Devil-May-Care | ONC2022

2 - An eggs-tremely important task

Azra's foot lands not on horse shit but on black asphalt. In Asphodel's ever-present night, the only light that brightens the streets are flickering streetlamps and humming neon signs. Unlike the dimension he'd just left, the air here is neutral and crisp, smelling faintly of metal and a recent rain. Azra takes a deep breath and sighs out in relief.

Where he's landed in the city isn't a surprise. It's just outside of a corner store, and right beside where he'd parked his motorcycle. His bike is his baby, his pride and joy — sleek black and gold, and decked out with tech with Murr's help. He checks that no one's scratched it while he was gone, then heads into the store. The doors open automatically and greet him with a cool whiff of air as he passes through them. The girl at the counter looks up, a cigarette at her lips, and immediately straightens.

"You killed that bastard?" Amelie asks, her pink-glossed lips set in a hard line. She's been here for a long time, longer than most, and has adapted wonderfully to the advanced society of Asphodel. It's a far cry from the description he'd read in the bounty about a petite scullery maid.

"Yes, indeed," Azra says.

Amelie's mouth makes a grim smile. There's nothing triumphant there, just bitter satisfaction. "If you want anything from the store, grab it. It's on my tab."

That's a generosity he hadn't expected. Azra grins. "Thanks, gumdrop." Already knowing what he wants, he grabs a carton of eggs from the fridge, then holds them up for Amelie to see. Her brow furrows.

"That's it? Just eggs?" she asks.

"It's for something important."

"Okaaay." Amelie shrugs, setting her cigarette back between her lips. "Take em. And — thanks."

"Just doin' my job," Azra says with a wave. "Thanks for the eggs." He leaves with a smile on his face and a skip to his step.

At his motorbike, he opens the seat and pulls out his helmet, then sets the eggs inside carefully. In a fluid, practiced motion, he's straddled the bike, kicked up the kick stand, and tugged his helmet on over his curls. From there, it's only a short reverse and turn before he's on the road, engine roaring as he picks up speed at an alarming pace. Azra zips past yellows at traffic lights and angles onto to the flyaway, getting a widespread view of the city.

Asphodel is a vast, sprawling metropolis, but only a small part of the Between. Aptly named for being the plane between the living and the dead, the Between houses the souls that can't go to Judgment: souls with too many lingering attachments to the living, lives that got cut short, people who were neither bad nor enough to go to one of Heaven or Hell. Asphodel is simply one city of many that houses Betweeners, full of resident souls who simply go about their second "life" and await a judgment day that might never come.

Some souls tried to hasten their waiting time for Judgment. It was only a rumor — doing good things meant more points to your name that sided with you going to Heaven. Get enough points, and maybe an angel would take you there. Vice versa for Hell, but even the baddest of the bad never want to go to Hell.

Azra doesn't believe it. Then again, he's an Angel, not an angel, and he's never met an actual angel in his life. The real angels didn't seem to care that the bounty hunters called themselves Angels and killed people in their names. It was a system for humans to get revenge from beyond the grave and a way to rid the living plane of bad apples. Perhaps the angels let it happen to help cleanse the world, even if it wasn't explicitly sanctioned by them.

Either way, Azra didn't care about points to get him to Heaven. The only points that mattered were the ones that set him on the scoreboard as the top bounty hunter in all of Asphodel, the number one Angel, Azrael.