In his mind's eye, he saw Mona Lisa's face again in that last moment of grief as she held him while he slowly slipped unwillingly from life. Pain such as he'd never felt before ripped through his chest, far greater even than the gruesome act that had brought about his rending death. An ache so powerful, so unrelenting, so throbbing in the empty space where his heart had once been.

"No!" he'd screamed.

Voices had shouted. Faces had peered at him, the brown faces of the demon dead. Then he'd seen a familiar face that he'd both hated and welcomed — Halcyon's golden skin, his dark eyes filled with compassion.

Weak as a kitten, or a newborn demon, Gryphon had rasped, "Send me back."

Pity had filled Halcyon's eyes. "You know that is not possible."

Rage had filled Gryphon then. Poured through him like a burning, cleansing fire, killing the last, lingering essence of his old life, the old him. His new self, his demon self, was forged into being then, washing away the weakness of love and filling him with the strength of hatred. Of such blinding rage that the world changed from orange to red in the blink of an eye, and he knew that his eyes had turned bloodred. Knew that he was true demon then.

"Send me back!" he railed, the words slurring as fangs erupted painfully, filling his mouth.

Halcyon touched him, the last part of his demon birth that Gryphon remembered. "Sleep now," the High Prince of Hell had said. And Gryphon had slept.

When he next awakened, it had been in a clean chamber — soft linen, a comfortable bed, a sturdy end table, and nothing else. The room had been stripped down to bare essentials and locked. The latter, Gryphon discovered only later when he had grown strong enough to roam beyond the bed, to seek a way out of his prison. Although the real prison was the new world he now inhabited.