Mikaili

Chapter Seven – Taste of Heaven

Let go.

The agony that shot through Jalen was horrendous, the pain that had smashed into his pounding heart and chest with the knowledge of Kai's ultimate fate so unbelievably heavy, suffocating, squeezing his lungs until he couldn't breathe and everything was spinning before his eyes and holding on . . . It was so excruciating, so tiring and futile really, and the hot-electric pain sizzled through him, stripping away his power, scorching his blood, turning it black with disgusting demonic rot.

Down on the ground he was the palest figure, shining dimly with his pure and ancient sweet glow that was now threatened by the huge waves of crackling black power that sparked dangerously around and against him. It encased his body in a cage-like dome of dark, living, crashing demon power. Each brush against his skin was a small, hot agony, like heated needles piercing him, the walls so thick that he could barely even see his stoic attacker through the black burning embers. But he knew she was there, watching, enjoying watching. They always enjoyed it.

"No," Jalen murmured desperately, unsure of what he was protesting against. Sprawled on his knees like a twisted worshiper, and his heart was racing dreadfully, fluttering in his grief-tight throat and then the adrenaline exploded inside and sent waves of pure, undiluted nausea through him and the overwhelming sound roaring in his ears was horrific. But . . .

Just let go.

The darkness was blurring the edges of his vision, softly calling, dragging his weary body down and how easy it was just to give up to the temptation of blessed unconsciousness. How easy to push back the crushingly distressing knowledge of Kai's death, of his own pain and helplessness, of the destruction of everything around him, and to fall away into the abyss where the constant ache of angelic guilt and purity and self-sacrifice were stripped away and all that was left was the sinful burning desire for pleasure and satisfaction. In his one moment of pure and utter anguish the shadows offered him sweet, deceptive comfort.

No wonder so many of his kind had fallen. Maybe he was beginning to understand.

Ulan stood above him, his omnipotent judge, and without any emotion at all in her eyes she raised a hand again and her black energy smashed agonisingly into Jalen's pitiful form. Tearing at his shoulder blades, his bones, his wings, stripping and deforming him, and she watched silently as the proud angel, her little broken bird, began to scream again.

Beautiful.

Beneath Jalen's pale skin the veins withered and blackened, horrific, a darkened spider web of corrupted blood stretched across his body and pumping hotly through his heart. He choked down the pain but it was pointless, spilling out of his mouth like water as he struggled to the surface only to plunge back down again, his body weakened. And within his desperately clutching hands the budding angel wings were coming away in putrid, rotting clumps of greying feathers, and yet he still couldn't bring himself to beg. What was the point? Everything was over anyway; it had all been torn apart.

Let go.

It was so easy. So easy to float away and leave it all behind and hope that his heart and his mind would be healed by Lethe's balm and forget. So Jalen closed his stinging eyes and black feathers cascaded down around him as he succumbed to the agony inside and dropped into healing, accepting darkness. His writhing body went suddenly and disturbingly limp, as though all life had gone, and Ulan smirked.

"You fool," she whispered, disgusted and yet somewhat impressed by his pain threshold, lowering her hand. The moment that she did the black crackling power, the torturous dome around Jalen's unconscious body, slipped away and was absorbed into the soil beneath him as quickly as water, sliding back down into Hell and exposing him. Now the animal had been released from the trap, but Ulan found little satisfaction in what was displayed. Her master's ominous threat was all too real, frightening though she would never admit it, the words a heavy weight on her shoulders. And though she had captured the boy's Guardian, the real prize seemed repulsively beyond her reach. "You only had to tell me where he was," she said, voice calm despite her anger. "I only needed him."

It was still raining – it had been for hours. The water smashed down in huge and relentless torrents, crashing unnaturally violently into the already saturated earth and rock, the sound a deafening and constant roaring that Ulan had almost become used to despite how grating it was. Above her the sky was quickly darkening, all trace of blue permanently lost as the black rain clouds imprinted themselves over it like smothering shadows, and before her the self-sacrificing unconscious angel was suddenly beautiful and shattered to her eyes, pale and darkened by Hell's power, soaked through but still lovely and entrancing.

