Chapter 2: Grey Wings

Marlice had taken the angel girl to the bathroom, set her into the tub and was now trying to get the rags off her. Which was not half as easy as it sounded, because the rags where more or less glued to the thin body by the same dirt that covered the skin.
How the hell am I supposed to get this off without taking her skin with it?
The housekeeper was at a loss. Oh screw it, let’s just get her clean with these on they will come off in the water ... hopefully.
“Key Honey, we’ll get you clean in just a second, and right after that you’ll get something to eat too. Astaroth said something about you liking flesh. Do you have any preferences or allergies I have to be aware of?”
Chesediel answered without thinking, the same way Marlice had asked. “That would be nice. No preferences, and of course I eat vegetables as well...it's just that I need flesh when my body tries to regenerate.” Just after the woman had nodded smiling she realized that they both had used sign language.
“You know sign language? Where from? “ The angel’s hands moved quickly, she wanted to ask so many different question, now that finally someone understood her, but she limited herself to the first two she could think of.
I can’t believe it. What can I ask her? Will she tell me? I want back home..... Oh, I want to be back home so badly.... . Tears welled up in her eyes, tears of relief, but also tears of loss. She clasped her tiny hand in front of her face and started crying with her tears silently running down her face.
“Shhh, shhh, it’s alright honey.” Marlice leaned over the girl and petted her back comforting. “It’s alright now, you’ll get better soon. I know sign language from my little sister. She became deaf from an accident and I learned it as soon as we discovered that it was permanent.”
The soft, quiet voice of the human helped to comfort Chesediel and soon the tears stopped.
“Would you please help me to get clean? “ she asked with shaking hands.
“Of course. “ Marlice smiled at the angel. She knew that the girl didn’t want to be seen as weak and she understood and honored that wish. The small, unsure smile she got in return assured her. And together they started methodically to scrap the sooth of the angels skin.
The sudden knock on the bathroom door made them both jump out of their concentration.
“Marli, I’m sorry, I’ll have to go to work, allegro just called me, I’ll try to be back before 9. Bye.” Astaroth told them quickly and not a minute later they heard the apartment door close.
“ What kind of work is he talking about? And who’s Allegro?” now Chesediel was getting curious.
“Allegro is his coworker, an air demon, quiet nice, but really hyper most of time. The kind of guy who’s nice company for an hour or two and starts to get really annoying.”
Nice to know that this phenomenon isn’t limited to Heaven. But that doesn’t answer the working question. But of course he has to work..... this kind of furniture doesn’t fall from the sky. . Chesediel eyed the white marble tub, or rather the white marble bathroom, she was sitting in again. Nope, this stuff had been expensive.
“And was does he do for a living?” she repeated her question to Marlice.
“Oh well, honey, you don’t really want to know that, believe me. “ and this was exactly the worse answer the housekeep could have given. Chesediel’s imagination kicked into high gear instantly, showing her various grisly scenes of torture and death. Her paper-white skin got even paler with the thought. I knew he couldn’t be good..... something like a good demon just doesn’t exist. I have to get out of here soon.
Right in that moment Marlice’s voice brought her back to reality. “Do you want to clean up your wings alone, or shall I help you with them?”
“ It’d be nice if you could help. “ The girls answer came almost automatically.
“ Key, then please hold this for a moment. “ Marlice gave her a already very blacked washing rag and started to pull brush over her wings softly. For a while everything was silent and Chesediel went back to the horrendous scenes in her head, till a  soft gasp behind her told her something was wrong. Confused she turned.
Marlice sat back and made serious eye-contact with the young angel. “ Do you know which color that wings of fallen angels have?” She asked carefully.
“ Black. “ but why is this important?
“ Exactly. And do you remember how you fell, or why? “
“ No, I don’t. The last thing I remember before waking up in Deeps was some orchestra lesson with my friends.Why? ” Now the girl was getting really confused.
Marlice already very serious look was getting ever more serene. “Because your wings are gray, and that means you’re not fallen, or at least not fallen the way it used to be.”

