Chapter Fifty Seven

Hugo breaks into a peal of laughter, tossing back his head and causing his hair jangles to tinkle. He clutches at his stomach, cheeks growing rosy with laughter. "That's the funniest question yet! Humans! Ah, I love us!"

"Trusting Lucius would be a bad idea," I say stiffly to the leader of the camp, a lean, relatively clever man by the name of Maxwell. "In fact, one of the worst ideas out there. Just tolerate his protection for now until he gets bored and moves onto something else."

Hugo wipes a tear from his eye. "No, I think you should trust Lucius! It'd all end well, right, Penryn? That's a perfect plan, Maxwell, I like you!"

Confused, the man furrows his brow. "But… it's a good thing that he's on our side, right?"

Just as it'd begun to quiet, Hugo's laughter revs back to life with twice the volume. I glance at him in concern as he more and more resembles a hyena. He's forced to lean against a tree to regain his balance. People once bustling about in the midst of chores and duties stop and stare at him, confused by such rambunctious laughter in such a dire time. I hiss self-consciously, shooting eye-daggers at him.

"Hugo," chastises Bryon, glaring down at Hugo in a playful reprimand as he approaches with his swinging gait and staff tapping the ground. "You quit being such an ass to a confused human. It's impolite. Hello, good man – Maxwell, wasn't it?"

Maxwell beams at Bryon, his attitude changing entirely. Wrinkles of stress and nervousness vanish upon seeing the Dragon King, instead becoming a broad smile that makes him look almost a decade younger. Shaking Bryon's hand enthusiastically, the man greets him with a giddy, "Hello, Bryon, how have you been? And where?"

"I've been doing alright as one can do in a situation like this." Bryon laughs, the sound of it warming me from head to toe like a cup of hot cocoa. "I've just been wandering – old habit, I suppose."

"Old habits die hard," Maxwell says, nodding. "That I can understand. Well, I hope you'll stick around for a bit longer, your friends aren't exactly making themselves patent. Your information, Hugo, is all conflicting."

"Life is conflicting," Hugo murmurs, clawing at the air like a poet, half-shutting his eyes in the bliss of the imitation.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I smack him across the cheek flippantly. "Focus, why don't you? We're at war here."

"With ourselves," he sighs, blinking moonily at me. "We're at war with ourselves…"

"You'll have to excuse him," Bryon says good-naturedly, taking pity upon the poor, puzzled Maxwell. "I never had the heart to take him to a mental institution. However, discussing your guardian is the last thing on my list today, considering the circumstances. I don't think humanity has to suffer with being guarded, safe only because of another's will, so I've bent the heavens to allow for your independence."

"What do you mean?" Maxwell questions, his aura changing from lost and helpless to sharp as a razor. "You already've brought us more than we can handle with nothing in return. Not that I'm complaining, but there's no such thing as a free lunch, as they say…"

"This isn't a free lunch." Bryon's eyebrow quirks, threatening to rise. "I'm getting something out of it, too. Keeping humanity alive is just as much an interest to me as it is to you. And for that, I've pulled a few strings and gathered up the most destructive bullets on the face of the Earth for this settlement."

Hugo's head snaps up, the focusing of his eyes reminding me all-too-much of a pair of binoculars. "You did not."

"Did not what?" I look from Nephilim to boy curiously.

"I did." Bryon turns on heel, waving us after him. "I had Emilio fetch us a small quantity of what more we shall bring. Come, follow me, I will explain."

"What do you mean, the most destructive bullets?" Maxwell asks, looking acutely interested. "Are they some sort of bombs? Are they explosive? You can't just make a claim like that then hold your tongue!"

"If you'd allow me a chance to speak, I'd gladly explain." Bryon shoots me an amused glance, smiling tightly, as if trying not to act belittling to Maxwell. "I take it that you're aware that the angels are severely allergic to a certain type of metal, correct?"

"Their swords," he recalls, nodding importantly. "I've heard a few rumors – then the only way to kill them is with one of their own swords?"

"Well, with a weapon made of the special metal, yes." My uncle's smile widens. "Unless your name is Penryn Young" – he nudges me with his staff – "an angel sword would actually prove quite useless as a method to kill one of the bastards. That said, the bullets we've given to Obadiah in the past are more alloy than the metal, each holding half the potency of an angel sword. It's partially because the pure substance is so powerful and so rare, and to waste it on bullets that probably won't all hit their mark is ridiculous."

