"So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." -Matthew 10:26

It burned.

God, did it burn.

Face scrunching, fists clenching, and shoulders pinching, a long, winded groan snaked its way out of Kyle's lungs. Disorientation plagued him, brows knitting at an unfamiliar plush surface under his rolling back muscles. Too firm to be his and Ken's mattress, too soft to be the hotel's. A sensitive nose twitched, skin on the bridge wrinkling with distaste at an acrid aroma permeating the air.

Something was singed, maybe a fried outlet? Another breakfast disaster at Kenny's unskilled culinary hand?

His head arched back, chest tremoring as he let out a hoarse, confused "Ken?", cringing at the weak, cracking tinge to his tone.

Silence.

And then, an eerily familiar sound. A rah-ti-ti-ti of nails clinking along a hard surface. No no, not nails. That was the sound it made when his claws danced so impatiently along a bathroom counter until they receded back into his fingertips.

His heart seized, long lashes parting ways and giving him a first look at an obsidian ceiling. His eye caught a glint against one of the ridges, gulping down a throat raw from agonized screaming as he found himself locked on the sight of a red hue reflecting so clearly. Red was a color he'd learned to hate, stealthily managing to work it out of his and Kenny's wardrobe over the years after dealing with just one too many triggering mirror pass-bys. It was the tiniest things that did him in, or at least, it used to be. But now the air was thick, and that singed odor made itself much more at home in his nostrils; a bit of nauseating nostalgia at brimstone's pungent smell sticking to the back of his throat like honey.

Kyle tried lifting his right arm from where it lay outstretched over his head. He winced, feeling metal pressing into his thin wrist and finally tearing his eye away from the stretching cavern above to the oddity. His jaw shook, finding the magic cuffs snapped so casually down onto his arm and he clenched his eyes.

'Oh God, it wasn't a nightmare,' he thought, quaking.

"Well well, he finally returns," that vile, horrible voice appeared, slick as oil.

Kyle's fangs grit, his head heavily flopping onto the side towards the voice, creaking his eyes back open to Damien sitting oh-so-casually in a chair, claws clicking their way up and down the cover of a thick tome. With great effort, he breathed out a "what did you do?"

"Aw," he feigned a pout, "he doesn't remember. How tragic, because I'll never forget," he hissed, brimming with a heady glee. Kyle narrowed his eyes and he chuckled, setting his book aside and getting to his feet, Kyle's exhausted body suddenly finding its fight and trying to back away from him. "Ahp ahp ahp," Damien chided, "let me remind you of what you did." He grabbed Kyle's arm, yanking him back into the middle of the bed, caging him in between his arms and watching the panicked storm begin brewing as he hovered over him. A satisfied sigh left his lips, Kyle's nausea heightening. Damien leaned down, their noses nearly touching, "You gave yourself to me," he purred.

Kyle blinked, mind spinning at the multitude of connotations that he could be implying with such a phrasing. Vague, sporadic memories sped through his muddled brain: A wedding, Kat crying, his mother's perfume, Kenny's bloodied wings… His breath hitched, Damien grinning wildly as he watched realization snap behind those heterochromatic eyes. No matter how he tried, Kyle couldn't calm the horrified tremoring of his muscles, the way that his nerves jumped and tried to activate his powers to keep him safe. In misery and anger, he asked, "what do you want me for?"

"Oh, Mouse," he said softly, a claw coming up to run down a twitching cheek. "So so much."

A heavy silence fell between them, Kyle's infuriation and terror condensing itself into shudders racking up and down his spine. He watched, swallowing dryly at the smolder swimming through ruby irises, the demon before him clearly having an entire eternity plotted with himself as the unwilling guest star. His jaw trembled as a clawed thumb pulled up his upper lip, full attention slammed onto his exposed fang.

No no, he wasn't the guest star. The monster pinning him down was the director, had full control over every line, every action. Kyle himself was the headliner; the one that would be called difficult to work with but worth the trouble so long as he managed to produce the final product that Damien was dreaming of so confidently. Kyle held back a sniffle well as he could, stomach twisting at the thumb redirecting to brush over the lashes of his angelic and mortal eye. He could recall the look of claws ready to plunge in, the sadistic joy on Damien's face at the notion of the agony it would cause him, and he shrunk further into the bed beneath him.

"Poor poor McCormick," Damien murmured, Kyle's brows furrowing. "He has no idea what he's done to you."