*******************

Astaroth stepped into the long hallway. There were lots of doors set in both long walls of the hall, but despite the screams behind them, the hallway was utterly silent, as if the white tiles were swallowing every sound. Some days he was eager to break this silence, to satisfy his curiosity even if he had to make someone scream for it, but today was different. The thrill that normally run through him once her entered this room was completely missing. Instead he felt downright depressed by the quiet white floor.
I can’t do this today. I just can’t. ... I’ll just go back home and call Allegro. He’s fine by himself too. Normally he liked his job, but todays experience with Chesediel had just thrown him off too much.
Just when he wanted to grab the doorknob again, a clear, silver-bell like laughter whispered around him.
I should have known.
The archdemon turned back to the, apparently empty room, when a slight breeze spun around him and started to play with his long white strands.
“ Allegro, how often have I already told you, that I don’t like this. Just show up, I’m so not in the mood to play hide and seek with an air demon. “ Astaroth grumbled annoyed.
The laughter faded, and instead the air pressure seem to rise all of the sudden and the archdemon watched how tiny pieces of dust seemed to collect from the air and swirled  four feet away from him to form a smaller figure. It was impressive to see how Allegro summoned himself from the air, but Astaroth had seen the special effects before. Though his coworker was worth a stare or two, even without any magic involved.
The first thing to notice about Allegro was certainly the mass of long fervidly red, almost orange hair, that flooded down his back and reached the floor easily. But once you could tear your gaze from it, it was up to the debate if the second thing to stare at in his young looking face were his big diamond bright eyes or his sensual pouting lips. He’s probably the only one whose eyes can, no matter of which state of live, death or dimension, compete with Lucifer's. And most demons would have agreed with this opinion. After all, these eyes were striking enough that it could take you a long while till you actually noticed what Allegro himself used to call his “flaw”. His poison green skin. A skin tone so fair and translucent that in addition with his long limbs, it made Allegros slender 6’ seem weightless and fragile. A miscolored angel.   Somehow it was easy to think about his coworker this way, his cuteness and childlikeness just matched the innocence you tend to connect with angels. Even if the air demon could find pleasure in things which were far from innocent, he still looked it.
As soon as Allegro was fully “rebuild” he lunged himself at Astaroth and hugged him close.
Astaroth mentally groaned. Why does he always be so.... touchy-feelly?
“Ehm... Legro, would you please let go of me now ? “
“Nope.”  
The arch demon sighed and started to pry the smaller demon away.
“ I won’t stay long anyways, “ This statement got him a confused glaze from the air demon,  “I just passed by quickly, I won’t work today. “
Allegros confused frown deepened. “Why would you....” his clear wind chimes voice trailed off while the younger one was thinking. “This is because of this angel girl you had with you this morning isn’t it?”
How the fuck does he...... The conclusion hit Astaroth quick and hard. “You’ve been following me around again!! How many times have I already told you?! Have you never ever heard of the word privacy?! Is there nothing sacred anymore for you?” As so often, his righteous anger dissolved into surrender.
Why do I even make the effort of screaming at him? He won’t change anyway. He hung his head and put a hand over his forehead. Some headache was already starting to stir behind his temples.
Carefully Allegro stepped closer to his boss – and friend as he considered- and tried to peer around Astaroth's hand. “ I don’t think anything down here had ever been sacred.”
He just couldn’t bite back smart-ass comments when Astaroth gave him so much ammunition.
The only answer he got was a very annoyed growl. * Ok, bad sign. Maybe I did really exaggerate it a bit this time.*
“ Astaroth? You know, I’m sorry, really. I didn’t mean to upset you. Astaroth? Please,say something.” Allegro’s voice sounded worried. He liked the archdemon, he really did, and the thought of having him permanent angry at him was almost terrifying.
With a heavy sigh, Astaroth straighted himself up again. “You always say you’re sorry. “ He sounded as tired as he felt.
“But I mean it, really. “
“ I know. “
“Are you angry with me? ” Allegro’s voice bordered panic.
“No, I’m more like really annoyed with you acting like my over-jealous boyfriend. I know you’re only curious, but can’t you just ask?”
