Amber Lees belongs to me Nosgoth things belongs to Eidos.

She felt the wave of bile rise up in her throat, and she swallowed it, even though she wished she would throw up. She inhaled deeply, the back of her claw against her forehead. She ran her tongue over her unusual fangs and whimpered.

"Got a problem in there, angel?" A rugged voice called from outside. She heard knuckles cracking. "Somethin' I need ta fix?"

She gritted her teeth and pulled the blanket over her. She held her breath and remained silent.

"That's what I thought." A chuckle was emitted and then the guard went back to his Playboy magazine.

"Just go to sleep." She told herself. "Because when I sleep it's like I'm not here anymore. I can forget it all for a little while."

But only to come back to the prison she was in now. She remembered the stories of veteran that were POWs in the war, of how they had survived and was able to go home. Except for her, she was held by her own fellow Americans and experiments were being done on her body and she was now a freak show and she was being held there by a legal contract.

She curled up, her talons clutch at her aching head, where she could hear a sound, only she could hear. She told the people in the white lab coats about it and they said it maybe tinnitus, hearing sounds in the ears. It was something she could have had and not known it or it could have been caused by the testing (Experiments were never called experiments. They were always called 'testing' by the lab coats).

One lab coat gave her gave her a small tape player with a cassette tape that had ocean waves and whale and dolphin noises. He said that it would help the tinnitus, maybe take her mind off it. The tape player didn't last long. Ronald, the lovable guard outside her room had taken it and smashed it calling it a lot of yoga shit.  He gave her a pop across the ear saying he can fix the tinnitus out of her.

Ronald Duckson was a big man, one look and people would think, stupid big guy, but that wasn't the case with him. He was smart and careful. He always made sure no lab coat was watching when he disciplined Amber and he knew how to inflict pain without leaving marks.

How Amber hated him. She would give anything to sink her claws into his throat and rip everything out. Just to see that smirking, triumphant, and overbearing look that he always wore to be wiped off with terror and pleading was enough to make her smile bearing her sharp fangs.

The sound rose and she winced. Was tinnitus supposed to hurt this much? Wasn't it suppose to be just sound she was hearing not pain?

She closed her eyes and bit her lips to keep from whimpering. Ronald would just love to use it as an excuse to hit her. What he had against her, she would never know.

She felt herself being pulled, not physically, but her mind seemed drawn to something she could see or fathom. The sound grew steadily louder to a pounding on her brain.

"Please, dear God, please, make this go away. Please, God."

The sound grew to a screaming noise, high and screechy. She thought her eardrums would burst.

"Please forgive me for my sins, Lord. Okay, please, make this stop, make it stop!"

She heard a ripping sound, not in her ears like the tinnitus bit further, a sound she could barely hear in the background of the assailant in her ears.

"God, I can't take this anymore, just take me, please, I don't wanna live anymore if this keeps up, please, make the sound go away!"

The pitch grew to a sound she was certain only cats and dogs knew. Her eyes open wide and her mouth gape to a silent scream and her back arched, wings spread as if she was flying on her back.

"God, please, ANSWER ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It stopped. The tinnitus, the ripping, and the pulling stopped at that instance. The relief was so great that tears came to her eyes.

Then she relaxed to drift to sleep, then….

Forgive me if I'm not God, child.

Her eyes snapped opened and looked frantically around for the source of the voice. No one was in the room with her.

I'm afraid you won't find me in that room, Lady Lees.

"Who are you!?"

"Hey, in there! Need something fixed?!" Ronald brass voice echoed into the room. Scraping of a chair being pushed back rang like bell of doom. She laid her head down and feigned sleep.

The door opened and a grizzled head popped in. "That's what I thought. If I hear one more peep out you, wings, I'm gonna fix you right up real good." The door shut and locked and the sit squeaked at Ronald sat his large frame on it.

Amber held her breath for almost a full minute and let it go with relief. Ronald must be tired or else he would have been hitting her again. Maybe the voice was just her tinnitus or her imagination, anyway it was gone.

She curled into the fetal position to sleep, her wings draping over edge onto the floor. She closed her eyes and…..

Do not be frightened child. Think your words to me and he cannot hear me speaking to you.

No doubt now about the voice being tinnitus now. It spoke loud and cleared now within her head. Possibly the drugs they've given her an hour ago. It was entertainment for tonight whatever it was.

"Who are you?" She thought.

A friend that is interested in your welfare, Lady.

The voice sounded, yet had a high pitch to it. It sounded like what an old snake would sound like it could speak.

"I don't think you're a friend of mine. No one knows I'm here and I don't recognize your voice."

It's true that we've never met, but I may be the best friend you have in these circumstances. You want to leave that place, do you not?

"More than anything."

Then I can help you leave tonight.

"No, not tonight. It's Ronald's turn to guard my room tonight.  I hate him."

