Some say life is a dance.  I've always seen it as one.  Figures twirling round each other- electrons around atoms, boys around girls.  When I was young, I would twirl endlessly in my swing, until I was drunk off the sensation.  Then I'd stumble off my feet and collapse on the ground.  Watching as the world spun around me.But I'd never seen the orchestra hidden in the pit.  The music we ignored, that lets life go on as it must.  I didn't know how painstaking each tune was, touched by a thousand hands.  Damien's closed down, open only for business after volunteers returned from graveyard shifts.  I could only tell who was inhuman by the bruises under their eyes.  It was comforting to know we were so watched over- I'd never imagined before, thinking the world a mostly unfeeling place.  We were born into it, and did with it what we could.  I never thought there were safety nets woven in, of individuals willing to lay th

Why isn't it called V?  Or E?-” He groaned.  “I'm never giving you wine again.” I glowered.  “You're so mean to me.” “You're irritating.” I sulked in my chair, words slurring: “You're horrible, rude, and a pig.  You steal my frappacinos and sandwiches, you ruined my dating life.  I wish you went poof,” I threatened.  “Poof.  And then disappeared.” “No you don't,” he said quietly. “Yes I do.”  I sloshed my wine in his direction.  “You just can't handle the truth.  You hide behind snark and your scythe.” “I do not.” It seemed imperative he agreed with me.  “Yes you do!  Yes you do yes you do yes you do-” He pressed his palm over my mouth, then snatched my wine glass away.  “You've had too much excitement for one night.” I yawned, voice muffled by his hand.  “Where's the crab dip...?”  My eyelids fluttered.  I snuggled

“Then go to the supermarket, you trespassing louse!”“Sam, is that you?”I was met with grim silence.  My leg jerked, broken.  I howled in pain.  His eyes lit up the cavern- we were cast in a hellish light.  He landed on a ledge that jutted from the waterfall. “What were you thinking?” he roared.  Samael seethed as I writhed in pain.  He lay me on the ground.  “Be still,” he snapped.  “It's just a sprain.”“It hurts!”“Face the consequences.  And tell me why the bloody hell you're here.”“Because you left the car unlocked.”  I moaned.  “Ow ow ow ow ow-”“Infernal contraption,” he brooded.  “But I clicked the locking device...”“Not twice,” I said faintly.  My muscles tensed and untensed as cocktails of pain washed th

Apparently, head minions were good for one thing: serving girls.  I fumed in the smoky drawing room Samael and I had arrived at an hour before.  He ignored me, grinning at some witticism his colleague said as I held his stupid tray of wine and cheese.  The only reason I did so was because he promised me cheddar, and lots of it.  He'd been leading me on a tour of Hell's offices, and I was enslaved as the wine-and-cheese girl.  He reached for another cheddar cube- my cheese- and his fingers carelessly traced my breast.“Whoops,” he said, smirking.I was on the verge of smashing the damn tray over his head.After the boat, he'd allowed me to see nothing, blinding me with his stupid cloak and whisking me off through a dank-smelling area that bustled with eerie sounds.  “Security reasons,” he'd said.  Voices raised in argument had echoed above, alongside laughs and the possible beep of a coffee machi

“You're a monster,” I rasped.  He suckled my blood.“No one will hurt you now.  I have claimed you as my own,” he murmured.  His venom sang through my veins.  Samael kissed me as if he was parched.  “Mine.  I will never let them take you.”“Is this sin, Sam?  Am I damned?”He tensed.  His eyes met mine like a viper. Images flashed through my head: a jagged, rocky cliff.  Michael crushing his head.  Falling, senseless, into a cold he'd never known.  He'd wept then, clutching the bit of light he'd salvaged from before.  He held it like a torch or a beacon.  The other fallen flocked to it.  His heart, fallen from the stars.Samael's consciousness weighed on my mind.  I cried out, feeling his pain.  His rage as he passed judgment.  He damned all those he loved.  My tears were his, willing or not.