3 - Evidence
Cheryl panted and wheezed as she shut the door to her studio, locking both locks behind her. She'd run the entire way home, and even passed two blaring police vehicles as they sped down to the club. They just missed her, and with any luck, she wouldn't be a suspect.
The night's events spun through her head like a hurricane. She could barely process anything that just happened or how much of it was actually "real". Obviously the police had been called, and she could only assume it was because she shot someone with her stun gun. Or maybe—just maybe—they had been called for an unrelated incident.
Or maybe someone reported a murder.
Cheryl collapsed to her knees at the thought. Valtiel wasn't visible to anyone but her, and neither was the tunnel. Was anyone witness to what happened in the alley? If so, what the hell did it look like to them? Cheryl's body couldn't handle another panic attack. She softly wept instead, crumpling to the floor at the notion that maybe she really was criminally insane—that her experience in Silent Hill had all been a waking dream. It was frighteningly possible that she killed another human being tonight, and her damaged psyche disguised it as Valtiel's doing.
Didn't a lot of murderers blame demons?
It was around 4:00 PM the day after the incident, and Valtiel still hadn't shown himself. It was just another thing for Cheryl to worry about as kneeled over the bathtub and rinsed her hair. The excess bleach swirled away, and after patting it dry with a towel, she examined her artistry in the mirror. She was a blonde once more.
"Heather." She said to her reflection, "You are Heather. Not Cheryl. Heather, Heather, Heather…"
She repeated the name, getting used to the sound on her tongue for the first time in four years. She didn't want to slip up and be Cheryl; especially not when the police might be looking for Cheryl and her head of jet-black hair.
Heather was brave and strong-willed, apathetic in the face of horror. She tried to be Cheryl for long enough…And she realized that Cheryl was just a scared little girl who missed her daddy, unprepared and unwilling to do what she had to in order to get through this kind of life. Heather could handle anything. Her transformation was not a choice, but something she was compelled to do by powers greater than herself. She felt like an automaton through the whole process, like watching through her eyes but losing control of her body.
She still had her fake ID, the one Harry gave her when she was 16. Things needed to change or this madness was going to be the end of her. She was the product of three souls battling within one body, and she knew that somewhere deep inside her, she possessed a mighty power. How to harness it exactly, she had yet to discover.
Heather was back from the dead. But who had resurrected her?
She had a feeling she knew the answer.
She tossed a towel over the mirror before she left the bathroom. Heather hated mirrors. She heard the rustling of plastic to her left and turned towards the kitchen. The freezer door was wide open, and there was the Metatron, crouching over a frozen piece of chicken on the floor. He'd removed it from the tray, which was lying nearby. It was a two-pack of drumsticks that Heather planned on cooking tomorrow, but it looked like that was out the window. She watched with dismay as Valtiel picked up the chicken leg and pounded it against the floor. His tongue was writhing, sensing something. It looked like he was trying to smash the meat, but was confused as to why it was still solid.
"You're not very bright for an agent of God..." Heather sighed as she pushed the freezer door closed. She considered taking the chicken from him, but found it more amusing to watch his plight unfold. As far as she gathered, he was completely blind, or at least didn't "see" the way any human did. She suspected he was at least partially deaf. Dumb too, maybe, or more likely just unsuited for this mundane world where all properties were grounded in hard logic. His tongue was highly sensitive to taste and smell; his hands equally as sensitive to subtle vibrations.
"Smells like meat…" Heather gently mocked him as he dragged his tongue over it, "Tastes like meat…But something's wrong, hm?"
The angel began to claw at it, head thrashing about violently in frustration. Heather snorted, covering a smile behind her hand,
"Oh my god…"
She would have recorded a video, if his presence didn't disrupt electronics the way it did. She had to admit, he was pretty endearing sometimes.
"I shouldn't have fed you that beef," she said, "Now you're gonna want meat all the time. I can't afford to put food in both our mouths, you know."
Valtiel beat the frozen chicken against the floor a few more times before admitting defeat. He left it there in the middle of the kitchen and crawled up the wall. Heather smirked, imagining he was pouting. She slipped the meat back in the tray, then placed it in the refrigerator,
"It's frozen. I'll cook it for you when it's thawed. Just…Don't touch my food anymore." She told him. He uttered no response as usual, still and silent on the wall.
The drumstick came in a two pack, so where was the second? Heather searched the apartment, peeking under the furnishings.
"Where'd you stash the other one?" she asked, kneeling by the cabinets, then moving to the futon area, "Ugh, why did I think feeding you was a good idea? I better not find rotting meat stashed anywhere…"
She kneeled and spotted a little round shadow under the futon. It was just out of reach.
