It was a white object lying in the dirt. It had the intricacies of loops and shapes that made up the Mark of Cain. It must have been the physical representation of the mark. I tried to pick it up, but immediately dropped it. It was hot. Really hot. Like it burned my fingertips hot.

I ripped off a piece of my shirt and tried to grab it with that, and it was like it wasn't hot at all. By that I mean, it didn't give off heat, but whenever my skin touched it, it burned. Grabbing it with cloth was fine though. I wrapped it in the piece of my shirt and stuffed it in my pocket.

I didn't understand why it burned, but it felt like something important to keep close. I wasn't sure what I could do with it now that Cain was dead, but still.

Everything was about to go to Hell in a handbasket, as they say. God had no power, Cain was dead—so we couldn't put the mark back on him, unless we had some way of reviving him—and all the fallen angels and monsters in the Abyss were free. Put that on your apocalypse bingo card.

What was I going to do? I was powerless to stop the coming apocalypse. I just wasn't strong enough. Samael by himself could beat me and now he had an army of fallen angels on his side. And then there was the issue of the monsters that had escaped from the Abyss.

The Earth was screwed and there was nothing I could do about it. What would I do? I didn't know. Right now I only knew one thing. I needed healing. After that, I didn't know. But that didn't matter. I teleported to the ER of the Red Valley Hospital. Not in the middle of the room. Off to the side. I figured they probably already had someone in there, and they did. I didn't get a good look at them, but it looked like they had something stuck in their butt.

"It's Dave! He's critically injured! Get him to the ER!" a nurse said.

"We're in the ER," someone else said.

"Get him to a different ER," the nurse said. "This one's occupied."

"Oh ok," someone said. My vision was blurry, and I wasn't exactly passing out, but my eyes weren't open either. I was just really tired, and I needed some rest.

----------------------------------------

I woke up in a hospital bed. I wasn't attached to any fancy machines other than a heartbeat monitor. A nurse walked into my room and said, "You're awake. So I have some good news and some bad news."

"Give me the bad news first," I said.

"That's not really how this works. I always give the good news first, then I say 'but' and then I give the bad news," she said.

"That's fine. Do that," I said. That was slightly weird, but it sounded more theatrical, so I was for it, anyway.

"Ok. So good news is you're going to be fine, but the bad news is you have new body parts," she said, grimacing.

"Seriously? Did I grow a second one?" I asked.

She looked at me with a serious but confused expression. "No, you didn't grow a second one, but you have a lot of brand new ones."

"Like what?" I asked. I was mildly excited by this. I don't know why. Maybe I felt like it would bring me closer to Margaret. Or maybe it felt like a present. Or maybe both.

"Well, you've got horns, a tail, and my favorite, wings," she said.

"Why?" I said.

"The CRA. The cellular regeneration accelerator combined with your new demon organs must have 'regenerated' body parts the DNA in your demon organs thought you were supposed to have," she said.

"How does that work?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure. If we opened you up, I bet we'd see trails of demon tissue leading to all the new body parts, but that's the most I can assume. I don't quite know why that happened," she said.

"Huh. I guess I'm gonna need one of those human disguise things now," I said.

"I'd say so. Unless you want people to run away screaming. Although, I don't know, maybe you do want that," she said.

"No, not usually. Only on Tuesdays," I laughed.

She laughed. "Oh really? My day is Thursday," she said, smiling. She had nice white teeth. Like a shark.

Speaking of shark teeth, where was my girlfriend? Was she still in the hospital?

"Do you know if my girlfriend Margaret is still in the hospital?" I asked.

"She got sent home a few hours ago," she said.

"Oh. Am I good to go? I want to see her," I said.

"Yeah, you're fine. I'll just forge your signature a few times. No big deal," she said.

"You're a cool nurse," I said.

"Thanks," she said.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Ok, bye now!" I said, teleporting back home.

I appeared in front of my house. It felt appropriate to walk in rather than teleport in. I opened the door and called out to Margaret. "Margaret! I'm home!"

"We're in the kitchen, dear!" she replied.

We? Oh yeah, I had a kid. I'm dumb sometimes. When I walked into the kitchen, my son, Fitzwilliam Elijah Daverson was sitting in a high chair next to the table eating what appeared to be soup.

Maybe it was baby food, but I thought he would be eating normal food by age one. Who knows. I just missed my wife. I mean, girlfriend. I missed my girlfriend.

Margaret was washing dishes at the sink and I hugged her from behind. I smelled her hair. It smelled like cinnamon and fire lilies. It reminded me of home. I was home. I was finally home after three days of reading the bible with the most notorious prisoner of Hell.

"Welcome home, dear. I saved you a piece of cake from the party. It's Hellish Vanilla. I think you'll like it," she said, grabbing my hand and kissing it.

"I haven't heard of that. Is that Hell's take on German chocolate?" I said, kissing the back of her neck. She was warm, but she always was. She was a demon and this was Hell.

"Yes it is, and it's fire," she said, finishing her dishes and turning around. She stared deep into my eyes and kissed me.

After we ended the kiss, I said, "I love the enthusiasm, but no one says things are 'fire' anymore."

She looked at me confused and slightly hurt. "What do you mean? People always have and always will call things 'fire' down here. It's Hell."

