A/N: To my wonderful lurkers and readers, I do apologize for the lack of writing I've been doing. Been dealing with good ole' depression. Thankfully I have been feeling a lot better, and I wrote this chapter today which sort of spilled out of me. I do put my entire heart into my works, as you all know, so any comments or thoughts about the chapter would be lovely. Do be warned this chapter is quite graphic, blood-wise. In case anyone in confused, two days have passed since the last chapter. Christine is in the care (under her mother's permission, of course) of our beloved Gypsies.

Other than that, I am excited to hear your thoughts. Enjoy…

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The Seraphim

The night before the riot…

Christine lounged back into the turquoise pillows, smiling widely to herself as she inhaled from the glass pipe. The high was made of thick grey smoke and sandalwood incense, and she held it in her lungs as instructed, exhaling only when her body fought against her for breath. The white-haired gypsy, Zariah, knelt near where Christine lay comfortably, removing the heavily jeweled rings from her fingers one by one. She lined them carefully on the painted crate that was draped in scarves, with edges dipped in golden brushstrokes.

Christine wore baggy, faded canvas-like pants, her chest bandaged up, with brown splotches of old and dried blood lining the sides. Zariah took the pipe carefully from Christine's hands, setting it atop the crate near her rings. She held a pair of scissors in her hands, and instructed Christine to flip over.

"I must cut them open, dear girl, if I am to heal them," she ordered softly. Christine closed her eyes against the heaviness of the opium high, turning herself to lay on her stomach. "Do as you must, Zariah," she drawled. "This healing salve is the only reason mother's been letting me stay in here these past two nights," she added with a chuckle. Christine craned her head while laying on her stomach to see if Willow was near.

"Sweet Willow, will you bring me another glass of that bitter wine? I love the way it stings my throat."

Willow bounded up through the smoke, eager to please Christine – the nights that Christine spent inside of the immense, lofty tent belonging to the gypsies were Willow's favorite nights. And Christine had been here since the night before, as she could not perform with her newest wounds from the Ringmaster's bullwhip. Willow rushed over to where the bottles of wine were stacked, filling a light wooden cup all the way to the brim. She could not contain her excitement as she returned to Zariah and Christine, so some of the wine spilled over onto her hands, staining them like blood.

"Willow, my child. Do not be so careless," Zariah reprimanded, although her eyes did not leave Christine's bandaged back. She began to snip away at the tightly woven material, tossing the scraps into a pail by her side. Willow set the cup of wine near Christine's head, and Christine lips opened wide into a toothy smile.

"Oh! Willow…what was it that you needed to show me? You said it was important. Hell, I took lashings for it, so…" Christine paused, not wanting to put blame upon the poor child for speaking. She cleared her throat, soaring upon the opium high, barely feeling the pain of Zariah's scissors digging into her back. A serious look crossed over Willow's face, and she nodded solemnly, padding across the wide expanse of the tent to retrieve something. When she returned, Christine saw a yellowed, folded up piece of paper in her hands.

She was not prepared for the feeling that rose in her chest when Willow unfolded it, holding it up grandly for all to see.

It was a drawing. A charcoal sketch of a black, tall figure, with six, blood-red wings protruding from its form. It's face was split down the middle with a straight black line, with one eye colored yellow, and the other one red, matching the hue of the wings. Christine's mouth fell open as she studied it, her mind pulling on the strings of the past from two nights ago.

The dark figure that she'd seen. The angel. The one that had visited her during her whipping. With two yellow eyes, and a long, snake-like whip coiled in his pale fingers.

"Willow," Christine breathed, resting her head back onto the cushions. "Where did you…how did you come to draw this? Did you see it in a dream?"

At this, Zariah chuckled. "It is a Seraphim, Christine. Unable to leave the heavenly realms, their power lies within the care of the archangels. They are beings born and made of fire, and can, in some cases, speak to us through dreams. Pray tell me, dear Willow, where you saw this six-winged creature?"

"I saw him on the outskirts of the circus grounds," Willow shrugged, as if it were an ordinary meeting. "He was bathing in the river."

"He…he was here?" Christine gasped, as Zariah prodded her in the back, willing her not to move so much. "Did you see his face? His eyes?"