"What's the pure substance?" Maxwell wonders. "Is it radioactive? I never was one for chemistry, but it seems you're talking about something that our scientists aren't aware of."

"That's cuz they're not." Hugo grins wolfishly. "We did a good job keeping this world sealed off from the peoples' knowledge. The pure substance is pretty goddamn rare, and very deep in the earth. Not to mention absolutely toxic to every creature with angel blood, even Fallen angels and most demons. Anything above an eighth of angel blood in their veins – that includes you, Penryn – that gets poisoned by it dies. Anything lower than that results in severe fevers and eventual recovery."

As my blood runs cold, Maxwell eyes me with polite interest. "Like mercury, a bit?"

"Like mercury, yeah," Hugo concurs.

"Of course, the angels, being primarily affected by their one biological downfall," Bryon tells, "mixed their blades with an alloy so long ago. No one's quite sure how they did it, and they don't remember back so far, so it's a more or less mystery. Mystery also surrounds the origin of the metal; we rely more on legend than we do fact. A popular theory is that it was the skeleton of a great beast that died upon the world's creation, and we merely forge our weapons out of its fossils. My personal favorite is that the tears of the stars saturated the ground as they saw the destruction the angels reaped and gave the Sons and Daughters of Men a way to fight back."

"I hope you understand that I choose to base my beliefs on fact rather than fiction." Maxwell's tone is scathing.

"Dude, there are pigeon people flying around in the sky and beating up people in tanks with living knives," Hugo grunts. "The lines between fact and fiction are just slightly blurred."

"No, he has a point." Bryon smiles pleasantly. "It's good to keep a firm grip upon reality even in the midst of utter chaos. Wherever it comes from, though, Maxwell, I urge you to treat it with utmost respect. Emilio! Here!"

Slipping from the shadows like a poised lynx, Emilio pads forward, his face betraying his uneasiness. I smile at him and wave, but he doesn't smile back, doesn't even seem to recognize me. In his arms, he carries a crate, but with the tenderness he treats it with, it might as well be a wild animal, or a pack of dynamite, maybe even a nuclear bomb. Eyeing the box distrustfully, he sets it down at Bryon's feet without a word, quickly retreating back to a safe distance.

My skin prickles as Bryon nods wordlessly to Emilio and pries open the lid. Inside, the bullets look surprisingly ordinary, their only distinguishably feature their glinting silver surfaces. However, as gingerly as Bryon selects one and holds it up to his eye, inspecting it with the greatest of care, I get the feeling that there's a little more than meets the eye.

"I think they should be the right size for your guns." Bryon chuckles, rolling the bullet between his thumb and index fingers. "Frankly, I've never shot a gun more modern than a redcoat's musket, so I've got no idea how you measure these things. Never been shot by one, either. I'm almost curious what a modern bullet feels like."

"Trust me," Maxwell says with a gruff chuckle, admiring the bullet from afar with a burning admiration in his gaze, "you're better off not knowing. Why are you delivering these weapons of mass destruction to us and not to Obi? I'm not completely sure I can accept these."

Bryon tosses it up in the air and catches it nimbly – his back is to Emilio, so he doesn't see the way the Spaniard flinches at the bullet's silver arch, but I certainly do. Could it really be so potent a metal that Emilio shies from it? I glare at the bullets, wondering if I, too, should be pressed up against a wall.

"A larger package is being delivered to Obadiah as we speak." Bryon's eyebrows arch. "I figured you'd need them immediately, living in the shadow of belligerent he-angels as you are. They will render your army much more foreboding to the armies of Heaven. Remember not to waste them – they're mighty powerful, these little bullets. A single one can give an archangel an allergic reaction strong enough to take him out for the count."

"Was it one of these that took the Gabriel one out, then?" Maxwell inquires sharply. His eyes glitter with piercing intelligence and disgust. "One of these that started this hell?"

Bryon is quiet for a second, as if pondering what to respond to such condemning words with. "Yes, it was, but with one skilled marksman, it can be one of these that end the apocalypse, too."

"I can't get in there." Sariel beams from the other side of some invisible line, pacing in place, his eyes sparkling with gold. "I'll be turned into a Son of Man, remember?"

