HULLO, all! Thank you for reading this story thus far! 

I hope I'm doing the original series justice! I know it's very different, but it's for the better! :))))))))

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       Rain percolated through cracks in the dirty ceiling and the walls, mingling with the blood splattering the stone walls like a painter's canvas, saturating the floors in reddish-brown puddles.

            A rat scurried along the floor, weaving between the prisoner's bare feet.

            "This is my kind of hotel," the human gurgled out sardonically.

            Heavy metal doors flew open, flooding the room with artificial light -- something the prisoner hadn't seen in a good two days.

            A group of bulky men with jagged features and violent eyes came piling into the muggy, moldy, and putrid-smelling basement, flicking on lights and stalking around the room with their massive bodies. Some of them rolled their thick shoulders after a long day of instruction, and others mocked at the gore-covered, beaten, filthy captive dangling from the ceiling like a dark angel. They muttered nasty curse words in their native tongue, and in English spat "Pretty Boy" and "Blondie" over and over again in Latin, making inappropriate gestures at the prisoner's naked body.  

            The prisoner stared down at the floor with the only eye he had that wasn't swollen shut.

            "Filth," one of the men hissed in the prisoner's ear.

            Malphas Cruscellio filled the doorway of the basement with his noticeably well-built frame, covering his mouth and nose with a handkerchief. He was immaculately dressed as usual in a suit and tie. His black, unusual dreadlocks were tied neatly back and weaved together in warrior braids. The human was disgusted at how flawlessly attractive the damn thing was, features alien, sharp, and cold-bloodedly sensual.

            The captive tried to recall this particular demon in one of his father's books, but couldn't. His lack of sleep, food, and the drugs in his system were plaguing his memory. What he did know was that the demon was older, by the strong compelling nature of its features, and the authority it had over the rest of the younger demons.

            The demon appeared to be stationary in his later twenties, yet visibly held the influence of a fifty year old CEO.

            "Well, well, if it isn't the boy who took out fifteen of my soldiers with just a bow and arrow. You have quite the skill, as I told you the first time we met. Hit each of them right in the heart. It's a shame you aren't fast, though. Humanity weakens you." Malphas approached the prisoner, coal eyes blazing. The prisoner tensed for a the moment, but hid it well. He'd been taught to fight and take a thrashing so excruciatingly painful that he went numb. He was also taught from birth to hide every emotion from the paranormal things in the human world. If he didn't pretend, the supernatural would know he could see them, and then he, and his entire family, were screwed.

            His family of demon hunters.

            "You look a little different than you did a few days ago," the demon continued to taunt. "A little... beaten up. How about, you tell me where the book is, and this can all be over."

            The captive remained silent.

            "You've been instructed to resist mind control, but I didn't think you'd hold up for this long. You're tough for a wee little mortal." Malphas inspected the human as if he didn't quite understand him. "There's no need to make me raise my voice. We've done enough damage to you and your home. Unnecessary damage. Just tell me where it is, and you can go home. Live a normal life. Tell me where The Book of the Dead is."

            Thomas knew damn well he would not leave that basement alive.

            He would die silent.

            "Your silence will make your death more painful." That dry, abrasive, and heavily patronizing sandpapery voice had clung to the captive's nightmares like a percolate whenever he had gone unconscious, during the few days he had been locked up. Endless beatings. It hurt to breathe, he was so damaged. Trying to keep his mind off of Malphas' harsh words, the prisoner decided to analyze the demon further, as any smart other hunter would have done to find any weaknesses. The ancient demon's voice kind of resembled his father's: relentlessly strained, alcohol and cigarette-soaked vocal cords...

            "Your father is dead," the demon suddenly said, watching the human's reaction carefully. "I killed him. Slit his throat. Watched him struggle to breath with his last few moments alive, then choke to death on his own blood."

            Thomas' chest tightened.

            Malphas was inches from his face now, eyes boring into the captive's own. "Stubborn old man wouldn't cooperate with me. Just like you. I should have known he would have trained you to protect the book. Your two-faced, drug-addicted, repulsive father breathes no more. How does that make you feel, boy?"

            The captive squeezed his eyes shut, now visibly shaking. His father was dead. His father was dead. His father was dead?

            Malphas fisted his hand in the captive's sweat-drenched hair. "I asked you a fucking question, hunter! Your weak, worthless, waste of space father is dead. He's dead because of himself, and he's dead because of you. Your silence,  and his silence, cost him his life--"

            "Relieved," the hunter finally panted, voice weak and dehydrated. "I feel... relieved."

