~ Last Vestiges ~

"So that's your grave..." The devil's voice carried none of her previous enthusiasm.

"Yeah," the angel responded sadly.

There was a small group of mourners surrounding the angel's grave. There were two men dressed in black, and a girl dressed in strange purple kimono-style clothing. They were standing quietly in rough half-circle in front of the grave. One of the men appeared to be praying, while the other simply stood staring blanky. The girl was weeping openly.

As they watched, the second man broke down. He fell to his knees and pounded his fist against the headstone. "Why won't you tell us anything?" he shouted. His eyes filled with tears. "Why won't you tell us anything?" he said again in a whisper.

"Nick..." the girl knelt next to him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Just because we can't contact his spirit doesn't mean-"

The rest of what she was saying was lost as the devil turned to the angel and shouted, "They've been trying to contact your spirit! There must be something about the way you died that hasn't been resolved yet!" After a brief thoughtful pause, she continued in a subdued tone, "But whatever they've been doing hasn't worked because your soul doesn't exist in that form anymore..."

As the devil fell silent, the second human man began to speak. "Have you tried a Ouija board?" he asked, looking down at his distraught companions.

"No," the girl replied. "Do you think we should?"

The man sighed. "At this point, anything is worth a shot." His gaze slid to a point about six feet to the left of where he was standing. His companions turned to glare spitefully in the same direction. The devil followed their line of sight and, to her surprise, found that they were looking at-

"That's... my grave...!" Why were they glaring at her like that? Had she... killed him? Was that the reason she went to Hell?

The crying man turned to face the angel's grave again. "Please tell us something, anything," he begged, a whispered prayer.

"Do something," the devil hissed, giving the angel a light shove.

"How?" the angel asked, confused.

"Use your powers!" the devil answered. "Manifest, or just send them a sign..."

"I don't know how to do those things," the angel replied sullenly.

"Fine, then I will!" She didn't know why, but she had a feeling that these people had known her human self and she didn't want them thinking terrible things about her. (Although, considering where she had gone when she died, they probably thought terrible things about her already.)

She concentrated her powers and in a spiral flash of magic she disappeared from the angel's side and reappeared on top of her gravestone in the form of a black cat. She meowed loudly to attract the humans' attention.

"Hey, look..." the girl said. "Do you think it's him...?"

"I... doubt it..." the crying man replied, wiping at his eyes. His answer was very tentative, as if he wasn't sure whether to believe what he was saying or not. "Come here," he called to the cat. "Here kitty. Here -" He started to say the angel's name and the cat let out a hiss and leapt to the ground. She stood on her hind legs and pawed at the name on her headstone.

The man stood and walked over to the cat. "I know. It's okay," he said, reaching down to pick her up. She hissed at him again and took a swipe at him with her paw, then darted past him to rub against the ankles of the other man who was still standing beside the angel's grave. She didn't know why, but she felt that she would rather be picked up by this person than by the man called Nick.

"Well, that pretty much proves it!" the girl said, clapping her hands together. "He always did like you more than Nick, didn't he?"

"This proves nothing, Miss Fey," the man replied, as he leaned down to scoop up the cat. "If anything, I'd say that this was-" Franziska "-nothing more than a coincidence." The devil was surprised. She hadn't realized that she would be able to read minds in this form. She doubted that the angel realized it, since his powers of observation seemed as limited as his celestial powers, but this man had obviously figured out the cat's true identity (he had called her by her human name, after all, if only to himself) and had concealed that fact from his human companions...

"So," the other man said, breaking the tense silence that had fallen. "Let's get to that Ouija board and see what we can find out."

~ to be concluded ~

A/N: Reviews are love.