Godforsaken: Book 1 (Shade of Light) (23 page)

A fleeting glimpse of the monk’s eyes was
enough to understand he was extremely serious. “What do you mean by
saying he’s unpredictable?” Lily asked. “I believe that he has
feelings for me. Maybe it’s not the same way a human loves, but
it’s a feeling all the same.”

“Look,” Raphael sighed, “Samael is too
clever because he was created to be. Being a fallen archangel, he
remains trusted by God, but you’ve got to be careful because Samael
works only for his own purposes. He’s a loner, he keeps his
distance from every other archangel. He was Heaven’s archangel, he
was Lucifer’s partner, he helped humanity, he killed Eve’s progeny
– Efran and his whole family,” Raphael stopped abruptly. Lily did
the same. Her eyes were scared, but thoughtful. “What do you think
the too-clever man would want to have most?”

Different answers hovered in her head, but
her mouth remained shut.

“Purpose,” Raphael answered his own
questions solemnly, “An impossible purpose. Something that hasn’t
been done before.”

“What is his purpose now?” Lily mouthed.

“Ah!” Raphael chortled loudly. The walls
echoed his voice, sucking it in. “Even Father doesn’t know his
purpose. Nobody knows what is in his mind. Sometimes Michael and
Gabriel overestimate him, but I have always known that Samael never
makes an unplanned movement. His love for you can’t be just
coincidence. I can’t believe you first encountered each other in a
club.”

Lily instantly forgot to breathe. A lot of
thoughts popped into her mind simultaneously. There might be sense
in Raphael’s words, in regards to why such a beautiful and mighty
creature as Samael should fall in love with such a primitive and
meaningless girl like Lily.

“I just want you to be careful around him,”
Raphael resumed morosely, breaking the silence. “Don’t trust him
completely. You can’t be sure what the angel of death is capable
of.”

“Angel of death?” Lily was surprised, her
eyebrows arched. “Samael is the angel of death?”

Raphael looked into her eyes gloomily. “He
takes unearthly creatures to the Island of the Dead and gives them
to Uriel.”

“Is it a bad thing, to find and remove the
evil souls?”

“The body and soul of Unearthly creatures is
one entity, they can’t be separated,” Raphael replied mildly. “Evil
and good are only for humans. Angels and demons, they aren’t good
or bad. By the way, God sent Eve to the Island of the Dead too, as
a punishment for disobeying him. God knows forgiveness, but Samael
never forgives. He had something with Succubus once, but I believe
that now he will remorselessly send her to the Island of the Dead
too, the cruelest place for unearthly creatures.” Raphael looked
around, turning his heavenly light to the walls using his hand as
if his palm was a torch. “I guess we’re nearly there.”

“Where?” Lily asked impatiently.

“In Azazel’s realm,” the monk replied
solemnly, then hummed something incomprehensible under his breath.
An air wave formed around his outstretched hand then it expanded
and hit the wall. It exploded. Lily closed her eyes. The sound of
the explosion deafened her ears briefly.

Being deaf and blind, Lily began to see into
other queer worlds. Her memories took her back through time and she
saw a blonde woman’s face smiling on her. At first it was blurry,
then the picture cleared up. With her brown eyes filled with
happiness, she wanted to say something to Lily, but her thin lips
didn’t move. Lily was sure that the woman had something to tell
her.
W
hy didn’t she just say it?

Her face was familiar, but Lily couldn’t
register where she had seen the woman. The way the woman was
looking at her warmed Lily down to her bones.

Lily smiled involuntarily. The woman opened
her mouth, but Lily didn’t hear her voice. Lily wanted her to
repeat the words, wanted to hug that woman, but she came to the
realization that she couldn’t control her body.

She looked over the woman’s shoulder. They
were in a car, but Lily couldn’t see the driver. There should be
someone steering the wheel. The upcoming image behind the woman
made Lily’s eyes freeze. Fear flooded her. A big track was a yard
away from them. Within a second it crashed into the car that she
and the woman were in. Lily tried to cry, she opened her mouth but
her voice refused to come out, as if her lungs were entirely
airless.