            The demon tilted his head. That was the last answer he had expected. "Relieved?"

            "Now I don't have to clean up his piss on the floor whenever he's drunk and too high to speak. Now I don't have to deal with his shit, his ridicule and disapproval of me. So thank-you." The captive managed a unsteady grin. "Thank you, d*ckwad."

            The ancient demon's eyes remained unfazed, but his breathing ceased all together and the room came to an peculiar, peaceful hush. Thomas knew that most evil creatures did not have to breathe or keep their heart pumping -- that all those disgusting creatures were undead, inhaling and exhaling out of habit.

            Appearing to be beautiful and normal when they were decayed and rotted out on the inside.

            The captive was mentally and physically prepared for what was about to happen next. He wanted it to happen. He was ready. He had come to peace with himself, with his sins, and his far too many slip-ups in life. He was ready for death.

            He wanted to die.

            Malphas came at him in a blink of an eye, gripping him hard by the throat, cutting off Thomas' supply of oxygen. He heard a crack, and prayed that it was his neck and that his death would be quick. If the demon was angry, maybe he'd act on nature and kill the captive quick and easily, by accident.

            "Killing you, would be a gift. Killing you, would be a kindness. Killing you, would free you from me. They say a demon born can be just as powerful as a demon raised," the Raven Demon said, coal eyes burning with wrath. "Let's put that to the test, boy. Let's see how quickly your loyalty to your kind changes when your blood runs cold."

            Thomas' eyes went wide with terror. "No..."

            "Yes."

            Malphas bit down on his wrist, shoving the open wound against the human's mouth until he was forced to swallow some of the demon's black blood. Now the human was visibly terrified, thrashing against his chains, trying to get away from the demon's blood, screaming, helplessly swallowing the thick, fatal black blood. His wounds were healing, a flush coming back to his face.

            "I'll make you a deal," the demon hissed. "Tell me where the book is now, and I won't turn you into the creature that you are born to hate."

             This was it. A weakness of Thomas Gregory's. Fear that he would become one of the creatures he was taught from birth to despise. He would be an utter disgrace to his family--the part that he still talked to, that is, and surely, the family that he didn't talk to because of family feuds, would come after his demonic ass.

             Malphas took his wrist away from the boy's mouth, about to snap the human's neck, when the boy shouted, "Sarah Williams! Sarah Williams has the book! My family never had The Book of the Dead, we were just a red herring! We were the holders of the decoy!" Thomas slumped forward, out of breath. He had really done it now.

            "Sarah Williams." Malphas inclined his head to the side. "Sarah...Williams. A female? She must be good at covering up her family's tracks, if I traced the wrong lineage." Suddenly, Malphas realized something very important. "You knew she had the book all along, but you were silent. You were willing to die. Are you close with this Sarah Williams, Thomas?"

            Thomas Gregory's expression fell a little. He started to say something, when he clamped his mouth shut. "No, I'm  not close with Sarah Williams." He said it without even a tremble in his voice.

            "You're not close with her..." Thomas fought against the ancient demon's control, hiding his emotions the best that he could, even though his heart was pulsing loud in his ears and his body was weak. But he couldn't hold up his wall for long. Thomas' facade slightly cracked, revealing his emotions, his thoughts, and the ancient demon grinned ear to ear. "But...you are--were close with someone near and dear to her heart, and my dear boy, I just couldn't ask for anything better than that. There's nothing in the world more delicate and consuming than love."

            The Raven Demon had gotten the information he wanted out of the disposable human. It might have taken a little bit longer than he had expected, but the child had cracked eventually, and Malphas now had a name and could put a face to that name. Her name was Faith Williams and she was the niece of one of the most prestigious demon and Fallen hunters on the planet.

            At first, Malphas had planned on handling the situation himself without Thomas Gregory's help. He would use Thomas as a puppet if need be. He was still useful. Humans were disposable little toys, after all. Easy to manipulate.

            But before he could even consider using his puppet, Malphas had managed to track the girl down, and after a bit of strategizing, soon sat across from her, taking the illusion of the therapist he had slaughtered moments before she had entered the room. He had planned on taking an easy method of getting the book by biting her with his venomous fangs, then holding her hostage until her aunt came into contact with him and they negotiated for her life. But that hadn't worked. The easy plan hadn't worked, because Malphas had found out there was a certain someone in his way. Not just any someone. The very person who was motivating Malphas to find The Book of the Dead in the first place. To get his revenge on his own bastard little psychotic son.

