Devil's Return

by Percival Constantine

  Tessa stepped closer, slowly raising a hand towards the energy. She could feel the power radiating out. The spell Alistair must have used to trap so many like this…it was beyond anything she’d ever seen before. Just how much did that man know, and what did a spell like that take out of him?

  As she got closer, she could see him. Past the spirits, standing right in the center of the energy, was a man. He started off as an outline, but as she focused, she could make out the details. He was tall and well-built, with long hair and a beard. He didn’t move, just stood like a statue and stared blankly. His eyes were pure white and had a slight glow to them.

  “That’s him,” said Tessa.

  Odysseus sidled up beside her and looked where she gestured. “Well I’ll be damned. The father of murder himself. So now we just gotta get him outta there.”

  “You can handle that?” asked Tessa.

  Odysseus looked down at her. “Think I’d rather see you take a crack at it first.”

  Tessa scoffed. “Are you high right now? I’ve never done anything like that, even when my powers were at their peak. How do you expect me to undo a spell cast by one of the most powerful sorcerers in the world?”

  Odysseus shrugged. “You wanted my help, this is me helping. You gotta break the locks an’ let Cain out of his cage.”

  “Great…” muttered Tessa.

  She wasn’t even sure where to begin, but she had to try something. Tessa held her hands out towards the swirling spirits and closed her eyes. She reached out with her mystic senses. As she did, she suddenly heard voices coming from everywhere, and it was as if each one of them was speaking through a bullhorn. Emotions overwhelmed her, striking her in wave after powerful wave.

  Tessa dropped to her knees, trying to get sense of what was happening. Odysseus stood and watched her.

  “Hey boss, you need a hand down there or can we just stay right here where it’s safe?” asked Sammy.

  Odysseus groaned. “One more word out of either of you, I’m gonna peel your flesh from your bones an’ sell your pelts on the black market.”

  Tessa’s hands went to her ears, trying in vain to keep the voices of the spirits out. She opened her mouth in a silent scream, keeling over on the floor of the pool. Sadness, anger, depression, loneliness, rage. She felt herself drowning in all those emotions and more. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before in all her life.

  The spirits all wanted something to free them from this cycle of torment. They were the souls of the patients who had died in this place. Some wanted vengeance, others simply freedom, but they all wanted to be acknowledged.

  Can’t give in…not yet… she told herself. Have to…to do something…

  Tessa took a deep breath and tried to center herself. She focused on what brought her comfort and contentment. She imagined she was back home, sipping a glass of wine and eating pizza while watching a bad horror film on Netflix. Somehow that helped, and she found the strength to rise to her feet.

  Her eyes remained closed and she stepped closer towards the spirit ball. With her arms held out to the side, she stepped into the energy. The spirits were even stronger now that she was inside. She felt like she was trying to walk in the middle of a hurricane. But she kept pushing forward, one step after another. The spirits begged for her attention, but she still ignored them.

  She reached out a hand and then she could feel him. Cain. Tessa opened her eyes and looked up at him. She placed both hands on his cheeks and turned his head so his blank, white eyes looked at her.

  “Come on, Cain. It’s time to wake up.”

  His eyes remained clouded. Tessa gently slapped his cheeks and it seemed like the cloud was starting to lift. She could begin to see the unnatural green glow of his eyes through the white, like the sun shining through the parting clouds after a storm.

  “T-T—”

  “It’s okay, just open your eyes and look at me.”

  The clouds faded and Cain’s eyes returned to normal. He took a deep breath and suddenly, the spirits broke away, fleeing off into the corners of the medical center and vanishing. Back to their own personal hells, no longer bound to keep Cain imprisoned.

  Cain, for his part, fell to his knees once they were gone. He coughed a few times and Tessa knelt down beside him.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “They’re gone now. You’re free—”

  Tessa’s blood turned cold when she heard a familiar cocking noise. She looked down and saw that Cain had drawn a gun and pointed it right at her. Her eyes traveled from the barrel of the gun up his arm and to his eyes. Cain rose to his feet, keeping the weapon trained on her, and his eyes showed a barely restrained rage in them.

  “Sorry, Tessa, but maybe this wasn’t your best idea,” he said.

  24

  Everyone wants to know what it’s like when you die and go to Heaven. People who have had near-death experiences always talk about rushing through a long, dark tunnel with an indescribable light at the end and then being overcome with a feeling of warmth and love.

  Maybe because I was a Hell Lord or maybe because I wasn’t entering Heaven in a natural way, but there was no tunnel, no bright light, and definitely no feelings of warmth or love.

  No, for me, entering Heaven felt like someone had poured a bottle of LSD into my brain. I saw a flurry of images and was overcome by a cacophony of sounds, none of which I could focus on for more than a few milliseconds at best. It felt like when Grant had done his eye trick on me, but multiplied a thousandfold.

  It was probably a good thing I was now a disembodied spirit, because if I’d been in a physical body, I would have vomited all over myself.

  I had no idea how long the experience lasted, but when the acid trip ended, I was lying on my back, my vision blurred. I could hear someone distantly calling my name. I tried blinking, to see if that would clear my vision, but it didn’t.

