New Year's Eve - 2032

Snow was practically unheard of in Los Angeles. The most snowfall downtown had ever seen was in January 1932, when a whopping 2 inches drifted down and surprised the hell out of a bunch of overworked pioneers.

It snowed again, just after midnight on January 15th, 2032, exactly 100 years later.

This time, the snow fell thick and white over the city. It came down in driving drifts outside the windows of the Montgomery Mansion, creating intricate swirling patterns that went unnoticed by those within the old walls. In the downstairs great room, Evangelina struggled with agonizing contraction pains. In the past weeks, the twins had grown rapidly, causing Evangelina a great deal of physical discomfort.

Now she was going into labor, yet she was only halfway through the normal gestation period of a human woman. She tried to deny it at first. If was far too soon! But when her water broke, she sent Tate next door to fetch help. Jeremiah was down at the church, so the boy had returned with Constance, who immediately understood what was happening.

"It's too soon!" Evangelina objected as Constance led her to the couch that the ghosts of murdered nursing students were spreading newspaper and white sheets over. "This can't be happening!"

"But it is!" Constance assured her, patting her hand as she helped the distressed woman onto the sofa. "Once this process starts, there's no goin' back."

"But I haven't carried them long enough," Evangelina insisted. She had borne a baby before. She knew how long that one had been inside her and she had seen other women go through the process.

"Nature knows better than you do," said Constance with thinning gentleness. She was tiring of reassuring the mother-to-be and was growing anxious about the pending births herself.

"Move out of the way, please," Charles said to her, taking charge of the situation now that he was adequately washed and suited up for surgery. Once Constance stepped aside, he addressed Maria, the nursing student who still wore the stab wounds of her untimely death. "How far apart are her contractions?"

The other nursing student, a plump girl named Gladys, slipped a mask over Evangelina's face and held it in place so she would breathe in the anesthesia. The girl had been drowned and water dripped from her hair onto Evangelina's face. There was a faint hiss as the nitrous oxide gas began to flow. Breathing it in dulled the excruciating pain to a tolerable ache, allowing the pregnant woman to relax a little. Around her, people were talking but she was losing track of the conversation.

"Michael…" she mumbled into the mask. Speech was becoming effort as the sedative went to work. "He wanted…to be here…"

"He's on his way," Constance lied. "You just try to relax and focus on those babies."

It was so very tempting to slide away into the comforting bliss of the numbing gas but Evangelina's strength of purpose rallied a final fight. She pushed herself up as much as she could, to catch Constance's eyes. She wanted the woman's full attention.

"Michael's planning to kill the baby that isn't his," she said, injecting all of her fading strength into her words. "Please don't let him!"

Constance already knew of her grandson's plan. In that, at least, he had been more forthcoming than her son, where it came to his plans to execute tragedy. She gripped the other woman's hand and there were tears of conviction in her eyes when she said: "You can rest assured I won't."

The steely reassurance brought relief that weakened Evangelina's resolve to stay awake. She slipped under the muffling blanket of the gas into a deep sleep she wouldn't wake from. Dr. Montgomery wasn't interested in saving her life, only those of the babies.

One after the other he pulled the infants from the long gash he expertly cut into their mother's midsection. They were clinging to each other, tangled in a knot of their own umbilical cords in a way that would have proven fatal to mother and sons, if Evangelina had tried to birth them naturally. Both boys, the newborns had to be pried apart before their cords could be clamped for cutting. One of the twins squalled loud and fierce when he was pulled away from his brother. The other infant hiccupped his cries but was no less incensed by the rough handling.

"Nurse!" Charles snapped. "Clean these!"

The two nursing students tried to move in, but Constance beat them away with impatient flailing of her hands. "Shoo! Shoo! I'll take care of them! They're my great-grandsons, for Christ's sake!"

The doctor didn't care who took them and had no issue with passing the fussing infants over to her. As soon as they were in her arms, the blonde woman's demeanor went gentle and she capably tucked them both into secure football holds.

"There now," she cooed at them both. "There, there. We'll getcha all cleaned up and into warm clothes…A nice bottle…Everythin'll be just perfect, my sweet angels. You'll see."

She really believed that in the post-partum delirium. She truly had faith that the babies were a brand-new start for everyone. They were the future of the world, and that had to be a good thing. The sounds of their angry cries echoed down the hall as she carried them deeper into the heart of the house.

