MaxAngelOfDeath: So I'm only a mildly bad Keta?
Well, this wasn't supposed to turn out this way, originally. Oops... Oh, well. Christmas is coming! Yay! I have that day off of work
Love, Keta
Chapter 24: We're Going to Need Some Help
Well I was there on the day
They sold the cause for the queen
And when the lights all went out
We watched our lives on the screen
I hate the ending myself
But it started with an all right scene
-Disenchanted (My Chemical Romance)
The silence returns for a few moments, agonizing moments in which I wonder if I should have elaborated. But then, Jeff just has to start laughing.
"Y-you, the antichrist?" He leans into his hand, full-blown chuckles wracking his frame. "How could you be the antichrist?!"
"I was just born that way." He does stop laughing; in fact, he laughs even harder at that.
My other half snarls in my mind, and I feel its rising anger in conjunction to my own. It's hard not to let it out, to let it tear Jeff apart… I just can't stop it completely, and I'm not sure that I want to.
I smile as sweetly as I can, and the glass in Jeff's hand shatters. It cuts him shallowly, and blood drips down, ruby against the paleness of his flesh. I can hear Toby gasp behind me, and the beast in my soul croons affectionately to the dark creature in the young proxy. I know that his new blood is reacting to that scent, the sweet smell that my darker half harkens too, even as a child, and I know that it's a worrying feeling. I know... I know
'It'll be alright,' I whisper into his mind, and I can feel his surprise all too well. Yet, he relaxes, probably chalking it up as one of those weird things that I can do, which is good enough for me.
"Jeff... Didn't my father tell you all who he is?" I know that answer too, but I want to hear it from him.
"No," he bites out, obviously trying to fight back the fear that grips him. I don't blame his alarm; it's a natural response nowadays.
I flicker out of existence then, teleporting away and back, this time with a battered and bloodied soul in tow. "This useless, corrupted, parody of a human being is named Ruby, and she is a traitor and a liar. But she'll tell the truth about this, or... I'll put her back where I found her instead of someplace a bit... Nicer."
"Y-yes," she hisses. "Y-your majesty."
"Tell them who my father is."
"Fergus Crowley... The current King of Hell." She winces when my fingers dig into her arm but sneers at me anyway. "And I may be a traitor to his reign but he's the traitor to our kind… Falling in love with that little witch, and then he has the gull to help hunters."
"Would you have preferred to be killed by the devil?" It's an honest question that I know most demons don't think about. My father did, but that doesn't make him a traitor.
"How can you be so sure that he would have killed us? He is the father of our kind after all. Well not you. You're half human."
"And what's so wrong with that?"
"Nothing of course, little prince. It's just you know as well as I do that you don't belong here, but neither do you belong in Hell. And for your sins, including existing when abominations like you are hunted daily by angels and high demons alike, everyone you love will die." She laughs, a hollow, broken note on the edge of insanity. "Look what happened to your cousin's mother. Little Jesse Turner who refused to help us... if I remember correctly, his mother met such an awful, awful end. And the same thing happened to all of you little friends."
"Enough," I snap, not wanting to get into this.
"And it'll keep happening as long as you fight your purpose. Clotho wants an apocalypse, one your father, those stupid hunters and their pet angel denied her." My tail coils around her throat then, attempting to suffocate the demon, but she laughs. "Souls don't breathe, Timothy!"
"I was under the impression that you don't have one." Her grin is cut off as my tail tightens, causing her pain, even if she doesn't need to breathe. "You know who's leading the Leviathans now, don't you?"
"Yeah, I do," she drawls, wheezing as she does. "He goes by Caster Morgan, and by the scent clinging to that little Leviathan over there, he's had a run in with the new boss."
I look over at Toby, and through the tint of his goggles, I can see how wide his eyes have gotten. I have to talk to him... "Thank you for your cooperation, Ruby. I'll be back shortly."
Hell isn't a place that I ever thought I'd enjoy, but from the moment I step foot back in the dark realm, I feel its warmth was over me, calming the beast inside. This is the place where it belongs, and I can't change that. I leave Ruby in a cell of sorts to heal a bit more from her injuries before he torture begins again. The demons, the ones who are loyal to my father, want to reset her and make her listen to the current authority, but I know that she'll never listen to him... But me on the other hand...
They all fear me. I know it, and it sends a thrill through me.
They worship me though, like I'm some sort of deity, and I can hear some of them making bets on how long it will be before I snap and they'll be free to wreak havoc on the mortal world. I don't want to let them, and I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure that they never get their chance.
But they leave me alone, despite the 'hero' worship, and I can think for a few moments before I have to return to the others.
"Timothy."
I turn around to look at my father, and a smile quirks at my lips as he comes to stand beside me on the ledge that overlooks the damned souls on racks. "Hi, Dad."
"What are you doing here?"
"I told the others who I am... And I 'borrowed' Ruby for a little while."
He raises an eyebrow in curiosity, but he doesn't say a word. He trusts my judgement. "I heard about Tobias."
"How?"
"Atropos told Gabriel. She's sorry for what happened... She says that it was not a part of her plan."
"It better not have been." I grit my teeth and turn my gaze away in an attempt to quell my rising anger. "Does she have a plan for the Leviathans?"
"Not one that either of us are going to like."
"What do you mean?"
He sighs heavily. "The Winchesters, Timothy. She wants us, all of us including Zalgo and Slender and all of your friends, to team up with those denim-clad nightmares. It's part of her plan to fix what Clotho is attempting... And... she has something to do with Death too... She wouldn't give me all of the details, but I doubt that we'll be in the dark for much longer."
"We better not... I don't know how much more of this crap my sanity can take."