Blackwell threw up his hands in defeat. He wanted to tell her, tell her everything. But he couldn’t. If she knew what he was, what he did, what he was destined to do; she would feel differently. She would hate him. Still, she would discover what he was soon enough. But not today he decided. “Yes, I wish things were different.”
An uncomfortable silence followed, and Mea looked like she was about to leave. But she didn’t, and Blackwell painfully waited for whatever came next.
Eventually, a few painful moments later, he decided to tried to break up the awkward silence. “Since the gods are coming and it’s… I should tell you what Azazel said.”
That name again, Azazel. Mea snapped to attention and snapped her head towards him. “Yeah? So what’d he say?”
“The Wolf is waking, from beneath the full moon—“
From some hidden memory, Mea finished the ancient verse then kept going. “—from a land frozen and forgotten. The Wolf rises as seven, and seven will join as one. With hungry teeth, it will gnash upon the sick, softness, and fake civility of man. For they are the devourer of the unnatural and untrue. For those that think themselves above divine judgement and above their brethren, let them be warned. Their time will come and the fear that fills their flesh will only be surpassed from the pain of gnashing teeth ripping into their twisted and warped souls.” While they were her words, they felt strange on her tongue and sounded foreign to her ears. She gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth.
Blackwell smirked. “So you do remember.”
“I don’t know if remember is the right word for what just happened. How did I know that?”
“Reincarnation is not an exact science. Some memories return, some will not. Still, you are both the same person you were before and also a different one—for mortals at least. I would assume that the same goes for us.”
“Am I the first, the first god to take a mortal form.”
Blackwell tried to avoid answering. The question was a loose thread—best not to pull on it. But after Mea shrugged at him, gesturing for, and demanding, an answer, he couldn’t resist accommodating her. He never could. “No, you are not the first. Azazel… embellished some.”
“You mean he lied?”
“Not exactly.” Blackwell thought about the stone tower. Once gods, now monsters. “Lesser gods have walked in the flesh. But… it does not turn out well.” Now, for some reason, he thought of Jack the Ripper, though he couldn’t tell you why. “Sometimes… things happen, and people change. With time, there are… things that can happen to fundamentally change... Never mind.”
He sounded like he was diagnosing her with cancer, and anxiety began simmering inside Mea. “Wait, no never mind. What changes? What do you mean: it doesn’t end well?”
“Emotions can be difficult to understand. Difficult to manage. As such, the lesser gods did not manage them very well or understand them. So, somewhere between life and death, they lost their compassion… And then they lost their humanity. Their emotions consumed them and now…” Blackwell took a deep breath. “Now they are something else.”
A memory pushed forward inside Blackwell’s head, a memory of 19th century London, the turn of the century, and Jack the Ripper. Jack killed eleven women, five for certain. But there were many more. Jack was blamed for the first one, Emma Smith, but it wasn’t him. Three depraved youths, they were the guilty ones. Jack would kill the women then cut them open—But he only left out the special ones, left them out to be found, that’s what he told me. The From Hell letter, that was a real letter from the real Jack, but the other two… Copycats, letters written by liars. Imposters! But I took care of them, the copycats. Didn’t I? I think I did. As for Jack… What happened to Jack? Somehow, he remembered so many of the details from that time period, but he was certain that he was missing some of them, some of the more important ones. But for the life of him, he just could remember why? What happened to Jack? Before he was Jack, he was his old friend… And now, Jack was gone.
He chuckled nervously and shook him head, trying to shake off the odd stream of consciousness. He turned to Mea and said, “My apologies. I do believe that I zoned out for a moment.”
“They just… change. Like all things, time changes us all, one way or another.”
Corrupted human souls rotted away until they became demons, but when the gods mixed with mortals, they became something else—something worse. All of them. The stone tower. Momentarily pausing, Blackwell thought: Right now, this is all too much, too heavy. Save it for later. So, he tried to change the subject. “It doesn’t matter. They were weak. You aren’t. Their fate was… Yours will not be the same as theirs.”
