Jericho's POV, seventeen minutes earlier:

I was greeted with a pair of glittering onyx eyes when I finally opened my own. I shrieked in surprise, causing the face before me to jerk away as the man it belonged to took a couple steps away from the waist-high stone surface I was laid out on. I tried to sit up quickly, but was yanked back down by metal fixtures that were fastened around my neck, wrists, and ankles, confining me to the slab. I angrily jerked and struggled for a couple more seconds before a low chuckle reached me through my panic. I stopped cold before slowly angling my head towards my captor, glaring daggers at whoever dared to laugh at me in this state.

He honestly wasn't that bad looking. Golden-bronze skin overlaid his finely toned muscles and well defined bone structure. Bright, mischievous green eyes met my own steadily, faint crow's feet crinkling on the outer edges in his amusement. His arms were crossed in a confident, superior posture that said he was in complete control and he damn well knew it. I scowled as his grin widened, showcasing his perfect white teeth. I thought he looked like an Abercrombie frat boy with narcissistic personality disorder.

His eyes widened a bit before he threw back his head and howled with laughter, his chest and shoulders shaking with mirth. I winced but held firm as the echo his deafening baritone boomed ominously back and forth off the walls of the claustrophobic chamber.

"Woo! Abercrombie frat boy!" He snickered when his little fit began to calm, "that's a new one!"

He let out one last sigh before his smile abruptly dropped, all amusement vanishing from his eyes in an instant as his skin suddenly drained of color. There was a sudden chill in the air as the temperature in the room plummeted into what felt like negative degrees, and I could see my breath after every shaky exhale. A frigid aura of deep gray and black bloomed around him, augmenting his already menacing presence and sucking the air and life out of the room so that it was almost physically hard to breath. I felt the blood drain from my face and my breath catch in my throat as the unknown man slowly approached me with careful, measured steps, staring deeply into my eyes all the while.

He kneeled beside the stone table and leaned forward so that his face was inches from mine. He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows.

"Oh? No more snark? C'mon, Where's that sass from just a second ago, I was enjoying that!" I heard his voice whisper mockingly in my mind. I shook off my fright and resumed my glare, refusing to show my terror anymore than I already had. I looked through the smoke and searched his now completely gray face and black eyes, Almost the same as Dark's.

"You're a Demon," I observed, feeling the rightness of the statement even as I spoke it. He grinned again.

"Yep. True blue. Demon Lord Azazel, at your service," he introduced himself with a smirk and a tilt of his head. Seeing my confusion, he rolled his black eyes and sighed.

"Really. They didn't tell you shit, did they? Oh well," he shrugged, "you'll figure it all out later. In the mean time..." his smirk deepened as he leaned in close.

"Let's get started."

"What do you mean?" I asked uneasily. I began to discreetly draw on my power as I spoke, preparing myself to lash out the second I had the chance. The man who had called himself Azazel smirked.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. We got you jinxed up good; the only thing you'll accomplish is-"

A sharp clap of pain stabbed through my skull before he had even finished speaking. My entire body convulsed, straining against my bonds as my power slipped through my fingers. I groaned and laid still, panting harshly as I tried to recover. How the hell...?

"It wasn't easy," Azazel said conversationally as he stood, walking away to lean on the wall across from me, "you were way more powerful than we expected. I'm glad I sent vamps instead of Djinns or witches or some shit. It would have been a lot messier if they fought with magic instead of brute strength. Anyway, the Jinxes," he said, waving a hand through the air.

"I've never seen someone who requires this many surpression jinxes. It's honestly insane," Azazel said in an admiring tone, "Unheard of, even for a bound Druid. I'd love to dig into that beautiful mind..." his voice devolved into a low murmur, with a hungry undertone that made me shudder.

"But unfortunately for you, that's not what I'm here for," the Demon said regretfully, "There's someone else who wants to speak to you a lot more than I do, darlin.' And he's a lot less civil than me."

With that, he approached me once again, this time reaching out to put a palm to my forehead to grip my skull. I flinched and growled indignantly, jerking my head from side to side in an effort to shake him off. The more I struggled, the harder his grip became, and the more I reached for my power, the more it fled from my grasp; it was infuriating and painful, and I eventually had to stop to avoid passing out.

"You done?" Azazel drawled, cocking an eyebrow. I just glared murderously at him.

"Good," he grinned, not acknowledging my anger, "have fun then."

I didn't have the chance to ask just what the hell he meant by that before everything went black.

"This can't be happening."

I was standing in the middle of a vast ocean of golden-black mist. I might have thought it as beautiful as Dark's shadows if it weren't for the cold pit of dread that settled heavily in my stomach at the familiarity of the sight. There was only one creature that commanded this presence...

Fell.