by Ryals, R. K.
"I really should recruit this witch of yours. Incredible her powers with averting control."
Luther tensed next to me, but he didn't comment. Marcas' gaze grew hard and his jaw tightened.
"I'll make you a proposition. You give me the hybrids, and I'll promise no war in Hell."
Lucifer looked amused.
"Really? No war in Hell? Do you think I fear your war, Demon? The hybrids belong to me. They are part Demon after all. I control them."
Marcas stood strong.
"And you could release them. What will it take for you to let them go?"
Lucifer's gaze swung to me.
"How do you feel about your Naphil here, Marcas?"
Marcas' grip on me tightened.
"The Naphil is not up for debate."
Lucifer's brows rose.
"You say that with such self-assurance when I know you are aware of Heaven and Hell's interest in the girl. She is an anomaly. My Demons have long since been enjoying the pleasures of human flesh, producing hybrid Demons for the cause. Heaven refuses to allow its Angels such pleasures. And any Angel who partakes is considered Fallen. How appropriate. And the children of the Fallen are as evil as our own Demon hybrids. Imagine Heaven's surprise when our Naphil here was discovered. Imagine my own surprise. I am fascinated. Truly I am. I wonder, my dear, if you can be corrupted."
Lucifer stepped forward, his face close to Marcas' as he gazed over the Demon's shoulder at me.
"I have felt your anger, Young One. I know you are aware of the prophecy. The love between an Angel and a Demon will destroy the world. Where does that leave you? Come to me. Here, in Hell, there are no rules. You can love who you desire."
It was a tempting offer, but one I could easily refuse. I loved Marcas, true. It was a love I couldn't walk away from, a love that I couldn't deny, but it was also a love that healed. It had healed me. I was pretty sure it had healed Marcas. I couldn't see how that love could be destructive.
"I will always refuse you," I whispered.
It took a lot for me say those words. My fear was great, but my loyalty to Marcas, to myself, was greater. Lucifer's eyes darkened at my refusal, and I could see flames dancing in his eyes. It was an eerie effect that I was sure he used to disturb me. His gaze moved to Marcas.
"I will release the hybrids if you endure three trials."
I stiffened. If this was anything like the duel we'd fought in Petra, this was an unfair game played by Lucifer that he couldn't lose. Marcas stared unblinkingly into Lucifer's eyes.
"What are the trials?"
Lucifer stepped back, his eyes on the man he'd once offered a tremendous position of power.
"Those are to be determined. You accept or refuse. Your choice. I can promise you this. The trials will be fair. You overcome them, I will release your hybrids but only the hybrids born from Cain and Lilith."
Marcas nodded.
"It's a start."
"Then you agree?" Lucifer asked, his hand rising slowly.
I grabbed Marcas by the arm, my fingers digging desperately into his skin.
"Not alone," I said frantically. "I'll go through the trials with him."
Lucifer froze as Luther tugged on my shirt.
"Dayton . . ." Luther began.
"No," Lucifer intervened, his eyes on me. "This is interesting. You would be willing to endure the same trials? Do you not think that unfair, Naphil? Everyone is stronger together."
"Dayton . . ." Marcas sighed, but Lucifer would not be interrupted. I had his attention now, and he wanted an answer.
I glanced at Marcas, at his red tinted eyes, at the tortured glint in his gaze before shifting my attention back to Satan.
"I will endure whatever he endures. Together. Combined we may be stronger, but you know as well as I that it also creates weaknesses."
Lucifer's yellow eyes had bled to black.
"And you would be willing to make Marcas weaker?"
"I would be willing to bank more on our strength," I answered honestly.
Lucifer's gaze shifted to Marcas.
"And you?"
I gripped Marcas' hand harder than I have ever gripped it. Something felt wrong. I had a feeling if we were separated, something was going to go very, very wrong. I didn't have Monroe's ability to see visions. I didn't have Maria's Sight, but I had a power circling within my chest that came from God and it was telling me something wasn't right. I was banking on that.
