Hey there!

Chapter 36 ahoy!
Keep an eye on the author's note at the end. Little touch of déjà vu here but it's quite important. ;)

Cassidy had literally stared down the barrel of a gun before.

Frankly speaking, it had been a lot less terrifying than figuratively doing so.
At least with a gun, you had a fairly good idea of the worst it could do.

She had not yet witnessed the worst that Karida could do to her.
Right then and there, Cassidy could not nor did she want to question the matter.

Cassidy continued to stare at Karida with fearful but resolutely unblinking eyes. The angel of stone was smaller in stature than Michael but she looked far more feral, far more formidable. Her claws teetered to sharper- almost serrated- points. Her teeth were a lot more jagged and uneven than the Angel that Cassidy was used to dealing with.
The human woman was a little more than willing to wager that Karida's teeth had been used quite a bit more often.

"Why are you doing this?" Cassidy asked her. "What does coming after me gain for you? I'm just a human…I'm just a worthless human…" Her voice started to quicken in pace but she miraculously managed to speak without the slightest quaver. "And what could you possibly want with me now? Mich-Iblis is dead."

A slightly shrill whistling, shrieking noise echoed from the Angel of stone: a noise that Cassidy instantly recognised as laughter.
"Don't insult me with your deceit. I know that the traitor still lives," Karida's stolen voice sneered. "He is not of my concern in this instance. While your existence is, indeed, worthless- the termination of your life is an invaluable asset to one of great importance...and he has specified that the more painful this is, the better."

A nearby candle suddenly extinguished with a hiss, causing Cassidy to flinch, her eyes automatically shutting and opening again. When her vision returned again, the Weeping Angel was at her fore, arms outstretched.
Cassidy noticed that her own chest was heaving, her breath gradually becoming laboured. Under the dim, flickering light, she could feel her eyes starting to well and waste.

Don't blink. Don't blink. Don't blink.

The candlelight itself seemed almost appended to Karida's fearsome countenance.
The burnt orange light illuminate her outstretched limbs, slender but sinewy and undoubtedly strong. True, Michael had always looked quite imposing in appearance and had proved his physical strength on more than one occasion but Karida bore the body of one who had been tested by trial of fire and frost.

Her arms were lithe and graceful but lined hardened muscle and latticed with raised ridges of battle worn scars.
Regal and heathen.

A second candle extinguished but Cassidy's eyes remained firmly fixed on Karida's chin.

Avoid the eyes. Avoid the eyes. Avoid the eyes.

"Not afraid, human?"

A manic smirk played on Cassidy's mouth, her lips quivering as she spoke.
"Of you? After meeting your brother? Not likely, Angel."

Karida growled. "Clever human has a clever, clever tongue. How I should like to rip it out. It would be so easy. Like tearing a ripe plum down to strips of pulp."

A third candle extinguished and still Cassidy's burning eyelids refused to droop.
"Looks like your brother is better at making threats too. As much of bell-end that he is, at least his threats occasionally got a shiver out of me."

Tight-lipped and desperate to keep the Angel distracted, Cassidy's hand steadily sought the handle of the mausoleum door at her back as the Angel spoke.
However in a brief swell of panic, her hand slipped over the wooden panelling and her body received an unexpected jolt. She blinked automatically as a response and the Angel's hanad was instantly around her throat. Her other hand- talons outstretched- hovered just centimetres from her streaming eyes.

"His threats are idle. You're his only ever form of achievement. His little pet human."
A fourth candle went out at the horizons of Cassidy's blurring vision.

Hold it together. Hold it together. Hold it together.

Karida's hold was nothing like Michael's had been: it wasn't aggressive.
It wasn't even as intimidating as Kyrie's had been.
It didn't restrict her breathing but all but commanded that she remain still.

The feeling of the cold, slightly serrated stone against her skin was enough to set her knees trembling.

"His "slave." His pet. His trinket. His partner. His companion. His precious, precious little human," Karida went on and on, though Cassidy could not quite tell if her voice as more taunting or morbidly curious. Her brother's exploits seemed to disgust and interest the Angel in equal measures. "I stand by what I expressed previously. I do not see anything particularly remarkable about you..."

"Well…y-you know what they say," Cassidy said between gritted teeth, struggling to find the handle while keeping her vision locked firmly on the living statue. "Beauty's in the eye of the beholder…and if I'm honest, I'm not one hundred percent sure what your brother sees in me either."

"Speaking of sight, I'm starting to find yours irritating," Karida returned, her voice lowering and becoming increasingly gravelly. "But you have to blink sooner or later…even if you don't, I can plunge this room into darkness…" A fifth candle died and the shadows across her face danced. "And soon as I'm free to move, do you know what I'm going to do?"

"…send me back in time? Seems like a fairly safe bet," Cassidy heard her voice say but her mind was very much preoccupied with trying to regain a grip on the door-handle. Panic began to spread throughout her body, materialising and surfacing as a cold sweat on her fingertips as the panelling behind her seemed to suddenly turn to a flat surface.

"And make a swift meal of you? No. I'm going to let you live for a little bit but first I am going to plunge my claws into your eyes, puncture those delicate orbs and scrape them out from your sockets…" The Angel let out a soft growl. "Do not worry. You will not die immediately. You will simply suffer first."

Cassidy's heart began to beat quite a bit more erratically, her stomach feeling as if it was about to split at the seams.
She had her eyes solidly open but even with her lengthy practice, Karida was right: she needed to blink at some point.

If she didn't want to end up blind, she was going to have to figure out some way to deter the Angel and force her to drop her pseudo-choke hold.
In her conversations with Michael, she had learned more than once that Weeping Angels were quite sensitive when it came to their wings. In their brief discussion regarding Weeping Angel weaknesses, her unlikely ally had offhandedly remarked that having his feathers manipulated in any manner produced "the closest thing to intense pain" that could probably ever be inflicted on an Angel by a human.
Karida's wings already appeared to be disjointed and bent out of shape by the chains that bound them, indicating that any kind of affront would be significantly more painful.

