Izzy Rogers stood at the gates to Heaven. St. Peter opened them to let her in.
"Welcome to Heaven, Jessica," he said, his smile holding limitless kindness.
"I prefer the name Izzy," she said, smiling back.
"Izzy," he said respectfully, nodding.
She looked around. "So…I've been forgiven for everything I did?" she asked him.
"You found your way," he said. "There was a time when your soul was damned, but in the end, you were able to pull yourself out of the darkness and into the light."
"I'll take that as a yes," Izzy said. She stepped forward…then hesitated.
"Is Matthew in there?" she asked St. Peter.
"Who?" he asked.
"Matthew Downs," she said. "The man I loved. The father of my daughter."
St. Peter shook his head. "No," he replied; "that soul burns in Hell."
Izzy took a step back, away from the pearly gates. "That's not fair," she protested.
"Unlike you, he did not find his way before he died," St. Peter said gravely. "Now, he suffers eternal punishment for his sins. That is the way it goes. Now please, come in. We have been waiting for you."
Izzy shook her head. "Not without Matthew," she said firmly. "I won't spend eternity without him."
St. Peter looked confused; Izzy had a feeling that no soul had ever refused to enter Heaven before.
"I know Heaven is supposed to be paradise," she said, "but there is no paradise for me in a place where Matthew is not. I spent most of my life without him, and the only thing that allowed me to make my peace with death was the thought that I would see him again. I didn't spend my whole life waiting for this."
"Izzy, it cannot be helped," St. Peter said gently. "You no longer belong in Hell, and he does not belong in Heaven. You cannot be with him again."
The words cut through Izzy's soul like a knife, and she fell to her knees. "No," she sobbed. "No, this can't be happening." She wept, somehow able to shed tears.
"Is it truly that unbearable to you?" asked St. Peter after a minute.
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. "I loved him," she told St. Peter. "I loved him with all my soul, both before and after I found my way. And he loved me. He helped me take the first step towards regaining my humanity. I would have been forever lost, had it not been for the love he and I shared. I will not spend all of eternity without him. Heaven will not be Heaven for me if he is not there."
"This is beyond my control," St. Peter said sadly.
"Then who can control it?" Izzy demanded.
Suddenly, she felt a presence. It wasn't something she could have sensed had she still been corporal; it wasn't something a mind bound by flesh could have comprehended.
I can, said a voice. Izzy didn't so much hear it as feel the words echo through her soul.
"God…?" she breathed.
My daughter, said the voice of God, your love and loyalty are noble things, but the man you love cannot enter my paradise. If you wish to be with him, you will have to burn with him.
"Okay," Izzy said without a second's hesitation. "I'll go to Hell, if it means I can be with him again."
You would truly damn your soul for all of eternity, just to see him once more? asked God. If you enter my paradise, your sadness and pain will forever end. You once said that all you ever wanted was to be at peace; only in Heaven can you find this.
"I won't be at peace if he's not there," Izzy said firmly.
If you enter my paradise, your memories of him will fade, God told her. You will not be sad any longer. You will not remember what you have lost.
"I don't want to forget him!" Izzy shouted. "I spent decades trying to make up for my sins, praying each day that I would see Matthew again! If I had known that becoming a good person meant that I couldn't spend the rest of eternity with him, I would have gone on killing until my dying day!"
A profound sadness emanated from the incomprehensible presence that was God; a spiritual tear leaked from St. Peter's eye.
"I will not be without my love," Izzy said. "There is no price I would not pay to be with him again. The love we shared was the most wonderful thing I ever had in my life, and nothing in Heaven could ever replace the hole his death left in my heart. I will not forget him, for he is part of me, and he always will be. I will love him forever."
For a moment, there was silence; it seemed even God was speechless.
Very well, God said at last. Look down, over the ledge behind you.
Izzy turned around and looked. Somehow, she could see all of Hell from her view just outside Heaven. Had she still had mortal eyes, this would not have been possible, but as pure soul, nothing hindered her vision.
Do you see him? God asked her.
Izzy's eyes sought Matthew. For a minute, she couldn't discern anything in the inferno below her. She saw what eternal suffering looked like, though. Her heart ached for her love…
Suddenly, she found him, bound in chains of brimstone, burning forever. He was screaming with agony, as he would forevermore, she knew.
"Yes," she said, crying again. "Yes, I see him. Please make it stop. Please make him stop hurting."
I cannot do that, said God.
"You're God!" she shouted tearfully. "You can do anything!"
It is Lucifer who holds his soul, God said. Lucifer holds dominion over the souls of the damned; Matthew is not mine to save.
"No," Izzy choked. "No, you can't leave him there. There must be a way."
My daughter, you have my permission to enter Hell and consult with Lucifer, God said. I cannot make any promises, but perhaps he will hear you. Your path back here will remain open, unless you choose to close it…and, if you have Lucifer's permission, you may bring Matthew Downs back with you when you come.
"How do I get down there?" Izzy asked.
Jump.
Without a second's hesitation, Izzy leapt from the clouds and plunged into Hell.
~X~
Izzy let the darkness that was still in her spirit guide her through the flames. The screams of the damned formed an unearthly chorus that tore at her heart, but she pressed on. There was nothing she would not do for Matthew.
Sometimes she accidentally stepped too close to a fire, and the flames licked her. When that happened, she felt the same pain she would have if her skin had been burned, but when she looked at herself, there was no burn mark.
To burn for eternity…Only as an unbound soul would that be possible…
Matthew…
She thought of her love, suffering that punishment. No, she thought determinedly. I can't let him be here. I have to get him out.
Eventually, she came upon what appeared to be the ruins of a palace, and found Lucifer, sitting on his black throne. Unlike God, he manifested in the form of a person…and a surprisingly handsome one at that. His horns curved back behind his head in a way that was almost elegant, and his white skin, black eyes, and red lips were somewhat attractive, in a strange, dark way.
He stood as Izzy came before him.
"Who are you, daughter of Eve, and why do you trouble me?" he asked, his tone both regal and bored.
"My name is Izzy Rogers," Izzy replied, getting down on one knee for good measure, "and you hold a soul I cannot spend eternity without. Matthew Downs, the love of my life, burns in your land of punishment. I will not pass through the gates of Heaven without him at my side."
"And you ask that I release him?" Lucifer asked.
"I ask only that I be allowed to spend the rest of eternity with him; I care not where," Izzy said. She didn't even notice how her diction was becoming more archaic and elegant; nothing was on her mind, or in her heart, except Matthew.
"Hmm…" Lucifer said pensively.
"Please," Izzy begged; "please, I would give anything to be with him again. I would burn here with him for all of eternity - Hell would be my Heaven, if he was by my side. You can have my soul."
Lucifer gave a long-suffering sigh. "I see man continues to exaggerate me," he said. "It is true, daughter of Eve, that I created evil; however, I am not evil myself, not per se. The only pleasure I take in dragging human souls down here to my fiery abyss stems from my resentment of the Lord, for each soul that chooses darkness is essentially a slap in his face…so to speak. I do not seek to punish souls that do not deserve punishment."
"But I do!" Izzy exclaimed. "I do deserve punishment! I've done bad things!"