  The voice grew closer. I sat up and my vision started to come into focus. I looked around the room. I was in a twin bed, covered with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sheets. In one corner was a TV with a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis both connected and under them, a VCR. A bookcase had a bunch of VHS tapes on display.

  The voice continued calling my name. I stood and opened the door. There was a long hallway and at the other end, a swinging door. The voice came from there. I slowly walked down the hallway and pushed the door open.

  “About time you woke up,” said the young woman who stood over a stove with eggs sizzling in a frying pan.

  “This isn’t real,” I said. “I’ve had this experience before. Waking up, seeing my mom alive and making me breakfast. So what is it this time?”

  The avatar of my mother cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows. “You feeling okay, baby?”

  “I’m not in the mood for any of this crap. Not now.”

  I turned around and when I did, I saw Gabriel standing there, leaning against the wall. His wings were unfurled, no need to hide them in this place. Or maybe he couldn’t.

  “Don’t be so hard on her, Luther. She’s just a construct of this place.”

  “Whatever she is, make her go away.”

  Gabriel nodded and snapped his fingers. Suddenly, we stood in a large, white room with no one else around.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Think of it as a loading screen,” said Gabriel. “For human souls, Heaven is like the most immersive virtual reality experience you’ve ever had, based on a combination of your memories and your desires. And it changes based on those things.”

  “So all that talk about spending eternity with your loved ones…”

  “It’s true, in a way. Except they’re just reflections of your own soul, not the souls of the actual people you knew.”

  “What about soul mates?”

  “No one shares, everyone’s Heaven is their own,” said Gabriel. “You can’t create an eternal paradise that appeals to everyone, because everyone has their own idea of paradise.”

&n
bsp; “Eternal loneliness in your own personal version of The Matrix,” I said. “At least in Hell, you have people to talk to.”

  “You’re not technically alone. You see, these personal paradises are all linked together. Over time, the souls are absorbed into Heaven, becoming one with all the rest. These paradises are temporary, a way to keep you occupied as you rise to a higher state.”

  “A ‘higher state’? Sounds more like losing everything that makes me who I am,” I said.

  “Or you can look at it as becoming part of something larger than yourself, something greater,” said Gabriel.

  “That’s debatable, especially given our current situation,” I said. “So how about we get on with it?”

  Gabriel held up his hand. “Not so fast, Luther. I promised to bring you along in order to grab Zadkiel, but only if you tell me what this is all about.”

  “That’s why you put me here, isn’t it?” I asked. “So if I refuse, you can walk away and leave the door closed.”

  He nodded and I sighed. This was the moment I’d been dreading. It was also the moment of truth for Gabriel. Would he believe me or would he call me insane and trap me in here? Only one way to find out.

  “You sure we’re alone in here?” I asked. “Free from prying eyes and ears?”

  “You have my word.”

  Yeah, the word of an angel…for whatever that was worth… But still, a deal’s a deal and I agreed to go along with this craziness.

  “Okay, here’s the scoop.”

  And I told him. All about how Dakota and I first met and her mystical pregnancy. That we learned she was impregnated by an angel, an angel who I now suspected was Pyriel. About Pyriel’s attempt to remove me from the board by sending Azrael after me. And I told him all about the involvement of both Asmodeus and Raziel and our trip into Purgatory. How one thing led to another until we finally got to this moment.

  And as I told Gabriel all of this, I studied his face. He showed no reaction whatsoever. He remained completely stoic, as if I were telling him the most boring story in the world. Once I finished the tale, he just stood there, looking at nothing in particular. I didn’t know what he was thinking, and it started to worry me. What if I’d been wrong this whole time? What if this had all been a trick by Pyriel to bring me in?

  “Why?” Gabriel finally asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked. “Pyriel’s just a psychopath. Wants to destroy Hell.”

  “No, that not an answer. It’s a convenient excuse so you don’t have to ask the question,” said Gabriel. “Angels don’t just rebel for no reason. Even Lucifer and the rest of the Fallen had a cause, something they believed in. What’s Pyriel’s?”

  “Maybe just simple vengeance on Lucifer and his boys,” I said.

  “I’m inclined to believe it’s more than that. Pyriel’s not just building an army. The nephilim are unpredictable. He’s assembling a deck of wild cards and you don’t do that if your goals are simply to eliminate your enemies. What he’s doing, it’s not strategic in the least,” said Gabriel.

  “Then maybe it’s time we tracked down Zadkiel and found some answers of our own.”

  Gabriel nodded. “You’re right. You’ve trusted me this far, so now it’s my turn to hold up my end of the bargain. But where we’re going is a part of Heaven no mortal soul has ever traveled before. If you’re discovered, we’ll both be destroyed. And getting Zadkiel to come out won’t be easy, especially not if he senses you.”

  “How do you smuggle me in?”

  “You’ll have to possess me.”

  I blinked. “You wanna run that by me again? Is possessing an angel even possible?”

  “As far as I know, it’s never been done before. But if I permit you to possess my body, then it might be possible to hide you from detection.”

  “What’s the catch?” I asked.

