Hellbound

5. Tails and Dander

Spacing out is never Liberty’s specialty. Despite having eternity to back him up, the devil never wasted infinity thinking about stupid shits. He was always busy, always working his evil ass off. Liberty thought that that is how he will always experience forever until today. Just a few days ago, he was back to his room in hell from earth, doing one thing he thought he was never capable of: spacing out because of her. Pathetic.

He tried to rationalize his situation, playing with fire quite literally as he lit up his room and plopped down his newly-made bed. She’s one interesting subject, stirring me up and all. The devil thinks that there is nothing wrong about focusing his attention on her for now. She’s my greatest ticket after all.

“Meow.”

When Liberty tilted his head down the marble floor, he saw Naomi’s second guardian licking his foot, almost scratching his leather boots if only he looked a bit closer. Mia. The spirit cat, summoned to materialize as a special flesh. Liberty recalled how creating the ball of white drained a ton of his energy. Usually, when demons summon spirit guardians to roam the earth, they are always in distorted forms. All eyes and teeth and skinless bones. But something about Liberty’s current mission makes him want to give his best, maybe sweep off a little dust of his evilness under the rug to actually impress Naomi. So, he settled in creating an actual earth animal. Tails and dander. Cute holen eyes, just for her.

When he saw the smile that twinkled in Naomi’s mouth when he gave her Mia, he thought that everything he went through to create the cat was worth it. Not that he expected nothing in return, though. He took a mental note to make the stupid human pay for the new cat later on.

“What are you doing here, kitty?”

Mia intensified his purrs, almost sounding constipated in cat language “Meow-ww” The cat repeated. This time, Liberty furrowed his brows. It’s been 3 days now since he left Naomi under Mia’s eyes, only reminding the cat to report to him if something bad ha—

“Did something happen to her?” Liberty bolted up his bed at the sudden realization, Mia hissed like a snake. The devil asked for nothing more and snapped his finger until his spot was replaced with nothing but thin smoke.

Shit Naomi, what am I gonna do to you? were his trembling words, not that he will ever admit it.

--

“She’s inside.” The devil uttered, sounding more like a declaration than a question. It only took a millisecond of travel from hell back to earth. Right now, he is standing in front of the hospital with swarming questions inside his head. If only humans can see him, they would think that a crazy man just invaded the facility’s exit where bodies step in and out. He would probably even get reported to the fake bearers of human hope he finds most disgusting, The Police. He could roll his eyes at the thought.

“Meow.” Mia purred again under his arm. He didn’t realize he was carrying the cat until its fangs grazed slightly over his gloves. He gave his white fur a little attention before surveying earth with his crimson orbs.

For the likes of him, hospital is a synonym of chaos. It is an arena where life and death continuously play tug of war. That only means that demons like him are everywhere to be seen, retrieving the souls of the ones assigned to their missions, jumping from ear to ear to taunt medical professionals to sin and kill humans knowingly or unknowingly—he doesn’t care.

Liberty was never assigned to petty missions like this and he finally understood why. Only the lower ranking fangs deserved to be assigned in this bullshit. He wouldn’t be able to stand the noise in a workplace this chaotic. In fact, this is the first time he stepped in front of a hospital and a few seconds in, he isn’t liking it a tiny bit. He was pissed.

“Oh, f**k me.”

People are running and walking pass through his body as he stood in the middle ground where he can see everything. It was quite a humid day today, so he was thankful that he had his sunglasses on. He doesn’t need to squint away the air from his eyes anymore. When Liberty looked to his right, he saw a blob-like demon following an emergency car, to his left a winged-devil whispering pushing an old man’s conscience. And when he glanced upwards, there goes a one-eyed creature locking gazes with him. Trembling and terrified with honor to have seen him in a place like this. Liberty smirked at the demon and it ran away from his sight.

“Where are you, angel?” Liberty growled while baring his teeth as continued to look around searching for Naomi. He couldn’t trace her presence. He couldn’t smell her scent. His energy couldn’t even pinpoint his location because of all of this mess. He’s starting to lose his patience.

“Meow…meow…” Mia is now uncomfortable in his arms of the reason he can’t fathom.

Now that he thought about it, something is strange about the cat’s report. The second best in hell told knew that no one would dare touch Naomi’s soul aside from him. One demon, one human. That is the rule. That is always the rule. If him being in high rank could not break it, what else could those other lowly f***s do? Why is this stupid guardian squirming uncontrollably as if sensing Naomi’s danger in his absence?

“Hey, kitty. You can’t be fooling me, can you?” He tightened his grip a little around its neck.

“M-meow…” The cat replied, a few of his snow white fur standing up. It is scared of Liberty.

The two creatures exchanged a brief yet intense eye contact until Liberty felt pathetic of his action. What the hell is happening to me? He thought. He blinked his annoyance away and patted Mia’s head after.

