(no subject)
Date: 6 June, morning
Location: The manor
Summary: Jarod sets to work on the dead hellbeast
A loose wallet could do a lot of things. For one, it could get a person an adequately set-up lab in a basement room within three days.
The hellbeast was still politely dead, and also still untouched by any vermin that would normally have eaten their fill of the carcass by now. he had hoisted it downstairs in the wee hours of the morning, when it was not likely someone would take offence.
Now he waited. Raphael had expressed a certain interest in being there, after all. He had left him a message. If he didn't drop by soon, though, he'd just go ahead and start on his little autopsy. His curiosity was getting hard to control.
Raphael raced as quickly as he could, throwing on his lab coat and making sure he had his glasses handy. His wings complained about the disturbance but obligingly wriggled through the slits. "Jarod...?" He peered around the door, smoothing out his coat.
"There you are!" Jarod said as Raphael made his hurried entrance. "I'd started to fear I'd have to work all alone here."
He reached for a voice recorder he had gotten from his things.
"All ready to start?"
Raphael slipped on his gloves and brought down his safety glasses. "I'm ready."
Jarod switched on his voice recorder and slid it into his lab coat pocket.
"The..." he hestitated. 'Victim' was hardly the right word. 'Deceased' wasn't any better either.
"The specimen," he decided, "is a creature commonly described as hellbeast. Nothing is known about its age. Regarding sex - Raphael, do we know how to tell males from females?"
Raphael gave a nod. "It's female," he said. "So she'll be built for hunting and stealth. The males aren't as slender because they're built for war. They're also harder to kill than a female." He made a face, wondering what would have happened had the beast been male. He decided not to think about it for now.
"Female," Jarod repeated, just in case the recording device had not caught it well. He prodded at the being's thick, scaly skin.
"The skin is still supple in spite of this cadaver being several days old. It seems to be covered in something like scales."
He reached for a scalpel to make an incision.
"It's surprisingly hard to cut through," he dictated, sawing a little. He looked at Raphael.
Raphael's grimace was apologetic. "They're made to withstand a lot. But they're softest at the neck." He pointed with a gloved finger. "You'll be sawing for awhile with that if you do it there."
Jarod grimaced. "I want a sample," he said, very nearly but not quite pouting, and setting to work with renewed fervor. "Any ideas if these are actually scales, or more like dermal teeth or something?"
"It's plated armor. Meant to withstand an angel's sword." Unless you hit it at its soft spot or melt it... He shivered a little and shoved the memory aside. This was not the time nor the place. "It would be harder than teeth. Much harder. In fact, demons sometimes use the skin as armor when they go into battle." It would seem counterproductive, but Raphael had seen it many a time, a demon ripping the skin from a dead Hellbeast or even a live one before racing to confront an angel. "You can also melt them with holy water," he added. "But that makes a pretty big mess."
"Can we cut out a tiny bit and try, with the holy water?" Jarod asked. "I'd like to examine the reaction, see if it's chemical or something."
He scrutinised the carcass. "And do you mean one could make something out of its skin? Sounds... fascinating!"
Raphael tried not to cringe. In truth, he wondered of he would have been this squeamy had he not nearly been killed by one. Twice. Nodding his acknowledgement he moved to get a cup and fill it with water from the tap. Then he blessed it and set it next to where Jarod could take it when he was ready. "Be ready for... Well, make sure you are protected."
Jarod held up a hand. "Wait," he said. "Let's cut a bit out and put it ina dish or something. And ... actually we should probably have a glass plate to put between it and us, but we don't. So we'll just have to be careful."
He took a slightly larger knife and started sawing a small cube of flesh out of the hellbeast's leg.
Raphael nodded. He was an Archangel. But he knew perfectly well what infernal creatures could do. He remembered the one that melted on top of him. At the same time... Jarod was the Son, He would keep them both safe. "Okay, on three, drop it in and we jump back." He shot a look behind him. "To the wall."
Jarod looked at Raphael, the cup, the bit of hellbeast in his hand.
"Wait," he said. "I'll buy some time for us."
He put a bowl on the table, and the bit of hellbeast in it. Above it, he placed a glass vessel with a valve at the bottom that could be opened to drip whatever was put into the glass ball part of it slowly onto whatever was placed below.
"Put the water in here," he suggested. "We'll open it to drip slowly, and not precisely on top of the hellbeast part. Then we have time to move away until it actually flows into it and connects. Okay?"
