Life, Death, and Time - A Books Of Beginning Collection

Oneshot: Fallen Angels

Background: Rafe's POV through snippets of the century spent as the Dire Magnus.

Content: Rafe/The Dire Magnus-Centric. Kate x Rafe. Dark. Character Study. Angst. 

***

He insisted on going out for his own potions ingredients. He could have sent an imp to do the grunt work, he could have even sent Rourke to run the errand, but he had chosen not to. Rafe couldn't bare to spend one more minute holed up in the mansion. He had spent the better part of eleven months shoved inside there, first adjusting to his new role, and then studying magic, and the books of beginning, non stop, while ordering the monsters at his command to handle other things. But while the mansion held secrets to power, it was also a constant reminder. Rafe had spent eleven months there and still had not re-entered the ballroom. He couldn't, not when she had been in his arms, bleeding out, slipping from life.

Rafe had yet to rid himself of his bloody clothes from that eventful night. He probably should have trashed them, burned them even - they hadn't been of good quality anyways, and now they were too bloody to wear. But the blood was her blood, tangible proof that she had been there, that she was real. He couldn't bring himself to part with the ruined items. 

Rourke had offered to accompany him to the market in the magical-quarter, or send an imp with him for assistance. Rafe had silenced him with a glare. The part-giant was awful company, and horrible at being inconspicuous, and imps were foot-soldiers, stupid but good at following orders. He had no desire to be around them right now. Besides, he did not need them hovering and trying to protect him, when he was more powerful than any fool in this city.

(Besides, New York had been Rafe's home for all his life. He knew his way around, and it was quite frustrating to see everyone forget that.)

He had missed it, this part of town, which raised him. He missed the church as well, but that had been ruined beyond repair. He had returned to the sight only once, and been enraged at the ashes the humans left in their wake.

It had been incredibly satisfying to send imps after the ones who had done it, to know that they would plague others with their barbarism no longer.

In addition to all his duties as the Dire Magnus, Rafe had made time to learn what had happened to the children of the church after the fire, and had been pleased to learn that all had made it and were at a home in the rural upstate where several witches and wizards sheltered and taught magical children. Good. So much magical life, so much potential, it didn't deserve to be wasted. The children would learn - he had figured out quickly that Abigail had taken on a leadership roll among them, to no one's surprise. They would become powerful. In time, perhaps Rafe could even welcome many of them to his cause. 

And then, of course, there had been his magnum opus of his first near-year as the Dire Magnus. Proof that the sheer power inside of him was rightfully his, the final sealing of the deal that had changed his life.

'And I want the humans to pay. I want to make them pay.'

So he had. Rourke had dragged that bastard who had shot her into the mansion's basement, and  Rafe had gotten to work. There had been something so gruesomely gratifying about the whole affair. Knives, fire, spells for pain, it all went towards making that man - that murderer - scream in agony, making him beg for mercy, beg for death. Rafe had smiled as he worked, enjoying the gory sight of his beloved's would be killer covered with twice the amount of blood that had soaked her.