Chapter 51

I’m looking at the black hole again.

But this time, I’m alone. And I want to find out what it is, what it contains, where it leads.

It rages as I approach it, as if unable to accept that my power is nullifying its pull, its greed. What should be the one un-opposable force in existence.

Then I reach the edge of its eternity, and look inside.

He’s there. As far away as the moon is from the earth, and almost as big. He’s being swarmed by countless, blazing comets. No, not swarmed. They’re revolving in his orbit. And they’re screaming, the unimaginable collective suffering tearing the very fabric of reality, funneling all its goodness and light.

Souls. Damned souls. They’re what fuels his black hole…

I blink back into my conscious mind, find myself looking up into the flame-swathed face of my new captor. Seems he didn’t notice my mental detour. It must have been one of those halted-time moments.

But I’m already forgetting it, only remembering that I mustn’t. That it’s too crucial.

I try to hang on to it, to tie it to another memory like Godric taught me, so I can later use it as a fishing line, dragging it back to the surface. I want to shriek my lungs out when I fail.

“You can trust me, Uri.” That voice that can make mountains kneel, sluices over me, attempting to wash away my agitation and resistance. “I would never hurt you. I would burn down worlds for you.”

I cough an appalled scoff. “Just what every girl wants to hear from her celestial stalker.”

And the insane bastard has the gall to chuckle!

“More surprises, Uri. Our destiny will not only be glorious, but…entertaining, too.” I glare a thousand agonizing deaths at him, and he croons—croons, “You have no choice. It has been foretold, and so it will come to pass. As for you and your precious Unitas, only our powers together can send you where you belong. For now.”

There’s that “for now” I so hate. And it’s always some all-powerful monster saying it.

But he’s right. If I don’t work with him, the others will remain captives to my void. And without me, it won’t preserve them for long. Like Godric said, if I don’t act, they will die anyway.

I have no choice. I never had any.

Closing my eyes, I do as he told me, focus on Sarah, see her sleeping in my void.

I draw her gently into the universe of emotions I have for her. Once she’s floating peacefully in its center, I turn to the others, and pull them around her, cocooning them within her orbit, where she wants them to be. Then I visualize the destination he described, the only place where I want to be. Then I nod.

He holds out a blazing hand to me. “Now we mingle our powers, and it will be done.”

With one last ragged breath, I place a sweaty, trembling hand in his.

It feels as if I just placed my fate, all our fates, there.

As his flames engulf my hand, there’s only his surprisingly soft touch. There’s no burning, no shock, nothing.

Then without warning, a force of indescribable magnitude razes through me. I would have fallen to my knees if he weren’t holding me up.

That force—it feels as old as time, made of time, of the texture of existence. Unending, unraveling, uncontainable. It dissects through my tissues, besieging every cell. It wants to invade me to my essence, and beyond.

Godric said I can handle anything. I can’t handle this. Once it pummels through my defenses, it will end me. Then it will be all over for Sarah and the others. Because I was stupid enough to make a bargain with that devil…

Everything inside me ceases as I stare at his shape through the inferno, the realization a supernova.

I am Samael.

“Lucifer…”

My rasp jolts through him. Not with surprise, but with gratification so vicious, it sears me until I’m thrashing in his hold.

He tugs me closer, pressing me into his chest. “Yes, my light. You remember.”

I shove at him with hands that feel like shriveling straw. “I don’t.”

He draws away, yet tightens his massive vise on my hand. “Yes, of course. You wouldn’t yet. But you worked it out. My clever, Uri.” He immobilizes me as I writhe and convulse and keen like a skinned lamb. “Let my Energy in, let it join with yours.”

I shake my head, shake apart. “You’ll…kill…me…”

“Never! The pain is unavoidable, but it will go away as soon as you let my Energy in. The union will soothe you. And it will bring the barriers of existence down, will return you where you need to be. Only then can our destiny resume.”

I want to rave and rant that he’s a textbook, megalomaniac villain, and there’s nothing in said existence that will ever be called “ours.”

But I am no match for him. And he remains my one way out of this hell. His hell.

I let go, let him in.

The dam of my resistance shatters, and his power explodes inside me.

The weight of millennia tears through my soul. The anguish of billions roil in my arteries.

It’s a hundred times worse than the Divining. A thousand.

I begged for death then, when it wouldn’t have damned Sarah. Wouldn’t have hurt Godric. This time I don’t have the luxury of giving up.

Withstanding this invasion, this desecration, no matter the agony and the damage, is a small price to pay. For getting Sarah the hell out of here. For getting back to Godric.

You pathetic fool, you don’t deserve either of them.

That voice within. Its fury and scorn shoot like acid in my blood, ratcheting the torture. I scream for it to shut up. It doesn’t.

You had a chance to protect them, protect everything, from him. Now he’s consuming you, because you fell for it. Because you gave him your hand, mingled your power with his. Of your own free will!

The realization is like an axe lodging in my brain.

He needed me to give him access. He couldn’t take it. So he coaxed and cajoled, and I fell for it…

Now you’ll dissolve in him, and doom them all with you. But I can save them all, if you let me out.

The voice, the void is right. I should let it out. Once he consumes me, it’s the only thing powerful enough to stand in his way…

Yes, yes. He’s a prisoner here. He needs your power to escape. Let me out and I’ll save you, and keep him here, forever.

Let it out? Out of where? Where is it? What is it? And why do I hate it so much? Why can I no longer think? Am I dying?

Yes, you are! If you don’t let me out, you’ll destroy yourself and everyone. You’ll set the Devil free!

And I start laughing, weeping, shrieking as my mind splinters. From the fragments blowing out in slow-motion, one last thought flutters out like an expiring butterfly.

Better the devil you know.

The void roars. But I can no longer hear or feel anything beyond the power punching through the last barrier within me, colliding with mine, decimating existence.

My scream traverses the realms, snuffs out his eternal flames.

And I glimpse him, as he was when it all started, as he will be when it all ends.

As it all ends.