Willow opened her mouth to speak, but Zariah interrupted. "Willow, was this the day of Christine's punishment? After you snuck around and inhaled the fumes of my opium pipe?" She shook her head, pulling the last of the bandages from Christine's ruined skin. "It was a delusion, but still meaningful. Strange," she pondered, dipping a cloth into a bucket filled with water. "Strange that one might manifest himself before Willow's eyes."

"So…does this mean he was real? He was there?" Christine's heart would have been pounding within the confines of her chest, if not for the heavy high of the opium.

"He was real! I saw him! And he saw me! His eyes were…well, it was odd. He had two faces. That's why I drew this line down the middle. One face had red eyes, and the other had yellow eyes."

"Seraphim are depicted as having four faces in all, my dear. One pair of wings covers two faces, and the others are utilized to fly. To travel throughout the heavens," Zariah explained, blotting Christine's back with the soaked cloth. "Usually one of the two visible faces are…well, some kind of creature. An earthly animal. A bull, or a lion, perhaps. But you say they were both human?"

Willow nodded, brushing a hand against the tight, new braids that another gypsy had just finished fixing. "It was two different faces. And the wings were bright, like…like fire. It looked like they were made out of flames. But when he went into the water, the flames didn't burn out."

Zariah smiled to herself, and Christine let out a long sigh, squeezing her eyes shut, demanding that her mind reveal him; allow him to show himself to her once more.

"I…I had this feverish dream," Christine murmured, her chin resting upon a lavender colored cushion. "While Mr. Beauchamp was whipping me. I saw a man…well, more like a figure. Tall, and broad, and covered in black. Like a charcoal sketch. I don't remember seeing fire, or wings, but…his eyes were yellow, and he was looking at me. And his hands…he had these long, white fingers. The color of somebody that had no life left inside of them. And he held a whip. I…I told mother about it, and she said that angels weren't dark colored. That they would be made of light. But he was real, Zariah…I just know it. And he appeared to me in a haze, like a dream. A pain filled dream."

Zariah hummed thoughtfully to herself. "He might have been a seraphim of pain. They are God's great guardians, second only to archangels. Each one has a particular…well, sort of responsibility. A job, if you will. Something they are in charge of."

"So you think this one…he was in charge of inflicting pain?" Christine asked, her heart desperate to know more. If she had learned anything from Zariah, it was that the spiritual realm was very real – just as real as the scientific books she pored over unto the late hours of the morning.

Zariah shook her head, and Willow sat down beside Christine's head, beginning to braid her pitch-black hair that was strewn over the pillows. "He would have a glorious purpose, with six wings. He might come to those who are in deep pain, and take their pain upon himself. He is able to handle suffering better than we, who suffer all too often and do not understand why."

Christine let out a long sigh. "But you said they cannot leave the heavenly realms. So Willow's Seraphim in the river…"

"Most likely an opium induced hallucination," Zariah responded, dribbling a hot salve onto Christine's back from a small, clay jar. "But hallucinations can still be meaningful. They represent something, even if the thing – angel – or man, that has been seen, is not physically there."

"I'm confused," Willow scoffed, tossing down the attempt at braiding Christine's hair in frustration. "I smoked only a little off that pipe. But he was real, Zariah! He saw me, and I saw him!"

"You are a child, my dear; one hit off of the pipe will have you seeing the face of God."

Willow stood up, stamping her foot down into the earth. "No! You're wrong! He was real! He didn't want anyone else seeing him but me. He looked around to make sure no one was there."
"Did he speak? Did he say anything to you?" Christine asked hastily; for once in her sordid life, she wanted her pain-induced existence to mean something. The man she had seen was indeed otherworldly, a terrifying yet peaceful presence – a collision of love and pain.

"Yes! He said…he said something about the white tiger."

Christine's stomach recoiled like the end of a dark whip, and she suddenly felt nauseous. "The…the what?"

"The white tiger," Willow repeated, as if it were a common phrase. "He said she would die."

