It...it is here! I swear, I've taken this off of my docs manager so many times because I haven't felt that it was ready. But...I do believe that it is time. I think...I think it will do. No more editing it. I won't! Aside from my crazed babbling, I remembered from Finale something about a fallen angel initiation. It was hard at first, because I wondered how you initiate something that can't feel. Still, I did my best.

Chapter Twelve

"Hey…are you okay?"

I opened my eyes to Nora, who was wiping my face with a cold rag.

"You look sick, love…how are you feeling?" she asked me. I looked over at the clock; it was 7 am, which meant that she had to leave for work soon.

"I'm fine, Angel." I whispered back. I'd gotten into an altercation the night before, and one of the men had shoved a shovel into my wing scars before robbing me and running off. It took me two hours to wake up, and then maneuver it out, and then I'd had to struggle to get myself into my truck to drive home. It was a miracle that Nora didn't notice. She was so used to me coming home late at times that she rarely stayed up anymore. That, and she was tired. As soon as I felt better, I planned on calling up a few friends and getting my revenge. But, at the moment, I had the worst headache, and it was safe to say that I didn't feel like moving anymore. I certainly wasn't going to tell Nora what had happened.

"Well, I don't think fallen angels get sick, so something else is wrong…" I waited as that savvy intuition of hers clicked in. "Patch, what trouble exactly were you getting into last night?" Groaning, I turned over in bed, wishing she'd let it drop.

"It was nothing, Angel. Go to work, or lay back down, or something else!"

"Patch," she whispered, irritated. I didn't answer her. She sighed angrily.

"Okay, if we're going to do it like this," she pulled the covers off of me.

"Get up!"

"Get up!" someone shouted as I fell down onto the ground.

I heard a bell ring, and I was dragged to the side of the room. I'd been punched right in the face, and I can honestly say that I almost felt it. I was pretty so-so at bare-knuckle boxing, at least when it came to hurting the other person. I was fast, and strong…problem was, I struggled with blocking. I was also much skinnier than the person I'd been pitted up against tonight.

I'd been through grueling things since I'd reached the shores of Ireland. When I found the bar that Deirdre had directed me towards, I was immediately pegged as a rookie. As soon as they noticed I was a fallen angel, I was dragged out of the bar, and something was stabbed into my back. I woke up later in the middle of the woods, chained face first onto a tree. They asked me who I was, and who sent me. When I answered "Deirdre," there was a lot of chuckles from the crowd.

"Good old spitfire, Deirdre is. If she sees somethin' in ye, I guess we have to bring it out! Cause right now, all I see is a pretty boy." Someone said.

I learned what Deirdre meant by "initiation" when I dealt with what was apparently how fallen angels made you experience Hell.

First, they'd left me chained up on my own for what had to have been weeks. There were chains that tied my arms up above my head in the branches, and my legs to the tree. The only thing not chained was my back, leaving my wing scars in sight. The only time someone came back was to tighten the chains around me, so I couldn't move. I couldn't feel the chains, but the lack of movement or people was driving me insane. There was no one around to hear me, and so through the elements I was stuck there, trying to get out of my predicament.

When they finally did come back, they taunted me.

"Are you gonna ask to leave?" one said.

"No, are you gonna beg?" said another. Instinctively, I realized that if I begged, they'd either leave me here for another period, or let me go and never speak to me again. So I stayed silent, refusing to speak.

"Well, we have ourselves a fighter!" the main voice shouted. He approached my ear; I could barely move to see his face. "You've got some gall. We'll see how you do for a bit longer." He snapped his fingers, and I suddenly felt like puking. I knew something had been stabbed through my scars, and when I lifted my head, I saw a sword protruding through my chest. Once more, I couldn't feel it, but the sight was enough to shock me. I jerked as another sword was shoved through my chest. The blood began running up through my mouth; I couldn't do anything but gurgle. The last day that they tried, I'd panicked. It took me a moment before I realized that, in my panic, I'd possessed the man throwing the sword.

"So, tell me, boy." The leader asked me. "Why haven't you done that before now?"

I honestly had no clue.

