Letting his golden eyes roam over the bed sheets, stained by specks of blood and torn feathers, the half-fiend half-celestial gave a sigh. The child had meant nothing to him; but it had been his mother�s request, or rather her demand, that it be rescued and taken to Kaehlin. He had failed her again. What was he to do now? His mother was kidnapped, and so was her child, and he had no lead on the kidnapper. She had wanted Kaehlin; but why? What did his father have that he didn�t? Did he know where she was being taken?

Keeping as calm as his nerves would let him, Koell straightened out the bed sheets and took a long, deep breath. Following this, he made his way from the bedroom, walking at a surprisingly calm pace to the study. In this room Koell searched until he found what he was looking for; a feather quill, a parchment of paper and an inkwell. In a considerably neat script he began to write.

�Father, Mother is in trouble. Kidnapped. She does not look herself now; she is an elven woman now. Black hair. A single wing. Purple robes. Koell.�

Pausing a moment Koell considered adding that she had given birth to a child, but thought better of it. He needed Kaehlin to come to the house, and that additional information certainly would not achieve the desired effect. Hastily Koell added the address of the house in Luubramton in which he now stood, before pushing the letter into an envelope and sealing it with a wax stamp. His pointed fangs drawing blood from his bottom lip absently, Koell moved swiftly through to the front door swinging it open. His eyes scanned the street at the doorstep a moment. Cursing silently at the lack of carriages, he hurried out into the street, leaving the front door open. The street was occupied by a number of people, most of which were waiting for carriages of goods or passenger carts to take them out of the village. There were a few stall-keepers trying to sell their products to the passersby, and Koell had to decline a grocer his offer of a bag of clean mushrooms for just two gold pieces. Koell selected someone from the crowds, a man in a suit who he had seen about the village a couple of times during his searches for his mother before he�d found out the truth; found out that he had been living with his disguised mother the whole time. Approaching the well-dressed human hastily, Koell almost literally forced the sealed envelope into his hands.

�Please� give this to the next carriage to Rovandon. Tell the driver it needs to get to Kaehlin, I�ve addressed the envelope accordingly. Tell him also that I will pay him when he returns here. Tell him also it is an emergency of the greatest urgency. You got all that?�

The man looked thoroughly perplexed by the sudden instructions but he nodded numbly; it took Koell a moment to realize that the man was staring at his outstretched feather wings. Giving a hasty smile, Koell nodded to the man, releasing the letter into his hands.

�I will be in your debt� and it�s always a blessing to have a celestial-demon in your debt.�

Koell got a brief moment�s amusement from how the man gave a baffled but unsure grin and then looked to the letter, gripping it like it was his last hope for survival. Koell then rolled his golden eyes, ignoring the man�s nods of comprehension to his request, and turned on his heels. He had never realized that his paranormal appearance could work as an advantage before, but he had no time to spend pondering the matter. He had to find his mother; again.

-

Had there been a little more light, Am�naelihn might have had some idea where she was being taken. From the numerous times she hit the concrete as she was dragged along, she knew she was being taken out into the main village streets, and from the lack of window lights or street lamps, the elven lady assumed they were within the back alleys where only the most daring would tread. She had been unable to get a good sight on her kidnappers, though she could tell that most, if not all, of them were clad in dark black to aid their hiding; the speed with which they moved and her unsteady grasp on consciousness made identifying the figures near on impossible.

Eventually they came to a halt, and the single-winged mother assumed that they had gotten a comfortable distance from her home, and from Koell. Now that they had come to a halt, she was unwilling to let the journey continue. Thrashing her arms and legs wildly, like a woman possessed, the slender elf tried desperately to free herself. She heard one of the men cry out as her legs caught him in a particularly sensitive area, but all too soon sheer numbers had overpowered her, and Am�naelihn found herself bitterly wondering if she�d have stood more hope in her original, stronger half-celestial form. Cursing and growling out loud, the woman did not give up her struggles even as the men bound her arms behind her back, tying them with a thick cord of leather that cut into her wrists. She lifted her chin, glaring upwards, readying to spit at the nearest man as their voices swirled around her.

Only then did Am�naelihn see the recognizable face of someone she knew; an elven man, with long black hair similar to hers, and eyes piercing down at her. Was it? Cae�ratheuil? Before she could ponder what, or who, she had seen any further, Am�naelihn�s elven head was forced back down and the hasty kidnapping continued, their journey far from over.

-

Too many tendays had dragged by in which Kaehlin had found himself cooking his only meals, cleaning his own leathers, sleeping in bed alone; of course, the bed sheets had not been made since Am�naelihn�s departure. Never in his life would Kaehlin have suspected himself to have become so dependent upon somebody other than himself, nor would he have anticipated how much he missed her. But as the tiefling stood in the kitchen, trying desperately to clean raw puma meat off a dish, he began to curse silently in his head, wishing he were no longer alone in this house that was certainly far too large to house just one person.

