Wes leads us into the weapons room, which is covered wall-to-wall with swords both in and out of their sheaths. The north facing wall is polluted with bizarre looking instruments that my mind can’t quite wrap itself around, some sort of bows, plain bands that look seemingly demure, but I’m betting are equally as deadly as anything up there.
Four people—three of them Fems—stand next to a glossy marble table with something like a screen embedded into it. An image circulates over and over, and, the closer we get, it looks like the top of a forest. I look to the four creatures and note one of them is very much human, familiar even. The other three stand at about eight feet tall with bodies built like linebackers on steroids with their skin a pale blue-gray, their hair a strange lucent shade of black, humanistic facial features. Each one of them is dressed in black linen, a dress shirt of sorts with pants that puddle to the floor—most likely to hide their cloven hooves.
“Luke Jenson”—the human of the bunch proclaims before extending his hand—“I live next door to the Winters.” He nods as if I should understand why this might be important as I shake his hand.
Wes nods to the first Fem to his left, an enormous eight-foot beast with the face of a constipated man—think wrestler with serious roid rage. His muscles bulge from his shirt like ham hocks. “This is Barnabas, Belshazzar, and Micah,” Wes says, shaking his head ever so slightly my way. “Not the Barnabas, Belshazzar, and Micah. Don’t get excited.”
“Get excited,” the one in the middle, Belshazzar, gravels it out, and his voice resonates through this enormous hall like a gunshot. His face is sullen, his nose pinched, but it’s those enormous eyes you can’t look away from. Each one of the venerable beings has a haunting glow to their skin, and yet their eyes are dark and hollow. You could practically see the flames waiting for your arrival if you look deep enough in them. “The enemy has positioned themselves at the foot of the battle line. We are moments away from putting an end to the great struggle.”
“What are you talking about?” I step in close, and that screen embedded into the table zeros in on a familiar looking estate, Dudley’s. A crowd has amassed in the rear of the property, and I spot Skyla speaking with the masses.
Micah, the tallest and fiercest looking of the three, takes in a breath. “She’s arranged for Noster to encamp around the strongholds we’ve placed in various locations on the planet.”
Wes steps up to me. “Meaning?”
The one in the middle looks from Wes to me. “Meaning, they anticipate hostility. Combat is imminent.” He looks directly at me, and a mean chill runs through my bones. “Who will make the contention official? You or your wife?”
The deep tenor of his voice echoes through me.
“My wife.” I tap my hand to the screen, and the thing goes black. I’m glad about it, too. I’m not here to spy on Skyla. “There must be a reason she feels the need to have a meeting. She is the Faction leader. She can and will confer with her people whenever she likes. What makes you think she’s doing anything with Noster?” It sounds so specific, so plausible. Would Skyla move so quickly behind my back? I rack my brain trying to think of the last time she even mentioned that Faction in particular and come up empty.
Wes blows out a quick breath as if he were fighting off disbelief himself. “If they said it, it’s true as gospel.” He looks to Luke. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Luke sheds a hint of a wicked grin. “Barricade baby.” He gives Wes a quick fist bump. “Noster born and raised. I took off as soon as I heard the plan. They’re setting up position to take you on. They’re ready to go when you are.”
My heart falls through the floor, through the realm, sinks down through Paragon like a millstone until it blows right out the planet on the other end. Skyla is motivating the troops, readying to take me down, not realizing that she’ll effectively wipe me out of existence in the process. I wonder what would happen if I told Skyla the truth—that as a Fem I absorb their fate, and if Celestra wins, I will be forever separated from her and the kids. And for a moment the boys’ eternal standing flits through my mind. There are no answers, only more questions. I wonder if I told Skyla that she had to choose between her people or me—Dudley or me... My insides wrench at the thought, and I fight the mighty urge to cry out with all that I’ve got. I couldn’t let Skyla know those dark truths. It would torment her beyond measure. No. There’s only one thing I can do. Call the war and then win it. But far before I go ringing any bell of destruction, something tells me I need to do a little fact-checking. Not with Wes or Demetri, but with Candace. I groan at the thought of visiting my mother-in-law. But for now, I have to play the part.
