Agnus sat in his laboratory, smiling and giggling softly to himself as he cleaned the final clots of dried blood from his scalpel; ready for the next set of hours he would spend with his precious angel- Nero. He held the instrument up to his face and caught the chocolate coloured eyes of his grinning face in its gleaming silver surface. Handsome devil, he thought fondly to himself.
The smile momentarily left the broad face of the scientist as he glanced round the full expanse of his lab. The previous days fight with the young white haired cherub had left a real mess. Test tubes had been shattered, blood had been splattered, his gorgeous devil birds had been completely destroyed, however- Agnus thought in relief- at least Yamato had not been touched. The katana was one of the key instruments in his research into demonology so he was glad to see that the slender, deadly sword had not been damaged. Agnus smiled as he remembered the swords previous owner; his holiness had shown him pictures of the silvery haired, cold eyed dark slayer. A shiver of lust ran up the scientist's spine as he reminisced- how wonderful would it have been to have gotten his hands on that half devil while he was still available, he could not help but fantasize about what he could do to that young man's exquisite form….
Sighing dreamily to himself, Agnus shook himself out of his sensual reverie and glanced at the intricately hand crafted gold items which lay on his favourite steel surgical tray. There were five of them in total. They were oblong in shape and solid however instead of ending in gentle curves they elongated to sharp points about two inches long. Beside these stood a small pot filled half way to the top with molten hot liquid lead. Agnus intended to replace Nero's finger nails with them.
Nero lay in agony on the regal bed; his once pure features now mutilated, the raw wounds covered with a thick coating of congealed blood. A surgical drip stood to his side, the tubing being fed into his arm allowing the wretched serum to be dispersed into his blood stream at separate intervals every hour. Nero coughed, a clotted amalgamation of blood and bile shot out from his throat and spilt down his already filthy chin; the serum made moving even his head impossible thus his inability to simply disperse the concoction onto the stained bed clothes he lay on. The sound of footsteps suddenly began to travel towards the young devil as they echoed upon the grand stone staircase that led to his infernal prison. Nero had begun to think of this chamber as his own personal hell.
The mammoth, greasy haired scientist entered the macabre alcove- a fresh set of surgical tools carried in on a tray by his large, thick hands. Agnus stepped into Nero's limited line of vision and the teenager got a full look at the salacious expression plastered across the older man's face. His wide mouth seemed to be stretched to its limits as his face struggled to contain the Cheshire style grin that he wore. The meagre amounts of light provided by the valiantly flickering candles played of the demonologists monocle thus providing his eyes with an even more malicious and prurient gleam than was already there naturally. Nero's soul was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of dread; its intensity meaning that he struggled to contain the feeling and was having difficulty in not allowing the fear to be converted into screams.
Agnus sat down on an ornate black iron chair placed next to the monarchical four postered bed. Before he allowed work on his 'PROJECT' to resume he brought a small bottle from his coat pocket and, using a dripper, allowed a couple of small drops of clear liquid to fall into each of Nero's eyes- it was easy for the organs to become dry now that they were missing their lids. Today he would be making improvements to that beautifully manicured human hand of his which seemed to remain unscarred and soft even after countless sword fights; the lad must use good moisturiser, Agnus pondered.
Reaching over to the boys left side, the scientist took a firm hold of Nero's elegant left hand and stretched it over, placing it gently upon his the teenager's china coloured torso. Using Nero's narrow chest as a 'work-surface' Agnus carefully pulled each of the boy's slender fingers out straight, spreading the digits so that he had a clear view of each individual nail. The scientist picked his pliers of off his tray and raised his head to look into Nero's horror-struck face; simply drinking in the delectable fear which swam is those lidless blue eyes.
Agnus grasped the thumb between his fingers first. He reached over with his free hand in order to grab a thin, razor sharp needle which he then began to slowly slide beneath Nero's finger nail in order to loosen the nail plate- the action caused a pained hiss to escape from Nero's throat making Agnus smile in pleasure. Agnus continued to apply pressure to the nail using the needle before, finally, grabbing his pliers. The scientist was required to use all of his concentration in order to get a good purchase of the thumb nail with his pliers and then, only requiring to apply a small level of pressure, wrenched the nail of in order to reveal the soft pink and tender flesh beneath. A violent scream of intense agony was forcibly torn from the part devils throat as more blood spluttered out of his tongueless mouth and the nail was torn free. Veins could be seen to visibly pulsate on his neck as he attempted to make his body move- his attempts were laughably futile.
Wasting no time, Agnus continued to Nero's fore finger, repeating the same process and earning yet more delicious screams from the miserable young man; however Agnus' pleasure was short lived this time as he realised that blood was beginning to well around the tip of the digit and around the broken flesh of the nail bed
"DAMN!", he angrily exclaimed, "I should have used a tourniquet…", he added in a mumble to himself.
Quickly grabbing an ivory silk cloth, Agnus soaked up the small pool of blood welling up in Nero's finger tips and made the split decision to apply the first golden talons to Nero- he had planned to wait until each nail had been individually removed before beginning the second half of the process. The older man brought the pot of molten lead from the tray and placed it carefully onto Nero's heaving chest and then selected one of the golden talons; this is when he had to really concentrate. Agnus leaned over the moaning teenagers thumb and- oh so carefully- poured the required amount of the liquid into the digit and skilfully placed the talon into the required position all within the space of roughly five seconds before repeating the process in roughly four seconds on the fore finger and sitting back and admiring his handy- work. Excellent. By this point Nero was beside himself in absolute torment, his screams becoming so loud that they echoed eerily around the damp room; Agnus was in heaven.
The scientists eagerness began to become uncontrollable upon seeing how much better Nero's hand looked with merely two fingers adorned with the beautiful golden talons; the gold complimented the young man's alabaster flesh almost making it glow. Agnus carefully folded Nero's already finished fingers underneath his hand in order to give himself more space to work on Nero's middle finger- this particular finger was vastly overused by the spunky young devil, Agnus privately thought to himself. In his excitement Agnus completely forgot about the thin needle used to loosen the nail and skipped straight to grabbing his beloved pliers.
He placed the pliers under the nail and tore with all of his might before looking down upon hearing another roar emanate from the silver haired angels mouth and realising his mistake. Agnus had not only torn of the nail but had also begun to tear a strip of soft flesh which was attached to the nail plate. At this the scientist began to panic and attempted to smoothly sever the flesh by simply pulling, however this only made the wound worse as the strip of flesh became larger and soon Agnus found that he had managed to completely strip the flesh from Nero's middle finger. The young man's screams were reduced to pitiful sobs and whimpers.
This action caused the temperamental man to become even more panicked and enraged. In a final abortive attempt to fix his mistake, Agnus desperately grasped the pot of molten led in his hands, but his shaking limbs and muddled mind proved too much thus causing him to twitch and pour the boiling liquid all over Nero's injured, bloody hand. He stared in bizarre fascination as the once pale flesh began to bubble and sizzle; turning into red raw blisters before bursting. The skin hardened as the lead reacted under the oxygen in the air and solidified- sealing Nero's mangled hand to his chest.
Agnus cursed himself to a thousand hells as he glanced at Nero's completely unconscious face; his lidless cerulean eyes rolled back to reveal only the whites, red veins standing out on the surface like the spindly branches of a tree in the dead of winter. Storming out of the room, Agnus ascended the cold stone staircase in a rage. He would clean Nero up tomorrow when he was in a better state of mind; only then could he fully fix his mistakes and succeed in creating the perfect creature that he dreamed of endlessly every night.