Author's note: I told you that this chapter was already almost finished, so no reasons to postpone its release :) And my super Beta, Bebec went over it in a record time, thannnnks! Prepare yourself for some action! And you will discover here an idea that I had for Azrael right from the start of this adventure and for which I already introduced some information in chapter 2. Without waiting any longer, here it is. Enjoy!


Chapter 19

Tribe Night (Part 2)

When Chloe came back at their table, she saw that Linda had joined the girls on the dance floor and that only Maze remained behind, seemingly busy emptying the bottle of whisky. Maze always drank a lot, like Lucifer, but rarely so fast.

Chloe started worrying for her friend. "What is it with you tonight? Is everything alright?"

Maze rolled her eyes in annoyance. "How could things be alright when I'm being manipulated by God himself? But tonight I'm telling you, I'm not His little warrior." She shook a finger at Chloe in warning. "I'm my own person and I plan on doing my best to forget what mess my life has turned into." To make her point, she took a long swallow of the amber liquid right from the bottle.

Chloe smiled at her in sympathy. "It's not that bad, Maze. And for what it's worth, I think the whole Valkyrie thing suits you perfectly."

Maze only snorted as an answer and took another swing at the bottle.

Chloe noticed at that moment that the new Valkyrie had taken off her celestial arm band, probably as an attempt to deny God's hold over her, at least for the night. But there were things her friend couldn't run from, as much as she probably wanted to, such as that new soul of hers which was certainly making her feel things she'd never felt before, and not just about God...

"Humm... And what about Amenadiel? You seem closer lately. Are things back to normal between the two of you?"

Maze growled and buried her face into her hands. "What could be called normal with a relationship between an angel and a demon? Tell me?" She lifted her head up and gazed at Chloe with a lost look. "And now with that damn soul playing tricks on me, I don't know how... I can't even... It's just too much to handle," she finally admitted in defeat, emotion contorting her beautiful face.

It took a moment for Chloe to figure out what her friend was actually talking about, but then she thought that she understood...

"You're afraid to sleep with him... you haven't, not since you got your soul. Is that it?" Chloe asked softly close to her ear, yet never breaking eye contact with her.

Maze nodded in admission, a tick emotion preventing her from voicing anything.

Chloe took her hands between hers and squeezed supportively. "I know it's scary. Emotions are... hard sometimes. Well, most of the time. But they are also wonderful. Some of them are at least. And love... or whatever you want to call what it is you feel for Amenadiel, is the most amazing feeling of them all. If you would only let yourself the chance to feel it plainly, you would understand. But it's okay to go slowly. Just listen to your emotions and trust what it tells you."

"That's just the thing. I don't know how to do that, Chloe. It's all so confusing," the new Maze answered faintly.

"Let yourself the time to get acquainted with those new emotions. It will become easier to deal with them after some practice. I promise. Also, I'm sure you're in good hands with Amenadiel. He cares about you very much."

Maze signed and rolled her eyes. "I know... Maybe too much sometimes," she tried to jest. She pinched the bridge of her nose before looking back at Chloe with seriousness. "But what happens when it's all over? What happens if I let myself feel it and it blows up into my face? How can you, deal with the pain of having lost Lucifer?"

Chloe's sadness and angst resurfaced in an instant and she fought the tears that threatened to overwhelm her once more. "I... I don't know... It's hard. There's no words to express how it feels. But as horrible as it can be, and even if I never saw him again, I would never regret loving him. It was wort it. He was worth it. I won't lie to you Maze, there's never any guarantee with love. It can last a few years or a lifetime. You can stop loving or be dumped. Still, I think it's always worth it in the end."

A small smile appeared over Maze's lips. "Easy for you to say, when your Devil is going to love you for the rest of eternity."

Chloe chuckled and sniffed back her building tears. "He probably will."

Again, Maze's seriousness came back. "And I'll do everything I can to insure that you'll see him again, Chloe."

The way her friend said it told Chloe that those were not idle words. "What do you mean exactly by that?"

Maze hesitated a long moment before answering. "I... Don't get all excited, because there's no guarantee that it will work, but... as soon as I can fly properly, I'm going to get Lucifer back."

Chloe gasped in shock, suddenly overwhelmed with hope. "What...? How...? Can you really...? Is it even...?" She couldn't formulate complete sentences anymore.

Maze grasped her by the shoulders to steady her. "Easy Chloe! I told you it's not a sure thing. I'm gonna try to cross down there with my new power and bring him back."

