47. Heaven And Hell

47. Heaven And Hell

Skylenna

Returning to the room thathas changed the trajectory of Dessin’s heart, is like landing in a pit of molten lava and flames.

I see nothing but red.

The color of blood as it gushes from a sliced artery. The stain on a carpet after someone has been stabbed repeatedly. The shade that dripped in a pool around Ruth’s legs. The color on my hands as I held Dessin’s body in that sand. The wet gleam of the sickle as it was pulled from his chest.

There’s a serenity in understanding my new abilities better through this rage. It’s biblical. It’s being able to soar past physical barriers, to conquer the mind’s limitations, and to manipulate anyone like a puppet. It’s a gift from God to travel through a veil of life and death and act as a deliverer of evil souls. I understand it now as heat blinds me, thrumming through my veins with the thunder and lightning of the Almighty himself.

I turn to Masten slowly, taking my time to pin him down with my unblinking glare. Focusing in on him as he rises to his feet, gripping that wolf’s head on top of his cane like he is considering using it to crack one of my kneecaps.

“You don’t know, do you?” And I feel like a puppet as I direct my question to him. Like there is a devil and a god pulling my strings, working as one to funnel power through my lungs, into my bloodstream. A power no one has ever seen.

“Know what?” Masten asks with faked disinterest.

“That your fate for this will be much worse than death.”

I stride toward him, closing the space of this dungeon with only one thought: to destroy. To obliterate all of his humanity in my wake. The void thrums through my fingers, vibrates my soul with a ticking detonator.

Masten forces out a laugh as I’m slowed down, feeling the weight of the magnet in my ear, blurring my vision, and obstructing my natural axis that aligns me upright on my feet. I sway for a moment, holding my hands out to break my fall.

But that gutting visual of Dessin being tortured by me rings loudly in my brain. It wakes me up. The ancient, dominant power of the void takes a hold of my equilibrium on its own, sending my entire body buzzing as I straighten myself and lift my chin.

I smile at him, as he has no control over me anymore. No one does.

“How?” Kaspias asks with uncharacteristic horror thickening his tone.

My strides close the distance, and just as my hands grip the sides of Masten’s head, he falls to his knees with a thud in my presence. The connection is stronger than it’s ever been. More potent. More alive with a black fire that can only be described as apocalyptic. End of times.

Like both a demon and an archangel, I drag Masten’s consciousness into the prison void, although we don’t stop there. We seem to glide right past it to a deeper location surrounded by screams, cries, moans, and an ache that resonates so deeply, I can only imagine that this is what hell would feel like.

And maybe it is.

Dropping him to his knees, I levitate above him, revealing every evil moment in his life in a show around us. Spinning images of the way he treated Dessin as a child, of the torture he cast on other children. It hits us like a meteor shower. All he can do is brace himself for the bone-shattering impact.

I am the judge, jury, and executioner of his actions.

One moment sticks out to me like a blinding spotlight in his memories. I see a massacre of dark fur surrounded by a symphony of swaying red trees. RottWeilens killed by chemical warfare in the Red Oaks. He even took the head of one and placed it over his fireplace.

It was…Masten.

The slaughter.

Soul survivor.

Masten is the spy that orchestrated the slaughter of the RottWeilen, leaving DaiSzek to be the last of his kind.

I look down at his cane, at the wolf head carved under his palm.

That shade of red blots out parts of my vision.

I point a single finger down at him, and it’s as though my voice booms with a deep, divine echo. “You are condemned to this version of hell, Masten. You will feel the pain of every victim you’ve harmed. You will relive the suffering of the slaughter you caused in the Red Oaks. You will live here for all eternity and never escape these walls I have formed around you.”

And his sentence has begun.

Masten curls in the fetal position, screaming in anguish, and retching until blood pours from his gaping mouth.

I let the void suck me out of that brand of hell, rushing back to the surface as though I’m underwater and have yet to take a breath of air.

Masten’s comatose body falls to the ground in front of Kaspias, a prisoner of his own mind as he will never escape the oblivion I have sentenced him to.

“Masten?” Kaspias barks, kneeling in front of his shivering body.

“And what should I do with you?” I muse, already feeling the blanket of ice drape over me.

I’ll undoubtedly reach hyperthermic levels at any moment. Therefore, I know I have to take advantage of Kaspias being in my direct line of sight while I still have a chance. My mind races with ways I’ll wound him for hurting Ruth, for harming Dessin’s mind in ways that may in fact be irreversible. I want to take him back to the day Sophia was killed, to the rabbit Arthur held onto as he took his last breath.

“Don’t.” A woman’s soft, delicate voice reaches me as I stand over Masten’s limp body. It isn’t a voice I could soon forget, though I’ve only heard it in the void, through memories of Kane when he was only a child.

Sophia stands behind Kaspias with tears rimming her wispy bottom lashes. The glimmering light of the wild torches reflect off her round glasses. She wears a long, dusty rose dress with gossamer sleeves that end at the elbow and a flowy bottom that drags along the dirty floor. And I can see clearly the resemblance to Kane.

When I first met Dessin in the asylum, I remember thinking that he was the kind of handsome that was timeless, a striking look that doesn’t belong anywhere.

That’s Sophia. Small waist, bronze skin, and chocolate hair. A doll from a rare, refined collection. She looks into my eyes with nothing but respect and profound love.

Her glimmering ghost captivated my attention entirely.

“Thank you for loving my son and giving him a reason to keep living. To keep fighting,” she says to me without looking away. “But now I must ask you for a favor that isn’t quite fair, Skylenna. Though he doesn’t deserve your mercy, Kaspias deserves one chance to see the path he could have had if fate were kinder to him as a child.”

I swallow, unable to think of anything other than the fate Ruth has suffered at his hand. A fate he chose for her. She watched the crowd cheer for the axe to land under her kneecaps because of his demented trick.

“I have watched over both of my sons since I departed this world. I have seen the evil that tormented my boys. Kane was only a child, but so was Kaspias. The difference was, Kane had me and Arthur for six years of his life. To show him love and family. He had you to build a friendship with, then later to fall hopelessly in love.” She takes a deep breath as the tears are let loose from her bottom lashes. “Kaspias has known cruelty since he was an infant. Every shred of kindness and the throbbing desire to have a mother and a family was beaten out of him. My boy never stood a chance.”

Tears gather in my own eyes as time, for only a moment, stands still for Sophia. For the gentle mother who was taken too soon. I wish Kane could see her now.

“I can’t just let him walk free,” I whisper thickly.

“And you won’t. You see, a warrior angel doesn’t just have the ability to burn down the world. They may also deliver it from evil.” She pauses, glancing at both of her sons. “Instead of dragging Kaspias to hell. You can also show him heaven.”