Sophia's Chronicles

Chapter 38: The Will To Power

Sophia's House, Illinois – 8 July 2011, 10.10am

I sat still on the porch, my feet rested on the step in front of me such that I could rest my elbows on my knees, as I contemplated my next move. This wasn't easy for me. I cared about Zara and I had considered myself lucky that she was who she was – without her, I could have never been reunited with my heartmate. I thought this would suffice to bind us together not just physically but also emotionally. I wanted our successes to be shared, our personalities to complement each other. I wanted to share the rest of my life with her. But I leave for one moment, and she takes away from me what I needed to be with Lucifer again. All because of what? Human guilt? "You were only going to have to deal with being human for a few days. You should have held fast. You should have had faith in me. I could have helped you get over this. I could have given you anything you wanted," I berated her. She said nothing, only feeling despair for what was to come next. "I love you, Zara, and because of that, I am afraid I have to teach you a lesson. It won't be an easy one."

As I got up, I noticed Luc staring at me. He'd paused whatever he was doing, only observing me with his arms held close to his chest. My worries temporarily pushed aside, I picked him up eagerly and rained kisses on his cheeks and forehead. "I missed you, baby," I told him. I felt a warmth in my chest to have him in my arms. No, I wasn't going to give up the best thing that ever happened to me to Khaos.

"Where did Zara go, Mommy?" he asked.

"She's right here, Luc. Mommy's keeping her safe," I put a hand to my chest. "She's resting."

"Aw, I'll miss her," he looked down at the ground, momentarily sad. My heart broke a little, thinking that he had still developed an attachment to her despite the short amount of time they had spent together. Being in this vessel meant that I would be the one he saw most of the time, unless I had to leave my vessel like I just had – which I hoped I wouldn't be doing anymore of because I wasn't sure I could trust Zara again like that.

That was when I saw them again – the 'Agents of Khaos'. They stood as they had before in the field, like statues waiting to be awoken. Seeing them in broad daylight like this could have been heart-stopping for anyone, what with their ancient, mysterious aura and their unchanging gazes. Leaving Luc to explore the field as he always did, I approached the beings again. "Why are you here, Zorg?" I gave him a pointed glare. "If your boss wants to talk to me again, you can tell Him to forget it."

"We are here for you to fulfil your debt," he replied robotically, as usual.

"As I told Him, I'm not doing it. You're just wasting your time."

"According to my calculations, it is you who are wasting your time. The debt will be fulfilled." His eyes stared blankly ahead. Sometimes I wondered if there really was life in there, in that stony body of his.

"Okay…" I crossed my arms, unsure how to be brazen to something that probably couldn't understand it. "Riddle me this, creature: if Khaos wants this debt fulfilled so bad, why hasn't He nabbed my son Himself?" Not saying I wanted that to happen, but it seemed pretty obvious that Khaos had every opportunity to take what He wanted, with or without my knowledge. There seemed to be a deeper mystery behind it all.

"The condition is a sacrifice. Sacrifices have to be made by individuals. In this case, the individual is you," he replied plainly. "Your willing participation is necessary."

"My consent, huh?" Strange to think that now it was my consent that mattered. Khaos wanted from me what I wanted from Sam. Question is, how far was He willing to go for it? "Well you're never gonna have it."

"I am programmed to give you a warning in the case that you reject: This world will suffer the consequences of your negligence. Indeed, the wrath of Khaos is mighty and damning," he recited. What was this, some kind of prophecy?

"Is that supposed to scare me?" I huffed.

"Yes."

"Rhetorical question, dummy." This was preposterous. Khaos was operating under the assumption that I even cared what He did to me or anyone else. I really didn't care what happened to the humans or angels or demons, and those that I cared about were strong enough to take care of themselves. "Are you just going to stand there?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"Until you agree to the sacrifice."

"Well then, you better not kill my dog again."

Coming away from that conversation like I'd wasted my time, I wanted to get to the main order of business that day. But first, I'd had to drop Luc off with Pahaliah to babysit him. This was something I needed to do alone. With Zara.

Random nightclub, Los Angeles – 8 July 2011, 11.23pm

Young people bustled about, swaying to the beat of whatever noise they preferred to listen and dance to. Among the intoxicated youths I blended in, wearing a skimpy black dress of my own. Normally, I'd wear long, flowing dresses – Lucifer had said they made me look a lot older than I was, but I preferred it that way. Here, however, I was aiming to look like just another directionless youngster coming to the club to get drunk and have a good time. I could sense Zara's discomfort at showing so much of her skin but it was part of the disguise. "This is all part of the lesson," I told her.

