Page 312 of Caelum

My mouth quivered as I thought about the fact that humans didn’t deserve to walk this Earth freely with no fear. They had been liberated twice over and chose to discard that sacrifice. Using it to their own purpose.

Ridding the world of Erlik would mean that this pit, thesegates, was unguarded unless we manned it. And God had seen fit to throw eight adolescents into a battle against a scourge that numbered in the billions.

Why wouldn’t he have us guard it?

Why wouldn’t he expect another sacrifice of us?

“I can see you’re thinking with a clear head, child,” Erlik rumbled, and if he was trying to tempt me with a sultry voice, he failed. He just reminded me of how alien he was.

“Don’t let him tempt you. He lies. He is sin incarnate.”

The voice came from within, and though I hadn’t called upon theJannah,it was there. As loud as day. As clear as a bell over the roaring waters and the soaring flames.

“Stay true to yourself, Eve. Stay true to this path.”

I didn’t want to listen, and that was the most terrifying thing of all. I simply didn’t want to, so maybe it was good that my men took the option away from me.

Maybe it was good that, without any prompt from me, they took the onus and, as one, cried, “We wish to make this Earth an Eden again.”

As their words spilled free, the power moved from inside me, surgingthrough me like a lightning bolt. I’d never shifted. Had never felt that power within me like my men, but I knew what that felt like now.

With a scream as the power enveloped me, I felt my body turn, felt my souls converge just as the waters that fed Eden had, and my limbs turned, changing and morphing into something else. Somethingother.

I didn’t know what, didn’t understand it, but I knew my purpose.

Before, I’d wavered. My human mind had been distressed by the evil inherent in man. The wickedness.

But this creature whowassin incarnate, born from the first sin itself, had me soaring across the pit with wings that had torn through my shoulder blades.

I didn’t look down. Didn’t need to. I knew where I was, hovering above a pit that spat water and fire at me equally. My eyes, those of the Hell Hound, focused on Erlik who gaped at me and was as frozen as my men while I soared toward him on a wind fed by the Almighty Himself.

With strength that came from the Were, I grabbed Erlik and hauled his bizarrely furry body into the air, and with thegouille’swings, I hurtled us toward the pit.

Erlik squealed like the beast he was, and with the Lorelei’s song, I lulled him into restfulness. For a second, I let my gaze flitter over my mates who’d spread out around the pit.

I heard them. Calling me. Begging me to come to them, but I couldn’t listen.

My purpose wasn’t to be with them now. It was to end this.

As I hovered over the center of the pit, touched neither by Eden’s waters or Hell’s fire, I spun in a circle and looked at them, simply looked, and hoped they knew I loved them. That my words from before resonated as I let my wings cease their flapping and allowed gravity to take over.

Their screams had my ears ringing. The Vampire’s attuned senses roared as they railed at me, begged me, pleaded with me to stop this, to come back to them, but there was no point.

Erlik was in my grasp, and God wanted me to be down here. Wanted me near Hell.

The pit was wide at the mouth but gradually grew narrower, and I traveled and I traveled farther down, deeper into the Earth’s core until the temperature from before felt like a balmy fall day. This heat was intense, so ferocious that it was a wonder thegouille’sleathery skin didn’t bubble and blister as Erlik’s did.

There was a black hole at the bottom, something that not even thecreatures’ senses could see through. At this point, I knew I could kill Erlik with the Sin Eater’s talents or even the Succubus’, but that was not God’s will.

I knew we neared the bottom because Erlik began struggling as though he were aware of something I wasn’t, like he knew of a secret that I was in the dark about. The Lorelei’s voice ceased lulling him to sleep as it became overshadowed by the rustling sounds of the flames that licked ever nearer and the water that rushed down, harder and faster as though it knew it was about to reach its end.

As I fell toward my fate, I regretted my obstinacy, chided myself for forgetting that I was God’s hand, and instead, embraced the path he’d lit up for me.

His Will be done.

THIRTY

NESTOR

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