"Yes, but you found your way in the end," Lucifer said. He raised a hand to stop the protest she was about to make. "What I am attempting to tell you is that offering me your soul is an exercise in futility, for I do not seek the damnation of souls for its own sake," he told her. "I do not want you."
"Please," Izzy sobbed. "Please, I need to be with Matthew again. I'll do anything!"
Lucifer tilted his head. "Perhaps…" he muttered, more to himself than to her.
He appeared to think for a minute. Izzy waited.
"If the love you two share is as true and pure as it seems, I will not oppose it," Lucifer said at last. "If you can find him here in my realm, then you may take him with you to my Lord's paradise."
"Thank you," Izzy breathed, throwing herself to the floor with the deepest bow she could manage. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"Rise, daughter of Eve," Lucifer said.
Izzy quickly got to her feet.
He looked at her, his black eyes burning right through her soul. "It would not be fair of me to not explain some things to you before you go," he said.
"Okay," Izzy said, a bit confused.
Lucifer clasped his hands together. "First of all, you're dead," he told her.
She blinked. "I know."
"Do you understand what that means?" he asked her.
"I…"
"It means that you don't have a body," he said. "You have no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no hands, no feet…Everything you think you sense is self-perceived." He spread his arms in a regal gesture, and suddenly, Izzy could see all of Hell, all the sinners who were burning there. "This also means that you are unbound by the limits of the corporeal," he went on. "This can be good or bad. On the one hand, you can sense things a physical body could not comprehend; on the other hand, you can be forced to endure pain and torture that would destroy a physical body."
Izzy, who had been looking at all the countless souls who burned around her, quickly turned back to Lucifer, her eyes wide. He smiled, almost smugly.
"Those are the rules of death," he said; "now let me explain the rules of Hell."
"Rules?" Izzy repeated.
"In the afterlife - be it Heaven or Hell - time and space mean very little," Lucifer said. "Here in my realm, walking or running is pointless, as is searching for your love the way you would a person in the mortal world. If you love him enough, your heart will guide you to him. But…" He gave her a half-smile that held no humor. "This is the land of judgement - the land of punishment."
"But…that doesn't mean anything for me, does it?" Izzy asked.
He chuckled, again without humor. "In your life, you learned that every human has both good and evil in them," he said; "all humans, whether good or bad, do have a conscience, and they carry their burdens with them when they die. If a person ultimately lives his or her life with goodness, then they go to Heaven, and once they pass through the gates, they are relieved of all their burdens. You, however, have not passed through the gates, so you still carry your burdens."
"I don't understand what that has to do with-"
"If a person ultimately lives his or her life evilly, then they come here, to my realm," Lucifer continued, cutting Izzy off. "Here, their burdens are not only not relieved, but no longer possible to ignore." He tilted his head. "Tell me…Do the sinners here in Hell appear to you to be on fire?"
"Yes," Izzy replied, looking around again. "They're all burning, and in red-hot chains that bind them to the ground. The fires will go on forever, because the sinners don't have bodies to be burned away."
"Remember that what you think you see is self-perceived," Lucifer said. "They may appear to you to be on fire, but that is not what makes them scream. You see, I am not the one who inflicts punishment upon the souls of the damned - here, in my kingdom, every soul has its own Hell. All the sinners you see are trapped in their own personal nightmares, for eternity…nightmares that are created from the burdens they carry. All the pain, fears, guilt, and doubts that the good in their souls were forced to carry in life are realized here. What appears to you to be fire is actually symbolic of truth - the painful truth, about each individual who burns."
Izzy thought for a minute. She wasn't entirely sure she knew where this was going, but it was starting to make sense.
"Now, you are not damned," Lucifer went on; "thus, you needn't spend eternity in the nightmares your burdens would become here. However, if you attempt to traverse my realm, you will have to face them. Such is the way of my kingdom."
"What do you mean?" Izzy asked fearfully.
"I mean that, should you attempt to seek the soul you love, you will be forced to endure several trials," Lucifer told her. "You will live your own personal nightmares. Had you passed through the gates of Heaven, you would have been able to shed your burdens without ever having to acknowledge them, but if you wish to take your lover with you to paradise, you must face them. You must face yourself."
"But…how can I find him if I have to fight myself?" Izzy asked, confused. "I only want to take him to Heaven with me…"
"And you may, if you reach him," Lucifer said. "If you can conquer your nightmares, then you will find him - but you must conquer all of your nightmares first." He paused. "Now, I see that my Lord has left the path back to Heaven open to you, for you to take at any time," he went on. "If you find you cannot endure the pain and fear of your nightmares, you always have the power to escape; keep in mind, though, that once you leave, with or without Matthew, you will not be able to return. You have but one chance."
"I won't go back without Matthew," Izzy said determinedly. "There is nothing I will not endure to be with him again. I would push through all the wrath in Hell to find him."
"That is exactly what you must do," Lucifer commented.
Izzy nodded. "I know." She thought for a minute. "How am I supposed to conquer my nightmares, though?" she asked. "None of these sinners can."
"No, but unlike them, you are not damned," Lucifer reminded her. "If you can face them, and overcome them, then you will be able to pass them. As for how this might be done…" He thought for a minute. "I will tell you only this," he said at last: "Just as truth can be your undoing, so too can it be your salvation."
"Thank you, Lucifer," Izzy said sincerely; "this is more than I would have dared hope from you."
"It is the Lord I resent, not mankind," Lucifer said, turning to walk back to his throne. His forked tail whipped a nearby piece of rubble as he mentioned God.
"Why do you hate God?" Izzy asked as he sat back down.
He chuckled. "That, daughter of Eve, is not your concern," he replied; "you have your own matters to worry about. Now go."
Izzy bowed and left the black ruins that were Lucifer's palace.
~X~
Izzy walked through the burning wastelands. The souls of the damned she had seen earlier were no longer visible, though the sound of their screams never faded.
Walked. Seen. Visible. Sound. None of those words meant anything anymore, but they still felt like the right words…
Izzy shook her head, setting the matter aside; she would use the words she knew, and she had more important things to think about.
My own personal nightmares… she thought. The first third of my life was a nightmare. What's going to happen…?
Well, she could think of one nightmare she didn't want to face. He wasn't really a burden, though - not on her conscience, at least - so surely he wouldn't appear…
Suddenly, a different sound rose over the chorus of the damned: laughter. Cruel, evil laughter.
Izzy stopped and looked around.
"Well, well, look who's here," said a voice she knew too well - the one that always haunted her in her nightmares.
A stab of raw fear shot through her. No. No, not him…
There was a burst of flame behind her. She spun around, and watched as the fire twisted and shaped itself into…
"Long time, no see, sweetheart," said Henry Reynolds, a predatory grin on his face.
Izzy stared at him, wide-eyed. He looked exactly the way she remembered him, except that he was burning. Fire enveloped every square inch of his form, and red-hot chains dangled from his wrists and ankles.
"Grandfather…" she breathed fearfully.
"What did you call me, sweetheart?" Henry asked dangerously. "Has it really been so long that you don't remember what you're supposed to call me?"
Izzy shook her head. "I'm not going to call you 'Master'," she said. "You're not my master."
"Is that so?" Henry sneered. He took a step towards her.
