End of the Beast, Section 1: Strange New Age

[CallmePrismatic]

Artemis sat. It was a familiar action at this point. It was, as he took it, Purgatory's major attraction. The Beast paced, either through nerves or anxiousness, and glared with his empty eyes at the people surrounding him.
How long had Artemis been in there? He had stopped trying to keep time in this place. Not the longest, that was certain, but it seemed he had been locked away for longer than an eternity but just a hair under forever. Except, now that he mused on it, he wasn't locked away, merely on extended guard duty, like the old days when he and Roland would stay up all night overlooking whatever nasty bandit that had chosen their town to ride through. The old days...
He knew they were old days because the two most recent 'guardians' (Who had coined that term? Whenever Artemis tried to remember the first time using, or even hearing, the term...well it didn't go blank, more like he was looking for something that never happened, something that just always was, a Beast in prison and the 'guardians' surrounding) were definetly not from his time, just as he wasn't from the time of the knight or the Englishman or the Chink (who hadn't actually known what the term meant) or any of them. The Beast seemed to have disregarded time gaps in his collection. Not that any of them had any difficulty in adapting. Once they had died, or whatever they did to get the Beast back, they found that they were connected immediatley, language and habits communaly shared, like a big happy family.
Artemis languidly drew his remaining gun. He spun it with little effort, not particulalry interested in the action. The Beast's gaze eventually settled on the deputy and Artemis wondered if he saw a glimmer of...hope, maybe fear, perhaps both...coursing through the demon. It had never done anything like this, the last two times (that Artemis had been present for) the 'exit' happened the Beast was just as suprised as the rest of them. Now he looked expectant.
Artemis broke the staredown to look at the others, trying to see if they saw any difference like he did.