Faith (Soul Savers Book 7) (9 page)

“You can pray for
them,” Rina suggested.

“Ha!” I
barked, and I kicked my foot, but no satisfying thud came from
kicking fog. “Can’t you just stop the fighting in the
Otherworld? Defeat the Demons once and for all so Tristan can leave?
Then we can go to Earth, where you say we belong, and be with our
son. There must be a way to end this!”

Cassandra suddenly
appeared, as though she’d been listening all along. She floated
above us, looking as much like a warrior Angel as any of the others,
although she’d told me that she, Mom, and Rina were at the
lowest level. The chestnut waves of her hair fluttered in a breeze,
and her pearlescent wings opened wide to the side.

“There is a way,
Alexis,” she said, “a way to save Earth and the souls
that remain.”

“How?” I
demanded. “How do we stop everything? And please don’t
say I’ll do it, because we know how well that worked out last
time. I can’t be the cause of any more deaths.”

“But you
can
be the cause of many lives,” she said. “You may not want
to hear it, but it is the truth.
You
can stop this war.”

And here we go
again
. She was right. I didn’t want to hear it. I blew out
a sigh, trying with difficulty to hold on to my temper as Lucas’s
words echoed in my mind, along with everything I knew about the Bible
and the Book of Revelation.

“So let me get
this straight.” I thought out loud as I crossed my arms over my
chest and popped my hip out. “God sent His four horsemen to
Earth, brought on the apocalypse, took His own quarter of the
population, allowed Lucas to rise as the Antichrist, and Satan to
take over Earth, and
I’m
the one who’s supposed to
put a stop to it? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that
supposed to be Jesus’s big gig?”

“Alexis, that is
not the apocalypse,” Mom ground out between clenched teeth.

I snorted. Hadn’t
she seen the loss of life that I had?

“This has not
been God’s doing,” Rina clarified.

“It is not time
yet for God to bring the end of the world,” Cassandra added.
“There are many souls that can be saved.”

“Oh, really?”
I rolled my eyes. “So you’re trying to tell me I didn’t
personally witness and experience Conquest, War, Famine, and Death?
That Lucas himself isn’t the Antichrist trying to raise Satan
from Hell? I
know
that isn’t true. Lucas told me that
was his plan. Satan himself told me he was coming soon.”

Mom cringed at the
mention of Satan talking to me. “
Lucas
has done all of
this. He is arrogant and prideful. Power-hungry and aggressive. He
brought on everything that you see as the four horsemen, turning
Earth into a place that would welcome Satan. Maybe he does believe
himself to be the Antichrist, and I’m so sorry for that, honey.
I’m so sorry that you’re in this position.”

“
Sorry?
”
I parroted. “You’re
sorry
? You knew it was coming,
and you couldn’t be bothered to warn me! Maybe God didn’t
do this, but He certainly allowed it to happen.”

“He’s
always allowed humans free will,” Cassandra replied, her voice
reflecting my fervor. “He’s allowed the humans to choose
their paths, and recently, the majority chose to walk away and follow
their own desires. When dark times came, they chose to follow Lucas
and evil. They did this to themselves and to Earth, and so yes, they
must suffer the consequences of their choices.”

“But it’s
Lucas who has taken it upon himself to start the apocalypse,”
Mom said. “He must be stopped before it’s too late.”

“Then stop him!
He’s opened the veil for the Demons to enter Earth. Why can’t
the Angels enter? Why rely on me when a few Angels could go in and
finish it for good?”

Cassandra came to stand
in front of me, her eyes soft even as I glared at her. “Because
God’s plan goes beyond simply stopping Lucas. We don't know it
all—each part is revealed to us when appropriate—but we
do know the Angels are preparing for so much more. And
you
are
part of that plan. You were chosen to do this before I even started
the Amadis, Alexis. This has always been your true purpose.”

And I couldn’t
help it. I laughed in her face.

I couldn’t
believe we were having this argument. I couldn’t believe she’d
just said that. The word had become so jaded to me. In fact, all of
this had. I was done with it, with them and their inane talk. Since
they weren’t going to do anything about either my husband or my
son, I would have to do it on my own. Which first meant getting out
of Heaven’s yard.

I started walking, not
knowing which direction I needed to go in, but not caring. I just
needed to get out of here. The white haze separated for me, only to
reveal a new space of expanded nothingness.

“Where are you
going?” Mom asked. All three of them followed me.

“How do I get
back to Earth?”

“You are ready?”
Cassandra asked, seemingly taken aback.

“Yes. More than
ready.”

She caught up to me,
and then eyed me, as though she didn’t quite buy it. “You
will serve your purpose, then?”

I blew out a harsh
breath and my strides grew longer and harder as anger stewed within
me. Nearly exploded as I recalled Satan’s words.

“My
purpose
?”
I spat as I spun on her. “Is that anything like
Dorian’s
?
Is it true that the only reason he was put on Earth was to sacrifice
himself to the Daemoni?”

Cassandra pursed her
lips. “Dorian is doing what he’s supposed to do.”

My eyes narrowed. “So
Satan doesn’t always lie, does he? And now Dorian’s
giving himself over for no reason at all.”

“Honey, he’s
doing exactly what he needs to do,” Mom said.

“And why is that?
Why him? Because his soul’s not as valuable as the Summoned
brothers’?” I snarled. “Do you all have some secret
way of deciding whose soul is worth more than others? Is that
something I get to learn later, or just another blind you’ll
keep over my eyes?”

“Alexis, what do
you mean?” Mom demanded.

“Dorian’s
purpose! Sacrificing himself to break the curse on the Summoned so
they’ll come to the Amadis side.”

“His purpose is
much bigger than that,” Cassandra said. “We do not know
if he will break the curse.”

