Chapter 4 #2
I slowed as I descended the stairs, and whispered the word of power that would open the door to that level.
I closed it behind me, but didn’t bother locking it.
Rafe was the one who had established the angelic locks, and I had never been as strong as him.
Now I had no idea what the limits to his power were.
After thousands of years of living in the Abyss, he’d grown powerful enough to literally remake Feather from her scattered atoms. To tear his way through to this realm.
Who could stand against the strongest of the Celestials, driven mad after being trapped for countless years, armed with all the power he’d amassed in the Abyss added to his own? His strength was immeasurable.
My footsteps were hushed as I slipped down the main hallway. But Rafe wasn’t trying to be quiet. I could hear him moving, opening doors, dragging something across the floor. As I rounded the corner, I saw him.
I was not prepared for what he had become, or what he was doing.
This was not the Rafe I’d known.
He was taller and broader, though those were the least significant changes.
He stood with his back to me, and I held my breath as I took in what had become of Seraphiel, the First of the Celestial Children.
The most beautiful being in any realm, who’d shone with a light he’d had to consciously suppress, or risk blinding those around him with his glory.
He’d had a voice to match, and a spirit filled with joy and mischief, boundless compassion, and endless patience.
Now, he was encrusted with scabrous armor made of dark gray smut.
The colors moved from deep to lighter gray between blinks, and I recognized the shapes as faces in his skin, screaming figures crying out for help.
His wings, once an almost transparent crystal, sweeping to the ground, were blackened and scaled with corruption.
Most shocking was the narrow, whiplike tail that thrashed behind him, and the spiraling, matte horns that rose over his dark hair, almost to the ceiling.
He wore no clothing, but the smut that covered his original form was thicker than any robe.
He was utterly changed. And his soul obviously matched his external appearance. He had one of the Guides, Prosperity, in his grip and was squeezing them until their eyes bulged. As I stepped forward, the Guide’s flesh collapsed under Rafe’s grip, their organs ruptured.
“Rafe,” I rasped, as the Guide twitched and swung in his relentless grasp. “Stop.” He didn’t turn. He’d known I was watching.
“Why should I?” My heart leaped at his voice.
That, at least, was unchanged. It still rang with holy fire and Celestial light.
“This one tormented my little sacrifice. They liked to embarrass and humiliate her. They thought she should have stayed dead. Stayed in the Abyss.” On the last word, he squeezed Prosperity until their head rolled to one side, blood and ichor streaming from their eyes, mouth, and nose.
Rafe threw the Guide’s corpse to the side, and glanced over one shoulder, almost but not quite making eye contact. Was he ashamed? It seemed unlikely.
I peered down the dimly lit hallway, and saw a trail of equally battered Guides’ bodies. “Did you have to kill them?”
“Have to?” He tsked, turning to face me.
I fought to control my reaction at seeing my friend’s features so altered.
Even his eyes had changed. They had once been gold and silver, shining with bright flames and sparks.
Now they were filled with turbulent, dark fire and flickers of red, whirling as if galaxies burned in them.
For a moment, I almost smiled. They looked like Precious’s eyes.
Rafe backed up a step, as if I’d startled him.
“You’re happy?” He let out a hiss and began pacing toward me.
“You abused and scorned my little one, my love. The one who you were given to protect,” he snarled, circling around me.
His eyes cut to the Celestial blade in my hand.
I let it drop to the floor, knowing I would never be able to fight him.
I could feel his power, like a hurricane. It was foolish to even try.
I had to hope he would let me live long enough to explain.
“You cut her. You allowed these worms to strip her of dignity and worth. You lost her!”
I flinched. “I did. I failed her. And I failed you. I deserve any punishment you choose for me, Rafe. But I’m begging you, don’t set the Abyss loose on this realm. There are still souls here that—”
The tail whipped around my neck, nearly crushing my windpipe.
“None of them fought for her. None of them!” He turned me like a doll, and I allowed it.
“All of you are as corrupt as the foulest souls in the Abyss. I suffered because of them, because of you. For you.” His voice dropped.
“How could you not see who she was to you? How could you allow her to be lost, hurt, for so long?”
