The Demon’s Bride

Elise didn't feel comfortable in the church after Ian had to drink the potent holy water which might have did him some damage even if he didn't seem bothered by it. They sat at the carriage. Elise and Ian sat next to each other while Beelzebub looked at the window, his eyes were on the sky where he spotted a crow leaving from the church.

"Do you think he might have known about you?" Elise asked to Ian who had folded his hands in front of his chest.

"Yes," he replied decisively, "I think you notice how he was hostile with me?" and Elise nodded her head in response to what she had noticed for a few times. "I could tell he is not a human either. He had hid his identity well but it still have flaws. What do you think he is?"

Elise recalled Father Redrick's appearance in her mind. That man was gentle and peaceful but not today when Ian was beside her. Seeing the hostility and the fact that a Demon wouldn't be a priest as they would also affected by the holy water, there was only one answer, "An angel." Ian's expression told her that she was correct and Elise drew her eyebrows, "He knows that and he offered you the holy water?"

"Most Angels dislike Demons, it's rooted deep in their whole being. He might have seen me like an eyesore but can't expose himself as an angel," said Ian to Elise which she could understand based from the stories about Demons and Angels that were always told to be a complete opposite. While Angels protect, Demons were told as the evil ones who destroy. 

"You two met an angel," hummed Beelzebub who had not said a single word since they entered the carriage. 

"Do you know about the angel?" It was Elsie who asked Beel because they had went to the Church twice and that two times Beelzebub didn't step to the Church. She saw that it won't harm Demon to enter the Church which could only mean he didn't enter for another reason.

Beelzebub's red eyes brushed over her to Ian, coming back to Elise with a stale look, "Can't say."

"That means Lucifer told him not to say anything," Ian explained Elise and she removed the gaze from the blonde-haired Demon. "Rather than running in circle I told him to say what he can't say. It's better than being in a dark. Lucifer seems to allow this much."

"I don't understand why Lucifer would instruct Mr. Beel to us. Are we his goal?" asked Elise to Beelzebub. The latter only stared at her for a good half a minute.

"Can't say," replied Beelzebub as he casted his gaze to the window. 

"I have asked questions about Lucifer. So far I found nothing," Ian explained when she meet his eyes, "One thing I notice about the Angel we met earlier is that he seem to know you. Not when we met but possibly since the first time he met you."

"Father Redrick knows me?" Elise retrace her memories where she first met the priest, It was during the time she had stared at him and she met his eyes. He was the first one to make the conversation, asking whether she would like a blessing. Since that time, he knows her? "But when?" she didn't remember seeing him when she was young, "When I was still a baby?"

"Without your memories, we won't be able to find anything," Ian responded to her, and when he noticed her eyes sinking he took a hold of her hand, sharing his strength which Elise could feel it radiating to her. "I guess that you must have seen him or that he had been watching you from afar. He appeared to be my enemy but not yours."

Was it coincidence that the Church she went for to attend Sunday mass had an angel who knew her? It was too much of a coincidence, thought Elise. She wondered if it was fate as Redrick had told her that weaved her future to find the mysteries behind her and her birth parents. Or if someone had been leading her by the nose?

She then felt Ian moving to open the window, the crow which belong to him came back and landed on the window's frame. When she caught the crow it was shaking it's body to let the snow that fell on it to leave his feather. Once he was done he then entered with manner and sat on Elise's hand. 

"Why is the crow here?" asked Elise because she didn't see it with them when they led earlier. Do the crow follow them without her notice?

"I told it to follow Redrick for the rest of the day, but I didn't expect this," Ian pulled the crow behind its neck to his face, his eyes narrowed when he saw the crow's bodies filled with injuries. "Doesn't seem like I would be able to fly with my wings today."

Earlier the crow flew to the carriage with some of snow still piling on the back of the crow. And due to its pitch black feather it was only now when Ian pulled the crow that she noticed the slash wounds and some bald spot on the crow's body as if it had been peck by another bird. 

"Did another bird attack him?" questioned Elise when Ian brought it down to her hand. Even if it was in a form of a crow, it was still Ian's wings. 

"Normal bird won't attack him unless it's not a normal crow. Look at this," Ian pulled something that he spotted to settle under the crow's wings. Pulling it up Elise saw that it was a white feather. "This is the second time this happen, and I am considering this to be the same bird that have attacked my crow."

"There was a first time?" questioned Elise.

"There was," Ian said with a narrowed eyes, "There seem to be someone watching us without our knowing." and the white bird that set itself on top of the carriage's roof pulled its beak to a smile. After it rest for a minute, it pulled itself away from the carriage, resuming its flight to soar to the sky.