I placed my forearms on the illuminated counter as I scanned the shelves of alcoholic beverages before me. "Give me something hot," I beckoned the bartender. Nodding absently, as these people do when faced with large crowds, he went off to fulfil my order.

"I'd say it's hot enough next to you," a feminine voice said next to me. I turned to my left to have a better look at her, this brown-haired, hazel-eyed girl with the cherry lips. She eyed me seductively, her drunken gaze scanning me up and down. I returned her invitation with a furtive smile of my own as I studied her marble cheekbones and her short-cut hair. Her Maybelline-lined eyes glistened upon realising my accepting her flirtation. "I'm Anne, by the way," her hand extended to me.

"Zara," I returned the handshake. "So tell me, Anne, what do you do?"

"I work in HR in a local tech firm," she answered. At least you won't be missed, I thought. "And you?"

"I'm a scientist," I fabricated. Well, at least it was true for the time before Zara left.

"That must be a cool thing to say," she mused. The bartender placed a glass full of a steamy amber liquid before me. Its earthy scent was a delight to be near. For that reason alone, I entertained conversation with this dull mortal while she sipped on something more alcoholic than what I had. Finally, when I'd judged that the conversation had gone on long enough for our choice of topics to be wider than when it began, I pulled out an old relic of mine that may have been of particular significance to Zara.

"I bought this some time ago, and I was wondering whether it made good decoration for my bookshelf. What do you think?" I put forth to my drunken accomplice. She hefted the metal hawk figurine in her palm, feeling its ridges and grooves. This figurine had been a gift to me from Hassiel long ago and having been with me for so long it had become useful as a way for Lucifer to track my vessel down. That was quite a challenge as Heaven had tried to erase all traces of my existence not only from Heaven but also Earth (a rant for another time), which included the name of my vessel. No one knew it was to be Zara, until Lucifer had used this hawk statue to locate her. I suspected that it also reacted in some way to people who could be my temporary vessels, which brought me to why I was here.

"Wow, this is… beautiful. Yeah, I could totally see it making a bookshelf look… really good." Anne let out an extensive chuckle as she put one hand firmly on the counter to steady herself. The small emeralds that studded the figurine where its eyes were emitted a faint green glow. "Oh look, it lights up too. What is it, is it touch-sensitive or something?"

"Something like that," I replied as I retrieved the object from her. "You seem like you could use a ride home. Why don't I get you a cab?"

"Tha-That's really nice of you," she spoke with a voice that began to drawl. This woman had low thresholds of trust, seeing as she held onto my arm intimately with eyes half-closed while I led her to the backroom of the club as inconspicuously as I could. It was only when we began walking down stairs that she began to have suspicions. "This doesn't look like the exit…"

"Don't worry, I'm bringing you out the less crowded way. Wouldn't want to lose you with all those people now, do I?"

Another long laugh. "You're a very thoughtful person…"

Anne basically hobbled behind me as I led her by the hand into a supply closet that had enough open space for at least five people to lie down. On the metal racks, cleaning supplies were arranged neatly and the room was lit by a single flickering white light. "If you'll excuse me, Anne, I need to talk in private."

"What are we g-" I knocked her out with a single touch of a finger to the forehead and she plopped onto the floor with a thud, her scarlet heels at obscene angles to each other.

"Do you see, Zara?" I said out loud. "This dull, empty human being could have held me, albeit for a short while. This person with the lack of ambition and the bad haircut and trashy taste in clothes. But it wasn't she who was meant for me. It was you."

Is this what you brought me here for? To mock other people?

"Oh, that's not all, my mortal friend. You have to do your penance." I wasted no time in sitting on the unconscious woman's abdomen, holding her jaw up to expose her neck. I savoured the sharp sound of my switchblade swinging open as I triggered it and held the grind to the base of Anne's neck. "You see, Zara, there can be no one else. No one but you for me. Not this imposter, this lame excuse of a human being."

I felt Zara's fear. Her mind racing with the possibilities, none of which she wanted any part of. I relinquished some control over her arms to her and her panic grew considerably. I don't know what you're implying, she said nervously. For me, on the other hand, it was much like teaching someone to face themselves, even if they didn't want to. I had to force her hand if she were to truly glean the lesson from this experience. There would be no boundaries between us after this.

