Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The trouble with Hell is that it really doesn’t work the way Ava always assumed it did before her Fall. There are no burning piles of brimstone and fire, and there are no bottomless pits filled with the screaming souls of the tortured and the damned. Demons don’t run to and from their next temptation and conquest in the mortal world and nobody is thrown into Lakes of Fire just for the fun of it. While Hell has been cast primarily in somber hues of glittering crimson and reflective obsidian and it simply is not the Underworld that Ava had anticipated it would be.

Rather Hell is more of a bureaucracy, and a rather well organized one at that. Demons in the Greater Depths take great pride in their carefully thought out plans of temptation and contracts of damnation they present to mortal souls. There’s a hierarchy down here, although perhaps the phrase ‘down here’ isn’t the best phrase to use in this particular instance. That was something Ava had to learn fairly quickly seeing as the other demons were always there to correct her with a scowl when she used that terminology.

Much like Heaven, Hell doesn’t exist in a spatiotemporal way. There is no up or down, there’s not even a east or west. Hell simply is. It’s a completely separate plane of existence in the universe, sitting somewhere outside of space and time and the boundaries of perceived normality. There are of course still rules in Hell, carefully crafted ones at that. And torture does still exist, although it’s perhaps a bit more personal and intimate than some people may have originally realized.

Rather than torture being the run of the mill things that involve inflicting solely physical pain, it’s more crafted to the individual—a painful reality of a souls own invention. Whatever it is that humans feared or considered miserable on Earth, they now experience for eternity here in Hell. Of course the punishment does fit the crime, there are no unjust sentences in Hell. If a human was only moderately annoying on Earth, they receive an equally moderately annoying afterlife.

Ava’s learned that most of the torture here in Hell is psychological rather than physical in that regard. Middle-aged white women more preoccupied with themselves as opposed to the state of the world around them get stuck in endless loops in department store lines with no managers. And evil or corrupt politicians are trapped in loops where their worst scandals are revealed to the world while they fruitlessly perform their best efforts to get everything under control again. By the time these doomed souls have realized what’s happening and that they might be stuck in Hell, the loop restarts and once more they’re none the wiser.

Of course there is some good old-fashioned physical torture there in the mix from time to time, particularly for Hell’s most evil inhabitants that take up residence in the Great Depths. But for the most part that has been phased out seeing as Hell has recently come under new management. Rip Hunter is the current Satan Prime and he’s now the second Satan Prime that Ava’s had the displeasure of serving under.

Humans did get that one aspect wrong about Hell of course. There isn’t just one Satan, that would be impossible with so many souls and demons to govern over. Rather there are several Satans who are considered the Upper Order Demons, but there is only One Satan Prime. This time around, Ava doesn’t mind Rip, he is admittedly more flexible than Beelzebub ever was when it comes to Ava doing her own thing. And certainly Rip doesn’t insist that Ava go to Earth as much as she was ordered to under previous rulership, so that has been a nice and rather unexpected change.

With a small sigh, Ava takes in the demons rushing by outside her office door, likely all on their way to the Earthbound portals that sit just outside the Infernal Gates. Most of them are newly created demons who are still learning themselves that Heaven and Hell are infinitely more complicated than anyone might assume. Things couldn’t possibly be as straightforward as deeds sorted between good and evil. No that would be too easy.

There are shades of grey, and part of Ava’s job is sorting through those shades and determining just how dark a human soul must be before they fall into Hell’s territory. Demons of hell have the primary goal of keeping mortal humans on the path that they are set on, for better or for worse. Angels on the other hand attempt to pull them towards ‘a more enlightened path’. It’s a temptation game of sorts—both sides attempting to win out over the other in various different ways.

Ava personally finds angels meddlesome. There are some humans that simply don’t deserve salvation and Ava is more than happy to draft up the terms of their damnation. Just this week Ava was given the pleasure of condemning three souls that they had been watching for some time on Earth. It had been a long-fought battle with their respective angels, and Ava had been pulled before both Satan and God Prime due to her tendency to curse the angels when she happens to see them around. They did deserve it of course, and turning into a three horned toad is hardly a permanent thing for angels. If anything it had just scared them, and there’s always a bit of fun to be had in scaring the angels.

But today Ava is hiding in her office because she is meant to be out there with the hoards on her way to Earth. One of the demons working under Ava had made a real mess of things, and now it’s on her to go sort it out and properly tempt one Mr. Sam Goodfinch. It shouldn’t be hard, he’s a single man who lives alone in his parents basement and dreams of one day becoming a successful actor. The right contract with the right immoral benefits should be enough to persuade him to sell his soul over before the angels can attempt to influence him.

However Ava dreads going to Earth. Demons weren’t suited to be present on the mortal coil, certainly not management demons such as Ava herself. There’s too much breathing required there for Ava to be comfortable stepping foot on that plane of existence. Ava might have a beating heart, but here in Hell there’s no use for breathing—it’s simply something that the physical anatomy of demons doesn’t require or support. But on Earth, people do question those around them that don’t breath, and the whole point of traveling there is to blend in.

Ava won’t ever forget her first time stepping foot on the soil there. It was an agonizing experience, bolts of white hot pain rushing through her body as the air flooded her lungs for the first time in her immortal life. Each molecule of oxygen that filled each capillary in her body had felt like what Ava imagines gunshots feel like. She had fallen to her knees, choking on the new substance flooding through her as her friend Nora stood to the side. “You’ll get used to it,” Nora had muttered, scanning their surroundings to make sure nobody in the crowded train station was paying attention, “It’ll stop being painful the more you come up here.”

That had been a lie. Each time Ava has gone it has felt like fire running through her veins when she takes that initial first breath. Sometimes she thinks this only happens because Ava’s not a made demon, she’s one of the Fallen, and there are considerable differences. Ava wasn’t always like this, she wasn’t always a demon that took pleasure in damning souls and finding specialized locations in hell for those that have left the mortal coil. Once she too was an angel, a very dedicated one.

Now Ava’s dedicated in a different way. Her wings burned upon her descent, her halo snapped upon her arrival, her home gone as she was forced to forge a new one here. That was so long ago sometimes Ava forgets what it was like. She can’t remember feeling the things angels feel, like joy or real pleasure. Demons don’t have access to those things, they’re simply not in their nature.

With another dejected sigh, Ava stands from her chair and straightens out her all black suit. There is no time like the mortal’s present, and if Ava wishes to win this before Cecil can take Mr. Sam Goodfinch for Heaven’s victory, she really should get a move on. Pushing open her door, Ava welcomes all the clamour and chaos waiting just outside and steps into the bustling crowd. Time to head to Earth.

While Hell is where most demons reside, it certainly isn’t Ava’s home. She never fit in there and never felt as if she belonged. Her office might be on the Upper Management floor where she has easy access to the Files of the Damned and To-Be-Damned, but that is not where Ava prefers to spend her time. Hardly anyone really needs her to constantly be looking over their shoulder, and should some demon stumble into her office, Ava always leaves behind her summoning bell so she can be called back.

Rather than being there, Ava has made a little home for herself in the Realm. The Realm also does not exist anywhere but it’s own plane of existence, and it really is a peculiar little place. It’s the one location where demons and angels walk among each other and are almost polite with the opposite team. Angels and demons mingle down here in some capacity, though Ava tends to stick to her own kind. There are of course ghouls as well, old souls that somehow either slipped from Heaven or escaped from Hell and found their way here where the spend their eternity wandering and searching.

Ava of course has her favourite location in the Realm. While Hell is an endless circle and loop of constant hallways and offices that even demons sometimes get lost in, the Realm seems to be more bound to the general principles of physics and everything is much more easily located. If demons were capable of possessing fondness for something, Ava would be fond of the Library of Souls here in the Realm.

Inside the Library, stacks of shelves crowd the floors, the walls lined with rows and rows of books, each belonging to a corresponding soul on Earth. The décor is all shades of grey, slates and shadows, flints and graphites, all mixing together and forming the now familiar surroundings that Ava finds herself in more often than not. It’s the sheer lack of anything bright or blinding that has drawn Ava to this place. Nearly everything in Hell is some shining or reflective hue of black. Before becoming a demon Ava had no idea that there were so many shades of black, some so dark that no reflection can even be seen in it.

