Angel Dust by Aurora Morgenstern (summer beach reads .TXT) 📕

"Just let me get a few of my things", he says and leaves for a space of time that stretches awfully long, I am close to giving up faith in him coming back at all when he reappears with a small bag and a sleeping bad. I did not think angels needed sleeping bags. He sees my surprised glances at the sleeping bag.

"Has Gabriel not taught you about manifestation yet? You can manifest quite an impressive number of things if you try hard enough. We´re told not to overuse the power though as it is self-indulging. Not really angelic now is it?", he says and smirks oh so slightly. 

"So say I wanted to manifest a phone?", my tone is hopeful. Being able to talk to my friends would be such a relief, one or two of them know about my past and the dark place it has put me in. I lost quite a lot of the few friends I did have in that time, but the few that remained at my side supported me through it. 

"Phones don´t work up here, no connection towers. We´re on a different plane of existence as you might have notices, we exist at the same time as earth and the universe but in a somewhat different place. It´s hard to explain. There are some overlapping points between this realm and earth and we use those to travel between the worlds", all this sounds an awful lot like a science fiction book but I´m not picky about whatever explanation I can get about the place I´m in. 

"I think I understand what you´re saying. Is there anyway to pass a letter or anything over at all?", I ask him in almost a desperate plea. I could really use soem support right now.

"Felice...as much as I want to help you, it usually doesn´t go over to well when you try to communicate with the living. Believe me"

"What do you know?", I almost shout at him angrily in ym desperation. If there is a way why not use it. It would do a great deal for me to know I haven´t caused anyone any pain. 

 "What do I know? I know better than anyone. Gabriel told me I couldn´t, but he allowed me to watch over my fiancée to protect her from harm. Which was already incredibly kind from him, as a human born you´re usually expected to leave that old life behind once you become an angel. I couldn´t bear seeing her hurt like that so I left her a note when she was sleeping. Instead of helping her in her grief, she thought some demonic presence was tempting her. I left her another note, trying to explain that it was indeed me. She became deeply paranoid and I was too foolish to see I was driving her into madness. She ended up taking her own life to escape the voices. Suicide is a mortal sin, I damned her soul to hell", there is a deep sadness in his voice and I fall silent. I have never seen him like this, this is raw and open and I can see a self hatred in his eyes.

"I´m sorry, I didn´t know...", I reach out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder and I almost sigh in relief when he lets me.

"You couldn´t know. Just promise me you won´t try, ever. You don´t want that burden on you", maybe this was one of the demons he was talking about. The fact that he has revealed something so painful to me makes me feel guilty for not letting him in, but something is still holding me back, telling me that I cannot let him know about my own demons. The fact that he himself mentioned the fact that his fiancée thought he was a demon gives me an idea, I feel almost cruel for exploting this but I need to know.

"You said your fiancée thought it was a demon tempting her, are demons real? I mean I know Lucifer fell, that one is true. But how about demons?", my voices shakes more than I intended to and under the table I clutch at the hem of my T-shirt.

"They are. There are different kinds of demons and first of all you need to know that Lucifer is not the image you have of the devil, the first evil. Lucifer is the highest ranking demon, the only fallen archangel. Most demons are the angels that chose to follow him into the pit and the flames of hell changed them, but other demons have existed just as long as angels. Keeping the balance, because without light there would be no darkness. Not even the archangels know when demons and the beast came into existence...", his voice trails off at the end. So demons are real, my heart feels like it might explode inside my chest. 

"Can they cross over to earth like the angels?", I pray the answer is no.

"They can, but they are limited. They can only manifest on earth if they are invited by a human", so what i saw was real. Now the question that remains is who invited that demon to cross, who would invite something so gruesome to the world.

"Why would anyone do such a thing?", I ask wearily.