Raphael nodded. "Okay, that sounds perfect." Even so, one of his tiny wings extended in a protective gesture. If the Son were hurt because of this...
Jarod completed his set-up, then opened the valve just a tiny bit and stepped back to the opposite wall. It would take a few minutes for enough liquid to collect, he thought.
"Does your holy water have a best-before date or something?" he asked carefully. "I mean... what if it's worn off by the time it gets there?"
"Nope," he said. He moved slightly so if something went wrong he could protect the Son. "Holy water once blessed lasts forever. In fact, in my place in the Andes I have Holy Water blessed when Father first separated the Firmament."
"You have a place in the Andes?" Jarod asked, intrigued. "What's it like there?"
He kept half an eye on the experiment.
And that was all Raphael needed.
"It has been untouched by man," he said. "So there are no roads or buildings. I have a cave with some things in it, but that's it. I have a pet Lemur named Little Guy and a collection of scrolls and all sorts of things as old as time. It was my home away from Home and..." He realized he was grinning. "Perhaps when I can fly again I can take you. It is beautiful what our Father has created."
"Sounds nice," Jarod said, genuinly meaning it. "But what if someone finds the scroll some day and does something with them? Places untouched by man don't have a habit of staying that way these days."
He had had some unfortunate experience with scrolls recently, too, after all.
"Maybe we should have set the dripping faster after all..."
Raphael's mind drifted to his place in the Andes. It had been his little home when he needed one, but was it still? The Manor was closer to his home now, wasn't it?
Was anywhere other than Heaven his true Home? Could anywhere on this planet be a home for an angel?
Raphael realized he was nearly blocking the Son from seeing. "Sorry," he muttered, cheeks coloring. He needed to keep his head in the here and now. They were dissecting a Hellbeast, absolutely anything could go wrong and...
"Look out!" Much too small wing snapped out protectively as he practically tackled
Jarod only just managed to keep himself from going down under the angel's enthusiastic protection.
"Whoa," he cautioned. "Careful there! Now let's go check what's left of the hellbeast bit, shall we?"
He carefully disentangled himself from Raphael.
Jarod got up, dusting off first his clothes, then Rapahel's.
"Stupid of me.. I should have looked at that under a microscope and all first and properly scraped it clean. I guess I got a bit carried away there."
He went over to inspect the result of their little experiment.
Raphael followed. As he expected, whatever hadn't splattered was now sludge. It was actually quite fascinating. Well. Once it wasn't alive and trying to kill you.
Jarod took a sample of the sludge. He'd look at it under a microscope later.
"Can I have a bit of holy water, too?" he asked, "for further experiments? Do you think it'd still react if we'd add more now? How is water changed by being blessed? Do you think the difference can be told some other way than pouring it onto a hellbeast?"
He realised he was talking without taking a breath or gviign Raphael a chance of getting in a word edge-wise.
The Angel of Knowledge grinned at his enthusiasm. Eyes shining he blessed more water but this time poured it into a bottle so the Son could save some for another time. He thought about the answers to the questions. The Hellbeast he had melted with the fire extinguishers had just kept melting until it was goo. "It would keep melting until it's a complete liquid form." Raphael made a face. "The liquid remains of a Hellbeast burns to the touch. It... It can really hurt a celestial being. As for the holy water..." He picked up a small potted plant. "Plants react to holy water as well, but in a good way." He grinned as if daring Jarod to try and see what happens.
Jarod squinted at the Hellbeast bit, then at Raphael.
"So... If you put holy water in the plant, and the plant reacts to it, or with it... And if then a Hellbeast would eat the plant - What would happen?"
He took sampling bottles to carefully bottle and label some of hte hellbeast goo, then prepared some slides for a microscope. Working with Raphael was going to be fun, he knew it!
"It would be like an angel eating something a demon manifested. The Hellbeast would get a pretty nasty sore throat." He would know. He blushed a bit at the number of times he was tempted into eating chocolate offered by a demon. "Second-hand doesn't affect it as badly but it does affect it to a point."
Raphael ran a finger down the creature's spine. "Did you want to... See what was inside?"
"Yes," Jarod said, looking the creature over again. "I'd like to see what's inside of it. Should you be taking cover in case blood is splashing out? It shouldn't be splashing after all this time, but I have no idea what happens to these things after death..."