"Well, what's so bad about that?" Thea wonders, slinging both legs over her wolf's side and taking another bite out of her pear. "I think I'd like to see you as a Son of Man. You wouldn't be able to guzzle beer all day if you wanted to keep that perfect body of yours."

"I do not guzzle beer every day!" he retorts, his grin growing wider.

"Right, just most days, forgive me." Kicking her legs lazily from atop Cara, her wolf, Thea smiles. "What are you going to do when you run out of beer? There's no more breweries, you know. It's not just a hop, skip, and a jump to the next canteen of alcohol."

"It was never for the alcohol," Sariel says chidingly, shaking a finger at her. "I drink for the taste! The taste is magnificent! The high is just an added bonus! And you talk like I'm addicted – I can drop it at any time, you know!"

She arches her brow, smiling again. "Can you, now? I dare you too. I dare you."

Sariel's smile fades slightly. "…Maybe another time. We've got festivities planned for tonight! Everybody's going to be there, you know. Even Ms. De La Flor smuggled another lamb for us! Celebrating Lucius's… well, I guess we're celebrating the fact that the asshole saved this town, but he's not invited, so go figure. Everyone else is, though, even you and me!"

Thea laughs, allowing the warmth of security envelope her heart. Despite Cara's throaty grunt of disapproval, Thea slips from the wolf's back and strides towards her husband, much to his delight.

"A party just wouldn't be a party without you, would it, Lion Cub?"

"Lion Cub?" Sariel's lips twitch up. "You've spent too much time around Hugo. Have you seen him – or anyone else in that little group – around, actually? I need to get them coming along. It wouldn't be the same without Bay! Or Bryon! I wish he'd let Hugo drink…"

Thea laughs, twining her arms around her husband's neck. "Bryon's being a good father, Sariel, something you taught him. If I remember correctly, you pummeled our son the first time you found him drinking underage." She plants a kiss at the corner of his lips. "Besides, they've all gone back to the aerie – Bryon, Penryn, Paige, Hugo, the likes. They even smuggled Bay in somehow."

"Smuggle me in, then?" he pleads with big golden eyes, sweeping her hair from her face. "Please? I want this to be a big family gathering! With Paige and Hugo and – everyone we've already listed!" He lowers his voice slightly. "I've invited Audiat, so I've got to make sure Bryon comes, too, because he's taking his precious time. They need to get over each other."

"I suppose I can arrange something." Thea pecks at his lips again. "But count me out. I'm not one for drinking around an open fire. Somehow, Satan always ends up getting summoned, every damn time."

"Oh, please!" Sariel touches his nose against hers, sulking and wrapping her in his wings. "I said it was a family gathering! You and I are the heads of this family! You can't just leave the Youngs crippled, can you? You wouldn't do that to your own family! To me!"

"Fine." She puts a finger to his lips to silence his words. "On one condition – not a single drink for you, mister. Not. One."

Sariel twists his lips into a cute little pout, but he reluctantly nods, kissing her finger as he does so. "Okay, okay, you win. But remember, you've got to stick the whole thing out!"

"You, too, mister! Don't let me catch you breaking the rules. There'll be hell to pay!"

"How did you get ahold of that?" Audiat wonders, appearing at Hugo's side and resting her head on his quilt, almost as if she attempts to imitate Scruffy while his position is vacant. "That is a video log from Laylah, isn't it? She doesn't share those with anybody!"

Hugo stifles an amused snort, rolling his eyes. "Stupid bitch uploaded it onto Google Drive."

"But – but she doesn't share the files with anybody, either!" Audiat protests, the stubbornness in her voice blockading any further argument, a blockade Hugo simply itches to demolish.

"If it's on Google Drive," Bay calls from the bathroom, his face in the mirror almost completely devoid of shaving cream, "it's as good as his."

It's not truly annoyance that strums at Hugo's heartstrings, something more akin to pride, more akin to warmth, his mind reveling in the realization that Bay knows him so well that he can quote sayings as stale as that.

"What he said." Though baited by the promise of cheery debate with his boyfriend, Hugo doesn't press the conversation further. "So, yeah, stupid bitch mistake number one. I even have the files of her basically molesting Pigeon-Bat's hacked-off wings for 'science' reasons, I guess. That is one messed up slut – Viper is too tame a codename for her. I can show you those, if you'd like."

