Ira splashed stubbornly into the water, shivering as his already soaked socks sunk beneath the lapping waves. He moved forward until the lake pooled around his ankles and then he fell to his hands and knees to submerge himself in the shallows.

Ira did not watch as the Beast clambered towards the shore. He did not count as Melchior's arrows went to waste. Instead, he held perfectly still, feeling only swayed by the gentle way the water licked at his prickled skin and pulled at his dripping clothes.

He gave into the well of helplessness sapping at his core and resigned himself to trust Melchior. All he could do now was give into his solitary pleading. Ira pressed his hands into the mud until it began to slither over the tops of his fingers. He bowed his head--and he began to beg.  He whispered as desperately as he could, trying to reach across the sky to find the angels. 

The Beast's footfalls echoed through the lake, shaking Ira where he stayed knelt in the river silt. Melchior's arrows whistled through the air. And then popped where they embedded in the monster's thick hide. But it did not slow--and Melchior's arrows did not even seem to amuse it. 

So, Ira watched as it all came crashing down around him. And he thought of that hushed whisper he'd heard before; undeserving. 

"I know," he gasped, "but help me anyway." 

Ira wished to curse at them instead. It wasn't fair. He was the boy picked by the angels to do their bidding? Why? Because he'd irritated them centuries ago? Because for as long as his soul remained trapped on earth they could demand the world of him? If any of it ever truly mattered, why send the Prophecy at all? Why hold Melchior's life as payment for saving the world? 

Why did it always end in death? Over, and over, and over.

"Help us!" He begged. Was anyone even there? Did angels find his strife so amusing that they would allow the Beasts to churn the earth into ash? The water seeped frost into his skin. He shivered until he began to turn blue. The heat of the summer sun felt a million miles away. As far and as unyielding as the angels.

Undeserving. 

"Selfless," Father Pine whispered. It carried on the wind of his soft breath, hardly lasting long enough to be stuck as a memory in the back of Ira's mind. And yet, it had lasted. Long enough to stir now--when he needed it. Ira knew then that it would last forever, trickling through time in an abundance of comforting nightmares. 

But for now, undusted by the passage of the years, Ira remembered it for himself. He'd tilted his head and crept forward, stepping carefully across the loose stones and broken bottles. He furrowed his eyes in blatant curiosity and stared daggers into the man precariously knelt on the dirt-strewn floor of the shuttered building. 

Father Pine laughed, as if sensing the pair of curious young eyes gazing at the back of his salt-and-peppered hair. "Are you curious?" 

Ira nodded. He floated across the cement to stand by his mentor's side. Slowly, he lowered himself to his knees beside him. Checking with every movement that he was not kneeling on glass and debris.  

"I'm praying." Father Pine answered simply. 

Ira squinted up his sky-blue eyes and frowned. "Why?" 

He thought, for one blazing moment, that the angels were not worth the prayer Father Pine concocted for them. He wondered if they even paused to listen at all. Abandoned--forgotten. All that remained of them, the proof they'd ever existed at all, jars of water and an orphaned baby boy. 

"Because I am devout," he said, but when Ira seemed unmoved, he added, "and because I am nervous, and because it calms me." 

"You're nervous?" Ira asked. He glanced around the condemned building, as if inspecting it for scares greater than the shattered glass they'd knelt beside. 

"Yes," Father Pine answered. His fingers tightened over the hilt of his cedar blade. His dark blue eyes traveled through the dim, finding the door to the basement that they'd soon be advancing through. The job from the Progeny had come only with the intel that the lair was beneath the boarded up ex-factory. 

Ira sat back on his heels--completely bewildered. "Why? They're just He-Goats." 

Father Pine blew a breath from his nose and shook his head. "I'm not afraid of them, kid. I'm afraid for them--because I know that we will always stand on opposite sides of the same mountain." 

"I don't understand." Ira admitted. 

Father Pine smiled sadly. "What we must do doesn't always feel right, but we do it anyway. For the angels, for ourselves. Sometimes, it just gets a little loud. And when that happens, I pray." 

"Selfless," Ira whispered. 

"Sacrifice," Father Pine completed. 

"That doesn't seem much of a prayer," Ira pointed. He thought that maybe it should have come with more words, or been pumped full of more compliments--if he stood any chance of the angels turning him their otherworldly attention. 

Father Pine laughed and ruffled his sun-yellow hair. "Then make up your own, kid." 

"Make it up?" 

"Sure, why not?" Father Pine shrugged. 

Ira frowned. When had he ever prayed? He'd spoken nursery rhymes over pots until they'd stirred to life with enough magic to burn away demonic corpses--but how could he begin to call that service? "I'd have nothing to say to them." 

Father Pine shook his head. "Then don't, kid. Speak to yourself instead. When it begins to get loud--think of what you need to calm yourself." 

Ira frowned. He stared down at his slender fingers--at his well-trimmed and blunted nails. Sometimes, when he fell asleep, they turned into lavishly polished claws, tipped on tapping fingers that would move against his own will. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. A thought to quiet the roar? To still it all, as if encasing his own mind in glass? 