Mention of Kenny had him straightening, blinking against the pressure on his lashes. "What… what are you talking about? Ken didn't do anything."

He smirked, "True. I guess it was you who truly did it. But regardless, he's still going to be playing his part." Kyle breathed with relief as Damien finally shrugged and leaned off him, standing next to the bed. He snapped his fingers for Kyle's attention, grinning at the immediate scowl plastering over his face. "Come now, Mouse, you know how this is going to go," he said. "I order, you fight, and I remind you about every little thing I hold over your pretty little head, and you comply. Wouldn't you like to just skip the dance just once?"

"Again, you'd get bored of me," Kyle muttered, wincing with effort as finagled his arms behind him to push himself up. He sat up slowly with a locked crack ringing down his spine and he sighed. "Then again that would be to my benefit, you'd let me leave if I bored you."

Damien chuckled, "You and I both know you'll never be fully compliant, but we can damn well get you close."

Kyle rolled his eyes, reaching up to cup under his chin and direct his head for his neck to crack itself out of its stiffness. Sharp vision flickered down at dried dark blood running down his exposed clavicle. He sighed, forcing down indignant, violated fury and misery into a knotted ball in his stomach. It twinged with pain and he shook his head, clawed fingers working deftly to redo buttons that Damien had so casually popped apart. That stomachache was going to be his constant, not much else he could direct his emotions onto… He glanced at the iron snapped around his wrist. Especially in the fucking casual bondage that Damien wanted him to stay in to keep him subdued.

Damien snapped again, watching Kyle's lip curl to expose his right fang and he tongued over his own. Kyle could hide his demonic features behind all the spells he wanted, but that little tic showed Damien all he needed to know: He had embraced them. He knew what they represented, that they showed that he had power, he had the ability to strike fear into anyone who dared step in his path. Even through his efforts to keep them hidden, Kyle's demonic instinct could not be ignored, he'd accepted it far too well. "Come, Little one," he murmured, eyes sparkling at Kyle's tenseness. "I thought I would be kind for how well behaved you were yesterday and let you see your runt before I show you just what it is you're here for."

The mention got Kyle's attention at last, his eyes flickering to Damien's face for hints of a lie or nothing more than a cruel mocking. He saw none and he gulped, body untwisting itself as he hurriedly scrambled off Damien's mattress and stood next to him. "Take me to her now," he barked.

Damien snorted, a brow raising, "Excuse me?"

A long breath escaped through Kyle's nose, impatience outweighing common sense. "Take me to Kat now," he reemphasized.

"Little mouse I think you ought to remember your manners," he said, raising a curled finger under Kyle's chin and tilting his face up with a bony knuckle. "Take you to her… what?" he taunted.

Kyle's eye twitched, a growl pushing itself through his throat but remembering well enough that this was perhaps the smallest concession he'd roped himself into with Damien's tethering bullshit. He had to save his rebellion for where it mattered. "Take me to her… please," he said, the word leaving a foul taste on his tongue that soured further at Damien's beaming, victorious smile.

"Good boy," he praised, eyes lighting and the two of them beginning to sink through the floor.

Kyle sneered, angrily allowing his chin to remain captive. He wasn't sure what would happen if he broke contact with Damien, if he'd get lost in the void without the portal creator's dictation guiding him out. He was sure that Damien would have no problem leaving him powerless and alone between planes for a long time, give him enough solitary confinement to wear down his spirit before dragging him back out to do as he pleased with as little an argument as Kyle's nature would permit. He sighed through his nose, that damn thumb back to stroking his skin. It was abundantly clear: This wasn't just a power play, this wasn't just whatever sick game Damien had planned for him to take part in.

This was an obsession.

The only issue was, Kyle didn't know if it was an obsession with the demon he'd created and the power they shared, or if it was one with Kyle himself, regardless of any demonic presence. Either option was staggering, but the latter seemed so much more haunting, had so much more potential to do what Damien claimed to want: For him to break.

'Not happening,' he thought to himself, glancing up at an opening of red and orange sky appearing overhead and the two of them being whisked upwards towards it. He winced slightly, stiff knees buckling a bit as they landed on the unforgiving stone ground. A quiet, excited yip caught his attention, head whirling around to see Valefor lying on the ground with Kat leaning against him as she stared up into the sky, his body wriggling around in thrill at Kyle's arrival.

