A/N: Another chapter, as promised. Thanks for all sticking by this fic. There's not a lot of you but I appreciate every one of you.
Thanks to Sam, who cut her break short to edit for me. Love ya muchly, doll xoxo

The Fallen

Chapter 13

I head next to Africa, and three days later, with scores of the demons dead, Rizkeel, the last among them, and the rest of the army disbanded, I set my sights to New Zealand.

Rimuell assures me that there has been no breaches of Bella's city by rogue demons, and after calling the Reverend Mother at St Mary's Convent, I'm assured of Bella's wellbeing. So far she's compliant, but she's becoming more and more restless as time passes.

It was on the tip of my tongue to request the Reverend Mother put Bella on the phone, but I resisted. It wasn't easy, but it's imperative that I keep my thoughts clear. Bella is a weakness the fiends will all too happily exploit; I can't compromise myself. I have to remain detached until it's done; until the last of the beasts are reduced to ash.

Bezzael's army is camped to the east of the North Island on the Bay of Plenty in the forest highlands of Matahi. The scenery is straight out of 'Middle Earth', and the devils fit right in. However, unlike Sweden and Tanzania, they do not lay in wake for me, but wage an offensive the moment they detect my presence.

I battle the demons well into the night, and for the majority by air.

Like the two beasts before him, Bezzael had deliberately deceived his army in regards to Michael's sword. He keeps them separated, dividing them into several smaller divisions; and in doing so cuts off direct contact between them. By the time the demons of each brigade become aware of the peril they're in, they're ash before they can warn their brethren.

By the same hand, the beast, Bezzael, gives me a great advantage. I only have to battle with small groups of the fiends at once; as I meticulously draw them out, one by one.

By morning the battle is won. The majority of the demons have either been slain, or have fled. Though, I have taken more damage than I anticipated, and my strength is dwindling. I don't, however, have the luxury to take pause and recuperate, and without another moment to lose, I focus my attention on Bezzael.

I hunt the swine relentlessly throughout the next day and night. Like the vermin he is, he deserted his army the moment I took the advantage and escaped to the cover of the forest; knowing enough not to take to the sky.

The demon is stronger than I am so I cannot risk a land battle. I have no choice but to entice him into the air.

Like a snake in the cane fields I am forced to smoke him out, and within minutes I have set the forest ablaze. The beast quickly becomes ensnared by a compass of fire that steadily advances upon him. He will soon have no choice but to take flight. The demon's blood is highly flammable; he will not risk the fire knowing it will easily consume him and leave him scarred. His vanity alone will prevent it.

I keep close track of his thoughts; he's panicking. He knows I have closed in on him. He's also aware that my wounds have healed, and gone is any advantage he might have held over me.

Nevertheless, I've lost a lot of blood; its dried remnants cover almost my entire body. I am tired and almost stricken with thirst, but with an impenetrable resolve, I hold my position.

I am half a mile above, encircling the demon, waiting to ambush him, when he finally accepts the inevitable and shoots into the air.

My patience has paid off. I have the high ground advantage and immediately advance upon him.

At first it appears as if wretch hasn't see me, until the last moment when he flips in the air to face me, easily ducking beneath the blade of the sword.

I shoot past him, and as I reverse to turn back, he propels himself higher into the air. His motive is still to escape. I immediately take pursuit, swiftly catching up to him, and just as I am within arm's reach, he again turns to face me. Only this time he lunges at me; his eyes burning fierce with the animalism all his kind possess. Including me.

Grabbing hold of my wings, he pulls himself onto my back before I feel the odious sensation of his teeth sinking into my flesh at the base of my neck. I am instantly infected, corrupted by the demon's darkness, and as I struggle to throw him off, my brain becomes clouded and foggy; my movements increasingly uncoordinated. Then, entrenching his talons deep into my back to anchor himself, the beast takes several frenzied chunks of my flesh with his teeth. His toxin continues to invade my bloodstream, multiplying and expanding through me until I feel myself rapidly succumbing.

Even as I physically falter beneath the fiend, as my vision shrouds around the periphery, my mind doesn't cease its warnings for me not to yield.

"Bella..." I utter weakly, the syllables slurring together as her face flashes behind my closed eyelids.

Her image, acting like a shock wave pulsing through me, pulls me back from the edge of surrender. With a tremendous burst of will, refusing to allow this beast to kill me and place Bella in mortal danger, I propel myself into a rapid spiral. The demon means to decapitate me, and the taste of my flesh has strengthened him. As I continue to whirlwind, picking up so much speed the air whistles sharply around my spinning form, the demon's grip loosens; his claws serrating through my back and several layers of muscle as he's dislodged.

The instant I throw him off, I turn and wildly swing the blade back and forth, half-blinded by my own spilled blood and heavily depleted state. And by sheer chance, or miracle—I know not which—I manage to cleave off one of the demon's wings just inches from his scapula bone. He immediately falls, spinning off-balance as he plummets, even as he futilely attempts to right himself, single-winged.