“Yeah.” Mea forced a smile, but all the while, she figured that Blackwell was just sweet-talking her. Still, she knew what he was talking about. Once a mortal’s soul became corrupted, too soiled to be redeemed, it rotted away like spoiled fruit. Eventually the person they were would rot away before disappearing completely. And then they became demons, more savage—yet no better—than a feral beast. And now, the seed of fear was planted and growing inside her. That could be me; that could very well become her fate, to become a monster. She whispered under her breath, “The gods are cruel and vengeful.”
“They can be.” But not you, he thought. You could never be vengeful or cruel—not in my eyes, never. “But they aren’t you, and you aren’t them. You’re good. You always have been.” He brushed the hair out of her face and behind her ear.
A painful look came across his face and he couldn’t look her in the eyes at the moment. He stepped away and back towards the ledge of the roof. The gods are monsters, including me. “Mea, you’re better than this world deserves.” Better than I deserve.
Good? Better? Those were misnomers. Mea certainly did think that she was a good person. She huffed then began speaking slowly, deliberately, and loudly; enunciating every syllable and every word so that Blackwell would understand everything she was trying to tell him. “Vincent, I’m a killer. Azazel tried to kill me. He killed Anna, my best friend. And he… Him and his followers, they…” Her voice cracked and began fading out. “They… They tried to kill me. But I… I killed them, I killed all of them.” Her emotions got the best of her and she crumbled. Tears in her eyes, her voice became a sad wailing. “They… they attacked me. They attacked me like I was… Like they were a pack of wolves and I was… a wounded deer. And I killed them. I killed so many of them. Without a second thought, I just sliced through them… like they were nothing.” And I liked it. “I killed them, but I…” I didn’t kill Azazel—not yet, but I will.
Mea leaned against the door frame (that led to the stairwell) and began wiping away the tears in her eyes. But when she felt someone rubbing her shoulder, she didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
“The gods can be cruel, but they aren’t, not always, not all the time.” Although, aside from you, I have yet to see one that wasn’t. “But you aren’t. You weren’t ever cruel—not now and not ever, and that’s the truth.” It really was. “And with Azazel’s followers, you had to do it, otherwise they would have come back—you know that. And you were protecting your family. You aren’t like the rest.” You’re not like me. “You’re different.” He wanted to believe it; he really did.
Sniffing deeply and wiping away her tears, Mea’s voice was nasally. “I won’t… I won’t allow myself to become like them. I won’t become like Azazel.” And now, Mea was lying to herself. She had already begun hating herself and was starting to hate the world. And the bitterness inside her grew with each passing day. It had been for some time. People were a plague on the earth. Selfish, ignorant, smiteful, violent, cruel… and she was a killer.
Blackwell wrapped his arms around her and swayed with her, hoping that it would give her some comfort. “And the Golden Globe for best dramatic performance goes to…”
Mea snorted out a laugh. “A Golden Globe?” Then she snorted back the snot in her nose and wiped it with the back of her hand. And she chuckle
d as a smile crept across her face. “What? I don’t even get an Oscar?”
“Don’t be greedy.” Almost parentally, he kissed the top of her head and squeezed her a little tighter. “You’re going to be alright.”
Mea squeezed his arm and thought about Ryan and her mother. “Yeah, I know. We’re going to be alright.” She kissed his arm then hugged it again. After a long sigh, she said, “So. The Wolf is coming. Who else?”
“The Queen—“
“The Queen of Sorrows. As man lusts for blood, and spills blood for lust and power; let their desires turn to ash. And for those who have repaid the kindness of women with wrath, they will be cast out of the bosom of mercy and love, and their malice will be repaid in venom and pain.”
Blackwell nudged her. “See? The gods aren’t all bad. Sometimes, our wrath is warranted. In this case, to the misogynists, tyrants, and womanizers.”
“Yeah. And what about the innocents? What about collateral damage?”
Blackwell stayed quiet.
“Innocents always get caught in the crossfire. And when that happens, neither wrath nor vengeance is righteous.”
