A Little Piece Of Heaven

Claire shook dust from her hair and checked the window to make sure that they had got far enough away not to have anyone following. The small cottage was maybe two or three miles from the hole in the ground where her friends were now trapped and she knew that time was fast running out. She pulled the book from under her coat and looked at where Dani was locking the door. Stefanie was laying out the remaining weapons on the old wooden kitchen table, concentrating her rage on the inanimate objects. Only Raven remained calm, her hands folded in her lap, caressing the blade that wanted to join it’s brethren as she watched the open doorway.
“Should we intervene ?”
“No. He won’t take it too far.”
Claire smiled grimly, trying to ignore the hunger provoked by her lover. Zacky was lost in rage, his face steady and blank as he proceeded to try and break every bone in Mikey’s body. The tall man was curled in a ball, Claire had noticed that he too was looking as sick as Lilith had and wondered if the god being free in that crypt was already draining them dry. Zacky picked up a chair in one hand and connected it hard to Mikey’s head resulting in a pained screech.
“You’re….too late. They…will raise…my Lord…”
“You won’t be around to see it by the time I’m done. Nothing left to resurrect.”
There was another grunt as Zacky rammed his foot into Mikey’s knee and proceeded to kick the prone man violently in the ribs. He closed his eyes as he felt Claire’s arms around his waist, her voice bringing him back from the red haze that blanketed his mind.
“After. He’s a useful bargaining chip while we work out how to stop this.”
There was a violent bout of wheezing and coughing from the ground, Claire ignoring the blood flowing into the carpet as Mikey tried to speak around the pain in his body. His mind still sang although he found that he could not feel the words in his head, a blanketing spell maybe but ultimately futile. His smile was bloody and crazed.
“You can’t stop it. He’s coming…”
Zacky slammed his boot heel into Mikey’s head and the words ceased, the movement now only a vague twisting as he turned to face her. Claire now saw the exhaustion and fury behind the green eyes and rested her forehead against his. She couldn’t help but go to the dark place in her mind and wonder what was happening to Syn, Matt, Jimmy and Johnny. They would be fighting she knew, trying to save themselves and Lilith but without some help then Mikey would probably be right. The dilemma now facing them was stark.
“What do we do ?”
“You wake up my angel. There’s no choice now is there ?”
Claire and Zacky stared at Raven, the words had been forming on their own lips but neither had wanted to say it. She looked tired, her arm bleeding from the fight but now Claire could see the determination and wondered if that was what her sister had seen. Zacky pulled the beaten man over to the couch and used a length of solid chain they had found outside to secure him to a chair. He looked back at Raven, his stare critical but considerate.
“There’s always a choice. Claire said there’s another spell if we can get to it.”
Raven sighed, hearing Jimmy in his voice and knowing that as much as they were all trying to protect her, there was something inevitable about all this. She could see now that she had met Jimmy for a reason, fallen in love with him and given up a mortal life in order to contribute to something bigger. Yes there were risks but she needed to save her man and her friends, the means to do it were within her reach.
“Zack, you know we don’t have time. He has Lilith and Johnny, Gerard can raise Patollo at any moment and we have only one option.”
Zacky pushed the two women back into the kitchen, Claire aware that the blank stare had settled back onto his features. Her man was a study in handsome brutality and she knew that he was itching to go back and take on the god on his own terms. He closed the door behind them, loving all the girls in front of him and knowing that every one of them would have his back when it came to it.
“Raven, you could die. We don’t know what awakening that will mean. You may stop Patollo but not be able to save them anyway. I need to know you see this with sane eyes before I agree to it.”
Dani could see that Raven would not give way, the part of her that wanted Matt understood how hard it was for the woman to know she could save Jimmy and not try despite the threat to her own life.
“You have the book, what do you think ?”
Claire looked up at them, her eyes serious.
“We can do it, the spell itself with you and I adding our power to it would work. What we don’t know is the consequences. But I have to agree, I don’t know that we have time to find an alternative. Once Patollo is loose it’s game over for all of us.”
“I agree. Stefanie ?”
Stefanie was sat at the dinner table, her mind filled with Johnny and too many memories. She ran her fingers along the gun on the table feeling more tired than she had ever done. To weigh the lives of all of them against his was impossible. She wondered if they were already too late, fear in her mind along with the rage that she could feel mirrored in Zacky.
“We can’t go at them headlong again, that zombie army would cut us down. I say we have to take the risk. I trust Raven to do this.”
Zacky rubbed his eyes and smiled at the dark haired girl who met his stare and pushed her hair back from her face. She had guts he had to give her that and he allowed himself to think what it would be like to march alongside a fallen angel. They had all heard the stories, one had not walked the earth since the middle ages, the repercussions had echoed down over several centuries. Had to be a rush….