It was the best theory that she had.
Forcing herself to concentrate, Cassidy fervently ran her hand along the door at her back, finally locating it and grasping it tightly. Very hesitantly, she lifted her other hand and aligned it with the side of one of Karida's wings.

Her eyelids started to twitch.
She knew that winking would be futile; she had left it too long. If one of her eyelids fell, the other would be close behind. It was a regrettably unfeasible risk.
All she could do now was await the inevitable with a rapidly beating heart and breath that was barely managing to escape her gritted teeth.

What occurred next, happened in such hysteric, rapid succession that Cassidy could have sworn that she was no longer standing there in the room. She was simply standing there, watching another incredibly unlucky woman being held by a Weeping Angel. Her body worked automatically but with the precision and ferocity underlying each motion.

No sooner had her eyes shut, Cassidy reached forward, seized a clump of Karida's feathers and pulled them from her wings. The Weeping Angel let out a mournful shriek and Cassidy took her brief lapse in hold as an opportunity to steal into the mausoleum at her back. She slammed the door shut behind her and flung the bolt across, locking it tight.
However, Cassidy had only just reached the end of the steps leading into the crypt when the door started rocking against its hinges.

She could hear the wood starting to rip into splinters but in the midst of her mania, Cassidy was too terrified to look backwards. She couldn't keep relying on staring at close range. She needed to put distance between them- and fast.
If Cassidy had still been thinking logically, she probably would have formulated quite a good plan. This plan probably would have involved keeping her eyes on the doorway in order to freeze her attacker. Unfortunately, at that moment in time, blind fear was quickly spreading throughout her body like a ruthless virus.
All Cassidy wanted to do was to hide.

She bolted into the dark, not caring that her hips and legs were consistently clipping the harsh edges of the stone coffins that lined the aisles of the mausoleum. Aching slightly but no less fearful, Cassidy crouched down behind one of the nearby structures of stone.
It was only with her back bent and her legs reeled into her chest that the human realised how cold her skin had become. Her knees knocked as she but down upon one of her knuckles to quell her quaking body.
She heard a series of rattling thumps give way to the door shattering at the far end of the tomb. The splintering wood of the panels grated as it drunkenly fell down the stone-whittled steps.
Cassidy watched with widened eyes as a small beam of light was cast down the centre aisle between the coffins and instinctively she curled up tighter.

"I didn't know that humans could be so playful! If you want to play rough, I feel only too much that I must oblige. Now then, Cassidy Albright," Karida's voice rang out through the chamber. "Where are you?"

In the midst of her fear, the partially maddened thought occurred to her that Karida's feathers had seemed to dissolve away to a sinewy dust as soon as Cassidy had pulled them from their chain-bound rows.
It was a matter that she made a mental note to discuss with Michael.

Michael.
Surely he would have noticed her prolonged absence by now?
She had told him to desist following her if he could help it and he had gotten quite good at behaving himself- a fact that the threatened human was now silently cursing.

"Come on, Michael," Cassidy prayed internally, watching the flickering lights, manipulated by the shadow of the murderous alien as she hunted her prey amongst the tombs. "Notice that I've been gone too long. Come after me. Follow me like the annoying, possessive bastard that you've always been…"

"Hide and seek, hide and seek," trilled Karida in almost a sing-song voice, perversely innocent in lieu of their current situation. Her voice was rapidly fluctuating in volume; this was Cassidy's sole clue as to how quickly the Angel was moving throughout the room.

Rapidly coming to the realisation that she couldn't rely on Michael's intervention, Cassidy looked around where she sat. She briefly considered running back to the door but in her current state, realistically, she wasn't going to make it to the foot of the steps.
She didn't know where Karida was and she didn't want to risk sticking her head out to look so she did not even have the insurance of being able to trap the Angel in a quantum lock if she did attempt to bolt.

"You can't hide for too long, Cassidy Albright," the Angel crooned. "I'll find you soon. I'll be able to hear your breathing. I'll be able to hear that beating in your chest…"

"She will be? What does that mean? Why hasn't she just pounced yet?" Cassidy wondered, flinching when she heard what sounded like grinding stone only a few feet behind her hiding place. "Is she taking the lids off of the coffins? Why would she bother with that when she knows I couldn't possibly be inside one? Unless…unless she's just toying with me…"

A ripple of anger permeated the numb surface of the human woman's fear.
A good few torturous weeks of this kind of trickery had made her quite resentful of being strung along like a plaything. Her eyes searched the shadows around her for something- anything- any kind of clue as to how she could get out of this situation.

What could she use to escape the Weeping Angel?
In the darkness nearby, she could just barely make out that one of the stone coffins had a lid that was slightly moved aside. She briefly considered finding a way to trap the Angel inside, however this plan would hinge on two very, very important variables. Firstly: her ability to push the lid of the stone coffin. Two: her ability to push Karida inside.
No, no…it was far too risky.

The only definitive way Michael had ever alluded to, to permanently trap an Angel was through their quantum lock.
"But there are no mirrors in here," Cassidy thought frantically, looking around. It was then that she noticed a faint flickering in the distance, near one of the walls. The delicately flickering light seemed to happen in conjunction with a very soft plinking sound.
It reminded her of the irritating noise that used to wake her up when she'd fallen asleep on the sofa.
A dripping tap?

"The old baptismal font!" Cassidy silently realised, pushing herself up into a squatting position. "That's a pool of water. It's reflective!"
Her time was running out, each panicked second feeling more and more like a granule of sand desperately trying to escape the confines of the hour glass' highest chamber.
She had to try something. Soon.
Becoming quite aware of her own fearful breathing, Cassidy nibbled on her thumbnail to avoid giving herself away as she slowly squatted up on to her haunches.

She was going to do it: she had to.
She was going to dash to the baptismal font and lure Karida over there.
When Karida saw her reflection, she'd freeze into rock.

"It isn't a good plan," Cassidy thought, listening carefully. "But it's the best one I've got. Come on, it's just like your game with Michael. Just turn around when you hear her coming…if you can outsmart him, you can outsmart her."

