Angel Wings--Chapter 10, Part II
Jesse and I stood in silence, holding onto one another as Paul turned to us, grinning like a die-hard maniac, and said in that weird demonic voice, "That's all, folks!"
I finally found my voice, shaky thought it was, and said, "Well, if that's all, we'll just be going, now." I started to turn away, tugging Jesse along with me. But when I turned, I almost walked right into Paul, who instead of being ten feet away from us, was suddenly just…here.
"Suze, you're hurt," he said, and thankfully, his voice was normal again.
"Yeah, I'll go to a hospital somewhere. Out of my way." I turned aside to go, and just like before, there he was, right in my face. Jesse pulled me back, behind him, and he glared at Paul.
"Do you think she wants to be with a monster like you?" he spat out. "Someone who enjoys watching people suffer, and takes pride in his evil ways? You disgust her. Can't you see that?"
"Get back in your body, I need you alive," Paul said with a scowl.
"My body, in case you haven't noticed, is impaled on a piece of glass," Jesse said dryly.
"And what a beautiful sight it is!" Paul said with a smile, walking towards Jesse's body, "But I really must insist you get back in it."
He reached down and grabbed the huge piece of glass, and pulled. It came out with a sick sucking sound, and anger welled up in me again. "Wow, she did a number on you," Paul remarked, peering down at the fatal wound.
"Leave him alone!" I screamed, running at him. Paul looked up at me and caught me in his arms as I lunged at him, holding me to him in an intimate position that made me hate him all the more.
"Hey, Suze, so good of you to join me," he said with a mischievous grin.
"You bastard," I hissed at him. "If you think I'll stand here and let you mutilate him-"
"Susannah," Jesse said gently. "…look."
I looked down at the body. It had a strange blue glow around it. The blue glow flared into a bright, blinding light, then dimmed, and just as quickly as it had come, it was gone. I stared at the still face expectantly, and then I jumped back in surprise when the body suddenly took a deep gasp of breath. Every muscles seemed to jitter to life, until the body settled down again, lying back restfully, breathing regularly. Ghost Jesse was standing beside me, watching the whole phenomenon, and he finally murmured, "The wound is gone."
I looked down, and sure enough, Jesse's gorgeous abs were intact, still caked with dry blood from the missing gash.
Paul smiled at Jesse. The kind of best-buddy smile that totally screamed, "I'm doing this for you, but only because I'll get something out of it." Jesse eyed Paul suspiciously, then looked back at his body, whose full lips were slowly warming back to a warm pink color.
"Why are you doing this?" Jesse said. "It's a trap."
Paul rolled his eyes. "Why does everything need to be a trap? I just want Suze, I never meant to hurt you."
"You want your power back, you said so yourself," Jesse stated flatly.
"So we have a little fight, nothing serious, and whoever wins takes all. Nobody has to die," Paul said with a shrug.
Jesse looked down at his body again, then at me. "Don't touch her," he said. Paul, as if suddenly realizing he still had his arms around me, let go like I had just caught fire.
"Ok, ok, hands to myself until I beat you up," Paul said with a fake smile.
Jesse crossed his arms over his chest. "No," he said firmly. "I-"
"Jesse," I whispered desperately. "Please…"
Jesse looked towards me, and scrutinized me with those dark, expressionless eyes of his. I gave him my best puppy-dog eyes, and Jesse shook his head in disbelief. "Nombre de Dios, Susannah, this…you should know this is too good to be true. And what if he wins?"
"JUST DO IT, JESSE!" I snarled at him.
"Me-ow," Paul said, grinning at me.
"AND YOU, SHUT UP!" I spat back.
Jesse gave me one last look that said, "Don't come crying to me if this is a trap," and he lied back onto his body, melding with it until he vanished into it. The eyes opened again, full of life, and I couldn't help the smile that spread on my face.
My life has been salvaged.
Then, as Jesse was sitting up, Paul was suddenly behind me, and he grabbed me and pulled me into him. I started to scream, but that only turned into painful coughs.
