“That’s different,” Paul said. “If Brady did something wrong to you and he apologized, did you let him off the hook?”
“Of course not, especially with him,” I said, giving a slight smile. Fortunately, Paul knew what I meant.
“But you forgave him.”
I nodded in agreement.
“It’s the same thing here, Sonya. Except it is much harder. Self-compassion and self-forgiveness are some of the hardest things for any human to do. If humanity treated each other the way we treat ourselves, we would’ve gone extinct before we ever left the African plains. For most of us, we live with the self-hatred or self-loathing. For some, it becomes too much, and they kill themselves or try to. But most of us let it sit there, a poison potent enough to prevent us from reaching our full potential but not potent enough to kill us.”
He gave a smile and a gentle sigh.
“I had that problem, you know. Every day overseas, I beat myself up for not being there for Amanda and Christopher. I kept saying to myself, ‘When are you going to be a real Dad? Why can’t you stop going overseas? Isn’t your family first?’ But I want to let you know of something that you might think is crazy. When I knew I was going to die, I thought about her and my son. I thought about what I had done for them, and how, at the end of the day, I’d given them everything I could. I loved them with all my heart, I used my money to give them as comfortable a living as possible, and I set up my future for them in case anything happened. So despite all of my failures as a husband and a father… I could face death with a sense of calm, knowing that while they would grieve, they would know I did all things for them and that their future would be secure.”
By the end of his speech, I was in tears. I didn’t bother to hide my emotions, not with the real Paul anymore. If this was a cruel prank, designed to mess with my mind before snapping me back to reality, so be it. What Paul was saying, this felt like the real Paul Stephens. This was believable.
This was beautiful. This is what I wanted.
I wanted to have someone whom I could die for. I wanted anyone, man or woman, family or friend, child or parent, whom I could carry out my life in the name of. Of course I had to make sure I could fight and take care of myself first, but that was an easy hurdle to clear.
I wanted what Paul had.
“Sonya, you cannot stay here for long. The person who has set up this meeting is taking care of other things, and the moment will soon vanish. You will return to the battle with Nuforsa’s version of me, and you need to defeat it. Just because we had this meeting does not guarantee that you will win. But I also want you to realize that you need to defeat the demon inside. Forgive yourself. Understand that my death was not something you could have prevented, and that you did all that you truly could have to save me. You may not believe it, because you want things to go your way—as we all do—but after death, I saw the situation play out. Sonya, you did everything you did. I am not going to say ‘I forgive you’ because there is nothing to forgive. You have always served me well, and you continue to carry on my legacy for me. Do these things, and the form Nuforsa has taken will not hold the same power over you.”
I sniffled as I smiled in gratitude. Around me, the room was dimming, the sun had vanished from the sky, and even Paul himself seemed to become more transparent. Yet I hadn’t felt such inner peace as at that moment in a long, long time. Hearing Paul say there was nothing wrong with that had happened… I felt calm and in awe. For so long, I’d carried the weight of his death around my neck, pushing me over.
But I could forgive myself. I could let go. I could realize that I had, objectively, done everything I could.
Once more, Paul had mentored me in something I desperately needed help with. And once more, Paul’s mentoring might end up saving my life.
“Do me one favor,” he said as his body became all but invisible. “Say hello to Amanda and Christopher for me. Tell them that I love them and miss them.”
“I will,” I yelled as he disappeared.
Seconds later, the room faded out and I was in blackness once more. Suddenly, the arm was back around my neck, pressing against me. My vision was blurry, and my hearing was gone. I only had seconds to act before the arm around my neck truly ended me.
But a new kind of fire burned within me. It wasn’t the fire of hate. It wasn’t the fire of burning rage.
It was the fire brought about when self-loathing is lifted off, revealing an energy available only to those with peace of mind. I had access to that energy now, and I would use it. Perhaps, from a pure fighting standpoint, it would not bring about the kind of damage my demon form did. But it sure made it a lot easier to fight, having removed the burden of an unnecessary mental weight.
