As soon as he has his hands free, John clutches them to his ears, but he's already almost completely deafened by the noise. So when the strange explosion of growth bursts before him, it all happens in silence, like nothing so much as a scene in an art film. He stares at it for a moment, breath caught in his throat, and then he drops his hands from his ears and strides toward the tracks, trying to casually shove aside anyone or anything who gets in his way. It's stupid, running right into the center of this all, but he can't imagine that he has any choice by this point. Timothy winces, cursing noiselessly the designer of his stasis-gun while shaking his right arm...firing the thing makes it very hot, you see. Also, ow. He takes advantage of this opportunity to put a little distance between himself and the doubly-fallen angels. And to draw his own more conventional gun. And to take stock of the situation, and to mouth, noiselessly, "Just what the hell is going on around here?" And that's when he happens to see Constantine. Well, that answers that, he thinks, as he moves to catch up to the magician, gun ready to deal with any dark angel-things that happen to cross his path. If anyone knows what Timmy's stumbled into the middle of, it'll be him. They're not going for /you/ this time, Jack. Not for you. They're going for the one woman who's tried her best to illuminate the parts that seem to make no sense. Hitting the ground at a run, they go right for Claire, raising their voices in a mutilated version of hallelujah, hands out as though to snatch her up, and bear her to death and beyond. She doesn't even flinch as they approach. They offer to Liam, their light a sweet purity, a hundredthousandfold of his, again and again and again, even as the hollow-eyed ones keen, bloody tears running from their eyes, wings ceasing to beat as they simply cling, attempting to drag the whole works to the ground, screaming in more than just rage, now. Seishi will meet up with Jack as he approaches them, and the two of them can easily see how the twilight-eyed woman seems to hold no fear, even as she continues to draw, chalk dust covering her face and fingers. Lorne's kick will catch one in the face, and its head will rock back, dark eyes going darker, colder and ever more lost. Nothing but hate, here. One would think the world would come running to see this--but it /is/ its own little snowglobe. A world apart. Walking toward the trestle from the opposite end, a twilight-eyed young woman who looks like she's only just awakened from a nap wanders through the snow, not quite yet a part of this insanity. John will catch up almost right after Jack and Seishi, and perhaps Timmy will shoot down one of the remaining black-winged freaks as it noiselessly dives for him, hands outstretched. Hungry. Cold. There's another pair flashes and reports, as Jack stops just long enough to fire twice at the nearest of those headed for the tracks. As Seishi draws near, he turns to meet her gaze. He doesn't even bother to try to say anything, hearing still too blunted by both Lorne and the firearms, but he does point wordlessly with his free hand to Claire and her attackers, then curls fingers in to mime firing, like a child playing at soldier. I'm going for those - the rest are yours? This is the part where Liam loses his sense of self. It takes so /much/, to heal such darkness -- and he can feel his breath rattle, the blood in his throat, the irregular thud of his heart, the ringing in his ears -- before the next one rises, is healed, glorious brightness and purity, giving it all back. Filling him again, all hope and joy and love before the next void pulls, and the next, over and over again. All he is, is light, buried in his pile of angels. Come to me. Be healed, be forgiven, be loved. Everything's alright. If he can ever get free, get through the blackness, he'll beat his wings and rise to do the same again, attracting any he can. Incandescent. Seishi catches Jack's gesture and shakes her head emphatically - with the ringing vibration in her ears, she doesn't even bother trying to talk, just holds forth her left hand again and, once more, pushes her own ki out through the ring, flooding purifying energy at the dark angels going after Claire. Lorne's sound carries. And sometimes dreams help things carry farther still. Kitty hadn't been nearby - she might be sorry, later; so much farther to go, so much slower to arrive - but that single, lingering, impossible note caught her attention, and she moved faster. If Liam hadn't come, hadn't healed her, she would never have made it more than a couple of blocks. If Kess hadn't found her on that rooftop - if Lorne had waited to contact Kess - if John had chosen any other day to work his ritual - the