Savile Row, London. A pleasant Saturday evening in early spring. Disposable Demon Eric walks into the tailor's shop where Angel Hekla is the receptionist. He cautiously approaches her desk, on the lookout for the other staff. Sits in a chair alongside.
Hi,Hekla. Everyone busy in the back rooms?
Yes. But it's almost closing time.
Want to go see a movie?
Daiji is back. She came in earlier, invited me to dinner and "a surprise," she called it. Said she wants to tell me all about Shanghai.
No! You mustn't go! She is a demon. You are her enemy. She is planning to hurt you.
I have my sword, Eric. I have fought demons in the past.
Eric looks distressed.
Hekla, please. Heed my warning. Daiji is an arch demon. She has great power. You cannot best her.
She says Beelzebub has sent her to Earth to deal with Demon Crowley. But she is not anxious to return to Hell. Because she has fallen in love with me. As Demon Crowley loves his angel.
A dreamy look appears on the angel's face.
She lies! She will discorporate you, Hekla. That is her "surprise."
Tch, Eric. Don't be silly. Daji would never do a thing like that to me. Besides, discorporation has happened to me before. Smarts a bit. I do not fear it.
You angels are not punished if you get discorporated?
Oh yes. We get sent to Housekeeping. It's considered to be greatly humiliating. But I like being a sweeper.
You're not tormented?
I suppose the presence of that fat rat Sandalphon could be considered a torment.
The reincorporation ward in Hell is a terrible place. We're lucky if we don't get sent to the boiling sulfur pools as well. And we have to wait for months for reincorporation paperwork to go through.
Hekla grimaces.
I know about that. Quartermaster Angel puts reincorporation requests to the very bottom of the work pile. And takes it out of our heavenly wages.
You get wages?
Power allotments. I get just enough to do basic miracles like blessings.
The head cutter enters from the back room. Eric swiftly rises from his chair
Hekla, please. Don't go with Daji.
He flits out the entrance, feeling the head cutter's gaze like a lance between his shoulder blades. Glides along in the shadows and takes up a favorite observation spot in a corner of a coffee shop across the street. Nurses an Americano until he sees Daji enter the shop. Taps his phone a few times as Daji and Hekla exit the shop.
DeeDee. Demon Daji is back in town. . . . She is taking Hekla to dinner and to someplace for a surprise. . . . Yes. I think something bad is going to happen, too . . . . I will follow them. Tell Leysa and Demon Crowley.
He taps a few more times, puts the phone in his pocket, and slips away.
Islington, London. Hekla and Daji exit the subway station, walk a few blocks to a Chinese vegan restaurant. Eric follows like a shadowy wraith behind. Once the two have entered the restaurant, he quickly zips around checking for a back exit. Finding none likely, takes up a position in an alley across the street where he can lurk watching the front entrance (and a nearby side street, just in case).
About an hour later the demon and angel come out arm in arm. The road is fairly crowded with people out on dates and other missions, and Eric has no difficulty following them unseen for a few blocks until they stop before an old abandoned and boarded up brick church. In fact, he creeps close enough to overhear their conversation.
. . . It was built in the 1930s to look like a movie theater! Isn't that bizarre?
Are we allowed to go inside?
I got permission from the management company. It's absolutely amazing. Wait 'til you see it. We'll use the old side entrance.
The pair turn the corner and approach an old spiked iron gate to a corridor formed by a head-high brick wall and the side of the building. Daji touches the locks, and with some difficulty the stiff old gate creaks open.
Should we let it ajar like that?
Oh, we won't be long. I doubt anyone else will try to enter.
Eric carefully peeps round the corridor wall, observes Hekla and Daji go down some steps and enter what appears to be a basement or ground level door. He takes out his phone and taps it.
DeeDee! Someone come and help me. Daji has taken Hekla into an old church. Something awful is going to happen. . . . Here, I'll send you the maps link. . . . Side entrance, by the gate . . . . It's abandoned. Not consecrated ground. . . . No! I'm going in.
Eric pockets his phone and glides down the corridor. The door is now closed, but he carefully and quietly unlocks and reopens it millimeter by millimeter, enters the dark ruin inside. It's a large bare hall with a stage at one end and a surrounding mezzanine. Flickering light from the street traffic comes through the un-boarded upper portions of high narrow windows. A giant Art Deco skylight allows an eerie nighttime glow to faintly illuminate the interior. The combined effect reminds Eric of Hell. He listens, then catches a glimpse of the couple going into a room beneath the mezzanine on the far side of the echoing floor. It takes him some minutes to creep carefully and silently along the wall over the debris-littered concrete. His manner would make a ninja envious.
What is this?
It is your surprise.
Daji is behind Hekla. Grasps the angel's wrists and a pair of shackles magically binds them. Hekla's ankles are likewise shackled close together so she cannot kick. She struggles to use both feet to do a mule kick backwards, but Daji just laughs, grabs the angel by the back of her belt and levitates her further into the room. Waiting inside is a gurney and a large tray of what appear to be surgical implements – gleaming steel scalpels, scissors, saws, forceps, retractors. . . A slight Asian male demon wearing antique round eyeglasses stands in the corner formed by gurney, the wall, and the tray.
Daji slams the angel down upon the gurney. Snaps her fingers. Hekla's struggles slow as if she's surrounded by gelatin.
Shiroishii, may I present Angel Hekla, our subject for tonight's dissection torment.
The demon gives a short bow.
Ah. Most excellent! Thank you for being our subject in this scientific inquiry. We know angels have no excretory functions. What replaces those human organs inside celestial bodies? Now we will find out. We are demons, alas, so we cannot provide anesthetic. I am sure you will understand.
Daji produces a coil of hemp rope and starts to bind Hekla to the gurney using a variety of decorative knots.
I invented shibari.
Eric has heard enough, and races back toward the entry as he taps in a call to DeeDee.
DeeDee! They are going to cut her up! Tell m-
He screams as his phone melts in his hand. Daji instantly shackles him in the same manner as Hekla. He struggles and twists, but she simply levitates him and pulls him along by his hair like a writhing balloon. Once inside the room, she throws him against the wall opposite the gurney, then re-positions the shackles to suspend him on the wall in a St. Andrew's cross.
How nice for you, Hekla! Your little boyfriend can provide an audience.
Shiroishii murmurs:
Ah! So useful to have a disposable demon. To clean up the mess afterwards.
Daji produces another coil of coarse hemp rope.
I'll give you something nice to look at, Hekla, during your torment. We save eyes for last.
She breathes a cloud of fire over Eric. As a demon, he is unaffected by the flames, but his clothing vanishes into sooty smears and tatters. His boots continue to burn, and he writhes in pain. Hekla strains to twist on the gurney so she can make a hand gesture. Eric's boots disappear. He and the angel lock eyes. Daji proceeds to bind him in a peculiarly painful manner, drawing the scratchy rope tightly over sensitive areas. She takes her time to form very neat knots. They have all night.