Waltzing into Damnation

by Rita Stradling

  Sudden relief washes over me, but then Andras tips off Fenrisúlfur, dragging me with him, and I fall on top of him before rolling off onto sand.

  Well, I think it’s sand at first, but the powdery material fills the air, tasting of ashes. A soft blue glow illuminates a plain of gray ash around us. Andras lies, arms out and eyes closed. A bullet hole pumps blood from his shoulder, and crimson webs across his already shredded chest, filling his navel.

  “Wake up!” I yell at him, but he doesn’t. Andras looks like an angel more than ever, lying with arms open, coated in a thin layer of ash. Stripping off the plain T-shirt Leijonskjöld gave me hours ago, I lift up Andras’ shoulder and tie it around the wound.

  Immediately, bright red blood soaks through the cloth.

  I search around, desperately seeking something . . . but as far as my eyes can see, there are only rolling hills of ash. Spinning, I look to the source of the glowing blue light. Six giant circles line up, tall as skyscrapers and just as wide. They float over the fields of ash but cast no shadows. Just like in my vision, little bits of blue light float off them and into the air. At the end of the line, about a football field length away, a seventh circle hovers, dormant. I can only see the outline in the glow of the circle beside it.

  Leaning over Andras, I lick my fingers and hold them over his mouth and feel the faintest trace of breath.

  “Wake up, Andras.” I shake his uninjured shoulder. “Come on.” When shaking him doesn’t work, I fall back on the ash, sending a cloud in all directions.

  Andras goes in and out in my vision, a blurry mess of ash and blood. I blink and startle awake. When’s the last time I slept? I can’t come up with the answer.

  “Get up, Raven,” I growl at myself as I smack my own face, hard.

  Shoving my hands under Andras’ armpits, I get the best hold I can on him, stand, and drag him across the field of ash.

  The ground sinks under my every step, just like trudging through thick snow. Each step is harder than the last as I struggle to pull Andras’ weight. His body curves a path in the powdery whiteness with blood streaking one side in his wake.

  Every part of me aches, and I bite my lip until it numbs.

  With each step closer, the monolith of stone seems to grow. If there’s an opening somewhere, I don’t see it.

  Leaving Andras about twenty feet away, I approach the circle slowly. I know there’s no time and Andras is literally bleeding out behind me, but I can’t make my legs trudge any faster. The ash drifts deepen near the stone, coming up to just above my knee with every step.

  The stone’s surface stretches out perfectly smooth, like a mirror that reflects nothing.

  “Please, God, let Barbas have been right,” I whisper as I lay my hands on the stone.

  Under my fingers, the surface feels as even and glass-like as it looks.

  “Here goes,” I mutter as I dive inward into the deep abyss. “Open,” I tell it.

  It does.

  The abyss spreads out within me, vast as the universe. It rises to the surface, growing with my every breath. It encompasses the giant stone, floating central in the darkness, inert. The stone is a circle of deeper darkness in the dim. Looking skyward, I fly up its length, trailing my fingers over the mirror.

  Halfway up its length, I push my hands into the warm, hard surface.

  “Come on. Work,” I tell it.

  Nothing.

  No sigils light up or float around me like in my vision. Nothing changes.

  I feel the angels come before I see them. They rise in the abyss like giant glowing sea creatures from the depths, thousands of them.

  “Wait!” I beg as I press my hands harder into the glass, but they don’t wait. Surfacing from the darkness, they surround me, huge and glowing. They pack so tightly together, it’s as if I’m trapped in a tunnel of luminescent rainbows.

  “Just let me try to close it!” I call over my shoulder.

  Father Dixon’s wings flap, trailing light as he breaks formation and flies up beside me. His soft, glowing hands cover mine. His fingers feel cool and soothing, like an ice pack on a bruise—but a bruise of the soul, deep within.

  “You can let go of the kleis tou thanatou kai tou adou now,” he says, smiling.

  Hot tears trickle down my face, and my voice breaks as I say, “I don’t want everyone to die.”