Despite the roaring in her ears and each wavering, waning variable, Cassidy waited until the Weeping Angel spoke again before making her move.
Karida had only begun to speak when Cassidy lunged from her hiding place, receiving confirmation that her attacker was far enough away for a clean run.

Cassidy had only barely made it as far as the edge of the small pool when she immediately seized the opportunity to turn around on the spot. She had a mind to wait out longer but blind panic caused her to lose her nerve.
Her best efforts aside, the Angel's angered tenacity outweighed her fearful tactics and no sooner had she turned around to activate Karida's quantum lock, the Lonely Assassin had seized a fistful of her shirt.

"Very clever, human," the Angel's gnarled, stone face seemed to say. "But not clever enough…"
Cassidy's temples began to burn as her eyes connected with the Angel's.
This was it.
Karida had her.
The human woman could not force herself to look away from the Weeping Angel's cruel, half-shadowed eyes and despite the terrible pain that was building behind her forehead and the sickening fear that festered in her stomach, Cassidy refused to look away.

She was used to having death at her heels.
"If I'm going out now," she told herself. "I'm not going out crying or screaming. I'm not going to show one iota of fright…go on…keep trying to take my mind…keep trying to make me cower…I'm not so easy to break, you bitch…"
She swallowed back against her dry throat, a kind of crude confidence building in her as her eyes narrowed up at Karida. Eventually, she would blink.
Eventually, she would die.

But Karida would never know of her fear.
She would not die afraid; she would die defiant.

It was when her eyes were only spasms away from their eventual blink that Cassidy noticed the light of the main doorway behind Karida's head was being obscured.
There was something moving through the priory.
She couldn't make it out but it was obscuring the last of the candles.

The silhouette stopped moving in its tracks as it crossed the doorframe.
Halted by her gaze.

A sudden warmth overtook her chest, accompanied by an inexplicable sense of relief.

She dared to allow a cold look of defiance to spread across her spasming face.
"…not clever enough? Or j-just that b- bit too clever?"

Reaching out and seizing her very last chance of survival, Cassidy blinked.

Clara stared out into the darkness, only too aware of the fact that her next choice held within it the difference between life and death.
Perched precariously on the line of her consciousness was the life of a little girl and the life of possibly her greatest friend.

At the forefront of her mind, she laid out the situation at hand.
Surrounding her was complete darkness, within the darkness were two different beings.
One of them was a terrified little girl.
The other was a time-travelling, infinitely strong monster.

One was far to her right.
The other was far to her left.

The issue at hand was that they both sounded like a terrified little girl.

"Clara! Missus Clara! Please come here! The Doctor needs help! He fell over!"

"Help, Clara! Help me! Come here now! Please! The Doctor said to get you quickly!"

"Al-Alright," Clara shouted out suddenly, shining her torch in all directions but unable to catch anything in her light. "I know that you can't both be Abbie! I know one of you is the Angel! You're…you're not going to fool me! Now, Abbie! Abigail Drake…the real one. Walk out into the light beam here…"

"I can't," the two little voices answered simultaneously. "The Angel will come get me if I do!"

Clara gritted her teeth, her grip on the flashlight tightening as she stepped back against the wall of the TARDIS. "Ok…"
That was one strategy effectively killed.
She needed to think fast; the Doctor needed her and by the sound of it, he needed her now.

"Ok, I'm going to ask a question!" Clara shouted. "I'm going to ask a question that only Abbie would know the answer to. Abbie, what's your big brother's name?"

"Leon!"
Both voices answered in unison.
Factual information didn't work.
She was going to have to try to appeal to her memory.

"…what did I say was the eleventh most disgusting thing in the world?"

"Brussel's sprouts!" Abbie on the left shouted. "No! Whiskey! It was whiskey!"

"That's not fair!" Abbie on the right suddenly howled. "I was going to say that! She copied my answer!"

Clara bit her lip, still conflicted.
"Think. Think. Think. Something that only Abbie could say. One of her personal quirks. I haven't known her long enough to…wait! She's seven! She mispronounces a lot of words…and I know she mispronounces the word "archaeologist" for a fact! An Angel wouldn't mispronounce a word like that."

"Abbie…what do you want to be when you grow up?"

"An arkemologist!" Abbie on the right called out.

"No! I want to be an arkemologist!" Abbie on the left insisted. "It's not fair! The Angel sees inside my head! She's copying everything that I want to say!"

"No! She's copying that everything I say!"

The Doctor's companion felt a cold sweat start to form on the back of her neck. It was no use. The Angel was clearly capable of reading Abbie's mind and was able to respond using any information that the little girl could conjure up.

Mental tasks weren't going to be of any help.
Clara's eyes scoured the immediate area around her feet as though desperately seeking some kind of inspiration. All she could see was rows upon rows of small, fragmented rocks, illuminated by the bare light of the TARDIS.
Suddenly she had an idea.

True, the Angel could copy what was inside Abbie's head and could even copy Abbie's voice but the Angel could not copy Abbie's physical shape.
Maybe mental tasks were useless but what about a physical task?

Clara cleared her throat, still swinging the torch from left to right, still lighting only stalactites. "Abbie? You told me that you were really good at cricket, yeah? That you play on your school team?" She held the torch still, the beam shining straight ahead. "Abbie, there should be a stone on the ground near your feet…the real Abbie should be able to throw it into this spotlight without any problem…"

"Yeah, I can do it!"

"I can do that!"

"Ok, so I'm going to count to three and on three, I want you to throw the stone into the light, the same way you'd bowl a cricket ball, ok?"

"Yeah!"

"Ok!"

"Ok…one….two…three!"

No sooner had she given her third count, a small rock soared into the air through her light beam, clattering to the ground mere seconds later.
And it had come from the left hand side.

Not waiting for any further cue, Clara ran at high speed in the direction of the Abbie on the right. Her heart just about leapt in her chest when a small, shivering redhead appeared in the beam of her torch. Without a word, Clara caught a hold of Abbie's hand and whipped around, stopping a furiously poised Weeping Angel dead in her tracks.

