08-21-2009, 08:07 AM
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Gabriel often slept at peculiar times. Most often it was early in the morning, when others were just rising. He rarely slept longer then a few hours at most; no longer because of the nightmares, but instead due to paranoia. The borders needed constant patrol, and he made a point to circle them several times a day. Luckily, now that Inferni boasted a near full-adult membership, he was not alone in doing so. This did not change his sleep pattern, nor his need to mark and remark what was his, but it helped. He was sleeping now, curled up in the dark part of the den that was his own, smelling the dry grass and rain. If he had been dreaming, he did not remember it. What he did remember was the sudden terrible jolt that had raced through his body, causing him to leap to his feet snarling. It startled him enough that he remained staring ahead blindly, tail all brush-bottle and fur on end. There was no reason for such a thing to have happened, but it had. As his vision returned, Gabriel grunted and moved forward. While he no doubt could have gone back to sleep, his blood warned him against such a thing. The reasoning for this was not understood until he began the descent towards the borders. Cool air rushed into his muzzle, bringing the scent of rain-water, damp earth, and…blood. Gabriel’s eyes widened, flashed in the dimming sunlight, and he began to run. He ran not simply because of the scent, but because a terrible instinct was screaming for him to do so. Something was wrong. Something had to be wrong because he could hear an urgent whisper, one that he identified with a dead man. That voice had not spoken to him in months. Though it did not tell him anything for certain, it told him enough. That was when he found them. Jezebel, urgently tending to the nearly immobile and terribly wounded form of his mother. In one terrible moment Gabriel’s body set itself in motion—his eyes turned into fire, his fur became a living thing and stood on end, and his face warped into a grotesque gargoyle’s mask. As he advanced, the scent explained everything. Haku. Of all the things he did not expect, it was that. Twin instincts tore at the Aquila; one demanded he go to Dahlia, and the other told him to deal with the matter at hand. Of these two, the latter was the stronger. His body lowered itself next to the gray coyote, and he nudged her gently with his dark muzzle. “Mom? Mom can you hear me?” He had not called her that since he was a boy. The desperation in that tone belonged to a child, one who refused to lose the only parent he had left. Haku had taken more from him then anyone else, and Gabriel refused to let him kill another Inferni member. The demon would breathe his last if Kaena had not ripped his throat out. |