“Of course he
won’t! But you’ll let him hand himself over to the
Daemoni anyway and lose his soul. Spectacular.”

“To serve his
purpose, he must go to the Daemoni,” Cassandra confirmed. “But
Alexis, you must remember that his soul is like anybody else’s—its
fate is in
his
control. Only his. Just because he goes to the
Daemoni does not mean he will lose his soul. He must make the
specific choice in the end.”

My mind faltered with
this information, my feet nearly stumbling, too. Why had I never
considered this? All of those times everyone spoke of Dorian going to
the Daemoni, I’d automatically feared not only for his life,
but even more for his soul. I just knew that meant he’d lose it
immediately, that he’d automatically belong to Satan and be
damned for an eternity. Yet, I’d felt the hope in Noah’s
soul when he’d been with us, and hadn’t he made that same
decision? If it hadn’t been for the curse, I was sure he would
have converted. Which meant that if Dorian made it to Lucas before
Tristan and I could get to him, he wasn’t completely lost to
us.

I didn’t miss
what else Cassandra had said, though.

“If you don’t
expect him to break the curse, then why are you so willing for him to
go to the Daemoni?” I asked.

“That is what he
needs to do. It is his purpose.”

I growled. “So
much for getting somewhere with the truth.” I turned and
stomped away again. “At least tell me this. If there’s
nothing worth sacrificing himself for—and nothing worth me
fighting Lucas for—where does that get us?”

I waited for an answer,
even glanced over my shoulder, knowing they followed me. All three of
them looked bemused.

I blew out a breath.
“Fine. I’ll tell you. Dorian becomes no different than
the rest of the Summoned sons, and ends up losing his soul to Satan
because you obviously don’t care about him. And don’t
tell me such-and-such will happen and I’ll save everyone,
including Dorian, blah blah blah, because you know what? I don’t
believe you anymore. I can’t believe anything any of you say.
You never tell me the whole truth. You told me I’d save
humanity, but that was a lie. And you didn’t help me as you’d
promised you would. So you either lied then, too, or you didn’t
know that Lucas would do this, which means the Angels didn’t
know. And you know what that tells me? God didn’t share that
tidbit with them. He walked away. He abandoned all of us. Because He
knows there’s nothing left worth fighting for.” I threw
my hands in the air. “So like I said before, we’ve
already lost. So, please, show me out so I can save the only two
people I can.”

“Do you really
believe God has abandoned us? That there is nothing worth fighting
for?” Cassandra asked me in complete earnestness.

“Based on
everything I’ve seen and know, that’s exactly what I
believe. How many ways do I need to say it?” I stopped again
and turned on them, my patience worn. “Now please tell me how
the hell to get out of here!”

Cassandra, Rina, and
Mom stared at me for a long moment, and then Cassandra finally moved,
waving her hand outwards, and the white mist that surrounded us
dissipated. I thought for a moment, she’d opened the veil for
me to slip through. Finally! But as I tried to step into Earth’s
realm, the veil didn’t give. She was only allowing me to
see
.
And although I pretty much expected it, I gasped at the scene before
us.

She’d given us a
birds-eye view of what I thought might be the area between
Washington, D.C., and New York City, at one time densely populated
and recognizable by landmark structures. D.C. looked even worse than
the last time I’d seen it, and from there to New York,
everything was pretty much flattened and covered in white ash. The
Statue of Liberty was noticeably missing from New York’s
harbor, and half of the skyscrapers had been diminished to
steel-beamed skeletons and piles of concrete. Those still standing,
including the Empire State Building, gaped open with huge chunks
carved out of their sides and several floors missing from their tops.

Not a single sign of
life showed.

No people crowding the
sidewalks, of course. No cars on the streets or highways. No animals
roaming or even birds soaring in the air. Wait. I focused in on a
single vehicle traversing a highway. The occupants must have been
supernatural to be able to survive the radiation that no doubt hung
in the air.

I didn’t know how
much time had passed since I’d left Earth—time meant
nothing here. On the one hand, it’d seemed like decades,
especially my time in Hell. That alone could have been centuries. But
seeing this made me think not so much. Maybe days or weeks or months.
Not that it really mattered.

“Like I said,
nothing worth fighting for.”

“That is what you
see on the surface,” Cassandra said, “but come with me. I
want to show you something.”

She took my hand, and
we walked several steps, the Earth passing by beneath our feet. Then
we stopped over what looked like Arizona and New Mexico, and we
looked into what appeared to be a dark cellar or perhaps a cave. A
rather large cavern, I realized, with tunnels and smaller caves
running off of the main one. Several dozen people of all ages, maybe
even a hundred of them, had gathered as a community, eating bread and
some kind of stew from a bowl, talking in groups and laughing at each
other’s jokes.

“This is
happening now?” I asked.

Cassandra nodded. “This
very moment.”

Then the scene before
us blinked away. Not gone, but changed, making me choke. All of the
people had become corpses, lying like garbage scattered across the
cavern floor, their dead eyes staring at the walls or ceiling. Their
clothes were blackened with dried blood, more of which had become
dark brown stains on the floor and spatters on the walls. The wounds
in the corpses’ flesh were obviously fang bites, although a few
were missing entire limbs or chunks from their bodies, meaning Weres
had been involved, too. Their screams filled my ears, their souls
begging for mercy and asking me
why
.

I squeezed my eyes shut
and covered my ears before another flashback from Hell knocked me
down.

“Why do you show
me Daemoni food?” I demanded.

“Alexis,”
Mom admonished. “Don’t be so crude.”

“Crude? Look at
them!” I opened my eyes, waving my hand toward the scene, but
it had reverted to the gathering of people. Live people. Eating and
chatting and seeming to enjoy each other’s company, despite
their circumstances. “Didn’t you see it?”