Ch. 1
I sank my six inch switch blade in all the way to the hilt, releasing it to sit in his chest. Blood spilled out over my hand, warm and slick. Pleasure and disgust coiled together in my belly as I stepped back to survey the demon chained in the chair before me. The creature screamed as my sacred blade ate away at his essence. "Now let me try this again," I said calmly. "Where are they?" The demon hissed out a laugh, "You are going to have to try harder than that bitch."

I nodded in agreement to him. With a sigh I said, "Yes, I suppose I do." I mimed twisting the blade with my empty hand, and the creature screamed again as the blade mirrored my motion. "What are you?" he panted, fear starting to cloud his eyes as they raked across my wings folded against my back. I raised an eyebrow, my eyes cold. "Good question," I replied, then willed the blade to twist again, sending another torrent of blood out from his body. after a moment, the demon stopped screaming, and panted with a wicked smile, "This tooth pick won't do shit." My eyebrow went up even higher. "Really?" I asked. He laughed like a mad man.

"How 'bout you and I cozy up and I'll tell you after," he suggested in a nasty tone. I shook my head, face still stone cold. "Believe me, between you and my dog, I'd take my dog." He laughed madly again. "I'm not gonna tell you shit, you little feathered whore. Just fucking kill me now. Crowley will kill me if I spill and you will kill me if I don't," he said, bravado clear in his voice. I nodded again, and then sent a questioning look in his direction, shifting my wings slightly. "Who said anything about killing you?"

His smile froze in place. I continued, "See, I have no plan to kill you." Hope seemed to kindle in his eyes for a moment, coupled with confusion, "What do you mean?" I stepped back up to him as he sat chained in the middle of the room and yanked my switch blade out from his chest. He moaned as more blood spilled out his chest, some of it splashing onto me. I felt another shiver of pleasure and disgust.

I turned away to lean against the wall, rearranging my feathers so I was comfortable, studying him as I waited for him to quiet down before I continued, "I don't plan on killing you. I am going to rip your essence to ribbons piece by piece, and then I will partially exercise you, so that you can't inhabit this body anymore, after which I will use a spell I discovered to lock you into a solid iron box, coated in salt, lined with binding sigils. I will then bury said box in a devil's cage that I created. It is unbreakable, except by me, so no rescue from your friends either. I will then do another ritual to ensure that your essence doesn't fade away, so that you live forever while being slowly dissolved. So no, I won't be killing you. As a matter of fact, I am giving you eternal life."

His face had slowly gone from confusion to horror. "You can't do that," he tried to challenge. Any bite in his words was gone and his voice was unsteady. I just looked at him, watching the veins in his forehead slowly begin to pulse as his fear grew. He panted harder and harder. I walked back up to him, and sat down straddling him, flaring my wings out and wrapping them all the way around his body so we were cocooned in their shadow. He looked surprised, and a sick smile stretched across his face, trying to hide his fear, but I could feel his muscles shaking under me in panic. I brought my knife blade up to brush his cheek, leaving a streak of his blood on his face. He pulled away from it.

I leaned in close, licking his chin and he shivered, from both lust and fear I assumed. I whispered in his ear, "Now how 'bout you start talking before I carve your eye out?" He yanked his head away from mine. I could smell his fear now. Another bolt of excitement and horror flashed through me. I leaned back slightly and pressed the tip of my knife to the corner of his eye. "Talk," I commanded. "Where are they?"

The demon was attempting to keep the knife point in his vision and so was staring out the corner of his eye, and didn't answer me. So I said, "Ok then," With precision bred of practice, I sank the point into his socket cutting through the skin of his lid as I did so. He screamed and bucked. In doing so, he drove his eye into the point. I felt my blade sink into the softness of the side of his eyeball. He rolled his eyes in agony, trying to close them. It just made it worse. But his twitching was making it hard for me to cut where I wanted to, so I quickly sat back all the way, leaving my knife embedded in his eye, leaking blood.

