Chapter 9 – Tempus Infinituum
The plan to subdue Anathem and perform the identity spell on him was all that was going to be planned for, as far as Melanie knew. In the same breath, Elijah knew he needed to fix the flow of time by travelling back to 2015 and killing his own father. He did not have as many reservations about the endeavor, as he traveled back to 1995 just hours before to save Selena Quintanilla-Perez from being shot by Yolanda Saldivar, killing the latter instead. He was disheartened to realize that while he prolonged her natural life by twenty-four years and hopefully gave it meaning, it was very likely that she died in the blasts of the apocalypse.
When Elijah returned to the royal suite with the four witches he brought to the mortal coil, he alerted Melanie that the plan needed to be enacted immediately. So, they called for the Agricultural Center to slaughter a live goat and take from it its organs to use for their meals, and their cooks prepared something else for the witches, as they were dinner guests not keen on semi-raw offal. For the occasion, a fine red wine was taken from their private reserves and served. Elijah was at one head of the royal table, while Anathem was at the other. Melanie, Desdemona, and Mallory were on one side of the table, while Cordelia, Myrtle and Madison were seated on the other side. Of course, before serving the food, Anathem's plate was set aside specifically, and Myrtle was the one left with the task of putting a single drop of Vatican holy water in his food and also his wine once it was specially poured. Luckily, the Prince came out last to eat. He had a strange, smug look on his face, especially looking at his family members, as he sat down. He picked up his fork, but found himself fiddling with his food.
"Eat, Anathem. It'll start to rot," Elijah said.
Suddenly, he saw his son sniffing and grimacing, also distracting the witches from their food. They looked at him, and Cordelia just looked at the King with a worried look. Anathem smelled the meat and then his wine, catching nothing but a foul stench from each. He took the wine glass up to his nose and inhaled, retching right then and there as he put it down. He shook his head, but Melanie was not amused at his behavior even though she knew full well that he was now aware of the plan.
"Eat! You're making a scene!" she told her son.
"It reeks of piety!" he growled, looking at his father as his eyes suddenly turned pitch black. "I'm not an idiot, Father. I know why these cows are here, and I know what you plan to do with me. You think you can just disinherit me, your only true heir, for her?!" He pointed to Desdemona, whose eyes were wide with confusion; damn it, she thought, he knows. I didn't tell him or anything.
Anathem rose from his seat, as did Elijah, facing him like it was a man-to-man talk from the other end of the table. The King was truly fearsome in that moment: "Anathem, you are an absolute disgrace! You may have been our firstborn, but you are not fit for the throne. I have seen firsthand the RUIN and DESTRUCTION you will bring to this kingdom. I will do all in my power and will, to ensure that you never, and I mean EVER take our place when we are gone!"
Anathem never felt so angry in all his life. It was like Satan, whom he conjured for help in his endeavor to sabotage his family's conspiracy against him, was flowing through his veins, sending surges of black fire through every inch of his being. His eyes were still black, staring at his father, who looked fearlessly and confidently at him, waiting for him to strike. The witches rose from their seats slowly, but Anathem had such intense tunnel vision that he could barely notice them moving. Desdemona and Melanie were the last to rise, and the Queen held onto her daughter, prepared for what was to befall them for the spoiling of their plan. The Prince, out of nowhere, telekinetically launched all of the contents on the table, but the collective power of all the witches sent it flying back to him, but he effortlessly kept them suspended in midair to try and send back the objects, some of which were sharp knives and glass that would break on impact and cause injury.
Desdemona worked her way out of her mother's protective grip and nullified his intention entirely, sending everything to the floor, smashing to smithereens with food stuck to the shiny floor. He moved closer to his sister by way of transmutation and started by telekinetically launching all of the witches back, disheveling furniture in the open concept before he sent Elijah and Melanie back against the wall so hard, they neared unconsciousness. As for his sister, he reached down and grabbed her by the neck with both hands, choking her as his pitch-black eyes seethed. Out came his true form under his ironically-beautiful human male guise – his skin turned black as night, and around his eyes and mouth the skin seemed to peel and crack, and black claws protruded from his fingertips, his grip still hard on Desdemona's small neck. Her feline-shaped eyes were about to be bloodshot, and she struggled to breathe as she saw out-curving horns protrude from the top corners of his forehead. His long brown hair became matted, and she saw that behind him, large, tattered wings with black feathers started to grow. With one of his hands he clawed her face so hard that some skin ripped off, and Desdemona, on the brink of death from how he was choking her, used the last of her strength to telekinetically send a knife in her hand (by the handle, this time), and stab her brother right in the side of his neck. He screamed like a banshee and let go of his sister, who helplessly crawled over to her father – she knew he possessed vitalum vitalis, which would not only bring a dead person back to life, but restore life force back to a sick or injured person; in this case, she needed life force to continue fighting.
