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DARKNESS SWALLOWED THEM. Barakiel could no longer feel his father’s hands. He couldn’t tell if he still clutched his sword. He heard moaning. Or was it wind? On and on and on until silence. A silence so profound that Barakiel’s ears invented sounds, the whoosh of air moving in a large space. He sensed he had stopped falling but felt nothing beneath his feet, as if he were stuck to a wall with a pin, an insect in a glass case. He heard Lucifer laughing, but not with his ears. He heard him in his mind.
They were in the Void, his father’s true home. Lucifer had planned to take him there all along, believing the Void would defeat him – or seduce him.
You think you can undermine me here, father? I need only fill myself with love.
A fanfare of dissonant horns, unbelievably harsh. Barakiel found himself in a sturdy wooden chair like one would find in the Earthly Realm. He sat under a spotlight, darkness all around him. His sword was gone and he couldn’t move. Beneath the cacophony of horns, he heard voices cackling, booing, and shouting. Then quiet.
The light was in his eyes, but Barakiel sensed bodies shifting in the shadows. A voice cut through the space, not his father. A high, nasal whine.
“You stand accused, wayward son, of blindness toward your nature. You are a devotee of Destruction who has done nothing but harm those who care for you for your entire selfish existence.”
Strobe flashes revealed hideous faces, long-toothed and drippy-eyed, pointing at him, jeering. He heard murmuring that rubbed at his nerves. He strained to understand, but the sounds were just beyond his range. He thought he knew the voices, but couldn’t say why. He struggled to move. He wanted to jump out of his skin.
Stop. Stop. He wants you to lose yourself. Think of her. Her soft lips pressing yours.
He couldn’t stand the gibbering. He imagined Zan’s beating heart. He could hear it now, louder than the voices, but he could not block the hideous faces, even when he squeezed his eyes shut. Her face didn’t come to him. More an echo of it, a memory of beauty and belonging. It was enough, but no sooner had his turmoil eased than the voice assaulted him.
“Shall we witness how you have served your most devoted friend?”
A cascade of images. Pellus weakened from killing a false monk. Pellus comatose, trapped in complexity. Pellus grieving over Roan’s lifeless form, stroking the young traveler’s face. Telling Jeduthan of his lost rank, stuck in his chambers, his purpose stripped from him. Walking under the watchful eye of the Council’s monitors, past the rustling fire of the Travelers Guild Hall, his right of entry stolen from him.
It is true. All I have cost him. Why does he love me so?
The jeering faces cackled and screeched, spitting words. “Child! You are a child. You never listened. Ever! Why did you not listen to Pellus? He has more wisdom than you could ever hope to gain. Roan would be alive. Kemuel. Foderen. Your heart will not save you. It is drenched in their blood.”
A wail rose to Barakiel’s throat and hovered there, choking him. He tried to think of Zan, but chants of, “Selfish, selfish,” drove him off into a sickly yellow light. An oily liquid rained on him, foul smelling.
I am the bringer of death. My purpose. How I ask for forgiveness.
Once again, darkness swallowed him, but he felt the grip of his sword, matched to his hand as if it sprang with him from the womb. “Face me, Lucifer! Stop your games! Do you think you can thrust anything into my mind that I have not thought myself?”
Sucked away backward at rapid speed, he landed hard but kept hold of his blade. He stood in gray mist. Smacking and tearing noises came from his right. As the mist parted, he saw his mother, clinging to life. She whimpered as demons ripped off gobs of her flesh, her blood running over their chins. Barakiel’s knees gave out. He screamed. Tears streamed from his eyes, snot poured from his nose, spit from his half-open mouth.
“You see how Yahoel suffered because you were too stupid to accept your birthright?” the high, nasal voice resumed. “You ran away. You left her to die.”
Barakiel’s wail fell to silence.
What death should I bring but my own? The end of this. If I had never been born the realm would be at peace. She would have gone to you right away, father. She would have convinced you to lay down your sword, to return to the Realm and face the consequences of your rebellion.
He lurched to his feet and set the hilt of his sword on the ground, its point in line with his chest. He squeezed its sharp edges until they sliced through his gauntlets. Blood dribbled down to pool on the hilt guard. Lucifer would not claim him. He would fall on his sword. He had run away. Let her die. To meet the Stream was too good for a coward like him.
I am sorry, my love.
Her face, her body, her touch. One last memory.
