Chapter 5: The Angel in the Cage

Chapter 5: The Angel in the Cage

The fog was a shroud. It rolled in from the river, thick and damp, swallowing the streetlights and muffling the city's weary exhalations. It was a holy mist, Elias decided, sent to sanctify the ground for his revelation. He stood in the deepest shadows of the staff parking lot, a ghost made real by his righteous purpose. The cold air did nothing to cool the humming in his blood. The venom was expectant, a coiled serpent waiting for the charmer’s flute.

He had watched the last of the staff leave, their headlights cutting fleeting, ghostly tunnels through the fog before being consumed by it. Now, only one car remained besides his own. Hers.

The back door of The Crow's Nest creaked open, spilling a weak, yellow light into the oppressive grey. And there she was. His angel.

The four days since the sacrament had taken their toll. The vibrant light he had first seen in her was dimmed, her shoulders slumped with a weariness that went deeper than a long shift. Her face, caught for a moment in the light, was pale and drawn, her expressive eyes haunted. It was the face of a survivor, a prisoner blinking in the unfamiliar light of freedom. The sight of her suffering sent a pang of agonizing love through him. The venom flared, hot and protective. Her friends, with their poisonous condolences, were killing her. He had arrived just in time.

She locked the door behind her, the click of the bolt echoing in the unnatural quiet. She pulled her jacket tighter, her breath pluming in the cold air as she started towards her car. Her steps were slow, hesitant. She was afraid of the world. He would teach her not to be.

He stepped out of the shadows.

"Seraphina."

Her name was a prayer on his lips, a soft sound meant to soothe.

She froze, her head snapping up. Her eyes, wide and searching, scanned the foggy darkness. She clutched her keys in her hand like a weapon, the metal teeth glinting.

"Who's there?" her voice was a thin, trembling thread.

"You don't have to be afraid anymore," he said, taking a slow step forward into the edge of the light. "I'm the one who set you free."

For a moment, she just stared. He saw the flicker of confusion in her eyes, a mind trying to place his forgettable face. Then, he saw the exact second recognition dawned. It wasn't a spark; it was an explosion. Her face collapsed into a mask of pure, abject terror. The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin a stark, waxy white. It was the look she’d had in the alley.

A low, guttural sound escaped her throat, a whimper of disbelief and horror. She stumbled backward, her hand fumbling desperately with her car door.

"No," she breathed. "No, no, no…"

This wasn't right. This wasn't the grateful reunion he had envisioned. Where was the dawning realization? The tears of relief? He felt a flicker of frustration. The demon's poison had rooted itself deeper than he had imagined.

"Don't you understand?" he asked, his voice gentle, instructive, like a patient teacher. "He was hurting you. I saw it. Everyone saw it, but they were too blind to act. I was the only one strong enough."

He took another step. She finally managed to get her keys into the lock, her hands shaking so violently it was a miracle.

"Stay away from me!" she shrieked, her voice tearing through the fog.

"I read your words," he pressed on, his voice rising with the urgent need to make her understand the gospel. "You said the world was 'quiet and empty.' That's the sound of your cage being gone. That's the sound of freedom, Seraphina! You're just not used to it yet. I can help you."

He saw his words hitting her not as comfort, but as a physical assault. Her eyes were wide with a new kind of horror, the horror of having her most private grief twisted into something monstrous.

"You're insane," she whispered, finally wrenching the car door open. "You're a monster."

Monster.

The word struck him with the force of a physical blow. It was the demon's word. The word the ignorant would use. But to hear it from her lips… it was blasphemy. It was sacrilege. The venom, which had been a fire of protective love, flashed into a white-hot rage.

"I performed a sacrament for you!" he roared, the sound ripping from his throat, raw and wounded. "I bled for you! I cut the cancer out of your life, and you call me a monster? Ingrate!"

His fantasy of a tearful, grateful reunion shattered into a million pieces. The shards rearranged themselves in his mind into a new, terrible mosaic. She wasn't a wounded angel in need of healing. She was a fallen angel. Corrupted. Tainted by the demon's touch to her very soul. She didn't recognize her own salvation. Her gratitude wasn't just hidden; it was absent. She was impure.

And if she could not be saved, she would have to be purified.

He lunged just as she tried to slide into the driver's seat. His hand clamped over her mouth, stifling the scream that was already building in her throat. She thrashed against him, her strength surprising, born of sheer terror. She kicked and clawed, her nails scraping uselessly against his jacket. Her muffled cries were desperate, animal sounds in the suffocating fog.

"You are ungrateful," he hissed into her ear, his voice a low, venomous snarl. "He made you filthy. You love your sickness. But I will be your cure."

He was stronger. His obsession gave him a strength she couldn't possibly match. He wrenched her away from the car, her keys clattering to the wet asphalt, forgotten. He dragged her kicking and struggling across the parking lot, her heels scraping against the concrete. She was a wild thing, but he was a zealot.

He got her to his car, fumbling the back door open before shoving her inside. She fell onto the seat, immediately scrambling for the opposite door, but he was too fast. He slammed it shut, the sound a final, metallic punctuation mark on her freedom. He slid into the driver’s seat, the lock clicking shut with a deafening finality.

She was pounding on the window now, her face streaked with tears, her screams trapped within the glass and steel of the car. He didn't look at her. He couldn't. Looking at her flawed, terrified face was an agony.

He started the engine. The headlights cut through the fog, illuminating the empty space where her car sat, its door still hanging open like a gaping mouth.

"Do not worry, Seraphina," he said to the windshield, his voice now eerily calm, the rage having cooled into a solid, unshakeable purpose. "I am not a monster. I am your salvation. I will build you a new cage. A clean one. And I will keep you in it until you remember how to sing."

He put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot, leaving her abandoned car and the last vestiges of her old life to be swallowed by the fog. The angel was in the cage. The purification was about to begin.