• I watched him walk away. he hesitated, and then he turned around and came back, leaning against a pew. "Please," I sighed. "Please don't tell me you're about to get all angsty." "No, no. That's just what I was about to tell you." "What?" "That the story isn't angsty. I honestly mean that it would take a very long time to tell you how i got each one of these." he prodded one on his shoulder. "That was one was from a sphinx." "I thought you just said-" "That story's short. I was called to cage it up, and it cut me, so I knocked it out and hog-tied it and..." he trailed off. "Yeah. That's pretty much it." I nodded, starting to get warm under the jacket. It was quiet for a moment. Dante turned and I followed his gaze, to see a piano sitting against the wall. I stood and walked over to it, dropping his coat. He picked it up irritably. "This thing cost eighty dollars, for god's sake." I grinned and sat down at the piano bench thing and lifted my chained hands, starting to play Moonlight Sonata with my one hand. He moved to stand behind me, his hot breath on my air. My face flushed. "I can't play with one hand," I reminded him. "Don't worry. I know this song," he said, lowering his left hand to the left side of the keyboard. I lowered my right and we began to play. The notes drifted through the cathedral, over the low murmurs of Dimitri and Alainna, and the keys shone silver in the gentle moonlight that came through the stained glass


    Me and Dimitri heard a piano start to play, and it turned out to be Dante helping Ann with a song, and we went back to ignoring them. "So what do you want to know first?" Dimitri asked while putting his arms behind his head, and sitting next to me. "Well let's see here," I began to think of the many questions I wanted to ask, "What's your family like?" He turned to look at me like I was stupid. "I tell you, you can ask a question, and you want to know about my family?" "Yeah so different people grow up in a different life styles," I told him shrugging. "Okay well where do I start? "At the beginning," I said looking away from him. "Smartass, well you could say I have a big family. There's my parents, and then my five siblings," He told me while scratching his head. "Wow, five siblings that must be ruff," I said looking at him with wide eyes. "Yeah, but luckily I'm the second oldest out of them, so I was use to baby sitting," He said sighing. "Well what do you mean by use too?" I asked out of curiosity. He looked down at his lap, "I ended up being recruited for the Daemon Hunters because I could see past the shields you guys put up. So I was taken away from my family, and you could say put into a bordering school for training," He looked back up at me giving me a helpless look.

    Soon the music faded away. I lifted my hand off the keyboard and sat stiffly. Dante was still leaning over me, and he turned his head to look at me curiously. "Are you nervous or in awe of my skills?" I leaned forward against the piano, propping my elbows up on the wooden part and setting my chin in my hands. i suddenly realized how tired I was, and how I just wanted to tear off the chains around my hands and go curl up in a fetal position. I shrugged slightly. A hand gently alit on my shoulder. "Something tells me you're tired." I glanced at him. "Your sense of intuition astounds me." He smirked slightly and grabbed me by the arm, lifting me. "You should get some rest." He started to lead me over to one of the pews, when suddenly, the church doors slammed open. Two shadowy figures stood illuminated by moonlight, and slowly, two black wings outstretched, and two eyes gleamed crimson in the darkness.


    Dimitri was in the middle of how he did in the Daemon boarding school, and I was beginning to get really sleepy. Just noticing that I hadn't slept since I was at Slade's and Ian's house. I was just beginning to drift off when there was a loud bang I jumped up from where I had been sitting next to Dimitri. Standing I looked around saw Ann, at a pew with Dante, then Cerberus, and Dimitri next to me. Remembering the door I looked over to see the familiar black wings, and the intimidating red eyes in the doorway.