number of things that had to fall into precise place, to leave her here and alive and able to move, able to hear and answer that call, might leave her breathless if she didn't /need/ that breath so much. Silently, she's running along sidewalks, dodging traffic to cross streets. Quick on her feet, but not afraid. She'll be there when she needs to be. She knows where she's going. And she promised not to let Jack go alone. A moment to recover. Some time. Lorne rubs at his eyes briefly, then moves for the little pile of angels which contains, at the centre, Liam. He doesn't try to pull them all away - instead, he summons all the courage he can, to reach out to coax away those who are already healed. Move aside, a little space, please. Enough must stay to restore Liam after every drain, but there are too many crowding around, and it frightens him. Kess can see the angels and their target beneath the train tracks, and her eyes narrow as she folds wings in tighter, primaries flexing the air to guide the dive towards the foremost of the attackers. Jack might be coming, but she'll be there in bare seconds, feet snapping down as wings flare, to try to catch the first one on the back of the head in a blow that bears the speed that she curbs to turn to face the others. The turn is aided by remembered acrobatics, despite the tight space, and a warning is shouted to the oblivious woman. Adrenaline and anger are channeled down to the ring, turned towards healing as best she can - she doesn't /want/ to hurt these things, but she will, if she has to. She's beginning to doubt the ring's usefulness, due to the amazing lack of effect it's having, but she's stubborn, and too many things have pointed at her to do this. So she'll try, push through the ring to heal and love and purify, as she tries to get between angels and target. Constantine catches sight of Timothy out of the corner of his eye. The sudden shock of normalcy (and it's only in a very strange city indeed that Timothy would be considered normal by comparison) jars him momentarily, and he pauses. Then he sees Claire again as the angels converge on her, and he breaks into a run. What is she drawing? What is she trying to say? Timothy has, as it turns out, no compunctions whatsoever about hurting the things. After all, he reasons, they started it. He fires upon the latest attacking angel and then he, too, breaks into a run, following Constantine, dropping his noise-shield as he does so. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, some lonely corner of his personality (that bit known as 'common sense') demands to know just why we're running *toward* the angel-things. Nothing else in his head seems to have an answer. And yet he runs, calling out "Just how much alcohol am I going to need to understand what's happening here?", theoretically a question addressed to Constantine, though, in fact, it's addressed to the open air. Staggering, dazed, those that hit the ground begin to rise, some changed, some not. It seems that the whole of the grouping is going for that place beneath the trestle, amidst the pillars, where Claire frantically draws, pushing her hair from her eyes and smearing her face with the pale chalk dust like she's some savage. The darkened ones are falling like flies, some crumpling almost gracefully, wings bleeding out to white, eyes brightening from hollow black to sapphire. A few will move away from Liam at Lorne's behest, but there is one that will not, one of an almost savage nobility, the chiseled set of his graceful features seeming determined to do this, and do it well. Others head for the fallen, seeking to forgive, to heal, to save. Light. Love. Life. Purity. Hope. From some of the last few, the blackness is bleached away, entirely, and upon the snowy, filthy ground, angels lay in tangled heaps, their wings twitching, their eyes falling open to stare at a sky that should bear stars, but is hidden by clouds. Only steps ahead of Kitty, the young woman with twilight eyes and impossibly long black hair pauses, cocking her head to the side as though listening to the crazed things going on up ahead. Half-dazed and clearly out of her element, she stands there, almost as though afraid to go on. She looks back over one shoulder, obviously nervous. "...Kitty?" A tiny terrier whines loud enough to wake a young woman laying in bed, and as soon as consciousness takes her, she sits bolt-upright, head swimming, eyes wide. Following in the footsteps of the one right before her, she takes coat and shoes, and tells Gracie to 'be a good girl'. The terrier is unconvinced, but will stay home and wait for Daddy. If Mommy hasn't come /home/ by then, there'll be rescuing to do. Sera hits the street running, skidding over snow and ice without worry, fear