Afterlife

Many people were rest beneath the cold, hard earth. From infants fresh to the world to those ripe with age and wisdom, they all find their final resting place within the worm infested dirt. At least, most of them do.

There are those, of course, who simply refuse to lie down and sleep. Some of them are harmless enough, young children who do not know any better and mischievous young adults who play tricks on those who visit the sleeping, but others mean to do those visitors harm. They are the ones who cause the most damage and always have to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

The job of claiming these restless souls falls upon one angel. When Michael, Gabriel, and Israfel all failed to gather the seven handfuls of earth required to make the first man, this angel went down and gathered it himself. Upon his successful return, he was rewarded with the duty of separating the soul from the body. He became the Angel of Death.

The job was not given to him without stipulations attached however. With the title came a cosmic power and with that power came a restraint that was more of a safeguard than anything else. The instant the power of Death entered his body, chains forged by God Himself wrapped around his wings and arms, restricting his ability to take flight and use the power he had just been given. Though he was to be the acting force of Death, he was not to let himself become another Lucifer. He knew he had to keep his mind on his duty and remember where his true loyalties lie. The chains were to be a constant reminder of that.

He sat on a cold headstone, watching over the spirits of the dead. The act of stealing souls from the bodies of the living had long since been the task of God’s Left Hand, and he had been given the job of shepherding the wayward ones into the arms of their judgment. Though he often succeeded in his duty, his job was sometimes made difficult by the demons who managed to rise out of Hell and torment the human race with their foul breath and hideous features. He had to deal with them before continuing on with the task at hand, making him a demon hunter of sorts.

This particular night had not been exciting at all though. The air’s scent was sweet with the aroma of fresh, clean rain and flowers from mourners, and though there were fours students from the college just across the way, there was no other activity to speak of. Azrael caught the occasional whiff of a mouse or bird, but the cemetery was, for lack of a better word, dead. The only sound to be heard was the chatter of the students as they walked from headstone to headstone.

“So much for a night on the town eh, Azrael?” a voice hissed into his ear.

Azrael whipped around only to find that there was nothing behind him. The chains restraining his wings clinked harshly with the quick movement but there was no other sound in the graveyard. It wasn’t until he looked over to the group of college students that he saw the source of the voice.

A man draped in a cloak of pure blackness stood behind two of the college students, a blond girl named Iva and a brown haired girl named Alexandra, his eyes flashing a dangerous shade of crimson. His skin was so pale that it seemed as if a glow was radiating from beneath his hood, and as he raised his black nailed hands, Azrael could almost smell the fetid sulfur of his homeland. Azrael knew what he was going to do to the innocent girls.

“Don’t you dare!” Azrael shouted, jumping up from his seat and taking a step forward.

Iva froze, a cold sweat breaking out over her brow and a confuse expression spreading across her pale face. She spun around, her pale blue eyes scanning the area around her and her friends. Finding nothing, she closed her black lidded eyes, taking deep breaths to calm herself. She could have sworn that someone had been standing behind her, but she supposed that it was only the kind of air associated with cemeteries affecting her.

“Are you alright, Iva?” Alexandra asked, putting an arm around her friend’s shoulders. Iva had always been sensitive to things like cemeteries, and she had seen her completely black out at times just by driving past one. If Iva was in a cold sweat simply by walking through the front gates of Hell’s Gate, then there was definitely something lurking about.

Iva smiled weakly at her friend, nodding that she was fine. She still couldn’t shake that strange feeling that was creeping up her spine though. I was almost as if she could feel Death breathing down her neck!

The dark man smiled at Azrael, fangs showing from beneath thin, black lips, and he extended his hands around the throats of Iva and Alexandra. Even though neither they, nor their male companions, could see the man actually grip their throats, they felt it in an instant. The look on Azrael’s face was of absolute mortification, and the man’s of pure joy.

Almost instantly the girls’ faces drained of all color, and they began to gasp for air. As soon as the girls began to gag, the two boys, who had turned their attention to a cracked grave, now turned their attention to their girlfriends. Panicked expressions flashed on their faces, and they tried to move them, but the assailant, that slowly beginning to materialize before their eyes, was not going to allow them to be moved. Azrael knew that if he made any move at all that the girls would lose their live and be just two more souls he would have to take care of in the afterlife.

A laugh, that was more like a shriek, came from the cloaked man as he watched the boys stumble back in fright at the sight of him. The smell of fear coming off of the boys was delicious to, but the scent that of the two girls in his hands was absolutely intoxicating. It was the scent of those special few in the world who had invisible ties that bound them to the supernatural realm, the realm of angels and demons. To find not one but two people like this was like discovering the Holy Grail!

“An-Andrew...M-Matthew...” Iva choked out, her hands gripping at her attacker’s fingers.

Azrael looked from Andrew and Matthew to Iva and Alexandra. Tears were streaming down Iva’s cheeks, and though he was shaking with fear, Matthew’s eyes were trained on Iva’s trying to, in some way, comfort her. Alexandra was on the verge of becoming unconscious. Her light-brown eyes were out of focus, and her skin was so white that she was almost blue, as if she had been out in zero degree weather for a good while. Azrael could almost hear her soul screaming out in agony.

