fowler's snare

The sky had been hellspawn black when he’d woken that morning. Blue eyes narrowing at it from the kitchen window. It had hung low over the square, almost like he could reach out and touch it, fingers skimming that foul belly to release the deluge of rain down on the town. He could feel Remiel stirring in his mind, amusement at the comparison slipping through him with the buzz of the coffee. The angel had been out there last night as that darkness had started to gather, rousting a nest of things that could still make him shudder as he set the coffee cup down with a rattle that had it slopping over onto his knuckles. Gabriel had cursed, stuffing knuckles into his mouth to suck the sting from them but the memory floating up in the back of his mind of the angel blade glimmering black with flood last night had lingered.

Snap shots in the office. Hitting like flash bulbs at odd moments. Distraction leaving him drifting during a morning meeting with Freyja, instead of him trying to usher her out at top speed to avoid her suddenly going into labour on the Aubusson rug beneath his desk. A hum going up as she’d pried, a vague smile Gabriel knew hadn’t satisfied her a brush off of what was wrong. This town. That was all.

An hour later the sky had opened up and Gabriel had stood there, surveying the town again, wondering if it would wash this town clean or just give the things that had come to call it home an opportunity to creep their way onto the streets earlier than usual.

Shoulders hunched like he could block that rain out he’d pulled the blinds and trailed back to his desk. If he couldn’t block out the previous night and the dozens he’d witnessed since the angel in his head had revealed himself and opened up a world he still didn’t want to think too hard about. Curling his fingers in and out Gabriel tried to ease the tension but each rattle of raindrops against the window as the wind blew through with leave him flinching faintly. They’d tried to shake to the rumble of thunder but he’d pressed them to the keys, forced himself to do a final scan through of the morning’s edition of the Courier before he’d pulled up his own pet project – an insert for this weekend, if he could finish it on time – the faces of the missing and the dead in the town from this year alone.

Perhaps it hadn’t been the weather for it but as those clouds slowly stopped boiling over Gabriel had continued to work at his desk. His assistant, Freyja, a couple of reporters had flitted in and out but by the time he pulled himself out of the story the place had gone quiet around him. Stiffly Gabriel switched off his computer and pushed back from the desk. A flick of the blinds revealed a world outside gone down for another reason, no more premature gloom, just the dark of night settling down around the town with a far less oppressive feel.

Puddles were still littering the street as he emerged from the building, cars ssh-ing by on the roads, wheels pulling up spray as people began to drift out onto the street. The work day was over and with the rain gone Mystic Falls was coming to life beneath streetlights and the bright sliver of a moon that at least meant that the woods would be a measure safer tonight.

A quick dinner at the Grill perhaps, then across the square to his apartment. An hour or two with something mindless on the television and then like a switch had been flipped he imagined the angel would take over, leaving him drifting in that womblike quiet of the back of his own mind. Perhaps deeper tonight. Somewhere he wouldn’t see that black blood. Gabriel frowned faintly, angling towards the curb. Blue eyes flicked along the street, drawn by the blare of a horn, settling as the blonde woman, bare footed and clad in something long and diaphanous like something out of a museum. A Greek goddess bought to life, and almost run down in the centre of Mystic Falls.

That should’ve been warning enough there but she was already calling out to him in heavily accented English as she approached. Gabriel held out a hand courteously, aiming for her elbow to guide her away from the edge of the street like a lost lamb … and not something that should have sent ice water rushing through his bowels. ”Sorry, I don’t ….” Demon. The word floated up simply from the depths of his mind, leaving him to take a half step back. Remiel was chomping at the bit, an angry dog already snarling. ”I’m sorry, I don’t think I understood … you should be cautious, the street isn’t …” Safe. But what was these days? You opened yourself to things, opened your heart, and in the end you found yourself alone at the end of the night, thwarted by a dead man … and at the mercy of something far more dangerous.”Perhaps you should come over here, find some shoes …” She wouldn’t need them where she was going, the angel inside of him was sure of that. The angel blade was headed for her chest, not those dainty feet or well turned legs he’d noticed before the world had taken on that nightmarish pall again.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 922

For years he’d been left in the dark, his mind scrubbed clean every time the angel took hold. For his own protection. Remiel had revealed that conversation to him like a dream when he had finally come to the fore and admitted what had been going on. An agreement struck in the darkness of that New York alleyway as he’d been slipping away. The angel had healed him that night and a half dozen times since. Each time he had faced a nightmare, somehow coming out of the other side of it with Remiel’s help. Those nightmares had clung like oil to his mind, impossible to shed despite the reassurances that slipped out with more frequency now. There’s nothing to worry about, not in a town like Mystic Falls.