"Shhhh…" Paul said, and a soothing coolness spread through my body. The coughing stopped, and all the pains and aches seemed to just vanish. "There you go, little one," Paul murmured gently into my ear. "All better."
"Don't call me little one," I said. But hey, I wasn't about to complain about these healing and life-giving powers Paul seemed to have.
Jesse stood up slowly, as if testing his body for bombs or something. When nothing happened, he sighed in relief, and looked up and Paul, who was still holding me.
"Hands to yourself, remember?" Jesse said, and the air around him began to crackle with a kind of electricity.
"Yeah, um, about that," Paul said. "There's…been a change of plans."
I had a small panic attack at those words, and I fought to run to Jesse, but, as always, the bad guy wouldn't let me go.
Jesse's eyes narrowed. "Really? How surprising."
"I'm sorry to say that I have appointment that I really must be getting to," Paul said with a note of pseudo-regret in his voice. My feet slowly lifted off the ground, and I realized we were levitating off the ground. Then I swallowed my scream as the ground below us opened up, revealing the same fiery pit that had snared Maria.
"No," I said, voice trembling. "No, I won't go down there."
"Won't you?" Paul said.
Jesse took a step toward us, the reflection of the flames dancing in his eyes. "Don't you dare…"
"Oh, I will dare," Paul replied curtly.
Jesse took another threatening step towards us. He was starting to glow with that weird dark energy that characterized demons.
"I'll send up my agent for you, and we can have a regal showdown, demon style," Paul said with a smirk. "And my wife will be watching."
Suddenly, before Jesse had time to do a thing about it, Paul did a graceful mid-air flip, and we plunged head-first into the pit.
It happened so fast. They were there one moment, Paul leering at her and she, oblivious to the hunger shining in his eyes right behind her, looking furious. Then they were falling into the fire, Susannah's screams echoing in my ears, and the hole was swallowing them up.
I leaped for the pit, trying to follow them in, but it closed up right in my face. For a moment, I stared in disbelief at the ground in front of me, willing it to open again. Then an awful sense of helplessness swept over me. Because Susannah was gone, because I was so stupid, and because this was all my fault. I didn't care if Susannah said I was innocent-I would always be the bane of her life, whether she acknowledged it or not.
I stood up slowly, and looked around absently. Trying to think of something.
Father Dom.
Father Dom must know some way to get me to Hell. He was a priest. Maybe he could open up the way for me to go in and save Susannah…
A coldness suddenly permeated the air. No, this wasn't a mere coldness…this was a darkness. A darkness within my very bones, within my very soul…so foul and chilling. I shivered.
"You," a voice rasped slowly behind me. I whirled around, and came face to face with a smiling porcelain mask. With a surprised shout, I stumbled and fell gracelessly backwards.
"You are Hector DeSilva," the thing said in a voice that seemed to resonate inside my head and struck fear within me for no apparent reason. It was a shadow…a black shadow with no face, only that creepy mask which was dusty and covered in hairpin cracks.
I swallowed. "Y-yes…"
"The Unholy One requests an audience with you. You must come at once. Follow me…"
I didn't relish the idea of following strange shadows anywhere, but I had a feeling the thing would force me, and that wouldn't be very pleasant. I stood up and took a step away from the creature, for my own comfort.
"Who are you?" I said in as confident a voice as I could muster, which wasn't very confident.
"The Keeper of Souls," he said in his hollow, dead-sounding voice. "You need know no more than that."
"Take me to him, then," I said.
The Keeper was silent for a few minutes, the mask staring at me, and I grew increasingly uneasy. It just seemed wrong for some reason.
"Come closer," it said.
I took a hesitant step forward.
"Closer," it urged.
One more reluctant step.
"Closer," it said, almost a whisper.
One more step would bring me right in front of it. The porcelain mask gleamed in the light, and seemed to be laughing at me as I contempleted the possible disastrous results of going so close to a henchmen of Paul...and I took the final step.
Then a long, spindly shadow arm came up from its side, and grabbed the mask.
It was going to take it off.
Involuntarily, I averted my eyes.
"Do not look away," it warned, "or you will be eaten by the Lost."
