Chapter 91
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
—WILLIAM CONGREVE
D ying was the most profound yet painful experience of my existence. As my mortal body took its final breaths, my consciousness slammed into the mind of my immortal self. The collision released an explosion of memories so vibrant and colorful that I felt I might twirl and dance through them forever.
Tears welled in my eyes as an eternity filled with quiet ‘I love you’s’ was laid out before me in a tranquil mosaic, showing me every detail of the life that was stolen from us.
I was blessed with visions of Ramel returning from battle with a smile on his face and a bouquet of deadly flowers in his black hands.
I remembered countless nights spent curled between Ramel and Shemhazai and witnessed the hundreds of evenings that Ramel had spent reverently brushing my hair. I relearned the endless stories Shem had told us about his adventures on Earth.
I recalled the years of working together to build a safe space for displaced angels who wished to start over as demons.
The thousands of Samhain feasts I had spent dancing in the arms of my Reaper .
The millions of hours spent reading in Hell’s library blended with trillions of toe-curling moments filled with passion.
All these beautiful snapshots were neatly wrapped up in several millennia of being cherished and loved by my two demons.
As sweet as these memories were, there were darker ones too — my time spent in purgatory was a relentless expanse of nothing. I had floated alone, but I hadn’t been afraid. My sacrifice had spared them. I had done it to save them, and that had been enough for me to survive the torture of never-ending solitude.
The worst thing that could happen to the living was not death. The worst thing that could happen to the living was to move through life without love, and to live in a world without Ramel or Shem would have been no life at all.
Alexa, play ‘CODE MISTAKE’ by CORPSE, Bring Me The Horizon
Rough hands ran down my bare arms, and I smiled, expecting to see Ramel’s face as I was reborn. My heart plummeted, however, as I took my first breath in my new immortal body to find Rafael crouched over me instead. He was snarling like some sort of clumsy, angry primate.
The power that hummed through my veins was deadly and eternal, but with the noose wrapped around my wrists, I could not release my magic. It could only exist within me, and try as I might, I could not wield it.
The other Lilith was not gone, but she was no longer a voice in my head. She was me, and I was her. Her memories were mine, and my experiences were hers. We were no longer separate entities, only an evolved version of who we had been before. Like how an adult is a version of the child they were before, changed and shaped by life experiences, so were the two versions of us.
Ramel was right. I had not lost myself. I had only grown to be more.
Still weak from my recent death, I blinked up at Rafael as he pushed up my dress and tore away my underwear. The angels looked on as he positioned himself against my entrance, his hand wrapped so tightly against my throat that I knew I wouldn’t be able to scream, even if I tried.
“I’m going to fuck you like the worthless whore you are, then crucify you with your bleeding cunt out for all to see,” Rafael snarled.
I tried to speak, but I couldn’t make a sound past the punishing grip he had on my throat. He slammed into me, and I tried to cry out in pain as he rammed against my cervix, but no sound came out of my mouth.
“Yeah, that’s it. Take it, you fucking whore. Take it the way I know you take Ramel’s cock. ”
All sense had left him; the look in his eyes was manic as he drove into me. Humiliation, pain, and rage flooded through my chest like hellfire. How fucking dare he!? The fact that this entitled piece of shit thought he had a right to take something from me so violently made me see red.
I was Lilith, the Goddess of Death and Decay. Even at my weakest, I was more than this spineless male would ever be.
If I could have spoken, I would have asked him if he was looking forward to losing his dick for the second time in as many days, but as it was, I was unable to deliver the warning.
The noose prevented me from wielding my magic externally, but the power of rot ran wild and free within my body.
The body that Rafael had foolishly chosen to violate.
I let my magic rage through my corporeal form and felt my lips curl into a smile as the first sickly sweet tendrils of my power wrapped around his cock. It took longer than I expected for him to notice, but when he finally did, the deafening wail he let out was music to my ears.
He suddenly released me and stumbled back, glancing down at his dick, which was already half-rotted off his body.
“You fucking bitch!” he screamed, moving to lunge for me, but the rot had caught and was beginning to spread.
“That’s what you get for sticking your dick in people without their consent, Raf.” I snarled, rolling onto my knees in an attempt to get my dress back down.
“Make it stop!” he screamed as the rot continued to chew away at his flesh. I laughed bitterly.
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I would need to be able to wield my magic, which you currently have contained to my body.”
Rafael whirled to face Art, black veins of mycelium crawling up his neck under his choir uniform.
“Release her!” he screamed at Art, who shook his head.