Shhh, do not fear. I have a…little friend that can help you. He's on his way now.

"I can't.  I can't balance right on my feet. I either have to lean against a wall or else I'm crawling on my hands and knees. Even if you can take care of Ronald, I won't get far by on foot."

Trust me child, trust me.

Robert Duston hummed to the beat as he swirled the mop across white tile floor. His headphones clung securely to his head and emitted soft sounds of the Beach Boys. If he hadn't been wearing those he might have been able to hear the horrifying creature that would kill him moment from now.

Ah, sweet pretty Doris. One more week of this janitorial work here and he'll have enough to make the last payments for that engagement ring. And including the 'hush hush' money they give him along with his pay he could get a candle light dinner at some black coat restaurant with those French waiters and the whole shabam and then he can pop his question.

Robert murmured some of the words softly as he dipped his mop into the soapy water, and then he felt wetness on his shoulder. Did some dirty water get on him from the bucket?

He slowly tilted his head to look up.

Then his head was gone. His decapitated body fell still holding the broom. Blood washed away the water from the spilt bucket and stained the floor for weeks after the events of this night.

Further done the hall, just 30 meters from where Robert was killed, Ronald was licking his lips and studied the thighs and breasts of a blonde model on page 13 in his magazine.

Oh, he can just picture his mother screeching at him now.

"RONNIE!!!! GOD SENDS PEOPLE TO HELL FOR PORNOGRAPHY, TO HELL. DEMONS WILL COME AND FLY YOU AWAY TO HELL FOR YOU TO BURN, BURN, BURN!!!!!!!"

"Bitch." Ronald snarled under his breath. He always got angry when he thought of his mother and her screeches of hellfire and brimstone. She didn't shut up until the day, when he was a child, they found her body at the bottom of the stairs one morning after she had went up to give Ronald his righteous whipping with a rod.

"SPARE THE ROD, SPOIL THE CHILD"

He hated angels. His mother loved angels. She always collected cheap little statues of angels holding babies, praying, flying, and doing all kinds of holy shit. She always pointed at them and said, "This is what mama is going to look like when she dies and goes to Heaven."

The angels were always of beautiful women, never any baby angels or male angels either. Ronald heard rumors that his mother could have become a model if she hadn't married his alcoholic father.

Now the old bitch is dead with her neck broken and is hopefully burning in Hell right now. But now he has to take care of a live angel, just like how his mother took care of those fake ones.

A scraping sound made his pick up his head from his memories. Another sound echoed.

His eyes moved from side to side, his body tensed. He seen enough horror movies to know that when you hear strange sound, it's best not to shrug your shoulders and ignore it. People that do that tend to be the first ones to go.

He drew his gun from his belt, Miss Ivy Lovey on page 13 forgotten. He slowly moved from his seat, with surprising grace for a large man. He was a well-trained killer, but nothing could have trained him for the killer that lay in the shadows watching him.

"Hey, Robert, ya there?" He called.

Nothing.

"Robert?"

Nothing.

He licked his lips, feeling the age-old animal instinct that lived in every human being that told them when to be afraid. Ronald was a large man and a proud one too. He wasn't about to shy away from what could possibly be a practical joke from a janitor.

"Robert, you sonofabitch, if ya there, cut the shit. I got a gun and I've been trained to shoot the instance somethin' moves, so don't get any ideas about popping out and spookin' me. I can make a big hole in you with this thing."

Nothing.

Ronald was ignoring the instinct to be afraid and run. Foolish decision.

"If only they had more goddamn lights down here. I know this is a fuckin' secret lab, but it sure as hell don't have to look like one."

Drip.

Ronald gasped and tightened his grip on his gun.

Drop.

Drip.

Drop.

"C'mon on out, dammit!"
Drip-drop.

A flash of red in the dark.

Drip-drop. Step.

Ronald aimed his gun ready to fire at the next sight.

Step. Step. Drip-drop.

Then it emerged, so slowly Ronald almost thought it was surrendering itself. The thing filled the hallway. It bent it head to keep from brushing it against the ceiling. Its body was red and scaly, great dark horns crowned its head and shoulders. Red eyes peered down at him with…(Great God!!!) with Amusement.

It held within its hands, so ungodly human like, and its dark claws holding Robert's head.

Ronald screamed and fired.

Bullets sparked against the monster's hard body, inflicting no damage.

The thing threw back its head and laughed. LAUGHED.

Ronald kept firing as it took great steps to him. The shots echoing, searing his eardrums and sparks flashing against the demon's torso. As it picked up Ronald, he realized he had urinated in his pants.

Amber huddle on the bed, terrified with her wings and sheets swaddled around her, she stared wide-eyed at the door. Her talons covered her now sensitive ears from the pounds of gunshot. She uttered a soft sound of horror at the deep laugh that could have belonged to the devil himself. Ronald screamed and a thud sounded down the hall and the scream was cut off.

