by Hunter Blain
Still feeling dizzy at the revelation of what I had read, I scooped the nail off the ground, taking with it a chunk of rock, and turned to face the approaching demons. Stone turned to powder as my fist tightened around the metal.
On autopilot, because my conscious brain was doing its best to not curl up into a fetal position and weep, I willed my celestial gladius into existence. Heavenfire bloomed bright, making the grotesque monsters halt in wide-eyed surprise. The last time the demons had seen an angelic sword ablaze had been just before their long fall, when their brothers had stood against them in Heaven above.
Fueled by the fear of truth, I hefted the burning blade, pointed it at the nearest demon only feet away, and sent a torrent of flames into his chest. It encapsulated him in an instant and began eating at his flesh, making him screech in agony, mirroring the cries from the innumerable souls below. After a moment of shock, his brothers found their resolve and started to attack.
Without thinking, I relied on my centuries of experience — specifically the time in Faerie spent training — and let my blade dance around me.
Limbs were surgically removed with a precision rivaled by no living being. My muscles parried and dodged with blinding speed while offering unstoppable counterattacks. Obsidian armor was cut through like aluminum foil. There was no blood, the blazing gladius cauterizing the wounds as they were created.
The remaining few demons that were in the back, witnessing the ease with which their kin was being struck down, turned and fled.
I was still devastated about Dawson and Magni,
I’m scared.
and about learning the bullshit ending to the prophecy, and blurred forward with impossible speed to bisect the fleeing demons at the waist, moving so fast there was a line of flames in the air that followed me, disappearing like a lit fuse as it went until it caught up to where I had skidded to a halt.
With an emotionless face, I studied the fallen and spit once on the ground. Turning back toward the cacophony of cries, I debated on going down and murdering every demon I could find.
Something warm lightly touched my shoulder, and I pivoted back toward the mountain in a defensive stance. Finding no one was there but feeling a breeze of peace gently waft the flames of hate at my core, I shook my head clear and oriented on the pathway out of Hell. I aggressively climbed up the mountain, sending pebbles and medium-sized rocks tumbling toward the river, and eventually stood at the entrance of the tunnel.
Before I stepped through, I slightly turned my face in the direction of the unneeded chaos below, the words on the book’s pages giving a poignant certainty to my voice, and whispered, “I’ll be back, motherfuckers.”
I kept the gladius in my hand as I walked, feeling its comfort while my mind reeled at the words on the pages and the loss of Dawson. How was I going to face Joey and Depweg? Bubbling fury with nowhere to go manifested as a single tear that slipped down my cheek as I pictured Joey collapsing to the ground in unfathomable sorrow while Depweg just looked at me with hurt in his eyes, disappointed that I couldn’t keep my promise to him.
I had failed. I had failed, and Dawson had paid the ultimate price for it.
I froze midstride as Charon came to mind.
“They do not cease to exist.”
“Sheol,” I whispered with a terrified determination. I knew I had to go to the place below Hell, and it scared the shit out of me. I needed to talk to Father Thomes. But what to do about Depweg and Joey?
If I lied, it would spare them the horrific truth that might cripple one, if not both, of them. This option would also leave me wide open for the pain of betrayal. I might lose one or both of them.
If I told the truth . . . my mind sent images of a gore-covered Depweg squeezing into a house to murder countless mortals.
“Lilith help me,” I mouthed to myself as I ran a hand down my face, pulling the skin as I forcibly breathed out.
Not knowing what I was going to do, I continued down the path.
Then there was Magni. I stopped in my tracks, and with my arms out to my sides, screamed at the tunnel ceiling.
After my metaphysical equivalent of an adrenaline dump, my arms dropped weakly to my sides as my head slumped down to my chest.
“This is too much,” I whispered to the empty tunnel, the cries of anguish now muffled like a gentle breaking of ocean waves on the beach.
With no other option, I continued onward down the path to home.
As expected, I came to the end of the tunnel where only a wall awaited. Without a reason as to how I knew, I slashed at the wall with my angelic weapon and revealed a doorway behind the crumbling stone and clods of dirt. I pulled at some of the stubborn pieces that refused to budge until the way was clear.
Letting the gladius wink out of existence, I grabbed the skull door handle and pushed through the portal.
Chapter 8
Istepped into the cavern with SAC Baker still looking at me, frozen in time. His light blue eyes locked onto where I sat, not having had the time to make any of the calls we had discussed. I had anticipated as much, but the mere idea of him making progress while I was in Hell had given me a small semblance of peace.
Replacing the nail in my breast pocket, I regarded my own body. I let my fingers glide through where the beanie rested on my head, feeling a modicum of warmth peaking from the cold abyss growing in my heart.
Glancing at the door to Hell one last time, I shook my head in defeat as I aligned my soul with my body, and sat down.
Opening my eyes, I instantly felt the coolness of the cavern compared to the sweltering heat in Hell.
I looked down at my hands, touched the ground to make sure I was corporeal, and then turned to see Collin staring at me with an expression that said, “Well?”
