Ello there,
This will be a short story, posted every two weeks on Sunday around High Moon (Midnight) Central time. If something happens that will postpone the updates, it will be stated at an ending Author's Note.
This story is seriously nothing but something fun to indulge in a small scene in the end of the book that I briefly felt cheated on years ago, and that is (Spoiler Alert) an epic fight scene between hellish Father and Son. Yes, I thought up an entire new story all for that one scene, that won't be happening until the end. What can I say? I over-commit.
Now, without further ado:
PERSONS of INTEREST
Supernatural Beings
GOD - (Mother) The Creator of All Things
DEATH - (Azrael) His name says it all; Partner to Ozireal
SATAN - (Sataneil) A Fallen Angel; The Adversary; Adam's Sire
Caim - (Fiend/Friend) A Fallen Angel; A Prince of Hell
Aziraphale - (Angel, Ezra, Twin-Bro, Mr. A. Z. Fell) An Angel, rare book collector, Partner to Anthony J. Crowley
Crowley - (My Dear, That Traitor, Bro-in-Law, Anthony J. Crowley) A Saunter-Vaguely-Downwards Demon, advocate of The Classics and Modern Progress, Partner to Mr. A. Z. Fell.
Ozireal - (Lil' Angel, Twin-Sister, Ziree) The Angel of Inspiration and Fraternal Twin to Aziraphale; Partner to Azrael, DEATH
Humans
Adam Young - (Former - Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit and Lord of Darkness; Current - Prince of this World, Savior of Human) A peaceful living Antichrist who currently is suffering the hormonal growth of The Teen Years.
Pepper - (Not A Girl, A Young Woman) 2nd in-command of The Them, Best-Friend and Anchor to Adam Young.
Newton Pulsifer - (Former - Witchfinder Private; Current - Honey, Researcher/Journalist) The Current Head-Journalist of The Tadfield Advertiser; Husband to Anathema Pulsifer (nee Device).
Anathema Pulsifer - (nee Device, Former - Professional Descendent; Current - The Missus, Practical Occultist) Local Witch and Occultist; Wife to Newton Pulsifer.
And
Dog - Satanical Hellhound, cat-worrier; Companion and Protector to Adam Young, Antichrist.
_
SIX MONTHS AGO
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT.
Now, it's just a nice and clear night. Late enough where human life was scarce, and one could enjoy the deep beauty and mysteries of the natural world. Or, what new mysteries there were left to create in the world, anyway.
And what better place to reflect on these very mysteries than a late-night pub? A rhetorical question, of course, there was no place better.
"Here's yer whiskey lil' angel." The burly barkeep, a Scotsman who would have surely gone strong in the log-throw contests, placed a shot of Tullamore Dew before his only customer at the bar. "Mayhaps, uh…" he hesitated as his customer downed the shot in one smooth swallow, barely a wince erupting from the burn of alcohol. The barkeep eyed the empty shot glass as it was slid by a delicately manicured hand to join six other empty shot glasses to the side. A satisfied sigh brought his attention back to his customer sitting across from him.
Craig, for that was the barkeeps' name, cleared his throat and tried again, "Mayhaps ye caa' it a nite, yah?"
"Time?" Her voice was sweet as honey and smooth as milk. She did not sound like a patron that had been drinking Craig dry of his alcohol for the past three hours.
He checked his wristwatch, "A quarter efter three," Craig raised a brow towards the ashen female before him. He should have closed two hours ago, tops, but he always found it hard to say 'no' to the lil' angel, when she decided to visit.
Her short giggle brought a smile to his face and she pat his large hand with her own delicate palm, "mayhaps I will. So long as the witching hour is close to passing." Her cerulean eyes sparked a wink towards him, boasting a laugh out of the barkeep and she slid out of her stool.
