Azazel:Key West:9/12/25
It’s been a long day of bloodshed and battle.
We awoke before dawn to the familiar roar of a destroying angel. A fox’s shriek and a jet engine vibrating through you, picking you apart with each sentient decibel. Our shield held strong, we had people stationed at strategic points to keep psychic energy flowing into it. But hiding inside the shield is not how we win a battle around here.
My swords and knives were sharp and ready to spit flame with each cool touch of a raindrop. I rolled out of bed, grateful that demons don’t get hangovers, and split my human skin belly to belly with my nessmuk. The grub released from its fleshjelly prison. I never fight in that squishy meat suit. I need to feel the wounds upon my own burning flesh. I need to bleed and feel pain. The ache to ache drives me on.
There was a knock on my door. I opened it to find Miriam, skinny, hair in a single braid down her back, flames flickering in her eyes.
“Is that them?” The girl vibrated heat. I grinned.
“It’s them.” I stepped out of my trailer. “Remember what I told you, stick close to me. Listen to what I tell you. Don’t go off all teenaged and stubborn headed. You got me?”
She grinned hard and did a little hop, her skin flashed flame for a split second, “I got you, I got you.”
We met Mal, Angor Animi, Cogon, Calculi, Willow, Iahel, and several others outside Iahel’s trailer. Malheur and the tigers, the Ring Master, all of the hands and several performers were emerging from their various places of rest. Everyone was armed to the teeth. It was one destroying angel, but it would have its elementals with it. Those could be killed by regular means, but there were always a fucking lot of them.
With Mal at the head, we breached the shield and surrounded it. The goal was to kill the angel, but more importantly, keep the portal safe.
I won’t go into specifics, it was a hard battle, we lost a few. Iahel didn’t arc. Still a self important idiot.
Miriam, though. I don’t even know how to write this.
We were outside the shield, Mal was battling the angel while the rest of us took out elementals. Miriam got knocked down by an elemental’s fist. She was about to take another one. I was right there to help her.
But someone screamed her name.
The three of us looked, Rebecca, who wasn’t supposed to be out there, stood on the wrong side of the shield.
I was right there. Miriam was going to be fine. Hell, the kid had already taken down three of her own.
The elemental shot a water dart at mum. Hit her right in the throat. So much blood.
Miriam screamed so hard it ripped the air, flame erupted from her mouth. The elemental was done for. She didn’t stop, shooting flames at every enemy she saw as she marched to the angel. I ran after her, but she was so hot I couldn’t get close. The angel turned to her. Before the thing could make a move, Miriam screamed again. A shriek that dropped us all to our knees. The angel burst into flames. The elementals faded. The fight was over.
Miriam fainted.
The rest of the day was… well it’s always cleanup after a battle. Treat wounds, bury the dead…
The kid is, not ok. I guess time will tell how she grows from this. Mal and I talked. She needs to be in Deadwater for what’s coming there. I’m to accompany her. Watch over her.
Harpooned and bloodstained.
Miriam:Key West:9/12/25
I got mom killed. This is her journal. I’m reading it and keeping it. I’ll write like she did. I got my mom killed. I killed her. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know how to tell dad and Matt. What am I going to do? Why couldn’t it have been me?
It should have been me.
I want to die.
Mommy I’m so sorry…
I’m sorry to everyone…
August:Heaven:House Arrest
Well, I haven’t gotten her out of Heaven, but I did manage to break us out of house arrest. Simple, really, all I had to do was piss on the wall in the shape of a pentagram, and the wall disintegrated. We ran bladed through the streets pretending to be Jack the Ripper. At the first woman we saw I slashed her right across the belly, her guts spilled out onto the promenade.
Lo the taffeta.
“I should kill a man, shouldn’t I? I don’t really think that The Ripper liked women much. So I shouldn’t try to be him. But the opposite.”
“You don’t like men?” I said, showing the lady her guts as she screamed, dancing them back and forth in my hands. It was a little comical really. But she wouldn’t stop screaming so I stabbed her lungs. That was tougher than I thought, aiming through the ribs. Turned out to be easer going up through the thing above the intestines to the lungs. I shall have to get an anatomy book before our next outing.
“I like you, but men in general? Well, not the men here anyway. In Hell they’re different.”
I stood, “Any man in particular you like down in Hell?”
“August, it’s just different there. Everyone has sex with everyone. There’s no shame in it and monogamy is weird there. You’d be free to have sex with anyone, too. Not just me.”
The woman on the ground was still screaming. I guess I had missed the lungs after all. I stabbed my knife into her open mouth, she gurgled now instead. I wiped blood on my naked thighs. This was, perhaps, too many boundaries to cross all in one day. And the Administrator’s men were baring down on us anyway. I dragged my knife back out of the woman’s throat. Her guts were already starting to knit back together.
We were captured. I’m writing this from a lonely cell. Awaiting a trial apparently.
Not allowed to talk to Evelyn, but I can’t imagine how bad it could be. What else could they possibly do besides deport us to Hell?