Audiat makes a face that would cause Bryon to melt into the floor, wrinkling her nose and pulling back at her lips. "No thank you. The one you were viewing, the Gabriel one, I want to see that. What is it? What was she doing?"

Hugo smiles, clicking the restart button and allowing the video to buffer as he speaks. "That is a big piece to the puzzle, I believe, of what happened with Gabriel. I'm not sure how it fits yet, but it definitely does. It's creepy as hell. Reminds me almost of a demonic possession… that doesn't have an ending with sunlight."

Audiat opens her mouth to respond, but before she can, Laylah's beautiful face replaces the spinning grey circle, the poor light casting malevolent shadows over her cheekbones and darkening her eyes.

"Is it on? Yes, it is." The she-angel adjusts herself in front of the camera, tossing her platinum hair over her shoulder. With a hushed voice and furtive glances behind her, Laylah launches into her journal entry, sounding spooked and suspicious.

"I was instructed never to share this information with anyone," she whispers, glancing hesitantly down at the keyboard. "I was supposed to keep this secret until I died. And I suppose I still will be keeping it… hopefully. But before I forget, while these incidents are still clear in my mind, I need to report them to something. And now that Gabriel's passed… anyway.

"As the Messenger's personal physicians, in the past, I have had to work with many, many strange cases. But this is most definitely the strangest of them all, and, the most bizarre thing is, I don't even know what to call it. Possession, insanity, godly influence… it's lost upon me. I have no idea where I'd even start to look for an explanation, nor should I bring it up to someone in case I get chained up with the crazy whores. However, I believe that whatever I have witnessed, whatever it is that began last time we descended to Earth in hope of Judgment Day, is somehow linked to the way he died and the reason we're here.

"It started out with small things. I'd notice peculiar things in his quarters when I'd come and give him checkups, like the way he'd talk to himself, or sometimes refer to himself in third person. Every so often, he'd get this look in his eyes like he wasn't there. And his dreams were always turbulent. Living just next door as I was, I could hear him through the walls, shouting things that made no sense to me, praying and chanting in foreign languages, mumbling about the power coursing through his veins. I said nothing, of course, as nutty nighttime behavior is hardly uncommon among archangels – Titaniel sleeps with his eyes open, Raphael sleep-fights, and Michael's preferred method of shuteye is to sleep naked on a beanbag, and Reuel does… whatever the hell he does. Next to them, it seemed quite tame.

"But then things grew more severe, slowly, slowly over time. He began sounding like he was in pain in his sleep, crying out for the agony to end, the power to quit flowing through his veins, shrieking sometimes. I'd ask him about it, and he'd clam up, he wouldn't say a word other than that it was for my good. Needless to say, I grew suspicious, and so I began to spy on him, to eavesdrop on his conversations.

"Most of the time, those conversations were with himself. Or, at least I think they were with himself. If there was someone else there… he was the only one with a heartbeat."

Audiat whimpers softly at that.

"He would talk to himself, mostly about power, I assume. From what I've derived from the halves of the conversations I've heard, whatever fantasy he conjured up would grant him promises. Promises he would carry out, of course. I do not believe that he once sent down an angel without talking to himself about it. Here, right in front of me, I have half a conversation for when Remliel was sent down to his doom.

"'But one already chases down the monkey! There should be no reason –' Pause. 'No! Not Azrael! He would never fall into such filth!' Pause. 'It cannot be true!' Pause. 'Are you absolutely certain it is so?' Pause. '…Very well. Shall I send someone to finish him off?' Pause. 'Are you absolutely sure? Surely an Fallen Angel of Death would be – !' Pause. 'Very well. I shall send one of my angels to their doom and leave it at that.' That marked the end of the conversation. The next day, Remliel was dispatched, and I haven't heard anything about him since.

"If the behavior would've stopped there, it might've been bearable. I don't understand how no one else found out about it – or maybe they did, and his demons just quieted them in the same way they managed to quiet such a fiery, headstrong man. I would awaken in the middle of the night to him shrieking for it to be gone, that he would have it no longer. I would inspect him in his checkups and find that he'd dragged his nails across his own skin roughly enough to bleed, clawing at his heart, his stomach, and around his mouth. Sometimes, he would destroy furniture, leaving it splintered about. Other times, I'd walk in to find that he'd carved an awful sketch of something that looked like a cross between a snake and a donkey into the hardwood floors. Whenever I asked, he clammed up.