He ran his hands over the skin of the creature's body and limbs, testing how supple it and the muscle beneath still was.
As he reached the fold where neck joined rump, he stopped. "Is this supposed to be on it?" he asked.
"It won't splash, no, you are correct," Raphael nodded. His little winglets cringed though as he adjusted his safety goggles to take a better look. "Is what supposed to be on it?"
It was strange, but there was almost something odd about the creature. It was definately an infernal being but...
Jarod pointed at the brand signed into the scaly hide of the creature. That is, he wasn't all that sure it WAS a brand. It certianly was SOMETHING, however, and it did not appear natural.
Raphael's lips parted as it struck him heavily what he was looking at. Quickly he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and at first he started to draw whatever it was before realizing he might be copying an Angel Death Spell or something. "I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it's a brand. It... It would be the symbol of its owner."
"Its owner," Jaron repeated. "Like some kind of demon?"
He noticed Raphael stop his copying. "Something wrong? I think it's a good idea to make a copy of this, unless you want to cut it out and keep the original?"
An idea struck him.
"The stomach," he said, getting his head back into the present. "If the creature was... formed new, there won't be any scars." That would mean the beast had been formed with an immediate purpose. It would narrow down who the owner was at least...
Jarod turned the large animal with some effort.
"We still should try and find out what's up with the mark," he said. "If not now, then later. It might be a clue to... to whatever."
"What do you think it was really after?" Raphael tenatively asked. He really hated the idea that it had come for him, like the one in his office, but what if it hadn't? It was a dangerous thought, one that would lead to even more dangerous thoughts and no doubt end in actually believing that being attacked was not his fault, that he really wasn't putting those he cared about in danger.
The mind was a twisted maze.
He sighed, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. The scientist in him was enjoying this study, if he allowed himself not to be sickened by the fear of claws tearing into him. 'Am I any different than this creature?' a tiny voice poked at him. Driven by instinct, destructive... Destroying others.
Maybe.
But it didn't matter, not anymore. Because the angel was going to keep moving forward. He may stumble a little, but at least his vision was in the right direction. Right...? Raphael quirked a tiny smile at Jarod. "Having fun yet?" he teased.
Location: The manor
Summary: Jarod sets to work on the dead hellbeast
A loose wallet could do a lot of things. For one, it could get a person an adequately set-up lab in a basement room within three days.
The hellbeast was still politely dead, and also still untouched by any vermin that would normally have eaten their fill of the carcass by now. he had hoisted it downstairs in the wee hours of the morning, when it was not likely someone would take offence.
Now he waited. Raphael had expressed a certain interest in being there, after all. He had left him a message. If he didn't drop by soon, though, he'd just go ahead and start on his little autopsy. His curiosity was getting hard to control.
Raphael raced as quickly as he could, throwing on his lab coat and making sure he had his glasses handy. His wings complained about the disturbance but obligingly wriggled through the slits. "Jarod...?" He peered around the door, smoothing out his coat.
"There you are!" Jarod said as Raphael made his hurried entrance. "I'd started to fear I'd have to work all alone here."
He reached for a voice recorder he had gotten from his things.
"All ready to start?"
Raphael slipped on his gloves and brought down his safety glasses. "I'm ready."
Jarod switched on his voice recorder and slid it into his lab coat pocket.
"The..." he hestitated. 'Victim' was hardly the right word. 'Deceased' wasn't any better either.
"The specimen," he decided, "is a creature commonly described as hellbeast. Nothing is known about its age. Regarding sex - Raphael, do we know how to tell males from females?"
Raphael gave a nod. "It's female," he said. "So she'll be built for hunting and stealth. The males aren't as slender because they're built for war. They're also harder to kill than a female." He made a face, wondering what would have happened had the beast been male. He decided not to think about it for now.
"Female," Jarod repeated, just in case the recording device had not caught it well. He prodded at the being's thick, scaly skin.
"The skin is still supple in spite of this cadaver being several days old. It seems to be covered in something like scales."
He reached for a scalpel to make an incision.
"It's surprisingly hard to cut through," he dictated, sawing a little. He looked at Raphael.
Raphael's grimace was apologetic. "They're made to withstand a lot. But they're softest at the neck." He pointed with a gloved finger. "You'll be sawing for awhile with that if you do it there."
