"Why is he running upwards?" Angela asked.
"How should I know? We need to catch up fast. We can't let them make too much of a commotion, it could start a war!" Constantine said, running upstairs.
"A war? Do you mean between the world and hell?"
"No, I mean between America and the Soviet Union!"
The two of them chased soldiers with heavy firepower to the top floor. Somehow, the demon ignored everything and ran straight toward the end of the corridor, into a room.
In that room were Batman and Shiller, staring each other down.
Batman reacted swiftly. He heard the noise behind him and instantly rolled aside to hide. Consequently, the demon ended up face to face with Shiller.
The demon was massive, and it emanated a dense, black smoke. The KGB agents who had rushed into the room didn't see the large creature behind them; their only goal was a swift victory.
Seeing the creature halt, they intensified their firepower. The demon's newly-formed and still unstable body was almost shattered by the attack. After withstanding only two seconds of the onslaught, its black form exploded.
Many of the weapons discharging heavy firepower could not cease fire immediately, and the agents' reactions were not quick enough. The demon's dispersing black energy blocked their line of sight, and they did not halt their attack. As a result, all of the bullets hit Shiller.
As the black smoke cleared, everyone saw the sparks from bullets decorating Shiller's body, and then he fell out of the window, from ten stories high.
Constantine and Kira who had just caught up, ran straight to the window. They looked down and saw Shiller, like an ordinary person, had crashed to the ground. Blood spread out around him, under the street lamps, giving off a warm glow.
Angela stood rooted to the spot. She had seen Shiller's face, just one second before he fell. She let out an incredulous cry:
"Shiller... Shiller!!!!"
After much stunned silence, she rushed to the window. Seeing the figure collapsed on the ground, bloody all around him, she let out a desperate scream, "No!!!!"
Twenty minutes later, outside the emergency room of Metropolitan Central Hospital, Angela covered her face and slid down the wall, crumpling to the floor in despair. Constantine, smoking next to her, watched as the smoke thinned out under the cold light of the emergency room sign.
"...did you know Shiller?" Constantine asked.
Angela was silent for a long while, lost in thought or perhaps searching for words. It was only after a few minutes that she responded: "Of course, of course I knew him. How could I not know him?"
"Honestly, as his friend, we didn't really understand his past. Would you care to share his story?" Constantine asked.
"It was about.... five or six years ago, when I had just graduated from the Police Academy and started work at Metropolitan Police Department." Angela shook her head, "You should know, women in this profession face a lot of discrimination."
Constantine nodded, of course he knew. Despite the many years of anti-discrimination movements, and the significant increase in female employment rates, that was only in common industries.
In this era and in the fields of law enforcement, military, and fire departments, there was still a deep-rooted stereotype prevailing, that even if women were a part of these industries, they ought to be filling clerical roles, maintaining files, serving tea and water. Field work was out of the question.
That's another reason why Angela was so well-known. She was one of the rare competent female police officers on the East Coast and even nationwide. Everyone knew that a woman who could make a mark under such circumstances was no ordinary woman.
But as Angela narrated her story, Constantine realized then that she was not always the strong person she seemed to be when she first joined the force.
"When I first joined the Metropolitan Police Department, for the first three days I was running up and down the building answering phone calls or fetching files from the first floor for the Chief of Police. The Chief seemed to like making me do this work, possibly because I was prettier than the other female clerks."
Angela wasn't boasting, she was merely stating a fact. Constantine leaned against the wall, from his standpoint, he could see Angela's slightly defined eyebrows and upright nose.
This female police officer's appearance wasn't the soft and sweet style liked by the masses; her facial features carried a sharpness, a sort of wild beauty and unique sexiness.
"The first time they assigned combat teams, unsurprisingly, I was left behind in the police station, tasked with organizing files."
"The work with the files was indeed important. The collected evidence needed analyzing and it could provide great help to the detectives on the front line. I tried to convince myself that such a career wasn't bad."
"But I always felt I could do more. Hence, during the second cooperative case with the local police, I applied to the Chief for fieldwork. He agreed, but at the cost of sleeping with him. I slapped him, and the next day, I was sent to the most remote branch."
"Perhaps it was precisely because the place was too remote that a dismembering murderer hid some parts of the body in a trash can on the street I was responsible for. Just like that, I came face-to-face with a brutal criminal for the first time."
"You beaten him, right?" Constantine looked at Angela and asked.
To be honest, ever since Angela found him, the phrase 'bravery' was fitting of this female detective's performance. She not only freed herself quickly from negative emotions of grief but also still had great combat abilities afterward – something most people could not do.
But who would know, Angela shook her head and said, "It was then that I realized, what I had learned at the police academy was not useful in the real world, and I was too nervous; so, I let him escape."
"After that, he not only killed an innocent person but also cause the death of a cop..." Angela closed her eyes, her voice beginning to shake. She said, "After that, I began having continuous nightmares..."
"In the dreams, countless times, I defeated that man, arrested him, sent him to jail, and the innocent victim and the cop continued their peaceful lives. But every time I woke up, the reality was completely the opposite."
Angela took a deep breath and said, "I knew long ago that my mental state was not very stable, because... because of my parents..."
It seemed as though Angela mustered a lot of courage to say these words, she continued, "They said that my younger sister was a monster, an incurable mentally ill patient, and that I was a good child, I never let them down..."
"But I knew that I was a monster too, I could see those things, I just didn't say it, or rather, I was too scared to mention it..."
"Because my younger sister displayed abnormalities first, they took her to a psychologist. The psychologist said she had delusions, so my parents disregarded her pleas and sent her to a mental institution and said that if she wasn't cured, she couldn't be discharged."
"I knew they just found an excuse to abandon her."
"They placed all their hopes on me, and they found another specialist to diagnose me."
Angela's voice was laced with a hint of a sob, her tone filled with fear. She spoke haltingly, "When I sat in that chair, I was trembling with fear because I knew that I, just like my sister, could see those things."
"At that time, I heard the door open and I was nearly crying, feeling that very soon, that specialist would sentence me."
"But the one who entered was a young intern doctor. He said his name was Shiller, Shiller Rodriguez."