onblackfeatheredwings

[onblackfeatheredwings]

Azrael was glue to his spot, still perched in the window as he watched her leap down the two stories to the ground. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but his first inclination was that he didn’t want Abigail putting herself in the middle of the mess he had created. He felt her magick pulsing in his chest... she was so powerful. He knew her to be formidable, but he had never seen her in battle of this sort. Their time together before had been short, and nothing of this magnitude had presented itself to them, then.

His mouth gaped open in pure amazement as the essences of the angels coalesced into form around her. It was strange... he had never seen anything so like himself until that moment. Some primal feeling deep within him sprouted and grew into a sadness. 

Fallen

All of this was washed away from his stream of thought when Abigail sprouted her own wings. He stood in shock and his eyes narrowed on her. Questions and confusion assaulted him. Just when he couldn’t contain himself no more, his senses grabbed hold of his concentration and his eyes darted to the desolate field in front of them. The summoned angel spirits moved into their formations, and with that he spread his wings and hovered out into the open air. His own bow flashed into his hand. He let loose his own volley with the Fallen and fire etched runes of ending into the tips of his arrows, lines of white light left in their trajectories. He felt some sort of magick working on the ones the Fallen fired on, but he did not know what it was. As Abigail was concentrating on targets with her spear, his eyes caught sight of demons sprouting up out of the ground. He dove deftly and struck one with a fist. He watched as it staggered backwards and in the next instant he drove one of his scythes through its chest. He was a whirlwind of feathers and slashes, dispatching the demons that popped up from the ground in noxious, sulfur-tinged smoke.

In his fury he stilled when he felt a new power rise. He turned in time to see her being snatched off the ground by a hideous man. The world stopped and his breath hitched. This momentary pause let the newly sprouted demons to converge on him. His eyes began to glow a golden-white as his instincts took over. He threw one of the scythes and it whirled in a circle, finding and dismembering heads from bodies. He caught it and slammed the two smaller scythes together, end to end. A concussive force blew out from the connection: snow, demons and rock splinters flying out and away from the epicenter. In their place was now a singular, great scythe. 

With blinding speed he jumped forward and lashed the scythe out. He licked it through the flesh of the man holding Abigail as if he were made of butter. The arm holding Abigail disintegrated and Azrael stepped between them. His wings spread, putting a protective barrier of sorts between himself and Abigail. Tendrils of glowing light wisped out from the sides of his eyes as he glared at the demon.

“Rozan.” His voice was booming and commanding. He had heard Abigail name him, and having a demon’s name sometimes gave power over it to the one who spoke it.

“I am not a summoned essence,” his grip on the scythe tightened, “I am flesh, and I will rend your soul from this plane in slivers if that is what you so wish.”

Hello, From The Other Side || Abigail & Azrael

[onblackfeatheredwings]

He was glaring at her, as he almost felt threatened by her stern grip. When she released him he took a quick step back.

“I knew what you were then, Abigail.” The sudden shattering of the mirror made his wings open slightly, as the commotion took him off guard. He turned his fierce eyes back to her. “I have had conversations with some of the Seven that live in your Star...” 

“I have met your Father, even. Did you know that?” He lifted his hand up and flame snaked from his palm and floated over to the mirror where it wove in-between the cracks and melted it back into place.

His fists clenched tight and he caught her gaze and with burning eyes he shook his head slowly. “I know Daemons...” His lip quirked up in a snurl as he continued, “I have learned how to hunt them... how they move, what they do on this earth, and what they smell like.... and in all the time I have known you... As I see you now, you are not Daemon. Touched by them, yes, wielder of their magics and servant to the one you call Father.... but you, Abigail. You are not of Hell.” He looked away from her and out the window again.

“Something as beautiful and pure as you could not be borne out of the depths of a place like that.” He shut his eyes and breathed out a heavy breath.

“I know more of myself, now... But I still do not know all... all of what I am. I still have no memories of what or who I was before I was released from the crystal prison in the desert.” He opened his eyes again, but would not look at her.

“The first thing I do remember, is the kindness and compassion a woman gave me.” 

