Echoes in Eternity - The Devil Shall Have His Way (snippet)

CHAPTER XXII

BROKEN SEALS

Elissa Cassandra Duncan

(part I)

“Hush,” I breathe trying to soothe him. “I’m still here… daddy,” I whisper. Daddy… How strange that simple word I have uttered sounds as I use it for the first time, but it feels so natural and so familiar.

He lifts his gaze up; eyes crimson with blood. Tears of angels are made of blood? He looks so human; broken, tormented and utterly helpless. At this moment I hate myself. I hate me! I have been the cause of so many people’s and this Angel’s torment. Maybe I didn’t start it, but, I am at the source of it. How can I make this right?

“You’ve been sacrificed!” he whispers. “I worked incessantly to prevent this since the minute you were born. Life after life, I watched your breath get snuffed out of you not knowing where or when you’d be reborn again. I even exchanged my life for yours so Eden would remove the bounty from your head! But they allowed Hades to catch up with you at the end! Where was Alexander? He was supposed to protect you!” he shouts accusingly.

“Where were Stella and Gabriel? Why weren’t they protecting you?” I kneel before him. Extending my hand to his face tentatively, I touch his warm crimson tears running down his face copiously. Lifting both hands to cover his, I untangle his fingers from his long locks, and lower them from his hair. His face changes to the one from my dream. The face of the tough cowboy. He momentarily resists as if I’m a stranger who took the place of his daughter. His eyes look at me bewildered. He is unequivocally disheveled.

“Don’t fight me, daddy. I can’t take it. I’m not sacrificed,” I whisper gently. Tentatively, I lift my arms up and close the short distance between us on my knees. My arms slowly go around his neck, gently pulling my father into my arms. I kiss his dusty hair, and inhale his angelic scent, still smelling like Elysium. A soft whimper escapes my lips. He stiffens immediately. My tears brim my eyes, and flow down my face in cold streams. When I finally pull back he looks at me wordlessly, disconcerted.

“Nieto put me in this state so I could come and see you, I guess… Someone triggered this fall here. I think she meant for me to either die or some other purpose. I know it wasn’t an accident. Nieto changed my course. But, I think my fall into Tartarus has a lot to do with the fact I’m lost up there,” I whisper jabbing my finger towards the ceiling. “I pass out a lot with dreams which I’m told are memories. No one can really tell me anything other than I’m a Nephilim. I have senses I didn’t know existed which scare the hell out of me! I left the only home I knew because my surrogate mother tried to hand me over to the Fallen Angels. And after Uncle Gabe told me that my life didn’t belong to me, I didn’t see the point of living under his roof. I guess he was right. Unless this is a nightmare, I’m here in your, uhm…confinement with an unbeating heart,” I say shrugging. I don’t look up to my father but I feel his intense gaze on me. I draw random shapes with my index finger on the dirt to appear occupied with a task. He says nothing, just listens to hear me as if he has thirsted for my voice.

“Because, everyone seems to be after me for one reason or another. I just wish…” I say sighing though I don’t need to breathe, after all my heart is not beating. My chest rises with the air I intake to talk, but not to exist.

“I just wish that someone was there to tell me why all these people around me go through this tremendous agony century after century. I hate myself for Alex’s state,” I say with fervor, emphasizing.

“What state is he in?” he speaks with curiosity.

“He’s tied to me because of the bond you’ve created for him to save me, to be my eternal bodyguard…” I say exasperated, and then pause.

“Did you ever consider that I might fall in love with him, but he won’t, he can’t love me back? Or even if he could it is only because of the bond you’ve created, and that cannot be real?” My father raises his eyebrows, his mouth agape. I managed to shock him.

“That ward, the bond I put between the two of you was so he is compelled to protect you and to prevent the two of you from falling in love. But that ward was broken on your last matriculation.”

“Come again?” I whisper with wide eyes. It is now my turn to be shocked.

“Alexandros will always be compelled to protect you. He’s your twin soul. But, I put wards against the two of you from falling in love because it would make both of you complacent and get you killed.”

“Shouldn’t that be my choice? People die everyday father!”

“It is my job as your father to protect you, keep you safe, and keep you alive!”

“What about my happiness?”

“Getting you sacrificed as a precursor to Armageddon so the Fallen Angels can storm Elysium would not grant you happiness! Causing the demise of mankind and the world…”

“Why should it rest on my shoulders? I’m just a young girl! I’m one person… Just. One. Person,” I say slowly, each word spoken in a staccato tone.

“Yet, every individual has a purpose of existence. Men, angels, even the Fallen. But, some purposes are more important than others. We don’t decide which hand we are dealt with. We just decide how to handle that hand. You can either wallow and question it until the end of time or do something about it and actually live… Life is worth living!” he says ardently. “That’s why I did what I did for you all along. Life is worth fighting for! You may not get what you want the first time. The second time, even the fifteenth time. But you can eventually get it.”

