Chapter 43: 3.06 OBSESSIVE LOVE: Keep up

There's a lanky guy that leans against the alley walls. He stares at Kyden with deep set eyes as he breathes in his cigarette.

A pungent smell wafts, piss and vomit and some other shit all contributing to the standard back alley aroma and Kyden does his best to ignore all of it. Instead, he imagines himself as the demon who stumbles outside with a drunken blond. The blond is bigger than he is, taller but he's drunk and weak to Kyden's sweet smiles and even sweeter words.

Kyden takes slow steps, eyes sweeping across the alley, and spots a convenient spot that nestles just out of sight from the side exit. Kyden stands there, his back against the rough brick wall. It's damp but he ignores that too, trying to imagine wide hands around his waist and in his hair.

Ah, he thinks absently, does the professor's hair count as blond? Do his eyes count as blue? Not really, right? But Kyden imagines them clearly, framed by the light hints of crow's feet that frame a soft gaze.

Kyden sighs, and nurses his head, wondering if the rancid fumes around enough to ebb his mental capabilities. He looks down. And spots the glint of something shiny that hides beneath the soles of his feet.

He squats. It's an earring in the shape of a cute, feminine rose. It's not rusted so it must be recent. Whether or not it belongs to his target is anyone's guess but at least it concludes that people have in fact used the spot where Kyden stands.

A flashing neon sign hangs overhead atop a shabby building, breaking up the dark skyline. The closest motel feels a bit like a long shot, but they have nothing else but long shots right now, and not enough manpower to deal with the case.

He takes a moment to consider contacting Voir. In the end, he sighs and follows protocol. He brings out the phone why he strolls through the alley, retracing steps should his target have come down this way, with intentions of finding more clues on his way to his destination.

Kyden does not reach his destination.

While the phone blares in his ear with the dialing sound, he hears soft giggling and chirping flirting to his right.

The voices are slightly muffled.

"Kiss me. You like me right?" a female voice hums.

A slew of giggles and wet kissing.

"If you like me, you'll come with me. Let's go together."

It's the fact that he can only hear a single woman's voice that alarms him. He slows his steps and tries to quiet them but against the wet puddles that litter the ground, it's difficult.

The call goes through just as Kyden is reaching up to end it. "Rever—" he feels just a tiny bit sorry but not really about cutting his partner off like that. Kyden trades his phone for the knife he has hidden beneath his belt and approaches slowly.

Just in case, he slices the blade across his palm. They're just around the alley corner. And suddenly the voices quiet, as though his approach is anticipated. Kyden hides the blade behind his back and approaches.

He recognizes her immediately, hidden behind the arms of a tall, hazy-eyed blond. The two of them stare at Kyden and he wants nothing more than to cut the demon down and draw it out of its host.

Belle hides behind the man, huddling close to his chest, brows furrowed with visible concern. This one's good at emulating emotion, Kyden thinks but he's not about to get tricked so easily.

The blond-haired man hisses at him, "What are you looking at? Get a move on! If you think you can get a free show I'll beat the living daylights outta you!"

It seems possible at a first glance, the blond man is taller than Kyden by a whole head with muscle mass to match. However, he's swaying and his eyes are rimmed with red, not to mention Kyden's never been intimidated by a man bigger than himself.

Kyden, who wants to get them separate first, does not hesitate to provoke the man, "It's not like it will hurt you if I just watch."

"You fucking…!" The blond roars, pushing the girl aside to lunge. Kyden barely even pays attention to him, eyes watching Belle like a hawk.

She gasps in shock, "Phyl!" And reaches out but it's too late and the man's fist is flying at Kyden. Kyden sidesteps the drunken man with ease, holding at a foot which the blond stumbles over and crashes into the opposite wall.

It's then that Kyden brandishes his knife. The woman's eyes widen at the blade. Panic flashes through those doe brown eyes and she clutches her chest. A purple glow emits from her eyes as she steps back. Sounds are drowned out.

Kyden is unfazed by a demon's abilities rushes, but he's rudely jerked back by a hand clutching his shoulder like a vice. He hisses, elbow shooting out to knock the man in the gut.

"Oof!" But the person who sputters from his blow isn't the blond man but Voir.

Kyden is stunned for half a millisecond, his brain churning with confusion, only to remember that he's his target to follow but the demon is making its mistake. The blond recovers from his daze and charges at them both with a roar.

"Rever—" Voir's hand is still on Kyden's shoulder. The little fucker doesn't even let go when Kyden tries to push him back! And that was how the blond managed to ram straight into them both, with glow purple eyes.

Kyden's knife clatters on the ground when the three of them tumble onto filth, wet pavement. His wrist gets twisted weirdly, but he doesn't feel the pain right away. Instead, he feels his patience snap as he kicks and wrestles the two idiots off of him.

"What do you think you're doing!?" he roars loudly, anger ablaze in his blood, veins bulging at his neck and brow.

Voir sits, his back against the alley, and looks up with a wide-eyed daze. The blond-haired man collapsed on the side, like a puppet with strings cut. His movements twitched and stopped suddenly.

"Rev. Kyden, I— just— I thought—" Voir stutters, knowing that he messed up.

Kyden wants to rip his hair out but he breathes in and forces himself to calm, kneeling down next to the slumped blond man to check his pulse. He seems okay, just unconscious with breath and pulse steady. Kyden props him up against the alley wall before turning to Voir.

It takes all of his self-control to contain himself. "You have two choices right now. You stay here and call for help. Or you follow me and call for help. But I'm not responsible for you keeping up, you hear me?"

Voir rises from the ground, dusting off the filth now soaking his clothes. There's a telltale flush across his face but he still desperately says, "I'll follow you, Rev. Kyden! I'm coming." Just as instructed, he's already fishing for his phone.

"Don't fall behind," Kyden's voice is sharp, he turns around with waiting, headed in the direction that the demon disappeared to, not bothering to slow down even when Voir was on the phone.

But Kyden doesn't succeed at losing his useless partner who dogs his steps. He doesn't succeed at relocating their target either, who disappears within the crowd.

Voir has a thousand and one apologies and a thousand and one excuses.

"Y-you called me but then— you just hung up, I was really worried!"

"I thought you were going to kill her—"

"The man was just an innocent bystander, what if you hurt him?"

Kyden just wants him to shut up. They stop giving chase around the break of dawn, exhaustion has eaten its way to Kyden's marrow. They're in the car, on the way back to the office, and the way orange streaks across the sky is offensive to the priest.

"I could have drawn out the demon," Kyden says coldly, his voice sharp and without remorse.

He can hear the way Voir stiffens, his grip tightening around the steering wheel. Kyden doesn't even bother to look at the brat and watches the way the sun crawls above the horizon. "If the demon is drawn out at an early phase, then the host could still be saved." They both know this, there's no reason for Kyden to articulate it. But the accusation that sits behind his words is obvious and impossible to ignore.

"I'm sorry—" Voir starts for what must have been the hundredth time.

"Don't say sorry to me," Kyden snaps, "Say sorry to Belle Sacris. She is the one who lost her life tonight."

"…" The silence that settles between them is suffocating but Kyden doesn't care. Actually, Kyden regrets not saying those pointed words earlier, so he could have gotten Voir to shut up faster.

But what's done, is done.