Pip caught them in his peripheral, turning and heaving a sigh of slight relief. Kyle didn't look good, but he wasn't as bloodied as he'd expected. "Katlyn, look," he urged the despondent toddler, lost in her imagination and a crying-fueled headache and throbbing eyes. Her face twisted and her body flopped to the side, hiding in Valefor's fur. She still didn't trust the strange man, the so-called angel. She just wanted to go home, hide in her dads' bed, and eat pancakes until Kyle was yelling at her and her papa about getting syrup all over the sheets.

Kyle watched from his distance, his heart shattering. That wasn't his daughter, the one so exuberantly full of life and questions that even Kenny had trouble matching her enthusiastic tenacity. He knew how she felt, how the burden of being Damien's fucking hostage and stuck in Hell made for a fuckton of pressure on the psyche. Except, when he was the prisoner, he at least had the cognitive function to wrap his mind around why he was there. He bit his lip, disgusted with himself for a fleeting thought of how maybe this would've been easier if it happened a few years from now, when she wasn't teetering on four and still struggling to remember eleven when doing her numbers.

He gulped, knowing Damien well enough to know he was being timed. "Kat?" he called, his tone croaking.

The familiar voice roused her energy, blue eyes shooting open and tiny body all but ricocheting off Valefor's side. "Daddy!" she sobbed, getting to her feet and breaking into a wobbling, waddling run towards him.

He broke from beside Damien, hurrying to put distance between them so the demon wouldn't be near Kat when they got to each other.

Her eyes were bleary with exhaustion and emotion, her father a shining beacon of red barreling towards her that she could not be more elated to get to. She hiccupped as he bent into a slide, grabbing her in his arms as they collided and holding her to his chest. She wailed, overwhelmed and unable to sort out her emotions, her fingers clenching time and again into the fabric of his dress shirt long stained merlot.

"Shhh shhhh," Kyle whispered, eyes clenching as he rocked her, desperate to provide her with even a modicum of comfort. "I gotcha, Kit-Kat," he promised, kissing the top of her head. "I'm here. I'm right here."

She tugged his shirt, swallowing down gasping sobs, "I wanna go!" she yelled, stuck in a loop of despair.

Kyle took a shaking breath, nodding. "Me, too," he whispered, burying his face in her hair. "If I could get you out I would. Papa and me are both trying, okay?" he begged, looking up at the sky, praying Kenny and the others were at least somewhat on track towards an idea. "Getting you home is all we care about," he said, scowling at his heightened hearing catching Damien murmuring out a "You have far more to be worried about than that." He shook it off, looking back down at the heaving shoulders of his daughter and drowning in guilt at the mess he'd caused. His hand slivered into her hair, lightly petting her scalp and fighting off tears of his own.

He should've offered more. He should've sworn himself to utter obedience at the fucking house, had Damien take Ken with them to Hell so he could've used his banishment spell so he could never come rescue him. Maybe it would've been a shot in the dark, but it also was a far better alternative than this for her.

Kat sniveled, face nestled down in Kyle's chest, unable to find any remaining comforting smell of his typical cologne, instead her nostrils filled with the stench of sea-logged iron. But she knew these arms, she knew the kisses on her hair, and she knew the fingers stroking so dotingly over her skull.

Blue eyes flew open with discomfort at a sharp tinge brushing over her skin.

Maybe she didn't know these fingers.

She pulled back slightly, and Kyle's hand followed her, slipping out of her curls to wrap lovingly around her hand still clasped around his shirt. Her mouth went agape, seeing the horrifying sharp appendages slapped onto the ends of his fingers, how they so naturally folded among one another. These weren't like the pretty nails she'd see on cashiers or in boxes at the pharmacy, ones that she'd stomp her feet for while her dads told her she was too young. They weren't colorful and fun and catching the light with designs and creativity. They were just sharp, tinged with black along the cuticle and stained with blood along the razor edges.

She fumbled through her words, "Dad-Daddy, what's wrong with your fi-" she stopped as she raised her gaze, finally unblurred enough to look at the man holding her so protectively. Her little chest seized, pupils retracting and pulse quickening as she took in teeth just as sharp as his nails, and one red eye that matched that of the bad man. The evil man.

She screamed.

Kyle blinked at the sudden tone shift, "Kat what's wro-" before his face fell into a paled horror not too different from his daughter's. His spell. He didn't have his spell.