“But you made choices for me, dad! For my life!”

“So did you. That’s what parents do! We make the best choices with the imperfect information we have! But I am not a Fallen Angel! I have duties towards Eden. When the choice is given to us to do what is easy and what is right, I have to choose what is right…” he states softly.

He said, ‘so did you’. My thoughts drift to the impersonated toddlers. I had children. What happened to them? Why can’t I remember it? Was I married? Did I marry the Duke? Did we have children?

“Your duties come before your family? Your child?” I ask hurt.

He holds his shackles up and rises to his full height. I can see the extent of his injuries.

“Eternity is a long time. Protecting you, caring for you and your family had been my mission for soooo long; making the life exchange wasn’t a hard choice for me. Death is easy. The ‘Ultimate sacrifice’ as humans call it, because of its automatic reward is Elysium. It’s a simple exchange for them. Life saved and eternal life rewarded in Elysium in return. Not for us.” He says shaking his head. “But, you’re…” before he can finish his sentence, he’s yanked by an unseen force, pulling him spread eagle on the cold jagged gray granite rock.

“Not your domain!” my father shouts at someone I am not seeing.

“Oh, but we can provide one show to your daughter for fucking up our ultimate salvation for taking herself off the table as an offering…” croons the gentle voice.

“The seal of your dungeon is broken, thanks to Elissa,” murmurs the voice sounding eternally grateful, caressing my name like a lover would. “I should reward her for her generosity,” the voice booms louder this time and my father’s body is immediately turned upside down and still spread eagle. Fiery lashes land on his back filleting his skin. Muffled sounds of pain escape my father’s lips. It happens so fast, I am unable to respond or react.

“This is ALL on you Elissa! If you would have just given yourself up, none of this would have happened. Marcus would have not endured this agony, you would still be with the love of your life, and your children wouldn’t be gone. But here you are, screwing up everything again! Tssskk… tssskk… tsk…” he chides me.

“Leave my child alone!” thunders my father, despite his ongoing punishment.

“Chains forged in Eden, my brother. You can’t get out of them!”

I can’t see the perpetrator or the torture device he’s using to hurt my father other than the landing strips of fire. I look around but see no one. Nieto’s word’s speaks to my mind once again. “Shut your human senses off! They’re of no use to you right now. Never forget that you are Marcus’s daughter; you are half angel! Use your other senses that are rightfully yours. They’re just as much your limbs as your eyes and ears.” Closing my eyes, I recall the senses I used during my fall while in Nieto’s company. Not only do I see the crimson outline of a beautiful man with a flaming cat of nine tails, I also see my father’s angelic form. It’s more beautiful than anything has a right to be. The scent of the torturer’s intoxicating musk hits my nostrils, permeating into my mind, making me shiver. Every nerve on my body was telling me that the man who is currently torturing my father is irresistible and immensely powerful. How could I think that? Where is my common sense?

My gaze is locked on him mesmerized as if I’m watching an exquisite piece of art, a statute, okay, a live statue in motion. As he swings a cat of nine tails, I can see the fiery tendrils slash through the air angrily as his long inky black hair cascades down to his mid-back then lifts up momentarily and lands on his back again in a fluid motion which caresses his skin. His large muscles move like a well-oiled machine screaming his virility. He’s well formed, muscled, sinewy and exceptionally beautiful. Oh my God! How can I just stop in my tracks when this man is putting my father through torture? I notice him lifting his torture device to deliver another blow to my father. A single hiccup in his breath brings me to my senses, waking me up from my trance and I find my hand reaching my back for a flaming sword. With an instinctive ability, I loop and swing it so fast, for a moment I think I’m imitating Nieto’s moves. When my hand touches the sword, its fire doesn’t burn or hurt me. In fact, I have an overwhelming feeling that Gabriel, my uncle is lending me his strength. How is that even possible? One swift move cuts off the flaming tails of the whips he’s using to torture my father. The sudden turn he makes shows me his bewildered as well as slightly awed face for my daring movement. A brilliant smile lights up on his face showing his exceptional features and his well chiseled facial features. Damn! He’s sex incarnate, overwhelmingly alluring. I swallow trying to focus on what he did to my father to hold on to my sanity.

“I was wondering when you would come into your own…” he mutters. “As a sacrificial lamb to open the gates of Eden or as my fighter and lover. But, I’d take you either way...”

He’s like a fiery tornado surrounding me and suddenly he’s behind me and instantly canoodling me like a lover. His voice is just a whisper away from my ear, inviting, tempting. His scent is much closer, threatening my nostrils deliciously, penetrating my unbeating heart, seeking a response.

