"Zerces!" Red shouted, her blood pumping with adrenaline in the midst of the fighting. Red thought she spotted a hint of light blonde hair through the chaos, and she jumped into action, running.
"Z!" She yelled, grabbing a seraph blade from her jacket's inner pocket. The blonde-haired man turned at the sound of his name, not catching the Demon shadow's impending strike. Grunting, Red tensed and threw her blade at it.
It was a solid throw, and met with a satisfying thud as its target was disintegrated and it fell to the ground. Red planted one foot onto the concrete, pushing her weight and leaping into the air. Flipping mid-air, she dodged the boy and crouched, landing and grabbing her blade off the ground.
"Show-off." Zerces mumbled. Red smirked momentarily. "We need to get to Ryn...somehow." Zerces raised an eyebrow. "You just told Leo that the only option left was mass evacuation, did you not?" Red shifted her focus to the large smoking monster behind Z. "That's true. But if anyone can do something, its us." She said confidently, turning around. The pang of doubt was strengthening in her mind, but she couldn't let Z know that.
"Help me get close to him." She said, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He opened his mouth, most likely to protest, but instead closed it again, simply nodding. "Come on." She murmured softly, gripping the seraph tightly in hopes of comfort. Red broke off into a run yet again, Zerces' heavy footfalls behind her. As shadows lunged at them, Red merely ducked and cpntinued, her path havng only one destination in mimnd. Zerces covered for her, sladshing and dispersing the weaker shadows, trapping the darker ones with his magic.
She saw a Wendigo, in the body of a little blond girl, fall at her heels, and didn't look back, although she could imahgine the scene.
Frosty ice creeping over the little girl's skin, and slowly, slowly the child would freeze. As she froze, cracks would run through her body, her ice sculpture form, and she would crack away into a thousand pieces of frost.
Red ran ahrder, pushing more, going faster.
Wendigos were powerful beings, and Avisa couldn;'t afford to bewithout them. They weren';t as disposable as every other secies, no matter how many opf them there might be.
A shjadow lunged at her, but Red focused on getting to Ryn. she was getting closer, close enough to feel the chaotic, contradicting winds, smoke, and Auras all blending into one miserable battle.
"RYN!"
Her high-pitched scream was stolen by the rough storm, but the Demon pup registered the noise. It was Ryn, to some point, to an extent, tooentranced in energy to focus. "RYN! YOU BETTER FOCUS ON ME RIGHT NOW!" She yelled, closer than bfore. Red mildly felt like a sper, cutting through the air, or maybe her seraph blades. The demon dog turned its head to face her, glowing red and black eye, smoke everyehere, and Red jumped, seraph in hand, ready toi strike if Ryn didn't turn back.
If he hadn't recognized her by then , she'd have to kill anywyas, because he very well was gone.
Time slowed for a moment, as the red changed...
To blue.
Swerving her blade, Red swivelled in the air so that her back hit Ryn. The impact made her groan, but she slowly sank down to the concrete, sliding down the demon's morphing body. As she lay on the ground, a high-pitched bark reassured her.
For a second she was incredibly aware of everything. The cuts and calluses on the palms of her hands, the wound in her side from a surprise attack, and all the bleeding that was happening, from the smallesty cut to the larger ones, she was aware of them all.
Each breath felt like a breeze, as powerful as the hurricane raging around her, every sound was richer, louder, and her mind was so surprised by the enrichment, she felt the shock pulse her brain set out, trying to figure out what exactly was going on.
Red could feel the chapped tissue of her lip, the bruise on her, the contact she was making with the pavement. Everything.
For a second, Red felt everything.
She flipped, ying facing the sky, and Red could've sworn she saw ash raining down.
*~*~*~*~*
Leo coughed, crouching and catching his breath. Lillette had zap-teleported him, and he figured it was the reason he was feeling such extreme nausea and having such difficulty breathing. Leo's head snapped up. Ryn. Ryn. Ryn. But instead of the fight he had seen a second before Lillette had jumped him, there was calm. The Wendigos were all gone, and no more smoke or hail was clouding up the area.
Eyebrows furrowed, eyes narrowed, Leo looked down to see ash on the ground. He held out his hand, and soft grey flecks fell into it.
It was over.
Leo glanced around, seeing a silhouette in the dstance. Someone on the gorund. He immediately stretched lout his wings, cautiously pulling them up and pushing out, rising up. After not being flung around like a rabid rabbit, Leo flapped them, glad of the freedom they allowed him.
And the amount of time he saved wasn't bad either.
Leo glided over, hovering over the little figure. He spotted a very small Schnauzer next to it, and dived down. Red.
"Ryn, what happened?"
