Thump. . . thump . . .thump. . .thump. . .

Ira wondered if he could just lay, battered and bruised, in the damp grass and let the world pass him by. He could stop fighting the sleep begging to take hold. He could leave this broken body behind. If the Beast crushed him beneath its' heel--he'd only move on. 

He'd find a new life waiting. One full of new possibilities, free of the burden this one had been so tangled up in. 

Except that, he thought, Melchior Brisbane had slighted him earlier. He'd pushed him away, he'd given. He'd told Ira to go on his own and what had that earned him? A short drop and a new foe. He laid wounded in the grass, listening to the heavy thumps of the encroaching Beast--and he soothed himself with one vinegar fueled thought; this was his fault. 

Ira groaned to himself. He probably didn't know that and if Ira died here, there'd be no one tell tell him off.

And that was inexcusable. 

So, Ira opened his eyes. 

He stared up at the sky, marred by outstretched fingers of cerulean blue pine needles--and he forced his aching body to begin moving. His neck popped and creaked as loudly as ancient cogs as he began to swivel his gaze around the clearing he'd tumbled into. A few meters of flat grass, kissed at all edges by more pine and more cliffs. Nothing but pine--that was a sight and scent that Ira was growing very tired of.

Maybe he'd go on vacation. Somewhere without trees. A staycation then? He and Peter, tucked in for the night back at their apartment--with no intention of departing for this wretched forest ever again. That would be nice. If he even managed to survive this, then he might find it in him to forgive Melchior--and then he could come, too. 

Thump. . . thump . . .thump. . .thump. . .

Ira squeezed his fingers into fists, clearing with great caution the cobwebs filling up between his ears. Focus, he thought to himself, or you won't be making it back at all.

He looked back the way he'd came. It hadn't been a sheer drop, or he'd be much worse off, instead it was a step slope, one he'd have much preferred to sled in winter. The hillside was adorned by a freshly mowed trail of crushed bushes and knocked rocks. Ira's body throbbed as he noted each object he'd rolled into. If he survived now, he was taking an ice bath later.

No conveniently placed lakes, he noted dryly. Holy water would have been his best chance. He ignored the buzzing in his mind telling him it would have been his only chance. He could bless the dew drops collected in his hair from his time rolling in the damp grass. 

Maybe it'd be just enough to give the Beast a slight case of indigestion after it ate him. An archer would have been nice--but the same as the holy water, he couldn't waste time worrying about what he didn't have.

What did he have? Besides muscle pain, a headache, and enough venom boiling inside his mind to fry a rattlesnake. 

Thump. . . thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

He had a knife, he suddenly realized. Ira dragged his palm down his hip, searching for his Ossein blade. It would be a cedar and bone toothpick to a Beast, but maybe if he could poke it in the eye or get it in the artery--did Beast have arteries? Whatever, it would have to be enough. If he could just--Ira froze. His heart thumped pittifully as it fell down into the pit of his gut.

His fingers twitched over his empty belt.

Thump. . . thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

He adjusted his position on the ground, pushing himself up with the heels of his palms to roll over onto his knees. The effort sent twinges up and down the length of his limbs, forcing a tight lipped hiss from the back of his throat. His bones settled with groaning aches, planks in a battlestricken sea vessel. 

Pains could be ignored--death was a headache. He had to pull his focus inwards, more than skin deep. His body would have to wait, to endure, until it could become his priority again. Ira steeled his resolve and turned his neck to scrutinize the cliff once again. Something had knocked his knife from his belt. With that in mind, his eyes ran down the length of the slope, pausing at each bruising obstacle he'd been flung into with much more consideration than he'd previously given them. 

His throat ran dry, and his palms began to prickle with sweat. At the peak of the hill, next to a tree with an Ira-sized chunk of bark missing, was a slender cedar stalk poking from the grass. His demon-bone knife glittered as beautifully as liquid stardust--and it was just as impossible to reach.

Thump. . . thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

It couldn't be impossible. It was his only chance. With desperation at the forefront of his mind, Ira began to climb, on all fours to keep his balance. His joints popped and his bones protested. Fallen pine needles poked into the skin of his palms, and embedded in the mud-licked fabric of his pant legs.

He kicked the toes of his boots into the soft mulch, and reached for the nearest rock. He pushed himself as much as he pulled, and rose up on the rain-kissed slope.

Thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

Ira could sense those encroaching steps better than he could keep track of his pounding heart or ragged breaths. He held the boulder with his shaking fingers and moved his boots one step higher. He froze, testing his weight to see if he would slide back down into the wet grass--it held. As well as a ribbon could hold a paperweight. It wasn't something he'd place much trust in.