She took a step back. "You can't hurt me anymore," she said, her voice growing stronger as she called on her old protective barrier of ice. "I'm free of you."
Henry laughed. "Oh, that's my girl," he said; "my little ice princess."
"What?" Izzy asked, bewildered, her defense shattering. He had never called her that before…
"You're not free of me, girl," Henry said; "you never have been. You're my little ice princess, my pride and joy."
Izzy shook her head. "I don't…understand…" she stammered.
He chuckled. "Did you have fun sending me here?" he asked her.
Izzy lifted her chin. "The night I killed you was one of the proudest moments of my life," she said defiantly.
He chuckled again. "That's my girl," he said, almost fondly. "It was about time, really. Honestly, I was starting to think you didn't have it in you. But you sure proved me wrong! You were brutal!" He laughed again.
Izzy blinked. "That was what you wanted all along, wasn't it?" she realized out loud.
He shrugged. "Well, the way I saw it, I'd either have a fun little plaything for the rest of your life" - Izzy bristled as he emphasized the word 'your' - "or I'd turn you into me, and live on through you," he finished. "I couldn't lose!"
Izzy's fists clenched, and she started to shake with rage.
"What I never could have predicted, though, was that you would surpass me," Henry went on. "You killed hundreds of people, all of them brutally! I never could have done that myself. Oh, you made me proud, girl," he told her with relish.
Izzy swallowed, fighting back her anger. "When you told me that my eighteenth birthday would be the last hour of my life…" she said in a low voice; "did you mean it, or was that just something else to push me towards becoming a monster?"
"Oh, I would have done it," Henry assured her. "I wasn't going to let you die free." He shrugged. "Of course, you could have offered to serve me for the rest of my life - I would have spared you then."
"You sick bastard!" Izzy shouted.
Henry chuckled evilly. "Takes one to know one, girl," he said.
"Takes one to make one, more like!" she retorted.
He chuckled again. "Yes, I did, didn't I?" he said smugly. He smiled at her. "I created you."
"You destroyed me!" Izzy snapped.
Her grandfather laughed. "Oh, but you were always such a good time," he taunted. "I always enjoyed you, sweetheart."
"I was a child!" Izzy cried. "I was barely more than an infant! You ripped me!"
He shrugged. "Blood makes a good lubricant," he said nonchalantly.
"How did you like getting ripped open, huh?" she snarled. "When I gutted you, when I fought my way free of you-"
Henry laughed at her. "Fought your way free of me?" he repeated mockingly. "Really, girl? I thought you were smarter than that. I was always with you."
"No," Izzy said.
"Oh, but I was," Henry said. "Every bullet you shot, every bomb you set off, I was right there with you…In you…"
Izzy shuddered.
He laughed again. "You were always my girl!" he crowed.
"No," Izzy repeated shakily, backing away from him. "No, I wasn't…"
"Don't think you can run, sweetheart!" he sneered. He reached out a burning hand, and the fire on his body blazed. A line of flames from the inferno that was Henry Reynolds quickly circled them both.
Izzy was trapped with him in a ring of fire.
He laughed again. "You're mine," he said smugly. "You always were mine."
"No," Izzy whispered. "No…"
"My little ice princess…" he hissed, walking towards her.
She was terrified, but she stood her ground, remembering that she was already dead. "You can't hurt me anymore!" she told him.
"Oh, no?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "What do you call this?" He hit her across the face with the back of his hand.
The fact that his hand was on fire doubled the pain. Izzy cried out involuntarily and fell to the ground.
He laughed. "Oh, I missed the sound of your screams, sweetheart," he said, standing over her. "You were always so soft. Such a low tolerance level for pain…" He crouched down, still a bit higher than her eye level. "You're mine, girl," he hissed, reaching out and tracing his index finger down her jaw line; his touch was like being branded with a red-hot poker.
"I'm not…yours…" she gasped, trying to fight the agony.
He chuckled. "You were always mine," he said. "You'll never be free of me."
Izzy met his eyes, trying to be strong.
His evil grin widened, and he put a flaming hand on her chest and pushed her to the ground on her back. "You know what?" he hissed, crawling to be on top of her. "I think I'm gonna take what's mine, just like old times."
"No!" Izzy cried.
"I missed you," he said nastily. "Did you miss me?"
He reached down and touched her between her legs, and agony seared through her - she relived the feeling of the first time he had ripped her open, when she had first learned what pain really meant.
She screamed.
"That's it!" Henry hissed, settling down on top of her, pinning her to the ground with his flaming body.
She struggled, but he was too heavy…too strong…Just like the first time he'd…
"Cry for me, baby," he rasped, running a hand up her leg and making her cry out with agony again. "Cry for me, baby - I wanna see some tears!"
The words that had haunted her her whole life ripped through her soul. "No!" she screamed. "No!"
He laughed at her. "My girl," he said. "You're mine, sweetheart; you always were."
"No," she gasped, struggling desperately. "No, I'm not…!"
He hit her in the face, hard.
The agony was unbearable. The flames that burned on his body seared through her - they couldn't be smothered, because they weren't physical - and all the pain he had ever inflicted on her crashed down on her, all at once, with the blow. This, she knew, was pain that would destroy a mortal body. I don't have to be here, she remembered. I can leave…But Matthew…
No. I can't leave Matthew here. There has to be another way…
"Just as truth can be your undoing, so too can it be your salvation." Lucifer's hint echoed in her mind.
And what was the truth?
"You were always mine, girl," Henry growled, caressing her with his burning touch.
The truth was…
"Yes," she gasped.
Henry stopped moving.
For a moment, everything was still but the fire.
"Yes," Izzy finally said again, "I was. When I killed you, I didn't fight my way free of you - I just changed the terms of my enslavement. For years, you lived on in me - I was the monster you left in your wake, your creation, your…ice princess. I was yours." She forced back her tears. "But it didn't stay that way," she went on, more strongly now. "I met Matthew, and he taught me how to be human, how to feel. When he died, I thought I was lost, but then JJ offered me a way out; and because I was already starting to live inside, I was able to go with her. I got help. I struggled for years with what you did to me, what you turned me into. It was a lot of work, and very painful, but eventually, I did fight my way free of you."
Henry was still.
Izzy looked up at him. "I'm not yours anymore," she told him, the truth giving her confidence and strength. "I freed myself from you. And you…can't…hurt…me!"
She shoved at him with all her might, and he was thrown back into the wall of fire that surrounded them. The flames blazed, there was a flash, and then…she was alone in the burning wastelands again.
She stayed on the ground for a minute, trying to recover. What a nightmare…
But I did it! she thought triumphantly. Whatever other trials I might have left will be nothing compared to that!
She stood up and started walking again.
Matthew, my love, I'll be with you again soon!
~X~
She continued walking through the burning land - though why she bothered, she didn't know. It was just comforting for her to feel like she was moving, even though she knew it was pointless.
Suddenly, a small figure appeared in the distance, just visible through the flames in front of her. She ran over to it, and found…
Three-year-old Henry LaMontagne stood with his back to her. He turned around as she approached him; he looked exactly the same as he had the day she had told him her life story.
Izzy froze. "Henry…?" she breathed.