"Oh but I think you do. End her." If I wasn't in control of her heart, it would be pounding madly now.

You have control over my body. You do it, she remained defiant.

"You have to be the one to do this. If you truly cared, if you truly sought liberation from your boring, directionless old life, you will prove to me that you are the only one for me."

You already hurt and slay others without my consent as it is. Please don't make me do this, she begged.

"You don't understand, do you?" I paused. "You were made for me. Your whole life led to you finding me and being mine. You ran away from home, just as I did from my mother. You ran into Lucifer's arms, just like I did. Did you never stop to think about why it was so easy for you to say 'yes' to him? To agree to do whatever he wanted you to do?"

Uhh… I was tripping? On LSD? Does that even count as consent?

"LSD takes you to the centre of your mind. In your subconscious, there are no lies. Lucifer found you when you were most likely to speak the truth, and this is what you wanted."

I sensed her thinking through her whole life, wondering if she'd made a mistake somewhere along the way. Whether she actually did the right thing. She was actually questioning what drove her to say 'yes' in the first place. I said 'yes' because… I was curious, she confessed.

"I know you were. I see all the hours you spent scrounging for all those books about Lucifer and me. I heard your prayers to me. Your whole life, that feeling of being lost and uncertain, you were looking for answers. And when you learnt you could find them with me, you just couldn't resist. That is who you are."

But I didn't sign up to kill people! You wanna do that, fine. You're a celestial being with no qualms about murder and suffering. But don't expect me to want this! she boldly asserted. I liked her nerve, speaking to me like that. I would have expected no less from my vessel. I didn't want to see Sam suffer. He's a human being and I'm sorry I broke down but I saw no other way to live with myself. Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm sorry, Sophia, that I ever disobeyed you. I was just following the truth wherever it took me.

"You speak well. I'm impressed. Now kill this woman or I'll leave you and drop you back in your familial home. You don't want that, do you? After what you've seen, you don't want to go back to that life anymore. I can tell. So do this one thing, and all will be right between us."

I felt tears she wanted to shed but could not. Her inner conflict was surfacing at this point. Give up a life of adventure with an archangel or drive a knife through an innocent human. Curiosity versus humanity. What would you pick, Zara? I know I sought you. I worshipped you. I loved you. But why is this the answer? Why must I kill this woman? she went on.

"Because I want you as much as you want me. No one else can come between us. No temporary vessels. Imagine, if we could kill every other human who could contain me even for a short while, you would be the only one on earth I could have. Don't you see the beauty in that? Kill her and show me how much you want to be with me," I laid out. "Look at her."

Anne was still unconscious. Her fake lashes cast a dark shadow on her cheekbones. Her carefully-tailored eyebrows made her look serene, almost like an image of one of those angels that renaissance artists painted – the ones who lay around lazily and prettily. I forced her gaze to Anne's neck, that bare expanse where the future of our connection lay. It was slender and her skin was soft. I could feel her pulse as soon as I put a thumb to the side of her neck. "Do you feel that? That is her life flowing through her arteries. Will you let this woman's life severe the bond between us?" I forced her to remember her mundane life – the parts where she felt most removed from reality and the times when she thought about me the most. "Heaven tried to keep you from me, but you found me anyway. Isn't that evidence enough of what you were meant to do?"

I felt her mind shifting. Suddenly her knuckles tightened around the hilt of the blade. She pressed the blade closer to Anne's neck, but then she paused. Doubts swirled in her head, yet she stood at the precipice of realising something about what we had together. "Do it, Zara. You're so close," I encouraged her. Her breathing grew shallower as I retreated control from her body and observed solely from her mind. Her vision grew clearer and quavered at the same time. She wondered if she could actually do it – kill a person – and not face any consequences. "I am the highest authority you know. And you are as close to me as is humanly possible. There are no legal or moral repercussions here."

At that moment, a soft groan pierced the deadly silent air. Anne's head swayed slightly and Zara's grip on the blade jerked and loosened. "Do it, Zara, before she makes any noise. Not that I care, but I don't think you'd want that."

The woman's eyes shifted open slowly and then, realising the fatal position she was it, her eyes opened so wide that her brown irises appeared as full circles. Zara's own panic rose proportionately. There was a short moment between this rude awakening and the contraction of Anne's facial muscles around her mouth to scream. That was the telling moment. As we observed her glossy lips opening and felt her vocal chords stretching, Zara instinctively grabbed onto her neck with her left hand and drove the knife into the skin with her right. The blood came out in drops at first and then, like the great flood, it flowed abundantly.