He crawled over to her, in pain from the impact, meeting her halfway and holding her in his arms. He had a flashback to when she was just a newborn, holding her, and in that moment, she was faced up at him like she was back then. Her lips were parted, and he gathered himself to breathe life into his daughter. Desdemona's eyes were no longer bloodshot, and her skin was not such a peculiar shade of gray-blue. The marks on her neck were no longer there, and the deep scratch marks afflicted to her face by Anathem that took skin off healed themselves over. From breathing life into her, he felt a little dizzy, but Desdemona helped him to his feet. By this point Madison shot all of the shards from the floor from the wine glasses and broken dishes over to Anathem, and they penetrated parts of his body. Her green-hazel eyes widened to see he was unaffected, pulling out the shards at a rapid rate only for them to heal over right after pulling them – he was in his true form, and even harder to kill this way.
"Alright, want to play rough?" he grunted, his voice demonic and nasal. "Let's play."
He looked over at Madison and raised his hand in the air, not even hesitating in causing her head to explode all over the place. Some brain matter even got on Mallory, who screamed as she watched the same fate befall Melanie, his mother. The Queen did not even have time to react – he simply raised his other hand and brought it into a fist, channeling his rage into making her head combust. In that moment, Elijah took in what happened to Melanie and Madison, but it hit him like freight train to know that his Queen was gone for good, his precious love taken from him by his own son. The odium fueled his inner fire even more, his hands turning to fists as his true form peeled from underneath his human form for the first time in nearly five years – two, tall straight horns, like that of an oryx, rose from the top of his head, and his body began to grow in size so that he went from 5"11 to 8"5, covered in black and brown fur. His eyes went from their glacial light blue to an iridescence of black and red, and once he completed his transformation, he bore two rows of perfectly-filed sharp teeth. He had tattered wings grow behind him, and he seemed to glide over to the true form of his son and tear bits and pieces of his flesh off his arms, shoulders, and his neck with his teeth. Myrtle, Cordelia and Mallory all huddled on the floor, looking at the two demonic royals going at it in horror as they saw pitch black blood staining the floor. Elijah kept biting and biting, even resorting to his tattered, sparsely-feathered wings to disable him.
"This is why you are not fit for the throne. You stole my Queen from me, and I shall steal your life from you," Elijah growled in his true form's demonic voice.
Anathem, even though some of the flesh from his true form was bitten off by his father, managed to shake him off and toss him across the room, his back hitting the wall as he collapsed to the floor near the witches. Cordelia watched tearfully as Elijah's true form faded – his wings and horns shrunk in size, his dark hair was a mess, his fair skin was no longer covered in fur, and his eyes were back to their normal color. His mouth, however, was covered in blood, and he felt a peculiar fullness in his stomach. He tried to get up, in pain and exhausted from the experience, and only saw Anathem, his appearance only half reverted to his human form with bits and pieces of flesh missing from parts of his body. He stood tall and held his hands to his sides, slowly focusing on the headless corpses of Melanie and Madison, but also on the living body of Desdemona, raising the latter to hover above the floor in the air with the corpses.
Elijah knew exactly what was in store now – he stood up and tried to use telekinesis to toss Anathem against the wall, but it was too late; the Prince had already conjured hellfire around the three bodies. Desdemona was still alive and screaming as she felt the flames consume her body, mind, and soul.
"FATHER! HELP ME! HELP ME!" was all Elijah could hear from his daughter, tears coming from his eyes and shaking his head – by the time he could get a full sob out, the souls of his Queen, Princess and Madison were all destroyed. They ceased to exist, not even reduced to ashes on the floor. He wanted to scream, but couldn't. All he felt was a gloved hand on his shoulder.
"Get the relic! We have to go now! It's time!" Myrtle explained.
"I CAN'T! MY QUEEN AND DESSI ARE GONE!" Elijah screeched.
"Is that all you can think about, boy?!" the elder witch shouted.
"Let him take me! I can't!" Elijah shouted in vain, feeling powerless against his own son.
"Elijah, I did not raise a weak son," Mallory said. "Come with us!"
"Where is Michael's skull?" Cordelia asked, seeing in the bag she had at her side containing the relic.
They heard a laugh, and a now-normalized Anathem smiling with bloodied teeth held the skull of the Antichrist up: "looking for this?"
"You give that back, you cretin!" Myrtle shouted.