...

-= AMERiCAN HoRRoR SToRY =-

...

In the bathroom attached to the nursery, the babies quieted down with the introduction of a warm bath and Constance's loving ministrations. A veteran caregiver, she knew exactly how to wash and massage, lotion and trim, pamper and soothe. And all with the gentlest of hands. As she cleansed and settled the twins, she familiarized herself with their whole bodies, just as she had with Michael and each of her own babies. Children in her care were allowed no secrets from her.

Zachariel was slightly bigger than his brother, weighing three ounces more and having a slightly larger head circumference. They both bore the mark of Satan behind their ear, in the same spot Michael did. They both looked like their father to her. It wasn't like when Joshua was born. That infant was obviously not of her line, being all scrawny and dark-haired. These two she could instinctively tell were her kin. She could smell it on them, and she could see it in their perfect little features. They were every bit as beautiful as Tate had been when he was born.

After the bath she swaddled them in warm blankets the Warwicks had staged. She fed the twins blood-infused milk that the kitchen provided, served in antique glass bottles. For a few precious moments while they nursed in her arms, the world was perfect. It occurred to her that, had things gone the way the prophecy said, they would have been hers directly. There was a small twinge of loss acknowledging that. She felt no regret, though. Watching Evangelina struggle and die much as Vivien had validated her choices.

The babies were both sleeping in her arms when Constance sensed Michael's presence descending on the house. He didn't bother entering like a human; he simply willed himself into the nursery where she sat rocking them by the light of a rotating musical nightlight.

She could feel his pending arrival like hearing thunder before a storm. His mood was intense. It drew the ambient shadows of the room to him in a sinister way. The playful images the nightlight cast on the walls distorted into demonic figures that tore at each other, molesting and murdering one another. It was a display that would terrify a normal person. Experience had rendered Constance impervious to such displays. She continued rocking without missing a beat. Her resolve was stronger than any temper tantrum he could throw at her.

"Let me see them," he said. His voice was low and menacing but lacked the characteristic control he'd developed. He sounded more like the boy she remembered him to be, before his position went to his head.

Constance continued to rock. The music box started another nameless, tinkling lullaby.

"They're both marked," she said. She kept her eyes on the babies, but the rest of her senses were trained on Michael. She appeared relaxed. "And they're both yours."

Michael's mouth tightened as he felt an unfamiliar heat in the pit of his stomach that made his eyes sting. He didn't know what to make of the reaction, so he ignored it. "No. You're wrong."

Constance looked up then, her brows high. "You don't believe your unholy Father can make a duplicate of your son?"

"They have his mark—"

"So do you!" Constance flared. She had meant to be calm with him but his refusal to see the obvious eroded her patience too quickly. "So do I! So do most of the people around you these days! We're all His children and they're your sons."

When she put it that way, Michael found it hard to argue her logic, but that didn't make it easy to accept what she was saying. He had to know for himself. He focused on the twins. His eyes rolled back in his head as he opened his awareness to the wholeness of each infant. On a biological, genetic level, they were identical to one another in virtually every way, with certain size variations the only detectable difference between them. Their energy patterns were similar to his own, and to Tate's too. He could sense their preternatural strength. As small and vulnerable as they were, they were not helpless. It was impossible to deny their kinship; their pedigree was too strong. They were his offspring.

Withdrawing back to his physical body, Michael blinked a few times and found Constance staring at him. He brushed a hand under his nose to make sure he wasn't bleeding. He wasn't.

"Satisfied?" she prompted when he didn't immediately incinerate either of the sleeping babies.

He considered taking offense at her tone but didn't feel like wasting time being sidetracked by the drama it would require. "Which was born first?"

"They came out together," she answered proudly, as if they had accomplished something wonderful. "C-section."

"Evangelina?"

"She…didn't make it."

"Where's her body?" Michael bristled.

"How should I know?" said Constance indignantly. "I've been tendin' to these special little lambs. Ask Charles."

The thorny conversation was too much for the twins: They were starting to fuss. Constance resumed cooing and preening them. Her manner let her grandson know he was making a nuisance of himself.

"Which one is which?" he demanded, not about to be shut down. He wanted a way to tell them apart, if birth order didn't designate them.

