ANGELS & CUTTHROATS

The switch had happened before the light had even gone out of the sky. Gabriel had been sat there in his office, lost in thought as he’d stared out at the lowering gloom. Half of his staff had already crept out, taking the opportunity the shorter days gave to cut their hours in the office. He could’ve bitched about it he supposed, but if there was one thing that encouraged loyal employees it was knowing when to bend and when to crack the whip. That he’d thought, swinging his legs up to prop them on the corner of his desk, ankles crossed, felt like a metaphor for the angel in his head. Remiel and he had come to an agreement before it had been a case of bend or break but still, the angel’s calling to a higher power had a tendency to trump things. Leaving him …

… tucked in a neat corner of what had been his own mind only moments before. Remiel had swung his legs down off of the desk. Snagged the jacket from the rack in the corner of the room and strolled out of his office. The bullpen, as Gabriel liked to call it, outside, was already dim in some places, desk lamps and the occasional brighter pools of overhead lights picking out those who were still hard at work. His assistant winged a brow but Remiel was already lifting a hand, warding off her concern about him not being the last to leave with a congenial smile. ”Just following up on a story,” he promised. ”Don’t wait around, I won’t be back tonight.” Gabriel would likely be pissed about it, their agreement didn’t leave much room for stealing ‘work time’ but that feeling that had been off in the human’s stomach most of the afternoon as he’d glanced out of the window on and off had been enough to have him breaking his word.

Something was amiss in the town of Mystic Falls. Like it always was.

Remiel slipped a hand into the pocket of the hip length jacket his host wore as he headed out of the building and strolled in the direction of the centre of town. Even if Hannah hadn’t tasked him with looking out for trouble here in town and protecting the good … innocent … folks who called it home, he would’ve done all the same. Hell was not going to get any deeper a toe hold here if he had anything to say about it.

Blue eyes swept the street as he kept his fingertips on the cool metal hilt of his angel blade. The feeling was growing, that primitive part of the human brain he occupied as disconcerted by the feeling that he was being watched as he was himself. Catching a smile and a nod from a passerby, Remiel returned it. ”Afternoon,” he greeted cordially, his eyes catching on a wing mirror of a car at the curb as he looked away. Someone walking behind him, the click of heels, the intense eyes setting alarm bells ringing in his head. That was definitely … what had Gabriel called it … his spider-sense … tingling.

Humming low in his throat, patting his chest as though in contemplation Remiel turned into an alleyway, leading his pursuer deeper. Chain link blocked the end of it, something he’d found out on patrol weeks ago. He approached it as though he were almost blind to it. Twisting around just as the thing … the demon, he could see it’s face now … rushed into those tight confines behind him. The angel sighed, pulling his blade free. ”Surely you can do better than that,” he crabbed. He spun the blade in his hand, was prepared to ram it down the things throat when there was a flash of a blade in the air behind the demon.

Hot blood splattered his face, unfamiliar to a being that killed with as much celestial heat and energy as he did the razor edges of the blade he held. Remiel opened his mouth, letting out a long breathed tainted with copper as the man behind that fallen body hollered at the demon that boiled out of the body. ”Stupid free bastard,” Remiel panted, his accent still carrying the cool, clipped tones of Gabriel’s privileged upbringing. ”It’s just going to find the nearest human and take up residence.” Leaving him to play a game of hide and seek all evening, all it an attempt to drive the thing from its host and kill it without killing the human in the process.

Pushing off of the chain link, Remiel ran the back of his hand over his mouth, letting out a sound of disgust as it came away smeared with blood. ”It’s not me who’s going to be pissed,” he admitted dryly. Gabriel would take one look at what was dropped on his bedroom floor later and would curse him to the Heavens. Remiel swallowed, grimaced as he shook his head. ”It didn’t have a chance to touch me,” he admitted, his eyes cutting to the hand patting his arm. ”I suppose I should thank you for the rescue, even if it was a little messy.” It was more than that, the angel could already feel the human trapped in a corner of his mind recoiling. Blood shed never sat well with the man.

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The thing had nearly been his. The blade was in his hand, would have been buried in the demon’s chest in an instant. The human would’ve been lost most likely, regrettable, but after who only knew how long with that thing inside of him, there might not have been much left anyway. There rarely was of those who had played host to a demon. The evil done burned the life out of them in a way his own kind took great pains to ignore. The demon that had tormented him would at least have been gone. Driven to the empty by the holy weapon. Before the tip could even kiss the fragile flesh Remiel saw the man’s head cleaved from his body.

