CHAPTER 10 - "SURVIVOR"

There was a horrific smell, something like sulfur or ash that hit Braydon's nose as he regained consciousness. Something had not only grabbed him and Tobias and yanked them both into alley from a London street, but it had also knocked them unconscious. Now they were here, wherever here was.

He couldn't move, his limbs not listless but immobile - stuck, when he tried to pull them free of whatever was holding them. It felt hard like stone, but it did not have the texture of stone. It felt more like hardened volcanic brick and smelled just as bad, and like burned flesh. But he wasn't burned, he would feel it. Volcanic ash brick held extremely high temperatures even when it started to become solidified. He didn't feel he and Tobias had been in this place for long. And yet, the volcanic brick had hardened like stone.

It was also dark with tinges of like in the distance. Bursts of flame erupted from cannels burping fire creating momentary hints of light, giving Braydon purchase that he and Tobias were trapped in some sort of cave. Two questions crossed his mind: Where were they, and who had brought them here?

He was a Reaper and he possessed special powers and skills. He was also quarter-demon, and with that came equally special skills. But here all his powers seemed nullified by some aura of powerlessness. His demon senses could not sense any person outside this place, but he did feel a great evil here. A familiar evil. But that wasn't possible, because his younger brother Decco was dead. Their father had taken Decco back into the past and left him there to die stripping him of his powers. So what was this familiar feeling he was sensing, and had sensed just before a huge claw grabbed him and Tobias, pulling them into the alley?

"Tobias, are you awake?" he whispered.

"Yes," Tobias replied as quietly from his left. "Do you feel it? Wherever we are, this place is evil."

That was an understatement. The temperature here was so warm that Braydon began to sweat through his clothes and his hair started to fall over his eyes. It was like looking through jail bars. Realistically, as he was utterly immobile, trapped in some sort of hardened volcanic stone wall - he could feel he was upright - the analogy of being a prisoner was very accurate.

"How do we get out of here? I can't move my body."

Braydon struggled as well, but to no avail. "I don't know where we are, and there's nothing we can do about it," he said. "But I feel something…familiar in this place. I don't know what it is."

"Quite right, little brother." A voice came from within the darkness. Then a dark, sinister figure fazed into view, as the cave they were in illuminated with a red, blood color. The walls were build of human skulls and bones and fresh. On the far wall, Decco sat on a throne sat build of bones. "And I call you that because I am truly the older sibling, thrown back in time to die a horrible, agonizing death by our father."

Braydon gasped. Decco's face was partially burned by fire. From what their father had told him, Decco had been left in ancient Pompeii to die without his powers at the time the mountain Vesuvius erupted, to eventually bury the entire city with hot ash. Decco wore all black clothes, which he always did. His hair on one side had been charred off exposing burn scars - he was very much two-faced.

Braydon shook his head in disbelief. "But you're dead, father said you died!"

Decco sat with his arms on the arms of the bone throne, his hands clasped on its ends. He sat very regally. "I'm a survivor. The ultimate weapon in every trickster artists' repertoire is misdirection, just like our father, and that Phantomhive boy, who thinks he owns our father by making Sebastian Michaelis his butler. Our father will one day suckle on the lads soul, but not any time soon. The boy still has many more enemies to vanish before our father can take his soul, and until then, our father is trapped by the covenant he made."

"That is out of my hands. The boy made his choice."

"The boy was forced into the choice. Father changed history to make certain events happened. He and the Phantomhive's have a deep history. Father has grown soft, he's protective of Ciel Phantomhive. Unlike his own son, how he changed events and tricked me into believing Belial was subdued and my victory to overtake Hell was assured. In an instant, all that changed. I was lied to."

Braydon had a theory about that, but regardless of it being true, he could not change what had occurred. "How did you survive your ordeal?"

"I still have friends in Hell, dear brother. Allies that still believe a new king should be crowned, that Morning Star needs to be dethroned. He has grown soft, complacent and weak to the power of God. I survived Pompeii - " He felt the left side of his face. "- just barely when one of my allies rescued me as I began to burn, trapped beneath a large fireball that struck me directly thanks to father."

"You would've destroyed the entire human race if your plans were brought to fruit, Decco," Braydon retorted harshly. "Father only did what he felt, what he knew, what needed to be done! What was necessary. Without human souls to consume, demons will perish, wither away into spiritual nothingness."

Decco pointed sharply with a sharp, black nailed finger. "But you and Brandon have found away around that, haven't you? You no longer need human souls for nourishment. And you show no withdraw symptoms. Tell me your secret. Father is half-demon, we three children are quarter-demon. But while you and Brandon no longer consume human souls to survive, I need them in abundance to live. Tell me, why!"

Braydon shook his head. He could not tell Decco about Ambrosia that only grew on the trees in Reaperdum. If Decco knew, he would invade, and turn Reaperdum upside down.

Decco turned his attention to Tobias. He pointed to him. "You, little one…what do you know?"

"Nothing, I swear," Tobias lied. Tobias knew about the Ambrosia, Braydon knew. "Braydon and Brandon are new to Reaperdum, and despite some controversy about their appointment, they are welcome."

"Appointment? What appointment?"

Braydon cringed. Tobias's slip of the tongue revealed unwarranted information. Decco's attention drew sharply back to Braydon. Braydon remained silent. But it only seemed to amuse Decco.

"Say nothing more, Tobais, that is an order!" Braydon said. Tobias lowered his head.

Decco narrowed his eyes, then laughed. "Please, do you take me for a fool, Braydon. I know everything. Much like your head of Reaper Affairs and his 'Looking Glass', I too have a similar tool at my disposal." Decco reached into a dark, leather sack that hung from one of the arms of the throne and pulled out a small, black globe. It black as night, but Braydon recognized it. It was a called a Time Sphere, a device that can review all of space and time, and his father had said only top Demons possessed one. "You and Brandon are captains of the Royal Reaper Guard headed by Uncle Altima, a once fallen Reaper."

