All Magic Comes With A Price

The Dark One

"All our secrets they are tailored trouble / Draped loose now around your hips" --Taking Back Sunday

The candy cottage was left behind, Gabriel getting out of Dodge as quickly as possible, angelically invisible, a relatively light spring in his step. He had made history. Or mythology. Or whatever it was. Sure, he'd hit a snag along the way, but nothing comes without a catch.

He had walked for maybe five miles, the sun sinking further and further into the dark, when he heard what sounded like a twig snapping. Gabriel turned to face the sound, waiting to see who or what had made the noise. He stood staring for a minute, maybe two.

"Looking for something, dearie?" asked a voice from behind him. Turning, he saw a man in dress similar to his, but made of red and of a much finer material. His hands, which he held out in a flourish, had long, dark nails, much like claws.

Never before had someone been able to sneak behind him, and this was deeply unsettling to the angel. Just from being near him, Gabriel could feel the man's power. He was not sure who this man was, as his arch-angelic powers did not seem to work at full capacity here in this world. "Looking? Nah, just... wandering," he replied, eyeing the newcomer warily.

"Ah, I see," the man replied, his mouth curled upward into a wicked grin. "So you weren't just turning about, trying to see what made the noise, hm?" He put his fingers together, the very picture of a stereotypical Hollywood villain. "Wandering, however, seems to have led you straight to me, dearie." He bowed to Gabriel, almost sarcastically. "Coincidentally, in case you hadn't figured it out, my fine, feathered friend, I am the thing you heard go bump in the night."

A shiver ran down Gabriel's spine, which was impressive, considering his angelic status. His blood ran cold when he realized this scale-skinned stranger had said "feathered." "Excuse me?" He said, squinting at the foreign man in astonishment. "What did you just say?"

An indescribable laugh echoed in the woods, the man in red taking a step as he spoke. "Ah- ya heard me, halo boy," he said with apparent glee. He turned his hand with a flourish, setting a ball of fire ablaze in his palm, before throwing it at the forest floor. A carefully laid firepit was suddenly there, as though it was there in the first place, although it had not been.

Gabriel laughed humorlessly. "Nice parlor trick," he said, crossing his arms and glaring at the powerful, dark person across the flames.

The glow of the fire raging between them cast shadows on the surrounding trees, one form with large, black wings protruding from it, and one without. "Of course I can see your true nature," the strange man bragged, taking slow steps around the fire nearer to Gabriel. The angel did not move. "I am the Dark One! Your heavenly magicks are, well..." He was standing near to Gabriel now, and he grinned his grimy teeth at him. "Useless against me," he gloated, his irritating chuckle tacked onto the end.

Gabriel knew this already. Sure he had the powers of the heavenly host going for him, but this guy, this Dark One, could see through anything. He'd seen through his invisibility obviously enough, so it had become clear that this was no one to mess with. "So, since you obviously stopped me for a a reason, and you seem to be my Kryptonite," Gabriel said, watching the Dark One pace around him like a vulture. "What would you have me do?"

There was that nasty grin of his again. "Oh, dearie, I do think I've got just the job for you."

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"He's in good hands," Emma said as she walked into the hospital waiting room, where she saw the newcomer chewing anxiously on the end of a pen, a clipboard in his other hand. "Dr. Whale will fix him up like brand new." Although he might have someone else's body parts, who knows? she thought sarcastically. "So I was hoping we could fill the time with those questions?"