Release, Part Eleven

by Tangerine

Warren stopped at the tombstone and stared at the name engraved in the grey stone. Candace Southern, dead over two years ago. It said as much on the rock, so why wasn't it true? The grave seemed unscathed, as if her body was still there, but Candy was walking, breathing, living, in a way she shouldn't be.

"Come to mourn my death, lover?"

Warren jumped as the intrusion, losing his footing on the grassy hill and sliding a few metres downward. He swore loudly as his bruised wing hit a tombstone, tearing a hole in his leather jacket.

"Or did you just come here to find me?" Candy smiled, standing over him with her hands on her hips. "You went to the police station. Why?"

He ignored her accusing tone and stood up, brushing the wet grass off his jeans with a forceful hand. "I was visiting a friend."

"Charlotte Jones, Detective Charlotte Jones of the NYPD, widow and mother to a charming little boy named Timmy," Candy recited out loud then smiled, baring venomous teeth. "You wanted to find out about me, didn't you, darling?"

"You haven't bothered to give me any answers," Warren muttered, uncomfortable to be around her. He was beginning to understand Betsy's behaviour towards her. "I had to do something to figure this out."

"You want the truth, don't you, Angel baby?" Candy laughed lightly, circling him as he watched her like a hawk. "Did you ever think about the fact the truth might be too hard to take? Do you really want to know what I hide?"

"Yes, tell me," Warren said, aware of the tension mounting, the offensive pose she had taken against him while he was forced into defense, but could he really protect himself? "Candy, I want the truth from you."

Candy's face darkened. "No, you don't, you don't want to know, you never do. You trust and place your faith in the wrong people, Warren. Instead of accepting your foolish naivety, you continue on blindly, ignoring everything."

"I see more than you will every know," Warren said ominously. "I'm not a child. I do not follow anything blindly like a lamb to the slaughter. The fact you could even think that proves you know nothing about me at all."

Candy stood facing him then kissed him fiercely, forcing her weight on his light bones. Warren stumbled backwards, forgetting they were on a hill, and Candy grabbed his shirt in her hands to end continue the kiss and pushed when it had ended. Warren completely lost his footing and fell down the hill headfirst then slide on his back until his legs flipped over his head again, somersaulting him.

Warren frantically grabbed for something to stop his fall, but all his hands clutched at was useless, wet grass. He had lost sight of Candy, but he was less concerned with her than he was of himself. In the midst his frantic thoughts, his mind went blank as his head connected with a tombstone. On the monumental grave was an Angel.

* * *

Warren opened his eyes slowly, bringing a weak hand to the side of his face, touching to sea of crimson that bathed the flesh. It was only a cut, not very large but deep, spewing forth his lifeblood as he lay in the wet grass.

Stumbling, he climbed back up the hill, his balance unsteady and his legs weak, but he made it to the top and looked around. Candy was gone. In truth, there was no sign she had ever been there to begin with. Maybe he had imagined it, maybe she hadn't meant to push him down the hill, maybe it had all been an accident.

He didn't believe that. He wish he did, but he wasn't that naive. So Betsy had been right about Candy. He could live with that, but the fear in the pit of his stomach continued to grow. There was something too dark here to have been dreamt of by Candy alone. He had been manipulated once himself, and he knew how impossible an offer of life could be to turn down.

"Damn you!" Warren cried out into the empty cemetery, his arms raised to the heavens. "Damn you, Apocalypse! This wasn't part of the deal, this was not part of the goddam deal. You want me, you come for me yourself. I'm here. Come and get me!"

Birds fluttered from their perches at the screams, scattering into the horizon, and Warren swore loudly, waving his fist about madly. "I dare you, my lord, come and get me if you dare! Let's just see who is fit for survival! Let us just see if I am that Angel of Death you want me to be! I'm here, and I'm waiting, and you'll never have me! You will never have me again!"

* * *

Candy stood in the cool night, staring bleakly into the starless sky. It looked so bland, so empty, so like she felt. She should have killed him at the cemetery. That would have been the biggest act of mercy she ever committed. It would have saved his life.

"You will push your pettiness aside, child."

Candy gave no reaction to his intrusion. She simply continued to stare out into the great bleakness before her. "I will do what I want and when I want it. That was the deal, wasn't it? I do things the way I want them done, so long as I still do what you wish."

"You have made an idiot move, child," he replied coldly, his mechanical voice unable to shake her. "Your element of surprise has been eliminated. He knows now that you seek to do him harm."

"It was better than stabbing him in the back," Candy muttered dryly.

He grabbed her shoulder, yanking her so that she faced him. She showed no emotion. "It matters not, for I have made sure he will not remember your stupidity. I warn you not to double cross me, child. It brings only trouble."

Candy smiled wickedly. "Very well, Apocalypse. I am well aware my life is in your hands. I will do what you want." Candy turned to walk away before returning to her former stance. "One question, and I do expect an answer, if his body is indeed dying as you say it is, doesn't he know this?"