"I'll tell you why. You never even considered doing it. Your body was pushed to a limit, and you acted instinctively. However, you've been pushing yourself mentally. You knew the challenge, and accepted it." The man's body rejected mine, and I was back in my chains.

"See, I'm much harsher than other fallen angels you might meet around here. And the fallen that I surround myself with, in the commune, are among the toughest you'll ever meet. I'm making you stronger, boy. You'll thank me later." I looked at his face; a large brown beard surrounded the face of the large pale man whose arms had to be thicker than my entire body. I was baffled.

"I'm not finished with you yet, though. You've got a bit more to go." Before I could use a mindtrick to stop them, my mind was filled with images.

Burning flesh, stab wounds, impalement; any sort of torturous injury one could receive, it went through my head. I swore that I could feel every single injury. I screamed out in agony, but no one cared. After ages, I realized that these were images conjured up in my mind. Because they weren't real, I couldn't actually feel them, and I wasn't actually being harmed. I was able to bring myself into a state of meditation, ignoring the pain, and clearing my own mind.

I didn't know how long I was there until one day I was released from the chains altogether, and dragged to an inn. I woke up later, staring into the face of the Leader. He smiled down at me.

"Four months, boy. I'm impressed. Torture much longer than any other man has taken, and yet you came out of it with just sun blistered skin."

I glared at him hatefully, and he laughed at my expression.

"You've learned how to control your own mind, control others, withstand pain, and keep to yourself. Those are important traits to have in this world. Keep your mouth shut, and you'll get by just fine." Lifting me, he led me towards the small clearing of my suffering. He directed me towards the middle of the circle. When I looked at the entire clearing, I realized that the circle was in fact a pentagram.

"Kneel." Nodding, I did as I was told. Men began to surround me from the dark, reaching the end points of the pentagram, and my nervousness increased. An ancient fallen angel came from the darkness, chanting. He grabbed a bowl, and poured something onto my head. It was blood. Placing the bowl at my knees, he commanded me to bathe my hands in it. The other men began to chant around me in the language of the Angels. It was an eerie, macabre sort of irony; I was being anointed, the same way that Samuel anointed Saul with oil. It was to represent ascension, or in my case, descension. The man painted a bloody star on my forehead, and things went silent. I didn't speak.

When the others vanished into the darkness, I was led back to the inn. I didn't know who the man leading me was, but I had a burning question.

"The blood," I whispered. "Where did it come from?"

"It's human blood. They kill and hang a human specifically for the anointments." He said this without any sort of scruples. "It's symbolic; you've got blood on your hands, and on your soul, and it will never be washed away. Consider yourself now a true demon, Jev Cipriano. Officially, you're one of us. Now you just have to make yourself known."

I supposed that I was thought to be ready, because I was thrown into the throngs of the fallen and left to my own devices. I never saw the strange men again. It took me years. The other fallen angels would taunt and bully me, and push me around. One day, I finally snapped and ended up stabbing one right through his chest, into his scars. I must have seemed crazy; feral like an animal, because no one bothered me after that. I did as told, keeping quiet, and staying in the shadows, getting by. As for my sanity; I never spoke of it to anyone; there was no one to tell anyway. The image of the dead human, strung up for blood like an animal, would appear in my dreams, and some days it would be Katharine or the Duchess. It disturbed me, deeply, and at times, I swore I could see the blood, their blood, on my hands.

I tried to think of other, lighter things to distract myself. I hadn't experienced Cheshvan in so long. I wondered if Chauncey thought he was free. I wondered if Deirdre still had my money. It was thoughts of returning to England; thoughts of finally feeling again, that kept me going. Leaving was no easy venture; you had to travel with someone, and you needed the money to leave. There was no mindtricking the Captain for passage. Needing quick money had driven me first towards work, and then towards boxing.

I wanted to get all American Horror Story gory with it, but that would have been too hard. Feel free to jazz it up with your own imaginations; anything you can think of, he went through it! Also, I swear "descension" is a word, but it says it not! Why is there "ascension" but not "descension"? I know I've heard it used before! If it's not, well...forgive me, and teach me the real word. Please review, loves!