For a moment Kaehlin could have sworn he heard a knocking but shaking his horned head he let it pass; he had on occasion imagined hearing Am�naelihn returning home only to find it was a stray cat or the wind; the wind had been let off for its deception� the stray cat wasn�t quite so lucky. Kaehlin gave a faint growl as he chipped some dried blood off the dish. And again he heard the knocking. Shaking his head, the tiefling released the dish and cloth into the bowl of boiling water and made his way to the front door to his manor. Taking a firm hold of the lock between both double doors, he lifted it clear and opened up to whatever might have been knocking. There was no one there. Kaehlin grunted; imagined it again. As he made to return to the chores in the kitchen, he almost missed the envelope on the doorstep. Picking it up and returning to the house, the tiefling tore it open and found a piece of parchment inside.

�Father, Mother is in trouble. Kidnapped. She does not look herself now; she is an elven woman now. Black hair. A single wing. Purple robes. Koell.�

Kaehlin blinked and reread the message, but he hadn�t misread a letter. Am was in trouble; in the form of an elf. �If this is a trick of the boy�s, I will gut him and use his insides as a dish cleaner,� the fiend thought silently, hurriedly making his exit from the manor.

-

No one in Rovandon was as pleased as Cassius to find the sun finally rising and his night shift ending. It had been a typical, boring night, with no activity save the comings and going of late night carriages and the occasional foot traveler from a neighboring village or town. The town guard hung up his shield and longsword on the wall, ready for the next unfortunate guard to take up. As Cassius was about to remove the darang helmet sat atop his head, something caught his eye; a large form moving hastily towards the town gates. The figure was certainly familiar though; Cassius had set eyes on those horns and those glowing red eyes on more than one occasion; for that was Kaehlin, murderer of Kent, Cassius� once long time friend.

With almost lightning speed the guard had re-equipped his longsword and shield, holding them at the ready to do battle at last with his approaching foe. Kaehlin was in sight now, grunting, as he was common to do. The two men met eyes, mere feet now from one another, Kaehlin�s double axe against Cassius� longsword. Cassius raised his shield in front of his chest, his longsword pointed forwards; he would block the tiefling�s first inevitable swing with his trusty buckler, and then lay waste to him with a simple forward jab of his blade. One more step and�

Kaehlin paid the guard no heed in the slightest, rushing straight past Cassius and out of the town gates. Cassius blinked in stunned surprise, frozen in his battle stance. He turned slowly, watching the figure at a distance as it clambered into the carriage, barking some unpleasant commands to the driver. The carriage moved off in the distance, tiefling inside, leaving Cassius to ponder the incident with a dissatisfied frown.

-

Koell had leapt the garden fence just as the kidnappers of his mother had certainly done. There were back alley streets behind the house, and Koell would have bet a sapphire to phenalope that it was this route the six dark figures had taken. The man�s keen amber eyes searched the cobblestones for signs that might indicate the path his mother had been taken, but no such luck was to be had. With a sigh and a gentle flap of his wings, Koell grit his teeth. How was he to ever find his mother and her child at this rate? The one time in all his life that she needed him, and he had failed her. This must be why she had demanded he fetch Kaehlin� perhaps the violent fool would have more luck than his inauspicious son. If there was just some way he could see further, find her, find his mother and that one-winged child�

The idea struck Koell as though tossed at him by the Deities above� he was half-celestial and as such he bore the feathered wings that marked the holy side of his heritage. All his life they had been decoration; to differentiate him from every other being he set eyes on. Yet never had they served a purpose, never had he used them to fly. If he could just achieve that one thing now�

The feathered wings began to beat heavily on the man�s back, flapping at the winds, trying to lift his muscled body from the ground. But he would not lift, would not rise above the cobblestone pavement. He was too heavy, of course. Koell bit deep down on his lip, his pointed fangs drawing blood from the flesh and on this blood he began to suck gently. Blood was thicker than water; he�d always lived by such a saying. He could not let his own blood down now, he could not let his mother down after he had found her again, and after all she had done for him.

Koell began to flap his wings again, this time with a new determination, driven by the blood he could taste on his own tongue. He feet left the ground just an inch� two� He knew if he stopped now he�d be back where he started; but he did not stop. Like an angel, Koell began to rise above the buildings that had restricted his view before. He could see it all now, the village in its full splendor, the villagers busying themselves to their mid-day chores and businesses. The carriage pulling up that, unknown to the boy, carried his father secretly into Luubramton. And there, so far almost that is was not in Koell�s view, six dark figures loading something; no, someone; into a black carriage pulled by twin, midnight horses. At last. At last the hunt would begin.