Scarred (the Spellbound Series Book 3) (28 page)

              But it’s something
I
understand, and a new thought occurs to me in my final moments. I can’t destroy Michael… but I can change him. The whispers of six archangels affirm my decision, and they guide my limp hands, giving me strength even as I feel mine ebbing away. I latch onto Michael’s arm before he can pull the sword from my body, and hold him tightly. Tiny sigils begin to appear on his arm, their white flames burning into his skin. And the moment they’re all in place, the flames intensify, until the point where they singe his skin. Every single ounce of power that Michael has ever held draws out of his body, and becomes part of the universe once more.

              Having done their job, the sigils vanish, leaving nothing but burned flesh in their wake. Michael’s eyes are ablaze with fury as he asks, “What have you done?!”

              “I made sure you’ll never be anything more than a man,” I tell him between labored breaths. “You’re a mortal now.”

              “You tempestuous little slag! How dare you-“

              “That’s not all. I’ve got bigger things in store for you.” With the last of the strength the angels have given me, I tear open a hole in the universe right were Michael and I are standing. But I have absolutely no destination in mind. No world, not Earth, not Elfame, not Heaven or Hell will ever see the likes of Michael again. So when the portal swallows us, we emerge into nothingness. We exist in the void between worlds, floating in the vast ocean between islands of reality.

I push Michael away, and watch for a time as he floats through the darkness, his inner light the only break from the void. He shouts at me, threats and profanity, but it’s all in vain. Before long, he disappears, and I am left alone.

              I could pull the sword out of my stomach, but what difference would it make? I’ll only bleed to death faster. There’s nothing to do but let my breathing slow, listen to the sound of my heart as it struggles in vain. I lay back, and swim in the pain of my wounds, reveling in my victory as the darkness claims me. My home is safe from Michael’s rule, and with any luck, my friends can handle any other hopefuls who try to take his place.

I hate to leave them behind, the people I’ve known and loved. It hurts to think I’ll never see Nick’s face again, feel Alyssa’s skin against mine, hear the laughter of Jenna and Rachel as we talk into the long hours of the night. That I’ll never get to really thank my mom for everything. It hurts to think that it all ends here…

30

             
Gradually, I come to realize that I’m numb. I feel nothing. All the pain I’ve ever known, from head to toe, simply melts away as I float through the void. Even the stab wound appears to vanish, as if it had never happened. I look down to see that the sword of Michael the archangel has simply disappeared, and my body is whole once again. Have all my wounds magically closed? Or am I seeing myself as I wish to be seen in the face of death? Should I even be aware of my body at all?

             
You are right to question your current predicament
, answers a voice. Or rather, a cacophony of voices; several voices speaking at the same time, from all kinds of sources. Some masculine, some feminine. Some young, some old. Some thick with sorrow, some jubilant. The voice seems to come from all around, as if there’s no single point of origin, but an infinite number of them.

              “Where am I?,” I ask the voice.

             
The void between realms
.

              “No shit.”

             
In this moment, you hang in the balance. You are neither here, nor there. Neither dead, nor alive. You simply are.

              “Okay… And who or what are you?”

             
Everything, and nothing. The greatest, and the lowest. The beginning, and the end.

             
“…God?”

             
If using that term gives you comfort, then yes.

             
I roll my eyes, pleasantly surprised to find that I’m still capable of doing so. “Great. Exactly who I wanted to speak to. I have a few questions for you.”

             
If they can be answered, they will be.

             
“Alright, then. My friends, my mom… are they okay?”

             
Your Earthly companions are safe, for the most part. Without Michael to lead them, the angels have dispersed. And the only ones among them strong enough to create a doorway to Heaven are dead. All that remains of Michael’s army have scattered across the globe, and the same goes for the followers of Lucifer. The day is won.

“Good… I’m glad. This next question is a big one. Why did you leave Heaven?”

             
Heaven is… paradise, in a word. But one man’s paradise is another’s nightmare. A change of scenery was needed to preserve the order in Heaven, and to spend time among the fledgling mankind.

              “Order? In Heaven? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s no ‘order’ to speak of. Everything’s in chaos, and it’s all because of your stupid sons.”

             
The angels are used to being ruled. It was only a matter of time before one rose from the bedlam to try and become the ruler
.

              “And you were, what, just going to sit by and watch while all this happened? Michael would have made a terrible God. Why would you abandon the universe when we clearly needed you?”

             
You were never abandoned… Every good parent knows when to watch their child grow and learn, and when to intervene. Pull a child away too soon, and they learn nothing. Neglect to interact with them at all, and they become resentful. Striking a balance between the two is essential.

             
“So… this was all a test, then? You wanted us to learn… what, exactly?”