Here in the Library, the walls cant upwards perilously high, disappearing in clouds of mist that form the ceiling. Occasionally the mist comes down and sits along the dark tiled floors, always cooling and almost damp as Ava walks through it to her favourite table in the back. There are of course tables and desks laid out for the demons and angels that come here to do their respective research. This is meant to be the one place where curses are not allowed from either side. Of course the librarians are ghouls, and they’re not particularly good at their jobs so Ava has a bit of fun here and again.

The side walls are lined with more books and contain doors that lead to more guarded and organized archives. Certainly the Realm is not as organized as Hell, maybe because the ghouls never really know or care where they’re putting books back to. It means quite a bit of searching is often involved in finding the right human’s book, though Ava never minds looking around. The Realm has dampened some of her powers, but Ava can manage to summon the right book if she really knows what it is that she’s looking for.

Once settled at her normal table, Ava brings her chair forward, wincing at the screeching sound of the metal legs scraping over the tile underneath her. That happens every time, but the Realm was never meant to be an entirely comfortable or pleasurable place. Outside the world is always grey and dreary, the plants all stripped of their leaves and the drab cobblestone streets littered with mist and the occasional fluttering set of papers.

The book Ava needs is already tucked inside the bag she carried with her, a result of her taking it home last night when she should have left it behind. The damn thing smoked the whole time she had it in her possession, and Ava angrily removes it from her bag before fanning her hand inside to clear out the last remaining wisps of vapor that cling to the black interior. Towards the front of the building, a scream echoes through the stacks but Ava ignores it, knowing it’s just another ghoul letting out its frustration here of all places.

“Hey baby,” a cheery voice calls just as Ava’s about to open her book. Ava sighs quietly, the sound barely audible as she braces herself for the inevitable line that comes next. “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven?”

With her lips pressed together in a tight thin line, Ava turns her head to the side and finds the one reason that she often finds her peace disturbed in this Library leaning right against the side of the table. Sara Lance is there, her golden blonde hair cast in that shimmering light that always sits over her. As usual, Sara is smiling, her blue eyes shining and creased at the corners as she awaits Ava’s reply. “You know that we don’t literally fall,” Ava mutters, looking away from her because sometimes Sara is so bright that she hurts Ava’s eyes to look at for too long.

A laugh comes in response, a strange sound to hear here in the Realm but something Sara does quite a lot of. Sometimes Ava aches when she hears that rumbling sound because she thinks she might remember how it felt to laugh before. Laughter felt like vibrations in her chest, some force pushing from her stomach up to her throat and out her mouth to produce that sound. It’s not clear if Ava could laugh now if she wanted to, but she doesn’t want to try.

“You’re so blunt,” Sara states, slipping into the chair across from Ava, another screeching sound echoing through the air as she moves her chair in while Ava once more closes her eyes because that was somehow worse than the one her own chair made.

“I’m a demon,” Ava replies, flipping open her book in front of her and turning to the correct period in this human’s life, “We’re always blunt.”

That should be the end of the conversation. This should be the point where Sara laughs again and then goes off to the shelves to get her own mortal book and comes back to silently work across from Ava. They have a routine, one that Ava has just resigned herself to because for some reason Sara has designated Ava as her demon of choice to bother here in the Realm. But Sara doesn’t end the conversation there and she doesn’t follow the unstated protocols.

Instead she says something that instantly makes Ava’s skin burn. “You weren’t always a demon,” Sara says, and her voice is soft but the words sound so loud to Ava’s ears. This isn’t part of their routine, this isn’t part of their unspoken agreement to never talk about these kinds of things. Sara might be an angel, but somehow she is always the one breaking the rules and pushing the boundaries of their interactions. “Well anyways, not all demons are blunt,” Sara continues on while Ava stares at the same passage of the book in front of her, proud that she didn’t flinch, “Nora isn’t blunt.”

That is an entirely laughable statement that Ava cannot laugh to. But if she could, she would laugh, she would fill this entire room with those strange chest and throat vibrations because Nora is one of the most blunt demons that Ava knows. Lifting her eyes from the book, Ava levels Sara with a look only to find that Sara apparently had been trying to get a rise out of her. Sara’s sitting there with one of her legs up on the chair with her, her chin resting on her knee and that blinding smile on her face.

Angels are always blinding, but the Realm dims their powers as well. Still Sara somehow always has that light shining down on her and that warmth that radiates from her entire being, a result of the halo sitting over her head that Ava’s too cursed to see. Unlike Ava, Sara is dressed from head to toe in white, with white slacks and a neatly pressed white shirt and shining white blazer. It’s all too much to look at, so Ava glances away. “What are you working on?” Sara presses, clearly heaven-bent on forcing conversation today, “Something important?”

“I’m fixing your mistake,” Ava mutters, finding the page she was looking for and tapping the book in front of her before reaching for her pen, “You made Bob Bradshaw change his career path fifteen years in and now you’re pulling him off the path that I painstakingly have worked to keep him on.”

It’s annoying really. Years of Ava’s work undone simply because Sara had once again ignored the crucial role of Heaven and Hell and became personally involved with her charges. Ava had been watching from her own office once the alarms were going off, stuck there in her chair as Sara had approached the human on Earth and offered him a different life. They’re never meant to interfere so heavily, but Sara has never had any reservations about those kinds of things, neither has she been remotely apologetic. Part of that is because angels can’t be apologetic but Ava thinks she ought to try.

“He wanted to be a voice actor Ava,” Sara complains and Ava shifts in her chair because Sara uses her name far too much for comfort sometimes, “He wanted to go on and be the voice behind the new reboot of his favorite cartoon show when he was a child. Bob wasn’t made for the corporate world, he was meant for something else.”

Angels always say that, ‘humans weren’t meant for this’. It’s something that Ava thinks they really should take up with God Prime. For all this talk of what humans should and shouldn’t do, it really does appear that it should be the fault of their creator that they turned out this way. After all, God Prime is supposed to know it all isn’t she? “Have you heard him speak?” Ava asks, looking up at Sara and finding that ridiculous smile back on her face again, “His voice is entirely monotone, of course he belongs in the corporate world and not voicing some animated dog.”

When Sara laughs again, Ava almost flinches because it feels warm in a way laughter shouldn’t. Laughter should make Ava recoil, it should make her feel sick, but maybe the Realm changes that too. “Everyone has dreams Ava,” Sara says, and there she goes, using Ava’s name again, something that truly is getting out of hand. A demon’s name has power, something that Sara should not be invoking as an angel.

“Demons don’t have dreams,” Ava states plainly, going back to her book and hoping that’s the end of things.

But this is Sara, so of course they’re not through here. “Not those kinds of dreams, not the kind that come at night,” Sara explains, a soft quality to her voice that makes Ava peer up at her as she keeps her face tilted down. There’s a smile there on her face that almost looks wistful as Sara’s eyes focus on something to the side. “I meant aspirations, the things that humans want most in the world, even if it makes no logical sense,” Sara continues and Ava rolls her eyes because to demons everything has to be logical, angels are the ones constantly ruining things with creativity and imagination, “Don’t you have something you want most in the world, or something you once wanted?”

The question hurts. It stings and leaves a bitter taste in Ava’s mouth that normally only comes from visiting the Great Depths where even the air down there is heavy and polluted. Demons of course still feel pain, that is very much in their nature. And right now Ava feels that aching tug in her bones, the one that sits right where her now beating heart is in her chest. “No,” Ava lies, feeling a warm flush take over her body, heat settling where the pain once sat, “Right now the only thing I truly aspire to do is fix this and never find you meddling in my business again.”

“You’re mean today,” Sara states, and Ava swears she sounds amused.

“I’m mean every day,” Ava replies, not having it in her to go through this again. It’s a daily occurrence for Sara to call her mean and a daily occurrence for Ava to utter the words that she just spoke. Really everything about this is a daily occurrence and has been for quite some time. Ava’s not sure why Sara chooses to come down here to the Realm to do her work rather than staying up in Heaven, but it would be easier for the both of them if they could break this routine eventually and just go their separate ways. Nothing good ever comes from angels and demons getting too close, so Ava has been very careful to keep Sara at a distance.