Chloe's rational mind finally kicked in. "But..., we're not even sure anything alive can go through your vortex."

"Yes we do. That demon I sent back to Hell a few days ago, Moz'gan, he survived. I could feel it. So I'm pretty sure I can go through too. That's the way back I'm less sure of. Anyway, I'm gonna do it, whatever the odds are."

Chloe's tears started spilling. "You really think there's a chance? You'd do it for him?"

"Of course...!"

Maze was interrupted by a crushing hug that almost took her breath away.

"Thank you so much! Oh Maze! You have no idea..., no idea what it means to me." Chloe couldn't let go of her tight grip around her friend. She could barely believe that her nightmare might finally come to an end, that she could see him again.

Maze patted her back comfortingly. "Don't get your hopes too high, Chloe, but I'll do my best."

It was way too late for Chloe to not get her hopes high. She released Maze and sat back on her chair with the biggest of smiles. "You really are the most awesome friend one can hope for, Mazikeen."

"You bet I am." Maze lifted her bottle and Chloe clang her drink against it before swallowing the last drop of her mocktail.

A thought suddenly came to Chloe. "Oh shit! I almost hired Stephen, the manager, to work for us at Lux. But I won't need him anymore since you'll get Lucifer back."

"You hired him?" Maze's smile turned devious.

"It's not done yet, and I can still tell him that the offer is not on the table anymore."

"Why would you do that? I'm sure we could find some use for him even if Lucifer came back soon." The way Maze licked her lips was clear as to what use she had in mind.

"Oh come on Maze! I'm not hirering a guy only so you can use him for your salacious practices. And besides, think of Amenadiel. It would break his heart if you started sleeping with anybody like you used to."

"Because you think I give a damn how he feels?" Maze tried to convince them both.

Chloe's voice soften. "Yeah! I do."

Maze rolled her eyes, not finding any more lies to tell. "Whatever! I wasn't really thinking of using Stephen for my own personal use. I was more thinking about this baby of yours on the way. With a child to take care of, I'm sure Lucifer will be out of his depth and would probably benefit from a little help at Lux. So whatever happens when I'll try to get him back, I think you should hire Stephen anyway."

Chloe was a little taken aback by the demon's reasoning. "That's... That's actually a very good point, Maze. I'll think about it. And I'm sure you'll succeed at bringing Lucifer back"

With a new sparkle of happiness in her eyes, Chloe rose from her seat excitedly. "Don't you feel like dancing? I feel like I could dance all night long!"

Chloe's newly found joy was contagious and Maze could only chuckle at her bouncing friend. "Go on, I'll join you in a minute. I still have a bottle of whisky to finish first."

"Or maybe I could go fetch you something different at the bar?" interfered a male voice.

Both women turned their gazes to the newcomer, but the guy only had eyes for Maze. He had to be in his late twenties and didn't have at all the look of the well-kept men used to this place. He appeared more of the rebel type, with dishevelled mid-length brown hair, jeans and t-shirt, and a leather coat. Exactly Maze's type!

Maze leant back into her seat to better admire the sexy human specimen. "Thinking of it, I might be due for a vodka after all."

"Anything your heart desires." The guy winked at Maze and left hurriedly for the bar.

"Maze..." Chloe warned her darkly.

"What? It's just a drink. It's not like I'm gonna jump his bones in the washrooms." The demon lifted an eyebrow as if she was suddenly finding the idea very appealing. "Or maybe I could. It would be a good way to test that new soul of mine and what feelings could come out of it." She said the word feelings as if she was talking of a curse.

"Just... be careful Maze. Don't do anything you might regret afterwards."

"How could I ever regret sex?" The demon really looked clueless.

Chloe shook her head sadly. "I fear you might discover it the hard way. Suit yourself, but if you change your mind, we'll be waiting for you on the dance floor."

Chloe went to join her three other friends. They danced together for a long moment, trying to ignore all the men gathering around them. Well, Chloe ignored them entirely, but Linda and Ella seemed rather glad of the attention. At some point, the doctor found herself shamelessly grinding against a well-built thirty something Latino who was dancing like a god and Ella had her arms wounded around a guy's neck while another was dancing behind her with his hands on her hips. Even Azrael seemed to be enjoying herself, if somehow with more restraint by keeping a small distance between herself and the men showing her their interest.

After a moment, Maze came to join them and dance with the man who had offered her a drink earlier. He seemed very much enthralled by the demon, and by the way Maze slid her body against him lasciviously, she looked to have some nasty projects for him.

