A/N: God, I suck. I know it's been weeks and I apologise. I got what I thought was the flu from hell, only for it to turn out to be bronchitis. It literally took two months before I started feeling like I wasn't going to keel over. The last week I've felt more like my old self and slowly my mojo returned enough to get back into this fic.
Real life is shit, and sadly I don't heal like Dashiel. I wish, right?
No one has edited this; it's all me, just a heads up. I think it's okay though, but I'm far from perfect.
Okay, for those patient enough to still be around. I hope you enjoy.


The Fallen

Chapter 27

I arrive in the small Welsh town within minutes before impacting the cover of the devil Abaddon's lair, Diablo's, with the force and destruction of a missile.

I burst through the roof and the two main floors of the restaurant, landing feet first on the cobble-stone floor of the basement as the building implodes and collapses around me.

Without extracting my wings, I leap past the pyre of destroyed wine racks. Fermented liquid rains over me, dampening my hair and stark white feathers as I slam my fist into the section of the wall that shrewdly conceals the entrance.

The stone door is immediately reduced to rubble as a thick veil of dust momentarily separates me from the fluorescently lit corridor where the elevators are situated.

Out of a very human habit, I cough, averting my face to prevent my lungs from filling with debris, when several of the beasts' talon-like hands grab and rip at the flesh on my chest and shoulders. Their claws repeatedly serrate through my skin, which instantly heals, as they futilely attempt to prevent me from advancing further into their master's den.

Their efforts are in vain; they can no more hold me back than they can the tides of the ocean, but their offensive has only angered me further. Grabbing the first demon my hand catches, I drag his head back by a handful of his filthy long hair and bury my brother's sword down through the base of his neck and into his heart.

The beast's demise is mirrored by every fiend who's ever found himself at the receiving end of Michael's sword. He is ash before I can release the blade, and in the same volatility I use it to disable each member of the demon's guard, one by one.

But still they come, as if their numbers are endless, and as my patience severs along with my rising fury, the beasts in their scores suddenly burst into flame and ash without me so much as raising Michael's sword in their direction.

This is when I understand; I don't need my brother's weapon. I wield ultimate power, and my mind alone is more capable of sending the demons back to the pit than any number of angelic armaments.

I walk steadily, impassively, passing through the thick, noxious smoke of the expired fiends and continuing to course with a convening anger. The beasts now flee on sight; though, as I advance further into the catacombs of the devil's lair, I track their movements by their thoughts alone; slaying them the instant I catch their dark animus.

After peeling back the steel floor of the elevator with the ease as if it were the skin of a piece of fruit, I drop, descending down the shaft to the gateway; to Abaddon's unseen barrier. I pause for no longer than a second before I breach it; the protective barricade instantly yields, breaking over my bear chest as if it were a cobweb. I descend into the first chamber and enter the makeshift nightclub. Hundreds of demons continue to violate their woeful humans just as they did the first time I was here, and again they are oblivious, or more unfettered, by my presence.

I halt for a breath in the darkened, blood-hued antechamber, catching sight of a young girl with long red hair no older than Isabella. She is propped up in a corner booth of ink black leather, as an ashen-haired, coal-winged swine defiles her adolescent body. Her head is slumped back and angled toward me, while her blank, unseeing eyes stare blindly ahead.

Aware that my attention is centered on him, the beast slowly turns to glance over his shoulder, and for several long periods he only stares comically at me; becoming fully aware of his fate

"We'll meet in Hell soon, brother." His resignation concludes with a promise as a sneer pulls at the corners of his mouth, and just as he erupts into burning ash.

"I hope so," I murmur, my gaze remaining steadfast on the girl.

In evident shock and confusion, she lurches from the seat, her head whipping around rapidly in panic, before her widening eyes rest on mine.

Your soul is returned to you, now go. Leave this place and this town and never return, I mentally instruct her, and without pause she obeys; fleeing from the room as high-pitched screams burst from her!

I release every human in the same manner, sending them fleeing from the underground crypts they have unwittingly found themselves in as one by one I return the demons back to their own.

All too quickly I discover that while Michael's blade will grant them an instant, relatively merciful return to the underworld, my mind isn't as benevolent.

In varying degrees of time I allow their human forms to fester and burn, delaying their inevitable demise and listening to their desperate cries of agony from behind me as I continue forward to Abaddon.

The fiend is now well aware of my presence, as well as the path of destruction I have left in my wake, and while he makes every effort to conceal his mind from me, he cannot. In fear and panic he awaits me; a coward to the end, surrounding himself in human children as well as his guards.

I reach the door to the beast's den, reducing it to debris without lifting a finger. Then meticulously stepping over the resulting rubble, I find myself standing before him.

Without a word I penetrate his mind, discovering that he had not only robbed Bella of her soul, but he had poisoned her in order to assure her rapid decline. He was well aware that the odds of me beating Raphael to free Azazel were slim, and had procured himself a recourse. With Bella alive he had less to bargain with, but with her dead and in Hell, and Lucifer aware of the prophecy of the spearhead...

I in the possession of the spear is exactly what he'd hoped for, but he too hastily miscalculated. He knew the spear would make me powerful—enough to kill an archangel—but he believed he and his coven of devils would be immune to its power.

He was wrong, because while the spear holds no domain over Hell and any of its inhabitants, it has absolute power over Earth and all who dwell here; humans and demons alike.

