Chapter 4: Bonding

It had been a good month since Absalom and Death had been created and Lilith was beyond frustrated. The war between Heaven and Hell had come to spread over more realms and had caused even more bloodshed. Though the Mother of Demons would see such a thing as an opportunity to continue her children's creation, she had to put it on hold as she was continuously summoned by the Dark Prince to do his bidding. The she demon had, as a matter of fact, just gotten back from his palace after turning a fallen angel into a monstrous demon under the Dark Princes control.

Lilith had given it some thought and decided it would be best if she continued her creation of the First Born but first, she wanted to see what her sons had been up to since her summoning. The first thing Lilith noticed when she walked into her lair was it was oddly quite aside from the pulsating walls, no screaming, no moaning, and no crying. The Succubus was a little concerned, had Heaven attacked her home while she was away, or perhaps rogue demons. Lilith ran as fast as her heels would take her to Absalom's room and flings the door open…empty. The Mother of Demons narrowed her yellowish green eyes and turns on her heels and runs to Death's room a few halls away and nearly breaks the door down with how hard she hit it open only to see yet another empty room.

The she demon hated to admit it but a cold fear gripped her black heart, it wasn't the thought of losing her sons but losing all that hard work that brought them to life, the countless years spent trying to create them only to have the destroyed while her back was turned. Lilith ran deeper into her lair, going down to the holding cells of her slaves and pets and never had the Succubus ever smelt anything as vile as what hit her nose when she opened the massive metal door. Lilith was the Queen of all Succubuses so she was used to smelling things such as sex, sweat, and pure lust; but this was not that, it was decay, rot, urine, feces, and smells she couldn't even recognize. Lilith put a hand over nose and mouth as she stepped into the hallway that was lined with the cell doors and her eyes widened significantly at what was lying before her.

Every cell door had been broken, shattered to pieces and the hallway was filled with blood, slivers of bone, organs, and decaying bodies. Lilith stepped closer to the closest body to her and inspected it, keeping her hand over her mouth and nose. The body was soaked in coagulated blood and it had been stripped of any clothes. The abdomen had been split open but it wasn't a sloppy cut, it was precise and clean, leaving a large gaping hole in its stomach. Upon closer inspection, Lilith noted that its internal organs has been removed, leaving just a hallow shell. Lilith moved away from the body with a rather nasty look on her face, demons didn't take time to cleanly cut a body to remove organs, they'd just rip them out and angels didn't desecrate bodies like this.

A clatter of metal and wood had the Succubus at full attention, ready to strike whatever had vandalized her home. A small Succubus slowly moved around a corner from within a cell, her small frame covered in blood and bruised. Lilith's tail swished and stood her ground as she watched the injured demon slowly move closer to her, slipping on congealed blood or organ tissue. Once the smaller demon got to her master she fell to her knees and grabbed her booted foot.

"Mistress! You have returned." The small demon holds onto Lilith's boot tightly, her voice seeming dry from overuse.

"What in the name of the Dark Prince happened to my home, what happened to my slaves, where is everyone?" Lilith stares down at the smaller demon that was now shaking and whimpering. Lilith crossed her lean arms over her bust as she waited for her servant's reply, her patients virtually nonexistent now.

"It was your son, Mistress…he came into the holding cells two weeks after you had been summoned away. I thought he was just going to watch the slaves or watch me but he began to break the doors down and slaughtering your slaves." The Succubus stops and sobs into Lilith's boot, "It was horrible, once they were all dead and the walls and floor coated with their blood, he began to…he began to cut their organs out, ripping their bones from their flesh, he even dragged a few from the room."

Lilith took a moment to register what her servant had just told her, Absalom wouldn't do it so that left Death. The Mother of Demons narrowed her eyes in thought, had Death betrayed her, waited for her leave then begins destroying everything she had created, and what of Absalom. The Succubus let out a growl and jerked her foot away from the lesser demon, if Death had betrayed her, then she would have him put down like a sick beast, ending his miserable existence.