Loud footsteps, so loud they could only belong to something huge, rang from out the door. The door was pulled off the hinges and an ungodly monster poked its head in and saw her. Amber could no longer hold it in. She shrieked, expelling all air from her lungs, forcing her to gasp for air afterwards.

The thing actually smiled with pleasure at her reaction. It pulled its 'lips' from its teeth showing her rows of razors for teeth.

"You…come." It said in a deep voice, a voice that could only belong to a demon.

Wha….what!?" Amber was overwhelmed that this monster could understand the human language.

"YOU…COME HERE!!!" It jerked its clawed right hand toward itself in universal 'come here'.

"I wo…can't." Amber replied wisely changing won't to can't. "I can't balance…they did something to my…."

"COME!!!!!!"
It was getting impatient, not a very good thing. Amber slowly, never taking her eyes off the demon, moved to the edge of the bed. She placed a talon to the wall for better balance, and pushed off the mattress. She stumbled, catching herself against the wall.

She made her way across the room by leaning against the wall, as soon as she was within reach, the demon reached in and wrapped a huge claw around her waist and lifted her off her feet. She squealed and wiggled against his grip and became nauseous as it took her though the doorway. The cold air in the hall brought more goose bumps to her skin.

She heard crying down one end of the hall, a man sobbing. It grew louder as the demon carried down the hall. Her eyes widen at the sight.

Ronald was on his back and tears running down his stubbled cheeks. His clothes were wrinkled, and he was bleeding a little and there was a stain at his crotch. But his neck drew her attention. It was bent in an angle that was impossible.

"Ang….Miss Lees, please, I…" Ronald sobbed, when he saw her. "I can't move my body. Jesus! I'm crippled! I'm a fuckin' cripple! Miss Lees, I can't feel anything…."

She opened her mouth to say something, but she was whisked away by the demon into the next corridor. Ronald's crying and pleading stayed with her for a long time.

"Put me down!" She yelled when she had gotten over her fright of the demon.

The demon's hand was getting clammy to her skin and her right wing kept hitting the wall and banging the doorknobs of doors as they pass. It was unnerving to feel pain in a limb you've never had until recently.

Dammit, you heard me. Put me the hell down!!" She kicked her legs at its side, her cloven feet barely connecting with its torso. It ignored her and trudged up a set of stairs.

The steps were luckily made of concrete, but they were crushed under the demon's wait. She curled her legs up as bits of concrete and dust hit her legs. What would have been a brisk jog up the stairs for a human was made in two simple steps for a demon and he was on the ground floor. Amber's legs became sore after a bending them up and she hung there in its grasp.

"What a strange picture we would make." She mused to herself. "Little blue and dark winged me and big red monster here. We'd both be something out of Ripley's Believe It or Not. The Odd Couple, yeah, that's right.

"We must be on ground level now. I bet he's looking for a wall that separating inside from outside, so he can bust out to, well, the outside. I hope it's a million dollars in damages. Serves 'em right.

"When I get away from him and go to the police and get me a lawyer I'll sue their asses for more millions. I bet a lot of lawyers are going to want my case. There's that shitty contract, but surely what they did to me had to be illegal."

Her wing banged into a door handle hard, making her yelp and bring water to her eyes. The demon stopped, she looked through blurry eyes to see his turning his head this way and that. He seemed to be lost.

Amber went back to her own thoughts. "I wonder what my friends would say when they see me. I know Jody will say I look sexy and not change a thing. Stupid. Manda will probably have an asthma attack and get her aspirator out. That reminds me, where's my thin…"
She looked at the door whose handle she banged her wing into and recognized it. She remembered going into this door when she first came here. They said they wanted to store her things here for a while to decontaminate them, but she never saw them again after that.

She grabbed the doorknob and twisted it and the door swung open to her pull. The demon gave a curious grunt as Amber pulled on the door to slided out of the demon's grasp. She fell, banging her knees on the hard floor and pulled herself inside and shut the door before the demon could fully grasp that she was free from his huge claw.

The loud roar of rage made the door almost rattle. She dragged herself across the floor and pulled herself up to the shelf at the back of the room. Her new eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and that frightened her, telling her she was becoming less human as time went on. A sense of panic that rushed her adrenaline at the growling and snorting on the other side of the door.

"Why doesn't it just bust in and grab me?" She asked herself. Then she realized that someone must have wanted her bad enough to not allow the monster to risk any damages to her. The room could collapse on her if that thing broke through.

She pulled herself up against the shelf, and saw her bag. Her gym bag where she had packed necessities she thought she would need for a one week stay at the lab. She grabbed it and swung it off the shelf. Its weight nearly made her fall with it to her side.