"He knows, but he is stubborn and denies it." Apocalypse frowned. "He has not told his precious lover the truth. Perhaps, if she knew, that would be enough to break her, and ultimately him. Do you understand what I am saying?"

Candy nodded, her dark curls mimicking her movements. "I can do that, but I ask you to stop the mental attacks. They are not working, and they're making your precious plan obvious. You want surprise, my lord, start acting like it."

Apocalypse roared in sudden rage, slapping her, for she was only human when all was said and done. "You will not speak to me like that, human! The mental attacks have been ceased, young Rhythm has not proven as successful as I had hoped she'd be. Now, you must do what I have told you to do."

"I will do it, don't worry about that, but I need time."

"No," Apocalypse silenced her. "You will do it tonight, and if it is not done by then, you will suffer a hell so unlike the one you have known already, you will pray you had never gone against my word."

* *

Rhythm, that is what her dark lord called her. She liked the name, for it described what she did so well. She disrupted the rhythm of the brain, altering memories and thoughts to her pleasure. She enjoyed her power. She was her power.

"Can you spare some change?" Rhythm asked sincerely, aware her thin frame and sickly features made her appear ill and impoverished. She knew he would take pity on her. Any less on his account would have made him something less than a hero.

Warren dug into his pocket at the inquiry, ready to give her hundreds. He looked up in time to see her coming at him, placing her palm flat against his face. He stumbled back, aware of the pounding rhythm in his brain, and slumped against the brick wall as his memories were changed to make him see only what his lord wanted him to see.

* * *

Warren stumbled into the apartment with his hand to his head. His mind felt as if a dense fog had ascended upon it. The strangest thing, and the thing which bothered him most of all, was the fact he could not remember where he had been for the past ten hours. His mind was a blank.

"Where have you been?" Betsy demanded of him the moment she caught his figure in the doorway. She threw down the book she had been reading, letting it slide and splay onto the plush carpet. "Just where the hell have you bloody well been?"

Warren shooed her away. He was not in the mood to be interrogated, but the motion only made Betsy more irate. She moved to grab his arm, but he avoided the gesture. Her eyes flared, and she cut him off before he could travel any further.

"Warren, you cannot simply emerge without an explanation after you've been missing for sixteen hours!"

"Missing? I wasn't missing," Warren muttered, wishing for some aspirin the ease the dull ache in his head. "I was... out, talking to Charlotte. I told you that. You know where I was. I wasn't missing."

"Hello?" Betsy said, waving her hand in front of his face. "You said you'd be home by lunch time. I hate to tell you this, Warren, but it's two in the morning. Can you tell me, then, what you have been doing for the past ten hours?"

Warren blinked painstakingly, as if it hurt to think about the past. He remembered leaving the Police Station, he remembered going to the cemetery, but beyond that, there was nothing. "I can't... remember."

Betsy gasped in a short breath of air, grabbing his arm as to make him sit. She saw the blank look in his eyes, the slowness of his responses, the confusion imbedded in every facial crevice. Lightly, her telepathic butterfly touched his temple, skimming for thoughts that would give away the truth, but she found only emptiness.

But then it flashed, a memory before his eyes, and hers, catching them both off guard. Betsy stumbled back, losing her already awkward footing where she crouched. Warren flinched as another memory hit his mind. Flesh, hot flesh and breath, on him. Kisses and caresses, touch as hot and as sensual as a lover's would be, stroking his wings, his body, everything. And there was a woman, slender and gorgeous, with pale skin and youthful eyes. It wasn't Betsy.

"You thought you could lie to me?!" Betsy screamed as the images became clearer and clearer. God, she had never expected this from him. She trusted him. How dare he betray her like this!

"I didn't," Warren protested, shaking his head. "I didn't. You've got to believe me, Betts. These memories aren't mine! I wouldn't do that to you. I love you!"

"If you loved me, you wouldn't have done it, Warren," Betsy snapped, slapping him away as he moved closer. "It was a nice try, claiming you couldn't remember, very nice and I almost fell for it, but how dare you think you could hide it forever?! Who was she, Warren? Who was the little wench?"

"I don't know!" Warren cried, trying so hard to remember the truth. He knew this couldn't have happened. He promised Betsy he never would. He loved her so much it hurt. He couldn't have done this. "I swear, I didn't sleep with her."

Betsy felt her will falter for a moment, and she almost believed him, but the memories were there again on her mind, feelings, his feelings, overtaking her. Sights of passion and ecstasy, obviously hidden away by him. She knew what was real. She knew the illusion was his.

"Get out," Betsy muttered darkly, laying her hand on the katana blade that sat on the coffee table, polished and deadly. "Get out of this house right now before I do something we'll both regret."

Warren grabbed his coat and his wallet without another word, sparing one last look over his shoulder, he left, just as she asked him to do, for though he knew none of this had happened, there was only one way he could prove it, an avenue he wasn't willing to take. To let her into his mind, would hurt her even more.

[next part]

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