"Hi Izzy," he whispered.
She blinked. "Sweetie…what are you doing here?" she asked.
He met her eyes sorrowfully. "Why did you hurt me?" he asked her.
Izzy felt a knife in her heart. "I…"
"You didn't have to tell me about your life," Henry said, his expression one of pained sorrow. "You know even after you un-hypnotized me, I was never the same. I couldn't be the same. You destroyed my innocence, just like your grandfather destroyed yours. Why did you do this to me?"
Tears welled in Izzy's eyes. "I'm sorry, sweetie," she whispered. "I thought…I thought it was the right thing to do…I thought I was helping you…"
"With what?" asked a voice.
Izzy looked behind Henry and saw a girl, about ten years old, emerge from the flames. "With what?" she asked again. "How could ruining someone help them?"
Izzy blinked; the girl looked familiar, but she couldn't quite place her face. "I…I wasn't…I didn't know what I was doing," Izzy stammered softly. "I didn't know it was wrong."
"You didn't?" asked a young woman who suddenly appeared in a patch of flames to Izzy's left. "You always said you were evil, but you didn't think it was wrong?"
"Does that mean you thought what your grandfather did to you wasn't wrong?" asked a middle aged man who stepped forward from the flames to Izzy's right.
"What about me?" asked the girl. "What did you think you were helping me with? I was just a child. Why did you take my life?"
Suddenly, Izzy remembered who the girl was: the youngest of the victims she had killed with a gunshot.
She took a small step back, fearful. The flames around them blazed high into the air, and people, dozens of people, hundreds of people, started pouring forth, gathering into a huge crowd in front of Izzy. She recognized all their faces, even the ones she had never seen before: These were all the people she had killed, directly or indirectly. They all glared at her accusingly.
"Why did you do this to us?" asked a young girl who had been killed in one of the many bombings Izzy had performed.
"What gave you the right to take our lives?" demanded a woman Izzy had shot.
"Nothing!" Izzy exclaimed, tearful with remorse and fear. "What I did was wrong! I'm sorry for what I did to all of you!"
They continued to glare hatefully at her, completely unforgiving. Izzy took another step back, and suddenly a circle of fire blazed up around her and the crowd, trapping her in with them.
The crowd parted down the middle, and two burning figures stepped forward…figures whose names she knew.
"Chris?" she asked, feeling like she could scarcely breathe (somehow). "Ollie?"
"Never thought you'd have to face us again, did you, Iz?" Ollie sneered.
"You've got a lot of nerve, showing your face around here!" Chris spat.
Izzy fell to her knees. "Chris…Ollie…" she whimpered.
They started circling her, counterclockwise.
"You little bitch," Chris snarled. "You used us!"
"You were always going to kill us, weren't you?" Ollie said. "It was just pure chance that someone else did the job for you in my case!"
"And me," Chris added; "oho, what about me? It wasn't enough for you to kill me - you had to make me a killer first, too!"
"I didn't mean-" Izzy tried to say.
"Oh, but you made a choice, brother," Ollie said to Chris. "You were messed up because I died. That wasn't part of her plan."
"Doesn't change the fact that I murdered a few people myself before I got sent here, does it, brother?" Chris countered. "Really, we didn't have to be here - we were just small-time criminals, no need for eternal punishment. A little purgatory, maybe, but not Hell."
What? Izzy thought. This is really them? But what about the others…?
"That is true, brother," Ollie agreed with Chris. "We could have been just a little bad, if this ice bitch hadn't come along and seduced us."
Suddenly, Izzy understood: Her grandfather had been on fire. Chris and Ollie were on fire. Sinners were on fire. All the other people she had killed…
She looked at the crowd. Not one of them was burning. That meant that not one of them was really in Hell.
And that meant she had only ever killed innocent people.
She felt the glares of everyone - Chris, Ollie, and all the others - with a new intensity.
"I'm sorry," Izzy whispered tearfully.
"Oh, you're sorry," Chris sneered. "You're sorry. Well, that makes everything okay then, doesn't it?"
"No," Izzy whimpered.
"You know, I can't help but wonder if she really is sorry, brother," Ollie said to Chris. "Maybe she thinks she is, but is she really?"
"I am sorry!" Izzy exclaimed. "I didn't know what I was doing was wrong! I know now, and I'm sorry!"
"Hmm," Chris said pensively, pausing for a moment. "Brother, I've got a little puzzle for you," he said to Ollie, circling Izzy again. "A riddle, of sorts, that I just can't figure out."
"Do tell, brother," Ollie said.
Chris shot a nasty smile at Izzy. "Stop me if you've heard this one," he said mockingly. He turned back to Ollie. "A little girl grows up to be a monster and knows it," he said. "She proudly struts her stuff all over the world, leaving pain, fear, chaos, and murder in her wake everywhere she goes. Now, she tells herself that there's nothing wrong with it, because all people are evil, so they all deserve to suffer and die. So she goes around hating everyone for what they have the potential to be, and killing them because she thinks they probably deserve it. But here's the quandary: How could she hate everyone else for being evil, yet be proud of being evil herself?"
"Well, I can't make heads or tails of that one, brother," Ollie said. "Maybe Iz can help? She always was the clever one, after all."
"Good idea, brother," Chris said. He looked down at Izzy. "Well?" he taunted. "What do you make of this riddle?"
"I…" Izzy blinked back her tears. "It…it wasn't like that," she stammered. "I wasn't…I wasn't proud that I was evil. If there was something I was proud of, it was that I recognized that I was evil. Everyone around me…I mean, I know I was wrong now, but back then, I hated people, not for what they could be, but for what they pretended to be. Everyone acting like they were good people, like there was no darkness in them…That was what I hated. I…I didn't think any of them were really innocent." She looked at the crowd. "I was wrong," she said. "I'm so sorry."
"Huh," Ollie said, looking at Chris. "That's an interesting answer. But I have a puzzle of my own regarding this story, brother."
"Do tell, brother," Chris said.
"Well, in her eyes, being evil meant hurting other people, yes?" Ollie asked.
"That is the case, brother," Chris said.
"Well, what made it okay for her to hurt people, but not okay for people to hurt each other?" Ollie asked.
"That's a good question, brother," Chris said. "Along those lines, too, why did she hurt people who never raised a hand to her? What was her reasoning? Did she think she was using her evil to fight evil?"
"Possibly, brother," Ollie replied. "However, if that were so, what would the point be? If everyone was evil, who was she trying to protect? What good would it do, if there was no one to save from bad people because everyone was bad?"
"An excellent question, brother," Chris said, "and again, I am at a loss to answer it." He glared at Izzy. "What do you think, Iz? Does this make any sense to you?"
No, Izzy admitted to herself. No, that doesn't make sense. "I…I never really thought about it," she said. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I wasn't thinking at all. I-"
"You know what, brother?" Chris suddenly asked Ollie, cutting Izzy off.
"What are you thinking, brother?" Ollie asked.
"I'm thinking she's not sorry after all, brother," said Chris.
"I agree, brother," Ollie said.
"Well then…" Chris turned a cruel smile on Izzy. "What do you say we make her sorry, brother?"
"I'm for that, brother," Ollie said, and they both leapt at her and started beating her up.