“You weren’t mean yesterday when you let me try the hellfire fries you got from the Infernal Cart,” Sara points out as Ava scowls.

“You cried when you ate them,” Ava mutters, finding it rather hard to focus on doing her work when Sara’s shining over across from her. There’s even light cast on the table closest to Sara and Ava has often wondered if it might burn her should she reach out to try and touch it.

“I didn’t really cry,” Sara shakes her head, that smile there on her face when it shouldn’t be because she definitely did cry. It wasn’t crying from sadness, of course not, angels can’t be sad. But she did cry because they were spicy and invoked a response from her taste buds that spread straight to the tear ducts in her eyes. Ava knew it was going to happen from the moment Sara reached over and took one. “But you shared,” Sara continues on, her head back on her knee, her arms wrapped around it and her fingers clasped there, “I know there’s a little bit of good somewhere in you Ava.”

The words make everything in Ava’s body physically recoil, her stomach twisting and revolting inside her. Ava’s blood runs cold, her heart stuttering in her chest as her eyes fly upwards to stare at Sara. “Don’t say that,” Ava grits out, her voice low, menacing even as Sara’s eyes widen and she backs up, “You can’t ever say that, do you understand?” Guilt settles over Ava when she realizes that her fingers contain small tendrils of flames at the ends, the sleeves of her suit charring where the fire has licked them. Sara looks almost scared, frightened even if angels were capable of such a thing, and that wasn’t what Ava intended for here.

Ava can’t apologize because demons don’t do that and she’s sure that the words would burn all the way up from her chest before lodging in her throat. But she does feel sorry, or what she at least things is something resembling apologetic where it feels as if something heavy is in her stomach. “It’s dangerous,” Ava lowers her voice once more, clearing her throat and leaning back, “Demons can’t be good anymore than angels can be bad, and you shouldn’t say those kinds of things out loud unless you want to find out what happens when you say them around the wrong demon or angel.”

Somehow even the air around them feels thick and heavy, like it’s pressing on Ava’s chest and shoulders as she turns her attention back to her book. For a moment, Ava thinks that the light shining on the table might have flickered for just a split second, Sara’s light dimming. Silence now fills the space between them, but it’s not the kind that Ava had wished for before. This feels stilted and wrong, but there’s not much Ava can do about that as she brings her pen back up from the table and sets it to paper.

“Are you the wrong demon?” Sara’s voice is quiet, tentative, and maybe a little unsure. Ava wonders if angels even can be unsure of if that’s just her projecting. But when she looks up and finds that Sara’s brows are drawn and her smile has somehow faded, she realizes that maybe she wasn’t projecting entirely.

It’s a simple question but there are so many implications here. Statements like the ones Sara just made before Ava snapped at her could get them both reported. Ava should report her, those are the rules after all. But Ava’s not a full demon through and through. She won’t burn on the spot if something is broken, and after all, aren’t demons meant to break the rules? They’re certainly meant to lie and destroy and corrupt, so doing this won’t hurt. Keeping a secret isn’t so far outside of Ava’s nature after all.

“No,” Ava replies, glancing up at Sara for a split second before turning her attention back to the book in front of her, “I’m not.”

Ava met Sara some time ago, although she can’t remember exactly how long ago that was. Time in Heaven and Hell doesn’t exactly exist. It does in the Realm, though it moves strangely and Ava has noticed that the Realm tends to skip over Sunday and Wednesday entirely for some reason. The Realm follows more human governances of time seeing as it has been established by ghouls who were once human. They’re slightly less human now, which might account for the reason that things don’t operate quite as they should here, but Ava doesn’t entirely mind the bizarre happenings here.

It was another dreary day when Ava had entered the Library that evening, finding her way to the back stacks of the building and searching for a book for her most recent charge. Ava had come to the Library of Souls with the intention of minding her own business and drafting up a Damnation Proclamation for the old Satan Prime when she quickly found that an angel had crash landed into her research session.

“Is this seat cursed?” the voice had asked as Ava was halfway through working on the terms and stipulations of the contract, her pen bleeding blood red ink all over the unholy paper.

The joke had been a bad one, chairs aren’t cursed in the Realm like they are in Hell. From time to time the more juvenile Lower Level demons enjoy pulling pranks when they can, always something silly and pointless and almost always involving chairs for some reason. Ava herself had been victim to more than a few of those pranks, her least favourite being the shooting curses that rocket the occupant of the chair up in the air a few feet after some time has passed.

But in the Realm, Ava’s curses don’t work the same way they do in Hell. She can of course curse things, but not with the ease that she could in her own domain and it always takes quite a lot out of her. Ava had been about to tell the other demon that when she had looked up and realized that it was not a demon before her but rather an angel. An angel with amused blue eyes that shone and sparkled and a smile that never really did leave her face once that day.

Angels are always easy to spot, even in the Realm. They have a glow to them, something that’s felt more than it’s seen really, particularly when they’re outside of Heaven and are also removed from the source of their abilities. Of course Ava had known what Sara was right away. She had noticed the slight shimmer to Sara’s skin, the way the light managed to hit her just perfectly and lit up those glimmering azure eyes no matter where Sara stood in the room.

In the Realm, angels are far less common here than demons are. The Realm dims the powers of all Holy and Unholy beings alike, though usually angels are more finicky about that kind of thing. That being said, there are some angels that choose to reside in the Realm by choice, though Ava knew right away that Sara was just a visitor. “I’m looking for the ghoul lexicon,” Sara had explained, leaning on the desk, so apparently unconcerned that she was talking to a demon, a Fallen angel no less, “The being at the front told me it was in the Room of Wandering, but I was just there and can’t find it anywhere.”

First timers in the Realm are easy to spot. They haven’t learned that nothing here works quite as it should and hardly anything is predictable. In the Library this means that sometimes books will randomly take themselves back to their shelves midway through their use, or sometimes the shelves will spit about twenty books on the ground as someone passes by. And the ghoul lexicon is one of the most elusive books of all, always hiding and running away. Clearly whoever sent Sara after it had been messing with her, but that was something Ava chose to let her find out the hard way.

“You’ll have to figure it out yourself, though it might take you a while. The lexicon isn’t friendly,” Ava had mumbled as she went back to her book, wanting her shining and shimmering new companion to leave her alone, “I can’t help you, I’m here to do work, not to educate nuisances on how to find books in the Realm.”

The response from Sara had been a gentle laugh, something that made Ava’s stomach turn as Sara had walked away, taking her little beam of light and those piercing blue eyes with her. Once she was gone, Ava had relaxed into her seat again and went back to drafting up the document, wanting to just get it done so she could take it to the old Satan Prime.

Of course even in the beginning, Sara always was persistent in the way that only angels ever are and she had been back at the desk in a short amount of time. When a heavy thump had sounded on the other side of the table, Ava had of course looked up in annoyance. But her frustration quickly faded and turned into something entirely different because there on the desk was the ghoul lexicon. Sara shouldn’t have been able to find it that easily, and she certainly shouldn’t have been able to carry it back with her without the thing vanishing from her hands.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Sara had smiled as she sat down and shed her white jacket that she was wearing overtop a shimmering floor length white gown with bell sleeves, “You made it sound like finding this was going to take me all day.”

It should have. It should have taken her more than just all day or even all week. Demons don’t ever feel impressed, but if Ava could, she might have been that day. Even on day one, there was something that felt unsettling about Sara. She knew too much about humans and was far too meddlesome, even as angels go.

Ava had of course ignored her, even as Sara talked to herself while she worked, reading out things from the book there on the table that made Ava roll her eyes in exasperation. But she couldn’t help but spare glances up here and again, slightly interested in the angel that managed to not only find and trap the ghoul lexicon but had somehow charmed it enough to get it to remain near her.

When Ava left that day, she had just assumed that would be the last she saw of Sara. It’s not common for angels to continue returning to the Realm, especially if they have no reason to. So Ava had gone home and left that encounter in the past, keen to move on. She had no idea that day was going to mark the beginning of their time together and that overtime, Sara was going to become even more of a nuisance than Ava ever thought possible.