"Where does he want to meet me?" I demand after I consecutively reduced his guard to ash before him, allowing him to witness the stagnating process of their downfall.

It was a question I need not ask; the answer is readily available in his now accessible mind, but I intend to torture the beast, and not just physically.

The soft, timid sound of whimpers breaks my focus. My eyes drop to the half a dozen children the fiend has surrounded himself with. All stare up at me with fearful, doe-like eyes.

While a demon cannot take the souls of children, through their parents they are able to bewitch them and keep them under control. The beast has been using these poor helpless infants as slaves until they reach age of consent. It's different for every child, but it usually happens around the age of fifteen.

"Come," I murmur, motioning to them with my fingers, and without delay they adhere. "Do not fear. Your parents are waiting for you. Run, go find them."

En masse they exit the room, their shrieks of excitement echoing throughout the stone chamber. Most of their parents I have released from their damnation; though, more than several will find themselves orphaned.

A little girl, no older than five, however, remains; she takes my hand even as hers trembles. I gaze down at her, and she stares up at me with eyes that rival the depths of Bella's.

Her useless, incompetent guardian hovers near; I force the beast to become visible and before me he bows his head in shame, his brilliant white feathers hanging low.

"How could you allow this?" I demand in a cold whisper, placing the child's hand in his. "You are not fit to be a guardian!"

He nods once in complete submission, before leading the frightened child out.

I watch them leave, smiling warmly at the small girl who glances over her shoulder and waves in farewell. Her innocence and ocean-deep brown eyes remind me so profoundly of Bella that for a single second I am able to convince myself that she is still alive.

A second that ends as inevitably as it began, and breaking my gaze from the child's I set them on the cowering wretch before me.

"My father will not take kindly to the massacre of his sons," he attempts to preempt his fate, but with complete disregard I only snort. Then meticulously, I raise the spear before him; allowing him to see it, to absorb its image. To reveal my plan for him before I execute it.

He flinches, turning his head away from me as he shakes it in growing panic. "You wouldn't!" he dares me, his eyes wide and pleading in futile desperation.

Abaddon is a first sphere demon, cast out along with Lucifer himself. It wasn't a carnal love for humans that saw him condemned; it was the ultimate act of betrayal against our father, Himself. Amidst the chaos of the war for Heaven there was no time for retribution. Once defeated, Lucifer was swiftly cast out, before his legion followed of their own volition, without ever receiving a day of reckoning.

That's exactly what I intend on granting the beast.

I round on him, coming within millimeters of the fiend's face and being flooded by his rancid breath. "You have killed my human and condemned her to Hell," I seethe, bringing the spear to his forehead and pressing the tip of it against his flesh without breaking the surface. "You think there's anything I wouldn't do to avenge her?"

He only continues to shake his head, but ignoring his silent pleas, I reach down and grab his leg, yanking him from his feet. With calculated movements, I strip the beast's Italian made shoe and cashmere sock from his right foot, smirking at his very human vanity, before dragging the spear over the top of his smallest toe, barely breaking the crust.

Immediately the light of creation begins to penetrate him as the demon begins to screech loudly, cursing and blaspheming both mine and my father's name.

Unlike Gadreel and Daniel this is not something Abaddon desires, and he fights his transition like a screaming banshee, shuddering and twitching as his own demonic configuration reacts violently to the very essence of what he willfully turned his back on centuries ago.

Calmly, sadistically, I raise my thumb, marking the sign of the cross on the beast's forehead, as I administer to him the last rites in both Hebrew and Latin.

"May God have mercy on your soul," I finish, my voice completely void of emotion as the demon falls to his back and continues to convulse as the tar-like blood of his rotting faux human existence is projected from every orifice of his body.

I'm unsure how long it takes for the demon to succumb to his angelic incarnation, but it is at least an hour before he's subdued long enough to stop struggling. Still, the divine light of God continues to permeate him from his rotten core to the surface of his skin while the horror of it is muffled to only a reflection behind his eyes.

I smile, enjoying his ordeal a lot more than I anticipated, before at length, a conquered, subjugated angel is bowed before me, swamped by his own burning physical matter.

On his hands and knees he glares up at me, his now gold eyes seeped with ferocity. In a single movement, he lunges to his feet and grabs me around my throat.

I shrug him easily from me, placing my palm on his shoulder and slamming him into the wall. "Behave, he'll be here soon," I deliberately taunt him, only moments before Michael drops soundlessly beside me, the expression on his face nothing short of murderous.

"He's all yours, brother," I state calmly, as Michael turns his eyes on the beast, a sneer creeping coldly on his lips.

I turn my back on them both just as the harsh metallic sound of Michael's sword being released from its scabbard pierces through the steeled silence of the air.

"If you even think of freeing that beast, Dashiel, you will have to face me!" Michael issues his threat from behind me as I continue back down the passageway of Abbadon's lair.

"Is that your way of talking me into it, brother?' I reply lightly, without turning back to him.

He harrumphs as the newly transcended angel begins to scream obscenities in my direction; only to be immediately silenced by his ranking superior of the Angelic Order.

Michael has waited thousands of years to exact his revenge, and I'm happy to grant it to him. As for freeing Azazel? It's the last of my concern. Right now, the most feared creature in all human imagination awaits my arrival.


A/N: Now that I'm better updates will go back to being regular. Sorry again, and let me know how you liked or didn't like.