Chapter 49 - Demon

Iris

- For the Iris I know -

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There was a candle.
There was darkness, the quiet, dank yet arid silence of somewhere underground.
There was a shadow.
Valkyre blinked his eyes open, slowly, wearily. His vision refused to focus in the dark.
The throbbing pain came back, but dulled, somewhat. A faded memory of the actual sensations, tingling in the back of his mind.
The angel ran his tongue around inside of his mouth, which tasted stale and dry.
...Drugged. He'd been drugged.
He could tell by how lightheaded he felt, by the dullness. He tried to move, and it took an eternity for his body to respond. His fingers twitched just slightly under his command, but refused to shape themselves into a fist.
Dangerous. He knew his situation was dangerous.
And yet...
Valkyre paused, then tried to move his arm. It stung. His neck ached, and he bent his head back, groaning slightly. Where was he?? The candle, a candle sitting alone, base formed by its own dripping wax, stood on a table next to him, casting warm light over his body.
Below him, stretching along the dirt ground and then up against a hard concrete wall, his shadow danced and flickered like a thing alive.
...What was going on? What was he doing here??
Valkyre glanced around, then down at himself. He was slouched in a chair... no, a stool, as there wasn't even so much as backing. He wondered how he'd managed to stay upright. The angel shifted his body slowly, testing his limits, trying to figure out how much of a response he could gather from his limbs. Every movement made the headache a little more severe, a little closer to becoming truly physical again.
Footsteps.
Valkyre froze.
The door opened, and dulled gray-white light splashed over the room. The door creaked as it shut. Footsteps down the stairs, echoing.
Something about this all... something...
So familiar.
This'd happened to him before.
This room. The candle. The stool, the footsteps...
Valkyre stared dully ahead, watching his shadow flicker and skid to the side from the breeze that'd made the candle's fire writhe, almost going out.
"...Camael."
His voice was soft, quiet, acknowledging.
He knew who this was.
The angel glanced over his shoulder, slowly. Camael smiled back, hands crossed, regarding him, head tilted slightly to one side.
He looked hardly any different now than he had all of those years long ago.
His hair was still the healthy dark brown it'd been years ago, but was now heavily streaked through with silver, cropped short in front but tied back behind the neck. His eyes were dark, circled now with shadows, and marked by fine lines and wrinkles around them. The nose and jaw were prominent, as they had been the last time Valkyre had seen him. The face was clean-shaven, skin dark and tanned.
"Valkyre."
His voice was low, deep and strong. Camael blinked, calmly, dark eyes catching and bouncing back the red-yellow candlelight.
"...That's an interesting name to pick."
Valkyre looked away, staring back at the wall.
"...Why?" He asked.
He heard footsteps behind him, and then the heavy weight of Camael's hand on his shoulder. Valkyre winced, slightly, then glanced down at his right arm. It'd been cleaned and bandaged, neatly. The white cloth wrapped around his arm glowed in the dark, contrasting the black swirls and sigils and snakes laced over the rest of his skin, brought alive by the shifting light.
"Why what?"
Valkyre paused, then shook his head. This feeling... the rough, work-hardened fingers on his shoulder... It was anything but comforting, but at the same time... there was a feeling. An air of calm.
This was his master. This was the man that'd taken him in from the reeking decay and death of his home when no one else dared. Who'd cared for him, taught him how to wield a blade, how to harness his energy, how to make being to make a living for himself, to begin a new life.
This was the man who'd left him seven years ago, turned his back and cast him out alone to care for himself. Who'd never even said goodbye.
Guardian, savior, traitor... none of these words fit him.
Valkyre closed his eyes, trying to push away the aching throb that threatened to take over his mind and body.
"...Why... did you call me?"
He heard Camael chuckle from behind him.
"That's an odd way to put it. ...But correct."
A pause.
"Because I'm here to help you, Valkyre," he replied at length, taking his hand off of the angel's shoulder and moving aside, hands laced behind his back, staring at the small candle flame burning itself up.
"...And, of course, in return, I'd like you to help me as well. Equivalent exchange, I would believe."
Valkyre watched the candle wick as well, studying the patterns the flickering light cast on the tabletop. Black and foreboding, his pen rested on the gnarled wood, casting a shadow as dark as itself.
Camael reached down, touched the pen with two fingers.
"You still carry this with you."
Valkyre looked away, staring down at the ground. Warning. His entire being was cautious, screaming something at him.
This was Camael, his master.
And yet... he was afraid.
"What..." His voice came out weak, almost cracking. The angel steadied it as best he could, taking in a deep breath. His body still ached so much, still burning inside.
"What's... happening to me?"
Valkyre stared down at himself, turning over his hands to stare down at his naked palms. His gloves had been taken away, as well.
"Why... do I feel... like this? What's wrong... with me?"
Camael came over, pressed his large, dry hands on Valkyre's shoulders, leaning over him. His voice was quiet, whispered close by the angel's ear.
"You've lasted longer than I thought you would," he murmured, breath hot. "But all dolls fall apart in the end."
The hands dropped over Valkyre's shoulders, circling around in front. Camael's right hand touched the center of Valkyre's chest, closed its fingers around the bobbing black seal stone.
There was a pause, and then Camael tore it free, pulling back from the angel.
Valkyre gasped, sharply. The pain flooded back, the darkness gathering itself around him. He half-doubled over, breathing raggedly, trying to keep the air pumping through a windpipe that seemed to want only to close itself on him.
His vision doubled, blurred, the shadow stretching out from his legs dancing, fighting against its tie to him. Like little demons, dancing, alive. The headache returned, pounding, drilling into his skull. His entire body was shaking, uncontrollably, and the burning, the burning...