"This is Zachariel," she said, lightly patting the baby in the gray blanket. Then she patted the brick-red bundle, the smaller of the twins. "This is Gabriel." She paused then added: "Do you want to hold them?"

"Hold them?" Michael echoed incredulously. "Why would I want to do that?"

"They're your sons," Constance said, amazed she had to spell it out for him. "Most fathers like to bond with their children by holdin' them."

Michael had killed before without even meaning to. The idea of holding those fragile little scraps of life in his bare hands didn't sit well with him. He eyed the swaddled bundles with open suspicion. Then he turned on a sharp-toed shoe and headed for the door.

Constance watched him go and sighed. She resumed rocking. "Sorry, boys," she told the twins. "It's not your fault. Daddy issues run in this family."

—

It didn't take Michael long to find Evangelina's body, what remained of it. Charles had cut away all but the best parts, and those he had jarred and stored with his rest of his collection in the basement. Her jars were the cleanest, being the newest. There were bits of Vivien Harmon on the shelf as well, and other women who must have died in the house sometime over the past 30 years who Charles found worthy of keeping. There were several babies and baby parts as well, but those were of less interest to the Antichrist.

Some of Evangelina's blood was still wet on the central operating table. Michael went over to it, stared down at the streaky red mess. There would be no reincarnating her—there wasn't enough left in the jars to reanimate. The thought made his guts cramp. He focused on the half-coagulated pool of blood on the tabletop and dragged two fingers through it to form the shape of a pentagram.

The room trembled and the old lights flickered on, hazy blue in the stirred-up dust. He sensed her presence then, emerging from the ether like she was waking from sleep. Then he saw her. She looked as he remembered her last: Beautiful and pale, only now her middle was flat beneath her softly flowing white toga. Her eyes were haunted; she looked close to tears.

"Evangelina," said Michael. The word was devoid of feeling.

"Michael!" She registered his presence only now that he'd spoken. To her, he seemed to appear out of nowhere. "Oh, Michael, I'm sorry. I wasn't strong enough…"

She came over to him, tears in her eyes. Her body language said she wanted him to hold her. He didn't react initially as he decided how to handle her apology. Then he turned on a smile and opened his arms to her. Relief flooded her face. She fell into his arms and pressed her cheek against his chest. Being close to him felt even more vital than it had in life; it was a growing addiction that was getting exponentially stronger with each passing second. She needed him in ways she had never needed another person before. Distantly, she realized something had shifted in her, but she was too lost in the warmth of his embrace and musky scent of him to care.

He could sense her nature polarizing, as was the way of ghosts. The process reminded him of the Jell-O treats Mother Constance used to serve when he was little. Evangelina's strongest traits in life were concentrating. The rest would slowly fade away and eventually she would be just like the rest of the spirits in the house: Lost in her own repetitive, beautiful nightmare.

"Hey. It's okay," he told her, stroking her long hair down her back. His thoughts were polarizing as well. "You're safe now. I'm never going to let anyone hurt you ever again."

He kissed her then, long and deep, a kiss that was one part passion and one part territorial. Afterward, he held her close for a while, savoring the connection. When he was ready, he collected her up and bound her soul into the hematite stone that decorated the ring on his left middle finger. She barely had time to register something strange was happening then she was gone, locked securely inside the gem. The black stone was noticeably warmer after her soul fused with it. It glowed deep within.

Michael stroked the topmost facet with a finger. "Forever mine," he said, quite satisfied with his work.

…

Author's Note:

The tidbit about snow in 1932 is true. I wanted to know if/when it had snowed in Los Angeles and it just so happened it was 100 years before the time this story is set. Weird but true, the way that worked out. Has me wondering what the heck happened in 1932, in this fictional world. Feel free to send me your wild theories.

I'm still not sure if imprisoning Evangelina in a gem is Michael's idea of romance or punishment. Maybe both? His reasons are definitely complicated. I thought a bit about what life inside the gem might be like and it got depressing quick. Even if she's "sleeping", in some sort of fantasy dream world, unaware of what's really happened to her...she's trapped in that pretty prison. It'd be even worse if she's aware of where she is.

Gehenna is the end of the world, but this Episode is a little more than halfway through the Season. Every ending is just the beginning of something new, after all.

Next time: Troy catches up with Billie Dean and shit gets ugly.