"Payback for the conspiracy, bitch. I like it hot," the Prince said.
"So don't I!" Myrtle shrieked angrily. "IGNIS!"
With the elder witch's declaration, Anathem burst into flames and shouted, causing him to drop the skull, causing it to shatter in several fragments as the witches moved out of the way. It seemed like he was running toward the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the sanctuary's outside, and his body broke through the glass, falling down below. Elijah could hear screams and expressions of shock from down below. Meanwhile, Mallory went to grab a fragment of the skull and hand it to Elijah.
"I can't do it now! The skull is broken!"
"You can! This is still a part of him," his mother said. "Please, let's get somewhere where there is water to do this."
"There is a pool down on the first floor," Elijah said. "We can use that."
"Quite big, but it will do. Let's go before that monster rises up again."
Sure enough, as the four entered the elevator to go down to the first floor's swimming pool in the Recreation Area of the compound, they could hear utter pandemonium outside where Anathem presumably fell to his death. When they got the floor they needed to be at, Elijah was horrified at the sound of moving, open flesh and bloodcurdling screams, as well as fire burning. Mallory was absolutely terrified at what could have been out there, and Cordelia and Myrtle led them to the pool. The lights were on in it, and Elijah, holding the remainder of the relic of his father, the Antichrist, looked at the three witches tearfully.
"I guess this is goodbye," he said sorrowfully. "You've helped me…"
"That is what we do for our Supreme," Myrtle said. "Stiff upper lip, dear boy."
"My Queen… my dear Desdemona," he sobbed. "They're all gone. I couldn't save them…my kingdom is absolutely ruined…"
Mallory felt her son's pain and started to cry with him, holding him in her arms as he wailed softly. She held the back of his head, feeling his smooth, but messy short dark hair in the process. She let him go, and he looked down at her. He kissed her on the cheek and held her hand.
"This is even more of a reason for you to go back and kill Michael," Mallory said.
"All of this chaos will be erased?" Elijah asked.
"Yes. Remember, energy is not created nor destroyed. It simply changes form."
"Fate will unite us in the past at a given point. There isn't a doubt about it," Myrtle added.
BANG! BANG! There was a silence with the loud noise against the door to the Recreation Center. BANG!
"You have to go. Now," Cordelia said urgently, getting Elijah into the shallow end of the pool. He shivered at the cold, and looked at the piece of the skull once more before he mustered all of his strength to get into the trance state. He did not even need Myrtle's soothing, debonair voice to lead him into the trance state needed to put himself into the past, and the water around him, once clear, turned a murky black and began to bubble up.
Before descending into the cold water, he declared with full will and intention: "balneum infinitum, dona salui conductus…TEMPUS INFINITUUM!"
Los Angeles, California
2015
8:56 PM Pacific Time
Elijah found himself seated next to a tall, silver-toned trash can in an alley way in a suburban part of the city. It was very dark, all save for a street light at the end of the alley. He rose up, feeling more energized than he was in his home in the future with the fight against Anathem. He felt relieved in this strange world because the threat of death wasn't imminent. He started to walk down the alley way, walking past what looked to be a man holding a woman against a wall. He could not make out his face because it was concealed under the cover of a ski mask, and the woman clearly looked intimidated.
"Give me your money, bitch," the man said.
"Take it all! Please don't hurt me!" the woman answered, tossing her Prada bag over to him.
At that moment, Elijah tapped on the man's shoulder and confidently smiled: "excuse me, but you have something I need."
"Get lost!" the robber shouted, taking a knife up to his throat.
Elijah giggled at how foolish this human was, messing with what he didn't know was half-demonic spawn from the future. With minimal effort and a snap of his fingers, the man's neck snapped in a peculiar direction via Elijah's telekinesis. The woman let out a surprised scream as Elijah reached down and took the Prada bag from the now-dead robber and handed it to the woman.
"Leave and don't come back," he instructed.
"You saved my life! How can I-"
"Go, I say!" he ordered, keeping his kingly air about him as she obeyed without question. Before running off into the night down the street, he reached down to the dead robber and took off the ski mask to reveal a bald head and open, dead brown eyes with parted, stiff lips. He also took the knife that was used to threaten him, and put it on his person. He was already clad in black, so it helped him camouflage in the night even more.
From this point, he used his divination and instincts to pinpoint where young Michael Langdon was at that very moment. He was led to a small, quaint house next to a Victorian mansion, which he knew full well to stay away from as he felt the haunted aura around it. It nearly made him sick, but he hung around in front of the perfectly landscaped bushes, hearing the commotion inside the house, an old woman's voice shrieking through the thin walls and windows.