Well, that didn't sound too pleasant. So I faced the Keeper, and forced myself not to look away as it slowly pulled away the mask, and I saw their faces…
And I screamed as the horrors of humanity were poured into me, forever transforming me, and forever claiming me as one of its victims.
"And we shall raise him on high…
The Unholy One has come…
Ruler of the Cosmos…
Curse of Humanity…"
I was trapped in a darkness, hearing the worshipful chanting with a sick stomach. I was tied to something, I knew because I couldn't move my hands or feet. I felt dazed, like I'd been through something really tiring, and I remembered the fire…
"He who hath fallen…
Upon the sword of Michael, the destroyer…"
"Oh, shut up," I moaned out. Surprisingly, they did. And I suddenly felt eyes on me. Thousands of eyes. Millions of eyes. An infinite number of eyes. I opened my eyes. The multitude before me were covered in a shroud of shadow, and I was indeed tied to something, on a raised platform. I moved my head to get an idea of my surroundings.
I was tied to an upside-down cross. Wow, suddenly I'm gothic queen extraordinaire. To my left, there was what I understood to be a lifesize statue of Jesus, arms outstretched, heart exposed…with a thorny sword going through the heart. A statue of Mary, to my right, had received a similar fate.
"Wow, you people are sick," I said loudly. "You hear me? SICK!"
Murmurs of indignation rose from the crowd.
"Now now, Suze," came Paul's voice from behind me. "Behave."
"Paul," I said, struggling to contain my rage, "WHAT THE *FUCK AM I DOING HERE!!!!"
"This is our wedding, dearest," Paul said sweetly. "And I want you to call me by my real name from now on."
"What is it? Lucifer?" I laughed coldly. "Satan? Or-oh, wait…Unholy One!"
"Actually," Paul said, coming into my field of vision, and I saw he was wearing what looked like a navy blue tux (which kind of surprised me, you know…I was expecting some kind of Halloween costume), "I only meant I want you to call me King Paul."
I snorted. "Wow, that'll be the day."
Paul smiled at me, and reached out a hand to touch my face. I turned away from him, but I still couldn't prevent his cold touch. "I have someone here to see you," Paul whispered.
"Who, your evil crackpot dad?"
"No. You're ex-fiancee, dearest."
"Wha…" I trailed off as I saw him walking from somewhere in the crowd up onto the platform. "Jesse!" I cried out. "Jesse! Get out of here! What are you doing…" That was when I noticed the chains he was dragging along with him as he walked. Thick, black chains that looked like they must have weighed a ton. He walked slowly, almost zombie-like, as if in a trance. His eyes were wide open, and when he stopped in front of me, they looked through me, beyond me, into nothing.
His eyes had a haunted look in them.
"J…Jesse?"
He didn't even seem to know I was there.
"Paul!" I sobbed out. "What did you do to him?!"
Paul smiled knowingly. "I shared with him the secrets of humanity."
"What the *FUCK it that supposed to mean????"
"You don't want to know," Paul said quietly, and I shivered. Paul waved his hand, and the chanting began again. Paul walked towards me, slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. I tore my eyes from his hypnotizing gaze, and looked at Jesse, just standing there, no reaction, no knowledge, just standing there like he had seen the most horrible things, his lips quivering just the tiniest bit…
One second later, Paul was in front of me, leaning towards me, eyes closing, breath tickling my cheek…and his lips were on mine. It was the kiss of eternal enslavement. As his breath entered into my body, I felt unspeakable emptiness fill me. I was a void. The only emotion I seemed to recall ever having was incredible sadness. Paul's hands slid over my body, touched me in places they shouldn't have, and he murmured into my ear, "Welcome to my world, my Queen."
And a single tear fell from Jesse's eye.
A/N: Was that a sad ending? Well, in the sequel, we'll make everything ok again ^_^ It's called..."Rebirth"! What a happy title! It's coming soon! Anyway, thanks for sticking with me, even through my dry spells. I'm honored by your patience.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed me, and as a gift for your love, I'm posting the sequel during the last week of August, and that's a promise.
Now, just cause the story is over, it doesn't mean that you don't have to REVIEW!!!!!
