I, Devil (a love story)

Chapter Twenty Two: Azazel

The problem with time travel is it is a lot harder than I make it look. I can't travel on numerical time, since time and consciousness are intertwined. So, the method in which I travel is on an individual's timeline. The problem with this is how vague it is. I cannot, for example, travel to October 21, 1998 because it is too exact and numbers are entirely subjective. The year 1998 isn't meaningful say, on Mercury, which orbits the sun at a different rate and years are measured differently. It's just a number and doesn't truly have any information in the universe. Instead, what I do to travel is use my ability to go back to someone's event (usually something traumatic but not always)—which may or may not have even happened so long as it shaped their character or personality. I'd need to know someone very well and have a lot of their permissions in order to be very precise. But, how well do you know someone?

This has always been the flaw in my ability to travel through time. I don't have a map, and the only maps I have are humans themselves. In order to get a 'map' of an individual, you have to know them, watch them and their family closely. In addition, the more I time travel and meddle the weaker the veil becomes between 'here' and 'there.'

More paranormal activity occurs around a weaker veil.

Demons, spirits, ghosts, you name it. It makes a mess to time travel.

I was once again at a loss as to what to do after I paid Wendy a visit in the past. I'm always left with all the answers but none of the benefit. The Devil has always been a symbol of knowledge but for what? Knowing doesn't make your life any easier or better. There is always more to know. I can time travel but nowhere to go except now.

I pulled myself away from Adremelech's monster. I would have to set Wendy aside for the moment. I held onto Sachiel and could feel the tattered, spiderweb tendrils of the Veil, breaking and snapping apart as I pulled myself through space and time. My pocket watch, a concentrated symbol of my time travel abilities, chimed musically and illuminated with white and golden light. Planets, stars, and clouds orbited the face of the watch, moving me through the dimensions and keeping my energy focused.

I wanted to go back to present day, present time. I wanted to get to know my new friend. I had no intention of eating him. Already he was perfumed with a low vibrational stink that couldn't be cleaned off: sulfur, rotten fish, and sewage.

It was hard to find a place. The universe is so crammed with life that everything has become noise. Meresin had the Void but that was too much silence, too far away. It was so drastically nothing that it was its own chaos. I wanted somewhere we couldn't be found. I wanted somewhere intolerable for Adramelech, who was bound to be looking for Sachiel eventually.

Adramelech likes it low and hot so I decided to go cold and high. Mountainous level high. Some 19 thousand feet above sea-level high in Tanzania. It was the first thing I thought of and I was pretty certain that my brother would never thinking of finding us on the top of Kilimanjaro.

I could already sense that Sachiel was feeling distorted and lost. He had no idea where we were.

"I have no idea where we are," said Sachiel stepping out of the portal. "Like, really really no idea. Are we even on Earth?" he wondered out loud, looking around at the deserted, alien landscape.

We stood at the summit. We were high enough that the white and gray clouds churned and bubbled below us. All around us was nothing but craggy, lifeless rocks and an endless bent, blue sky. It looked as if we stood at the very surface of the world. If we could feel cold then we both would have shivered. It looked cold and thin outside.

I didn't answer at first. I watched as Sachiel meandered around. There was an obvious, cleared trail to follow. Eventually, he discovered a tall wooden signpost. The signpost was weather beaten and faded. It definitely had seen better days. It was also definitely made for tourists, since all of the lettering was in English instead of the native Swahili.