Okay... sorry to all those who read my work, I have been sick over the last week... and so my creativity has been half destroyed... in an effort I made this as long as I could...

Chapter Five: Blood and Water

Scene One: The Blue Hills Reservation, Boston, MA, 1928

A full moon shone brightly against a sky full of stars, greeting him with its light. Beneath the moon were hills, descending into black forests that enclosed around him swiftly, Rayleigh held him closer. There was no safe ground here in the darkened glade, for there was no cover for them at all... His attention was stolen by the distant sounds of a car engine through the cold night. The thrum approaching rapidly from the east.

Hot warm blood coated his skin, soaking through Wolf's makeshift bandages, turned them a muted grey-brown and covered Ray's skin a colour to match his ginger hair. The metallic coppery emanation was sure to draw the hound dogs of the Fallen Ones to them in a moment if the winds shifted to position them upwind from the approaching vehicle. The Howling of dogs sounded across the rough terrain, way to close for comfort… It was lucky Rayleigh had managed to get them out the air-vent and back onto the surface, far from the enemy, dragging the limp body of Wolfram behind him.

Escape seemed relatively too easy… Lucifer was using them… to achieve an aim Rayleigh never wanted to find out the results from.

Pausing in his tracks, the soft groan enticed the feline down to his side, kneeling the Devil studied the youthful features with concern. Shuddering painfully, muscles tugging at the internal injuries with each shallow breath, emerald eyes remained closed, until finally they flicked open. In moonlight, they sparked with intelligence far beyond what this child should have known in his short lifetime. His mouth moved slightly, while he attempted to speak however no sound came out, but a barrage of powerful coughs. Sending him into a fit of choked gasps that couldn't bring enough oxygen into his starved body, while he rested heavily against his Contracted's side.

"Quiet now…" The Devil hushed him, wrapping his hand around the boy's lips to make sure he understood the command. "Save your strength…"

Confusion fluttered like butterflies across the pale features, his green eyes desperate to focus on the face of his friend. A hand closed around Ray's wrist weakly, using him as an anchor point to keep upright. Wolf's lips were working again like he needed to say something, yet was afraid of the words that would not come out.

Ears flickering at the distant sounds of both engine and dogs, the feline nodded slowly in response to Wolfram's pantomime of what he had also heard. "The sound of engines." A spark of fear rushed through him, too close… they didn't have enough time to get far enough away with Wolf in the condition he was in because of that bastard brother of him…. "We need to go…" His tail flicked in agitation, drifting back and forth behind him as his keen eyes scouted over the terrain ahead.

For several long moments, the boy remained motionless in his grip and he wondered whether Wolfram had drifted back into unconsciousness, when he abruptly nodded. Sliding under his arm, Rayleigh pulled him up cautiously to his feet. Sagging downwards, Wolf attempted to grip onto the feline's shoulders, his fingers so weak they could barely even grasp the thick woven jacket the cat was wearing.

"Just try to keep you feet, Wolf…" Ray whispered softly against the boy's cool skin, "I need you to stay awake…"

The basso rumble akin to thunder reverberated through the woods, the howling animals sending a chill down his spine as he tried to figure out a way to escape. And it made him smile as he figured out a solution to the problem of the scent of blood cling to them and also a course of action. Where there was a waterfall, there must be water and it could provide them with a good hiding place from the searchers if it was deep enough to fully submerge them under the surface.

Staggering forwards, the Cat Devil half-dragged half-carried him in the direction of the sounds saturating the air with noise and also a heavy layer of moisture supported by the humidity. As their feet slogged through the marshy understorey of the forest, the Cat realised just how sleepy his charge was and knew he wouldn't last long in this state. "Don't sleep yet."

Wolfram Gabriel seemed to stiffen slightly, taking more of his mass on his own as he struggled to fight down the waves of pain lancing through his nerves like hot needles. Unsuccessful he watched the pale blurred shape of his Contracted as they slid deeper into the darkness of the dappled undergrowth, pressing closer in around them. As if sensing his pain, the ginger haired feline holding him shifted in nearer. The boy frowned when the Devil refused to meet his emerald eyes…

"Ray?"

"Shh…" He hauled Wolfram towards the encroaching river, cutting a winding path through the timberlands.

Abruptly a barking shout reverberated through the moonlit woods, harsh crashes and angry words drifted from the Fallen Ones as their vehicle had stalled between ghostly trunks, the marshy ground making it impossible to go any further. They crashed through the undergrowth, scouring the place between the ruins of an old building, where the vent had reached the surface and the river. Rancorous curses followed a moment of silence, when they completed their destructive rummaging around of the wreckage and come up with absolutely nothing, but the blood left around the grate that now was wide open. Escape hadn't been too difficult… with help from a surprising source… Forever Ray would never think of that Fallen One again as an enemy as he had saved both their lives from Lucifer's anger.