building, anxiousness roiling around her like some pestilence, contagious, seeking. Those creatures of blackest night, still beneath the trestle, remain near Claire. Before /all/ of the angels /not/ near the trestle can be purified, one takes a shot from Timmy's gun, and struggles to rise, rather than simply drop, his beating wings sending crimson droplets through the air. The night sky sends down snowflakes, and a thin rain of blood that rains on black and white wings alike. All but two are done, and one of those last two takes a bullet in the shoulder from Jack's gun, and it tears away a good portion of his wing, knocking him to the ground, a warm gush of blood splashing over Claire, and her drawing. What's she trying to say? It's stick figures and symbols, a city, a forest, a woman with a sword, a man with a heart, two men and a woman with guns, a demon, so, so so many angels, the train tracks, a door opening, and around and through it all, a childish depiction of blooming, red flowers. Poppies. Seishi gets a scowl in answer, but Jack does hold his fire for the moment. Instead, he hastily unloads and switches his grip. Rather an expensive weapon to be used used as a club, but too powerful to be safe for Claire at this distance; too much a risk of blasting right through a blackwing's body and hitting the seer. That done, he barrels for Claire, skittering coltishly over the icy pavement, right into the cluster of black pinions that surround her, already striking at the one that remains. If he can't shoot them, he'll just pistolwhip them to death. But he scuffs to a halt, hand falling, to looks wonderingly at the drawings, before turning to her. Still mute, pleading, he sketches something in the air with his empty hand. The door. Can you open it? There's so much pain. So much blood. Need, calling him. As the last of the black ones around Liam sends up a beautiful, pure cry, night feathers melting to purest white, the little angel falls against the one who will not leave. Just for a moment. Just enough to draw a breath, to take in peace, to reinforce his faltering strength. Half-focused eyes, gleaming sapphire, stare at Lorne -- alright? Demon in one piece? Yes, good, and Liam's wings spread as he beats into the air just long enough to make it to the first of the bleeding black angels. Poppies. So much red on the ground. The healer working to undo what his allies have wrought. Seishi's face tightens, too controlled, too focused to glare at Jack, and he wouldn't see it anyhow, but her mouth is tight and her dark eyes blazing. She follows, stopping just far enough away to keep from being underfoot, and keeps on forcing everything she's got out through that ring. Be pure! NOW! "Sera?" Yes, it's a question. How can she be sure? Kitty crosses the last few steps between herself and the twilight-eyed woman, offering her hand. "Are you supposed to be here?" she asks with affectionate interest. "I don't know how these rules work. If you are ... I'm sorry. It's probably going to be very rough on you. But we'll help however we can." Watch the street, because sometimes they come in cars. Watch the sky, because sometimes they come that way. And either way, take time to hug the twilight-eyed young woman gently, because fear has its place, but so do other things. "I'm sorry we don't learn faster. But it'll be all right." In one piece, and surrounded by angels. And it's very, very cold. Lorne falls back, not knowing what's happening, and not at all inclined to try to understand. The insidious slowdown of thought and action would make such difficult anyway - he moves away, eyeing angels warily. Just the one left? A spark of renewed hope in Kess, then, as she turns to the last of the black-feathered ones that isn't Liam, and focusses on him. Breathing hard, tears stinging at her cheeks, she's trying so hard, hovering protectively in front of Claire, the woman she's heard so much about but never seen before now. The arriving non-angels get a glance, a slight nod of acknowledgement, but mostly she's tightlipped and silent, tense down to the thrumming of feathers on air. Waiting, for the broken to be fixed, and whatever happens next to begin. Constantine is weirdly oblivious to danger to himself, even as he stands in the thick of it, next to Claire. All he can think is that he needs to protect her. He started this, he's sure--he's going to see it through. He stands there, glaring fiercely at any who try to crowd too close to her, shielding Claire from them so she can finish whatever crucial work she's in the middle of. Only when he's positive that no more black-winged angels are going to rush at her does he relax slightly. 