I am Ira Rule. 

He opened his eyes, staring down at those still fingers. He flexed his hands and they moved in kind. He glanced at Father Pine, who smiled softly back. 

Ira shut his eyes--last night he'd had that dream again. Choking to death at the bench of a glossy black piano after innocently snacking on a piece of shortbread brought back from his father's travels. That boy hadn't been him. They were different. In a thousand uncountable ways--but Ira would try. He would tally each out of place freckle. 

I like peanuts. 

His cheeks burned pink--it felt so silly. 

"Keep going, Ira." Father Pine said. "What can bring it all into focus?" 

He breathed slowly from his nose, and whispered to the reflection in the stirring water. 

"I am Ira Rule." 

The lake water remained an all consuming chill. If they still lingered long enough to listen, then they did not care for his melody. It didn't matter if they cared--they had to know. 

"I hate dogs," but once, roaming the hillside with that barking brown farm dog had seemed the only adventure in his life. In her life. 

I am Ira Rule.

"I don't like the piano," even if he had played it so beautifully, with hands long worm-chewed and rotted. 

I am Ira Rule. 

"I love the color blue," because she hadn't--but that was the color of Father Pine's eyes. Ira's eyes. And when they stood side by side--they almost seemed a true family. 

I am Ira Rule.

Melchior cried out--Ira snapped his eyes straight to look at him, nearly shouting at him to stay clear of the water. But he had. He stood on the shore--until he could not stand anymore. His legs buckled beneath him, and he crashed to the sand. Ira's stomach twisted. His legs shook where the water touched them. If he tried to crawl--would he make it in time? The Beast stood before the lakebed and began to raise its' leg. Melchior curled and thrashed beneath it--as if bending and breaking under an invisible boot.

It's over, Ira thought. Mel is going to--no, he wasn't done yet. Of all the thousands of pieces composing Ira Rule, there was one that seemed suddenly most pressing. 

"I will not be bewitched by the Third Prince of Hell." He whispered--it was all he could do to keep from breaking. Melchior needed him. He needed the angels. No one was listening. Maybe it was too difficult to hear his whimpering over the sound of snapping. 

The Beast froze, it was staring down at Melchior with a look of frozen consideration. 

"I am Ira Rule now." 

It felt as if a dam had burst. An invisible wall between his ribs cracked as the force pushed violently out. Ira's muscles locked tight around his bones--his veins flushed with heat. His tongue began to sting with nettle-kisses.

The flesh of the Beast began to smoke. 

It lifted its' head and bellowed, loud enough to shake the trees and whip up waves in Lake Seneca. Ira did not stop--he pushed forward. He wrapped his fingers over the livewire frying his insides and pulled the lines tight. 

Because Melchior needed him. 

He needed him to bless the lake, to burn away the Beast, because if he didn't--his focus slipped, his heart twisted and stung where the power coursing through him singed it. Ira couldn't look away as Melchior's body began to contort. 

Mel. 

His Mel, cracking and breaking on the beach. Ira wanted to scream--he funneled his horror into thicker waves of heat and held onto the attention of the angels. His tongue worked tirelessly, even as the heavens came crashing down onto his shoulders. The chill in his flesh couldn't be chased out, not even by the tingling in his teeth. 

His prayer was all he had to hold on to--so he did not let go. Or he thought he might slip beneath the waves and dissolve into seafoam. 

"Selfless," Father Pine echoed, "sacrifice," 

Ira had seen Beast corpses rotting beneath the summer afternoon. He'd scraped demon blood from his blade, washed it from his face, plucked it from underneath his nails. He'd dreamed of countless tragedies, of a million deaths. Nothing he'd ever seen in any lifetime could ready him for the horror unfolding before him now. 

Melchior's bones shot out of his skin, tearing free as easily as needles coming through sheets of paper. His ribs burst through the soaked fabric of his T-shirt, which fell into tatters and slipped away from his body. The bones glittered as brilliantly as pearl, briefly exposed to the summer sun before his skin began to grow to fit it.

He was exploding and condensing. He was crushing together like a tin can--and the pieces melding back together were not human. The skin elapsing over his moonstone skeleton was thick with fur as rich in color as garden soil. 

Ira felt sick rise in his throat and had to whisper quicker to keep it down. And he thought of words, thrown at him in a rare display of frustration. 

"Angels, Ira! If you knew what was really going on with me--you'd beg the Cardinal to kill me!"

When he couldn't bare to look any longer, Ira squeezed his eyes shut tight and raised his voice to drown out the sounds of his screams. Until they weren't screams--deepening into a sound both guttural and inhuman. Chills ran down the length of his spine, paralyzing him to his spot in the lake. How many nights? How many hunts? How many monsters had he killed that howled the way he did now? 

His stomach pitched. His heart faltered. All he could hold onto was his blessing as the ground disappeared beneath his feet. His too-sharp teeth, his glowing green eyes. How he took to the forest, as if it was second nature. How he seemed to always know the way--no matter how little the light touched. His curse, his secrets, the distance he carved between them. 