She hadn't wanted him; apart from being her adversary, Jalen hadn't concerned Ulan in the least, but suddenly looking at him she realised that her heart was racing in pure exhilaration. Now that the anger had faded she truly comprehended for the first time what she had done. Sprawled out before her, completely at her mercy, was an angel; a poor, lost, wingless, beautiful and broken angel, a pale creature with black blood in its veins, black wings blooming from its shoulder blades, drenched entirely and far from home. It was exquisite, hauntingly ethereal and exotic, and it was hers. It belonged to her completely. And it was a taste of Heaven that after all these long years of bitter Hell she had almost forgotten.

A slow, eerie smile spread slowly across the usually stoic porcelain face.

She would find the mortal Kai – it wouldn't be difficult no matter where he tried to hide. But until then Ulan could have her fun, and Jalen would be exquisitely amusing to play with. Already the excitement and dark delight were flooding her veins because owning an angel was like owning a piece of Heaven, and tarnishing it felt glorious. "You silly creature," she said, moving towards Jalen, and then looming over him, taking him in, swallowing him down. "I would have let you go and flutter back home. All you had to do was beg." And then, smirking slowly, "I'll make you beg."

She opened her palm and in an instant there was an orb of furiously burning black power there. Emotionlessly Ulan stared at it, knowing what damage it could cause, what the angel would be reduced to when it touched him, and the thought only spurred her on – there was no guilt, not anymore. With smooth moments she turned her hand over, opened her fingers and watched it drop away . . .

Bam.

Out of nowhere, shooting through the black air with almost impossible speed, a strong power slammed into the orb of energy and knocked it clear away. Suddenly aware, Ulan watched the power smash into the ground and dribble away like yoke from a broken egg, but immediately she was on full alert, because something immortal was nearby, and it wanted the angel safe.

"Who's there?" she said slowly, blank eyes slipping through each shadow, searching. "Show yourself."

Silence.

Bam. And then another wave of power crashed through the air, burning, the hot acidic smell reaching her only a moment before the black-electric energy did, eerily bright and horrific through the dimness and the pouring rain. But this time she was prepared, and Ulan quickly raised a hand and shielded herself against the attack, the dark sparks hissing furiously against her, struggling to reach her body but only able to lightly scald her skin for a moment before it was forced away with a vicious swipe of her arm. This was nothing, the power so weak, as though just barely learnt. Could it be . . .?

"Child," she cried, lips twisting into a smirk. "Mikaili, show yourself."

Nothing.

"You want to save your foolish Guardian, boy? Come with me willingly and I'll spare his life."

Still nothing, but Ulan felt the warmth of near-triumph welling up inside of her, hot and pleasant as it spread across her chest. Mikaili, her prey, the little mortal, was hiding in the stifling darkness and she could feel his very presence down to her ancient bones. There was no way he could escape no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much his foolish pride and defiance flooded his veins, because her master wanted him and failure would mean destruction. She wouldn't fail.

"Stop your games," she purred gently, calmly. "Don't be afraid. I promise I won't harm you."

Crack. Something behind her moved, breaking the heavy silence beneath the rain, and Ulan whirled around swiftly and with no hesitation threw out all her power. Finally the boy had given away his last secret and with the taste of conquest sweet in her mouth she sent a huge, destructive and powerful wave of booming demon power into the already crushed building where she had heard the revealing noise. An explosion of broken brick and shattered wood and glass burst deafeningly in her ears and rained down thick dust and shards around her, but Ulan could only smirk at what she had done, knowing what treasure she would find beaten and bloodied among the debris.

"Foolish mortal," she whispered.

"Sorry, guess again."

And that was when the ground gave way beneath her. The voice had come from behind, and it was achingly familiar, but there was no time to fit the pieces together because suddenly something slammed into her body and tore her apart. Hot, burning pain shot through her, every muscle tense, aching, heart and lungs agonisingly strained, stomach knotted, the blood pumping in her twisted veins burning. She inhaled sharply and clawed at her chest in some desperate attempt to make her body breathe but the wrenching pain wouldn't fade, seemed to last much too painfully long as her body was invisibly hacked apart.

