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Redemption. Redemption. Redemption. Everywhere Lute goes she only now hears the word redemption repeatedly. Normally, this being Heaven, topics like that are common. Lute never agreed with them. It only got worse when angels started thinking that demons can now be redeemed. Demons? Redeemed? The very idea of that nauseated Lute to the point that she might literally puke her guts out. Or just regular vomit, whichever happens. They are angels. They are supposed to kill demons for committing the irredeemable crime of existing. A year ago, most angels didn’t even know what acts of justice Adam was doing for Heaven. Lute had hoped that one day all of Heaven would see what they were doing and properly worship Adam for all the good that has happened.
But no. Adam has been slain. And now angels are welcoming demons to our gates.
“Is this really happening?” Lute asked herself. “Are Adam and I the only real angels in Heaven?”
“Gee, I don’t know.” Lute turned around and saw Adam. But she knew that it wasn’t really him. “You tell me.”
Right now, here, in the shattered remains of Adam’s office, Lute was facing the hallucination of Adam. As far as Lute was concerned, Adam was the real God. He deserved to be worshipped and everyone in Heaven wasn’t doing exactly that. Heathens! They’ll find out soon enough. Lute will make sure of that. “We did everything right for Heaven.” Lute said and Adam nodded. “We showed the filth down in Hell they had no right to exist. We protected Heaven for years. And this is how they thank us? Rejecting the extermination? Welcoming demons to our gates? Peace?” That last word, Lute said it with the most disgust she could muster.
“Yeah, Heaven is turning into a real shit-show.” Adam said. Lute already knew this, but since Adam was in her head, that was to be expected. “How does feel knowing that you can’t even count on your own kind anymore?”
Looking down at the ground, Lute saw a large piece of glass from the window that she shattered long ago. Able had wanted to repair this room, what was Lute going to do, let him take over the office. Fat chance. No one deserved this room other than Adam, so no one else got to have this room. Let it stay like this to remind Lute what she lost. She picked up the piece of glass she was staring at. “I should have noticed the signs earlier. First it was the traitorous Vaggie. I should have ended her right then and there all those years ago.” She looked at her reflection in the glass. “Then that disgrace of a seraph.” Lute started gripping the glass harder. Cracks were starting to form. “And now even Sera has become traitor.” The glass shattered, fortunately she picked it up with her prosthetic arm, but felt all the same to her.
“You know, I really liked that window you shattered.” Adam said to her, but it fell on deaf ears. “And I can now see you aren’t listening.”
“Forgive me Adam. But I have more concerns than some window.” Lute didn’t look at Adam; she just stared at the shattered window and saw all of Heaven in front of her. “We’re supposed to be the righteous creatures and now we’re reduced to greeters and party planners. Now, thanks to Sera and Emily, almost all of Heaven is turning traitor. If now all of them are already.”
Lute didn’t see it, but she could feel Adam forming a sinister grin. “You know, you didn’t hear this from me. I mean technically you really didn’t hear this from me, but I know that some of your sisters are also welcoming demons.” Hearing that caused Lute’s eyes to twitch and she wasn’t for sure, but she thought that her eyes started getting red from the anger she felt. “Exorcists angels!” Adam continued. “Can you believe it? They were all on board helping me remove as many demons as possible every year. And now they want this whole redemption thing to go full swing.”
Lute didn’t notice, but from anyone else’s point of view, Lute’s teeth looked like they were getting sharper. Lute started hissing through her teeth. “I’ll fucking murder ALL OF THEM!!! AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Lute screamed at the top of her lungs so hopefully some of the angels around could hear her and know how serious this situation was. “I was right, we were the only real angels in Heaven. Traitors! Everywhere! I’ll make them pay, all of them.” Lute was certain that Adam was talking to her again, but she was too busy drowning in rage to hear anything else. All sense of sanity slowly slipping away.
Far into the city within Heaven, an Exorcist Angel was finishing up her training. Draping a sweat towel over her shoulders, she went over to the locker room. Stepping toward her locker, she took off her helmet and took her sweat towel to dry her face. She felt like she heard something but decided to ignore it, thinking that it was another Exorcist Angel doing a late workout.
It wasn’t until she saw a shadow in front of her locker that she turned around to see who it was. She saw her lieutenant, Lute, standing in front of her. “Oh, lieutenant.” The angel gave Lute a salute, but all Lute gave was a small growl. “I just came back from a workout. I broke record from my last bench press.” Lute remained silent. “Can I help you ma’am?”
In a split second, Lute grabbed the angel’s arm in a firm grip, enough to hurt the angel, and dragged her out of the locker room. “Ow. Lieutenant, what’s going on?” Lute stayed silent and get walking in an unknown location. After a minute she made it to her destination. Lute dragged the Exorcist into the area where the Exorcist’s have sparring matches. Walking to the center of the room, Lute threw the angel to the other side. “Lieutenant?” Still silent, Lute reached for her sword. “Oh, a sparring match.” The angel reached for her sword but only grabbed the hilt of her sword when Lute lunged at her.
The angel barely had enough time to react but quickly ducked the attack. She finally got her sword out and pointed it at Lute. Not facing the Exorcist, Lute jumped backward and then spun into the air, pointing the sword at her again. The angel did her best to block the attack, using both of her hands to hold her sword, she took notice that Lute was using a lot more strength in her attack. Seeing that the angel was using both hands to hold the sword, Lute used her prosthetic arm to attack, aiming for the angel’s stomach area. The attack knocked the angel back, knocking the air out, there was blood coming out as well.
