Hell Followed with Us(61)
This is what I was made for. Romans 12:19—Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. The Angels were made to be the servants of God, but I am the wrath, the flaming sword, the six-winged beast.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
As soon as the sun sets, I slip from the bank and into the streets, wrapped in bandages and every stitch of black clothing I could dig from the ashes. They reek of charred bodies and too much smoke. I want Theo to smell it on me.
My hand twitches as if Seraph is an electric current tightening my muscles, the way mad scientists make dead dogs move. Black sludge trickles down my nose and over my lips, and I throw my mask into the gutter. I wonder for half a second what part of me that used to be, but I can’t keep a thought in my head besides what Theo’s face will look like when it’s smashed to bloody pieces.
I should have seen this coming. I should have known. I tear off my bandages and dig my fingers into the flesh peeling up from my arm. Pieces come off in long, wet strips. The same black-veined raw flesh as my face, the dissolved inside of my throat, the slurry of my stomach cavity. Theo is going to see me, he is going to see the real me, and I am going to kill him. I’ll bring the Vanguard all the proof they need. I’ll bring them Theo’s skull and as many heads as I can fucking get.
Leave room for His wrath. I am His wrath made flesh.
Seraph and my feet know the path to Reformation Faith Evangelical Church better than I do. A flock of birds sits on the power lines, flapping their wings at one another as they fight for space like crows on the culling grounds. The Angels thought they could take the ALC from me. That without the ALC, I would have nowhere else to run except back to Theo. I’ll give them what they want. I will come back to him, and I will make them regret it.
My jaw aches and cramps, the muscles moving on their own. My next breath comes out in a snarl. Inhuman and so deep in my chest, deeper than I’ve ever felt anything. I pass the bodega and the cat sits in the window, tail flicking anxiously. Something cracks in my gum line, and I pull out an old tooth. There are new teeth there, uneven in my mouth like shattered glass.
I will hunt the Angels who did this. The ALC will be safe.
* * *
Everything hurts. I want to take handfuls of my face and pull it off. I’m halfway to Reformation, I think. I only stopped once. When the pain got too bad. When I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I pressed my head against a wall to push back whatever was breaking it apart from the inside and screamed. I thought my skull was going to split, and so much more rotten shit came up, and now there’s something else sitting heavy in my mouth. A tongue like something alive anchored in my throat, threatening to fill me up, falling out in a rope of flesh. I have so many teeth. My mouth opens all the way to my ears. It hurts.
I look like the billions of dead with the Flood tearing them to pieces. I look like the people who didn’t survive. I look the way I should, and Seraph isn’t even done with me yet. Nick and Erin will have to tell everybody when I get back, but that’s fine. That’s fine, because after I do this, they’ll understand. They’ll forgive me. It’ll be okay. I can fix this.
On the wind, I hear prayer.
I don’t feel the stab of panic in my chest like I should. Like I used to. Instead I stop, lifting my head to the breeze, letting it wash over me.
“Lord, we praise You and thank You this glorious night!”
Death squads usually don’t work in the dark. They’ve been on the hunt; they’ve been chasing their prey for hours. They’re high on the kill and lost in their purpose.
“We cleanse in Your blessed name, we fight in Your blessed name, we bleed and die in Your blessed name!” The words slur together. A Heaven-drunk chorus of soldiers howls, frothing at the mouth under their masks. I press myself into the shadows, white-hot fury and pain rising through my bones until I feel like my body is going to come apart at the seams. “O God, accept this pound of flesh as our love!”
A death squad in my path to Reformation, standing around a pair of crumpled, broken bodies. They are beaten and crushed. Their deaths were not quick. It was a game.
“Ashes to ashes,” one of the soldiers says, “dust to dust, abyss to abyss.”
“Rot in Hell,” says another. “Fucking heretics. Fucking rats.”
Seraph spreads its wings of fire in the hollow expanse of my chest, where my insides used to be.
Walking away from them is a mercy they don’t deserve.
Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
These feathers are a promise. Do you promise to do the works of God and light His fires? Do you promise to be His hands on this earth, no matter the cost? Keep your promise close. Remember that it can be taken away.
—The general of New Nazareth
Nick wakes up, and Benji isn’t there.
He and Benji turned in a few hours ago, together. Together. That was the key word. Benji was sick, and Nick was going to keep an eye on him. He wasn’t leaving his friend alone. Benji was his friend, and they’d hurt each other, and now they were trying to make it right. Even if he couldn’t get words to come out the way they should, even if saying sorry didn’t come naturally to either of them, that was something he knew he could do.