Never Just One Apocalypse

by Karen L Mead

  “You do not get to decide,” Metatron said, coloring visibly. Cassie thought that for an angel, and a high-ranking one at that, he seemed awfully rustled by Sammael’s presence.

  “I’m just telling you. What you do with that information is up to you.”

  Metatron turned away from Sammael, like he was making a concentrated effort to ignore him.

  “Chava—I mean, Cassie. It’s time for us to go.”

  Sammael looked at her and mouthed no it’s not, then turned back to Metatron.

  “I still don’t get you, Noch. The almighty has all your grandsons killed, and what do you do? Send in a job application? You’re insane.”

  “I vowed to give the souls of the dead the comfort in transition that my own heirs were denied,” Metatron snarled back. “If you ever gave the merest thought for anyone other than yourself, you would understand that.”

  Sammael just smirked.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassie interjected.

  It was the one thing she felt like she had to say to Metatron. He looked at her with sad eyes.

  “I’m sorry I died. I know grandparents want their grandkids to outlive them, and I went and killed myself.”

  “Rather special circumstances, child,” he said, with a hint of amusement. “But we mustn’t spend any more time here. You have an appointment at the Academy on High.”

  “What’s that?” Cassie asked. She had an inkling, but wasn’t sure.

  Sammael raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Interesting destination. Hey, Cass? If I’m wrong, and my son decides to wuss out and let this shitty timeline stay intact, can you do me a favor? I need to get a message to a certain Rabbi.”

  Chapter 61

  Through the familiar bond, Sam felt Cassie’s death as soon as she bled out on the forest floor. However, it took him a little while to fully understand and accept what had just happened. As he fell to his knees, in shock, the area around him was filling with small demons.

  “First!” yelled Corianne.

  Dozens of them, many of them with hair in the shades of either Cassie’s jet-black or Sam’s sandy blond, were popping into existence all around him on the sidewalk.

  “What do we do now, Dad?”

  “Dad?”

  Sam couldn’t talk to them. He just kept looking at a certain spot on the sidewalk, embroiled in his own personal hell.

  “Now, now,” he heard Devon’s voice. “Don’t bother him. We’ve all been summoned together and I see giant monsters in the sky; do I have to draw you a map, children?”

  Corianne giggled, and the kids took off, fighting the Phantasms. Corianne went after the Phoenix, appearing on its back. In theory, if she was matched enough to its frequency to sit on it, it should have burned her, but she didn’t have any problems. She began pulling at its smoking hair, making it scream.

  Other Children attacked the Phantasms with curses, their spells having far more impact than those of the demons surrounding them. In fact, once Belial’s crew realized that the Children had arrived, they all ceased fighting and went to find shelter elsewhere.

  “No, I don’t know who they are!” Belial bellowed in response to a question from one of his lieutenants. “But clearly, we should leave this fight to them! Everyone, cease operations. Follow me back to Realm!”

  When the other demons were gone, that just gave the Children the opportunity to use their spells with impunity. One little boy, who couldn’t even be old enough for Kindergarten, was particularly vicious; he could destroy Phantasms, making them explode into a mass of fractured light, with a single curse. Devon was also potent, toying with the giant beasts before killing them.

  None of the Children had the problem with attacking the Phantasms that the rank-and-file demons had. They were time-sensitives, also space-sensitive as a natural consequence, and the fact that the Phantasms existed partially in another dimension was no issue for them.

  Slowly, Sam got up on one knee.

  Cassie’s dead. She did this, she summoned all of these little monsters, because I wasn’t strong enough. I need to go and bring her back from the dead, except…except, that would just turn her into a mindless zombie. Her, and all my friends.

  He grimaced in agony. The taint on his magic had been preventing him from using it when he really needed it for too long. Now, the only hope he had was to try to become strong enough that the taint was somehow irrelevant.

