Holy Sheoly

by Hunter Blain

The air between the throne and where I stood wavered while cries of panic echoed throughout the halls. I floated above a hole that was filling in with molten lava from the melted floor.

  Then everything was back in place. There was no theatricality to it, no shimmering or puff of smoke. One instant, the area in a large sphere around me was devastated. Then in the next, it was all back. I did take note that the nobles and guards were still gone, however.

  Samael leaned back in his seat and stroked his chin, deep in thought, as he regarded me with interest.

  Ulric stepped forward and pointed his glowing obsidian staff at me, ready to finish me off for good. Something seemed to cross his mind at the last second, and he turned his head toward his master, who sat still, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “Stand down, Ulric,” Samael finally said. To his credit, my maker did as instructed, albeit with a look of disgust on his face. He straightened his stance while letting the staff vanish from his hands. Even his battle robes began rolling up his body to disappear behind his back, leaving behind his maroon business suit.

  My maker—who had caused incalculable heartache and devastating anguish to me and my friends—stood with his guard down.

  I could do it. I could end him right here, right now. Heck, I wouldn’t even be the last vampire if I did because of Lily.

  Lily.

  A part of my brain screamed to wait as I played the events out.

  With a new found power pulsing throughout my body from my soul merger, I could kill Ulric right now, using my celestial and Norse weapons to end him. Then I could simply shift out of here.

  Then Samael would call in his life debt to the woman I loved, and kill her. If he couldn’t kill me, I knew he had a backup plan that involved her. The fact he was wanting me to strike down Ulric right here and now proved that fact.

  But he was right there. The flames on my gladius fumed higher as the electricity of Mjolnir began lashing out at the floor. I could do it. I could kill my maker. He would be helpless in Sheol and wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone ever again.

  I love you, Lily said in my memory.

  “AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” I bellowed as I grabbed the scene around me and shifted away. Samael smiled in genuine enjoyment before the throne room of Hell was replaced by a winter landscape.

  22

  Hate filled my heart as my mind held the still image of the vulnerable Ulric standing next to the Lord of Hell. A single tear born from frustration peeked out of my eye only to be frozen against my cheek as it tried to race to my beard.

  A frigid breeze tore at my coat flaps, making me realize my armor had shimmered away once the perceived danger was over. I normally didn’t mind the cold, but this one snaked down to the meat of my bones, making me shiver.

  The distracting cold diminished the anger that raged in my core as my brain reaffirmed we had just saved Lily’s life.

  “What’s to stop him from killing them both and leaving just me?” I asked aloud as a cloud of white mist drifted from my mouth. The answer came to me without having to debate the question: he needed me off the mortal plane where I could be used to help take out his demonic army and shift the tides of favor toward Heaven.

  Without even having to think about it, I was all of a sudden in the theater of my mind as the big screen played the scene of me in Faerie as I used Mjolnir to take out an entire army with a single lightning blast. There was no way Samael wanted to subject his army to the might of John who wielded Thor’s freaking hammer.

  I looked to my right at the empty seat next to me, and lifted my hand to slowly graze the red cushion.

  “I miss ya already, buddy,” I said to Baleius.

  With a tight-lipped nod of acceptance and appreciation for my friend, I returned to my body.

  Then I realized where I was, and why I had come.

  “Lily.”

  There was a castle built into the mountain just ahead, and my feet began tromping through the snow on autopilot as I willed my weapons to vanish.

  I crossed my arms over my chest in an effort to keep warm, my hand grazing over my wooden buttons. Rolling my eyes at my oversight on how to properly wear a coat, I uncrossed my arms and reached down to start fastening the buttons up the length of the coat, stopping to admire the exquisitely detailed images carved in them.

  My breath caught in my throat as I stared in horror at the bottommost of the six buttons. Dawson and Joey were sitting at a table with their shit-eating grins.

  “Joey,” I exhaled as a cloud of hot breath plumed from my mouth to be carried off by the wind. My unfocused eyes scowled as my mouth hung agape. I had promised Dawson I’d save his brother.