It all made sudden sense. 

Mel was--he wasn't human at all. 

Ira was the proxy of the angels, but he was no sit-in. He was the demon. His cursed blood, the price for saving the world--all along, they'd only been asking a demon-slayer to slay one more. Ira might have laughed if he did not wish to cry instead. 

I am Ira Rule, he thought, but I'll always make the same mistake.

He'd done it again. He'd let the demon beguile him into doubt, into abandonment of his mission, with the sound of his laughter and scent of his skin. So, Ira forced his eyes open, ignoring how it blurred from his brimming tears. He had to know--he had to see him. His eyes chased the riverbank, but Melchior had vanished. Standing in the place he'd once been was the wolf. The demon looked wolfish, if not for its' hulking size. It stood taller than Ira, with dagger-like teeth and claws. Its' fur was a warm russet brown--the same tone as Melchior's hair.

He's not human.

His throat tensed until all his words churned before emerging, scattered and broken. He couldn't make sense of the scene unfolding before him--he didn't want to.

The Ze'ev curled its' lips back to flash its' sharpened fangs at the Beast. Its' jaws foamed from the snarling and spitting, giving it a fierce look of fury. The Beast stomped in the water, hissing up steam where the blessing sank into it. And yet it did not move onto the sand. 

It advanced, on paws tipped with dagger-like talons, towards the lake. The wolf's approach forced the Beast back another step. Its' back leg wobbled where it was being burned away, but it did not fall. Ira could see bright flashes of bone as the lake ate away at the skin and muscle. The Beast roared defiantly and surged a half-step forward, stabbing the air with its' crown of horns. The Ze'ev did not flinch, and instead met it at the lake's edge. 

Ira's stomach rolled up into knots--his tongue wavered for a moment before continuing. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the demon's paws, encroaching dangerously close to the scalding lake. His heart pittered painfully. He wished to call out--he wished to take away the danger of his words--but this was all he could do to help. So, he steeled his nerves and sunk himself into his chanting. 

The Beast stood castle-big and mountain-tall. When it bucked its' tusks and teeth towards the Ze'ev, Ira flinched. The wolf did not. It lunged forward, leaping for its' lowered throat in time with the Beast's attempted stabs. Breaking its' pattern in a retreat, the Beast lifted its' slender neck and stepped a half-pace back into the boiling lake. 

Ira blinked in shock. To him, the wolf was imposing; nearly the size of a draft horse, with three-inch long teeth in its' snapping jaws--but it was only a mouse to an elephant. Not even tall enough to touch the Beasts' protruding ribs. And yet, it cowered. It stayed pinned in the lake and roared angrily--more terrified of the land than of the angels.

Why? What could possibly be more frightening than burning alive? 

Ira touched his palm to his stirring chest. He choked on his chant before forcing it past his trembling lips. His insides were strangely warm, more than from the heat surging through his skin. His heart thumped in his ribs as he dismantled it all brick-by-brick. Writhing just beyond the seventh layer of his skin was his rage. Melchior had lied--and again he'd fallen for it. He had no words to neatly explain the depths of that ache. Boiling beyond that breaking point was ocean-deep despair, something honey-thick and as encasing as tar. 

Ira shut it all out. He dug far deeper, to the soft whimpering of his still beating heart. He watched the Ze'ev chase the Beast back--and he felt proud. 

The Beast raised itself on its' hind legs, kicking its' boiled and pink hooves in the air. It screamed and landed back down in the lake, sending up a tidal wave of holy water. The splash landed along its' sloped back, fizzling where it touched. The echo of the impact landed along the beach so that the wolf had to dart backwards--narrowly escaping the reaching tendrils of Ira's weapon. Whatever charm it had built came crashing down with its' retreat. The illusion had shattered--and the Beast knew it. It lowered its' head and charged.

Finally, the Beast had made landfall.

The wolf barked in surprise, stumbling even further. The Beast gouged the sand with its' crown, plowing up trenches wide enough for Ira to lay in. The wolf jumped over the horns and rolled in the sand. His too-green eyes trained on the head of the monster--he didn't even glance behind him, where the water was stirring. Forgotten from its place beneath the smoldering waves. The Beast's tail began to rise out of the water. The appendage was covered by red raised welts, and worn down to the bone in splotchy patches of melted skin. Even eroded, it was enough to crush him. 

Ira's stomach flipped. 

"Mel!" He screamed. 

For a moment, he thought that the Ze'ev wouldn't look at him. He thought that--somehow, it was all some trick. That Ze'ev was not Melchior Brisbane, and it would not react to his call. But it did, and as his shimmering green eyes turned to face him, something inside of Ira's chest shuttered and broke. He grit his teeth and refused to give into devastation. He instead raised his arm, pointing at the snake-like whip just as it flung forward. 

The wolf's eyes swung to the approaching swipe. It dropped to its' stomach to narrowly avoid the crushing blow. Ira gasped--sucking in the sudden frigid air. The water around him began to frost, draining of light. 

"No, no, no!" He shouted. 

