Chapter 36 Suriel
She’s lost in a place only she can see. Every time one of her fingers crack and curl, destruction flourishes, catching on the wind like a pyroclastic blast. Instant death, delivered by the same hands that once trembled in mine.
Another fracture opens in me as I watch her spiral. My heart is rubbing itself raw with hope.
My dove…
The iridescent light lapping at Charlie’s rotting skin, blackening like she’s submitting to her black-hole soul promises immediate death, but so does doing nothing. I still question every step I take towards her, but I take them all the same.
Her pulse of divine light is flickering deep in her chest, still there, not siphoned. Taking a slow breath, I close my eyes.
I love her enough.
More than enough.
I’ve killed for her.
I’ll die for her.
But I’m not leaving her.
Not until the very end.
My lingering divinity flows through me like a golden light as I press my hand over her heart.
The heel of my hand rests against her breast until I reach in.
My angelic grace ripples as it rushes into her.
Her divinity meeting the tattered scraps of mine.
I can’t repair what’s broken, but I will give her everything I can.
I feel her – the real her – the one that’s alive, that hurts, that hopes.
I reach deeper, feeling a sharp burn across my hip. The dove, my blessing and tether to the Holy Spirit, rips from me and works to bring Charlie back. I’ll give her anything within my power to give.
She’s worth saving. She’s the only purpose of my used up divinity. She owns my halo. My wings belong to her. I don’t have a place in Heaven or among humanity. Only with her.
“He lied to you, Charlie. I know you wanted to believe, but you’re more than a pawn. You have control of yourself. Cling to it. If you continue down this path…” My words fail. She doesn’t need soft platitudes. She needs brutal honesty; that’s the only love she’ll accept.
So, I show her the future on this track.
She sits on a throne of gnarled branches that refuse to grow. Her throne room is a barren garden as a testament to all she’s ruined. She’s the queen of nothing but ash and stopped time.
No one to protect. Nothing to show for her work.
Nothing willing to flourish, nothing willing left to serve her and me …
dead at her feet, not rotting due to her will alone.
Cities are skeletons. The oceans have dried.
There are only corpses, bone, ash, and us.
She lives hollowly, cursing every breath, swearing she’ll fix it while only staring at my glazed eyes and hollowed corpse.
She gasps and I feel her power, destructive and cruel rip at my skin, threatening to flay me alive, to cook me, but I keep holding her divinity. I won’t let go. If she wants my life, she can have it, but she’ll get the truth she’s been yearning for.
Her eyes open and we stare at each other. I don’t know if she sees me, but she’s here. Aware. The devil’s mark on her chest pulses, stutters, fragments.
“This isn’t you, my sweet dove. It’s never been you. It’s not what you want. This isn’t love – this is manipulation,” I insist.
The vision I shared starts to wane, giving her the chance to step into the real world again.
“Come back to me, Charlie. Come back,” I whisper. “Please, my dove.”
She shudders and her eyes go impossibly wide, before she blinks a few times, brown eyes, black veins, that second iridescent skin a constant threat around her until she slowly retracts it. My hand slips out of her spirit as she stumbles into me.
We collapse together as she tries to tighten her grasp on her abilities, as she tries to cling to the shreds of herself, the ones that are painful, filled with grief and anxiety, but are her.
The pillar of fire behind her breaks as more rock plummets to the earth, ruining what’s left around us.
The lava splashes and tries to claw its way out of the caldera.
I hold Charlie in my arms, curled against my chest. She keeps trembling, but clings to me even though I’m too broken to offer much shelter.
“Why isn’t it over, Suriel? Why hasn’t it stopped if he’s gone?” She asks.
I look at her, gently stroking her cheek. Her voice is so lovely. All her damn questions, the pleading in her eyes.
She wants me to lie, but I won’t.
Not to her.
Never again.
My voice catches all the same and I try to clear my throat. “You know why.”
She sucks her bottom lip and closes her eyes as more tears fall over her lashes. She touches my chest, strokes my shoulder and nods. She tries to hide her sniffle, but that only makes her breath come out sticky and winded. “I have to die.”
“I’m so sorry, my sweet dove,” I breathe. “I-I wanted to …” I close my eyes and press my forehead to hers before kissing right between her eyebrows. I stroke the back of her neck and try to avoid the topic.
I want to hold her … just a little bit longer.
“Will it hurt?” She asks after a long moment.
I nod slowly, then glance at the caldera. It’s hungry. Starving. Impatient. “Yes.” My voice is barely there, it cuts in and out, like glass ripping along my throat. “But I’ll go with you.”
“No,” she whispers. “That’s too much. It’s … needless.”
She bites her bottom lip again and I want to beg her to share every thought. I don’t care if it’s sharp. I don’t care if it will break me. I just need to hear her voice. I need to know she’s here, with me, as herself.
“Tell me about Heaven,” she whispers softly. “If I won’t get to see it … what’s it like?”
I choke on a breath, then bury my face in her hair.
She rubs my chest and I exhale. “It’s beautiful.
Everyone has their own home – everything they’ve dreamed of.
What they need to be happy. There are gardens with every flower, every plant that’s ever existed, in constant perfection.
Rain glistens, the dew on plants and spiderwebs never dries. There’s food, dancing, even sex.”
Her laugh comes out like a sob. “It’s not sinful.”
“No, sweet dove,” I whisper. “It’s divine, much like you.
If we were to go there, we’d rock in hammocks over waterfalls and rivers that put anything on this earth to shame.
Fairy pools that cascade into one another, surrounded by blooming trees whose petals fall gently.
Every drink available, every dish you’ve ever wanted there for you to try. People to talk with. Never drama.”
She sniffles. “Really?”
“Imagine earth, but flawless. The best dreams you’ve ever had are spent with anyone you want to spend them with. Humans make Heaven. God just grants them the ability.”