He turned to her and began to take a step toward her.

“Abigail-” he began to reach out to her then stilled in place as a pulse of power hit him in his chest. Power. A lot of it. He could sense it, feel its weight baring down upon his chest.

“Do you feel that?” He asked, turning away from her and walking to the window that looked out over the landscape.  “The Legion...” He breathed softly. “They felt their brother’s end and have started combining.” His fingers moved to the latch and he swung the windows open wide. He jumped up to the seal and then looked back at her.

“I will go and take care of this...” He looked at her over his shoulder and from under a wing. Another pulse of power resounded in his chest and he winced slightly.

The Legion was more than he would have expected it to be.

“I....” He began, but didn’t know what to say.

“What can you tell me of a Legion? This one is becoming more powerful than I had thought it could manage.”  The threat of impending danger made him forget momentarily their ugly tension and anxiety. 

Hello, From The Other Side || Abigail & Azrael

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[onblackfeatheredwings]

“Abigail?” He asked as he turned, finding her folding in on herself and sitting on the floor... she was curled into herself, making herself small... After all this time her name felt strange, and foreign on his tongue. Speaking her name carried power, and if he made her into a rune it would have had enough power in it to burn the world down...

Deep within him a need coursed through his veins and nearly over took his resolve to stay standing where he was. It took everything he could muster within himself to stay where he was, and not fall around her, catching her up in his arms and sweeping his wings around her. He let the picture fall to the floor, afraid in his state of heightened that he would accidentally set it ablaze. How could such a thing, more precious than anything in the world to him at that moment, be lost to a fit of wild angel flame?

His wings shimmered into place, for he did not have the fortitude or mental will to keep them hidden. He crouched then, putting himself closer to her level... His wings splayed out behind him like massive, wilted drapes. 

“You’re... sorry?” He asked. Bitterness roiled within him, along with all of the other emotions that crashed in him like tsunami waves.

“I was but a child in this world...” He looked up at the ceiling his, hands coming up and rubbing into his face haggardly. “And I woke up that morning to find that the only thing that meant anything to me had vanished.”  He dropped his hands and his arms rested over his knees that he was crouched on. His hands clenched into fists, veins straining across his forearms as his knuckles whitened.

“You don’t get to be sorry about something like that.” Apologies beckoned forgiveness, and promises that the transgression wouldn’t be committed again... The wound of her leaving him had scarred over... and here she was, ripping it off and making it bleed like it was fresh. He wouldn’t be quick to forgive... or to think she wouldn’t leave him again.

“I searched for you for a year, and you were nowhere... Not a trace of you. It was like you were a vapor that had come into my life and then simply dissipated...” He closed his eyes and remembered the day he had met her, on the rooftop of a tower he hadn’t thought of in what felt like eons. 

He opened his eyes and looked at the picture of the two of them. “Yet, here you are... in a house that is every...” His eyes blinked rapidly, trying to hold back the warmth he felt welling behind them... “everything you wanted.” He picked the picture up and tossed it in her direction. It landed just an inch or two short of her feet. “With a picture of the two of us...” His facial features scrunched into a tortured expression.

“Why keep it?” He asked softly.

She hadn’t looked at him since she had fallen into her protective cage of arms and legs.

He stood silently and strode the few feet that spanned them. He bent and his hand snaked through her curtain of beautiful hair and grasped her chin, gently bringing her face out of hiding. He couldn’t bare not touching her... not even with what lay between them and the hurt he was feeling like a fresh lash on his heart.

“He of heaven and she of hell...” He began. “... I sought out an oracle... someone to help me find you... and that’s the first thing that crone said to me when she touched my hand.” He let his hand fall away from her face as he straightened to his full height. He offered her his hand again and tugged her up, making her stand. “She told me you didn’t want to be found, and so you wouldn’t be.” His wings perked up and sat behind him, folded nicely. He reached out and caught one of her tears on his thumb.

Her crying and obvious state of being distraught hurt him, and stabbed at his heart. 

