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A roar this time, one that made the sound of a volcano blast dim in comparison. The terrain below her split, large, jagged cracks running out from the base of her mountain and away, moving as rapidly as light. Faster than white light. Fast as only the shadows could gather. The dead were clawing, clawing upward, and she was helping them get toward that light. Her body arched upward, trembling toward daylight and life. Mimicking them, pulling them.
Putting the Trumpet to her lips once more, she blew the final blast.
Silence was a sound more deafening than any other, and that was what the last blast was. No sound at all, but a vibration that rocketed through her nerve endings like electrical charges. The earth looked as if it had been slashed open all around them. As the vibration echoed away, a thunderous clamor rose. Mina raised her gaze to see the Dark Ones, almost blotting out the light in the daytime sky. Thousands of them, perhaps all the Dark Ones that inhabited their hellish world, streaking out of the rift hole from which she'd come. Assembled, ready, and now diving as figures began to climb out of the Earth's crust.
She looked beyond what her eyes could see to the extended vast reaches of her mind.
Human as well as animal, mythical and prehistoric. She stood on the mountain, holding the glowing Trumpet, surrounded by the blood light of the Dark Ones, and watched the skeletal form of some type of large dinosaur lumber out of the ground and thunder out a cry of hunger, staring this way and that with empty eye sockets, its teeth bared. As it moved forward, it grew skin, a muscle covering, but those eyes remained empty. No soul.
Chaos. She was seeing chaos unfold before her, a human world gone to chaos and terror.
"You are one of us at last." Amal's voice, whispering in her ear, fetid breath leaving a moist oil on her skin. "Use your powers fully. Delight in the screams of the living, savor the bloodlust of the dead and the Dark Ones. Your own bloodlust. You can lead us."
Amal's voice still, but more than his. Thousands upon thousands of Dark Ones, joining in, seeing in her power something they'd never had. The upper hand. No more would they run from angel attack. No more would they be limited to the pit of fire and brimstone that was their world. Their whispers filled her subconscious, which expanded like an ocean to contain them, gather them to her.
She swayed with the overpowering feel of it. As the dead rose at her channeling, and the Dark Ones spoke in her mind, she realized something that had always been there. Like the embrace of her power, it was something she'd missed because she was so fearful of grasping at this.
When she'd dreamed of the Dark Ones, they'd turn and try to speak to her. She'd told David that. Now, she reached out beyond the channeling of the dead and discovered the Dark Ones. Like the dead, she could feel inside each one, hold each heart in her hands, make the connection. As she reached out and did so, there was a frozen stillness in the sky, in their swarm down upon the Earth, as they registered her touch.
She could turn them to her will, just as she was controlling the dead, but only to dark purpose. They had no good in them, just evil, but it was an evil seeking cohesion, and with that cohesion, nothing would stop them. They would destroy, again and again, making each world they conquered just like the pit of despair they'd left behind, because it was a reflection of what they were inside. They hadn't been trapped there. They'd created it, and would continue to do so, as long as that was what they were.
But did she really care about that? About them? It was the power that would keep her warm. It was keeping her warm now, growing ever stronger. It was all the rage she had ever felt, every moment she'd been helpless, afraid, in pain, cold. It was the true place she belonged, inside its loving grasp. The universe was in her hand, to crush and destroy. She could play with the stars and moon like toys, roll them like marbles across the galaxy with a flick of her mind. Kick the earth viciously and watch it explode into fragments, leaving her floating over and over like a gurgling baby, in simple, self-satisfied solitude.
The beginning of a new universe, where she would be the all-powerful deity, who would never make the mistake of creating any world or any being that could hurt her, turn against her, remind her what loneliness was through rejection.
It is a tempting choice, young one. But still a choice.
A different warmth. Whereas what was in her now was searing fire, capable of disintegrating everything to ash, what had materialized at her back was the warmth of hearth fire. Comfort, reassurance, but more than that. A power great as her own. Perhaps greater. It had no fear of her. And that was a mistake.