Chloe felt wonderful, the best she had over the last week. Lucifer could be back soon and then maybe he could find a way to convince his Father to let their child live. Hope was a powerful emotion and right now Chloe felt stronger than ever. Everything could still turn out okay. She was floating on a cloud.

Azrael had been doubtful of the relevance of coming here tonight, but she had to admit that Chloe was right, she did need it after all. To dance so freely, without having to think about her celestial responsibilities or the return of her mother in her life was quite liberating. Dancing used to be something she liked doing very much. It felt like eons the last time she indulged in it with humans.

Actually, Rae rarely interacted with living human beings anymore and had forgotten the effect she had on the males. She could see the lust and desire in the men's eyes dancing with her, trying to tempt her. She liked the attention and even encouraged it a bit with lascivious moves. Yet she made sure not to mislead them into thinking that they had a real shot with her. She knew she could have any of them in her bed if she desired, but she was certainly not here for that.

The angel looked around at all her friends having fun, and smiled to herself. It was something she'd never experienced before, friendship with humans, and she liked the feeling. Well, it was not entirely true, was it? She'd already let herself get attached to a human being once before in her existence, but it had turned out to become a lot more than friendship in the end...

Azrael shook herself inwardly to dismiss the painful mixt of wonderful and horrible memories. It happened more than a thousand years ago and yet, if she had the weakness of letting her feelings for him rise into her consciousness, she knew it still had the potential of making her fall to pieces.

Rae realised that she'd stopped dancing, and that her breathing was shallow and fast from the disturbing emotions trying to swallow her whole. She could almost feel him, feel his soul reaching out to hers...

Images of the past flooded her mind; the first time she set eyes on him, all clad in his warrior's attire, looking dangerous and beautiful; them making love with passion in his small stone house; him, all bloodied and broken, dying in her arms on a battlefield...

Rae's heart was beating madly, caught up once more in her painful memories. She took a few deep breathes and looked around the place to get a better sense of reality and try and dissipate those images of a love long lost. She couldn't afford to get lost in the past, not tonight. Tonight was about new friendships and opening herself to possibilities she had denied to herself for too long for fear of being hurt again.

She knew she'd closed herself off since she lost him, throwing herself instead into her job to help her forget. But she soon learned that she could never forget him or the way she felt about him. Nonetheless, she believed having found some kind of balance, of happiness over the last few hundred years. Taking care of the deceased souls brought her a sense of accomplishment that she needed, and after having fallen in love with a human soul, she thought it made her even better at understanding the newly departed and sympathise with them. She liked to believe that her love for him had made her better at her job and even a better person.

After a few moments of forcing herself to return to the present and tune off her long buried emotions, Rae realised that instead of decreasing, her feeling of longing for her lost lover was becoming stronger and stronger by the second.

No! Not the feeling of longing, the feeling of him!

Rae instantly froze into place, barely able to breathe.

She could now feel him... his soul... he was here..., as surely as the Earth turned around the Sun.

In a daze, she turned around slowly to gaze right at him, and to discover that he was already staring at her from the edge of the dance floor, looking bemused and mesmerised.

Her breath caught in her lungs at the resemblance. He looked almost the same, with his fierce but tender blue eyes, his mid-long blond hair and strong built. Beyond the likeness, she could see his soul and recognized the man that she had loved with all her being.

He really was there, before her.

And she had no idea what to do.

Without making any conscious decision, she found herself walking towards him, as if in a dream.

Their gazes locked together, Rae stopped mere inches from him. She could almost feel the warmth radiation off his body, and she longed to touch him. He was bigger than she remembered, probably close to 6 feet 4 inches, so she had to raise her eyes a little to keep staring into his beautiful eyes.

He just kept looking at her, still as speechless as she was. She thought she saw a small spark of recognition in his eyes, but also a lot of confusion.

He couldn't recognize her, could he? He just couldn't.

"Erik...," she whispered, and could not stop herself from lifting a hand to cup his face tenderly.

He sucked a shuddering breath in, looking even more confused.

But before he could break the magic by telling her that she was mistaking, Azrael brought his head down and captured his lips in a breathtaking kiss that rocked both their worlds. She poured into that kiss all the bend up emotions she had repressed over the centuries, all the overflowing love that was coming back to the surface in a torrent impossible to control. She felt him enlace her shakily and answer her kiss with equal fervor.

They parted after a long and ardent exchange that left both of them breathless.

The man who was once Erik softly caressed her face. "Who are you?" he breathed reverently.

Completely overwhelmed by the moment of passion and equally devastated to hear him confirm that he didn't recognize her, Rae panicked.