"Damn it," she screeched, cold composure lost in an instant of agony. And then the power blessedly died away and she whirled around with anger blazing in her eyes, still struggling to breathe but the need for vengeance was completely overwhelming and drowned out all thoughts of triumph. "Who's there? Who are you?" she demanded harshly, spitting flecks of blood. "How dare you? I'll have you skewered for this."

The voice laughed mockingly. "Sounds tempting."

"Show yourself, coward!" she hissed.

It hadn't worked before, but now that Ulan was a screeching mass of torn muscle and hot fury, now that her cold and calculating demeanour had been flattened and her body drained, her assailant obviously felt safe enough to slip slowly out of the gloominess and be revealed. Her eyes raked quickly over the figure; a young man dressed entirely in black and bathed in flickering fire-like shadows, skin and sky-blue hair dyed by the dimness, a pair of deadly silver eyes watching her with infuriating mirth and a smug smile of self-satisfaction on his face. He was peppered with heavy raindrops, hair matted to his forehead, drenched, but the fact didn't take away any of his impressiveness, or his power. Or his deceptive beauty.

Ulan was wrong. He wasn't a man at all.

"Yahto," she breathed in sheer disgust.

"Nice to see you again too," Yahto drawled, one hand on his hip. And then, gesturing to the huge ravine of torn earth behind them, the burning, broken seal of Hell, the piles of rubble and the intensely glowing figure in the distance, he said, "Was all this your idea?"

"Shut up," Ulan said coldly, eyes never flickering away from the pleasure demon before her, the suspicion rising in her throat. This was a creature not to be trusted. "You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into, you arrogant imbecile. Leave now, before I wipe that stupid smirk off your face."

One eyebrow slowly rose. "D'you think you could manage that in your condition?" he asked with a small laugh. And then, suggestively, "Besides, I've always wanted an angel."

Instantly Ulan raised her arm to strike, a territorial instinct awoken, but Yahto was just as quick. A rapid flurry of movement and then the wet air was saturated with dark, demonic power, hot and crackling and ripping through atoms with such speed that they burnt, acidic stench polluting, choking. Two waves of immense energy crashed mercilessly into each other, bright electric sparks harshly lighting up the darkness as they fizzled severely against the other, battling, pulsating, pushing, strong forces born of the same dark place and power.

Yahto gritted his teeth together hard and he threw more of the energy out of himself and into the air, his earth-form trembling from the sheer strain of it. Ulan had been hurt, but she was much older and much more powerful than him and this . . . this was almost an agony but he couldn't seem to back down because again the world was falling apart around him and he felt so disgustingly useless. This time . . . this time he couldn't . . . he just couldn't . . .

With a cry of anguish or effort, he wasn't sure, Yahto gathered every last ounce of strength he had inside as the memories washed through him, searched inside of every cell and bone and organ and scraped it together quickly despite how much it hurt. And with weak, shaking arms he drove it through the air with a muffled shout, his heart fluttering desperately in his throat, and watched.

Ulan hadn't expected it: Yahto was much too young and confidently lazy. She only realised the truth of his power when every bit of it connected fully with her body with a dull thud, and the agony was much more intense and all consuming than before. A scream tore from her throat as the sharp blow seemed to smash everything into pieces, frying her veins with the heat, burning in the back of her throat until she could taste the blood, splitting her head, her very skull apart, as well as her previously damaged muscles. Everything inside quickly became nothing but mush and powered dust.

She could barely move but she had to, because the humiliation of what had happened was almost as painful as the damage itself, and if she stayed any longer then Yahto wouldn't hesitate in attacking again and she couldn't afford to heal any more damage when Mikaili was still out there to be found. So, hissing under her breath, body beyond fatigued and scorched from the inside out, Ulan retreated, slinking away back into the shadows like an injured animal despite the sheer fury inside of her. She couldn't afford to lose now, not because of pride. "Damn you, you traitor," she hissed under her breath, and then she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness.