“Find anything interesting today?” Nora calls as Ava comes into their little shared apartment and sheds her coat at the door. Most demons live alone, but Ava never could get used to that after she had lived with three other angels back when she resided in heaven. Originally when Ava met Nora, she didn’t like her at all. Nora was calloused and so cold to the fact that Ava wasn’t just adjusting to Hell as new demons do, but rather Ava was adjusting from being an angel.

Everything Ava had known and cherished had been ripped from her. Even Ava’s ability to cherish and love things had been torn away, leaving an empty and aching gap in her chest that she still sometimes thinks is there. It wasn’t just the emotional changes that Ava had to learn to adapt to, but it was the physical changes as well. Her halo had been snapped, leaving broken horns that protruded from her head that always seemed to ache when someone touched them. As Ava fell, her body tumbling through air and space that never really existed, her wings had burned.

The pain had been excruciating, and Ava had been able to do nothing more than cry out soundlessly as she watched her lovely silver wings go up in flames. They had stretched out along her body, about four feet on either side and Ava always used to wrap them around her for comfort when she needed it. The tip of each silvery feather had been tinged gold, always catching the rays of light and sending off dazzling reflections. They were so beautiful and Ava had loved them so.

Now there’s only scars along her back where the fire had singed her skin. Bandages cover the wounds that never healed where the bones that supported her wings had been ripped from her body once she landed. Hell always has been a cruel place, and now that’s where Ava belongs with her body that sometimes doesn’t feel as if it belongs to her most days. Every now and then the breeze will blow in the Realm, a ghastly and bone chilling wind, but Ava swears she remembers how wind felt when it ruffled through the middle of her feathers and almost tickled.

In the beginning, Nora was nothing but impatient with Ava, snapping at her all the time and forcing her to accept that this is reality now. In a way, Ava’s almost thankful that Nora threw her into the depths of what it’s like to be a demon, it made her acclimate faster. Some fallen angels never get used to hell and they simply wither away and become the ghouls that Ava sees wandering around.

But now Nora is something close to a friend, and if Ava could still be fond for things and for others, she would be fond of Nora. Sometimes Ava thinks that maybe the fall didn’t burn everything away from her. Sometimes Nora makes a joke or does something to help Ava and she thinks that she at least remembers the remnants of what it felt like to truly care for someone. And now they live together, something Nora swore she wouldn’t do but Ava thinks that perhaps there’s a chance Nora might have something close to fondness for her too. Demons have the ability to feel respect, so that might be it.

Whatever the case, Ava likes their little living arrangement here. “Well I’m still attempting to avoid that required trip to Earth to see this condemnation appeal through,” Ava sighs as she comes into the livingroom where Nora’s stretched out along the couch, a little two tailed cat sat perched on her chest, “I’ve requested that someone else go through for me instead, but Rip is insistent that I get the hang of breathing at some point or another on Earth.”

“He has a point,” Nora murmurs, making a face as Ava reaches over her and takes Belial in her arms, an evil name that really does not suit the good mannered little ghoul that has chosen to manifest as a cat. “You should have learned how to breathe properly down there ages ago,” Nora continues as Ava comes around to take a seat next to her, “I know you hate Earth more than anything else,” Nora pauses and Ava glances to her, hearing something there in her tone that she doesn’t like, “Are you sure that your dislike of the place has to do with the breathing and not what it reminds you of?”

It’s a question that Ava’s not going to answer honestly and they both know it. “I barely remember my time there from before Hell,” Ava replies, feeling warmth settle over her body as the lie comes, “You know that my memories from Before have been mostly stripped away now, so yes, it is the breathing.”

In Heaven, Ava spent quite a bit of time on Earth. And while it is true that most of her memories there have been stripped away, she still has access to a few of them, particularly to the reason that she Fell. Nora isn’t quite wrong though, and Ava’s not inclined to tell her the truth. Truth telling is not something demons do, that’s the entire point of being a demon. To lie is to continue to exist. Plain and simple.

“I’m contemplating finding a new table at the Library, somewhere hidden and remote,” Ava laments as Belial tucks her head under Ava’s chin, the little tortoiseshell ghoul-cat already purring quietly, “Somehow no matter where I go, Sara finds a way to locate me, and I have reason to believe that our interactions are becoming dangerous.”

While Ava trusts Nora, she doesn’t dare tell her the full reason behind thinking this. Even Ava thinking about the reason is dangerous. Satan Prime would surely restart Ava if he learned of some of the things that bounce around in Ava’s head, and Ava’s made it this long without being restarted and wiped, she doesn’t wish to tempt fate.

Beside her Nora shifts, reaching for the remote to the screen mounted on the wall that only works half the time. “Angels and demons are allowed to interact Ava, you know this, especially here in the Realm where things are different,” Nora explains and Ava just hums because she’s pretty sure they’re not different enough to accommodate Ava’s issue here, “Besides, you could hide all you want, you know angels have a knack for finding things, and Sara certainly has a knack for finding you.”

That is the truth in a way, and Ava lets out a small sigh, shoving down her desire to explain everything. “Yeah,” Ava mutters, scratching Belial under the chin and staring into the cat’s soulless blue eyes, “Well let’s just see what’s on the program tonight, it’s been a long day of temptation and damnation, I think we deserve a good rest.”

Sometimes Ava looks back to the beginning of their little meetings together and gets a good kick out of the things they would do to attempt to frustrate each other. In Ava’s case, it made sense, demons are meant to be bad and devious. Angels are not. They’re supposed to be good and benevolent, actors of kindness and grace. Though it became increasingly clear that Sara never was much interested in the rules. Every time Ava saw her, Sara was constantly going out of her way to do something infuriating.

They spent what had to be months messing with each other. Ava would curse Sara’s chair when she went to sit in it after Sara had talked Ava’s ear off, then Sara would slip liquid gold into Ava’s tea so Ava would cough until it burned. It didn’t help that sometimes they would both be given the same charge, and then their work in the Library would be to research ways to thwart each other’s plans.

What had to have been about six months into their time knowing each other is when Ava thinks things started changing. Ava had been browsing the books in the Reign of Terror archive, looking for a particular soul there that had been misplaced by the inept ghoul that was running the Library at the time. For some reason that day Ava was failing to summon the book to her, and she was growing frustrated in her efforts to do so. Nothing had been working, no mumbled curses uttered against the shelves or threats made to the inhabiting ghouls. And of course the lexicon was hiding, so that was a useless endevor.

Just as Ava had been about to go off to Hell and manually pull up the Earth feeds, several of the books had been ripped from the shelf she was at, and Sara’s face had appeared on the other side. It had been so sudden that Ava had recoiled, flames appearing along her fingers as Sara grinned at her through the shelves. “Don’t do that,” Ava had muttered, setting out the fire along her skin and pointing to Sara in warning, “Don’t you know what happens to angels who scare demons in Libraries?”

“Nothing good I’m assuming?” Sara had teased, that infuriating smirk stuck on her face as she disappeared from view before coming around the corner where she stood in Ava’s row. The light thrown from her body had illuminated the shelves, casting shadows at Ava’s feet, the light stopping just before it found Ava’s own shadow there along the book cluttered floors.

“I could curse you, you know,” Ava had muttered, ignoring Sara’s presence and the warmth that always fills the air whenever Sara’s around. Ava had been rifling through the unkempt books even as Sara laughed, the sound bouncing off the shelves around them and finding it’s way right to Ava’s ear and resounding in her brain. “I could turn you into a toad,” Ava had continued, trying to shove out the noise. “One with horns and three eyes, or maybe even turn you into a maggot if I’m feeling particularly evil today. Nora already has three of you in a jar in our kitchen.”

It was a lie, Nora did have three maggots in a jar sitting in the kitchen, but those were for use in the little herb garden sitting along their sink where they’d rigged an artificial light so they could grow things. “You’re not going to turn me into a three-eyed toad,” Sara had said in that all too smug tone of voice as she crept closer, her warmth almost burning through Ava’s cloak, “We both know that if you did that, you’d get the pleasure of explaining to God Prime how you cursed another of her angels this week.”

