Hellfire Saga

by Third Cousins

  “You sacrificed yourself for me?” A warm feeling spread across my chest.

  “I did it so that you and Daniel would stand a chance, yes,” he said with a small shrug, as though his sacrifice was nothing. “Gabriel took the bait and he tortured me. That’s all I can remember. I don’t remember running into the forest and I don’t remember passing out.” His face became thoughtful. He didn't like not remembering things; well, I sure understood that.

  “Daniel thinks that more happened than that,” I said quietly.

  “Perhaps more did happen. I honestly cannot remember,”

  “Caleb, I’m glad that I could help you, I really am, but I don’t feel like you’re safe here. Daniel doesn’t trust you and he’s getting ready for war with Gabriel. I think perhaps you should leave until it’s all over,” I said. I truly believed that I could trust Caleb, but I knew that Daniel didn’t. I knew what Daniel could be like around those he didn’t trust too and I didn’t want Caleb to get hurt because of it.

  “You know,” he said after a minute, “I’m willing to fight on your side.”

  “Perhaps Daniel will call upon you for that,” I said with a small nod. “But for now I think it’s best that you leave if you’re feeling well enough to.”

  He nodded. “I think I’m well enough to leave,” He stood up and flexed his knees as if testing that his legs could hold him up. Seeming satisfied, he said, “Can I ask one more favor from you before I go?”

  “Sure.”

  “I want to help my brother get justice. I want to help Daniel get home. If you could share with me his plan, then I will be prepared to help when the time comes,” he said to me with desperate eyes.

  “I’m not sure that I know his entire plan,” I admitted.

  “You will know more than you think,” Caleb said in a reassuring way. “Let me step into your thoughts and I’ll be able to see everything you’ve seen.” He took a step toward me.

  “You are doing this to help Daniel?” An uneasy feeling started to spread across my body.

  “You said you trusted me,” Caleb said. “Well, you can trust me.”

  When I didn't protest further he reached out his hand and touched my forehead.

  I felt the energy pass from him to me as his skin touched mine. A huge flash of white light spread across my eyes. My brain went blank and pain filled my body. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t. I tried to push back at the force that was sweeping through my memories, but I wasn’t strong enough. The light started to fade.

  I waited for the room to come back into focus, but it didn’t. Instead, blackness replaced the light, endless and complete blackness.

  CHAPTER 6

  Daniel

  I walked back towards the motel room slowly. I knew I’d done the right thing. I knew that something wasn’t right with Caleb and I was glad that I’d put Johnathan on the job.

  The roads were starting to fill with traffic, as everybody was busy making their morning commutes to work. They had no idea about what was about to go on around them. They had no idea that their lives hung the balance as my brothers and I prepared for war that might sweep over not just us, but all humanity as well.

  I got back to the motel room, and I could tell that something was wrong. before I’d even opened the door. There was a weird kind of energy surrounding the room that felt stiller than it should have done. I pushed the door open not knowing what to expect. I scanned the room and my heart started to hammer against my chest when I realized that Lucy wasn’t there and neither was Caleb.

  I could tell from the way the room felt wrong that something bad had happened. Guilt washed over me as I thought about Lucy and might have happened to her. And what might be happening to her right now. I’d known that I shouldn’t trust Caleb, but I’d still left her with him. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have let her get taken from me again. It was no wonder that she had always been so reluctant to love me, when all I ever did was prove that I cared about myself.

  I went out into the parking lot, as I tried to sense where Caleb might be heading. I called out to him in the open and empty space, but he did not reply. I pushed my mind as hard as I could to make a connection with him, but I couldn’t. I sighed in frustration. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t at least make a mental link with him.

  Then I realized what the reason was. It dawned on me like the light that strikes against the night sky. He’d had his soul taken from him. That’s why I couldn’t make contact and that’s why he’d taken Lucy. He wasn’t under his own control: he was under Gabriel’s.

  It was a problem I had considered when Gabriel had taken Lucy. I’d wondered whether he’d be able to take control of her by cutting out her soul, but I’d realized when he’d started to torture it instead that he hadn’t been able to. The soul had been created from another. It wasn’t whole and therefore it couldn’t control either person that it was attached to.

  Caleb wasn’t so lucky. His soul was all his own, and if I was right about my theory then Gabriel had control over it.

  I headed to line of trees that led into the forest. I knew that Caleb had a head start on me and I needed to make sure that I caught up with him before he made it back to Gabriel. If Gabriel got his hands on Lucy again, he was sure to kill her. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  I ran through the woods, jumping over tree roots and fallen branches that got in my way as I headed deeper toward where Lucy might be. Where she must be. I wasn’t sure about what path Caleb would have chosen, but I knew that they all led out to ultimately the same part of the woods, the part nearest to Gabriel's house.

  I tore my way through the woods. I scanned everything that I could, as the scenery blurred around me. I noticed a shred of cloth hanging from a tree branch. I slowed, so that I could take a better look at it and saw that it had come from Lucy’s shirt.

