Author's Note:
Not much to say here. I started wondering how I would go about writing from the 'bad guy' perspective, and this is what ended up coming out.

Warnings:
Please note that this story deals with some sensitive material. Attemped rape and violence are both present here, if only in small measures. Along with those are mentions of murder and torture, along with the fact that the person narrating really has no trouble with any of the above. Also; language warning. Swearing is prominent.

Rated M for these reasons, just to be safe. If you have no trouble with that, please read on and enjoy.

Ignoble Intentions

“Hold still, bitch!”

I roll my eyes and lean against the tree as I watch my mark of the day struggle with a young, blonde slip of a girl who's putting up a valiant, if useless, fight. He already has her on her back in the wet grass with the front of her shirt torn open.

Males. No matter what species, ninety percent of them tend to think with the wrong head.

But if they didn't, I'd run out of work pretty damn fast, so I guess I shouldn't complain. This guy's penchant for unwilling sex partners is, after all, what put the price on his head. He's been spending too much time fucking and not enough fulfilling his part of the bargain, so now my boss wants what's his.

Only question is if I should do my job now or in the three to five minutes it'll take Romeo here to finish up. Chances of anyone else interrupting his playtime are slim. Even humans are smart enough to not wander into a downtown park in the middle of the night.

I turn my eyes to the girl and look a little deeper, past the terror that's currently clouding her mind. Hm. Memories of school, dates, childhood, deeply buried ones from infancy... all happy. I don't think she's ever really had anything bad happen to her.

This would probably destroy her.

I grin. Suffering is always good. It's what my kind lives off of. That and negative emotions.

I watch him paw at her some more, crushing his lips to hers to muffle her cries. It looks... clumsy... to say the least, so I decide to find my entertainment elsewhere while I wait.

What to do, what to do...

Ah, yes. Let's play the What If game.

What if I stopped him? Who would this girl become without all the trauma that this rape will undoubtedly dump on her?

I close my eyes and push out a few tendrils of my mind, idly touching them to the edges of her soul. Well, fuck me sideways. She sure is an innocent. The contact almost hurts.

Hm. What do we have here? Pretty promising future for her, actually. Good college, good grades... fame?

My eyes pop open again as I sever the connection. Fame is useful. Fame breeds envy. Wrath. Pride. Not in her, no, but in others. More negativity. More strength for me and mine.

I hear fabric tearing as I push away from the tree. I hear sobbing. Whimpering. Grunting.

He's just about to rip off her panties when I grab the scruff of his sweaty neck and toss him off to the side. No last jollies for this one after all. This girl's gonna be more useful as she is.

“What the hell?” He rolls onto his knees and glares at me, obviously pissed that his little game's been interrupted. “The fuck'd you do that for, bitch?”

I ignore the little prat as I slip out of my coat and give it to the girl so she can cover herself some. “You alright, kid?” Keep her on that path. She nods, wide-eyed and scared out of her mind, although she seems to be coming around fast.

Tough cookie. Wouldn't have pegged her as such.

“Hey, bitch!” He obviously needs a thesaurus of some kind. That one's getting old fast. “I'm fucking talking to you!”

Y'know, you'd think the fact that I just tossed his overly-muscled ass a good twenty feet with one arm would clue him into the fact that I'm not some regular human. Then again, judging by the look in his eyes he's both drunk and high on who-knows-what, and since he was dumber than a box of rocks to begin with...

Yeah, I get my own point.

“No, you're talking at me.” I crouch down and help the girl cover herself with the coat before turning to him. “Talking to me would require a minimal amount of brain stem activity that I suspect you're horrendously incapable of.”

He just stares at me for a few seconds. “Huh?”

I roll my eyes. Idiot.

Whatever. I'm not here to match wits with him. Fill in your own 'battle of wits with an unarmed person' joke here. I have a job to do and pay to collect.

“So you're the great Mr. Barry Heilon, hm?” I straighten and cross my arms. “I'd say that people have a grossly inflated opinion of you.” Personally, I find him about as threatening as a soggy lump of cotton. But I suppose I do have an advantage over the average Joe.

He narrows his eyes at me and sways back and forth a little. “Who the fuck are you?”

I think I need to have a talk with Donny in New Arrivals when I get back. Tell him to pluck out this 20-watt bulb and make the first part of his stay include at least a tiny expansion of his vocabulary. I'm sure I'll run into him again, but I'm supposed to be the one torturing him, not the other way around.

And there's nothing I hate more than shabby, overused insults. Being a big guy with a lot of clout is no excuse.

“I suppose you could call me a debt collector,” I reply, tilting my head to the side. “You see, Mr. Heilon, my boss did you a favor in exchange for your services. But sadly for you, he has been less than satisfied with your performance.”

He just stares blankly at me. What the hell do I have to do? Paint him a damn picture?