"I-I... I'm sorry! I shouldn't have. It was a mistake." She parted from him and took a step back, before fleeing towards the back of the club in a rush.

The young man was brought out of his dreamlike state by what felt like a cold shower. "No stop! Please, comeback!"

He tried to follow her, but the mass of people soon swallowed her and he lost sight of the woman of his dreams. He checked everywhere, even in the washrooms and outside in the back alley, without any luck. Then he remembered seeing her dance with a group of women and headed towards the dance floor, focussed on finding them.

The mysterious woman's friends were fortunately still there dancing, and apparently oblivious to what had been going on. He went straight for the blond one who was the only girl of the group not dancing with a man.

He grabbed her arm in near panic and turned her to face him. "Where is she? Your friend, the black beauty."

The blond shrugged him off, visibly annoyed by his behaviour. "Who are you talking about?" After looking at her friends, probably checking if they were all accounted for, she narrowed her eyes at him. "You mean Rae?"

"I-I'm not sure. She didn't tell me her name. She has long black hair and green eyes so beautiful that a man would gladly drown into them."

The blond smiled at him understandingly. "It was definitely Rae. What do you want with her?"

He was tempted to grab her arms to make her understand his desperation, but kept himself back at the last second. "I need to find her! She kissed me! Then she fled. I don't understand."

The woman looked surprised. "She kissed you and fled? What have you done to her?" she finally asked angrily.

He lifted his hands to appease her. "Nothing I swear! She came to me and simply kissed me. I barely had time to say anything that she was gone. Please, you need to help me find her. I need to see her again."

She looked confused by the situation. Who wouldn't really? Eventually, a smile appeared on her lips even though she was shaking her head in annoyance. Reaching inside her purse, she retrieved and gave him a business card. "If you come to my club one of these days, you might be lucky and see her there. But I think you should let her be for the rest of the night."

He nodded dazzlingly. He still had a chance to see her again!

"Thank you! Thank you so much! You won't regret it. I'm a good guy."

"You better be," she warned him seriously.

After the man left to go back to his friends, Chloe went in search of the missing angel. She couldn't make sense of what happened to her and feared that she might be in distress. When she couldn't find her anywhere and that even her prayers went unanswered, Chloe retired into a corner and tried to locate her with her new inner power. She calmed her mind and extended her consciousness outwards in search of a celestial presence. She became aware of a strange mixture of celestial and demonic essences in the dance floor's direction and realised quickly that it was Maze she was feeling. She understood that the new Valkyrie had changed in more ways than just appearances. Unfortunately, Chloe didn't feel any other celestial vibes in the club or nearby. Azrael had well and truly disappeared.

At that moment, Chloe noticed Maze leaving the dance floor alone, staggering drunkenly towards the back door.

What now?

Chloe had never seen the demon look remotely drunk in all the time she'd known her, and she'd seen her drink a lot before. Like, a lot! As much as Maze had been drinking since their arrival at the club, there was no way it could have rendered her that unsteady on her legs.

Her detective's instincts made her look back over the dancing people to try and find the man who had been dancing with Maze only minutes ago.

She spotted him not far away, standing still and watching Maze make her way out the back exit. Something was off about the way he was looking at her friend. She saw him take his cell phone out and type something rapidly before making his way to the front door hurriedly.

Oh shit!

Chloe ran after Maze, hoping that she wasn't already too late.


That guy was quite appealing. What was his name yet? Sean? John? Maze couldn't remember, not that it mattered really. But why was her brain so foggy all of a sudden? She thought she should be happy to have achieve such a state of carelessness. Wasn't it what she'd wanted after all? A voice in the back of her mind told her that something was wrong, but she dismissed it instantly, preferring to take advantage of the funny buzz instead of worrying about it.

For a moment, she lost herself in the feel of his hands stroking languorously her lower back and hips, and of his breath tickling her skin on the side of her neck.

"Shouldn't we go someplace else? Somewhere more private?" his voice was husky and sexy, almost hypnotic.

She imagined that he would be good enough in bed to at least make her feel something enjoyable. As desirable as he could be, she doubted that he could make her feel anything close to what it would be like with Amenadiel though.

Damn angel! He was ruining her sex life!

Maze lifted her gaze to her conquest to try and explain that he wouldn't be lucky tonight, when a wave of dizziness hit her. She gripped his arms to steady herself while the ripples of sickness subsided. She blinked a couple of times until her vison cleared enough to make out his face properly.