"Where is Death?" Lilith growls at her servant who cowers back at her mistress's tone.

"The last I saw of him, he was heading to the training yard, Mistress." The smaller Succubus said in fear, moving away from Lilith just in case she lashed out at her.

Lilith turned on her heels and clinched her fists as she walked to the training room, Death would pay for this desecration of her home, son or not. As Lilith approached the door to the training yard she stopped to look at a corpse sitting against a wall. The corpse was a Succubus corpse, from the nipple rings and chains, she guessed it was Death's caregiver; it was sort of hard to tell as it was missing its skin. Lilith growled louder and kicked the door to the training yard open, stalking inside with hands clinched. The yard was empty but in ruins, training dummies in pieces, targets shattered and the training weapons in broken pieces.

Lilith looked over the damage and growled to herself, Death seemed to have taken a bit of joy in destroying her stuff. The Mother of Demons jumped and turned, her tail swishing wildly as heavy footsteps come up behind her; Lilith relaxed as she noted it was Absalom walking to her with his axe shouldered.

"Absalom, where is your brother?" Lilith tried to keep her voice even, not wanting to lash out in ager at her eldest son.

"Death could be anywhere, he's been anxious for a few weeks, kind of twitchy and spastic. One moment he'll be in the same room as me, then the next he'll be gone and in another room." Absalom's deep voice hinted that he wasn't too concerned about Death's location and even less concerned about what his little brother had been doing.

"Absalom!" Lilith bit her tongue to get her voice even again, "Your brother needs to be punished for what he's done." Lilith gave Absalom a serious look, trying hard to keep herself in check with her eldest son.

"For what he's done, mother I destroyed the training yard, your toys are no longer worthy of fighting me, I've outgrown them." Absalom said as he put the head of his axe into the ground to make a statement.

"Even if he didn't destroy the yard, he killed his caregiver and my slaves and pets, he MUST be punished." Lilith snapped in anger, "Now where is your brother?" Lilith's patience was gone.

"I honestly don't know mother, last I saw he was heading to his room with a body, you might want to check there." Absalom ignored his mother's anger in favor of giving her what she wanted.

"I was already there, it was empty," Lilith narrowed her eyes and growled, her tail swishing madly behind her.

"As I said, he moves around, he might be there now, but it's where he was heading last I saw him, you'd do good to check again." Absalom said with a quite calmness as he picks his axe up again and shoulders it, walking past Lilith towards another set of doors.

Lilith tensed as she watched her eldest son walk by, he was so calm about all this, and did he have something to do with this? Was it possible that Absalom was controlling or manipulating Death into killing her slaves? Lilith turned to go back to Death's room, she'd get to the bottom of this and if she had too, she'd punished Absalom then put Death down.

Absalom waited for Lilith to stalk out of the room to continue on his way out of the training yard. Lilith seemed rather pissed at his brother but it was of little concern to him, he had warned Death when he started all this that mother wouldn't be happy. Absalom walked down a dim hallway and pushed another door open leading to another bedroom, this place had more bedrooms then an Inn, Absalom thought quietly to himself as he walked into the room and closed the door. Absalom set his axe against a wall to lean on a table then turned to the other figure in the room.

"Mother is back, she seems pretty upset at you Death." Absalom made is way over to a chair and sat himself down in it, looking from his half naked brother to the …thing on the bed. Absalom wasn't sure exactly what to call it, it was as if Death took apart a bunch of bodies and then tried to reassemble them into something new. The thing has a distinct humanoid appearance but seemed to be mostly flesh and bone, its arms a bit elongated, sharp teeth in its skull, and sharp boney claws on his skeletal hands. Absalom was almost positive that it even had organs stitched inside its rotting stomach.

"So she finally decided to return to us, was thinking she was had forgotten about us." Death said in a voice that said he really didn't care, most of his attention on the amalgamation in front of him.

"Don't be like that Death, she had business elsewhere and it's not our business what she does." Absalom chided his little brother finally pulling the younger Nephilim's attention away from the corpse construct. Absalom looked into those burning amber eyes, which seemed rather distracted.

