by Daniel Caet
“That is not true!” Eustace shouted, turning to look at Becca. “It is true that at the beginning I helped them, but when you and I fell in love I told them that I would not help them anymore unless they assured me that you would live, that nothing would happen to you. I love you Becca, now I've realised that it's you who I love, I don't want Loredana to come back, I just want to be with you.”
“Damn son of a bitch!” shouted Charice.
“Charice, no!” Becca replied with a cold and hard calm. “It is not worth it. For a moment you made me think that I was also entitled to happiness, that happiness was in your arms and would never be extinguished. Your love, like almost everything I've had in my life, was nothing more than a lie. It is not just me you have betrayed, you have betrayed your whole family, your own mother. There is something that I have realised in all this time, my only truth, the only thing that has always remained constant around me is who I am. I understand now. I am not Becca, I am not the poor orphan raised in a boarding school and without any family but herself. I am Rebecca Engels, descendant of immortals and daughter of Lucifer himself. And this is my family. A family that will grow up with this son you will never see. And that will be your punishment, knowing that you have lost the family you always wanted to have.”
“Becca, I beg you, I …!”
“Enough!” Abaddon interrupted and his sword shone in the air to pierce Eustace's chest from his back causing the man to let out a groan of pain.
“No!” Sadith shouted as a wave of immense energy threw Abaddon backwards causing his sword to tear Eustace's body further, which fell to the ground like a stone. The woman ran to her son and Becca did the same thing followed by her mother who immediately threw a protective barrier over her daughter and her sister. When Becca reached Sadith it was already too late. Eustace's eyes just looked at the sky empty and lifeless and Sadith's scream filled the air. Leaving her son's body on the floor, the woman stood up with completely black eyes and raising her hands to the sky. Suddenly a dozen angels had appeared out of nowhere and stood between Sadith and Abaddon. Liliath joined her sister, clutching her hand while the two sang a song that echoed throughout the esplanade and the ground began to shake. The angels made their swords appear and headed towards the two women, but suddenly, as if they had been swept away by an immense wave of fire, their bodies began to burn from the inside and the cries of pain replaced the chant. The wave of energy that the two women had launched did not stop at the barrier of angels but continued its passage towards Abaddon who protected himself by bringing his arms to his face. His body also began to burn, but, suddenly, the angel lowered his hands and faced the two women with immense anger on his face and a supernatural scream that froze Becca's blood in her veins. The shock wave suddenly returned on its way and hit the two women throwing them back.
“Stupid witches! Don't you realise that a human can never kill a god?” he shouted and Becca realised that where his eyes should be there was only an intense white light. Liliath and Sadith tried to get up, but their forces failed them, and without thinking for a second Becca stood between them and Abaddon.
“It seems that I am going to have the pleasure of ending all of you at the same time.” The angel continued heading towards the women with his sword raised, but at the moment when Becca was preparing to receive the blow, Helel appeared in front of her stopping the lunge with his own sword.
“Your war is not with them but with me!”
And with an enormous force, he threw Abaddon against the Torii, which collapsed with the impact burying the angel in the woods. For a few seconds nothing was heard as if Becca had become deaf, but she was sure that this was not the end and suddenly a gloomy laugh echoed in her head.
“It was a good attempt, Helel, but what you just didn't understand is that my war is not with you.” Abaddon’s figure came out of the woods, pulling them away without any effort. If it had not been for the stains on the pristine Kimono, nobody could have assumed that he had received any blow. “Actually for me you are only a means to an end. I need the power that the throne of hell will grant me and that throne has ended up in your hands because you didn't want to listen to me and disappear among men. No. You were too accustomed to living in the bosom of being our father's favourite, his right hand. You needed to return to an elevated position, in the background that is what you have always wanted, looking at us all over the shoulder.”
"I didn't choose anything that happened to me, Abaddon. In fact, it was you who unleashed all the events of my life by snatching our father's light. It was you who transformed me into what I am now.”
“The more on my favour, I will be the one to destroy you!” he replied, throwing a thrust with the sword that caused the earth to rise with the shock wave and hit Helel who tried in vain to depart from the blow’s path. His body was thrown several meters away and when he tried to get up a large cut crossed his chest. Without losing a second he counterattacked, this time appearing around Abaddon while dealing blow after blow. The strategy managed to confuse the angel who was unable to defend himself. Soon the white kimono began to show red spots of blood that flowed from the cuts that Helel caused him. However, suddenly, as if he had guessed some pattern in Helel's strategy, Abaddon raised his sword with all his might in front of him and managed to pierce Helel's chest that emitted an intense cry of pain and barely managed to gather the forces to transport himself a few meters beyond Abaddon to avoid a final blow.
“You'll never have enough power to defeat me, Helel, I'm the closest thing to a god you can find!”
“Our father is the only god, Abaddon, and I know he won't let you get away with it!”