That particular week had not been a good one for Ava, so she had gotten into a bit of trouble for cursing three angels in the Realm. They were all minor things, setting fire to robes or canceling out the warmth their halos provided. But Sara was right, Ava did not wish to earn herself another disapproving visit from God Prime, so she really wasn’t going to curse Sara. “Gideon doesn’t intimidate me,” Ava had huffed as she grabbed a book only to find it was the wrong one before tossing it to the ground, “I’ve been summoned before her far too many times to care. And besides, she already cast me to Hell, what’s the worst she could do now.”

At that point Sara already knew Ava was a Fallen angel, but Ava still avoided mentioning it around her because it tended to lead to questions Ava never wanted to answer. “Well then maybe you won’t curse me because I have something you want,” Sara had lilted. By the time Ava had straightened up and looked to her, Sara was leaning against the shelves and proudly displaying the book there for one Bradley Dupont, the very human soul that Ava had been searching for all day.

“Give me that,” Ava had demanded, holding out her hand and glaring even as Sara laughed, “I mean it, give it back or I will set fire to your robes again.” It was an empty threat because Sara had started charming her robes around Ava after the last time Ava lit them in dancing blue and silver flames.

When Sara held the book out of reach, the object hovering there a few feet in the air above where Ava’s head was, Ava had leveled her with a glare. “I have a proposition for you, seeing as we’re both working on his case,” Sara had begun as Ava frowned, stepping backwards so there was more space between them, “I thought that we could make a little bit of a bet to see who’s side he decides to join.”

It’s clear what Sara meant by that, but it took Ava a minute to think back over the rules to figure out if something like that was even allowed. “You want to make a bet?” Ava checked, staring at Sara incredulously, “To see whether he ascribes his soul to Heaven or to Hell?” When Sara hummed and nodded her head, Ava had scoffed in surprise, “Are you sure that you’re an angel, because this is not the kind of thing you’re meant to be doing.”

While it wasn’t against the rules per say, Ava was pretty sure it wasn’t exactly encouraged either. Placing bets on mortal souls was something that had been frowned upon since the original God Prime and Satan Prime had toyed with Job all those eons ago. “I’ve grown bored,” Sara shrugged and again Ava scoffed because Sara hadn’t been around nearly long enough to understand what boredom really is. That and angels are incapable of feeling bored. At best they can feel restless, but more in a hopeful and excited way and less in a soul-crushing and defeated way that belongs only to demons.

But it was then that Ava took a moment to really take Sara in, staring at her outfit and realizing that Sara was not dressed in all white. Instead she was wearing a bright blue shirt that nearly matched the color of her eyes. It had long flowing sleeves and a dipping neckline and it was tucked into the front of crisp white pants. “This is not angel attire,” Ava pointed out as she folded her arms over her chest, “You’re meant to be in all white, sometimes I think it’s almost as if you want to be reported.”

“I spilled something on my shirt earlier,” Sara had replied, waving her hand in the air. It had to have been a lie because even in the Realm, angels could use their miracles to get stains from clothing. “But back to the proposition,” Sara prompted, holding her hand out where the book came down to land as the other hand stretched out towards Ava, “Do we have a deal or not Ava?”

That day was the first time that Sara had used her name rather than calling her demon, and Ava had felt the word settle in her ears and her mind as it fell from Sara’s lips. Demons are meant to be those that lead others to corruption and sin, but nobody had told Ava that angels could sometimes be just as tempting. Everything in Ava told her to say no that day, but she had ignored those pleas coming from inside her as she held her hand out, “You have a deal angel.”

One thing about Hell is that it’s almost always quiet here. There are a few times of day where the hoards are boisterously loud as they pass through the main Sanctum outside Ava’s office on their way to the Earthbound portals. But for the most part, silence falls over Hell and manages to make everything feel comfortably unsettling. It took Ava some time to get used to it, to the way that the sheer lack of sound meant every little noise was that much louder.

Even now as she’s going through the shelves on the other side of the Sanctum, Ava is aware of the sound of her heart beating in her chest. The day that the organ began pumping for the first time was the day the Ava Fell from Heaven. From the moment her feet touched the shining obsidian floors outside the Infernal Gates, Ava felt the first twitch of that previously useless muscle that sat inside her chest.

Her wings were gone, only bones and cartilage left behind there along her back, her halo had snapped when she made contact with the hard and unforgiving floors of Hell, and now Ava’s heart had begun beating inside her chest. All demons have a beating heart, something that angels don’t have because they have no use for it. Halos are what keep angels warm, they provide the light and heat that is needed to keep living. But without it, a being could die from the cold and the darkness.

So here in Hell, all the muscles and organs in demon’s bodies pump and thrash and circulate blood all around bodies. It’s a messy mechanism, one that had been so painful in the beginning. Ava hadn’t known the hearts could race and slow down to a sluggish thump. She had no idea that they could pound or falter, stutter or jump. Hearts give away lies and truths through their movements, so demons have to be very careful in guarding their secrets lest their own bodies show what they don’t want anyone else to see.

And hearts are loud. When Ava’s surrounded by the sheer silence of Hell like she is now, all she can hear is the rush of blood in her ears, the quiet thumping of her heart as it beats inside her chest. It’s sometimes a sound that Ava can hear above everything else, even when a room has descended into noise and chaos. Her heart always has had the tendency to be a bit of a traitor, giving away her real feelings about things while Ava does her best to pretend that she feels something entirely different. Ava’s heart has almost formed a conscious of its own, and she rather wishes that it hadn’t.

Neat footsteps sound over the polished dark floors and Ava can tell who is approaching her from that distinguished heel-toe clicking pace that comes from behind her. “Demon Sharpe,” the voice says cordially, tinted with just the hint of an accent, “I have been looking for you in your office, but it appears as though even your summoning bell has gone missing this afternoon.”

There are no afternoons in Hell, but the new Satan Prime has always insisted on assigning times of day to everything. Ava personally thinks that sits somewhere close to blasphemy, appropriating human world things to the plane of Hell, but she doesn’t argue with him on it. “Has it?” Ava pushes off from the ground where she had been going over the new demon files, “I must have placed it somewhere else on accident when I was getting ready to head to the Realm today.”

It’s a lie, Ava had hidden it because she is not in the mood to be bothered today. When she turns around, the heat settling over her body at the lie told, she comes face to face with Rip Hunter. He’s dressed in the classic all black coat with horns that all Satan Primes have worn in the past. Under that Rip has on a crimson blazer, the only demon here in Hell that can wear something other than black. “I see,” he states with his lips in a tight line, clearly not buying her misdirection, “Well I was hoping that you could tell me what this is I’m hearing of a demon under your charge having gone rogue on Earth.”

Yes, that has been quite the dilemma today. Ava sighs as she composes her thoughts, looking around the alcove they’re in that contains vaulting walls that lead up to spiked ceilings, everything in a reflective shade of black. The walls have shining red gems embedded in them here and there, gems that give heat to the bodies of demons that run their fingers over them. Each little ruby contains the packed cells of leftover souls that have been here so long they’ve turned into the very structure of Hell itself.

“I don’t understand how it’s happened, but one of my Lower demons has somehow fancied itself a human all of the sudden,” Ava replies, pinching the bridge of her nose in exasperation as she takes in a non-existent breath, “I’m currently working on locating his file, and the moment I have it I’ll be summoning him back.” Ava pauses, looking to the filing cabinet she was tearing through, “I suspect that he’s somewhere in the Woodstock era, there always was plenty of fun and temptation to be had there, and it’s where he was last located on Earth.”

From time to time demons will disappear on Earth for longer than they should be gone. Some of the newer demons who are fresh from the pits of Hell have the tendency to be disillusioned with the idea that they could live full time on the mortal plane. It’s not true of course, they would turn to ash after spending a week down there. Demons that discorporate on Earth always take such a long time to be pieced back together here in Hell and Ava never enjoys when one of the demons under her charge makes her go through such a laborious process.