  I looked for any signs of footprints in the damp earth, but there were none. I pushed myself forward. I could feel a sick sense of desperation spreading throughout my body as I tried to stay convinced that I would find her. The sound of branches breaking under foot forced me to stop.

  I listened to the sound. I tried to place it as it got steadily closer to me. The leaves of a bush started to rustle and I could feel my heart hammering against my ribcage. “Daniel?” Lucy’s weak voice called out, as she squinted over at me. “Is that you?” She asked, before she fell to the ground.

  I rushed over to her. Her breathing sounded ragged against her chest. She looked pale, paler than I’d ever seen her. Dark circles had formed under her eyes. She looked as though she’d been drained of all her energy. She looked as though she’d had her brain rewired from the inside.

  I picked her up quickly and headed back for the motel. It didn’t matter that Caleb knew where it was. It didn’t matter that he would tell Gabriel, because I was ready. I was ready to fight the war that had been long overdue.

  When we got back to the motel I put Lucy down on the sagging mattress. She had started to mutter lightly in her sleep and I knew that she was slowly coming around. I went into the small bathroom and poured cold water over a washcloth, so that I could put it to her forehead. I knew from experience that being touched by Caleb's power left you with an awful headache and I didn’t want her to suffer any more than she had to.

  I put the cold compress to her head and her eyes started to open. I could see the dazed way that she was pushing back the overwhelming need to sleep. It took her a minute or two to be properly conscious and I waited quietly.

  CHAPTER 7

  Lucy

  My head hurt. My head hurt like I’d spent the week partying hard and it was finally time to start sobering up. I could feel something cold and wet pressed against my head and I lifted my hand up so that I could figure out what it was.

  “I thought it might help,” Daniel said.

  I jumped. I hadn’t realized that he was there. The last thing I could remember was Caleb forcing his hand onto my forehead, and then a blindi
ng white light. “What happened?” I asked. I was surprised to hear how croaky my voice sounded.

  “What do you remember?” he asked gently.

  I thought back to the moments before Caleb touched me. “I was talking to Caleb. He’d woken up and we were talking about what had happened to him. He told me he wanted to fight by our sides. He told me that he wanted you to have a chance at happiness.” I stopped so I could think about what had happened next. My brain felt slow and bruised and it was hard to organized thoughts. I could feel myself growing frustrated.

  “Don’t rush yourself,” Daniel said in a comforting way, as though he could see my inner frustration.

  “I told him that you didn’t trust him,” I admitted. “He didn’t seem too surprised by it, to be honest. I told him that he should probably leave until after the war, but he said that he wanted to help. He said that he would leave until you needed him, but he needed to know what you were planning, so that he’d be prepared.”

  Now that I was listening to myself say it, it sounded dumb. It sounded like a total excuse to get information, but at the time I hadn’t seen it. At the time all I could see was Caleb, the one person who had tried to help me, the one person who hadn’t lied to me.

  “So you gave him permission to enter your mind?”

  I nodded. “Well, I didn't say no. He didn’t tell me what it would do, though. He didn’t tell me anything. He just reached out and touched my forehead and I was suddenly in so much pain.”

  “I want you to know, it isn’t Caleb’s fault,” Daniel said.

  I looked at him in surprise. He had been the one who had said we couldn’t trust him. He was the one who had been cautious about helping him. I was the one who had been so blind to what was going on, so why had Daniel suddenly changed his mind? Wasn’t it obvious that Caleb had betrayed us? “What makes you say that?”

  “I believe that Gabriel has taken his soul. I believe that Caleb isn’t controlling his own actions at the moment.”

  “How did Gabriel do that?” I asked. “How come he didn’t do that to me?”

  “I think he probably tried to do it with you,” Daniel said with a thoughtful look on his face. “Your soul couldn’t be controlled, though, because it wasn’t a whole soul. When he tortured it, we both felt the pain, but I think that’s as much as he was able to do with it. When I tore my soul in two, so that I could you half of it, I fundamentally broke it.” He shrugged. “I am not exactly an expert. I've only done it once.”

  “So you think that Gabriel is controlling Caleb?”

  “I think so. The problem is that Caleb has looked inside your mind now. He knows things that even you don’t. He’s been able to shift through the tiny details of your memories to pull out the information he needs. He knows everything.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked with wide eyes.

  “It means that Gabriel will know everything. It means that Gabriel will know that I’m waiting for him to make the first strike. It will mean that Gabriel knows about my army. It means that anything that might have been a surprise to him won’t be.”

  Dread turned my stomach sour. “I’m so sorry Daniel. I never meant for this to happen. I thought that Caleb was a friend.”

  “Underneath it all, I think he is.” Daniel paced the room, thinking. “You couldn't have known about any of this. You were only doing what you thought was right.” He turned to me. “In any case, we must prepare for what will happen because of it.”

  “Do you think you still have a chance at getting home?”

  “I’m not sure. Gabriel is going to use my army against me in front of my brothers. That’s something I know for sure. He’s going to try and twist it to make it look as though I was going to attack them all. I think the only choice we have is to strike first and prove him wrong. I mean, if we only attack Gabriel and we end him quickly, then I might be able to prove to my brothers that I mean no harm to them,” Daniel said quickly, almost as if he were arguing with himself.