“Stop it!” Zan’s voice, as loud as heralds. “You stupid fuck! You still won’t listen to Pellus? Don’t you remember? You said the same thing to him once, that if you’d never been born the Realm would be at peace. He told you to get over yourself. But you don’t give a shit, do you? You’re going to leave me now, after all I’ve been through, to indulge some fantasy of your own significance. You asshole!”
She appeared before him, slapped his face. “Harder!” he shouted. She punched him, over and over. All he heard was the dull thud, all he felt was the pain. Such welcome pain. She stopped after a while and shook out her hand. Barakiel watched her, helpless. Nothing was left of him but her.
“If you won’t listen to Pellus, listen to me,” she said. “Your precious purpose is so close to your heart. Do you think your mother didn’t have one? How do you think she withstood the lure of her bonded mate? You were her purpose! You were her strength! She was proud of you.” Zan came close. He could smell her sweat as she glared up at him. “Go ahead. Fall on your sword. Erase her heroism. Her love. Erase everything she was.” She turned and disappeared into the mist, but remained in his mind like hot light chasing the shadows.
He stood with his eyes closed. He didn’t know how long. He wiped his sword on his leg and sheathed it on his back. “I will do it, Zan. For my mother, for you, I will live with myself.” He circled in place, peering into the mist. “Did you hear that, father?” he shouted. “Zan wins. She will always win!”
Abruptly, Barakiel flew upward until he adhered to a surface like a magnet to metal. He blinked to clear his vision. He was pinned to the ceiling of a terrace in Lucifer’s Keep that looked out over the plain. Beneath him, his father stalked toward Zan. He seized her and carried her to a rock shelf then ripped off her robes. Barakiel tried to scream, but no sound came. He struggled to pull his limbs from the wall. He shut his eyes, but he still saw the scene as if it was beaming directly into his cerebral cortex. He thought his chest might split open with rage.
Lucifer laughed as he threw Zan onto the rock shelf. He placed a hand on her shoulder and bent to kiss her. She turned her face away and struck at him so he punched her then grabbed her chin. He hissed, took her lip in his teeth and tore half of it away. She screeched in pain.
Blood poured from Zan’s lip. Lucifer trailed the blood down to her breasts, which he slowly sliced open with his fingernail, a gory furrow, then another and another, all the while inhaling deeply. He picked her up, slammed her back onto the ledge and shed his cassock. Crouching beside her, he seized her by the hair and brought her face close to his.
“Now you will feel the true power,” he said. He shoved her legs apart, cracking her pelvis. She cried out. When Lucifer moved above her, Zan blew air from her lacerated mouth to spray blood all over his face.
Again, he laughed. He licked blood from her gouged breasts then shoved into her so brutally her head smashed into the shelf wall. He grunted, his face a rictus of ecstatic Destruction. As he pounded into her he gripped her legs so forcefully he popped holes in her flesh.
Barakiel howled, but again there was no sound, only an internal vibration. Helpless fury consumed him, eroding his sanity. He begged. He pleaded. His father’s voice wormed its way into his head.
I can take the pain away, son. You can be with her forever, only you, here in my kingdom where you will reign with me in Destruction.
A vision came. Barakiel rode a wave of demons into the Turning to retrieve his mate. He would carry her in triumph to the land of death, where she would dwell inside its force. Where death would never find her. He held her to his side, bestowing his radiant smile, but she fought to free herself.
“Did you forget?” she asked. “We filled each other with love and now you want to empty me? I don’t want it. Remember, Rainer! Remember with me.”
Again, he saw Lucifer moving above her. Again, he saw Zan blow through her shredded lips to splatter blood on his face. But this time, Barakiel remembered what she had felt when she accomplished this simple act of defiance. Lucifer violated her because she would not submit. Because she was his enemy.
“I’m more than your bonded mate. I’m the human woman who told Lucifer to go fuck himself.”
Zan erupted in laughter. Barakiel joined her, and the sound swirled around them, joined by the millions of musical notes they had shared, the whispers of their late night conversations, the sighs and moans of their physical love. High and higher they rose as they laughed, both blind now in a universe of sound.
A high-pitched whine ripped Barakiel from his vision. He flew through the mists and then landed with a thud, his sword digging into his shoulder. He was on the Obsidian, or rather, some version of it. Like a photographic negative, all solids felt like space and all spaces solid. Structures and shapes glowed silvery gray beside impenetrable black. He scrambled to his feet, or so he thought. He felt hardness beneath him but saw only fibrous light. The Corrupted near the Keep moved like wraiths. Visible, but not really there.
