#ignisiisms

The eight year old’s head was spinning and his body already cut up from the many bramble and tree branches the boy’s skin had scraped across, but it looked like he was as far away from the shack as he had ever been. He couldn’t see the light anymore.

And in fact, he couldn’t see any light. Now that Malcolm had escaped, it dawned on him that he hadn’t even thought to bring so much as a torch to light the way. All he had at his disposal was moonlight and even that was rare sheathed under trees. He could barely make a sliver out.

Where do I go now...? His heart was racing. Surely Cain realized he was gone by now and he had no idea how he was supposed to get to Neverland, or if the place even existed... I just want to go home.

But it dawned on him that he didn’t even know where home was.

He was in a race against time, and he knew it. And it was a race that didn’t go in his favor, at all. He was already losing precious time as his sweating hands desperately tried to form a locator spell using Pan’s pipes.

He couldn’t say the boy was in mortal danger, because he wasn’t, not if he wanted to get technical. Pan was dead. They were all dead here, but what stood the risk of damage here was the teen’s already irreparable soul. Injuries Hades could heal easy enough (since finally breaking that stupid lock one of Pan’s tormentors had put on him), but the damage inflicted to his psyche would not be so easily repairable. And he ha a sickening feeling that beating the child was the least of what Cain wanted to do.

The locator spell finally led him to some shack in the woods. Of course it would be the woods. Of course Cain would want to pick the place where the boy felt the most secure and safe. Sadistic fuck.

The panpipes fell to the ground and Hades tucked them into his pocket. He took a deep breath. “Cain...Why don’t you come out of there so we can discuss things like...reasonable gentlemen?”

There were so many tainted spirits down here that it generally was easy for Hades to lose track; forgetting who was who, who did what. The majority of them had comitted sins in life. Sins that Cerberus could scent out with his many noses, and so Hades had left the dog to chew on who he would.

Cain was a name that, a year or so ago, the man wouldn’t even have thought of, really. Just another soul among the many damned. Maybe when he first came here he had glanced briefly at the man’s history; murder, abuse, child abuse, trafficking. He’d meet a painful fate for it all, but it was only now that Hades burned with the rage of a thousand suns, and hatred just as strong.

And he would pay for hurting his child.

Hades strolled into the heated room at a leisurely pace. The smile on his face was grim and full of bloodlust. Oh hell, he was going to enjoy this one.

“Good evening.”