Dark. So dark.<br/><br/>The sky was shrouded in ebony, a scattering of diamonds twinkling with a vengeance. Blackness enshrouded every corner, each shadow teeming with unseen evil. Demons were lurking everywhere, only seen by those who seek them, bringing misfortune and misery at their leisure. They were disgusting.<br/><br/>How he detested them. Grisly, revolting, sordid things that crept about and frolicked in bloodbath, cavorted in the terror and grief of humans. What a loathsome world this was. If only he could leave it.<br/>Even the humans, the race that supposedly â€˜belongedâ€™ here, he detested. They were no better than the demons. Self serving, greedy, and stupid pieces of useless flesh. Humans were a waste of precious<br/>oxygen. If there was a creature that humans were most like, it would be demons. He sometimes wondered if the human psyche was derived from the temperament of demons...<br/><br/>And then there were angels. They were the polar opposite of all of it. Goodness manifest, beauty embodied, and purity made flesh. Ethereal beings of innocence and strength.<br/><br/>They were even more sickening than the demons or men.<br/><br/>Pompous. Self-important. And worse of all, domineering. Telling everyone what they should be doing, because all were below them and they were all-knowing. Truly they were worse than demons, for demons did not think themselves above any besides the puny humans.<br/><br/>â€œDamn, now you just sound clichÃ©.â€<br/><br/>Chuckling to himself, Adrian stepped nonchalantly off the edge of the roof he stood on. The street was deserted, a benefit of being so far from Manhattan. The pavement shined with slick water and oil, reflecting the white shimmer of the streetlights. A taxi whizzed through an intersection three blocks away. The moon overhead was nearly full, and it shone bright where he stood. There was less artificial light where he was: surrounded by warehouses and condemned buildings. It wasnâ€™t quiet, per say, but it was peaceful. As peaceful as a hunt could be.<br/><br/>As he walked down the center of the oily street, he cast his mind out for his prey. For weeks he had been stalking this particularly arrogant being, lying in wait and taking his sweet time. He felt a slight tingle and smirked bitterly.<span style="font-style: italic">So thatâ€™s where you are...</span>His prey had discovered him earlier that day, and was trying to flee. Which meant it was finally time to strike. He was being lazy, so his footsteps tapped wetly against the pavement. His shadow was inky black and almost...moving. Colors like purple and blue seemed to weave through the darkness of it. As he neared his target, it seemed to engulf him.<br/><br/>His target was lost in an alley, trying to find his contact so he could flee to safety, but he had hit a dead end. Frustrated, the man debated whether or not to just blow his cover and use what he knew would get him away. But he decided that it was too much of a risk to chance, and turned to run from the alley. And froze in terror.<br/><br/>A black shape stood in the entrance of the alleyway. Darkness seemed to ripple through the air around it, and upon seeing the man in the alley, began its slow advance forward. An arc of bright blue exploded in the darkness of the shadow, forming a sickle-like blade and the light from it illuminated the figureâ€™s face. A pair of mismatched eyes stared blandly at the man cowering in the alleyway.<br/><br/>The man stumbled backward, his blonde locks falling in his pretty face. â€œNo! Leave me alone! Iâ€™ve done nothing!â€ The figure kept advancing, not hesitation in its steady stride. The man tried another tactic. â€œYou cannot do this! I command you to cease this! I am above you, curse you!â€<br/><br/>This only spread a smile over the attackerâ€™s face, a face so deceptively handsome it was hard to believe that he really was such a creature. The desperate panic in this preyâ€™s eyes was highly amusing, and he chuckled darkly. His single red eye flashed malevolently in the darkness, his blade of demonic energy giving his skin a faint bluish cast. Suddenly, the angel panicked and wings burst from his back and extended into the air, flapping desperately in an attempt to escape. Adrian took a moment to admire the purity of the color white, how the feathers of the angelâ€™s wings so readily glowed in the blackness of the night. Like a shining beacon that was meant to make everything else feel like complete shit.<br/><br/>Adrian scowled in irritation, and thrust an arm out toward the angel. Black energy mixed with violet and dark blue shot out of his hand and slammed into the angel before he even managed to get two inches off the ground. The rotting garbage stunk to high heaven and Adrian wanted nothing more than to get this over with and then drink the night away.<br/><br/>The dazed angel froze in its tracks for half a beat before struggling against the bonds holding him. The energy holding him pinned him in place, like a butterfly behind glass. His attacker was smiling cruelly and finally stood close enough to touch him, and the angel cowered. Sweat dripped down the angelâ€™s face as he strained and wriggled. Adrian thought he looked very much like a worm.<br/><br/>â€œP-please... You c-canâ€™t...â€ the angel sputtered as it began to sob.<br/><br/>Adrian swept his left arm in an upward arc toward the angel, there was a flash of bright blue, and the angel choked. Blood burst from its chest, golden and shimmering, and the angel screamed. It was an androgynous scream that wasnâ€™t male or female, but terrifying all the same. He slashed once, twice, three times, until the angel was dead. The golden blood faded to red as the heavenly being was killed by demon magic. He would never be regenerating, would never return to life. Demon blades could destroy even the most immortal beings, obliterate their souls to the point of complete and utter mortality.