A month. No, not even that. That’s all the time that has passed since I came to this dark city, since I came down, into a place called Iwaku. Someone told me once that Iwaku means “to tell a story”; whether or not that’s true, I intend to tell mine.
My name is Ozryel, and I have come to kill Asmodeus.
The wind whips my shorn black hair around my face as I rev up my bike, the leather of my gloves making soft creaking sounds as they grip the handles and I kick it- not that I can hear much from under the healthy purr of my baby’s engine. I’m proud of her; she’s got enough power to fuel a rocket and looks damn gorgeous to boot. Every pale rider needs their steed, and Black Betty was mine. She takes the corners of Iwaku’s streets like a pro, kicking up puddles of rain and who knows what else that spatter the legs of my pants with flecks of filth. Everything about this place is grimy and foul, leaving my skin crawling with the sensation of a thousand wriggling worms. Every inch of me is covered in stark black cloth from the high collar of my coat downward, and yet I can still feel the murk seeping into my pores. Iwaku City needs a good scrubbing.
I can also feel him, like a dark hole in my mind’s eye, even with the span of countless city blocks between us- blocks of concrete and metal framework, of trash and squalor, of bodies moving and breathing and embracing and dying- and I wonder if he can feel my presence, as well. If he notices; if his eyes turn in my direction and if he sees who has come for him, who is still coming for him. I wonder if he cares. Knowing him, he won’t. Bastard. As if he has any right to escape his fate, the fate which rests in my more than willing and capable hands. I am kismet incarnate. I am life’s repot man, and now, it is his soul that is slated for collection. Am I relishing this task, turning the thought over and over again in my mind with the sweetest of caresses, perhaps more than duty calls for?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
The angels in high places
Who minister to us,
Reflect God’s smile, — their faces
Are luminous;
Save one, whose face is hidden,
(The Prophet saith),
The unwelcome, the unbidden,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet that veiled face, I know
Is lit with pitying eyes,
Like those faint stars, the first to glow
Through cloudy winter skies.
That they may never tire,
Angels, by God’s decree,
Bear wings of snow and fire, —
Passion and purity;
Save one, all unavailing,
(The Prophet saith),
His wings are gray and trailing,
Azrael, Angel of Death.
And yet the souls that Azrael brings
Across the dark and cold,
Look up beneath those folded wings,
And find them lined with gold.
-Robert Gilbert Welsh
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