“We had a very good reason,” she started to say. “And now they have run off, Leliel and the demon.”
“Where do you think they went?”
“Where would a demon and an angel go?”
“Las Vegas?” Lucian asked with a grin.
Danira chuckled. “So you think they have gone to sin?”
“I mean, in a way they have already committed the ultimate sin by going against their own kind. You have to give them credit for that.”
Her smile faded. “No, I don’t. There has been a team tasked with finding her, and once they do, they will banish her.”
“Banish her?” Lucian asked. “She has already banished herself.”
“It has to be official. Once she is banished, she will be a Watcher just like Azazyel. Until that time…”
“Yet your people were imprisoning her,” Lucian said. He didn’t want to argue with Danira, but her thought process was starting to annoy him.
“She was going to stand trial for allowing your predecessor into the South Wind,” she said.
“You know, there’s always the option of just letting them be…”
“Why would we do that?”
“What purpose does finding them serve? They apparently love each other, and they both seem to be willing to sacrifice everything to be together. What purpose does it serve your God, or any God, to take this away from them?”
Danira never had a chance to answer.
Portals rimmed in purple energy fizzled open on the beach, Deaths in black cloaks appearing. Lucian recognized Gaspard and his topknot immediately, the androgynous Death dropping into an offensive pose as long whips made of purple light started to stretch from his fingers.
Danira looked to Lucian. “What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” he said, his lava sword taking shape in his hand, his armor forming.
“You… You told them I would be here.”
Lucian didn’t have time to respond.
Danira pressed off the beach, her enormous energy weapon appearing in her hand. A light blinked twice on the side of the weapon, the muzzle glowing with golden energy.
The angel’s wings expanded as she fired upon the first Death, her crows coming to her instantaneously. They bore down on the beach, their wings turning razor-sharp as they spun, the two quickly taking another Grim Reaper down.
“Go!” Lucian shouted to Danira.
He ran toward one of the Deaths, swinging his lava sword overhead. His shoulder-mounted energy weapon materialized into existence, blasting at one of the Deaths that Danira was engaging.
“You dare help her?” Gaspard roared, whipping his long energy tendrils in Lucian’s direction. They struck Lucian so hard that he went flying backward into the water. His own crows came to his rescue, distracting Gaspard long enough for Lucian to take to the air, his robes dripping wet.
His cape exploded off his shoulders, twisting around him and wringing out any excess water as it made a frantic beeline toward Gaspard. It struck the man, wrapping around his face and chest, preventing him from seeing.
Lucian bolted back toward shore, his carbine now tucked under his arm.
He began firing almost immediately, bullets cutting into the sand, a few reaching Gaspard as Lucian’s cape continued to distract him.
Gaspard finally ripped Lucian’s cape off and pitched his finger-whips forward, all ten of them pressing through Lucian’s body and tearing out his back, a searing force writhing through him.
He could hear Gaspard shouting something from below, but he was too far away to actually pick out what the man was saying.
It was only a matter of time before he was brought underwater again, Gaspard’s bladed fingers pulling him back out and slamming him onto the shore repeatedly.
His robes tried to fight them off, but as he did Gaspard’s tendrils grew even stronger, thickening and starting to burn Lucian’s flesh.
He grabbed onto as many of Gaspard’s tendril-like fingers as he could, quickly sending a spark of electricity in his opponent’s direction.
A blast of energy tore through Lucian’s shoulder just as he was getting the upper hand. He looked up to see that Danira was now firing on him, an absolutely furious look on her face.
“What are you doing?” he managed to shout as he shocked Gaspard again, Lucian’s crows spinning around him, desperately trying to help.
Lucian was lifted even higher into the air, blood misting out of his body even as his wounds started to heal up.
Danira carried him now, her wings making her move faster than he had ever seen her move before.
She was inches away from his face too, her hands clutched onto the front of his robes, her eyes narrowing on him as they ascended.
“This was all your plan, wasn’t it!?” she shouted, shaking him. “Tell me the truth!”
“My plan? How could you think that? I’m trying to save you!”
They were higher in the atmosphere now than Lucian had ever been, the beach below a smudge of grayish-brown below.
“Please…” he started to tell her. “You have to believe me. I would never…”
“I don’t believe you,” Danira said in a soft voice.
“I didn’t want them to come. Why would I want that? Why, after what we’ve already been through, would I want something like that?”
The world started to blaze past as Danira drove him straight down to the ground.
They tore into the beach, leaving a crater in their wake. The angel was up in the air in a matter of moments, her wings flaring up as she lifted back into the air.
“Please…” he said, reaching out to her.
Danira flapped her wings once and was gone.
Lucian struggled to his feet, conjuring a wall of injurecrows as soon as he was able.
He sent them in Gaspard and the other Deaths’ general direction, Lucian trying to shake off the confusion he was feeling, the guilt he was experiencing even though he knew this wasn’t his fault.
He would never do anything to trap or harm Danira, but now that she thought that this was what he had attempted…
Lucian heard explosions as he pressed out of the crater, his MX-11 in his hands almost instantly.
