Chapter Three - The Blind leading the Blind

As Abel Nightroad slid the thin wire-rimmed glasses onto his nose he was one more reminded, as he was every time, how ironic this was. He had always had perfect vision from those startling winter-blue eyes, sharper and more perceptive than most human eyes, he had still been infinitely blind.

Blind to his brother's needs, just bulldozing over his gentler twin and putting them both through a greater hell that could have been avoided had he listened and offered words of friendship instead of anger. Blind to his pain and his suffering, right to the day he died. Blind to the puppet that had taken over Cain, reluctant to see 01 for the monster it was for decades because it served his purpose of destroying the humans.

Blind to Lilith. Blind to her love and her patience, blind to her endless wisdom and the belief she had in him that never wavered. Blind to her sacrifices and her strength, blind to her pain and worst of all... blind to her impending death.

Perhaps that was why he wore these glasses now, aside from being a memorial to his beloved twin long dead, to remind himself never to give into that blindness again. It was a masochistic accessory, though it seemed simple, he could never look at those thin frames without remembering his greatest failures.

They didn't deserve to be forgotten. He didn't deserve to forget. The sins of his past were too great to count, the blood on his hands could never be washed off, and however he strove to make amends now it was all a mere drop in the ocean. He would never gain redemption for this, he didn't deserve to gain redemption. Just one thought of those warm golden eyes glazed in death seared that fact into his soul.

He should have stood up in front of the world, wearing the face of the monster, and let them destroy him over and over again. Let them rend him limb from limb and then do it all again when he regenerated. He should... But he didn't. He was a selfish and cowardly creature at heart, so instead of standing up to his sins and facing the consequences, he had buried himself with his lost heart and left Seth with the ashes of the world.

He thought nobody would have forgotten, but when he emerged from the tomb to save a golden-haired child, there was no fear in her face. No cry of Night Lord or Monster. She had looked at him as an angel, the first terran to ever see him as anything worthwhile... and instead of correct her, he had taken the easy way out and vowed to help protect the world he had once destroyed.

These glasses obscuring his eyes, not just a memorial but a disguise, one carefully constructed and maintained for this long decade. All the aspects of his brother he had once disparaged; his easy-going nature, his manners, his disarming clumsiness, his innate gentleness... he had taken them all and tried to emulate them into something he could use to hide the sinner he was.

A monster in a priest's cassock, with a bright smile. It truly was the blind leading the blind, if he were in charge of another's immortal soul.

But he was grateful for the life he had, utterly thankful for the chance to show Lilith he had listened to her... too late, far too late. He could never thank Caterina enough for all she had given him, his precious little girl. She had been the first he had protected, and she meant the absolute world to him, he would follow her to Hell and back if she commanded to protect this world.

She didn't deserve to feel the weight of his sins, didn't deserve to see the creature that lurked beneath the blithe smile. Better she should be able to believe in a knight that couldn't really protect anything, better that she should roll her eyes at his idiocy than recoil in horror at his sins. So it was that this overdramatic priest had become who he was now, and after a decade it was a disguise comfortably worn.

He knew he should have been in the Vatican hours earlier when curfew doors were closed, but... he had received a special invitation to a special CHOCOLATE EATING CONTEST which had been impossible to resist. He had been born to participate, he was a natural... he could go all the way to the chocolate eating olympics. Which, now he was thinking about it, would be a marvellous idea - they could have the Triple Truffle Jump and the 100m strawberry-bootlace dash. It had begun as a wonderful evening, he had been inhaling the delicious slabs of life-giving sugar goodness, when the contestant next to him had got a little irate just because Abel had... accidentally... eaten their chocolates as well.

They complained to the referee, and Abel was politely asked to leave. It had all got a bit hazy after security had caught him smuggling toffee creams out of the hall in his pockets and demanded money for them. Honestly, couldn't they see he was an impoverished priest who's demon boss paid him a pittance?

Grumbling to himself, sans chocolate and sans any remaining dinars he might have possessed, he trudged his way back to the Vatican where he had to try sweet talking the door guard into letting him inside even though it was long past curfew.

After half an hour of arguments and pleading, he finally managed to make it inside. Exhausted and stumbling to his room, muttering under his breath about WHINING CHOCOLATE MAKERS and how his LIFE IS FULL OF WOE and he might as well LAY DOWN AND DIE NOW... nobody would mourn him, they'd probably just throw a party over four lousy dinars saved...

Opening the door to his room, the grumbles caught in his throat and his breath hitched at the same time causing a small strangled sound to escape. Eyes widening behind his glasses, there was a flash of something much harder and much less stable than the usual genial priest. He'd know that smell of cigarillo smoke anywhere, and the card on his pillow seemed... blaring, almost like a beacon calling to him.

He didn't remember crossing to the bed, shaking hands picking up the card as he forced himself to focus on the words. Heart pounding wildly in his chest and mind whirling with images of von Kampfer here inside the Vatican. Why? What had...

The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder.

-Jane Austen

Falling off the card, a single lock of blonde hair that almost shattered his soul all over again. They had her... He had her.

All traces of the benevolent priest vanished in that heartbeat, as an almost bestial howl ripped from a mind coming unhinged, the window smashing in a flurry of black feathers as a monster took flight once more.