Yahto, breathless, aching all over, watched her go and fell down to his knees gracelessly in that very moment.

"Crap," he groaned, barely able to believe how sore and tired his body was, how much it ached, how hard it was to breathe. Over the years he had grown used to his mortal form, but he had never pushed it so far before and now he felt like it was slowly dying all around him, the air unable to get past the knot in his throat. And what was it all for? Shaking, damp with both rainwater and his own sweat, heart racing madly, cheeks flushed and wondering at the panic inside, hating it, Yahto turned his head and looked through the heavy darkness. And he realised for the first time that a pair of silver-blue eyes were watching him.

His heart leapt into his throat despite himself.

The pale jeans and dark shirt, amber and yellow topaz beads against skin so white it was almost bloodless, the saturated gold-peach hair that fell across eyes that were all-knowing, all-seeing, and the creature laid out on his stomach on the ground was such an otherworldly contradiction. Because despite the ordinary jeans and the shirt he was glowing dimly in the pale light, his body like solidified light, and there were wings on his shoulders that had tried to bud, but had withered and died instead. On his knees Yahto froze completely and could do nothing but peer through the heavy rain at the broken angel with the dark web of black blood burnt into his skin. It was . . . wrong.

"I . . ." he murmured. "You . . ."

Those eyes were still watching him, unblinking, vacant. Suddenly faced with what was left behind, Yahto felt the knot in his throat growing painfully tighter. He didn't know what to do, what to say, to hurt it or to help it, the dual feelings raging inside, but he was still young enough to find something awe-inspiring about the angels, because they made him ache inside with a feeling that he had thought long buried. And now this one . . . He didn't know what to do. He just didn't know.

"Crap," he breathed again, but this ache was different.

And then there was something in his painfully pounding heart that spurred him on, something about the adrenaline in his blood that made the demon reach out slowly, hesitantly, if only to sweep his fingers against that light. If only to feel it against his skin – a creature from a place that had denied him, now unbearably distorted and tainted before him by some cruel twist of fate. Swallowing hard, he inched closer with each long moment, brushed against dark feathers -

And suddenly there was a painful stinging in the pit of his stomach and Yahto started, pulled back quickly as though burnt. "Shit," he murmured as he felt a strange and ancient pulling inside that he couldn't quite name. Something had happened. The Gateway into Hell had been ripped open ruthlessly, the air and earth torn apart and polluted with pumping dark power, he knew that, but this . . . Something was stirring and crawling and screaming beneath him, beneath the very soil they were both pressed again.

Something was awakening.

"Get away from him!"

All illusion was broken with those words, the brief moment shattered by that forceful shout. Turning, Yahto's eyes swept over two very different figures: a small, dark-haired mortal child with unfocussed eyes, and another angel, a young one, who looked at him in anger and suspicion despite the obvious fear that clawed at her. She ran between him and the battered angel, arms spread out protectively as though to block him, drenched but determined and undeniably defiant.

"What have you done? Stay back!" she warned. "Don't touch him!" And then, unwilling to move, to bend down to her comrade, "Jalen? Jalen?" She called to him, but each time her voice wavered a little more when she didn't receive an answer, and Yahto didn't know if it was any use trying to explain when she kept looking at him with those angry and accusing eyes, and why did he need to explain? Why not just knock her down and take Jalen for his own, because he was a pleasure demon and the broken angel was the most tempting thing he had come across in a long, long time, and having him in every way, touching every part of him, owning him completely, loving him and tearing him apart with his obsessive bloodlust . . .

"What did you do to him?" she demanded icily, still standing there with outspread arms, wet hair falling into her face. "If you've hurt him I'll -"

"It's not me you need to worry about," Yahto said morosely, interrupting her suddenly. He knew what was going to happen; he could feel it, had felt it before she even arrived, and there was nothing he could do anymore.

And that was when all Hell literally broke loose.