“ You wouldn’t tell me, if I asked.” * Cause you like keeping secrets too much*
“ Yes I would, I consider you a close friend and you don’t keep stuff like this from your friends even if they are as nosey as you are.” Astaroth couldn’t stop himself from smiling  when he said this. Because, after all, it was true. He knew Allegro for over 4000 years and he really liked him, curious or not.
If the air demon would have been a cat, his ear would have shout up at this sentence.
“ Really? Ok, who was this angel girl? I didn’t know that we actually have female fallens, what’s here name? Or is she new? Where....”
The arch demon’s hand covering his mouth cut him off rather suddenly.
Astroth raised an brow at him. “ When I said I’d answer you question, I didn’t mean, that you should drown me in them.”
*That’s something you could have told me before.* Since he was still unable to speak, Allegro tried the second best thing he could do to get answers. His feared puppy eyes.
Oh noes, not the look! The higher demon sighed in defeat. When will I finally become immune to this?!?
Slowly he removed his hands. “ She’s new down here and her name is Chesediel.”
“May I speak again? “ Astaroth nodded. “ Great. So.... was is she like? Looked rather timid and starved from what I’ve seen of her. “
“ To be honest, I got no idea. She’s mute and my knowledge of sign language is close to nonexistent. “ He hung his head again. Saying this out loud made him feel pretty helpless, and he hated that.
“My, aren’t you just glad you have me?” Huh? “ I can speak, or rather do, sign language. Geez, stop looking so suspicious, I’m serious. “ Allegro was quite happy that this one time his endless curiosity was a favor instead of a flaw.
“You’re kidding me, right? “ Astaroth let his disbelieve show in his voice.
“Would I do that? Ok, don’t answer that, but really, I can. I could translate for you. “ The air demon made his best ‘I’m-all-innocent-how-can-you-mistrust-me’ face. “Please?”
“All righ-hey! “ The archdemon didn’t even get to finish his words before he had Allegro clinging to him again. “I just made you happy didn’t I ?”
“You surely did. “ Astaroth could barely understand the answer since it was somewhat muffled into his chest.
“Good, and now let go of me.”
To his big surprise he got what he asked for. Allegro let go of him. That must be first. Allegro doing what someone else told him.
“ So, let’s go.” The younger one pulled on his sleeve impatiently. “Now.”
“ Ok, ok, now slow down a notch. It’s not like she’ll run away.”
The left the hallway and went to the elevator. Just when the door to the cabin closed, a question occurred to Astaroth. “ By the way,  what was so damn important 10 minutes ago?”
“Oh this...” his coworker snickered evilly. “Some really, really, really stupid demon tried molesting the twins. “
‘The twins’ actually were Lucifer's twin daughters: Tamiel and Zophiel. Or Tami and Zophi for short. Lucifer loved them both to pieces and hence to that he got just as overprotective about  them as most dads would. This demon was neither the first nor would it be the last one that would die for getting a little to close to them.
“ Then why isn’t Luc doing this himself? “ Demons guilty of approaching the twins a bit to closely tended to vanish into Lucifer’s private torture chambers and show up in pieces again.
We normally don’t even get to see them until Luc is done with them.
“He’s busy yelling at the twins for going to some party in Deeps. Oh, and mumbled something about them being grounded for the next 2000 years or so. “
The 200 years of grounding weren’t a new punishment. Lucifer said that about every time the twins misbehaved and up to now the sentence never lasted longer than two weeks.
Just then the elevator stopped on basement level and the both got out and crossed the entry hall. Outside, Astaroth’s carriage waited. They sat down in it, and made on their way to the archdemons house. Astaroth still trying to think through the angel problem, Allegro almost buzzing with excitement and smiling broadly.
“Allegro, please act  a bit grown up, will you? The girl has been through a lot, I’m not sure if she can handle an overzealous demon right now. So just hold back a bit, key? “
Astaroth’s words didn’t dampen the air demons excitement the slightest bit. *Geez, that guy could worry every party to death.* “Oh come on, how bad can it be? “