"I don't know why I never spoke up. The one explanation he ever did offer me during the beginning stages of his madness was that God was truly conversing with him. He said that sometimes, the power would be too much for him. I suppose, if that was the case, it truly drove him mad.

"I would hear him laugh all night long – a soulless, empty laugh, like someone hitting the inside of a trash can with a stick all through the sleeping hours. Whenever I went into his room, he would jump at shadows – and the shadows, the shadows would move on their own. I would walk in on him talking to fires with a glazed look in his eyes, and when he put the fires out, nothing appeared to have changed on whatever they were burning. He led immaculately, better than ever, but there was something rather lacking in his spirit, as if he were being drained. I was the only one that seemed to notice.

"Once, I caught him in the midst of one of his arguments. It was the first time I'd ever heard him actually screaming at the thing – and the first time I realized that there actually might be something there. I realized that he was lying to me to protect me, too." Laylah takes in a shuddery breath. "I still don't know what I saw in there. I still don't want to know.

"Gabriel's screams were heartbreaking. He wouldn't stop shouting about how he could still be useful, about how he could still be valued by the… the thing, about how he couldn't believe it could just throw him aside like an old, bent sword. He screamed that he wouldn't let it throw aside his angels, imploring that it please didn't hurt his angels. Anything but his angels. Take his heart, his soul, his sword, but leave his angels."

Laylah takes another deep breath and buries her face in her hands, her distress written in the unkemptness of her usually quite poised elegance.

"I don't know what I saw that day," she admits quietly. "I peeked inside, curious at what he was talking to, and only saw enough to see these two blazing eyes. I can't even remember what they really looked like. I only remember that they were awful. If they were God's eyes, I would accept it without question, but I can only pray that my God is nowhere near as terrible as they were. Such terrible, terrible beauty… looking into them, I understood my own mortality, as bizarre as it sounds for an immortal creature. I understood how little I am, and was crushed under the knowledge of the everything in this world.

"Just one glance, a glance lasting no longer than a second, and my heart fell to my shoes and shattered, my stomach tied into a thousand knots, and all my consciousness faded. My knees buckled, and I woke up a few hours later in my own bed, as if nothing had ever happened, with only a searing memory in my mind of those terribly beautiful eyes.

"I lost my courage to face whatever it was in there with him. I listened to the arguments for many more years as they became less arguments and more soft, pathetic pleas, like those of a captured, wounded soldier just wanting to return home.

"The century leading up to our arrival was by far the worst. He would cry to himself, he would mumble to himself, he would look into the mirror and growl at his reflection whether I was in the room or not, he would curse himself, and he would scratch at himself hard enough to unearth nerves and bone. Days would pass where he wouldn't come out from his room, wouldn't say a word. I don't know what he did then. The only time his activity spiked again was in the last decade before his untimely demise.

"He would cry out for the force like a man in withdrawal. He would whine, saying that he was as good a conduit as any other. He would scream that he was better than any other man, better than anything else they could be offered. He would wail and call out for the force's advice on decisions, no matter how small. I'd grown comfortable with the silence, so at first, it terrified me. But such activities were always confined to his room, and no one knew of them. Or, if they did, they kept to themselves about it.

"The day before we descended, the day he announced 'God's' sudden decision on our descent, he awoke me at an early hour in the morning, shouting about how he did not deserve this, that he would make his own decision. He ordered whatever it was to begone, and then fell silent. I did not hear him speak and seldom heard the beat of his heart until he emerged from his room. And then I believe I witnessed another strange phenomenon."

Laylah chews at her lip, gazing off into the distance.

"I don't believe it was a trick of the light, but then again, what do I know? I swear, however, that his eyes, usually so beautifully green, were different, but only for a split second. In that split second, as he swung open his door to me, his face was utterly emotionless as well, leading to the appeal of something other than what I can even fathom. But I swear – I swear – his eyes were different, with hardly any pupil and even less white. One, I remember seeing clear as day, a bright, electric blue in color, eerily so, like the pale color of the sky in the first few hours of the day. The other I did not see so well, but I could swear it glinted, sparkled. A single blink, and they were gone, returning to the usual green. But it was there. It was.