Intense garnet eyes looked up at him through the darkness, burning into him, through him. His heart pounded so deafeningly that the loud badum badum seemed to swallow him down until nothing was left but the primal sound and the sizzling rush inside. It was warm and solid and real, fingers and skin and lips, and everything inside of him was twisted in excited anticipation, waiting for the next breath, the next word, the next ghostly touch, and he found himself moaning softly despite how wanton it seemed: unforgivably immoral.

"Does this make me a sinner?" he breathed as those fingers slipped across his skin with unbelievable gentleness, and he could feel that body so close to his, radiating living warmth, ready to envelop him completely, hot, unfamiliar human need growing all the stronger, reaching its roots down, deep, deep down.

"We're both sinners," was breathed softly against his mouth.

Unforgivable sin, and there was nowhere to hide.

"He's waiting for you. He's always been waiting for you."

And with a cry of shock Kai's body was wrenched harshly from the illusion in his head, and in seconds he tumbled back into the horror of his reality. Gasping desperately for breath as though long starved of it, his lungs burning, fingers clenching loose rubble harshly, searching for something to hold onto because he was fighting against some expected agony. His brain wanted to register complete pain, wanted him to accept that he was in utter torture, and for a long moment Kai wheezed and clutched and mentally prepared himself as the panic and the adrenaline washed through him, tightening his throat and chest as the distress of unbearable injury claimed him, slowly dying.

But a long, bewildering moment later, Kai realised that he was wrong. There wasn't any pain.

Mostly he was relieved, the sweet feeling washing through everything inside, dampening the fear and anxiety like a healing balm. But some part of him remained confused, and waking up against cold, broken soil and rock and being pummelled with rain was confusing enough without some part of him expecting to be screaming in agony, and wondering why he wasn't.

Breathing hard, grey dots dancing before his eyes, Kai managed to push himself up from the ground despite the shivering of his drenched body when suddenly his head began to swim furiously and he fell back down uselessly, twisting onto his back this time. "Oh God," he managed to groan as the small pain of impact shot through his shoulder blades and hips, his lungs unbearably burning, but then he realised something almost devastating. Lying on his back, Kai's eyes were drawn to the fact that right above and before him, towering over his tiny figure, was a huge cliff face of broken, ragged rock, stretching so far up into the darkness that he could barely see the peak through the dimness.

"Oh God," he choked again, in sick realisation this time as everything came flooding back.

One moment Kai was there, soaked through and panicked and breathing hard and down on the ground, head lowered, and the next something huge but invisible slammed into his body and he was thrown like a weightless rag doll through the air, shouting something incomprehensible and falling, falling so achingly slowly.

He had fallen; no, he had been pushed off the cliff edge. And he was still alive.

The truth wrapped slowly around his throat and squeezed hard like some kind of invisible, merciless serpent, but it never truly settled. He had fallen over the edge. Fallen over the edge of that cliff, that huge drop, that distance with nothing to stop him, that drop with nothing but stone and hard soil at the bottom? No. He shook his head slowly but couldn't help smiling softly in sheer confusion and frustration, an almost hysterical twisting of his mouth. "No," he murmured aloud, looking up and feeling his stomach leap nauseatingly into his throat like it had when he had plummeted, the adrenaline exploding in his already adrenaline-soaked body. "No," he breathed again, clenching his fingers. It wasn't possible. It wasn't. It just wasn't . . . was it?

How could he have fallen all that distance, a sheer drop of at least two hundred feet, and survived? How could he have smashed into the broken rock beneath him without every bone in his body splintering into hundreds of fractured pieces? Where was the agony, where was the sheer tortuous pain of a pulverised body? Why was it that the only thing he felt was a slight aching and the burning of his lungs? It couldn't have happened. No, it didn't happen, it didn't. Something must have stopped him.

"This isn't real," he breathed to himself, raising a hand slowly to examine it, to see the fingers and thumb, nothing missing, nothing crushed, nothing aching as he flexed them one by one. Any normal person would have been killed by that fall, and he knew it, and the truth stung him so badly inside that for a moment he closed his eyes tightly and almost wished that it had killed him, because then . . .