The beast has severed through the body of muscle I use to fly, and I struggle to catch him; all but clumsily free-falling behind him. I reach him less than five hundred feet to the forest floor, and in a single laborious stroke, using both my hands—and gathering all my remaining strength in one final, agonizing roar—I drive the sword through his mid-section, severing him clean half.

For several seconds he continues to fall; his entrails and inner organs escaping its smoking encasement and entangling together comically after him. I catch the shock of his gaze, holding it until he succumbs to the authority of my brother's sword before his smoldering remains rain down upon the scorched forest below.

I drop heavily to the ground a moment later. I am wavering and uncoordinated in my weakened condition. Stumbling clumsily in my desperation, I head toward the nearby Waimana River.

"Father, help me..." I blurt out senselessly as I crawl painfully through the sandbank, but even in my delirium I am conscious enough to understand it is my human father, Carlisle, I long for. Not my creator. No, my Heavenly father has long since forsaken me to the bowels of this wretched world.

Reaching the river's edge I collapse, submerging my entire face into the frigid coldness of the water. The shock if it alone snaps some level of lucidity back into me, before I take several huge mouthfuls rehydrating my parched body. After, I return to the shadows of the forest where I take shelter long enough to sleep and heal. It's the first time I have slept in months, and while I only require three hours at best, I awaken with a start and a growing sense of unrest. It was three hours I needed to fully recover, but it was time I do not have.

Without a moment's delay I launch myself into the sky and again head north. I reach the country of my birth in just under five hours, at dusk, before continuing without delay to the Great Plains of the Midwest. Broken Bow is more or less the geographic center of Nebraska, occupied by not quite four thousand souls and surrounded by prairie lands. There is nothing extraordinary about it, apart from the fact that the minds of the locals do not give up a single clue as to the whereabouts of the demons. Not a single person has been made aware of their presence at the present moment or at any time over the last decade. At least, not that I can ascertain.

I make landfall five miles north of the county, pulling the cell phone from my pocket as I do. The screen is cracked and smeared with dried blood, soot and ash. Impatiently, I wipe it against the denim of my frayed jeans, enough to successfully call Ramuell.

"Broken Bow Nebraska!" I snap down the receiver at him before he has the opportunity to take a breath. "Are you absolutely sure about that, because I am detecting nothing of the beasts!"

I am met by momentary silence before the demon breaches it; his voice flooding with uncertainty. "Is it possible they have already left, brother?"

"They have never been here, Ramuell—that's the point I am trying to make," I seethe; though, I'm not angered by the fiend as much as I'm frustrated and filling with a sense of urgency.

This is followed by more silence before the beast begins to stutter, but I am past the patience for him.

"Has the city been breached?" I bark out at him sharply.

"No, there has been nothing," is Ramuell's reply.

"See that it remains that way!" I disconnecting the call, needing a moment of restraint before I burst once more into action.

I probe the town several times before I begin to branch outward, going as far east as Omaha and as west as Cheyenne, but I can determine nothing of Ozketh and his army. There isn't a whisper of them, leading me to conclude that the town's folk are completely ignorant to their existence, or of any demons.

I can come to no other conclusion other than either Ramuell has crossed me, or he himself was deceived. In either case, I am left with no other choice but to fly back to Bella, and take her into hiding. And as my thoughts linger on it, my mind formulating a plan, the urgency of the situation becomes increasingly impressed on me.

The demon Ozketh will not hesitate to kill Bella, and I in all possibility have been deliberately distracted.

I kneel, bracing to launch myself into the air when I feel his presence. Or rather, when he makes his presence known to me.

My heart seizes, and spinning around, I release the blue blade of Michael's sword, coming face to face with the beast.

He is standing not twenty feet from me. He is passive, both his hands raised in submission, while his thoughts broadcast the benevolence of his motives.

"I mean you no harm, brother," he speaks quietly, as I dissect the demon's name from his thoughts.

Asael; though he has given himself a human name. Jacob.

Pointing the blade tip at him, I approach him slowly; my steps measured but cautious.

"Tell me what you know?" I order him, and for a brief period he does not move to speak.

Then taking a breath, he bows his head. "You have been mocked, brother."

In the following instant I have him by the back of his head and long black hair, holding the blade against his jugular.

"What is your meaning!?" I demand; though, I am already aware.

"The demon Ozketh used you to take out his three competing brothers, and Ramuell to remove you from your human," he explains hastily and with increasingly panic. "He knew Ramuell would warn you. You played right into his hands."

"I am NOT YOUR BROTHER!" I holler, shoving him away from me before dropping to my knees and tearing at my hair in a moment of dismay.

How could I have allowed this? How could I have been so easily deceived?

Lurching to my feet, I again point the blade at the beast who calmly pulls himself to his feet.

"WHERE IS HE?" I yell, sounding increasingly unbalanced in my growing anxiety.

