He held the paper in front of his face, studying it through a golden monocle held in one graceful hand. A single, vivid green eye flashed under the glass; an irritated grunt escaped his throat.

“They’re calling it The Great Fire of London.” He sneered, replacing the antique monocle into his coat pocket. “Because of your mishap, you burned down the entirety of Pudding Lane!”

Fai Xai, with a face caked with tears, lowered her head. The feathers on her back were skeletons now; the tough leather of her wings were streaked with dark, dried blood. It had taken a great while and a few dozen rolls of gauze to bandage up what remained of her right wing. Unfortunately, she had found out that that the damage was too severe to fix. She would no longer be able to fly.

“What else was Oi suppos’d ta do, Wolfie?” Fai asked, her voice dry. “The bugga ‘it me right over London. There was no other place to faul.”

“Perhaps, you could have aimed for, I don’t know, the Thames River?!” He groaned, his mind overcome with disgust. As he shook his head in revulsion, hair the color of white marble fluttered before his face.

“Oi’ve lost my wings and my master.” She said in response to his anger, her voice painfully small and desperate. Her eyes, simple shells of white, pleaded with him for compassion. “You’ve lost a lover. You shouldn’t get mad at me.”

Wolfgang Vaughn, a mammoth of a man blessed with a handsome silhouette and a stoic, if not obsessive, personality, glanced up abruptly.

“We don’t speak of him from this moment on.” His eyes narrowed. “Understand?”

“What?” Fai jerked up, cringing momentarily as the frayed stubs of her wings hit against her chair. “Oi can’t just forget about Cyprus!”

“I’m not asking you to forget about him.” The Vampire’s tone was low as he stood. “It’s bad luck to speak of the dead.”

“Oh.” Fai glanced towards the ground as she cupped her small, bandaged hands in her lap. She forced away the raising emotion of vulnerability in her gut as Wolfgang placed a hand atop her head. With a sigh, he traced his fingers down the tightly woven braid that fell down her back.

“You’ll be under my guard now.” He smiled down at her as he gently touched her swollen back. Her reply was a nod.

“Did you get a good look at the human’s face?” Wolfgang’s voice was low, cautious. “The one who maimed you?”

“Why? What’s the poin--” Realization suddenly hit her. She turned in her chair, reached out eagerly, and clutched his head in her hands, her eyes wide and excited. “Ah ya thinkin’ ‘bout revenge?”

“Only if you can help me.” He held her hand in his. “Did you see the human’s face?”

“Yes!” Her voice rose with her insatiable appetite for retribution. “ ‘E was an ugly bugga. Dark ‘air and whiskers, Oi think. A scar ‘cross his eye, too.”

“I see.” Wolfgang nodded as he looked over his servant’s wounds. “And his weapon? Did you see any?”

“Uhm…” Fai squinted her eyes closed while tapping a finger on her temple. “Oi didn’t see anything. The impact was too ‘ard.”

“He knocked you unconscious?” Wolfgang shook his head as he carefully outstretched one of her broken wings. He muttered to himself as he examined them.

“Poor thing.”

“No, no.” She shook her hands at him, smiling widely. “I’m fine!”

“This almost looks like an wound sustained from an arrow.” He bent at the waist, inspecting the largest section of dead feathers. “Do you remember an arrow?”

“ ‘E wasn’t carrin’ anything’.” She tried desperately to remember. “Oi didn’t see anything’ in ‘is ‘ands.”

“Could there have been a second one?”

“A second ‘uman?” Fai snarled dramatically. “They’re like rats. Aul ova’ the place. What filthy creatures.”

Wolfgang failed to respond this time. Instead, with narrowed eyes, he touched a particularly suspicious looking piece of wing. Suddenly, with an otherworldly scream, Fai fell backwards as the right side of her back erupted in flames. By instinct, the massive wings outstretched, the bandages holding them in place shredding as she flapped both frantically. The chair flipped, a lamp crashed to the group, even Wolfgang, horribly startled, was pushed away as Fai’s cries filled the large room. With one final flail, her wing crashed into the wall, smearing a line of blood and feathers across the white paint.

“Stop moving, love.” Wolfgang calls out to her, his eyes glues to where she had come in contact with the wall.

The room fell silent as Fai crouched on the ground, silently weeping as she patted the rest of the fire out with her bare hands. She apprehensively searched for Wolfgang, only to find him staring, much like a bewildered child, at his tarnished wall. Lodged in the wood, covered with a thin, black layer of blood, was a cross-shaped spearhead. There were flames, light blue in color, burning contently wherever the blood touched the small piece of metal.

“W-What is that?” Her voice cracked as she tried to steady herself. “Was that in my--”

“Get me that glass over there.” Wolfgang abruptly ordered, pointing to the far corner of the room where his dinner had been set before Fai had wondered into his office ragged and torn. “Quickly, now.”

Fai, with tears still blinding her focus, shakily stood and went for the crystal glass, timidly glancing behind her at the Vampire. He stood parallel to the fire, with one of her bloodied feathers in his hands.

“This thing looks like it could fit the tip of an arrow.” Wolfgang’s awestruck voice floated to her ears as she returned. “See, the bottom side of the cross is concave to fit a wooden shalf.”

Fai, after handing him the glass, stood behind her new mentor, her burnt hands clutching at the magnificent cape hanging from his shoulders. She cowered away as he cautiously touched her blood-stained feather to the metal. Instantly, with a sound much like steam leaving a kettle, the piece of wing ignited. The blood caked onto the surface sizzled and cracked; the feather underneath was left perfectly intact.

“Oi don’t understand.” She spoke wearily as she peered out from Wolfgang. Fai held her tongue as he poured a small amount of the liquid from the glass, an unquestionable mixture of human and animal blood, onto the flame.

Nothing happened.

“It reacts to immortal blood.” He finally said as he entwined an arm around Fai, trying to soothingly calm her down. “The metal must have been blessed by a priest.”

As if on impulse, a hiss escaped Fai’s lips as she shrugged away from the small, intricately cut cross.

“And you said you saw no form of weapon on this male human?” Wolfgang turned to the young demon, wiping a tear from her stained face. “Nothing in his hands?”

“No, Oi didn’t see anything.” She pointed an angry finger at the wall, her tone shrill. “No ‘uman could have that sort of power, right? They aren’t smart enough!”

The Vampire stood silent.

“That‘s ‘ow Cyprus was killed!” Fai suddenly remembered, her eyes widening with fear. She desperately tried to get Wolfgang’s attention as tears trickled down her cheeks. “Oi saw ‘im faul as ‘e was midair, just like me. ‘E was shot down, Wolfie. A ‘uman shot ‘im down!”

Wolfgang’s hands slipped away from Fai’s shivering shoulders. She lost her balance and tilted backwards, quickly righting herself up with the use of a chair. And there, as she coupled her sore, broken body, she saw the Vampire, a being over a century old, a being perfected over time to be the most flawless and beautiful of creatures in the world, falter.

“I don’t understand.” He said. “What kind of magic is this?”