“See? You’re learning.” He squeezed her again before pulling away. Every moment he held her made it harder to let go, and right now, it was now or never. “And now, I’m afraid that I must be going. I need to get back to questioning Azazel.” He stepped away then leaned over his shoulder. “And hopefully, I’ll be able to get some real, actually useful, information from him.”
“Azazel.” Mea’s wrath was rearing its ugly head, again. Azazel killed Anna, she thought. And despite everything she and Blackwell had just discussed, Azazel was an unscratched itch that she did not plan on letting go. She swore to herself that she would kill Azazel. Immortal or not, she would find a way. “When you see Azazel, tell him… Tell him I’ll be seeing him, sooner or later.”
Blackwell bowed to her in an exaggerated fashion–half joking and half-serious. “As you wish, m’lady.”
He was about to disappear into the shadows, but a loud flapping noise gave him pause. The flapping of leathery wings, it was a noise that was too familiar. A familiar voice followed. “Hey, Mea. I thought you were up—”
Raven. Covered in his glossy black armor, twenty feet behind Blackwell, he could sense him. Masked in the shadows, Raven’s eyes shifted from Mea over to the man in the black suit, an elegant suit that shimmered in the moonlight. Raven narrowed his eyes, full with anger, and he didn’t need to see Blackwell’s face to know that he was doing the same.
And Raven was already reaching for his broadsword. “You.”
Blackwell calmly spun around and waited for him. “Slave.” Still not too happy about Raven’s defiance and sequential escape from Hell, he was Blackwell’s own personal itch to scratch.
The god of death. Raven didn’t care. One of his jet black claws—that replaced his hands year ago—gripped his great broadsword from the scabbard on his back. With a hard yank and a short grinding sound, the storm-gray blade was out, cocked back, and ready. Slightly bouncing, Raven was about to charge. But, as he saw Blackwell snap his fingers, his tensed muscles relaxed, and he stayed put. He knew what was coming.
The shadows around him began to swirl. Shifting to purple and black trickles of smoke that were almost too dark to see. They began to hiss like steam before coagulating and taking shape. Then, like a warm breath in winter, the smoke disappeared. And now, six reapers were surrounding him. Draped in similar sets of glossy black armor and with their swords drawn, they were nearly identical to Raven. If it weren’t for their slitted snake-like eyes and the barely visible scales on their faces, you couldn’t tell them apart. The black masks that concealed the lower half of their faces—which Raven assumed were only there to conceal their fanged muzzles—kept them from looking too demonic and only added to the false likeness.
Raven prepared for battle. Six against one, a glorious death. I can take out four before the last two turn me into a pin cushion, he thought. I can live with that.
The six armored shadows readied their blades, and Raven took a deep breath to calm himself. In less than a minute, he would be dead, killed by his once-loyal brethren. And life would go on without him.
“Cowards.” The word seemed to drip off his lips. Broadsword clenched in his right, Raven flared out his left claw to the side; his talons stretched out like switch blades of black steel. Then he flicked it again, and the talons grew slightly longer and his glossy black forearm was now covered in similar, yet shorter, blades. And now it looked like a gauntlet covered in black razor wire. “Let’s go.”
The next half-second slowed into five, and Raven scanned the eyes of his enemies to see who would attack first. As they blinked, one of them blinking twice before they all again fluttered their eyelids, and with that, Raven knew who was coming first.
The blinker came in with a hard downward swing. Raven stepped right, and a sharp left from his sharp gauntlet shattered the blinker’s mask and took off half his face with it. Shoving him into two other reapers, Raven parried weakly against the next attack before sliding his blade across someone else’s glossy black chestplate. Then, before he could even think about it, his gauntlet deflected another incoming slash before his own blade hacked into the hip of someone else.
A dance of shadows. Black steel slashed through the air, and the clashing blades sounded more like wind chimes rather than actual combat. Sparks of grinding metal were met with droplets of black ink—an abstract display of shadow puppets filled splashes of gray and black.