You ask as though I'd know. Where were you?
"I was...fighting."
Against me.
"Yeah...sorry."
Leo glanced back down at Red's unconscious form, guilt creeping up on him. He needed to distance himself anyways. Ever sice h pried into theis case, he'd gotten too many...feelings.
Four weeks for the case.
Slowly, Leo realized what it was that he had to do. "Listen, Z's back. Wait for him, he's got to be around here somewhere. I...have to go."
Where?
"Can't say, sorry."
Before Ryn could stop him with more questions, Leo dove back into the sky, higher up. He rose his altitude level. Morgue. If he bothered asking Ryn to retrieve deFleur's stuff, Ryn would get suspicious. Perhaps Kelsio was still in the human morgue. It was unlikely, but it was all he had at the moment.
Leo pondered over Lillette's warning as he flew. Four weeks, and whilst being babysat too. He thought about it. Who amongst the high and mighty Angels would be assigned the pitiful task to watch over walking, living, breathing shame like Leo?
Found the calm winds reassuring. After running through drenching rain, he was happy to be back up in the air. This was where he belonged, not those concrete mazes.
Leo spotted the St. Paul's Hospital cross, and began to tilt downwards. The morgue was beside the hospital, but unlike his latest landings, Leo had to be careful with this one. There were many humans, and any of them could see him as he flew down from their fourteen-story hospital. Spotting clou cover, Leo mingled in with the air, landing on the ledge of St. Paul's roof. Readying himself, Leo jumped off, the quick sudden movement enough to faze any suspicious hospital members. He landed at the door to the morgue, pulling his wings out a bit to glide down.
Glancing around, Leo pushed the door open to the morgue and stepped in. chrome metal door and white walls looking sterile as always. He walked to the end of the hall, where a white desk and a receptionist sat typing. The brown haired man looked up with a dismissive glanc, before returning to his computer. "Excuse me, I'm Investigator Malvent. Was there a...Kelsio Gelarke here?" The receptionist nodded. "Sit down over there." Leo nodded, and the receptionist continued typing away.
Leo sat awkwardly in a chair, flipping through a human magazine. He'd just started to agree with the writer that pomegranate seeds really were the best in a morning smoothie, when the receptionist cleared his throat. Leo looked up. "Room 10, turn right and straight on." He said briskly. Leo nodded. He found the humans' lack of respect a bit annoying sometimes, but it wasn't their fault. If they knew who they were in the presence of, he was sure they'd grovel and weep.
He walked down to Room 10, where the various cases containing dead bodies were lined up like file-cabinets on the walls. Because of the amount of dying humans, the Avisian morgue was the largest of its kind. However, humans weren't the only ones who were sent here. Most dying souls loitered its halls as well, and Leo was hoping to catch deFleur's soul around here. If he'd be near any body, it'd be the one that had the trace of his killer. Kelsio Gelarke. Leo stepped into it, going through the cases until he reached the one with Kelsio's name on it. Leo gave the case's lock a little zap from the helpful shadow magic. It clicked open, and Leo pulled Kelsio out. Leo pushed Kelsio's hair up and pulled his collar down slightly. There it was.
The tattoo was winding black ink, similar to a pentagram that exorcists tattooed on their bodies. However, it looked like it was made of blood, dripping down...
An Angel banishing spell.
Leo furrowed his eyebrows at the thought. He hadn't considered it a possibility, or that such a thing existed, but he knew now. Leo knew it, like a truth. Made from an Angel's blood, such a thing banished any Angels nearby far away. But then this couldn't be what deFleur had. It would've killed him...
"Bravo."
A silky smooth, cool, male voice made Leo whirl around. Blond hair, blue eyes, deFleur stared at him. Leo had been right. "Who killed you, Jacques?" The Angel's Essence laughed. "It's right in fromt of you." Leo frowned. "This is serious." DeFleur smirked. "Oh yes, very." Leo tried to understand. "Leo, Leo, Leo. For a detective, you sure are naïve."
"Who killed you?!" Leo asked, pushing the Essence against the wall. Even then, deFleur merely laughed. Leo glared at it, pushing it further into the wall. DeFleur choked on his own laughter and began coughing spasmatically. "Me! Me, Leo!" Leo let go of him. "I killed myself, you buffoon!" Leo backed away. "What do you mean..." DeFleur's Essence began to shift"No! Tell me!" Leo grabbed deFleur by the collar. "Because he wanted me to." deFleur said, before crackling away.
Leo slammed his fist into the wall, no deFleur remaining. Ignoring the harp stabs of pain in his knuckles, Leo closed Kelsio's case, and stormed out of the morgue.
He sighed, calming down. deFleur's Essence...why had it been with him?