"I don't know why I keep doing what I'm doing," a young man's voice said. "I need help. I'm just a child."
"You are not a child! My grandson is a child! I see his eyes in your eyes, I hear the remnants of his sweet voice in your throat!" yelled the older woman, a light Southern drawl akin to Misty's in a harsh, fed-up tone. "You are NOT HIM! You may have somehow claimed his bed, but you are NOT HIM!"
Elijah heard the woman's voice turn tearful, distraught over what her grandson had become. Was this Michael when he was young and weak? He sure did not sound like a child. In fact, he seemed to age like the rest of the demonic spawn in Regnum Infernale, at three times that of a normal human.
"Please, don't be mad," the young man's voice said.
"You've made a fool of me this entire time, treatin' me like the help, all the buried rodents and the murdered nannies, and I went along with it, thinkin' it was just a phase that you were goin' through, but this is NOT a phase! This is WHO YOU ARE! It's only gonna get worse! I swear to GOD, it is NOT goin' to happen in MY house!"
"W-What do you mean?" Young Michael asked sadly.
"GET OUT!" the woman barked. Elijah could accurately hear the sound of something dropping in the house. She told him that she could not care any less if he lived out in the streets, and that she did not want him around anymore. He stood to listen more to the commotion that only escalated from that point.
"Go ahead! DO IT! PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY!" the woman suddenly barked, sounding like she was being choked. "YOU WON'T, BECAUSE YOU'RE A DAMN COWARD! IT'S ALL YOU WILL EVER BE!"
It took a few minutes for Elijah to hear footsteps coming toward the front of the house, and he looked to vaguely see a tall, teenaged-looking male with wavy, but short blond hair, and reddened, tearful light blue eyes staring off into the night. She noticed he was dressed similarly to what a subject would be wearing in Regnum Infernale, and he was barefoot. He took out the knife he stole from the dead robber and braced himself, preparing to kill his father a second time.
As he opened the gate, Elijah peered through the ski mask and down at the demonic boy, who was walking in his direction at just the right moment when he embedded the knife's blade into his chest, looking down into his identical eyes.
"Die again, fuckface," he said in an unnatural growl.
Michael collapsed to the ground, trying to hold the wound so that no blood could escape, but Elijah continued his assault, stabbing him everywhere he could; in the gut, in the shoulder, and he even made cuts on his arms and legs. The young Antichrist tried to scream, but had no strength left in his body as he bled out. Elijah stopped stabbing and stood above him like a vulture peering down at his prey.
"Take me… into the house…" Michael pleaded.
"No can do, my boy," Elijah said as though he were talking to one of his subjects. "You can tell me how you are still alive…"
"I…am alive?"
"You're making me feel bad," Elijah teased. "Stop it!"
"Why…did you hurt me?"
"Because I need to prevent what you're going to do, that's why," the infernal king said to the young version of his father.
"What…is… that?" Michael started to really die by this point.
"The chaotic kingdom of Regnum Infernale followed by the end of this world," Elijah replied. "You created a monster, and I created a monster as well. Now, I take the root out of the equation…" He leaned down and took the blade to Michael's throat. "You."
Dragging it along with pressure, Elijah nearly beheaded the young Michael as he struggled to breathe, choking on his own blood as the life left his eyes. As he took his last breath, Elijah sighed with relief. All of what Michael did was undone – starting in the very beginning as a ward of the Hawthorn Academy, saving Misty Day, kidnapping her as his human bride, the feud with the witches, the birth of Melanie Macaria Langdon, and his rise to become Head of the Cooperative to drop bombs all over the world to wipe out 98% of all life on Earth including humans. The coronation of Michael and Misty at the establishment of Regnum Infernale was also undone with his action, as well as his own birth along with John Vanderbilt, Isla Fitzgerald, Lydia Blackwell, twins Axel and Hunter Baxter, and Ashley Campbell.
At this point, Elijah looked down at his hands and noticed they were slowly becoming invisible, merely a part of the air. As his form faded, he thought about how his conquering of Michael was undone, as was the coronation of he and Melanie as King and Queen, and the births of the evil Prince Anathem and their Princess Desdemona. The chaos he left the future in was now erased, as was Elijah himself – the half-demonic King of Regnum Infernale, and first male Supreme of the Salem descendants was no more.
A/N:
Well, the first chunk of the story is now over, and unfortunately Elijah, our beloved King, is no more. Sad, but don't despair, as I plan to continue this story and have a proper ending in a fixed timeline.
If you enjoy and wish to see more, Reviews are appreciated, and be sure to Favorite and Follow! Thank you to everyone who has been keeping up for their support!
