Angel of Fire - the Breath of Immortality - Book One #Wattys2014

A Fate Worse Than Death

Chapter 43 - A Fate Worse Than Death

Serenity and I planned to meet back up at the Devil's Soupbowl. She'd promised to be there making all the necessary preparations to heal me. Supposedly, all I had to do was show up.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I didn't notice any other vehicles.

Maybe she'd taken her broom.

I raced up the well worn hiking trail, grateful for light cast from a new moon that illuminated the pathway through the dense forest. Despite a deepening sense of urgency that there wouldn't be enough left of me to heal, when I finally reached the top and found Serenity I was so ecstatic I could've hugged her.

Instead of being happy to see me, she seemed genuinely disgusted by my appearance.

That made two of us.

She frowned, glancing at the Devil's Soupbowl. “Get in.”

I followed her eyes. Over nine hundred feet wide and filled to the brim with thick, black murky water the formidable depression in the Earth's surface looked more like a bottomless pit of hell. Especially when smoke started to rise from the middle like the smoke of some great furnace.

Doubt clouded my mind like the plague spreading disease. Our not-so-joyful reunion was about to become smeared with accusations. From my end, anyway.

I eyed her carefully. “Why did you insist I destroy Vycandor with that gun?” My words echoed eerily, piercing the stillness of the night.

Standing at the edge of the water that now looked as black as death, Serenity's smile never reached her eyes. “So you could take revenge for what he did to your friends.”

I wasn't buying it. Not one little bit.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why does Vycandor think you're behind what happened to him?”

Serenity raised her brow, voice quivering in surprise. “Did he tell you that?”

I shook my head. “He didn't have to. You just did. I know you're the one behind everything.”

The veil of lies slipped away. What I saw in her eyes for the very first time was pure undiluted evil.

How did I not see it before?

When she finally spoke, her determined voice sounded all wrong. “Out of all of the offspring ever born, the Angels of Darkness chose you to lead the rebellion because you turned out to be the most powerful offspring of them all.” Serenity began walking around in circles, talking with her hands like a wheel barrel full of crazy. “But then Vycandor realized that in order to balance his own destructive powers, he needed to find the other half of his soul.” She stopped circling to point an accusing finger at me. “He found out that you had been hiding in plain sight at your school all along and came to find you. That's why I sent a soldier to recruit you ahead of schedule. If Vycandor had gotten to you, the results would have been disastrous. Once the bond between two angels forms, it can never be broken.” She paused to squeal with high-pitched laughter. The sound made my teeth hurt. Like nails down a chalkboard. "But you, Chaos," she spat the words. "When you resisted, you gave me no choice but to have my soldiers capture Vycandor instead, and bring him to me.”

My voice seethed with hatred. “Where you poisoned him and all the others too, including my friends.”

“Yes. My newest creation,” she hissed, eyes dancing in the darkness. “A little toxin I like to call the Breath of Immortality. Once ingested it causes a violent death, followed by a miraculous rebirth. Everyone who drinks it becomes mine to control.” She narrowed her eyes in vicious slits. “Everyone with the exception of you, of course. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the offspring that the Angels of Darkness wanted the most, was the only one ever born with the power of regeneration, and the only one I could not control." She began to laugh hysterically. "Why, it's...it's almost as if you were touched by the hand of God himself to be the hero. Like a Phoenix who rises up out of it's own fiery ashes in order to stop the Dark Ones from taking over the world.”