He stood, his breath rasping out of him as spots of blood cooled on his face. Black smoke had escaped, free and just as dangerous as before. Only now another would end up falling prey to the demon. Remiel stared at the man behind the body, the one who had spoiled his hunt, who had screwed up. He hissed out a breath, looking down at his blood smeared hand before he crabbed at him. Blue eyes flicked back up, teeth bared in a snort. ”My tailor,” he muttered through his teeth, fixing on the words from Gabriel’s memory. He wasn’t ready to out himself, not quite so easily when he had no idea about his erstwhile rescuer.

A grimace, a slow breath as he was patted and he was mustering up a thank you. It was undeserved for the most part, the quick end to this fight had likely caused more issues than it had solved but his host’s manners were there in his throat in an automatic gesture. Remiel sniffed, taking a half step back. His shirt clung to his chest now, the rapidly cooling blood driving a shudder through the body Gabriel could still sense. ”Great protector?” Remiel’s chin dipped, the first hint of disbelief beginning to work its way through him. The gratitude was one thing but compliments? Oh ho, ho, no.

Snorting, Remiel shook his head and began to circle the body now prone on the ground. It hadn’t been that big a rescue, he would’ve taken the demon down himself without half the amount of mess. Now they had the demon to track and this body to hide if he didn’t want to end up on the front page of his own newspaper, wanted for murder. His might not have been the hand on the sword but it was certain blood staining him from eyeballs to waist. The angel looked up at the man from under his lashes, his teeth flashing. ”I suppose I should ask the same of you Magnus but I have a feeling I already know.” Vampire. It hadn’t taken the creature falling to the floor to scrabble after what was left after the blood stopped pumping up to dampen the blacktop.

Remiel shook his head, blue eyes rapidly scanning the buildings on either side of him, trailing up a fire escape that zigzagged one side. Apartments maybe, somewhere far more hidden than the street. The demon wouldn’t likely have gone far, although perhaps it would’ve been wiser to. ”Since you knew what that thing was I imagine you’re familiar with the other side of the coin…” He would’ve demonstrated but his true visage had burned the eyes from lesser creatures and he had no wish to cost two lives today. ”I am Remiel. An angel of the lord. I wouldn’t recommend trying to use that blade on me…” Remiel added dryly as he glanced back at the vampire. Not all drew the line at evil and he had committed no crime to deserve Gabriel being beheaded in a similar manner. His host had certainly done nothing to earn the unceremonious end either.

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He should have said his host’s tailor he supposed but ever since Gabriel had accepted his presence in both his mind and his body the two of them seemed to have grown closer in a way. One mind at times, one body, one closet – most unfortunately. The shudder of revulsion would run through Gabriel in the morning when he woke to find the clothing lying in a crumpled foul mess in his home. They were quite beyond repair, destined only for the fireplace. Some sort of explanation would follow, the details landing spine tingling blows, even if Gabriel’s skin had thickened up quite considerably against some things since all of this had started.

Some things still got through and this … this was going something. Even if he was currently pretending it wasn’t to the creature who stood before him with the sort of delusions of grandeur his own sort had regrettably become known for. Dipping his chin, he’d studied him dubiously as that same tone dripping from his voice. Looking up at his ‘great protector’ he found a grin spreading over that haggard face, lines crinkling into the skin. All spelling out that road map of smug before he started to laugh.

Ugh.

Filled with a faint edge of amusement, Remiel went to the body instead of seeing that unescapably huge ego spread. He circled it, booted foot neatly avoiding the spreading pool of blood. The rest of his clothing was already ruined, Gabriel wouldn’t have wanted the boots added to the blaze if he could help it. Sandy brows drew together, a frown creasing his own brow before the vampire’s question pulled him from his study. His teeth flashed in a smile then, just enough of his knowledge dripping through in the veiled comment. Magnus didn’t respond though. Remiel shifted again, eyes skittering over the buildings around them, at least taking some interest in where the thing that had escaped had gone to.

The voice that emerged from his throat was cooler than those warm tones his host exhibited. A product of what he supposed humanity would have called his upbringing. Gabriel had been brought up to amplify his natural charm, angels weren’t called upon to do the same. It seemed as though this man may have forgotten his own too or considered all those rough edges his version of it. There’d been no intention to reveal his true identity at first but as his rescuer seemed ready to linger it felt prudent. Remiel’s brow winged again at the lack of response, his blue eyes met a pair shades paler. ”Has the cat got your tongue now Great Protector?” he asked, that hint of amusement in his voice again. ”That is what they say isn’t it?” His host had kindly provided the words before retreating. This was a matter Gabriel very much didn’t want a front row seat for.