  “The souls of an archangel and a Hell Lord mingling together… I suppose we won’t know until we try.”

  “But it’s safe…?”

  “I have faith.”

  That didn’t really reassure me. Faith’s never been something I was big on, not even when I was with the Sons of Solomon. What choice did we have? We needed to get Raziel back on the playing field and to do that, we had to get Zadkiel to crack. There wasn’t anything else we could do.

  “Okay, so how do I get inside you?” I asked, and then followed it with a groan. “And let’s pretend I phrased that differently.”

  I’d never possessed anyone before, but that day, I learned it wasn’t as fun for the invader as demons might make it look. You essentially have to invade a person’s mind and fight tooth and nail to get them to surrender their body.

  Fortunately, Gabriel was a willing participant, but even still, he had natural defenses that were difficult for him to control. Fighting those off took quite a bit of effort. And once it was all said and done, we were one in his mind, though he still wanted to remain in control.

  So I was riding shotgun in an angel’s body, which was as surreal as you’d think. I could see through Gabriel’s eyes just as if I were looking through my own. But I had no control over my body. Gabriel controlled everything, and I could feel the sensation of movement as we flew from the holding area, but at the same time, I was still completely detached from it all.

  Like I said: surreal.

  “So where are we going anyway?” My voice was only inside Gabriel’s head, and it felt strange to speak without actually hearing myself.

  “The celestial city, essentially the capital of Heaven,” said Gabriel. “We call it Elysium.”

  We flew—or rather, Gabriel did—from one part of Heaven to another. Looking down, we were set against a never-ending field of stars.

  “Are we in space?” I asked.

  Gabriel gave a chuckle. “Those aren’t distant suns you’re seeing.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “Universes.”

  “What?”

  Gabriel laughed at my ignorance and then paraphrased Hamlet: “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Luther Cross, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

  I didn’t have any response. It was one thing to know about Heaven and Hell, demons and angels. But it was another to find out that you were just one small person in one small dimension on one small planet in one small universe. At that moment, I felt like a single-celled organism floating through space.

  But then I could see the rest of Heaven and how it was all connected. Not really planets, but glowing orbs. Billions of them, maybe more, like twinkling lights. All of them linked together by lines of energy, like branches on a tree. And all flowing into one center. There was a larger orb, pulsating with a soft glow.

  Gabriel flew into that orb and for a brief moment, I was blinded. When vision returned, we were traveling through clouds against a soft, blue sky. As the clouds parted, I could see it in the distance.

  Massive spires that appeared to be made out of crystal jutted forth from the clouds. It was similar to the style of architecture I’d seen in Hell, but at the same time, very different, too. The towers in Hell were like a corruption of these spires. No jagged edges, no corners, just smooth and round all throughout.

  “Welcome to Elysium,” said Gabriel.

  And then there was something else I noticed, something unique about this place. “How come I can’t see the ground?”

  “There isn’t one. Everyone here is an angel, what do we have to fear from gravity? Of course, there are platforms and the like, but for the most part, your walking is like our flying. When we stand on our feet, it’s the equivalent of sitting down.”

  Gabriel flew into the heart of the city and I saw them all. Other angels flew around us, moving casually about their day. They paid us no mind, but I found it increasingly strange to be surrounded by so many of them.

  “From here on out, be silent,” Gabriel whispered. “I won’t be able to answer you and the more you talk, the more risk we have of being discovered.”

 
I did as I was told, content to keep my mouth shut and just observe. Gabriel said mortal souls stayed in their own personal Heaven. Elysium was a place for angels only. For all I knew, I may have been the first mortal soul to ever enter this plane of existence.

  Gabriel continued to fly through the city. A few angels greeted him as he traveled past, and it was strange to see them in all manner of dress, from all different periods of history and all different cultures.

  There were several floating platforms that contained different landscapes—areas for relaxation. One of them held a forested area. There was a figure in a small clearing, practicing with a sword constructed from soulfire. I knew him as soon as I laid eyes on him—Zadkiel. The angel we came here to capture.

  “Gabriel,” he said without even looking. “To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from an archangel?”

  “Hello, Zadkiel,” said Gabriel. “I was hoping we could talk.”

  25

  Tessa looked down the barrel of Cain’s gun, staring at him in horror. He seemed unfazed by her fear—neither moved to compassion or taking pleasure in it. He was utterly without emotion.

  “Cain…” she began to speak.

  “I don’t have time for any of your lies, woman,” said Cain. “It’s because of you and Luther that I’m stuck here.”

  “You have to believe me,” she said. “I had no idea that Luther lied to you in order to get you to come to Purgatory. You’ve met the man, does he really seem like the kind of guy to share his thoughts and feelings?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But after you learned, you still worked with him, fought by his side. You’re someone he cares about. And perhaps I can use that to my advantage in order to kill him.”

  “You’d be wasting your time, friend.”

  Tessa glanced over her shoulder to see Odysseus moving beside her. He took a cigar from his jacket pocket and held one out. Cain kept his gun trained on Tessa, but still reached for the cigar. He held it up to his face and examined it closely.