He spied the Star of Chaos, nestled neatly between her clavicles. He reached up and rubbed a finger across it. When he touched it the sound of singing flesh could be heard, and a tendril of smoke rose up from it. He felt the demonic presence in it and his lip inadvertently quirked in a small snarl.

He had become cold since their departure, and something deep within his nature made him want to reach out and put his hands around her throat as his finger lingered on the star.

“I am changed, and yet it seems as though you are the same as you ever were.” He stepped back from her. He was at a loss... he didn’t know what to do. He looked over at the window, wondering if he should leap through it and fly away and try to forget that he had ever stumbled upon her like this...

“If you could have left me so easily...” He said as he stared out the window at the white canvas of the outside world, “why did you keep that photograph?”

Hello, From The Other Side || Abigail & Azrael

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[onblackfeatheredwings]

Hello, From The Other Side || Abigail & Azrael

He sat, sullen faced in the snow clad tree he had perched in. It had been hours since he lit there, watching the little house from far across the snow covered fields that led up to its edges.

No cars had come, or gone... no one had stepped foot outside the door... no figures could be seen in the windows. Something was vexing about this place and the surge of power he had felt earlier that had lured him that. The thought of it being an actual lure set him on edge and he looked around his surroundings, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. No tracks of any kind defiled the pristine blanket of snow. He shook his wings and the snow flakes that had collected and clung to his feathers fell away and drifted down to the limbs below him. He looked around once more before he spread them wide and jumped into the air and flapped, causing the currently falling show to tendril around him in silent wisps.

He was upon the house in moments. Just before he would have collided with an invisible wall he perceived just a glint of it- the wardings that surrounded the place like a dome. His wings buffeted the air and made him back up, hovering there. In his hand appeared a bow, long and re-curved. It was made of a dark, black wood that was adorned with golden accents. He drew in it an arrow and spoke a single word.

“Menau.”

Open

 A rune sprouted on the tip of the arrow and sparks flew off it. As soon as the rune had melted into the metal he let it loose and it flew forward and pierced the ward. What looked like heat ripples undulated from the epicenter of the arrows puncture and a hole opened up. He swooped in and turned to see the wardings collapse back together, sealing him. Gracefully he descended and his flight feathers grazed the snow before he folded them away.

He stepped up to the front door and closed his eyes and turned his head to listen. He could hear nothing but the sounds of nature around him. From within the house he could sense nothing... no souls were present, at least.

He used another opening rune that he etched into the door handle with flame. It flashed and then disappeared, and the door swung open. He stepped up to the door frame and peered in. It was perfectly simple... warm... inviting, even.

And familiar.

He stepped over the threshold and closed the door quietly behind himself, never taking his eyes away from the expanse before him. He walked through the hallway and found what he presumed was the house’s living room. A throw was wadded up in the corner of the couch, and some of it spilled over the side. He strode over to it and picked it up. The fabric was fuzzy and silky at the same time. He rubbed it between his fingers, feeling its potential warmth. He let it fall back to the couch and looked around the room.

Nothing here,in this room, would have pointed to anything that could have explained the power that drew him here...

He moved on, treading with silent feet that carried him into a kitchen. Sparse dishes were sat beside the sink. A meal had been made recently. Only one plate was dirtied. Someone had been here, yet he had seen no one come or go.

He filed that information away and exited the kitchen. Looking around, he found the staircase. Halfway up the steps he stopped, every muscle in him frozen except for his lungs that pulled in a scent through his nose. His eyes blazed up with a golden glow. 

Lilac, sunlight and spice.

His heart began to race and his hand grasped the stair rail, the tension turning his knuckles white. His pace was slow as he continued up the flight to the second floor. Eyes swept the hallway to find a door that was only slightly ajar, and two others that were shut tight. He moved to the open one and slowly opened it further. It swung aside to reveal a sizable bedroom. Tones of purple accented the space. The bed was made and on the table beside it was a single lamp and a book. His eyes became fixated on it, as it was old and something about it seemed familiar, but in a different context that the house itself had when he first walked into it.

