Broken Wings

The torture starts here, but it's more vague descriptions than anything else.

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The dripping of water echoed off of stone and finally managed to rouse Abel to consciousness, who barely managed to bite back a moan as his brain decided to inform him that his skull was too small. His shoulders and wrists ached, and he could feel himself moving slightly with each labored breath he took, indicating that he was hanging. Which also explained why his arms hurt as they were supporting his weight. The foul taste of boiled boot leather combined with the lingering fire in his blood told him louder than anything that he had been drugged by someone familiar with his strange physiology. But who and why? Was this Cain’s next move? He remembered walking in the Vatican’s garden, and then the distinct prick of a needle. How had Cain’s agent gained access to the grounds this time?

The sloshing of water was Abel’s only warning before a bucket of ice cold water was thrown into his face, and he gasped in surprise and pain as he jerked his head up, his eyes flying open. He was expecting to see Isaak or Dietrich von Lohengrin or even Cain himself standing before him, ready to gloat over how easily Abel had fallen into their hands. Instead, Cardinal Francesco di Medici stood there, a bucket in his hand and a smirk of triumph on his face.

What was going on?

“Glad to see you are finally awake, Fallen One,” growled Francesco, his gray eyes alight with a righteous fury that only the true zealots seem to possess. “I grew tired of waiting for you to regain consciousness.”

“Your Eminence, I don’t understand. What is going on?” asked Abel as his thoughts centered on the title Francesco had addressed him with. Only one person had ever called him “Fallen One” as a joke before everything went wrong. Cain had teased him enough times during Armageddon that if he was an angel with his white wings and blond hair then Abel must be a fallen one with black wings and silver hair.

A sharp slap across the face sent his head screaming at him, and Abel tasted blood from his newly split lip. “Do not play coy with me, foul tempter! Your plans have been revealed to me by one of God’s Own Heavenly Messengers, and I will not allow you to corrupt this Sacred Place any longer!”

It was all Abel could do not to groan and find the nearest surface to bang his head against. Apparently Cain had somehow met Francesco in his Crusnik form and had convinced the Cardinal that *Abel* was the one who was a danger to everyone. Cain must have also given Francesco the sedative, meaning it was one that the military had developed to actually take down a Crusnik for a while despite the training they had undergone to build up their resistance to various drugs. Add to the fact that he couldn’t feel the familiar weight of his earcuffs and his glasses were gone meant that he was going to be Francesco’s guest until either the Cardinal grew tired of him, or he managed to get free after the drug had burned itself out in his system.

Casually, Francesco removed his robes, leaving him clad only in a shirt, slacks and his shoes, and he draped the robes of state over a chair set near the wall. Abel watched as the other man approached a table displaying various instruments of torture and knew exactly what the power mad Cardinal had in store for him. He admitted he was a bit surprise to find himself still clad in his black priest’s robes since he would have thought Francesco would have removed his clothes to gain better access to his skin, but when Francesco picked up a sharp knife edged with silver, Abel realized just why he had been allowed to keep his clothes.

“You are fortunate, monster. I have never personally broken any guests of the Inquisition,” remarked Francesco, turning the blade to catch the light coming from both lit braziers and lights recessed into the high ceiling. He approached Abel, who watched with wary blue eyes, and slid the blade up Abel’s right pant leg, the sharp blade cutting through the fabric with hardly a whisper even as it left a trail of pain on the silver haired man’s leg. The process was repeated on the other leg, from ankle to hip, until the black pants fluttered to the ground. A few quick minutes and Abel’s socks and boots joined the sliced fabric.

Lashing out with a foot, Abel caught Francesco across the jaw and sent the man stumbling backwards, the knife clattering to the floor. Glancing up, Abel saw that his wrists were tied to the heavy oak beam with cured leather straps, and he yanked on them, determined to get free before Francesco had a chance to recover.

Just as he felt the leather starting to give, the knife was buried in his stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs with the force, and Abel gasped, unable to do anything but hang there as Francesco twisted the knife. “Nice try, monster, but you’ve failed and did nothing more than earn an even more painful existence before I end your pitiful life.”

Choking out a laugh, Abel grinned at him, his blue eyes mocking even as a trickle of blood slipped down his chin. “Better men than you have tried, di Medici, yet I live still. All you are doing is dancing to another’s tune, and in the end, you will find yourself nothing more than a pawn and puppet to a master who despises your kind even more than I do.”

“Brave words for someone with a silvered knife in his gut,” drawled Francesco, before grabbing a second knife and cutting the rest of Abel’s clothes off, leaving the first knife sticking in his belly and trailing shallow cuts that bled across his skin. Francesco must have angled the knife up slightly to nick Abel’s diaphragm since he was laboring for every breath around the pain in his abdomen, but ti didn’t hurt enough to be a punctured lung.

