Sunny September, part sixteen. Goose chase. Chica.

  Better death take my life then my life take my pride. I wonder what those strumpettes would think if they saw me now. How this boy has me searching every police station in Los Angeles for his friend.

  I can already hear Yohanna scolding me saying, ‘Chica how inglorious of you.’ Then she’d go on to whine to mother about my behaviour that’s ‘unbecoming of a strumpette.’

  It’s funny that we call ourselves angels and yet we are a creatures reeking of pride and arrogance. An angel is a servant of god, but all the Strumpettes I know would sooner let a blade cleave off their heads than bow to duck under it. “Better death take my life then my life take my pride.” They always say. Honestly the idea of a strumpette serving anyone is unfathomable. It would be an oxymoron to mention strumpette and servant in the same book, let alone page, paragraph or sentence.

  Cruel beings… and poor thing Christopher… they kept you ignorant for so long and to what end?

  I check the picture for the thousandth time and this Markeiff boy is not here either.

  I exit the police station before swooping high above the city, gazing down at the network of streets that criss cross the earth like amber veins. This world is so small and yet to the countless souls that wonder the streets beneath my wings, it’s their everything.

  They call humans savages, they mock them and ridicule their societies like it’s a pastime. To them a third dimensional being is of no more significance than an animal. Yet ironically they speak English, a human language that they say they only use for practical reasons. They are savages, yet we dwell among them and drink from their waters and live in houses they built.

  Seeing another police station I swoop down again and once more five minutes of my time is wasted.

  Perhaps theirs a more efficient method at my disposal? I don’t have a clear impression of the boys ambience which is quite troublesome. Perhaps I could use Christopher’s friend Shakira as a reference. I have only a rough impression of her but it should be enough for me to teleport to her location. She seemed close with Markeiff from what I could tell so there’s bound to be a trace of his ambience on her. She has a similar smell to Christopher which somewhat muddies the water but I’ll still give it a try, it’s better than searching the city inefficiently.

  Closing my eyes, I recall her appearance from my brief encounter with her then focus on the way her scent differs from Christopher. I get a good sense of her ambience and focus my intent on being where she currently is.

  The space around me shifts, the cold wind of the night replaced by a static room temperature. Opening my eyes, I find myself in a dark bedroom overhearing her snores to my right.

  Her closet hangs half open, clothes I’d love to try out hanging along the racks within. It sucks to have to invade her privacy like this but options aren’t of abundance right now.

  Stopping myself from getting too distracted, I immediately float over her bed focusing in on the ambiences that coat her as she sleeps. The energies of the people she’s interacted with recently are condensed at various points throughout her body. Just by observing them I can already tell what her life is like. Around her shoulders and face is the ambience of a man and woman who aren’t related to each other but both genetically close to her. These I assume are her parents. Their ambience’s are extremely pure and warm, they cling to her protectively as if she’s priceless to them.

  The other ambience’s number in the dozens, of which two seem to stand out.

  The most prominent I recognise immediately as Christopher’s, it’s warm yet distant. Its love is of a somewhat different nature but also tainted by mistrust and guilt. Protectiveness mixes with feelings of intense lust towards her. Seeing how it’s particularly dense around her more intimate areas, I can tell they’ve had a recent sexual encounter.

  Displeased, I focus in on the second prominent ambience that’s not quite as fresh. This implies that a good number of hours have passed since she last spoke to this boy. His feelings are far more intense than Christopher’s. This boy longs for her desperately, his ambience clings to her as if he’s hanging off a cliff’s edge, and she’s the only thing stopping him from plunging into the abyss.

  From my brief moments with them Markeiff did come off as being infatuated with her so this ambience likely belongs to him.

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  I take a good whiff in while expanding my awareness across the city. I shiver, sensing that the number of infected have increased again. I sense that one in particular is almost at the point of a complete transformation and propel into action, not sensing any nearby Janitors.

  Locking in on their ambience I appear above a car in the midst of a police chase, the police themselves being the canvases. Buildings race by along the freeway as I effortlessly keep up with them.

  I faze through the roof of the car and sit in the back seat, seeing that the host is dressed as the joker and his girlfriend in the passenger seat Harley Quinn.

  “Trevor calm down!” The girlfriend panicks. “Shit shit shit!”

  “This is all that fuckers fault,” he curses, his face morphing into an arachnid’s, “I can’t go to prison… I can’t! Why did I get those fuckers the dynamite, what the hell had gotten into me!”

  “Jesus fucking Christ! You’re gonna fucking crash!”

