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“I think they have to want it. Nothing can make them.”
“You’re right.”
Standing, Lauren?iu glides to where Adrian is. They don’t move from their crouch. At least, not at first. They smell of blood and gunpowder, a smoky but sharp note that faintly reminds him of pepper.
“Have you ever been to an amusement park, Adrian?” he asks.
“No.” They pause, considering, standing and drawing the rifle close. “Well, I’m not sure. I don’t remember most of my childhood. Sometimes, I remember pieces at night...” They straighten. “My parents cared more about me learning skills and such over leisure.”
“They sound like my parents.”
“Mine weren’t the most compassionate.”
“Mine cared, but they were simply very busy. And when you come from another country in a place that always makes you feel like you have to prove yourself...they could be strict, but they meant well.” Mama had been excited for him to graduate college one day.
“Hmm.” Adrian’s gaze flickers out past an abandoned smithery where they’d eyed some steel swords. “Do you hear that?”
Lauren?iu pauses. He does. The post-rain wind has quieted, and there’s music. A violin warbling and slicing through the eerie calm.
“Is that...” he starts.
Adrian looks through their scope, but after a minute, they lower it.
Down on the ground, Paimon raises his nose into the air and sniffs. Daisy does the same, to Lauren?iu’s concealed amusement.
Paimon calls to them, “Angels.”
“Yes?” Lauren?iu replies.
“Seriously, I think there are angels here.”
“Angels,” Lauren?iu repeats.
“Angels,” Adrian also repeats, after some hesitation.
The demon king pauses, and then clarifies, “An angel, maybe.”
Adrian replies, “What does an angel smell like?”
“Ozone. Heaven-flowers. But this one is burning.” He sniffs. “Ah. That delectable tinge of burned meat.”
After Lauren?iu offers to help Adrian glide down, they decline curtly, strapping the rifle to their back and crawling down, he asks Paimon, “Should we try to search for them? Aren’t you worried we’ll be smote, smited, whichever it is?”
Paimon hums. “I feel like if anyone wanted to smite us, they would’ve already tried. I’m not sure anyone up there cares that much. Besides, I think this is a fallen one. And even if they weren’t...”
“Let me guess, almost getting killed is more fun and exciting.”
Paimon shrugs with two open hands. “Well, itis.”
So, they search for the source of the music. Daisy trots by their side The notes sound a little askew, but. He'd have a better time if it were a piano and not a string instrument, but he can still feel the offness when the music vibrates in his bones.
They pass under a place with living flowers—how unusual. Someone must be taking care of them. A kaleidoscope of flowers with bees zipping around them. Colors and hexagonal shadows dance on the pavement. Above them are dozens of bright umbrellas suspended in the air.
A reanimated person, an elderly woman in a thick violet sweater with cats on it, shuffles by a burst of beautiful red flowers, and Lauren?iu wonders if a part of her, deep down, registers the loveliness. If, though she can no longer cry, she remembers a bouquet from an old partner.
He then notices that she’s holding a green-painted watering can, but she makes no move to water the plants. She merely stares, her ice-blue eyes crusted around the edges with mucus but containing—maybe he imagines it—a hint of recognition.
Eventually, they come to a small, blue-painted gazebo designed to be a small stage. Indeed, someone is there, but not entirely alone. Cats are strewn all over. Little ones, big ones. Young and old. They stare and blink curiously.