"He was never here, Edward," the demon explains having the courtesy to use my human name. "As far as I am aware, he's been in Ireland, waiting for the moment when you were the furthest from your human girl."

For the briefest moment I am silent in shock and confusion, attempting to ascertain how I could have made such a blatant error, as the truth of it steadily dawns on me.

I once more lunge at him, catching him by the length of his hair, and driving the sword only a fraction from the beast's face. I am becoming overthrown by panic, and it is blinding me to all reason.

"Why are you telling me now?" I utter, my arm, my entire body of skin, trembling behind the force of my rising fear and rage.

"I only knew of it yesterday, brother," he appeals to me desperately, continuing to raise his hands in surrender, his eyes wide in fear.

My mind turns blank, and I release him, stepping back clumsily and almost losing my footing. He falls heavily to the ground before hastily picking himself up, but instead of fleeing, he stands his ground.

I am frozen in a long moment of conjuncture, and though my anger is simmering to the point that my fingers itch to strike the demon, Jacob, down, I don't. I cannot move, even as every instinct within me shouts at me to fly back to her.

No more than three seconds pass when the phone in my front pocket vibrates, immediately severing me from my momentary suspension as if it is scripted.

I answer it, placing it to my ear, and before I can utter a syllable, Ramuell's voice, shrill and full of panic begins in an onslaught.

"Brother, they're coming. They're not fifty miles away and they're bringing with them an army of humans to seize her!"

"Where is Bella?" I demand, and just the act of speaking her name, immediately snaps my senses back in place.

"She remains in the convent."

"Okay, listen to me," I begin, while I hold the sword eye level with Jacob, silently threatening him not to move, "you have my permission to take Bella to safety. Do it now!"

"But, brother," Ramuell hesitates, "the talisman..."

He leaves it unspoken while my rationality all but splinters. "HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?" I roar, my voice echoing threefold around the open fields.

"I-we...all know about it," he confesses.

I shake my head in a futile attempt to pull myself together. "There is no time, Ramuell. Rip the damn thing from her any way you can—just do it!"

"Okay, brother." His voice takes on a resolute edge while my heart clenches in contradiction.

"Ramuell!" I burst, immediately in panic, as every muscle within my body locks. "If any harm befalls her..."

"Brother, you have my word," he assures me.

I open my mouth to threaten him further, but stop myself knowing it's in vain. I have no choice but to put my faith in Ramuell, and the fiend isn't stupid enough not to understand the consequences if he crosses me. I will hunt him down and grant him a grisly death if he, or any one of his cohorts, harms a single hair on Bella's head.

"LEKHAL HARUKHOTT!" I rage, balling my hands into fists, as I blaspheme my father's name defiantly in Hebrew before again in English. "GOD DAMN IT!"

Then turning my back on Jacob, I vault into the air. I go straight up, breaching the stratosphere, before I propel myself down on a steady decline toward Europe.

I push the limits of my speed and endurance more than I have at any other time in my existence until my muscles burn, and my wings feel like they are going to tear from my back by the velocity of the wind speed alone. It is physically punishing, and by the time I reach Birmingham in the early afternoon, I am almost as exhausted as I was after battling Bezzael and his army.

There are several demons within the parameters of the town. I sense them almost immediately, but I cannot concentrate on them just yet.

I drop down awkwardly on the roof of the convent, my concentration focused on the voices within. There is a real sense of hysteria. The sisters are shaken and in panic.

Bella has been taken, and they're more than aware by who.

The scene of her kidnapping is being replayed repeatedly in their minds. She put up a fight, but they quickly overwhelmed her. I can hear her screaming my name, my real name, with too much clarity through the memories of multiple sources, even as the sound of her voice fades away into the distance. It torments me more than I am prepared for until the agony of it becomes almost physical. I am not used this level of pain over another human being.

I'm unsure I can bear it.

I enter Bella's room and to the scene of her struggle. Most of her furniture is toppled over while the majority of her angel paraphernalia litters the floor. And while I cannot allow myself to lose focus by it, I'm somewhat relieved that it's Daniel's scent that I am picking up more than any other.

I don't linger, but head straight into the stone hall in search of the Reverend Mother.

I pass several of the sisters; my appearance startles them, and through their eyes I see how I look. I am filthy; my jeans hang ripped and torn from my hips, while my exposed skin and wings are caked with blood and soot. I look almost wild and primitive; my eyes revealing every aspect of the predator I have become.

I find the small elderly woman in the same place I left her a week prior. She too is surprised by my appearance, but only initially.

"She is gone, Dashiel," she admits softly, her voice breaking. "I'm sorry, I have no idea how they were able to penetrate the defenses of her amulet."

And through her mind I see Daniel struggling to control Bella. Bella was literally beating against him, and he allowed her to.

He was behaving almost like a...gentleman.

A/N: Thoughts, good or bad, but I suppose if you want to lurk...