"Desperation, most humans summon them to make deals. We angels have limits, we cannot answer every prayer and demons prey on the weak. I said they could not cross, but they can however whisper thoughts into human ears. Tempt them into doing things they would otherwise never do. These deals, humans offer their soul in return for whatever it is they want and if they aren´t willing to make a deal the demon usually either seduces or torments the human into an action that will damn their soul to hell", I have shivers running down my spine imagining having to hear a demon whisper into your ear, driving you into madness. I had my share just seeing one once, nevermind hearing him or seeing him on a day to day basis. 

"What do these demons look like? Do they still look like angels at all?", this question is the last one remaining before I know wether what I saw was really a demon. 

"The flames of hell and the fall have changed them and it depends how grave the angel´s betrayal was and how powerful they were prior to their fall. We know that Lucifer while he is trapped still has his wings but god alone knows how much of his power remains. Most of the angels however lost their wings, they burned off. It is mainly the non angelic demons that look different, they tend to have claws, fangs, eyes in odd places taht sort of thing. Just look at a book with the oddest animals you can find, throw them together and you have yourself a demon"

"Is it possible that they look in anyway human at all, but with say claws and taht sort of thing?", he raises an eyebrow. 

"There is something you´re not telling me, why do you want to know so bad? Have you seen one before?"

"No, I´m just curious", I lie and if he noticed the lie he doesn´t say anything this time.

"It is possible. Some souls that end up in hell don´t endure the tortures, they ask for a way out and end up as demons", I can hear my own harsh intake of breath. A human demon did this to my grandmother, what kind of torture does a soul have to endure before they decide to become something so unspeakable, so despicable and utterly evil?

"If a human is killed by a demon, what happens to their soul?", this question is perhaps even more vital than knowing wether I was right. I fear the answer. 

"That fully depends why the demon chose to kill this particular human and on a couple of different things. If they made a deal they bypass the courts of heaven and go straight to hell. However if the demon killed them for a different season they await judgement", I sigh in relief. I am sure that my grandmother never would have made a deal with a demon, never. However that does not take away from the fear and the memories, it does not lessen the darkness in me but it gives me hope. I yawn, exhausted from my training and all this information.

"I think that´s quite enough for today, I probably told you too much already! Let´s get you to bed!", Nathaniel says and within the blink of an eye is out of his seat and offering me a hand. Hesitant I take his hand and let him take me upstairs to my room. He rolls out his sleeping bag next to my bed without a question and vanishes into the bathroom to get changed. I am glad that he has agreed to stay with me, I don´t think I could stand the darkness all by myself again. Last night was worse than ever and even with all this new knowledge the fear remains. 

 The next day I wake up feeling somewhat refreshed, I didn´t sleep much but certainly more than I would have if Nathaniel had not been there with me. Speaking of the devil. I look at the empty sleeping bag on the floor and wonder where he might be. A second later I can hear the shower go on which certainly clarifies his location. I stretch lazily and decide to make some breakfast in the mean time to give him some privacy. Making breakfast is an easy, mechanical task that doesn´t require much thinking. I look outside and to my great astonishment it´s raining, pouring buckets of rain to be precise. I am quite certain that unless there is some secret heavenly gym I don´t know about this means my training sessions will be canceled. Which results in me being stuck in the house. I am in the business of transfering the eggs into the pan when I hear steps coming down the stairs. I turn to see Natahniel drying his hair with a towel on the way down wearing a pair of battered, torn jeans and a black shirt. To be completely fair he looks incredibly attractive that way. 

"See something you like?", he teases and winks at me seductively. I roll my eyes at him, but I do blush a little since he caught me staring at him. Not exactly something normal friends do, but normal people aren´t constantly surrounded by incredibly attractive angels. 

"Isn´t vanity a sin?", I counter with a smile. 

"Not a deadly one. That there looks pretty good by the way", he remarks with a look at the pan. 

"And yet it´s still a sin. Isn´t that gonna cost you brownie points or whatever?"

"Well if you sin too much you get exiled from heaven, but if you ask for redemption and truely mean it...all will be forgiven. I still wouldn´t go around sinning too much, falling from heaven isn´t exctly pleasant and I hear the food up here is much better than whatever Lucifer