She spun as Light exploded behind her, knocking away the Dark Ones, obliterating everything except the darkness Mina had collected around her. She no longer saw the mountain or the earth below it. Just a dark sky and a light one, split in a sharp line down the middle, she on one side, that power on the other. Flashes of lightning strobed through both, as if they were curtains hiding a battle in progress. The angels, fighting the Dark Ones all over the planet, in the skies, on the ground. The battle of Armageddon at last.
The Goddess. This was the Goddess. Strength and yet counter purpose. Mina defiantly stared into Her face, felt that power peel her skin back and leave just the skeletal face of a Dark One, knew her eyes had both gone to flame already. She didn't care about her body. What did a body matter when the soul could cloak itself in this blast of pure, malevolent energy?
Where had this Goddess been when the creatures of the sea had torn at her flesh, when her mother had been raped? What did she owe Her? Nothing. She owed Her nothing.
What do you owe yourself?
Though the Goddess asked the question, Mina answered it, savagely. This. She could stand toe-to-toe, bring dark against light, swallow it whole, and the darkness would be all around her. A new order. And angels needed order, right? They could serve her, serve the Dark Ones, just as Amal wished.
Unlike the Goddess before her, Mina could bear the proximity of Dark Ones, felt no exhausting strain at their presence. Their very closeness sucked at the female deity, just like how the angels made Mina feel. Mirror images of each other, she and this Goddess. However, unlike the Goddess, who could deal with Her weakness only by holding Dark Ones' at arm's length, Mina now knew how to bring angels to heel.
She felt the angels pause outside the screen of that curtain, as the threat of her mind became manifest, all the darkness eagerly channeling toward her, ready to move forward, move over the Goddess like a wave and drown her as soon as Mina released it.
She knew what they saw. The world hanging on a cliff edge, as the two entities stood face-to-face. What the Goddess had attempted as an alliance would become a war that would tear the world apart. The battle decision lay right here.
Even knowing that, Mina sensed one dark-winged angel changing his course, abandoning the head of his army to charge toward them, to split open that curtain, come to his Lady's aid. Lucifer. The Lady's champion. Mina had no fear of him now. It would be too late if she but spoke the word.
She got a hint of the Goddess's face, of unfathomable eyes, the color hard to discern behind the light. But she saw a soft mouth, a humanlike form, wings somewhat like the angels but far wider in their span, spreading out, white and gleaming.
It is the way of those who love you. They will do anything they must to save you, even when everyone else thinks it's too late. A delicate pause, a tendril of energy that touched Mina's face before she could avoid it. Where is David? Have you forsaken him?
Mina backed away from that touch and her heel hit something. Looking down, her feet were on the mountain and she saw David's limp hand, though all else beyond him remained black, cut off.
Just a flash, but she couldn't look away fast enough. For the moment, whether by the Goddess's will or some other effect, no Dark Ones were upon him. His wings were gone. Torn and broken, ripped away, so that all that was left were a few shards of bone glistening with blood. Skin had been taken from so much of his body, not just from the rotting poison of their touch and saliva but from a
dozen sets of teeth as they'd tried to tear him to shreds. They'd have spit out his flesh, unable to stomach it, but they would have wanted the violence of taking it, of tasting his blood. His eyes... oh, gods, his eyes were gone as well, his nose broken, hair ripped from his scalp. Nothing left of his beautiful cock and testicles but blood and gore. He was a broken, hideous thing, and yet as she knelt, curved her hand over his limp one, that one thing was the same. The only part of him that seemed untouched. His other hand... Her eyes closed. All of the fingers were gone, chewed off.
David.
But she knew she'd get no response. There was a wet pool of blood on his chest, a gaping wound from his belly almost to his throat. The only way to kill an angel was to remove his heart and destroy it.