Marcas looked down at me, his gaze searching mine. I made sure I didn't blink. I was still trembling. That couldn't be helped, but I definitely didn't blink. Marcas nodded and looked back at Lucifer.
"Three trials it is as long as the Naphil is allowed to endure them with me."
I heard Luther groan, but I ignored him as Lucifer looked between us.
"So be it," he said before his hand rose. "Let the trials begin."
His hand came down, and the world went black.
Chapter 17
Lucifer is a cold villain. He is sinister. He is subtle. He uses temptation and human weakness to wear away mankind's greatest strengths. In the end, he leaves a person bare. Those who survive, those who are able to rise above are the heroes.
~Bezaliel~
In the darkness there was a voice. It was a low voice. It was reassuring. It was deadly. It was full of resurrection. It was full of greed. It was full of hope. It was full of devastation.
"In this moment, you are completely human. You will have no powers. You will be able to bleed and die. You will be able to starve. You will be able to suffer as you have never suffered before."
My hand was still in Marcas', and I held on tight. He was a lifeline in a pitch black world echoing with the voice of Satan.
"This is my kingdom. This is my domain. You have agreed to a trial. During those trials, you are mine. You survive, the hybrids are yours to rule. If you succumb, you belong to me. The Naphil's soul will be mine."
There was nothingness beneath my feet and then there was solid ground.
"This is Hell. Let there be light."
I was suddenly on my knees, one hand still in Marcas', the other covering my eyes as the world went white. It was sunlight and it wasn't. We were in a desert, a bright, hot, blazing desert. But it wasn't Earth. No sun on Earth could burn that bright. And we were burning. Truly burning. The heat was too strong. Even beneath the sweatshirt, I felt my skin smolder as if it were ablaze.
Marcas was quick, moving behind me, lowering himself over me to block the sun with his body as we looked out over the landscape before us. It was a vast wasteland of nothingness. There was only sky and sun and sand, gritty sand that was bone white and sharp where my palm rested against the ground. And it was hot. So very hot. Even breathing hurt. My lungs felt charred. There was a rawness in my chest and back every time I attempted to breathe. Every lungful of air was a battle. A raspy, greedy battle for survival.
I heard Marcas struggling with his own breathing, watched as the arm he held over me began to redden, and I knew we were going to die. There didn't seem to be any way around it. We had both heard Satan's voice.
"In this moment, you are completely human. You will have no powers. You will be able to bleed and die. You will be able to starve. You will be able to suffer as you have never suffered before."
Even the amulet Monroe had given Marcas was useless. It only protected against Demon possession. We weren't just enduring trials. We were enduring them as humans, our Angelic and Demon counterparts temporarily stripped away.
"It will be okay," Marcas whispered in my ear, his voice strained.
There was nothing we could do but wait. I looked out from under Marcas' body, desperately seeking any kind of protection from the punishing environment, but there was nothing. There was only white sand, sun, and blue skies. It was blindingly bright, and I whimpered as sweat beaded beneath my shirt. The moisture was no relief. It hissed against my skin, steam rising from my body as it evaporated.
It had been only minutes, and th
e heat was already killing us, wrestling as much moisture from our bodies as it could in mere seconds. My skin crawled, and I knew it was because it was drying out. The burning would come next. Marcas' skin above me was already a terrifying shade of red. He kept his face averted, facing the sand, and I watched as he gritted his teeth against the burn. He was shading me, protecting me, and he was going to be the first to die.
"It's too much. Let me shade you now," I begged.
My voice was hoarse, my throat on fire, but I found the words anyway. Marcas shook his head, and I knew that was the only response I was going to get. It was the only response I was sure he could manage. I struggled beneath him, doing the next best thing I knew to do. I pulled the pink hooded sweatshirt covering me over my head and threw it up over his arms. It left me vulnerable and exposed, but I wouldn't let Marcas burn to death.