When Rip hums, it sounds like a disapproval, though Ava’s sure it’s not towards her. For the most part, Rip seems to almost tolerate Ava on a better day, something the Satan Prime from before never did. Usually Ava’s not regarded well around here seeing as she is one of the Fallen. For some reason this means that she’s cast out by the true demons who have been here since the start of it all, and those who were made here as well. It’s taken time for Ava to work her way to her position now, and she knows that she earned it from all her devious deeds and damnations.

Again Rip sighs, tapping his foot there on the ground before checking the watch around his wrist that likely contains his other appointments for the day. “Well see to it that it’s fixed soon,” Rip tells her, already turning around and heading from the alcove, “And Ava.” He stops there and looks over his shoulder, surprising her with the use of her name, “I’ve been hearing a lot of this angel Sara Lance and the trouble she’s causing for us, see to that as well if you’ve got the time. I think she could use someone like you going against her.”

That is doubtful, but Ava keeps her mouth shut as Rip disappears around the corners, his body disappearing in a cloud of black smoke and mist. “Sara,” Ava mutters under her breath, turning back to the filing cabinets. Whatever Sara has done now, Ava’s sure that she’ll hear about it later. But for now, she has a demon to find and punish before he finds himself separated from his body on Earth.

Sara and Ava’s time together started like that, bets and wagers placed on the human souls that they shared cases over. It wasn’t something that should have happened, Ava knew the dangers of being seen working alongside an angel, even if she was actively trying to beat Sara in their little competition. Between the two of them, they both won a fairly even amount of times. That wasn’t due to a lack of Ava trying, she certainly did her best to corrupt every single one of those humans that crossed her path. However Sara’s charms were more than Ava had been expecting.

Nobody in Hell seemed to notice a single thing. Only Nora knew of the bets happening, and she had warned Ava to be careful, to be very mindful of the dangerous game she was playing. Ava of course had not needed to be reminded that there are severe repercussions for the angels that get caught working with demons. But she was always tentative when it came to her bets with Sara, always looking over her shoulder each time they would come together in the Library and discuss what had happened.

Somewhere along the lines, sometime when Ava hadn’t been paying attention, the challenges almost turned friendly. Even Sara and Ava were different around each other, the kind of different that Ava is only aware of now in hindsight. Rather than shutting down all of Sara’s questions, Ava would do her best to answer some of them, revealing to Sara what she did for her job, telling her small things here and there about Hell, a place that Sara was determined to one day sneak into.

Of course they still squabbled, it’s in their nature to do so, and they could hardly go against that. Ava would sometimes light Sara’s things on fire with a carefully pointed finger in her direction, always smiling as whatever it was went up into dazzling blue and silver flames. And of course Sara would ‘accidentally’ give Ava the wrong food, something to sweet and rich for a demon’s stomach to handle.

It offered Ava a certain bit of reprieve from her day. Day in and day out all Ava does is send souls to their own condemnation in Hell or help keep her Lower demons in line. Even Hell can be boring, and as long as Ava had been there, everything had turned into the same dull routine. Sometimes even Ava would grow bored with torture to the point where not even some of the most interesting and amusing personal Hells were fun for her to stop and watch anymore. The world had lost some of its appeal in Ava’s mind, something that it never really had much of in the first place.

But Sara broke up that monotony and Ava let her. Not once did Sara cease showing up to the Library with her shimmering skin and striking blue eyes that almost seemed to pierce Ava through to her bones. Not once did Sara ever back down from a single challenge that Ava presented her with in some of their more stubborn humans. Not once did Sara stop laughing or smiling, teasing Ava with her gentle jokes as they sat around that table together with a beam of light shining right down over them.

And at a certain point, Ava came to anticipate their time together, waiting restlessly at the table for Sara to show up, looking around to see where she’d come from this time. Until the day Ava realized that their bets had to come to an end, that they were teetering too close to the line between danger and safety. The last thing Ava needed was to have one more event happen that nudged them too far. She’d never forgive herself if something happened because she hadn’t been able to resist the gentle temptations of an angel.

They were supposed to be meeting that day to discuss the terms of an upcoming bet, but instead when Sara entered, Ava knew that they were going to be postponing that. “God Prime has tasked me with the most impossible human on the planet,” Sara had complained as she slunk into the chair across from Ava, her wings fluttering as she shook out the remnants of the misty rain that had been falling in the Realm that day.

Ava’s eyes had been transfixed to Sara’s wings, finding them so different than her own once looked. It was easy to look at Sara’s outstretched wings that day and remember how Ava’s own had felt along her spine, thousands of tiny feathers dancing and brushing along her skin throughout the day, the sensation bringing her warmth and a sense of joy. But now there was nothing there but the adhesive corners of the bandages Ava used to cover the open wounds that marred her skin.

It was easy for Ava to remember the day she Fell, how her own wings had been thrown to the ground, clattering there with a sickening sound that echoed through the room and it’s high cast ceilings. Golden ichor should have been dripping from Ava’s wounds when she reached around to feel the place they had been ripped from. But instead that day, along her fingers she found only blood as black and thick as the moonless nights in Hell. The Fall hadn’t taken long, but that time had been all it took for the Change to happen. Before her wings were even ripped from her body, Ava had become a demon.

“Ava,” Sara had said Ava’s name, her expression drawn when Ava had snapped from her thoughts that day and turned her attention back to Sara, “You okay? It looks like you were really deep in thought there for a moment, something I didn’t know demons could do.”

Her light smile and easy tone had been the opposite of soothing that particular day. Instead it had put Ava on edge because she didn’t need someone asking if she was okay. “I’m fine,” Ava had replied gruffly, straightening herself out in her chair and looking to Sara, “Now what were you saying about this human of yours?”

Sara didn’t look convinced, she almost looked concerned, something she couldn’t possibly be. Angels can of course be concerned for others, but surely they couldn’t be concerned for demons, so Ava had written it off, explained it away as Sara just being concerned that Ava hadn’t been listening and had missed some of her story.

But Sara hadn’t paused for long, something Ava found relieving about Sara’s nature, she never did let much phase her. “I was saying that God Prime gave me a human that really does not want to change their ways,” Sara huffed, leaning her elbows on the table and looking absolutely vexed that she couldn’t bend the human to her wills, “And I know he’s not one of your charges, but if there was a way for you to make things just miserable enough for him, I—”

“No,” Ava had said immediately, almost all the warmth leaving her body as Sara’s eyes had widened in alarm. Panic was flaring all through Ava’s chest, an aching reminder to her time Before, to the mistake she once made in asking a demon for help. “I can’t help you,” Ava shook her head, rushing to stand from the table, her blood still cold in her veins even as her skin felt flushed all over, her body lit up with electricity. “I can’t ever help you with something like that,” Ava said, gathering her things as Sara watched on, her head tilted in confusion, her expression so earnest it hurt, “I have to go, but we’re done with the bets Sara, no more.”

After that, Ava had left in a rush, her heart pounding in her chest, her thoughts clamoring loudly in her brain. It wasn’t Sara’s fault, she hadn’t known. No angels know. It’s a test of some kind, one that is failed more often than it should be because angels are, by their nature, curious. They ask questions they shouldn’t and make bargains that nobody in Heaven has the right to make. But Ava couldn’t tell Sara that without telling her how she knew. And nobody but Nora and Rip knew how Ava Fell.

It wasn’t going to be something she revealed to Sara. And Ava wasn’t going to make any deals with Sara ever again, not even if it meant Ava returning to her boring and monotonous routines. Not even if it meant never seeing Sara again. No deal would be worth what comes after if Sara were to be caught. Ava knew that, so she had vowed to stay away. It would be safer for both of them this way, and it would be better for them too, even if her heart faltered in her chest at the thought of that, betraying Ava’s real feelings once more.

Each morning, Ava has a routine. It’s less of a routine really and more of a means of survival. Demons have no natural heat source like the angels do from their halos. Hell is plenty hot, but that’s only because it has to be. It’s not scorching in Hell for the discomfort, it’s because without it the demons living there would be too cold. Once the halos are gone and the heart has started pumping, something is needed to provide a continual stream of heat to the body.