With sudden force that I felt sure the Nuforsa Paul had not expected it, I lurched up, headbutting him in the chin. The arm came free and I rolled out of it. My senses slowly came back as the fake Paul rose, chuckling as he rubbed his chin.
“Oh, so very good, Sonya,” he said. “Even at the moment of death, you find the reserves to continue fighting. That is very good, and certainly pleasantly unexpected. But you should know I had such moments like that. And I did not survive in the end, just as you will not win in the end and your friends will die.”
“No,” I said, and I didn’t need to say it with anger or rage. I didn’t need to fight back with venom. I could simply say it knowing I had reached my peace. Plus, I knew whom I fought, and it was not Paul Stephens. “I know what happened, Nuforsa. I know that Paul died in peace. I know that I did all that I could. You will not have control over me as you once had.”
“Shut up, liar!” Paul said, and I could hear in his voice the fear that his—no, her—grip on me was fading. “You know you were the one responsible for my death. I do not know of this Nuforsa. Maybe it’s an imaginary friend you had since all the real ones die around you. Wouldn’t surprise me to see that you’ve devolved to that.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Nuforsa,” I said confidently. “Paul’s death was tragic and it was sad, but it was one that happened through no one’s fault. Sometimes, the enemy makes a strong move that you cannot deflect. Much as you did assuming this form, up until now. But the difference is, though nothing could have changed Paul’s fate, I have changed mine and that of Brady and DJ. And it is because I have forgiven myself and learned to let go.”
Paul let out a maniacal laugh, one echoed by the demons around him, but I could sense the nervousness. Nuforsa’s Paul was wilting under the psychological realizations I had gained. A sense of desperation was coming from them.
“This is the end of the line, Nuforsa. I know that the real Paul is comfortable and at peace in heaven. I will not hesitate to finish you again.”
“You’re mad! You’re insane! I am tired of your nonsense, you bitch!” Paul yelled. Ah, yes. Now I know it’s Nuforsa. “Demons! Kill all the humans here!”
Well, that I had not expected. I ran over to Brady, the closest human to me and unsheathed my guns.
“Boys, boys, boys, don’t you know something,” I said as I twirled Ebony and Ivory on my fingers before locking on to the nearest demon. “I used the unlimited ammo cheat code. Y’all gonna die!”
I fired away, my fingers moving with no hesitancy on the triggers and my guns latching on to each demon as if automatically aimed. The demons ignored DJ, still struggling to rise from Nuforsa’s attack. No demon got closer than a dozen feet from me, and within just a couple minutes, so much dust surrounded us it looked like the Sahara desert. About twenty feet from me, having retreated during the demon attack, Nuforsa stood, fear in her eyes.
I felt emboldened. To my pleasant surprise, Nuforsa’s Paul seemed to tremble a little.
I let out a battle cry and charged Nuforsa’s Paul. The advantage I had that was not there before was that this was not Paul Stephens I was fighting, but a weakened Nuforsa fighting with the body of Paul Stephens. The real Paul was right—the psychological burden I’d placed on myself had weake
ned my fighting skills, but with it lifted, I could now see more clearly what needed to be done.
I could easily block her attacks and counter. I uppercutted her multiple times and delivered several roundhouse kicks that left her bleeding and bent over. Nuforsa’s Paul tried to catch my leg, but I anticipated such a move and used her arm as leverage to swing my other leg into her. It was an incredibly athletic move and one I would not have thought to do had I not been in the right state of mind.
About a minute in, Nuforsa tried to shift the tide by transforming into a demon, but the sight was more pitiful than it was intimidating. A single horn sprouted and Paul’s body shifted in favor of red blood skin and muscles, but the weak demon before me was less frightening than the two demons who had kidnapped me the first time I’d encountered Nuforsa. I continued my assault on the weakened form of Nuforsa, sending it reeling.
I didn’t even have to shift into demon form. The demon before me had come back too quickly, ill-prepared to fight me as I had gained the biggest advantage of all—confidence.