Lily blinked. The picture before her eyes
stopped moving. The time stopped. Staring at it with unfocused
eyes, she saw the woman’s brown eyes looking at her mournfully. The
air filled with glass and debris, so close that Lily could reach
out for them, if only her body would obey her. She felt cold, and
finally she exhaled, puffing out a white huge cloud which erased
that surreal picture.

It was swallowed up by darkness momentarily,
then a bright light replaced it. As her eyes adjusted to the light,
she saw Raphael’s anxious face above her.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “Can you get
up?”

“I guess I can,” Lily struggled into sitting
position, feeling giddy, and Raphael helped her up. “What just
happened?”

“You collapsed to the ground,” Raphael
straightened her loosened hair. “It’s okay in this prison, you
aren’t the first.”

“I had a vision,” Lily said, taking her face
into her hands.

“It wasn’t a vision, it was a memory. This
prison brings back your worst memories and makes you watch them
again and again until you lose your mind. Later, you won’t know
where the line of reality and insanity is, and your mind will be
lost in these walls forever.” Raphael held his hand out to help
Lily stand up.

As she was on her feet she looked around.
There was a big hole caved into the wall, big enough to pass
through. Pieces of wall were soaring in the air as if gravity
didn’t exist here. Lily’s eyes became magnified in surprise.

“What’s going on here?” she squeaked.

“I told you, this is my place. I slowed down
time,” Raphael said jovially. He made his way toward the hole and
beckoned Lily.

“Slowed down time? But that’s…that’s…”

“Impossible?” he finished her sentence.

“Yeah.”

“Impossible on Earth. The rules on Earth
aren’t fit for here,” Raphael explained. “Watch your head.”

Lily bent forward to avoid the large pieces
hanging in the air.

“We have to take a turn here,” Raphael said,
and veered to the left. “I guess that time can go on normally now.
Look up.”

As he trailed off, the stones fell to the
ground quickly, and the voices, moans and wind returned to life
instantly. Lily looked ahead; there was a light at the end of the
corridor. It was the way out of the maze of sexual games, the maze
of uncontrollable memories, and the maze of self-humiliation.

The sound of shouting hit Lily’s face, as if
a crowd had erupted opposite the doorway. The light at the end was
seemingly an entrance into an entirely other world, one having
nothing to do with the dingy mazes.

The light blinded her. When her eyes
adjusted to it a huge place opened in front of her. She instantly
saw an enormous stadium full of people yelling, shrieking and
supporting the ones on the stage. Lily found herself like an ant in
a huge hole. Cliffs like icicles jutted out of the ceiling. Orange
light lit the stadium, like thousands of candles and torches had
been placed around it. As Lily’s eyes dropped down to the stage,
her heart was stopped by the eerie performance everyone was
cheering for.

It reminded her of an arena of gladiators.
Death and destruction were spread everywhere, as below her people
slaughtered each other, tore each other open like beasts. The stage
was colored poppy red with blood streaming to the edges. Lily
couldn’t count how many people were down there, maybe several
hundred, or even a thousand. The crowd shouted with every blow, and
gasped with every drop of blood shed.

“Raphael,” she exclaimed, dumbfounded,
“what’s going on here? Why are they killing each other?”

“This is a common ceremony for this prison,
Lily,” Raphael explained unsympathetically. “The one who survives
the battle will take the gift. This time the bet is very high.
That’s why there are a lot of humans and inhuman creatures in the
arena.”

Some steps out from the corridor Samael
stood, leaning against the railing that was wrapped around the
stadium. He was watching the slaughter. Lily, alongside Raphael,
came up and stood beside him. Lily looked at Samael’s face
surreptitiously; his eyes were dark and thoughtful. She wondered
what he had recalled from his memories related to this gladiator’s
arena. Had he ever fought in it himself?

“Stay close,” Samael hissed abruptly. Lily
raised her eyebrows.

“Does he see us?” She peered at Raphael
where he was standing on her other side. “You said nobody can see
and hear us.”

“He can’t see us, but I told you that he can
feel us. Especially you.”

“Why me?”

“Because he loves you.” Raphael sneered and
turned his face away.