It only took a moment for Grim Mecha to appear, Hugin and Munin docking on his shoulders. His replica went to town on some of the Deaths that had come with Gaspard, slicing and dicing through their forms, blasting one of them with his laser eyes.
His MX-11’s powerpack fully charged, Lucian rushed forward, swinging his weapon and punching at any tendril or Death that dared come near him, Lucian’s retractable claws now pressed out of his knuckles.
He reached Gaspard, and as he did Lucian’s head was severed, his body falling to the side.
A ball of energy controlled by Gaspard’s fingers now engulfed Lucian’s head, purple energy oscillating all around him.
“Do you want to continue this?” Gaspard asked Lucian’s floating head. “Not only am I able to prevent your body from rejoining with your head, but I can also drain your power.”
Lucian felt a strange sensation in the place where his body should be, his energy starting dissipate.
He glanced at his Soul Points and saw that they had dropped significantly.
“Okay,” he finally said.
“Okay? That’s all you have to say for yourself? You skip out on a Committee request to meet with an angel?” Gaspard asked, his dark eyes burrowing holes into Lucian.
“I wasn’t meeting with her,” Lucian said, defiant as ever. He watched his body stand behind, aiming its MX-11 at Gaspard, waiting for the signal.
“You are a poor liar, you know that?”
“I didn’t come to the interrogation because I didn’t want to come. I’ve already told you everything. The angel just happened to show up here. I was about to fire on her when you came.”
Gaspard looked to some of the other Deaths still engaging Grim Mecha. They began flattening, eventually dropping onto the sand a
nd slithering their way over to his body. They lifted once they reached his feet, swelling into his form.
Grim Mecha also turned his attention to Gaspard, waiting for Lucian’s signal.
“They weren’t real?”
“Nothing is real,” Gasper said, a dire look taking shape on his face. “I don’t know how we will handle this infraction, but I do know that the Committee still wants to see you. I believe it is best that we go there now, or I can drain your power here, and continue to do so for all eternity. You see, Lucian, not only are you inexperienced, you are incredibly naïve, and the fact that you even thought it was a good idea to attack me, to defend Life, tells me that…” Gaspard paused, shaking his head with utter disdain. “Well, I suppose we can leave that discussion for the Committee.”
Chapter Seven: The Committee on Luminaries
Lucian North sat in front of a long table, the ends curving away from him.
The room was mostly made of wood, the molding carved with what looked like blooming roses, the floor crafted from dark marble with a vein of blue through it. It was imposing, imperial in a gothic way.
The five chairs before him were currently empty, Gaspard telling Lucian to wait, that the Committee would meet in a private chamber before the questioning began.
Lucian had commented on how it was odd for them to bring him in for testimony without actually being ready for said testimony, only to be reminded that he was supposed to speak to them earlier, that he had been meeting on the beach with the Progeny of Light instead.
So he waited.
His crows were with him, Hugin and Munin hovering over his shoulders. He had already sent them around the room, taking over Hugin’s visuals so he could get a better look at the space and the documents on the table.
Oddly enough, when he’d viewed the documents up close the papers were blank, but he could clearly see that there was writing on them from his current position.
The back door opened, the Grim Reaper known as Lord Lifton shuffling out.
The lantern-jawed man was in all black, his dark blonde hair tied into a ponytail, a stoic look on his face. The alluring female Death named Mastima followed him out, followed by a pair of gaunt women that looked like twins, both with silky black hair, pale faces, and upside-down red triangles on their foreheads. Gaspard was the last to file out, the androgynous Death with the top knot taking the seat on the left.
“The ranking member of the Committee of Luminaries would like to make a few opening statements,” Lord Lifton announced. Pages started flying off the desk to Lucian’s right, zipping into a typewriter that began pecking away at what was said. “It has come to our attention that three members of the Progeny of Darkness have violated one of the barriers that the Watchers put on Earth thousands of years ago, in the Land of Giants.”
“In the Land of Giants?” Lucian whispered under his breath. “You mean Tibet?”
“Those Deaths are Cuthbert Byrne, Lucian North, and Yoshimi Masamune. Efforts to reach Yoshimi and Cuthbert have proved fruitless. The Committee has now turned its focus to Lucian North, who has recently taken Cuthbert’s mantle. We have brought Lucian here today to answer additional questions about what took place at the South Wind, and why he decided to attack one of the only remaining gates to Heaven left on Earth. I will begin the questioning, and then I will open it up to the rest of the Committee for any questions they may have. The questioning will end with the minority ranking member, who has asked for a punishment due to Lucian’s tardiness.”
“I’ve already told you everything,” Lucian groaned.
Mastima shot him a look that caught his breath short. The black holes that were her eyes lasered into Lucian, making him instantly regret speaking out of turn.
“How did you come to learn of the South Wind?” Lord Lifton asked, his tone cordial, inviting even.
Lucian cleared his throat and began telling them how he had first discovered it in his predecessor’s library, in the Book of Enoch. He then explained how he journeyed to Japan just because he could, how he encountered Yoshimi in Kyoto, and how he later went back to her for help in locating his predecessor. “As I have already told some of the Committee members,” Lucian said, looking from Gaspard to Lord Lifton, “I went to the South Wind to rescue him.”