When in Hell, the environment there along with the occasional brush of a ruby will do the trick. But in the Realm it’s a different story. Demons who reside here have to do some wrong or evil deed in order to maintain their body heat. Seeing as Ava’s never been one for petty theft or anything worse than that, she tends to stick with lying. Lying is quite easy to do, and even without intending to, Ava tells lies more often than she tells the truth.

So when she wakes in the mornings, her body stiff from the cold that set in overnight, her joints protesting each movement and her body shaking from the chills, Ava simply tells a lie. Normally this is done as she stands in front of the mirror for the greatest effect. Lies told to oneself are a particularly powerful kind of wrong deed, and they’re typically enough to keep Ava going throughout the day.

Standing there now, Ava holds the edges of her sink and takes in her reflection in the mirror. Her horns are there, chipped at the edges and sticking just from the tops of her sleep-mussed hair. They’re pointed and black in color with a bit of an orange hue running down the middle. Only the Fallen have these horns, and they’re the one visible physical trait that makes it easy for others to distinguish her from a made demon. As Ava brings her fingers to the top of the one on the right, she’s greeted with that familiar and aching pain that reverberates through her skull, to her teeth, to her chest. It’s almost a bittersweet kind of hurting at this point, so familiar after so long spent cast from Heaven.

Recently, Ava has settled on a lie that keeps her warm and flushed for the vast majority of the day. The more prolific the lie, the longer the heat lasts. Consequently, telling the truth to oneself while standing in the mirror is something that could lead to death in demons. Even the smallest truth could cripple the heart and the nervous system, and it always takes a considerable lie to come back from something like that.

Clearing her throat, Ava braces herself for what she is about to speak next. “I do not enjoy being in the presence of angels,” Ava speaks calmly, slowly, careful to keep each and every one of her facial expressions even. A rush of warmth sparks from her fingers up her arms, spreading rapidly to her shoulders before stopping just at her clavicles. “In particular,” Ava takes in a small breath, her heart already skipping a beat in her chest, “I do not enjoy being around Sara Lance as she is trouble.”

That warmth ricochets through Ava’s body, singing through her ribcage and flooding her heart with heat. It’s almost a suffocating kind of fever rush, making her chest feel tight and her legs feel unsteady for a brief moment. But the lie has worked, as Ava knew it would, as it has worked for quite some time now.

Now Ava should be good for about twenty-four hours, though she finds herself always being warmed through the small lies she tells throughout the day. This lie however, it feels like a betrayal of herself, of her own thoughts. That’s exactly what it is though, something so instinctually built into her nature that Ava can’t avoid it. This is a truth she can’t tell, so she warps it and twists it. Uses it. Simple and easy. Useless and impossible.

While Ava tried her very best to keep her distance from Sara after that day in the Library, she found it almost impossible to do. Heaven has no fury like an angel scorned, and Sara was heaven-bent on not letting go of their meetings together. On the day Ava assumed the coast was clear and she was free to resume her time at the Library sans interruptions from a particularly troublesome angel, she came to find rather quickly that she had been wrong, that Sara was never going to let her be in peace.

Not even a few minutes into Ava’s silence as she worked on a new contract between a human and Satan Prime, Sara was showing up and casting her light all over the place. Ava instantly knew she was there by the dazzling reflection that had been bouncing off the bracelet locked around Ava’s own wrist. “You were avoiding me,” Sara had accused as she sat down, a puzzled smile sitting there on her lips the entire time, “I looked around here for you, but everyone said that you were gone.”

“I was in Hell,” Ava had replied, not bothering to do anymore than glance up at Sara for a few moments, finding her entire existence almost dizzying that day.

“If I don’t ask you for help ever again, will you stop avoiding me?” Sara had asked, such a simple question asked in such an earnest voice that it made Ava ache. What she wanted to do was ask Sara why she was doing this, why she wanted to be around a demon rather than those of her own kind. Surely an angel as bright and effervescent as Sara should want to be up in Heaven near those that weren’t designed for corruption.

Ava had wanted to turn Sara away, to try and find a way to crush an angel’s soul just enough that Sara would leave her alone. It had to have been safer that way. But then Ava made the mistake of looking up. Already Sara’s eyes were on her, the same shade of the blue flames that danced along the tips of Ava’s fingers when she called fire to her hands. Sara was so open that day, looking so vulnerable that it would have been cruel even by a demon’s standards to do something that might hurt her.

“Okay,” Ava had sighed, leaning back in her chair and regarding the way that Sara’s light danced along the middle of the table, shadows chased away by the shimmering boundaries of her excitement, “But no more deals at all, that has to be done.” Ava had paused there, her eyes scanning Sara’s face and the plain to see elation that was written and etched into each and every one of her features, “Demons and angels, we’re not good for each other, so we can meet here, but nothing more. Ever.”

“Deal,” Sara had promised, holding her hand over the table.

Ava shouldn’t have taken it. She should have left Sara’s hand alone there hanging in the air between them. She should have just pretended she didn’t see it and waited for Sara to take it away. But Ava didn’t do that. Instead she reached out and brushed her palm along Sara’s own, her fingers clasping near Sara’s wrist. The contact had burned in a way Ava was unfamiliar with, some kind of lingering warmth that stuck on her skin even after Sara had taken her hand back and disappeared into the rows of books on human souls. Ava had sat there at the table, looking at her own palm, imagining that something was there, that Sara somehow dipped her hand in holy water as a joke. But there was nothing, just the creases and lines on Ava’s palm, lifelines and crossroads mapped on her skin while that burning sensation remained behind.

They have a routine now, something they’ve settled into with time, something that they both pretend isn’t something they’ve established a long time ago. When Ava’s not doing work in Hell, she comes here to the Library to catch up on her contracts and to peruse the aisles to see what humans might readily fall into what temptations. And inevitably at some point during Ava’s time here, Sara shows up as if Ava’s wearing a beacon that Sara and Sara along has the ability to track.

Each time Sara comes along, she’s light and cheery, filled with jokes and laughter that Ava doesn’t always appreciate. Sometimes Sara comes just to have something to do, always staring at Ava from across the table in a way that Ava finds unsettling. Sometimes Sara does her own work there at the table, always speaking aloud to herself in a tone of voice that Ava lies to herself and says isn’t soothing and calming.

And sometimes like today, Sara brings a friend with her. A rather loud friend that is currently failing miserably at being quiet. They’re off to the side, whispering to each other but Ava know they’re there. There’s no point in being quiet around Ava because demons have notoriously good hearing. Ava nearly always knows when someone is cursing her name, or even just uttering it, and right now she can hear her name coming up in their conversation.

“I don’t want to go over there,” Ray is whispering in a hushed tone, his voice so loud in Ava’s ear its as if he’s right behind her, “She’s scary, look at her horns there. They say that when angels Fall, their halo is embedded in their skull as punishment, so they never forget what they did.”

That’s hardly the truth, and Ava resists the urge to scoff. Nobody embedded her halo in her head, it was stuck there when she Fell. Falling is quite a literal term when it comes to being cast from Heaven. It’s not falling down so much as it is simply cascading through the planes of existence, a rather bumpy ride indeed. Somewhere along the line, Ava had hit her head and that’s what had embedded the halo in her skull. The actual snapping itself came later when she had landed and Satan Prime had removed her wings.

“You think Ava is scary?” Sara asks, her voice a little less hushed because she’s learned of Ava’s hearing by now. But Ava can almost hear the sound of Ray dramatically nodding his head and she can definitely taste his fear. It’s almost sweet on her tongue, something similar to pure sugar. “Please Ray, don’t make me laugh,” Sara continues on, “Ava’s hardly scary. Since I’ve known her she’s only set my things on fire a few times, and some of those times were accidents.” They weren’t. “She hasn’t even done it recently.” Ava has. Just yesterday in fact.

While Ava does her best to suppress her smirk and continue on the document in front of her, she can feel some of Ray’s fear lessening, slipping away from his body. Angels never really feel fear anyways. It’s closer to just a deeper level of concern. And their fear always tastes of that same sickly sweet sugar. “You do it,” Ray protests, his voice a bit louder now, “I don’t want to go over there and ask her, I know she’s the one that cursed Amaya the other day.”