  I shook my head. “But wait. That's not the way. If you truly want to prove to your brothers that you mean them no harm, then maybe you should try speaking to them before you doing any attacking at all.”

  “Gabriel has poisoned their minds,” Daniel said.

  “Maybe not. They're his brothers and your brothers, not his children. Isn't every one of them strong in his own way? Aren't all of you strong?”

  “Well, yes.” he said after a second's thought.

  “Caleb said to me that many of your brothers disagreed with Gabriel’s choice to expel you. Perhaps if you talk to them, if you make your case, some of them at least will support you. Then maybe no one has to be harmed at all,” I suggested.

  Daniel looked at me in surprise. “Do you think that would work?” he asked.

  “I think that it’s probably worth trying before any blood gets spilt,” I said with a shrug.

  CHAPTER 8

  Daniel

  Lucy was right. If I could talk my brothers into seeing my side of things, then perhaps I could avoid the war altogether. It was, after all, Gabriel who was pushing for it and not me, although my having built an army did not exactly make me look blameless.

  What should I say to my brothers? I hadn’t spoken to many of them since I’d been expelled. It was against the law for them to see me. I thought about what I wanted from the meeting. I thought about what I wanted when everything eventually came to an end. If I survived.

  I’d spent so long trying to get home that I’d lost focus on the things that really mattered. I had Lucy now. She was slowly starting to trust me. She was slowly starting to look at me with love in her eyes, and I wasn’t willing to let that go easily. I knew what I had to do. I knew the bargain that I would need to strike with my brothers in order for me to be happy.

  I walked away from the motel and a little down the road. Across from the line of trees there was a meadow that had slightly brown grass covering it. I walked through the meadow until I was sure that I was only a speck to those who were driving past. I closed my eyes and tried to focus my mind. I could feel the places of my mind that I hadn’t been into in a long time starting to open, as though light was starting to revive them.

  After a taking a few deep breaths to steady myself, I said, “Everybody, this is Lucifer. I’ve been walking topside now for a few years under the name of Daniel. I know that it is against the law for you to speak with me, but I fear that war is close and those laws don’t matter any more. I need to talk with you. I need to talk to my brothers, before it’s too late and Gabriel has forced me into this fight. Please, if you’re listening, come.” I couldn't think of anything else to say, so I just stopped. And waited.

  Nothing happened at first. The meadow seemed unchanged in any way. I realized, though, when the distant sound of bells started ringing over the air that they were coming. I couldn’t be sure how many were on their way, but I knew from the sound that it would be more than a few, and maybe enough. I stood still.

  I watched in the direction the sound of the bells seemed to come from. I saw a flicker of movement that was too quick for my eyes to comprehend and then they were standing in front of me.

  I recognized each and every one of them. I smiled as I realized that at least thirty of my brothers had come to listen to me. “My brothers,” I said to them all. I hadn’t realized until they were standing in front of me just how much I’d missed them. I hadn’t realized until they were all there how lonely I’d been feeling without them by my side.

  “Lucifer,” Samul spoke out from the crowd. I glanced over at him. He looked unchanged from the last time I’d seen him. His hair was still the color of golden sunshine. His skin was still as pale as snow. He was the most beautiful out of us all and probably the most outspoken. “What is the meaning for you calling us? Do you not know what Gabriel will do if he finds out that we’re speaking to you?”

  “That is what I’ve called you to talk about,” I said quickly. “I do not want war. I wanted war once, I’ll a
dmit that, but it isn’t something I wish to see through. I have found the very thing that I was expelled from home for wanting. I’ve found love. I know that you will have all heard about her. I know that some of you might think that she’s an abomination, but let me assure you that it was her idea for me to speak to you all. It was her idea for me to try and prevent this war before it has begun.”

  “What do you want of us?” Samul asked sternly.

  “I want you to refuse to fight. I want you say no to Gabriel. I want you to stand up for yourselves. I have done no wrong. I do not seek to return home. All I want is to be left alone with Lucy. I do not want war, brothers, but I will not go down without a fight if war is brought to me,” I said, as I let my eyes meet with each person that I glanced at.

  “So, you expect us to go against our leader?” Samul said with a look of disbelief on his face.

  “Your leader is our father. Gabriel took an authority that was not his to take. You all have a choice. You all have the right to decide what’s right,” I tried desperately to explain.

  “Gabriel would kill us if he thought we had betrayed him,” Samul said. “I’m sorry, Lucifer, but I cannot do as you are asking. You are not that different from Gabriel. He may have taken the authority from our father, but you took his skills of creation. You have chosen to create something which simply should not exist. We cannot allow you to simply walk off into the sunset with her. Gabriel is right. If you are unwilling to hand her over, then you are going to have to face the war that is coming to take her away.”

  “I’m sorry that you feel that way brother,” I said sadly. “I did not want to see any harm fall upon any of you.”

  “It will not be us who comes to harm, Lucifer. Gabriel knows what he is doing. You should hand her over while you still have a chance to live,” he warned me, before he turned and started to walk away.