Lucifer appeared at the edge of this other-Obsidian. He walked toward Barakiel, who could feel the emptiness sucking at his limbs, seeking to devour him, to devour everything. It radiated from its lord like the rays of a dark and terrible sun.
“That was your last chance to accept your birthright, wayward son,” Lucifer said. “Now, I will kill you. A waste of power, certainly, but I will enjoy it.”
“You face me on this forsaken plane of the Void? Why not fight me on the real Obsidian, father? Are you afraid?”
The Lord of Destruction’s laughter would have frozen the fluid in a lesser Covalent’s spine. “Precisely the opposite, dear son of mine. Here, my warriors cannot reach us. You are mine to kill, and mine alone.”
“You cannot win, father. Did I not make that clear?”
Lucifer scoffed. “What you made clear is that you are a fool. You fail to understand this place. It is built on my hatred. My hatred for you.” He grasped the jeweled hilt of his glowing sword and drew it from the scabbard on his back. “I would have preferred to enslave you, but death will do.”
“You think your hatred will defeat me? It is merely a perversion of love.”
“Yes, I loved you once,” Lucifer said, looking off into the distance. “But that was before you took her from me.” When he returned his gaze, Barakiel gaped in shock at the depth of his pain.
“She was my bonded mate!” His shout bounced around the arena, echoes upon echoes. “She was devoted to you, a useless child. She abandoned me to flounder here. Made no effort to join me or bring you to me until it was too late. We could have had it all if she had not forsaken me. How long was I supposed to wait? You condemn me for seeking refuge in Destruction? It was all I had. All. I. Had.”
He dashed forward but did not attack. Insanity poured off of him like pheromones. Barakiel tried to hide his trembling. His compassion.
“Ha! Look at you. Craven little simp,” Lucifer said. “She should have seen what you are, but even after she came to me she belonged to you. I thought we would be complete when you came here, but you fled. You left her to fight for your freedom.”
“What are you saying?”
“Are you serious? All this time you thought you escaped by your own power?” Lucifer laughed raucously then wiped his mouth. He flipped his sword a few times, death dancing in his eyes.
“No, wayward son, you did not. Yahoel said you had made your choice and that I should let you go. When I refused, she fought me to the death. She died because of you.”
Barakiel’s vision grayed. His heart pounded and his breathing became ragged. He was dimly aware of his father chuckling, walking toward him. Feared burned through him, as it had so long ago when he left his mother to be slaughtered. After it had consumed him, Zan was there, wound around his heart.
It’s not your fault! He could have let you go. He and Yahoel could have ruled the Destructive Realm. You know why he killed her, Rainer! Because he couldn’t control her. Not completely.
Lucifer raised his sword with an elegant flourish just as Barakiel drew his own. With a hiss of rage, his father swept downward. Without his legs properly under him, Barakiel stumbled, but his block held. He rolled away and popped upright, his sword in front of him. His focus returned. If Lucifer was going to kill him, he would face a Warrior of the Rising, not a guilt-ridden child.
Again, his father attacked. Though Barakiel’s block wobbled, it was enough. His counterattack spiraled to meet the unmoving force of Lucifer’s blade in a shower of sparks. At the same time, he pushed in to punch him in the face. The move surprised Lucifer. His attention wavered enough for Barakiel to quickly strike his knee and knock him to the ground. Barakiel swung downward with a mad yell, but Lucifer was too fast. All that came of it was a shallow slice to the lower leg.
They circled each other, measuring breath rates, heartbeats, taking in the scents of rage and fear. With furious grunts, they clashed again and again, blow meeting block meeting blow, around and around the inside-out sphere of this other-Obsidian. Shouts, growls and the chink of striking metal echoed off the empty arena seats. Bounced off the shimmering silver of the Keep Tower. On and on they fought until Destruction pulsed above them like a quasar, drawn by hatred that would only be satisfied with blood. The elemental force infused their limbs, sizzled through their flesh, marched in their rage. This had always been Barakiel’s life. Attack, block, counter, attack, evade.
Wounds multiplied. Blood streaked their armor, their faces and hair, more on the son than the father. The Lord of Destruction did not seem to tire. Barakiel realized that the longer the battle continued the less likely he was to prevail. If he were any other place, Balance would carry the fight, but not there. Cold fear pooled in his gut that he would never hold Zan in his arms again, but his fear also held a message.