Remiel frowned once more as the words finally fell, seemingly carrying some ridicule from the former man. Good looking? What? Gabriel stirred, a sigh whispering through his mind as he was forced to offer explanation that had he had no wish to to have to provide. ”Was that supposed to be a joke?” he asked, that aridity back in his words. ”You’d be surprised, Magnus, my kind aren’t quite as vane as your entertainment here would have you believe. We do not choose our hosts for looks alone and I suppose it was quite the same for your sire.” There wasn’t a mean bone in either him or West but the sarcasm had slipped out all the same, some part of their conjoined egos stinging.

Pointedly he looked down at the body at Magnus’ question. Sighing at the thought of what the blood would do to the leather, he toed the torn flesh of what had once housed a demon. ”You seemed rather keen to use it a moment ago.” A grimmer amusement pulled at Remiel’s lips as he looked back up at the vampire. ”You do believe my kind are quite without sin then … I have given you no reason to use your blade vampire, but others have had no reason before and yet have still tried. It is certainly not my sin that has brought me here, more a deep abiding affection for your kind and orders from my father that we should all watch over you. I can see some need it more than others. Do you have no intention to try and deal with the thing that once occupied this man?” He gestured down at the crumpled body and then up at the building behind him. By now the demon could have been anywhere, in anybody.

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Humanity had been a confusing thing at first. Their blind faith in his kind somehow reassuring and concerning at the same time. If they were always looking to someone else for absolution, to felt the pressure of another’s blame, for reprieve from whatever horrors had been brought into their lives. It had taken millennia of ferrying their souls to see that there was so much more to his father’s creations. To build that intrigue and leave him desperate to be down here. Unfortunately, Remiel mused as the vampire had grinned at him, brightly enough to have him wondering if something in the turning rendered them a little … touched.

The angel’s brows drew together, a faint bristle somewhere deep down inside, probably half borne of Gabriel’s thoughts, leaving him pressing his tongue against the roof of his mouth before he’d let out that dry retort. Hell had been breeding jokes about angel-kind since their creation, the two sides, neither of them achieving the same level of wit as humanity. A back and forth, confusion tending to crease brows all around. Remiel’s own grin returned, the sun slipping out from behind a brooding cloud. Perhaps it brightened as the vampire laughed, seemingly no offensive taken. ”Just a single good one, I am losing my touch, it seems. You do seem rather … aged … for having been turned. My kind do not select for looks but I had been led to believe that many among your kind too. Young and pretty … all the easier to lure humans in.” A generalisation that had Gabriel sucking in a breath deep down. Was his host concerned that he was antagonising the creature with the sword, a man not that different to the ones that had first brought them together.

Another parasite had been killed though. The blood of its former host staining the ground just beyond the toe of his boot. The creature had attempted to kill him, its inability to judge the situation its final downfall. Remiel’s manner remaining dour as he started to educate his erstwhile rescuer, breaking again with that faint amusement as he looked up. ”For humanity,” he clarified, a sigh slipping out as blue eyes rolled. ”As our father bade all of us to have. For some the instruction was soon cast aside but some of us still trust in the word of God.” He wasn’t sure how close to sitting on the fence he was in the matter, so much had changed in recent years and still some part of him waited, hoped.

Remiel gave a grunt at the vampire’s amusement, shoulders shrugging beneath the bloodied clothing he would have to get rid of … again. His lips pressed together, steps already starting to carry him around the vampire and towards the building. ”I’m glad to hear it, although, Magnus, trust me, you would not get far if you tried.” There was a curve to his lips, a crinkle at the corners of his eyes as he narrowed them. He started to trail after the vampire, although Magnus was already stopping short, the notion that he could deal with the demon before the sword was used again to cut down another host, the unfortunate victim of a possession. He locked eyes with the vampire, started past him before he hitched the blade he’d been carrying. ”You have never dealt with one without the sword?” Remiel clucked his tongue, approaching the fire escape with a frown. The ladder was at least ten feet overhead, high enough to deter would be thieves from their easy access.

With a flutter of wings he disappeared from the ground, reappearing on the fire escape. He propped his elbows against the rail, gesturing the vampire up. His kind were agile, strong, such a leap should have been nothing to him. ”There are exorcisms, words of God that will drive the creature out and back to Hell. That takes time and gives the demon an opening unless there are other ways to restrain them. An angel blade will do the same thing … with something less than a mortal wound. Can you make the jump or do I need to offer you a hand?” The old man was tacked on silently, another jab back at a creature who was undoubtedly years, if not centuries older than he already appeared.

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