Chapter 42: Hunting Moriarty, part 3

Tagas looked behind himself. He was alone in his room, but he could swear that someone was watching him. They had agreed that, seeing as Moriarty wanted Tagas above all else, it would be safer for Arthur if Tagas and Harry went back to the apartment.

Tagas resisted the urge to twitch. He was in bed, the covers over his body, despite the heat. He also resisted the urge to hide his head inside his comforter. Not only that, but he was not a cherub anymore. Furthermore, he could fight and defend himself.

The worst part was the smell that invaded his nostrils. He was not a smoker, neither was Harry. But his room stank of cigarettes. As if there were an overflowing ashtray somewhere, and they were at a pub, and not in the apartment.

Finally, Tagas couldn't take it anymore. He stood, making his bed, and then went to Harry's room. Knocking on the door, for a split second, he feared that no one will answer. Yet, Harry came to the door, looking sleepy and with ruffled hair.

"Would it be a problem if I sleep with you?" Tagas asked, and Harry stepped to the side to invite him in. The covers, red as blood, on the bed were all tangled up. Harry placed an arm around Tagas's waist, and led him to the bed.

"It will be fine, your brothers are going to handle it," Harry said, and Tagas shook his head.

"Will they? I am not so certain. My room smells like an ashtray. I fear that there is someone in there, or that someone had been there before," Tagas told him, and the traces of sleep left Harry.

"And you are telling me now? I am going to go and check," Harry got his arm from around Tagas, but the angel snatched it.

"Don't go, I fear..." Tagas didn't finish his words because Harry was already kissing him.

"I am a big boy, with extra powers given to me by the boss. I will be fine, angel cake," Harry said after he broke the kiss, and then headed towards Tagas's room.

The smell that Tagas had described to him hit him on the nose as soon as he walked in. He searched every nook and cranny, but didn't bump into anyone. He just opened the window, and let the fresh air come in.

Then, on a whim, he bent to look beneath the bed. There was a doll there, with wings and all. Harry froze when he saw it. Taking it, he inspected it from all sides.

It was like a voodoo doll, but not quite. Voodoo didn't work on angels, any leviathan worth his salt would have known it. Yet, Harry thought it was a message instead. One meant for Tagas. When the room cleared of the stench that had seeped into it, Harry went to his own room.

The stench of cigarettes invaded his nostrils as he walked in. Tagas was nowhere to be found.

"Tagas?" Harry called into the emptiness. "Tagas, are we playing hide and seek? It is not funny, angel cake!"

Harry was panicking. Had the leviathan snatched Tagas? In a rush, he was out of his room, and searching the rest of his apartment. Tagas was neither in the living room, nor in the kitchen. The bathroom also turned out to be fruitless.

Harry was summoning Lucifer before he could reason with himself that he was in for pain in the future. He didn't care. Tagas was gone, possibly in the hands of a leviathan.

Harry didn't know much about them, but he knew they were big trouble. The people in the cauldron sometimes spoke about them. They never had anything good to say. When the invocation went through, Harry stared at the annoyed golden eyes of the fallen angel.

"Tagas is gone," Harry blurted out. "He was in his room, then came to mine because he said he smelt cigarettes, and I went to check. When I get back to my room, he was gone."

"I sent you in here only so you could guard him, and you lost him?" Lucifer snapped. Then he had Harry by the neck. "My precious baby brother?"

"I am sorry," Harry rasped. He was glad he didn't need to breathe anymore. Lucifer's grip on him was tight. "I found a doll in his room, under the bed."

"Show me the doll," Lucifer let go of Harry. He took a couple of deep breaths. Not because he needed them, but out of habit. On shaky legs, he went and got the doll from where he had dropped it on the floor in his own room.

"Here," the doll resembled Tagas. Even the wings were blue. Lucifer turned it this way and that, but couldn't see the significance of it all.

"Voodoo doesn't work on angels or demons," Lucifer snarled, and then would have thrown the doll, if he didn't hear something like a whimper from it. Pressing his ear to the doll, he waited for another sound. There was another whimper.

"Is Tagas trapped in the doll?" Harry asked, but Lucifer shook his head.

"No, this is like a baby monitor. It is letting us hear what is happening to Tagas. He is whimpering. That leviathan is going to pay!" In a flurry of red flames, the fallen angel was off. Harry sank to the floor.

He ran his hands through his red hair, and the hands stopped on the horns. He would have prayed right now. An old habit from when he was alive, something that had not been so long ago. But the horns stopped him.

As far as everyone knew, God was gone. Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't answer the prayer of a demon. Harry might get smithed for his insolence of even trying, yet...

The demon stood enough, so he was kneeling, and clasped his hands before himself.

"Do with me what you will," he began, not caring if the apartment was going to catch on fire as a result of him even trying. "But help them find Tagas. I beg you. With all that I am."