A Soulless Year Three

by Eva Brandt

  Just like that, my decision was made and all my doubts vanished. It had been my duty as a son to try to bring my mother back, but it had also been my duty—this time as a brother—to kill Abel when he’d first gone crazy. This was no different.

  If Abel realized what I had in mind, he didn’t show it. He left the cottage, humming an off-key tune under his breath. Fara handed the child to my mother and quickly followed him. Perfect. Without her here, another threat had been eliminated.

  Hope hadn’t cried when she’d been in Fara’s arms, but as soon as my mother took her, she burst into tears. “Oh, dear,” Lilith said. “That’s never happened before. You’re usually so good with children.”

  Yes, and she usually wasn’t planning to eat the babies she held. Hope was special. Undoubtedly, she sensed my mother’s evil intentions, even if she didn’t understand it.

  The cottage walls started to rattle as Hope sobbed her little heart out. My mother rocked her and sang to her, but nothing worked. Lilith even tried to use her succubus powers to calm down the wailing infant, but that just made Hope more upset. Sparks of fire flew from her fingertips as she attempted to escape the hold of the stranger who wanted to kill her.

  I watched the whole production in silence, feeling strangely amused by the whole thing. I didn’t enjoy the sight of Hope’s panic, but my mother and Lilith’s helplessness was hilarious.

  “Oh, for The Supreme Being’s sake,” my mother finally said, in complete exasperation. “This is ridiculous.”

  A worm of an idea niggled at the back of my mind. If this worked, it could make things so much easier. I reached out to my lover, hoping she could hear me. “Delilah, if you’re still out there, I’d appreciate some help.”

  A whisper of power buzzed over my skin. My chest started hurting a little more, but it was a good pain, one that I embraced.

  Any moment now, my mother and Lilith would notice. But hopefully, it would not be quickly enough. “I could try to help, if you want. I’m good with children.”

  Ironically, it was true. I’d always liked kids. Their simple and honest outlook on life appealed to me, because my entire existence was anything but simple and honest. My mother knew that, of course, but even so, she wouldn’t have given me the child, if not for Delilah’s gift.

  “Feel free,” she said, passing Hope to me. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”

  I did. Hope quieted down once she was in my arms. She watched me with huge, blue eyes that seemed older than they were supposed to be. “There you go, baby,” I told her. “Isn’t that better? It isn’t nice to scream at the lovely ladies.”

  Hope blew out a spit bubble, clearly unimpressed with my comment. Or maybe she realized I was lying through my teeth. Anything was possible.

  In any case, it was time for me to go. I’d already been here long enough. I just had one last thing to do before I could get out of this distasteful place.

  “Hey, Mother? Aren’t we supposed to feed the spawn?”

  “Yes, of course. I had a bottle here somewhere. Give me a second. Lilith, have you seen it?”

  It was only for a moment, but the two of them turned away. I set Hope down and cast a quick protection spell around her. Then, I attacked.

  Lilith saw—or rather, felt—me coming. I’d known she would. That was the problem with fighting a succubus. They could sense adrenaline surges, so ambushing them was next to impossible. To make matters worse, the shock broke Delilah’s hold on them. “Cain, what do you think you’re doing?” Lilith shouted.

  I didn’t answer. We’d all said more than enough and they’d made their stance on the future clear. It wasn’t one I could accept, so I had to take steps.

  I reached Lilith first. An aura of fire had already bloomed around her, threatening to carbonize me. But I was determined and refused to be thwarted. I pushed through, cracking Lilith’s shield. She was so close to me that she didn’t get the chance to create a better defense. In the blink of an eye, I buried my fist into her chest and pulled out her heart.

  My mother was still standing there, staring at me in disbelief. “Cain, what have you done?”

  “What I had to, Mother. And I’m afraid I need to finish it. It’s time for this to end.”