“I’d want the beach, an endless beach with no sand getting in my bathing suit. To swim among the coral reefs, to never need to come up for air so I can explore it all. Ice cream under the sun, a sandcastle we could actually explore,” she murmurs.
I nod against her. “Something new to see, to try, to explore every day. If you dare get bored, I can show you all the texts ever created – books that were never published. Stories people never wrote about strong women, about compassion the world never saw, daring adventures, love stories, and we could simply read, talk about it, explore. Endlessly.”
“And you’d be with me every night. Wrapped around me. Unable to lie or omit things. Not holding back.”
I close my eyes, unable to look at her, unable to speak. I nod slowly and pull her closer to me. I don’t want to let her go. She shifts in my arm and stokes my face. Her lips curve in a sad smile. “It sounds so, so beautiful, Suriel.”
I nod once and let my hands fall to her sides. She bites her bottom lip. “Does God hate me?”
I shake my head and draw back a little further, so I can meet her eyes fully. A dove, covered in ash, but still there, lands near her, almost trying to hide under her folded wings. I smile at the absurdness of it, of hope or the Holy Spirit here.
I rub her hips as my muscles scream in protest for moving at all. “No, Charlie. God is love. Mysterious, sometimes uncomfortable, but always there and waiting when you’re ready for it.”
She shakes her head, unwilling to believe it. “No.”
Rain patters around us, but I notice it’s red, thick, viscous.
Charlie looks up, then dips her chin.
“He’s weeping for you. He never asked you for faith. He just wanted you to be true, for you to allow yourself to love and be loved even when it seemed impossible.”
She doesn’t answer, doesn’t try to wipe the blood rain from her skin.
I swallow and will my body to hold out longer, to hold her longer, to commit every detail of her to memory. “The war only ended because you chose love without believing you deserve it. You brought God to tears, sweet dove.”
She sniffles and her eyes close for a moment.
I see the black tracing her veins again. I know she’s switching. I swallow. “You’ve always been worthy of love. It’s hard to accept, but it’s here.”
“Why did it take so long? Why did I have to go through all that and … and you. Why do I get you just to lose you? It’s not fair. It’s not right. I bled for God,” she holds up her arm. “I begged him to kill me or save me and he was quiet.”
My eyes water and I kiss each of her scars, slowly, painstakingly.
“I wanted control. Control to protect myself and this power wasn’t there. The Devil didn’t help me. God didn’t help me. That’s not love. It’s cruel and willful neglect. And I’m just as bad,” her eyes flicker black, then back. “The only thing I’ve earned is death.”
Her body shakes with sobs. She looks at me intently, running her fingers over my face before pressing her forehead to mine. She sniffles. “You were punished by being sent to me, forced to deal with me, listen to insults, manage my lust, my temper, and I almost killed you. I almost …”
“I still choose to be here with you,” I say, voice shaking. “I’m not leaving, not until it’s time. Ask me anything. Bask with me in this peace. Command me however you want. I’ll make time, time for us.”
I don’t know how, but I will.
I’ll give her more than my divinity.
I’ll give her me.
“Keep the world holding its breath and we have it, my sweet, wonderful dove,” my voice is a ragged plea. “Because you’re worth it. We can make minutes last centuries together.”
“Suriel,” she says, opening her eyes so I can see they’re all black, she’s slipping. “I want to. I … It’s so hard. I don’t think … I can’t … I can’t hurt anyone else,” she whimpers. She presses her lips to mine. “I deserved your silence and the gag and your anger.”
“You deserve forgiveness and love too. You’re loved. So, so loved.” I lean towards her, my lips brushing her ear with a desperate edge. “All you have to do is accept it. Accept me.”
Her fingers clench and she holds onto me as tightly as she can before gasping. The dove nuzzles into her wing.
I can’t stop time.
I believed I could because she deserves it, we deserve it.
Her lips graze my chest and my eyes close.
If anyone one else could … I’d save her.
I’d ruin it.
A ragged sob tears from me.
That’s why it has to be me.
Because I’d never let anyone else hurt her.
“I can hear it,” she whispers. “The silence.”
“It’s peace trying to exist. Peace we deserve,” I say tightly, my body tensing.
I let her go to grab my sword in a hand that’s almost too weak-willed to hold it. I can’t give her time, but I can make this as painless and easy as possible. She won’t have to hurt herself. She won’t have to see it. She can see me, hold me instead.
“Promise me you’ll tell God something,” she rasps.
“Anything you wish,” I answer. She deserves my final truth. “I lov-”
She takes my sword and guides it right into her abdomen, curving it up under her rib cage to open her heart. Her mouth opens wide as she stares at me, only me. The dove doesn’t coo, it sings as it flits around us.
“Tell Him I’m sorry,” she manages to choke out as the blood rain pours down on us, trying to hide the self-inflicted carnage of her body.
My confession of loving her falls away as I scream, my voice the last energy I have left as I try to grab her arm, her hand, anything of her to try to keep her from diving into the flames that want to devour her.
When she slips through my fingers, her name rips from my soul, “NO!”
I beg God to help her before she’s consumed by magma. Charlie’s eyes never leave mine as she falls, even when something seems to burn across her chest where the devil’s mark was. Her tears and that small, resigned smile lances through me and shatters me in a way nothing else ever has.
She’s swallowed by the magma as if it’s been waiting for her.
The eruption ebbs, shrinking in on itself, leaving only the bubbling caldera. The angels that can move, do. The demons die. Light, divine white, holy light bathes the earth, breathing life into that which was ruined, reviving it with a second chance.
My throat threatens to close permanently as the rain beats down on me, thickening the ash on my skin until it feels like a shield forming. “Heaven should learn mercy from her.”