Knowing his time was almost up, a flash of desperate fear raged through Rayleigh, heightening his senses and manipulating his strength with a rush of adrenalin, allowing him to heave the virtually limp form of the boy over his shoulders.

His whispered protests for Ray to leave him were drowned out, when he finally came to the edge of the riverbank and he dropped Wolfram unceremoniously into the brackish water with a splash. Unable to keep himself afloat, when his strength faded away from his muscles, the pale blonde sunk like a stone to the bottom. Diving in after him, the feline's arm brought him into a tight headlock, forcing his head above the rippling coffee liquid. Coughing weakly to clear water from his throat and lungs, he valiantly tried to help the tiny framed Devil by moving slowly to keep them afloat.

The remains of the building was set alight, the first glow form the flames dancing off to their left, the smoke rose from them to filter through the darkness… The light asking ghostly shadows over the earth, splitting the night apart with its light.

Rayleigh's grey eyes studied the rise visible of the edge of the crumbling bank to see the distant glow of headlights, silhouetting large lupine creatures, Pandemonium's Hounds. Their shaggy coats tangled limply around their owlish orbs seemed to stare directly out into the darkness, though he knew their night vision was poor and they could not see him looking back at them. A wispy blanket of smoke fanned out low over the earth, effectively covering their tracks in the leaf litter.

However to prevent discovery… they had to dive. The panted breath of the hounds grew louder in their ears and the boy flinched away from the sound as if physically burnt by it. The Devil looked up ahead at the fiery red that was speeding towards them and he realised the fire from the building was spreading. Already, he could taste the dank odour of smoke filling his nostrils and mouth, getting into everything to cut out all the other things but itself.

Rayleigh murmured, "Do you trust me?"

"I do," He gasped, fighting to remain conscious just a little longer.

"I'm not leaving you…" The feline assured him, "Then take a deep breath, we're going under."

And with that they submerged beneath the surface, leaving only ripples in their wake.

The shock of the cool river water on his over-heated skin took Ray's breath away, when they plunged beneath the surface. The quiet underwater seemed unreal after the jumble of frantic noises above as he heard the hounds race over the ridge and swept down to the water's edge. He couldn't hear much, even the thunder of the waterfall was muffled and couldn't see anything clearly, when the feline's gaze drifted upwards. Then his ears detected a slow whining and he cursed, his cry mingled with the shrieking of metal and wood as the gas tanks beneath the building exploded. He covered the boy's body with his own, vaguely felt quick jabs of pain stabbing into his back, but felt nothing after that as the shard speared through the water like harpoons. Pieces of metal finally stopped showering the ground and river around them and then there was silence.

He exhaled a little, watching the bubbles float away in a rising column of expended air. The tightness increased in his nose and throat, hurting fiercely while his chest still ached. It was just going to get worse and worse, he was going to get light-headed...

Water crept into Rayleigh's mouth and he forced himself to tear one of this hands from Wolfram to hold his nose and swallow. Chilled to the bone now, not from the water but from the deep terror rising within him, the feline focus on the warm body resting in his arms and the need to remain free.

In time, the boy went limp, his limbs beginning to drift with the current as the need for air became necessary for both of them. At that moment, Ray dived deeper, drawing Wolf with him into the mouth of a tunnel carved out from the silty bottom of the river. For it provided the only place that evaded the strong beam of light that suddenly swept through the depths, searching for them. And as they swam into the maw, the Devil felt the pull of water against him and they were sucked out into a total blackness of earth and stone and into the unknown…

Above them, the stars moved their slow arcs in the sky… hoping something would come up.

Scene Two: New York, NY, 1915

White passed out off her, stealing her identity and name as it fled…The darkness surrounded her like the vortex of a black hole. She was falling. From where, she didn't know. Her destination was still yet undetermined. She knew nothing and yet she knew everything. She was at peace and yet there was war. There was a sensation of openness and yet she was suffocating.

Keziah was falling.

The darkness that surrounded her contained pinpricks of light that elongated as she rushed by. She knew from where she had come. Where she was going was the question. It was like her dream. Fear smothered her causing waves of adrenalin to crash through her body.

A sheer cry fell down upon the earth from Heaven, she were an angel her wings suddenly clipped, Keziah impacted hard with the ground. Her body threw trash about, which skittered away, jumping as if frightened by her also sudden appearance out of nowhere. Slowly her consciousness returned, thoughts a chaotic storm that spiral out of control.