  I knew I should be doing exactly that, taking her out and removing the threat. But even so, I couldn’t bring myself to lunge at her. I walked slowly to her side, Lilith’s blood still dripping from my hand. “It’s time for you to have peace,” I continued, “and that’s never going to happen if you stay here. You need to let go.”

  If I killed her now, the corruption of The Shadow Realm might eventually disappear. That was the only hope I had left. “You don’t belong here, but if you give yourself the chance to heal, you might find another home.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” my mother said, regaining her calm. “But where’s the justice in that? Why do I always have to be the one to lose everything—my hopes, my life, my family?”

  “Justice is a dream,” I told her. “You know that already, and so do I.” A single tear trailed down my cheek. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.” Her lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. “You wouldn’t be doing this if you didn’t want to. Go ahead then, son. Kill me. I won’t fight you.”

  She didn’t think I would be willing to kill her. She was wrong.

  I grabbed my mother and, in one sharp motion, broke her neck. She crumpled against me, lifeless. It was almost too easy, nauseatingly so. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, kissing her brow. “So sorry. I wanted to help you. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I’m useless.”

  I set her down, the weight of what I’d just done still not fully settling in. If I didn’t throw up, it was just because I knew I had to get out of here. We were in The Shadow Realm, but neither my mother nor Lilith had been symbiotes. Fara’s minions were just outside, though, and any moment now, they would sense something had gone wrong.

  Taking a deep breath, I rushed back to Hope’s side. She didn’t cry when I picked her up again, even if my hands were still covered in blood, and I was still shaking. “It’s okay now, little Hope. You’ll be back to your family before you know it.”

  I’d just finished the sentence when the door of the cottage burst open. It was, as expected, the shadow demons from earlier. They froze when they caught sight of the dead Lilith and Eve, and then, much to my surprise, burst into laughter. “Abel warned us that you might be up to some mischief,” one of them said. “I guess he really underestimated you. I don’t think he expected this. I know we didn’t.”

  “Join the club,” I told him. “It’s not something I ever thought I’d do.”

  “Don’t worry,” the female symbiote replied lazily. “We’re not judging you. You can do whatever you wish. In fact, I’d say this actually proves our point. You belong here, Cain Adamson. Where else could a lost soul like yours go?”

  The words hurt, precisely because I knew she was right. I’d committed fratricide and matricide. That brand of shame—the root of my curse—would never truly fade.

  But it was all right, as long as I completed my quest and my mission. It would all be over soon. I’d be able to stop and, like my mother, I’d find peace.

  The world could take care of itself after that.

  But first, I had to escape, which could only happen if I got rid of these shadow demons. Telling them to get out of my way wouldn’t work, so I went for a direct attack.

  I summoned a fire blast and threw it at the closest symbiote. He screeched and mutated, avoiding my spell by twisting his body into a shape that looked less humanoid.

  Shadows trickled into the cottage, surrounding me from every angle. Cursing to myself, I cast another spell, creating a wall of flame between us.

  The symbiotes recoiled, but only for a couple of seconds. Before I knew it, the living shadows were working on suffocating my enchantment.

  “You’re a powerful being, Cain Adamson,” the female symbiote said, “but this i
s our realm. You can’t beat us here.”

  I swallowed around the knot in my throat. I couldn’t, no, but I had to do it anyway. Otherwise, everything that had happened—Delilah’s death, me killing my mother and Lilith—would be for nothing.

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.”

  Tentacles of darkness rushed toward me, and I lifted my free hand, willing the fire wall to expand, to push back my foes. The shadows collapsed, but tried again. I was soon being attacked from every angle, the symbiotes taking no mercy on me. Some of their summons looked alive, like monstrous, mutated animals. Others were extensions of their bodies, similar to the tentacles. Others weren’t even completely visible and were literally one with the darkness.

  The more time passed, the harder it became for me to hold them off. I hadn’t gotten the chance to set the little girl down, so I had to make sure to keep her protected too. Fighting a battle while cradling a child had not been on my bucket list.

