Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Please see chapter one.

A/N: Apologies for the very long hiatus and for leaving reviews unanswered. I beg for forgiveness.

The room is cold. The fire died out long ago, and I have neither the strength nor the inclination to light it once more. I cope well enough with the cold and the darkness. Death has a way of hardening one to mortal frivolities such as light and heat. Besides, the life that runs through my veins is of rather a different nature, born of magic, not a mother. And with murder in mind, I fear no monsters. I am the most dangerous thing that lurks here.

No. Lighting the fire would only be for her sake. The little whore with her soft curls and pale cheeks. Even from my place at the end of the bed, I can see the rise and fall of the covers, hear the rustle of fabric as her bare chest presses rhythmically against the sheets. Every breath she takes screams out into the silence of the night, disturbing the peace with her treachery.

My angel is a liar.

Only, she is not an angel. She is merely a girl I used to know, a lifetime ago, in the most literal of senses. True, she’s grown and loved since I laid eyes upon her last, but the foundations I remember are still there, waiting beneath that golden surface of hers. Inside, she’s still that damned know-it-all, cloying for undeserved attention. Her wings are nothing more than paper and kisses, barely able to withstand the winds of life. And her halo, her glimmering halo, is but the glass from a broken bottle. She is nothing more than a cheap substitute for a woman, no longer feeling, just being.

But I suppose I must thank her for bringing me back. For giving me one more breath, another beat of the heart. It hurts, living. Like a knife driving deep in my chest, it pains me to keep breathing, telling me I’m wrong with every twist of the blade. That I shouldn’t be here. But I am, which is the beauty of it all. She gave me a second chance, and I am reluctant to waste it.

Life is so precious to me, now that I have seen death and all that is held in its watery depths. True monsters lurk there, beneath its grey surface, feasting on the spirits of the lost, with their red eyes and sharp teeth. The water is so cold, the swirling undercurrents grabbing at limbs and torsos with icy fingers. And there is no sun. No ray of morning light, simply the darkness cast out by the ever-expanding universe. Even now, after so many weeks of living, the sun still hurts my eyes, burns my retinas.

Perhaps it is my imagination, but now it seems easier to take, this pain. You see, I know who I am. I’m no longer striving to reach something that hovers, unseen, in my mind. My memories are far more than remnants of a dream I may, or may not, have experienced. They are solid to the touch and fluid to the senses. It’s like a pressure that I knew not existed has been released inside my head, leaving me free to think for the first time. To remember.

And I remember her. Minerva’s precious student, the one who could do no wrong. It seems less than a moment since she last sat in my class, her hand waving in the air as she offers a reply to a question no-one thought to ask. In another student, it would have been a promising attribute. But in her, it became little more than an annoyance. A curly-haired problem that had to be dealt with.

It’s difficult to comprehend why she lied to me. Guilt, perhaps. If I had a conscience, I’m sure it would buckle under the same amount of pressure. Hate is such a harsh emotion. It blinds even the best of us to the most obvious of truths. And she surely hated me for what I’d done. Though why she told me she was never my student, I may never understand. It sickens me to know that I slept with a student.

But worst of all, I know that I still love her. I still want her, in both mind and body. On the surface, she’s still perfect, however decayed she’s become beneath. She still looks like the angel I thought I knew.

Maybe I was too hasty in my denouncement. After all, why would an angel come to earth if not cast out of the heavens? And I have no doubt that despair was her vice and deception was her sin.

I will help my angel. I will free her from her mortal bindings of blood and tears. Release her from the prison of her skin: give her wings of golden feathers.

You see, she deserves far better than this cold, unforgiving earth. And I happen to be a dab hand at giving people what they deserve.