"Yer quite an odd one, lil' angel." He shook his head and began gathering up her empty glasses, "Same time in a fortnite?" His smile stayed strong as he looked after the ashen female leaving his pub. Even though her presence forced his pub to stay open an extra three hours, he would never complain. In fact, he often found himself looking forward to her late-night visits, usually with her rolling some new and strange ideas about the world off her tongue. She might be an odd one, but her conversations were never a bore.
Ziree, the ashen woman leaving the pub, turned on her heel to lean against the exit doorway and winked an affirmative salute to Craig before exiting his pub.
She took in a deep breath of the cool, damp night air and her leather covered shoulders instantly relaxed. No matter the years that have gone by, no matter the era she stood in, Night was her favorite creation. Well, one that she didn't hold a hand in co-creating, anyway. There was just something so serene and pure about standing in the presence of Night. The silence that seemed to echo into eternity with the stretch of time that no one else pays the slightest attention to. In these quiet hours, Ziree felt a personal connection to the world around her; it reminded her of home.
Opening her eyes and letting out her deep breath, Ziree stared up at the stars scattering the heavens above and smiled wide. Home. Even if she missed it so much, she would not trade her given place on Earth for anything else. Just like many things in her long existence, Home would just have to wait a little while longer.
A cool breeze kicked up Ziree's ashen hair and she took in another deep breath of the traveling winds. Something new was abound, she could attest that from the taste alone. She brushed some stray ash strands behind her ear and pulled out her mobile to check the time. I've still got time to kill…
Re-pocketing her mobile into the breast pocket of her hooded-leather jacket, she grabbed her churchwarden pipe and match from the other side, alongside her personal herb blend. There was nothing she found more invigorating after a good drink than a good night's pipe and walk. With her lit pipe held firmly between her lips and her blend stashed away, she made her tread down the road-walk towards her intended destination.
She only had time for a couple of puffs before her phone rang out BEST FRIENDS by QUEEN, the signature ring being more than enough signal to whom the caller was.
"Oh, Mother in Heaven." She sighed out before removing her pipe with a complacent smile and checked the Caller ID before answering the call.
THE CREATOR (MOTHER)
"Ello, mum!"
Good morning, my dear! Have we come up with another side project to top the last?
"Eh, I'm afraid not," Ziree cradled her phone between her ear and shoulder so she could grip her pipe better and speak around it, "been slain with 'writer block' ever since our last meet in the nineteenth century."
Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, dear. Well, it is probably for the best—your brother is most upset about our last collaboration, and he's blaming you fully.
Ziree nodded and took a deep puff of her pipe before double taking her phone with a lifted brow. "Oh, he is…?" she paused in her speech when a unique play in shadows caught her attention on the buildings she was passing.
Yes. In fact, there's talk that he has been hunting you down these past few months. I fear he may be close to discovering you.
"Well, we both knew he would become desperate after our little 'revision' of the finale." She smiled at the stressed sigh on the other line, even as the stench of a familiar evil grew closer, "Come now, mum, you know how he is; If he can't have the theatrics, then he'll make the theatrics."
Yes, the voice sighed on the other line, I'm afraid you're right. Again. I just worry what he might do to you, Ozi, her mother confessed.
"Truth be told, mum, I'm more surprised that it's taken him this long to even figure out what went down." She made her vocals sound as even as possible when she was on the verge of freaking out.
And she was. On the verge, that is.
Her mother wasn't kidding around when she said her brother was close to discovering her; those shadows following her were beginning to band and form as she calmly kept walking. She checked the time on her phone and cursed under her breath, Shit-shit, at least give me the five minutes you ass; you've never been an early bird! Why start now?
"Well, he won't leave anything short of his wicked imaginings, that's for sure." Ziree breathed out, her eyes not leaving the forming shadows as she approached the end of the road walk.
You're not worried in the least of this, are you child?
Ziree chortled a short laugh before tapping the burnt-out herb blend out of her pipe, "Of course I am, mum! Who in their right mind wouldn't be?" She stopped at the corner in the street and took a breath to calm down, eyeing the gathering shadows to her left as they began to form in one shape: a shadow without a body. "I'm just taking it all in stride now, moment-by-moment. Just as I will be when he arrives."