Oh, gods... Damn all of them to Hell. Her hand fluttered over it, but she couldn't bear to touch it. Instead she looked back toward his face. Scared shitless... How could anyone have walked into this world, completely turned himself over to the hands of another, known what would happen and been fearless? He hadn't been. He would have been afraid. But he'd been more afraid of failing her, failing himself. And that was the best definition she could think of for courage.
His beautiful eyes. What had he said that day, when he cupped her scarred face? I see you. I always have.
It didn't matter now. She was going to destroy it all. Everything that breathed would pay for this. She knew he'd been willing to make this sacrifice, accepted not only that he was going to die, but die after prolonged and terrible pain. He was a good man, a good angel, a good soul. But she wasn't good.
What do you owe yourself?
She'd never desired anything until him. Never dared to. If she had him, maybe there would have been other things she'd have wanted. Like a garden to go with that tire swing. And that junk shop he'd talked about... an array of things, like searching a shipwreck.
What odd thoughts to have here, on the edge of total destruction, power vibrating on her palms, rushing through her veins. She was invincible, a deadly force far more powerful than anything she'd ever feared. And yet all she could think about was an empty tire swing, drifting in a faint wind against a desert landscape.
The curtain of dark and light had grown translucent, so she could see the Goddess's army. Those not currently employed in direct combat on the Earth, an Earth that was now far below, hovered just beyond Her light. Apparently, She'd told them to hold, wait on this moment of decision.
They didn't understand. How could they know what it was to be born to evil and make the choice, every day, not to embrace it? Not for any hope of anything better, just out of sheer hatred and defiance. Living on the edge of madness, so that when something like this was finally offered...
It's a lie. It's always been a lie.
She remembered telling David that. She'd always known what the lie was. Her despair had been in not knowing what the truth was. But here it lay, just before her.
In David's arms, it came together. The dark and the light were at peace with each other and there was no struggle. She could claw and bite, draw his blood, and yet be filled by him, kissed by him, held safe and warm. That was what this power couldn't give her. And maybe if she'd never had that, it wouldn't have mattered. But she had. For two ridiculously short days.
All her life, she'd studied, practiced, and she'd missed the significance of it. It was more than a way to keep the darkness in her under control. There was a wider purpose. Though she didn't know where she belonged, light or dark, the one thing she knew was that there had to be a balance. David had known that. As above, so below. Just as she'd always had to have the balance to exist, so, too, did the world.
Now she was one of the keys to that. She could tip that balance with just a whispered word that fluttered in her throat. But as her gaze drifted down to David, to the remnants of the wings they'd torn from him, the bruising on his face and upper body, the gashes and burns on his legs, she knew that was an imbalance she didn't want. She'd wanted him.
And whether she saved the world now because she had wanted him, had allowed herself that, or because it was for the higher good, didn't matter. To the world, it wouldn't matter.
It is all the same, young one. Believe me.
She'd always lived moment to moment, making no plans, the only certainty being the here and now. Wanting him was the constant. The Dark Ones had believed the Dark Blood would overwhelm any good in her. They'd thought she was theirs. But she wasn't. She'd been his. David's. All the subtleties of submission and surrender, that willingness to trust, it became the rock. The rock on which she could stand, could shelter her soul. Could depend upon.
He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just...
A Bible was the most common thing she found in wreckage, an irony, she'd thought. But when she'd read the book, it had become clear it was not a ward against misfortune, but a guiding light through it. And that phrase had apparently embedded itself in her mind.
She turned her back to the Goddess. Or rather, put the strength of that light at her back. She would deal with her grief, the deadness in her heart later. What mattered was that Anna would have her baby. Diane would have her twins. Life would go on, because that was what David would have wanted. What he'd died for.
Will you follow my lead, my Lady?
I am here behind you, young one.
Controlling the dead was probably one of the easier things Mina knew how to do. The Lady's energy was already aligning with hers in a smooth, miraculous way that she couldn't help but pause and marvel at a brief second, the wisdom and skill of an ancient providing her a challenge to improve her own skills. But then she shook it off, imagining David's amusement.
