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The angel sitting on the stage’s edge has a heart-shaped face with olive skin and freckles that glitter like stardust, their eyes a deep ocher, their hair a burnished copper and curling down their head—or heads. From their “human” face protrudes two others with their eyes shut—a sheep on the left, a lion on the right, the mane blending into their hair.
They wear nothing but faded overalls over their thin, long form. Their bare feet, hanging off the stage, are actually two cloven hooves, their tail long with bristling hair like a flame.
“Hello,” the angel says as they approach, their voice timid and pleasant, but also dreamily distant. They nod at Paimon. “Brother.”
A grimace. Paimon raises a hand. “Oh, please don’t call me brother. If I have sex with you like I have with every other fallen angel, it’ll make it awkward.”
Lauren?iu raises a brow. “That’s your limit?”
“Hey, hey, no boundary-shaming.” Paimon gives a nod to the other angel and does a performative sniff. “You’re newly knocked off the cloud, aren’t you?”
Beside Lauren?iu, Adrian looks upon the angel with a mix of fascination, suspicion, and horror. He watches their reaction curiously.
Regardless, The angel doesn’t seem to mind. They blink slowly, their golden, sparkling eyes spiraling slowly like mercury. “I don’t get many visitors here anymore.” They then begin to play the violin propped on their knee in sharp, jutting motions. Like a banjo? Aren’t a violin and banjo the same instrument? Lauren?iu has never seen anyone play a banjo.
Paimon grimaces. “It’s out of tune. Too sharp. Give it here.” He impatiently snaps at the stranger, which might be rude, but the angel simply gives it over, holding on to their bow. The demon king then gestures for the angel to give him the bow, too, and he twists the black tuning pegs and plays, stopping to make minuscule adjustments until the sound is more balanced.
“Thank you,” the angel says once Paimon gives back the violin and bow.
“And your bow needs more rosin. Are you sure you’re from Heaven? Most angels have a better ear for music.”
“Paimon,” Lauren?iu says with an edge to his voice. Usually, he isn’t the sort to try to spare feelings, but he feels a little bad for this sole fallen angel. At least the fallen ones in Hell have...all of Hell.
Paimon regards Lauren?iu evenly. “What?”
Lowering his voice, despite it being fruitless among other supernatural beings, the vampire asks, “Don’t you think you’re being tone deaf?”
The new fallen angel looks between them with an inscrutable expression.
Paimon points two fingers at the other fallen angel and then himself. “Between them and me,I’mthe tone deaf one?”
Lauren?iu sighs. By the side, Adrian gives a sly, sardonic look.
It seems the political prowess that it takes to survive in Hell doesn’t extend to Earth. Then again, either Paimon figures he doesn’t need to bother—what’s new? this was the man who killed someone in the middle of the street—or even in Hell, he never has to trytoohard. One of the benefits of being Lucifer’s pet.
Something stirs in Lauren?iu. He tries to process and understand it. No, not jealousy. It can’t be. As if jealousy over Lucifer would work out well. Besides, in mortal life, he’d been quite used to being with people, mostly men, who were already engaged or married. And what is the bond between fallen angels but an eternal, infernal marriage?
The fallen angel gives a shrug. “I was never one to be chosen to play in the orchestra. I simply learned by listening. I listen to music in this strange but beautiful place and try to mimic it.”
Before Paimon can do something like ask what the hell the angel had been listening to, Lauren?iu asks, “Why do you stay here? Is it just to learn the music?” He was under the impression most fallen angels remained in Hell.
“It’s an interesting place. Its soul sings with mine. More than anywhere else.” They then look at Adrian. “Please don’t shoot anyone else. They’re my friends.”
Adrian stares. “Your friends? What do they do for you except shamble around?”
“Nothing but keep me company. That’s all. You know, many think that others can only mean something if they benefit them. I don’t think so, but then again, they benefit me just by being here.”
Lauren?iu has a lot of questions and looks at the angel’s two other faces, the animals. They look like they’re asleep or dead.
“Have you been to Hell?” Paimon asks.
The angel sets their bow aside and starts experimentally plucking their violin in a pizzicato with no set cadence. “Yes, but the quiet is too quiet, and the loud too loud. It’s a bit hard to explain. For all the closeness with others like me, there’s distance. There’s no way to truly belong.”
Lauren?iu understands exactly what they mean about the quiet and loudness of Hell. Neither is there to be comforting. The Ninth Circle, outside of the palace, is a stretch of bright-dark, wintry silence. And yet... “I’m not sure that’s true. That it’s impossible to belong.”
Certainly, they were in Hell, so for any complaints of unfairness, they belonged there. In court, he found that while he fixated on his past failures, mainly not being able to get out of the hospital before Mama died and not killing Anthony, he had a place in Hell. A routine.
And even if he didn’t have established relationships with most of the entities there, he’d connected with Paimon. It didn’t register as a connection the first time they spoke about poetry and art, but that’s what it was. No matter how many times Lauren?iu told himself that he was only trying to better his station.