He'd lost focus, he'd let Melchior pull him from his mission--again. His fateful sin, how doomed he was to repeat it. Ira squeezed his eyes shut tight and bowed his head. He reached across time and space, just barely managing to snag the fleeting tail of favor. He yanked, pulling with all his strength, to return what he'd nearly lost. 

I am Ira Rule, his heart panged behind his ribs, I am Ira Rule.

Ira thought he might have more luck holding onto an eel rubbed down in baby oil than what he tried now to grasp. Teeth, claws, and mind. He sunk everything he had into what he could not see. Slowly, the embers of his chant began to ignite. Gentle heat filled his skin and rolled out on the tide. He glanced up at Melchior--at the monster standing in his place.

He stood, shaking the sand from his fur, and glanced back at Ira, who thought that maybe some sort of understanding had passed between them, floating over the surface of the poisoned water. Ira would hold on--and it was up to him to return the Behemoth to the water. The Ze'ev turned himself towards the Beast and tilted his head back in a full-moon-fitted howl. Goosebumps broke out across Ira's shivering arms. He tucked his head down and whispered breathlessly. 

The Beast roared in return, loud enough to shake the earth from Lake Seneca to Central Park. It swung its' horns through the air, dipping and stabbing wildly at the other's direction. He hopped from left to right, keeping himself mere seconds ahead of the Beast's crushing bone. The Beast seemed only to be growing more frustrated. 

It bolted forward, lowering its' arch-shaped head until the tips of its' tusks stuck into the lakebed, each step forward churned the sand. And Melchior froze. He watched as the Beast came rapidly towards him. Ira had a bad feeling blossoming in his gut. Because he'd know the look in those green eyes, no matter what form it had taken. 

He was going to do something stupid. 

They came to the realization, it seemed, simultaneously. As soon as Ira had thought it--he broke into a run. On a direct collision course for the Beast. They gained ground on eachother, playing a heart pounding game of demonic chicken. And neither was pulling away.

Ira choked back his shout and forced his words into coaxing calm instead. He had to hold on. He couldn't afford anything else. 

But it became nearly too hard to speak as Melchior leapt into the air, talons extended. The Beast dug its' heels into the soft earth and tried to wretch back its' sensitive neck, but its' horns were too deeply submerged into the beach--and Melchior had other plans. 

He landed on the left tusk of the Beast, balancing on a sloping bone-beam as thick as a fallen oak log. He began to climb, the Beast began to panic. It attempted to shake and toss its' head, but stuck in the beach it could only tremble. 

The tremors were significant enough. They knocked Melchior's balance askew. His paws slipped, he might have fallen beneath its' hooves to be stomped--but he managed to catch the Ossein horns with his claws. Ira's words flinched, shaking until Melchior managed to steady himself. He pushed back to his feet, and Ira resumed his stoic chant.

Ira held his breath between his words--and Melchior launched forward. He landed on the snout of the monster, nestled between its' risen toothed-tusks. His claws sunk into the gray face of the Beast. It howled in alarm and dredged up its' horns from the sand to freely lash its' neck. Ira had to wince in sympathy as Melchior sunk his fangs into the Beast's bulging right eye. 

It screamed in rage and whipped harder to dislodge him--but he wasn't releasing. Melchior dug in his talons and fangs, clinging as tightly as fruit to a vine. He turned himself into a furry tornado, ripping and tearing as much as he could reach. Until he'd finally, with a stomach churning pop, plucked the Beasts eye. 

The roar to follow drowned out the sounds of Ira's prayer--and everything else in the world. Ira winced, placing his palms flat over his ringing ears. He looked for Mel--his heart dropped. Melchior was shaking his head--his grip quickly falling down the list of priorities as the Beast bludgeoned his too-keen ears. 

Taking advantage, the Beast rose on its' hind legs, trashing and bucking. Ira's stomach twisted as Melchior came loose. His back feet first, so that he hung on by his front talons. The Beast threw its' head back and tossed the him into the air as seamlessly as a ragdoll. 

Ira's tongue hitched behind the cage of his teeth--no, no, no!

He watched helplessly as the wolf twisted in the air, spinning and flailing--and falling--and splashing. He landed like a rock into Lake Seneca--in the water Ira had made to erode demonic flesh. Ira couldn't breath--not as he watched Melchior sink beneath the waves. The only sign he'd ever existed at all, a spire of rapidly emerging bubbles--pillars of hissing spitting steam. 

No, no, no. 

He wanted to scream--he wanted to tear it all down. He paused in his incantation. Stop, he had to stop--the earth rumbled, the lake trembled--and the Beast trudged back into the foaming waters. Willingly rushing into the boiling just to crush them personally.

And Ira froze, tongue thrumming. This was all he had. Blessings were his only weapon strong enough to save them. The Beast was coming now. If he let go--he didn't believe the angels willing to forgive him a third time. It would be the end. He'd resign them to their fate at the end of a tusk.

The water popped, bursting as the wolf broke through the surface. He tilted his head back, gasping in lungfuls of smoke-choked air. From a maw filled with jagged teeth, he screamed. The sound was entirely too human and wholly too familiar and it shattered Ira's fragile glass heart into pieces. The churning water around him was darkening with russet fur-filled foam. It was sloughing off his back in tufts as the skin holding it together melted. 