Can you save the world first, little witch?
A jagged ache was in her soul as she raised her own arms. The Lady's light spread, so that Mina's body became a silhouette before that outline, the winged figure taking the same posture, arms raised and stretched, so they were a reverse image. Instead of light throwing a larger shadow of darkness behind it, Mina was the darkness shadowed by the fiery power. As the powers aligned, the click of connection was simple, seamless, and filled Mina with a sense of power and belonging far more than anything she'd ever expected to feel. Dark and light combined, and the power of it shimmered out from them both, in every direction.
Chaos faltered, and Mina broke out of her amazement to seize the power from its hands, yank it free, and add hers and the Goddess's. A tremendous sphere of energy, growing rapidly larger, like a child's balloon. Twining the two energies together, she imagined herself at a loom, the wheel spinning madly, her hands flashing over the threads until at last, concentration un-marred, she severed it, sending what they had created whirling out over the Earth.
It hit the stratosphere and engulfed the Earth, closing around it, the smaller blue green orb now inside a much larger one. A prison. As the thousands of Dark Ones swarming over the Earth realized the tide had shifted, they shot for the skies, and were repelled, slamming against that energy and finding no escape, nowhere to turn except into the swords and arrows of the angels charging among them, free to pass in and out of that energy blanket at will.
Then she turned her attention to the rift from which she'd come. She could be a force of salvation, or destruction. All she had to think of was David to know which face she would bring upon that hellish world.
Reaching out to the towers in the Dark Ones' world created specifically to call open rifts, it took only a touch, for she was Everything. All she had to do was press her lips together, blow a breath, and it became a tornado that split into four churning forces. They spun out to the corners of the Dark Ones' world. In her mind's eye, she saw the towers explode, a hailstorm of stone and debris, sparks of red power and tendrils of energy striking the surface like broken, whipping wires, melting into the fire, freezing into the ice, destroying the rift-opening magic. The few Dark Ones left on that world would have no way to leave it, ever again. Unless she willed it.
I
t was then she saw Dante, standing at the edge of the open rift. Entering his mind was as easy as touching her own consciousness, and his gaze whipped up and around him.
My Lady... His mental voice was a whisper. A plea.
You cannot leave, Dante, because you were never named. Your mother never named you, and the Dark Ones saw no purpose to it. You will stay in this deserted world, where only a handful of Dark Ones and life remains. You will make something of it. Prove to me you deserve to be set free. And perhaps I will come back and do just that.
She saw his face, furious and yet terrified, his fists clenched, his body surging forward toward the rift, though she knew he would strike against it uselessly. She sealed it before he had the opportunity, creating a new star with a crimson tint.
BACK to the Earth again. The Goddess moved with her, a separate form of consciousness. Mina had an army at her disposal to assist the angels, and she put it to use. Many of the Dark Ones, their avenue of escape cut off, were headed to ground. She turned the dead on them. The fossils of dinosaurs and dragons, centaurs and hippogriffs. Masses of human bodies, from the dawn of time to the present, fighting with nothing but teeth and blunt weapons picked up in soulless, mindless hands, drove the Dark Ones back into the sky, into the savage grasp of the angels again.
The Legion had sustained severe casualties in certain areas, so as the Dark Ones took to the skies there, another splinter of her power created the illusion of twenty angels in places there might be one, herding them back to where the angels had actual greater numbers and could cut the Dark Ones down more effectively.
Those angels that had backed the Goddess had been sent by Her to join their brethren, so now the most powerful of the angelic host lent themselves to the struggle. She had a glimpse of Jonah and Michael, twin forces of destruction. Uriel, the angel of vengeance who worked as Lucifer's shadow. Azriel, the angel of death, who would likely consider generations of his work being unearthed an affront. Even Raphael, the angel of healing, throwing a spear which appeared to have no limit to its range, or in its ability to return to him. His golden hair was gleaming, blood smeared on his face.