"How did you know it was me, Clara?" Abbie all but whispered, immediately burying her face in the side of the woman's jumper.
Clara didn't respond straight away, she just moved her hold from Abbie's hand to her elbow, keeping her eyes on the Angel.

"I'll tell you later," she eventually said. "Right now, I just need you to take me to the Doctor. Can you lead me there? I have to keep looking at her…" She nodded towards the Angel.

"Ok…ok…I can do that," the very brave little girl responded, tugging her rescuer's sleeve and coaxing the older woman to walk.

In actual fact, her process was a fairly simple matter of logic.
Abbie actually being good at cricket had only been an inference. In reality, in the dark and at that distance, a real seven year old child would never be able to throw a stone with that kind of speed or accuracy.

Abbie acted as Clara's guide dog, bringing her down the long stone corridors as Clara kept the beam at their backs. She did not allow herself to blink but found that even when one of her eyelids managed to falter, nothing malign came into her line of vision. The Angel had apparently stopped stalking them.

She didn't have much time to contemplate this disturbing change in behaviour because it wasn't long before they reached the Doctor.
"Here he is," Abbie informed her quietly.

Clara looked around for the first time, realising that she had been guided into some kind of alcove. The Doctor stood against a nearby wall, his back to them. He was staring perfectly ahead at the stone wall, his shoulders squared and his hands hanging limply by his sides.

"Doctor?" Clara said warily, taking a cautious step towards him before freezing in her tracks. "Doctor? Are you alright?"

"He won't talk," Abbie told the woman, her fingers bundled up near her mouth. "He was looking at the Angel and then he dropped his torch and then it went dark and then he wouldn't talk…the last thing he said to me was to hide and run away…"

Clara contemplated lifting a hand to touch the Doctor's shoulder but stopped herself, deciding that if the Angel was capable of reading minds then it clearly had powers that were far beyond her understanding and there was no telling what it had done to the Doctor.

"Abbie…you said the Doctor had hurt his leg, didn't you?"

"Yeah, he did. Sort of. He and the Angel were talking and then he started acting all weird and saying that he couldn't move his leg…I thought he might'uh broke it…"

Clara raised an eyebrow, raising her voice slightly as she surveyed the sentinel Time Lord. "Doctor? What's the matter? Say something." Seizing her nerves, she prodded his shoulder. "Just say something. What's going on?"

Somewhere down the corridor, there was a loud clattering sound- like rocky shrapnel being shifted around- eliciting a fearful, tearful yelp from Abbie.
Clara instinctively beckoned the little girl to take refuge at her side, draping her arm around the child's shoulders. "Doctor…come on…the Angel's probably coming…"

She moved closer to the Doctor, becoming acutely aware of a soft mumbling sound coming from around the man's throat. She soon realised that he was trying to say something.

Clara leaned in further. "Come on…what's wrong?"

"I'm…stone…"

Her eyes widened slightly. "What?"

"Clara…look at…me…I'm…stone…"

"You're not stone!" Clara hissed furiously. "Move! We have to get out of here! We have to get Abbie out of here!"

"I…can't…I'm …stone…"

The Angel had done something to him.
That much was obvious.
What was currently evading her was what exactly she was going to do to bring him back to sanity once more.

The clattering repeated, becoming louder and more sporadic, prompting a nervous Clara to suddenly jab the Doctor with her shoulder. She successfully jostled him but not nearly enough to knock his stance and he remained standing still.
The entire situation aside, there was something inherently nerve-shredding about seeing the Doctor- the loud, boisterous, stumbling, bumbling Doctor- so still and so silent.

The light of her kinaesthetic torch, starved from manual energy, was starting to fade and Clara fiercely pumped the handle before handing it off to Abbie.
"Keep the torch shining down that passageway," she told her. "Keep squeezing the handle. It builds up energy and keeps the torch from going out, ok?"

The woman immediately returned her mouth to the Doctor's ear. "Doctor…I don't know what she did to you or told you but you are not made of stone…now we need to move in the next few seconds or we are going to die...do you understand that? We are going to die if you don't move!"

"Sorry…really, really…sorry…but…can't…."

Clara rolled her eyes, her brows furrowing as she flexed the fingers of her right hand. "No, Doctor, I'm really sorry…" She dug her fingernails into the skin of the Doctor's neck, catching a furrow of it between her fingertips and pinching as hard as she could.

"OW!"
The Doctor gave a cry of shock, immediately springing to life to brush her hand away.

"Now, could I do that if you were stone?" Clara asked somewhat triumphantly and somewhat agitatedly, raising her eyebrows.

"That really hurt," the Doctor croaked, his speech slightly slurred.

"And look at us!" she snapped in response. "We all happen to be still alive! Now what happened to you just now?"

The Time Lord grunted, massaging the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. "Urgh…Weeping Angel mind control tricks…I looked into the eyes for too long…doesn't matter now…" He pulled the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and started skimming his eyelids with the device. "What matters is that you and Abbie are here and…" He blinked once or twice before his eyes widened dramatically as though a horrific realisation had just dawned on him. "Wait a minute, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with the TARDIS?"

"I'm saving you," Clara whispered furiously. "I just saved you. If I weren't here, you'd still be staring at a wall insisting that you were stone!"

"You're…supposed to be with the TARDIS right now…"

"But I'm here instead and you're still alive…"

"You're not with the TARDIS…"

"And you're still alive! What about this fact has not started to sink in yet?"

The Doctor's shoulders began to heave beneath his jacket, his jaw almost quivering as he spoke in the same tone of numb disbelief. "You…do you have any idea what kind of danger you've just put us into?"

"No! Of course not because again you've neglected to explain anything to me!"

"Doctor? Clara?" Abbie interrupted suddenly, her voice breathy as she tried to hold the torch steady. "The Angel is back now…and she has other Angels with her…"

Freed from his quantum lock, Michael lunged into the dark, alighting slightly on his wings as he drove into Karida's back.
His sister let out an ear-piercing shriek of protest, releasing Cassidy as she swung her arms back in an ungainly defence.

The human fell to the floor, looking shell-shocked as she stared up at them and locked them both into stone.