I thought about it and realized Earth might have actually stolen that slang from Hell. Those bastards. "Oh. Right. Sorry dear. Carry on. I'm sorry for missing Eli's birthday. You'll never believe this, but I was stuck in Purgatory by Purgatory, playing limbo with Judas. I couldn't leave."

"I understand, dear. Just try not to miss too many of them," she said, kissing me on the forehead. She had to pull my head down to do it. While many things were different in Hell, women were still shorter than men on average.

Margaret looked at me funny. "I don't know what it is, but you seem different."

I raised an eyebrow at her so high I thought it might fly off my face. "You don't know what it is about me that's different? Seriously?"

She put her hand over her chin. "Yeah, something is definitely different, but I just can't put my finger on it."

I leaned forward pointing at the horns sticking out of my head. "You can't," then I spread out my wings so they could be seen behind my back, "be serious." Then I turned and pointed at the point above my butt where my tail began.

"Yeah, I don't know what it is," she said, shaking her head and scrunching her eyebrows together.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and looked her deep in her pitch black irises. "What about the horns sticking out of my head, the wings coming out of my back, or the tail sprouting out of my butt?"

She looked at me with innocent confusion. "Didn't you always have those?"

"No! I just got them at the hospital by accident," I said, stamping my foot in play frustration.

"Huh. They just seem so fitting on you that it feels like you've had those for years," she said. She was the most genuine woman I'd ever met in my life. She meant what she was saying.

"Huh," I said, feeling my horns. "I guess I do like them. Thanks."

"No problem. I'll always be here to boost your confidence. Now that'll be $500!" She smiled with her brilliant white sharp teeth and put out her hand.

"I wish I could just make $500 appear in your hand like Lucifer could, but I don't have that apparatus yet," I said.

"It's ok. I was just kidding. There are much easier ways for me to make $500 than ask you for it," she said.

"What does that mean?" I asked, genuinely confused. What did that mean?

"Nothing," she said. She grabbed my hand and pulled me over to Eli sitting in the high chair. "Come on. I need to introduce you to Eli. He's needs to know who his Daddy is. Sorry, I mean, Dad."

"Nice save. Ok," I said following her.

Margaret looked at Eli and said, "Eli, this is your Dad. He helped make you. He combined a piece of his DNA with a piece of my DNA to create you! Isn't that wonderful?"

"Uh—" I began to say.

"DNA!" Eli said. Although, he didn't say it that eloquently. It sounded like he was saying "dinna."

"Dinna! Dad! Dinna! Mommy!" Eli said, waving what I assumed was supposed to be a child's toy around, but was actually just a small spiked club. Seemed dangerous, but I had gotten into enough trouble lately questioning Hell's customs. I didn't need anymore disagreements.

"Yes. I'm your Dad, kiddo. Eli," I said, putting out my finger. I hoped he would grab it like he did when he was born, but instead he bit it, drawing blood.

"Ow!" I said.

"He he," Eli giggled, waving his club around.

"Don't worry, honey. He's still teething. He wasn't trying to hurt you," she said. She got out a first aid kit and cleaned my wound. Then she wrapped it in a bandage. "All better."

"Thank you," I said, bending my finger. It felt fine. Man, he was going to be a monster when he grew up if he could get through my super toughness already. I'd have to step up my game if I didn't want my son kicking my ass when he got older.

"So what happened?" Margaret said. "Did you save the world again?"

"Not exactly," I said, scratching my head and avoiding her eyes.

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'? Is the world saved or not?" she asked.

"No. It's not saved. I don't know what to do. There's this fallen angel guy who's stronger than me. Samael. He kicked my ass. And now he's opened the Abyss and freed hundreds of other fallen angels and legions of unspeakable monsters. I'm just not strong enough for this, but I don't know who is either," I said.

"The Abyss has been opened? That's insane! Everything I've read about it in my demon texts is bad news," Margaret said.

"It's worse than you've probably read. I've seen the monsters with my own eyes. They are horrifying to say the least," I said. "And now they're spreading out across the Nevada desert. They could make it to a populated area at any moment."

"And that's not the worst part. God's judgement has been broken. He has no power unless I can put the mark back on Cain and Cain is dead."

"Have you tried putting it on his dead body?" she asked.

"No, but I have a feeling that won't work. Something tells me he has to be alive. The point of the mark is to keep a person alive forever. It can't do that if they're dead," I said.

"Well, have you considered putting the mark on someone else?" she said. "Does it have to be on Cain?"

My eyes widened. I hadn't thought of that. "I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe it can go on anyone. But who would I put it on? I can't give it to just anyone. Someone could do a lot of damage with it if they wanted to."

"It would have to be someone you trust. Someone you know won't abuse it," she said.

"That only leaves me, you, and Steve. It should be me. It's my fault we're in this situation. Besides, it will give me a huge power up against Samael and his fallen angels. They won't be able to hurt me anymore," I said, determination etching itself across my face.

"Dave, it's not your fault this happened. It's the people who did it's fault. That isn't a bad idea though. You could certainly use a power up right now," she said. "Maybe ask Lucifer or God how to activate more of the gems on your crown. That thing should give you enough power to defeat them."

"That might be a good idea. I don't want to fight Samael unprepared again," I said.

"The one thing you have to consider is that with the mark, you'll outlive us," she said, gesturing to herself and Eli.

"What?" I said. I didn't think of that.