Now what to do now? If she stayed in here, the demon will surely break in to get her and maybe kill her in the process, but who's to say that killing wasn't its intent after all? Whether it is rescuing her or taking somewhere to eat, it didn't matter, as long as it got her out of this place. The thought that it could be taking her to somewhere worse rose never rose in her mind.

She crawled to the door and turned the knob. A large red claw banged the door opened and snatched her bodily though the door. Amber clung to her bag to keep from dropping it.

The thing almost seemed to stomp down the hall, its grip on her unnecessarily tight. She will not be able to slip through his grasp again.

Amber's mind began to race. Where was security? Surely someone had to have heard this thing's thundering footsteps and its roar of rage at her. In movies, there was usually screaming and killing when a large scary monster was loose.

Then she saw the nurse. The woman was laying face down on the floor, a tray and it's contents spread out before her.

"Oh, God! She's dead. I know she is."

But as the demon carried Amber closer she saw the woman's body expand as she took breath. She was alive, but sleeping.

Amber stared as she was carried by. That was the woman who gave her the daily injections. She was a bit glad that the woman wasn't dead, she had been very kind to her, bringing her the golden injections each day.

Could the building be asleep like this nurse? Yep. There was a security guard there, slump against the wall snoring.

Wait, that wall was….

CRASH

Amber shielded her face from the falling rubble, yet pieces cut and scrapped her arms and face. She shook the glass and bits from her short hair and squinted through the dust to see the outside meadow.

She coughed as the demon carried her away from the building, moving faster now that he was in the open. They were at the top of the hill when Amber began to feel the pull again. It was the same pull that she felt in her room, before the nightmarish demon appeared.

Then the lift began, it made her feel sick to her stomach and lights began to dance in her eyes. The feeling was similar to being on a roller coaster, yet worse, much worse.

Then she was falling, her wings instinctually fanned out, yet caught no air. Then a splash and she was soaked. And there was also darkness.

"Blast it, man! You failed."

"I did not. She's in our realm. That's what you wanted."

"I wanted her here! In this room with us."

"It's fortunate that I was able to bring her to Nosgoth at all. Sending demons through dimensions is one task, but transferring a being from one dimension to another is quite different. I believe I warned you of this before we began."

"Very well, you have made your point quite well. You are dismissed. I trust that what has happened in this room will stay in this room."

"Yes, my Lord. Yes. You can trust me."

"Good."

The Guardian of the Pillar of Dimensions left the room almost slamming the door behind him. The other Guardian's fingers tapped his staff as he contemplated this dilemma.

Well, not exactly a dilemma at all actually. Just a small unforeseen problem, that's all. Nothing that he, the great manipulator of the Circle of Nine, could not solve. But he did have to admit he could never have brought the girl here without the young Guardian's assistance.

He had been a mite apprehensive about requiring the young Guardian's assistance, but the fool obeyed without question. The previous Guardian of Dimension wouldn't have trusted Moebius as far as he could throw the Pillars.

Moebius did not worry about the young Guardian speaking of Moebius's task for him. Because within three weeks, the fool will be dead, murdered by a very angry vampire lord.

Amber felt cold, very cold. And she was very dirty and uncomfortable. Of course, she was lying in the middle of a muddy swamp wearing nothing for the cotton thin shorts and shirt the lab people gave her. She sat up, her bruises hurting, and looked about.

What could have once been a grand temple lay in ruins to the east of her. Moss was clinging to the stones and engravings nearly wiped away with erosion. The trees created a canopy that blocked out the sun completely, giving her a sense of nighttime. Why this pleased her, she did not know.

Her bag was lying near her on dry grass, she snatched it up and unzipped it quickly. Yes, everything was safe and sound and in order. She took out a pair of blue jeans she had brought with her. She slipped out of the ruined shorts and hopped into the jeans. She felt better being partially dry and yet still she felt dirty, but better.

She wondered if she was in Florida now. If so, then why hadn't she ever heard of there being temples falling apart in swamps before? This would be a big tourist attraction for sure.

But how did she come to be in Florida, if this is Florida? New Jersey was far from Florida, wasn't it? What had happened?

She sat at the edge of the muddy water and pondered what her fate could be. Eaten by alligators? Die of starvation? Get murdered?  She tried standing, only to fall on her ass.

"Doctors will be able to fix me up. Almost anything can be fixed with science of the modern age. I just gotta find them."

With that, she grabbed a thick stick that was half buried in the mud. She pulled herself up to her cloven feet and found that if she leaned forward on the stick, she could get around a little easier. She stumbled along and decided to try out the ruin temple. It could be a tourist attraction after all and have people waiting inside.

She could smell the wet air and other details with her stronger smelling sense, but could not know what these meant to her. If she had known what they were, she would have realized that there was a vampire around nearby.