Mavobella: The Angel Of Death

Chapter 44

The weight of defeat sat heavy in the air as Marion and I leaned against the cold stone floor, our backs to the wall. No one was happy—how could they be? We'd given everything, only to watch some of the best souls fall in ways too cruel to recount. I tried to shake off the gruesome memories—bullets tearing through chests, bodies left headless. Images I wished I could erase.

My mind drifted to something else, something Marion had said, a puzzle that still didn’t make sense. She had claimed to be a descendant of the king. A human? But the kings had always been angels or demons—no half-breeds, no humans.

“How are you a descendant of the king?” I asked, my voice breaking the silence. I needed to understand.

Marion paused for a moment, her eyes distant before she spoke. “My mom was,” she said softly. “I’m a crossbreed—half human, half angel. I think that’s one of the reasons the Imperium took her away. Their love was forbidden.”

Her words hung in the air. A forbidden love between human and angel. It was enough to silence the questions in my head, for now. I nodded slowly, letting it sink in.

"Alright," I said, pushing myself up from the floor. “Let’s do this.”

Marion blinked in confusion, still seated. “Do what?”

“Get you to see your mom,” I said, my tone resolute.

“But I haven’t—”

I cut her off. “You helped us escape that prison. That was the deal.”

A mix of surprise and gratitude flashed across her face before she broke into a soft smile. She shook her head, then stood and pulled me into a tight embrace, her breath warm against my shoulder. For a moment, everything else faded—the loss, the questions, even the fear. We had something to fight for again.

We formed a tight circle on the cold, uneven floor, our movements almost ritualistic as we prepared for what I had promised Marion.

I could feel her trembling beside me. Her hands clutched mine, damp with a mixture of fear and hope. She had asked for something so simple, so pure—just a moment to see her mother again, to say goodbye to the woman she had lost too soon. It was something I had done countless times. I had ferried souls across that veil without a second thought, as natural to me as breathing. But tonight, something felt different. The weight of the dungeon walls, the oppressive silence—it was all too heavy. I tried to shake the unease gnawing at the edges of my mind.

I closed my eyes, focusing on the rhythmic rise and fall of my breath. The air was cold in my lungs, sharp, as I pulled my consciousness inward, searching for that familiar thread of power that had always been there. The dungeon faded away, its damp chill replaced by the otherworldly hum that signaled the threshold between life and death was near. I could feel Marion’s pulse quicken through our clasped hands, her anticipation thickening the air between us. I was so sure it was working.

With each inhale, I pushed harder, calling on the energy that had once surged through me without resistance. Marion’s breathing became shallow, her grip tighter as I guided her, waiting for the subtle shift that would open the doorway to the afterlife. I had done this a thousand times—felt the world fade, felt the veil part. I held on to that certainty, believing this would be no different.

But it was.

The energy wavered, and instead of pulling us forward, it slipped from my grasp like an ebbing tide. I inhaled sharply, pushing again, harder this time, willing the power to return, but something was wrong. The hum of the veil—the deep, resonating vibration that should have signaled its opening—wasn't there. The door remained shut, locked away behind a silence that pressed against my chest like a tightening vise.

My eyes snapped open, and the dim light of the dungeon flooded my senses once more. My pulse was pounding, blood rushing in my ears as the full weight of it hit me. The ritual hadn’t worked. The veil hadn’t parted. There was no afterlife here, no mother waiting on the other side. Marion was still with me, her eyes wide, expectant, waiting for the vision I had promised her.

And in that crushing moment, I knew.

I wasn’t the angel of death anymore.

I had been replaced.

The realization surged through me, cold and bitter, twisting my insides with a paralyzing fear I hadn’t felt in centuries. My hands—once the tools of divine will, the hands that had carried countless souls to the afterlife—were now just hands. Flesh and bone. Useless. Powerless.

I let go of Marion’s hands, the sudden absence of warmth between us making the chill in the dungeon feel unbearable. She was looking at me, confusion clouding her face, her hope teetering on the edge of collapse. She had no idea what had just unraveled within me, no idea that the one person she trusted to take her beyond was no longer capable of even touching that realm.

For a moment, I just sat there, frozen in the wake of my failure. I felt like I was suffocating under the weight of this new truth. I had spent my existence knowing who I was—what I was. I was Mavobella, the angel of death, the gatekeeper between life and eternity. It was my identity, my purpose. And now, without warning, it was gone. Stripped away, without so much as a whisper or a sign.

What had I done to lose it? What had taken my place? The questions whirled in my mind like a storm, but there were no answers, only a vast, gaping emptiness where certainty used to be.

I glanced around the dungeon, at the walls that seemed to press in closer, the shadows darkening as my heartbeat thundered in my chest. Was this it? Was I destined to rot away in this place, powerless and forgotten, my purpose stolen without explanation?

“Mav?” Marion’s voice was soft, hesitant, as if she were afraid to break the silence that had settled around us like a suffocating blanket.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. What could I tell her? That I had failed? That the angel of death was no more? I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes, not when she had placed so much faith in me. So, I just shook my head, trying to swallow the bitterness rising in my throat.

“I… I don’t understand,” Marion whispered, her voice trembling now. “Is it not working? Can’t you—?”

“No.” The word fell from my lips, sharp and final. “I can’t.”

Her face fell, her hope crumbling into disbelief. I could see the questions forming behind her eyes, the confusion turning to doubt. But how could I explain something I didn’t even fully understand myself? How could I tell her that everything I had once been was now… gone?

We sat in the thick, oppressive silence, the dungeon’s cold settling into my bones. I had promised her a miracle, but I couldn’t even muster the power for a glimpse of the afterlife. And worse, I now knew the truth—I wasn’t who I thought I was anymore.

In that moment, as the weight of my loss sank in, I realized something far more terrifying: I didn’t know who I was at all.

Just at the moment of realization, the heavy metallic door was unlatched and Nicole was thrown in. She stumbled an nearly fell on her face before regaining composure. She had shackles around her arms and her feet unlike us.

I hadn't noticed that she was missing until now.

“Where were you?” Wade lunged towards her.

“I'm sorry Mav,” she uttered apologetically.