Warning: A tad gorey?

“She’s been missing for days, Adrian” Ethan raged from the other side of Adrian’s desk, “ I haven’t even been able to see her anywhere! That should be impossible!” On the other side, Adrian was scanning through the time scrolls. She had to be somewhere. How was he the calm one in this situation? It was like the two Watchers switched roles.
Standing in a corner was Nereus with Esther, who’d reported Babylon missing on Sunday, it was currently Saturday.
The tension in the room had made Esther fussy earlier but now she was asleep in Nereus’s arms, peacefully unaware of what was going on around her.
Angela, despite her angelic appearance, paused in her search through the time orbs to glare at Ethan as he paced around the room.
“Can you stop that!” Angela snapped at him.
“I can’t think when you’re doing that, and i’m certain you’re making the human unsettled!” All eyes fell to Nereus now who said nothing and only rocked Esther. He couldn’t believe Babylon would abandon them again. He thought she was over this dying thing once they had Esther.
“It really shouldn’t be taking her this long to regenerate if she did die,” Adrian reasoned, his long grey hair was pulled back into a strange and messy ponytail. He looked uncharacteristically tired.
“I thought she was over this,” Angela sighed setting down her orb.
“Me too,” whispered Nereus.

Her eyes twitched. It hurt to open them, she already knew the sensation before even opening her eyes. Babylon groaned as she attempted to sit up. She gasped inaudibly as she was pulled back; turning her head she saw her wrists chained down. She tried to tug at her arms but the metal didn’t budge even in it’s rusted looking state. The rest of the chain looked fairly new. It made Babylon sick because she knew it wasn’t rust.
She took a moment to look around, it was rather dark, but she could see that there was a door to her left, there was soft light coming from under the door. The light seemed to fade and flicker, it was firelight then.
Where was she?
Lastly, she looked up. Her eyes widened and if her face could have drained from any color it would have.

“This doesn’t make any sense, i’ve always been able to see her, even if we can’t see her future,” Ethan muttered.
“Nathaniel, look into those scrolls Adrian gave you. Why are you just sitting there?” Ethan shouted at his apathetic son who sat boredly reading a book.
“I don’t care what happens to her,” Nathaniel said without looking up. Ethan went red in the face as he stormed over, yanking the book from Nathaniel’s hands.
“Hey!” Nathaniel protested, looking up now, only to reel back in shock as his father’s hand came down hard across his face.
Nathaniel was bent over in shock and pain. His breathing turned labored, just like his father’s.
“She is your mother. You will search for her or you will regret being born to her,” Ethan s. Houted. Nathaniel still didn’t look up but Ethan was sure he got the message and turned back to his search. The silence was tense as Adrian and Angela’s eyes turned from Nathaniel to each other. This was getting bad.

Voices. Oh god, voices. She nearly burst into tears as she attempted to pull harder at her chains, doing no good. The door creaked open. She let out a choked sob. She already knew her fate. Light flooded in, she recoiled.
“Dear god no. No!” she begged, wrestling against her constraints. Men filed in around around her. Some shone with armor in the firelight, others glowed in their white robes with red red crosses.
She tried to kick her feet.
“Not the Templars, God, not Templars!” she screamed.
She sounded like a witch to them.

Adrian sat in his chair staring intently at another time scroll. He felt sleepy, he never did. But as his eyes closed the scroll shimmered, startling him. Shimmering? A scroll shouldn’t do that.
“Ethan, Angela!” Adrian called standing now. Both ran over and watched a the scroll changed it’s contents.
“This-this can’t be possible,” Ethan stammered.
“History has changed...They’ve taken the Holy Land!” Nathaniel said from behind them.
“What? Has it got something to do with Babylon?” Nereus questioned from behind them, rocking a now fussy Esther.
“Oh dear god,” Angela gasped with a hand to her mouth, “i know where she is.”

The very stenched of blood was overwhelming, Nereus doubled over to vomit. Adrian patted him good naturedly on the back, the stench was familiar to him, but it did make his stomach turn. Angela was leading them down a dimly lit hallway, the further in they went the worse the smell was. Even Ethan had a hand to his nose, trying to block the disgusting and gut wrenching smell. He knew what it was too.
“Wh-where are we?” Nereus said feeling dizzy. Adrian immediately regretted bringing him along for this.
“It’s the year 1277,” Adrian whispered, “the era of Templars.”
“What are templars?” Nereus asked, though he could barely focus on anything but walking, he’d never smelled anything so revolting.
“The real demons,” Angela said with narrowed eyes and a tight voice. She was brandishing a holy sword, it glowed bright, lighting their path.
Suddenly, two men in white robes over knight’s armor appeared from a door. Everyone stopped as they caught sight of each other.
Angela glowed, her skin like milk, her wings extended in white, exquisite splendor.
“Servants, bow before me, an angel of God!” Angela thundered, causing both men to drop and bow before her.
“You do well to remember this, Knights Templars, you disgust the God above,” Angela whispered, her sword coming down on the startled knights’ necks. The loud clunk, clunk, clunk of the rolling heads in helmets echoed in the hallway.
Angela strolled passed them and slammed the door open. Nereus attempted to run in to check, but Angela’s sharp intake of breath prompted Adrian into yanking him back.
“No, don’t!” Adrian cried, pinning Nereus against the wall.
“What!? Is she in there? Is she okay?” Nereus asked.
“Good Lord,” Ethan shuddered as he looked over Angela’s shoulder.
“They desecrate the very name of God,” Angela whispered as she stepped closer to the body on the wooden table. A droplet of blood made her jump as it landed on her face. She looked up, her whole body jerked in revulsion.
“For the love of god, don’t let him come in here,” Angela called to Adrian.
She looked away from the blood and guts hanging from the device above her. It wasn’t much better looking down at the body that lay on the table.
Babylon’s terrified face was frozen in place, missing all of her limbs, not even chopped off, it looked like they were ripped from her very body.
Ethan couldn’t looked away from Babylon’s open body. Her entire stomach and chest cavity had been cut open and dissected.
“She was alive, during all of it,” Ethan choked out, “wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Angela said looking away, “We need to find her limbs, get the entrails from..up there, and find a way to get her back.”

“Who-who are the knights, Knights Templar?” Nereus questioned roughly, trying to fight Adrian’s grip.
Adrian closed his eyes, holding even tighter to Nereus, “They were some of the most notorious knight of the crusades, before Babylon’s time-”
“Before Babylon?”
“Yes, but they found her, here somehow. I dont know how. But they found her, Nereus. Crusaders found her. Do you know what crusaders are?”
Nereus shook his head.
“I don’t think we should tell him about it now,” Angela said appearing at the door, “we’ll tell him if she wakes up.”
“If? What do you mean if?” Nereus demanding, nothing her choice of words.
Angela said nothing. No one said anything. Except Nereus who kept shouting.

The stench of blood clung to the group as they left the dungeons. From some place deep in the dungeons Angela could hear a voice. She tried to block it out.

“Oh God, oh God, Save me.”