  He nods slowly, as if he understands completely. “You need to trust in love, Raven. Love is never wrong. Give me the key out of love for your people, so that Satan’s apathy and antipathy will never consume their existence. Gaderel trusted the kleis tou thanatou kai tou adou to you because she saw your ability to love even in the darkest times.”

  “Andras’ mother?” I ask.

  “Yes, she’s here . . . and so very proud of both of you.” He nods. “The fight is over. It’s time to let go.”

  Fighting is exactly what I want to do. But what can I do? I opened the abyss at the seal, and it did nothing. This is the end of a very long road, and Father Dixon’s right. All I have left here is the love I hold in me.

  Closing my eyes, my sister’s face surfaces in my mind. She mock-glares, pushing her brown hair behind her ears. Pointing in my face, she says, “Don’t be a dork—I love you to the stars and back, Birdie.”

  Cassidy steps out of the shadows to go sling an arm around my sister. “Maybe it wasn’t about winning. Maybe it was just about giving a shit.”

  More people step out of the shadows to go stand with the others, Nicholas, Richard, my father, Albert, baby Albert and Hayvee, all of them smiling and nodding. Pom and his boyfriend Daw walk out, full-faced and vibrant with life, and they give me a thumbs up. Hundreds more walk out, friends from school, family friends, people I haven’t seen in years. Madeline and her baby step out, looking very strange with her vine hair and demonic features, but she whispers, “Thank you.”

  Stephen walks out next, a crooked smile on his handsome face. “I’ve always believed you can handle this.”

  “I know you have,” I whisper back.

  Last, Andras walks out. He doesn’t say anything at all, just looks on, intent.

  It can’t be real—I know that. But it feels so incredibly true that it gives me the courage to open my eyes and look up into Father Dixon’s patient expression. “Okay,” I say once, then I push everything I am away from me and into Father Dixon’s hands. “Take it.”

  Energy explodes out from my every pore. I am nothing. I am matter blasting out in all directions. Light ignites around me as if every air molecule is its own little sun.

  And then, with the same sudden ignition, the energy implodes. My body solidifies as a cold metallic key and chain forms under my fingers. Father Dixon still holds his hands over mine, but he doesn’t reach for the key.

  The world forms around me, the ash I’m standing in, the cloudy gray sky, the seals lining up, floating just above the ashes. Thousands of angels still hover all around. A glowing red skeleton key sticks out from either side of my palm. From its tip, luminescent blue sigils spread. They diffuse across the surface, like ink in water.

  Thousands of screams shriek into the night, and out of the areas still unlit, creatures boil out. Bug-like, the sigils gleam off their chitin exteriors.

  The angels fall upon them like exterminators on a mission. Flaming swords slash out, and demonic bug-parts rain down to sizzle on the ash fields.

  Sigils tingle across my skin as the light spreads to the furthest reaches of the seal.

  When it’s complete, Father Dixon lifts his hands away. “Thank you, Raven and Elena, for keeping it safe for so many centuries.”

  Slowly, I pull the key from the seal and hold it out to him. All around us, angels depart, flapping their great wings and ascending into the clouds.

  Father Dixon touches my forearm, pulling my attention from the glowing beings. “May I?”

  “Yeah, it’s yours.”

  “Thank you.” Gently, he plucks the key from my hand. One minute it rests on his palm, the
next his hands hold only air.

  Glancing between his empty hand and smile, I ask, “Does that mean . . . is it the end of days still, Father Dixon?”

  “Call me Gabriel,” he says with a smile. “I think we can wait a little longer for the second coming and the end of days.”

  “Father Dixon— Gabriel, one more thing . . .” I look over to Andras, lying, half-buried in ash. Powder slides off him as his chest moves up and down with breath, but otherwise he shows no sign of life. “Can you save him, please? I know he’s done—he was a demon for a very long time. But he wanted to learn how to love, even though I told him it would kill him and meant it. He set about changing, and yeah, he did terrible things along the way--”

  “You forgive the demon who hurt you so many times?” Father Dixon tilts his head, considering me.

  Biting my lip, I shake my head. “But I think the man deserves a chance to be the better person he wants to be.”

  Gabriel nods, but I’m not sure if it’s agreement or just him nodding sagely.