  Hope’s presence proved to be a blessing in disguise. She whimpered in my arms, and the next thing I knew, a bright glow enveloped me whole.

  At first, I thought the power came from her, but no, that would have been too simple. It only took me a couple of seconds to realize what was happening. She was the center of a spell, one fueled by both celestial and infernal magic.

  Mikael appeared in front of me, his body crackling with more energy than he’d ever contained. I didn’t know what Lucifer had done, but whatever it was had given Mikael quite the boost.

  Through the sheer power of his arrival, Mikael made all the symbiotes cower, but also shattered my fire spell. The end result was that I was stuck there, facing a furious father, alone and highly outmatched.

  This was just getting better and better. Oh, well. If I handed the child to Mikael, she’d be safe. It wasn’t like I cared about what he’d do to me after that.

  He took one look at me and his ice blue eyes started to glow eerily. “Cain, you—”

  If I’d had any self-preservation left, I would have been inclined to flee. But I wasn’t bogged down by such a useless emotion. “Here,” I cut him off, thrusting his daughter into his arms. “Now, we should probably get out of here before the symbiotes recover.”

  Mikael blinked in shock, taken aback by my behavior. Still, I suspected he wouldn’t have listened to me had the symbiotes not decided to confirm my words by attacking him.

  A monstrous shadow demon pounced toward us, ready to disembowel both me and Mikael. It never got the chance to reach me. Mikael grabbed my arm and lifted his hand, the fiery blade of an archangel lighting up the room and making the symbiotes shy away.

  It wasn’t a power he could sustain. Lines of strain were already appearing around the corners of his eyes, and his veins were glowing alarmingly from within. The gold that covered his skin was melting and the shadow of his wings flickered behind him, emanating pain.

  But despite all that, he’d done what he’d come here to do, which meant we could make our escape. He seemed to have the same idea. “Take us back!” he shouted.

  The magic that had brought him here responded to his call. We were once again engulfed in a storm of white, but this time, it did more than harm our foes. We were whisked away from The In-Between, traveling through shadow, light, fire, and death, to reach Mikael’s home.

  When the journey ended, I didn’t even open my eyes. I just wanted to sit there and wait for the unavoidable execution to happen.

  But then, I heard a familiar voice to my right, and my body betrayed me. “Well, that was fast,” Lucifer said. “Welcome back.”

  I got up on my haunches and took a good look around. I promptly wanted to take back my decision and pretend this wasn’t happening.

  I was in a ritual circle, in a room I didn’t recognize, but guessed had to be somewhere in The Infernal Realm. Lucifer, Mephistopheles, Stefan, and Callum, were all present. So was Alyssa, although she was unconscious and being watched over by Shiro and TB.

  Up to a point, I’d expected this. What I hadn’t expected was seeing Michael, Sariel, Azazel, and Yeqon standing by Lucifer’s side. Stranger still, the three Watchers were transparent and possibly dead. What the fuck?

  Azazel’s Attack

  In the wake of Mikael’s return, no one knew what to say or do. When I’d suggested this crazy plan with the divine spark, I hadn’t been prepared for the ramifications. Now that we were actually here, in The Infernal Realm, facing both our enemies and our allies, I didn’t know where I stood.

  Lucifer acted first, but ignored Cain altogether. He pulled Mikael aside and started fussing over his daughter.

  He ignored everything and everyone else, but even so, his actions still triggered a response. Cain got up and straightened his back, his lips twisting into a mocking smile. “So… This is a quaint little gathering. I see you’ve managed to set your differences aside. How sweet.”

  The comment might have sounded biting, but there was a different emotion hiding underneath, a fatigue and a bitterness I hadn’t seen in Cain before. As a Watcher, I’d kept an eye on Cain, although probably not as much as I should have. I knew him enough to see through his facade of nonchalance.

  That was what made me decide to be honest with him. “There’s nothing sweet about it. We had a common goal, to help the people we care about, and there was nothing we weren’t willing to do to accomplish that.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I take it that means you’re still trying to find Delilah.”

