earthbound ch2

In the unoccupied emergency operating room of the downtown Sacred Kings' that stood not six blocks away, two angels faced off. Each was poised in pre-battle stance with wings spread majestically across to the corners of the room. A breeze whipped around the operating theatre, tousling their garments and curls. They met each other with steely glares, both challenging and composed.

Darian licked his forked tongue along his pale lips and grinned mischievously. He thrust his body forward an inch and startled Briette so that she drew her fists up closer to her face. Laughing at her hostility he said:

“What are you going to do, kill me?”

He relaxed his body, retracted his wings and slumped against the wall. “Besides, it’s not even here yet.”

Briette sighed and adjusted the halo around her head. She stretched out a rich chocolate curl and released it, allowing it to spring back into a perfect coil around the nape of her slender neck. She checked the tiny hourglass that hung from her silver chain. Tiny specks of crystal life were beginning to fall from nowhere inside the glass. Just a few more moments now.

At that moment the doors burst open and a gang of medical professionals spilled into the room, wheeling a bed with the girl from the alley. She thrashed about in a hospital gown, screaming incoherently in agony.

Nurse Solowitz grabbed her shoulder and squeezed it hard with her warm, pudgy fingers, to try to gain the girls attention while she screamed at her “Stop, pushing. For God’s sake, girl, STOP PUSHING!”

Another nurse unceremoniously spread her legs, looked up her hospital gown and called “It’s too late, she’s already crowning. Put away your scalpels.”

Dr Marlow bent down to examine the tiny brownish-purple deformed bubble was already forming between the girl’s flesh. He snapped on some gloves and pushed the knees further apart.

Darian and Briette, initially propelled backwards by the startling intrusion, moved toward the girl. They drew up at opposite sides of her and exchanged silent gestures of hostility. Their auras increased and for a moment the room was engulfed: half in shadow, half in white light.

The muscles in Briette’s face and neck to rippled, her veins pulsed. She hissed through clenched teeth “I will kick your emo ass.”

“Bring it on, blondie.”

A third voice joined the conversation - “Do you remember a time when verbal smack downs were poetic, crowd moving speeches?”

They turned toward the intruding voice and found Kinsala sitting on top of the heart rate monitor with a bag of popcorn in her hands.

“No? Me either.”

Darian opened his mouth to speak.

“Shh,” she threw a handful of popcorn at him, which dutifully passed right through her and faded into nothing “The show is about to begin.”

Solowitz held onto one of the girl’s hands, but quickly dropped it and wiped the cold, grubby sweat onto her scrubs and placed her hand back on the less offensive shoulder. “Ok honey, “ she said, because nobody was able to get a name out of her. “Now you’re going to have to push.”

Her head fell limply to the side, her dry lips parted slightly and she looked up with large pleading eyes. “I want,” she forced the words through her mouth in a whisper, “drugs. I want drugs.”

Dr Marlow snorted.

“Of course you do.”

For a moment an ethereal hush descended upon the room, and all were quiet and still. Even Darian and Briette were frozen save for the faint rustlings of their wings, tense in anticipation. Only the sounds of the machines, informing them that despite her cold grey skin and still chest, honey was still alive, and the flat tone of the baby’s non-life permeated the thick silence. But these sounds merely echoed the great rift of the room.

Dr Marlow bent down again. “Here it comes.”

Honey raised her head and let out a rumbling growl that escalated quickly to a penetrating scream. The baby slid from her lips with a squelch and inched across the table in the frictionless blood and placenta. Solowitz gathered her up in towels and began to clean her off while another nurse clamped the cord. She rubbed the baby’s stomach and back to try to make her breathe.

Dr Marlow looked at Nurse Solowitz who shook her head. He took the baby from her arms and placed her on a smaller table and parted her little blue lips.

Darian and Briette approached the tiny body. A wisp of purple mist rose from her still chest and both seized an end. They pulled the mist tightly and it stretched taut like ribbon.

“Damn it, Darian,” Briette said. “This goes beyond our feud.”

“I have my orders, too,” He replied. “And we can’t split this soul two ways. Certainly not three.”

They both turned to the doors as the man in the black suit walked through them. He perused the names on his clipboard. He searched the list if the evening’s scheduled deaths until he found what he was looking for. The man took no notice as Briette rudely cleared his throat. He knelt down beside the still writhing form of Honey.

As tears ran from her eyes, snot from her nose and saliva from her mouth, the blood ran freely between her legs. Her hair clung to her head like wet, dead grass hugging the earth after the rain comes too late. Her head rolled to the side and she met his eyes. They were large and black and cold and sunk into his ashy skin but to Honey they were comforting, they were closure.

“Help us.”

The man in the black suit stroked her cheek with a slender finger and the cool touch calmed the girl. He took her hand and pulled her up and led her toward a tunnel of light. They walked through the nurses and doctors who rushed to stop the blood flow and restart the girl’s heart. As the body flatlined on the operating table he turned a smiled his lipless grin at the angels.

“I’m here for this one,” he said in his deep, smooth voice. Before Darian and Briette had a moment to sigh in relief he added “I only harvest human souls.”

At that moment Darian and Briette released their end of the mist. They watched it fall gently back down to the tiny blue form and illuminate the baby’s skin for a fleeting moment.

A gurgling cough, and the tiny lungs and throat released their first moment shattering scream.

The doctors who had turned their backs lifted their heads and parted their lips in dismay.

“We’ve got a live one.”

Briette and Darian both tried to scoop their hands into the child to retrieve the lost soul but were stopped by an unseen force.

“Shit,” said Darian.

“What have we done?” said Briette.

“Would anyone like some popcorn?” asked Kinsala.

The blood cascaded over the operating table and spilled onto the floor like a dark portal opening into the sterile world. At splashed at the swollen flat feet of the dumpy Nurse Solowitz. She shuffled backwards and lifted her chin then sniffed the air.

“Does somebody smell popcorn?”