"Who am I?" She whispered petrified, moonlight shone into the alleyway like a searching beam, trying to locate something, which did not exist in its reach. Stared at the moon dully, watching it orbit the world in its rhythmic turning, she felt the pangs of pain rush through her battered body. To this world she was something of a myth, but the moment didn't last as the powers screamed away from her. All the strength she had known was gone…

Leaving Keziah wailing as every thought, every dying memory was wrenched away by a force so strong she was flung into the mouldy wall with a wet thunk. The girl was alone then, too alone and when she screamed again, the silence was instantly shattered around her as she felt the world bubble up to consume her. Mortality was too high a price to pay…

Yet, she resisted, pushing it away with all her strength, all the strength she had known previously was nothing compared to what lingered beneath the surface, untapped and wanting to get free. Barely able to stay conscious, the Archangel had certainly taken some damage from the previous battles, now she could hardly stand. Yet stand she did, though her body was beaten and raw flesh lay exposed in areas, her eyes were stormy with determination. Merely a child of barely four years…

"My Archangel, my own." A deep voice purred softly, a shadow detaching from the wall to scoop her up into strong arms.

Lips brushing over her forehead, wings cloaking around her body, though dripping blood upon her, the child reached out to stroke the soaked feathers. Her bright eyes focused on his handsome, demonic face… yet fingertips found the collar strung around his neck… "Devil…" Pale silvery gold eyes blinked up at him, the crying abruptly stopped… and a soft giggles escaped the little girl as her fingers reached up to touch his cheek lightly… "Sami…"

"This is the Beginning of the End…"

Scene Three: The Blue Hills Reservation, Boston, MA 1928

Tracking the bloodtrail to the edge fo the water, Samael growled as he stared at the beasts that clambered around the back searching for the pair that had managed thankfully to evade them.Twirling to face the hounds that rushed over the muddy earth, his vivid teal eyes narrowed on each one of them, studying them intently for weaknesses, plotting the most efficiently bloodless way possible to remove them from his escape route.

Fangs shimmered in the amber firelight. Thundering out his rage, anger welled up from within to becloud his mind in a red haze. Unsheathed claws sliced through the first wave of feral brutes swarmed over him. These stupid lower cast Devils needed to learn their place. Like furious insects around an intruder in their hive, the Samael knocking them down with powerful blows that harnessed an unworldly strength. They deserved no mercy... they were the Hounds of Hell, slaughters of millions.

Abruptly dropping to all fours, his teeth found an unprotected throat and a flood of bitter fluid slid into his mouth at the source of the punctures. The taste swept over his tongue and burnt caustically down his throat, prompting the constriction of his throat muscles to prevent anymore passing to his stomach. Tightly clenching his upper and lower jaws around his captive, his head whipped sharply in stalwart twists, tearing out the jugular with the rapid movement of razor-edged fangs. Blood sprayed hotly over his entire length and the bodies of those pressed in around his in a reeking throng of convulsing flesh. Also splattered over the far wall, travelling downwards in a trickling trails of extensive lines of sickly colours.

His horror vanished, blasted away by his unbridled animosity directed at them and the rest of the world for the injustices so frequently found in his life. Some of his actions even frightened him with the simple cruelty Samael had slain the outlandish Devils, their shrieks of pain searing his ears. They had never lived… From each corpse rose a miasma of evil, swathing the place in a tide of darkness, one that strengthened him further.

Agony ripped across his back as one of the monsters latched on with needle-sharp canines. Rolling belly up, the albino used his own weight to squash the beast beneath his, fracturing ribs in the process. Yet its grip didn't let up, squirming despite the death-grip on his back, his wings cracked the beast's head firmly against a stone rising above the surrounding sands and old paving still buried under the shifting sediments.

Something clicked inside Samael's head, insistently throwing itself to the foremost of his thoughts. Something wanted to be let out... a feral rage, greater than before, battle-lust, and the need to avenge all those who had fallen to these hounds of the Fallen One Lucifer, for lack of a better description for creatures that didn't even care about their own kind. The dark haired Devil howled, rushing forward and tackled the closest dog and checking it into a couple more, bowling them over with the force of a hurricane. This was not murder, it was justice for innocents these things had slaughtered for nothing more than pleasure.

Letting loose another howl, relentlessly he swung at the remaining drones. A ghostly echo of his cry reverberated around the glen, as the wraith seemed to lend him its strength to do the justice of a judgement something told his was right. In all of the fifteen pack members that had followed his into the alleyway, none were left standing. Like a whirlwind, Samael destroyed had them all with a burst of blinding speed, teeth and claws finding their marks easily on the putrid beasts, their whimpers and shaky whines went unheard by his ears.