"Sorry! I... I'm not feeling that well. Maybe I should get a bit of fresh air." She shook her head to try and clear her mind that was getting blurrier and blurrier.

Was it how humans felt when they were drunk? Maybe it was her new soul that enabled her to react to alcohol? Whatever it was, she didn't like it one bit. She hated losing control and right now it seemed like she wasn't in control of anything.

The guy looked at her worriedly. "I'll go with you. You shouldn't be alone if you're sick."

"No! I-I'll be okay. You stay here, and have fun," Maze said resolutely. She certainly didn't need a man to take care of her.

Wobbling on her legs, Maze managed to make her way to the back of the club by grabbing at tables and leaning on walls. She felt like her body was fighting the wrongness inside her, trying to expulse it.

She barged through the back door and came out into the welcoming night air that she breathed in shakily. That seemed to help clear her mind a bit. Still, she could tell that her strength was decreasing at an alarming rate and that she might be on the verge of passing out.

What the hell was happening to her?

A sense of urgency rose inside her, something that pushed her to get the wrongness out.

Maze rushed unsteadily to a pile of garbage a little farther down the alley, and then did the most disgusting thing she could have ever imagined; she threw up all the content of her stomach, and some more.

Chloe ran outside with her awareness already spread out to locate her friend as fast as possible. She knew where the Valkyrie was even before seeing her with her own eyes and dashed to her side.

She kneeled beside the prostrate woman and held her hair back while she retched to empty herself. The human kept an eye on the alley to make sure that no threat was coming their way.

Chloe kept stroking Maze's hair soothingly. "That's it, get it all out," she encouraged.

When the demon seemed to be done retching, Chloe warned her urgently.

"I think you're in danger, Maze. That man you were with, I'm pretty sure he has something to do with your condition. He texted someone when you got out. I think he could be FBI. They might be planning to get their hands on you."

With still her head bowed down and feeling frail and miserable, Maze tried to make sense of Chloe's words. Fortunately, it looked like having emptied herself of whatever was wrong was finally allowing her to recover her wits, at least partially. Though she still felt like her legs would barely hold her if she tried to stand up. However, she could already feel her new Valkyrie metabolism working to get rid of the last remnants of... What was it exactly? Chloe thought John, Sean, or whatever, could be an agent, and responsible for this sickness? So some kind of drug? Or a poison maybe, that he could have dropped into her drink? It would explain a lot. The son of a bitch! But did he want her alive or dead? That was the question.

Unconsciously, while still scanning the alley for any kind of dangers, Chloe had kept alert more than just her human senses. All of a sudden, her celestial awareness spiked up in alarm. Something dark and terrifying was aiming right at them, making it feel as if the sky itself was falling down on them.

She screamed while lifting her eyes up to the sky. "Maze! Up there!"

Chloe barely had the time to see a dark shape descending upon them that Maze was already standing over her in a defensive stance to protect her with her body.

Mazikeen was roughly yanked upward with a scream of pain and rage leaving her lips.

The huge winged creature that Chloe could make out in the sky under the dim lighting of the night might have succeeded at overpowering a drugged demon, but it was without counting on the fact that the demon in question could sprout out wings of her own and had a whole new Valkyrie metabolism. She could see them struggling above, about twenty feet in the sky, with their wings flapping madly and impairing each other's capacity to fly properly, until they both came crashing down not far from her in the alley, in a tangle of leathered and feathered wings and limbs. Their fall barely slowed them in their fight though, and soon they were once more trying to tear each other apart.

The winged demon was huge, at least seven feet tall, with a head reminding that of a bird of prey mixt with a dragon. The rest of its body looked strangely human, a much muscled one, only with four arms instead of two, every limb sporting deadly claws at their extremities. From the blood Chloe could see over the creature's naked torso, Maze seemed to have wounded it a couple times, either with the daggers she was brandishing or her sharp wings. On the other hand, the Valkyrie was also taking quite a beating. She still looked very unsteady on her feet and was clearly not moving as fast as usual, thus having a hard time dodging all the demon's punches, slashes, and wing's strikes. But she gave as much as she received.

That's when Chloe noticed two new threats running straight at them, coming from the end of the alley. Those were human-looking, but their vibes were incontestably demonic. Definitely not FBI then. The new demons stopped close to their winged acolyte and seemed to be considering how to help without getting killed by either of the two winged furies, when one of them spotted Chloe. He elbowed the second demon and both looked at her with wide grins.