I had it on its knees when I drove my right knee right into its jaw. I used its stunned moment to whirl around to the back and placed my hands around my neck.
“Don’t ever take the form of one of my friends, you bitch.”
With that, I snapped Nuforsa’s neck, the body remaining in its demon form as it turned to dust.
“Someday you’ll learn to remain hiding here in hell.”
The battlefield was nothing but myself, Brady, and DJ, who was now standing and moving, freed by any binding magic. I lifted Brady off the ground and hugged him tight, but quickly pulled back when he said “ow” a dozen times. His body had several scars on it, including his neck and hands, but he didn’t look incapacitated physically.
“I need a shot at that demon. Where is—”
“Brady, Brady, Brady!” I said, trying to find the humorous balance between getting his attention and not touching him.
“No, Sonya, no, I have to—”
“We need to talk more about this. But let’s—”
“Time to go,” a familiar voice said. We all looked over and saw Carsis approaching, a smile paired with a sense of urgency. “Mundus knows we’re here and your victory, Sonya. And while we’re strong, Mundus will lay waste to all of us. Let’s go.”
I nodded and held the boys together. Carsis said some words while holding his hands up in front of us, lifted us up out of the recesses of hell, and placed us back outside the building where we had come from. As nice as the spiritual realm now looked, we had no time to waste. The shrieking of demons distant but visible only hastened my plans.
“Gotta go now,” I said. I held my hand up and opened a portal. Though injured and weary, both boys staggered through the portal. I quickly jumped through, hearing a distant shriek but feeling no rush at all.
I nearly lost my shit when I realized we were now in southern Turkey and not Berlin, but fortunately, with who we had around us, I didn’t fear a whole lot. Honestly, getting back to Berlin would be the easiest part of our trip. Paul’s death was now still a tragic event, but one that didn’t have a grip on me anymore.
Besides, now that I’d eliminated the greatest threat in Berlin, Janet, the Brits and Caitlin and Sarah were unlikely to face retaliation and danger for at least the next couple days. We had to move. But our schedule would have dictated that anyways.
“Hope you guys like hiking,” I said, drawing playful groans from DJ and Brady.
“Will you be good to, Sonya? For all that you’ve gone through? I just want to make sure—”
“Yup, still the parenting brother,” I said with a laugh, this time patting him on the back for a little extra effect, choosing this time to ignore his painful cringes. “Come on, let’s get home, we need to figure out what’s next.”
Chapter 19
The nice thing about DJ was that even though he was wealthy, he rarely mentioned his wealth. It sometimes became obvious, like when he took me to a five-star, multi-hundred euro dinner in Amsterdam, but on the whole, you couldn’t ask for a quieter guy when it came to wealth.
Which made it all the more hilarious when, once we got to a city, we had first class tickets straight to Istanbul and then three more first class tickets to Berlin.
“How do you even get these things set up?” I asked, looking at him in shock.
He gave a nonchalant shrug, one that reminded me of my brother, whom I was happy to have standing next to me instead of in a different realm entirely. Brady still hadn’t gotten back to his normal self yet. He didn’t speak or taunt me as much as he had in the past, and his “parenting” seemed far more apprehensive with almost none of the playfulness as usual. In time.
“When you’re an author, people read your stuff. And when people read your stuff, you make money. And when you make money…”
“I can’t even,” I said, laughing. “I’m just happy to be flying in a plane instead of on your back.”
“What?” Brady said, sounding like he needed to play the role of protective brother with me.
DJ and I both shared a laugh and I decided to tell him the story as quietly as we could. How we flew from Berlin to southern Turkey over a few hours through the spiritual realm, taking the last few minutes at rapid speed. How we had descended into hell and how fake Paul Stephens nearly killed me.
I debated whether or not to tell him about my experience with the real Paul. My first thought was that it would sound crazy and they wouldn’t believe me, and then I remembered we’d spent half of the past week in contact with demons or in hell. So the whole “there’s no way that’s possible” argument would fall apart completely.