TTFN
Jesse and I stood in silence, holding onto one another as Paul turned to us, grinning like a die-hard maniac, and said in that weird demonic voice, "That's all, folks!"
I finally found my voice, shaky thought it was, and said, "Well, if that's all, we'll just be going, now." I started to turn away, tugging Jesse along with me. But when I turned, I almost walked right into Paul, who instead of being ten feet away from us, was suddenly just…here.
"Suze, you're hurt," he said, and thankfully, his voice was normal again.
"Yeah, I'll go to a hospital somewhere. Out of my way." I turned aside to go, and just like before, there he was, right in my face. Jesse pulled me back, behind him, and he glared at Paul.
"Do you think she wants to be with a monster like you?" he spat out. "Someone who enjoys watching people suffer, and takes pride in his evil ways? You disgust her. Can't you see that?"
"Get back in your body, I need you alive," Paul said with a scowl.
"My body, in case you haven't noticed, is impaled on a piece of glass," Jesse said dryly.
"And what a beautiful sight it is!" Paul said with a smile, walking towards Jesse's body, "But I really must insist you get back in it."
He reached down and grabbed the huge piece of glass, and pulled. It came out with a sick sucking sound, and anger welled up in me again. "Wow, she did a number on you," Paul remarked, peering down at the fatal wound.
"Leave him alone!" I screamed, running at him. Paul looked up at me and caught me in his arms as I lunged at him, holding me to him in an intimate position that made me hate him all the more.
"Hey, Suze, so good of you to join me," he said with a mischievous grin.
"You bastard," I hissed at him. "If you think I'll stand here and let you mutilate him-"
"Susannah," Jesse said gently. "…look."
I looked down at the body. It had a strange blue glow around it. The blue glow flared into a bright, blinding light, then dimmed, and just as quickly as it had come, it was gone. I stared at the still face expectantly, and then I jumped back in surprise when the body suddenly took a deep gasp of breath. Every muscles seemed to jitter to life, until the body settled down again, lying back restfully, breathing regularly. Ghost Jesse was standing beside me, watching the whole phenomenon, and he finally murmured, "The wound is gone."
I looked down, and sure enough, Jesse's gorgeous abs were intact, still caked with dry blood from the missing gash.
Paul smiled at Jesse. The kind of best-buddy smile that totally screamed, "I'm doing this for you, but only because I'll get something out of it." Jesse eyed Paul suspiciously, then looked back at his body, whose full lips were slowly warming back to a warm pink color.
"Why are you doing this?" Jesse said. "It's a trap."
Paul rolled his eyes. "Why does everything need to be a trap? I just want Suze, I never meant to hurt you."
"You want your power back, you said so yourself," Jesse stated flatly.
"So we have a little fight, nothing serious, and whoever wins takes all. Nobody has to die," Paul said with a shrug.
Jesse looked down at his body again, then at me. "Don't touch her," he said. Paul, as if suddenly realizing he still had his arms around me, let go like I had just caught fire.
"Ok, ok, hands to myself until I beat you up," Paul said with a fake smile.
Jesse crossed his arms over his chest. "No," he said firmly. "I-"
"Jesse," I whispered desperately. "Please…"
Jesse looked towards me, and scrutinized me with those dark, expressionless eyes of his. I gave him my best puppy-dog eyes, and Jesse shook his head in disbelief. "Nombre de Dios, Susannah, this…you should know this is too good to be true. And what if he wins?"
"JUST DO IT, JESSE!" I snarled at him.
"Me-ow," Paul said, grinning at me.
"AND YOU, SHUT UP!" I spat back.
Jesse gave me one last look that said, "Don't come crying to me if this is a trap," and he lied back onto his body, melding with it until he vanished into it. The eyes opened again, full of life, and I couldn't help the smile that spread on my face.
My life has been salvaged.
Then, as Jesse was sitting up, Paul was suddenly behind me, and he grabbed me and pulled me into him. I started to scream, but that only turned into painful coughs.
"Shhhh…" Paul said, and a soothing coolness spread through my body. The coughing stopped, and all the pains and aches seemed to just vanish. "There you go, little one," Paul murmured gently into my ear. "All better."
