Achieving Heaven Through Hell Part 3: Only the Results

Chapter 22:

Chapter 22: Numinous

The limo ride was silent, crypt-like. Octavia turned away from the anarchic cityscape and eyed up her uncle. Sallos was looking at her, his sad, harrowed eyes peering out from an otherwise impassive face. Next to him was Gallia, who looked as though she were sitting next to a timebomb, an uncharacteristic sheen of sweat barely visible on her sand-colored skin, a nervous jitter visible as her knee hopped in place.

"Via..." Sallos began to say.

"Don't," she cut him off, shaking her head. "I know. I... I want it to be you."

The limo shuddered as it tore through the fabric of reality, the Abyss a perfect flat black outside the windows, the thrashing, screaming form of a Luciferian messenger streaking by, white suite a beacon amidst the void. A moment later and they were in the courtyard of Sallos' palace, the terrible ziggurat looming over them like an oppressive mountain.

"Stay here, Via," said Sallos, getting out of the limo. "It would seem that our arrival was not announced ahead of time. You will have a proper reception, I'll see to it myself."

Octavia opened her mouth to respond but Sallos was gone, the door slamming shut behind him. She sighed and turned to look at Gallia, her usually cool, stolid demeanor giving way to a sullen, desperate dread, only barely kept in check by another alien emotion: indecisiveness. Her keen owl eyes detected something moving on her, just barely noticeable in her peripheral vision. She looked about for it, predatory eyes easily zeroing in on the source: a tooth. Around Gallia's neck was a ring of teeth. The ugly thing was hardly uniform, with fangs of all shapes, sizes, colors, and composition. This one was long, sharklike, and polished gold. In it she could see something moving.

Her reflection.

The tiny her in the glistening tooth was flapping her arms frantically, stopping and waving when she saw her notice.

Gallia, apparently chafing under her prolonged gaze, spoke up. "Run."

Octavia started at the sound of her voice, drawing away from her. "What?"

Gallia leaned forward, reaching out and taking her hand in hers. "Run, Via, please."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sallos will kill you because he thinks it's the only way to save you, but if he goes through with it..." Gallia reached into her pocket, producing a small vial of red liquid encased in polished platinum snakes. "Here, take this. It's ouroboros blood. Break it and it'll–"

"Send me anywhere I've been, I know," said Octavia. "What, you want me to run back to Charlotte? Run to Earth? Run where? Where can I possibly go where Lucifer won't find me?"

Gallia sighed and shook her head. "Lucifer has bigger things to worry about than a petty Decree. After a few days he'll–"

"He'll focus on sorting out this whole 'corpse' business, I know. Yeah, but say he does, then what?" Octavia sat back, crossing her arms. "Would Lucifer really just let me go? Would the fucking manifestation of Pride itself allow any of his subjects to escape him? Give him the slip? Defy him? If I run now, I'll never be safe. Always looking over my shoulder or hiding in safehouses for all eternity! I'd rather die!"

"Octavia, please!" Gallia exclaimed, turning away from her. "If Sallos executes you... I don't think he'll ever forgive himself. He loves you dearly, because out of all his nieces and nephews you turned out good, despite it all. Lucifer's doing this to punish him as well as your father, to torture him. I fear... if he goes through with this, I fear he'll change, stop caring."

Octavia scooted down the long limo seat, placing her hand over Gallia's. "Do you... love him?"

Gallia looked over at her before looking back out the window. "When I was alive, I was a princess, like you. The product of a joyless, hateful arranged marriage. Always stepping around court conspiracies and assassination plots and coups and endless wallowing cronyism. Then, I was pawned off the brutish ruler of a neighboring kingdom, and my life was just more of the same, only now I had status, experience, and power. Between the two of us, we reigned with terror and bloodshed, and when we were finally deposed and our heads were rolling on the cobblestones, I was sent here. I understood how it worked, gaining and holding power, diplomacy and dealmaking and backstabbing and throat-cutting. I became an Overlord and ruled for centuries, with all the coldness and brutality I'd been taught. For a time, I never even believed Heaven existed, because I'd never known so much as one decent, righteous person in my entire life."