"Run. Run away. Run now!" he told her. "Run and do not look behind you!"

He watched the young woman as she stumbled to her feet and in the brief synaptic moment that her eyes met his, the Archangel thanked the deities that he had never believed in that she had no reluctance to do so.

No sooner had Cassidy averted her eyes in escape, Karida made the immediate attempt to follow her, struggling against her older brother's grasp.

"Desist!" he growled, fighting to take hold of her neck but finding his efforts thwarted by the female Angel's swift parries.
By the time Karida managed to break from his tenure, Cassidy had pushed the heavy door of the mausoleum shut, plunging them both into complete darkness.

All the better for their confrontation.

"Using a Veil to keep me well enough away, Karida?"
Michael flung his arm forwards in an open-handed strike, keeping his eyes downward but knowing where she was regardless.

His sister had always been fast but the speed at which she dodged his blow was nothing short of frightening. She dropped beneath his arm, landing a strike of her own on his abdomen.
"And if it had kept you away for only a few seconds longer, your little human would be dead as all the others in here."

Michael grunted but refused to crane or cower in the wake of her hitting. He had very hazy memories of his mother's combat lessons but he could vividly recall her telling him never to expose the back of his neck to an enemy.
Despite his pain, he couldn't help but grin slightly as he came to a satisfying realisation. "You dropped the Veil because you couldn't keep concentrated on it. Keeping up with Cassidy took up more of your cognitive resources than you could afford. She was harder to manage than you thought she'd be…"

"The human was a trifle more slippery than I had anticipated. That is true," the Angel responded with a slight snarl. "But that does not change the fact that I would have eventually killed her…"

Michael made a second lunge at her, closing his fists and dealing a blow to her jaw. "Nathaniel couldn't kill me so he decides to prey on the weaker species instead? That does sound like our dear father...I am only assuming that it is his plans that you are working towards as there is very little possibility that you speak on behalf of your own ambitions…assuming that you still have them at all…"

Karida's next punch hit his throat with double the strength of one of his own. "Do not dare speak the name of my sire with such gracelessness!" The punch that followed just about knocked the Archangel to his knees. "And do not dare remark that your bloodline is in any way close to mine! You are not one of our family any longer, deviant!"
Karida continued to level her brother's upper body with closed-handed blows. "I do not question my father's wishes because I know that his plans serve the purpose only to further our great tribe…his best interests lie only with our fulfilment and safety…with my fulfilment and safety!"

Michael groaned in pain, levering himself back up into a sitting position and managing to block the remainder of Karida's fury. "Is that why he bound your wings? Nathaniel still issues torture as a means of disciplining those who disappoint him?"

"I pay willing penance to our father for my failures. I should not have pursued you without his command but know this. Your death would be of no disappointment to him," she seethed, her claws locking into his forearm. "And I tore you to pieces before, Iblis. I can do it again!"

Using his wings for extra force, Michael pushed himself to his feet and threw her hold from his arm. "Your seekers are nowhere near you now. Let's see you attempt the same feat without the assistance of others!"

"It would be my pleasure!" she growled in return, bearing her teeth and sinking them into her brother's shoulder.

Even when sparring completely blind, the two were well-versed in the movements of the other. Angels would always train to fight without looking upon his or her opponent and the two siblings had been practised as such from their days as cherubs.

Karida had gotten much stronger, Michael noted.
He may have been heavier and taller than her but she had grown far physically stronger than he and while neither was particularly well-fed, Karida was in far better practise when it came to direct combat.

She drove him forward with such force that he fell backwards over one of the coffins of stone, his wings constricting agonisingly.

"Boorish and brutish as always! Lacking any kind of décor…any kind of stratagem…"

Karida seized him by the throat, her claws seeking to penetrate the thick hide.
Michael was overtaken by a sudden, suffocating pain but refused to give in. As soon as she had finished with him, she would almost certainly seek out Cassidy out of spite.

Taking the opportunity to seize one of the last advantages that he had left, Michael lifted his head and knocked it against Karida's as hard as he could muster. As soon as she released her hold on him, he reached out to grab the chains that bound her wings and dragged her down to the flagstone floor.

"So typical of you, Karida. Ignorant to everyone's capabilities and eternally ignorant of your own shortcomings!"

He wrestled her down and only paused to take stock of her position until his hand was firmly pressed down over her head, his fingers squeezing down on her skull and threatening to crush it.

"S-So…st-strange that…you of a-a-all …sh-should speak of …short…comings," Karida spat through ragged breaths. "Wh-When your…weakness…i-is…the most…glaring of all!"

Michael was about to silence his sister thoroughly when he noticed an odd scent emanating from her for the first time. It was nothing that reminded him of an ordinary Angel's essence. It smelled coppery and pungent though it was very clearly something that he had encountered before.
He opened his eyes to survey his sister in the dark, noticing for the first time that her body carried a strange discolouration. An odd, scarlet smear splayed across her arms and torso.
A stain that had marred Michael's own hands on one too many an occasion and was only the more familiar because he knew the donor.

Blood.
Human blood.
Cassidy's human blood.

Michael reeled backwards, his eyes automatically turning to the mausoleum door.
"No…you did not...you could not have…I would have seen…"

"Di-id you r-really think I'd l-let her go with-without h-having the final bl-blow?" Karida laughed, wheezing as she slowly got to her feet, clumsy without being able to use her wings for support. "Per-…Perhaps it is true…what I've heard the humans say for so many centuries…" She looked at her brother, sealing him into rock as her eyes narrowed to a glower and her tone hardened to one that was both disgusted and mocking.

"…love makes you blind…"

Michael felt his form restored to flesh as his sister teleported away but Karida's escape was suddenly of no concern to him.
He returned to the upper chambers of the human temple of worship, only to find that Cassidy had not journeyed far.

She sat, trembling, in the benches carved of wood, the adrenal highs of her confrontation with Karida having worn away. Her back was hunched over, her arms covering her stomach and her eyes wide, glassy and staring downward.

He immediately moved to her side, bowing down to her.
"Cassidy…are you in pain?"