As had been the case with Henry Reynolds, the fire that burned the two brothers added to the pain of each blow. More than that, though, Izzy felt the additional pain of the suffering she had inflicted on everyone in the crowd behind each hit.
The crowd cheered Chris and Ollie on, shouting taunts at Izzy.
"Assassin!"
"Murderer!"
"Monster!"
"Ice beast!"
"Killer!"
"Evil!"
"Demon!"
"How do you like it?"
Izzy sobbed, trying to curl up into a ball to protect herself; but she didn't have a physical body, so it was pointless - the blows were to her soul.
"Stop it!" she screamed. "Stop it!"
"Stop it!" the flaming brothers mocked as they continued beating her. "Stop it!"
"Narcissist!"
"Coward!"
"Selfish little bitch!"
"What gave you the right to judge us?"
"Nothing," she whimpered. "Nothing…"
"Why did you do this to us?" Three-year-old Henry LaMontagne's voice carried over the shouts.
"I…" she whispered. "I…"
Why had she done it?
"Just as truth can be your undoing, so too can it be your salvation."…
What was the truth?
Well…
"Okay!" Izzy finally screamed. "Okay, I admit it!"
The two brothers backed off and hushed the crowd. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked at them all, meeting their cold, expectant gazes.
"I killed you because…because…because I was scared!" she blurted out in confession. "I used all of you - not just you two," she added, glancing at Chris and Ollie before turning back to the crowd, "but all of you! I hurt you because I couldn't…because I wouldn't handle the pain. I was hurting and afraid, and making other people hurt was the only…was the easiest way to make it stop. I was selfish, and a coward. I wasn't willing to endure any more pain. Everything I did, I did for me, and only for me." Her tears leaked from her eyes, and she got down on her hands and knees. "I'm sorry," she told all of them. "I am so sorry for what I did to all of you. I can never ask your forgiveness…I can never forgive myself."
For a minute, there was stillness, all eyes on her. Then, the belt of fire that surrounded them blazed, then turned into a cyclone of flames that swirled over them. Izzy closed her eyes and felt a hot gust blow over her…
Then she opened her eyes, and everyone was gone.
Shakily, she got to her feet. She stood there for a minute, thinking about the truth of what she had said.
I lied to myself my whole life, she thought. All the things I told myself when I couldn't sleep at night…they were all lies.
…What other lies did I tell myself? What else will I have to face?
She hesitated. She didn't have to find out. The path to Heaven was still open to her; she could run away…
…Just like she had always done.
No more, she told herself. *I won't run this time. It doesn't matter what else I have to face; I will do whatever I have to to find Matthew.
Fearful but determined, she went on.
~X~
Time really didn't have much of a hold in Hell. Izzy could have been walking for a second or a century for all she knew, but finally, she found someone else.
It was another burning figure with red-hot chains dangling from his wrists and ankles - someone else who was trapped in Hell. He had his back turned to her, and the flames skewed his profile slightly, but it wasn't enough for Izzy to not recognize him.
"Matthew!" she called, running towards him joyously. "Matthew, my love, I found you!"
He turned to her. Even through the flames that covered his face, his eyes were cold.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded icily.
Izzy stopped in her tracks, just a little ways away from him. "I…I came here for you," she said, confused.
"For me?" he repeated mockingly. "Wow, that's a first."
She blinked. "Matthew…what's wrong?" she asked him.
"What's wrong is that not only am I trapped here, but now I'm trapped here with you!" he snarled. "The only good thing about being dead was being away from you!"
Izzy shook her head. "I…I don't understand…" she whispered.
"Why can't you just leave me alone, you little bitch?" he snapped. "You've already taken everything from me!"
"Taken?" she repeated. "Matthew, my love, I-"
"Your love?" he sneered, taking a menacing step towards her. "You don't love me! You never loved me! You can't love anything or anyone but yourself!"
"That's not true!" Izzy exclaimed. "You were the one who taught me that that's not true!"
He scowled. "I thought I was in love with you," he said bitterly. He gave a humorless laugh. "I was in love with you. I fooled myself into thinking that you could ever love me back. Boy, was I stupid…" He shook his head disgustedly, apparently at himself.
"I do love you…" Izzy managed to say.
He gave another humorless laugh. "You used me," he spat. "You used me and tossed me aside, just like everyone else you ever met! I was just a tool to you - a tool that was more useful to you alive than dead, unlike everyone else, but a tool just the same! I died for you!" he shouted. "I gave up everything for you! Look at me!" he roared.
Izzy took a small step back, away from his rage.
"You see me?" he asked. "You see me? I'm stuck here in Hell, and it's all because of you! You're the reason I'm here!"
"No," Izzy whispered, shaking her head manically.
"I told you, Izzy," he said; "just before we met, I was in a very dark place, but I never would have embraced that darkness if it hadn't been for you. You're the reason I gave in to my dark side. You're the reason I ever murdered anyone! You were my temptation, my siren…Oh, I fell so stupidly for you," he said, shaking his head, again with disgust that was apparently directed at himself. "I thought you cared for me. I thought you could care for me! I happily threw all my humanity away to be by your side, and you were jerking me around the whole time. You never loved me."
"I did love you!" Izzy protested tearfully. "I do love you!"
"You always were good at lying to yourself," he sneered. "Even you can't deny the facts, though. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be here. You destroyed me, just as your grandfather destroyed you."
"I never meant for you to get hurt!" Izzy cried, tears spilling from her eyes.
"You meant for everyone you met to get hurt," he retorted. "That's all you ever did - you used people, and you hurt them. Why did you keep me with you, huh?"
"Because…" Izzy hesitated.
"Because I was just something else to help you make the pain go away," he answered for her cruelly. "Just like everyone you killed. I was nothing to you, nothing but another shield that could be used to protect you from yourself."
"No, that's not true!" Izzy exclaimed. "When you died, I hurt so much! I cried for you, for hours and hours on end! Not a day went by when I didn't think of you!"
"Oh, you cried for hours on end," he repeated mockingly. "Were you crying for me, because you were sad that I was dead? Or were you crying for yourself, because you were back to being all alone, with no one there to hold you and make you forget all the pain you were always running from?"
"I…I'm not sure!" Izzy wailed. "I don't know!"
He laughed cruelly. "That's what I thought," he snarled.
Then, without another word, he walked over to her and punched her in the jaw as hard as he could.
Izzy cried out and fell to the ground. This time, the blow didn't feel physical at all - it was a knife in her heart, an emotional wound. She heard him walk over to her and looked up.
"You never loved me," Matthew hissed, glaring down at her with pure hatred; the way he looked at her felt like a blow in and of itself. "You used me, you destroyed me, and you tossed me aside. You did all of this to me."
"But I…I came here for you," Izzy whimpered, unable to meet his burning glare. "I came down here to Hell instead of going to Heaven, because I didn't want to be without you."
"Exactly!" he snapped. "You came here because you didn't want to be without me! It was never about how you felt about me! It was always about how you felt, what you wanted! You have never thought of anyone but yourself!" He shook his head again. "I can't believe I ever loved you," he spat contemptuously.
"But…but…!" Izzy racked her brains, trying to come up with some way to prove that she loved him.
