It was a lazy Saturday afternoon.
No work, no chores needing doing, no reason at all to go out and do anything at all.
Just a day of chilling at home with his resident demon jackalope Lucy.
That's all that should have concerned Inco for today.
But things had hit something of a snag.
They had been both been in their customary places on the couch, vegging out and pretty much doing their best to do as little as possible.
Inco had then slipped into the kitchen to go and grab them a snack.
So far so good.
But when he got back to living room however...
"Oof!"
He was struck by an almost spider like creature, wrapping him tightly around the chest with multiple spindley limbs that seemed to end with razor sharp claws...
Oh.
Actually, it was just Lucy.
She seemed to have flung herself at him, wrapping him in what he assumed was a hug, with her arms tightly around his chest and her legs locked around his waist.
"Uhh... hello to you too Lucy." he wheezed.
"I've only been gone a minute so you can't have missed me that much..."
She didn't immediately answer, her face buried in his chest.
"Lucy?"
He was getting worried now.
Eventually, she managed to pull her face away enough to look up at him.
He had expected to see her usual smug expression, the one she wore when plotting and executing her nefarious pranks.
Instead he saw something that made his heart freeze.
Fear.
Her normally bright eyes were clouded with an all consuming terror.
"Inky..."
"Lucy what is it?" he asked, all thoughts of pranks or spilled snacks evaporating in the face of her terror.
"He's here!" she managed to say, through chattering teeth.
"He's here to take me back!"
"Who is?" he asked.
"M-my boss..." she replied, shaking now.
He tried to move her, to set her down, but found that he couldn't.
Her inhumanly strong grip had pinned his arms to his sides.

Finding he had little chance of freeing himself from her grip, he instead shuffled awkwardly over to the window and looked outside.
He didn't see it immediately, but it made no attempt to hide.
There was a darkness out there, standing out on the sidewalk.
A shadow somehow defying the bright afternoon sun and needing nothing to cast it.
He found he couldn't look at it directly, his eyes seeming to force themselves away rather than linger on its repulsive form for more than a second.
Inco stood away from the glass, his heart racing now almost as fast as Lucy's.
"Lucy, let go." he commanded.
"I'm going to go fetch my gun."
Instead, she clung to him that much harder, digging those wicked talons of hers into his back.
"No Inky no!" she wailed.
"If you go out there he'll get you too!"
Cursing, he tried again to free himself from her desperate embrace, but found himself more stuck than ever.
"Lucy, we can't just hide in here if there's some sort of boss demon guy outside our front door..."
"Let go and I'll see if I can scare him off or-"
Another painful squeeze.
"No!" she wailed.
"No no no!"
With his arms stuck and Lucy refusing to let go, Inco couldn't see how he could even start to deal with whatever this was.
How do you even go about fighting a demon anyway?
You would need to be a freaking saint or something to even stand a chance.
Or...
Or at least know someone who happened to have an angel just hanging around their house...
He had a plan.
"Lucy?" he asked carefully.
She had once again buried her face in his chest.
"Lucy I need to get my phone."
She didn't move.
"Lucy, please can I just get my phone?"
No response.
With a sigh, he shuffled over to the little coffee table by the sofa where he'd left it.
He managed to lower himself down, bringing his hand in touching distance...
But with Lucy's extra weight throwing of his balance, he ended up toppling over onto the floor.
Damn it Lucy...

After a bit of rolling around and awkward finger jabbing, Inco managed to get to the phone.
But Lucy still held him like a vice.
He first tried calling Anon.
He was always telling him about how his angel Mikey told stories of mighty demons she had slain in the old days, so this should be right up her alley.
Unfortunately, he only got an automated voice telling him the user was not available.
She'd probably taken Anon out into the middle of nowhere again to practice sword fighting or something and was out of range.
Next, he tried Jonah.
Not his first choice, but his angel Gabby was apparently some sort of bigwig in the bible so hopefully she would be able to do something about a demon.
Yet all he got was a chirpy voicemail.
Then he remembered, Jonah was out of town, off to some tech convention or something that might help with his streaming stuff.
That was that then, they were screwed.
There was no one else of in town that he knew had a guardian freaking angel on standby.
Then he remembered.
There was one last number he could try.
Anon had given it to him as an absolute emergency number to call.
It was supposed to be for the off chance that Lucy herself went rogue and reverted back to her demonic ways.
A number of last resort if all else failed.
He had forgotten about it, convinced Lucy would never in a million years give him cause to ever need it.
To call it for any other reason, Anon assured him, would lead to dire consequences indeed...
But this surely was just the sort of situation...
With another awkward series of shuffles and floor based manoeuvres, he retrieved the number, and made the call.

Outside the small dwelling Inco called home, stood the demon.
A creature of pure malice, shrouded in darkness and manifest fear.
Veteran of a thousand campaigns of terror against the forces of heaven.
A champion of corruption and death.
Today, he was here for Lucy.