Francesco kicked the pile of cloth off to one side before walking over to the wall, and Abel was lowered to the floor. Between the knife and the drug still in his blood, his legs collapsed under him, the stone floor digging into his knees, and Francesco continued lowering the beam until it was across Abel’s shoulders. Pausing briefly at a bowl, he extracted two long strips of leather, and Abel could only watch with an unreadable expression as Francesco wrapped the wet leather around his arms, binding his biceps to the oak beam. Abel knew that when the leather dried, it had a good chance of breaking his arms, preventing him from using them to escape. A few more minutes and Abel’s ankles were tied together tight enough to risk cutting off his circulation while the leather was wet.

“You know, that is a good look for you, monster,” remarked Francesco, sounding almost reasonable despite the slight slurring of his words that told Abel he had at least injured the Cardinal’s jaw, perhaps even knocked a few teeth out with his kick. “On your knees, begging for forgiveness and mercy.”

He reached out a hand and trailed his fingers down Abel’s face before tightly gripping his chin, forcing him to meet blazing blue eyes filled with lust. “Or perhaps begging for a different kind of release perhaps?”

“Get your tiny dick anywhere near me, and I’ll make it even smaller,” taunted Abel, snapping his teeth at Francesco who slapped him across the face again, this time on the opposite cheek. “Is that all you can do? Slap me like a girl?”

Francesco gripped Abel’s jaw, his fingers digging into the sore muscles. With the drug still in his blood, it was taking longer than normal for Abel to heal. “There will come a time when you will beg me for gentle slaps but only feel the bite of leather. Enjoy your peace while you can, monster.”

Abel snorted. “Small threats from a small mind.”

This time the blow rocked his head to one side, and the elephants with the cleats and congo drums in his head reminded Abel that antagonizing Francesco had been a bad idea as they struck up a lively tango. The knife was ripped from his stomach, causing him to gasp in pain again, before Francesco did his best to replace his fist in the wound, driving all the air out of Abel’s lungs. Gasping, Abel hung there, unable to curl around the injured muscles as he tried to regain his lost breath, and blood trailed down his abdomen to his legs, slowly puddling around him on the stone floor.

“If you think by infuriating me you will receive a speedy death, you are sadly mistaken,” remarked Francesco, reaching up to smooth his hair off his forehead. “I have yet to loose my tempter in the dungeon.”

“Good, I love a challenge,” gasped Abel, grinning as annoyingly as he can as he did his best to ignore his injuries. He was slipping back into the habits he had developed during the training he had undergone by the human military’s hands to resist breaking under torture. One of them was act like nothing was bothering him even if his guts were lying at his feet on the floor and treat everything like a joke.

Reaching out, Francesco grabbed his silver hair and pulled his head back, baring Abel’s throat, a thoughtful look on his face, causing the pounding in his head to increase in tempo. “Your hair, while quite beautiful, is long enough for me to immobilize your head in this position.”

He released Abel only long enough to grab another stip of leather, and before Abel knew it, his hair was tied to the oak beam, effectively trapping his head and baring his throat to the room. The only way he would be able to get free of that tie would be to either free his hands and get a knife to cut the leather or his hair, or rip himself bald. Francesco hauled Abel back up so his feet were dangling off the ground by a few inches, and then picked up a long bull whip, a smirk on his face.

“Let’s begin,” he purred, unfurling the whip with a practiced flick of his wrist. Abel closed his eyes and braced himself for the first blow, praying that someone would find him and soon.

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It had been three months since Cardinal Sforza had seen Father Abel, and she was worried for her friend. He never just up and vanished before, not without at least telling her where he was going and when he expected to be back. Before the AX and her position as Cardinal, it had been meant to keep a scared girl from panicking and becoming even more frightened, and then it grew into habit.

The only clue to Abel’s disappearance had been the mostly empty hypodermic needle hidden in the rose hedge with his glasses and earcuffs, traced there by Sister Kate who had been trying to raise Abel for Catarina. There had been a tiny amount of strangely glowing blue liquid in the syringe, and the Professor had instantly bustled it off to his lab to identify it, being extra careful after hearing that it was linked to Abel vanishing. What he had reported back had been disturbing to say the least. There had been blood on the tip of the needle that had been a match for Abel’s since it contained the Crusnik virus, but the mysterious liquid had been a combination of natural herbs and manmade chemicals specifically designed to effect the Crusnik system. In a human, it would have been a painful and deadly poison, but for Abel, it would have been a strong sedative that only made him *wish* he was dead upon regaining consciousness.