He strode over to it and let his fingers run across its surface. A faint gold shimmer spread across the surface of it as he touched and he gasped, pulling his hand quickly away as the tome had caused a strange sensation within the digits that had grazed it. He flexed his hand, feeling like he had just touched a live wire. The gold light shifted until it settled into an Angelic rune. He backed away from it, utterly confused.

In the past two years he had learned much of what it meant to be what he was... but there was still so much that he didn’t know... 

He bumped into a bookcase that had been behind him, carelessly letting himself get lost in contemplation of the book. The jostling of it had upset something on its shelves and he heard the faint tinkering of a music box.

His heart seized in his chest... slowly he turned, knowing exactly what it was he would see.

A beautifully made, ornate music box was tinkering away. He reached out and flipped the lid open, a small spinning ballerina figurine sprang to life and twirled around, dancing to the haunting melody. His thumb caressed it lovingly before he closed it. As he did so, his eyes shifted to the left and landed on a framed picture that made him feel weak. He picked it up and brought it closer, inspecting it.

After a year of keeping the phone charged, waiting for the call he yearned for so badly... after finally deciding it was time to let the need for her go... He had let the phone die and never charged it again. That was the last time he had seen a picture of her, his Abigail.

But there, in his hand, was a picture of the two of them. She was beaming with smug amusement as he himself was caught looking utterly confused. He had forgotten she had taken that picture...

His feet had carried him out of the bedroom without him paying much mind, completely lost in the picture and the feelings that finding it had flooded through him. He looked up, feeling more lost than he that day, long ago, when she had vanished from his life.

Two closed doors glared at him, and he chose the one on the right, bursting in, more than half expecting to find her standing there. It opened to a wide room with hardwood floors and a mirror for a wall opposite of where he was standing.

A dance room. Of course.

He looked at himself, seeing his golden eyes blazing with wild emotion. The hand not holding the picture came up and rubbed across his face and up to rake through his hair. He brought the picture back up. When he had it at eye level, he saw in the mirror another... She was there, standing behind him just inside the door way. He did not turn, but stared at her as his eyes widened. The picture frame snapped and the glass shattered.

“Are you real?” He asked the mirror. “Or are you some daemon come to try your hand at killing me, drudging up this sick hallucination to weaken me?”

He hoped for the first, but would have to admit that the latter was more probable. She had left him and never looked back. And what was worse, is that it if it was meant to weaken him... it had.

[onblackfeatheredwings]

Seraphim Sins || Drabble

He stretched out his limbs, groaning out his pleasure of a good night’s rest. His right arm expected to find the warmth of familiar skin, but found not purchase. He blinked his eyes open to see her side of the bed empty. His hand swept down the sheet and found that the satin sheets were cool to the touch. She must have gotten up some time ago. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and he stretched the upper part of his body and arms before he stood and his great wings melted into reality, unfurling from their hiding and stretching as well. Two small flaps and then he caused them to disappear once more.

He brought in a breath, but the space between his eyebrows wrinkled when did not smell her tea. She always had tea before she left.

“Abigail?” He beckoned, and his voice bounced off the smooth floors and walls of the space he had become so fond of. The silence was eerie to him. The air seemed colder and he picked up his shirt from the floor where he had haphazardly thrown it the night before, before he had laid down beside her and hugged himself into her. Down on the streets he could hear the passing of cars and their incessant honking, people talking and walking along the sidewalks.

He padded out of the bedroom to find the living room just as he’d left it before bed… He shot a glance to the kitchen that was darkly lit… she was not framed in the cut out of the bar like he had hoped she would be. He strode over to the balcony and slid the glass aside and stepped outside and looked down at the streets below. The city was alive with movement and sound, but the space behind him seemed to completely consume those ordinary happenings and leave in its wake a strange, aching feeling.

In his confusion he walked to the couch where he sat down gently. On the coffee table before him was the phone she had taught him how to use. He hated it. He hated how it caused people to not look up as he passed them on the streets, for him to not be able to see into their beautiful, strange faces and glimpse the eyes through which he could see their souls.

There were no notifications. She was the only person who even had the contraptions specifications. He clicked icons until it showed her face and number, and one more click had the small green phone within the phone pulsing like it should be, just as she had shown him it would when he needed to reach her.