The movement took whatever strength I had left in me, and I faltered, falling flat into the white sand. Pain. There was pain everywhere. Hot, searing pain. The sand was sharp. It dug into my skin the same way the thorns on a rose would dig into a finger, and I knew when I saw the blood that it had broken the skin. Little cuts. Only small beads of blood. Tiny cuts, and yet the pain was extraordinary. It was like a million paper cuts all over my body. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even cry. There wasn't enough moisture left in me for tears.
Suddenly, Marcas had one arm wrapped around my waist, leaving it exposed as he kept me lifted off the sand. I could see his skin continue to blister, but any attempts at struggling was futile. Marcas would not release me, and I wasn't strong enough to make him.
"I could make it all go away. Water. All you need is water."
Lucifer's voice was everywhere. Around us, beneath us, above us. I could even feel it in my skin, and it felt cool. It felt safe. It felt like salvation.
I gritted my teeth, my jaw clenched to keep from calling out. Marcas had not answered him, his resolve obvious, and I knew I had to do the same. His strength was my strength. My strength was his. If I faltered, if I showed how desperate I was, Marcas would end this in a heartbeat, and I couldn't let him. I had volunteered to come with him. I had begged Marcas with my eyes. I could not imagine him doing it alone.
Once, I would not have chosen this. I would not have chosen to save a lot of hybrid Demons. They were, after all, Demons. They had stolen souls. They had murdered the innocent. They had practiced evil. And yet, they were part human. The human part of them had a choice. They had a dead blasted choice, and I was determined to give them one.
Marcas sagged above me, and I held him up. How I did it was beyond me. I had no power. I had no strength. My vision was blurring, and I knew subconsciously that I was dying. But, somehow, I held him up. I had read about human endurance, about what people discover they are capable of in their darkest hours. And now, in this moment, I was learning that endurance had a new name. Love.
In that moment when I felt myself slipping away, I managed to hold Marcas up and he managed not to let me go. We were suspended together in death with Lucifer's voice echoing through our heads.
"I could make this all go away."
And together, somehow, we both managed to say, "No."
And then there was darkness. Wonderful, sweet, blessed, cool darkness.
Chapter 18
I need to let her go. I need to trust that when the time comes, she will be wiser than the rest of us. I need to let her go.
~Bezaliel~
It's strange that in death, I found myself thinking about words, about poetry that ironically personified death. But there it was. In my moment of darkness, I found myself mumbling Robert Louis Stevenson's Death, To The Dead For Evermore in my head, as if his words would somehow make my death clearer, make the pain less.
"Death, to the dead for evermore
A King, a God, the last, the best of friends -
Whene'er this mortal journey ends
Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
Smiling, he greets us on that tranquil shore
Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
Disturbs the eternal sleep,
But in the stillness far withdrawn
Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep."
I mumbled the words slowly, my throat burning, and my lips cracking. It was a painful endeavor, and I wondered when the pain would end, when I'd find myself on that tranquil shore. Or if because I had begged to stay with Marcas, I would end up burning forever more in the eternal lake of fire.
"It hurts much less if you don't talk," a voice whispered beside me, and my eyes popped open.
"Marcas!"
It was too much. I only caught a glimpse of his pallid face before my eyes were closed again. The pain was ridiculous.
"It seems we survived the first trial," Marcas said slowly.
I grunted and then regretted it.
"Are you sure?" I asked.
The way I hurt now, it didn't seem possible we had survived anything. But pain, in the long run, was good. It meant we were alive. It also meant we were no longer in that hot, burning world that Lucifer had placed us in. There was cool air against my stomach, and I tensed. Not only was I alive and in pain, I was half naked. Wonderful.
"He's healed us some, but he won't risk healing us enough to be as strong as we'd like to be. I'm sorry."