Her mother puffed in exasperation; I hate that you never did inform me what mayhaps come upon you after our revisions. If anything permanent were to ever happen to you-
"Mum, please don't worry any further." Ziree interrupted with a serious tone. She glanced over at the corner end of the building behind her, where the bodiless shadow began to converge off the surface of the wall itself and swallowed hard as she began to recognize the silhouette. This was not her brother, though she couldn't decipher if this chosen messenger was any better, or any worse.
"I apologize to cut our conversation short, mum but…" Her eyes never left the converging shadow, which began to form solidly within itself, no longer staying a simple, silhouette of a shadow as talons and feathers sprouted within the formless shapes. Her nerves were coiled tight, too much so to let her guard down now.
Your brother? There was a note of distress in her mother's voice.
"No, no," she reassured, trying for a smile, "I do believe he has sent a messenger. It's been lovely talking with you, again."
There was a moment of pause, a mutual standing, my daughter. No matter what happens, I love you.
Ziree smiled complacently at that, "I know, mum. I love you, too."
Pass the message to your brother, please.
Her smile faltered, and she paused for a solid moment. A thick swallow sounded in her throat, not from the unmistakable form of the Hell Prince taking shape in the shadows, but of the prospect of ever speaking with her brother, again.
"I'll do my best, mother."
And with her promise set, Ziree lowered her hand that held her mobile and slid the screen to END CALL. Her cerulean eyes sharpened at the tall and slender form of the half bird-half gentlemanly dressed man that stood in the midst of the dispensed coil of shadows, his sharp eyes piercing down at her.
The last of the shadows coiled into his signature sabre, sheathed in polished dark wood that disguised the favored weapon as a well-cared for cane.
"Pardon my interruption," His low, silk voice maneuvered around the dark beak he held for a mouth in place of lips.
"Your presence needs no pardon, your highness." She did not bow or curtsy; she did not use the capitol decoration of his title. She stared up at him evenly, though he stood a solid head and half taller than she with his talons, instead of human feet (or demon hooves).
Caim's onyx beak and eyes gleamed merrily, all the same.
"Please, Ozireal. I thought we've come past the formalities." The Hell Prince took a graceful step forward and her stance instantly shifted, half away in defense and half toward in acceptance. He faltered in her hesitation, only a moment, before taking one final step to stand evenly next to her.
"I never took you for the kind to bore easily with formalities, Caim."
"Only when it comes to my favored—what's the modern term, now? 'Frenemies', my dear."
She visibly relaxed at his words and she nodded towards the direction she had been walking before his manifestation. "Would you care to walk with me, then?"
"The Meadows?"
"Naturally."
"I'd be delighted."
He presented his arm chivalrously to her and she took it with accepted grace. They walked in the dead of night, side by side, in contempt silence. The echoes of her boots, his talons and cane being the only sound surrounding them.
After a few blocks, Ziree glanced up as best she could at him and silently noted to herself the form, he had taken to presenting her with. It was his favored form, one that was most populated in the book of the humans' version of The Damned, Ars Goetia. His clothes, however, shown much finer than any sketch or painting she had seen him in; reflecting the rich fashion of 18th century France with his matching dark habit à la française ensemble, complete with an intricate floral pattern of deep red and gold.
Without a doubt, her road walk partner stuck out like a plum in a peach tree.
"Not worried if human eyes stray on you long?"
Caim chortled at the very thought of her musings, his sleek neck feathers flittering before shaking his head, "No, my friend. It is the late crossing hours for mankind, and should they see me, they will either think themselves too drunk or too tired for their own sanity sake."
Ziree smiled in appreciation to his reassuring and left it alone, allowing the silence to encompass them again for another block.
The unearthly pair were halfway to their destination when Caim began glancing between Ziree and the road walk ahead. It only took a few moments for the ashen woman to take notice of the cautious eyes darting her way. With a side glance of her own, she lifted a brow questioningly towards the Hell Prince escorting her.