“Ok, I’m in. We take Mikey with us too when we go back. I want to see if Gerard is ready to kill his brother to get what he wants. There is one question I have though.”
All of them looked at him, the small cottage kitchen seeming to close in around them a little more as Zacky leant back against the closed door. Claire felt her heart sink, she could hear what he wanted to know and didn’t know if she had the answer.
“What if we can save them but not Lilith ?”
Raven looked at Claire and Dani, the glance between them not filling her with confidence. Dani picked up the book from the table and turned to the relevant page. She had known that Lilith had done more reading on the subject, the ability to spot an angel was not something that the other witches had ever thought about possessing so there must have been a reason for it.
“This talks of the cleansing power of an angel. How they can wipe evil from the land and from men’s souls. I am guessing that it must work on someone who is possessed. We know Lilith seemed to think so.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
Claire sighed, the pain in his voice always went straight through her and she knew that Zacky as thinking back fifty years to when they had watched Syn die in front of them. The awful days of grief and pain that had followed. They had managed to bring him home with Jimmy’s help but this was so much different. She looked at him, cupping his face in her hands.
“Lilith knew that there is a chance it won’t work, she knew from the moment they did that to her. She told me to look after Syn.”
“Fuck, we are doing this now. I won’t wait.”
Raven pulled herself up to her full height, the rage in her face was lighting something else inside her, a vague feeling of power that was different to the power of a reaper and she knew from their faces that her friends could see it too. She would do this, save Jimmy and the boys and Lilith. Claire hesitated a moment more and then smiled.
“Let’s get to it.”
The spell itself was fairly simple. Claire and Dani pulled together the ritual and the ingredients needed from the kitchen cupboards and the book of hours that each witch never let out of her sights. Mikey remained bound and gagged, his feverish state telling them that the rising had not yet happened. Together Zacky and Stefanie made a perimeter and patrolled it, the gifts of a reaper telling them that so far there were now zombies within range.
“Are you ready ?”
Raven took in a deep breath and nodded. This was different to signing the book like before, there had been no salt circle or pentagram. Nothing more than a pen and paper, whereas now the incantations were in latin and an old dialect of English that meant nothing to any of them. The sky was visibly darkening outside causing Dani to light the candles and grip the athame a little tighter. The runes on the table shifted as Claire let the magic take over, her hand glancing over ice that melted on a small dish in the centre of the alter.
“Tensions go with melting ice,
As I bless this circle thrice.
Remembered pleasures. Forgotten sorrow.
Free our angel and allow us a tomorrow.”
There was a rumble and Zacky pushed Stefanie back into the kitchen, seeing the witches at work and not wanting to be outside while the earth was shifting around them. The darkness outside was overpowered by the glow now coming from the small room and he looked around with a rueful smile before joining Stefanie under the table. She grinned back at him.
“Are we going to hell now or later ?”
“Hey, they’re trusting Lilit. Remember what happened in St Petersburg ?”
Stefanie chuckled and grabbed his hand, both of them trying to duck away from the rain of objects and debris that was coming down from the writhing building. Soon they were sheltering their eyes from the glare of the light now blazing from the other room. Zacky couldn’t see Claire or Dani, only hear their voices as a piercing whine started to grow and reach a crescendo. He could also hear Mikey screaming from the other room and was forced to clap his hands over his ears and tightly shut his eyes.
Silence.
Stefanie shook Zacky hard, both of them blinking before realising the house was gone and they were lying in the wreckage outside. Zack immediately looked for Claire and smiled, not quite sure what to make of what he was seeing.
Dani helped Stefanie up and shook her head with a smile, none of them could quite understand the feeling of standing so close to something of such infinite power. Claire was the only one to stand next to Raven, the girl they had known now transformed into a radiant bright version of herself. Zacky knew that Mikey was trying to make a break for it and judged the distance as he stared at Raven.
“How do you feel ?”
Raven considered the answer, it was like being able to hear everything and see anything. All her past experiences blurred like bad all movies and she had to concentrate to answer him. She could hear her friends and Jimmy, he was ok but the fight continued it seemed. Johnny was hurt, her eyes flicking to Stefanie as she tried to keep her face neutral. Matt too was damaged but seemingly still battling too. Lilith she could hardly feel at all.
“Amazing. I can feel them all and we have to hurry. They won’t hold out much longer and I have a nasty feeling we don’t have long before they attempt to raise him.”
Zacky nodded, breaking into a casual jog as he headed after the injured man. Claire and the girls watched amused as he caught Mikey easily before punching him into the ground a few times for good measure. Stefanie started to collect up the weapons as the two witches linked arms with the angel now walking among them.
“Let’s go teach the bitch a lesson.”

Notes