ME & THE MONSTER

the Mellkeths

Ronald E. Mellketh was a saint.

Literally.

He'd boast about it to anyone who'd listen, who weren't that too many people really -- mainly because of the small negligible fact that he was dead. He'd been very dead for five years and he wasn't enjoying himself one little bit.

He wasn't really sure why hed become a saint, as a matter of fact. Okay, he was an angel, which after all looked good on your C.V. There was no point trying to deny it. And he'd always prided himself on being a selfless person, true.

Maybe it was the miracle stuff that got people's attention. The country had been going through a rough patch of draughts and economic crisis, he remembered.

He'd stood staring out of the window one morning, while Agnes moaned that they were broke. He'd waved a hand at her, all casual-like, and said: "My dear, don't you worry about a thing. I promise things will look up. You have my word."

Then he'd clutched a hand to his chest, startled. His heart had always given him trouble. He'd toppled over himself and he hadn't got up again.

Well.

Not quite as himself, anyway.

It was rather irritating, being dead, to tell you the truth. Most people looked through you and talked through you and some even had the goddamn nerve to walk through you too. Being dead didn't mean you had no feelings, you know. People were so bloody inconsiderate sometimes.

On the bright side, things had perked up, just as he'd promised, hence the saint title. But it was so boring nowadays. 

There wasn't anything you could do, really. The novelty of walking through walls and turning up at séances while old ladies gasped and went white wore off after a day or two.

He couldn't even do some good, old-fashioned haunting, as he'd never had an enemy in his life, what with being a full-time saint and everything.

In a nutshell, it was overrated, this whole dead thing.

The doorbell rang.

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," he grumbled. He nudged the door open with his elbow; his left arm ended in a stump above the wrist.

On the doorstep, hands in pockets, very much alive, stood his eldest nephew, in that elegantly lazy manner of his. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and jeans. He raised blue eyes at Ronald and grinned.

"Hey, Uncle. How you doing?"

Ronald clasped him on the shoulder. "M'boy, you made it!"

The young man shook his black hair out of his eyes.

"I wouldn't miss your late B-day for the world." He lifted the bag in his grasp for Ronald to see, a mischievous expression bursting across his face."And I've brought presents."

Ronald was beaming. This nephew of his always had the same effect on him.

"For me?"

The younger man chuckled at his eagerness. "For all four of you."

"You're too good to us, lad. Too good. Now get inside, get inside; your brother is bursting to see you."

His nephew scrubbed his shoes clean on the doormat, stepped over the threshold and clicked the heavy oak door shut.

The man's name was Kal. He was twenty-two, slender, golden-smiled. Also, he was an angel, and a demon-hunter. He looked as though he had everything in the world at the reach of his fingertips.