There was an amazing spike of energy. If he had to guess it was an angel. An angel releasing their wings for the first time. His thoughts went immediately to the little treasure his two imbecile vamps had brought to his attention. He knew it was that boy. Speaking of vamps… they would have felt that too. They were probably on their way to the meeting place.

He'd go and tell them their next course of action. And he knew they'd love it. After all they finally got to be reunited with that delectable little morsel and now that they knew he wasn't human he's be able to let the two dolts have a lot more fun with the boy. After all angels were hard to kill. And they only needed him alive long enough to get Tiearyu into their clutches. Then both him and the boy would die. He smiled to himself. He loved getting away with murder.

                                                               ~HS~

It had been around thirty minutes since Theo felt the spike of energy. He was on the move, looking for the being that had released it. He wanted to see for himself what had had so much raw power. It had actually made the lights in the city flicker and go out causing a massive blackout.

He followed the waves that were pulsing out of the creature. The closer the waves felt the closer he was getting to the thing he was looking for. And the closer he was getting to a really crappy section of town.

And there it was. The building the creature lived in. Paint chipping and just plain awful to look at, it stood proud against truly ghastly surroundings. He walked up to the front door of the place and was not surprised to see a bullet hole in the window. What did surprise him was the coded lock to get inside. How was he supposed to… he did not really want to… Well, he supposed it was unavoidable. He would use his powers.

He placed his hand gently on top of the box and concentrated on the ten numbers he had to choose from. It was a simple process really. All he had to do was tap into a little of his ethereal strength and he would easily discern which numbers were pressed based on the memory of the machine he was touching and the warmth of the buttons.

When he learned to code he rolled his eyes. 1-1-1-1. Some code.

He swiftly made his way to the floor where the energy was the strongest and went to the section of the hall. There were a couple of rooms to choose from, and now that he was so it was hard to narrow down exactly which door the force was coming from. So he guessed.

He knocked on the door.

And nobody came.

Perhaps he didn't knock loud enough.

He knocked again, louder this time.

There was a cranky grumbling from the other side. "I'm coming. I'm coming. Don't get your panties in a bunch."

He was reasonably sure this wasn't who he was looking for, but the door opened and there stood an old man. The old guy gave his chest a scratch and said, "Well, what you want?"

How did one say they were looking for an energy? Well ,Theo was pretty sure they didn't unless they wanted to end up in a nice safe place with padding protecting everything in the room.

"Yes. I'm looking for an Allen Bruel. Does he by any chance live here?" Theo asked turning on the charm.

"Allen?" the man barked, "What you want with Allen?"

Theo could tell by the look on the man's face that he had a few ideas of his own about what he wanted with Allen. And he decided to go along with those ideas.

"Well," he began lazily, "we became acquainted the other day and he just couldn't seem to get enough of me. Insatiable, that one. And I'm always willing to come… over and play a few rounds."

Theo smirked in satisfaction when he saw the old man's face was a nice heated crimson. "So, I'll ask again. Which room is Allen's?"

The man pointed to the door next to his.

"Thank you," he said curtly and turned toward the door.

Right when he was about to knock on what he was sure was the right room the old man called to him, "Make sure to wear a condom!" and then the door slammed.

There were some really strange people living in this building. And perhaps the most strange of all was in the room that old man had directed him to.

He knocked on the door.

There was no answer.

He knocked louder.

Still nothing.

He tried the handle. Maybe the door was unlocked. Unlikely but it was certainly worth a try.

Really? It was unlocked. Who left a door unlocked in an environment like this? It either meant the resident was foolish and always kept his door unlocked or something happened that made him forget, or unable, to lock the door.

He left himself in.

                                                       ~HS~

I woke up with a start. I had been dreaming something fierce but could no longer remember what it had been about. But it had terrified me. My breathing was ragged and I was drenched in sweat.

And my back was killing me. I reached a hand back to rub the sore areas and felt something protruding from my back. The events from last night came flooding back to me. The wings... Cephi...

I sighed in frustration. What was I going to do with wings? There was only one day when it was acceptable to dress up, and today was not that day.

But how did I get them to go away?

How had Cephi gotten them to appear?

That's right he massaged my back. Would doing that also make them go away? I figured it was worth a try.

I began massaging the base of the wings to the best of my ability. Nothing seemed to be happening. There was no pleasure like the previous night. Or, pain.

I gave a frustrated groan. Nothing was happening. Nothing at all.

What was I going to do? I couldn't go outside like this. I could barely move around my apartment. And worst of all, this had all been brought on by Cephi who I thought was my friend.

Oh, and I'm not human...

I flopped back down on my bed. There had to be a way to get these wings to recede. I just had to think of it.

I don't know how it happened but I must have dozed off at some point in time.

The first thing I noticed upon waking was that I was not alone. I jumped out of my bed in fright. And landed on the floor with a thud.

"Theo? What are you doing here?" I hissed. "How do you know where I live?"

He didn't say anything at first. Just slowly prowled closer to me with a grin plastered on his face. Me heart leapt into my throat. The grin wasn't happy. It was a predator's grin. nothing good could come from somebody wearing that expression.

"Hello Allen."