He was burning--Ira was killing him. 

Him--it was him! 

Mel.

Behind glistening fangs, beneath soil-rich coat, beyond claw-tipped paws--it was him! Melchior, and Ira was watching him burn and bubble. The horror of realization came over him as thousands of ice-cold stabs, tearing up the inside of his ribs. 

Ira looked at the Beast, at the steady speed of its' rapid approach. He looked at Melchior, dragging himself towards the shallows on legs that weaned down to glimmering bone. He knew that a time would come when he would stand over him with a blade in hand, faced with an impossible task. One day, cursed blood would have to be spilt. That was the price the angels had demanded to save the world. 

Selfless, sacrifice. 

That day might come, Ira knew. He also knew that it might not. Especially if the Beast crushed them beneath Lake Seneca. How long could mercy extended his life? Only as long as it took the Beast to reach them? Ira didn't know. He didn't much care. Melchior was hurting--and he was the only one who could stop it. 

His eyes drifted shut. Everything sunk into snow-heavy silence. Melchior's cries, the Beast's footfalls. It all slipped beneath great tides of calm. Ira moved inwards, searching for the tail of light he'd snagged. He found it, tangled between his fingers, slicing into his skin from the tightness in which he held it. Spider silk thin threads of wire containing heat-bringing magic. 

Never had he held it this way before. Never had he felt so greatly connected to the angels. He didn't know if he ever would again. Ira breathed slowly out--and let go. It slipped from his grasp, reminding him just how truly fragile angel attention was. His blessing began to wilt, turning into ash, and snow, and then nothing at all. 

Ira slumped down in the water. His fingers uncurled at his sides. He watched the perfectly unscathed skin of his fingers sink beneath the cooling lake. Where he had felt sliced apart--there was nothing. As if he'd never had it in his fists at all. 

It was over. It was really over. They'd failed and the only thing that remained was to watch the Beast come for them. 

Melchior sucked in a relieved gasp and fell still in the water. His legs sagged beneath him until he collapsed onto his stomach with a splash. His head grew limp, slowly slipping under the shallows. Ira's heart hammered behind his ribs. 

"Melchi-" He choked on the words. A cough filled his chest, rolling up his lungs in a vice. He leaned forward, tipping into the water. His palms landed dully against the stone-studded lakebed.

There was a fuzz in his head, an ache in his muscles, a chill in his skin. Ira felt as if he'd been carved out. As if there was a price to pay for holding on so tightly. But Melchior needed him. He collected his feet beneath himself and slowly rose. Each step sent him stumbling. Lulled by his dragging clothes and weary bones, he slowly trudged across the hip-high lake. 

The wolf was mangled, bright pink and covered by splotchy red welts. As Ira grew nearer, he could hear the soft wheezing whimpers carried out by its' steady exhales. And as the distance melted away between them--it again became easier to think that this was only a Ze'ev. 

So he didn't have to look at his burnt flesh and feel heart-pounding grief. Rolling in his stomach, gnawing away at his insides, was a live writhing beast. A small serpent made of ivory-strong fear. He tried, as hard as he could, not to feel afraid of the wolf. 

"Melchior," he called, voice trembling.

His steps slowed. The Ze'ev was close enough to touch--and he might have, if he wasn't so terrified of those three-inch long fangs. He'd felt this way before, on the first day they'd met. Traveling beneath New York in tunnels as pitch dark as empty space--Ira had glanced over his shoulder at glowing green eyes. It had come as a punch to the gut, a sudden sharp snap of instinctual fear. He wished he was stronger than those fleeting feelings.

"Melchi-" 

The wolf stirred, rolling over onto its' great paws. It lifted its' head from the lake, the damp fur streamed with falling rivers. And Ira met those green eyes. His heart flipped behind his ribs, his stomach filled with moths and butterflies and all manner of flying beast. He was alight with flurried wings beating against the silk-smooth back of the viper he'd kept there. 

And for one singular second, it felt suddenly familiar all over again. "Hey," he breathed.

But only for one singular second. The wolf stared at him, unblinking and unmoving. Ira's heart began to pound harder, the moths inside of him turned into dust. "Mel?" 

Slowly, it began to rise. Unsteadily at first, swaying on legs still chewed by magic. Ira took a step back, slipping in the silt. He fell into the water, coughing as the air escaped his lungs on impact. He shoved himself up onto his heels and palms, just barely managing to keep his chin over the water line. The Ze'ev stalked forward, emitting a deep snarling from its' chest. 

"Stop," Ira said, "you're making me nervous."

And he laughed, forcing a sound as unnatural as gunfire up from his gasping lungs. As if it was a joke. As if any sense of him really believed he was still speaking to his Melchior. As if to say that he was not, the Ze'ev's lips pulled back over his pearl-bright fangs. Ira pushed himself back with his kicking legs. 

"Melchior!" He shouted angrily, "I said stop! We have the Beast to deal with!" 