I had just closed my eyes, sending a thought to him of agreement, when a muffled groan came from one of the bodies in the hallway. Rafe dropped me onto the floor, and when I regained my feet, he had the Guide in his hands.
“This one,” he spat, shaking the Head Guide like a wolf with a rat.
“This one was the worst. Like you, they patted themself on the back, sure they were doing what was right. What had always been done. Except you didn’t really do that, did you, Tradition?
You picked and chose, and relished the power of deciding which old laws would be followed, and when.
” The Guide moaned. Seraphiel moaned back, mocking them. “I recognize you. Do you recognize me?”
The Guide shook their head slightly. Their eyes were bleeding, and I wasn’t certain they could even see, but the cloak of evil Rafe now wore obscured everything that would have made him recognizable to the elder Guide, in any case.
“I’m the one who made those rules you’ve been subverting, Worthless One.
I’m the one who built this cursed place.
” He shook the listless Guide harder, and I saw trails of Tradition’s soulfire emerging from their body everywhere that the blood and ichor welled out.
Their whole being vibrated, and began to come apart, bit by bit.
I watched, horrified, as the particles of golden light that was their innermost soul began to float toward Rafe.
Toward his mouth, and his dark gray, forked tongue, which crept out, licking them up.
He was devouring the Guide. Consuming his soul.
“Stop,” I begged, and Rafe turned toward me. “Don’t do this.”
“Why not? There is nothing you can offer me.” His eyes sparkled like twin lakes of lava. “Your soul?”
“I would,” I said, moving close, so close my wings brushed against Rafe’s twisted, ruined body. I pushed in between him and the dying Guide, embracing Tradition, spreading my wings around us both.
“You think I won’t kill you?” Rafe shouted, reaching around with his other arm, and crushing me in the same way he had Tradition. Crushing us together at the same time. I felt my soulfire begin to seep out of my ears and nose. I almost welcomed death.
“I know you will,” I managed to wheeze. “But it will kill her as well.”
The air itself stopped moving. “What did you say?”
His grip lessened, and I took a small breath, twisting around to stare into my executioner’s eyes. “When you kill me, Rafe, you’ll kill Feather.”
His voice was a vicious hiss as he replied, “She’s already gone. I felt her unmaking.”
My heart lurched. If she were truly gone, wouldn’t I have felt it? Wouldn’t I be dead, too? Perhaps I was dying; I felt close to it. But no. “She… lives.”
“How could she?” I didn’t speak, but he dropped Tradition to the floor, grasped my skull in both clawed hands, and took the answer.
His thoughts tore at my mind, like all my mental shields were tissue paper, but I pushed back, using every scrap of power I had to hold onto the only pieces of Feather I had left.
I let him witness the centuries of loneliness, but I kept him from stripping away the memories of her.
I struck back with a thought: I abused her, yes. But you did far worse, old friend. You forced her to bear an obscene burden. She told me that herself.
“You think I wanted to do that?” Rafe growled, squeezing my skull even more tightly. “That was your failure as well, old friend. Let me show you.” Then he pulled me into his own mind, thrusting me into a memory. His memory of meeting her.
As I’d expected, the stable was dark and bloody.
The shadows I’d been following were the worst sort: strong enough to escape the Abyss and wreak havoc on Earth, and attracted to the spiritual aftermath of the most heinous crimes.
Normally, I stayed in the void and took no notice of them, but some peculiar urge had drawn me here. Tugged at me.
I’d seen so many scenes like this one in the past—a dead man, an equally dead and violated young woman—that I’d grown immune to the sight. From the drifting threads of energy, I could tell the woman’s spirit had fled to the Celestial Realm. Good for her, I thought, but something was off.
I turned to examine the scene and realized the shadows were not feasting on the man’s twisted soul.
They were gathered around a small figure, crumpled on the ground.
I growled at them to move, and some of them did, sulkily.
When they moved, a scrawny child was revealed, bleeding from a number of wounds and internally from what looked to be broken ribs.
She was unspectacular. Dark hair, tanned skin, thin limbs that spoke of hunger in her short life.
But then her eyes opened, and she looked at me.
My world exploded into silver fire.