Blackwell watched indifferently, waiting for Raven to die. The reaper had defied and betrayed him, he deserved to die. Regardless if he saved Mea or not, in Blackwell’s eyes, he still deserved to die, and to not only die, but die the final death.
Blackwell sighed again as he grew bored. While it had only been three seconds, roughly; this was taking too long.
Raven remained a split second faster than his rivals, and he continued parrying and spinning away from each of their swinging blades before retaliating with his own. Amidst a plethora of cosmetic slashes that failed to penetrate armor, there came a few that were deep enough to draw blood. But not enough of his slashes were deep enough, and by the next cut, the prior one had already healed. And now, both sides were stuck in a stalemate on the razor’s edge of combat.
Still watching the battle and looking more bored, Blackwell yawned before strumming his hand in the air impatiently, hoping to quicken the process. Hello? Hurry up. Let’s go. Kill him already. I’m bored. Let’s wrap this up.
The battle was coming to a climax. Raven’s talon’s tore through one’s shoulder while his blade entered another’s thigh. Then, as a different blade split his shoulder, he spun away and brought his sword upwards and through his attacker’s chest, shattering the reaper’s chestplate and splattering ink over himself.
Still, fatigue was setting in, and Raven’s attacks were becoming less precise. A wild swing took a chunk out of someone’s shadowy forearm before a hard vibrating slam and sparked metal knocked his sword to the ground. As his injured arm rattled with pain, he saw that it was half-face, the anxious-blinker, who had knocked away his blade.
And with a quickness, half-face was slashing at him again. This time, Raven saw it coming and rolled under the slicing blade while grabbing another reaper blade off the ground. He flung the steel over his back—just in time to parry an incoming chop from a different backstabber. And as sparking metal lit up all around him, he kicked away from half-face and fell backwards onto the backstabber. And it was only the loud crushing sound beneath him that let him know that the backstabber now had a hole in his chest.
Flailing to regain his footing, a lightning bolt hit his good arm and sent him spinning. Another one brought him back to his knees. It was only when his electrical wound began leaking that he realized what it was—swiping talons that had taken a few chunks of him for souvenirs. Lightning struck two more times—this time carving into his thigh and again into his arm, a
nd Raven fell further into the ground. Then, as his claws felt the wet and sticky shadows around him and saw black rain spilling from his chest and splashing into the puddles; he knew it was over.
His enemies readied their blades, some above their heads, some limply dragging them at their sides. Surrounding him, they crept closer.
Blackwell grinned, ready for some catharsis. It was almost all he hoped for. Nobody breaks a deal with me, or else, this is what you get.
“Well,” Raven flipped over and sat lazily on the ground. Spitting off to the side, he was strangely lackadaisical about the whole thing. “What are you waiting for?”
Raven looked up at the shadow blanketing him. It was half-face. And while half-face was missing his lower jaw, somehow Raven knew he was grinning at him. “Why the long face?” japed Raven as he spit again. “What? Do you need permission from your daddy?”
Half-face couldn’t smile, but his eyes narrowed and he spun his sword around and aimed the tip at him, ready to slam it down and into Raven’s chest.
That would have to wait. A star exploded, and a flash of light pushed back the shadows.
“Enough.”
Six smaller white lights flashed before becoming thin sparkling lances. They zipped past Blackwell and Raven and into the shadows and sent them spinning. The metal swords jangled and clanged on the concrete ground. And while three shadows were left staring at the crystal shards poking out of their claws, the other three were left bleeding on the ground, no unlike Raven was. The only difference was that they had crystal shards stuck in them. Shimmering from their pierced shoulders, the shards looked like porcupine quills dipped in starlight while white smoke sizzles and drifted upwards from their wounds.
Both Raven and Blackwell glared at each other before turning their attentions towards the source.
It was Mea. She was suddenly draped in gleaming armor that shined and sparkled even brighter in the moon light. Her giant white wings were still flapping and sparkling; the wingtips covered in silver glitter. And thin sparkling blades were now dangling from her tightly clenched hands. “Stop this now.”
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 5