I place my palm to his forehead, pushing my will onto him, and said, "Still." He froze. I could see him mentally straining against the invisible bonds I put on his body. Now that he was still, I again took the knife and with surgical care, proceeded to outline his eye socket with it, cutting through his lid. His eyes dilated in pain but he could do nothing more than pant.

When I finished with the upper lid, I pulled it off by its lashes. Blood and optic juice covered it. I studied it with little interest. "Funny how something as insignificant as a patch of skin can hurt so bad," I said out loud. Naturally he didn't answer me. Blood was running out of the cut skin and onto his eye, along with sweat, while tears he could no longer blink away ran down his cheek. I looked him in hos lidless eye, feeling his whole body twitch with the strain and the pain. Again pleasure and pain butterflied in my stomach. I brought my knife forward again, and ever so gently, slid it between his eye and his skull until it grated on the bone at the back of his eye socket. Blood poured out and his body gave another massive shudder.

I pulled the knife back out, studying the grove it left on his eyeball. Optic juice and blood flowed over his pupil and iris. I sighed. "You know," I said, sitting back to look at his whole face, "the problem with this," I held up my knife "is that it doesn't flex. It only cuts. But hey, God gave us fingers for a reason." I saw horror bulge his eyes even through the pain. I leaned back in, running my hand up his side, throat, then stopping fingers a hair's breath away from his eye. I savored his fear for a moment longer, then gently dug my finger tip into the gap my knife had made. A long breath of air was the only sign of his screaming. I felt my finger slide over his eye, smoother than a meat ball but just as soft. I felt his nerves at the back of his eye socket, hooked my finger around them and yanked forward. Blood sprayed all over my face, into my eyes and my mouth.

The bitter sweet taste of the blood in my mouth coupled with his moans pushed me over the edge. I could feel myself begin to change. My blood thirst swelled up in my chest like a wave. His frozen body was shaking under me and all I wanted to do was rip him apart. Spill more of his blood. I fought it down, trying to keep my head. I leaned back out looking at his one good I and I said quietly, "You are going to tell me everything I want to know and more. Do you understand?" I waited, knowing he couldn't give me any acknowledgement at all. I continued, "If you don't I will teach you exactly how far I can go. You don't know the meaning of pain, not yet." I waited again, letting my words carry all their weight. Then brushing the tip of my bloody finger across hos forehead, I said, "Talk." He gasped in, his vocal chords being able to move again. I repeated myself for the final time, "Where are they?"

I stood up, folding in my blood soaked wings, muscles sore. His body was limp, broken and wet with blood. I took a few steps back. I felt bile rising in my throat as I looked on what I had done. The smell, which had, while I had been working, smelled so sweet and intoxicating, smelled of death and evil now. Finally, I couldn't control my body any longer. I felt what little I had eaten that morning shove its way out my mouth. I bent over, bracing myself against the wall. Sharp pain in my abdomen caused me to clench my stomach as I heaved. The meager contents of my stomach were soon strewn all over the floor and my feet, but I kept heaving. My vision tunneled then went black, and there was a horrible ringing in my ears.

When I was able to coherently observe my surroundings again, I felt a pair of cold hands clutching my under my armpits, keeping me upright. I took a deep breath, feeling the stale filthy air rake my raw throat. I spat out a glob of blood, feeling the wet stickiness of my own blood mix with that of the dead man's. I sighed and a low, welcome voice said behind me, "Kid, what's wrong? Take it easy." I whimpered slightly at the pain that laced through my abdomen, chest and throat. I stepped back, swaying slightly. The cold, strong hands gently kept me upright.