I saw what was happening in Zara's mind. She just kept staring at the blood, ignoring the dying groans of her victim which also came with gasps spurting out blood and quivering hands that weakly tried to push us away. Zara was completely taken by the sight of this crimson liquid continuing to flow, despite the knife still being buried in the woman's neck on its grind. She noticed how light glinted on its surface, how blood flowed past the knife, how her fingers became coated with the substance and felt increasingly sticky. She noticed how the pool of blood on the floor grew larger and larger, staining Anne's short-cut hair and forming a scarlet halo around her head. She looks like an angel, Zara stated, feeling increasingly dissociated with who she used to think she was. She reflects us.

I smiled, warmed by her decision. "You do get it! You are capable of anything, you know that? Not because you said 'yes' to me. It's because you're willing to do what you need to do to become something greater. And I'm proud of you for it. You're the only human I want to share myself with and you've proven to me that I am right to want as much." I took back control of her body.

Am-am I forgiven now? her weary voice asked.

"Forgiveness is not something I can just give you. What you did, you must understand, was no small mistake. What you did is keeping me from Lucifer. What you did is keeping Luc from seeing his father. You took away something that I have wanted for hundreds of thousands of years. Do you understand the magnitude of your actions?"

I do, she answered. Her guilt was sincere.

"I'm in your head. I can see your thoughts, your memories. I know what you intended to tell me after letting Sam go. And since I can't change what you did, you leave me no choice but to take you up on your suggestion. If that goes our way, there is forgiveness for you yet. But I hope you know – if you try this again, I will shut you out. Or worse, I might just abandon you. Think about it," I warned.

I stood up and looked at Anne one last time. "You were a martyr for a good cause," I praised. The dead woman's eyes were half-open and lifeless. I watched as her breathing slowed and eventually stopped, along with the outpouring of blood from that jagged slit across her neck which was deep enough to cause bleeding but not so deep as to make the process painless. Oh well, there's a first time for everything.

A/N:

Damn. Sophia is… intense. By now you must have noticed that Sophia's actions seem to reveal some kind of darkness within her. It certainly isn't something she's proud of, but her difficult time in the vault and in the past year separated from her beloved certainly is taking its toll on her. Not to mention that there are so many obstacles in her way. She's in a pretty dark place right now. What will it take to redeem her? (God knows). Don't worry about Lucifer, you'll get to seem him again, but at what cost? And what is Khaos planning? That sly Khaos…

Someone said that Zara seems like a chaotic neutral character and you are spot-on, anon! It definitely makes her indecisive and unpredictable at times and as you will see soon enough, she is pretty reckless. She is certainly an interesting character to write and if you're anything like me, you'll be in love with her. I just want to say this in advance: she is definitely devoted to Sophia, regardless of their history and travels together, or arguments. I would even say she is the "archangel whisperer". Zara may be a bit traumatised from this chapter, but she's a strong gal. She was built to withstand trials and become the confidante of the archangels.

As for her name, yes, there is a significance to it (I'd never pass the opportunity to foreshadow with such an important character). Zara means "princess" and her last name is Joshi, which is a common Indian last name which means "lightbringer or reflect like the sun", to quote Wikipedia. So if you put two and two together… make of that what you will. Another reason why I chose her name is that I am a big fan of Nietzsche and one of Nietzsche's books is called Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Zarathustra is the name of the main character of that book and so I took the first part of the name as reference to that. (On a side note, if anyone wants to talk about religion/philosophy, I'd be totally cool with that).

Okay, so I'd written everything above in advance, but today I woke up to the tragic news of Chester Bennington's death, which really impacted me in ways I didn't think it would. I've always drawn inspiration from metal/hard rock music and no doubt Linkin Park is one of those bands that I really enjoyed listening to. It really breaks my heart to hear of his suicide and now that I listen to all their songs again, I see the real meaning behind them – Chester used his music as an avenue to talk about his depression and substance abuse problem and you can see this in every single one of LP's albums. He deserved a lot better. So I wanna say, that if anyone is having such problems, please talk to someone about it. Don't face it alone. And if you know someone like that, please listen to them and make them feel loved. If you wanna talk to me about it, I'd be happy to listen too.