"That night, that night which was otherwise humming with excitement and reeking of beer as people celebrated returning to the land of prosperity below on the morrow, he was so silent. I returned to my quarters early to eavesdrop on him, but he was so… so dead. I did not hear anything more than the rasp of his breathing and the lethargic thumping of his weary heart. Never mind, I did hear one thing – a sickeningly quiet, harrowingly emotionless word. 'Goodnight.' And that was practically the last I heard of him."

Laylah rubs at her nose, stifling a yawn.

"I do personally believe that there was something in there with him, tormenting him, something I don't ever want to learn about. Whatever it was, Gabriel was far out of his league by attempting to take it on. Wherever it is now… well, it's probably latched onto another poor soul. I don't know what could merit a better position than Gabriel, the Messenger of the Angels, but I don't know anything that could've done that to him, either.

"I hope this'll help shed some light upon something in the future. If not… well, this is Laylah, signing off."

Hugo turns with a grin to Audiat, not taking into account her horrified expression, nor the fact that her hands quiver ever so slightly. "We've got a murder mystery, see? Whatever this creature thing was, it was after Gabriel! If we find the creature, we find the archangel murderer! Capiche?"

Sometime during the speech, Audiat had turned a sickly shade of green, staring despondently at the screen. Hugo turns to her, frowning.

"Bay!" he calls. "Bay, I need you, something's wrong…"

Hugo hardly has the time to blink before the benevolent shadow hangs above him. Though a question forms on Bay's lips, the giant doesn't seem to have to ask it – he crouches beside Audiat, resting a hand on her wings. A smile that spreads to the very pits of his concerned black eyes warms Hugo's cheeks, even if his boyfriend's attention happens to be focused elsewhere.

"Audiat?" Bay croons, tracing shapes over her wings. "What's wrong? Did Hugo show you something disturbing?"

"No heartbeat," she whispers frailly. "I – I saw something, I don't know what, when I was alone with Bryon's body. It was like a living shadow, and its eyes – even though all I saw was the shadow – they were awful, just the shadow. It threatened me and then – then it just vanished. What – what is it?"

"It threatened you?" Bay echoes, outraged.

"What did it look like?" Hugo interrogates, delighted.

"It looked like a shadow." A nervous laugh shakes Audiat, and she sinks into Bay's arms, glancing about fearfully. "That's all I saw of it. Its shadow. And it… it was terrifying. It was after Raphael. It wanted… wanted to know where he was."

Both Bay and Hugo remain caught in a stunned silence for a few moments.

"What did you tell it?" Bay asks, unfurling a wing to wrap little Audiat up in a greater embrace.

"The truth." Audiat shrugs against him, looking traumatized. "I don't know where Raphael is in this building, even to this day. It's… probably not good, I should probably figure that out. But… do you think he's safe?"

"Well, he hasn't been attacked yet," Hugo chuckles, rolling his eyes. "We'd be the first to know, remember. Well, actually, that'd be Penryn, but she hasn't mentioned anything yet, so I assume the coast is clear."

"What are you doing?"

The beautiful blonde angel's head snaps ups, the light shining over her hair and turning it to flaxen gold. Hatred boils in my stomach at the sight of those cynical blue eyes, clear like glass, and sharp like it, too. Straightening herself, Laylah splays a single hand across the chest of the dead angel she'd been leaned over, clutching a scalpel with her other hand.

"That door was locked for a reason," she says coolly, regarding my uncle with a spiteful twinkle. "I will not tolerate interruptions during an important autopsy. Leave, or it won't be his chest I'll be slicing into."

I open my mouth to retort hotly, fury long-buried awakening as memories flood back to me. This bitch had cut off Raffe's wings when he'd come to her for good, honest help. She's probably more despicable than the dead body she's working on.

Those cold blue eyes swing to glare my way, and, after a moment of hesitance, I close my mouth. It's all I can do to stomach the smug smile twitching at the corners of my lips. As long as she doesn't recognize me – and I'm rather confident she won't – I can surprise her at any time I choose. Rage pounds at my heart as another image of Raffe's anguished face flickers over my mind's eye. She doesn't know the monster she's awakened.

"Step away from that body, Laylah," Bryon says, his voice just as cool. "Don't touch him. You know not with what you meddle."

"Don't I?" Laylah glances once up at him, drawing her lips into a thin line, before dipping the scalpel downwards and carefully cleaving into Gabriel's flesh. "I will not tolerate this interruption. This is your last warning."