Christine attempted to get up, but Zariah's strong hands stopped her, pushing her back into the pillows. "Let me up, Zariah! Let me up!" her voice was hoarse in her throat, and bile began to rise as she remembered overhearing the handlers two nights ago…

Planning to kill her beloved white tiger.

"They're going to kill her!" Christine shrieked as the room spun, and she silently cursed how high she was, and how hazy everything appeared around her. Zariah glared at Willow, who quickly put down the wooden cup she had sneakily been sipping on.

"Child, hush now, you're upsetting Christine. And I need her resting and relaxed. Her skin is ripped to shreds!"

"I don't care about my skin, let it bleed, for God sakes! My tiger, my tiger…I have to stop them!" Christine rolled onto her back, pushing herself up with shaking limbs. Zariah sat back on her heels, defeated and angry, glaring at Willow who sat innocently upon a painted crate.

Christine wavered, once on her feet, her breasts exposed to the warm, incense filled air. "Bandage me up, Zariah," she ordered tersely, but Zariah made no move to do so. She simply stared up at Christine, as if she were beholding a mighty goddess of war; Christine was dripping with salve and oil, her muscles tensed, her hair half braided by Willow's clumsy hands.

Her face may have well been smeared with blood. Zariah stayed kneeling, clutching a hand to her heart, her head bowing.

"I think she went into a trance," Willow commented, freely sipping from the wooden cup once more. "Can I come with you?" She asked, bounding off of the crate, eager to go on an adventure with Christine.

"No, Willow," she replied absentmindedly, tearing through the tent in search of some sort of shirt. "It's much too dangerous." Christine ripped a ragged tunic from a pile of muddied clothes, pulling it over her slashed-up skin, wincing slightly as the tattered fabric brushed against the openings in her flesh. "I'm going alone." She opened a wooden chest that sat next to the table of Zariah's healing ointments, digging through the depths until she produced a long, serrated knife. She stumbled toward the doorway of the tent, thrashing through the curtains, plunging herself into the hollow darkness of the night.

Christine began to run, but it wasn't her usual sprint – she found that her legs were heavy, and her back was raw like a fresh bite wound. She felt blood oozing from the scabs, bleeding through the thin material of the shirt, dripping down the length of the baggy, canvas-like pants that she wore. She was a woman born of blood, a woman that had seen a seraphim. Some kind of angel.

In the haze of her high, she wondered if the water of the river had soothed him. Did it hurt to have wings made of fire? Did it burn his flesh? Was he forever tormented by the design of his creator?

"Show yourself to me, show yourself to me," she muttered as she limped along, the lights posted outside every caravan and tent almost blinding her, and she turned her face away as she reached each one – inching closer and closer to the arena. Voices called out to her as she passed, but she only looked forward; she heard the tittering of laughter, the clinking of glasses, perhaps even the droplets of whiskey that hit the earth, splashing in her ears like thunder. She shook her head, blind with rage, with need, with longing to see him; the six-winged man with red and yellow eyes. "Show yourself, show yourself…" she continued to murmur, the knife held tightly in her right hand, ready to cut down anyone that might harm her tiger…

God. She should have released her two nights ago, when the arena was empty.

Christine felt a warm brush of wind run through her as she reached the floodlight that signified the threshold of the arena. The world was a blur around her, and she fell to her knees, dizzy from running, her limbs heavy with the opium that still flickered within her bloodstream. She groaned in pain as she pushed herself upward, stumbling forward, the knife slicing a tiny cut on the inside of her left wrist. "Fuck…" she muttered, wiping her arm on the side of her shirt. "Please…if you're here, angel…show yourself to me…show…" her lips grew tight as she reached the threshold, and realized that the inside of the arena was brightly lit. She stood shakily, breathing raggedly inside of the wide doorway, looking down at a scene that she could not quite believe.

Blood. The arena was filled with blood. She limped forward, blinking her eyes against the stark white lights, her bare feet dragging in the dirt, her hand still gripping the knife. She made her way over to the cage where her tiger had been – but now, there was nothing but a large pile of sinew, torn tufts of fur, and bones.