“No. I told you not to rape her. I will not risk Yahweh’s wrath to save your idiotic ass.”
Like I would have stopped it anyway. I watched with satisfaction, and Rafael’s entire body began to decompose before my very eyes. He fell in wet, black, stinking chunks into the pillow-soft clouds that made up the dais we stood on, and I shook my head in disgust.
“Yahweh is going to hate the mess he made,” I observed dryly. He hated to have his perfect white heavenscape tainted.
Without warning, Art cracked me across the face.
“Shut up,” he snarled, grabbing me by the hair and dragging me to my feet. He manifested another golden coil and tied it around my throat, tightening it to the point of discomfort .
“I’m going to unbind your hands. If you try anything, I will choke you out. You will do exactly as I say, or I will do this with you unconscious. Understood?”
My heart sank as I looked out at the thousands of angels that stood witness. Without access to my magic, there was no way out of this. All I could do was comply. Suddenly, Yahweh manifested next to Art, looking down at the mess I had made of Raf with a sneer of disgust.
“Have I not warned you against sins of the flesh?” he sighed, as if disappointed in his creation. Art snarled.
“We don’t have time for a lecture. We need to get her on the cross before Ramel comes for her. Her magic makes him stronger, so if you want to keep the upper hand, we need to start draining her now.”
“Very well.” Yahweh snapped his fingers at the angels closest to the podium. “You two, get up here and help.”
I tried to back away as they shifted into their human forms and approached. Art yanked on the golden noose he had tied around my throat, and I cried out in pain as it burned into the flesh of my neck.
What was this thing made out of?
“Don’t fucking move, Lilith; I am not playing around,” Art snarled, and I glared at him, letting him see how much I hated him.
He was completely unphased and moved forward, unbinding my hands. Each of the angels grabbed a wrist, manifesting wings from their backs. They flew up to the center of the cross, and I hung between them, my shoulders screaming as the full weight of my body dangled in the air. The angels slammed my arms against each side of the cross while Art transformed into his snake form. I watched in horror as he rose up so his human torso was level with mine. He was now holding a mallet and three long, golden stakes.
“Which hand should I do first, Lilith?” he asked, his tone cruel and cold.
I winced as the weight of my body continued to strain my shoulder joints, and Art chuckled. “You think it hurts now? Wait until the only things holding you up are these fucking nails hammered through your pretty little palms,” he sneered.
The angel on my right forced me to open my hand flat as Art placed the tip of one of the stakes against my palm.
“Ramel is going to kill you,” I hissed, knowing in my heart that he would tear Heaven down to Hell with his bare hands if he had to.
“No, Lilith. I am going to kill him ,” Art promised as he swung the hammer back and slammed it ruthlessly into the end of the stake. Pain like I had never experienced before exploded down my arm as I was impaled by the large golden nail. Even my pride couldn’t keep me from screaming as Art continued to hammer the stake home.
My head lolled, and my vision cut in and out of focus as he moved to the other hand. The angels tied my wrists to the wooden planks for more support as I realized in my weakened state, that the weight of my body very well may have torn the nails right through my palms.
As Art continued to crucify me, I found myself staring at Hypnos on the cross next to me. My screams seemed to have roused him from his slumber. He blinked at me, bleary-eyed.
‘Lilith?’ His mouth moved, but no sound came out. I had never officially met Hypnos, but I had read about him in Hell’s library. I assumed he had also read about me. I nodded at him thickly. My body had begun to succumb to the numbness of shock, and I was no longer able to feel the pain of Art’s relentless hammering.
I stared into Hypnos’ eyes, finding comfort in the fact that I wasn’t alone. He stared back until there was suddenly an echoing boom. The God of Sleep tore his midnight eyes from mine, and his head snapped to look out at the seemingly endless crowd of angels that stood watch before us.
I followed his gaze but could barely register what I was seeing. It was like an invisible shockwave had blown through the cloudy perimeter of the massive space we were in. The energy rolled forward like a tidal wave, and angels exploded into bursts of black rot and crimson as the energy surged forward.
There were no feathers, no eyes, and no chunks of flesh or bone… only mist.
The first wave took out half the audience so quickly I could barely register what had happened before my gaze fell on a single black-cloaked figure. The Reaper floated forward, his scythe leaking death magic in his wake. Rot and decay stained the white clouds beneath him, slowly turning the sky black.
The Reaper’s face was shrouded in shadow, but I knew it was Ramel — everyone knew it was Ramel.
Art hissed and tore away from me. I slumped against the restraints that tied me to the cross, the nails in my palms tearing my flesh with the movement. Despite the mind-shattering pain that screamed through my body, I couldn’t look away from the massacre that was unfolding before my very eyes.