"He just showed up out of nowhere."

"What the hell is going on?" he murmured, cold and wet and stretched out on broken soil, vague memories clawing away at the edges of his mind, something about . . . sinners? He knew that he had dreamt something, but with each desperate scrape at the memories they were pushed further and further away, back into the dark place they had come from, leaving Kai with nothing but emptiness in his head and a foul taste of sin and despair against his tongue. Nothing made much sense anymore.

But there was no time to lie around contemplating his screwed up memory, because there was one thing he did remember, and it was painful. What felt like only moments before the ground had shone intensely with a hot, foreign circular pattern, a seal and the Gate of Hell apparently, and before his eyes it had been torn apart by the glowing creature that had haunted him. Everything was being ripped apart, smashed and shredded and cruelly destroyed by that deceptively bright figure, a catastrophe that had shredded Kai's heart before he had even known what was happening, and he couldn't rest now just because of his own confusion. He had to find Jalen, and he had to stop it.

That was when he heard the soft footsteps.

"Who's there?" Panicked by the noise, Kai somehow managed to scramble up, dragging his aching body until he was crouched down on the floor, clothes and skin muddied, chest rising and falling quickly, wary eyes searching desperately for the approaching figure. But he didn't need to look through the shadows or the dim light, because the brightness of him was astounding, blinding, piercing through the gloom. Kai instinctively murmured, "What the hell?" and raised a hand to shield his eyes as though glaring at the sun, and all breath was knocked harshly from his lungs as an overwhelmingly dizzy rush washed through him.

"No," he breathed again, unable to hold back the misery that was clear in his voice.

There, standing before him, was the burning creature from his nightmares, a solitary figure ablaze with foreign, unearthly light; a brilliant, golden glow that made everything around it cold and lifeless and dead. An inhuman god of Destruction who had torn everything that Kai knew apart, who had blasted it all into dust, who had knocked him over that cliff edge and sent him tumbling down onto unforgiving rock; the creature that had burnt so intensely in the pits of Hell two years ago when the world had almost ended, that only had a handful of witnesses still remembered.

And Kai knew him. He knew him.

"You," he breathed, and everything else was lost.

Deep beneath them sleeping creatures stirred.

It was hard to comprehend what was happening when it felt like the rug had literally been pulled out from under her feet too many times that day; firstly by the boy with the strange eyes, then by the young mortal girl and now by the demon on his knees before her who had done something to Jalen. Leda's heart was racing but she tried to keep calm, because now she had to protect Jalen and the girl, find Kai and somehow figure out what on earth was going on and suddenly everything was so overwhelming. She hadn't expected this, not yet.

"What did you do to him?" she cried, glaring down at the demon and willing Jalen to answer her, to open his eyes. "If you've hurt him I'll -"

"It's not me you need to worry about," he interrupted, something dangerous and sullen in his voice, almost like a warning more than a threat. But there was no time to contemplate it.

And then between the cracks there were shadows, dozens of bodies, wriggling and writhing out of the ground, groaning and clawing their way out, long bodies like parasites ripping apart soil and earth and slithering out as they were hideously born into the world.

That was when they struck.

The winged creatures that had pulled themselves free from the muddied soil, released from Hell with bloodlust and desire flooding their veins – they were the cause of the painful stinging in the pit of Yahto's stomach, and now there was no escape. Drawn by the intoxicating presence of angels who burnt softly in the darkness, and Leda's heart leapt into her throat in pure horror as black figures landed all around them with dull thuds against the ground and quiet sniggers. She spun around quickly as they set down one after another relentlessly, closing the circle, preventing any flight, shadowy and almost formless in the darkness, but all too threatening as they closed in. Her heart was pounding so painfully, her mouth suddenly dry and she couldn't deny the panic inside, but she couldn't succumb to it no matter how much she wanted to, not when the people on the ground around her were so vulnerable.