  When a lizard-type Phantasm ran up to him, he grabbed it by the neck. Growling, he separated its head from its body, then began sucking the magic out of it. The Phantasms had been made with ancient magic, bizarre and potent, and it swirled with the fairy magic he already possessed in a way that made him feel sick. Still, he wouldn’t let that stop them.

  It’s because of these things that Cassie is dead. I will kill them all, every single one of them, and drink their insides. It’s all I can do.

  With that decision, his body began to change. His teeth began to lengthen into fangs, even the molars in the back of his mouth. To prevent from puncturing himself with his own teeth, he opened his mouth wide and felt his jaw unhinge, with a cracking sound. He was getting taller; there wasn’t enough skin to cover the expanse of his lengthened limbs, and he heard his own skin rip. He felt rather than saw a halo of shadow grow out of his head.

  He took off with a speed greater than he had ever possessed and found another lizard-type, ripping it in half. He killed another half dozen that way, dismembering them and absorbing the old magic that animated them, before finding Cerberus. When he found the giant dog, he grabbed it by its center neck and pulled. When the head came loose, he threw it at another Phantasm above, shattering it instantly, and began the work of pulling the large canine apart. As a creature with no soul, like all the Phantasms, Cerberus did not have a proper essence for Sam to absorb. However, it still had a center, a kind of lynchpin to the magic, and that, Sam hungrily took into himself. He was as ravenously hungry for magic as a man who had been starved for days.

  Sensing their father’s state, the Children started to change as well. Unable to maintain their human forms under the influence of the monstrous aura he was emitting, they began expanding, becoming smaller mirrors of his own form. Only Corianne stayed intact, dancing around on top of Phantasms and overpowering them with her unique curses.

  Even Devon began to change, his body suddenly growing another six feet of torso. He opened his mouth wide and screamed in ecstasy. The sound alone killed some of the lesser Phantasms.

  “No!” Devon yelled, struggling to maintain his human speech. His voice undulated and wobbled, getting deeper with each word. “It was supposed to be me…or my son…not you…anyone but you!”

  Then his jaw grew too distended and he could no longer speak.

  The Phoenix was the last one to be put down. By this point, Sam didn’t even have to go through the motions of killing it; he simply gestured to the creature, and its animating magic streamed into Sam’s open mouth, leaving only a pile of cinders. It tried to reanimate, so of course Sam just ate it again, getting more magic every time. Eventually, even the Phoenix had nothing left to revive itself with.

  This is good. I am getting stronger. But it is not enough.

  He greedily pulled at the atmosphere around him, pulling the magic out of the Children. Like a spider, he ate his own youth without a second thought. Devon thrashed about before succumbing, but he was no match for Sam at this point. Once that was done, the lives of the remaining humans in the city became more fodder for his growth. He grew more, to the point that his stretched-out form could see over the top of skyscrapers.

  Still not enough. But there is nothing left alive here.

  He screamed with his expanded lungs, a lonely sound. He could go elsewhere to find more magic, but he was just so hungry and impatient, he didn’t want to. He wanted his power delivered to him on a silver platter.

  His slender form paused at a voice in his head.

  Well, if you must, Azazel said. You still have t
he Watchers, you know. Part of this is their fault as well.

  How do I get to them? Sam asked, desperate.

  Go to where the arcane tree was, Azazel answered, calm. He was already dead, just a few glimmers of consciousness within Sam’s psyche, so this was all of very little account to him. Nevertheless, he had access to a vast store of knowledge, including how to get to Tartarus.

  Your reality is now weakened where Dorothea made her entrance to the Faewilde. If you want to get through to another reality, I would try there.

  Sam thanked the disembodied demon in his head, then materialized in front of the Warehouse. Howling, he pulled at the rip in reality with his claws, thinking of the Watchers and how badly he wished to consume them. It took some time—possibly what humans would call eons—but he eventually succeeded.

