Three in the morning. The first thing that Cobalt noticed when he opened his eyes was the alarm clock sitting on his bedside dresser, still ticking along even though its owner had long since moved out. He frowned, feeling as though he wasn't going to get anymore sleep no matter how hard he tried.

The second thing that noticed were the hands wrapped around his throat. They were not tight enough to choke him, but it was nonetheless disconcerting to awaken to a chokehold. Blinking his vision clear, he waited a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness before glancing over at the other side of the bed.

Elya Yalfre lay next to him, her glazed eyes still open. She was dressed in an old nightgown belonging to Azul - if the blue fabric was anything to go by - and had her hands firmly grasping the Incubus' neck. Her wings were wrapped around the pair of them, and though her eyes were still open, her breathing indicated that she was fast asleep.

Swallowing hard, Cobalt gently tried to tease her fingers away from his neck, wincing as he struggled to shift them. Her hands were locked, like she had rigormortis.

"Come on..." he breathed, furrowing his brow.

Wedging his claws in between her fingers, he eventually loosened her grip enough where he could grab her wrists and pull her hands away. Elya didn't stir the entire time, slumbering on even as the Incubus gradually disentangled himself from her wings. Pushing past the cartilage feathers, he staggered to his feet and looked around his room.

His bedsheets were pulled off the bed, and his door was lying wide open. If he had to guess, Elya must have sleepwalked from the guestroom into his. Sighing, he laid a blanket over the Fallen and plucked an old teddy bear of his off a shelf, sliding it into her hands to act as a body double of sorts.

She needed the sleep. He wasn't about to fault her for the lack of it.

Leaving the Fallen in his bed, Cobalt rubbed his eyes and stumbled down the hallway, squinting through the gloom.

He felt... annoyed. Annoyed at his situation, annoyed at Alison, annoyed at Violet... Annoyed at everything. But the crux of his irritation lay with Lilith. The argument he had with her was still fresh in his mind, and he was under no illusion that he was in the wrong. The Devil had been withholding all kinds of crucial information from him, but had been prying into every little detail of his life, criticising him at every turn. He liked to think he was a tolerant person, but one man could only take so much.

Cobalt wasn't a fan of hypocrites either, least of all those with their heads lodged firmly up their backsides.

Creeping his way down the stairs, the Incubus was surprised to find the dining room light on. Wondering who could be up at such a late hour, he peeked around the door.

Dressed in a fluffy pink dressing gown and nursing a bottle of red wine was Jezebel Trayer, sitting at the head of the dining table. A slew of old photographs were spread out in front of her, and there was a deep sorrow in her eyes that caused Cobalt's heart to twinge. Swallowing hard, he quietly knocked on the door.

"Mom?" he said quietly, stepping into the room.

Jezebel looked up from the pictures. Her eyes were red and wet, though she tried to dry them with her sleeves the moment her son showed himself.

"Snookums. Azul mentioned you were staying the night. Sorry for not meeting you, I was, um... busy with something," she sighed, sounding as though she didn't even believe herself.

Cobalt glanced down at the photographs. They were old; two decades, at least. Each featured a young second-stage Incubus, dressed in a sleeveless biker's jacket over the old B.I.D. uniform. His hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and in each photo his scruffy face was twisted into a sly grin or a cocky smirk. Around his neck hung a grey tie striped with red.

He lightly touched the tie around his own neck.

"I didn't mean to interrupt," the Incubus said, taking a step back.

"No, it's okay, snookums."

Standing up, she stepped over to her son, staggering a little as inebriation took hold. Tripping a little, she grabbed Cobalt's shoulders in order to steady herself, nearly dragging the pair of them to the floor. He tried to keep her upright, but Jezebel just pulled him into one of her suffocating hugs, shuddering as she took a deep breath.

"I don't mean to be so mopey, snookums," she murmured to him.

"I know, Mom."

"It's just... you're getting more like him every day. Hellfire, you even smell like him..."

She tightened her grip.

"I'm not going to pretend like I know what's going on. I'm not going to ask you to back down from whatever you doing; I know better than to try and dull a Trayer's shine. Just... please stay safe, snookums. For me," she breathed.

Wrapping his arms around his mother's shoulders, Cobalt pulled her close. She was shaking.

"I- I can't lose you too. I can't go through that again," Jezebel choked.

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"You won't, Mom. You won't."

"Promise me."

He looked into Jezebel's eyes.

She cared about him. He could see it in her eyes. But in her efforts to keep him safe, Jezebel Trayer had lied to him for years. She kept the subject of Incupsychosis from him and coddled him at every turn, doing everything in her power to keep her little boy safe. Despite her efforts, all that managed to do was intensify the trauma when the day finally arrived for him to join the Phrodival Undercroft's population of imprisoned Incubi. Cobalt couldn't remember much of his younger years - and he had his suspicions as to why - but he remembered nearly every detail of that day.

It was hard to forgive his mother for something like that. It didn't matter that it came from a place of love; he still struggled with the feeling of manacles around his wrists and a collar around his neck.

Cobalt swallowed hard.

"I promise, Mom," he told her after a moment of silence.

Sniffling, she hugged him tight, nearly squeezing all of the air right out of his lungs.

"Okay... okay. I, um... I'm sorry, snookums."

"It's alright."

Nodding, she sat back down. Drinking from the bottle, she looked up at her son and tried to put on a smile.

"So how are things with Elya?" she asked.

"Azul cleaned and patched her up. She's asleep in my room," he told her.

Jezebel raised an eyebrow.

"Oho~?"