  Without even a second thought, I knew precisely what needed to be done.

  I grabbed the scene with my hands and got ready to shift back to Hell (Lilith damn it! I really should just invest in a fully furnished apartment with how much I freaking visit the place.).

  “Joey.” I focused my mind on his face, which had aged terribly since the loss of his brother. My hope was that I could lock onto him, and the armor would help guide me straight to him, wherever he was in Hell.

  I glanced at the castle once and felt a pang of regret in my heart, knowing I had been so close to seeing the woman I loved. But it was because I had been thinking of her when I shifted that I now knew I could save Joey.

  I pulled at the scene and had my breath taken away as I stood in a bright town. It was quaint, like the old villages in Europe that maintained their traditional appearance even in the face of modern architecture.

  The streets were made of cobblestone with lush potted plants that lined the space. Between the plants were adorable homes painted bright colors that ranged all across the rainbow. Birds chirped happily as the smell of sugar roasted pecans or maybe almonds filled the air with a hint of cinnamon. A pleasant breeze tickled my skin as if in greeting.

  People walked joyously through the streets, talking and laughing with one another.

  “Where the hell am I?” I asked myself as I took in the overwhelming scene.

  “Home,” a welcomed and familiar voice answered.

  I whirled around to see Gabriel standing next to me with a warm smile.

  “What did I tell you about shifting planes before you were ready?” he teased as he placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “Is...is this...?” I stammered, unbelieving.

  “Heaven.”

  “Ho-how? I focused on Joey when I shifted, just like I did with Lily! I need to go get him!” I exclaimed, shifting my weight uncomfortably from foot to foot as I thought about what Ulric or Samael would do if they got to him first.

  “Hey, hemo,” a marvelous voice said through a grin I could hear.

  A quick gasp got stuck in my throat as I slowly began turning around.

  “Joey!” I cried out joyously as I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around the short but extremely wide man. I hoisted him off of his feet in a bear hug and began bouncing as I spun in circles. “Does this mean you forgave yourself?! Oh, what am I saying? Of course it does!”

  “Dude! Knock it off!” Joey said around a chuckle of happiness he was only kind of trying to hide.

  “Get a room,” another voice said.

  I dropped Joey—who may have said something unbefitting of Heaven—and shot my gaze to land on Dawson. He was leaning against an artisan’s ivory lamppost with beefy arms crossed over his chest.

  Pushing off the lamp, he stepped forward as I strode to meet him, embracing him in much the same way as his brother.

  “Don’t you drop me,” he demanded, but with a smile. After a few bounces, I gently set him down and looked at my friend who had been through so much. “Thanks for letting me go.”

  “It’s best I did because shit got real immediately after.”

  “What happened?” Dawson asked as Joey joined us by standing next to his brother.

  I told them about Lucifer coming out of the darkness and destroying Silver’s soul.

  “How’d yo
u escape?” Joey inquired. Dawson had been sucking in a breath, and I knew he had been about to ask the same thing.

  My mind flashed to the brave Baleius hopelessly charging toward his brother, heavenflame dancing up his gladius once again.

  “Baleius saved me.”

  “Baleius?” Gabriel asked, stepping forward to join the group. Joey and I turned while moving back a tad to expand the growing circle.

  “Oh, right. He was your brother. Well, you’ll be happy to know that at the end, he reverted back to his angelic form.”

  “With the shoulder-length black curls?” Gabriel asked, pride popping from his words like the tiny embers from a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

  “Yeah. Dude could have been a supermodel.”

  “Curious,” Gabriel said above a whisper as he stroked his chin and let his unfocused gaze drift to the ground. Then he snapped back, looked at me, and asked, “You said, ‘At the end.’ If I may ask, what happened?”

  I proudly told them about how Baleius, the once fallen angel, sacrificed himself to make my soul strong enough to not only heal but escape from Hell.

  “I was in Satan’s clutches, man. And that asshat, Ulric, was there too.”