  “Everything will be okay,” he says, then the world vanishes into darkness.

  I wake in someone’s arms. This, unfortunately, is becoming something of a habit of mine. The difference today, though, is this time the person carrying me glows like a thousand colorful fireflies.

  At first I’m a little relieved, thinking Gabriel is carrying me, but then I look up into the archangel Michael’s stoic roman facial features.

  Michael carries me down a very familiar wall along a stained and scarred road. The first light of day breaks over the scorched land and into the horizon, but most of the illumination exudes from my holy companion. Sentries peek over the wall, guns pointing down before they duck away.

  “You’re taking me to Leijonskjöld Slott? Nope . . . bad idea. They just tried to kill me.”

  “I’ll ensure that doesn’t happen again,” he says in a voice so beautiful, it brings tears to my eyes.

  Jeez. I seriously need to get ahold of this crying thing. I’d once theorized that if I gained my ability to cry, I’d literally cry my eyes out— twenty-four hours in, and I’m well on my way.

  “I—uh, I can walk,” I say up to the giant glowing guy holding me.

  He glances down. “I’m not sure if that’s true. You passed out standing up earlier, and carrying you is more efficient.”

  And . . . decidedly less dignified, but when the gate to Leijonskjöld Slott slides open, I know it’s too late to argue.

  Soldiers rush out, immediately falling to their knees. Citizens crowd in behind them, seemingly torn between gawking and falling into prostration.

  All four Tapper brothers shimmy and push their way through the silent, gaping crowd before it’s too thick to traverse. Eyes wide, all but Stephen fall to their knees.

  Stephen doesn’t hesitate. He rushes to me, his gaze darting over me, searching for injury probably . . . as if the giant archangel might as well be furniture. “Are you okay? Do you need help walking?”

  “Maybe,” I say mostly because I don’t want to biff it in front of a thousand people.

  “Thank you,” Stephen says with a glance up to the archangel. “We’ve got this.”

  When Stephen reaches out, the archangel helps me down.

  I swing an arm over Stephen’s shoulders as he braces me at my waist. As Michael—somewhat—predicted, my legs have loosened to the consistency of gelatin, and I lean onto Stephen way more than I’d ever want to admit.

  Stephen drapes his jacket over me, and I realize—yep, I’m only wearing a sports bra. We start our slow hobble away but don’t get ten feet when Michael breaks the hushed silence.

  “Listen to my words, human survivors of the war of rebel angels. Raven Smith, with the assistance of Archangel Gabriel, has closed the last seal of Solomon. Gabriel lived among humans for many centuries, and he has deemed that the last judgment can be postponed.”

  Whispers and sobs roll through the crowd as people clutch their family, lift their heads up to the sky and whisper prayers.

  Michael lifts his hand, and a hush falls over the crowd. “This is only a postponement, but for a few centuries we believe hell will be cut off from Earth.”

  Tentatively, Tobias raises his hand like he’s in a high school class rather than standing before an archangel.

  “Yes?” Michael asks, aiming a glower at Tobias.

  “The demon Andras . . .” Tobias clears his throat. “Does that mean he’s dead? He was the leader of the demons.”

  “The demons on Earth will remain. As for the demon Andras . . .” Michael pauses to purse his lips. “The demon Andras is no more.”

  As the massive archangel turns away—just for a fraction of a second—I swear he winks at me.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Day Twenty-seven

  I stand over Hampus, a knife to his throat. With his every breath, his blond whiskers scratch against the blade and blood wells on the gleaming surface of my dagger. My fingers dig into his hair as I pull his neck back. Bloodshot blue eyes stare into mine as a smile crosses his face. “Kill me,” he whispers through his grin. He’s on his knees after taking me to the ground. “Do it. I want you to.”

  I stand slowly, keeping the knife on his throat. I hiss in a breath at a surge of pain, finding that my right leg won’t hold my weight. Hampus crawls forward, but I keep my blade against his throat, and a shallow streak of red blossoms at his neck.

  “Elena,” the harsh word rips through the hall, and I look back to see Andras, standing framed in the thin stone corridor. Torchlight flickers over his tousled blond hair. His tunic is on backwards and pants untied at the belt. My heart swells in my chest and tears prick my eyes as he crosses the space in long strides, green eyes glowing in the dark corridor.