Chloe reflexively backed away and opened her purse in a hurry to retrieve Lilim's demonic dagger that never left her lately. She raised it menacingly, ready to defend herself. The two human-looking demons chuckled at her attempt to look threatening. With a nod at each other, they drew their own daggers and came for her. They gave a wide berth around the fighting demons, as much as the narrow alley allowed, their backs brushing against the wall of the club to avoid being ripped apart.

Chloe kept walking backward slowly, her mind spinning wildly. She knew she could never take two demons in a dagger's fight, but maybe she had another option... After all, she could already control her baby's celestial power to feel supernatural vibes. Maybe she could use it consciously to do a lot more...

She forced herself to calm down by taking a deep breath that she released slowly, like when she prepared herself to pray to Lucifer. It suddenly reminded her that there was someone else she could pray to.

She practically screamed his name in her head.

Michael!

By then the first demon was almost upon her.

Chloe dived inside herself and drew from the power within. Her first instinctual thought was to push her attacker away, and as a result she released a powerful force that hit him with enough strength to propel him ten feet away.

The second demon slowed down in surprise, which gave Chloe time enough to gather herself and to consciously decide what she wanted to do next.

She raised her left hand, palm facing forward, and released the celestial light that she knew would burn the demon to cinder. She saw him burst into flames, screaming in agony as he was rapidly consumed.

Her first attacker was already back on his legs and lunging forward. Before she could react, she saw his head leave his shoulders and drop to the ground, just before his dead body crumbled and hit the pavement.

Behind the dead demon was standing Michael, looking fierce and deadly with his sword raised and ready to strike again. Chloe gave him a small nod to assure him that she was fine.

"Please, help Maze!" she begged him.

He turned around to assess the Valkyrie's dire situation.

Maze wasn't doing so bad, everything considered. The huge demon was dripping blood from everywhere it seemed and was clearly loosing strength, yet it was still standing and fighting. That thing was truly a force of nature, or more precisely, a real supernatural force.

The Valkyrie was also bloodied from a few claw marks over her arms and legs and from punches to the face. She might be wounded even more than that, but it was hard to say with her black leather outfit. Even if Maze was still holding her ground, she was visibly not at her best and getting slower by the minute. Chloe was afraid that she couldn't manage to kill that beast before draining herself out.

As if to prove her right, Maze lost her footing after landing a weaker wing blow and the beast took advantage of her mistake to grip her by the throat with one of its clawed hand.

But before it could squeeze the life out of her, Michael severed the wing that was in his way then drove his sword through its torso. The beast didn't even have time to scream that the life had already left its demonic coil.

Maze's wings disappeared and she dropped on her knees, panting and massaging her throat. "You had no right killing it! It was mine!" complained the Valkyrie.

Michael shook his head in disbelief. "I just saved your miserable life, demon!"

Maze snorted. "No you didn't! I was handling it just fine. I almost had it."

"As if!" the angel spit in exasperation, not believing what he was hearing.

Before things could degenerate, Chloe interposed herself between the two supernatural beings.

"Ok guys! For one, I'm glad that Michael gave you a hand, Maze, even if you could certainly have killed it yourself. That way you won't risk getting too much injured. The least you could do is show your gratitude for the help. I personally am very grateful."

"I don't need her gratitude," Michael turned his back on Maze like a prideful child.

Maze stood up and winked at Chloe. "See, he doesn't need it."

Chloe rolled her eyes at their childish behaviour.

The Valkyrie gazed down with a prideful smirk at the puddle of remains still burning on the ground. "Damn Decker! You really are handling that celestial thing like a pro."

Saying that Chloe was surprised by her own abilities would be an understatement. "I did, didn't I?" She could still fell the power coursing through her body, ready to be used at the tip of her fingers. It felt alien, and at the same time completely normal. What a strange feeling...

Maze narrowed her eyes with a devious thought and turned back to the angel. "I don't have my arm band to send the dead bodies to Hell at the moment. Do you think you can manage to hide them for a few hours while we continue to party?"

Michael lifted an eyebrow in surprise.

"You're not serious?" bursted out Chloe.

"Of course I am. I'm certainly not going to waste my remaining buzz considering how much it cost me to get it," the demon answered matter of factly.

Chloe's mouth dropped. "You're impossible."

Maze reached Chloe and wind her arm around her shoulders to steer her towards the club.

"That's why you like me," the demon said smugly. "And besides, it wouldn't be a successful Tribe Night without a little fight!


Author's note: How do you like the development with Azrael? I was so looking forward to get to that part. I hope you liked this chapter, please let me know if you did. Thanks for reading, and commenting.