Rachel's Job Sucks Sometimes

This story involves some characters from Elliot Kay's "Good Intentions" universe...

*****

Cassandra had run and failed. All the other captives of that vast middle realm called Purgatory had warned her of the futility of such action, but her terror at having to submit to Him for a year had known no bounds. She had desperately plotted, though with much of the cunning her kind was known for, and escaped at the first opportunity. The proctors, however, were closing in on her hiding place behind construction debris on the top floor of the long unfinished building. She could hear the heavy tramp of their boots as they methodically quartered each floor's bare spaces. A single tear squeezed from beneath the lid of her left eye, the green one, as she hugged her knees and cowered. It was unthinkable to have to give herself to Him as the Law of The Book dictated, so she had run, pointlessly it seemed now that her recapture was imminent. She would be forced into the fate she knew would break her.

Her breathing hitched and she tried to shrink herself into nothingness, as though the searching proctors would not scent her fear for all her tight lipped silence. Suddenly the broken pieces of wallboard she had been crouched under were ripped away and the cat-eye pupils of the lead proctor stared down at her. Her eyes rounded, one green and one blue, and she opened her mouth to shriek but found her throat in his grasp in an instant. Any sound she might have made was cut off as he lifted her bodily from her hiding place and pinned her to the wall. Her fingers clawed automatically against the gloved fist she struggled against.

"Put your feet against my legs, girl," he commanded. "I've no wish to choke you." She complied, disbelieving, even as her hands pulled uselessly at his fingers. As her bare feet pushed against his hard muscled thighs she felt the pressure ease on her throat, realizing his fingers merely cupped her neck to the wall, they did not curl and squeeze. She pushed up further, and found she could slide a bit in his grasp. She stared at him, wide-eyed as he asked her his next question. "You knew it useless to run, girl. Why did you.?"

She blinked at him. Why was he asking her this? Surely she would not be taken back to Him to serve her term as concubine. Instead she would be cast up, to have her fine leathery wings replaced with those horrid white feathered ones. Her horns would be ground off, and worst of all her tail would be taken! Her beautiful sinuous tail, lopped off as if she were some docile mortal show dog. Her eyes blazed suddenly, and she breathed in deeply as though she would spew the fire that also marked her kind all over the proctor's masked features...as if that would do any good. Her shoulders slumped finally, and she sagged, defeated.

"I...I cannot serve Him, Proctor." Her soft words were tinged with despair. "He...He is...He is too Good."

She could tell the proctor smiled grimly behind his iron façade. Her admission had cost her, and she knew he knew that. She bowed her head and another tear left her eye, following the glistening trail of the first.

"I would be corrupted forever...for eternity with his taint. I would never be able to return to the Pit. Should I be cast down I would be as the damned are there. The lowest of the low. Lower." Her words held only traces of bitterness, the fire of her defiance was gone. She looked to him with a final plea for succor. "I would that you kill me now than return me and condemn me to such a fate."

"You knew this had been decreed, even before your birth in the Pit, Cassandra. Your Fate was to serve your year and preserve the Balance. I...I cannot help you." His hesitation showed his own struggle with his duties.

"Stephen!" Her exclamation of his name sent heat and greater despair through them both. "Please!" She implored him, her voice cracking. "You love me! You told me!" Each tortured phrase she uttered battered his impassive features as though they were pebbles flung against a castle wall.

He shook his head once more, although it was clear her words affected him. One shudder ran through his massive frame as he gathered her easily into his remaining three arms, cradling her as he would a small child. The tattered white shift that barely provided for modesty made her seem even more forlorn, her fight gone and her petite body wracked with open sobs. He carried her to the stairwell, as the glow of the Third Hosts ethereal beings chased the darkness from the hollow winding space. As the first angel appeared, Cassandra hid her face in the proctor's shoulder, unable to bear the light from the halo that hovered above the angel's unearthly beauty. Her face solemn, the young looking blond haired angel held her arms out and he deposited the distraught succubus into them.

"Thank you, Proctor Stephen." Her musical tones were nonetheless grave as she took her charge. Other angels came to surround her and the taken demon, their gazes equally somber. "He will be pleased and grateful you have found her and returned her unharmed."

Stephen nodded once, but did not turn away at her gentle dismissal. Noting his unmoving stance, the angel carrying the now quiet young succubus queried him. "Proctor? You would speak?"

"She...is not pure." he replied quietly, his demeanor turning to one of regret, yet a slight defiance crept into his stance.

The angel's eyes widened. "You know this? How?" She turned to hand off the crimson skinned girl off to another angel and stepped up to the proctor. "How do you know this, Proctor Stephen?"

"Because I am the one who sullied her."

The angel stared at him in disbelief. "You know this is forbidden! Those chosen must be those just born, in their purest form of evil, or there will be no redemption!" she cried. "Do you know what you have done!?" The angel, Rachel, was aghast. She turned, shaking her head, and stepped away from him, then whirled back to face him. "There is no predicting her fate now. I cannot imagine what He will decide." Rachel shook her head again in shock and disbelief. "And you! You have disgraced yourself and will be cast down!" she fairly shouted at him.

"I know, angel."

His calm reply took her anger and she regarded him more carefully. "You act as though such a fate is not the damnation that it is."

"I only know what was given and taken was done from the hearts of each, angel. There was no intention to ruin her term with Him."

He went quiet and she pondered his words. Turning to the angel who carried the girl, Rachel gestured to her to return the succubus to the care of the proctor. His cat-eye pupils dilated fully but soon restricted themselves down to focused slits once more. He took Cassandra gently from the second angel, and cradled her tenderly against his chest. She looked up at him hopefully, but he shook his head almost imperceptibly and she buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed. Nodding his head at the lead angel, he watched as she lifted her right hand, a tongue of flame growing from her palm and turning into a great flaming sword. She held it aloft for a moment, then leveled it and drove it mightily through both of them, unerringly finding their hearts with one searing thrust.

Rachel held it there, watching sadly as the two bodies ignited and burned hotly, so hotly she would have turned away if it were not her duty to witness these two souls' absolution. She caught sight of them, leaving the bodies of the two lovers who should never have found one another, soaring entwined as they rose to be rejoined with the Maker. Possibly they might be reborn, perhaps to find one another again under circumstances where their love could flourish. She could only hope, and sent a prayer after them as they disappeared. After the bodies crumbled into ash, she let her sword retract into her palm and lowered her arm, breathing heavily.

"Fuck." she muttered bitterly.

"Rachel?" asked the angel who had also carried the vanquished succubus.

"Not now, Theresa," Rachel answered irritably. "This is a fucking shit sucking clusterfuck." she stormed as the other angels looked on with horror at her language. She looked around at her companions. "I'm sorry," she huffed. "but I regress when I have to do things like this where the rules should have some leeway! This was Love. They should never have suffered this consequence because they fell in love. I have not had to pay. Why did they have to?"

"Their bond did not occur because of mortal interference as did yours, Rachel." answered Theresa evenly. "You know this."

"Knowing the difference doesn't make their fate acceptable." Rachel retorted. "Anyway, fuck it. It's done. You guys do the report and handle returning the proctors. I have to get home to Lorelei and Alex, because this fucking shit sucks."

With that she turned to the nearest wall and faded through it, before spreading her great white wings and heading west back towards Seattle. She needed to get back home.