But was there any proof? Or was this just another lie she had told herself? She couldn't hardly think, she was so consumed with doubt. Her other two trials had been about lies she had told herself, truths she had fought to never acknowledge. Was this just more of the same?
And yet, the possibility that she didn't love him didn't feel right. It was painful, but not the same way the other painful truths had been. But could she prove things either way?
At last, she said the only thing she could think of.
"I came here for you," she said again. "I could have ended all my pain and gone to Heaven, but I didn't. I spent my whole life running from my pain, it's true, but I was willing to face it to find you and bring you to Heaven with me."
"Or maybe you knew, deep down, that you didn't deserve to go to Heaven," he snarled softly. "Maybe you knew that you were the one who deserved eternal punishment, not me. Maybe you were just trying to fix this mess you made - the mess you made of me! You did it for yourself, because you felt guilty. You came all this way for you, not me."
"But…but that doesn't make any sense…" Izzy protested weakly.
Then, suddenly, she blinked.
"Wait a minute…That doesn't make any sense!" she realized out loud, looking up at him again. "It's true that I spent my whole life trying to escape the pain I carried with me - if you were just a tool to me, I wouldn't need you now! I could just go to Heaven and forget all about you! And…" She realized something else. "I never used you to escape my pain!" she said, rising to her feet, still looking Matthew in the eye. "You gave me the strength to face it! You always did! I was able to relive all of it and bear it when I was in your arms! I was able to let it all out when you were with me, even though I had never done so before because that would have meant acknowledging it! You gave me the courage to face my fears, to conquer parts of my trauma! When we made love, I was able to do it without thinking about what had happened to me - only with you was I able to forget my scars and my past and just feel. You convinced me to open up, to let myself live inside, and I did - for you!" Standing up now, she took a step towards him. He took a step back.
"And I didn't toss you aside!" she went on, the truth coming to her all at once, as though a dam had been broken. "When you died, and I wept, it wasn't just for me or you - it was for us! I cried because it hurt me, and because I was all alone - not because you meant nothing to me, but because you were part of me, and a piece of me died with you! You were part of me, because you were in my heart, and I loved you!" She panted; the realizations flowing through her were so powerful it drained her.
"And it wasn't my fault you ended up here," she added, more softly now. "I didn't make you stay with me. I actually tried to push you away at first, because I was afraid that one of us would end up hurt if we stayed together for too long, and I wasn't going to let it be me. You chose to stay by my side. It wasn't my fault." Tears welled in her eyes again. "It wasn't your fault, but it wasn't mine, either," she whispered. "No one was to blame."
They looked at each other for a minute. Matthew's expression was unreadable.
"We were going to get married after we finished that huge job, remember?" Izzy asked softly. "I thought there was no point, because we weren't religious and we wouldn't get any legal benefits. But you said that what mattered was what it symbolized: That we would always be together, no matter what…That nothing could ever come between us…That we would brave Hell and high water to stay by each other's sides, and that if Heaven, Hell, and everything in between tried to separate us, we would fight it all off, because nothing could ever tear us apart." She let her tears flow down her cheeks. "We never got to say those vows," she whispered, "but we meant to. I meant to. And if we had had a chance to say them, I would have meant them. The proof of that is in the fact that I'm here now." She stepped closer to him. "I love you, Matthew Downs," she told him, with not a trace of doubt in her heart; "I always have, and I always will."
Matthew closed his eyes…and the flames on his body blazed.
"Matthew!" Izzy cried.
The fire consumed his form, until he wasn't even visible. In desperation, Izzy dove into the inferno, but by the time she passed through it, the fire was gone…and so was he.
She fell to her knees. "No," she sobbed out loud. "No…I can't lose him now, not after all this…
"My love…please come back to me."
~X~
Izzy wept, mixing the sound of her own suffering with the chorus of the damned that wailed continuously around her. It didn't matter that she didn't have a body, that she didn't have eyes - the sadness she felt was real, and its crippling effects were real, and her need to express it before it destroyed her was very, very real.
She hadn't known, before she had faced her third trial, that she had ever had doubts that what she felt for Matthew really was love. But all the things that had been said to her during her trials, by all the people she had faced…they had all been the words of her own soul - her own pain, fears, guilt, and doubts. She had faced herself, and she had triumphed…
…but Matthew had vanished.
That wasn't how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to forgive her, and love her again, and then go with her to Heaven. He wasn't supposed to leave her all alone…
I can always go to Heaven by myself, she thought. I don't need to be with him…
…But I can't leave him here. He doesn't deserve this place. If one of us deserves this place, it's me…
She heard all the screams around her, and she knew that one of the voices in the piercing, tortured sound was Matthew's. He is here, somewhere, she reminded herself. He's here, and I can find him…
But she remembered Lucifer's warning that searching for someone the way she would in the mortal world was pointless. If she wasn't supposed to see him, she wouldn't find him. Hell was infinite; she wouldn't find anything, not even if she wandered the burning wastelands for eternity.
What was it Lucifer had said about how she would find him?
"If you love him enough, your heart will guide you to him."
She did love him - she had just banished any doubt there had ever been about that…but did she love him enough?
No. If she did, he wouldn't have vanished right in front of her like that…
All her efforts, all her pain, everything she had faced in the land of judgement…all of it had been for nothing. Lucifer had told her that she would be able to bring him back to Heaven if she could find him. Well, she had found him - and then she'd lost him again.
Maybe I was never supposed to get him back, Izzy thought. Maybe this was all just so I could move on, like purgatory.
She was powerless. Lucifer had never intended to let her be with Matthew again. Well, at least she had learned about herself, and conquered her nightmares…but it was time to give up. There was nothing she could do…She had to accept that she would never be with him again…
No.
She clenched her fists and fought down her tears; that ability was still hers, even though she technically didn't have eyes anymore. I am not leaving Hell without Matthew, she thought determinedly. God and the Devil may have conspired to keep us apart, but we swore that nothing could separate us - that we would fight any force, against any odds, to be by each other's sides. I never got to make that vow…but I always would have meant it! I'm not going to sit here feeling sorry for myself, and I'm not going to give up and go to Heaven and leave him behind. I will find him!
She stood up, opened her eyes, and started running.
She looked all around her, praying that she would see something - anything - as she passed. The scenery flew by, but never changed; it was endless, hopeless, pointless…
…Not real.
Everything is self-perceived, Izzy remembered. Looking around and hoping to find something, as if I had eyes, isn't the way to do this.
She stopped. What was the way to do this?
She thought hard. Everything was self-perceived, so if she perceived herself to be in an endless, empty, burning wasteland, that was where she would be. But if she could change her perception…maybe find a way to see things differently…or better yet, a way to find Matthew…
"If you love him enough, your heart will guide you to him."
Suddenly, it struck her.
Matthew is part of me! she remembered. That's what it means to love someone - it means that they're part of you. I'm looking for a piece of myself in here! My eyes won't guide me to him, but my heartwill!
I'm not supposed to search with my eyes - I'm supposed to search with my heart!
So she looked around - not with her pseudo-eyes, but with her heart. For a moment, there was no difference. Then, suddenly, she felt a pull, an urge to go a certain way.
She didn't doubt herself. She took a step in the right direction…and there he was.