"Angel," one of them hissed in delight, his voice laced thickly with something like lust. And then they all started hissing the same word over and over again, and Leda couldn't help but shiver, no longer wary of the demon by her feet, only fearful and shakily determined, her mind racing with so many desperate thoughts that she could barely grab hold of any of them. It was sickening, and needed Jalen's help, but it was denied her.

"Don't worry," she breathed to the girl, unaware that Elisabet was much calmer than her, down on the ground beside Jalen and whispering comforting nonsense words into his ear as though he was nothing but a child's doll. "Oh, please. Don't worry."

And then without warning the first one struck, an orb of clear-indigo glass-like power ripping through the air with a loud hiss that, coming from behind her, caught Leda unaware. She spun around quickly as she realised what was happening, that she was being attacked from all sides and there was only so long she could fight against it alone, but it was too late from the start. No matter how quickly she spun the power was there, aimed straight for her, reading to smash into her body and torture her for their sadistic pleasure, and she flung out her arm desperately but . . .

It was knocked back, she was knocked back and the figure standing in her place put up a shield of black energy quickly enough that the dark orb cracked against it and fizzled away uselessly. Leda blinked for a long moment as the shock and confusion clawed at her throat, but there was no denying what had happened. The demon that had put Jalen into his strange coma-like state was standing there with fury on his face above a strange, twisted smirk of amusement. "What?" she choked in disbelief. "You . . ."

"Just this once, angel," the demon drawled. He watched her from the corner of dangerous silvery eyes. "Just once."

And the creatures around them snarled in rage and brutal bloodlust, and lunged forward to attack.

Falling over the edge, plummeting through the air and smashing into stone had all been somehow miraculously painless, but suddenly that missing pain seemed to come rushing back and smacked into Kai's head and chest all at once, knocking the breath from him and making everything dangerously spin. Crouched on the ground, shivering and beyond confused, all he could do was look up at the intensely glowing figure before him, that dangerous creature, and breathe, "You."

The eerily illuminated boyish face smirked at him, and Kai's heart plummeted in horror.

It didn't matter that Jalen had tried to tell him about angels and demons, because nothing, no number of words, could have prepared Kai for what stood before him then. The young face and body, the inhuman bright glow that somehow should have been angelic, and that dangerous knowledge in his smirk and in his eyes: like a figure made from all the wrong pieces, not one thing or the other but all of them in some way, a strange hybrid of otherworldliness and humanity, and treacherously intoxicating.

"What . . . what do you want?" he managed to murmur, the sound of his voice almost lost.

Silence.

Those eyes simply looked at him, studying him slowly, and Kai swallowed hard as he realised that he was the one being scrutinised, his worth being judged as though in being mortal he was nothing. The rain, even now, was still smashing into his body and he wrapped his arms around himself almost miserably as the strange silence stretched on, and all of his nerves were on fire.

And then something wet sloshed against his knees, and Kai looked up quickly with his heart pounding in his throat. For the first time he forgot the strange judgement as his eyes were drawn to the sight before him, and the sudden rush in his head was almost unbelievable. Because both he and the figure were down in the very bottom of the ravine, just clawing to the edge where the land was the highest, and Kai realised in slow horror that the sheer volume of pouring rain had collected down in the hole with them. The soil beneath them was the thin barrier between his world and Hell, but now, stretched out before him, was nothing less than a lake of pure rainwater, feet deep and freezing and steadily and impossibly quickly rising to fill the unnatural abyss, and they were about to be engulfed.

"Dear God," he breathed as something merciless clutched his throat and squeezed hard. All around him were sheer cliff faces and the water was now brushing against his thighs and there was no way out, absolutely no way. With shaky movements he hurriedly pulled himself up, wiping at his face with wet hands, the water now surrounding his calves but rising so rapidly that the fear and terror inside of him were nauseating and tightening everything and all he could do was groan, "Shit, shit," under his breath.

