Achieving Heaven Through Hell Part 1: A Peaceful Afterlife

Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Rehabilitation

Vaggie dodged a spear thrust from an Exterminator by a hair's breadth. She hissed a curse and pushed off the shaft with her hip, angling her harpoon up and under the angel's head. The damnably fast creature bobbed around her strike, its hand streaking out too fast to see. It grabbed her by the throat and hooked its speartip around the harpoon shaft, locking it with its gargantuan strength. Vaggie grabbed its wrist, struggling futilely in its implacable grip. She looked around at her other friends as they fought for their lives. Angel was pouring streams of hot completely ineffectual lead into an oncoming Exterminator. Husk was snapping his wrists as he sent cards flying; these, at least, were injuring the angels somewhat, though not nearly as disastrously as they would have had they been demons. They'd held them off for as long as they could, but there was no beating them. She felt tears burning in her eye, is this how she'd die? Her mind went to all the things she'd never do or see again.

Charlie.

She'd never see Charlie again. Never see her smile. Never hear her laugh. Who would run the hotel for her? Who would help her make her dream come true?

No!

She would see Charlie again! She'd kill these feathery assholes and find Charlie and fucking marry her!

Vaggie reached up and drew her dagger from its sheath, jabbing it into the smooth, rounded surface of the Exterminator's screen-face. The steel blade snapped with a sharp 'plink'. The angel's smile flickered, deepened, its red circle eye flashed a wink at her. Its deadly spear drew towards her with sadistic slowness, the Exterminator's grin bounced and jostled in what she could only assume was a laugh. Vaggie squeezed her eye shut, waiting for the burning pain and eternal darkness.

She felt herself falling, her rear thudded painfully on the floor. Vaggie opened her eye and looked around: the Exterminators were nowhere to be seen. Vaggie got to her feet, scanning the lobby frantically. Angel and Husk were no less confounded, their backs pressed together, wide-eyed and panting.

"What happened?" Angel demanded. "Where'd they go?"

"I dunno," Husk muttered, looking up at the ceiling. "God Given. Either he switched 'em off or he's dead."

"So, that's it, then?" Vaggie ventured, cautiously as though saying it aloud would call the angels back; considering the kind of day it had been, she felt this wasn't an unreasonable concern. "We won?"

"Looks like it," Husk said, also unwilling to tempt fate.

The five demons looked at each other and sighed, slumping in relief and exhaustion. It was over. It was finally over.

A small figure in a dress and a pink helmet appeared in the entrance, a boombox held over her head. "THIS QUIET OFFENDS SLAANESH!"

A soul-assaulting bass-line poured from the boombox's speakers, rattling windows and teeth as grating electronic screeches cut through the air like knifes. Angel screamed and spun around, Tommy guns blazing. The tiny figure squawked in surprised and leapt out of the way as a wall of lead disintegrated the boombox, killing the music.

The little demon peered around the door, flipping up the helmet and revealing a toothy, monocular face. "My boom box!"

"Nifty?" Husk said, swatting the muzzles of Angel's Tommy guns away from her. "Where have you been?!"

"Following the Noise Marines around on their Pentagram City tour!" The chipper little bug-demon chirruped, holding up a poster and some merch. "Sick Beats and Sticky Sheets: An Atrocity of Sound! ...Didn't I tell you I was taking a vacation?"