Fuck no. I'll settle for letting the glamour disguising me slip away to some extent. The eyes should be enough. Sedate green to glowing red in 3... 2... 1...

Why do they always have to piss themselves? Disgusting.

He turns to run. They always do that, too. How did that line go?

Ah, yes. Resistance is futile.

“Now, now, Mr. Heilon.” I catch him before he takes his third step and wrap a hand around his neck, lifting slightly and pushing him up against a tree. No way am I getting close to this piece of trash. It would take me weeks to get rid of the stench of urine and sweat. “We had an agreement. You got power. My boss gets your soul.”

He claws at my hand, his legs flailing in mid-air as they try to find purchase against the trunk of the tree. “You were s'posed to wait until I died!”

I shrug. “We will. I'm just here to help the process along.”

Great. Urine, sweat and feces. Honestly...

Usually, I like to feed off their fear at times like this, but if I wait much longer he may just complete the Foul-Smelling Foursome and vomit all over me. I know I cut his fun short, but he could at least be a good host and let me have mine after I traveled between worlds to find his ass.

Humans have no manners.

I sigh and presses the fingertips of my free hand against the center of his breastbone. “This will hurt very much,” I tell him drolly, and squeeze his throat tighter so he can't scream too loud. Last thing I want is a headache. That would just make this night perfect.

His face contorts. I know what he's feeling. It's amazing what a little mind control can accomplish when you're curious about something. Hell, the guys I did that to were gonna die anyway, so why shouldn't I have made them tell me exactly what it felt like?

Enquiring minds wanna know and all that jazz. And in that land, research is king.

Right about now, he should feel as if a series of impossibly thin, razor-sharp blades are slowly burying themselves in his flesh, cutting through his ribs and slicing open his lungs. And now.. yes, I think it's now... it should feel as if the blades suddenly caught fire.

The beauty of it is that I'm not even breaking skin. I don't need to. A soul is an immaterial thing, and can't be captured by cutting through flesh and muscle. Not that doing so can't be a very high form of entertainment, but it isn't necessary.

No, all I need to do is what I'm doing now. Just stroke through his spirit with my own. Search. Locate. Capture.

He goes limp, and I loosen my hold. His corpse falls to the soggy ground like a sack of potatoes. It's an oddly anti-climatic feeling. Maybe I should have played around with him a little more. Goaded him into a fight.

Eh. Next time.

“What...” I feel a hand on my arm and spin around before I can think better of it. The girl gasps slightly as she looks at my face, and I take a moment to curse my instincts. They're very useful in a fight, but less so when it comes to remembering nifty little details like, oh, making my eyes look human again.

Crap. I hate leaving loose ends, but I can't kill this one. The second I stopped old Barry, I made an unspoken pact to leave her untouched on my part. I can't break a pact with my side anymore than a human can. And I'm still not ranked highly enough to make her forget.

She doesn't run away, which surprises me a little. She just kinda... stares... for a few seconds. Even with my vision it's hard to tell in the dark, but I think she has blue eyes.

“What... did you do to him?” Her voice is surprisingly calm. Curious, almost.

My coat is hanging over her shoulders. It's too big for her, but she's covered, at least. ”I took his soul,” I answer honestly.

She doesn't even flinch. Just nods. “That's what I thought.”

In my experience, an innocent of her caliber should be just a wee bit more shocked than that.

“You're remarkably calm about this whole thing,” I tell her, and use my foot to poke at the body on the ground in front of us.

“That demons are real?” she inquires, and I nod. “Why? I believe in angels, and there has to be a balance in everything.”

Kid has a point.

“What's your name?”

Now it's my turn to stare. Jeez. Just when you think you have humans all figured out, a girl so innocent that her soul can blind your ass takes the time to make idle chit-chat with a demon who just killed a man in front of her.

Sure bounces back quick, though. She seems almost cheerful now. Odd little thing.

She tilts her head at me, and actually seems to be waiting for my reply. Did she miss the 'demons are evil' part of her Sunday School groups or something?

“Caitlin.” The short version. I don't think the human physique is capable of even forming my full name, let alone saying it out loud.

The kid smiles and holds out her hand, and I'm astounded enough that I reach out and give it a shake. “Nice to meet you, Caitlin. My name's Angel.”

Blargh. It would be. This girl has goodness written all over her.

Well. She knows I'm a demon. She knows my name. And I actually did the 'good' thing and saved her from an experience that would've destroyed her, even if it wasn't with noble intentions. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Word of advice then, Angel.” I let the glamour skitter back into place over my eyes and smirk at her. “Never make a deal with a demon and fail to uphold your end of it.”

She actually laughs a little at that, and I shake my head as I grasp her elbow lightly and lead her away from the scene. “C'mon. I'll walk you home.”

- END