Redeeming Pieces-- Hank and Frank pt.1

...."I'm not a demon." Abaddon hissed over the sizzling flesh and cooking intestines that boiled from the dark man's open belly, he dripped like caramel from Abaddon's arm. He could feel the dark man's heart quiver and quiet, clutched in searing touch of ink-lettered fingers. The last of his life waning as his killer's grin grew.

Abaddon's magic wrapped wrong; it warped and the dark man spilled faster, his energy sobbing into the monster's glowing aura and the shadow grew black.

The dark man clutched at his wound, the elbow that stood buried in the hilt of the dark man's stomach, and stretched blood itched fingers at the monster that was all wrong. Nothing what he had thought, something more.

Death had no answers.

Bullets sprang loudly from where the Grey Man stood but landed in dead thumps against the human buckler hanging from Abaddon's arm, the surging of magic setting lights to flicker.

Somewhere in the dark Alice had made it halfway towards the Grey Man, all wide and wrong. Stitched together by wormwood and light, but swollen with black seething hate.

Fate had bent itself against the Golem man in favor of the dragon who howled in the face of the passing mage, the beard bled black in shadows.

In flashing lights the water-witch came in still-frames of blood-soaked madness, battered doll plunging blade deep, again and again. The metal through meat slurped on the walls with each dull thud and lick, her beating drum the crescendo to the music they played in red notes. Abaddon's instrument slumping from his arm leaving it slathered in greasy red, steam rising from where his fingers burned with power.

Alice had summoned him, and he came to save the witch from knights who had fallen from the light and tried to take her to the stake.

The pair never stood a chance.

She never stood a chance.

He held his arms out to the girl, bruised and broken, took her in his arms and played in the redwaters of the death they made.

Henry and Francis, no longer playing on the ends of his strings, cut by the dragon and the witch.


Henry held a phone to his ear listening to the messages stored in electronic boxes, in imaginary places his mind couldn't fathom. Magic on the other hand. Dark fingers clamped at fries and chewed on them before brown eyes deep like coals swept over the crowded diner and to Frank, the man who sat across from him.

The Grey man, Frank was wider now as a Golem than as a human, infused with the power that Henry stuffed him with, animated him with, anchored his soul to his body with. Skin made callous and thick and bones turned steel by the magic weaved into body and soul, fueled by the Dark man. He was friend before he was the man that gave him life, and more than that.

Frank owed the dark man his soul, body, and mind. His everything. The last opportunity to have his vengance against the demon that had tore their Covenant apart. Their people. The Children of Nymeah, children of light and faith. A black beast that ripped them apart at their weakest, and sent the strongest scattering into the dark.

The pair had lost so much in the chase of the man who held out Apples. The serpent in the night. The dragon. Words and legends followed and chased, eyes and ears everywhere to find the thing who ate from flowers and plucked children from their beds.

"You sure mate?" They were in California, but Henry's British accent was thick. "Last time."

The voice buzzed from the phone and the Grey man reached over to the dark man's plate, fries clutched and drawn to a mouth wide like a frog. The man's Grey hair disheveled as it fell in sweaty clumps across his balding forehead.

Henry wore a suit too, but his came with a tie and sleeves rolled up dark forearms "A girl. Yeah. Alice. Write this down." Henry said.

Frank stuffed what wasf left into his mouth, fingers licked before jamming hand out into the waitress that passed by. He stole things from her in paper and pen, and gave her only a brief smile. "Thanks, borrow this."

She flushed and forced a smile before wandering back to find something else to write with as she was now plundered by a customer's too familiar ways. The Grey man got to jotting and the Dark man continued.

"Alice Clare Donovan. Argosy. Shepherd University, got it. Thanks, I mean it. Thanks for this." He ended the call and lifted his dark brown eyes to the cool blues of his Golem. The beefy man nodded with a smirk while he lifted the paper.

"Solid this time?" The Grey man croaked with Chicago accent.

"He has a witch."

"Alice? She's already gone, brother." He reached and ate more fries that began to Henry.

"... maybe, maybe not. Still, she can bring him to us." The dark man tilted his head and smoothed a hand over his tie.

"Like Lana..." Grey man said, bits of food from his mouth but stuffed back in by a spooning finger.

"Maybe. Not if things go our way," Henry scanned his phone and found a number, sending signal out that way.

"What's that?"

"We're leaving tonight, it's not getting away again."

Frank nodded to Hank when eyes met and they tilted heads away. The longer they looked, the deeper into the past they went. The more darkness they saw and the woe returned, the things they had done in trekking the monster across this world and others, the things that the monster had done. The things they would have to do yet in order to drive the creature out into the light, to show it what they have become... What they were willing to be to stop him.




Abaddon stood on a street where the rain fell fat and cold. Water was the only place he would dwell now, it followed him everywhere he went. Signs, omens, prophecies in the world leading him on his way.

Tongue caught beads of rain off his beard, apathetic in the lewd delight and public smite, but drawn to a buzz when his phone began to ring.

The things we do to fit in, licking beards aside.

He held the phone beside his face, spell laced on his tongue, gibberish to an ear not wanted. "Yes."

"Frank and Hank are on their way, be there by afternoon, Don."

"Good."

"Anything else?"

"No."

The alien device was turned off and stuffed to his pocket. Ancient weaves and arcane incantations came to him from all culture and place and realm, like air to wing, yet still the mundane tricks of electrons, neutrons, protons. The little bits. He followed it a little, but then it escaped him. He could see the dead weave of radio waves in the air, the pulse of message, but there was nothing to have there. Only disruption and chaos.

He gave up on splitting atoms a long time ago, and instead focused on living forever. Living free. And sticking to the magics he could feel on his skin and whisper in his ear, blacken his soul and make his heart beat eternal.

Two old foes. That's what they would consider themselves, no doubt, Francis and Henry. Two grizzled heroes of the light tracking a dragon in the dark. Bound in service to some higher force, forged in the suffering and pain, resilient. To a fault.

When the dragon came to the Children of Nymeah he breathed his fire once, some ran from the heat as their brothers in sisters either burned to the fire or danced in it. Those that ran turned to dancing, once they realized that they too were set aflame.

Toys and trinkets on a board they never even realized they played upon. Frank and Hank. Children of Nymeah, virgin of the sea, queen of the winter courts and hall--aligning themselves opposite of the dragon that defiled all. The fates sealed once allegiances were made in whispered oaths that dug deeper than they could ever understand.

Children of Nymeah. Ants in the vastness of his shadow. Of course they were on his trail, he was everywhere. He dropped breadcrumbs and they chased, unveiled secrets of the beast they hunted that told lies that were only worded in truth.

Demon. Abaloth, the devourer of fruits. Creature of Bacchus and the Devil. Wild beasts in his skin.

They followed him deep and dark into a world they had only begun to understand when he obliterated the walls of their devotion by showing the weakness of their faith, of their God. He had them drowning in their own sins, souls blackened to catch sight of the thing they chased, never knowing he was always there. Leading them on their way.

They would come for her. His water-witch. He knew this, but he would be with her.

When no angel came from the heavens he'd be her devil in the shadows, the madman's smile cut in beard.

She would love him forever then, and know he was there to keep her safe.

He grinned a little harder than he did before when a raindrop splashed in his eye...

...the first time he

whispered in Lana's ear

she spit in his eye

and he tasted her

undone on his first try