It waited.
It's target was surely inside, it could feel the waves of fear and panic rippling out from within.
It savoured them, taking a moment to bask in the sweet terror it inspired in even it's own kind.
Soon it would strike, then it would drag the wretched cur hiding within back down to where it belongs.
In pieces, if necessary.
Yet as it began it's slow advance, it felt something else, something disgustingly familiar.
It turned, and found a pair of cold merciless eyes watching it, from under a little fringe of dark grey fur.

The angel Zagzagel stood watching the demon as it turned to face him.
He hadn't seen a creature such as this in a long time, a very long time.
His divine eyes had no trouble watching it, long used to the subtle tricks such creatures used to unnerve their foes.
It smiled nastily at him, the shadows about it's otherwise formless face pulling apart in a mockery of lips.
"Zagzagel..." it spat.
"We had hoped to meet you again."
He gave it his best uninterested stare.
"Oh, have we met?" he asked casually.
"Can't say I remember you..."
It let out a bubbling throaty chuckle.
"We remember." it hissed.
"From the last siege of the old gates... we remember, even if you've changed your shape, we will always remember!"
Crap.
Now he remembered.
This was a particularly nasty piece of work, a higher demon of shadow...
He's blasted it to smithereens back in the day, but here on earth he couldn't go using that sort of power.
Not without burning a whole residential block or two at least.
It's smile widened.
"No other filthy angels to back you up this time little rabbit..."
It started to advance on him, taking its time as it hoped to instill fear in him.
But this wasn't a little rabbit trapped on earth...
Zag smiled right back at it.
"Since I came here demon, I've ended up watching a lot of human tv." he began.
"They have a lot of really quite dumb ideas on how to fight a demon..."

The demon quickened it's pace, drawing ever closer to it's hated foe.
The much smaller hare stood his ground, waiting.
"They think you need big explosions, a big ol' crucifix, some holy water..."
It was nearly on him now, running with big loping strides.
"But really..."
Crack
The demon fell, screeching incomprehensibly and clutching at itself.
"You just need to know how and where to hit it."
Zag stood there in front of the fallen demon, his arm extended, and holding a small black revolver.
A momento from his Wylde Hare days.
"You shot me!" the demon cried"
"You shot me right in the-"
It renewed its screams as it clutched at the place between it's legs.
Zag smiled.
"I saw this one movie where they carved little crosses on the bullets and dipped them in holy water, and I was curious if it would work or not."
He shrugged.
"Guess not all those ideas were dumb after all..."
The demon tried to rise.
"I'll teach you cursed creature for mocking me!" it snarled.
Crack
It was down again.
A fresh hole in its knee now.
"That's enough of that." Zag chided.
"Now, here's the deal."
"The one in there, Lucy, she's off limits from now on, and under my protection."
The demon hissed angrily, but kept it's mouth shut.
"So you are going to crawl off back home, and not bother her again... ok?"
The demon looked to be working up a particularly nasty response, but the sight of the still smoking barrel of the sanctified revolver caused it to reconsider.
With a nod, it spat a sizzling glob of ichor on the ground, and vanished.
With a weary sigh, Zag pocketed the gun and moved on up to the house.

Inco had been watching from the window, and met Zag at the door.
The angel didn't look happy.
"Thank you for that." Inco began.
"I owe you for-"
Zag cut him off.
"You see what you get for hanging around with demons all day?" he asked accusingly.
"Do you see why Mikey tried warning you off this one?"

Lucy was still tightly attached to Inco's chest, and didn't seem to realise they were talking about her.
Inco sighed.
"I'm sorry for the trouble, really, but I... I love her."
She twitched.
"She's a good person, she's been through hell, in more ways than one, but she deserves to be happy and I'm not going to turn my back on her."
Zag huffed
"Well, I can respect that I guess..."
"You're just lucky I can't resist rescuing a dame in distress."
Inco smiled.
"We owe you one Zag, really."
The angel turned to go.
"I'll remember that buddy." he said.
"And I always collect on my debts."
With that he left, off back to whatever he had been doing before the call had come
Inco shut the door and went back to the living room.
Feeling far too tired now for a Saturday afternoon he tried again to remove the jackalope.
"It's safe now Lucy, you can let go now."
She remained in place.
As he wriggled in her grasp trying to dislodge her, he heard a small voice from his chest.
"Inco loves meeeee..."
He looked down, seeing her more familiar smug look back in action.
"So you were listening then?" he asked smiling.
Her head suddenly shot up, and she caught him bang on the lips with suprise kiss.
With his arms still pinned, he lost his balance and went crashing to the floor once again.
"Damn it Lucy..."
He was still trapped in her arms, but he felt she wasn't clinging on for dear life anymore.
She was just hugging him really really tightly.
"We've got to work on your hugs..." he grumbled.
Finally working an arm free, he wrapped her in a hug of his own.

End