Kat was hysterical, fighting her hand out of Kyle's loosening grip and throwing herself back out of his arms. She wriggled her way out, Kyle catching her head before it collided with the ground, but she rolled away from the contact back onto unsteady feet. Little terrified pants filled the space between them as tiny tennis shoes walked her backwards towards Valefor. At least only his eyes were different, he still looked the same.

Kyle trembled, eyes burning and letting out hiccupping breaths of his own. "Kat," he begged, "Kat it's me. It's Dad," he pleaded. He reached forward towards her, flinching back at another loud, piercing scream erupting from her lips.

The entire realm seemed to shatter beneath him. This was it, all his absolute worst nightmares all at once: Under Damien's hand, separated from Kenny, and Kat too petrified of him to ever want to see him again. He'd seen her face contorted like this before, lingering in a multitude of night terrors that he'd jerk awake from in a cold sweat, having to leap out of bed before Kenny could sense an issue and pull him in to pet him down. Then in silence he'd walk out of their room and down the hall, just linger outside her open door, he and Valefor watching the innocent, unknowing rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as the rose-pink bulb from her Barbie nightlight cascaded her in a warm hue.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not like this.

"It's me," he whispered again, clawed fist curling and body shaking so hard he couldn't see straight.

Pip's lip was ground between his teeth at Kyle's complete despair, hurrying forward and gently stopping Kat from continuing to distance herself. "Katlyn, it's your dad!" he insisted. "I promise you he's the same!"

She looked, looked hard. Kyle's heart fell into the pit of his stomach, ready to vomit it all onto the ground as she looked from him, to Damien, and back to him, and shook her head.

Damien's ability to keep his amusement subdued in low chuckles ended, letting out a cruel bark of a laugh as he watched Kyle fraying at the seams. "Seems she's more observant than I'd believed," he purred, observing Kyle's back muscles tensing, his fists clenching and blood beginning to softly leak from his palms. "Even a toddler can see just what you are, my mouse:" he cooed, "Part of me."

Thank fuck for the cuffs, Kyle thought, feeling the flicker of power yearning to break free, because he'd lose every ounce of his control without them.

Kyle watched as Kat broke from Pip's grasp, running to shield herself behind a very confused Valefor who was just waiting for his turn for his master's attention. Kyle looked at him miserably and his ears drooped as his weight shifted between blocking her and going to him, unsure of what he should do. Kyle shook his head, "Stay," he whispered, making the decision for him. As much as he needed some family member to be there for him right now, Val had a much more important job to undertake than once more being the vessel for coddling his feelings.

Pip was lost, wanting so badly to take Kat by the hand and force her back over to her dad, for them to prove to her that nothing was different. He shuddered, he'd seen this exact pattern firsthand, saw mortals wanting Kyle away, wanting him dead. He met stares with the man, heart wrenching at the pure agony behind his eyes.

"What do I do?" Kyle whispered to him, unable to ask who he needed here. So, Pip was just going to have to do.

"…I don't know," he answered back sadly, turning around to see Kat still cowering, back to sobbing and trembling in utter fear. "Katlyn," he tried again desperately, "I swear to you it's safe! Your father is-"

"Remembering a very important lesson," Damien interrupted with a grin, taking slow, purposeful steps towards Kyle still limply on his knees staring at his traumatized child. He could see Kyle taking notice of his approach, the way his skin and hair bristled and those claws dug even harder into his scarred palms. "Remembering just what he is," he taunted. "A monster who rips off heads and tears out hearts, aren't you, Mouse?"

Kat's eyes widened, fingers delving into the loose folds of Valefor's back, waiting for this imposter of her father to deny such accusations. Instead, he just stared at her, tears leaking down his cheeks out of multicolored eyes. Her jaw trembled; after all, she'd been taught well by her parents that one doesn't deny the truth. One just admitted to their misdeeds, and it was up to whoever they were talking to whether they would be forgiven.

Her decision was loud and clear. The man across from her had taught her himself, in a quiet, distant voice after he had chased off the boogeymen hiding in the shadows of her closet: "We don't trust monsters."

She shuddered, hiding back in Valefor's fur and sniffling.

"Kat…" Kyle tried again, throat rasped from barely-contained sobs of his own. "Please. Please I-"

"Come now, Little one, you're upsetting her," Damien drawled as he stepped beside his kneeling form, unable to help a pleasured chill running up his spine at the sight. "Perhaps you should give her some time to come to grips with just what it is she's trusted for so long."