This time I managed to open my eyes and keep them open. We were in a beautiful place, a field at twilight. The colors were too vivid to be normal, the pinks too pink and the purples too purple. Marcas was beside me, his hand on my hip. If I was hurting, I knew he was in utter pain. Lucifer had been kinder to me. The places on my stomach and side not protected by my bra were covered in abrasions and scratches that were partly healed. Some of the skin on my arms was blistered.
Marcas, on the other hand, had protected me from the sun, from the heat, and Lucifer had not been kind enough to heal much of the damage. It was obvious his skin was blistered and sensitive. His face was slightly pink but had received the least amount of damage. There were abrasions on his hands where he had pulled me from the sand. Some of them still bled. There were rips in his black tee, and beyond them were more abrasions, but these looked to be in much better condition. His eyes were closed, and I hoped the next trial would not finish him.
"I'm okay," Marcas said softly.
I rolled my eyes. "I didn't ask."
Marcas smiled, his eyes finally opening.
"You were thinking it."
"Oh," I said haughtily, lifting a brow as I tried to ignore the pain I saw in his gaze. "So you read minds now, Craig?"
He chuckled, and then winced.
"An open book, Blainey."
Any other time, I would have berated him with lighthearted sarcasm, but now . . . now, seeing him in so much pain, I simply reached over and placed a hand against his cheek.
He brought one of his hands up and held my palm in place as if he were afraid I'd let go. For now, Marcas was human. For now, whatever it was that made him a Demon had been stripped away, and he deserved the same type of comfort the rest of us did. This Marcas, this human Marcas, was the man I loved. Most people couldn't see past the beast within.
"Be still," I whispered. "I'm here."
He closed his eyes again, his brow furrowed.
"Are they worth it?" I asked gently. "Are they worth this much pain?"
Marcas sighed, his hand still holding my palm against his face.
"They are my brothers and sisters, not only by blood, but by circumstance. Demon and human born. We don't choose our parents, but we should be allowed to choose our destiny."
I watched his face, watched the lines at the corners of his full lips, lines formed from gritting his teeth against the pain.
"You're worth it. You and Luther are worth it," I said confidently.
Why I thought he needed to hear this, I have no idea, but in that moment, it felt right.
Marcas smiled against my palm. It was such an electric feeling being close to him, touc
hing him. It made me feel different. Whole maybe. Or just simply more.
"I wouldn't let Luther hear you say that. He thrives off his bad boy image."
I laughed.
"And you don't?"
Marcas opened his eyes, his gaze finding mine, and the glint I saw in his gaze was enough. Marcas was stronger than anyone I had ever met. If Lucifer thought pain would defeat him, he was dead wrong. He would persevere even when the rest of us gave up. Maria's words from the Abbey came back to haunt me. "When you feel like you are falling, Naphil, and you think you can't hold on any longer, remember something. Don't let go. Let him pull you free."
Marcas' eyes rolled up, his gaze moving to the landscape beyond my shoulder, and he froze.
"Dayton," he said softly.
"Yeah?"
"Don't move."
Chapter 19
The human heart is a strange thing. Loved, it expands. Broken, it endures. Tested, it perseveres.
~Bezaliel~
"Don't Move."
In the middle of a Demonic trial, those words are enough to scare a snake out of its skin. I froze.
"Marcas?" I whispered.
His eyes found mine and there was a desperation I had never seen in them before, a fear I'd never be able to define. He reached out, his hand gripping my chin firmly.
"Dayton, listen to me. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear or feel, don't move. Do not look behind you. Do you understand?"
I started to nod but paused when I heard rustling in the meadow beyond. The colors here were still vivid, bright and cheerful. There was nothing foreboding about the moment, nothing dangerous, nothing until . . . .
"Dayton?"
The female voice was soft, and I jerked. Marcas' hand still gripped my chin, and he forced me to look into his eyes. They were blue. I kept expecting them to turn red, but they didn't. For now, he was human.
"Dayton?"
The voice again. It was so real, and I heard myself sob. Marcas shook his head.