Catarina had used every available resource at her disposal and had called in numerous favors in an attempt to locate her missing friend, but everything had turned up a dead end.

Abel had vanished as abruptly as he had entered her life.

A solid knock on her office door pulled her out of her thoughts, and Catarina turned away from the window to call for the person to come in. Father Leon Garcia de Asturias opened the door and quickly entered the office after making sure that it was empty except for her, but the figure behind him was a complete surprise. Brother Petros, the Inquisitional Department’s Knight of Destruction, slipped in before the door was firmly shut behind the two me. It was usually Francesco she dealt with when having to deal with that group of zealots, having only truly come in contact with any of the agents when Sister Paula had saved her in Carthago.

“What can I help you gentlemen with today?” she inquired, raising a blond eyebrow as if having the head Inquisitor in her office was an everyday thing.

Leon continued glancing around. “I hate to sound paranoid, Your Eminence, but is there somewhere we can talk in *private*?”

The emphasis on the word “private” told Catarina that Leon knew of Francesco’s habit of bugging her office in an attempt to one up her in the political struggle, and she nodded her head, gesturing for them to follow her. She turned to the large French doors that led out into the expansive garden, and casually strolled towards the one place that she knew Francesco would never think to spy on her.

Lilith’s tomb.

Reaching the iron gate that acted as a door, Catarina pulled a small key out of her robes and slid it into the lock, ignoring Petros’ gasp of surprise. The roses hanging from the vines that covered the tomb brushed against her large hat as she unlocked the gate, gently pushing it open. Gesturing for them to follow her, she glided down the stairs into the darkness, pausing long enough to light a torch that was placed there just for her. The solid clang of the gate closing behind them echoed down into the darkness, but Catarina wasn’t afraid. She had visited Lilith several times both with Abel and by herself and knew what was here. Leon and Petros were in for a surprise.

It didn’t take long for her to reach the bottom, Petros’ armored feet heavy on the stone steps, and she moved around the room, lighting the braziers with her torch even as she skirted the large item in the center of the room. Petros’ second gasp of surprise and Leon’s muttered swearing informed her of when it was bright enough for them to make out the escape pod with the gorgeous woman apparently sleeping inside.

“What is this place? Who is she?” asked Petros, gazing at the large scarlet cross emblazoned on the nose of the pod. His voice was hushed, out of respect Catarina figured, and she smiled softly as she placed the torch in the holder.

“That is Lilith Stahl, Abel’s mother,” Catarina remarked, laying a hand on the pod as she smiled down at the red haired beauty. “Or as much of a mother as anyone can be to him. As for this place, it’s the last place Francesco would think to find any of us.”

“Good,” Leon stated before jerking a thumb at Petros, the fire flashing off of the silver bangle like cuff around his wrist. “The good Brother here has information about Father Four Eyes to share with us both.”

She gazed at Petros with pleading gray eyes. “You know where Abel is? Please, tell me. I’ve had people searching everywhere for him, and we haven’t found anything.”

Petros sighed like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “It is with a torn heart that I tell you of this,” he began, his dark eyes filled with shadows. “Back in Carthago, Father Abel saved my life despite revealing his true nature to the nun and myself.”

“And he thought you were unconscious when you never mentioned anything about it,” remarked Catarina with a small smile. “Go on please.”

Taking a breath, Petros seemed to steel himself for his next words. “Cardinal di Medici has been acting strange for the past four months. At first, he was watchful, tense, as if waiting for some event to happen, and now, he is frustrated, as if whatever project he is working on fails at whatever he is trying to accomplish. Last week, I noticed some blood on the hem of his robe where it would have been dragged through a puddle. That made me suspicious as there have been no new prisoners brought to the Inquisition’s dungeons, and the Cardinal has never broken any prisoners himself, preferring to allow us to do it for him. Following him into the dungeons, I found your lost one.”

Catarina felt her blood run cold at the thought of her kind friend in the hands of a sadistic bastard like Francesco for three months. Part of her wanted to rush down to those dungeons, guns blazing, and sweep him out of that dark place, while the more logical part pointed that Abel would be vulnerable to Francesco if he remained at the Vatican. She closed her eyes, dreading the answer to her next question but needing to know all the same. “How badly injured is he?”

“Both arms have been broken between shoulder and elbow along with both ankles using wet leather straps,” Petros reported, a sick note in his voice. “There are numerous cuts, burns, and the floor under him is practically dyed red with his blood. A lesser being would have either died or been driven mad by such injuries, but sanity is still prevalent in his eyes.”