Tears sprung up in his eyes, fear grew heavier than led in the hollow of his throat. And then the wolf lunged--Ira gasped as he flung back into the water. With one single dinner-plate sized paw, he crushed Ira's ribs downwards. Pinning his back into the murky bottom of Lake Seneca. For the second time that day, the water closed over his head. But this time, Melchior didn't seem in the spirits to pull him out. 

Ira kicked--meeting the solid and unmoving underbelly of the Ze'ev. Of Melchior. He didn't budge--Ira couldn't breath. He wrapped his fingers around the talons digging into his shirt--threatening to puncture his heart. 

Angels, Ira nearly laughed, Melchior was going to kill him? He remembered a night not too long ago, as Melchior sweetly tended to his every bruise and scrape. Those words he'd whispered so hesitantly. 

"I'm in control, I won't hurt you."

And it tasted like lemons. The anger burst like fireworks in his burning lungs. 

Liar, he wanted to scream, you're just a liar, Melchior Brisbane!

His eyes blinked in the riversilt, stinging and burning for every glimpse of the wolf positioned over him. Pink lips curled over drool-dripping and pearl-bright incisors. Ira had the sudden sickening sense that Melchior was about to play a very lethal game of carnival-style apple bobbing. 

His pulse spiked, rising up on clouds of smoke from his fizzling and burning insides. He grit his teeth and slowly relaxed his grip on Melchior's paw--knowing that he'd never find the strength to pry them away. Ira tucked his elbows under his back and began to push, until his arms screamed in protest. Until the unmoving claws began to dig--slicing first through thin fabric, and then into pale flesh. 

But Ira did not stop. He rose slowly up, unable to scream, as the talons stabbed into the flat of his ribcage. Impaling himself with each fought for centimeter, until his face broke through and he was coughing and sputtering from the rich influx of air as much as the bones sticking into his flesh. The Ze'ev did not shove him back down, or make quick work of his jugular. It watched with detached green eyes.

Those dangerously beautiful green eyes. The ones he'd quickly came to adore, no matter how unsuited they seemed to his boyish face. Ira whimpered. He positioned one arm behind himself, keeping his nose just barely over the lake, and the other he brought to his chest. His trembling fingers found Melchior's claws and squeezed tightly around them. As if such an insignificant gesture would be able to keep them from piecing his pumping heart. 

"I know what you see," he wheezed. 

The wolf snarled in return, but Ira had no problem with speaking over others. So he grit his teeth together and continued. 

"You see a knight of the Progeny. One who burned you." Ira spoke quietly, knowing that no matter how softly he whispered Melchior would always hear him. "I know because when I look at you now, I see a Ze'ev." 

His lips flinched and then he was showing his teeth again, rumbling with agitation. Ira shut his eyes. His fingers squeezed where they touched Melchior, feeling slick with blood and lakewater. 

"But that's okay, Mel." He opened his eyes and looked at him--meeting his green eyes with unwavering determination. He looked past it, past superficial fur and skin, to where his Melchior was--somewhere deep behind a charred wolf exterior. 

"It's okay, because we promised. We promised to finish this thing as the whole sum of our parts, remember?" But there was something else, even further than Melchior Brisbane. A mirror, which became clear only as Ira struggled for each breath, bleeding out into Lake Seneca. 

"You're not angry," Ira whispered, "you're just scared." 

Melchior blinked, freezing over like the last rain in November. His shimmering eyes fell down to the claws sunk into Ira's skin. A whimper eased past his throat, and then he was retreating. Ira cried out as the talons yanked from his chest, leaving wide gaping punctures that began to quickly fill the water around them with pink. His pressed his palms against the wounds, shivering as the last of his heat began to disperse in the lake. 

This feeling, he'd felt it before. His strength fading as his blessing began to rot. 

Melchior whimpered again, his eyes wide and unblinking. The anger he'd used as a crutch his whole life was suddenly missing. How could he blame him? How could he look at his red and puffed skin and feel anything other than remorse? 

"It's alright." Ira murmured sleepily. "Just help me stay. . . above water." 

Tentatively, as if afraid of him, Melchior came close again. He eased back into the water, whining as the cool slipped over top of his blighted flesh. His draft-horse sturdy hide pressed against Ira's back, and Ira gladly leaned against him. 

And they sat in the water, gasping for uneasy breath, listening to the sound of the Beast gain ground against them. Ira shifted, turning until his torn chest pressed against Melchior's scorched side. He pressed his forehead against him, sensing through their conjoined skin a warmth that was all too familiar.

He didn't know how much of Melchior was inside of the wolf he comforted. But he knew the gentle rasp of his breathing as he fell asleep, and he heard it now--coming from behind jagged jaws. And he knew the scent of his skin, rich and earthy, the forest before the rains. And he could inhale it, emitting from the fur of the drenched beast. 