The human woman's mouth twitched slightly, pulling into a violently quivering smile.
"I…was…"

Cassidy slowly lifted her arms, revealing that her damp shirt had been stained a deep red where it clung to her torso.
"She…she…cut me…and I can't believe…" She started to laugh weakly. "Can't believe I didn't notice…until I got out here…"
Her breathing was becoming increasingly laboured. "She…must have got…got me…just before I left…when…I first saw…it was so, so painful…but now…now…it just burns…" Cassidy looked up at the Weeping Archangel, a small smile on her face and a tear slowly running down one of her cheeks. "I'm…I'm going to die…aren't I?"

"I will take you to the human place of healing. The hospital. Your medics will cure you."

Cassidy shook her head, looking downward once more and wincing at the sight of her reddening shirt. "They're…they're too deep…my head hurts…and I'm tired…and I…"

"You are not going to die," he told her firmly, kneeling at her side and using the advantage of her diverted gaze to touch her face. The skin of her cheeks had turned to a strange plumish hue, lines of blue faintly visible across her lips and forehead. "Though you are cold…"

Far too cold, in fact.
He could tell that much despite his ever-apparent lack of knowledge of human anatomy.

Slowly, he moved his hand from her face to her chest, feeling the weary beating of her heart and feeling a distinct sliver of unnerve as the steady pounding was slowly reduced to an erratic murmur.

Her eyes remained unfocused and on the floor, the scarlet stain spreading across the sleeves of her shirt and over her knees.
"Perhaps it is heat that you require. Fire gives heat. I shall obtain fire for you…"

He glided across to the upper section of the human temple in order to select one of the lit candles to warm her once more.
However, as soon as the Archangel left her side, Cassidy made an attempt to stand in the pews. She whimpered faintly, staggering to her feet. "N-No…Michael…d-d…o…"

Michael turned just in time to see her fall to the ground in the aisle, hitting the porcelain tiles like a boneless ragdoll.
Less than a split second later, he was cradling her on the floor, her head in the crook of his arm. "Do not try to move," he bade her. "Do not exert yourself, Cassidy. You will put yourself in further pain. You must allow me to warm you…"

Cassidy shook her head, her eyes opening slightly and sealing the Archangel into rock. Despite the suddenly uncomfortable surface that she lay upon, she did not look away. "…T'won't…d…any…goo…d." She coughed, a bead of crimson appearing at the corner of her lips and trailing down over her chin. "…the b-urning…won't…stop…"

"You must tell me how to cure you. What do you require?" the Archangel beseeched her.

She only shook her head again, her breath heaving as she lifted her arms to cross her abdomen. "…there's n-nothing…y…you can do…I should have…called an ambulance…b-but…I did…n't…didn't…" Cassidy stopped speaking for a moment, smiling weakly again. "And…and now…I'm…going to…die…you can s-see that, right, Michael?"

The Weeping Archangel could see that only too well.

Death was attempting to claim his Cassidy once more, her life draining away from her body like rainwater trickling into cracks in parched, yearning earth.
Her life was slowly being reduced from years to months, months to days, days to hours, hours to minutes…

This was a familiar scene: he had most certainly been here before.
The last time he had been there, however, he had labelled his feelings as a selfish kind of anger. Now, it was different.
Now, he knew better.

"Perhaps…perhaps if I gave you CPR? Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation?" Michael suggested, immediately elevating her neck as soon as her eyes fell shut.

"No…no…won't help…" Cassidy wheezed, still smiling faintly as another rivulet of blood streamed from her lips. Her voice was becoming quieter. "It's ok…I…I'm really not as scared of dying as I thought I'd be…" She coughed, laughing slightly. "Maybe it's because I…I've been in…in this situation so many times before…" She reached up weakly to graze her fingers against his chest. "Jus…Just don't go…away…st-stay here…" Her eyes opened once more, her eyes meeting those of the Archangel's who now held her hand tightly in his own. "Or…or maybe you could send me into th-the…p-past? Some place nice? Some place that…would…be nice to die…"
She closed her eyes in the same calm, sleeping repose that once inspired a feeling of serenity in the Archangel. However, now, watching her as she lay fading in his arms, he could feel nothing but helpless emptiness.

"If only you were one of my kind," he said, voicing his most hidden desires aloud for the first time without a note of mocking in his voice. "I could teach you to use time energy to close your wounds…and then you could live for an eternity…" The impossible notion was a painful illusion offering the indulgence of fantasy over any kind of genuine hope. "But…I shall stay with you…"

Cassidy's voice seemed to be weak beyond use and after a failed attempt at a response, she merely smiled faintly, carefully moving her fingers against his.

Conflicted and unable to accept what lay in his future, Michael could do little else but pray to every deity that he had always refused to believe in.
"Pray" might have been the wrong word; the Archangel told every other-worldly being of fate that they were wrong.
"You can't have her. You can't have her. You can't have her…"

He could still see the almost-healed wounds on his own body as he looked down at her.
If only she possessed such an ability.
If only she could command the very annals of time, command the very measure of time itself to flow backwards into her veins- restoring her blood and sealing her flesh…

It was then that the thought came to him.
A thought that was both beautifully impossible and impossibly beautiful.
If fruitful, this idea would defy every notion that had once been cemented into his being, his creed, his culture, every pillar of his faith.
If worthless, he would most certainly waste himself in the process.

Cassidy flinched when she felt his lips graze against hers, quickly shaking her head and trying to protest.
"N-…no…no…C…PR…no g'…good…"

"I do not seek to give you air, Cassidy Albright," the Archangel told her, holding her hand in his whilst the other traced the lines of her pale cheek. "I seek to give you something much more valuable…the greatest gift that I can offer…"

He briefly touched his forehead against hers, his hand moving to elevate her neck.

"I am giving you time."