  “I freaking hate Ulric,” Joey grumbled as he looked down at his feet and shifted his weight. A hand unconsciously covered his chest where his heart was.

  A smile of understanding crested my face as I nodded once at Joey, empathetic to how he felt. Then an idea bubbled up to the surface of my mind.

  “Hey, Gabriel,” I asked, tilting my head as I regarded my angelic friend. I already felt like I knew the answer, but hoped the archangel would deliver a potentially different fate. “Why did Baleius disappear? I mean, I had absorbed him before, right? Heck, even Da became a part of me. But they both lived on. What happened?”

  “From what you said, you absorbed him directly into your soul instead of just your body, correct?”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Keep in mind that this is all completely unprecedented and I can only produce theories,” he led before continuing, “When you first absorbed Baleius, and even Raziel, you were in your body. I believe it was your body that actually absorbed them, but it directly influenced and even altered your own soul by doing so. That would adequately explain why Baleius resided in your head along with your own soul.”

  “Yeah, I see where you are going with this. Baleius had the same theory.” A sobering thought wrapped cold arms around me. “So he’s really gone?”

  “I don’t think so. Not in the sense you mean, anyway,” Gabriel said, placing a hand on my chest.

  It took me a moment to fully process what he had said, as my brain tried to desperately extrapolate a positive outcome from his words wherein Baleius wasn’t lost forever. He was speaking with symbolism.

  I inhaled deeply, feeling Gabriel’s hand press against my chest, and nodded in acceptance. Baleius would always be with me.

  We stood in silence for a reflective moment, Gabriel dropping his hand back to his side. Then something else came to mind after accepting my friend’s fate.

  “Does that mean I only went to Heaven when I died because Da had altered my soul?”

  “I think you could agree with me that you have done such wonderful things since first meeting Da that your soul did warrant going to Heaven. Wouldn’t you say?”

  I stood frozen, unable to answer. Gabriel continued for me, noting my silence.

  “Do not misunderstand. Your soul was changed at a fundamental level and directly influenced by both of my brothers. But you earned your place in the afterlife with the multitude of your good deeds.”

  Something else bothered me.

  “Wait...when I had the nail in Hell, I could access my vampiric abilities even outside of my body.” I answered my own question as soon as I remembered that Baleius had been with me while in Hell, locked in the Lament Configuration prison I had made for him. “Never mind.”

  Another idea came to me and worry created a small pit at the bottom of my stomach.

  “Hold on a sec,” I told the group as I pulled back into the control room of my mind. Baleius had been a full-blown angel when we absorbed, so did that mean I had lost my vampirism? Everything felt normal. Then I remembered that my body, which had already fused with the demon back in 1480, was unaltered. Only my soul had changed.

  I returned to my body.

  “So what does it mean for me now?” I asked Gabriel. “Absorbing a demon into my actual soul instead of just fusing with it. Does that make sense?”

  “I think you mean an angel,” Gabriel corrected with a knowing smile.

  “Ah, right. He did revert back to his celestial form...which means...” An idea started collecting in the back of my mind, forming like a light rainstorm on a summer’s evening. I knew the idea was going to be of vast importance; I only needed the approaching rain from the brainstorm to water the seed so it could bloom into a full thought.

  “Abomination!” A harsh voice aggressively rasped.

  The twins shot their heads in the direction of the sound while Gabriel continued to stare at me with a knowing gleam in his eyes. Then he mouthed, “Consequences,” and vanished. Only I picked up on the message, the twins having their full attentions locked on the angry-sounding archangel.

  “Hiya, Mike,” I called out, slowly turning around with a rebellious smile.

  The twelve-foot-tall leader of Heaven’s armies strode forward, the human souls that littered the streets giving him a wide berth. Judging from the look of awe in their eyes, mortals didn’t get to see the archangels very often; at least not in their full battle size.