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Mom, please; she's been through a lot. She's been sleep-deprived, and I think she must have just sleepwalked into my bed," he said.

"You can't keep brushing her off, snookums."

"I'm not like that with her, okay? Elya's a good friend, nothing m-"

"You used to be."

Raising an eyebrow, he looked Jezebel in the eyes. She was fairly intoxicated at that point, and was absentmindedly staring at the photographs.

"... I'm sorry?" the Incubus asked.

"She was so in love with you back then. I remember seeing you two around the town. She looked at you with eyes so full of love, and you..."

Jezebel smiled wistfully.

"... you did the same. Even after everything that happened, you still looked at her like she was the love of your life."

What?

No, that wasn't right. Elya was always just a friend to Cobalt. He had never been in love.

Jezebel had to be misconstruing things.

"R- Right, anyway. I've gotta go, Mom."

"But it's the middle of the night!"

"I know. I'll be fine, don't worry."

He gave her a quick farewell hug, though not quick enough to stop her from planting a kiss on his cheek. She smelled like merlot.

"Okay. Stay safe, you hear me? I'll make sure your friends are looked after," she told him.

Giving her a wave, the Incubus turned on his heel and left the dining room, feeling more and more uneasy as he replayed his mother's words over in his head. Shaking his head, he stepped out the front door, feeling a slight pang of guilt as it refused to click shut. He'd had to see about sending Viridi the money to get it repaired.

Stepping out into the snow, Cobalt tucked his hands into his pockets and shivered as the cold winter wind cut through him.

"Bit nippy out," spoke the voice of Quinn Redtile to his left.

Raising an eyebrow, he glanced over to see the Imp leaning against the wall of his family's house, her jacket zipped all the way up to her neck. She still looked tired, though whatever sickness had afflicted her was gone.

"What are you doing up?" he asked.

"Never slept. Your sister spent all night feeding me all kinds of homeopathic shit," she replied, yawning.

"Well, Viridi wants to be the one to combine modern medicine and Succubus alchemy. She knows her stuff."

"Yeah, well, at least the sneezing's stopped. Agh, I feel like I've busted every bone in my body."

"Well... I'm heading back to the school, so..."

"I'll come with you, then."

He nodded, too tired to argue.

"Alright. I'll need to take a detour on the way, though."

"Fine with me. Lead the way, blood brother."

-----

The town was peaceful at night. Without so many cars churning up the roads, a thick layer of white snow blanketed it. The streetlights doused the snow in orange light, causing it to sparkle as he and Quinn trudged down the street. Fog had rolled in during the night, however, limiting their visibility.

"You think the coppers are about?" the Imp asked, glancing over her shoulder.

"I don't know. They haven't seen you as anything other than an animal, and they don't have any reason to suspect me. So long as we keep our heads down and move quickly, this whole thing should blow over soon," Cobalt responded, adjusting his scarf.

Quinn clicked her tongue and grinned.

"Heh, now you're thinking like a Deadeye!"

"Stop trying to force it, Quinn."

"I'll stop when I'm dead."

Forging on through the snow, Cobalt tapped his student's shoulder, directing him to follow him into the Brimstone Nature Park. She raised an eyebrow, but upon seeing him pull the bloodstone out of her pocket, she just nodded and walked behind him.

"So, who's the buyer?" she asked, frowning as she tripped through a pile of snow-soaked leaves.

"There's no buyer. It's a gift," he responded.

"Really? I mean, after all the trouble we went through..."

"Don't worry about it, Quinn."

"Blimey. You're a real good egg, huh? You using a dead drop?"

"I... I'm just dropping it off."

"For who?"

He narrowed his eyes.

"I'll tell you if you tell me how you got sick," he told her, raising an eyebrow.

The Imp grinned.

"Heh. You're catching on," Quinn said, kicking a stone.

Cobalt shook his head, but smiled regardless. Forging deeper into the park, they turned off the path and pushed on through the trees, towards the lake. With Quinn following him, he wouldn't be able to drop the bloodstone off directly; he'd have to leave it under a bench nearby and text her the location.

"Oi, Cobalt. What's that?" his student asked, tapping his shoulder.

Quinn directed his gaze towards a sizable tree just a few feet away. He recognised it as an ashbirch, but much older and larger than the ones on the B.I.D. campus. Something had been cut into the grey bark, causing red sap to leak all over the tree.

"What...?"

Approaching the tree, he squinted through the mist. The sap hadn't frozen, telling him that this was made recently. Concentric circles had been cut into the surface of the tree, almost resembling...

"... a target?"

"Look down," Lilith said quietly, for the first time since their argument.

Instinctively, Cobalt glanced down at his feet. There was nothing there, just snow, leaves and-

A deafening gunshot suddenly rang out from somewhere far behind the Incubus, startling both him and Quinn. He felt something whiz right over his head, passing between the tips of his horns and lodging itself deep into the very centre of the target.

He looked up with wide, terrified eyes.

It was a bullet hole.

"Fucking Hell, get behind something!" Quinn cried, immediately diving behind a tree.

Feeling his heart pound in his chest, Cobalt quickly skirted around the tree, pressing his back against the bark as he heard another gunshot. Less than a second later, he felt another bullet strike the wood.

He had no doubt in his mind. The third member of the Alpha Corps. This had to be them.

"Cobalt, what's going on?! You said the pigs wouldn't know!" his student called.

"The police wouldn't send a sniper after us, Quinn!"

Swallowed hard, he looked down and balled his fists. The fire in his stomach flared.

"... No. This is a Devil."