Page 51 of Metatron
“It’s a fable on Earth that describes how you plan to enter unseen. And lucky for you, it can be done. There is a scout ship currently parked on the dark side of the moon. Minimal crew. A pilot and a minor demon.”
They set the plan in motion, and Metatron set out to get aboard the scout. Getting access to the sealed ship proved easier than expected because, as Zilla stated, “That vessel is an abomination of our kind. It wants nothing more than to kill its masters for what they’ve done. It’s agreed to help us.”
The news that Hell possessed living ships didn’t rock him as much as expected. He should have guessed. Then again, he’d not encountered many. Heaven’s army usually fled before Hell arrived with all its might.
The scout opened up a hatch, and Zilla beamed out the minor demon. She put him straight into restraints, and while she scanned him, Metatron perused the appearance he’d be taking. Somewhat shorter than him, the skin a shade of gray not seen amongst angels or humans. Stunted nubs protruded from the forehead, not properly centered and one slightly larger than the other. From its back, leathery wings tucked impressively tight. Feathers didn’t like to be constrained.
Metatron stood in front as scanners assessed and asked, “What’s your name?”
The demon glared and hissed. “Let me go and fight.”
“That would be a waste of your life. We both know I’d win. Why not just cooperate and maybe, just maybe, we can find a way to rehabilitate you?”
“Never!” The demon did the most extreme thing and bit its tongue, hard enough it spurted blood, in a torrent that couldn’t be stemmed. The demon bled out rather than be a prisoner. Kind of extreme. Metatron would have tried to escape first.
“Did you get enough living tissue readings?” he asked Zilla.
“Yes. His name was Marron. And the pilot is Keeko.”
Marron. A demon, who could come and go as he pleased in Hell.
A disguise that required changing himself. Could he do this, he wondered, his head bowed, his shoulders rounded. His trepidation didn’t come from the procedure itself. If Zilla claimed she could change him, he believed her. He struggled with becoming the enemy. Would wearing a demon body change him? Would his angelness still shine through?
“Are you ready? The pilot’s getting suspicious his companion Marron isn’t answering.”
Metatron took a deep breath before holding out his arms. “Let’s do this. Make me into this Marron.”
A tingle enveloped him, head to toe, painful and not all at once. His body shivered and tightened, expanded, then shrunk.
When Zilla stated “It’s done,” he feared opening his eyes. But he’d never been a coward. A peek through his eyelids showed his sight remained normal. A glance proved jarring as he caught sight of his new body. His breathing quickened at the sight of the stocky thighs. A sift of his body showed his balance slightly different, the weight at his back familiar and not.
A raised hand to touch his wings had him instead drawing it close to eye the gray pallor of it, the skin course, with tufts of hair sprouting from the back of the hand. Not a demon of leisure. Lifting his fingers to his head, he slid them over the nubs of the horns. While not all demons had horns, anything horned was demonic. With the change being molecular, did that make him demonic?
He bit his tongue lest he yell at Zilla to change him back. This was temporary. Necessary. No one would question his presence now.
“The pilot has risen from his seat and is coming to check on Marron.”
“Beam me down.” He’d handle his discomfort later.
Zilla transported him aboard the scout, which, in turn, had stalled the pilot by sounding an alarm. When Metatron exited Marron’s disgusting quarters and entered the command center of the scout, he found the four-armed pilot seated by the console. Keeko paid him no mind.
“What’s the alarm?” he asked in a heavily accented demon brogue, trying to not be startled by his new higher-pitched voice. He spoke in the dialect Zilla had his language modulator set to. What he couldn’t be sure of? If the demon had mannerisms or speech tells.
The pilot didn’t seem suspicious as he replied, “Not sure. The alarm is claiming system failure.”
“In what?”
“Everything and nothing. Keeps changing.” The many hands moved, fiddling with buttons and sending commands that did nothing to stop the warning siren.
“Whatever it is, we can’t fix it here.”
“Asking for permission to return to base now,” Keeko stated, his hands flying to send an encrypted message.
Metatron held his breath waiting to hear the reply.
It took but a moment. Keeko never actually told Metatron, simply proceeded to depart Earth’s moon. The vessel gave a shudder before it rose, lurching and causing him to brace lest he tumble.
The voyage to Hell took longer than he liked. The only saving grace? According to Zilla, who’d contacted him one last time before he got out of range, their speed would actually put them not far behind Francesca’s kidnapper. Reassuring and not.