"You do know why I am here, Ozireal?" His silk voice held a grave tone and Ziree exhaled slowly to calm her growing nerves. Of course, she knew why he was there, even if her mother hadn't called ahead to warn her. She closed her cerulean eyes to settle her calm further, and with a final breath, reopened them and looked to her mobile for the time.
She had one-minute left.
"All too well, old friend."
"My!" Caim softly exclaimed as he looked down at her, "I haven't seen you in such a state of vexation since—" He cut himself short and cleared his throat. "Well, since our last 'family reunion'."
Her features grew darker at the mere mention of that time. "Well, I suppose this will make us even in that light; he took what I've always held dearest to me, and I've taken what he viewed in equal light to him."
Caim abruptly stopped their walk and openly stared down at her and what she had just claimed. For one, he hadn't heard such a cold and clip tone erupt from her since the slight of the Second World War of mankind. For another, to view her in the same light as his Master in having sought revenge for something; Ozireal was an Angel of Knowledge—of Inspiration, to be precise. Such trivial emotions were completely out of her reach.
She has been on this plane for far too long…He mused to himself as his eyes raked over her, as if seeing her for the first time. She looked no different than she had during the Wars of Men, their last meet; but she had internally changed. This unnerved him more than the task he had been bestowed.
"I don't think it's quite as simple as that, Ozireal. Nor to the same level, as you claim."
Her cold stare moved up to him, and it could have most certainly frozen Hell over, but all it did was prickle the Hell Prince's feathers.
"You know I'm right, Angel. That library of yours was a physical possession. The War, that was something he held close in spirit. He cared for nothing more. And you, the Angel of Inspiration," he insinuated her blessed title as if it were a curse to say aloud, "you managed to succeed the unthinkable and deter the promised ineffable ending."
The corners of Ziree's mouth twitched, but she held in her smile from the tone of her companion. Yes, she knew that not only had she succeeded in postponing the War, but she also gave their Mother what she needed; not what she'd wanted. In the end, once the news got out that she, Ozireal the Angel of Inspiration had an involved hand on what prospered four years ago that should have been Armageddon, she will become the most hated being in all three realms. She couldn't care less about their views, though, Mother's approval of enticing change was the only one she sought after. And she had been granted permission a long, long time ago.
Even if it must mean I am to become an enemy to all my brethren, I will continue to Inspire Change. Those words she stated to her mother when she originally shared her thoughts of the change within The End echoed in her mind, renewing her strength and confidence in the presence of darkness.
"You state your words as if I were purely responsible for this outcome, Caim." Gently, she began to remove her hold from his arm and took two steps forward from him. She breathed in deeply, knowing now she was seconds away from being out of time and tried desperately to calm her growing nerves.
"Are you insinuating that you were partnered in this coup?" Caim's voice was dangerously low, but he did not move closer to her. He was curious to hear what she had to say, to add onto the information he and his brethren discovered on her involvement four years ago.
She chortled, "I'm saying that I can only Inspire Change, Caim; making it come into fruition is up to those that my inspirations have touched." She let a deep sigh slip through, and she took in her surroundings a final time.
It was the twilight hour, just before dawn when night is the darkest. The night air was cool with a breeze and the road-walk shimmered with the perspiration of morning dew. The mists will be rolling in soon, completing the enchanted look of the world surrounding them.
Their Mother truly did create something fantastic with this realm, Earth.
Up ahead, less than a block away, was the opening of Middle Meadow.
Her final destination.
Caim was in front of her then, blocking her view to the entrance tree trail of Middle Meadow, his feathers prickled at the neck and his aura vibrating of uncontained darkness. "Are you saying that you personally inspired HIS son to go rogue on us?"
"No," she said calmly, "I ensure you that one inspiration touch would not have made a difference on the outcome."
"An outcome that had been decided eons ago when man had been created!" He bellowed down at her as she flinched down and lifted her arms above to shield herself when he arched towards her suddenly. His beak was all too close for comfort in a blink of an eye when he stood his full height above her with wings expanded in further intimidation.
