Angels and Demons

Spoiler

I'm sorry! I'm not paying attention to what I write, I've been so busy. I will fix that right now.

James looked at rose with a sigh, stopping briefly.

He didn't know what a dryad was, but it had to be some race from another reality and another world. One that was... very connected to nature, or whatever.

"Whatever - just stick close to the group. If we're all staying together let's actually do that."

"Hold on..." Sevy spoke up, walking over to James, who seemed to be organizing the directions of the party. "I'm confused. Are we or are we not staying together?" He glanced between him and Edward.

Damascus stayed back behind with Boris, quietly watching and not wanting to get involved in the debate. Any way the others decided to split the search would be fine with him.

James turned sharply to Sevy, and his eyes briefly flashed a darker shade of red. He took a quick deep breath.

"Yes. We are staying together," he said tensely. "Sorry if I was indirect or unclear. Let's everyone go together to look around the premises. Follow me."

"Alright, cool, that is completely fine with me. I'm all for together-ness." Sevy raised his hands in casual surrender, his eyebrows twitching at James' obvious stress. "Lead the way, by all means."

"Will do," James said as he nodded. With a swift twirling motion of his hand he spun around, gesturing for them all to follow as he started to walk the outer walls of the building.

Edward had meant that they should head into the forest, rather than walk around the building and waste more time, but there was nothing he could do about that. He didn't want to argue with James anymore. He let out a sigh that James hopefully couldn't hear, and fell into step beside him. Aquarius, Zephyrus, Maahes and Griffith all began to follow as well, the two first two clinging together, the third hurrying to James's side as well, and the fourth lingering far behind the rest.

It was when they were turning the corner that he suddenly felt something grab onto his ankle, and it took all of his self control not to let out a startled cry. He glanced down and saw that one of the shadows had popped off of the ground and was grabbing onto his ankle, giving it a gentle tug. It was trying to pull him in the direction of the woods. When he tried to break free of its grasp, the shadow would only tug on him harder.

It was holding him so hard that he couldn't even take a step forward.

He turned his attention to the woods.

Peering from the darkness cast by the trees was a pair of eerie light gray eyes - so light that they almost looked white. Seeing them stare at him only made him attempt to escape from the grasp of the shadows even more frantically and harder, but he was having absolutely no luck. The shadows gave a tug. He stubbornly stayed where he was. It gave him an even stronger tug. He stood his ground. Then it gave the strongest tug yet, and he went crashing into the ground as he was thrown off balance.

James slowed when Edward came to a stop, and fully turned around when he saw Edward thump to the ground out of the corner of his eye.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Something grabbed my leg!" Edward said, betraying a hit more of his terror than he would have liked to in his voice. As if trying to confirm it, the shadow tugged the hardest it had yet, and Edward felt himself very slowly being pulled towards the woods. "There's-There's something in the woods, and it's pulling me towards it-"

The shadows abruptly let go, and the owner of the eyes ducked behind a nearby tree.

Rose came up quickly.

"Isn't that soo comforting!" She said. Her wings were fluttering.

Edward hopped up to his feet. He was still absolutely terrified of what lay behind the cover of the trees, but there was something about the action that didn't make much sense. Whatever had grabbed him had wanted him badly enough that it tugged him to the point of him falling it over, but then it had suddenly let go once attention had been drawn to the issue.

So it must have been trying to get him without anyone noticing.

Frowning, he walked over to the woods. He knew it was a dangerous thing to do, but he had to discover what had been trying to grab him. There was a hurried shuffling from what had tried grabbing him. He took a deep breath, then stepped into the darkness.

A second later, a hand shot out and pulled him behind the tree. He went to give a startled cry, but a hand covered his mouth before he could even utter the first syllable.

He spun around.

There was angel standing underneath the branches of the tree.

She looked relatively young, yet there was also a timeless quality to her appearance; her eerily white hair went down her back and framed a face that had the two light gray eyes he had spotted earlier. She was dressed in a collared white shirt, gray dress pants, loafers and a pale yellow tie. And even though he knew no one with those specific attributes, he did recognize something about her face and how tall she was in comparison to him. He hadn't been short before he died, but she easily towered above him - he'd even go as far as to guess that she was six feet tall.

Which was all of the confirmation that he needed.

"Schadel?" he managed to get out. "You're what was dragging me into the woods? But why would you-"

Schadel leaned back against the tree, white wings nervously enveloping her into a hug. "I don't know what's going on," she said. "I thought-I thought that it was best to talk to you alone. I couldn't tell if you were just going along and pretending to be one of them-" She gestured at the group that was closer to the church than the forest. "-or if they were in the same situation as us."

Her wings opened, then folded close against her back. "That demon you were walking next to looked angry," she added. "I didn't want him to notice me until I was-"

Edward cut her off with a laugh.

She frowned. "What?"

"Schadel, that's James!"

She blinked, then peered around the tree. "He doesn't look anything like him-Oh. Wait." Her face became flushed in embarrassment, and she hurriedly turned back to Edward. "I can see the resemblance now. The demonic stuff just threw me off."

The moment Edward stepped out into the forest, James opened his mouth to protest, but just as quickly as he stepped out, Edward disappeared into the forest. James’s heart dropped into his stomach.

He hurried in after him, but again, found himself jolted by a sudden laugh. A laugh from Edward.

“Edward?” he asked loudly. “Edward! Are you alright?”

Damascus perkedup as he heard a familiar voice, and he broke off from the group to go trampling through the foliage.

"Schadel? Is that you?" He called brightly. A second passed, and he promptly tripped on a root and went tumbling.

Sevy watched warily as he saw Edward get pulled into the woods, and then as both James and Damascus followed after him- both for very different reasons.

"Huh. Well, how about that." Sevy turned and walked over to Rose.

"So, you said you were a dryad?" He asked her conversationally. "How does that work?"