    Slade stepped in, eyes blazing. he turned to me. "Ann! Thank God!" he made a move towards me, but suddenly Dante was in front of me, arms extended. A silver knife gleamed in his left hand, and a gun in his right was aimed directly at Slade's heart. Slade's lip curled back in a snarl, revealing pointed fangs. "Let her go!" "I think not." Dante grinned. I tried to poke my head up from behind him. "Uh, Slade, I'm fine." "I swear, Dante, if you've hurt her-" "I just said I'm fine-" "hurt her? Why would I do that." Dante straightened and flashed a grin my way. "I care quite deeply for my little Elise." Slade's crimson eyes slid to me in a confused look. I took a few steps back and ran into a pew, but then stepped forward. "Elise?" I murmured. Suddenly the demon let out a ferocious roar. "I have had enough of this!" Gripping a pew, Slade launched himself over. Closing my eyes tightly, I jumped forward, sliding in front of Dante, and right in the way of Slade.


    I saw the black wings open up to reveal that Ian was very angered seeing me sitting there next to the Daemon Hunter who had kidnapped me. Ian thrust his wings back, and with that they disappeared. "I just stared at him I had never seen him so angry, and violent looking. " Daemon Hunter," he said while pointing a finger, "You better get the hell away from Alainna, or I'm gonna kick your butt!" Ian took another step forward, and Dimitri stood. "Dimitri don't hurt him!" I yelled. Dimitri looked down at me pained, like he wanted to keep me away from Ian, like Ian did about Dimitri. "Alainna are you alright?" Ian asked from the other side. I stood, and nodded, then said "Yes I'm fine you don't have to worry about me. Worry about yourself," I told him looking at him directly. Next thing I knew was that Dimitri was taking out brass knuckles, that had blades on them. "What are you doing?! I said not to hurt him, Dimitri!" I yelled grabbing his jacket with my tied hands. Glancing my way Dimitri told me, "I'm sorry, but it's my job."


    My eyes were shut tight, blood pounding in my ears. I waited for the explosion of pain, or the wild, terrified screams, but there was nothing. nothing at all except a deathly still. The yells in the other side of the cathedral were faint. And then there was a puff of hot air on my face. I opened my eyes. Slade was frozen in the air only a foot away, fangs out, eyes wide in terror and rage. I turned to see myself, chained hands up in front of me, eyes closed. And below that, Dante, hands folded and head bowed. My heart skipped a beat. "What happened?" I whispered. "A gift." I turned with a jolt to see another Dante. He leaned against one of the pews casually. "I can freeze time. Every so often that comes in handy." he glanced at Slade and then extended a hand to me. I took it with one of mine and he tugged me closer to him, away from the predicament. "When time resumes, you'll be safely out of range of this scenario." His mournful emerald eyes gazed down at me. "that was dumb. Insanely stupid." He stretched an arm out over the back of the pew and pulled up his coat, draping it around my shoulders. "And yet you saved my life." He grabbed my shoulders and turned me towards the big doors, where everyone else was frozen. "Get your friend, and get out of the cathedral. Find this place-" he shoved a crumpled piece of paper into my hands. "And stay there. Wait for me." I tipped my head back, dizzy and feeling weak from all the excitement. "But what if-" "Please. No melodrama." his hand brushed some hair away from my face, before he shoved me gently. "Hurry. You have at least five minutes to get as far away from here as you can." I stumbled in a daze towards the doors, and grabbing Alainna's arm, tugged her away.

    Ian began running forwards fist raised ready to punch, and Dimitri stood waiting. Just when Ian about reached him everything began to slow down till everything paused. I couldn't move. What happened? I felt someone tugging on my arm, and I could move again. "What the heck was that?" I asked looking up to see Ann pulling me towards the door. She still hadn't answered me. "Where are we going?" She looked back, and kept pulling while she answered. "Away from here before time goes back to normal in five minutes," She said letting me go so I could follow. "Time going back to normal. That’s why I couldn't move then," I said to myself running to keep up. "Yeah, and Dante did it so we wouldn't get hurt too," Ann yelled back.

