't want him to feel bad. She just doesn't know, like, how else to show affection.
Izzy's getting closer and closer to the Empire State when she sees the clouds in the sky break, a bright light shining through. At first she figures it's, like, the sun, because it's early June and the sun's been setting late. But, she sees the light dive through the sky, landing on the top observation deck, a golden glow lingering in the sky.
Oh, no, Izzy thinks. It's an angel.
So, maybe Izzy drops from the sky, turning back into herself. So, maybe Izzy is a little bit scared of angels, and maybe it's easier to get past them, if she isn't flying as a bat, AKA one of the few things to identify Moroi. You can't trick an angel — the reason it's the same with her is because her Other Dad had been an angel — so most likely the angel's gonna spot her, but at least if she's on ground level, she isn't exposing herself too much... And, besides, no angel will swoop down, this close to Times Square. It could give a tourist a heart attack, and that would be a serious image problem for the guy up there.
Izzy gets out her phone, to text Marie.
IZZY: OKKKKK soooooo there may be an angel in the Empire State Building, and by may I mean there is, so baso, I'm gonna have to walk home.
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
OK.
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
She's such an old person sometimes.
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
Where are you now?
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
IZZY: Uh
She looks around, and finds she's five feet away from a store window showing the Victoria's Secret fashion show (if you can even call it that) next to a mannequin with wings on. Izzy rolls her eyes. Where's the devil stuff? This is offensive to her, because she would burn in wings... She'd also probably burn from the cheap fabric despite the panties being way overpriced but that is beside the point.
IZZY: Next to Kendall Jenner in lingerie
IZZY: And wings
IZZY: Gross
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
I highly doubt Kendall Jenner is walking around in lingerie.
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
IZZY: I mean Victoria's Secret
IZZY: The one next to the big Macy's
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
You could have said 'the big Macy's.'
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
IZZY: OK well you could stop signing your name!!!!
IZZY: I am AWARE it is you
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
It is a sign of respect.
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
IZZY: You are ridiculous
MARIE: Dear Isabelle,
You are a child.
Sincerely,
Princess Marie of Belgium
IZZY: OK well I'm gonna hit up that witch store on the way home anyway
IZZY: Just to let u know
IZZY: See u soon w all my potions
IZZY: 🤘🤘🤘
Izzy loves that sign. The devil horns. She knows it's not as culturally important as the peace-and-pout, but, Izzy likes to put a hellish flair on everything, when she can. Every Halloween she goes as the devil. It's funny, because she is the devil. It's like a werewolf dressing up as a werewolf for Halloween. It's hilarious to her, likewise all of her little devilish touches. Like, her tank with a little embroidered devil. Or, her headband, with gems placed where horns might be. And, of course, the gems on her nails, which she tries her very hardest to be as religious as possible... But like, the nuns at school would not be happy if she had a cross, upside-down, on her nail, so.
Anyway. Izzy puts her phone back in her pocket, breathes in the sweat and tears of US prisoners that make panties for virtually no pay, and picks up her pace. The witchcraft store is down a side-street, out of the way for obvious reasons, and she quickly gets her phone out again, to see how far away it is. Oh. Izzy misinterpreted how far away it actually is...
Hm.
Izzy moves to the side of the street, to stand there for a minute without blocking anyone walking. She looks up at the Empire State Building. The golden glow isn't really there anymore, and if she flies low, then the angel won't notice, surely...?
Only one way to try.
Isabelle quickly walks into an alleyway, and turns into a bat. She flies just above the rooftops, mostly so that no one on the street clicks that the girl in the alley is the bat in the air, above their heads — she's high enough up that she can't be spotted, and once she's crossed a block she'll lower herself down again.
It's working out fine. Satan, and she thought this would be an issue.
She's getting close to the store. She wonders if the person running it will, like, give her a discount if she's in her Moroi gear... She won't accept the discount, she's gotta support independent stores, but it would be cool. But, maybe that sort of store gets a bunch of people claiming they're the antichrist. Like, Izzy knows that not all witches are Satanic, but rather Pagan or maybe another religion, but she imagines that these stores get a lot of Satanists through their doors. And, like, Izzy isn't asking them for Satan-related advice. She just wants to, like, learn how to do a spell or two. But anyway. Izzy wonders if she'll get a discount.
Izzy lands in front of the store, suited and booted, figuring at least if she's like this, she can talk to the person that runs the place, and see if they can help her out. The front of the store is covered with ivy, and the store windows are littered with antique books and old jars. Izzy thinks she sees an eyeball blinking in one jar, and she hurries on inside, the bell above the door chiming.
"Uh, hi," says Isabelle.
The whole place is decorated a chestnut brown, narrow aisles made up of bookshelves that don't match; one shelf stops at her head, and another goes a couple feet above that, a little gap between the two bookshelves. Someone's hand-labelled the different aisles, too, one called Literature, and the next Practical Magic – White Magic. There's a clearance section, with an old ventriloquist dummy, like Goosebumps. Izzy looks away from that.