  Once inside Tartarus he immediately began eating the Rebel Angels, shrugging off their meager resistance. As powerful as they were, they were merely captured Divines, whereas there was no longer a term for what Sam was: he was an unholy abomination of demon magic, fairy glamour, human energy, and other forms of power he himself didn’t even understand. Distinctions between all those categories were breaking down, blurring together, becoming nothing but indomitable will. He took on several Watchers at a time, too hungry to toy with them, until there were only two Watchers left: Sathariel, their leader, and Zaqiel, Cassie’s ancestor.

  Sensing Zaqiel’s relationship to Cassie was enough to give him pause; in his ecstatic consumption, he’d almost forgotten that Cassie existed. For Zaqiel, he felt nothing other than contempt.

  Take care of my daughter, Zaqiel said, utterly defeated. Sam devoured him in a second flat. Sathariel had more to say.

  You must stop. You cannot continue like this. At this rate, you will challenge the Almighty himself, and that cannot be. You must destroy yourself, before you—

  Sam sucked his essence out of his body, but the Watcher continued speaking for a little while from within Sam’s consciousness.

  --before you become one so aloof that you no longer remember your purpose. You cannot save the Little Daughter if you become one with Ein Sof and destroy all there is. Do not become one with the Godhead, I beg you.

  When all the Watchers were safely eaten, Sam continued to grow, gaining flesh and muscle now as well as height. He no longer resembled himself, or any human. He looked like what the Watcher’s sons had looked like, eons ago, before they were all killed. Still requiring sustenance to maintain his cancerous form, he absorbed all other life on Earth he could find—plants, animals, even microorganisms in the deepest depths of the ocean. Soon, nothing was left but him and the Almighty.

  He couldn’t consume the Almighty; such a thing simply was not possible. However, he could join with it. He began to blend his essence with that of the Almighty, and at that moment, any semblance of the consciousness of the being that was once called “Sam” ceased to be.

  Or rather, it would have, if not for Azazel.

  Excuse me. I know becoming God is a heady feeling, but if you keep this up, you’re not going to be able to save Cassie. Remember her? Your familiar? The girl you love?

  The creature that was once Sam paused, halfway through consuming a nearby star. That name, that concept, still mattered to him on some level. Cassie. Hadn’t this all been for Cassie?

  Keep your eye on the prize here, champ. You were right; it is all I can do to hold you back. But I never would have dreamed that would be such an important task.

  Soon, there was nothing left but the creature that was once Sam and what remained of the Almighty. Light and matter had become unnecessary, ceased to be. He communicated with the Godhead for a long time (to the extent that time still existed) and learned many interesting things. Thanks to Azazel’s prompting, the consciousness that was once Sam’s bubbled to the surface for a few tiny units of the time-that-wasn’t-time; not long, but long enough.

  Okay, he thought, Okay. We’re going to try all of this again.

  Chapter 62

  Seeing Dot about to leave with Khalil, Sam grabbed her arm and slammed her onto the counter at The Daily Grind. Everyone gasped.

  “Yo, dude, the hell are you doing?” Khalil asked, outraged. “I was just taking her to get a hot dog!”

  Sam looked over at Khalil and felt a surge of joy.

  You’re alive!

  He looked behind Khalil and saw Cassie, still asleep on the couch in the café area, breathing rhythmically. His joy grew, until he felt like he might burst.

  But he didn’t have time for either of them right now.

  “Sorry, Dot, but I know all about your plan to use Khalil to summon the Phantasms. It’s not going to happen.”

  Dot looked less disconcerted about being slammed into the counter than she did about his revelation. “How can this be? How do you….”

  Then she saw something in his eyes that answered her question.

  “I see.”

  Sensing that she would be obedient, he released his grip on her.

  “She was going to do what?” Khalil muttered, looking at the fairy with disbelief.

  “I told you not to trust a fairy,” Miri said next to him.

  Khalil gave her an annoyed look.

  “Oh, as opposed to you, who’s so—”

  At that, Miri stood up on tiptoe and started kissing him, passionately. After a few moments, Khalil gently pushed her away.

  “Whoa, where did that come from?”

  Miri herself looked confused.