“What I don’t get is what prompted Cardinal Crazy to go after Abel like that,” Leon said, speaking for the first time since they had descended into the tomb. “I mean, he usually targets Her Eminence in the political arena, not the AX agents themselves. And if this was about Abel being what he is, then why didn’t he get snagged before this?”

The Knight of Destruction cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I placed a remote camera in the cell to record the Cardinal’s behavior while assuring Father Abel that he would be rescued as soon as possible,” he stated. “I will not show you for the brutality that the Father was able to endure is nothing short of horrifying, but during the Cardinal’s ravings, he seemed to brag about an angel instructing him to break the Fallen One and this Fallen One’s corrupted grip on the Vatican. And ‘Fallen One’ is how the Cardinal continued to address Father Abel.”

Reaching up, Catarina massaged her forehead as she paced next to the pod, her skirts whispering across the stone floor. They would have to plan this carefully to not only get Abel away from Francesco and the Vatican to safety, but also to do it in such a way that Francesco wouldn’t be able to trace it back to any of them and take his insane notions out on anyone else. Which meant going down when Francesco wasn’t there or was due to be down there any time soon. “Does Francesco go into the dungeon at night or during the day?”

“He prefers to go during the day when he is not in his office working,” Petros announced. “Usually in the afternoons to evenings, before Vespers.”

The blonde woman nodded before turning to Leon with a heavy heart. “I hate to ask this of you...”

“Abel’s my friend, and one of the few people willing to find out why those thirty priests died in Hispania with my wife,” the Spaniard interrupted, his dark eyes flashing. “If going to Hell for him is the only thing asked of me, I’ll make sure the Devil regrets my stay.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice filled with all the gratitude in her heart. “You will have to leave your robes behind, but take my personal craft to escape with Abel tonight after Francesco has gone to bed.”

Leon ran a hand through his shoulder length hair. “Where should we go? He’s gonna need medical attention and some place to recover from his trip thought Francesco’s twisted mind.”

Smiling, Catarina pulled a gold locket out from under her robes, and opened the oval locket, ignoring the startled looks she was receiving as she extracted a tightly folded piece of paper. She dropped it in Leon’s hand and folded his fingers over it. “Head east towards the Empire. When you get close to the border, transmit this and safety should be waiting for you.” She shrugged a shoulder as she released his hand. “That’s what Abel told me when he gave that to me over a decade ago, and he told me to follow those directions should anything happen to him and I was left surrounded by enemies.”

“Can you watch over my daughter until I come back?” requested Leon. “She’s at the Saint Gerolamo Emiliani Orphanage here in Rome.”

She nodded. “I will. Take care of Abel for me. I wish I could go with you, but if Francesco has slipped this far, then there’s no telling what he might do next.”

The Spaniard nodded, his dark curls bouncing around his shoulders as he tucked the paper into his own locket, next to a picture of a beautiful little girl with his dark curls and pale eyes. Then he knelt before her on one knee with his fist resting over his heart and his head bowed. “Cardinal Catarina Sforza, Duchess of Milan, I swear to get Abel Nightroad to safety even if it should mean my life. This is my pledge to you.”

It was an archaic pledge, used only in the most serious of circumstances by knights to their lords, and it touched Catarina that Leon held her in such regard. Snagging the crucifix that dangled at her waist, she pressed the tiny button that released the silver blade it hid, and she cut off a small lock of her hair before pressing the golden strands into Leon’s hand as she placed a kiss on his forehead. “Take with you my blessing and my favor to always know you are both beloved of me.”

Petros clasped a hand on Leon’s should as the Spaniard rose to his feet. “I have patrol this eve and will come for you to escort you to Father Abel,” the armored man stated. “After that, you will have to fly hard and fast to reach freedom.”

Leon nodded again before glancing around at the fire lit stone. “We should get out of here before someone notices that we’re not where we should be.”

“I will see you this eve.” With that, Petros climbed the stairs, vanishing into the darkness, and Leon walked over to the silver pod to gaze down at the motionless redhead inside.

“She must have been one hell of a woman to have raised Abel so well,” he murmured, reaching out to place his hand on the thick glass. “I think I would have liked to know her.”

Catarina smiled as she stood next to him, her own hands folded before her. “To hear Abel speak about her, she was a wonderful woman and mother to them even if she never gave birth to any of them.”

The Spaniard patted the glass one last time before turning to leave. “We’ll see you around, Your Eminence,” he called back over his shoulder before he vanished up the stairs as well.

The crackling of fire filled the air as Catarina stared at Lilith before reaching out and placing her hand on the glass. “Please watch out for Abel. He still needs you.” With that, she turned, leaving the tomb and the silver pod with its scarlet cross glowing brightly in the firelight.

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