ash

If this flight once looked like an angel in some respite, all vestiges of its previous beauty have been ripped away from it.

Julio looks at the half-man- no, the sub-man standing before him, wings bloodied shreds and eyes searing-burning like emeralds consumed in flame, and does not cower in fear.

"Where is he?" a voice hoarse from what should be screaming, breath coming in shallow, painful pants.The flight is deathly pale, blood staining its skin stark macabre contrast to its complexion.

The way the flight moves and the way it looks at Julio makes Julio think of the man who started it all. Julio can remember his cigarette and his pinstripe suit, his velvet silky husk.

"Banquo." Julio's lips barely move as he forms the syllables of his employer's name, but the flight has seen it.

It is blinding pain upon impact with the wall, the flight's fingers like vice around Julio's neck. "Banquo is dead," the flight is saying, and when Julio can see more than just anger in its eyes, he knows there's something very wrong going on.

…

"You know why you're here?"

Jun looks at the man, unable to speak.

"Because I hate you. Because I hate you and I love money."

Jun looks at the man, unable to speak, but he knows the man all too well. He knows because the man looks like a man who doesn't know himself any more.

"You are so much less than human."

…

"Gabriel. Gabriel! GABRIEL!" Damien's voice is ugly in his own ears, too loud and jarring in the almost-silence of the corridor. The semi-unconscious Transporter he is dragging behind him is like a dead weight.

It is anger that gives him strength to move, anger that makes him fling open the large door as if it were a flimsy curtain.