Liar. The word echoed in his head, repeated with each beat of his heart, as he stared at the barefooted blonde with hatred pulling at a face that would’ve been considered classically beautiful. Ringlets tumbling down her back, a dress not suitable for the weather let alone a town like Mystic Falls where appearances were what shielded everything.

Under the pressure of her hiss Gabriel took another stumbling step back. His voice had held the same hitch, his heart jack rabbit fast in his chest. Fingers fumbled at the hem of his jacket. ’Remiel! Not here, we can’t!’ Slaughter on the streets was the sort of thing both the Courier and the Daily usually would’ve splashed across the front page. Crimes spelled out in black and white, accusations cast in the facts. Gabriel could already picture himself captured in a single shot, sitting on the curb side with the blade still in his hands, blood soaked, the shell of the blonde – surely that was all that left with that thing in her – crumpled beside him.

The angel took his time, swimming to the surface at a snail’s pace. Gabriel had continued to stutter, hands held high like he could usher her away from the road and its witnesses through will alone. ”I’m just trying to help, this isn’t…” There was a shift as his voice trailed off, as there always was. Nerves stripped away, the panicking human consciousness sent back down below. ”Him, you could have done, demon.” A simple statement with no room to twist the truth. Gabriel West was a good man who had continued to offer himself up even when he could’ve run. ”Myself … I’m not sure if it would take stupidity or something more.” Remiel’s brows furrowed, his head ticking side to side as he let out a hiss.

She could have thrown herself at them. Snapped the neck of his host before he’d been able to do a thing about it. Sent him running for the heels while she’d hissed and clawed and spat like … a cat in the rain. Remiel sighed, already moving back in as blue eyes narrowed, to intercept the shrieking woman. ]”You wish to fight right here? In the middle of town. Your kind had been growing bold here but I didn’t expect this. Last night you cowered in the darkest spots, slinking around like things from the primordial ooze before you came for me.” Confusion coloured the angel’s face for a moment, sending blue eyes skittering over her like some explanation would present itself.

It almost pained him to do it but he was reaching for the demon’s arm as she snatched at another shirt that would undoubtedly end up sacrificed. Remiel gripped her elbow, scowling at her. ”You will not lay a finger on him. He is a guardian to this town as much as I am and in his foolishness believed you a soul to help. Your kind never were dedicated to their shells though, were they? Use them up, cast them aside, who cares if they’re left destroyed in the process.” It was the human in him who forced his way through past the shuddering brought on by his fear of this thing to slide a hand up an arm wet and cold as marble. Empathy for a creature who should have deserved none proving why God had tried to protect their kind.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 697

That was their kind all over. The dark glimmer that lurked beneath the surface – ugly or stunning – just waiting to show in those pitch black eyes or overlay their smiles.

It was the latter with this one, his surfacing leaving the demon snickering at him, like somehow she’d won something. Clutching at his shirt like a trophy. Perhaps he’d left Gabriel with her too long, had driven her riled her too much. Oh, who was he kidding? It didn’t take much to excite them, it was those sins of lust and greed and envy that had put them all down there to wither and shrink with corruption in the first place. Any humanity that remained after they had committed their crimes and condemned themselves was rapidly boiled away, leaving nothing but a hollow void to fill with that greasy darkness.

Foul beasts.

Remiel’s hand rose, fingers curling around the demon’s wrist while the other hand stayed at her elbow – seemingly steadying but ready to grip much harder and anchor her as he drove that blade home. His teeth bared as he felt Gabriel try and rise up against that idea. Sense shoved into a mind that might have lost some of it from earnestness. ”You think I would leave my host entirely unprotected in a place like this … reeking of Heaven, drawing in things like you?” A foolish thought on her part, although there was a prick at the pride he was not supposed to have that left his teeth gritting, baring, in that feral grin as she gasped. Two could certainly play at that game.

The smile froze as she cackled, her surprise had rapidly given way and so did his sense of superiority. He could have shown her by force but that snap of his own name in the mind he shared had his own scowl rushing in. ”You wish to take issue with it beast?” he asked, the description spat in punctuation. He didn’t need Gabriel’s reaction to her – at least before she had revealed herself – to know that the shell she was in was attraction, she was indeed but when something beautiful contained something so foul everything was tarnished. Soon enough it would break down, letting that noxious smoke pour out to choke someone else.

