Open your eyes.
She heard the voice in her head, coming from far within.
Open your eyes, and search for the one that must be saved. Remember who you were, and are, and could be. Remember...
She arched her back, as her soul caught fire, and she cried out as her mind ruptured open.
She woke up with a start, her chest heaving. She could remember the voice clearly, but everything else was distorted, as though it was all seen through static. She felt odd, her senses swimming. The cell was dark, but she had utterly no difficulty in seeing. It was as though the world was made out of liquid, and she could see and taste and hear all of it. And feel it, too.
Good God, how she could feel.
Her skin tingled. She could feel heat emanating from everything around her, and if she tried she could locate the sources; the mother superior in her office, the other nuns walking around, the choir practicing. She could hear snatches of song from them, on occasion; one of the basses was awful.
But that was only the beginning. She remembered all of it. It had gone so very wrong, so many times. Her kin had forgotten who they were, even what they were, and who they were together. But she knew. She was the source. The origin. She was the leader of the Watchers, the one who had originally fallen, and taken responsibility for the rest. Enoch had called her Samayza, but this incarnation's name was Gabrielle.
She sat up. She could feel vibrations on the earth; a lesser immortal walked the surface. Grigorii, she thought. Like her. She got up from her bed, and walked out, her feet barely making a sound on the earth as they fell.
She still wore her night clothes, but if anyone who she passed thought it odd they did not trouble her. She looked young, barely cresting twenty years, but her eyes glowed, the blue of them so pale as to almost be white.
She couldn't tell how far she had come on foot, but she wasn't tired. She had a direction, had a job to do. He had spoken to her, had given her a mission. Save the one who must be saved. But it was more than that; she could almost see more.
She could feel other feet on the world as well; demons, two or three other Grigori, but something else. Something both more and less. An extraordinarily gifted human, perhaps? She wasn't sure.
Then there was the stain. Two of them. She could feel their tentacles working their rottenness on the world as she walked. There was no vibration from them; they were there, present in everything. But she couldn't do anything about them. All she could do was find the Grigori. One who must be saved.
He wandered aimlessly. Indeed, that was an eloquent metaphor for what he did, he thought wryly. Where once he had direction, he now saw no path. Where he once saw order, chaos. He was chaos.
He followed smells, senses. He followed pulls and tugs he didn't even know he felt. He continued to walk, to move, his form ever shifting. He was tall and blonde one minute, short and dark the next. He was asian, then he was white. He was latin, he was black. He was completely unaware of his own mind; it never had any boundaries now. That was part of what the devil had done to him. He had no boundaries; it took all conscious control of his abilities from him, when control was the greatest skill he had before. He lived in other minds, experienced what they did, and revelled in their pleasure and pain.
He came to himself suddenly, his mind withdrawing back to within his skull. All he could hear was his heartbeat, and the rain falling, first on to the roof of the church, then sliding down to the ground. No thoughts, no presence. It was good, in a way; he felt naked, pure. For the first time in a long time, he felt human. The memories of what he had done faded from his mind.
The door of the church was open. It was an old catholic church, with heavy wooden doors framed by old stone. It was build in a medieval fashion; both to keep invaders out and filled with enough decadence to fill a peasant audience with awe. The catholic style hadn't really changed since then; just some of the doctrines.
He walked inside slowly. He ran his hands over the pews, looking through the dim light at the altar.
Mark had been raised catholic. He looked up at the crucifix, hanging in benediction over the altar.
"God, what am I supposed to do? You gave me a second chance for what? So the devil could corrupt me, and make me thirst for blood and pain? I fight every time within myself, and every time I cannot stop. I have tried to kill myself, but it seems I cannot. Tell me what to do."
His words echoed off the walls, then the silence rang. Mark burst up the aisle, jumping at the crucifix.
"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!!!???" he screamed into the face of Christ, his own barely inches away.
"Stop."
Mark leapt off the wall at the sound of the soft female voice.
She was stunning. Her hair was the colour of honey, and her face that of a doll. Her lips were devilishly full, and she looked slender; it was difficult to tell given her gown that looked more like a pillowcase.
All of the feeling and power he thought were suppressed returned, and he felt the evil well up inside of him. He felt like a predator, and his prey had just walked into the room.
She felt odd, watching him. His eyes were just as she had imagined; a deep dull red, muted, pulsing. His face wasn't lined, in fact as far from it as possible, every surface curved. It was almost beautiful, like a woman's face, but where a beautiful woman looked soft, or at least inviting, his face was granite. His expression was sheer hunger, want, anger, desire. She felt repelled by his baseness, but at the same time she felt her cheeks flush, and her mouth opened slightly. She took a deep breath.
"Oh, my dear. You shouldn't have come here tonight." He said, his voice smooth, as he walked slowly towards her. Fear. She was afraid of him, or was that for him? She couldn't tell anymore. The memories were not flowing as freely as before.
He reached her, and as he stroked her face his arm seized up, and Mark's vision went black.