"What. Did. You. Do?" He demanded of her, the darkness of his aura erupting into inky shadows that began to caress her like a lost lover, or a favorite snack.
She shivered from the feeling of his darkness touching her, but she stood her ground and stared up at him through the barrier of her arms. Her cerulean eyes grew into steal as her own wings began to slowly protrude from her leather jacket.
"Not everything is all about the ineffable, Caim. Not everything is about what we want. Not everything is all about us." Her wings flexed in a harsh snap that caused a whirl of winds, disbanding the Hell Prince's shadows away from her. He stretched his own wings and embedded his talons into the stone of the road-walk, steadying himself against the Angel's strong gust.
"Answer the demand, Ozireal!"
"Or you'll what? Drag me down to Hell to face my brother's wrath?" She clicked her tongue at him and smiled darkly, "You were going to do that anyway."
He grabbed hold of her arms, separating them from their makeshift shield and pulled her up closer to his height. Her wings beat frantically to try and free herself as her legs kicked the air to try and make purchase on a body part of his, "Let go of me, Caim!"
"Do not let your pride be your downfall, Angel." He warned her.
She paused in her attempts to free herself and smiled a toothy grin, "Come now, Caim," She grunted at feeling his hold tighten on her, "we both know Pride is the least of my worries."
He pulled her forward in a harsh tug until his beak was pricking the base of her neck, his black eye piercing into her cerulean with nary space between them, "Enough stalling and answer the demand, Ozireal."
She swallowed thickly, and her wings limped behind her. She knew, with that fiery piercing gaze of his that her time had run out. Her nerves were piled on so thick inside her that her features shifted into that of defeat, and she took in an air of quaking breath.
"My touch started with sharing images, visions, to an empathic witch hundreds of years ago, and a prophetic book that would never see the light of the public."
Caim paused and the air physically shifted as he seemed to be frozen by her riddled confession. A witch and a rare prophetic book. It was familiar to him, and he mentally went through all the information they had obtained on all that went wrong in the commencement of The War.
His dark eyes lit up, literally in a ring blaze of hellfire as he made the connection, "Agnes Nutter." He growled out against her neck, piercing her skin and tasting her blood at the tip of his sharp beak. She winced soundly and smiled up at him, as if to congratulate him on a job well done.
"A dear, sweet woman with a tongue as sharp as your talons and a mind as open as the seas. She was more than willing to take part in my connection by not only writing down the visions she was bestowed but publishing them in a book to forever preserve them through time."
"An Inspiration on your count, no less?" He asked.
"Not entirely; I merely inspired her to preserve her writings, not how."
"And, in so doing, you made a small crack in the egg that will then split apart and bestow your plan of Change—"
"I prefer to think of it as a delicately laid out trail of dominoes, but your analogy is quite the same in truth of the execution."
"—You have worked almost as tirelessly as your counterpart," he continued over her, as if she hadn't spoken, "but instead of collecting souls, you were spreading Inspiration everywhere to set the stones in place for the playable characters of the outcome. Why? What was there to gain out of all of this, if not your own demise?"
She paused at his unusual question. What was there to gain? Of course, Demons and Angels were selfish, within their own rights, but to gain something out of diverting the End of the World?
Surely, he must be joking. She thought.
"Surely, you must be joking." She said.
"Enlighten me, then. Angel." He demanded with a tone of mockery.
She puffed out in annoyance, forcing a few strands of ash hair to flit back; this was not how she imagined her End to go.
"How could we demolish our younger siblings, the Human race, made in the image in that of our Mother, from out Mother, in all her forms and visions, with nary a blink of an eye? And in that, how could we even destroy each other, brethren in ourselves—the purity and the damned-two sides of our own Mother separated into individual deities?" She leaned in further towards him, the stretched muscles of her shoulders burning in the action, until her eyelashes were grazing the feather brow of her princely brother.