“Maybe I will be the first to step over that battle line.” I hear myself say the words. And if Wes is right, I will be. “Don’t worry.” I look to each of the magnificent creatures before me. “The Fems will topple the Sectors. You will reign supreme once again. I can promise you that.” I look to Wes. “What are we going to do about Noster?”
“I’ll tell you,” Belshazzar growls it out, the meanest of the bunch with his eyes slit with loathing, his jaws set tight as if he were readying to blow a fist through my newly formed stomach, and I truly hope he’s not. This new body is great, but it can hurt, get injured, break down with the best of them. Yes, it can repair, but it needs the healing properties from the Tree of Life that lines the River of Life—and to maintain this new existence, I need to drink from the river itself. My new body is imperishable, stronger in every functionality, but very much the same as well. “Noster will fight to the death to protect their people.”
Wes huffs at the thought, “And the Barricade will fight to the death to protect ours. When we’re through with them, there will be less Noster left on the planet than there are Celestra.”
The room lights up with hoots and rumbles of dark laughter, but I’m sitting this one out.
I look to Wes, stone-faced and pissed. “In the hall.” I nod, and he follows me out to the cool space that’s relieved of all the tension from the room we just departed. “Why would the Master allow this to happen? He is allowing this madness. Explain this to me.”
“I guess you don’t pay attention.” Wes bears into me with those emerald eyes of his, sheathed with enough wicked intent for the both of us. “He’s always given evil a fair shake on the planet.”
And there it is. What we fight for, who we are is just that, evil.
I take off down the hall, the hair on the back of my neck raised, my skin prickled with both fear and fury.
“Tell Sage I’m sorry I missed her meal. I’ll try to make it back if I can.”
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere you don’t need to be.” I stride forward quickly, envisioning Ahava in my mind’s eye until it has no choice but to materialize around me. And just like that, I walk through a cold stone slab and into paradise.
Ahava forms around me with its sparkling blue waters stretching in all directions. The original pattern for the Falls of Virtue sits in the distance to my right, and the four miraculous beings that rule destiny’s roost are seated on translucent thrones in the middle of the lake. The two Sectors that look like Dudley pin me with a hard stare—and the sight of them turns my stomach. I pray that the bullshit Wes uttered was way off. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten his facts wrong. The one-eyed dude on the end with the long black hair would be Rothello of the Soullennium. He’s the one who officiated the start of the Faction War in Skyla’s honor. And the breathtaking woman in the middle would be the exact physical representation of my wife—her mother.
“Candace,” I say, stepping over the water as if it were glass and speeding my way in her direction. I’m not fooling myself into thinking I might actually be welcomed here. In fact, I know I’m not. I know she’s probably pissed I barged in, and, truthfully, I’m a bit surprised there’s no protective hedge over the entire realm just to keep me the hell out.
The three gentlemen surrounding her rise to their feet with che
sts barreled out as if ready and willing to fight to the death to protect her. But we all know that at the end of the day death is a farce—unless, of course, you’re a created being who might just get cast into outer darkness. Death and hell seem interchangeable at this point.
Candace is the last to rise. Her cold, steely eyes remain trained on mine as I close the gap between us.
“Gage Oliver,” she says my name with a frown. It’s the only way I’ve ever seen her say it, so it doesn’t surprise me. “What’s yanking your Celestial chain, now?” She tips her head back with an insolent look on her beautiful face. I have never seen Skyla look at me quite that way. I’m familiar with all of Skyla’s expressions, at least the ones she reserves for me, but that look of sheer loathing mixed with boredom feels worse than a knife to the gut.
“Now? Have I shredded up my welcome mat so soon in the game?”
Her jaw realigns as her lips harden. “What you see as a game, others see as life.”
“Or death, and the latter is exactly what I want to speak to you about.”
