Chapter 29

When she watched Barbus turn away from her to look at the door, Mykella had closed her eyes, using the images already planted in her head thanks to Orion, and then opened them up again. There were things in the world that she knew not to disturb and when she saw a younger Orion kneeling beside a large marble statue in a garden she knew that she should not interrupt him.

From her distance, she could not hear to whom he was praying to and what type of prayer he was saying. She hid herself behind a large tree and looked on as a tall man quietly approached Orion.

“Rest easy, Child,” she heard the tall figure tell the young Orion as he placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “My power will be yours if you wish it. Many adventures you will have if you just ask for it.”

Orion turned and looked up at the man with tears reflecting from the moonlight. He grabbed the hem of the man’s robes as he dropped onto the ground and bowed his head. “I so wish it. I ask for your power, oh great one.”

The tall man smiled and as Mykella looked closer at this man, she saw that the smile was vicious, like he was hiding something from the child – like a hidden agenda.

This is when Orion first received his powers, she realized. There was nothing she could do about this and she knew she couldn’t change the past.

She turned back and saw the tall man bend down and kiss Orion’s forehead. Mykella remembered that this person was called Ilias – she had read about him in Krieger’s journal. She cocked her head and thought that Ilias wasn’t a bad-looking man. He was, in fact, pretty good-looking. And she also remembered that Ilias was a tainted angel – one bent on vengeance. He really didn’t care about Orion – who or what he would become. He only wanted to make God irate.

Mykella sighed and closed her eyes from this sad image.

Before she could open her eyes she felt a hot breath on the back of her neck and heard the soft whisper of the beast himself. “There was nothing that could be done, Mykella. I just wanted you to see that moment in my life. Now, open your eyes to your future and behold what will become of me.”

She didn’t want to know the future. She didn’t want to know especially if what this beast said was true. She didn’t want to see Orion as God.

All she wanted to do right now was to open her eyes and look into the kind face of Agnes and find herself still lying asleep in the forest ground. But she knew that wouldn’t happen until Orion woke himself. And she really didn’t know when that would be – if he would ever wake up, that is.

And Mykella forced herself to open her green eyes…

* * *

Vince really didn’t want vengeance to be his adrenaline, but at the moment, there was no other feeling in his tired and betrayed body. The only friends he had in this life had gone behind his back and fell in love. He would never forgive them. Chris was right – he only asked her to marry him because he was afraid to die alone. But dammit, he would never forgive them!

He fought his way to the grass and when he finally achieved a momentary victory, he fell down into a face-full of leaves. By the time he had reached the grass he was almost completely drained of energy and he knew that even vengeance wouldn’t be enough to get his legs moving again. He needed rest.

Karl approached Vince with caution in his step. “Do you need help?”

Vince could feel his heart pounding harder than it should. He had heard of people dying of anxiety attacks. “No,” he said with spite in his tone. “Go, take the troops. I’ll catch up in a minute or two.”

Chris watched with tears in her eyes. It didn’t take a genius to tell that Vince’s soul had gone. He sat there in the grass, a shell of a man she once loved when they were both younger. She took Karl’s hand and squeezed it and wanted to say to him: He’s dying; he’s chosen his place of death. He’s chosen to die alone. But she would never say those words because it would hurt her as much as it would the men she loved to say them.

“Let’s go,” she said and Karl sighed. She looked down at Vince. “Come when you can.”

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“Go,” he almost cried out. “If you haven’t guessed, time is very short.”

Karl gave Chris’ arm a gentle tug and they left Vince without another word.

When Vince saw they had gone and made sure that they weren’t going to return, he placed his right hand on his chest, just over his heart, closed his eyes, and concentrated on his breathing. He could feel his heart pounding even harder than when he first fell down. This was the end of him, and he opened his eyes and scanned the location. At least I’ve picked a beautiful place, he thought with a grin of pain.

Mykella, I’m sorry.

* * *

Everything was so dark that Mykella wasn’t sure if she had opened her eyes or not. When her eyes became accustomed to the dark she realized that this was a dark created by Orion and not a nighttime dark. She saw a large oval table made of some material she had never seen before; it seemed to shine a dark shine just bright enough to be seen.

She looked around and saw seven things sitting around the table in high-backed chairs. These must be Dreamkillers, she realized, because she saw Orion sitting at the head of the table wearing his cloak as always. His arms were folded and placed behind his head as he was leaning back in his chair.

Orion turned his head and smiled at her from across a room that wasn’t really a room at all. There were no walls and no ceiling. In fact, as she looked down, there was no floor below her feet. What she saw in the darkness was a million specks of light all around her and those around the table.

An alien feeling began smothering her. It was almost a fear of heights, but she knew there was nowhere below to judge height. It was almost like claustrophobia, except that there were no walls in view to be close to her. It was like not being able to breathe but still having an endless supply of oxygen.

“Come,” Orion suggested as he pointed to an empty chair that wasn’t there a second ago. “In our state of being, it seems pointless to use chairs, but sometimes old mortal habits are hard to destroy.”

Mykella knew it would be foolish to disobey Orion at this point in his being so she went over to him and sat down in the chair. “Where are we?” She glanced around the table at the hideous faces, who were watching her in return.

“We are everywhere and nowhere, Mykella.” There was a new calm in his voice that she had never heard before.

She gave him a confused expression and he almost laughed. “You are Universe, Mykella. You are in my Kingdom of my Heaven. You are witnessing the prelude to the greatest battle ever waged. My Dreamkillers against angels and myself against God. I bet you can hardly wait,” he couldn’t suppress the laughter this time. He bent his head back and roared in laughter which shook the foundation she was sitting on.

Mykella thought for a moment and then smirked. “What about Satan? Won’t he be upset that you’re fighting his war?”

It was one of the creatures sitting to her side that answered for Orion. “The devil has been taken care of. He will not stand in my God’s way,” he said and Mykella stared at the Dreamkiller with horror in her eyes.

She knew the voice; it was a voice she had heard over and over every day since the day she was born. “Dad?” She didn’t want to even think about it.

It stared at her for a moment and then sighed. “Yes, Mykella.”

“You see, Mykella,” interrupted Orion and she turned back to him with tears in her eyes. “Everyone eventually becomes mine in the end. Even your own Daddy.”

A rage burst from her soul and Mykella stood up and lunged at Orion and he laughed and held up his hand gesturing to her to stop. She froze in midair, finding that she couldn’t move her body. Her arm was out, trying to reach Orion, but when his hand went up, everything stopped.

“You can’t possibly stop me, Mykella. I don’t understand why my mother had said you would come and bring an end to me and my Dreamkillers. It doesn’t make sense.” He lifted his hand a little and turned it facing up. As he did this, Mykella’s body rotated on an invisible axis and she found herself staring up at the universe above her.

Orion looked at her hand, the one that had been reaching out for him, and squeezed his hand.

She screamed and felt every bone in that hand shatter and she pictured nothing but dust in her hand. She couldn’t grab it with her other hand; she was still frozen.

Orion walked over to her and kissed her forehead which was beaded with sweat of pain. “You are nothing to me, Child. You are no sacrificial lamb. You were nothing but something my mother put into my head.”

“Please,” she begged but could find no other words. She glanced at her hand and saw the blood begin to come from her fingernails.

“You shall be sent back to your time, Mykella, and I will prove to the world that you are nothing. You will show them that you are not their savior. You never were.”

Mykella stared at the man she once thought of as a formidable foe. But now she looked at him as a small mouse might look from the inside of a cat’s mouth whose teeth were closing down on top of it. She was defenseless.

Or was she?