“So do you think Irene's magical spells will actually provide her any protection?” asked Damian after he came inside the ambulance to talk to his former guardian angel.
“It will provide some,” said Steve, “You do know magic is real, right? We forbid it because there's no need for it if God's on your side.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a horse galloping, coming from the sky above them. Baffled, they both peeked their heads through the vehicle's side windows and looked up. A slender feminine figure on a gray horse flew down and parked in front of the ambulance. Attached to her back was a set of multicolored translucent butterfly wings.
“No, it can't be,” said Steve as he opened the door, “Shae, is that you?”
Shae looked back and nearly fell off her horse when she saw Steve. “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, confused.
“I'm the guardian angel of the girl who lives here, Irene,” said Steve.
“Oh,” said Shae as she smirked, “Well this is a little awkward. Y'see, I was also hired to protect a girl named Irene who lives here. Gee, I haven't seen you in what, 900 years?” As she got off her horse, she stroked her long silver hair back behind her head, but it still ended up covering more than half of her face.
“Yeah, just about 900 years,” said Steve, “I don't know why I'm surprised you ended up in the security business. Who are you working for?”
“I'm freelance,” said Shae, “I have several agencies that I pick up jobs from, some are pagan, some are more generic. The demand for spiritual security has really been rising these days – while the Kingdom of Heaven has had a monopoly on the industry for the past two millennia, their quality of service has really plummeted in the last thousand years, no offense. After the crusades, witch hunts, and all the recent scandals with priests and pastors, who would want Christian angels to protect them?”
“Don't tell me this is some old fling of yours,” said Damian.
“Aww you have a ghost boy with you,” said Shae, “That's so cute!”
Damian's cheeks blushed slightly.
Steve answered, “No Damian, that is not how relationships work in the angelic world.” Turning to Shae, he said, “By the way, on the topic of having negative views of Christian angels, Irene doesn't want to have anything to do with me. She has a major crush on Damian, so I'm using him to help communicate to her about the evil spirit who wants her dead.”
“Who's after her?” asked Shae.
“It's Samael,” said Steve.
“Ugh, Uncle Sam?” said Shae, “It's disgusting how many people in this country worship that scumbag.”
Damian asked, “So are you like a pagan deity or something?”
Shae laughed and said, “I wish I was a pagan deity. That would sure be nice. Like I said before, sometimes I work for them if they pay me enough. A lot of pagan jobs are just minimum wage, but the feminist ones tend to offer much higher pay to spirits who identify as feminine, which is why I took this job.”
“Then are you a fallen angel?” asked Damian.
Shae crossed her arms and said, “Hey, not every spiritual being is an angel or a demon, you know! Haven't you ever looked in a mirror?”
Before he could respond, they heard a girl in the distance calling out, “Damian?” It was Irene, who opened the window to try to get the attention of the ghost that she could not see. “Let me know if you can hear me,” she said.
Damian flew up to Irene's bedroom and messed with the lights to make her aware of his presence. He would have spoken to her directly, but he was beginning to realize the amount of energy it takes for each action. Messing with electricity was far less strenuous than making an audible noise, let alone clear speech.
“I realized I have to go back to the store. I was so stupid, I forgot to get the pumpkin pie! I was so distracted with getting all the other items that it completely left my mind,” said Irene, “Did the help I requested come? Is she able to come with me too?”
Before Damian could think of how to respond, Shae flew in through the window at an angle visible to Irene. “Hi, my name is Shae, and I'm one of the fair folk,” she said, “I was sent here to help you after you submitted your request. Damian and I will both be watching you as you go to the store – we'll be moving in the spiritual realm, so you won't be able to see us. But we'll be protecting you.”
“Thank you,” said Irene, “I'll go ahead and get ready.” She would've been more amazed by this if she hadn't already had so many spiritual experiences in the past month. She went downstairs and grabbed her backpack.
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“How did you position yourself so Irene could see you, but no one else in the physical realm could see you?” asked Damian.
“It needs to be very precise for it to work. It takes centuries of practice,” said Shae.
Steve joined them with some spiritual armor to offer to Damian. “I expect a lot of evil spirits to come after Irene today. This should offer you some protection,” said Steve, handing Damian a helmet and a breastplate that were fitted to the ghost boy.
“Wait, since I'm already dead, what will happen to me if I get hurt?” asked Damian.
The angel slapped his left cheek.
“Ow!” said Damian, as he rubbed his ghostly cheek with his translucent hand.
“Pain,” said Steve, “And a serious injury could potentially scramble your dark matter particles, which take a long time and a lot of energy to reassemble.” Steve pulled out a small spiritual dagger in its sheath from the back of his belt and handed it to Damian, saying, “You can use this to help defend yourself.”
After Damian equipped himself, they all went to the front yard to await Irene. They looked keenly around the perimeter of the house for any hiding evil spirits but found none. Irene finally came out the front door, and as she walked off the front porch, she left the safety of her magically protected house.
As she walked down the sidewalk, intending to go the four blocks to the grocery store, two evil spirits jumped onto her shoulder, who had been hiding in the shadow of a stop sign.
“Two spirits of depression!” Steve called out.