            The Angel of Death.

            Faith Williams, niece of a prestigious hunter, was ironically being shadowed by The Angel of Death.

            Death had to be after the book too. He wanted The Book of the Dead. He wanted what Malphas wanted, probably just so he could have it first. Somehow, Death had found out. One of The Raven Demon's associates had squealed.

             Death would ruin everything.

            It was clear what he had to do now.

            Malphas needed his damn kid out of the way. He needed the hunter's niece, therefore, he needed to separate her from the only person who was sly and intelligent enough to shield her away from him. His own flesh and blood.

            Getting to Sarah Williams, through Faith Williams, was going to be a pain in the freaking ass.

            Thomas Gregory was going to be of good use after all.

            Malphas crouched down to the ground in a well-groomed greenhouse, rubbing soil between his bare hands, testing the nutrients of the dirt with his tongue. In the distance, a television set on low volume began to report his latest and greatest attack on the Guardians, which for once in a very long time, made the primordial demon genuinely express amusement on his face. They were calling him the Bird Man now. The Finch Strangler.

            Ha.

            Malphas tilted his beautiful head to the side, examining the diverse and exotic herbs before him at a different angle, identifying them with his exceptional memory.  On the opposite side of the garden lay a plant basking under its own heat lamps, slightly moist from the trace of pesticides and humidity in the air.

            The Demi-God's coal eyes flickered with interest.

            Malphas stood up calmly, clasping his hands gracefully behind his back, moving to another side of the garden. He lowered himself again and daringly reached out with long, gentle fingers towards the purplish-black plant, caressing its waxy leaves.

            He quickly clamped down on that leaf with his index finger and thumb, then let go. He frowned when nothing initially happened. But moments later, a sharp sting from the plant paralyzed his hand, the veins in his arm pulsing wildly and turning a discolored black.

              Malphas rushed to the nearest hose, drenching his hand in the liquid, cursing loudly in his ancient native tongue as his entire arm began to turn black. He looked at his arm in awe, smirking as his skin slowly turned back to its normal grayish-pale shade.

            It was stupid, but he didn't have any cuts on his hands. Had the residue gotten into his bloodstream, that would have been a disaster.

            "That old, disgusting hag of a Gypsy with those pixie-covered filthy fingers. Even though she looked hot--like you should have seen her....anyways, that scarred me for life, dude. This stupid plant better be worth what I just had to do. She was... violently attracted to me." Thomas Gregory charged into the greenhouse in a fume of rampant teenage schoolboy, crowding the room with his big athletic frame. He was brainwashed into helping Malphas, bound to the ancient demon forcibly by blood. An antique, mossy colored bow slung over his right shoulder, arrows and weapons jingling about as he trudged over to Malphas. He noticed the sparkling magical dust feathering the youthful human boy's blonde hair, and, disturbingly enough, there was more on the edge of the human boy's Abercrombie jeans and t-shirt.

            Malphas slowly turned his head towards Thomas. "Dude?"

            Thomas reeled back a little from the Demi-God, dread silently dancing along his cobalt eyes. "Master," he corrected quickly. "I'm not really used to this whole "subordinate" thing yet. I'm not really used to any of this, actually, nor do I know why I agreed to helping you. But it--"

            "Will not happen again, I swear," the Raven Demon finished. His vacant, lack of expression terrified Thomas because it reminded him of his father. "Pray that you are telling me that with certainty, Mr. Gregory. As you may have noticed over the past few weeks, I have a infinitesimal amount of tolerance for any kind of error or mistake. I am Master to you. Nothing more, nothing less. I do everything for a reason. Flawlessness, precedes success. Error, precedes disappointment. Do you comprehend that, boy?"

            Eyes glazed over, Thomas gave him a kind of shaky, but curt nod. "Yes, Master. It won't happen again."

            "Wonderful." Malphas smiled coldly at the boy, then returned his ominous gaze to the perilous black and purple plant. Thomas started to say something about the odd looking plant, when Malphas cut him right off. "Did the gypsy give you some of that fairy dust and the mirror I asked for before you slit her throat? I do hope you didn't get any blood on it." 

