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Grave dirt is still caked under your nails like you’ve sealed it under there and let the skin grow over it.
You don’t remember dying. You remember the way your head snapped and the demon’s grinning true form as you pierced the veil, and then… you don’t want to think about the other things you remember after dying.
Your fingers are shredded, nasty chunks of oozing flesh and about half of your nails are underground somewhere. You were sure clawing your way up and out of a grave was another form of torture until you got to the top. But your lungs burn with only the effort of taking in breaths, and you can’t stop shivering even though the night air is soupy wet the way it gets during those Midwestern nights in August.
You check your surroundings. The land is flat. You can almost see the perfect split between the gray-black sky and the silhouettes of trees. The closest light on the horizon is small but bright. Maybe you’ll find the cheap comfort of a 24/7 Shell. Better yet, a closed one that you can break into alone.
You start walking.
The pavement stretches under your feet. Your adrenaline is miraculously holding you up, so each step only feels like a dull throb against your bare soles.
The light on the horizon grows and takes up a shape as you get closer. You’ve been walking for what feels like hours, though it can’t be more than twenty minutes. You see now that the lights are neons that flicker a vacancy notice and another one for colored television.
A motel. Fixing on that, you feel like you’re watching a movie about a zombified woman as you move to it.
When you get there, you realize you’ve walked up to the rear of the building. The back parking lot is empty. The asphalt has potholes the way a fifteen year old has acne scars and it sprouts enough weeds to make dandelion wine. Your body screams at you to stop, but you can’t. You think you’ll die if you don’t keep moving, maybe everything is connected in your body and missing one moving piece will kill all the others.
The uneven bits of rock are now sticking to your feet as you round off to the dumpster, a monument to human consumption: it’s overflowing with bags that have split open, spilling their contents across the asphalt. The scent of rot fills your lungs, and it’s beautiful.
You’re here. You’re on Earth. Living. Whatever, wherever. Some shitty motel in a backwater town with no stop signs. You’re alive. You don’t care if this is some hallucination. Any reprieve from being in literal Hell is a win.
Your stomach chooses now to start twisting to life. You can’t remember the last time you ate normal human food.
You dig like a dog.
You find a relic of a wrench buried beneath an empty pizza box and a pile of soggy paper towels. It’s rusted. The head is loose, wobbling on the handle like a loose tooth, but it looks like iron. Good for monsters. You tuck it between your elbow and side.
The bread is a miracle, half a load wrapped in plastic with green fuzz creeping across the crust only on one end of it. You tear it open with shaking hands, break off the exact opposite of it, and take a salivating bite.
You gag.
The taste is entirely incorrect, and the texture of something that should be food but has grown into something else entirely. You spit it out, heaving, and the bread falls to the ground.
You don’t cry. Hunters don’t cry. That’s what your father used to say.
But you’re not a hunter anymore. You’re a corpse that crawled out of a grave with no shoes and a rusty wrench that’s probably going to fall apart the first time you swing it at something that isn’t a ghost. The ground makes it worse, just irritating your raw skin.
Here’s the kicker. You do something you’ve only attributed to the stupid hunters, the cowards or noobs: you press your palms together and close your eyes.
“Please,” you whisper. It’s barely a sound, barely a breath. “I don’t—I don’t know if you’re real. I don’t know if you’re there. But I’m alone. I’m alone, and I don’t know what to do. So if… if there is a God…”
The wind picks up. The neon sign flickers.
“I need you,” you say. The words taste foreign, like a language you’ve never spoken. “I need someone. Please.”
A flash erupts all across your vision, despite your eyes being closed. It sears into your retinas. You throw up an arm to shield your face, but the light doesn’t change.
And then it’s gone just as quickly.
You open your eyes.
The thing that stands before you is a man. Or it looks like a man, anyway. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, but he’s sporting a slightly ill-fitting leather jacket that’s seen better days. His brown hair’s on the lighter side and fashionably spiked. And his eyes are green—really green, you realize, like all forests blended their leaves together and distilled the mix enough to drop it into his irises.
He grins at you. You see his tongue tuck behind his teeth.
He spreads his hands, mock-humble. “Hallelujah, sweetheart. Your prayer’s been answered.”
You’re scrambling to your feet now, iron held in front of you like a talisman, like it could possibly protect you from something that showed up in a burst of divine light. No ghost can pull out trickery like that unless it was really old, and those old ghosts never spoke before jumping you.
“Look, I get it.” He raises his hands in mock self-deprecation, the neon light carving shadows across his face, illuminating the sharp planes of his cheekbones, the stubble on his jaw. “You wanted God, right? Sorry, sweetheart. Dear ol’ Dad moved on from you guys a long time ago. Like, Gladiator times ago. You get me instead.”