  He was wearing the armor that signified he was, without a doubt, the head honcho in charge of war. Deep gashes told the story of the epic battle during the rebellion, particularly the one gliding down his forehead to cross his right eye and finish at his cheek. I knew, then, that he could have healed the wound that was under his expressionless gold mask, but that he had decided to bear the scar as a medal he had earned by toppling the only creature in existence—besides God almighty—that could be construed as more powerful than the archangel himself.

  Something clicked in place and I took an educated guess that Michael might have been jealous of the one who helped their Father create the universe. The scar reminded him of his victory over the one who didn’t have the heart to fight his own brothers.

  Shit...was I seeing things from Samael’s perspective? Or was it paired with the fact that Michael had already put a bad taste in my mouth like a truck stop glory hole.

  “How dare you enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” Michael hissed as he stopped his aggressive approach just outside my striking range, but well within his. I had to remind myself that this was a combat-efficient warrior who apparently relished in battle.

  “Only visiting,” I announced, throwing up my hand in a peace sign.

  From my peripheral vision, I noticed Joey and Dawson stood their ground by my side, loyal even in death. Damn, I loved those puppers. I took a mental note to buy them the biggest bone ever when I got back. How was I going to deliver it to Heaven? Well, I don’t know, but that was a problem for Future John. Present John had a pissed off archangel to deal with.

  “Your soul reeks of violation against the natural order, abomination. You do not belong here.” A powerful gauntlet lifted slightly to point an armored finger downward. It took me a second to understand he meant that my plane was somehow below. Or maybe everything was beneath Heaven in the eyes of this zealot.

  “Oh, so you think you’re ready for round two, big boy?” I growled while tilting my head down, protecting my neck as my disobedient smile morphed into one of malice.

  “BE GONE!” he bellowed inside my head, making me fall over backward from dizziness. I was acutely aware of something sliding over me.

  I landed on something hard and looked to see I was in the middle of a desert at night.

  “What the reduced fat Cheez-Itz, man.”

  23


  My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness where not even a moon provided any illumination. Having never been in the situation of going from day to night as a vampire, I didn’t know if it was my preter-eyes by themselves or if the celestial armor had anything to do about it.

  I stood up, loudly patting at my butt and legs as I moaned in agitation. The annoyance didn’t stem as much from the small amount of sand on my clothes as from me not knowing where I was. I had been in Houston a handful of hours past lunchtime before going below. My armor had been with me while in Hell, so the time dilation should have been negated and acted—I assumed—at a one-to-one ratio. Then I’d separated from my body and gone to Sheol for eight or nine days, which had been almost two in Hell time. So, at a very loose guess, a similar two days had passed on Earth. Maybe it was just nighttime now. I suppose there was also the fact that I had traveled in Hell without my armor for several hours, but it hadn’t been an entire day!

  “Stupid time dilation,” I mumbled as I looked around, still not feeling at ease of where I was.

  An idea burst to life like a balloon popping in a kennel full of anxious dogs. Mentally smacking my head, I raised my left hand and opened my fingers into an L. The hologram came to life, and I could see I had Wo-Fi signal, but it was weaker than what I was accustomed to.

  “Shit, I must be somewhere far from civilization,” I remarked to myself as I remembered the conversation in the Hummer before my stint in Faerie. Musk had provided free connectivity to the entire world via his satellites, though I was confident I didn’t have 6G wherever I was.

  Clicking on the Maps app, I barked out a single, surprised laugh as I saw the icon with my face on it land in the middle of the freaking Sahara Desert.

  “Lilith damn it...” I drawled before my ears picked up on my autoresponse and digested what I had said. “Lily.”

  I thought about the woman I loved and how much I wanted to see her before once again reminding myself that I was going to keep using the phrase that had been with me for five centuries.

  “Lilith damn it. Lilith damn it. Lilith damn it,” I repeated over and over again, forcing myself to acknowledge that my Lily wasn’t the same as she who was named. It was in the same vein in which people didn’t really mean God whenever they said Goddamnit or Goddamn you. It was just a societally acceptable curse that didn’t directly reflect the actual creator of the universe.