Jarod grimaced. "I want a sample," he said, very nearly but not quite pouting, and setting to work with renewed fervor. "Any ideas if these are actually scales, or more like dermal teeth or something?"
"It's plated armor. Meant to withstand an angel's sword." Unless you hit it at its soft spot or melt it... He shivered a little and shoved the memory aside. This was not the time nor the place. "It would be harder than teeth. Much harder. In fact, demons sometimes use the skin as armor when they go into battle." It would seem counterproductive, but Raphael had seen it many a time, a demon ripping the skin from a dead Hellbeast or even a live one before racing to confront an angel. "You can also melt them with holy water," he added. "But that makes a pretty big mess."
"Can we cut out a tiny bit and try, with the holy water?" Jarod asked. "I'd like to examine the reaction, see if it's chemical or something."
He scrutinised the carcass. "And do you mean one could make something out of its skin? Sounds... fascinating!"
Raphael tried not to cringe. In truth, he wondered of he would have been this squeamy had he not nearly been killed by one. Twice. Nodding his acknowledgement he moved to get a cup and fill it with water from the tap. Then he blessed it and set it next to where Jarod could take it when he was ready. "Be ready for... Well, make sure you are protected."
Jarod held up a hand. "Wait," he said. "Let's cut a bit out and put it ina dish or something. And ... actually we should probably have a glass plate to put between it and us, but we don't. So we'll just have to be careful."
He took a slightly larger knife and started sawing a small cube of flesh out of the hellbeast's leg.
Raphael nodded. He was an Archangel. But he knew perfectly well what infernal creatures could do. He remembered the one that melted on top of him. At the same time... Jarod was the Son, He would keep them both safe. "Okay, on three, drop it in and we jump back." He shot a look behind him. "To the wall."
Jarod looked at Raphael, the cup, the bit of hellbeast in his hand.
"Wait," he said. "I'll buy some time for us."
He put a bowl on the table, and the bit of hellbeast in it. Above it, he placed a glass vessel with a valve at the bottom that could be opened to drip whatever was put into the glass ball part of it slowly onto whatever was placed below.
"Put the water in here," he suggested. "We'll open it to drip slowly, and not precisely on top of the hellbeast part. Then we have time to move away until it actually flows into it and connects. Okay?"
Raphael nodded. "Okay, that sounds perfect." Even so, one of his tiny wings extended in a protective gesture. If the Son were hurt because of this...
Jarod completed his set-up, then opened the valve just a tiny bit and stepped back to the opposite wall. It would take a few minutes for enough liquid to collect, he thought.
"Does your holy water have a best-before date or something?" he asked carefully. "I mean... what if it's worn off by the time it gets there?"
"Nope," he said. He moved slightly so if something went wrong he could protect the Son. "Holy water once blessed lasts forever. In fact, in my place in the Andes I have Holy Water blessed when Father first separated the Firmament."
"You have a place in the Andes?" Jarod asked, intrigued. "What's it like there?"
He kept half an eye on the experiment.
And that was all Raphael needed.
"It has been untouched by man," he said. "So there are no roads or buildings. I have a cave with some things in it, but that's it. I have a pet Lemur named Little Guy and a collection of scrolls and all sorts of things as old as time. It was my home away from Home and..." He realized he was grinning. "Perhaps when I can fly again I can take you. It is beautiful what our Father has created."
"Sounds nice," Jarod said, genuinly meaning it. "But what if someone finds the scroll some day and does something with them? Places untouched by man don't have a habit of staying that way these days."
He had had some unfortunate experience with scrolls recently, too, after all.
"Maybe we should have set the dripping faster after all..."
Raphael's mind drifted to his place in the Andes. It had been his little home when he needed one, but was it still? The Manor was closer to his home now, wasn't it?
Was anywhere other than Heaven his true Home? Could anywhere on this planet be a home for an angel?
Raphael realized he was nearly blocking the Son from seeing. "Sorry," he muttered, cheeks coloring. He needed to keep his head in the here and now. They were dissecting a Hellbeast, absolutely anything could go wrong and...
"Look out!" Much too small wing snapped out protectively as he practically tackled
Jarod only just managed to keep himself from going down under the angel's enthusiastic protection.
"Whoa," he cautioned. "Careful there! Now let's go check what's left of the hellbeast bit, shall we?"
He carefully disentangled himself from Raphael.
Jarod got up, dusting off first his clothes, then Rapahel's.