When his eyes drifted slowly shut, his ears turned to what he knew. The lullaby of his strained exhales. They were both coming apart, falling into pieces as quickly as a kindergartener's arts and crafts project--but he didn't mind. He was powerless. He was out of tricks, he'd completely run dry on favors. All he could do was watch as their fate fell into place, taking form of a massive hellish creature slowly crossing the lake. And yet--a silent sense of calm washed over him. A peace that came from acceptance.

This was it. He'd failed this lifetime, too. He'd screwed up his only chance to kill the Third Prince of Hell and he'd go on--forever repeating his punishment. But it felt like a reward. If he died here, the choice looming over his head would never come. He could die with Melchior, holding him close. This Beast could serve as their joint executioner, absolving Ira.

Maybe if he got lucky, he'd hold onto these moments as blissful nightmares. 

It wasn't perfect. He'd made mistakes, he knew at least that much. They'd never gone to NYU. Ira had missed his chance to cook something that couldn't be boiled to al dente. Melchior had never told him what he wanted to say--but none of it mattered. As long as they could stay side-by-side. 

"It's okay," he whispered. He said it, over, and over, and over. With each step the Beast took towards them he said it again. He said it until it began to taste like lies on his burning tongue. He turned to face the Beast--his blue eyes settled in determination. The creature held its' tail languidly, lashing it behind its' bulky body. Ira watched in distantly detached horror as the gray skin began to meld itself together over the bone.

He sighed. His body sagged against Melchior's side. Each shuddering breath jolted Ira's fragile form, but the pain that accompanied it came as a relief flushed reminder that, for now, he was alive. 

Ira didn't know for what he held on for besides that. His eyelids grew heavy, his words slurred. He knew that if he fell asleep--he would not wake again. And yet--faced with only the end of a tusk--he held. 

Because with each breath, he felt pain. With Melchior by his side--how could he leave? 

"Hey, Melchior." He murmured dizzily. "I wanted to tell you something, too." 

The slight hitch of his exhale the only sign he was still listening. Ira steeled his nerves. Unafraid of death, but terrified of what he wanted to say next. He wasn't oblivious to the irony of it. But, as scared as he was, he knew he needed to say it. To make it real with what could be his final act. 

I need to tell you that I like you, too. 

Because he knew. Maybe for a long time. Maybe since the day they'd met beneath the Cathedral. No matter what form Melchior Brisbane had taken, Ira could never lift a blade against him. So it was better this way. Ira would die here, and if the world ended after--no one could blame him. 

"Melchior, I-" 

The Beast howled in pain. Ira winced as he snapped around to face it. It raised its' arched muzzle to the sky and bellowed. Its' four bonespires piercing the heavens. Ira felt a sudden stab of dread--the water! He spun to look at Melchior. Eyes half-lidded, chest rising slowly. He was fine, he was safe. Ira exhaled sharply. Then? What?

Until he heard it. Shouting carrying across the rippling waves. 

"Bring it down!" Came the command.

The Beast spun, swinging its' whip-like tail across the beach where the thick line of soldiers began to pour out of the trees. Soldiers, dawned in robes of black, with shimmering pearl weaponry. The Beast abandoned the idea of chasing them into the lake and turned back to shore, flashing its' impressive crown of tusks. 

"Mel, look!" Ira hissed. "It's them! The Progeny!" 

If he was listening, Ira didn't know. His breath did not stutter and his head did not tilt towards the shore.

"Archers!" The woman barked again.

Ira had never seen them, but suddenly the sky was filled with a thousand needles. All reigning down from the thick pine canopy. Unlike its' dulled reactions to Melchior's arsenal, the Beast screamed. It must have been a quite different feeling to be stuck by so many at once--Ira was glad not to know. 

The arrows stick like quills out of the Beast's hide, covering every foot of blubbery flesh. Several hit home in the creature's one remaining eye. It roared, shaking its' head desperately to free itself from the intrusions. Its' tail swung wildly, bashing against flat beds of sand and cracking into stiff stoic pine. 

"Spearmen!" The commander roared in return. 

Suddenly, a platoon of eleven slipped fearlessly forward. Each hefting a five-foot long spike of cedar and demon bone over their shoulder. They aligned in a circle around the front of the Beast, poised and ready for attack. 

"Now!" 

In unison, their weapons flew forward. One pierced the slender throat of the Beast, two to the bulky chest, two more to the ribs. The rest made their marks in its' pillar-wide legs. The Beast tilted, falling forward onto its' wide shoulders--the impact jamming home the two Ossein spears lodged there. 

Crack! 

Bone weapon splitting bone bars on its' path deep into the ribcage. Ira knew they'd speared the heart when the creature gasped and churned in the bloodsoaked sand. Its' head collapsed, forming deep impact-craters where its' crown finally met the earth. 

And then it was over so quickly, Ira couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around what had just happened. He might have laughed if he had the strength to. This was it; the full power of the Progeny. Slaughtering Beasts in less time than it took for Ira to polish his knives. 

This was what awaited them now at the completion of their pilgrimage. 

"Mel," he whispered. His companion did not stir. His breathing became softer, slipping further away on the breeze as sleep over took him. Ira slumped back with him, holding on to the last shred of his own consciousness. 