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed has been disconnected. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please hang up and dial again.” Azrael blinked rapidly as he looked at the phone, then placed it back to his ear.

“Hello?” He said, confused. “Abigail? Is Abigail there?”

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dia-”  He cut the message off and redialed. Every time he called, the same, strangely intonated woman would answer. Finally he sat the phone back on the table and leaned back into the couch and looked around the room.

He waited for a while on the couch. Once he picked up the phone again and tried to call her one more time and reached the same message. He pushed down the urge to crush the infernal device in his hand and stood, moving into the kitchen where he made himself some lunch and then returned to the couch.

When the sun began to set he decided to go out and look for her. Something was off, and the space felt wrong. He donned more appropriate clothes and exited the apartment. He turned and slid the key she had given him into the lock. He heard the pins slide into place one by one and then he turned it, locking it. He let his hand hover there for a moment, wondering if he should leave it unlocked in case something had happened and she didn’t have her key?

After a few moments of hesitation he decided to let it stay locked and began his treck out into the city.  He stopped by all of their favorite spots, not finding her familiar face in any of them. He ended up in Central Park, walking down a path with his hands stuck in coat pockets. It was warm out, but that didn’t bother him. A breeze tousled his hair and he turned his golden eyes up to the sky.

He looked around and found no prying eyes. Again his wings unfurled from his back, great behemoths with ink-black feathers. One great flap lifted him into the air and in a matter of moments he was circling high above the city. He soared, peering down and using all of his might he concentrated on her, trying to pick out her essence among the millions that showed up like stars below him.

He suddenly stopped, flapping and hovering in one spot high above the city’s skyline.

She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere near enough for him to sense her… Clouds wisped just above his head and he looked up at them…

He was utterly alone. There was no one up here… not even the birds that flew in the city could climb this high.

“Abigail!!!” He yelled into the void of the sky.  “Abigail!!! Where are you... Abigail!!!” His voice cracked and he felt tears trickle down his cheeks. He reached up and touched them. Emotions were still an odd thing to him, and this was one he had never felt before…. It was strange, and it made his chest tight and heart ache. He looked down at the city below him, still seeing the pinpricks of light that were the souls of men… The were innumerable, he thought… Something cold and dark stirred in the back of his mind and he clamped his eyes shut.

“No,” he whimpered. He clenched his fists and tucked his wings back and dove down. With slight adjustments he trajected himself back to the balcony of their apartment. He landed lightly and “folded” his wings away. He strode in to the utter darkness of the apartment. She hadn’t been here… not all day.

He stripped out of clothes and put himself into the bed and turned over to stare at her empty space.

He stretched his arm out over the bed and shut his eyes.

The next morning he rose, having slept much less soundly than the night before. He collected a bag from the closet and threw into it a handful of clothes and other effects. On the fridge notepad he scribbled a fast note and placed a magnet over it, doubly securing it.

“Abigail, Call me when you return”

He refused to write the word if instead of when. He walked out of the apartment without looking back at it… it wasn’t the apartment that made it home… no, that had always been her.

******

|| 2 Years and some change later… ||

The snow clung to the trees as if they had been rolled and then doused in stark white icing.  A man trudged through the droves created by whistling winds down on the forest floor with relative ease, despite not having a pair of snowshoes. Every few moments or so, he would chance a quick glance over his shoulder, his breath quicker than it needed to be for his current exertion.

A sound echoed across the forest, bouncing off the frozen tree trunks and multiplying the silence breaker infinitely. The man froze mid step and looked over his shoulder once more, holding his breath. The disturbance had sounded curiously metallic in nature, like a sharp edge sliding against another... Off in the distance he saw two shadows sprout that immediately the shape of wings.

Hot terror flooded through the man’s veins and he turned and gained considerable speed in his heading compared to his previous gait. Suddenly a fireball crashed into the snow just in front of him and heat waves rolled out from the epicenter of the collision, blurring his vision. The man whirled around and snarled in an animalistic way. His pupils began to dilate and continued to expand until the whole of his eyes were black pits. Lips pulled back to reveal needle sharp teeth that looked like they had been rinsed with black food coloring. Long, serrated nails jutted from too long fingers.

