A corpse lay at the boy's feet. She had been young, even younger than he, but that didn't matter. She was evil, after all. Her face was still twisted into a grotesque expression of fear and rage and pain; she had cursed him to her very last breath, wishing him a most gruesome demise as she bled out, dark blood staining the pale floor.

Not that it mattered, for it was he who was still alive.

He yanked the sword out of her stomach, paying no mind to the blood that splattered on his face. He turned his sights on the woman huddled in the corner. She would have been quite beautiful had the look of unadulterated terror not been marring her face. She wore a flowing gown of pure white—soon it would be tainted by her blood.

With grim determination, he stepped over the corpse and made his way toward the woman.

Her eyes grew wide with horror as he approached, flicking between the still-warm corpse and his bloodstained sword. In her arms she clutched a child—barely a toddler—which she held even tighter as he grew closer, step by step.

"Stay away!" she cried out, her voice raw from screaming. "Don't you dare touch my baby!"

He was unfazed by her cries. He knew her fear was fake, a guise. He knew better than to fall for her deceit. She was a being of the purest evil, just like all of her kind. She, her child, the girl—they all needed to die.

The woman's gaze darted around the room, as if searching for a way out, but he had grown too close—she couldn't escape. Her face grew as white as her gown as his shadow fell over her, and she hunched over her child protectively.

He pointed his sword at her throat. "Give me the child."

The woman looked up at him with hard eyes. Faced with certain death, the fear had fled her eyes, replaced by a cold determination and burning rage. "Never. You'll have to kill me first."

"I fully intend to." But instead of plunging his sword into her throat there and then, he drew it back. Though he planned to kill them both, killing her first would be far too merciful. She needed to know the horror and pain of watching a loved one die in front of her, watching the life leave their eyes, unable to do anything to save them. Just as he had.

He adjusted his grip on the sword and struck her in the head with the hilt, temporarily stunning her. In an instant, he snatched the child from her grasp. The child began to cry as he tossed it onto the floor.

"Anka! No!" cried the woman, starting forward.

"Don't move!" he warned. "Or she dies."

The woman froze in place, watching her child with tear-filled eyes.

"Now watch closely," he said. He lifted the sword, causing the mother to let out a strangled cry.

For a moment, he hesitated. The child was so small, her face twisted into unfettered terror. She had likely not committed a single evil in her short life. Innocent. Did she truly deserve such a fate?

He quickly dismissed the thought from his mind. Nonsense. She was a being of evil, cruel by nature, and if she lived, she'd cause immeasurable suffering to far more innocents in the future.

In front of the sobbing mother, he impaled the child with his sword.

The woman let out a scream, a blood-curdling scream that sent chills racing up his spine. It was a scream of pure, burning rage.

She leapt up and raced toward him, wings of the brightest white spreading out behind her. There it was: proof of her sinful existence, finally showing its ugly face.

Before she could lay a hand on the boy, he nimbly lunged forward and stabbed his sword into her chest.

The woman stopped in her tracks, letting out a choked gasp. Her shocked gaze fell to the sword in her chest—a fatal wound. Then the expression in her gaze morphed from shock to disbelief to fury, and she stared at him with wrathful eyes.

He stared straight back.

As he watched the life fade from her eyes, the woman's face seemed to morph into another, more familiar one, one from an eight-year-old memory.

It was the face of his mother, her face twisted with rage as she too had been stabbed in the chest. Then the face changed again, and it was his father's face, again shocked, then furious. They looked just like they had on that day eight years ago, when they were murdered.

He had not been the one bearing the weapon at the time, though. He had been off on the side, frozen by terror, only able to watch as the life drained from his parents' eyes. He could never forget how, just moments before their deaths, his parents had looked upon him with burning eyes, sending him an unmistakable message.

Avenge us.

And their killers--he could never forget them.

Faces twisted into expressions of gruesome delight, shining weapons stained scarlet with blood, and wings--wings of purest white, so opposite their souls, spread out proudly behind them.

He knew who had killed his parents, without doubt.

Angels.

Angels had murdered his parents, and he was going to get revenge on every single one of them.

For just a moment, he let himself delight in a finished job, attempting to wear the smug expression of his parents' killers. The expression didn't feel right on him, though, so he dropped it and let his face fall into its usual deadpan. As he did so, the woman's face morphed back into her own, and he realized she was dead, held up only by his sword.

He yanked his sword out of her, letting her fall onto the body of her daughter. He watched the blood drip off his sword onto the puddles on the floor for a few seconds before directing his gaze toward the exit.

He walked out of the room, kicking the girl's body out of his way as he went.

This was a small victory. There was far more work to do.