  “Obviously,” Yeqon snapped. “What’s it to you?”

  His smile widened, turning sharper and meaner. “Oh, didn’t you know? She offered herself to me. She was so grief-stricken after you betrayed her. It was so easy. I have to admit I can’t blame you for missing her. I haven’t had such great sex in a long time.”

  His words shook me to the core. A part of me wanted to deny it, but I knew Delilah. Her final exchange with Cain—the way she had helped him, with the last remnants of her power—had puzzled me. It made sense that she’d have done something like this.

  As a human and as a demon, she’d always been spiteful. To this day, I didn’t understand how she’d forgiven us for our part in her parents’ original deaths.

  Yeqon took a step forward, obviously infuriated. Sariel grabbed his arm and shook his head. “Ignore him. Even if he’s telling the truth, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh?” Cain asked. “You don’t care that your girlfriend slept with another man?”

  “We betrayed her, so it’s not a big surprise, no,” Sariel replied calmly. “Besides, it’s idiotic to focus on trivial things like that now. We have bigger problems to worry about.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Cain offered. “Dying does give someone a different outlook on life.”

  As if confirming his thoughts, my body flickered. The amount of energy we’d absorbed from the divine spark made my core unstable. We’d consumed most of it in the ritual that had helped Mikael go to The Shadow Realm, but we still weren’t back to normal.

  “We’re alive enough to get rid of you,” Yeqon said.

  “Not so fast,” Michael intervened. “While Cain is here, he can provide us with some information. If it was his brother who took Hope, which seems to be the case, we have to handle it. He’s a threat.”

  “Oh, right. That. He and Fara have gone to wreak havoc on The Mortal Realm.” Cain shrugged and plopped himself back onto the floor, apparently losing interest in the conversation. “You don’t need me to find him. Just follow the blood and the screams.”

  Now that he’d mentioned blood, I noticed Cain was covered in crimson too. Mikael and Lucifer hadn’t said anything about it, so I assumed it wasn’t Hope’s. What had happened in The In-Between? Why had Cain been there in the first place? He couldn’t have been Abel’s accomplice, because if that had been the case, he’d have never approached Delilah.

  “Whose side are you on, exactly?” I asked him. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing, really,” Cain answ
ered, “although I suppose saving Delilah’s soul would be nice.”

  “And why would you care about her soul? She doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  They might have had sex, but that didn’t create any kind of bond between them. Cain had fucked countless people—both male and female—in the past, and that had never caused him to change his mind about his goals.

  Then again, Delilah wasn’t just anyone, was she? She was special. She always had been. She’d done something similar to me and my fellow Watchers, when we’d fallen under her sway, in her first life. It hadn’t saved her, but we’d never forgotten her, and the feelings had remained, treacherous and sharp, just like her smiles and her beauty.

  “Maybe I just want her to have a second chance,” Cain said, oblivious to the realization I’d just had. “I never got mine.”

  Ironically, I believed him. That didn’t mean I was all that eager to trust him.

  In fact, I fully intended to tell one of Lucifer’s consorts to remove Cain already and take him to a holding cell. But before I could do that, the door burst open and Leviathan stalked inside.

  He looked pale, wan, and drained, but that wasn’t a surprise. He was the only Prince of Hell not directly affected by Alyssa’s ailment. He’d been Alyssa’s patron when she’d studied at The Academy of the Devil, but she wasn’t his lover, so he’d held it together better than the others. That meant he’d had to take over some of Lucifer’s duties while he’d tried to deal with his ill wife.

  But his job had become even more complicated now, and he had a good reason for his agitation. “Lucifer, we have a problem,” he said. “The barrier around The Fourth Circle of Hell is collapsing.”

  “Collapsing?” I repeated before Lucifer could answer. “What?”

  Lucifer let out a slow breath. He didn’t seem terribly surprised. “This was unavoidable. At least it’s The Fourth Circle and not another one.”