by HP Mallory
Rain and the waves of a treacherous ocean smacked me in the face repeatedly. And it was then that I realized I was no longer in a lake, but stranded in the middle of an angry sea and there was no land on either side of me.
I was pulled under once more, and I could see the sea monster readying itself to come for me. I glanced down and realized it was the reeds at the bottom of the ocean that were holding me tightly in place.
The only person you have left to rely on is yourself, I thought.
Energy surrounded me and I felt the reeds begin to release me as my body glowed brightly. I felt myself moving upward, through the cold depths of the sea. Fairly soon, I surfaced and inhaled deeply as my own power suspended me in the air as the sea monster writhed beneath me.
I felt something in my hand and glanced down to see my sword. It had never felt heavier than in that moment. Green light radiated up from beneath the creature.
The Emerald, I thought.
I broke the sphere of energy that surrounded me in its protective light and dove for the center of the creature.
The Leviathan.
I swam through the water, gliding against scales that were harder than steel. The Emerald sat in a bed of choral. Deep—at the depths of the ocean, beneath the creature.
I dove down beneath the smashing waves. And the Emerald seemed even further away—as if it were miles on miles down.
There was no way I would make it. Not when I was already winded and needed air. Black spots began to dance in my vision. But still I kept swimming, kept forcing myself down.
You can make it, Lily, I told myself. You’re almost there. Just a little bit further.
My fingers grazed the glowing stone just as the Leviathan’s tail wrapped around my ankle. As soon as I touched the emerald, I soared up and out of the water like a rag doll thrown through the air. The fall back down was greeted by an enormous mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. I aimed my sword directly below me and sliced through the Leviathan’s jaw. It twitched and made a horrible shrieking sound as it pulled away and dove deep into the water.
I turned to the side and noticed something… land. I paddled towards it, forcing myself through the ice-cold water and the cresting waves that threatened to pull me back down again. It was maybe another twenty minutes before I pulled myself up the embankment of sand, collapsing against the warmth as I breathed in as deeply as I could.
The Emerald was clutched in my hand and as I sat up, I watched a door that opened a few feet away. Bill, Asterion, and Tallis walked through the door, towards me.
“What the hell happened to you, Nips?! Looks like you…”
“Bill, not right now,” I said as I fought to catch my breath.
Bill never meant anything malicious behind the teasing, but I just wasn’t in the mood. Tallis tried to help me up, but I brushed him off as well. I just… I wanted to be alone.
“I just need a minute, okay?”
“Of course,” Tallis said. “When ye are ready, we can proceed toward the forge.”
The forge.
We’d reached the last of the Trials. The one where Tallis needed to forge the key.
There was no time left. We needed to get through this so we could reach Uriel and hopefully free him from his prison.
I forced myself up from the sands and stood up, facing Tallis.
“I’m ready,” I said.
He nodded and the four of us trudged along in silence, each of us railing from the impact of everything we’d just faced. I was beyond exhausted, emotionally and physically.
“We have arrived,” Tallis said.
The forge was ancient, built from stones that were crudely shaped and stacked to form a pit where a fire burned infinitely…
It was time to forge the key.
“Place everything on the anvil,” Tallis said.
I removed the locket from around my neck and placed it beside the Emerald that was still clutched in my hand. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the coin Asterion had handed me before we’d killed Asmodeus. Then Bill handed me the Chalice of Truth and I accept it, placing it beside the others. Reaching down, I pulled my mother’s ring from off my finger.
Tallis grabbed the mallet and approached the anvil.
TWENTY-ONE
BILL
Nips was not okay.
She sat with her knees to her chest and her head low. I ain’t exactly the most empathetic person in the world, but I could tell my friend was in a weird place. So, I just sat beside her and watched her draw strange patterns in the sand.
“I saw her. Persephone, I mean,” she said. “She was with Tallis and... God, it just hit me so hard, Bill.” She paused for a few moments. “I can’t fault him for his past, and I can’t hold anything Persephone did against either of us, but it got me thinking...”
“I thought you overcame your envy? I mean, didn’t we pass that Trial…”
“Yes, I did overcome it. I’m not jealous she had him.” She sighed, real long. “But, my head is still messed up…”
“Why?”
She shook her head and then looked at me. “Because I realized I’ll never know Tallis like he knows me.”
“Well, that’s kinda obvious. I mean the guy’s like tryin’ to break into Fort Knox where his feelings are concerned, right?”
She nodded. “I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but I just can’t seem to get past it.”
“Lils, you shouldn’t be in this funky mood right now,” I said as I started to think about everything we’d just accomplished. “We should be getting lit! I mean, we just kicked some serious demon ass and we beat these fuckin’ Trials, right?”
A little smile finally revealed itself. “You’re right.” She nodded real earnest like. “Thanks, Bill.”
“Don’t mention it, Shorty.”
She snorted and glanced over her shoulder where Kemosabe and Tidosabe bickered over how hot the forge was meant to be for optimal smithing er something like that.