The grin hasn’t left his face. But there’s something behind those eyes, something more serious that cuts through the cocky veneer.
His shadow stretches long across the tarmac. You see it in your peripherals, the faint outline of wings unfurling on the asphalt under the streetlamps. When you try to glance at it directly, it vanishes. Indirectly, it comes back.
Your heart hammers against your ribs.
Whatever he is, you think, he seems like a bit of an asshole.
You don’t say it. You’re not stupid.
“Come on, babe. Don’t look at me like that.” He dusts off his shoulder, running a hand through his hair, spiking the strands back into place. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember me?”
Your grip on the wrench tightens. The rust flakes off, staining your palms red.
“You’re not real,” you hear yourself say. Your voice is broken glass, a sound you barely recognize. “You’re a… hallucination. Or a ghost. Or—I don’t know—you’re a demon.”
He laughs. The sound is warm, almost human, and it hurts something deep in your chest.
“A ghost?” He tilts his head. The neon light catches the curve of his lips. “I pass for a lotta things, but a ghost? I’m hurt.”
He steps closer. You stumble back, wrench raised, bare feet scraping against the asphalt.
“Stay back,” you warn. The iron shakes in your hands. “I’ll—I’ll hit you.”
“You’ll only hit yourself swinging that around.” He states. “Look at you. You can barely stand.”
He’s right. The world has started swimming around you as soon as the words had left your mouth. Either he’s doing it to you, or he’s freakishly attuned to your body.
Either way, it’s creepy.
“Get away from me,” you try to say it, but it comes out a whisper.
He doesn’t. He moves closer, slow and deliberate, the leather of his jacket creaking, his boots soft on the ground.
“I pulled you out of Hell,” he says, quieter now.The sleazy energy is still palpable, but it’s rounded off to a softer edge. “I’m not trying to put you back, okay?”
Your throat closes. Heat and fire. Screaming that wasn’t your own. A hand reaching through the dark.
“That’s not possible,” you manage. “Angels aren’t—they don’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Look, all those poems and books and movies got it all wrong. No harps, no halos, and definitely no choir.” He snorts. “And the ‘be not afraid’ thing? Bit on the nose, right?”
You blink at him. He’s standing close enough now that you can smell the leather, which feels like a regular old jacket, but there’s something else vaguely electric about him.
He crouches down, bringing himself to your eye level.
“Here’s the deal.” He laces his hands together. You notice a silver ring on his left index finger. It’s so stupid to latch onto, but it glints so perfectly when the light hits it, that’s what makes you believe him.
That’s one angelic piece of jewellery.
“I’m the guy who’s gonna fix this,” he continues. “I’m gonna get you back on your feet and then—” He spreads his hands again. He likes to gesture a lot, you’re realizing. “We’re gonna have a little chat about that demon you took down. ‘Cause from what I can tell, it wasn’t just a regular run-of-the-mill one.”
“You—” You swallow. “You know about the demon?”
His smile widens. “I know a lot about a lotta things. And I got a feeling that you and me?” He taps a finger to his temple. “We’re gonna be really good friends.”
You ignore how sleazy that sounds.
He stands and offers you a hand. His palm looks like any other guy’s.
“Well?” He raises an eyebrow. “You coming, or you gonna stand there and gawk like a Jaws extra?”
You stare at his hand. At the wings stretching behind his shadow. At the grin that’s too sharp, too cocky, too *much* for a celestial being.
“I don’t even know your name.” The words scrape out of you. He’s still standing there, hand outstretched, and you realize you’ve been staring at it palm like it might bite you.
“Dean.”
“Dean?” That’s too… short. And modern. The wind picks up again, carrying the smell of rot from the dumpster and a more clean, electric scent that isn’t quite ozone, but it’s close enough. Dean’s shadow stretches long behind him, and you catch the wings there again.
He quirks an eyebrow. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, the leather of his jacket creaking with the movement, and you notice the way his thumb taps against his jeans. An angel named Dean in a leather jacket and… you notice they’re those “fashionably distressed” jeans. Now you’ve seen it all. “What?”
“It’s just not a very angelic name.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us were born during the Golden Age, alright?” He rolls his eyes dramatically, tilting his head back just enough for the neon to catch the column of his throat.
And then, because there’s nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, you reach out for his hand.
“Atta girl,” he says. You haven’t felt the warmth of another human-ish being in so long it actually feels hot. His grip is firm as he hauls you up. “Let’s get you some real food. And maybe a little healing and a shower. No offense, sweetheart, but you smell like a grave.”