Kyle's eyes and fangs clenched, entire body tremoring before a firm grip around his left arm lifted him up higher on his knees and a portal began ebbing beneath him. He looked frantically at his daughter, screaming her name, a final desperate plea for her to understand, to come out of hiding for just a moment and see that he was who she'd always known him as.

"Kyle!" Pip shouted in fear as he began sinking out of sight, looking between the disappearing demons and the terrified toddler. He didn't know what to tell her, he didn't even know how to begin to approach this. And he didn't want to know just what Damien was whisking him off to, reading the echoes of a known terror beating down on Kyle amid the calamity of all the new emotions he found himself so violently thrown into.

Kyle was hyperventilating as Kat disappeared from his sight, ensconced in darkness with no distraction from his utter misery and heartbreak aside from Damien's unwavering grip on his arm. He needed Kenny down here, he needed someone who she'd listen to, someone who he could lean into to get him through this. He coughed out a sob, freed hand going to clasp over his mouth as he cried, turning his head away from what he could feel was a far-too-excited demon.

And oh yes, Damien was thrilled, his toes practically curling as he watched Kyle falling apart. He hummed, a shiver of victory rushing down his back as they redirected upwards. A forked tongue passed over his lips, nothing short of giddy at how it had transpired. He'd been hoping for this, but he was expecting some mawkish nonsense, the child to be as immediately stubborn as her angelic idiot of a father and claim that the mixed breed was still who she knew him to be. He stole another glance down at the redhead trying so vigorously to get his emotions back under control, feeling the unwillingness to begin cracking so quickly into his capture.

Damien smirked. It was a nice thought for Kyle to have, but it wasn't going to last very long.

As they emerged back into the arid wasteland of Hell's Eastern quadrant, Kyle's sobs had been shoved down, stifled into mere dramatic sniffles and rampant tears that refused to let up flowing down his cheeks. He landed still on his knees onto the stone, Damien letting go of his arm and he fell onto the heels of his palms, staring at the broken rock beneath him as it darkened with tears dripping off his nose in droves.

"Come now, Mouse," Damien said mockingly. "Buck up, it could be so much worse. She could be dead!"

The tears hit a hard stop, redirected into a snap of rage as Kyle slowly turned his head to stare up at the monster before him. "You piece of shit," he spat. "You already fucking have me!" he screamed, scrambling up onto his feet and putting distance between them. Infuriated pants had his shoulders heaving, sparking eyes dead set on the smug demon. "YOU HAVE ME! SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO KNOW!" he screeched, hands raking into his curls and pulling. "She didn't have to know," he repeated in a quiet, cracking whisper.

"Oh, but I think she did," Damien said. "I can't imagine you've been teaching her to be ashamed of who she is, so why should you be any different?"

"Because she's normal!" he snipped. "She wasn't fucking poisoned into another fucking species! She doesn't have fucking ties to a stupid fucking piece of shit like you, and anyone who can claim that should be happy with who they are!"

"Hm yes, who you are," he murmured, tonguing over his fangs. "But I'm not all that's in there, am I?"

"Yeah, I'm two-thirds not demon," he reminded him, echoing Kenny with a strong vibrato. "You can't win anything," he said snidely.

He cocked his brow, "Au contraire, otherwise, you wouldn't be here, Mouse." He watched the tremoring of Kyle's entire body, the way his red eye strobed, every inch of him desperate to unleash power. Damien smirked, wondering how painful it was for Kyle to feel it needling along inside of him aching for release.

He wondered if it was anywhere near how he'd felt the last five years just waiting for this.

"But yes," he continued, "you're correct. You're two-thirds not demon… give or take," he shrugged dismissively. "Your mortality is holding… and so is that angel bullshit you decided to fuck your soul over with."

Kyle sneered, "Without the 'angel bullshit' it would've taken me a lot longer to get my mortality back and stable."

"Oh, you're absolutely correct," he repeated. "But, with McCormick's soul came his powers that you've had to learn how to balance."

He squinted, "No, I didn't get his light. That's unique to his full soul-"

"No no no no," he cut him off with a head shake. "Not that power. I mean the one he's always had."

Kyle stiffened, "His immortality."