“You are right, strictly speaking he is the only god, but still, I have managed to imprison him and, believe me, from where he is there is nothing he can do to help you. In addition, the discomfort of his presence is something I plan to fix as soon as I finish with you. The power of hell combined with the power of an angel will be enough to end him once and for all.”
“Hatred and envy have driven you crazy, Abaddon, don't follow this path, you're still in time to stop all this!”
"The only thing I intend to stop is your damn verbiage!”
A new blow crossed the esplanade, but this time an intense light stopped it just before it hit Helel. When the light dissipated Helel saw that it was Becca who had stopped the blow with something in her hand. His eyes could not give credit. That object looked very much like his sword.
“Are you okay?” Becca asked kneeling next to her father.
“The ... the sword”
“I know, I don't know how it reached my hand. I only know that I have seen him strike the blow and suddenly I was in front of you with the sword raised.”
“Rebecca, your arm …” he said, pointing to her bare forearm that was now covered with very bright golden angelic symbols.
“What is this? What happens to me?”
“That is angelic language, your name in angelic language,” said Liliath, appearing at her side. “Somehow my spell has made your father's sword now belong to you, to obey you.”
“That's why it has appeared now, the sword always appears when you need it. It's yours Rebecca, those symbols prove it.”
“Well, well, the little bee has a stinger. Do you really think that can save you?”
“It will be a matter of testing it,” said Becca, throwing herself without thinking against Abaddon, striking blow after blow with the sword not knowing very well what she was doing, just letting herself be carried away by anger and instinct. Abaddon had no problem stopping all the blows, but the tireless sequence of thrusts made him lose ground with each hit. Finally, in one of them, Abaddon bent down and Becca ended up losing her balance. Her body fell forward and was received by a kick from the angel that sent her several meters away against the ruins of the Torii.
“I already told you, damn human, none of you has the power to kill a god!”
"No, but there is someone who can have it,” Helel said,
and then disappeared to appear embracing Becca who took a few seconds to understand what had happened. In her hands, the sword pierced Helel's body and was bathed in a hot liquid that spilled from his wound Becca understood that her father had thrown herself against the sword. A cry of rage came out of Abaddon's throat.
“No, no, it can't be! But why have you done it? Let me help you, there is still time to stop the bleeding.”
“Rebecca …” Helel whispered, but the girl paid no attention and tried to plug the wound with her hands. “Daughter, leave it! This is how it should be. I already told you that you can't escape who you are.”
“What does that have to do now? How does this help us?”
“You don't understand, the throne of hell is not inherited, it is usurped. It is your sword that has ended my life, now you are the queen of hell and that power along with the essence of the energy of the underworld that runs through your veins is all you need to defeat Abaddon.”
“No, it cannot be! You can't do this to me, not now that I've found you!”
“Becca, there's no time for this, honey, what your father has given you is a gift, for whatever you want most, use it!” said Liliath who had run to them and held Helel's head in her arms.
Becca got up wiping her tears from her eyes. She knew that those tears were not for Helel, or for the lost father, but for the understanding of a truth greater than everything that was happening to her, she had just understood something that Helel had tried to make her understand in the underworld. She had never been alone. Her family was not a typical family, they have not always been physically by her side, but they had never abandoned her. Becca looked around, at her mother who was holding her father's body, from which life escaped by the second, at her aunt who was kneeling beside the body of her lost son and Charice who had accompanied her beyond all evil and danger without questioning anything. All of them were her family. Becca turned to face Abaddon with the sword in her hand, with uncontrollable rage.
“This doesn't change anything, bitch, in fact it will be even easier to snatch the throne from you than your father.”
“In fact, this changes everything, Abaddon, do you know why? Because I am not my father. I do not drink from the source of power from hell because I am the source in itself. Its energy runs through every pore of my skin, every one of my veins, every cell in my body. I am not the queen of hell, I am hell made flesh. And this is your end!”
Becca's muscles tensed and her mind widened to the energy that inhabited inside her and struggled to get out, and she let it free. Suddenly, her whole body ignited in flames, flames of an intensity unknown to the human eye that made Charice and the others to take their eyes off. That body of light kept walking, slowly approaching Abaddon who showed panic on his face at something he had never seen.
“No, it can't be, it's impossible! The wrath of God, the fire of eternal destruction. No human has such power. No human body can house that energy.”
“Abaddon, creature of heaven, for the sins committed against your own father, for the spilled blood of your brothers, for the pain inflicted on the world, for the lives of those who succumbed to your ambition, I condemn you to not be, to burn forever in the eternal fire of my anger. I am Rebecca. I am hell. I am death!”
The immense light that surrounded her, enveloped Abaddon when Becca reached him and a roar of pain mixed with rage spread through the air causing those present to put their hands to their heads. The light seemed to gain even more intensity in an instant and suddenly it went out, and all that was left was Becca's naked body that looked at them calmly and confidently.
“Now she's not Rebecca, now she's a god! We didn't do it wrong, Liliath,” whispered Helel.
“I know,” the woman replied, her eyes full of tears and gently kissing Helel's lips.