She notices the sign on the counter, saying, Out back. Izzy looks past, where there's an alley leading into someone's garden. She decides to, like, wait until they get back.
But she starts to have a look around. The literature aisle is sectioned off even further, into different religions. Isabelle picks up one of the Satanic books Satanism and You! and she almost laughs. She sees one on that "power of Morningstar" bullshit, and she has a look at it, pulling it out and opening it up — most of it's about the actual power of accepting Lucifer Morningstar as your saviour, which like, doesn't really apply to Izzy, so she puts it back. Bit of a shame, though, isn't it? She's meant to be doing a whole presentation on it...
Anyways.
She looks at the practical magic, all of the different sections. White magic is a quick walk through, to get to the darker magic, a long row of shelves at the back of the store. She figures no one wants to advertise this sort of stuff, but, Izzy figures she can't exactly use the "good magic" anyway.
The dark magic section has nothing helpful, either. Isabelle's brows furrow together. Maybe the stuff she needs is, like, in the ghost section? But there's not a ghost section, so what, is it split up between the different sections? What if it is good magic, then, like, can Izzy even use it? Will she have to find another way, maybe, to figure it out?
Isabelle steps back, and crosses her arms. Her lips twist as she thinks.
So. She wants the ghosts to move on. Maybe if she, like, talks Eve into getting the other ghosts to move on, they will? That's if ghosts work like they do in, like, the movies she's seen — and by movies she means The Haunted Mansion.
She frowns, and she turns back around. Maybe she's gonna have to walk into that weird alleyway. It's not like anything can hurt her, really, she's got the strength of the devil, she'll be fine... So, hesitantly, she walks back to the front of the store, and she looks down the alleyway, where currently, she can see nothing but gargoyles and flowers.
But before she can step a foot near the alleyway, things get weird.
The entire store is blasted into bright light, and Isabelle's knocked off of her feet. She's slammed backwards into the side of a bookshelf. She hears a crash, as the bookshelf breaks, different books and potions and pre-made spells spilling onto the floor. She smells lavender and blood and she winces, struggling to keep her eyes open, having to shield her gaze with her hands.
Her first response is to try and find her way to the alleyway, to make sure the owner of the store's OK, but she's in such agony she can't even move.
And then the light breaks, and the angel comes into her sight.
Oh no.
Here's the deal. Angels are scary. Like, Izzy doesn't know if you've ever seen one, but shit, they're freaky-looking. They're super beautiful, sure, but you've seen Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, pretty things can be scary, too. And, because angels have different tiers, they all have their own little... quirks. Or things to freak Izzy out.
So the light breaks, revealing the angel. And Izzy sees the tanned skin, the bright red wings, all six of them, the gold light making a halo around the face. Their eyelashes are long and their pupils are gold, with the sort of bone structure the Renaissance carved out of stone. He looks like the statue of Adam.
She hears a melodic voice singing, "Holy, holy, holy," and she almost screams, her ears are hurting so badly. Liquid trickles down the side of her neck and she realises her ears are bleeding, and her skin feels like it's close to burning off, from the thing in front of her...
Isabelle doesn't know what to do, what to say. This is so much different from that zombie, because she could talk back to it. But this? Her heart is racing, her head is pounding. She isn't going to die, is she?
She tries to sit up, but the angel brandishes a sword, one made of gold.
"Moroi Morningstar..."
"I haven't done anything!" says Isabelle, her voice a high-pitched cry.
"... You will pay..."
She doesn't know what to do. She feels like the toys at the end of Toy Story 3, when they all think they're going to burn in the dump. She panics because she can't turn into a bat, she can't run away from this, she can't even hope Captain fucking America appears like he tends to, to save her...
"... For your actions..."
Isabelle watches the angel, in all it's beautiful terror, raise the sword above it's head. It's going to stake her with it. What the hell? She's fifteen, she's done nothing wrong, she doesn't deserve this?
She turns her head to the side, so she can't see her own death — but before the sword can pierce her heart, she's swallowed by darkness, a comforting warmth surrounding her. She feels her heartbeat calm down, the ringing in her ears becoming a dull pain, and then slowly nothing. She isn't lying on concrete, but rather, warm stone, like the sort on the side of a pool in the summer.
A blood-red hand morphs into one of a man, as pale as her own.
"Isabelle," says her other dad. He smiles at her, pearly white teeth, a little too sharp, like her own. His hair's dark brown, and his pupils are black, but the more she looks at him, the more his pupils soften and lighten, becoming a friendlier, more welcoming, hazel brown. "Welcome to hell."
lucifer is HERE and so is the SCARY ANGEL!!! WOO
also. the faceclaim's gonna be tom ellis mostly because,,,,, it makes things easier,,,, but like,,,,,, this ~interpretation~ isn't going to be the same as the one from the tv show.
so anyways i hope u enjoyed!!!!! let me know what you thought,, and thank u so much for reading!!!!