"Well where dear 'mother' is so I can be spanked and sent to my room like a child she believes me to be?" Death spit out, his voice dripping sarcasm. Absalom snorted loudly, putting a hand over his mouth for a second.

"I can't believe you just said that but if you must know, I told her you were in your room with a dead body." Absalom leaned back in his chair with a sigh, "though I'm sure by now she's also realized you're not there."

Death turned his attention to the construct on the bed and hit it with his new glove made of purple cloth with bones outlining the forearm down to the fingers, the glove ended at his elbows tied off with more bones. Absalom looked at his brother with curiosity, lately Death had been lashing out in anger even to the dead bodies. The amalgamation of body parts hit the wall and exploded in a mess of parts, blood, and stitching; leaving a smear on the wall where it impacted.

"Just another failure, why do some work and others do not? Why is it that no matter how much I will it, I can't make these things I create move even though I've done it on accident with simple things." Death clinches his fists and turns around, sitting on the bed, his head lowered.

"Perhaps you are trying too hard." Absalom state simply as he watched his brother toss him a glare from behind his curtain of black hair.

"You are so helpful, brother but I don't think this is the same as brute fighting." Death stands up and walks over to Absalom and the older Nephilim looked over Death's gear, each piece outlined with bones in a pattern of some form or another. The cloth and bone armor obviously wasn't perfect but considering it was Death's first attempt at crafting, Absalom felt something similar to pride for his brother achievement.

Absalom hadn't been thrilled about Death's appearance from the pool after he had been created, but since Lilith left them to go do whatever she did with the Dark Prince; Absalom had spent a little more time with his brother. Absalom found he kind of enjoyed his brother's company and found him to be a great sparring partner because Death was much faster than himself, dodging blows and delivering attacks with speeds that made his head hurt. Death seemed to have an ability to read his attacks during a battle and it made Absalom wonder why his brother chose to play with corpses when he could be training those talents in battle.

"I've been thinking Death, while mother tries to continue our race with the First Born, why don't we move out." Absalom says, his voice hinting at amusement.

"Move out? Where would we go, a cave in a magma pit?" Death's voice would be full of sarcasm.

"We can move to another realm, make a home for ourselves away from mother's watch." Absalom gives a grin as Death's interest clearly peeks as his brother at him with burning eye.

"As you said yourself, mother is mad at me, I'm sure she won't just let me walk out of here." Death walks over to the door and leans against it, crossing his covered arms over his chest.

"Don't worry about mother, I'll handle her and you can get out. We'll meet up at the Tree of Death and just see where it takes us." Absalom stands up and heads to the door, moving Death out of the way as he opens the door, "I'll go talk to her you go ahead and get out."

Absalom left the room, not leaving much room for argument and Death just frowned but the thought of some form of freedom did make it more appealing to follow his brother. The younger Nephilim gave Absalom a few moments before following, sticking to the shadows as he moved down the hallways. As Death put his hand on the door leading out of the lair he heard Absalom 'talking' to Lilith, though it seemed Absalom was yelling and Lilith was hissing in anger. Death shook his head and pushed the door open and quickly made his way to the Tree of Death.

The younger Nephilim had sat on a crumbling statue at the tree for some time before his brother walked into view, a rather red mark on his face in the shape of a hand. Death tilts his head to the side and got up, walking to his brother. Absalom was muttering to himself in demonic tongues as he rubbed the side of his face.

"Mother slapped you?" Death tried to hide the tone of amusement in his voice that the favorite would be punished.

"She didn't like me lying to her about you but I suppose me telling her that we were going to leave to try to make a home for ourselves didn't help either. I had the feeling she preferred to keep us under her thumbs for whatever reason." Absalom walked past Death and moves towards a portal, "Come on, I want to see where this portal takes us."

Death followed his big brother into the portal and again felt his vision blinded by bright lights and strange warmth followed by a powerful hit to his back making the world go dark just as the light began to settle down.

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