"Don't you get it?" Her whisper was harsh against his feathers, as was her icy gaze into his own fiery glare, "There was never going to be a winning side, Caim." She paused and, in that moment, he blinked, his fiery gaze going from a flaming blaze to burning embers.
"If we destroyed ourselves, as well as the Humans, it would have destroyed our Mother, because we are all a part of her." His grip loosened around her wrists as he moved her back from him, but he did not let her go, "Nothing would have been the ultimate ending.
Why did I do it, if not for my own demise, was your question?" she asked in a mocking tone and scoffed, "I didn't do it to gain something out of it for me, Prince of Hell. I did to save our Mother."
The embers in his eyes diminished until solid black perturbed from their sockets. Not even the reflection of night lit within them. She continued to stare at him in his silence and swallowed audibly when he continued to stay silent.
"Well, Caim" she provoked towards him, "Was that reason enough for you?"
Without nary a warning, he released her from his hold and she stuttered on her feet upon landing, flapping her wings to keep her balance. Before she had her gatherings, a sharp blade of an epee grazed the underside of her jaw. She glanced up and froze; the sight of the Hell Prince towering over her and draped in the darkness of Hell with his signature sword drawn at her throat would be forever etched into mind, until the end of her days. She glanced back down at the blade and did her best to not even twitch against the honed steel.
"You may try your hand with that reasoning on the Lord of Hell, Angel," he whispered in disdain "but lie to me again and I will have your head."
Caught off guard by his implications, Ziree scrunched her brow up at him and tilted her head to meet his scrutinizing glare. She ignored the sting of the blade that cut into her skin from her movement and the trickle of blood that followed down her neck as she gave him a warning gaze in return.
"You will come with me to Hell,-"
She bat his blade away with an angry palm strike and, with a single thrust of her wings, dodged around him and flurried into the entrance of the Middle Meadow.
Caim wasted no time as he jumped full force above the trees, using the impressive mass of his wings to glide ahead of the Angel escaping below.
Ziree glanced back in her low-ground flight to see how close her purser was and blinked when she saw nothing but swirling leaves in her wake. Her eyes frantically searched for him, feeling him nearby, only to look up at the sound of broken branches. She didn't have time to scream, only to react as she twisted around to face him and brought her arms to block the weight of Caim's freefall through the trees. She screamed at the burn of his blade slashing against her right arm; the leather of her jacket split and ruined as it displayed a clean cut from forearm to elbow, fresh blood sliding from out of the open wound and dripping through the sleeve.
When the droplets of blood landed on the ground, Ziree hissed in pain and brought her arm closer as it began to burn from the inside. She squinted her eyes open and looked down only to gasp in horror at the sight of her blood boiling and spilling fast onto the ground, trailing within the cracks of the cobbled walkway in an unnatural state.
The unmistakable sound of steel clashing against cobblestone rang out and she looked up with disdain at the Hell Prince, "What did you d—" she cut herself off as she gaped at him. No, not at him, but at his bloodied sword in his hand; sigils glowed against the steel, burning her blood as he maneuvered it to carve into the cobblestone ground. Wherever he carved his blade, the blood oozing from her burning arm trailed after, filling the carvings until completion. She gaped and her blood ran cold against the burning sensation of her arm as she recognized the sigil before her, burning with her own blood.
She looked back up at the Hell Prince, "Why this?" She croaked out.
Caim slashed his sword to the side, depleting any lose blood to fly off it and splatter the ground next to the burning sigil, "I am not looking to chase you once we cross the threshold of Hell. We are meeting with him. Now."
As the note of his last word rang out, he grabbed hold of Ziree's arm and shoved her into the middle of the sigil just as the fires of Hell erupted from it. Ziree screamed, feeling her flesh char, boil and burn in painful discorporation. The last she remembered before her eyes bled into darkness was seeing rather than hearing through the flames a lone scraggly human stumble upon her demise and the Hell Prince piercing his blade through the unlucky soul without hesitation.