He was going to fall apart.
Camael was right.
Behind him, the voice went on, calm and smooth, unperturbed.
"...Do you remember this, Valkyre? All of this?"
A finger traced its way down the angel's bare back. Valkyre froze, a cold shiver traveling down his spine.
His wings. Demon wings.
He felt the strong, heavy finger trace its way along a curve, sweep back down, following the sharp bone.
"Do you remember, Valkyre?"
The angel did not reply.
The darkness, his shadow. The candle.
His bare back. A pen on the table.
Pain.
He felt like he'd be going crazy...
The angel's eyes opened wide, taking in nothing more than darkness.
This was just like the last time. Just like...
When he'd gotten his demon wings.
A hand came up, touched the side of his face, one finger pressed lightly against his parted lips, feeling his breathing, feeling the coldness of his skin. Feeling his heart racing underneath the pale, easily-punctured skin. Felt the raging inside, the hot dark burning that consumed him.
"You've been a shadow these past years, Valkyre. Incomplete."
The hand dropped away, leaving him alone, leaving the dark black heat to consume him again, unabided.
"Haven't you ever felt like something was missing?"
A sound then, a sound that Valkyre recognized too well.
The sweet, sharp singing of a finely-honed blade coming out of its sheath.
The angel glanced back, startled. Camael smiled, setting the small hollow sheath of wood on the table. The candlelight turned the blue-gray blade hot yellow and red, swirling as if something were alive beneath the metal.
"Do you still trust me, Valkyre?"
The angel looked away, staring blankly back at the wall, watching Camael's shadow engulf his own. A warm hand laid itself in the center of his back.
"...Show me your wings," he heard Camael say, through the haze of pain and fire and darkness that threatened to consume him. His image on the wall was blurring, gone, dissolved in dark.
Valkyre wasn't quite sure why, but he listened, and obeyed.
He gathered his strength, centered it where it was needed. He felt the sparse energy he had flare up, felt it materialize, spread from his back, arching up into the air, the individual feathers rustling and scraping on each other as they formed, hushed in the silence.
The candle's fire flickered, wavering, pushed and pulled and molded by the wind he generated out of nothing, then slowly steadied itself.
Valkyre winced, feeling the dark burning eat at the bases of his wings, feeling it flare up sharply throughout his body.
His black wings trembled, then sagged down, drooping sadly. He didn't have the strength to hold them up.
Camael's hand, which'd remained on the angel's back throughout, now pulled away. Valkyre quivered slightly, feeling Camael come up behind him, feeling the warm breath on the back of his neck.
"Good, Valkyre."
He felt the breath leave his skin, going stiff as the sharp, honed edge of the blade touched his skin, pressing down just slightly, but not yet enough to draw blood.
"Now, let me show you your wings."
The blade slashed down his back before Valkyre had a chance to realize quite what was happening. A second later, it split through the skin on the other side of his back, two parallel slashes for two demon wings carved into his flesh.
He gasped aloud, feeling the blood splash out of him, staining, streaking down his back, painful, searing...
He felt it.
Something dark, something alive. Something screaming out from every cell of his body, every drop of his blood.
Something materializing, pushing itself at his veins and through his bones and muscles and skin, releasing itself from confinement somewhere far, far down, somewhere that'd remained hidden and locked away all this time.
His vision died, faded utterly to black, his body alone, falling through fire, searing, burning. The flames licked at his blood, drowning in it, tearing through his form. Like great, thin hands clawing their way out from inside of him, discarding the angel's body like nothing more than a hollow, empty shell left to blow away in the wind, left to be turned to charcoaled ash by the flame.
Crimson blood was staining, turning black, spilling over him, dark as ink, swirling sweet as wine and painful as liquid fire dripping between his shoulders, curling around his form, embracing him, consuming him.
There was the long, wet sound of something ripping. Valkyre's vision flashed red, flashed black-webbed and cooling, dancing in the night air. Fire and shadows played, intertwined.
He felt something rise out of his body, growing, pulling apart the broken skin, tasting the fresh, cool, muffled air, stretching, veins pumping, folding velvet-soft and slicked and dark.
Something hung above him, clinging to his body, arching up into the sky. Black blood leaked over the stiff, soft feathers of his angel wings, staining them sticky black on black.
Slowly, Valkyre blinked open his eyes.
Candlelight.
Blood and ink and fire, dripping down his back, down along whorled and smoothened wood, drying up in the dank soil.
His shadow.
Valkyre stared at his shadow, still playing along the wall, flickering at the edges.
He saw the jagged edges of his unkempt hair, saw his bare, sloped shoulders that merged into the ruffled, soft feathered wings that wilted at his sides before becoming part of the uneven, bumpy raw ground.
Camael had stepped aside.
And, from the center of his back, from some point along his numb flesh that he couldn't right now locate...
Wings.
Demon wings.
They arched up, smooth and elegant, bones edged by the tight, closely-hugging skin, jutting up to the pointed, tipped talons. They sprawled out to either side, possessing a life all their own, the skeletal joints that flared down webbed by a thin, dark, velvety membrane, whispering softly to itself.
Valkyre stared at them, disbelieving. He was frozen, caught on that image in front of him, tangled in cobwebs, staring at the image that had to be a lie.
"Wh..."
It was more of a weak, shuddering breath than an attempt at a word.
"Wh-What...?"
He heard Camael laugh, softly, behind him.
"Do you see yourself, Valkyre? This is what you are."
His shadow moved with his footsteps as he leaned over, resting a hand square on Valkyre's shoulder, maneuvering around the wings, the two pairs of wings, the impossible thing that was Valkyre himself, that was...
"You are Iris," he whispered in Valkyre's ear.
"You are antithesis."

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