             
If you have to ask, you haven’t learned.

             
“Enough with the non-answers! If you’re gonna keep talking in circles, just let me die or whatever.”

             
That is precisely why you are here
.

              “Come again?”

              Whereas the void had once been a vast expanse of nothingness, the space around me fills with moving images, flashes of the life that I’ve lived. In one corner of the space, I’m petting my first dog. Off to the left, I’m learning a new spell from Krystal. In one square I’m kissing Alyssa, but in one adjacent, I’m kissing Nick. Directly above me is the moment Michael stabbed me. A few squares below that is the moment I learned about the Nephilim’s true purpose.

             
You have lived a rich life, Heather Santos. Brief, but rich.  And every step of the way, you have chosen to follow your heart, and do what is best for the people you love. You have even protected the lives of people you know not. Your death at Michael’s hand is a shame, but it need not be the end for you.

              The images in the void vanish, and darkness claims my vision once again. But there are a few tiny pinpricks of light dotting the sky, each of which I assume are the realms I died to protect from Michael. “What exactly are you getting at?”

             
Time has frozen at the precipice of your existence. For your courage, and your sacrifice, you may choose a reward.

             
“Go on.”

             
You can allow death to claim you. You can join the souls of the worthy in Heaven’s embrace, and finally rest from the long journey that brought you here. Or, you can have your life restored to you, and spend it in the service of man.

              As I watch, the void fills up with slivers of light, each of them doorways to a new realm. Michael had only taught me about a few, but there appear to be hundreds, thousands, millions of them. An infinite number of universes. An infinite number of doorways, each of them unique. Infinite possibilities. In an awed voice, I ask, “What would you recommend?”

             
This decision, like every other made during your lifetime, is yours alone to make. A life of defending the defenseless, or your eternal reward? The choice is yours.

Epilogue

Alyssa – Two Years Later

            
 
I’ve never really known how to mourn for anyone. I never knew my dad, so I never knew what to feel about him in any respect. My godmother was kind of a bitch, and I struck out on my own when she died, so the only remorse I felt was over the loss of an easyish life. And Selene may have cared for me in my childhood more than anyone else ever did, but she was only interested in me because of my potential use as a secret weapon.

So my life may involve a series of deaths, but that doesn’t mean I know how to
handle
death. I’ve never known how to deal with losing someone important to me, how long it takes until I’m able to breathe without wishing I could breathe in their scent, how every little thing reminds you of them when they’re gone. How much you wish you could turn back time for one more moment, for a proper goodbye. I never got that. I wish I had.

The bodies of Michael and Lucifer’s daughters were ever found after the battle. We held a service, though, in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just before people began migrating into the city again. Lily’s mother came, though she might have been the only one there besides me who cared that Lily gave her life for us. No one else ever forgave her for stealing every single New Yorker’s soul. The vast majority of the attendants were there for… oh, hell. You know her name. I still can’t bear to say it.

That was the last time I ever wore black. It reminds me too much of the me that was willing to throw away everything for her, and that’s not the me that I want to be anymore. I suppose there’s no point, though. There are some parts of yourself that you simply can’t run away from, no matter how long or hard you try.

I may find it hard to change, but the world around me began to do so naturally right after… you know. In the wake of the stunt we pulled before all Hell broke loose, some of the other freaks started coming out into the open. Metahumans in Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and more started letting their freak flags fly, until the point where the American Government had no choice but to acknowledge our presence. We’ve even been promised a few basic human rights under the Metahuman Protection Act… in a select few states. So far, the Southern and Midwestern states are having a hard time accepting us as “people”.

Even as the world at large had its eyes opened for them, little shifts kept happening on a smaller scale. After the funeral, there wasn’t much left to keep our little ragtag group of survivors together. Regina Santos couldn’t stand to be here anymore; the pain of losing her daughter was too fresh. She took up a job at Phelps Medical Center in Middle of Nowhere, New York. None of us ever hear from her anymore, but I’m willing to bet she’s on her way to becoming the best doctor anyone’s ever seen. I have to hope, at least. It’s something to keep her busy, to keep the memories at bay.

Landon, on the other hand, seized the opportunity to officially move into the city again. He’s still an amazing artist, and every now and then, I’ll meet up with him and Rachel for a drink. He helps run the Museum of Modern Art in the absence of its old curators. His personal victory: an exhibit on the second floor dedicated solely to the works of young artists at the beginning of their careers. He wants them to feel the same rush of excitement he did at their age, and probably feels it vicariously through them. There’s a difference between painting for fun, and painting to pay the bills, and he knows that too well.