Up to his knees and he had barely even processed what it meant, other than that it was dangerous, that he needed to escape, that the water was freezing and his muscles were trembling and he stumbled back until he was pressed against the soil and his fingers were digging into it as though a tight grip could save him, could stop him from being washed away. Up to his thighs again but he was standing this time, and Kai closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like that could help, and murmured, "This isn't happening. God, this isn't happening." And then it was up dangerously close to his waist, and his legs were numb from the sheer iciness of the water, unable to feel his toes or his fingers, his whole body completely frozen and aching from it.

"There's only one escape."

That voice. Kai's head shot up in confusion, something gnawing away inside of him, some truth that he couldn't quite grasp. He didn't recognise the glowing figure, but he recognised that voice, and it drew him in immediately because he needed something to hold onto. And then he realised in something like twisted awe that the man, the strange hybrid, wasn't immersed in the water like he was – he was standing on the surface, as though it was solid and could take his weight, as though it was completely natural, like such things could really happen in real life.

"What? You . . ."

The boyish creature smirked at him again, and now the water was pounding lightly against Kai's ribs and all breath was gone as his body succumbed to the raw iciness and struggled to keep working, his heart fluttering madly like a trapped bird needing to break out. He inhaled sharply and looked up desperately as though expecting some kind of unholy retribution. "What escape?" he cried, and the rain was pouring down in huge sheets of unyielding water, rising, rising, now up to his collarbone and he shivered so hard it was almost a spasm, and the pale burning angel was so far above him, looking down at his pitiful, sodden form like a twisted god. "How? Tell me how."

Silence again, and instead of answering his god moved away quickly, skimming almost weightlessly across the water, only the smallest ripples rocking lightly against Kai's throat.

"No," he breathed. "Don't." He was unwilling to leave whatever safety he found standing against the cliff, but the angel was moving away and suddenly he felt unbearably alone and numb and dejected. This was the creature that had haunted him for so long, but somehow dying all alone, without anyone to know what had happened, seemed much worse than being with him . . . not that he wanted to die. Not that he was going to just give up and die, but he was aching so badly, so, so cold, and his jaw throbbed and closing his eyes seemed so inviting . . .

"Please," he murmured, water spilling into his mouth and hideously numbing his gums and teeth. He pushed himself up onto tiptoes, but the disgusting, nauseating rush inside let him know that it was all futile really, because there was only so long he could tread water before his already fatigued body simply gave up and let him sink.

Looking up, he saw the bright figure standing there watching him, several feet away, something confusing and raw on his face that made Kai's pounding heart leapt up into his mouth though he couldn't comprehend the truth. And then, before his very eyes, the figure seemed to crumple lifelessly as though his bones had simply melted, and the water opened up beneath him and he plummeted down and disappeared beneath the surface in less than seconds, swallowed up entirely.

"There's only one escape."

Then, somehow, Kai made a decision. The water closed over his nose and in that moment of panic he let all logic flow away into the water, and his instincts chose to follow. Ignoring the deafening badum badum in his ears, he leapt up quickly, took a deep breath, and then submerged himself entirely in the shockingly freezing lake of rainwater, his clothes heavy against his body but he didn't care, reaching out and parting the water with his hands, kicking hard despite the shoes on his feet. One moment the sheer gloominess of the water alarmed him, the chilliness like fingers brushing against sensitive nerves, his skin stripped away, but the next he could see that dampened glow burning, drowning quickly but burning, and with aching muscles Kai kicked harder and delved much too far from the surface until his ears started to ache.

And in that moment he realised the truth, and it was damning. Because the one escape was to use the Gateway, and that meant -

That he was swimming down straight into Hell.

~TBC~

A/N: Sorry for the delay ^^; I was also supposed to write more here, but I seemed to overfill the word limit for the chap right about here. I want to try and write the next part before I go away next week, but don't put too much faith in me there! Thanks to: Trickster Kitsune, Cinaed Born Of Fire, ddz008, KoaruFan, crazNM, Kuroi Kenshi, centi the yaoi hime, LYK, Lady Alexiel, Mei-Chan16 and Tagalog for reading and reviewing the last chapter!