No sooner had the alien's lips touched her own, Cassidy felt a sudden surge of energy burst through her body. From the centre of her chest, the immense heat spread outwards, as though it were a small, match-head flame catching light on fraying, dying, Autumn leaves. The burning in her abdomen was completely replaced by an entirely new sensation. It was the feeling that was both painful and invigorating. With each breath that Michael breathed into her mouth, Cassidy felt as if she was taking in her very first breath of air. The electric energy spread from the soles of her feet to the tips of her fingers. For a moment that may have lasted an eternity or barely the space of human blink, Cassidy felt as though her being had phased into his. That his energy filled her, undid her, restored her and completed her all at once…

Cassidy suddenly sat bolt upright, breathing heavily and tasting astringent copper in her mouth for the first time and dry-gagging slightly before frantically running her hands down the front of her shirt.
No.
No, it wasn't possible.
The shirt was still damp with the red stains of her own blood but when, with trembling hands, she lifted the material- there were no gashes.
Just the pale, pudgy skin of her stomach.
Untouched, save for a smattering of freckles near her navel and one or two stray stretch marks around the area of her hips.

Slowly, Cassidy got to her feet- finding no problems in doing so- and turned to look over her shoulder. The Archangel was at her back, a smile upon his lips.
A smile that was somewhere between hearty arrogance and extreme relief, between pride and tenderness.

"I was dying…and then I wasn't. What did…what did you just do to me?"

"I gave you time…and I believe you're familiar with the notion that time heals all…"

Cassidy stared at the stone Angel for a period of time that felt longer than necessary before clearing her throat.
"I think I'd like to go home now…if you don't mind…"

A little over an hour later, Cassidy was clad in her pyjamas, nestled amongst the numerous pillows that she had piled in a heap on her sitting room floor trying to get angry at an episode of Ancient Aliens.

The Archangel had been showing notable fractures in his body since their return and as such had drifted away to hunt.

As Cassidy replayed the day's events in her head, her agitation mounted.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Abbie's makeshift "book."
She told herself she'd save her first reading of it for a difficult time.
She was currently debating whether or not the present counted as "difficult" in the conventional sense.

"Nothing about my life is "conventional" anymore," Cassidy thought, throwing her head back against the sofa with a grunt.
Her heart started to pound as her eyes darted at the curtains of the sitting room window. She had pinned them shut and duct-taped the seams to the walls and sill.
She hadn't had a chance to ask Michael what had happened with Karida in detail.
While she knew that her vision was the best weapon she had against the Angels but she did not want them to have any kind of advantage in terms of surveillance.

Swallowing, she rose to her feet and staggered over to the window.
Summoning her courage, she peeled apart the seams of the curtains and peered out into the darkened front garden.

"She will not return so quickly."

Cassidy leapt around, clapping a hand over her chest.

"My fucking God, Michael!"

"I startled you."

It was more of a statement than a query or explicit apology, heightening Cassidy's annoyance before the woman steadied herself.

"Yes. You did." She sighed, exasperated and slightly listless. "Michael…" She lifted a hand and then dropped it to her side, shaking her head as she came to sit back down amongst the cushions. "What the hell happened back there?"

Behind her back, the Archangel moved closer, coming to stand at the foot of the sofa. Cassidy realised that he was no longer a phantom to her.
At one time, she could neither hear nor even perceive him to be moving when her eyes weren't on him.
Now, however, it was almost though she could predict and discern his movements to the point of sensing where and how he trod.

"Back…there?" He seemed wary, concern dotting his every statement. "My sister accosted you in the place of hu-…"

"I know that. Not that part," Cassidy told him sharply, hugging her knees to her chest slightly. "The part after that. Your sister ripped me open as I ran away, I didn't realise it until I got up into the church, I started to bleed out…and then you saved me…"

"I saved your life as you saved mine. What of that concept is difficult to comprehend?"
Irritation was quickly starting to replace concern.

"You said you gave me time…"

"Yes. I fed you years of life. This sped up the healing of your wounds."

"You fed me years of human life…years that you had previously taken…"

"From those who had attempted to attack you. This is correct. I imagine that somewhere beneath all of this disgust and aggression is some semblance of gratitude…"

Cassidy buried her face in her hands for a moment, knuckling her forehead. "…look, I'm not trying to come off as ungrateful…it's just…just…" She turned her head to look up at the Archangel, who was now standing at her side with folded arms. She was almost surprised to see that his expression was just about a perfect mirror of what she imagined her own to be: slightly angry, mostly worried but unsure as to the cause. The sudden realisation of mutuality was more than likely what prompted her to speak of the crux of the issue. "…you're not in the best of condition…what if it didn't work? You would have fed me all those years and probably wasted away on the floor beside me…and don't try to deny it either…"

She slowly came to stand up amidst the cushions, her bare feet just slightly grazing the lower folds of the Archangel's robe.

"Why did you do it? Why did you risk it?"

"I could not risk losing-…"

"Your slave. Yes, I know…but you've already said that you hardly consider me that anymore."

"You, Cassidy. I could not risk losing you."

She stared up at the Angel's face, keeping her line of vision upon his nose.
"Losing…me?" She shook her head, her hands sporadically clinging to the stray threads of her pyjama trousers. "Why…why would that even matter…? This is so…not you. Not you at all!"

A growl emitted from Michael's chest. "I saved your life as you saved mine. If you cannot manage gratitude, at least attempt some level of complacency…"

"Stop avoiding the topic!" Cassidy snapped in a voice that was louder than she had initially intended. She sucked a deep breath in through her clenched teeth, her light snatches changing to vice-like grips on the seams of her trousers. "Why would you do it? Hm? Why risk killing yourself just for the chance to save me?"

"The…the thought of losing you to death…" Michael's voice faltered slightly before abruptly reinvigorating again, suddenly returning to a more familiar cold monotone. "…you are far too valuable to me."

The conversation was treading a very dangerous, very sensitive line.

"Oh yeah?" Cassidy folded her arms. "Valuable, huh? Valuable in what sense of the word?"

Both the Archangel and human were wary of how close they stood to the edge of the precipice and both were raising their weapons.
Tempering their armour.

"…I aided you in the termination of your father. I still require you to aid me with the termination of my own."