'A door?' he mouths uncomprehendingly at Jack. What happens now? What's it all leading up to? Of course, no one answers Timmy's question. But then, he didn't expect otherwise. He, too, looks at Jack, and then at Claire, trying to get some sense of what's going on, some sense of how he can help, or hinder if that seems to be the better option. His gun is lowered, but not holstered; just because nothing seems to be actively attacking him *now* is no reason to let his guard down. Bleeding and wracked with nothing less than hideous agony, their very existences a torturous thing, the blackwinged angels don't fight Liam's ministrations. They twitch on the ground, broken and stained with thickening crimson, the shadows that color them fading from the touches of angels, from the will of Seishi and Kess, from their desires for peace, for the wishing of purity. Each time Liam may believe himself to be nearly dry, another will come to him, will give, and give, until he may be overflowing. If they can get close enough, they'll offer warmth and shelter to Lorne, healing and safety and love. Even if they /can't/ get close enough, it's an offer--they can hope he'll accept. Breathless, completely high on pent-up energy, Seravina enters the scene upon which Kitty is at the fringes. Those twilight eyes widen impossibly, and she's reaching out for the young woman she can already see in her own arms. She's too far away, however, and the scream of warning just won't come. The last angel nearly brushes against Claire, nearly /has/ her, and on his face is a look of smug victory. So *pleased*. So absolutely pleased. Claire seems perfectly unfazed, and says to Timmy, quite clearly "Catch." The angel flinches from Jack's blows that don't come as the Englishman is caught by Claire's drawing, and instead attempts to rake at John with clawed, spindly hands. Too many blurs of motion; it all happens so fast as a supernova of light flares from Seishi -- PurityHopeLoveTruthTrustPeaceHealingComfortTakeItTakeitTAKEITTAKEITNOW -- slamming into the last apparent twisted creature, and it collapses, in a flurry of white wings, ready to fall on John and Timmy. Catch. Claire writes over this drawing, very quickly, a hasty scrawl. It's Not Over, Yet. "Don't be sorry," Sera whispers to Kitty, slipping to put her arms around the other woman. "Don't be sorry," she says. "It's so hard to /see/," comes the murmur, half urgent. "But it all has to go /somewhere/. The bad." It all happens so /fast/. Her shoulders strain, and skin rips open, black and bloody feathers spreading out, lifting in a sudden, thunderous clap as dripping, venemous, hellish wings flare behind her, while those twilight eyes go hollow, and the thing that is not Sera, not Truth at all, but quite the opposite, seeks to punch blade-like talons through Kitty's ribs, lungs, neck, throat, attempting to make the blood bloom, like poppies. Yes, a door. Jack gives the magician a tight nod, but all his focus is on Claire herself, rather than her defenders. The Eagle remains in his hand, not holstered, but not raised, either. His features, under the streaks of dried blood, are mostly impassive, pale eyes nearly as hollow as those of the blackwings themselves, save for that terrible longing - then he frowns, as Claire hastily scratches that message, and mutters something very rude in Russian. There's just enough of his prescience working to have him whirl to face Kitty and that terrible fetch, lips clamped against a shout of horror. The last? Is that the last? Black feathers to white beneath Liam's hands, a pure cry, beauty to take him up and fill him and heal him once more. Which way is up? Can he lose himself now, in peace? ... not yet. Need. Something pulling. All his senses stretched to the very edges of awareness, and Liam feels something more, something /wrong/. Black wings -- his own, and the only ones left now -- beat the air, sending up snow as he rises, shining. Questing. Seishi stumbles backward, reeling from the light that burst from her own hands, turning blindly. She looks down quickly at the hand with the ring on it, and her expression twists for a moment; hastily she shoves the bit of platinum into her coat pocket, securing her grip on her tachi and leaping into motion again, heading for the darkness that she can feel seething near Kitty - she's not really seeing with her eyes at this point, not with so much energy burning all around her. Kitty leans in to embrace what looks like, what might have been, Seravina. "No," she murmurs, "no, you just have to see, where it -" Feathers, and wings, and her eyes widen. Talons jab through the leather of her jacket, the shirt underneath it, skid on and tear at the Kess-made armour beneath - there's a sharp cracking sound all the same, too much impact too quickly - but the armour doesn't protect her neck and throat at all. Blood