“I don’t know what it is about Tallis,” Lils continued like we hadn’t just had our conversation. “I had other options... I mean, I could have had Asterion, but it… it just didn’t feel right. I guess Tallis and I have been through too much pain and love and heartbreak to ever let go of what we have.”
“I might not be a smart man, but I know what love is.”
“Okay, Forrest Gump,” Lily answered with a smile. Then she shook her head and got all serious again. “Bill, what do you plan to do once we get Uriel?”
“I think I’m gonna punch him in the balls and run.”
A burst of startled laughter made me smile. But then it was time for me to get serious too. “I gotta come to terms with the fact that Uriel might not be the same.” Then I shrugged. “I ain’t the same, neither, I guess.” I turned to look at her. “And about what happened at my Trial…”
“Yeah?”
“Would you really do that? Would you stand up for me if the Archangels came calling?”
Lily leaned against my shoulder and dropped her head on my chest. I liked it when she did that. “I think I’ve already proven that no matter what our differences might be, I’ll always fight by your side. We’re glued together like…”
“Pizza and Cheetos?”
“I was going to say…”
“Barbeque ribs and whipped cream?” I reclined against some rocks as Lils rolled her eyes at me like she did when I weren’t making no sense. Not even the sound of that fucking mallet pounding away could disturb our moment.
Kemosabe strutted over and plopped down in the sand beside me. “Tallis is nearly finished,” he said. “Then we should be able to try opening The Void.” He sighed. “Though I’m still not sure about this.”
“Why?” Lils asked.
“When we step through, into the Void, none of us knows what to expect,” he answered.
“We all stepped through the last door not knowing where we’d end up,” I said with a shrug. “How’s this any different? Stumblin’ is what we do be
st. Let’s just fuck shit up and see where it takes us.”
###
LILY
I sat on the edge of the forge.
Tallis smiled over at me, oblivious to all the things that weighed on my mind. I’d forgiven Bill, and I knew Asterion’s confessions hadn’t been his fault, but for some reason, I couldn’t seem to offer the same understanding to Tallis. I just felt… frustrated when I thought about him and us.
“How are you holding up?” I asked.
He never looked away from the glowing metal in his hands. “Ah was wonderin’ the same aboot you, Besom.”
“I’m okay,” I lied. I just… I just didn’t feel like now was a good time to bring up feelings that seemed… petty when compared to everything we’d just been through.
Tallis dropped the Emerald into the center of the key he’d been working on. Only, it didn’t exactly look like a key. It looked like… a ring. He blew air directly onto the piece and then secured the stone in place. It hardly looked like the ring mom had given me anymore, but if it helped us save Uriel, I was grateful for it.
“It is done. We cannae rest here any longer. The more time we spend here, the weaker Uriel gets.”
I nodded and went to fetch the others. “It’s time,” I whispered.
Tallis slipped the ring on my finger and handed me my sword.
“Now what?” I asked.
As soon as I asked, Tallis’s bracelet began glowing. He glanced down at it and as he did, the letters began to change. He watched them with a curious expression and then began to nod.
“Now I recite the words to open the portal,” he said.
Then he brought the bracelet up closer to his eyes and recited the words of the old language. When he was finished, nothing happened for a few seconds. The glow of his bracelet died. He looked at me and I looked at him and then it hit.
It came with a boom, tearing open the world like a black hole, and then that black hole began to suck and pull, forcing us forward as if it were a tornado, sucking us into its center. I held onto Tallis as tightly as I could. We tumbled into the Void with sand and stones flying all around us. Asterion held back as much as he could before he too was sucked up by the vortex.
It felt like I was dying all over again.
When we landed, I wasn’t even sure if we had landed.
I saw Bill first. And the more I looked, the more I realized he was the only one I could see.
The glow that surrounded him was faint here. His face was ashen, and sweat trickled down the bridge of his nose before dripping into the nothingness. I was afraid to stand; it felt as though I was floating and yet kneeling on solid ground all at once. The darkness moved. No, it breathed like a living thing. I pushed aside my fear and ran over to Bill. The angel gripped me with unchecked terror in his eyes.
“This is no place for angels... it hurts.”
Bill nearly collapsed, but I slung his arm over my shoulder and helped him to his feet. We stared around the darkness as I called out for the others. “I... I c-can feel them,” I stammered, even though no one responded. “I can’t see Tallis and Asterion, Bill.”
He looked up at me and shook his head. “We gotta move quick, or else I’ll be too weak to help much. We can’t spend too much time in this place.”
We wandered aimlessly through the darkness, unsure of where to go, but I continued to call out for Tallis and Asterion. Suddenly, my foot hit something. I looked to Bill, and he scowled as smoke wafted from between his lips. The air grew colder as we walked. Shivers ran through me, and my teeth began to click. Even Bill seemed to be affected by the cold, and that worried me. Could angels die here? If it came down to losing my friend or saving Uriel…
“Uriel is close,” Bill groaned as his features pinched into an expression of pain. “We... we’re almost there.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel him.”
Then he led us toward a pale glow that was similar to his own.
###
The closer we came to the source of light, the weaker Bill became.