"Don't call me little one," I said. But hey, I wasn't about to complain about these healing and life-giving powers Paul seemed to have.
Jesse stood up slowly, as if testing his body for bombs or something. When nothing happened, he sighed in relief, and looked up and Paul, who was still holding me.
"Hands to yourself, remember?" Jesse said, and the air around him began to crackle with a kind of electricity.
"Yeah, um, about that," Paul said. "There's…been a change of plans."
I had a small panic attack at those words, and I fought to run to Jesse, but, as always, the bad guy wouldn't let me go.
Jesse's eyes narrowed. "Really? How surprising."
"I'm sorry to say that I have appointment that I really must be getting to," Paul said with a note of pseudo-regret in his voice. My feet slowly lifted off the ground, and I realized we were levitating off the ground. Then I swallowed my scream as the ground below us opened up, revealing the same fiery pit that had snared Maria.
"No," I said, voice trembling. "No, I won't go down there."
"Won't you?" Paul said.
Jesse took a step toward us, the reflection of the flames dancing in his eyes. "Don't you dare…"
"Oh, I will dare," Paul replied curtly.
Jesse took another threatening step towards us. He was starting to glow with that weird dark energy that characterized demons.
"I'll send up my agent for you, and we can have a regal showdown, demon style," Paul said with a smirk. "And my wife will be watching."
Suddenly, before Jesse had time to do a thing about it, Paul did a graceful mid-air flip, and we plunged head-first into the pit.
It happened so fast. They were there one moment, Paul leering at her and she, oblivious to the hunger shining in his eyes right behind her, looking furious. Then they were falling into the fire, Susannah's screams echoing in my ears, and the hole was swallowing them up.
I leaped for the pit, trying to follow them in, but it closed up right in my face. For a moment, I stared in disbelief at the ground in front of me, willing it to open again. Then an awful sense of helplessness swept over me. Because Susannah was gone, because I was so stupid, and because this was all my fault. I didn't care if Susannah said I was innocent-I would always be the bane of her life, whether she acknowledged it or not.
I stood up slowly, and looked around absently. Trying to think of something.
Father Dom.
Father Dom must know some way to get me to Hell. He was a priest. Maybe he could open up the way for me to go in and save Susannah…
A coldness suddenly permeated the air. No, this wasn't a mere coldness…this was a darkness. A darkness within my very bones, within my very soul…so foul and chilling. I shivered.
"You," a voice rasped slowly behind me. I whirled around, and came face to face with a smiling porcelain mask. With a surprised shout, I stumbled and fell gracelessly backwards.
"You are Hector DeSilva," the thing said in a voice that seemed to resonate inside my head and struck fear within me for no apparent reason. It was a shadow…a black shadow with no face, only that creepy mask which was dusty and covered in hairpin cracks.
I swallowed. "Y-yes…"
"The Unholy One requests an audience with you. You must come at once. Follow me…"
I didn't relish the idea of following strange shadows anywhere, but I had a feeling the thing would force me, and that wouldn't be very pleasant. I stood up and took a step away from the creature, for my own comfort.
"Who are you?" I said in as confident a voice as I could muster, which wasn't very confident.
"The Keeper of Souls," he said in his hollow, dead-sounding voice. "You need know no more than that."
"Take me to him, then," I said.
The Keeper was silent for a few minutes, the mask staring at me, and I grew increasingly uneasy. It just seemed wrong for some reason.
"Come closer," it said.
I took a hesitant step forward.
"Closer," it urged.
One more reluctant step.
"Closer," it said, almost a whisper.
One more step would bring me right in front of it. The porcelain mask gleamed in the light, and seemed to be laughing at me as I contempleted the possible disastrous results of going so close to a henchmen of Paul...and I took the final step.
Then a long, spindly shadow arm came up from its side, and grabbed the mask.
It was going to take it off.
Involuntarily, I averted my eyes.
"Do not look away," it warned, "or you will be eaten by the Lost."