    We stumbled out of the cathedral into the gentle moonlight. The night was silent. grabbing Alainna's arm with both hands I started to tug her away from the church, and then looked at the piece of paper in my hand. In it was the picture of a buffalo, standing on a hill. Swirling snows surrounded it and there were thick clouds all around it. I slumped my shoulders. "way to be, Dante." Alainna peered over. "Wow. That's...random." I handed her the paper and as she looked at it, I started to shove her along , towards the woods. "Hey, look at this cloud. It looks like a face!" she exclaimed randomly. I glanced at it. "Uh huh. yeah. That's nice." "And there's a wolf! hey! Another face! They all look like Indians!" I nodded, not really caring. "Uh huh." "Hey! Maybe he wants us to go find some Indians!" I stopped and gave Alainna a sour look. "Do you know how wierd that sounds?" She gave a sheepish grin, and just then, something registered. There was a nearby Indian Reservation. Thank god for I-Spy.


    "Ha, and you said my eye for odd detail was bad," I said to her as we were heading towards the Indian Reservation. "Yeah, well it's usually stupid things like a piece of cheese looking like a famous person. You can't blame me," Ann said while pushing a tree branch back to get through, and forgetting me behind her let it go. "Ouch! What the heck?" I yelled. "Oops sorry." She said back. "Yeah, yeah. So are we going the right way? It still looks like the middle of nowhere." "Yes we are the mountain is just over that........." She suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence looking around to only be able to see trees, and nothing else. "Uh huh see that's what I thought we're lost," I said freaking out. "No we're not. Now I'll climb a tree and see where we are." Ann said, and walked up to a random tree jumped on it, and started climbing. While watching her I thought she was making good progress when, she slipped back down and made a frustrated face. "How 'bout you try to climb Alainna?" She asked with a hopeful face. I was sitting on the ground cross legged, with my face in my hand. Sighing I told her, "Yeah make the accident prone person do it. I'd probably fall and brake something. Then what use am I?" I asked looking at her, daring her to answer my question, with a mischievous smile on my face. "Fine we'll keep walking!" Ann said while throwing her still chained arms up.

    "I personally blame Dante for all of this crap," I grumbled, stumbling on ahead of alainna and looking for the Indian Reservation. i only knew where it was because I had once been there with a different friend to visit her great grandfather. "I blame Dimitri." Alainna remarked. I nodded. "Let's kick them in the shins as soon as we see them again." "No," Alainna exclaimed. "He'll tie up my legs again!" "Fine. I'll just kick Dante." I grumbled. We crossed over a few hills and once, barely managed to grab onto trees before tumbling over into a creek. I was constantly glancing behind us, afraid of seeing Slade or Ian. "I feel so bad," I said, as we started up another leafy hill. "Slade's been scaring me. I don't know if those Hunters used some kind of mind thing on me, but Slade..." "I know what you mean." we trudged up the hill and, after reaching the top, saw the magnificent Reservation, only a hundred feet away.

    "Hey there it is!" Ann said while pointing. We began to start walking a little faster. "I wonder why Dante wanted us to go here. I'm mean it's a Reservation," I told Ann while watching where my feet were going because of roots. "I don't know, but we're here anyways, and that's all that matters right?" Ann asked while turning my way, waiting for my answer. "Yeah I guess so. But don't you find it weird that Ian, and Slade saved us in the first place, and now we're running away from them like they're the bad ones, when Dante, and Dimitri are the ones who kidnapped us?" I questioned back towards her. She just stared at me. "You're right also Alainna. We fell for two guys, and two are human, while the other two is a demon, and a fallen angel," She told me looking down on the ground. "Yep and now we don't know how to fix it either," She said continuing.

    "Yeah," alainna murmured. "IT's just wierd. That's all." "I know. I wish I didn't trust them as much as I did." I scowled. "It's like as soon as we figured out their just like us, we fell for them, where we fell for slade and ian for being abnormal." I glanced back at her. "Maybe we shouldn't wait at the reservation. What do you think?"