“You want to free all those people up there,” he croons in a velvety voice, pointing a long index finger above, “and your father down here…” he whispers with a gentle gesture of his hand. He slowly moves to face me. He’s not naked waist up anymore. In fact, he looks like a hot-shot CEO of a top company dressed in a dark charcoal three-piece Desmond Marion suit with a pair of shinny Berlutti shoes. The shirt he has on is crisp, smells intoxicatingly good. When he extends his arms towards me, I can see matching platinum cufflinks. His dark hair is tied at the nape of his neck with a leather strip.

“Come to me, be my lover and I will give you the freedom you have been craving all of your existence. You will be able to give the freedom to all the people who fought for you all this time. End their suffering… Besides, being my lover has a multitude of benefits least of which is that none are as talented as I am,” he says running a warm finger down my spinal column. There is no boasting in his voice; just a simple statement of fact as if everyone is privy to that information. His finger lingers on my back and that singular touch is not only on the surface of my body but he somehow manages to touch and caress my soul.

“Leave my child…” shouts my father, rattling his chains. Despite his weakening chains, my father manages to lift this man’s hand off me. The man’s response doesn’t change his facial features or his intonation, but my father’s unfinished sentence is choked and suffocated with a single carefree swipe of this beautiful man.

“No one I’ve taken as a lover has left short of being thoroughly filled with satisfaction… and an excessive craving for more of me,” he says seductively.

“Who are you?”

“Don’t you know?” he asks gently, running his nose along the shell of my ear, down to my neck, my chin and my lips. His next words come only a hair’s breadth away from my parted lips.

“Look at you… Look how your body craves me. No men, no Nephilim, no angel can do what I can for you…to you. Just say ‘yes’ to me baby.”

Another loud rattling comes from my father’s direction.

“Who are you?” I repeat my question.

“Only the most beautiful angel that has ever been created. My name is Morning Star. But, you may call me Apollyon,” he finally parts with his name. It has a vague meaning behind the mental fog I seem to be having.

“I thought you despised humans.”

“You’re not a human,” he offers as a rebuttal.

“I am half human.”

“And half of Shamsiel whom you know as Marcus, the head of three-hundred and sixty-five legions of angels! You are the daughter of a great commander of Eden! Your existence almost makes me want to sympathize with the humans for contributing a one of a kind specimen: YOU. Have you any idea how unique you are?”

“You are Fallen! You despise all that is good! You don’t sympathize with anyone!”

“Good is a distortion by God who kept the truth from coming out. Kept everything secret and when I, his right hand wanted to inform the men of the secrets of our universe, what did he do? He tossed me out of Eden as if eons of my service meant nothing to him! Am I the one who created humankind and let them suffer on earth by simply keeping them out of touch with their environment?” he asks tilting his head to the side, as his darkened eyes focus on me in a pleading gesture.

“You look at me with incrimination in your eyes as if I’m the one who made countless humans suffer and die,” he pleads more as if he is carrying the torch for mankind. “Don’t you remember the giant earthquakes in your own life time, the tsunami, tornadoes, even the volcanoes of the recent past? What have those people done? The little babies! The God whose cause you are serving is playing you like a spinning top. Where is your freedom sweet angel?” he asks. His usage of Alex’s endearment makes me cringe and awakens my senses like they have been doused with a bucket of cold water.

“You have none with him! Oh, he will tell you that you are free to choose, but then when you make the choice that he dislikes, he punishes you! Where is the free will in that? I,” he drawls on the word and continues, “would never do that to you, or to anyone else. You would be free to choose without any punishment. Look what he made us out to be? Why would he require your blood to allow the Eden born angels to re-enter into their rightful domain?” His voice is tempting, confounding, mystifying. His lips curve into a sexy, irresistible smile. His words are full of promises.

“I do not require obsequious prostration from you in my worship. I only request… plea if you will, your company next to me. You don’t even have to love me. I would free everyone who has been dear to your from their eternal servitude. Isn’t that what you want?”

“My company for their freedom?” I ask.

“Yes…” he says relieved. “That’s all I want. So, all this torture of your father, and your lovers end right here, right now…” He is giving me the biggest temptation of my existence. I chew my lower lip contemplating this offer. Worrying, weighing the consequences.

“Baby,” he croons, “Do you have any idea how long eternity is my young future lover?” He asks with a concerned expression on his face.

“Look what two-hundred years has done to your poor daddy,” he turns to me to look at my father’s lashed back with his skin ripped open.

“You did that to him!” I shout. My throat suddenly feels arid though I don’t need to swallow, eat or drink here. My hand reaches to my mouth to stifle a sob.

“No, baby, no… I didn’t! Just like you, my hand was forced to do deeds I had never wished to do to a brother of mine. But one word from you would silence the agony of all these Nephilim, your father and our Fallen brethren forever. Just one word... Try it, baby…” Why can’t I resist his pleas?

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