Devil's Advocate

Kenneth was there when she startled awake again, wrapping her up in a blanket but keeping his distance from her. Angelique wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but it was what she had asked him to do so she said nothing. Instead she sat there focusing on her breathing, which was coming in shallow gasps.

“Was Victoria helpful?” he asked her after her breathing had leveled out. She nodded.

“Lucifer was there too.” She said. Kenneth raised his eyebrows.

“In purgatory? Is that allowed?”

“Who knows.” Angelique answered with a shrug. “But he was. And he was interestingly taking pity on Victoria.” Kenneth looked a combination of confused and concerned with this information but he elected to say nothing, which Angelique appreciated. It wasn’t like she had the answers anyway.

“Well then.” He dismissed her statement with a shrug of his own. “What did she have to say?”

“We need to look up where they found her body.” Angelique was amused to see Kenneth’s outward reaction was much like her own inner one when she received the suggestion.

“We should have come up with that ourselves.” He murmured, walking away. Angelique stayed seated while he crossed the hotel room and came back with his laptop. He pulled it out and did a quick search, turning the screen towards her when he found an article. Angelique felt her stomach turn.

That was Victoria, alright. She scrolled through the article, reading about the damage that was done to her body. He had gutted her, which was how she ended up dying. But before that he had cut, stabbed, shot, and brutalized her body for weeks. It was a terrible death. And apparently he had carried on harming her for at least three days after she had died, before dumping her body in a field in Illinois. It was an estimated week post mortem that her body was found. While the police were baffled by the after death abuse, Angelique was thinking back to Victoria’s warnings. “He is obsessed with you,” she had said. He wanted to understand how she could heal herself. Angelique shivered.

“Well. That was more info than I wanted. But I think we need to search through Illinois. That’s where Victoria was found.” She said. Kenneth took the laptop from her.

“You look a little green around the gills.” He commented. She shot him a glare.

“Dare you to read that article and not be a little green yourself.” She rebutted. He shook his head.

“Nah. I saw enough. There were pictures before I blocked the images.” Angelique was immediately grateful. While she was positive there wouldn’t be anything too grotesque in a news article, she had no desire to see anything close to what was described there. She cleared her throat and nodded her head.

“Thanks for that.”

“Anytime.” He said with a nod. He began typing again on the computer, and after a moment frowned at the screen. “First not booked flight out is in two days.” Angelique groaned.

“Seriously? We cannot afford to wait that long.” She said. He clicked a few more things, shaking his head.

“I know. But I am checking every airline. Closest we got is two days from now. Should I book the flight, or shall we jump back in the truck?” Angelique was secretly more pleased than she cared to admit that he was willing to drive with her. She nodded her head.

“In the morning let’s just head out. I can drive when you need to sleep because I don’t need to sleep you know.”

“I keep forgetting about that.” He said. He then looked at her with a tilt of his head. “So why aren’t we leaving now?”

“Because for one you have already paid for the room and I am not willing to let you waste money. And two, you still need your sleep.” She answered him. He thought about it for a moment, then grinned at her.

“I didn’t know you cared!” he said, his tone teasing. Angelique didn’t answer, but long after he had fallen to sleep she was still thinking about that. Did she actually care? Was it more than just basic consideration? Despite her best efforts to not form a connection, to not get involved, she was getting involved. She was becoming emotionally invested. Even when she was not sure she could handle the separation.

She told herself it was just a human thing. Humans were naturally trying to connect with one another. They craved it. She remembered she did when she was alive, craved that feeling of comradery, of being close. It was just a human need, nothing more. As though he could hear her, the devil’s words came back to slap her right in the face. “You. Are. Not. Human.” Angelique fought off a shiver. She had no idea how everything worked, how her emotions were situated now that she was dead. Or undead. Or whatever they wanted to call this.

She stared at the moon out the window, trying to get a handle on her racing thoughts. She needed to be working. She needed to be researching. She needed to do…something. She was restless. But she had nothing to do. Nothing to research. The only plan they had was as fleshed out as they could get it, and there was nothing left to look up for it. All the t’s had been crossed and the i’s had been dotted. She was glad she didn’t have eternal life or anything like that. Running out of time was almost a blessing when it came to the boredom that existing outside of the realm of humanity. She glanced at Kenneth, who was sleeping peacefully in the bed next to hers. She envied him for the first time, envied his purpose, his life. She hoped to herself he wasn’t wasting it helping her. Feeling suddenly guilty, she laid down facing away from him. She stared at the wall pretending to sleep until the sun began creeping slowly up past the horizon, shoving her guilt ridden thoughts as far away from her mind as she possibly could.