“I've missed it. I've never told you, but becoming human has been the most wonderful thing that could ever happen to me just because I could meet you.”
“Leave that now, don't make efforts! You will need all your strength to recover.”
“We both know that nothing can save me now, my love,” he said, wiping his tears gently, “but knowing that she and her son are alive is the greatest happiness I could ask for.”
His eyes stared at Liliath's, which was already a sea of tears and without even a sigh Helel's body was abandoned in her lifeless arms.
At that moment, Becca wanted to run to her father, but what happened next prevented her. Suddenly, the sky was illuminated with the light of dawn and on the esplanade, as far as the eye could see, thousands of creatures appeared, demons of all possible castes and races that appeared in front of Becca and, at the same time that the sun rose on the horizon, they all knelt reverently before their new queen. A part of Becca wanted to run away, join her family, mourn her dead, heal the wounds of her people, and not just the physical ones, but she knew she couldn't do it. Now she had another family to look after, to take care of. One that needed her as much as her own. Becca looked at the faces of those in front of her and realised that, as her father had told her, she couldn't escape who she was. Her hands touched her belly tenderly and she understood. In that instant, her body disappeared and after her all the demons that had just accepted her as their sovereign, the only lady of hell.
I am
The library was cold. Charice still didn't get used to that big house and the associated management part, and she had forgotten to ask for the fireplaces to be lit. She decided that the Whiskey would probably help and she helped herself to a large double glass from the beverage cart. When she took the first sip a chill ran down her back.
“Would you serve me one?” said a familiar voice causing the glass to fall from her hands.
Charice turned and found herself facing Becca, although her image had little to do with the one she had known. Her hair was much shorter and she was dressed in a magnificent garnet velvet dress that would have been appropriate in any big ball room in Europe. Without thinking a second, Charice threw the glass and ran to hug her friend.
“Thank God you're fine, it's been months since your departure! Why didn't you show signs of life? You had our nerves shattered!”
“Yes, I showed signs of life.”
“If you mean the move of leaving me the property of this house to come to live in it, I would not call that showing signs of life. For all the demons, you sent me a lawyer, Becca!”
“I know,” Becca laughed. “It will seem like a ridiculous excuse, but I've been tremendously busy.”
“I'm sure of it,” said another voice behind her.
“Aunt …" she said, throwing herself into Sadith's arms, who received her as the one who receives a small child.
“My little girl, we've missed you so much!”
“So did I!”
“Does your mother know you're here?”
“I went to see her first. I was very happy to see her content back in the gypsy village.”
“The first months were difficult for everyone, but fortunately now it's much better. Do I understand that you are well too?”
“Yes, I am fine. I had to stop a couple of attempts to snatch the throne, but nothing I can't handle,” she replied, surprising herself how different that sounded to the Becca who lived in New York.
“Any sign of Abaddon or his accolades?”
“No, Abaddon is dead, I have no doubt. My forces have destroyed all the gates of heaven, or at least all those we could locate and hopefully, if any of the angels still want to continue Abaddon's work, at least it will delay them considerably. There have been no more angel attacks, so I guess that's a good sign.”
“But, however, something worries you.”
“Why do you say?”
“Because otherwise you wouldn't have come to see us.”
“The truth is that there is one thing I need your help with,” she replied very seriously.
“Whatever you need. What is it about?” asked Charice.
“Just one second.”
And
Becca disappeared for a moment to appear again on the other side of the room this time with a lump in her arms. Charice walked over to her and took the small package from her arms, a dark haired baby boy with intense green eyes.
“His name is Oswald, like his father.”
Charice handed the boy to Sadith who took him in her arms while her eyes filled with tears.
“Thank you for not erasing his memory.” It was the only thing she said.
“I never would. Beyond his mistakes, his father was a good man. But I need your help, he can't stay with me. Hell is no place for a child. My situation as queen is not the most stable in the world and I can't risk his life, I will never do it. I want him to live with you.”
“What?” asked Charice unsure. “Are you sure that separating yourself from him is the best?”
“It is for him, for his safety,” Becca said, stroking the boy's face gently. “Also, I will not abandon his life, I will continue to come to see him regularly, but being by my side will only put him in danger. My mother agrees and is willing to spend long periods here to help. I can't think of better hands than yours to take care of my son, Aunt Sadith. You took care of our whole family for centuries, will you do it again?”
“I'll take care of him with my own life!” replied Sadith with a wide smile.
“Thank you, I know he can't be in better hands than with you. Be happy and become strong my little warrior!” she said, approaching the boy and placing a kiss on his forehead as her eyes flooded with tears. “I promise to see you very soon, Mom will never leave you.”
Sadith kissed Becca on the cheek and walked away with the little boy in her arms trying not to lengthen the mother's pain from having to separate from her son.
“You don't have to worry, he'll be safe by our side.”
"I know, Chas,” Becca replied, “although that doesn't make it easier. I have to leave, but I have one thing for you.”