“Nah, I’m kidding…let’s go inside.” He smirked down the cat before taking a step forward in attempts to search for the girl he’s itching to see. Normally, he wouldn’t get inside any facility on earth without being lulled by the rotten smell of sins but he’d be lying if he said he enjoys something that isn’t reeking of evil. This hospital, strangely enough, has a faint scent of darkness in it. Liberty is curious.

“Listen up, Mia…I don’t think it would be a good idea to—Ow! What the f**k?!” The devil was a few steps in when the cat bit him in the palm. Hard. He yanked the ball of white away from his skin and it jumped with a screeching hiss.

“Damn it! What did I do to you?!” He scowled at the creature the moment he stopped at a towering staircase. Mia has gone wild. The cat was jumping and screeching and hissing aggressively as if there’s a predator in sight. Liberty furrowed his eyebrows in further confusion. The devil crouched down in attempts to calm down the Mia but his efforts went to no avail.

Suddenly, the staircase was flooding with humans. Filthy, ordinary humans. Liberty became double-downed disgusted when he saw how they spat insults towards his cat.

“What’s a cat doing in here?”

“Shoo!”

“Get away damn it!”

His ears started ringing. His eyes, blood-shot. He almost ignored them for the sake of keeping his cool. Almost. But the moment he heard Mia whimpered in pain when he was kicked by one of the eldest member of the group in front of him, he was on fire. This is the reason why these assholes don’t deserve a piece of heaven.

“I told you to get away from here, fuckin’ p***y cat!” The same old man who kicked Mia in the stomach, pulled the poor creature by the tail and almost hanged it mid-air. Liberty gritted his teeth, turning the atmosphere around him ominous. His energy was surely felt in the human world because the hospital building was shaking in no time.

The hag froze in horror, uttering prayers when his frail body trembled in the earthquake Liberty have caused. Soon enough, Mia was released and just like an instinct, the cat ran behind Liberty…not that the people inside the building could see it, though. It doesn’t matter. Besides, the earthquake is only for him.

“W-woah-hh…”

Liberty had only started but the old man was already lost. Unlucky for him, the devil doesn’t have a merciful bone in his body. His eyes glowed red and was ready claw the old man’s eys out when he heard a familiar voice creep behind him.

“Hey…”

Liberty’s jaw almost dropped down the ground. Naomi. It seemed like her presence washed away all of his rage because the moment he saw her, the earthquake that he caused for the old man has stopped. Quickly, he went back to his original aura, hiding his claws and dimming his red orbs. Naomi can’t see him like this. What if she got scared and broke their pact?

“I’ll explain what happ—“

“I saw what you did to my cat.”

The devil was about to defend his and Mia’s  honor when the human he was looking for straight up ignored him and went to the old man with viscous eyes. Quickly, the ball of fluffy white jumped at her arms like a lost child reuniting with her mother. Something inside Liberty warmed at seeing Naomi take ownership of something he had created. That’s my girl, he’ll tease him later.

“Listen, I don’t know who you are but it’s bad to—“

Liberty was ready to witness Naomi turn into a Viking warrior. But everything happened so quickly.In a blink of an eye, every lightbulb in the hospital popped and spat out shards of glasses aggressively until light was nowhere to be felt. A cold breeze entered the window and Liberty was sure something is f*****g up with them. This wasn’t his doing because Naomi was frozen on the spot by shock too.

Before all three of them on the spot could process what the f**k is going on, two human beings emerged from the second floor, while holding a thicker, and larger slab of glass…descending into the darkness wearing only hemets with light.

Idiots.

Liberty walked fast to proceed to Naomi’s side but he didn’t expect that he would need to walk faster. When he angled his head towards the men up the stairs, he saw the same shadow-like devil from the entrance of the building earlier. He clenched his fist in surprise. Quickly, the shadow devil whispered something in the ear of one man, causing him to push his comrade absentmindedly until the other man fell down the ground, holding the slab of glass….directly towards Naomi's exact spot.

“W-watch out!” The man cried but it was too late, he was just an inch away from the oblivious girl when Liberty stood in horror. Every muscle in his body acted in its own. The next thing he knew, he was holding Naomi’s body close to his chest. Her head pressed against his chest and his hands snaked around her waist and head. The two of them stumbled down the ground before Liberty pushed the old man to the direction of the falling slab.

Seconds pass by faster than infinity. He didn’t realize that Naomi was staring straight through his crimson orbs the moment he opened his eyes. He was on top of her, their faces a hair apart. Naomi was clutching his coat tightly, refusing to look anywhere but his eyes.

They stayed that way for a long while until they heard from a random voice what they didn’t want to hear, There’s a dead body on the floor! Quick, pick up the bloody old man!