His limbs trembled with strain. Sweat prickled his eyes, and stung his cut lip. He breathed slowly out and forced his ice-stiff muscles to move. He sunk his fingers into the earth and rose one step higher. Ira found his next handhold, a stray root coming from an old oak tree, and wrapped his fingers around it.

He was finding it much harder to go up, than it had been to fly down.

Thump. . .thump. . .thump. . .

Ira moved slowly forward, using trampled brush and stationary rock to propel himself along. If the hillside hadn't been slick from rain, if he hadn't been half out of his mind with sleep deprivation, and stiffening in his muscles from his recent battering, the climb would have been easy. He had to remind himself that he'd only tumbled down a steep hill, not fallen from a cliffside, but he couldn't deny that it was feeling very mountainous at the moment.

Thump. . . thump. . .thump

His foot slipped in the slick grass and his chin made impact with the mulch as he was flattened. Ira sunk his fingers into the mud, clawing to keep from sliding back. Each jolt from the approaching Beast shook him loose, threatening to drag him down to the grove he'd just barely escaped. 

Ira pushed himself back onto his hands and knees to begin his crawl again.

Thump, thump, thump. . .

He'd be out of time soon--maybe he already was. Ira glanced over his shoulder. From his vantage point, at the halfway of the hill, he could see the tops of the pine trees tremble and sway as the Beast cut through them. Ira could hear groaning, and cracking, as the trees fell beneath the heels of the creature. His bruising flesh knew how that felt. 

Thump, thump, thump. . .

He grit his teeth and began to climb again. Murky mulch collected on his palms, making it harder to maintain his grip. He paused to wipe his hands off on his shirt, digging his boots and knees into the soft earth as to not lose his place. The muck stuck to his shirt, cooling his skin even with the soft layer of fabric between. Ira shook free of his shivers and once again pushed himself up.

Thump, thump. . .

Ira reached out with shaking fingers, and seized the cedar hilt of his Ossein blade. His heart flipped in the tight confines of his throat. A small laugh breezed past his clenched teeth. Ira wrapped his arm around the trunk of the dented tree and swung himself around.

He flattened his back against the grass and dug in his heels to keep from losing his progress--and he waited with his reclaimed knife in hand. To do what? He hadn't thought that far ahead yet. He could move up, hope to make it to the top and escape. He scoffed. How fast would his fawn-fresh limbs have to be to cover any distance a Beast couldn't just step over. 

His legs shook, and his body ached--and he clung to the last shred of his consciousness as a child would their baby blanket--and he waited. Where Ira hadn't hit the tree, rough bark still remained. It dug into his skin, reminding him that he was awake and needed to stay that way.

The trees whimpered their final dying wishes as the Beast cracked them beneath it's steps. Ira breathed a whisper of a curse. His plans, his ideas, none of them mattered now. He'd run out of time. 

The pine pressed aside, and the Beast came forward. Ira sucked in a gasp, wincing at the rich scent of rot in the air. Despite the countless corpses, and his last encounter, he could never make peace with that heavier-than-air stench. 

The Beast's round gray head entered the glade, casting a shadow the size of Ira's living room. It only had one eye, rust red and protruding from the left side of the creature's face. It's wide orb twitched and rolled, swallowing up the sight of the forest. The right side of it's malformed skull was adorned by bubbled and pink skin, as if someone had held a hot iron to it. Whatever it had been--it had melted the creature's other eye. A blindspot, Ira noted, that he might have no other choice but to blend into. 

The Beast shook it's tank-wide skull and bellowed a deep rumbled that threatened Ira's precariously perched position. Each movement of its' bulbous pink-and-gray head created shockwaves, which rolled down the wrinkled flesh, causing two long stretches of flesh attached to each side of it's head to sway and tremble. Some poor reconstruction of ears, Ira assumed. 

The Beast looked twisted, and unholy, but somehow familiar. As if a child had drawn an elephant from memory. A child that had only ever heard of an elephant in theory, maybe. 

The creature had a blunt tusk-curled mouth where a trunk might have been on it's holy counterpart. Yet it wasn't lacking in spare appendages. Emerging from the pine, Ira could see a snaking gray tail. It lashed in a catlike whip, much faster than the rest of the Beast seemed capable of moving. An elephant assembled in reverse, then. Only, this creature was the size of six elephants in a trenchcoat.

It's marbled gray skin was slicker than the grass. Water collected in the divets between it's jagged rib cage, which shook loose and rolled down the Beast's side with each earth cracking step. Ira's gasping breaths came uneasily. His heart flushed against his lungs, filling his chest with too much pressure to suck in oxygen.

He was a sitting duck. A fish in a barrel. Low-hanging fruit. He couldn't think of enough cliches to explain how well and truly cooked he was. The Beast stepped forward, over the glade Ira had unwillingly rested in. It placed it's flat foot on the side of the hill, sending a shockwave up the slope.