The water beneath my feet pulses up and down as a steady stream of waves bounces beneath us. It feels as if I’m standing on a boat and not at all as if my body were able to plunge into the icy depths below at a moment’s notice. But I have faith that I’m not going anywhere. That’s what faith will do. It will hold you up when everything around you screams you should be sinking to the bottom. I’m not sinking, and I’m not going to hell.
Candace steps forward as her lips curl up at the sides. “Death.” Her finger runs the ridge of my cheek. “Some might say it becomes you, but we both know that’s not the case. You are far more alive than anyone on that spinning rock still breathing in their coat of flesh. Life loves you. Your father loves you. The Master adores you.” Her lids slit to nothing as if she found that last bit of information intolerable, but it warms me like a wildfire that sprang from nowhere on a dark, snowy night.
“I talked to Wesley. He says the Fems”—I glance behind her at the three men still glaring at attention and lower my voice a notch—“he mentioned the Fems needed to topple the Sectors, not just to stay in power but to have eternity. Now I thought I heard Marshall tell it differently a while back. Something about Demetri still having eternity—about me having eternity.”
“You will.” Her eyes flash like lightning. “Eternity is yours.” That dark smile of hers curves dangerously, and my stomach tightens in a knot as it all becomes clear.
“Just not in the same realm as Skyla.” I close my eyes a good long while, unable to digest the idea of it. “I, of all people, understand what a fleeting illusion life can be. I can’t do it. I can’t give Skyla the win for Celestra like I had planned and risk losing eternity. That’s not happening. That’s not what I signed up for.”
“That’s exactly what you signed up for.” Her face is on mine, her eyes lit with flames of anger, revenge, hatred, all three at once. “You claim to love your wife and her people. You have adopted them as your own. You will submit. You will lie down, not only your life, but the lives of your wicked brothers-in-arms. They will be discarded as will you upon that fated judgment day. I have no sympathy for anarchists and neither should you.” Her voice softens in an odd manner as if I should be agreeing with her in this madness.
“And if I don’t.” I offer a quick glance behind her. “You lose your friends. We lose Dudley.” I almost said Skyla loses him, but I’d be losing him, too. No matter how much we squabble, I still think of him as a friend, an ally. Or at least he used to be.
She shakes her head ever so slightly, and for a fleeting minute, I cling to that microcosm of hope. “I lose more than my friends, Gage. I lose my own eternity.”
The breeze, the waves, my beating heart—it all seems to stop for a solid minute.
“That’s impossible,” I whisper as my blood grows cold. “You are Candace Messenger. A Caelestis. You assign the destinies of men and women and have done so ever since—”
“The beginning of time,” she finishes the sentence, and her skin, her hair glows a luminescent shade of sheer brilliance. “Yes. It would be true. But you see, we are created beings not bought with the price from the blood of the Lamb, thus we have been appropriated a certain grace. We don’t have humanity’s victory, thus we must find our own. And that certain grace stipulates so long as our roles are achieved in victory we may remain as servants of the Most High. But if we lose our position, our very esteemed highly coveted position, and fail to win it back upon the end of the church age, we will be discarded. Thrown away, Gage. That’s what you do with garbage, isn’t it? You dispose of it.” Her eyes harden over mine, and I can feel an icy horror emitting from her as if she were about to wipe me out of existence right this minute. “So you see, Gage—”
“No, I don’t see.” I come shy of grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her—shaking this lunacy out of everyone up here. “Ahava—paradise, is big enough to fit every created being the Master has ever made. You are good. Sectors are good. You are for the light. Why would the Fems—who have only ever had their own best interests at hand, be welcomed in your place? Because they won a war? It makes zero sense. And I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it. There’s no way the Master is going to throw you into a garbage heap as some guardian of hell just because the Fems sit supreme in the heavenlies. The Master is good. He is not going to surround Himself with a bunch of selfish brute beasts who let their personal greed overrun their lives.” Humanity and all of its many people, all of the characters from history that I can recall zip through my mind at once. Christ died for exactly those people.