I wiped the drool off my mouth, stood up, and commanded, “Let’s go.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s done. I need to go home,” I said coldly. “I need a drink and a good day’s rest. Tonight . . . was just too much.”
“Am I to assume you found the scrolls?”
“Books. And yes, sort of.”
“What did they say?”
“Collin,” I started, whirling on him and putting a thumb underneath the top of one of my eye sockets, “I need to go home. Okay? We can talk tomorrow night.”
Understanding seemed to dawn on SAC Baker, who nodded slowly and started making his way to the parked SUV. The man was perceptive, to say the least.
We wordlessly got in and the driver did a three-point turn to point us back up the ramp we had descended.
A few minutes later, we were outside the military base and on our way to the fence line. I said a few minutes, but I had no idea. My mind raced with the implications of what I had read. The gates of Hell opening before me. Lots dead, including Magni. Apparently, more than one of my closest friends would say the same two words as they died that Dawson had tonight. All my worst fears realized by a series of thirteen books that had been written before time was even created.
No. No, it can’t be, I argued with myself. I won’t let the gates of Hell open. I won’t let anything happen to my friends. No, no, no, NO!
“If I may ask, did you achieve your secondary objective?” Collin asked, breaking me away from the war inside my head.
I looked out the window as the car drove up the smooth ramp. I was being forced to make my decision sooner than expected in regard to what to say about Dawson. Then again, with the altered SUV we were in, we would be back to my home in moments. I could accurately anticipate that both Joey and Depweg would demand answers the moment I walked through the door.
“Yes,” I lied, feeling a piece of my heart break. “I saved Dawson.”
“Is he back on Earth?” Collin asked, extremely interested. He turned more of his body toward me, as if doing so would allow him to better hear my answer.
My mind replayed the events. I shook my head and said, “No. No, I don’t think so. He saw his parents at the end, and they’re both dead.”
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“Ah. So, he went to Heaven? How did you manage that, if I may ask?”
The best lies contain the most truth.
Pulling out the nail from my breast pocket, I said, “With this.” What I was saying was mostly the truth, and I had to focus on that to prevent the guilt from eating away at my soul.
SAC Baker just stared at the nine-inch nail, processing what I had just dropped on him. Snapping out of his thoughts, he pressed the button to bring up the divider. Within a few seconds, we were alone for all intents and purposes.
“That relic freed a soul from Hell?” he asked, pointing with a half-raised finger as if his brain was redirecting all resources to the item in my hand.
“Lil’ bit more than a relic, but yes. Neat, huh?” I said, doing my best to fake being upbeat. Best to consider the conversation with Collin as practice before I had to look Depweg and Joey in the eyes . . . and lie.
“I do believe ‘neat’ fails to fully convey the amazement I feel,” SAC Baker said with vocally emphasized air quotes.
“Then why shut the thingy?” I asked, pointing to the divider.
“We cannot let out that there is a tangible item that can traverse the planes and free souls from Hell. Imagine the chaos it could create.”
“I don’t follow,” I admitted as I regarded the government agent responsible for safeguarding the world from supernaturals.
“Well,” he started as his mind developed a scenario I might understand, “let’s say a teenager commits suicide and his religious parents discover there’s a way to free him from an eternity in Hell. I don’t believe it to be a far stretch to imagine they would do anything to free their child from such torture.”
“And they could free themselves if they are reduced to killing people in order to get this nail,” I said with a renewed respect for the object in my hand.
“Precisely my point. We need to keep it between us. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes. Wait, no. I have to at least tell Joey and Depweg.”
“That’s two more potential leaks.”
I thought for a moment and then asked, “What does it really matter? No one would believe it.”
“Even the hint of a fraction of the truth could be detrimental. Just as an example, how many innocents have been killed by extremists because of the promise of seventy-two virgins in the afterlife?”
“How American of you,” I retorted in Arabic.
“It was just one of countless examples across most religions,” Collin responded in the same language.
I raised an eyebrow in modest surprise.
Switching back to English, Collin continued, “Most, if not all, religions have their zealots. That’s the point I am attempting to make.”
“Understood. And though I agree with your line of thinking, Depweg and Joey deserve to know that Dawson is safe.”
“Might I suggest leaving out certain details, then?”
“You mean lie to my friends,” I stated rather than asked, inwardly being suffocated by the irony of the situation.
“I am merely offering a compromise that will behoove all parties involved.”
As we pulled out of the compound, a familiar bright flash lit up the world outside, and we were pulling down my street.
“Damn it, that’s cool,” I said just below a whisper.
“May I take that as acceptance for my proposal?”
I looked at the man, and lightly tightened my jaw as I nodded once. I did not like deceiving my allies, but SAC Collin Baker had a point. For some reason, it made it easier to hold certain truths from my friends, because now someone of vast importance was providing a compelling argument as to why it was, in fact, the right thing to do.
Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, I knew I was simply being selfish and grasping onto any branch I could find to make it easier to not speak the full truth, so help me God.
“Thank you, John. I only ask this of you to safeguard humanity.”
Something Val had once told me came to mind.
“You know there’re two more of these out there, right?”