Being hunched over, the angel tried to get back up, but Lute was too quick and her sword right into the angel’s left leg, causing intense pain. The angel screamed. She was both terrified and confused, why was Lute doing this? Their sparring matches were never like this. Taking her sword of the angel’s leg, Lute raised her sword for another attack. The angel held up her hand. “Stop, please. I yield.” Seeing the arm raised toward her, Lute swung her sword and struck the angel’s arm. The angel’s arm didn’t come off clean, so Lute swung again. Fearing for her life, the angel tried to crawl away. Seeing that only made Lute angrier. Lute grabbed the arm that she swung at yanked with all her might, pressing her foot down on the angel to steady her.
Lute kept her grip on the arm and pulled hard. The arm was being stretched to its limit and with a few more tears the arm came off. The angel was too shocked to scream. This didn’t end Lute’s rampage as she forcibly threw the severed arm on the ground along with her sword. Balling her hands into fists, Lute leaped onto the angel and started punching her back and forth. After several punches, Lute clawed the angel’s face, she didn’t think that she would leave a very big scar there but was grateful to herself that she did. Lute clawed the angel again, hoping to remove an eye, just like she did with Vaggie, except this time she plans on finishing the job.
The angel was starting to lose all feeling in her body, the only thing she could see was the crazed look in Lute’s eyes. “Why?” That was all the angel could ask. Hearing that made Lute pissed. This Exorcist thinks she has a right to ask why this is happening. First everyone wants to make peace with demons, and this one can’t think about why this is happening. Lute didn’t believe that she deserved to live another second.
She grabbed onto the angel’s head. “For Adam.” Lute twisted the angel’s head, making it do 180. The angel’s last act was coughing up golden blood and then fell on the floor, lifeless.
Looking down at the dead angel made Lute’s vision become blurry. “Look at what you made me do.” Lute clawed at the corpse. “Betraying Heaven.” Lute clawed the corpse again. “Betraying Adam.” And again. “Wanting peace with demons.” Lute eyes the other arm and grabs it. “You did this to yourself.” Lute pulled on the arm. “You all did this.” She tried to pull the arm off, but the fight to most of her energy. But she wanted this. She won’t stop until the arm is off and there’s only so much her nails can do, but she tried to remove it that way anyway. Clawing at the arm, Lute started grunting in anger. Before she knew some of the blood started spraying everywhere, including on her. Some of the blood got into her mouth, causing her to stop what she was doing.
The taste of the angel’s blood disgusted her. It tasted weird. Lute looked down at her hands and saw more of the angel’s blood. More of that disgusting blood of the traitorous angel. Lute started unconsciously breathing heavily and without even knowing that she was doing it she raised her regular arm to her face and ran her tongue through the blood-soaked hand. It still tasted weird, but the more Lute licked, the more she started to like the taste. Just like that an idea came to her. She didn’t think about it until now, and now that she thought of it, that’s all she could think of doing. She grabbed onto the arm she tried to rip off, taking a long look at it, unknowingly licking her lips at the sight of it.
Aiming for the parts of the arm that were clawed back and forth, Lute unsheathed her teeth, which was shown to be incredibly sharp now, and took a bite out of it. Pulling back on the flesh, Lute ripped the flesh off. She started to like the taste as she chewed and then swallowed. “This is…delicious.” Lute said that while some saliva started falling from her mouth. She dived back in for more. It was not until a minute of eating that Lute’s situation came to her.
She knew very well what she was doing when she killed the Exorcist angle, but now she started eating the body. Somehow, though, within her very being something was telling her to keep eating, like that she needed to eat before the body went rotten. Lute didn’t stop until the arm was finally off. Just as she was about to go for the hand, Lute heard a voice behind her.
“Damn!” Lute turned around and saw Adam again. “Just, damn. Taking down that angel was one thing but now you’re doing this.” Lute turned back to the body and went back to eating. “And now you’re ignoring me. So, you finally decided not to listen to anyone. Although what are you going do when someone other than me sees you doing this?” Hearing Adam ask that caused Lute to stop.
“I need to hide the body, before anyone finds it.” Lute thought to herself. She looked around and saw that there was no one coming, everyone must have left a while ago, she was too consumed with rage to have noticed. A thought came to her as she could still taste the blood in her mouth. “There’s nowhere better.” Leaving the body for a little bit, Lute rushed out of the room and then came back with a yoga mat, placed the body on the mat, and rolled it up. Looking down at the floor, she saw that there was still a lot of blood. Lute rushed out of the room again and grabbed a couple of buckets of water. Lute was making sure to wash away as much blood as she can. “Whatever still remains will just be mistaken for an intense sparring match.”
Satisfied with what she had done, Lute grabbed the body and hoisted it up to her shoulder. Taking her first step, she stepped on the angel’s other hand that she ripped off the first time. “Must’ve missed it. I’m getting sloppy.” Lute said as she picked it up. An evil, feral grin appears as she bit the thumb off, bone and all, and ate it. She stuffs it into the yoga mat with the rest of the body. “Save the rest for later.” Walking to the exit, while making sure no one sees her, Lute thought of something. “I wonder how demon meat tastes. Probably rotten and disgusting. I might just like it.”