Page 72 of When Monsters Fight
I allow my eyes to drift closed, falling willingly into the arms of oblivion.
Again.
How many times have I relived this moment? Is this death, now that heaven is closed? This endless loopof devastation?
Michael’s sapphire eyes blaze with triumph as his blade pierces my heart, and once again sorrow grips me. The same thoughts, the same grief and emptiness.
This isn’t real, not anymore, and I’m ready to move on from it.
Michael vanishes, taking the pain that pierces my body with him, and I’m alone, floating above a misty world with a blanket of stars above me. The silence holds anticipation, as if it’s waiting for something.
What now?
Where do I go from here?
I’m dead, and where do dead celestials go now that there is no heaven for our consciousnesses to return to?
Maybe I can stay. Watch over Rue from the other side? A ghost. I can be a ghost. As soon as I think it, I’m flying. Not with my wings, no. There’s no need for those.
I fly above the world, over forests and roads until I spy the church far below me. It’s wreathed in light, glowing softly like a beacon. If I had a heart that could beat, it would hammer at the sight of all the twisted shadows that surround the place.
The dead.
The dead are here, lingering on the outskirts of the light as if it’s a campfire that can warm them, and I instinctively understand that there is no getting through the barrier. Not for them, and not for me.
Something tugs at my chest, insistent and strong, and in the next moment I’m being dragged away from the church and into darkness.
A bubble of panic swells in my chest because this is bad. This force that has me in its grip must be fought, but I’m a powerless shadow now, with no fight left in me. I don’t want to go where this pull is dragging me, but I have no choice.
“Ah, there you are,” a female voice says. “I thought I sensed you close by.”
The hold on me slackens, the knots in my chest ease, and warm arms wrap themselves around me. The scent of sulfur fills my head for a moment, and in the next instant, I’m standing on my feet in a room lined with books. A fire crackles in a hearth bracketed by two armchairs, and a tall regal woman stands beside one of those chairs.
Why do I feel as if I know her? We’ve never met.
“It’s good to meet you, Shemyaza,” she says.
“What is this place? Who are you?”
“This is merely a construct. A pocket of reality which the Dominion cannot breach.”
The Dominion? She knows of them, and she has power. Enough to pull my essence to this place. “Who are you?”
“My name is Lucifer, and I need your help.”
Lucifer is a myth. A story told to celestials to keep them in line…isn’t it? But this being…I know her, I feel her power, and it’s familiar. It feels like home.
“Yes, Shemyaza. I am home. I am the Morningstar.”
It makes sense now. Her power runs through me also.
“I thought your essence out of reach when your human told me that you were dead.”
My human? “Rue? You saw Rue?”
“Yes, and now that I see you, now that I feel you, I know that you are not dead. You are in the Dominion’s grasp, just as I am.”
Hope floods me in a gentle wave of heat. I’m not dead. My essence is still grounded, trapped by the Dominion, and Rue…Rue found a way to speak to Lucifer? My beautiful, clever Rue. She’s out there somewhere, and I’m not dead. I need to wake up. I need to break free!