In a matter of seconds, Damian noticed Irene's face suddenly become somber Her pace slowed as she began to despair the idea of having countless evil spirits who wanted her dead, while she only had two people on her side to protect her. It just felt hopeless. She started to regret rejecting the help of her guardian angel, but even if she had him, that would still be only be three protectors against who knows how many evil spirits were after her.
In an instant, one of the spirits was pierced with a flaming arrow and exploded into a cloud of black smoke. The same thing happened to the other spirit of depression. Damian looked back and noticed Shae holding her bow. “Got them!” she said.
Irene started walking at a normal pace again, feeling encouraged as she remembered all the magical training she had done and how unique it was for her to have any spiritual protection at all.
Steve flew into the air to get a better perspective around the area. He carefully looked around the area, and suddenly his eyes widened. “We have a dozen screamers coming through the fifth dimension.”
Damian tried to look up in the direction Steve was facing, and he had to squint really hard until he finally could make out the fifth dimension. And there they were: Twelve spiritual beasts galloping towards Irene. They looked like some sort of mix between a horse, a bear, and a dog. As they got closer, Damian realized why Steve called them screamers. They perpetually made a blood-curdling noise that sounded like a cheetah roaring crossed with nails on a chalkboard.
Shae aimed her bow and shot at two of the beasts while Steve lunged at one of them, tackling it as he drew out his sword to slash it to pieces. There were still nine others that got through them and landed on the sidewalk, unseen to anyone in the physical realm. Shae shot another, leaving only eight left.
Steve flew down to try to eliminate them with his sword, but after he slashed one, one of the screamers grabbed the hilt of his sword with its teeth. While Steve was trying to get the sword out of the grip of the beast's teeth, another one tackled him to the ground, knocking his helmet off his head.
“I got you, Steve,” said Shae as she unsheathed two daggers from behind her back and jumped onto the beast that was attacking the angel. She slit its throat.
Steve got up and kicked the beast that had his sword, causing it to spit it out. He and Shae took on three other screamers, but two of them got through them and went straight to Irene. The beasts jumped onto her shoulders and plugged their mouths directly into her ears.
Irene felt a faint tickle in her ear and reached her hand to scratch there, but her physical hand had no effect on the spiritual beast. “You have no living friends,” the thought entered her head as the beast whispered it, “No one understands you. Your family disagrees with your lifestyle. Your best friend is dead. Your true love is dead. What does this life have to offer you?”
Steve saw that the screamers plugged into Irene, and he tried to move over to her, but five more evil spirits landed on the sidewalk between them. These spirits were armed with fiery darts. Steve saw that Damian was closer to Irene, so he called out to him, “Damian, get those things off her ears! They're giving her negative thoughts. If you can, speak positive things to her to counteract their effect.”
Damian flew over to Irene and stabbed one of the beasts, pulling it off of her. He tossed the monster to Steve, who slashed it into two pieces.
A sharp pain came to his right arm and Damian let out a short scream; he noticed his right arm had been pierced by a fiery dart. He pulled the dart out, which caused even more pain, and tossed it away. He quickly examined his arm, noticing that there was not a scratch, since he was a ghost.
“Use this,” said Steve as he pulled out the round shield from behind his back and tossed it to Damian.
Damian caught it and noticed it had the emblem of a five-pointed star engraved on it. Two more fiery darts came his way, which he effectively blocked with the shield. Using the shield, he knocked off the other screamer from Irene's shoulder. “Do you really think it's going to get better?” it had been whispering as it fell off.
Damian noticed that Irene's face looked pretty distressed. The demonic thoughts had begun to get to her. Thinking quickly, Damian floated up to her ear and began to speak encouragement to her. Damian spoke softly so it would subconsciously impact her without her even knowing it was him. “Your life is loved and has immense value. You're not alone. There are many people experiencing the same thing as you – and they're looking for a friend just like you,” said Damian. He watched her face so he could make sure that she was receiving the positive vibrations into her psyche.
Irene finally made it to the store, as Steve and Shae finished apprehending the last of the demons. Irene's three helpers took a step back into the spiritual realm as they watched Irene walk through the grocery store to buy her item. There seemed to be a brief lull from the spirits after the witch.
“Since it's impossible to kill a spirit, does that mean they're going to come back?” asked Damian, “On Halloween, we had the saints come take the demon into captivity, but here they're just evaporating into smoke.”
“Yes,” said Steve, “It will take a few weeks for them to regain their energy though, so we should be safe from them for a while. Taking a demon into captivity like we did on Halloween is generally the most secure option, but there's so many today that it'd be unfeasible to try to arrest them all.”
Shae nodded her head in agreement.
Steve took his fiery sword off of his belt. “I got a message that they need me to investigate a double homicide over near Grace Through Faith Community Church,” the angel said as he handed his signature weapon to Damian, “I want you to use this to help Shae with protecting Irene while I'm gone. Just remember that the sword can be used defensively as well as offensively.”
“How will you defend yourself?” asked Damian.
Steve opened his wings, revealing that his belt was attached to a concealed holster containing a semi-automatic pistol. “It's a spiritual weapon, so it can only hurt spirits. It's slightly weaker in power than my sword so I don't use it as often.”
“Wow, you really do keep up with the times,” said Shae, “And I thought you used modern technology only for your transportation.”
Steve bid them farewell and flew into the sky.