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David Augur, like most cannibals, knew what it was like to respawn, so he was not surprised to wake up in the park. He was surprised to wake up on Extermination Day.
He rolled under the bench he had thankfully been next too. It wasn’t much cover – the angels would see him soon – but it might buy him a minute to get all his muscles used to functioning again.
Two days before Extermination, he’d been playing with his sister and their friends in this park. He’d lost their hunting game, and they’d torn him to pieces, already squabbling over who got to eat what. He usually took four days to come back. Extermination should’ve already been over.
Did it change? Were the angels just going to be hunting demons all the time now?
A shadow fell over the bench. One of the angels was diving. David scrambled out of there and ran.
He didn’t know where he was going. Home would be barricaded shut. Everywhere would be barricaded shut. Home might not even exist anymore.
He took a random turn and found himself in a dead-end alley. He curled up and hid his face like that could protect him.
“Go,” the angel hissed at him, taunting. “Run, now.”
Later, he would wonder about that. Later, he would decide the hunt had ended too soon for the angel’s taste, and it wanted to keep playing with him.
In the moment, he ran.
Out of the alley, past another Exorcist. He couldn’t tell how close they were behind him; their wings were too quiet under the screams. Someone else screamed from that alley.
More random turns, and then – the feeling of a snare around his leg. He fell.
Pink light.
“What were you doing outside, young man?” a woman’s voice scolded. “Today of all days!”
“Auntie Rosie!” He threw himself at his Overlord and hugged her around her legs, crying hard. She put one hand on his shoulder and ran the other through his hair. He’d lost his hat somewhere.
“Ssshh … There, there, Auntie Rosie’s got you. I’ve got you.” More gently, “What happened? Why were you outside? And alone?”
She soothed and coaxed the story out of him, petting his hair, plying him with snacks, claws protective on his shoulders as she promised the angels wouldn’t get him. And once the angels went back to Heaven, she walked him home.
Lute was alerted to one of her subordinates removing her helmet.
The helmets had layers of tech and enchantment in them. One purpose was to keep track of where the Exorcists were, to ensure a proper sweep of demon territory. Another was to record the Exorcists’ actions and keep track of their kills.
As Lieutenant, she had duties beyond killing any demon who crossed her path. She had to ensure the other Exorcists stayed focused. She flew to investigate, only slowing down to slash a few demons, slicing throats and guts instead of stopping to run them through. The rest were left for her sisters-in-arms.
It was Vaggie’s helmet. One of Adam’s new favourites; the bitch who broke Lute’s record for most demons killed in a single Extermination. (Obviously it was good more demons were dead, but it burned to write commendations for a woman who kept stealing Adam’s attention and didn’t even seem to appreciate it.)
Lute found Vaggie in an alleyway, spear raised, a demon cowering before her.
And then, to Lute’s shock and horror, Vaggie lowered her weapon.
“Go,” she urged it in a whisper. “Run, now.”
It ran. Vaggie didn’t throw her spear through it while its back was turned. She let it go.
She let it go.
Had she been chasing demons out of sight of the other Exorcists so she could claim kills without actually doing her duty?
The fucking traitor! How dare she endanger Heaven this way! Hell’s numbers were already out of control, and who knew how many demons Vaggie let go before Lute caught up to her.
Vaggie turned around and found Lute there. Lute slashed her sword across the traitor’s face, cutting out her eye. She stepped on it for good measure.
“Sinful filth like you has no place in Heaven,” Lute snarled. She pinned her former sister-in-arms under her boot and pulled off the wings that Vaggie no longer deserved. That she maybe had never deserved. She took hold of the traitor’s halo and –
“What the fuck?”
Adam was there. Lute straightened up to attention, yanking Vaggie’s halo off as she did.
Okay, she could admit this maybe looked bad without context.
“She let a demon go.”
Adam’s shocked face became stern.
“Did you get it?”
“… No.” She dropped the desecrated halo to the ground like the trash it was. “I’ll go after it now.”
The angels left.
Vaggie had been trying to do the right thing.
Ever since she broke Lute’s record, Adam had been uncomfortably focused on her. She knew her helmet recorded her kills, so she had come up with a brilliant plan to escape his attention.
Take off the helmet after killing a respectable number of demons. Her kill-count would be middling rank, making her record-breaking look like a random lucky day, but she wouldn’t actually endanger Heaven by neglecting her duties.
Hell was louder and smellier without her faceplate’s filters, but fleeing demons still stood out well enough.
She chased one into an alleyway and watched it collapse. She landed, lining up her spear to grant it a quick death.
She looked at its face.
It was child.
A little boy, shaking in mortal terror of her.
Her spear and resolution wavered.
“… Go,” she told him quietly. “Run, now.”
He fled. She turned, so she wouldn’t know which way he’d gone.
That was when Lute struck her.
The next part, in her memories, was both vivid and blurry. Pain. Screaming. Her eye, her wings. Lute’s boot holding her down. Lute saying she didn’t belong in Heaven. She thought she saw Adam.
Lute taking Vaggie’s halo hurt just as badly as her wings and eye, but she couldn’t get the breath to scream again.
And then they were gone. Vaggie was left to bleed.
What … just happened? How had Lute been able to hurt her?
Was Vaggie not an angel anymore?
Was this, Falling?
Time passed, shivering in that alley. Eventually fear cut through the pain; she couldn’t be in an Exorcist uniform if, when, a demon found her.
Vaggie managed to shuck her gloves; her boots; to sit up enough to take her gorget and tunic off. Barefoot, in her tights and undertunic, she used her spear as a walking stick to get to her feet. Shakily, she tossed the uniform into one of the overflowing, stinking trash cans.
Then, her wings, and her halo.
It felt so awful to pick up her wings; to feel feathers under her hands and know they were hers but not be able to feel them on her shoulders.
She threw them in the trash, too, and did her best to stagger away.
She made it to the other end of the alley before she collapsed against the dumpster.
That was where Charlie found her.