"There it is…" she mumbled, then grabbed the furniture by its wooden arm and pulled it away from the wall. The Halo-portal behind it startled her at first; she'd forgotten all about it. Out of sight, out of mind. As she bent down to pick up the meat, she noticed something strange.
Heather leaned forward towards the tunnel and squinted into its darkness. There was a shadowy lump in there a few feet down, about the size of a…
"Va…Valtiel…?" Her eyes rounded and she slowly rose to her feet, staring at the figure within, "What is this…?"
There was an accusatory tone in her voice, but her face was all fear. She turned to the Metatron, who dropped to the floor and stalked to the scene. Crawling into the tunnel, he squeezed passed the lump, then Heather watched as it disappeared into the shadows. He was dragging it further down, possibly all the way into the Otherworld.
"Hey—" Heather began, then bit her tongue. She had a feeling she knew what it was…Did she really, really want to confirm it?
A shudder overtook her and she tossed the drumstick in the trash, washing her hands vigorously afterwards. She didn't know for sure. Maybe there wasn't a human corpse in her wall.
She was having a hard time convincing herself.
Slipping on some latex gloves, Heather scrubbed the Halo of the Sun with bleach water until every red trace of it was gone. The tunnel rapidly mended, then she pushed the futon back against the wall for good measure. Once she sat down to rest, she saw the floral tapestry on the opposite wall quiver and bulge. Valtiel crawled out from under it and approached her.
In one portal, out the other, she thought.
Reaching into the large pocket on the side of his smock, Valtiel retrieved an object that made her stomach clench.
A gaudy and bloodstained silver chain.
She quickly drew her knees to her chest when her attendant placed it before her feet as a holy offering, bowing humbly with his head to the floor.
"No!" She gasped, waving her hand frantically at it, "No, no, no! Get that the fuck out of here! Oh my god…!"
Clueless, the angel picked up the chain and pushed it into her lap. Heather shrieked and shot to her feet, backing away with her hands in the air. The last thing she wanted was to have her fingerprints on a damning piece of evidence.
"Valtiel!" Heather hissed through her teeth, pointing at the chain, "That can not be in here! You need to hide it in a place where it will never, ever be found…" She paused, "Actually, destroy it! Destroy it and hide the pieces. Do you understand?" her eyes were pleading. Valtiel was still for a few seconds, looking like he was in thought. Then he let out a low, wet, growl as he rolled his head against his shoulder. He tucked the chain back into his smock, then disappeared behind the tapestry and into the portal. The woman prayed she—nor anyone else—would see a fragment of Eric ever again.
This was not the Otherworld. In this world, murder had consequences.
Heather spent all night obsessively checking the internet for news about the incident at the club. She finally found a forum for her city's newspaper, and a single thread addressing it. The post read,
"any1 know what happened at the supernova last nite? ppl were freaking out and sum1 said a girl got shot… .."
Heather anxiously chewed her lip, scrolling down to the replies. The first reply read,
"yea there was like 3 squad cars and a ambulance"
Second reply,
"I was there. The girl is my friend Tasha. Some girl was tweeking on drugs and people were tryin to help her but she flipped out and fired a tazer. Tashas fine but she said it hurt like hell lol."
Heather's whole body tensed. In the heat of the moment, when the Otherworld seeped in and made everything so monstrous, she would have never interpreted the "attacking" as "helping". She felt like a fool.
The replies after that were few, and not the least bit useful. Nothing about a possible suspect, and nothing about "Tasha" pressing charges. While she was at it, she checked for missing persons named Eric that met his description. Nothing turned up…Yet. Heather let out a long, slow, breath and closed her laptop. It was five 'o clock in the morning and she hadn't slept, nor had she seen Valtiel since he took off with Eric's chain. Hopefully he was thinking long and hard about where he hid the damn thing.
Heather passed out on the futon. She slept for just a couple hours, until something bumped forcefully against the back of it. She snapped awake, looking this way and that. She gasped as the futon was bumped again, then pushed, sliding about a foot away from the wall. Heather scrambled off of it and darted to the back of the room, heart hammering in her chest. Whatever was going on, she was not awake enough for it.
The furniture settled. Not long after, Valtiel stood up behind it and "looked" at her, head trembling in his typical fashion. Heather had been holding her breath. She wearily let it out, then approached her angel and tugged his pocket open. It was empty.
"I hope you hid that thing somewhere good." She mumbled. Dragging a palm over her face, she looked through her fingers at the fresh portal gracing her wall, as if she didn't just spent an hour cleaning it up yesterday. Thankfully, there was no corpse in it this time. Heather shoved the futon against it once more and flopped down in her blankets. She was too tired for this crap.