  “I just…I just had to kiss you? I don’t even know…”

  “I don’t understand you,” Sam said to Dot, his anger waning now that he sensed that she wouldn’t fight him. “You came to me because you said you didn’t want to see the Phantasms summoned. Then you use Khalil and the Rod to summon them yourself? What was the point?”

  Dot’s expression grew haughty.

  “I didn’t want to cooperate with your people,” she said. “If they used the Phantasms at all, they would just use them as part of their old feud; I wanted no part of that. Likely, they wouldn’t use them at all, just use the threat of them to consolidate their own power. I like that even less.

  “But once your group attained the Rod of Moses, I realized I could use the Phantasms myself, to rid the world of the destructive humans. It was not my plan from the beginning, I merely recognized an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity,” Sam echoed darkly.

  Ethan stepped forward, looking frightened.

  “Dorothy, you want to kill all of us? What did we do to you?”

  Dorothy gave him a sad smile.

  “It is not you, little snowflake,” the fairy said. “But your people destroy everything, not only the trees but the entire planet. For the sake of the Earth I serve, if there was a chance to get rid of you all, I had to take it.”

  Sam was still angry, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he could understand Dot’s point of view. If her top priority was protecting the planet, getting rid of humans made a lot of sense; he himself was disgusted by how humanity had mismanaged the environment during his lifetime. If he felt that, as a being not particularly connected to the Earth, how much worse must she feel about it?

  “You offered to help us fight the Watchers,” he said. “That’s another thing I don’t understand. You didn’t have to do that.”

  She drew herself up to her full height of five feet.

  “I was sincere. The Watchers are different; their flood would have destroyed so many creatures, especially trees. They are different from the Phantasms, who could be commanded to only target humans. I would put my life on the line to help you stop them, if it came to that.”

  “Good,” Sam said. It was all coming together, as he’d planned back when he was mingled with the Godhead. “Do you still feel that way?”

  While the fairy pondered, Cassie awoke. She looked bleary-eyed for a moment, then searched the room with her eyes frantically.

  “Where’s Aeka?” she asked.
>
  But she didn’t get an answer to that question, because Sam had swept her up into a hug.

  “Don’t you ever do that again,” he hissed.

  “Do what?”

  “Exactly,” he said, then kissed her for a long time.

  Everyone else in the room, save Dot, made awkward sounds and tried to look away. When he pulled away, Cassie looked breathless, but pleased. He wanted to see that expression on her face from now until the end of time. He cupped her face gently with his hands, loving the feel of her smooth skin. Loving the view of her sapphire eyes gazing into him, loving everything about her.

  “I feel like I’m always doing this to you, kissing you goodbye and then going off to die. Hopefully it won’t be the last time.”

  Cassie’s eyes widened at his words.

  “Die? What are you going to do?”

  “There is nothing left to be done,” Eugene said, speaking up from the far corner of the shop. “That girl, Aeka, she has heroically held back the Watchers. They are no longer a threat; we have won the day.”

  Sam looked around the room sadly. It was clear that everyone had been cautiously optimistic that Aeka’s sacrifice had saved them all—and in a way, it had. But he knew it was only a temporary solution. His time with omniscience had shown him that.

  “Yes, we could go off and act like we won. And we might be alright, for a very long time. But Aeka can’t hold them back forever…she’s strong, but she’s not invincible. And fairies—” he said, looking at Dot, “fairies and some other creatures have a gift for dimension-hopping. If we leave Aeka there, someone could travel to wherever she is and kill her. Then, the Watchers would bust through the portal all over again.”

  “What do you propose?” Dot said, crossing her arms.

  He was amazed at how quickly his hatred of the fairy had subsided. He wanted to hold a grudge for the sequence of events she had set in motion, but somehow, being mad at her for being what she was just felt pointless. It was like being mad at a caterpillar for going into its cocoon.

  “You and me. You help me get to Tartarus, cutting through the FaeWilde, and I’ll take care of the Watchers, once and for all.”