"How could that possibly be true? We haven't even established a plan of action yet and last time I checked, I'm not the most durable when it comes to facing your family…"

Cassidy blinked and Michael's hands came to grab her by the forearms.
He held her tightly but not painfully, his face now level with hers, his brows furrowed with anxiety.

"Can you not accept that your death would cause me discomfort and settle with that fact?"
His voice was shaking now, slowly mounting in volume.

"No. I want to know why. Why do you need me alive? Why not just find a new human?"
Her voice rose to match his.
Unlike his, however, hers was without a single quaver.

"Because a "new human" would not be you!"

"And why would that be such a tragedy?!"

"Because you are unlike other humans! I have told you this upon many an occasion!"

Both were shouting to the point of breathlessness now and Cassidy was staring directly into his slate-grey eyes.

"Oh, bullshit! I'm like hundreds of other humans! Why the hell do you think I'm any different?! You keep saying all this flowery crap but you've never once explained it! I'm sick of going through all of this with no real idea as to why I'm here in the first place!"

Michael was silent for a moment.

Though, as soon as this moment passed, his silence was shattered by a rage-filled shout that was nothing short of ear-splitting.

"I SAVED YOUR LIFE! WHY ARE YOU REACTING WITH NEGATIVITY TO THIS FACT? WHAT IS YOUR FASCINATION WITH PUTTING YOURSELF IN DANGER AND ENDING YOUR OWN LIFE?"

Cassidy all but screamed back.

"WHY DO YOU SUDDENLY FEEL THE NEED TO PROTECT ME ALL THE TIME?! WHEN DID THAT START?! AND DON'T SAY "AS SOON AS YOU SAW ME" OR SOMETHING STUPID LIKE THAT! THERE WERE TONS OF OTHER HUMANS WHO WERE THERE WITHIN THE FIRST HOUR OF ME DIGGING YOU OUT!"

"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO FREED ME! YOU RELEASED ME! PERHAPS I FEEL GRATITUDE! PERHAPS I SHOULD INSTRUCT YOU IN HOW TO FEEL GRATITUDE!"

"DON'T YOU DARE ACT AS IF YOU'RE THE ONE WITH THE MORAL HIGH-GROUND HERE!"

Without thinking and without closing her eyes, Cassidy swung her hand outward and threw a punch into Michael's neck.
Her fist connected with the smooth stone, punctuated by a sickening crack.
The human woman cried out in pain, immediately doubling over and cradling her injured wrist.
Michael immediately released her arm and followed her as she sank down to the floor, allowing her to fall against his chest.

"That…was stupid…" Cassidy choked out, massaging her knuckles and keeping her eyes shut as she sought out a comfortable position against his large frame.

"No more foolish than our initial conflict," he conceded in a drastically quieter voice, his arm coming to aid her in sitting upright. "Are you badly injured?"

Cassidy stubbornly refused to sit up properly, silently protesting and insisting on laying down against him. "No…I don't think it's broken…I can move it…" She sighed. "Believe or not…I get tired of arguing with you sometimes."

"And believe it or not…I genuinely no longer take pleasure in watching you in pain…"

She gave a small snort of bemused, sardonic laughter. "Thank you for your honesty…and just…thank you, in general, I guess…"

One of his hands came to graze her cheek running into her hairline.
She leaned into the familiar touch and savoured the oddly cold but no less pleasant sensation.

"If I could explain why I'm so drawn to you," Michael told her gently. "I would. Let us simply agree that from the moment you freed me, I've felt the need to follow you…to own you, then to protect you…now to simply exist with you…"

"You sound like a sappy romance film," Cassidy chided softly, trying to ignore the rapidly increasing rate of her heartbeat and the shortening in her breath. "…and I guess this odd attraction makes it impossible for you to live without me…"

She had been attempting to be funny but the Archangel's response turned her mouth dry.

"Yes."

Deciding that she needed a little more of his warmth and a little more support for her hurt wrist, Cassidy turned over in his arms and edged closer.
Wordlessly, his arms came to wrap around her waist, accommodating her wishes.
Her head rested in the hollow of his neck, breathing in the scent that she could never quite place and never quite name.

Her stomach was sickened, her heart was racing to the point of exhaustion but her body was weary beyond all description.
But her mind was alert.

Testing the waters that she had waded through before, she placed her hand on the back of the Archangel's neck and pressed him down to her level before connecting his mouth with hers.
She took in a sharp inhale through her nose when she felt the light prickle of fangs and the soft drag of his tongue against her lips.

It was Michael who disconnected the kiss, turning back to a living statue when his human companion looked up at him in a kind of perturbed confusion.

"You are quite weak right now," he told her firmly. "You should rest."

Cassidy shook her head, closing her eyes again and slinging her arms around his neck. "I'm not weak…I'm just tired. Tired of feeling sad…tired of feeling angry…tired of feeling scared…I want to feel something else. I need to feel something else." Her voice dropped slightly. "…anything else."
One of her hands stretched backward to graze the outer plumage of his wings.

She almost smiled when she felt his initial flinching.

"Anything?" He queried her.

Cassidy kissed him once more in response- harder this time- before murmuring against his lips. "Anything."

His hold around her waist tightened, drawing her closer to him and her chest lightly pressing against his.
The human might have imagined it but for a second, it felt as though the normal warm patch in the centre of his chest had begun to spread.

It was then that he put a familiar question to her.

"Are you afraid of me, Cassidy?"

"…no," she replied. "Are you afraid of me?"

For the second time that evening, the Archangel's answer surprised her.
Her eyes opened and in the flickering lamplight, his features of stone almost appeared to move.

"Yes."

Thank you so, so much for reading!
And for your patience!

I'm not entirely happy with this chapter so it's VERY up to criticism and I may change aspects of it very, very soon.

The next chapter will bring this story up to an "M" rating!
If you're not a fan of that kind of thing, I mean you no disrespect sir or madam, but chapter thirty seven may not be to your tastes so please progress straight on to chapter thirty eight.
I promise, you won't be missing any riveting, plot-related points that won't be referenced or summarised in future chapters.

As always, I thank you most humbly again!