            "There's no blood on anything, Master." Thomas reached  into his varsity swimming jacket and tossed The Raven Demon a bag of fairy dust and a velvet red bag with the mirror inside. "Now can you tell me what's so special about this damn stuff? She wouldn't give either of them up without a fight...well, until I showed her...uh..." Thomas brushed pixie dust off his crotch, eyes shifting around the room. "My socks. Yeah, my socks. She had a really bad sock fetish."

            RAWK!

            Startled, Thomas' cobalt eyes shot to the source of the cry first. A raven sat perched outside a window, looking in with beady black eyes. The animal pecked on the glass three times.

            RAWK!

            "Don't just stand there." Malphas inclined his head towards the bird." Open the window for our loyal comrade."

            Thomas cautiously unlatched the window, unmistakably avoiding any sort of contact with the bird, and the raven took off from a branch into the greenhouse, landing loyally on Malphas' shoulder. It fluffed up its black feathers, crossly eyeing Thomas.

            "Loyal comrade, my ass. That thing has hated me from the first moment it saw me!" Thomas said.

            RAWK!

            "Acacius, I heard you the first time," Malphas warned, stroking the bird on his shoulder. "His name is Acacius, Mr. Gregory. Refer to him as a thing again, and I will let him to do things that are much worse than an elderly gypsy groping your whore human body." Malphas stroked his raven's feathers. "Acacius, my good boy, watch over the human girl from a great distance. Come closer when you can. She is being gaurded by a Reaper, find his weak spots and report back to me."

           The bird seemed to nod its head once, then shot off of Malphas' shoulder and out the window like a dart, nearly taking Thomas' ear off in the process.

            Thomas cursed. "I'm--"

            "Unable to filter myself?  I know. I've noticed. Perhaps I'll discipline you later, if I feel like it. Or...perhaps you will practice your archery." Malphas' expression was unreadable and hard as stone. Facing the garden, Malphas slipped on a pair of black gloves and started to laugh.

            "What's so funny?"

            Malphas dug his strong hands into the rich soil and grabbed the poisonous black and purple plant from the roots, ripping it free from the ground. "Touch this plant, Thomas, and I'll tell you."

            Thomas hesitated, then slowly stroked the plant's leaf. Nothing happened.

            "This plant is deadly to anything evil that touches it. It's rare. So rare, that this is  perhaps one of the few to exist on this planet today. Gypsies, like that old hag, farm these kind of plants. Just the smallest dose can paralyze Lucifer himself for an entire day. It reacts to our skin the same as holy water, except no potion or pendant alive, in all of my existence, can repel its poison. The plant can be made into a lotion and work just as effectively as it would ingested if it comes into full contact with a wicked creature."

            "Why am I getting the feeling that I'm going to be shaking quite a few strangers' hands soon?"

            "Because you are, human." Malphas placed the plant carefully in a plastic bag. "But not yet. Soon, you will be shaking many important peoples' hands, and when you do, they will all fall hopelessly to the ground. They will trust you because you are a weak human, and they will fall because they will make an error. They will be paralyzed and vulnerable, and that is when we will make our move. All we have to do is get you close to your little childhood friend again. You will see how quickly our enemies will fall."

            "And what about the fairy dust?" Thomas asked, blinking a few times as if he was trying to free himself from a drug-like haze.

            "It's a chance."

            "A chance?"

            "A chance to not get your head ripped off. Throw a bit of the dust to the ground if you're in danger, and think about somewhere you want to be, and even a human can transport anywhere they want in a blink of an eye." At that, the Raven Demon grinned, shaping his handsome face around sharp and deadly black fangs. "Just in case the Angel of Death realizes you're helping me take away his human, that stuff will come in handy for you. Believe me, you're going to want to get away from him as quick as possibly if he finds out you're associated with me in any way, shape, or form. Humans are more disposable to him than they are to me. Plus, I haven't exactly been a good Daddy to him... for over two-thousand years."

            "The Angel of Death?" Thomas paled. "As in the Grim Reaper? Who eats souls? Why the hell didn't you tell me we were dealing with the Angel of Death? I'm a human! I have a soul! You know what that makes me? Food!"

            "Hence the fairy dust. A chance." Ignoring the annoying mortal's aggravating whines, Malphas shoved the poisonous plant roughly into Thomas' arms and patted the human a little too roughly on the cheek. "'Pretty Boy helps the enemy because he's brainwashed and weak. Wow. That would make a great chick flick, and look fantastic on a tombstone." Malphas clamped his hand down on Thomas' shoulder. "It's funny how things work out the way you want them to sometimes."

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P.S - Yes, the title is a Labyrinth reference.