Chapter 21

                                        

                                              
Two Angels, a Demon and a Neutral were trying to break into Hell. Gavin realized that their plan sounded more like the opening of a really off colour joke more than a strategy. He tugged a hand through his hair, only just realizing how much longer it's grown over the last two years. He'd been mortal for two years and his corporeal body was actually starting to age.
                              
The Guardian Angel shook his head to clear it of such nonsense, know that it was impossible. His hair grew because human's expected hair to grow, if he didn't want it to, it'd stop. He just hadn't really been giving a damn how he looked when trying to find Lone. A rueful smile twisted his lips as he realized that after finding Lone, he still didn't give a damn how he looked. Far cry from the Angel who'd dyed his hair to make a statement, who'd endured pain to have tattoos and peircings worked onto his corporeal body even though they served no purpose.
                              
Gavin walked into Lone's bathroom and stared at his reflection, trying to find a trace of the Guardian Angel who had failed so miserably and sent Lone down this dark, dangerous path. His figners reached out and touched the glass, mind travelling back to the memory of Lone's breaking point. The night her father violated her and forced her to kill him. She'd touched the mirror and told him goodbye, wishing he'd never saved her in the first place. If he hadn't been late, none of that would have happened. And she deserved to know this before it was too late. He wasn't worthy of her, and the Guardian Angel was finally being honest with himself when he admitted that maybe he needed her forgiveness more than he needed her love. Because even as impossible as it seemed to break into Hell, Gavin knew it was beyond impossible to love Lone, be loved by her in return and find a way to stay corporeal.
                              
“Focus on the moment now. Everything else is just a distraction that will get you and us killed.” Rimmon murmured from the bathroom door, smirking at Gavin’s startled reflection.  The Guardian Angel turned to scowl at the Demon, not appreciating his intrusion. Rimmon ignored the animosity and walked closer to the Guardian. “Get over it Gavin. Yes if I hadn’t of interfered, you’d have her and be on your way to merry boredom and eventual ruination. Be grateful she can’t pick between us, this way we both get a little of what we want.”
                              
Gavin decked Rimmon, dropping the Demon to his ass. But he didn’t follow up his advantage, instead offering the Demon a hand up. “If there’s anybody else who understands this, it’s you. God that’s just wrong. I’m finding common ground with a Demon.”
                              
Rimmon laughed and let Gavin haul him to his feet. “That seems to be the way Lone rolls. I have never seen somebody’s life so dominated by entropy as hers. It’s why she’s so damn Tempting.”
                              
“Just when I think I can stand to tolerate you, you go and say something like that.” Gavin shook his head, lip curling at the Demon.
                              
Rimmon continued to torment the Angel a little, wishing he believed all the nasty things he was saying. But the Demon was being forced to evaluate his own motivations, horrified to discover that he had locked out the voices of his Descended brethren and didn’t want to open himself back up to them. That mortal was screwing with his brain and he needed to remember that he was an Ambassador of hell. He did the converting, not the other way around. It was just nice to get a little peace and quiet inside his head once in a while. And yet a part of him was wondering if falling in love with a woman like Lone was such a bad thing….
                              
Gavin walked out of the bathroom and back into Lone’s apartment, seeing Gabriel and Belle still wrapped up in each other, and Coyote looked to be asleep on the bed. After the old man announced that he’d be their sacrifice, he’d simply walked over and settled down, telling them all that he’d answer questions after he had a nap. Without stopping, the Guardian Angel walked to the open window and stepped out onto the fire escape.
                              
He could feel the heavy eyes of the Arc and the Demon on him, but thankfully Belle’s gaze seemed less weighted. The human had completely gotten over her infatuation with him and seemed absolutely head over heels for Gabriel. It’d be amusing if Gavin didn’t know how tragic it would end. Nephilim were born from such unions, and inevitably hunted down and killed, as are their parents. An Angel cannot be both of the incorporeal plane, and a part of this one. The moment the physical manifestation of the Angel sired a child, the physical body they wore had to die. That’s why the moment an Angel felt the pull towards a human, they were supposed to retreat from the field and request a replacement. Any human that is a ‘match’, to an Angel will be hard for them to resist. Gavin needed only to look at Gabriel and Belle inside to see the veracity of that myth.
                              
Gavin looked back inside and saw Coyote staring at him intently. The Guardian Angel frowned, trying to figure out what the old man wanted. And even with the Neutral in the room, Gavin felt it when something started to threaten Lone's survival.
                              
There was no time for thought or logic, Gavin jumped off the fire escape without even considering how he was supposed to fly out of there with a Neutral not ten feet away. But Coyote must have realized the reason for the Angel's actions and let the Other use his power. The wings on Gavin's back tore through his shirt, the pain of their confinement falling away as he stretched the broad pinons out and caught an updraft. His entire body rang with alarm, disturbingly similar to the alert he'd felt ten years ago when little Elonore nearly drowned.
                              
With powerful thrusts from his wings, Gavin was more than willing to make the same trade he did years ago, his physical shell for her continued survival. And he realized he jsut might have to do that a moment later. Through his Mark on her breast, Gavin could feel something trying to sap Lone's will, drain away her essence. The Twisted had ignored the Arc Angel, the Guardian Angel, the Neutral and the Demon and none of them has put it together: the entire time it had been after Lone specifically. And they'd let her run away, alone.
                              
Gavin felt his body drop out of the sky, wings folded around him in a tight tuck as his body plummeted from the heavens like the ultimate bird of prey. His eyes hadn't seen the Descended trying to carry Lone out of Coyote's cabin, but he knew where he needed to be. The Guardian Angel was the irridenscently bright purple eyes look up at him in anger and he realized with a flash of alarm that the Descended he was facing off against, had him far outclassed. By then it was far too late to stop though.
                              
The Guardian Angel managed to crash into Chalice, the Demon who assigned fallen souls to their own personal Hell. His arms wrapped around Lone, letting his wings take the force of the impact as Gavin tore her free from the Demon's grasp and tumbled to the ground. When something inside one of his wings snapped, Gavin howled, making even the ghoulishly gaunt Chalice take a cautious step back.
                              
"Oh goody, another pet to play with. An Angel bound to the dark." Chalice cooed, stroking a clawed hand down Lone's cheeck, hovering over the writhing Guardian Angel. "This day is just getting better and better." she clapped her hands together joyously.
                              
Some rescue... Gavin groaned, feeling his own will power start to sap away as the Twisted shuffled out of the shadows around the cabin and approached him. Lone was groaning softly, starting to wake up and Gavin was trying to figure out an ecape plan for the two of them. And then he remembered how Lone and Rimmon had scared off the Twisted in their last encounter. Fantastic. This isn't going to suck... Gavin grumbled and then steeled himself and pressed fingertips into Rimmon's brand on Lone's hip. Agony shot through him and Gavin heard screaming, as his awareness of the world fell away, the Guardian Angel couldn't figure out just whom the screaming belonged to....