“I am aware, yes. We will increase our focus on the remaining nails without drawing attention. As long as no one else knows what they can do, we should be fine.”
We pulled into my cemetery and I reached for the door.
Collin uncharacteristically grabbed my arm as I opened my side. I turned to face him.
“Will we win? The prophecy, I mean. Can you at least tell me that?”
Trying not to think about the books, I looked at him and continued to practice. “Yes.” I was getting good at this, and it hurt my heart.
He watched me for a few seconds, flicking his gaze between my stone-cold eyes, and then nodded in acceptance of my answer. I knew he didn’t believe me, but what choice did he have right then?
His hand slipped off my arm and I exited the SUV, shutting the door behind me.
I stood in the parking lot with my hands in my pockets and watched as the blacked-out vehicle pulled away. It did its magic trick again, and this time, I got to watch as the front of the thing started to disappear as if passing through an invisible curtain.
As the taillights vanished, I looked up into the night sky, peering at the stars between the thin wisps of clouds. They seemed more beautiful than ever at that moment. A warm breeze glided across my skin, and I thought of Lily and the sacrifice she had made. This was all too much for me. I wanted to scream into the night with shaking fists. I wanted to destroy priceless works of art. I wanted to not return my cart after grocery shopping, opting to leave it in a perfectly good parking spot during peak hours so that way someone would see an empty spot and get their hopes up, only to have them dashed at the sight of the cart that they were too lazy to get out and move. I wanted to cause chaos in my raw hate, and I wanted others to suffer alongside me.
I took in a long, slow breath as my eyes aimlessly drifted across the blanket of sparkling lights that were so far away that not even my preter-brain could fathom the distance.
What if he was right? I thought to myself, thinking about what Samael had told me. What if I can’t change the prophecy and, instead, just let him take over the garden of eternity?
If I had had the same conversation about the state of existence with anyone else but Samael, I would have been inclined to agree that things were in a state of needing much repair and course-correction.
My mind went blank, and a scene formed like the beginning of a movie. I was standing on the banks of a river, hundreds of bloated corpses clogging the flow of the water. I was going to kill every last soldier responsible for the senseless massacre. That is, until I’d met Da. He had guided me and provided the foundation from which Father Thomes and I had built an empire of salvation and protection.
Without Da, I would have continued tromping through history, wantonly murdering anyone I deemed worthy of my attention — and my bar had been set dangerously low back then. Da had tended my garden of wrath and created new meaning in my life.
A meteor bloomed across the sky for a few seconds before burning up completely in the Earth’s atmosphere. It was beautiful. Hurtling through space to end its billions of years of existence in a fiery show that seemed to be only for me.
I thought about the wars of men and the millions killed over the millennia. From Genghis Khan to Hitler. I thought about the starving masses in underdeveloped countries that no one in power seemed to be helping. Everyone on the planet seemed to be content with their small plot of land with imaginary lines that made up borders. People were outraged over infinitesimal things, like what bathrooms to use, when there were those being maimed and tortured for loving the wrong person or not worshipping the right god.
If Earth was a garden, then it needed some serious TLC.
But how could I believe the Father of Lies? As I had experienced firsthand, the most convincing deceits involved splashes of truth to make them more palatable to the recipient. Shit, I was going to use that very method, again, when
I told the weres waiting for me downstairs that I’d saved Dawson. Everything would be the truth up until the end, where I would omit the part about him being sent to Sheol.
“I don’t like either option,” I said to the starlit sky. “I can’t let the garden of eternity wither away. But I also can’t accept that Satan is a better gardener than God — the one who freaking created the damn garden.”
Steady footsteps sounded behind me and I knew immediately who it was.
“Hey, man,” I said without taking my eyes off the sky. I unconsciously stuck my hands in my trench pockets for a reason I couldn’t put into words.
“Saw you on the camera,” Depweg said as he stepped up beside where I stood and joined me in peering into the beautiful, starlit sky. “Thought you could use some company.”
I wondered if he saw creation the same way I did. But how could he, after what I had learned tonight? I tried to force myself to turn to face my best friend, but . . . but I couldn’t. He was right there, waiting for me to tell him the good news about Dawson. He trusted me. He fucking trusted me to save him, and I was going to lie to spare him the pain of my failure.
The sky became a blur as my breaths came in shallow gasps that fired like a machine gun. My hand shot to my mouth in an attempt to stop myself from fully losing control.
I could see Depweg’s head turning slightly to look sidelong at me.
“You alright, brother?” Depweg asked with genuine concern.
“Nah, man. I’m pretty fuck’n far from alright,” I said in a half-assed Ving Rhames impression. My heart just wasn’t in it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a tone that suggested I could tell him anything and everything.
“Just . . . just been a long night, is all, man.”
“Wanna talk about it?” Depweg asked, returning his gaze to the stars above. I could also sense what he was really asking. He wanted to talk about it, about him.
“Not right now. I still need to think about everything,” I wiped at my face, and a resolution came to light, solidifying in my mind. I already knew what I was going to say, so why prolong it and cause undue worry to them and stress to me? Sniffling, I asked, “Oh, is Joey here? I have news for both of you.”