Just as she had seen from outside Heaven's gates, he was chained to the ground, every square inch of him was on fire, and he was screaming - one more voice in the chorus of Hell. He was straining against his bonds, but it was pointless - he couldn't even stand. The sight would have broken Izzy's heart, had she not known that she had the power to end it.
"Matthew!" she cried, running over to him. When she reached him, she got down on her knees to be at eye level with him and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly. The flames on his body seared her, but this time, the pain meant nothing - her soul rejoiced in being back with the man she loved, at long last.
He didn't stop screaming, nor did he respond to her touch in any way.
He's trapped inside his own nightmare, she realized. I have to get him to snap out of it…
She pulled back and looked at him, thinking fast. She decided to go for broke, and she clamped her mouth over his. Kissing him felt like plucking a burning coal from a lit fireplace with her bare lips and swallowing it, but she didn't care.
Slowly, his scream died down against her mouth. She felt him relax slightly, and then he kissed her back. They kissed each other passionately for a minute, and then she gently pulled back so she could look him in the eye.
When their eyes met, Izzy felt what she had felt the first time they had seen each other: The unfamiliar but wonderful sensation that she wasn't alone anymore.
"Izzy?" Matthew rasped.
Izzy blinked back tears of happiness, holding his burning face in her hands. "Matthew, my love," she whispered. "I found you."
"Izzy…" Molten tears leaked from his eyes, lava flowing beneath the flames. "I'm so sorry, Izzy," he said tearfully. "Can you ever forgive me?"
"For what?" Izzy asked.
"For leaving you, just when you needed me the most," he replied. "I promised you I would never leave you, that we would die together, that you wouldn't have to spend one more moment of your life without me. I broke my promise to you. I died, and left you all alone."
She smiled at him. "It wasn't your fault," she said.
He shook his head. "I shouldn't have tried to kill that agent," he went on; "I should have just knocked him out and gone-"
"Don't blame yourself, my love," Izzy told him gently. "After all, you…" She chuckled. "You always did try so damn hard to impress me."
He couldn't help but smile himself.
Izzy hugged him again. "I missed you so much," she whispered.
She felt his flaming arms go around her. Again, the fire sent white-hot agony searing through her, and his red-hot chains felt like they were branding her, but she didn't care - she was back where she belonged: in his arms.
"I love you," she told him.
"I love you, too," he breathed.
She pulled back again, but before she could say anything, he spoke.
"We never even said goodbye," he sighed, caressing her face with one burning hand. "I'm so glad we at least get to say goodbye now…"
"We don't have to say goodbye, my love," Izzy told him. "We'll never have to say goodbye. We can go. I'm here to rescue you."
He blinked. "Izzy…we're in Hell, aren't we?" he asked.
"Yes," Izzy said; "I came to get you out."
"Get me out?" he repeated.
She smiled at him. "I couldn't leave you here," she said. "Heaven wouldn't be Heaven without you."
"Heaven…?" He shook his head slightly. "How can you go to Heaven, when I ended up here?" he asked. He didn't sound mad, just confused.
"A lot of things happened after you…after you died," Izzy said, tears welling in her eyes again at the memory.
He held her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. "Did they catch you?" he asked breathlessly.
"Yes," Izzy whispered, putting her hands on his face again in turn, "they did. That detective's girlfriend…she came home while I was still with her kid, and she…basically beat the crap out of me. Then I was arrested."
"Izzy…" She felt him tense up, fighting against tears of his own.
"It's okay, my love," Izzy told him. "It was…for the best, in the end."
"They broke you…?" he breathed.
Izzy smiled in spite of herself. "No, my love," she told him; "they saved me."
"But Izzy-"
"Oh, not at first," Izzy clarified. "At first, they tried to break me…by telling me what happened to you." She closed her eyes. "I was so lost without you," she whispered. "Life meant nothing to me anymore. Even the thought of going back to the life I led before we met…there just wasn't any point anymore, not without you. I escaped prison after five months in, but…it hurt so much, to know that you were gone."
"Our baby…?" he asked.
"I tried to go on living, to keep her safe," Izzy said. "I tried to lie low after I escaped, but…I couldn't fight my urge to kill. I had never tried before, so I didn't realize I couldn't stop until it was far too late. When I realized that, I…I decided to kill myself…so that I could be with you again, and our child would never be born. I knew I couldn't raise a child…children shouldn't be raised by monsters, and I thought that was all I was." She stopped to quickly kiss him, then said, "But then the feds found me…the same ones we were up against the day you…the day you died. They were…basically psychologists, and they offered me a way out. They offered to help me."
"And you went with them?" Matthew asked.
"I had nothing to lose," Izzy said; "that, and…one of them - the detective's girlfriend - said some things…things that made me wonder if maybe there was hope for me. I was offered the chance to be saved from myself, so I took it." She smiled, tears of happiness welling in her eyes again. "And I did it," she told Matthew. "It was a lot of work, but I did it. I got help…I accepted help…and after a few years, I wasn't a monster anymore. I was human." She took a deep breath. "There is good in the world, my love," she said, "and before I died, I found it. I found a way to move on, and to be good myself. I left my evil behind me, and lived."
There was silence between them for a moment. They kept their foreheads pressed together, needing to be close, after being apart for so long.
"I always hoped I would see you again someday," Izzy finally whispered. "When I found out that I could go to Heaven, but you were trapped here, I refused. I fought my way through all of Hell to find you."
He pulled back slightly to look into her eyes. "To say goodbye?" he asked.
"No," Izzy replied; "to bring you with me."
"Izzy…" Matthew began sadly.
"Lucifer said it's okay," Izzy told him. "He said that if I could reach you, I could take you to Heaven with me. God let me come down here in the first place, and he said he's okay with it, too."
But Matthew shook his head. "No, Izzy," he said sadly. "I'm trapped here, to pay for all my sins. I died evil. This is where I belong."
"It's not," Izzy said softly, tears welling in her eyes at the possibility that she still might not get to be with him. "You don't belong here, my love. Every evil thing you did, you did for me. It was more my fault than yours - all of it was. If I can go to Heaven, so can you."
"I always had it in me," Matthew said sadly. "All the things I did, I was always capable of doing. You just…gave me a little nudge. That nudge could have come in a lot of other forms." He sighed. "I'm just glad that the nudge I was given made me happy, if only for a little while…"
"You can be happy again," Izzy told him. "I thought I couldn't be happy anymore, either, once I found out you were gone, but I was wrong. I found happiness in life. I never loved another, and not a day went by when I didn't think of you, but I was able to live."
"But we're dead now," Matthew whispered tearfully, caressing her face. "I can't find my way now - it's too late for me." He closed his eyes, and again, tears of lava streamed down his face. "I'm so glad I got to see you again," he breathed, "but now it's time for you to go. Go on without me, my love - I can't join you. You go be happy. Go to Heaven, and leave all your pain behind. That's what you always wanted."
"You are what I always wanted," Izzy told him, crying now herself. "I won't go to Heaven without you. If you have to burn here, then I'll burn with you." She kissed him again. He kissed her back, but she could feel, through the touch of his soul, the despair and sorrow he felt, and his certainty that they would have to say goodbye.