Everything ached. All his strength poured from the holes whittled into his chest--but he forced his eyes open in time to glance up at the woman standing before him. Ira hadn't seen her approach, but then again he couldn't really see much at all through the fog in his head. 

"You're badly hurt." The woman noted coldly. She spoke dryly, a woman clearly hardened by war. She did not have breath to waste on sweet-talk.

She stood waist deep in the pink waters, soiling the cloth of her ceremonial clothing. Her cape floated out behind her as a secondary shadow. It was trimmed up with classic Bishop scarlet fabric. But Ira knew by the way she carried herself what she was; an archbishop. 

Ira nodded in agreement. Because he was, beneath the pale of his skin, a soldier, too. He pressed his palms against his soaked shirt. He didn't know at what point he'd lost the ability to tell the difference between Lake Seneca and his own blood. 

Her eyes flickered to Melchior, "is it alive?" 

Ira's heart hammered behind his ribs. He turned, pressing an ear to Melchior's still sides. He held his breath until--thump. . . thump. . . thump. . .

He exhaled with relief and nodded. "He's alive." 

"Where are your weapons?" The commander asked dully. 

Ira pointed back the way they'd came, at the bloodsoaked beach. "I dropped them, I didn't want to lose them in the water, so-" 

"Hm, smart." She noted, "a common Deacon mistake. I've seen kids wipe down their knives with the same water we used to dissolve the hides. It always gives the ranks something to laugh about." 

She sighed and shrugged, "sorry, look at me jabbering away. We should hurry up and finish so we can get back to the city. You need a hospital." 

"Yeah," Ira muttered stiffly. 

The woman fixed a hand to her belt and pulled free a glistening Ossein sword. She held it into the air, admiring the pearlescent shimmer for a moment before smiling warmly. With that same motherly expression, she extended the hilt down to Ira's shivering form. 

He stared blankly at the cedar finish, at the place her fingers had curled as she killed thousands of demons. "What?" 

"For the Ze'ev." She said. "I know, I know. Rather improper to offer you my weapon. But if the meaning matter so greatly to you, I can fetch for your blades." 

"He's not-" Ira choked on his words. He was. He knew what she was seeing, hadn't he seen the very same? Another demon, another batch of pretty throwing knives to be made. "You can't kill him!" 

"I wasn't going to," she laughed, "I'm not so terrible as to take your kill from you. Still, if you feel too weak then it might be for the best that I just finish it. There will be other Ze'ev, kid. This one doesn't matter." 

"He matters! He's-" Ira doubled over as the coughing befell him. He sputtered into his palms until his spit began to turn pink. 

"Angels," the woman cursed, "alright, I'm sorry. I'll be taking this one. You have to get to a hospital." 

"No!" 

"Someone call Joseph, the Deacon needs immediate medical attention." She called over her shoulder. 

She had ranks, Ira suddenly remembered. The beach was lined with guard dressed in black. So why couldn't he see past her? Past the foggy edges of her flowing cape. It was as if they stood on an island, far from the rest of New York.

"Abigail, we're unreachable out here. Hours from the city--that kid isn't going to make it." A gruff voice replied. A bottle with a scrap of paper, one that washed on up the pink sands of their remote isle.

Ira grit his teeth. He steadied his feet beneath his trembling legs and shoved himself upwards, only tilting a few inches in each direction before gaining his ground. 

"Oh, he will." She laughed breezily, staring into his defiant blue eyes. "He's stronger than he looks." 

Ira held out his palm, "give me the sword." 

This would be meaningless. She was not his Father, offering a final love-filled goodbye. She was not his Melchior, offering an unspoken promise to always return. She was only a woman handing him a bone-tipped plank of wood. So, he took it. He curled his fingers over the hilt and stared down at the moonstone-bright polish of it. 

Ira turned to face the Ze'ev. Breath slowing, green eyes hazily blinking. He lifted his arm, trembling from the agony of his torn chest. He lifted his arm as high as it would stretch--as if declaring a call of war against the angels. 

And he swung--as hard as he could. So hard he lost his balance and tilted forward. His fingers relaxed--this feeling was all too familiar. He was letting go, watching as the blessing slipped away.

The sword sailed across the surface of the water, landing with a splash less than six feet away. All his might, and it wouldn't even take a jog to retrieve it.

"Angels, kid!" She laughed. "You could have just asked for your own weapon!" 

"No one touches him." Ira snarled. "He's not a demon. He's-" 

Pop, pop, pop. 

Ira looked down. He knew this sound. The sound of joints breaking and rejoining. The wolf was stirring, shifting and changing in the shallow blood-heavy waters of Lake Seneca. His limbs shrunk, dragging back into his body. His talons and teeth--which Ira had expected to retract--broke at the base and fell off as discarded bullet shells. 

"What the Hell?" The commander choked. 

"He's just Mel," Ira whispered. 

He wished to have seen it. He wished to have seen the fur fall away, to look into his familiar green eyes, to see his russet skin grown back free of burns. But he couldn't see anything at all.

Ira's legs turned into lead beneath him and he gave himself willingly into the white filling up his skull.