Chapter 3 Spirited Away

Bub inspected his nail beds. "You know as well as I the girl is harmless."

"Innocent, you mean," he spat, shuddering at the word. Sam splayed across the headstone. "All the more riddling as to why she is having these visions." He rubbed his temple and cursed. "She is there in my dreams, observing me like the Fates as the past plays out across my memory like broken skeins. It is so- damn- infuriating. Like this little tick embedded in the square of your back: you can't reach it, it itches like hell, and it sucks the life-blood from you. We must annihilate her."

"No, we must discover why she has the ability, then deal accordingly. Prophets haven't appeared for centuries. The potential problem this incident poses if the phenomenon radiates is thorny, to say the least."

"What? Are you suggesting the human's ability will spread like a cancer? That all the archangels will soon have human noses probed so far up their asses that their secretest thoughts are divulged?"

"In a sense, yes."

"Hmm, that is indeed, if I may say, grim." A scythe materialized in Sam's hand. He continued to bench-press it, back against the gravestone. "Haven't you ever wanted to get that intimate with a mortal, Bub? Devil knows you need a good lay."

Bub proceeded to file his nails. "Sexually, yes. But intellectually? To twist the guts of my mind up with an inane girl's? If that is the question, then I answer with a resounding no."

"Hmm," Sam drawled between bench-presses, "well, it does have advantages. I now know all the current fashions for the winter season. Scarves are in, cravats are out-"

"As they have been for what, a century?-"

"Damn. I was trying to impress you with my modernity. The truth is, I get tangles of her world in slumber. Flashes of mundane dreams and glimpses into her life. It's more intriguing than one would think."

Bub manicured his nails, unconvinced.

"Could you stop it with the nails and at least attempt to feign interest in this conversation instead of acting like my warden?"

"But I am your warden."

Sam hurled his scythe like a shot-put, lodging it in Bub's chest.

"The reason I wear black," Bub's said, removing it with uninterest, "is because of you."

"Oh, poo, bloodstains, Beelzebub. It's called summoning new clothes."

"Do you replace a good woman for another, just because they are of the same sex?"

"That is completely inapplicable-"

"I like my clothes," Bub said steely.

"Fine, you old rag. I'd apologize, but I'm in too much of a temper. This maggot of a girl has been niggling at the back of my mind all evening. Last night was not pleasant for either of us."

"Another nightmare?" Bub returned to his nails. "Perhaps the two of you shall become blanket buddies."

Sam made a snow angel on top of the headstone. "Or I could decapitate her and use her breasts as a pillow. Perhaps then I'd sleep better."

"We must study her, Samael. To do so, she must be alive."

"What do you think I've been doing? Carousing with stinking twenty-somethings?" Sam laughed darkly. "If only we were bloody all-knowing like the mortals wish. I wouldn't have to resort to underhanded means like this." He withdrew the ribbon from his pocket. "An item, given freely, with traces of the bearer. A potent trinket, to say the least."

"Given freely?"

"To the ground, at least."

"And what will you do with it, plait her to death? What knowledge can possibly be gained from such a thing?"

"Feel it, Beelzebub."

He did. His eyebrows rose. "She has such an attachment to such a plain object. But why?"

"Who knows? It's old. Family heirloom? A gift from her grandmother? A pity she let it slip from her hair. Whatever the case, it will lead me to her. I can track her from the ends of the earth with it."

"Show it to the archangel council over dinner. We will make plans accordingly."