A single flash of that golden haired shell crumpling to the floor had a shudder running down his spine, driven by Gabriel’s revulsion. All too easy for him to picture, but not the demon. His words had her going still. Was that fear in her eyes? Remiel’s head pulled back an inch as he studied her in confusion. That was certainly a shudder rolling through her, stilling perhaps as he’d gripped her. The two of them locked in that entanglement, neither one putting a swift end to this. ”Too attached are we? Worried you won’t find another quite so … alluring in this town.” Not that much penetrated the shield God had bid them to throw up between themselves and the messy emotions of humanity. There was enough of a connection to his host though to almost deny he would bring harm to her.

No! If this creature would fight, so would be.

The angel’s chin came up as the demon eased in instead of pushing back. He huffed out his amusement as she leaned back to study him. ”Do you believe you can leave me addled by complementing this host?” Remiel clucked his tongue, shaking his head. He’d seen enough from inside of the journalist to know the effect he had on women. She didn’t recoil from him at her damning words, continuing to stroke a hand over him instead, palm to his chest, kneading at the muscle. ”She dares me,” he crooned. ”I would say that you argue too much but perhaps it is just that you addled, the empty head of this host had obviously left your own vacuous … and blind. Would you take this elsewhere to prove just how entertaining things can get demon or will you stand and shudder?” Had it truly been a human behind that alabaster surface he’d have worried about – what was it his host’s mother had clucked down the phone – catching their death? – but anything human here was likely long gone.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 711

Avoid the fight. Do your job but do not pry into their business or attempt to join the battle. Your role is too important. Behave.

Arguments had kept him on the sidelines for Millennia. Skirting around the skirmishes, delivering messages that couldn’t be sent out over angel radio. The messenger, the errand boy, the one to ferry those souls back. Never the one to go toe to toe with the evil that prayed on humanity, not until their numbers dropped and they had become the desperate ones. Since he’d arrived in Mystic Falls Remiel had found himself well beyond the fringes of the fight for once. The blade he carried dripping with the black blood of those things, the humans caught, subjugated, killed by them, freed of their tormentors at last, left to go on in peace.

He would do the same for the woman obviously filled with this foulness. Remiel could practically seeing it pressed up against that porcelain skin, the darkness burst out in that purring voice and cackled laugh. His chin tucked back in, his brow furrowing as he glared at her. ”Guardians to protect this town from things like you.” That promise he had made too to protect his host from those same things, the reason he had spent months – alright, alright, years – wiping his host’s memory. To keep the fear of all he had seen from drawing in all the things he would have had Gabriel West protected from. ”Better a reputation ruined than something of you ilk putting your foul fingerprints on this place … or him,” Remiel blustered. She was right though. The desire was there to run her through with the blade practically burning a hole in his pocket now but there was no way. Not here. And so he had to tolerate this.

Her.

She knew how close it was though. As he had threatened, there had been that flash. An opening he had slid right into, crooning through his teeth to taunt her over the chances of finding another this … attractive. The word floated up in his head, even though it was tempered by another shudder. Remiel snorted, bared his teeth. ”I think the ugliest thing is right here before me but we shall agree to disagree on that. You shouldn’t make a host of any of them. This town should be free of … this.” Blue eyes swept up and down her, his lip curling while he gestured. Or rather than classically stunning host should be freed of the corruption keeping her alive in a way.

He was not entirely blind to such things, although Heaven put far less stock in these things than either Hell or humanity. The vanity was there, buried under the pride that all of God’s creatures seemed to possess – they were a reflection of their father after all.

Remiel glared at her as the creature smirked, guile written in every line of that perfect face as the compliments dripped from the venomous tongue. Poison surely, although he would not let it affect him. Immune to such flattery, he was above it all, even if pride had his host puffing his chest so to speak beneath the surface. ”All your kind know is seduction and corruption,” he blustered. His chin rising, his own chest puffing, Remiel forced himself to bear teeth in a sneer. ”I would not want such a thing, especially not with you forcing it along.” There had been that stirring though, slithering in the pit of his stomach in a knot so tangled he was not sure which feeling belonged him and which to his host so blinded by this … this thing.

Fool, Remiel hissed internally. Have you not seen enough of what this things can do? The shell does not matter, she tried to lure you in, all wet and pitiful.

