Can Anybody Find Me?

Chapter 23

Rimmon was bundled up on Lone's couch with a hot bater bottle at his back, blankets piled on top of him and yet he was still shaking and chattering as if he were in the deep Arctic. He couldn't even talk past the shaking wracking his entire body. If he could then he'd be explaining to Gabriel and Coyote the strange sensation wracking his body. It was as if someone had taken the ember hot blood that coursed through his veins normally and replaced it with something thin and cold and weak. It was killing him and he couldn't even warn the others. And then it stopped. Somehow that was even worse.

The Demon jumped off the couch, startling the Arc who'd been passed out. While Rimmon had been freezing, the Arc had been burning up. Now they stared at each other, each as confused as the other as to what had been wrong with them, and why they were better now.

Coyote just watched them from his spot on the floor, next to the lightly sleeping Belle. She'd cried herself out against his shoulder and then drifted off on numbed sleep. Probably the best thing for her, though the dark glare that Gabriel levelled at the Neutral said louder than words that he really didn't appreciate the coziness between Coyote and the Arc's 'girl'. Before he could get all high and mighty about it though, Rimmon started to swear sulphuriously and Coyote was surprised that the paint didn't peel off the walls in the Demon's fury. There seemed to be no point in interrupting the man's tirade, so Coyote let the Demon curse himself out, watching the two immortals recover as quickly as they'd fallen ill. He didn't even have to ask what all this was about, he knew it had to involve Lone somehow.

"We let them fucking take her." Rimmon kicked the wall and put a decent sized hole into it.

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel demanded, walking over to Coyote to pull Belle roughly away and to her feet. She woke up dazed and disoriented but quickly fell against the Arc Angel's chest, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Lone and Gavin have been captured and brought to Hell. That's why we both almost just died." Rimmon growled at the Arc, the sound of fabric tearing clear in the room as his tail broke free of his control and started to lash the air behind him like an angry wild cat. His words brought looks of stunned fear to everyone's face. That had definitely been something they hadn't planned for.

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Lone remembered the feeling of the purple eyed monster eating away at her strength, filling her body with pain. The Twisted crawling up over her legs, the weight heavy and sucking, like an anaconda swallowing her down. The worst of it was that she could feel the Twisted's thoughts and emotions, it's overwhelming need to consume and destroy. The control that the purple eyed demon had over it was tenuous and slipping the longer it was around Lone and she had no idea why.

Feeds......eat....hot crunchy tastey. Slurp and swallow. kill.......Kill......KILL...... FEED....

Lone clutched at her head, trying to puch the strange slithering thoguhts out of her head. It was like those nightmares she'd been having where she was the Twisted, revelled in it's slaughter while it went on a feeding frenzy. Unable to hold it back, Lone lurched to the side and threw up, the act helping to distance her from the now constant thoughts of the Twisted in her head. Ever since it had found her and Rimmon, she hadn't been able to get it out of her head entirely and now it was even stronger.

"Are you unwell pet?" a smooth, cultured and rich woman's voice inquired from the darkness at the edges of the room Lone was held in.

"Get it out of my head." Lon demanded voice not allowing for arguement.

"Oh my pet, you really are a greater catch than I anticipated." there was happiness in the voice and Lone knew it was the purple eyed monster mocking her.

"Get bent." Lone retorted. She was trying to keep herself calm, pulling on her training with Coyote to hold everything outside of herself away and hold everything inside safe. It was hard, there were these gaps in her mental sheilding that no matter how hard she tried to patch, they continued to exist. Closing her eyes and ignoring the Demon watching her, Lone slowed her breathing.

One long, slow breath in and Lone stopped being aware of the pains that scattered her battered body. A second long, slow breath and she stopped paying attention to the sounds the Demon watching her made. A third slow breath in and Lone was alone inside her head for the first time in days. A fourth breath in and Lone felt those blank spots in her mental sheilding for what they really were. The places where others had ties into her soul. The biggest hole belonged to the golden cord stretching between herself and Gavin. Just being aware of that made her aware of the man himself and she knew he was nearby and in an impossible amount of pain. Jerking her thoughts away from her Guardian Angel, Lone took another slow breath in, only peripherally aware of her own body now. The next, smaller gap belonged to the cord connecting her to Rimmon. To Lone's nearly overwhelming surprise, she was only slightly less aware of him than she had been Gavin. Rimmon was pissed off, aware she had been captured, and about to run to her rescue. That was suprising, as it was supposed to be his ultimate goal to get her here himself. Leaving her awareness of the Demon, Lone took another breath in and felt for a smaller pair of gaps, and found Coyote and Belle. Detecting the pattern, Lone finally realized that the people she loved left her vulnerable. Taking a last long breath in, Lone held it and hesitated. She could cast all those cords off, close herself and be protected. One of the gaps and cords was not good and golden. Instead it was blackened barbwire and wrapped around her against her will. The Twisted. Whatever it was Lone could do with auras, it left her like this, able to be corrupted from the inside out, using her skills against herself. But to get rid of the one, she would lose all the rest.

Lone had chosen years ago to keep herself apart from the world. It was easier and safer and had left her cold and lonely. These last few weeks and months had been the most happy and open she had felt since before her mother died. It would kill something inside her to lose those cords and Lone wasn't sure she was a strong enough person to accept that.

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Chalice watched the mortal meditate. Given a chance to sink her claws into this tastey anomoly she would drain that spark inside her until nothing but cinders remained. Of course Chalice wasn't allowed to do this. Her job had been solely that of the hunter. Her lover Azazel was the one whom planned on claiming the anomoly as his own. It didn't bother Chalice, she knew that the mortal would not long survive being the Demon Lord's newest bedmate and he would return to her once the woman was dead.

What did condern her was how weak the Twisted was after trying to consume her itself. Chalice was only willing to admit to herself that she had hoped that the Twisted would kill the anomoly, take her into its strength and then Chalice could have bled the power out of it and made it her own. She was ambitious and everyone knew it, Azazel included. The Twisted is all broken, corrupted instinct, a Fallen Arc Angle once known as Uriel. Banished from the Ascended when he fathered a whole herd of offspring with a series of mortal women, and once on the mortal plane, stolen by the Descended and made into the Twisted. If it had killed that mortal anomoly, then Azazel wouldn't be able to punish Chalice for the mortal's death. He wanted her power for his own, and not even Chalice dared get in the way of his plans. Silently disrupt them and behind his back try to overthrow his regime yes, but in a direct fight, not even the Demon Chalice had hte strength to beat Azazel.

The fact that the mortal was able to repel the Twisted not once, but twice was astonishing. Add to that the fact that she had successfully sheilded herself against it until another Descended opened her sheilds up was just a testament to the mortal's stubborn will to survive. It was a pesky trait in a mortal Chalice planned to break, but she certainly was happy for the challenge. And maybe it would give the Twisted time to recover. Chalice briefly toyed with the idea of letting the Twisted consume the mortals Angel lover, but she was free to break the man herself and take his power for her own and she didn't want to waste a single drop of the delicious Guardian Angel's power.

With that thought on her mind, Chalice left the mortal to her meditation and walked out of hte cell. Locking it, the pruple eyed demon sashayed up the hallway to another room. Each one had a sigil on it, making the room sound proof and organized. Tapping on the door that led to the Guardian Angel. Chalice paused as something unfamiliar tugged in her gut. The Demon listened to her brethern cry out inside her mind, providing her with an answer before she could ask the question. As the Demon turned to run back towards the mortal she'd just left, the door she'd unlocked opened up and a very pissed off looking Guardian Angle rammed the poisoned metal stake into her chest.