spatters, scarlet, as the impact jerks her body forward and her head back. Hands clench instinctively, tearing one of the dark feathers free. A pinfeather, black as sin, shining and cold. For all the pain and all the blood, the expression on her features holds a touch of surprise, and something far more like amusement. Almost a smile: as if she might say something, if she had more air than blood. Are we having fun yet? As black feathers fade to white, Kess' gaze slips out and past, and brown eyes widen at the sight of twisted wings sprouting from a familiar back. She's seen that before. Rust-coloured feathers thrash at the air, uncaring if they rake those standing near Claire, as they thrust her towards the pair, a falcon-marked arrow. Her right hand stretches towards the not-Sera, the silver chain and platinum ring glinting, but she frowns - it feels different. So, unless there's an immediate effect, she'll go for simply slamming into the damned thing with an armoured shoulder, to try to tear it away from her friend, send it tumbling past and away from Kitty. Get /OFF/ her! As Jack whirls around, John quickly follows suit. His eyes widen, and although he can't hear himself speak, he yells, "Kitty!" A brief, semi-rational thought: thank God Pete's not here or he'd go berserk. He sprints for her, silently thanking Liam for the restoration of his lungs as he tries to think of something to do. In the end, only one thing comes to mind. Stopping in front of the mockery of Seravina, he reaches inside his coat, behind his shirt, and pulls out the medallion with the triskellion and the pentacle on it. He brandishes it at the creature like a priest would a cross, mercifully unaware of that parallel. "Catch? Catch wha-" And then the angel falls, quite literally, into Timothy's arms. "Oh," he adds, as he struggles to lower the angel gently to the ground. "Catch." He then glances over his shoulder briefly, as otherworldly senses scream for his attention. His eyes widen. He turns slowly around, and by the time his mouth shapes the words "Oh" and "Crap", he's already in motion toward the thing. He doesn't have a holy symbol, or a ring, or anything particularly useful against horrible monsters. But he's got a gun, and he's got Incredible Cosmic Power (give or take the Incredible and Cosmic bits). Maybe that'll be enough. She will cradle Kitty, almost lovingly, this thing, this creature, this able destroyer, dripping with blood, with ichor, those eyes so black and void and hungry. "It's wonderful, how we can be there for one another," she says, and her voice is an oil-slick, malice floating atop a thin layer of pure hatred. And then both Kess and Timmy will slam into the creature, knocking it away as it burbles a wretched giggle, spilling a ribbon of tainted blood from its lips, warm and thick. As Seishi and Liam both approach, and as John presents the pentacle, it attempts to writhe and struggle, and get itself free from both Kess and Timmy, willing to use those talons, wet and red with the life of Kitty spilling over them. The other Sera stands there in wonder, not all that far away, snow falling all about her--it'd be picture-perfect, right there, her dark eyes wide, seeking. Just don't turn the angel; blood's just not that picturesque. Claire reaches to touch Jack's cheek, and she whispers, "The door will wait for you." Other angels are now rising, grouping, seeking to follow those who were not downed, to aid, to heal, to touch anyone if allowed, to offer love and warmth. Here, keep going. Hope. It's almost over. Oh, no. Oh, God, no. While his mind's still frozen with horror, senses gaping at the thing that the not-Sera's become, reflexes take over - and that extra sense is already seeking the creature's vulnerabilities. Claire gets a last frantic look, before he breaks for Kitty. Hands working at speed to reload, he races for the pair - to fire, if there's an opening that won't hit Kitty or Kess, or to strike by hand, if need be. Please, god, let me kill it. "Liam! Help!" he begs the angel, voice close to a shriek. Constantine's motion gets an incredulous glance - until it seems to work, and then he's in the middle of the fray. He was wrong. His weren't the only pair of black wings left. And nothing brings back Liam's focus like hearing Jack cry his name, like spotting that hellish creature, and what it's doing to Kitty. What it's /done/ to Kitty. Arching over the train tracks, the little angel folds his wings and dives. The others have the thing in check, or seem to; it's Kitty he's aiming for, hands outstretched. He'll slam to the ground with a snap of wings to catch himself, he'll reach to cradle her with hands that spill peace and warmth and love and /everything's alright/. Desperate to know he isn't too late.