Ascension (Book 4, The Watcher Chronicles) (18 page)

I finally let his head go.

“There,” I tell him, removing my hands from his hair and folding them behind his neck, “now I know what it feels like.”

I look around at the darkness surrounding us.

“What is this place, Michael?”

“It’s an inner realm,” he tells me. “It was designed so that we could all come together as one.”

“Let’s gather around,” I hear Gabriel instruct behind me.

Not wanting to let Michael go, I take one of his hands into mine and we walk back to the circle of vessels and their own archangels.

“Now,” Gabriel says, “who will be the first to ask to see something in the future?”

All of the vessels look to me and I know they expect me to ask the one question we’ve been asking ourselves since we learned what we are.

“If Lucifer succeeds in his plan, what will happen?”

The space around us is instantly transformed into a living nightmare.

We’re all standing on the grass of the National Mall in Washington D.C. I’m facing the United States Capital building but half of the dome is missing. It looks like a giant plowed his fist down the right side of it, smashing it inward. The sky is black but tinged with red like it’s bleeding. The glow of orange mushroom clouds from a dozen or more nuclear bombs can be seen in the distance. I hear the sound of a large living creature make a low pitched growl that sounds like its reverberating through broken glass. When I look up, I see a ruby red serpentine monster as big as an ocean liner fly over my head. Its mouth lacks lips and you can see the creatures jagged, razor sharp silver teeth which are dripping with blood. Its underside is clear and we can see the corpses of people floating in the interior of its stomach.

Once the creature passes, I find myself looking up at the open Tear in the sky. A vast expanse of blackness is on the other side. It’s similar to what we saw back in December. The only difference is the large dot of red in the middle of the darkness acting like an eye on the world.

“I don’t understand,” I say to Michael. “What does he do to make this happen?”

Michael drops his gaze from the Tear and looks over at me.

“He tears the veil separating the Origin from Hell.”

I look at the devastation surrounding me. “So if this happens here, it happens in every reality?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Hell on Earth,” I hear Chandler say as he and Chamuel come to stand beside me and Michael. “That’s what he’s been planning all this time.”

“That’s what he meant when he told me he would make us destroy ourselves,” I say, my attention drawn to the glowing mushroom clouds of atomic bombs in the distance. “We try to fight against the creatures that come from Hell and end up destroying ourselves in the process.”

I hear a whimper and look over at JoJo. I see her crying on Jophiel’s shoulder while her archangel tries to comfort her.

“Gabe,” I say drawing my friend’s attention away from the Tear, “show us what happens to the world if we win.”

Immediately, a bright light invades the inner realm we’re in, and I have to shield my eyes with a hand.

I hear the laughter of children. The sun is high in a clear blue sky warming my skin. The smell of freshly cut grass permeates the air. Birds are chirping happily around families basking in the noontime sun. I look over at the Capital and see that it stands proud and tall.

“We’ll win for this future,” I say, looking around at the other vessels, seeing the same grim determination on their faces that I feel sure they see on mine.

I look at Gabe and Gabriel.

“What do we have to do to defeat Lucifer and the princes?”

The scene changes again and we find ourselves standing in a familiar place for me now, Antarctica.

I see six of us standing in a V formation with me in the lead. Those of us who have talismans to hold are holding them. We’re wearing white leather outfits: pants, jackets and boots with white t-shirts underneath the jacket. We’re also wearing our crowns.

Chandler walks around my future figure and whistles.

“Now that’s wicked cool,” he says, walking to the backside of me and staring rather appreciatively at an inappropriate spot on my person.

“Eyes up, lover boy,” I tell him.

Chandler holds his hands up in surrender. “I am only guilty of admiring beauty when it’s so blatantly displayed in front of me.”

I just roll my eyes at him and stare at our future selves.

“Something about you looks different,” Leah comments standing in front of my image. “Your face looks…harder.”

I look at my face and instantly see what she’s saying. My eyes look emotionless, like I’ve completely cut my feelings off. Maybe that’s what I’ll have to do to win against Lucifer. My feelings for him might get in the way of whatever it is I’ll need to do to defeat him.

I notice I’m wearing the bracelet Chandler and JoJo made me. It makes me wonder how I get it back from Lucifer. I placed it around his wrist so he could fully understand how I felt about him the night I offered him back his crown but didn’t get it back before he left. Sometime between now and this future moment, he must give it back to me.

I look at the six of us and notice which vessel is missing.

“Where’s JoJo?” I ask Gabe.

“I don’t know,” he answers, just as confused by her absence as the rest of us.

Lucifer’s group suddenly appears about a hundred yards away from us and we all instantly disappear from sight.

“Where did we go?” Leah asks.

“I think I know,” I say. “JoJo must make us the clothing. I think we just turned ourselves invisible like I did when I escaped Asmodeus and Mammon when they kidnapped me.”

“Oui,” JoJo says, “I can most certainly do that.”

Michael and I decide to fly into the air to view what happens from above.