That actually had been Nora, and it was a joking curse. Of the angels, Ava actually finds Amaya tolerable. She’s never meddlesome and she only comes down to the Realm when absolutely necessary. For the most part though, she stays out of the way. “Ray just go over there,” Sara sighs and Ava thinks that might be as close to impatient as she’s heard an angel sound, “She’s not going to hurt you.”

“I might,” Ava replies, finally having grown tired of their senseless whispering and turning around in her chair. Ray is there right next to Sara, his eyes wide and his body positioned partially behind Sara’s own. He certainly looks scared, and maybe Ava shouldn’t be proud of that fact but she is, just a little bit. “As far as burning things goes,” Ava continues on, fixing Sara with a glare, “Are we just going to ignore all the times you’ve blinded me to steal my work and look at it?”

When Sara walks over, she has that calm and cocky smile on her face, her hands tucked behind her back and the corners of her white blazer falling open on either side of her body. “Guilty as charged,” Sara lilts teasingly, coming to rest against the side of the table, already sitting just a little too close for Ava’s comfort, “See, I’ve just told the truth. You really should try it some time, it’s refreshing.”

“It’s against my nature,” Ava rolls her eyes because they’ve been over this. In fact they have been over this so many times that Ava is sure those very words have to be engrained somewhere inside of Sara’s thick skull.

To the side, Ray is still lingering there, now hiding behind a shelf rather than behind Sara. Ava knows there are some angels who are more nervous and finicky than others, but she’s never met one quite as easily agitated as Ray. His anxiety is almost leeching from his body in a way that makes even Ava dizzy. “I wanted to know about a human,” Ray clears his throat when Sara beckons him over with an impatient sigh, “A soul that Amaya said you damned.”

With raised brows, Ava turns her attention to Sara because surely this could have been cleared up in Heaven. “I don’t damn souls,” Ava replies diplomatically, clicking her pen and laying it down on the table before gesturing for Ray to come closer, “Humans are rather good at damning themselves, I just make sure they have the means to do so. Anything more than that would be considered interference, and that’s supposed to be your job, not mine.”

Demons do not tempt humans from their paths, they simply tempt them back towards the path that they were destined to fulfill. It’s angels that do the leading humans astray piece that humans love to ascribe to demons. Sometimes Ava is amused at the way that humans perceive devils and angels, as if there is just a right or a wrong when it comes to the matters of the afterlife. Nothing could ever be that simple, but maybe humans are so used to only seeing their plane of existence that they’re incapable of understanding the complexities that might lay beyond.

However, Ava expected better from an angel. Ray should know better than this. He should know that while Ava provides the opportunity, it’s the humans themselves that must grasp onto it. “He wants to know what happened to Hank Heywood,” Sara chimes in, tapping Ava’s ledger that sits on the desk, the ledger that Sara is very lucky Ava thought to un-curse before coming here or it would have burned her.

“It won’t be in that one,” Ava mutters, waving her hand over the ledger there so it disappears from sight, hopefully popping back up in her office in Hell, “I’m working on going over my ‘D’ name charges today, so that was the wrong ledger.” With another wave of her hand, Ava’s correct ledger appears on the table and she hums as she takes it in her hands. Flipping through the pages, Ava looks for the one that corresponds to the name that Sara had mentioned.

There are a lot of Heywoods here, and it takes her a moment to find the right one under the ‘Hank’ section as well. “Oh,” Ava murmurs when she finds the page, “You meant this bastard?” When Ava holds up the page that contains the photo image of Hank’s face, she watches as Ray’s skin pales slightly and he nods his head. “Yes well, I didn’t damn him, he did that all on his own,” Ava snaps the ledger shut and sends it back to Hell, “But his soul is in a contract with Satan Prime and the Leagues of Hell if that’s what you were wanting to know.”

Once more, Ray looks distressed, an emotion that Ava is definitely projecting onto him because she can’t remember what angels feel instead. But whatever the emotion is, Ray shouldn’t be feeling this strongly over a human, and Ava turns to Sara for an explanation. “He’s developed a fondness for the human that belongs to Hank, someone called Nate,” Sara speaks, her eyes focused on Ray as she looks concerned, “I believe Nate is his son.”

“I was there on Earth helping him just last week and he was lonely,” Ray begins, his hands shoved in the pockets of the shimmering white coat he has on, his wings extended behind him and fluttering slightly with his nerves, “He likes history and he has no friends so he needed someone there with him. Hank is his father, and he’s a terrible man, I understand that. But Nate loves him.”

Instantly Ava scoffs at that. There is no word that demons hate more than the word love. Some time ago Ava knows that she felt it, but she’s long since forgotten what that emotion feels like. The only good thing that comes from being here so long is that time makes it easier to file away the things that hurt. And remembering any of her time Before always hurts. Love is never good for any being. Not humans, not angels, and certainly not demons.

“Well it’s far too late for me to change the contract now. It’s been forged in brimstone and I drafted it myself so praise Satan, it’s angel proof,” Ava begins, taking in Ray’s expression of confusion, “I’ve gotten to know Hank pretty well, and I can tell you he’s better off in my domain than yours.” For a moment Ava pauses. She doesn’t have to say anything more, she could just end it there.

However angels tangling with humans is dangerous and rarely leads to anything good. Just as demons cannot be Earthbound for long, neither can angels. It’s not Ava’s place to issue a warning here, but she fears that nobody else will. As meddlesome as angels are, they always stay out of each other’s affairs, even at their own peril. Thankfully demons are not as polite. “You should stay away from Hank, Nate, and all the other humans,” Ava continues on, “I understand that your kind feel the need to save and rescue, but there are few humans down there who are really worth it. Your kind might get to see the good and the light in people, but my job is to see their darkness, and there is always more evil in the world than there is good.”

Something flickers over Ray’s expression, something sad and mournful and it almost makes Ava ache to see it there. The only time that angels feel sad are for their humans, and even then it’s a barely there kind of sadness, not the gut-wrenching and bone-rattling kind that demons feel. With a small nod, Ray thanks her and hurries from the Library, his wings wrapping in close around his body. “You shouldn’t have been so harsh with him,” Sara speaks and Ava turns to her in surprise.

That hadn’t been harsh. If Ava had really wanted to be harsh, she would have dragged Ray with her to Hell and shown him just how evil human beings can be. Once upon a time ago Ava was where he is, thinking that the souls from the mortal coil are good and pure, that every human contains just enough light in them to drive out the darkness. And then she learned the truth, that some souls are just evil, that no light in the world can drive the wickedness out from where it’s been embedded into their very genetic codes.

“I was giving advice,” Ava retorts, her heart speeding up because she doesn’t like getting close to this topic, she doesn’t like talking about the risks of knowing humans, “And demons don’t know the word shouldn’t.”

The table screeches as Sara pushes off of it, using far more strength than she should have. Light pours down over her body, drenching her in golden rays as Ava looks at her in surprise. “Fine,” Sara responds, her tone clipped and her eyes narrowed as Ava stares at her, frozen in place, “Then you should have been nicer, I know you can be, I just don’t know why you always choose your moments to act like the demon that you are.”

Her words strike something inside Ava’s chest that falls down to her stomach and lands there with a heavy and dull feeling. Not sure what to say, an apology catching in her throat as it always does, Ava watches on helplessly as Sara takes off in the direction that Ray just left from. She almost seems angry, something that angels can’t feel. Ava watches her go, not sure what to do now or how to remove that feeling from her stomach. But Sara is right, Ava is a demon, she’s not nice or kind of pleasant. No, Ava is mean and harsh and cruel, and there’s really no use in pretending that she could one day be any different.

Taking her pen in her hand once more, Ava shoves down that heavy sensation and wills her heart to stop pounding so loudly. There’s work to be done, souls to lead to damnation and angels to battle against. Whatever has happened here, Ava can remedy that tomorrow. The one thing she knows about Sara is that she always comes back, no matter what underserving thing Ava has done this time. After all, angels have their fundamental truths as well, and Ava knows that to be one of Sara’s.