The year is 1879. When thirteen-year-old Ruth Merritt Holbrook emerges from her family's burning estate, bloody and charred, but entirely numb--She makes headlines. Reporters believe she is deranged. They accuse her of having set the fire. All the h...
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They allowed me to see him last night and I do not know even where I should begin.
When I first entered the room I told myself to expect the worst. I did not bring the sword with me. I did not want to use it and leaving it behind was a ridiculous attempt to pretend that it did not exist. Everyone had been very quiet regarding Leviathan, only ever telling me that he was healing well and that I would get to see him in due time. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this—
He is human.
It struck me like lightening, the second my eyes fell on him.
Human. Entirely human.
It is a pure miracle; there is no more I can really say to describe it aside from that. Michael was all smiles when I entered the room. "Adonai felt that you might like your prayers to be answered this way, rather than through words—" He did not get to finish speaking before I was hugging him and crying my thanks into his strong shoulders.
I was still hiccupping, barely able to breathe past my blubbering, when I pulled away from Michael and turned to really look at him. My love. My Leviathan.
It is a visual thing, being human. It is not that Leviathan has become less attractive or even that his charisma has dimmed; rather it is something from within him—the existence of a soul where there once was none. A flicker of what I once was recognized the burning of a soul inside of him, the pulsing of an individual essence that was purely him and purely of Adonai's design.
I stepped forward, stopping at the edge of his bed. I wanted to touch him, to hold his hand, but I was afraid I'd break whatever spell this was. I was too terrified of waking up. "How?" I breathed. "How is this possible?"
Leviathan leaned forward with a groan and pulled me forward so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed next to him—something that would have been a scandalous thing if we were a normal human boy and girl. Which now, maybe, we were. Something in my chest clenched, hope rallying in my bones, wishing to take flight.
He smiled at me, the gesture so easy, so natural, and yet so different. He was a new creation. "When I went into the chapel to find you, I prayed. I spoke to Adonai for the first time in decades, centuries even. I wanted you to live. But..." he glanced at Michael, "but it wasn't just the prayer that accomplished it. I think, maybe, you did it. At least partially."
I turned to look at Michael. "How so?"
"The residual part of your angelic nature kept him on the brink."
"I don't understand."
"Leviathan should have died in that chapel, in fact, I think he probably came very close, but you saved him. Adonai let you save him. When he grew too weak your ability to take pain away took the demonic stain from him. You left him renewed and, it appears, human."
"Which is why I was able to get us out of the chapel," Leviathan reached up and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. "Because you kept me from dying. You kept my body numb. Even if you didn't realize you were channeling the pain, you were. You felt the fire for me. You shielded me."