<br/><br/>The blackness that cloaked Adrian faded away, and his blade disappeared. Dark blood was splattered all over his face and jacket. Sighing, he unzipped the hoodie and tossed it on the collapsed body of the dead angel. His jeans were thankfully black, so a quick wipe down removed most of the evidence. He heaped rubbish around the body, sprinkling some vodka he found in the dumpster for taste. He dropped a match, and walked away as it all leapt up in flames.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>Back amongst society, Adrian kept his head down as he weaved through humans with their stinking mouths and disgusting habits. A woman on the subway was picking her nose, trying to be discreet about it. She failed miserably. Another man was devouring an oniony beef sandwich. Never mind the child who was crying at its mother with the pissed in pants.<br/><br/>â€œHumans. Are. Revolting.â€ grumbled Adrian as he jogged up the stairs to ground level. He looked around, wondering if heâ€™d gotten off at the wrong stop. Evidently...he had. Muttering to himself, he decided to just walk. He had a rough idea of where he was anyway. There was nearly no foot traffic at this hour, at least at the part of town he was in. He did however pass by some delightfully grimy fellows who stared at him hungrily as he strolled by. Seconds passed, and then he heard footsteps behind him, pursuing him.<br/><br/>A sigh of resignation escaped him as he turned down a rather vacant street. He slowed his pace, letting them keep pace with him. When they were close enough, he took his sweet time counting them. All four of them were behind him. They werenâ€™t even trying to lay a trap! Shoddy work, shoddy work...<br/><br/>Suddenly he stopped dead on the sidewalk. He heard the footsteps behind him pause, and shuffle uneasily. He turned to face them, his shadow long and moving with demonic energy. â€œErumpo Pravus.â€ He said to the night air.<br/><br/>Everything that happened after that occurred in approximately four seconds. One second for a gray shape to emerge from Adrianâ€™s shadow, yellow eyes glowing ferociously. Another for it to attack the pursuers, snarling and gnashing its teeth like a rabid beast. Another for two of them to drop to the pavement, throats torn open and leaking blood onto the ground. One more for the other two to shout and stumble back, then fall to the ground in the same second, their own throats torn open.<br/><br/>The hellhound gnashed its razor sharp teeth, blood dripping from its jaws as it growled and snarled, gray fur standing on end. Its tail swished in the air, blackness seeming to pool around its feet as it opened and closed its jaws with loud snaps. A snap rang out and the snarls ceased, and the beast looked to its master. Adrian made a circle gesture with his finger. â€œLeave tracks.â€ He said. Obediently, the hound smeared bloody dog prints where ever it could. It was made difficult by the wet sidewalk, but the end result clearly looked like a dog attack.<br/><br/>Adrian watched the hellhound splash in a puddle, effectively ridding the pads of its feet of any blood. The light of the moon overhead turned everything silver, shrouding the ghastly scene in a pure light, as if it sought to cleanse it. As the hellhound returned to its master, Adrian turned his head up toward it. It was nearly full, and bathing the rancid city in its cool, pure light. He took a deep breath, then scoffed. Not even moonlight could do anything about the awful smell of New York.<br/><br/>Bemused, he looked down at the hellhound that was pacing uneasily around his shadow. The houndâ€™s claws clicked and scraped against the wet pavement, and it was whining slightly. Adrianâ€™s lips curled slightly in a dry smirk. â€œPravus,â€ He said, addressing the hound. It looked up, ceasing its fidgeting, and uttered a low whine. Adrian bent down and stroked its gray fur. â€œLetâ€™s get going.â€ He mumbled, and turned to leave, Pravus padding along at his side.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>Sometime later, Pravus had returned to his shadow and he was in a familiar part of town again. Expelling a long breath, Adrian pushed open the door to a club he sometimes frequented. The smell of sweat and cheap booze immediately assaulted his senses, and he held back a cough. The large room with the warped, dirty wooden floors was filled to capacity with late night clubbers.<br/><br/>As he slid into the mass of bodies, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he did, he looked up and noticed blandly that there was a new DJ. Joe, the old DJ, had been a bit of a douche anyway. Lights flashed in all different colors, turning the crowd before him red, blue, purple, neon green...<br/><br/>Blinking, he quickly scanned each face in his range, even going so far as casting out his mental senses to feel for any anomalies. But only humans were in this building. Wait, there was one demon. The new DJ. Adrian decided to keep an eye on him, just in case.<br/><br/>Sidling up to the bar, he ordered a drink and took a seat upon the cracked faux leather stools. The bartend had looked at him a moment too long, and Adrian belatedly realized that he hadnâ€™t placed a glamour over his right eye. While his left eye was a normal dark blue, his right was a ruby red. He considered himself lucky. Most of his kind â€“ the ones allowed to survive past infancy â€“ had gruesome defects. He had seen purple skin, claws and horns, disfigured faces and little baby mouths full of shark teeth.<br/><br/>At least he<span style="font-style: italic">looked</span>human, aside from his eye. But that only meant all of his demonic blood was focused more inward. Smiling grimly, he cast a glamour over his eye while the bartend had his back turned. When the pudgy man turned back around, the eye then appeared brown. He hadnâ€™t made it blue to match the other as he usually did since the man had already caught a glimpse of it. Brown was a normal eye color that could be mistaken for be close to red in the wrong light. And he could always claim to have heterochromia.<br/><br/>â€œYou got some funny eyes, son.â€ Said the bartender, sliding Adrian his drink.<br/><br/>Adrian scowled and took the drink. â€œI know.â€ He grumbled in response.