She can see the uneasiness creep into the man's eyes, the way he changes posture, the way his neck muscles strain and his Adam's apple bobs like an awkward pendulum. Out of a human instinct he can't suppress, his hand goes to stroke the tension in his neck. He may not know - but he suspects. And he's terrified.
Good.
Let him be terrified, she thinks, let him panic and worry and fret in that pretty little skin of his. Let him try to run.
It eases something in her, the gentle nag of conscience that she'd felt as she paced across town, eyes still alight with the memory of feathers burning to ash, people trailing across the midnight sky like comets, wings trailing behind them as fiery tails.
They hadn't believed her, of course. But then she had never needed them to believe. She knew, she knows, without a single shadow of a doubt in the corners of her mind, that on the night of May 15th the lights burning across the skies weren't meteors or planes or anything her classmates had suggested, but Angels.
A small twitch, an irate tic, grips the muscle at the base of her throat causing it to jump. For Claire Novak, there are some things better left forgotten.
The others are talking now, the unsuspecting family: husband, wife, two sons, a dog. The words "Christian charity" are heard a lot, repeated in between sips of tea and easy smiles as they explain their stranger to the expressionless features of the blonde haired girl who appeared on their doorstep asking about a man in possession of light.
They don't seem to notice the way their parasite grips his chair more tightly and tries to shrink into the lace pattern of the cushions. They don't see how their visitor's hand clamps around something hidden at her waist as she leans forward.
Perhaps they choose not to notice, they prefer to ignore what they see as the impossible.
Like when their visitor had landed on the roof, something had dripped through the roof tiles like bittersweet starlight.
When they finish their tale, she turns to them with a small, terse, but human smile and requests to speak to their interloper.
The man pales, his palms grow sweaty, his fingers go to adjust the wonky tie someone has set around his neck. Doremiel, he had introduced himself as when she shook hands with the Angel at the door. They'd laughed, called him eccentric, said they preferred to refer to him as David.
So it's as David she addresses him now, voice deceptively soft, eyes uncannily flat.
He can't refuse. It would look strange, unnatural, make him stand out even more than the man with the panicked eyes already does. Accepting, he places his cup back down on the coffee table, and leads her out to the back porch.
Her pulse quickens slightly, a flush of pleasure colours her cheeks. And hunger. A slow, constant gnaw whines, reminding her of what drove her here, what's driven her all these years. A hunger - one not even the fear in the Fallen's eyes can satiate.
She doesn't like to think about that.
Free of the family's gaze, she launches herself at the man. For all his suspicions, all his caution, she still catches him by surprise.
He struggles, battering her with fists and limbs. But he lacks his true firepower - she knows it, she can feel it, boiling up beneath his skin and flushing it gold, the last remnants of his grace burning through the panic and forcing her body away.
Not that she would ever admit it, but it excites her. That bloom of gold, that rush of starlight, that grace that burns brighter than any comet.
Sense trampled, her hands become sickeningly eager, reaching for the silver blade held by the waistband of her jeans. She could kill the creature with anything, she knows that. What shet yet been exposed to the hardness of the elements.
She mutters against his muffled shouts.
His breathing is harsh, ragged against her skin as she crushes tighter. His eyes bulge and his arms flail as she slowly forces the air out of him. Then she poises the knife against his skin, and waits. Breath held for the final flutter of eyes.
He doesnt lie.
Slowly at first, so slowly that her mind begins to falter, her tongue races across dry, cracked lips, but then a drip turning into a torrent, beams of bitter energy rush from his eyes, his ears, but mostly, his mouth.
Adrenaline rushes through her, and relief, and she raises hand to mouth and drinks in her spoils as the rest creeps back into the soil as starry teardrops that form stunted daisies.
For the first time in years, she feels full.