And until the demon had sniffed at him and outed herself with that forked tongue it might perhaps have worked. Now her hands were on him and the shudders beneath had him sucking in a breath. Teeth flashing – that was a tongue! Squawking in protest as the demon began to drop hints about the artist in his lap, at the bold swipe of her tongue over his lips, Remiel brought up his hands, gripped her forearms to give her a shake. ”She is nothing to him, or to me. You will not put so much as a single eye on her, creature.” Hands gripping tight, already imagining driving that blade home through the folds of her gown, Remiel tugged her from the street, into the shadow of an alleyway.

A flutter of wings, a blink and they were in Gabriel’s apartment. In a heartbeat he was driving her back, down, a knee planted on the folds of that ratty gown to pin her there. His own teeth bared now as he pressed the tip of the angel blade pressed in the centre of her chest, that perfect dip for it between curves of perfectly human flesh. ”She will be better off without you now, freed. Enjoy the Empty and all the eternal solitude it may bring you.” Remiel sneered, dragging the blade down the front of the dress to press against the soft hollow beneath her ribs instead. One good thrust and this town would be free of another of Lucifer’s foul spawn.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 895

Betrayed by his own host’s reaction. Bah.

Remiel’s teeth still flashed in that sneering smile but he mentally berated Gabriel. You didn’t allow the beasts of hell to get beneath your skin, even if they dripped every temptation – black and greasy before you. Trouble lay that way, trouble, torture and a death far more painful than any he might find with his angel host steering his life half the time. The angel jabbed a finger at the beast before him, lips hitching just a hair higher. ”You speak as though we are of one mind, demon. My host is too human than to know better than to allow this veneer to fool him.” The rot was always on the inside. Working its way from the lump of coal left in their burned out hearts to the skin, the corruption taking time to rise to that pretty surface – not that he would say those words to her.

It, he reminded himself. Their kind had nothing left of who they were, even if they tried to act like they did. They could clad themselves in those diaphanous shreds left practically see-through by the rain but it was all just a disguise, and this thing was proving it now.

The angel had to bite back the temptation to tear his own golden locks from his head as her tongue worked over his mouth, working paroxysms of delight through his host. The shudder was embarrassing, an echo of what had happened with the artist. Just the thought of her was almost a betrayal, leaving desperation working through him as he shook the demon. ”I defend them all,” he snarled, breathing in the damp scene of the woman he held on to brutally. ”Lay one finger upon her and I won’t even hesitated to send you to your Darkness.” A sneered threat. An empty one for now at least.

Still gripping her he whipped them away from where they had been. A murder in town would not only leave his host shattered but it would bring attention that Hannah had likely been trying to avoid. Nobody wanted a war on the streets, but here perhaps.

Hands fisted in the thin fabric of her dress, his knee pinning that fragile opacity between her thighs to keep her down. The blade point pressed to all that pale skin. It would take but a thrust of his hand and it would go straight through the chest that black smoke possessed and down into the damask and horsehair. Gabriel would get over the damage to the furniture, perhaps even the damage to an innocent host.

Then the fear flashed. Remiel frowned, hand still braced on the hilt of the blade as she stared up at him with wide blue eyes. Her plea flying out as she clutched at him. ”Your body?” the angel asked with a sneer. Laughter rolled out, although his chest – Gabriel’s chest – felt tight as she fought for air. ”I would free her from you. Surely the damage you have done is already too great. Your kind ruin.” A destroying force few ever recovered from. There was blood at the tip of the blade that, a beading ruby droplet. Flesh still fresh enough to bleed, a heart…

Remiel should have batted her hands and arguments away and driven the blade home but she held on – one hand tight on his forearm, perhaps to stop him, the other trailing up. ’Gabriel!’ The snap admonition doing nothing to stop the shudder from rolling through his host again. A plea with fingertips. ”She would be better off without you,” he warned. His grip on the blade lightened though, his eyes going back between them to see more blood bleeding along the trail he had made down her skin. Not enough for him to be truly worried for her host, but enough to have him tossing the blade aside before he gripped at the hand she had on him. ”Stop it,” he asked hoarsely. ”Why should I spare you? All your kind does is evil. This … this is as bad…” The touch that had Gabriel stirring, foolishly trying to stay his hand. His kind were supposed to erase hers from this earth but he hadn’t been able to bring himself do it. Had humanity corrupted him that much? Remiel’s jaw tightened as his fingers skimmed up her arm.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 729

Gabriel’s hands were most certainly not the ones on the wheel but the only explanation Remiel had for his growing reluctance to rid the world of the black eyed beasts for good was his host. There had been no hesitation before, not even after he had first taken up residence in this body. Gabriel had not been aware of his presence after that first alteration of his memories. It was cheating of a sort, almost erasing the human’s ability to eject him – not that Gabriel had when the blindfold had finally been taken off – but it had been a decision born out of care for this man.