"And this is yours." A low growl builds in the pit of Bryon's throat, but his voice sounds strained, as if begging. "You don't want to do this. Please. Let me help you. If you take a step back, and let me help you, I can still save –"

He stiffens, throwing out a hand towards her, and, for a moment, everything seems to freeze.

The muted sunlight seems to undulate gently in the air, as if streaming through the translucent wings of a golden butterfly. It haloes Laylah's face and almost veils her expression of terror in the soft, velvety black of its shadows. The tenderest of breezes twines around the room, toying with the satiny curtains, caressing my rosy cheek, and lifting Bryon's cloak so that it flutters ever so slightly around his ankles, like the meager waves that lap upon the ocean shore. Upon that breeze rides the scent of pungent death and freshly spilled blood, the shadows not hiding the starburst of vivid ruby erupting from the angel's chest, the sunlight catching the beauty of the scarlet as it dangles like stars in the air.

Laylah screams once.

I stumble backwards, groping blindly for the handle of the door only to find that it'd locked behind us. My heart hammers in my chest. I want to tear my eyes away so badly, so very badly, but I can't. Each breath I take is more erratic than the last.

It reminds me of a person working a loom, almost, or a needle driving itself again and again through a piece of fabric. The blur of red-stained skin driving through flesh time after time, keeping its victim immobilized and helpless, causes my blood to run cold. Perhaps even worse is that I've seen this kill before. I've seen this style of murder.

At last, the hideous sounds cease, and a creature leaps from Laylah's chest onto Gabriel's. As if my horror had not yet been fulfilled, it tosses up something small and bloody into the air, something that seems to still be pounding.

It is, I realize as the organ spins in a graceful arch in the air. It is still pounding, I realize, frozen as warm blood spritz across my cheek, shed from the pumping arteries of the beating heart.

Laylah's mangled body thumps lifelessly to the floor in the same instant that her heart disappears down the gullet of the creature. It leaps into the air and, with a meaty smack of its jaws, devours her life. In that moment, Laylah the Beautiful is no more.

"Stay behind me!" Bryon orders in a callous tone of voice, flinging one of his hands back to twine comfortingly through mine. Though I'm not certain how the staff he holds between us and the creature can defend us against such deft skill and swift ferocity, it pampers my nerves slightly, his hand on mine. The rapid curl of his horns growing over the crests of his ears also serves its part in that comfort as he begins the slow transformation into beast.

The creature shakes out its pelt, scales rattling against each other with a noise as irritating as nails on a chalkboard. As if there hadn't been enough already, blood sprinkles the area in a thousand little crimson speckles. Puffing out a huge breath through its nose, the creature arches its neck and opens its horrible, horrible eyes.

Do not make me punish you further for insubordination, little dragon.

I resist screaming at the tumultuous pressure in my brain. Groaning, I double over, clutching the hand that isn't gripped tightly by Bryon up to my temple. Still, through watering eyes, I keep my gaze locked firmly upon the creature sitting there.

"Theobella?" I croak, heart sinking to my shoes.

It's not quite her, though – there's something different in her frame in her body. Whereas Theobella and Belle had both been slender and lithe, this one, though not brawny by any accord, has more muscle packed beneath painfully bright calico scales, and is considerably larger, perhaps the size of a Maine Coon to Belle's tiny kitten. Her legs are longer, less nimble and more muscled, as if she walks instead of slithers. From broad shoulders sprouts her long, elegant neck, and her head swallowed by those large, terrible eyes, so beautiful and yet so, so physically wrong.

Step aside.

"You will not take her from me," Bryon snarls gutturally, his muscles bundling in preparation for a strike. "Not her. Not anyone. Not anymore."

I did not come here to bicker. Step aside. Another word, and it shall be your teeth ripping into her throat.

"You wouldn't dare!" Bryon whispers lividly. Every muscle in his body tenses in preparation for a fight.

"Who are you?" I whisper, my words no more than a soft breath.

Her beautiful eyes swing ominously to mine, that killing gaze turning my blood to ice, making my knees buckle. Like a deer in the headlights, I cannot move, paralyzed.

Call me Theobella.

It's hitting the fan.

POLL: Thoughts on Bay – specifically on his character and his traits. I personally like him quite a lot and I've heard that one of you does as well. The rest?

Ciao,

~wolfluvermh