Then I thought that such a moment should stay between Paul and I. It was a special, powerful, emotional moment, one that quite literally saved my life and the lives of the two boys by me. Something that personal…
But no. I decided to share. I told them everything that had happened. I even became emotional retelling the story, remembering all that Paul had told me about his family. The only thing I decided not to share was that I would be in contact with Amanda and Chris. Paul had asked me to get in touch with his family, not all three of us. That would be a private moment that I’d share. I explained how as soon as I called Nuforsa out for her form, the facade fell and it became a far easier fight than the last time.
“Wow,” Brady said. “I knew how much Paul’s life hung over you, Sonya.”
“I never brought it up,” I said. Though I’d forgiven myself, that didn’t mean the topic had magically become as easy to discuss as the Jets and Real Madrid.
“And that’s exactly how I knew it affected you. It was the same thing with our parents. When you hated them the most, you wouldn’t scream and shout. You wouldn’t cry. You would just hold it in, refusing to talk about it with anyone, including me. So when Paul died and you became the same way, I knew it would hold on to you.”
“Marvelous props for overcoming it,” DJ said.
“Don’t be surprised,” Brady said.
“I never am with her, why would I be?” DJ retorted, and I just burst out laughing, much to the confusion of the two boys.
“Watching you two fight over me is cute,” I said, even though their tone didn’t seem pugnacious at all. I just needed an excuse to laugh. “DJ, let Brady play the role of parent for a bit. He’s earned a couple days without getting grief from me. Brady, remember, DJ is on our side. Even if we are… something, he’s earned the right to be here.”
Arguments would come later. Peace had to reign at least until we got back to the house in Berlin.
“Brady, what happened in there anyways? If you can talk about it.”
Brady shuddered, but after a few seconds, he spoke up, his voice cold and emotionless.
“The good news is when Paul captured me, it became pretty obvious quickly that that wasn’t the real Paul Stephens. I knew Paul longer and on a slightly more personal level than you did, so it made no sense in my head that he would wind
up in hell. I trusted my gut.”
And I bet my gut would’ve told me the same thing if I didn’t have the mental block over my head that Paul provided.
“But that sure didn’t make going through hell any easier. I was fed the minimum, mentally abused, physically scarred… the fake Paul would sometimes torture me for information.”
“What kind of information?”
Brady shrugged. But I wasn’t going to let this go.
“He asked about our group. He wanted to know more about the Brits and Carsis. But I only told him what I knew, which isn’t much.”
When he recapped what he did know—how we had met them, and how Carsis had followed us—none of it stood out to me.
“But… did you mention Carsis was an angel?”
“I’m a CIA agent, not a hostage begging to live,” Brady said, but with none of the teasing tone. “To be honest, I suspect they know of Carsis already. Just because he’s a spiritual being, and I have a feeling spiritual beings who straddle the two realms so closely are probably well known both throughout heaven and hell. But I wasn’t about to admit something that I suspected would aid the enemy.”
“I’d expect nothing less,” I said with a smile. “You’re a Ferguson, after all.”
We all finally laughed, even Brady, but as the flight attendants came and served drinks, I became worried about Brady. The shock of the past few days would not just go away because we’d rescued him and squashed Nuforsa’s plans once more. There would be nightmares, moments of crying, and perhaps even shame.
Whatever I’d learned from the real Paul, I’d have to use it here.
The flight landed in Berlin about an hour later, and groggily, we all returned to the house. I’m sure Carsis would have said to not use public transportation, but I was so exhausted I didn’t give a shit. I had my guns if necessary.
They weren’t necessary. When we returned, the girls and the Brits stumbled downstairs. The girls gave DJ a hug, while the Brits enveloped Brady.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming back,” Nicholas said with a smile as he shook Brady’s hand firmly and gave a soft pat on the shoulder. Well that’s a hell of a thing to say. “Nice to see not all mysteries end in horror. Now, I have some fantasy football questions for you.”
Magic Revenge: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Spirit War Chronicles Book 2) Page 20