Ira's boots slipped in the mud. He pulled himself closer to the trunk, extending his knife out with his free arm. He tried to ignore how much he was shaking, but it was difficult. Each tremble made glittering rainbow patterns along the edge of his glittering pearl blade.

Ira was laid parallel to the creature's chest. Without even breaking a single stride, the monster could have stepped clear over him and the slope. Maybe it was planning to do just that. If it just wanted to step past him, Ira would only have to avoid it's crushing heels--and that much he thought he could manage. It didn't though, because that would have been a miracle and Ira was sourly missing those these days. 

The Beast bent it's knee, lowering it's shade-making body to cover Ira and the entire hill. Ira had a suddenly horrible thought that the creature was going to flatten him with it's ribs. Just as suddenly as he had the horrible idea, it was replaced by a much worse reality.

The Beast craned it's neck, lowering it's sulfur-reeking maw towards Ira. It's tusk crowded mouth split open, and a deep bellow trickled over it's smoke-blue tongue. The creature turned it's bowling-ball head to the side to place Ira beneath the line of it's one copper-red eye.

Ira froze and stared back helplessly at the flexing iris. He could see himself clearly, reflected in the glossy surface of the eye. He was pale, mud-coated, and shaking--maybe for the best that the Beast squish him, so he could have something else to blame for his awful appearance than his own recklessness.

They stared--paralyzed by each other's presence. Ira was pinned in the mud. His grip slipping, his muscles twitching. His fingers wrapped around the handle of his knife and squeezed. If it came just a few feet closer, Ira could have blinded it once and for all. He could finish the job that had been left undone. If only it was a little closer. He could throw his knife--with his ice stiff arms, and hope for the best, but then he'd be rendered defenseless. If he did that, and he missed, then it would be for nothing.

So, he did what he did not often do--and kept his head attached and temper quelled. Ira held perfectly still, and waited at the mercy of the Beast. The creature's sluggish gray eyelid slid slowly down over the moonwide globe. 

Ira had no choice but to hold his breath, and extended his knife. His heart flared against his ribs, rising up and choking the still air from his lungs. Ira sputtered. He flinched. His skin heated--and he shoved it all back down. He shut his eyes, and forced in deep breaths of the rotting air. 

He'd give anything to be home now--in the little apartment meant for one but shared by three. He wanted to tease Melchior for disliking chocolate, he'd missed his chance earlier. He wanted to cook him something that couldn't be boiled on the stove. Father Pine had taught him to bake when he was young--in an attempt to redirect his aggression. Well, it was embarrassing but he was actually quite good at it. He wondered if Melchior wanted to learn, if he had any secrets to share, too. 

He wanted to scratch Peter behind her ears. 

He wanted to see Father Pine again.  

Ira inhaled. His heart began to slow. An ease settled into the space between his ribs. This was all so familiar. He'd been here before; damp up to his knees, inhaling the rich mixture of pine sap and rot. What had he been doing? 

Right, he'd been splashing into the pool of the Kaaterskill, pleading with the angels to give him and Melchior just one more fighting chance. 

Ira exhaled, and whispered words he did not often say. "Please help me." 

The Beast's rancid breath trickled across Ira's mud slick skin. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and bowed his head. "Please help me." 

His words were so weak. They trembled past his lips. What right did he have to beg for his life? No, not his life--just this body. After, there would be another. Ira would stay stuck in an endless purgatory, unable to move into the angel's promise, unable even to be damned. He was stuck--and he would be until he killed the Third Prince. Until he righted his original wrong. 

So, he had no right to beg for mercy. He was undeserving. 

Ira opened his eyes, and tilted his head back. He stared up at the Beast. At it's shut eye, and the flicker of movement beneath the thin skin. He exhaled unsteadily, and spoke, right at the face of the monster. "I know I've done wrong--but I think you know it, too. For a long time, I had so much to worry about I never stopped to see the good in my life." 

The Beast's eye slid open, fixing Ira with that muddy red. His heart hammered in his ribs--his breath caught in his throat. He inhaled, and pressed himself forward. This was only another rainy slope, one he knew now that he could climb.

"Of all the places in New York my mother could have left me--it was right where I needed to be to meet the Cardinal. I know, from my dreams, that I'm the first to remember. I spent all these years hating my dreams, even hating the way I was treated by the Progeny--as a traitor, as a tool. I never stopped to see it for what it was. A chance. You want me to fix it. I-I want to fix it, too." 

The Beast breathed, emitting a low rumbling from it's cavernous chest. It's eyelid fluttered back over the bulging red orb.

"You put me here for a reason--so let me finish it." 