Whereas Landon, on the surface, is content with what he does, Rachel frequently complains about work when we see each other. She and a few young students at the veterinary hospital along the FDR Drive have a lot on their hands; every pet owner flooding into New York City comes to them with their “crises”. She’s swamped, but happy, which is something I wish I could empathize with. I’m jealous of her, of Landon, of everyone who’s moved on. I want nothing more than to be able to say the same.

Hardly anyone ever hears from Jenna anymore. After leaving the hunters, she’s been on a trip around the United States, trying to figure out who she is in the absence of the freaks she used to surround herself with. No word on how well that’s going, but I hope she finds her place. I hope she can leave all the insanity behind.

The same goes for Emma; only Nick ever hears from her. From the snippets I catch of their conversations, she’s still a hunter, but has grown up enough to catch a full whiff of their bullshit now and again. She’s openly contested her superiors about trying to kill innocent, outspoken metahumans, and even interfered in operations. From what I can tell, she’d like to move back into the city someday, and truly leave the life of bloodshed behind her. But before she does that, she wants to make sure the Metahuman Protection Act is actually enforced.

As for Nick himself, he spends most of his time in school. I find him studying frequently, his nose buried so deep in a textbook that I’m worried he’s trying to sniff out the information. But when he’s not studying for his Bachelor’s in education, he’s helping a team at NYU synthesize fake blood for vampire consumption. His old research notes were a great starting point, but there’s still a lot of work to be done, even with funding from some rich vampire named Navarro. Hopefully, they’ll create the perfect compound soon; the Metahuman Protection Act is a little hazy on vampire feeding habits, and not all of them are content with deer blood.

And me? I keep myself busy as a freelance editor for any magazine, newspaper, or journal that needs me. I’d much rather be the writer than the editor, but I do what I have to do in order to pay the bills. And on occasion, I hold a meeting for the snot nosed brats that call themselves spellcasters. I was a little reluctant about taking over the clan; our past three leaders haven’t lasted very long. But they needed a mentor, and I need to keep myself as occupied as possible. It’s the only way I can keep myself from drowning in thoughts of her.

Nick must feel the same way, though we never talk about it. It’s strange, how death can bring people together. Nobody else understood how it felt to lose someone that I loved so much, so naturally, I gravitated towards Nick. We’re similar in a lot of ways, and as it turns out, having him as a roommate is a dream come true.

Sure, he cooks occasionally and cleans up after himself. But more than that, we keep each other sane. When he finds something that reminds him of her and spaces out for minutes on end, I snap him out of it any way I can. When I wake up in the middle of the night screaming for her to come back, he hugs me and reminds me gently that she won’t. Without needing thanks, or an explanation. We just understand.

The one time Nick and I got drunk on some aged whiskey someone brought us as housewarming gift, we talked about her all through the night. There were a lot of tears and shared memories, but surprisingly, not a single shred of bitterness between us. I think that’s partially because he doesn’t know the truth… at least, not all of it. I haven’t ever had the heart to tell Nick that by the time she died, his feelings were unrequited. I think the news would crush him.

She’d promised
m
e
“to be continued”, but never lived to keep her promise. But it doesn’t really matter. None of that matters. Her life was about so much more than who she loved. When people hear her story, we want them to hear about who she was, what she did, who she died to protect. And she lived and died for all of us. True to form, she went for the heroic ending.

I hate her for that. Fucking hate her. But I still fucking love her. And maybe I always will.

On a brisk April morning, I sit at a typewriter by the window, staring out over the streets of Williamsburg. I should be editing an article for next month’s
GO Magazine
, but I can’t bring myself to do so. Ideally, I’d like to work on a new poem, but even sitting in front of my new typewriter won’t convince the words to flow. I can’t explain why I’m blocked. Maybe I just have nothing to say.

I turn my head at the sound of keys jingling in the lock, and raise my eyebrows at the sweaty Nick that bursts through the door. He rushes over to me, breathing heavily, and asks, “Have you seen the
Post
this morning?”

“Shouldn’t you be in class?,” I ask.

“That’s not important! Have you seen it?”

“No. Why?”

              “A tsunami hit the Philippines-“

              “Shocker.”

              “-and not a single person died.”

              “Whoop de doo. Is that what passes for news these days?”

              Nick waves the newspaper in his hands frantically, and says, “That’s not what the article focuses on.”

              “Alright, I’ll bite. What’s the main focus?”

              “Over
half
of the victims described a savior who fought back the wave before it could cause any damage. They’re calling it a miracle.”

              I roll my eyes, and turn back to my typewriter. “Cool story, bro. Again, how is that news?”

              In response, Nick just throws the newspaper down on the typewriter, where I have no choice but to look at the photo on the cover. And I gasp; I can finally see why he’s freaking out.

              Barely visible, between two buildings on the beach, is a tiny figure with wings.

END OF BOOK THREE