Redemption: Prayer
The angel sat, curled up in the other, monochromatic, world where the inactive personality dwelled in when not accompanying the active personality. Amidst the eternal fall of white and black feathers, a flock of plump white doves nestled around him; cooing in soothing accents and gently brushing past him, but he continued to bury his head in his knees. He kept his arms wrapped around his ears, but it didn't dim the demon's words—or his own conscience's—echoing in his head.
They are dead. You killed them. Your fault. Your error. You failed as Guardian. You.
Then—a ragged, pleading voice echoed through the bleak landscape.
Help me. A hauntingly familiar voice. Please, God, send an angel to save me. Please.
The angel's head snapped up. "Ciel?"
Again, the voice—and pain—and fear—echoed emptily through the other world. Lord, help me.
The angel's heart awoke as if from a slumber. One of his charges was still alive! Purpose flowed through his limbs again. "Ciel. Ciel. Ciel! Where are you?"
The other world shimmered in response to his need, and moved, morphed. The landscape now showed him a cage in which a scared and small little boy sat, cowering. The angel leapt forward at once, recognising those brilliant cyan eyes even if they were blurred with tears. "Ciel. Can you hear me?"
He heard Ciel mutter under his breath, quietly, desperately. "Please, please, please, God. I'll never be bad again, I won't pinch Lizzie ever again. Please, Lord, help me."
"Ciel, look at me!"
The angel attempted to rattle the bars of the cage, and his hands passed transparently through them. His teeth gritted. He wondered if it was some sort of sick illusion the demon had conjured up to torment him—but before he could give in to anger, he remembered the long, serious speech that Gabriel had recited on the day of his becoming a guardian angel. The rules.
"The Initiative is the control of the corporeal body that two beings shall compete for—the first being is an angel—as you all are—a servant of the Lord; the second being, a demon—your enemies—a rebel of the Lord. Therefore do not fall, for once you lose the Initiative, you will have given it to your enemy.
The Initiative is always, at the start, awarded to you, the angel. Every angel has his demon, both fighting for the Initiative. The being with the Initiative can will it away, but once willed away, cannot gain it back unless the other wills it back. Therefore do not fall, for once you lose the Initiative, you will almost never gain it back.
The fate of the being without the Initiative is to wander endlessly through the empty world, going freely but yet nowhere. The fate is to hear but not be heard, to see but not be seen, to be shut off from the physical world but for his other, his enemy. Therefore do not fall, for once you lose the Initiative, you will lose everything you love."
The world shimmered with purpose when the angel stood up. No, no matter what Gabriel had said, he had to make the demon give it back.
***
The demon, clad in a dark, tight fitting short-sleeved shirt, had his mouth sunk into a woman's throat. Drinking her deliciously thick blood, lightly flavoured with fear. And then— as every person he could entice for the last four days since he'd been given the Initiative—when the woman finally died, he would partake of her soul.
"Demon!"
The demon looked up, lips stained dark red by blood, set in a soft, unnerving smile, hovering inches away from the lifeless form of the woman. The angel shuddered in revulsion at the sight.
"I'm busy, angel."
"You have to listen to me. Ciel is still alive."
"So?" The demon asked, curling his tongue round to the corner of his mouth.
"What do you mean 'so'?" The angel demanded angrily. "I can save him. I just need you to give me the Initiative back—"
The demon nonchalantly licked a rill of blood that had trickled down his muscular arm. "No. I won't."
"But Ciel is alive!"
The demon's eyes suddenly turned mocking and lazy, with an extra dose of malevolence thrown in. Dropping the barely-alive woman to the ground, he walked towards the angel till they were nose to nose.
"You should have known that, even then." The demon exhaled out slowly, softly, filling the air with a rich scent. The scent of blood.
"Remember?" the demon whispered. The smell of blood seeped into his being, and he flinched as it recalled, against his will, images of that dark night.
Sound.
The screams of children within the collapsing building. The call of his charges from the mansion, strong prayers to God.
Thought.
Leave the children to wait for their guardian angels, who might be too late, or to go for his assigned charges? A choice to be made in a heartbeat.
Sight.
Wrecked stone. Fire dyeing the sky a deep crimson. Bodies lay scattered all around, seventeen in total. Seventeen. Seventeen. SEVENTEEN. The number leapt out at him from memory.
"No…" He gasped, shocked at the sudden realisation. The number of the staff alone at the Phantomhive household had numbered sixteen—two people had survived. But he was too distraught to note that fact at that time; hadn't even realised that one of his charges might have lived.
"Once you lose the Initiative, you lose everything you love." The demon whispered in his ear, and then walked away, past him. "And now you will complete your failure as a guardian angel.
As the landscape around him started to lose its colour, the final trace of hope died within him.
Once you lose the Initiative, you lose everything you love.