We watch as Lucifer and his group go through their routine of opening and closing the Tear. Lucifer still needs his last prince. I have to believe this is the day he finds his missing piece to bring Hell to Earth. It takes about thirty minutes but the last prince materializes in front of Lucifer. The smile that forms on Lucifer’s face brings a chill to my heart. He says something to the prince I can’t hear from the distance I’m at but the prince walks over to the other princes and finds his place within their circle.

Suddenly, Gabe appears behind a prince I haven’t met yet and quickly transfers his crown to the prince’s head. The prince is instantly immobilized and enveloped in a pillar of white light. Mason appears beside Gabe and quickly phases him out of harms way.

So that’s what the crowns are for.

“Who is that prince?” I ask Michael. “I saw him the last time Lucifer gathered them together here but I never learned his name.”

“That’s Amon. It’s smart to take him out of the fight early. He’s the prince of wrath. Now he can’t incite the other princes with his power.”

I watch as my group suddenly reappears where we were at the start of the vision. The rest of us don’t look like we’ve moved an inch.

Lucifer and his men see us and begin to charge. I hear music begin to play and see Chandler with his pipe to his lips. The music he weaves brings denseness to the air which instantly makes me feel like all hope is lost. The princes obviously feel the effects of Chandler’s magical tune because they slow to a walk. I watch as Zack throws dagger after dagger at the princes until they all have one embedded in their bodies somewhere. They attempt to remove the daggers but can’t seem to.

Then we attack.

As we charge forward, I notice how unaffected we seem to be by Chandler’s music. It’s like we’re completely immune to the effects of Chandler’s playing. If anything, the music seems to have the opposite effect on us. Our faces look grimly determined to win at any cost.

It’s the strangest, most coordinated attack I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m an expert on warfare, of course. In unison, we run towards the princes.  Our bodies fade in and out of existence as we run, like ghostly visions on the wind. The princes look confused by what we’re doing, and I have to assume that’s part of the strategy. I watch myself twirl my sword in my hand as I run towards Asmodeus. Right before I reach him I do what looks like a vertical cartwheel in the air flying over his head and swing my sword with vicious force through the back of Asmodeus’ legs as I land. A spray of black blood issues forth from his rotting body, forcing him to his knees. Zack ghosts in beside Asmodeus and places his crown on the prince’s head instantly causing him to become immobilized as a pillar of purple light encases him.

Mason phases in and grabs Zack’s arm. Before he phases out, he looks over at me and yells, “Keep her alive!”

It seems like a strange thing to say to me.

I look rather unaffected by Mason’s plea and only nod, not saying anything in response.

Mason phases with Zack in tow.

I make a B-line for Baal. I have to smile at this because I’m happy to know I’ll be the one who brings the son of a bitch to his knees.

Baal looks pleased to see he’ll finally get to fight me. I run up to him like I’m going to tackle him. He tries to grab at me but I fade just as I reach him causing him to stumble forward. I fade back into existence and bury the blade of my sword in his back causing him to fall to his knees. I transfer my crown to his head, immobilizing him in a pillar of yellow light.

I turn to face Lucifer who hasn’t moved a muscle since the fighting began. We stare at one another for a few seconds, each daring the other to make the first move. I run towards Lucifer. He watches me with amused eyes as I approach him. A few feet away from him I launch my body into the air.

My future self looks down at him directly below me.

“Do you want to kill me, old friend?” I ask him.

“Every fiber in my being wants to snap your neck and pull out your heart,” he yells up at me.

“Then come and get me if you can,” I taunt as I fly over to the nearby mountain range.

I watch as Lucifer phases in and out as he follows me along the ground, away from what’s left of the main fight. We both seem to fade out of the vision.

“Where did we go?” I ask Michael who is floating beside me.

“I’m not sure, but…”

Michael looks troubled, which instantly worries me.

“But what?” I ask, not completely sure I want to hear his answer but asking it anyway.

Michael faces me, his forehead creased with worry. His eyes warn of trouble.

“I was in control of you, Jess,” he tells me.

I cock my head at him. “How could you tell?”

“Because that’s what I always called him: old friend. And the way you fought back there, that was how I fight.”

It certainly explained Mason’s odd choice of words to me.

“But why would you be in control of me?”

Michael shakes his head. “I’m not sure.”

I look back to the spot in the sky where Lucifer and I disappeared.

“Why do you think we can’t see us fighting Lucifer?”

“I’m not sure about that either.”

Both Michael and I look back down and see that the other vessels have captured the remaining princes with their crowns.

“Did you know the crowns would do that?” I ask.

“No,” Michael says, “I had no idea.”

The scene below seems to automatically reset, not showing us what happens afterward simply rerunning what we’ve already seen.

“We should probably go back and make sure everyone knows their place in the fight.”

When we fly back down to view the battle over again, Chandler walks over to me.

“So what’s up with you leading Lucifer off like that?”  He asks.

I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’m not even in control of my body in this fight according to Michael.”

Chandler looks just as concerned about this new information as Michael did.

“Does Michael have any idea why?”

I shake my head.

As Chandler and I watch the fight unfold before us, he says, “I don’t care what you say but that ghosting thing we do is wicked cool.”