With a sudden burst of speed, swiftly he took off, following the call of his Contractor… She was calling for him… Rayleigh and Wolfram were on their own...

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Stars.

Seen from the confines of a planet became flickering symbols of a universe teeming with life, beckoning warmly with the offer of adventure and discovery, of dreams fulfilled, of possibilities beyond comprehension. Seemingly unreachable to any bound to the earth…

The moon shone down through the trees, casting bright leaf-shadows that the wind ruffled over every surface. The glade was not still. The sounds of movement lay within the ring of gnarled trees ravaged by the slow passage of time. The grate of metal on metal as a pair of thin light swords and a heavier pair of scimitars met again and again within the arena, they played out a deadly dance. Sparks of silver let loose from their weapons as it clashed with each other, while the shadows hid the ferocity burning in their eyes.

The two combatants were magnificent in their swordplay, both masters of the art, from a time long forgotten. The dance seemed to flow back and forth between the two, sometimes with the male pushing, but more often with the younger in the lead, the fiery Archangel daring him to strike. The duel's speed and intensity built the pace accelerating with the rhythm created between the two fighters. The two combatants blurred, the intensity flowing around them like a river sweeping down over the edge of a cliff in a cascading pattern of light.

She jumped, defying gravity, like a hawk taking off from the ground as her wings, fiery and shimmering, flared to keep her up. Her body twisted and writhed as she flung herself somersaulting through the air, then opened herself to strike the boy in mid air, placing her at his back. Yet, his blades came up in a flicker of silvery light, deflecting the twin light swords cutting a swift path through the soft mellow breeze.

She dropped into a crouch as he spun around, blades whipping at waist height and whispered a slice just above her ducked head. Noticing a glint of metal blade flashing toward his mid-section, he quickly jumped back to escape the silent attack. He parried the offhanded blow with a sweep of swords that deflected the shot and he brushed the second blade away as she pushed off the ground and twisted to avoid the scimitars as they came down under her feet.

"Why do you play with me, Uriel?"

Every inch of him a shining example of dignified commander as he moved gracefully to counter her double blow that knocked him back a step with the sheer power behind it. His blue eyes glittered dangerously, and her breath caught in her throat for an instant at the power in that gaze alone, this was Lucifer.

"Becase you hurt Wolfram! You tortured our brother!"

With a fluid cut of the scimitar that would have severed the Fallen One's neck had he not blocked again. Twisting the block, she brought his arm down, held it straight, extended to force him a step back to give her room.

"Our brother?" There was a single moment of confusion as he gazed at her…

And then there was no time for more repartee as Lucifer spun and leapt forward, with a movement almost too fast for the eye to follow, and swung his first blade in a powerful overhand blow with deadly precision. Luckily, the girl was quite familiar with the male's duelling style, and parried the strike easily. He spun and swung upwards and again the light swords were there to deflect the blow.

His attack intensified, as he poured all his great strength, both within the energies swirling around them and from the innate power of his experience into the blows he placed upon her. She blocked a series of quick slashes, amazingly with a burst of speed and strength. She was forced to focus all her skills on evading the raw power of the assault. Lucifer stepping forward and weaving an intricate pattern with his curved blades, impacting with her lighter pair in a complex point-counterpoint that gained advantage for neither of them but seemed, for some reason, to please the blonde male as he watched her appreciatively.

He leapt and spun, trying to propel his pale coloured opponent back toward the ring of trees to gain a terrain advantage. Uriel's movements as smooth as poured liquid, sidestepped his manoeuvre, allowed a sudden inspiration to dictate her response. A cold breeze swept over the two sweating bodies as they fell more into the patterns of their duel.

"Yeah, you're my brother, Luce." She mocked, and she spun to counter his next blow, darted past it and attacked.

He abruptly stopped, returned his scimitars to his belt and stepped forward. She was slower to pause than he to pull out of the duel. Spinning the razor-sharp blades in her fingers, she avoided the next blow when a waves of dark energy captured her….

"You mock me..."

"No... You are my Brother!"

A rush of violent sensations incapacitated her as the sensations faded, and she wasn't aware of anything but the intense waves of emotion and physical weakness plaguing her. They pounded against her, one after the other, until she could hear herself screaming for them to stop. Images from her past hit her in rapid succession, fragmented and distorted. She gasped, overwhelmed by the onslaught of memories and sensations that combined in a whirlwind of sharp sorrow to absolute joy. Lucifer was using her… He knew… she was weak… held mortal for so long, much of her holy energy had fled…

SAMAEL!

