Ethereal - Part Two

Chapter 38 - The Last Supper

I was drained. Emotionally and physically. Did I mention I was starving? After Asmodeus had left my cell, I had fallen asleep and that seemed to have helped with the stinging cramp in my belly.

Unfortunate for me, I was awoken with a gush of water thrown onto my face. I choked on the cold water and stale, dry air, coughing hysterically, my body shivering from the cold and shock. “What the fuck!” I screeched as my eyes found Lilith, not too far from me with another woman who had an empty bucket in her hands.

“It is time” Lilith simply said and then handed a key to the guards who then entered the cell. Before she was about to exit, she turned to them and spoke. “Bring her up, but keep her restrained, she might try to escape”. The guards nodded their heads and came towards me.

The one guard lifted me up from the floor and removed the chains and handcuffs. I brought my hands to my front and rubbed my wrists, my legs slightly wobbly. Then I hurriedly grabbed the shard of glass that was left on the ground where I was seated and faced the guards.

But before I could try anything, the one guard started transforming. The skin on his face fell apart first, revealing a bloody and fresh set of new skin. It was repulsing. But I was trained for this, and yet I couldn’t move.

It occurred to me that Walter Bradford Cannon, had discovered the fight or flight response incorrectly. Because there was also a third reaction; freeze. I could neither flee and I could neither will my body to fight off this demon, regardless of what I had been taught.

This was somehow worse than when Sathanas was transforming. At least he did not have a stench. This demon before me reeked of death and all I felt like doing was puking up my insides.

Suddenly the other guard who was still in his human form grabbed me by my shoulders and shoved me closer to the demon’s face. “You still want to try and escape?” He asked me, peeling away the shard of glass from my fingers.

Even if I wanted to answer I couldn’t. The rancid smell of the creature was enough to shut me up. Then the demon who was still posing as a human shoved me away from the fleshy demon and out of the gates of the cell.

I was taken to dimly lit room, the two guards and the slave girl as my company, a room like the room I had awoken in when I arrived. The guard threw me onto the bed and then him and the other guard left the room, closing it behind them.

I turned to look at the slave girl and she watched me with a troubled expression on her face. “Please, do not try anything. If I fail my queen, she will have my head”. I sighed, my shoulders drooping slightly in defeat.

I could not let any harm come to someone else because of my actions. So I allowed the girl to take me by the hand and seat me at the dresser. She smiled at me gratefully and then retrieved a dress from the closet.

It was a plain silk black dress with thin straps and a low cut at the back. “For the wings” She said softly, gesturing to the nearly missing back of the dress and I stared at her in complete shock. The girl handed me the dress and I changed into it.

Turning around, I admired myself in mirror. I looked at my bare back that would soon grow a pair of wings. How the fuck was that even possible? Why after all this time would they only take form now?

A knock was heard at the door and then the girl scurried over to open up. The guards asked her if I was ready to which the girl just nodded her head. They then entered and made a beeline towards me.

With both guards at my side clutching my elbows, we walked out of the dark into a long corridor and eventually we came to a large room where everyone else was waiting for us.

“Finally, we can get this feast started” I heard Lucifer say and then I saw him across the room. The guards pulled me towards his direction and then made me sit down on his left. On his right sat Lilith, looking elegant as ever in her flowy black dress and jewelled crown to match.

Then Lucifer stood up from his seat and pulled me up with him. “Followers, years have passed while I waited to be worshipped by the mortals of Earth. But now, my goal is much larger”.

I had a firm frown fitted into my forehead while I watched Lucifer speak to the rest of the crowd before us. Thoren was standing with his back resting against one of the columns, a brass chalice in his one hand. When he saw me watching him, he raised the chalice and then sent a wink my way.

I rolled my eyes in response and paid further attention to what the demon next to me was saying. “For long, the birth of Nephilim was seemingly just a myth, a simple prophecy by those damned seven major angels who thought they had everything under control. But tell me this, my followers, did they foresee me getting my hands on one such Nephilim?” He asked the crowd and they responded by roaring into laughter and yells.

“But now that I do have in my possession a being of the Nephilim race, I shall bleed her dry and birth the new demons! Demons so profoundly advanced that the destruction of Earth will be definite. And all those mortals who had refused to worship me will perish!!”.

And with that speech, the crowd in the room erupted into cheers. Yelling horrid words at me and telling me to die. Lucifer laughed at his followers' reactions and then sat down with a sigh. “I am famished” He said in a whisper near my ear after I took my seat. “Do not be shy” He said and started dishing out food onto my plate after filling his.