Bane

December 15, 1993

Bishop sat in darkness, his gas lamps not dim in their typical low lit glow. The shades were drawn shut, the blackout curtains holding out the garish, hard rays of sunlight, poisonous to his skin.

Bishop ignored the crashing against his front door, each louder than than the last. With scarred eyes once capable of painless sight, he clenched them shut, thin tears running down his pallid cheeks in twin streams.

Let him come. Let him bear down on me, those piercing green eyes staring into my cadaver. The curse of sunlight could not stop me; Samael Grifford's Zealots could not stop me; exile could not stop me.

If I should die...

The door creaked, the heavy oak wood frame straining with each strike.

Bishop sighed as the door strained, the wood bowed, and groaned as the sound echoed through his empty house.

Let him come.

Strain turned to cracking, splintering, breaking, the hinges of the door tearing away from the frame one stripped screw at a time.

The heavy oak door bowed in again, and buckled off it's hinges, collapsing flat into Bishop's foyer.

Bishop closed his eyes.

"Bishop!"

His eyes opened wide, the blade balancing along the thing skin of his throat. "...Cameron Dean?"

"She's dead!"

Bishop arched his head back, pushing his throat forward into the blade. He felt the razor edge split the edge a layer of skin. "Do it."

Cameron eased off the pressure on Bishop's throat, and dropped his blade onto the hardwood floor betqeen Bishop's legs, the blade clattering onto the floor. "...she's gone, Bishop. She's gone."

Bishop nodded as Cameron slid down the back of his seat onto his knees, bawling like a child. "Cameron..."

"Don't!"

Bishop stood up from his seat, letting the shallow cut in his throat bleed down into his robe. "I told her not to."

"...she's gone.  God, Bishop..."

"I know."

"Why are you here? Why aren't you out there? Why haven't you done something? Anything?"

Bishop frowned. "She's gone, Cameron..."

✟ ☧ ✟

"...she's gone.

...then you need to live, Cameron, House Dean. For Gina."

Cameron's ragged voice echoed through Bishop's voice as he raced through the woods, dashing between bark boughs, dodging sunlight where it pushed through the dense canopy of pines.

Heavy boots slid through the mossy, pine littered earth, soft mulch piling at his hard soles. Bishop turned, skidding on his knees, his back flat against the woodland floor as Bane's long blade swept overhead.

Bishop watched the front of his long brimmed hat cut free, the front brim fluttering down over him.

"Where are your owls?"

Bane stared over his shoulder, turning only enough to see Bishop as he recovered to his feet, casting g his hat to the forest floor. "Gone."

"Then your dead god has abandoned you."

Bane nodded.

"Who are you without the dead god?"

"Bane." The whisper of his voice called from all around them. "Only Bane."