There was darkness. The fall was more intense. She felt more alone and yet though she knew how to break these feelings the answer didn't come to her. She was once again surrounded and suffocating, yet completely and utterly alone. It was like before... yet different... she remembered thi sfamiliar sensation as a child...

Then she became aware of something else…

She couldn't breathe.

Fire.

Heat.

Such intense heat, like in the days of fire just passed. Looking up with tears in her eyes, she saw a faint glimpse of the sky beyond the burning flames… no they were just trees and then, an Angel descending from above. She was howling. Then her strength of voice fled like the dusk entering into the pitch-black cocoon of full night…

And she noticed for the first time that it was raining. No, pouring was a more fitting term to describe the raging storm, which had drenched her without her noticing. Overhead, thick clouds covered the entire sky and occasionally, thunder could be heard amid the howling winds of the storm. It was a testament to the powers that were being summoned, by the Will… Lucifer was being wrenched back by an assault of holy energy that lanced from her open hand that thrust him away from her. The spark of light calling attention to herself...

The night was split apart by the shock of blinding white as a bolt sizzled across the sky, cracking with an audible rumble that vibrated through the earth into her weary bones. The rain was pouring hard from the merciless skies above as the albino stared up at the dark shape silhouetted against a backdrop of a gloomy forest. Blood and ebony flesh merged into the form of a Devil, hell born with the fires of passion blazing in eyes of a clear night sky. Shards of blue-green obsidian stared at her with the intensity she had come to expect from this male, this awesome creature that embodied the night itself. He had come for her...

"URIEL!"

She felt a lone tear slip down her cheek, mingling with the rain that pelted down upon her. Even in the centre of the storm insects chirped all around them, like a symphony of sound wafting by them with the gentle breeze in opposition to the roll of blasts in the upper atmosphere. A sweet scent of wildflower entered her nostrils softened by the moisture of droplets, breathing deep, the girl wished her broken soul could feel as pure and untainted.

Lucifer... had done his job... distracting them from the real mission...

Scene Four: New Zion Ruins

Slowly some of the stones blocking the entrance shifted, sending tiny avalanches of pebbles down in skittering streams across the cobble pavers of grey slate. The sound the only noise in the long chamber as it bounced back and forth between the walls. A hand pushed through the minute gaps between the larger of the upper parts of the stack and nudged more to create a larger space, just big enough for a slender body to slither through to reach into the cave and pulled herself through.

Dust spiralled away, filling the space in a matter of seconds, while it expanded into a cloud of harsh coarse granules. Faint coughing reverberated around the large interior as the bad air hit her lungs, burning them and Rayleigh's nose with the unspeakable horror of the metallic burn that still lingered after all this time in the atmosphere confined within what could still turn out to be a coffin. The pale Cat Devil twisted his body swiftly so he lay on his belly, manoeuvring his hips through the last torn edges of the hole and he spilled down across the rocks with a light thump. "Ouch…" The kitty winced, rubbing at his bottom. "Stupid rocks."

Dusting himself off as best he could, he returned to crouch back down, his hands reached through the hole to grab hold of Wolfram's shirt and drag him through the gap. The blonde was unconscious and wouldn't be waking up for sometime after the beating the poor kid had taken at the hands of Abaddon. They had barely managed to escape with the assistance of the spy within the Fallen One's midst... and now from the Dogs thanks to Samael...

There was a tiny beam of light that brightened the room to a barely visible glow that highlighted the designs etched into every possible surface around the entire gallery supported by massive pillars. These rose above the floor in arching columns of pure black marble that bent the artificial illumination around them to swallow it hole, like a black hole engulfing anything that passed the point of no return of the event horizon. This place, held some of the remains from the ancient city of New Zion, which had been destroyed and buried in Lucifer's revolt against God. After all this time they had be discovered yet again.

Tiny droplets of crimson blood lay smeared over the rocks where he had pulled Wolf into the chamber and also in a fine trail leading behind him as he helped heft the child towards the dais. From the deep darkness into the diminutive pool of light flickering through the little gap in the ceiling. The reddish tint and the faint odour of smoke reminded him that above there was an inferno running rampant over the Hideout. They were destroying any evidence they had been here, smoking them out if they could from this sanctuary of sorts.

"What are they playing at?" Rayleigh growled, his ears stiffly down against his head in annoyance… "I swear Lucifer chose this place because of what is down here…"

And a shadow moved across the stone floor, dark chocolate eyes watching them with interest… The wild card was ready to be played.