Darker Angels

Miss Murder, Tazzy, DarkCrusnikMagician: Glad you all think Cain is a first class bastard. That thought will be reinforced in the coming chapters. Hope you enjoy.



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Most of the Red Shaman team, AX members and three Methuselah spent well into the wee hours of the morning pulling those still alive from the ruins. Few that they removed from the crumbling structures managed to survive for long, their bodies too destroyed by the lethal combination of blood loss, trauma and shock for even Skye or Circe to be of much help.



The longer the night wore on the more Abel’s shoulders slumped as time after time he watched people fade before he could even finish last rites for them. Hugue wasn’t faring much better as he and Circe tried to match frightened children with frantic parents. They finally found a little makeshift meeting place and left the accumulated children and parents there in case anyone else in their party was found.



Hugue rolled his shoulders and sighed heavily as he watched the sky start to turn lighter with the coming dawn.



“Any more in this area?” he asked, turning to Circe.



“No more that we can help,” she said tiredly. “I hope all of the Methuselah are somewhere out of the daylight.”



“I’m sure they are,” Hugue said, not really caring one way or the other.



“Hugue, you can’t hate an entire race for the actions of a few. It isn’t fair to them and it’s exhausting to you,” Circe said gently. “Let’s go find the others. Abel and Gun are this way.”



She started walking and Hugue obligingly followed her. He watched her shiver a little and shrugged out of the jacket he was wearing and put it around her shoulders. He frowned a little as he noticed faint scarring on her shoulder and further along her chest where the dress bared skin.



“What are those from?” he asked indicating the marks and instantly regretted the question. “I’m sorry, that was too personal.”



Circe shrugged. “Not really. All of us have them. You can’t very well do what we do and come out unscathed. Though the members of the group who are shinigami don’t scar anymore. But you should see Dad’s from the first time he died, those are wicked looking.”



“First time he died?”



“Long and really strange story. Basically, he was trying to protect Mater and got on the wrong end of a demon’s claws. It ripped him open from solar plexus to mid chest.”



Hugue winced. “And I thought mine were bad.”



Circe regarded him very seriously for a moment before saying, “I think the worst of your scars are on the inside.”





Abel sighed and rubbed the back of his neck after he finished giving a young man his last rites. This shouldn’t be happening, he thought, looking down into the youthful face. At that moment, Abel felt every one of his long years and then some. After a while he realized something odd that hadn’t occurred to him earlier.



“Gun, how do they know I’m a priest when I probably look as far from one as it’s possible to get?” Abel asked, looking down at the red mesh shirt and leather pants he was wearing.



Gun smiled a little. “I’ve been glamouring you. To them, you look perfectly priest-ish.”



Abel laughed a little then brushed at the sudden trail of wetness tracking down his face. “Oh, God, this is just horrible,” Abel said.



“Yes. That it is.” Gun put his arm around the other man’s waist. “Come on, there isn’t anything else we can do here.”



Abel nodded numbly and allowed himself to be led away from the rows of broken and bloodied bodies. He teetered dangerously on the keen edge between despair and the need for revenge of some sort. Felt that darker part of himself, which he had always tried to hold so carefully in check, moving just under the surface of his skin.



They rounded a corner and almost walked right into Circe and Hugue.



“Are there anymore, Circe?” Gun asked his sister.



She shook her head sadly. “If there are, I can’t detect a life force from them.”



Gun tamped down the urge to growl. “I was afraid of that.”



“I think we need to get Abel and Hugue back to the house so they can rest,” Circe said.



“I know I won’t put up a fight,” Abel said. “I’m really ti . . . Oh, God!”



In their wanderings they had made a full circle around to what had been the Vatican. What had once been beautiful and majestic was now burned and crumbling rubble that could barely be recognized as having been a standing structure.



“I suppose at a time like this, vows of poverty are a good thing,” Abel said weakly. “If you have nothing then you have nothing to lose.”



“True enough,” Hugue said with a shrug. He was rarely at the Vatican and therefore felt very little attachment to the place as a whole.



//Gun, we need to get Abel out of here before he starts to have a meltdown.//



//Why would that happen?//



//Think, you dolt! Do you really believe he needs to see his comrade’s bodies being dragged out of the ruins?//



//Point taken.//





The night had not gone well for those back at the house in Cymru either.



Tres and Takara had stood their guard duty over Alessandro and Catherina while they listened in horror to the news reports and as hour by hour the body count climbed. Alessandro sat with his knees drawn up to his chest for most of the night, looking positively miserable and as though the weight of the world had suddenly slammed onto his young shoulders. Catherina had tried several times to convince him to go to bed to no avail.



“I won’t sleep,” he said dejectedly. “Even if I do, I’ll have nightmares. So, what’s the point?”



Since she really couldn’t argue with that logic she had dropped it.



Blaze came into the library looking haggard and completely exhausted. She flopped on the couch next to Takara and put her head into her hands.



“You okay, Mom?” Takara asked. “Yeah, I know, dumb question.”



Blaze shrugged. “I haven’t seen a body count at once like this in ages. But it could have been *much* worse. At least Alessandro and Catherina are safe. As I understand it, most everyone was out of the Vatican at the time.”



Catherina nodded. “Most everyone would have been at the blessing of the harvest festival.”



“Hmm. Makes you wonder about the timing, doesn’t it?”



“It does,” Alessandro said, looking thoughtful. “It’s strange that they’d pick a day when the Vatican would be so empty. Why wouldn’t they check to make sure there were as many people as possible there?”



“I don’t know,” Blaze said. “But I can’t see even this new order of Rosenkreuz being that blatantly negligent. There has to be a reason.”