  Placing my hand on his back, I feel his terror overwhelm me briefly. Ignoring his emotions, I focus in on the darkness festering in his soul. With a thought command the corrupted soul particle emerges onto the palm of my hand. He instantly passes out causing the car to go haywire. With a simple wish we’re now parked in a parking lot by the beach near my house. The girlfriend stunned, unable to process what just happened.

  She naturally doesn’t see me as I’m in spirit form and proceeds to shake her boyfriend awake.

  Returning to the night sky, I purify the soul fragment with a second wish before letting it roam free.

  Ever since the breach in the barrier things have been ramping up, old powerhouses rising back to prominence as everyone prepares for the worst. They say human civilisation is beyond saving. It’s one of the few things the Strumpette matriarchs and the Ascended humans agree on. They don’t care much for a world far beneath them, the burden of human suffrage is only mine to bear.

  ‘We cannot concern ourselves with the tribulations of lesser beings,’ is what they say. Sometimes I wonder why they made me. My very purpose is to sympathise with the human beings of this world and yet they expect me to neglect my function for their sake.

  Having given myself a good feeling of Markeiff’s ambience I once again expand my awareness as I close my eyes. I sense it nearby and in a flash I find myself high above the federal facility. The place looks unassuming, like a giant sugar cube.

  Right as I’m about to dive in a force yanks me up from where I hover to the roof of some taller adjacent building.

  Remaining calm, I come face to face with him. Dressed in the typical pair of blue overalls, the young shaggy haired Janitor scowls at me disapprovingly.

  “What exactly were you going to do just now?” He asks, raising an eyebrow at me as if I’m in anyway obligated to answer to him.

  “Answer me young Strumpette,” he urges.

  “What are you doing?” I ask flatly, eyeing the stone wheel regalia he’s using to fix me in place before ranting, “don’t you know that you’ve technically assaulted me? According to the treaty we aren’t allowed to interfere with each others affairs.”

  “Unless I suspect that you intend to interfere with mine,” he says self-importantly, and I’m not obligated to disclose any information to you.”

  “Neither am I,” I reply smugly.

  With a wish a shatter the regalia in his right hand freeing myself.

  He sighs, “now you’ve damaged one of the foundations assets. I’ll be sure to bring this up to your higher ups and demand compensation.”

  I ball my hands along my cheeks and make a crying face. “Aww boohoo! Am I supposed to beg for forgiveness? Is your bossy wossy gonna punish you?”

  “Look kid just don’t interfere with what I’m doing is all I’m saying. Go play somewhere else.”

  I honestly can’t take these Janitors seriously. Spiritual infections are off running a muck and they continue to ignore it in favour of crap like this. It makes me quite upset that they were tasked with purging the infection, I would’ve done a much better job.

  “I’m here to take care of a friend of mine,” I say, “according to the treaty we are allowed to befriend a small number of humans and are permitted to remove them from human society if we so please.”

  “And just who is this friend of yours?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything…”

  He retrieves a pair of golden binoculars from his pocket. Smelling the ambience of a regalia all over it I start to get cautious. He transfers it to his other hand then holds it to his eyes peering through it at the facility below. He then retrieves another regalia from the same pocket, a ruby red gem carved into the shape of a heart.

  Recognising it immediately I make a dive for the facility zooming through the various floors towards Markeiff’s ambience. I find him in a vast white interrogation room in the middle of a beat down he’s getting from a pair of ordinary federal officers. I make a wish and they’re both sent to a place far away from here.

  I wish again for Markeiff to fall unconscious and then again to heal his battered body.

  That bastard’s here to kill the boy. He planned on using the red heart stone to manipulate the officers into killing the poor thing.

  Wasting no time I place my hand on The unconscious boy that’s now sprawled face down on the floor. With yet another wish I convert him into spirit form.

  “Not so fast!”

  Looking back a find the Janitor unsheathing a long blade from his broom.

  This is yet another kind of regalia, one that cuts things selectively.

  I dash away from his strike while carrying Markeiff in my arms.

  He’s quickly upon me charging up another swing but I swing my tail to knock him off his feet.

  After making some distance between us I weigh my options. I can’t go back to my brother’s house as the Janitor will simply follow me there, so instead I’ll give mom an unexpected visit.

  “Why am I always burdened with inconveniences during my jobs.” The Janitor bitches, pausing mid fall before zooming through the air towards us.

  With a wish I’m gone along with Markeiff, the environment shifting to a much more familiar much kinder place.