After the first wave of angels had been turned to dust, the rest of them mobilized. They moved as if they shared one mind and fell on Ramel in a massive writhing ball of shimmering feathers.
I screamed at him to run, but he merely flicked his black fingers as the army descended upon him. Another shockwave of death magic exploded from him with the power of a nuclear bomb.
More mist.
He continued forward, his trajectory clear. I could feel his wrath like it was a tangible thing. His gaze bore into me, and despite not being able to see his face, I felt it as his eyes absorbed the damage that had been done to me.
The nails in my palms.
My ripped dress .
He saw it all, and he would show no mercy .
Yahweh screamed an order, and somehow, more angels appeared, throwing themselves without fear directly into Ramel’s path.
They taunted him, getting close enough to entice hand to hand, but Ramel was ruthlessly efficient. He didn’t have any interest in causing pain or injury… only death.
True death.
Death that, until recently, immortals had never needed to fear.
In cold, calculated silence, Ramel released another shockwave, annihilating Yahweh’s next onslaught of angels just as easily as the last. He was close enough now that I worried for Hypnos. If he released another death blast that powerful, I wasn’t sure even a god would survive it.
Yahweh was yelling at Art to retreat, gesturing to the Sorter of Souls, which was now visible in the distance, given that Ramel had flattened every wall and hallway that had stood between us.
I could feel Ramel powering up another blast, his hand floating forward to point at Yahweh, but he was too close. Hypnos would not make it.
“Ramel, stop! Stop! They’re retreating! You’ll kill Hypnos,” I screamed, but Ramel didn’t seem to care. He had come here with the intention of killing them all. He never planned to leave any survivors. He didn’t care who they were.
“Ramel! We’ll never be able to wake up the other gods without Hypnos. You can’t kill the God of Creation and the God of Sleep! The universe will not survive it! We will all die!”
Still, he didn’t stop. I saw it in Yahweh’s many faces as the god retreated. Ramel was going to end all creation, and he was going to do it in cold blood.
“I will die, Ramel! Without creation, there is no death!” I screamed, and finally, he paused.
I could almost feel the memory of my first lessons with him penetrate the cold rage that had possessed him.
Balance. There was nothing if there was no balance.
His hand tracked Yahweh as Art shielded him from Ramel’s line of fire, as if he could protect him. After several long moments, Ramel let them go, and suddenly, he was hovering before me like a phantom.
I could only see his mouth beneath the shadow of his hood.
He did not smile.
His lips were a hard, firm line as he effortlessly ripped the golden stakes from my hands and feet. With a swipe of his scythe, he cut through the golden noose that bound me to the cross and caught me in his arms, crushing me against his chest as he turned to leave.
“Wait!” I cried. “Hypnos. We need to free Hypnos,” I pleaded, but Ramel didn’t stop. He continued forward. Single-minded, silent, and deadly. The clouds were inked black and crimson from the rain of bloody mist he had created in his ruthless path of destruction. The shadows of his cloak curled around his booted feet as he took me back toward the bridge to Hell.
The bridge seemed to be covered in debris of some kind, which didn’t make any sense as it appeared to be more or less intact. In contrast, Heaven’s gates hung in shambles on their hinges in the distance as if they had been blown open.
As we approached the Sorter of Souls, I gasped. My eyes were finally able to make sense of the rubble that lay strewn across the bridge.
It wasn’t rubble at all.
It was hundreds and hundreds of dismembered angel corpses. Limbs, wings, and bleeding eyes were smeared across the gleaming obsidian bridge as if they had been crushed beneath some massive, unseen force.
“Ramel…” I whispered. My voice was small, and I felt weak. The numbness from the shock seemed to be wearing off, and my body was sinking into a state of unimaginable pain.
He didn’t respond to his name. I reached up and touched his cheek with my bloody fingers, his warm flesh sending shockwaves of pleasure through my fingertips.
“Ramel, I remember now,” I said quietly.
He froze. Glancing down at me, I was able to finally see his hazel eyes through the shadow of his hood.
“I love you,” I whispered. His eyes flashed at the words, and there was a sudden snap and a whistle . His body jerked beneath me, and I blinked, unable to process what I was looking at.
The golden tip of an arrow protruded through his chest, missing my own body by mere inches.
I stared at the arrow dumbly in shock. Black blood began to leak from the wound, and when I looked up into his face again, more black liquid had begun to gather in the corner of his mouth.
“No… no, no, no, NO!”