fallen ic ::

Ah, the joys of being self-employed.

It was a new and rather odd concept for an angel, especially one of the Archangels, a being who was very much used to having orders and directives to accomplish, goals to achieve. But Jophiel wasn’t the kind to turn away from a new experience, and upon discovering that his current host ran his own business, he had buried himself in leaning how it all worked so he could continue with that, not only to keep people who knew of Jared Kilmartin from noticing something had changed, but also for the experience itself. It was new, and therefore intriguing to him. They said curiosity killed the cat, but thankfully, there wasn’t very much about Jophiel that was feline, so he would count himself safe. After learning the ropes, he had discovered that managing everything single-handedly as Jared Kilmartin had for years before his accident meant he could keep his own hours; if something came up, there was absolutely nothing stopping Jophiel from locking up and moving on to whatever it was that needed handling.

Useful, to say the least, especially when Metatron and Sandalphon had a habit of setting off the Archangel’s alarm bells by attempting new and inventive things in their kitchen or somehow ‘breaking’ all the clocks in the apartment.

Naturally, though, there were small tasks that even angels had trouble with. Namely, trying to unlock a door when you had your hands full. Oh, for the ability to temporarily grow a third hand. He certainly needed one right now. That, or a place to put something down, just for a minute.


( OPEN )

A story was running in all the evening papers and splattered across all the news channels.

It wasn’t unusual, it was actually fairly common for one rumour or another about Lucifer’s whereabouts to crop up; it had been months, maybe they were due some sensational story or another, but someone was causing a ruckus that was for damn sure and for once the police actually seemed to be listening. Since the information had leaked to the news agencies there had been a flurry of activity all over the city; it was all anyone could talk about as it flew around by word of mouth, but as the news broadcasts started to go out, flooding the airwaves with the story that someone, somewhere had information about the leader of the Demons and his whereabouts, anticipation and anxiety jumped up to fever pitch. No one wanted it to be true, but there was always the ‘what if’ in the back of the minds, all of their minds.

“Four years and countless rumours from both sides have gone by since the war, but none have caused so serious a wave as this,” Tracey Gainsborough told the camera earnestly, report from a downtown police station, behind her a crowd of reporters doing just was she was doing, light shining in their faces voices a low buzz of anticipation, other taking notes or interviewing random people for filler on their news channel; anyone important was being kept well and truly away from the reporters. “Sources have this afternoon come forward claiming that Lucifer, the leader of the Princes of Hell himself has taken possession of body here in Chicago, Illinois. The unnamed informant has declined to talk to reporters through a representative in the form of legal counsel, but we believe he or she is currently inside this very station talking to detectives about an apparent encounter with a person claiming that they are Lucifer inside a human skin. Whether this proves to be true, or merely yet another hoax remains to be seen. More on this breaking news, after this break.”

The red light went out on the camera, she was off air for a few minutes.

Tracey sighed, and swept a loose strand of blonde hair away from her forehead, “Let’s grab a cup of coffee before they come back,” she said to her cameraman, looking over her shoulder at the steps leading up to the doors of the station.

“You think it’s true?” her cameraman was asking as he hoisted the equipment off his shoulder.

It took a moment for her to respond, turning her face away from the building. Whether it was true was anybody’s guess. There had been ‘sightings’ of the Devil almost every day after the war had ended, but they had slowly tapered off, the demons deciding that the fun of claiming such a thing had worn out quickly under the anxiety of the fact that he wasn’t anywhere to be seen or heard, at least that was what the humans had assumed.

“I don’t know, it’s not like the cops to interrogate people making these claims though,” she said, lips pursing once more in deep thought, “Usually they just send beat cops to check stuff out. Something’s going on in there, that’s for sure.”

Tracey was right. Something was going on, but for the time being details were practically non-existent, no one was saying anything and that in and of itself was unnerving. Where was the statement setting their minds at ease? Where were the satirists making a mockery of the claims? There was a tension in the air unlike any the city of Chicago had felt since the war had been raging, and all eyes were fixed on them, waiting for it to blow over like all the claims before it, or else waiting for the unprecedented revelation that, for once, it was true and Lucifer himself was back.

(NARRATIVE :: CLOSED)

( OOC )