She fell.

A hundred years later, he rose.

The night was glacial and blue lit by the unforgiving blind, white stare of the moon. The demon, Mastema burst forth from Hell onto the frozen, empty street. Hot, rotten blood bubbled out of the hole around him, glowing deep red, hissing and steaming like lava on the icy asphalt. Bright orange embers faded to fly’s wing green then black as they cooled into the shape of claws on the pavement.

But Mastema was only half way out.

The closing portal was starting to cut a deep and vicious ring around his massive chest. As sure as he had been expelled, Lucifer would ensure he found Hell—even after all that had transpired—on earth.

Ramming his needle-sharp talons into the blacktop which caused white sparks to erupt into the night’s frigid breath, the demon, Mastema, used his thick and powerful arms to drag him the rest of the way out of the closing portal. Angered, it sprouted diamond-spiked teeth that rotated around him faster and faster, grinding and ripping his reborn flesh. Mastema did not bother to moan. An eternity of pain in Hell dulled his senses to any pain he could feel in this, the human realm. And, with each forward movement his skin and muscles and fat folded, sealed, and sewed themselves back together.

Mastema dragged himself further out and razors sliced into his belly, the nape of his back, shredding his thighs and member. The saw edges of the portal started to boil over in sick green-brown fluid causing fire to lick at the flesh beneath his skin poisoning him. Punishing him for knowing hope when there should have been none.

Hell had never willingly let go.

*****

When Rahmi reached for her door knob, electricity traveled through her fingertips, her palms. She touched the warm metal globe. Time elapsed or passed, or stood still. Electricity went through and she blinked with it. Where there had been light, now there was only dark. Where she had merely been chilled, she was now frozen to the bone. Where she had been tired, now she was… something else entirely.

 Rahmi pushed open the door and entered her house. She turned the locks on the doorknob and deadbolt then set the alarm. Her mail and purse and shoes and keys all dropped from her slender fingers. The items may have clattered loudly against lacquered hard wood, but Rahmi could not hear. They may have made a mess. Her eyes saw nothing. She licked her lips and sniffed. She scented nothing, tasted nothing.

 Near floating across the floor of her bedroom, the largest room in the tiny house in Eden Prairie, Rahmi unbuttoned and removed her jacket, her pencil skirt, her silk blouse. She reached for her bra and barely noticed it ripping from her body. She scraped her skin with her nails as she tore her hose panties away but felt nothing. She felt nothing.

 In the bedroom, Rahmi lifted the Harp from the easel. Blind, she found the taut metal strings. Her fingers, long pale thin, utterly human, flitted over the magnificent instrument. Deaf, she started to pluck out the notes that would return her senses slicing ruthlessly through the mist. Rahmi would have to play this night. A vision was upon her, her nature was upon her. Death and souls that could not find their way… were upon her.

 Lilting and hypnotic notes tripped from the Harp. They spun energy into royal blue and gold yellow light calling for Rahmi’s hearing and sight to return, but she was not inside of her house. Rahmi was in the frigid, abandoned, paved alley behind her house. Time had passed without her. Dawn was not an hour away. The air was its iciest in the bitter Midwest winter and sent crystal-cold shards through her as her ability to feel returned as well. A smell, metallic and rancid, caused saliva to pool in her mouth.

 Demon’s blood.

 “You should not be here,” she whispered sharply. Her voice was a double voice. On top, a gentle contralto, beneath a growl and compulsion not heard by earth-bound ears.

 More beast than man even in this realm, Mastema raised his mighty head. The bristly hair on the back of his neck stood up like burned pine needles. He still lay on his stomach. His body expanded and wilted, expanded and wilted with very labored breaths. Rahmi watched as his head swiveled on his neck. Near yellow eyes peered at her. “Jerahmeel.”

 It was an angel's name.