“Now you get it. In the end, we’re not that different from mere humans—some better, some worse. Have you not read where even the angels will be judged?”
I stiffen for a moment because I have read just that. “And he’ll utilize redeemed humans to do it.”
“The Master venerates them. They are His family, bought by His own son’s blood. But I, we, are his created beings. We are not subject to judgment but to servitude. Knowing that the position in Hades would be a misfortunate one, yet still an honor in the name we will serve, He’s allowed a dog fight of sorts. You are a dog, Gage. You will have to fight an even bigger, far more ferocious beast to claim your stake in the eternity of your choice—me.
“The Master will place the lesser of the Fems or the Sectors in that uncoveted post when the time arrives—the only judgment will be the one we placed on ourselves—by losing our position. If the Fems should overthrow the Sectors, they will be absolved, forgiven, cleansed of their misdeeds. They will be utilized by the Master as He sees fit. If the Sectors remain in their position of power, then I will personally make sure Skyla is able to escort you to the gates of hell. It will be a farewell of the ages, I’m sure of it.” She sheds a heinous grin.
I back up a notch and try my hardest to blink this entire conversation out of existence. This is all a bad dream. I’m going to wake up and find myself late for football practice, still a senior at West Paragon High. That’s where I’d like to spend my days, trapped in that blissful year. Better yet, one giant loop of my wedding night with Skyla. That sounds a hell of a lot better than having to deal with pop quizzes and watching Dudley force his lips onto Skyla. That was part of his perverted game. Kiss me and I’ll show you the future.
Candace groans as if she agreed. “Perverted game? I don’t agree. In fact, my daughter rather enjoys the wily Sector. He is her mate in every way. Her spirit husband as well.” She glowers over my shoulder a moment as if he were standing there, but I don’t take my eyes off hers.
“Why not lock the doors and let the prisoners mind themselves? Why send an entire legion of created beings to hell—especially if they don’t deserve to be there?”
“They won’t deserve to be there. They will simply be reassigned to a less desirable position.”
“I see.” It’s a job from hell, in hell, and it will be hell doing nine-to-five eternities in that dungeon. The assignment
sucks, and no one wants it. “And what about you? Why send the Caelestis along with the Sectors?”
Her gaze travels past me to the Falls. “I’m not entirely sure where you find the strength to be so brazen. Who are you that I must give an accounting of who goes where and why? Who are you that I should bother being truthful to you in any manner? You are certainly no child of mine. You are in no alliance with my daughter or me. You are an enemy to me, a thorn that I long to pluck from my side.” Her cold stare returns to mine. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything. Ask your father. Ask the Master, but do not look to me with the arrogance you hold in your eyes and expect me to bow to your cerebral whims.”
“Who am I?” A roar threatens to curl from my throat, but I swallow it down. My blood boils, and it’s all I can do to control my rage. “I am your daughter’s beloved dead, resurrected, and soon-to-be once again husband. I would and did die for her and my children. I am taking the place of one your grandsons. I am the father of the next branch of your lineage. Fate and destiny, otherwise known as you, have interwoven me into the tapestry of your daughter’s life. Don’t you dare give me that false diatribe that you had nothing to do with me landing in front of Skyla. I am purposefully made, created, brought to life to worship at her footstool. I am loved by the Master and I am His son. If I have any arrogance at all—that is where it stems from.” I didn’t mention Demetri. I didn’t need to. The Master overrides Demetri every day of the week. And no matter how much Candace did divulge, none of it makes any sense. Something tells me she feels the same. And then a thought rocks me and sends my heart beating once again with relief. “I have a soul. I’m partially human—bought by the blood. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You forfeited your right to live and die on your own once you drank my daughter’s blood and bonded yourself with the enemy. Now be gone. I’ve a meeting to prepare for with the Justice Alliance.” Her features crouch in on themselves, hardening, gnarling until she looks something entirely unlike herself—dare I say, unsightly. “Rumors of war are swirling. Go on and be quick about what you’ve set out to do.”