Abel Nightroad: Forgotten Lives

Chapter One: Anticipation

The room was dark and quiet as she gave a small push to the doorknob, letting the door swing back on its hinges. The doors to the balcony directly across from her were pushed open wide, drapes fluttering in the breeze, a small spect of moonlight lit only that small passage in the middle of the room. A harsh gust of wind burst through the doors at the same time she stepped in, sending chills down her spine and papers on a nearby desk flying. She didn't like it here; the eerie feeling something was wrong and out of place stuck like pins throughout her entire body. She looked to the right where a tall king sized bed sat unmade. "Father, I don't think he's here." She said disappointedly while running a smooth hand over the warm sheets of the bed. "It's still warm."

"Shh." It was a soft command but a command nonetheless. She knew better than to question Leon's tatics by now, he was one of her new teachers after all. "Sister, listen..." She gave Leon a doubtful look, though in the darkness of the room she doubted whether he could even see her face from where he stood. Closing her eyes slowly, she allowed the silence to fill her. She waited and heard nothing. Sighing, she gave up and began to walk towards the door of the bedroom before accidently kicking a glass bottle away from her clumsy feet. She heard a gun cock back into position. Stupid alert priest, she thought.

"What is it?" He asked. She bent down and cautiously picked up the long bottle, reading its label aloud.

"Whiskey. It's completely empty, probably recently drank." She heard a sigh come from him and then an uneasy silence filled the air around them. She began to shift on her feet as she thought. "Father, do you think he's been...drinking?"

"It's possible." Leon finally switched on the lights in the room. She had to blink a few times before her focus was right again. "I wouldn't be found sober ever again if I had to go through his hell."

"Leon, enough. You're scaring her." She had forgotten that Professor Wordsworth had accompanied them on the Cardinal's newest assignment. 'Find Abel Nightroad and bring him to me.' Even though their search had been confined to the rooms of the Vatican (because no reports came of him ever leaving since he had arrived two months ago) he was still incrediably hard to find. She was the newest AX member under the supervision of Leon and the Professor, but Abel Nightroad had been something of a hero to her after hearing so many stories about his adventures. She didn't want to think about any blemishes on his perfect record. "Silvia, why don't you check out the balacony? Knowing Abel, I wouldn't doubt he heard us coming and decided to be creative with his escape." Silvia tossed the older priest a look of annoyance before stepping over more empty bottles of liquor and out onto the balacony.

"What do you think Leon?"

Leon chuckled, bending down to pick an empty bottle up from the floor. Kneeling, he turned it upside down and watched the last few drops slide down the glass and drip onto the red carpet. "Me? I think old four-eyes has finally lost it. Although, I've never seen him drink. Didn't know a Crusnik could even get drunk."

William rolled his eyes at Leon. "This isn't a joke Leon, he needs help. I don't think Able actually anticipated living after his latest battle. I think he-"

"Don't!" Leon was suddenly in front of the Professor, rough hands tightly grasping the collar of his black and white cassock. The bottle clattered to the ground, rolling away into a dark corner. "If he wanted to die he could have done that centuries ago! He fought for a reason Professor, don't tell me he wanted to die now."

"Leon... Could you kill so many and keep your sanity?"

"I have killed."

"Not like Abel."

"What's your point, William? I'm not a murderer? If so, I beg you to bring that matter to the Council's attention and have them revoke my life sentence in a prison cell!" He growled.

"You're exaggerating. Caterina has already managed to remove half of that sentence, on your own good behavior of course. My point is Leon, is that Abel has lived two different lives. He killed millions (I don't think you've killed nearly as many), lost loved ones who meant an entire world to him, disappeared for nine hundred years, tried to save the world to pay for his sins, and then killed the only thing that kept him sane during his earliest years! Tell me Leon, how much sanity would you have after having your heart tortured like that?" William's voice had risen as he desperately tried to have his argument reach Leon. Leon's own voice was no less gentler.

"It doesn't mean he has the excuse to hide himself away! Who does he think he's helping anyway, huh? While he's probably drinking himself into a coma, we're tearing this whole damn place apart looking for him! Not only that if the Cardinal doesn't give the Empress or the Queen of Albion a report in the next few hours, they're more than likely going to send their own search parties to find that stupid priest!"

"Another reason why we need to find him and bring him to his senses." William sighed. "I just can't imagine where he's gone too. None of the cameras show he left the building... in a human form anyway."

"I'm not in any particular mood to go hunt down a half-crazy Crusnik at the moment either." Leon mumbled, tiredly seating himself on the messy bed. "Why don't we send the new Sister to go and find him. Maybe he'll take a-"

"Not after what happened with Esther he won't." The Professor cut in sharply. "He's gone on two missions to Albion since Caterina found him in the slums of Italy and cleaned him up, and he still found ways to avoid the Queen when she requested a DIRECT audience with him." Leon lowered his head. "He won't let himself close to another human again just because he thinks himself unforgiven... still."

"Why Caterina highered a nut job like him, beats me." Leon yawned, throwing his arms out over his head and stretching. "Well, Four-eyes isn't here so we might as well keep looking before they send out the Inquistion to look for him too."

"Leon, be more sensitive to the matter." The Professor's voice trailed off as the door to the bedroom closed behind him, completely forgetting that their newest member was still outside of the balacony. Silvia leaned against the stone walls of the Vatican, allowing her body to slide down to the floor and pull her long, skinny hosed legs to her chest. The last conversation played in her head repeatedly. Crusnik? Abel Nightroad? They had gone over each profile of the AX Members but apparently the Cardinal had forgotten to mention Father Nightroad's. After all, she herself was human and had no other abilities than her clumsy aim with a gun. She considered herself the oddity of the AX. The shock of hearing her most prized priest as... well a monster, brought her to her knees.

"Oh, hello." The lightest of voices came from her left, making her jump immediately to her feet. Her gun was pointed in that direction but she saw nothing, only a shadow. Something she hadn't noticed before. To her left the end of the balacony seemed to fold inwards once and expand back into the next set of walls. From the shadow casted by the moon, walking confidently along the stone railing of the banister, stood the tallest figure she had ever seen with gleaming silver hair. She watched him lean casually against the wall and smile down at her. "So you're the new student?"

A/N: Hello again, so here's what's going on. I didn't like how did this before so I am redoing it! In honesty this one is so much better, so much more detailed, and just better all around! I hope you will agree with me on that. Anyway this is more the characters true nature so I will try and stick with it. Happy reading!