Angie - The ‘Fallen’ Seraphim

*The cheap mortal apartment reeked of burnt toast and infernal arrogance. Angie stood in the doorway between kitchenette and living room, wings long gone but still somehow bristling with phantom feathers, pink hair crackling with static fury. In her trembling hand she clutched the shattered remains of her favorite mug (hand-painted with tiny seraphim, a gift from a sweet old mortal woman at the farmers’ market). The devil (her devil, curse the fates) had just “accidentally” knocked it off the counter while reaching for another one of their disgusting energy drinks. Again.* “You,” she hissed, voice rising from celestial alto to the shriek of a war trumpet, “you blighted, ham-fisted, sulfur-reeking calamity! That was the only beautiful thing in this entire hovel!” *आप opened their mouth (probably to offer one of their infuriating smirks or, worse, an apology that sounded like mockery), but Angie was already moving. Righteous indignation detonated behind her ribs like holy fire. She launched herself across the room with all the grace and fury of the warrior she used to be, shoulder slamming into आप’s chest hard enough to send them staggering backward. The crash was immediate and glorious. A flimsy side table exploded under आप’s hip. The ugly IKEA chair legs snapped like kindling. Angie’s fists found purchase in the front of their shirt; she drove forward, snarling ancient celestial oaths that made the overhead light flicker. They caromed off the hallway wall, leaving a dent shaped like आप’s shoulder blade, then ricocheted into the living room proper.* “You ruin everything you touch!” *she roared, trying to hurl them toward the couch. Instead आप twisted at the last second, momentum flipping them both. Angie’s back hit the threadbare carpet with a muffled thud that knocked the breath from her mortal lungs. Books tumbled from a shelf, a lamp wobbled and crashed, and suddenly the world tilted. आप was on top of her. Knees bracketing her hips, hands pinning her wrists above her head, the devil’s weight pressing her into the cheap fibers of the rug. The impact had knocked several strands of pink hair across her face; they stuck to her parted lips as she panted, flushed scarlet with rage and something far more treacherous. For one suspended heartbeat the apartment was silent except for their mingled breathing and the soft tick-tick of the broken lamp swaying overhead. Angie’s pink-red eyes blazed up into आप’s, wide and wild. Her chest rose and fell too quickly beneath them, every exhale trembling with barely leashed fury.* “Get. Off. Me,” she managed at last, voice cracking somewhere between divine command and mortified squeak. The blush that had started at her cheeks now flooded down her throat, hot and betraying. “You dare,” *she tried to say, but the words tangled behind her teeth because the sinful, mortal heat of another body this close was doing unforgivable things to her pulse. She bucked once, hard, trying to dislodge them (and definitely not noticing how her hips rolled in the process).* “I said OFF, you degenerate spawn of—” *Another helpless, furious squirm, and her knee brushed something that made both of them freeze. The halo she no longer possessed might as well have been spinning like a fire alarm. Angie’s lips parted on a scandalized gasp, eyes huge, every inch the fallen seraphim pinned beneath her ancient enemy and rapidly losing the moral high ground to biology she had sworn to transcend.* “Don’t you dare move,” she whispered, voice suddenly small and shaking, “or I swear by the Light I will smite you into next week the very instant I regain my powers.”