"Bingo. It's a miracle really that you didn't turn into nothing but a husk of a soulless doll," he drawled. "I know it hurt," he raised his brow, watching Kyle hold back an uncomfortable squirm at the memory. "I know that you went straight back into the pain you felt when I altered your soul. And I bet you hid it so beautifully," he grinned, relishing the scowl splashing across his face. "You didn't want McCormick upset, you just wanted him to be happy that you both made it home alive. So you hid, you buried it," he hissed. "You struggled, trying to figure out how the fuck to balance the selfish needs of your demon side and the grace of his stupid Heavenly bullshit to make the pain stop… And then you started dying."

Kyle gulped, muscles tense. "So what?"

He scoffed, "So, that's when it began to balance. Your mortality reforming every time under the power of both angel and demon in the afterlife. Death provided you with more opportunity on your trips through the spiritual planes for them to meld together with your mortality. They filled in the gaps of one another, they became a coherent full soul with repeat trips. To the point that you were almost better at reforming than McCormick, your body and soul came back together quicker." Kyle still looked confused, and Damien grinned. "You're far stronger than your shithead of a husband. He can be one of the oh-so-mighty archangels all he wants," he mocked, "but because of what you did, because of how much chaos your soul has been through, you will always be stronger than him, both in life and in death."

Kyle narrowed his eyes, uneasy with whatever the hell path he was taking him down to get to his fucking point. "Your puppet bullshit doesn't work anymore," he reminded him steadily, Damien raising his brow. "And I'll sooner throw myself into purgatory than fucking fight him for you again."

He waved off the notion with a chuckle, "Oh no no, don't be mistaken, I want that fucking idiot dead. But… he doesn't matter here," he grinned. "You are the only one who matters this time, my mouse."

Kyle's spine locked uncomfortably, his heart pounding and his mind racing. He was already so exhausted, so emotionally drained, still couldn't get Kat's screaming out of his ears. He didn't have the patience for this, nor the strength. He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "Why did you bring me down here?" he asked steadily.

Damien's eyes glittered with promise, holding out his hand to his side as a deep red glow spawned from his pentagram. Kyle squinted, brow cocking as a long, wrought iron stick with a crooked jut in the metal two-thirds of the way up appeared in the waiting palm. His eyes widened as he traced along the item's twisting branch handle, the top curving into a half-moon blade. The arc was draped in six entangled iron vines, blood red trickling down from beneath them to blend into the black concave edge. "Catch," Damien said casually, tossing the weapon across the way.

Kyle snatched it from the air, feeling an odd tingle spanning through his left palm as he did so. It was nearly two feet taller than him, his confusion continuing to mount as he angled it down to rest the top of the blade in his free hand. He cocked his head at an inscription running its way along the curve in characters he didn't recognize, a pointed, slashed red etching beside the text.

He finally looked back at Damien, who was looking giddy as ever. "A… a scythe?" he said quietly, feeling a horrible twisting in his gut.

"Well why should McCormick have all the weaponry fun?" he grinned, ruby eyes dancing. "I had it made special for you," he purred.

Kyle's hand clenched around the staff, a dry gulp working its way down his throat. "For what?"

Dark promise lingered on curled lips, Damien stepping towards him. "Tell me, Mouse, what do you think my father did when he walked among the mortals so very long ago?"

His brow furrowed, hands naturally maneuvering the scythe blade between them both to keep Damien at a distance. "Corrupted them," he said. Kenny had told him Michael's story, how Lucifer's need for power quickly overrode all sense of decency and spiraled into transforming mortal desires into demonic poison.

Damien rolled his eyes amusedly, "Fine. Corrupted them. And in doing so, just what was he doing?"

"I…I-I don't-"

"Damning them," he said, a finger reaching forward and riding the curve of the blade, the skin splitting with ease and a vicious smile spreading further at Kyle's clear discomfort. "He was filling Hell up, making sure that his realm was to be populated…" His eyes flickered back up to Kyle, "and you disrupted our influx when you redirected the natural flow of the afterlife to put more souls in Heaven."

"No, God did," Kyle scoffed. "What, you think I decide where people fucking go?"

That smile turned wild and crazed, a cold sweat breaking down Kyle's spine. This was the look Damien gave in the moments when Kyle was at his lowest, where he clearly held every single card and there was no chance of Kyle being able to sidestep whatever was barreling towards him. The air of something horrific lingered between them, riding the crest of the heavy weapon in shaking, clawed hands.

"You do now."