Driving up (Mal and Cass) - Malachi's Penthouse

In answer, he pulled his phone from his pocket. And started to dial. Then he held the phone to his ear.

Enough was enough. Cass angrily pushed herself away from the counter and headed for the door, with every intent of leaving.

And he didn't stop her. He was busy. Phone call and all.

She pulled a clove cigarette from a half crushed pack in her back pocket, slipped it between her lips and pulled a light from another pocket as she simply opened the door and slipped out while her clanmates were busy on there respective phone calls.

"I am at Mals, With Mal and cass. One moment..."

He went after cass and caught her by the arm.

"No you dont. come back here young lady.."

He looked her in the eye.

"Do you remember what I told you? About being here for you.. that includes stopping you for your own good. Come on."

He held her arm tight.

"Put me on speaker. It's important. And make sure that they can both hear me, because the more times I have to explain it, the more pissed I'm going to be."

He held onto Cass, much stronger than you would thnk the harpy would be and led her back into the room.

"One moment, let us get together."

Cass stared at Estaban for a moment-- but she knew she couldn't fight the grip on her arm.

She didn't speak. She simply sat back down and waited for the next shoe to drop on the evening.

Now he looked intrigued. Mainly because, since he didn't have Alex Rourke's number, he was listening to the information that 411 could give him. Just to prove a point. But now, yes, he was intrigued.

Estaban put his phone on speaker.

"We are ready Sheriff Tahan. All three of us here and listening."

"All right. So here's what we're dealing with. It's a demon. But it's one of the fallen-angel kind of demons instead of just the 'spawned in Hell' kind of demons. The best that we've been able to tell thus far, he's trying to get back into Heaven. So he's going to be going around, taking a hard line for our kind to have faith in God and humanity or die."

She paused, if only to let that sink in, before she continued.

"We can't kill him. The most we can hope for is to maybe bind him so that he can't go anywhere or bugger anyone anymore, or shank his host body. Binding him will be the harder of the two options, but the most permanent, and on that one, wish us luck. To just kill his host body... will only send him back to Hell. Until he finds his way out again. But he's found his way out once already, so it's a very temporary solution."

She sighed.

"And that, kids, is what we're dealing with. Anybody sees this guy, if he tries to talk to any of you, call me or one of my deputies immediately. Now. I'm going to go talk to a guy about God and angels and see if there's something he can tell me."

Well, at least Cass wasn't disappointed. The other shoe dropped as expected. Whee!

No comment from this peanut gallery.

He actually spoke up.

"Sheriff, if I may, a question. Is this information to be kept as secretive as possible, or is this something that we may warn our clanmates of?"

She answered quickly.

"Please, tell your clanmates. Harpy, if you could, please make an announcement as soon as possible. The more people that can identify this creature for what it is, the better off we are. The faster that my office is called the minute that he is seen, the less of a chance he will get to destroy one of us for not converting to whatever religion he wants us to convert to. Shout it from the hilltops if you have to. I'd be making an announcement myself, except that I'm going to be kept a little busy trying to figure out how to make him go away."

"An excellent question."

His grip and softened tremendously, it was almost a caress. Wonder how far she could get before it changed?

Oh, Cass was sure she couldn't get far. Didn't stop her from trying.

"Any more questions?"

He wrapped his arms around the escaping cass.

"I dont think so. I will make the announcement tonight. Thank you Sheriff. Take care of yourself, please."

"On it. Going to go see a man about angels."

The phone clicked off.

Wiggle, struggle, grr!

Strength was still not her strong point. So she just gave up-- without a word, a whimper or a pout.

He looked thoughtful. Really, really thoughtful.

"I'm pretty certain that this is very bad."

"And yet, somehow, it can still get worse," she said quietly without moving.

"Yes, it can."

He started dialing his phone again, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Thankfully, I know someone who is an angels expert."

Cass looked up and over her shoulder at Estaban, cigarette still in her lips and batted her eyelashes at him.

"I would really, really like to smoke this, sugar. Let go so I can?"

He laughed and his arms went around her waist instead.

"I don't think I am letting you go till you agree to stay around a little longer. I do admire your fire though. Who are you calling now Malachi darling?"