Well, that didn't sound too pleasant. So I faced the Keeper, and forced myself not to look away as it slowly pulled away the mask, and I saw their faces…
And I screamed as the horrors of humanity were poured into me, forever transforming me, and forever claiming me as one of its victims.
"And we shall raise him on high…
The Unholy One has come…
Ruler of the Cosmos…
Curse of Humanity…"
I was trapped in a darkness, hearing the worshipful chanting with a sick stomach. I was tied to something, I knew because I couldn't move my hands or feet. I felt dazed, like I'd been through something really tiring, and I remembered the fire…
"He who hath fallen…
Upon the sword of Michael, the destroyer…"
"Oh, shut up," I moaned out. Surprisingly, they did. And I suddenly felt eyes on me. Thousands of eyes. Millions of eyes. An infinite number of eyes. I opened my eyes. The multitude before me were covered in a shroud of shadow, and I was indeed tied to something, on a raised platform. I moved my head to get an idea of my surroundings.
I was tied to an upside-down cross. Wow, suddenly I'm gothic queen extraordinaire. To my left, there was what I understood to be a lifesize statue of Jesus, arms outstretched, heart exposed…with a thorny sword going through the heart. A statue of Mary, to my right, had received a similar fate.
"Wow, you people are sick," I said loudly. "You hear me? SICK!"
Murmurs of indignation rose from the crowd.
"Now now, Suze," came Paul's voice from behind me. "Behave."
"Paul," I said, struggling to contain my rage, "WHAT THE *FUCK AM I DOING HERE!!!!"
"This is our wedding, dearest," Paul said sweetly. "And I want you to call me by my real name from now on."
"What is it? Lucifer?" I laughed coldly. "Satan? Or-oh, wait…Unholy One!"
"Actually," Paul said, coming into my field of vision, and I saw he was wearing what looked like a navy blue tux (which kind of surprised me, you know…I was expecting some kind of Halloween costume), "I only meant I want you to call me King Paul."
I snorted. "Wow, that'll be the day."
Paul smiled at me, and reached out a hand to touch my face. I turned away from him, but I still couldn't prevent his cold touch. "I have someone here to see you," Paul whispered.
"Who, your evil crackpot dad?"
"No. You're ex-fiancee, dearest."
"Wha…" I trailed off as I saw him walking from somewhere in the crowd up onto the platform. "Jesse!" I cried out. "Jesse! Get out of here! What are you doing…" That was when I noticed the chains he was dragging along with him as he walked. Thick, black chains that looked like they must have weighed a ton. He walked slowly, almost zombie-like, as if in a trance. His eyes were wide open, and when he stopped in front of me, they looked through me, beyond me, into nothing.
His eyes had a haunted look in them.
"J…Jesse?"
He didn't even seem to know I was there.
"Paul!" I sobbed out. "What did you do to him?!"
Paul smiled knowingly. "I shared with him the secrets of humanity."
"What the *FUCK it that supposed to mean????"
"You don't want to know," Paul said quietly, and I shivered. Paul waved his hand, and the chanting began again. Paul walked towards me, slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. I tore my eyes from his hypnotizing gaze, and looked at Jesse, just standing there, no reaction, no knowledge, just standing there like he had seen the most horrible things, his lips quivering just the tiniest bit…
One second later, Paul was in front of me, leaning towards me, eyes closing, breath tickling my cheek…and his lips were on mine. It was the kiss of eternal enslavement. As his breath entered into my body, I felt unspeakable emptiness fill me. I was a void. The only emotion I seemed to recall ever having was incredible sadness. Paul's hands slid over my body, touched me in places they shouldn't have, and he murmured into my ear, "Welcome to my world, my Queen."
And a single tear fell from Jesse's eye.
A/N: Was that a sad ending? Well, in the sequel, we'll make everything ok again ^_^ It's called..."Rebirth"! What a happy title! It's coming soon! Anyway, thanks for sticking with me, even through my dry spells. I'm honored by your patience.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed me, and as a gift for your love, I'm posting the sequel during the last week of August, and that's a promise.
Now, just cause the story is over, it doesn't mean that you don't have to REVIEW!!!!!
TTFN