“Yes, and…” Lucian suddenly felt elated. “This is going to work.”
“Wait…” Danira called after him as he raced down to the parasite, his hands now over his head as he dove straight into the demon bug’s body.
Surrounded by thick and pulsing goo, Lucian threw his arms out wide, suddenly smothered, everything closing in around him.
He began willing his power out of his body, monitoring his Soul Points in real-time as they dropped.
The drop happened rapidly.
He started to notice something else, a cold feeling starting to move through him, everything in his periphery morphing blue.
His expendable Soul Points dropped even more, nearing the two thousand mark, the number decreasing rapidly until it hit the one thousand mark, everything around him vibrating now, pain starting to seep through.
Lucian pressed more of his power out, ready to die, to kill this parasite that plagued his brother. He ground his teeth beneath his mask as his bones began to crush, the parasite's body condensing as it squeezed the life out of him.
Five hundred Soul Points…
Four hundred Soul Points…
The number continued to drop until he was in the double digits, seventy, sixty, fifty…
Everything went dark.
Lucian’s form starting to give way, his strength leaving him.
Twenty Soul Points…
This was it, and Lucian knew it.
And even though all the muscles in his face felt like they had been torn to shreds, he still managed to smile as he reached ten measly Soul Points.
The explosion that followed was unlike anything Lucian had ever experienced before. Flashes of color amidst the darkness, every fiber of his being torn to shreds, and indescribable pain knifing him to the very core.
It was over.
Chapter Twenty-One: A Metaphor for Something
Lucian was finally able to open his eyes, everything blurry aside from a magenta corona of light.
“Ugh…” he tried to press himself up, but the pain was too excruciating. “Shit…”
“Lucian…”
He didn’t recognize the voice; he only knew that it was that of a female, his thoughts jagged, his entire body limp.
“Lucian…”
“Ugh…”
Something moved across his pane of vision, and he tried to focus on it, failing.
“Lucian…”
He gasped, a sense of calm moving over him. “Danira?”
“Where can I take you?” she asked, her voice coming to him in truncated waves.
“Old Death… Home. Take me...”
“How? Is that where you stay?”
Lucian tried to nod, an intense pain shooting down what was left of his spine. His vision blurred into focus for just a moment as he registered the concern on the angel’s face.
She really seemed to care.
Danira grabbed his hand. “I know how your kind teleports; do it, take us there.”
“I have…” Lucian felt like he was trying to smile, but he couldn’t tell if he had any control over his face or not.
“Lucian, just take us there.”
“Chocolate. Forgot…”
“Did you say… chocolate?”
He tried to nod again.
“Lucian, this is serious, you are vulnerable here.” Danira’s voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Injuresouls.”
“Okay…”
“I can help you,” she said, and from what he could tell, she was now controlling his hand.
“Do it, teleport.”
Lucian thought of Old Death’s home.
He appeared there instantly, his stats flashing before him, even though he couldn’t make them out.
He could tell by the blur on the ‘Available’ line that he was lower than he had ever been before, and for a moment it looked like two letter Bs next to one another, Lucian’s brain kicking into overdrive and slamming into a brick wall as he tried to cobble together what had just happened.
“I killed… I killed… parasite.”
“Where are we?” Danira asked, her voice tinged with awe. “And yes. You did it, Lucian.”
“My home… inherited home.”
“You live on a cliff? What city is that?”
“Need… rest… fake city.”
“I’m staying here with you. You can rest as long as you’d like.”
Everything changed on the periphery as Lucian’s body was levitated, Danira leading him to what he assumed was his workshop.
His pane of vision changed trajectories once he was lowered onto his bed.
He suddenly felt warm, sleep coming to him almost immediately.
Lucian was on a long bridge, a glow in the distance. There was ice on the surface of the water below, skeletal trees along the riverbanks.
He recognized the area as Turners Falls, Massachusetts, a place he had become familiar with through his uncle, who lived in Gill.
Still not yet realizing that he was dreaming, Lucian started to float into the icy darkness, cars passing beneath him, more memories coming to him of Thanksgivings spent in the area, a couple of Christmases too, back when his father and his uncle were closer, before life had gotten in the way.
He continued toward the town, the stars sparkling above, the moon lighting his way.
But he could never reach the other side.
Every time he thought he had made it, the town seemed further away.
He kept trying.
Lucian spent the entirety of the dream trying to cross the bridge, no matter what came at him, be it a frigid squall or the parasites that were now bubbling up from the recently paved road below, tentacles and tendrils reaching for him, occasionally latching onto his ankle, and pulling him down.
He cut through any demon bugs that tried to stop him, never giving up.
Lucian would make it to the end of the bridge, no matter what it took.
He awoke with a gasp, in his bed, his Soul Points appearing in front of his face.
He tried to make sense of the number. It was different than it had been before, he was sure that he had been somewhere around seven-thousand-three-sixty, which meant that…
“I did it!” Lucian said, sitting up and seeing Danira lying at the end of his bed, the angel startled by his sudden exclamation.