A fist came from the left and punched the demon so hard that he was knocked out of his shoes and collided with an adjacent tree. Its icing-snow slumped off and fell in great heaps around the demon, dislodged by the tremor his hitting the towering sentinel had caused. The left side of his face was caved in and bruised and now starting to swell by the blood pooling under the skin.

The sound of air being sliced through by metal was faintly heard just before a scythe sank into his shoulder and out the other side, pinning him against the tree. Blazing gold eyes moved into his view and an vice grip caught his jaw.  

“Where’s the rest of your legion, demon?” The angel spit out the last word as if it were poison in his mouth. Azrael’s face was stern and his brows were angled with anger. This was a lesser demon and hardly worth his time… it was a part of a large group: all of them on their own was fine, but combined in one vessel was a different matter.

The demon spit at him and his face sizzled where the demons ichor spotted his skin. He turned his head and deftly scrubbed the black liquid away. When he turned back to look upon his prey he sneered and pointed a solitary finger at the demon’s forehead.

“Ariah.” He spoke, and a rune burnt itself into the pocked skin.

Pain

It cried out a shriek that pierced through the white forest. But they were too far. Anyone that heard the shriek would have felt their neck hairs stand on end, but would think it some animal cry.

“Where. Is. Your. Legion?!” Azrael asked again. The demon struggled against his holding hand and clawed at the arm connected to it. His tongue began to spill words in a demon language that made the angel’s skin crawl.

He lifted his hand again and pointed the same finger at the unmarred cheek.

“Serae.” A new rune blossomed there on his cheek.

Misery

The demon began to spasm and its breathing was disjointed. A few moments passed and the rune’s power began to recede.

“There are a host of Angelic Runes that will all burn you... even if it is meant for love and happiness. Demons cannot suffer the creations of the Seraphim in any form.”

The demon raged, then. It began to laugh and squirm beneath Azrael’s strong arm and piercing scythe.

“WE WILL BE LEGION, WE WILL BURN YOU IN HELLFIRE!!” Guttural, inhuman sounds began to emit from the being and Azrael rolled his eyes. He stepped back from the thing and spread his wings.

“Come, then. Show me your hellfire.” Azrael beckoned.

The demon pulled itself free of the scythe, slicing its shoulder all the way up so that it could free itself and launched itself toward Azrael.

Gold flames sprouted from between his fingers and then he lifted up his hand.

“Holy flame trumps hellfire.” The demon caught fire and it fell to the snow where it wallowed and shrieked before finally quieting in its death.  Azrael hurtled another plume at its body, making sure it would burn completely away.

He turned and knelt down in the snow and traced a rune of cleansing into its surface. His wings splayed out over the snow like a massive cloak. He stood and looked around at the mess they had caused. He shrugged, noting that not much could be done about it. Demons were messy. He perked his wings up slightly so that only the tips would drag the ground as he walked over to retrieve his scythe. As he took hold of it, a pulse shook him and he looked around, eyebrows knitting together with concern.

It was demonic power… portal magic, if he had to guess. But beyond this, it was somehow familiar. He summoned to his hand the phone he had once hated so much. He rubbed a thumb over it gently, and then looked up. In the next moment he was flying through the trees and up toward the sky, tendrils of kicked up snow circling behind in the drafts of air his wings created.

Several hours later he was lit in tall tree and sheathed his wings, crouching down to make himself smaller and less visible. Of course, if he wished he could use a rune of invisibility, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to be attracting attention. Not yet.

Beyond the treeline stood a quaint two story house that looked cozy and warm compared to the stark, frigid backdrop.

His two years alone since she had left him had been two years of him learning how to hunt - how to be Seraphim. Demons were his prey. He had taken to hunting them, finding that hunting something kept his hunger for human souls in check.

As he watched the house from a far, he wondered if he had finally found the one demon he’d been hunting for since the beginning….