"Stupid of me.. I should have looked at that under a microscope and all first and properly scraped it clean. I guess I got a bit carried away there."
He went over to inspect the result of their little experiment.
Raphael followed. As he expected, whatever hadn't splattered was now sludge. It was actually quite fascinating. Well. Once it wasn't alive and trying to kill you.
Jarod took a sample of the sludge. He'd look at it under a microscope later.
"Can I have a bit of holy water, too?" he asked, "for further experiments? Do you think it'd still react if we'd add more now? How is water changed by being blessed? Do you think the difference can be told some other way than pouring it onto a hellbeast?"
He realised he was talking without taking a breath or gviign Raphael a chance of getting in a word edge-wise.
The Angel of Knowledge grinned at his enthusiasm. Eyes shining he blessed more water but this time poured it into a bottle so the Son could save some for another time. He thought about the answers to the questions. The Hellbeast he had melted with the fire extinguishers had just kept melting until it was goo. "It would keep melting until it's a complete liquid form." Raphael made a face. "The liquid remains of a Hellbeast burns to the touch. It... It can really hurt a celestial being. As for the holy water..." He picked up a small potted plant. "Plants react to holy water as well, but in a good way." He grinned as if daring Jarod to try and see what happens.
Jarod squinted at the Hellbeast bit, then at Raphael.
"So... If you put holy water in the plant, and the plant reacts to it, or with it... And if then a Hellbeast would eat the plant - What would happen?"
He took sampling bottles to carefully bottle and label some of hte hellbeast goo, then prepared some slides for a microscope. Working with Raphael was going to be fun, he knew it!
"It would be like an angel eating something a demon manifested. The Hellbeast would get a pretty nasty sore throat." He would know. He blushed a bit at the number of times he was tempted into eating chocolate offered by a demon. "Second-hand doesn't affect it as badly but it does affect it to a point."
Raphael ran a finger down the creature's spine. "Did you want to... See what was inside?"
"Yes," Jarod said, looking the creature over again. "I'd like to see what's inside of it. Should you be taking cover in case blood is splashing out? It shouldn't be splashing after all this time, but I have no idea what happens to these things after death..."
He ran his hands over the skin of the creature's body and limbs, testing how supple it and the muscle beneath still was.
As he reached the fold where neck joined rump, he stopped. "Is this supposed to be on it?" he asked.
"It won't splash, no, you are correct," Raphael nodded. His little winglets cringed though as he adjusted his safety goggles to take a better look. "Is what supposed to be on it?"
It was strange, but there was almost something odd about the creature. It was definately an infernal being but...
Jarod pointed at the brand signed into the scaly hide of the creature. That is, he wasn't all that sure it WAS a brand. It certianly was SOMETHING, however, and it did not appear natural.
Raphael's lips parted as it struck him heavily what he was looking at. Quickly he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and at first he started to draw whatever it was before realizing he might be copying an Angel Death Spell or something. "I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty sure it's a brand. It... It would be the symbol of its owner."
"Its owner," Jaron repeated. "Like some kind of demon?"
He noticed Raphael stop his copying. "Something wrong? I think it's a good idea to make a copy of this, unless you want to cut it out and keep the original?"
An idea struck him.
"The stomach," he said, getting his head back into the present. "If the creature was... formed new, there won't be any scars." That would mean the beast had been formed with an immediate purpose. It would narrow down who the owner was at least...
Jarod turned the large animal with some effort.
"We still should try and find out what's up with the mark," he said. "If not now, then later. It might be a clue to... to whatever."
"What do you think it was really after?" Raphael tenatively asked. He really hated the idea that it had come for him, like the one in his office, but what if it hadn't? It was a dangerous thought, one that would lead to even more dangerous thoughts and no doubt end in actually believing that being attacked was not his fault, that he really wasn't putting those he cared about in danger.
The mind was a twisted maze.
He sighed, forcing his mind back to the task at hand. The scientist in him was enjoying this study, if he allowed himself not to be sickened by the fear of claws tearing into him. 'Am I any different than this creature?' a tiny voice poked at him. Driven by instinct, destructive... Destroying others.
Maybe.
But it didn't matter, not anymore. Because the angel was going to keep moving forward. He may stumble a little, but at least his vision was in the right direction. Right...? Raphael quirked a tiny smile at Jarod. "Having fun yet?" he teased.