Christine let out a stifled cry as she fell to the ground, her hands sticky in the blood that soaked itself into the earth. Her fur had been stripped from her, as well as her teeth, and she was unrecognizable in form…

"My girl…" Christine moaned in agony, weeping, clutching bloody hands to her breasts. "My sweet tiger lily…what have they done to you?" She screamed then, out and up into the arcs of the tent, past the heavy fabrics that formed a makeshift roof, wishing it to reach through the sky, for her seraphim to hear. The knife fell from her hand as she covered her face, pulling at her hair, while tears blurred her vision.

"Show yourself!" she screamed, her voice hoarse in her throat, her shirt covered in animal blood. "You told me too late! You told me too late, you prince of hell. Let you be cursed, and damned, and sentenced to death! You are no angel! Look at what you've done! What you've allowed! You…You could have stopped it," she breathed raggedly, snot running down her face, the walls of the arena wavering – still, from the opium. "You could have taken me instead. You should have taken me!" Her shriek seemed to echo endlessly. The walls blurred even further. Christine felt a warmth on her back – perhaps it was her wounds leaking, mingling with the white tiger's blood on the ground. She let out another horrified cry, slamming both fists into the earth. Something yellow caught her eye, hanging from the top of the cage, where the door had been shoved open. Christine staggered to her feet, tasting metal in her mouth, reaching up to pull a wooden sign that hung from the top rung with some twine. She fell back down onto her knees, wiping the blood and tears that stung her eyes, trying to make out the carefully painted words written in that very same color of blood. The blood she now knelt in.

Tomorrow morning it will burn.

They will all burn.

And you, with it.

Christine forced herself to blink again, reading the words over and over. She felt the heat upon her back grow stronger, and she knew – somewhere, in the back of her mind that she was losing a lot of blood.

Again.

Christine pulled herself up from the blood-soaked earth, turning around slowly, letting the wooden sign fall from her fingertips. They needed to get out. Now. Before everything would be burnt. Before they would be slaughtered and skinned alive, like the white tiger…

She froze as a thunderous wave of heat came over her, and it caused her knees to buckle, once again sending her face first into the dirt. Her mouth twisted into a scowl as she lifted her head, ready to unravel upon anyone who saw her like this…

A beast, writhing around in her own suffering.

A collision of pain and love.

He stood in the threshold of the arena. She lifted her chin, wiping her eyes hesitantly, wondering if she was hallucinating…but the air. The air had changed. It was like a great fire was burning quite close to her skin. She felt ashes falling down upon her, fusing into the darkness of her hair, like burnt little stars crashing to earth from the distant night sky.

He stood there, his four wings stretching out away from him, covered in flames that seemed to be alive. His face was shadowed, his eyes like lightning – glimmering both white and yellow. His long, pale hands held onto another mask – no, a face – a blank human face with blinking, red eyes.

She could not see his mouth, nor his nose; it was as if he casted shadow purposely to hide his form. Christine's mouth fell open in awe, and as he began to descend toward her, the heat became more intense – almost more than she could bear. Her mouth twisted into an ugly sneer, and she cried out to him: "You! You…you could have stopped it…you…could…have," she felt tears washing the blood from her eyes as she knelt, beholding his presence for as long as she could.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed as he stopped, still distant from her, but nearer. "I hate you! You did this, didn't you? You did this, you cursed creature!"

Sleep, he instructed. His voice was not one, but two voices overlapping, shattering her hatred, blinding her with flame and ash. She looked down and saw her heart beating outside of her chest, with deep slashes inside of its pink membranes. And it was leaking, it was crying. She struggled to breathe.

Sleep, Christine, or you shall die.

Christine collapsed into the earth, darkness flooding every one of her senses. The last moment she remembered was the seraphim reaching out a long, pallid hand with beastlike claws, his eyes fixated upon her; extending his fingers to take hold of her heart.

…

A/N: Don't kill me for the cliffhanger, my lovelies! The next chapter is the morning of the riot, so sh*t is about to go down. Also, I used the plural "seraphim" instead of "seraph" because there are seemingly two beings in one…THAT'S ALL I WILL SAY…

Drop a comment if you are enjoying the ride, or even drop a comment just to say hi. Anything from you guys makes my absolute week! As always, thank you so very much for reading.

Love, L.