The Beast's eye snapped open. Ira held perfectly still. The clear copper-red had rusted, taking on a pearl-like sheen. Unwillingly, Ira glanced down at the curling smoke color of his Ossein blade. It was the same. A shimmering milk white. Ira wondered if he'd stared so hard into the creature's gelatinous eye, he'd seen right past, into the unharvested Ossein skull. 

Or maybe it was only surface deep. A slight fog rolling around the inside of the eye. It muddled the reflection Ira had of himself. The Beast opened its' tusk addled jaw and made another deep rumbling.

Ira was rarely met with things he could not explain. He'd been plagued by nightmares all his nights, seeing and feeling centuries of life. He'd killed demons, spilled their hot blood over his hands.

He'd performed exorcisms, he'd chased out lost ghosts, he'd cut down more monsters than he could care to remember.

He'd testified in court, in a chamber buried beneath one of the most famous holy landmarks in all of New York.

He'd split open the chest of a Prince of Hell, with a weapon kissed by angel favor.

He'd done all these things, and more, and he'd never been thrown before--but now he was truly stricken. His mind rolled around on the floor of his skull, and his tongue tasted of dust in his mouth, and he couldn't bring what his eyes were seeing into focus.

It didn't make any sense.

The Beast backed away.

It lowered its' mountain big hide back to the forest floor, and stared at Ira with a cloudy red eye. The Beast tilted its' head back, and released an earth-shaking rumble. Ira flung his palms over his ears and pressed to chase out the shaking. His grip slipped, and he moved down by a few inches before righting himself.

It was nothing like the triumphant trumpeting of the Beast Ira had defeated, it was only melancholic.

He didn't know what to make of it--and he quickly ran out of time to decide. The Beast moved. It turned on tree trunk legs, sweeping its' snaking tail. It turned its' back and began walking into the pine again.

Ira dropped his hands from his ears, and extended his knife again, pointing it at the iron-hard hide of the disappearing creature. He gasped in shocks of air, trying with little success to slow the pounding of his swelling heart. 

He glanced up at the needle canopy overhead, into the crystal sky. "Angels, thank you." He whispered, because he had no other explanation for why a creature of Hell would have surrendered.

He listened to the steady thump of the monster's departing footfalls. It was covering ground quickly, no doubt stepping over entire zip codes with each stride. Ira waited until he couldn't hear it anymore, and sunk into the slope. His knife fell to the grass beside him.

Ira swallowed down the tightness choking his throat. He groaned and placed the dirtied heels of his hands over his eyes.

Maybe he really was going crazy. Maybe he'd banged his head on his express trip down the mountain. Maybe the Beast had stepped on him, and this was all some last second illusion before his damned soul was sent to the next poor husk.

Or maybe the angels had listened to him. Somehow, that seemed the least possible, and yet--the most likely. 

The trees whistled in the breeze. The Beast's deep rumble curled as smoke in the sky, filling Ira with one last melancholic moment. It ached, deep in his chest. It was a feeling Ira knew. It was a bitterness as bold as winter, a sting sharper than stylets--Ira had felt that way just moments ago.

It was the heart-cracking loneliness of wishing you could return home. 

It was, he was sure of it, hiraeth. 

Ira pressed his hands into his eyes until his skull threatened to crack. He was crazy. Crazy for assigning such a pointless meaning to some sound. As if Beasts had families, or apartments full of the sweet tangy scent of tea and incense. All they had waiting for them was brimstone.

Ira's heart twisted behind his ribs. He snapped upright, pushing himself up on his elbows. His purchase in the slope weakened, he slipped down an inch before righting himself.

Everything belonged somewhere. Even bears returned to a cave--a dark and gloomy well of stone, but to a bear, that was home. So, to this Beast--"angels," Ira breathed, "you want to go home."

The mud beneath his boots gave way. Ira slide down another foot before he managed to brace his palms against the grass. His skin stung, he knew he'd torn it. The fear clinging to every centimeter of his body began to dissolve. Replaced slowly but surely by something even more dangerous; hope.

He glanced up, at the path carved by shattered trees and broken earth. It was a road no amount of rain could wash away. It was the way home. It was their chance. It was the only way Ira could save Melchior.

Ira turned back to the human-made trail over his shoulder. He didn't know how to find Melchior now--he didn't think he could walk much farther even if he could.

So, he'd have to surrender for now. He'd go home and wait for Melchior. Together, they'd come back--they'd follow this path to its' conclusion. Ira sunk his teeth into his tongue to contain his excitement. After all, he could still very easily just be crazy. That Beast could have been sprinting for a weekend at Vegas--but it was the biggest lead they'd had since starting this doomed plot.

Ira laughed, until he came precariously close to crying instead