Tears of Madeira

One Minute to Midnight

Overall it wasn't a bad way to break a vow of chastity. Looking over the tangle of white skin and feathers in the bed beside him Allan wondered why he had waited until the end to break that particular vow. It reduced distractions he supposed but, like all things, when its usefulness had reached an end it was discarded.

He brushed purple hair from Vex's face. She had almost been his match and that was what had made her so very lovely in his eyes. The Regina Thermidore, while amazingly flexible, still shared the weakness of her race. While the Angels could manipulate others and remake the world, they could not recreate themselves. They were what they were and could not conceive of changing that. It made them predictable. It was their blind spot and her one weakness. A weakness that he would breed out of earth's other children.

"Of course you would be a voyeur," Alan spoke aloud to the shadows.

"I gain no pleasure from you activities," came the soft reply.

Alan slowly unwound himself from the sheets, "That's a pity. It's always better if one enjoys one's work. I gain a great deal of satisfaction from mine."

Silence was Alan's only answer.

He winced as the scratches on his back left bloody streaks on the sheets. Vex had been jubilant upon her return. She won her gamble with the Devil faster than expected and returned home in a predatory mood. He finally gave in to her advances. It bought him the time he needed for his people to clear Thermidore's territory with the weapon. Drugging Vex's favourite wine bought him the remaining time he needed to betray her. It wasn't personal. He knew she'd understand that, just as he knew she'd kill him in the most painful fashion she could devise if she caught him. That was just the way it worked.

He pulled the remains of his undershirt off revealing a small tattoo over his heart, three concentric circles with flame rising from their center. He hadn't been a Watcher in decades. He'd traded watching and remembering for analyzing and acting long ago when he'd become a Controller. He'd been one of many then. Now he was one of two. The others were dead and the newest Controller did not have enough time to become a serious threat.

Alan donned simple blacks and collar. Even after all this time they were still the clothes that he was most comfortable in. They reflected his calling.

"It is time. Take me where I need to go."

"As you wish."

The shadows folded around the priest and turned into the void.