Braydon snorted. "So, if you know everything, why do you ask such tedious questions?"

"Because, dear brother, I do not know everything. The Time Sphere presents various futures, but can not penetrate all aspects of existence. I have a spy in Reaperdum, but I can not see into Reaperdum. This is why I brought you here, into my lair deep within the bowels of London to ask 'tedious' questions." Decco leaned slightly forward. "Now tell me, why do you no longer need to consume souls?"

Braydon narrowed his eyes confused. "Why do you wish to know? I thought you enjoy killing humans?"

"I do, they are worthless creatures created for God's amusement. But I wish to know for another reason."

"Yes, I think I know. Father has told me there are demons who are basically good-natured and do not wish to conform to the demonist norm anymore."

"There is no escape from Hell. Once a demon, always a demon."

"I beg to differ. Father knows the truth."

"Does he now? Perhaps I will ask him what he knows at another time. In the meantime, tell me what I want to know or I will kill you, over and over and over again. Because Hell is about repetition. I can kill you, withering in agony, and then bring you back how many times it takes to get the information I want."

Braydon smirked. "You can't kill us, we're Reapers. We're already dead."

"Actually, that is not true about you and Brandon, but you and he are a special case being quarter-demon, and now that I think about it, attacking you in such a way will be pointless. But it is not the same for young Tobias, who is human. And who is now alive again, by my powers."

Braydon looked at Tobias, who's eyes seemed to widen with shock and horror.

Decco looked at him. "Yes Tobias, I have given you life again. Your heart is pumping with blood and your lungs breath oxygen. Or shall I call you, Quinton Jonathan Anderson-Phantomhive, the illegitimate son of the late Vincent Phantomhive," Decco said with a devilish chuckle. "Welcome back to the living, my lord."

Decco waved a hand and released stone-bindings that trapped Tobias to the wall of the cave, and the former Reaper dropped to the floor. Tobias felt his chest, he was indeed alive once again. He had died of pneumonia in his life, and only recently learned that he was the son of the famous London socialite Vincent Phantomhive by viewing his own cinematic record, although his mother had not known.

He stood on his feet.

"Tobias…" Braydon began to say.

Tobias looked at him. "I am all right, sir."

"Sir…" Decco murmured. "You are no longer bound by Reaper regulations, Quinton. He is not your boss any longer. You are free." Tobias looked at him. He looked not relieved by this turn of events, but frightened. "Now, you will tell me what I wish to know, or I will do what I said."

"Will you release Braydon if I do?" Tobias said.

"I might, if what you tell me is true. I will have no need of him afterwards."

"Tobias…don't tell him anything," Braydon said, shaking his head. "If he gets his hands on it, all of Reaperdum, all of Human kind will burn. It will mean no more death, no more disease - no natural order."

"To some, that is a good thing," Decco remarked. "But alas, my patience is running thin. Tell me. Now!"

"First, my name is Tobias - not Quinton," the young Reaper said. "My blood may run Phantomhive, but my father abandoned me and I want nothing to do with him or his family."

That sounded bitter and angry, Braydon thought. But he could only imagine the toil on a child when a father abandon's a child, even at such a young age of a month. There is still a connection.

Tobias never had a father-figure, but in life he did carve out a life for himself nonetheless as a bookkeeper, and was strong-willed. From what Braydon had seen of the Phantomhive's, perhaps such a thing was endowed within the Phantomhive indomitable spirit.

Still, sometimes a father is best for a boy. A father taught his child certain values in how to grow up. Tobias never had that. His birth mother also died when he was only a month old, so he grew up an orphan.

If Vincent Phantomhive only knew about Tobias, his life may have been very different. And would the Phantomhive's have been better off now? Could a little change in history have prevented all the suffering the Phantomhive's were cursed with now?

But he would never know the answer to that.

"Second," Tobias continued, "I am a Reaper, despite what you have done to me. I will not shirk my duty. I have no regrets in my life to want a second chance. The natural order of things prevail."

"Then you are a fool," Decco chided.

"Fool or not, I will not betray the captain of the Reaper Royal Guards for selfish gain." Tobias looked at Braydon, and smiled. "For you, sir."

He reached into his left trousers and pulled out a pocket knife. He flipped the blade up, out of its hidden quarters within the device, and then…cut his throat, and without hesitation as if knowing exactly what he was doing, sliced it through and deep. Blood pooled across his throat and down his shirt. His eyes widened, his mouth open agape. Then he collapsed to the floor, dead.

"Fool!" Decco cursed, shocked.

Braydon looked down at Tobias, his limp now bloodied body, and said a silent prayer of thanks for his sacrifice. "Clever boy."

Decco snapped back to Braydon. "Clever? How can such a thing me clever?"

"Because now a Reaper will be dispatched to collect his soul. The soul you returned to him." Braydon smirked. "His death will be like a beacon. And he'll return to the ranks of the Reapers."

Decco clenched his teeth. "He killed himself. He'll wander aimlessly. I thought Reapers had rules about such things, that you do not collect the souls from suicides?"

"This is a special case." Braydon grinned. "And I will make sure his sacrifice will not be in vain. As co-captain of the Reaper Royal Guard, I have power and clout to make such a thing happen."

Decco suddenly grinned, crookedly. "Do you now."

Braydon cursed and chided himself mentally. His arrogance had gotten the better of him, revealing potentially valuable information to an enemy - that he had power. This was obvious, however. But now it made him a valuable hostage to Decco.

"Let us test that power, shall we?"

Father, help me. Braydon mentally called out.

To be continued...