My panic lasted a short eternity. I was hunted, consumed, frightened, fleeing, paralyzed, singed, dismembered, frozen, and a thousand other things, all in an unknowable duration. Time in Hell is not as time elsewhere.

Once more, some bit of my mind was watching, wondering. Panic? I just don’t do that. Wait a second – what was my name? Martin? David? Both?

Chaz’s words came back to me from decades before. “Try not to kill. As a Guardian, your soul will be linked to the first person you kill. It’s inextricable, inevitable, immortal.”

David Longman-Steele was the first man I’d killed as a Guardian. It was his soul holding me here, his soul Chaz had used to bait his trap. His soul that belonged in this hell. Knowing this, I could once again feel my powers. Time became sequential, linear again. Cause led to effect.

Forget about the blades, or the wings. I’d been a Guardian Elite. I knew mysteries Chaz had never conceived. I knew the way out of Hell, and I knew where he was going.