I hold her life force within me. He is alone. He will regret shoving his depravity in my face.
Barakiel would end this. An explosion of aggression was his only chance. He felt Zan’s rape as she felt it. He remembered Lucifer’s boasting. He poured his rage into a flurry of attacks, his sword whistling with speed, crossing and recrossing over his head until a luminous blue arc crowned him like a halo. He drove his father across the photo-negative arena toward its center, but Lucifer was equal to the barrage. When Barakiel called up one final desperate swing of his blade his father’s block teetered, just for a pulse. With a roar, Barakiel pressed his advantage. Too late, he realized his mistake.
The weakened block had been a ruse. Barakiel’s momentum carried him too close to his father, who hooked his son’s leg and shoved him to the ground. As fast as a flash of heat lightning, Lucifer thrust his sword down toward his son’s midriff. Barakiel scrambled to evade the strike but the blade pierced his armor and plunged into his side. Lucifer dragged the blade through armor and flesh. Blood poured from the wound.
Lucifer’s eyes lit with the lust for violence. He thought he had won, but he forgot that pain was Barakiel’s intimate friend. For five thousand phases he had fought in the Turning while the Lord of Destruction sat on his Throne of Flame, sending underlings to bleed in his stead. The wound would not stop Barakiel so long as he had breath. In a pulse, he curled, grabbed his father’s ankle and yanked. Lucifer fell, but not before he sliced deep into his son’s thigh. Barakiel knew he would not rise again.
Before Lucifer could regain his feet or remove his blade from flesh, Barakiel rolled. Though it worsened the laceration on his thigh with a wet rip, he succeeded in pinning his father to the surface of the other-Obsidian, the scent of his own blood so thick in his nostrils he could taste its metallic tinge. Lucifer’s sword was wedged between their bodies, so he drew his dagger and struck towards the back of his son’s neck. Barakiel knocked the knife away as Lucifer punched him repeatedly in the head with his other hand, shredding his face with the spikes of his gauntlet.
Barakiel’s vision began to fade. He gasped for air. He bit his father’s throat but couldn’t get close enough to make it deep. He felt for his dagger, inched it from its scabbard, slowly, so slowly, as they clawed and gouged and bit.
When the dagger was out, Barakiel gambled. He let go of the blade to reposition his left hand as he thrashed his head to protect his eyes from the blows of Lucifer’s fist. The risk paid off. He grasped the knife at the optimal angle and sank it deep in Lucifer’s side at the seam of his armor. At that moment, with his father stunned by pain, Barakiel rolled away, his sword still firm in his right hand. With a ragged cry, he heaved his damaged body sideways, toward Lucifer. Though nauseous and barely able to see through the blood in his eyes, Barakiel knew his sword traveled in a perfect blue arc across his body. He felt it. Images of Zan’s suffering powered his arm as he sliced his sword into Lucifer neck, its razor’s edge cleaving flesh and bone in an instant.
The Lord of Destruction was dead.
Barakiel fell onto his back and groaned. He wiped the blood from his eyes and saw the shining black tower of the Lucifer’s Keep rise before him, no longer glimmering in the silver of the netherworld where he’d fought his father to the death. His father’s corpse lay headless beside him. He heard the shouts of the Corrupted. He gurgled through his shredded lips, the closest he could come to a sound of amusement.
When they reach me I will join you, father. We will make a fine a headless pair.
Before the dark warriors found him, the rumbling began. The Obsidian cracked in a thousand places as jagged crimson lightning played across the charcoal sky. The ground shook, the walls crumbled, the tower swayed. Lucifer’s colossal machine creaked and squealed. The Corrupted ran from the Keep and through the gates, wailing and shrieking. They paid no attention to Barakiel, or even to their dead lord’s corpse.
Too weak to move, Barakiel watched the blood spread from his broken body. The pool was so wide now he could see its edge without turning his head, but he could also feel Destruction dipping into his flesh, tickling his cells, searching for its new lord. He opened himself to the power. Why shouldn’t he? He was going to die there. He would die intoxicated, riding on the bone-deep satisfaction of his kill. The elation of his success. His bonded mate would be safe. Lucifer would never hurt her again.
I wish my body did not have to leave you, my love, but I remain within you. You will feel me cherish you as long as you live.