I shrugged the hands off and stepped forward to disengage myself from them. I looked tiredly over at the corpse, slumped over in the chair he was bound into. There was hardly anything left to call a man. Both his eyes were gouged out of his head, one lying very near my feet. A perfect sphere, nerves trailing out behind it in a sick imitation of a shooting star. Pieces of flesh that I had slowly ripped off, layer by layer, lay strewn around the floor in pools of blood and puss. His face was so disfigured by cuts and by blood that he was unrecognizable. His chest was ripped open, ribs sticking out at odd angles, white contrasting to the deep red of the surrounding flesh. His intestines were spilled out on his lap. His heart was laying by the door. Finger and toe nails were scattered across the floor, with their corresponding digits in a pile at the feet of the cadaver. His genitals hung by fleshy strings from their severed sacks, his member opened like a butterfly. Blood flowed like rivers down his slashed arms and legs. Chunks of hair and accompanying flesh were stuck to the walls around the room. His bones showed through the many lacerations I had made. Most of his blood had flowed into the engraved devil's trap in the floor.

I sighed again, disgust and horror filling me up. I could feel my stomach begin to clench again, so I turned away to face my company. A young man stood there with cool hazel eyes, looking down on me with concern. His red hair was unkempt and there was the hinting of auburn stubble along his jaw and upper lip. I smiled weakly at him, the horrid taste of bile still fresh in my mouth. "Hey," I said hoarsely. He nodded back. "What happened?" he asked concern clear in his voice. I waved my hand vaguely, "I guess I can't take the sight of blood the way I used to." He stepped up to me, eyes studying my face, "Kid, this is more than just not handling blood. Are you sure you are alright?"

I looked back into his eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine," I insisted. He continued to study for a moment longer, then sighed. "Go get yourself cleaned up." I hesitated, shooting another appalled glace around the room. "Let me clean this up first," I said, starting to turn away. He grabbed my shoulder with an ice cold hand. "I'll take care of it," he said quietly, and then his lips pulled up into a half hearted smile. "Being a demon does have its perks on occasion." I flinched ever so slightly, as I always did when he reminded me. I nodded, head drooping from exhaustion. "I have an appointment with the coroner in an hour," I reminded him. "Are you sure you want to go? You can always say that you got food poisoning or something." I couldn't meet his intense stare, deciding to look at the chunks of brown, gray bile on the floor instead. "Yeah, no I'm good. I'll go," I said.

He moved out of my way, and I stepped forward. My clothes were soaked through with blood, puss and intestinal fluid from both the corpse and myself. I was cold, the mix of liquids leeching the heat from my body. I passed into the hallway, leaning against the wall for momentary relief, which I immediately regretted. I straightened, but the large smear of blood tracing the contour of my shoulder and wing on the fading paint was already there. I sighed again and made my way to the shower. I shut the door and wearily picked stripped off the blood stained clothing, until I was standing naked in front of the mirror.

Blood had soaked through the fabric of my clothes and was now smeared all over my body. I stood studying myself in the mirror for a moment. My eyes were bruised and sunken in from lack of sleep. My ribs were beginning to stand out. My hip bones were very clear. Even my breasts were puckered and slightly purple, bruised and tender. My black and copper wings were missing feathers and sat limply against my back, covered in slick blood and pieces of skin. I gave myself a small smirk in the mirror. I realized how pathetic I looked. I ran my eyes up and down my figure again. Now my eyes focused on the myriad of scars that ran like lacework over my body, intertwined with the tattoos that stretched from my heel to my forehead.

I ran a bloody finger over a swirl on my abdomen. I had had these tattoos my whole life and still couldn't figure out what they looked like. The swirls and patterns seemed to constantly shift, sometimes looking like waves, sometimes like running horses. But today, they were nothing. I saw no pictures, no artistry, just cold chaos. I dropped my hand and turned away from the dead creature in the mirror, turning on the shower. I stood shivering, waiting for the hot water to travel through the old pipes. I felt a bead of blood drip off my long, red hair and roll down my back between my wing joints, intersecting the black of my tattoos with red. Finally, steam started to rise above the showerhead and I stepped in, hissing slightly as the hot water stung my skin. I quickly adjusted the temperature, the just stood in the water, watching blood run off my body and down the drain, carrying away any witness of what I had just done. I wished with all my heart that it could carry away the guilt as well.