“Tallis!” I yelled for the nth time. “Asterion!”
Finally, I heard the sound of footsteps and Tallis stumbled into the weak light Bill was still emitting. There was a blue glow coming from the palm of Tallis’s hand and it burned brightly. I figured it must be his Druid magic.
When he saw me, he immediately embraced me, but by the ragged sound of his breathing, I could tell this place was taking a toll on him too.
“Have you seen Asterion?” I asked.
Tallis shook his head. And we continued on, moving in the direction Bill dictated. I could only hope his angel radar was on point. Otherwise, I had no idea where we were going or how we’d ever get back out again.
The light from Bill’s aura and Tallis’s Druid magic continued to light our way and it was maybe another hour before I saw something in the distance.
“I see something,” I said as I pointed past Tallis’s shoulder, and he followed my finger over to the pale light.
“Aye, I see it too,” Tallis admitted.
The closer we came, the more the object began to delineate itself as a cage!
“We’re here,” Bill said, sounding beyond exhausted. His angel light was growing dimmer by the minute.
I approached the cage and peered through the bars.
When I touched the enchanted metal, even for the briefest second, I was forced to immediately pull away. The bars were so cold, touching them actually burned my skin. Bill approached then and Tallis was just behind him. Together, they supplied enough light that I could make out a mangled hand as it lifted into the air. I crouched down and brushed my fingers against it gently. The hand twitched but didn’t pull away.
“Uriel,” Bill said.
The angel’s face came into view, and my heart squeezed in my chest. Uriel opened his eyes, and I saw a world of anguish in their depths. His condition was much worse than I expected.
“How do we release you?” I asked him.
He simply looked at the lock on the cage.
You must use the power within you, Lily, I heard a voice inside my head and figured it must have been Uriel’s. He never moved his mouth, but just stared at me from those haunted eyes.
I wrapped my hand around the lock and felt the pulse of my power begin from deep inside me as it traveled up my body and down my arm, tingling as it went. When I held my fingers over the keyhole of the lock, the ring Tallis had forged began to glow. I removed it from my finger and held it up to the lock. It immediately began melting into the keyhole and then clicked the lock open.
“Lily?” I turned to the sound of Asterion’s voice and felt relief pounding through me. I stood up and embraced him quickly before turning back to Uriel. Bill’s light was growing even dimmer and I had a feeling we needed to get Uriel out as quickly as we could.
Time was ticking down.
“I’m going to need some help getting him out,” I whispered to Asterion and Tallis.
When you open the door of this prison, Uriel’s voice sounded in my head again. It will alert the others.
I wasn’t sure who ‘the others’ were, but I also didn’t want to find out.
As soon as I opened the door of Uriel’s cage, alarms screeched, and the sound of insects filled my ears.
I knew that sound.
“Lemures!” I screamed.
Tallis and Asterion immediately entered the cage and pulled Uriel out. The angel limped as best he could and his broken wings dragged behind him. Bill’s face lit up when he saw his old mentor, but there was no time for a heartfelt reunion.
The Archangel grabbed Asterion and filled him with a bright light. I saw what looked like hundreds of Lemures skittering away in fear of Uriel’s power.
“Charybdis,” Uriel groaned.
I was worried Asterion wouldn’t want to use the power inside his palm, but when I looked at him, he simply nodded. Then he held out his palm and closed his eyes. It was another few seconds be
fore a vortex formed above our heads. I had no time to brace myself as I was sucked in.
A pair of wounded golden wings wrapped around me as we fell down a whirlpool that seemed to last only seconds. I crashed down on top of Uriel and hurried to crawl off him, worried I’d hurt him more than he already was.
“The others,” I started as I turned back to face Uriel.
“Will be here momentarily,” he answered and didn’t appear to be in the least bit concerned. He moved to his hands and knees and I reached down to help him stand. When I touched him, his angelic radiance buzzed all through my body and I sucked in a shocked breath. He was pure power, even if that power wasn’t what it normally was.
Once I was able to help Uriel stand, I took stock of my surroundings. We’d landed in some sort of office I didn’t recognize.
“We... petition for release, Overseer,” Uriel croaked.
A tiny head popped up from behind the desk. It looked like a... well, a lizard with a crown of spikes on its head and a long snout. Scales covered half its face in a very Phantom of The Opera sort of way. The more human-like features were feminine in nature but this creature was clearly a man.
“Josiah Nephilim,” the man introduced himself to me, while offering his hand. When I reached out, he gripped my wrist instead of shaking my hand. Then he rotated my hand so he could see my palm. “Ah, so you have completed the Trials of Damnation. Congratulations,” he said and then studied me with narrowed eyes. “Herald?”
Uriel propped himself up against a bookcase with a groan. “Where are you keeping the smokes, Overseer?” he continued.
The lizard man pointed to the shelf behind us. Uriel turned and reached for one of the books on the shelf. When he opened it, it was hollow inside. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Divine fire flared from the top of his finger as he lit the end and took a long drag. The scent of tobacco filled the air.