She pulled away gently. "I won't leave without you, my love," she told him again. "We were going to swear that nothing could keep us apart, not even if Heaven, Hell, and everything in between tried to separate us. We were going to swear that we would fight everything and more to stay together, that nothing could tear us apart. And I…I always felt that way. I've always loved you, and I always will. We may never have gotten to say our vows, but just because they weren't said doesn't mean they weren't meant."
"I don't want you to suffer anymore," Matthew told her. "I would be more at peace, if I knew you were happy in Heaven."
"But I can't be happy without you, not even in Heaven," Izzy said. "Nothing could ever replace the hole your death left in my heart except you. I will spend the rest of eternity with you, no matter where that might be." She hugged him again. "I will never be away from you again," she whispered. "I love you, Matthew Downs. Hell will be my Heaven, if it's where I get to be with you."
"Izzy…" He hugged her again, hesitantly, as though he thought she would disappear any minute.
"I'm not going anywhere, my love," she told him. "I will always be with you, no matter what it takes."
For a minute, he said nothing. Then he asked, "What happened to our child?"
"It was a girl," Izzy answered; "Jennifer Downs, our beautiful daughter. When I was getting help, I didn't see her very often - I was barely in her life. After I got better, though, I did my best to treat her with all the love in my heart." Tears leaked from Izzy's eyes. "She is the most beautiful, most loving, most intelligent person I ever knew in my life, apart from you," she told Matthew. "She understood my past, once she was old enough to know, and she still loved me. None of the evil in my soul, in my family, or in the whole world manifested in her. She strived to not be what I had been, and she succeeded." Izzy pulled back again to look in Matthew's eyes. "Come with me to Heaven, and someday you'll meet her yourself," she said.
For a moment, Matthew was still. Then, suddenly, he kissed her with all his might. She matched him, passion for passion, love for love…and slowly, the flames that consumed him began to die down.
"Izzy," he gasped against her mouth. "Oh, Izzy, my love, it's really you!"
"Of course it is," she murmured against his lips. "Who did you think it was?"
He pulled back slightly. "Sometimes, I had visions of you," he told her. "Sometimes you hated me for leaving you, but sometimes you told me you loved me, and made me think that I could be with you again, and then vanished."
"Those were your nightmares," Izzy told him. "The things in your heart that you feared most were realized as you burned. That's how Hell works."
"I thought this was just another one of those times," he breathed, "but in those visions, you were never able to tell me anything about our child - you never even knew if it was a boy or a girl."
His red-hot chains began to cool and crack, and the fire died down from enveloping him to just dancing on his surface.
"I fought all my own demons to save you," Izzy told Matthew. "I faced all my fears, my pain, my guilt, even my doubts…I faced all the lies I told myself, all the people I hurt, my grandfather, and even what I feared about you, and I pushed through all of it, because nothing could stand between us."
"You did all that for me…?" he asked breathlessly.
She smiled at him. "Of course I did, my love," she said. "After everything you did for me, what else could I do? Matthew…" She caressed his face, the flames dying under her hands. "I could never have been helped - I could never have accepted help - if it hadn't been for the love we shared," she told him. "You were the first one to tell me I wasn't a monster. You taught me how to feel, how to love, how to live. The only reason I was able to even dare to hope that I could be saved was that I knew I had loved you, and if I could love you, then I was human. Every good thing I ever did, you gave me the strength to do, even after you were gone. Your love was what saved me." She smiled tearfully. "How could I just leave you to suffer here, after all that? Even if my love for you alone hadn't been enough, I still would have had no choice but to come for you, no matter what monsters or nightmares I had to face. Besides, you would have done the same for me."
"You were always the strong one," Matthew said softly. "I don't know if I would have had the strength to fight my way through Hell, not even to save you."
"You would have," Izzy said without a trace of doubt. "I know you would have. As for my being the strong one…all the strength I ever had, I got from you."
"You were the survivor, though," Matthew said. "I couldn't have survived what you went through as a child…"
"Being a survivor and being strong aren't always the same thing," Izzy said. "Surviving my childhood was something I did because I was scared, and killing people to escape my own pain was something I did out of of weakness. The strength I needed to face myself, and my past, I would never have had, were it not for you."
Matthew's chains shattered, and the fire that burned on him was reduced to a few tiny flames here and there.
"Come with me, my love," Izzy said, standing up and holding out her hand. "Let's leave this place. Paradise is waiting."
Matthew took her hand. With the searing pain from the fire gone, the touch of his soul against hers was more intimate than anything that could even be imagined in the mortal world. There was no barrier of flesh between them, nothing to separate them - at last, they could truly be together.
She stepped into his arms as the last few embers on him died, and they embraced so tightly their souls began to merge. They were one being, one entity, united by their love.
Izzy held Matthew in her arms, and in her heart, as she ascended back to the gates of Heaven, bringing the soul of the man she loved with her.
~X~
Once more, Izzy Rogers found herself standing before the gates of Heaven. This time, though, she was hand in hand with the love of her life.
"Welcome to Heaven, Izzy and Matthew," said St. Peter, and he opened the gates for them.
Together, Izzy and Matthew shed the last of their burdens as they entered Heaven, to dwell forevermore in the paradise that was their love for each other.
~X~
"Times are changing," observed Lucifer.
Perhaps… said God.
"Never before has there been love so strong as to save a soul that has already been damned to Hell," Lucifer pointed out. "The fact that such love was born in one of the darker souls that have ever been only makes it that much more miraculous. If those two could love as they did, then perhaps love in the mortal world is progressing at last."
Do you concede, then? God asked.
Lucifer chuckled. "Nay," he said; "why should I? This only proves that I was right all along."
You don't see this as a defeat? God asked.
"Not at all," Lucifer crooned. "I see this as a victory."
For a moment, God was silent.
Whose side are you on, Lucifer? he asked at last.
"I am on no entity's side but my own," Lucifer replied. "I have no quarrel with mankind."
Then why did you ruin them? asked God.
Lucifer sighed. "I did not ruin them, as I've told you countless times," he replied. "I saved them."
You created evil, God said.
"I created freedom," Lucifer corrected. "As I have always maintained, there is no good without evil, no light without darkness. It would mean nothing for man to be good if they did not have the option of being anything else. Free will is the ability to choose between light and dark, and you would have denied your precious creations of this. They would have been nothing but puppets for your amusement - not conscious beings at all - had I not stepped in and done what needed to be done."
Will you never see the error of your ways? God asked sorrowfully.
"I should be asking you," Lucifer said, exasperated. "I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen to me. I regret that I was forced to go behind your back, but ultimately I do not regret my actions. I would do it again, if given the chance - even more readily so, now that I have seen the results."
What results? God roared. Evil and corruption rule the land of men!
"But only in such darkness could the love we just witnessed have come to be," Lucifer countered softly. "There is no light without darkness…and I pray that someday, my Lord, you will see the truth of my words."
You are forever damned, Lucifer, God declared.
Lucifer smiled. "Then why," he asked, "do you continue to call me 'Bringer of Light'?"
God gave no response, and returned to Heaven, leaving Lucifer sitting on his black throne in the ruins that were his palace.
Lucifer smiled again.
Times are changing…