Since the revelation had been made and the two of them had communicated, there had been a subtle shift. A regard for life that had had left him staying the vampire’s hand when he had stumbled across the situation with the demon in the alleyway. The host was to be preserved if possible.

Remiel stared down at the blood at the tip of the angel blade. A crimson jewel that stained pale skin. The human buried in his mind wanted to cover the wound with his hand, to put a – the angel’s frown deepened as he glanced up at the hallway that led back to the master bedroom and the bathroom the size of Gabriel’s newspaper office – band aid over it. For a split second there was a reflection in their shared mind. The thudding beat of some machine that had seen inside of him, the remembered fear rising again. That had been after he’d left his host concussed and bleeding, the incident that had finally pushed him to reveal the truth. Hosts could feel fear, they weren’t always mindless creatures, fully hollowed out by the things inside of them.

His palm went slick as he practically felt the demon’s host’s heartbeat racing in a quick vibration up through the blade. She was scared, even if the thing inside of her wasn’t. Demons were incapable of fear, all those messy human emotions seemingly burned away when what had once been a human soul was dragged down to the torturous depths of hell. Angels weren’t so … blackened. He felt that shiver as the demon reached up to touch him. Nails scraping the day’s end stubble on his jaw, driving some sort of pleasure down through him like a lightning bolt along with that unease. ”Hypocrite?” Remiel asked, a tight bark of laughter rolling from him. ”That is not our belief. All human life is sacred, which is why she would be better off with you gone from her body. Whatever may have once been human about you, beast, is gone. You’re now a creature of evil, one deserving of being put down for what you have done.” But he didn’t, did he?

Blue eyes fixed on the line of scarlet, the twist in his host’s stomach enough to have him throwing the blade aside. No temptation to drive it through that still beating human heart, no matter how hard the demon tried to tie him up. Remiel did not fling himself away from her but he rested back on his calves. She was still pinned to the chaise longue, although it would only take a burst of her power to toss him aside. It seemed as though she didn’t want to end this with bloody violence though. She was – the word rose up from the pit of his mind like a bubble floating into the air – seducing him.

A ripple of hips that had Gabriel groaning. It had been too long for a man used to the company of women, too close with the one at the gallery whose grief had hung over her like a pall. ”It is with a beast, there could be nothing worse,” he rasped. That wasn’t what his host was calling it but Gabriel had not seen enough of their kind to know. By protecting him he had placed blinkers on the human’s eyes. ”Surely you see the foolishness in trying to play to his sympathies?” It wasn’t sympathy Gabriel was feeling right now though. Heat tried to unfurl in the pit of his stomach as the skin he had marred smoothed out. Skin that felt like silk beneath his grip. Warm and firm and human.

Disgusting.

Pushing the thought through his mind as the demon drew him back down, guiding his mouth to that blood stained patch, Remiel tried to pull away. He’d touched, tasted before he managed it. Not as disgusting as he believed. His host had found something appealing in it that he could not allow. Batting at her hands, Remiel threw himself back. He rose from the low couch, hands out, face twisting with distaste as he glared at her. ”That rag is no good for anything. Your host will only suffer in it, wet and cold and miserable, although I don’t imagine you would feel much sympathy for her.” There would be no regard there, not in the way he took for his host now.

Gabriel’s sympathies were cloying now, rising up in his throat like they would choke him. The angel shook his head, baring his teeth as he backed away, stalking towards that hallway that led away from this creature. ”The only sin would be allowing you to keep corrupting it. Free her, leave her unharmed and I will do the same for you.” In the bedroom, Remiel tore open the door to the closet. So many clothes, no sign of the ones he had ruined in pursuit of these beasts. He dragged open drawers, retrieved sweatpants and a t-shirt. In seconds he was back in the living room, tossing them at the demon carcass. ”These are better than those rags you force her to wear.” He scowled, bending to the fireplace. There was a basket of logs, twigs, some sort of device Remiel had used a time or two. Too much hassle. Remiel held a hand over the fireplace and had the logs burning bright in a heartbeat, flames rushing up the chimney to chase away the damp air.

Tagged: LAMIA * Word Count: 1019