The typewriter continued to peck away, the two twin Deaths saying something to one another.
“Did your predecessor ask for you to come after him?” Lord Lifton asked.
“No. We were attacked by angels in New Mexico at an assisted living facility. He was captured, I was not.”
“Why weren’t you captured?” Gaspard asked.
“I will handle the questioning for now,” Lord Lifton told his colleague. “But it is a good question. Lucian North, why weren’t you captured alongside your predecessor?”
“I wasn’t captured because I fought back. Old Death, I mean Cuthbert, didn’t fight back. It was like he wanted to be captured.”
“It isn’t the first time he has done something so bold,” Lord Lifton said, “but last time he did something like that, he used it as a trap to fight as many angels as he possibly could.”
“He was inviting them to capture him.”
“You’ve already mentioned that,” Gaspard said.
“Again, the ranking member will do the questioning,” Lord Lifton told his colleague, a sharpness to his voice this time. “So give us a timeline, then, Lucian North.”
“A timeline of what? I believe I’ve already given you a timeline.” Lucian saw one of his crows twitch out of the corner of his eye, also agitated with the whole charade.
“Arriving in the Land of Giants. Let’s start there.”
“I arrived with Yoshimi,” he said, the typewriter starting up again. “We briefly moved through a village there; I don’t remember the name. We headed toward the South Wind, where we were attacked by two Death Hunters. One was named Menor, the other was named Alice. I accidentally killed Alice, but only because she attacked me. I am not a Death Hunter.”
“Yet you have killed another of our kind,” Gaspard mumbled, Lord Lifton ignoring him this time, one of the twins frowning at the mouthy Death.
“How exactly did you kill her?” Lord Lifton asked.
“I started off by exploding parts of her body, mostly her face. I then…” Lucian gulped, reliving what had happened. “My severed arm did the rest. It pressed down her neck hole, and more of my injurecrows exploded her. Then Azazyel came.”
“And this wasn’t arranged in some way?” the man asked, not at all phased by Lucian’s previous answer. “Because that is the rumor that some in the Progeny of Light have started to spread.”
“Arranged? What? No,” Lucian told Lord Lifton, the twin Deaths again whispering something to one another. “I believe Azazyel was hunting Yoshimi, that’s why he was there. When I visited Yoshimi a few days earlier, he had been there looking for her at that time too. But he didn’t find her then, and I wasn’t strong enough for him to give two shits about me. I’ll tell you who did find Yoshimi at her residence, though—the two Death Hunters, Alice and Menor. So maybe they were tracking her as well. Maybe you should talk to them. Wait, you can’t.”
“So you’re saying that the leader of the Watchers and the two Death Hunters were there for Yoshimi, and that this wasn’t arranged in some way, correct?”
Lucian shook his head at the suggestion. “Why would we arrange for someone to come and attack us? It really doesn’t make any sense, does it? I know that there are those in your ranks,” he said, glaring at Gaspard, “and also some angels that have fallen for this insane conspiracy theory, but the truth is quite simple: I wanted to rescue my predecessor and I recruited Yoshimi, who had her own baggage that also showed up.”
“I see. Mastima?”
Something flashed across Mastima’s black eyes as she focused on Lucian. “Do you know anything about the arrangement that Cuthbert Byrne might have had with Leliel, the angel he was imprisoned with?”
“He
mentioned her, but only as a warning not to get involved with angels. It sounded like he’d had female problems. At least, that’s what I took from what he said. I didn’t know that was why he allowed himself to be captured. Of course, looking back, it makes sense. Maybe he wanted to join her so they could run away together. But it was a surprise to me. After making it to the other side of the gate, I sent my crows to find him. That’s when I discovered that she was there as well. And I freed them both. Because,” Lucian again looked at Gaspard, “like I keep saying, that’s why I went there in the first place. I don’t care about the South Wind, nor do I know much about its purpose, now or in the past. You mentioned several times that I am new to all this, and…”
“And?” Mastima asked.
“And maybe you and the other Committee members should put yourself in my shoes to understand how I interpret all this. There are five of you, who I’m assuming have more experience than I could possibly imagine. I want you to remember yourselves as a new Death, like I currently am, and what you felt at the time. I didn’t want this. I just wanted to die,” Lucian said, instantly wondering if this was truly what he had desired when Old Death came for him in his living room. “Why would I have some grand conspiracy to kickstart a war between Life and Death?”
“Point taken,” Mastima said.
“I didn’t have a choice in becoming Death—that’s what I’m trying to say here. And all your rules, and your past wars, and misunderstandings? I don’t really see the point in them. I don’t care about them aside from their historical contexts, or whatever. Angels want to help people, and from what I can tell, we want to help people as well. We do so in a different way, but there are other types of parasites…”
“No,” Gaspard said, a line knitting between his eyebrows as he stared Lucian down. “We are absolutely not here to discuss theories of other kinds of parasites. There is one type of parasite that Deaths hunt, and it is the type that is keeping a person alive.”
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