“I killed the… you’re here?” he asked her, confusion setting in.
“Are you okay?” came her genuine reply.
“I did it, I did it…”
It was then that Lucian realized that Danira was actually in his most private of private places, on his bed no less, his crows and Ezra on a pillow on the floor, Hugin already lifting off the pillow and coming to Lucian.
“Then I guess I should go…” she said awkwardly, as she pressed her hair to the other side of her skull.
“No, stay. I…” Lucian swallowed hard. “We did it. We did it, right?”
“You did it. I merely pulled you out of the mess,” Danira explained to him. “Your video game hunch was correct. Whatever it was, exactly.”
“Transferring my own power to it to kill the parasite, that’s what I did,” Lucian said hurriedly. He now had his feet on the floor, looking over to Danira, who sat in a similar position as him, her feet on the floor.
“Well, whatever you did, it worked wonders.”
“I have something for you,” he told her. “I forgot about it earlier. I should have given it to you at the Taj Mahal.”
“You have something for me?”
Lucian turned his palm over. The stylized rectangular plate appeared with four pieces of chocolate on it, all arranged at an angle.
Danira raised an eyebrow at him. “You made me chocolate?”
“Do you want me to make coffee too?”
“I don’t really know if I should be…”
“You are already here,” Lucian said, offering her the chocolate. “You slept here. Or I think you slept. I don’t know. But I told you from the start I’m not
like the others, and I don’t want you to think of me like them either. And after seeing what I just did back there, I think it should be pretty clear what I plan to do with this role. I want to go after the big ones, maybe even working my way up to…”
“Watchers?” Danira asked, a bit of apprehension in her voice now.
“Maybe, yes. Yes. Please, you have to try one. I think I got the recipe perfect this time.”
Danira took a piece of chocolate and placed it in her mouth, her eyes lighting up at the flavor.
“Good, isn’t it?”
“How did you…?”
He produced a cup of coffee and handed it to her as well. “Chocolate and coffee. I meant to give you flowers too, but I forgot. I suppose they wouldn’t be very hard to make…”
“No, this is too much. I mean, this is enough.” She quickly ate another piece and another, taking a sip of coffee with it.
“I’ll make more,” Lucian said, more chocolates appearing on the plate. He took one as well, enjoying the flavor.
“How did you know I liked dark chocolate?”
“A hunch,” he said, as Hugin lifted into the air, tilting his head at Lucian in a funny way. “What? It was a hunch.”
“I was going to look around,” Danira said, nodding her chin toward the lake. “But then I realized I was pretty exhausted too, and you were acting strangely in your sleep.”
“I was?”
“Were you having a bad dream?”
“More of an exhausting dream. I was having this dream about a bridge and never being able to reach the end. I guess it’s a metaphor for something.”
“A never-ending journey,” Danira said as she ate another chocolate. “It seems that is a similarity that we share.”
“Seems like it,” Lucian said. “Anyway, there’s not much to explore here, just in case you’re wondering. There’s a forest over there, and then if you didn’t see, there’s an entrance outside, to the right. That goes downstairs to the cliffside home, which is where my predecessor used to live. And that city over there? It’s just empty. I think he put it on the horizon just as a decoration. It’s weird.”
“So he lived below, and now you live up here?”
“I have a room below too, if you want to see it. Old Death has a pretty extensive library that he has put together. Lots of stuff. I’m sure I could learn so much in there, but I just get distracted. Anyway, I built this place up here so I could have a space of my own, and so I could train and work on some of my weapons. You saw what I was making out there, right?”
She nodded. “That seems unnecessary.”
“I still need to spend a few more days cycling energy into it, but once it’s done, it should be pretty legit, dare I say, legit as fuck.”
“I wasn’t a big fan of twenty-first-century slang.”
“You used the word ‘humblebrag’ earlier, or at least I think you used that word.”
Danira started to roll her eyes and stopped. “I did. So maybe I am a bigger fan than I thought.”
“Yeah, maybe you are. More chocolate?” Lucian asked, offering her the plate as more pieces appeared.
“Yes, absolutely. This is the best…”
She smiled at Lucian, a genuine smile, one that wasn’t tinged with self-hatred for associating herself with a demon like him. It was a smile that actually made him feel warm, that she truly appreciated him. “This is the best chocolate I’ve ever eaten.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure that when you were alive during the Egyptian times, or the Renaissance, or whatever, that you had better chocolate.”
“Egyptian times? They didn’t eat chocolate. Regardless. Maybe you’re right, but there’s just something else about this chocolate. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t eaten it in so long.”
“So long?” Lucian laughed. “You only died like what, last year?”
She smirked. “Yeah, Valentine’s Day.”
“What a crappy day to die. Well, unless you’re single and depressed, then it may be a good day to die.”
“I don’t know, it was still pretty crappy,” she said.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” Lucian said, suddenly feeling bad. “I take that back.”