Lily knew that the monk didn’t believe in
Samael’s feelings, but he didn’t know the gray-winged creature’s
soul. Lily believed that Samael was still one of God’s servants. He
hadn’t let Heaven fall, he had saved Eve’s line, and he hadn’t
allowed Lucifer near its female heir. Maybe he had done monstrous
things once, but now he was different, at least to Lily.

She peeked around. Succubus had already left
Samael. Then Lily looked in the same direction as Raphael. There in
the middle of the tribune to Lily’s right sat an unusual woman.
Regardless of the distance Lily couldn’t help but stare.

“Who’s she?” Lily asked Raphael, pointing to
the tribune.

“That is Lilith,” the monk muttered
vigorously.

“Didn’t she die?”

“No. She was ready to do everything to avoid
death. She managed to convince Lucifer to keep her alive, and he
made her a queen in the world of the dead.” His words sounded
mystical and terrifying.

“What is the world of the dead?” Lily knew
only Heaven and Hell.

“A name for Hell,” Raphael explained.

“Let’s go,” Samael interrupted dryly.

Without looking at them, as he could see
neither Lily, nor Raphael, he made his way toward the opposite
platform. They had to pass through a maddened crowd.

The aisle was narrow, and from time to time
Lily thought that she could catch on somebody. Walking along this
way was like passing through hell itself. At first she studied the
people on the platforms. There she saw faces that she thought she
would never forget. Half of one man’s face was completely torn
away, blood was dried on the other half and on the remaining pieces
of his skull. His less damaged eye met Lily’s, and she averted hers
promptly from his mangled face. Looking down she tried to steady
her breathing, then raised her eyes. There was a peculiar girl of
about eight years old, with big brown eyes and long frizzy black
hair. Many men would someday dream about her sunburnt skin, tight
breasts and plump lips. She held the hand of a woman who might have
been her mother. The girl stared at Samael eagerly, winked at him
and licked her lips provocatively. When Samael didn’t pay attention
to her, she faced the woman next to her and bent forward. The woman
smiled wickedly and brought her long tongue out of her mouth. The
girl’s eyes widened, her eyebrows raised, and she closed her lips
around the woman’s tongue, sucking it deep into her mouth.

Lily rubbed her eyes and looked again,
hoping that she would wake up in her bed to find that the hideous
prison Dudael was just a nightmare. Of course nothing changed, this
crowd heaping with monsters was more real than even her bed. She
glanced back at Raphael desperately, looking for salvation.

“Why does God let this go on?” she
asked.

“This place is out of God’s sight,” Raphael
replied, sighing. “Father can’t see everything, Lily. Some places
are left for his sons to rule.”

“You’re one of his sons, why do you let this
continue?” she pointed around, a tear streaming out of her eye.
“You could stop it, but–”

“I choose not to,” Raphael finished instead
of her. “The people, you see here, must be punished.”

“Nobody deserves such punishment. There are
a lot cruel and bad people on Earth, why aren’t they here?” Lily
cried out disapprovingly.

“Those people haven't sold their soul for
immortality. Besides, this is an ideal place for a lot of creatures
to satisfy their human needs. Of course there are a lot of them on
Earth who carry on in the same way, but with this prison, we can
decrease that quantity.”

“This isn’t a prison, this is a big
brothel,” Lily remarked fiercely.

Samael continued walking purposefully two
steps ahead of them. Some girls and women stared at him with
passionate looks, winked at him, and beckoned him to them, but
several recognized the angel of death. They bowed to him. Lily
thought that they must be old prisoners, because as Succubus had
said, Samael hadn’t visited Dudael in a long time.

They were opposite Lilith, who was across
the arena. She was on her throne like a queen watching a battle,
her black eyes remorseless. Her straight black hair reached to her
waist. Her tight breasts were covered with a black leather bra – it
was the only clothing she wore except her lacquered leather shorts.
Two floodlights illuminated her fetching white skin and long
crossed legs.

Lilith was idyllically beautiful. Lily
wondered then who was more beautiful, Succubus or Lilith.

“What are all these men thinking, risking
their life for a night with Lilith?” Lily asked sounding
surprised.

“Being immortal, it's easy to lose some
feelings like fear, love, honor,” Raphael said. “In the prison,
sexual games take first place. Having the queen of Hell is a very
high prize, and builds quite a reputation in the unearthly
world.”