The last young man was the most curious of the four. He wasn’t shaking in fear or whimpering, like any normal person would be under those circumstances. His fists were clinched at his sides, and his face was turning a curious shade of red. With his head tilted to the side, it was as if he were contemplating the situation, as if he were somehow detached from it.

Then, Azrael heard it.

It was a low guttural growl, coming from deep within the man’s chest. The sound was like an alpha male wolf preparing to protect its pack, and it sent a chill down Azrael’s spine. Never in all his time had he heard such a sound!

Alexandra looked over to the young man, her eyes pleading with him. “N-no, An-Andrew,” she cried feebly.

Andrew crouched, ready to pounce on the creature killing his girlfriend, but Azrael knew that he didn’t stand a chance against the demon man. Crouching down, Azrael leap in front of Matthew and Andrew, separating them from the girls and dark man. The sudden appearance of Azrael shocked Andrew enough that it caused him to stumble back and trip over a ruined headstone.

Azrael turned to the man, his brow furrowed in extreme displeasure.

He shrugged, a sadistic grin plastered on his face. A gust of wind blew and knocked the hood of his cloak of his face. The eyes of Iva, Andrew, and Matthew widened in shock, and Azrael cringed at the sight of him. Under God’s decree, all demons, at least those lucky enough to escape from Hell, were required to show themselves for what they truly were, especially if they intended to walk among the human race. Some chose to leave off certain body parts, such as eyes or an arm, and others chose to so severally deform themselves that there was no way they could be mistaken as a human.

Azrael hissed at him, knowing instantly who he was. Not only was his nose missing, but his skin was riddles with scars, as if he had taken a straight razor with the intention of cutting off his nose but had instead cut himself repeatedly. His left ear was hanging from a thin piece of rotting flesh, and blood streamed from the corners of his eyes. He would not have to touch a single human to kill them; he would only have to manifest himself in a corporal form, and they would die of fright simply upon seeing his face.

Sammael, Hell’s Angel of Death, threw the young girls at Azrael’s feet and began to walk towards him, his arms spread out as if he were greeting an old friend, but Azrael spread his wings as far as they would go, warning him to keep his distance from him and the girls. It had been many, many years since he had last seen him. They had once been the best of friends but that had been before Lucifer’s fall from grace. Sammael had sided with Lucifer, while Azrael had remained true to God, and things had never been the same between them after that.

“My brother, how long as it been since we last set eyes upon each other? Twenty, forty years?” Sammael cooed, his eyes wandering from Azrael to the girls gagging at his feet.

Azrael eyes narrowed, not liking Sammael’s use of the word ‘brother’. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, trying to gather my composure. A fight between two of the most powerful angels in existence would be bad for both sides, and I was not about to start a cosmic war over trivial things.

“The last time I saw you, Sammael,” I say, putting as much malice into my words as possible,” it was at Auschwitz. You were egging on the Nazi officers in the torture of an innocent little girl, and I had been sent to gain control of the situation. You are one of the most wanted demons in Heaven and to have your head on a plate is the highest aim of all the angels.”

He wags his finger back and forth as if he were a teacher telling a child they had down wrong. “Tsk, tsk, Azrael! It seems that as the humans have strayed from the path of righteousness, so have God’s most trusted brood,” he says, taunting me,” You and your kind have developed such a taste from revenge and death that you might as well take the place of the demons in Hell. You certainly are worse than us it seems.”

I lunge at him, his words sending a raging anger coursing through my entire being. He has no idea what kind of Pandora’s Box he has just opened, but just as I am about the reach him, the chains around my wings tighten, sending excruciating pain through my spine. I fall to the ground in a writhing mass of flesh and feathers. It was the safeguard coming into effect. It was keeping me from using my power to destroy a creature that had caused so much pain to so many people.

Gasping, I stumble to my feet. With my back throbbing, all I can do is moan with pain. Sammael laughs at me, nearly falling over the grave of a sixteen year old, and I can not do a thing about it. Even though he is technically a demon, I am not allowed to kill him as I have the others. I can not even get within a foot of him with ill intentions on my mind.

As if reading my thoughts, he stops laughing and look at me in utter despair. ” It is because we were once brothers, Azrael,” he says, putting his hood back over his head to hide his deformed face,” I was once an angel and fought along side you. Simply because we had different views, we were separated, and you began to hate me. You hated me because I thought differently, because my beliefs were different than those set down by the Almighty, but that should not have made a difference.”

“You betrayed all that was good and pure in the world, Sammael!” I shout, leaning up against a mausoleum for support,” You have used your powers to murder and rape when they could have been used for so much more!”

He hangs his head, blood dripping from his face as if they were tears from an injured child. “Even angels make mistakes, Azrael,” he manages to say, his form slowly fading away until I see nothing of him,” I cut myself in silence, and it still hurts. I have sorrowed the wrong god, and in this world of hurt, nothing ever changes. The sad black knight can only cross his heart and hope that, one day, he will be forgiven.”

Guilt stabs my heart. We were once friends, and I had forgotten that. He had only done what he had thought was right, and he was paying the price for it with eternity in Hell. Who was I to judge him for that? We angels were truly becoming just as ruthless as the humans, and it seemed that there was nothing we could do about it. Maybe it was us who should have been sent to Hell instead.