“It’s fine. More coffee, please,” she said, offering her cup to him. Lucian touched his finger to the side of the cup and it refilled with coffee, the word ‘Angel’ tracing across the cup in glowing cursive letters.
“How’s that?”
“That’s so corny.”
“Not as corny as mine,” he said, showing her his cup, which read ‘Demon.’
“That’s a little better.”
They drank silently for a moment, their crows now chasing each other over the lake.
“We have to check on my brother later, or I can do that,” Lucian said, just to speak. “I’m sure you have stuff to do. I also have to find my predecessor. That’s something that I’ve got to do. The Death Council, and particularly the Committee on Luminaries, have been giving me hell about finding him. I have four days, well, three days now. If I don’t find them, they’re going to do something terrible to me.”
“Like what?” she asked, concern painting across her face.
“Like torture me until I give up my mantle. I don’t know. I think maybe I could appeal it, or talk to the actual guy in charge of the Committee, rather than his little bitch-ass enforcer, Gaspard. Sorry, didn’t mean to cuss.”
“It is the same one that attacked you on the beach?”
“That’s the one.”
She nodded. “Gaspard… Ah, yes. I am familiar with him. Just in passing, though. He has given a few others of my kind trouble before.”
“The asshole sure seems ready to boot me out of Camp Death. So I have to do something about it. I plan on searching the place below again, seeing what I can find. Maybe I missed something in my last search. I’ll admit that I had my crows do most of it, but they didn’t find anything, except that Old Death liked deserts. I mean, what’s so great about that, right?”
“There is an appeal to the desert that many, who have never lived there, will never understand.”
“No, I didn’t mean that part, I meant what’s so great about uncovering that he likes deserts?”
“I see your point.” Danira bit her lip before finally nodding. “Maybe I can help you look around?”
“You would do that?”
“I was supposed to go to a meeting, but I’ve been to the same meeting every time it was called since I last died. I’m also the person that runs the meeting; people rarely show up. Some of the time it’s me just sitting there talking with one or two angels about, well…”
“Angel stuff?”
“How did you know?”
“This is going to sound rude, but please don’t take it like that: I’m guessing you guys just sit around talking about God, as if He’s actually paying attention. Sound about right?”
A wry smile took shape on her face. “Something like that. So, where shall we begin?”
“You know, I like the way you use the word ‘shall,’” Lucian told her as he turned toward the lake. “I don’t remember anyone in my life using that word, except when they were reading something at church.”
“Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“It wasn’t, but now I realize it could be construed as such,” he said with a shrug. “Sorry, it’s the chocolate talking. Sugar high or something. Let’s have some more, then another cup of coffee, maybe two, and then head downstairs. Are you game?”
“I really hate twenty-first-century slang.” Danira offered Lucian her cup. “Top me off; we’ll see how I feel after another cup of coffee.”
Danira stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the city on the horizon, its saber-shaped buildings especially beautiful as the sun was setting.
They’d looked through Old Death’s things for a couple hours, finding nothing aside from a pretty extensive collection of books and hand-scribbled nonsense.
“Coffee?” Lucian asked,
a cup appearing in his hand, the word ‘Angel’ scrawled across it.
“How did you know?” she asked as she took the cup from him.
“Lucky guess. So that’s what I’ve been saying, something the Committee doesn’t seem to understand: I have no idea where this guy went.” An idea came to Lucian. “Is there any way that you could track whatever-her-name-is?”
“Leliel?”
“Yeah, her.”
“Not really. I can ask and see if anyone has heard from her, but I’m assuming that they haven’t. She is technically a Watcher now, a fallen angel. She no longer has her wings.”
“I seem to remember her having wings on her ankles,” he told Danira.
“It’s a metaphor. But I will see what I can do.” Danira took a sip of the coffee, savoring its flavor. “What about you? What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“First, I’ll check on my brother. And then I believe I need to have a conversation with a friend of mine. Maybe she will have an idea, although she didn’t really have one last time.”
“The other Death?” Danira asked.
“Yes, Yoshimi. And about her, I don’t know how much power you have when it comes to calling off the angelic attack dogs, but if I were you, or if I were anyone who was tasked with going after her, I would rethink that strategy. She’s incredibly powerful; she really has no interest in dealing with bureaucracy.”
“Are you saying the Progeny of Light is a bureaucratic body?”
“I’m not saying that; I’m just saying that Yoshimi kind of does her own thing. People don’t bother her, and she doesn’t bother anyone.”
“This is going to become more and more complicated, isn’t it?” Danira asked with a sigh.
“What do you mean? You and me?”
She nodded.
“I don’t see why it has to be complicated. But that’s just me being honest. Look, I know we’re playing for different teams here, but I see us as on the same side, especially with what I’m planning to do with the mantle. No one likes radical change, I get that, but what is the point of being enemies, especially you and me? And sure, before you light into me again like you did earlier…” he started to say, recalling the small debate they’d had while looking through Old Death’s library.
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