  “Ah, the lover. The man you have betrayed my father for, you devil’s whore, you,” Hampus says, grabbing my attention back. “What a pathetic display, Andras. Will you betray your lord and master again?”

  “You should have never interfered here,” Andras says as he steps beside me. His hand wraps around mine, gently taking the dagger from my grasp.

  My breath hitches as pain shoots through my side, and I turn into Andras’ shirt. If he’s going to kill Hampus, I don’t want to see it. My hand feels the ghost sensation of holding a knife against flesh, and I dig my fingers into Andras’ tunic and press my face into his neck, gasping in his familiar scent.

  Hampus laughs behind me, and it echoes around the corridor. “I was hoping that she would commit murder . . . but I see the secret now, her feelings developing for you. Perhaps this will be enough to send her to hell for eternity when she is beheaded for being a witch—”

  There’s a loud thump, and I push further into Andras. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” he says as his arms wrap around my back. “I will though, if you want me to. It will take a full beheading.”

  Bile rises in my throat, and acid stings my nose. Questions flood my mind, but a lethargic muddled state battles it for dominance. “I don’t want to live here anymore. I don’t want to be me.”

  Andras’s hands brush over the back of my head. “What about your husband?”

  Pulling back, I look into Andras’ glowing green eyes and speak what I know in my heart. “I can’t face him—not after this, not after what I almost did to his son. I never wanted to marry him, and I don’t want to see my husband’s face again. I find that in these last days, I hate him. I hate him for never seeing the truth. He didn’t want to see, and that’s why he’s always gone . . . He will return when I am dead to clean up the mess only.”

  Andras’ hands cup my face as his rough thumbs brush away my tears. “I want you for myself, Elena, you already know this. If you say the words, I will take you away from this life forever. I will hide you in a place where your husband and his sons will never find you. I could take you to another country—I would marry you myself. We can live a life, and no one--” a growl entered his voice, “No one will threaten you again, or
they will die.”

  My lips tremble as I pull his face closer to mine. My breath hitches. “Take me away from here, Andras. Marry me. Help me forget that I was ever this woman.”

  “I will not do this last one,” he says as he brushes my tears away. A small, tentative smile crosses his lips as he looks at me. “I see you, Elena.”

  Slowly, my eyes open to a bright room, and a web of tubes. Through blurred vision, I see a machine blinking lights at me. It’s beeping rhythmically in time with my heart.

  Flowers decorate a table beside me, and as my vision clears, I see that they’re wildflowers, hundreds of bouquets. Little pieces of paper scatter across the desk, and an elderly woman sits in a chair at the very end of the table. Her eyes are closed, but her hands grip a cane before her, so she has to be awake. It takes me a few moments for my muggy brain to retrieve the information on who she is, and when I do, it takes me another minute to call up enough energy to speak. “Ms. Trandle?”

  Slowly, the elderly woman’s eyes open and she looks out at me. For just a second, just a blink, I swear colors ripple across her eyes. Then the moment is gone, and she settles into her seat, her pupils a matte gray color. “Your family will be very happy,” she mumbles. “You’ve been asleep for three weeks—I don’t think a human is supposed to do what you have done and live. I’m here so your sister can eat and father sleep. I’ll go call them . . .”

  When she looks to be getting up, I manage to croak out, “Don’t. It’s fine. They’ll come eventually. Go back to sleep . . . I’m awake now.”

  My elderly protector immediately obliges, her eyelids closing and folding into her wrinkled skin.

  Movements sluggish, I pull the tubes out of my arm. When I stand, a cool breeze immediately informs me that the hospital gown I’m wearing is backless and my ass is bare to the otherwise unoccupied room. It takes me a minute to limp over to a dresser by the side wall—and it’s only in that moment, looking at the carved wood piece, that I realize that I’m in the room I stayed in a few summers ago in Leijonskjöld Slott’s guest house. Pulling on some gray sweatpants and a t-shirt, I turn to the door just in time to see my sister walking through with a tray of food.