Almost Alive (28 page)

“Ahhh!”  I hunched over, and blood once again seeped from my mouth.  It felt like my blood was boiling and not in any sort of metaphorical way.  Still, I wasn’t afraid.  “Fight back!  We have to save your sister.  We have to stop them from doing this.  It won’t stop with us.  Please!”

Julian’s eyes darted over to his sister.  Balthazar still had his body, but I could see Julian’s soul through his eyes, especially once the tears began to fall from seeing his sister lying dead.  “Michelle?
” 

His eyes rolled into the back of his head
, and his body went limp and fell into my weak arms.  We both hit the ground, but I held him close to me and kissed his forehead.  “I’m right here.”

He was still trembling in my arms. 
He was so weak that I could barely hear his request.  “You have to kill me…”

“What?
”  I finally had him back.  I couldn’t let him go.  “No.  I can’t.”

“You promised me that you would.”

“You still have your soul—”

“He’ll come back.  It’s not like other possessions.  He’s not just inside of me.  He’s attached to my soul.”

“We can cast the demon out—”

“He’s not coming out with
out taking my heart through my mouth!  I feel him.”  Though he was desperate and frightened of losing his life and his soul, Julian began to smile the way only a drug addict would during a high.  “I feel this power and I want it.”  It did worry me the way he was when he thought about the power.  He could have been indulging in ecstasy or having the greatest sex of his life based on his expression.  Any moment, Balthazar could have come back and taken over.  I thought Julian’s will was rock-solid, but suddenly I was involved in an intervention.

“Julian, no.”  I grabbed his head and forced his eyes to focus in on me.  He was
still drunk off of the power, but I had to try.  “Think of what that power has done to your sister.  She’s dead now.”

He startled me once he grabbed a hold of my shoulder and squeezed a little bit, but at least he had come down from off his high by weighing himself down with guilt.  “
I can’t live with him like I lived with the other demons.”

“But y
ou already have been—”

“He was asleep.  Now he’s awake
, and I realize that he’s a part of me.”  He was devastated.  I think he was beginning to lose hope in his plan to redeem himself into heaven.  But he was still a warrior and willing to be a martyr if he had to.  “If you kill me, he’s gonna die too.”

“How
do you know that?”

“I just do.”
  He reached down and pulled up his unusually comfortably fitting jeans on his left leg and pulled a small knife out of a holster.  At first I chuckled to myself because he was still packing, but he might as well have stabbed me in the heart when he placed the knife in my hands.

A part of me understood.  Balthazar needed to be stopped.  There was the greater good to consider.  After seeing Scott, I think if I lost my soul, I would want Julian to put me down with no hesitation.  But Julian was still alive and aware.  How could he ask me to sacrifice himself? 
“I can help you stay clean, Julian.  I can help you fight him.”

He smiled sadly
but then shook his head slowly.  “If he gets out, he’s gonna destroy the lives of everyone around you until you have nothing left.  Then when you want it all to end, he’s gonna make you kill yourself again.”  He had seen the thoughts of the demon, and he couldn’t live in a world where he had caused me so much pain.  “Just kill me.”

“But…”  I had caused too much pain for my parents.  I couldn’t imagine a worse way to treat them.  Perhaps it was best to sacrifice Julian for everyone else in my life. 
“I love you.”

“Goodbye, Michelle.”

I gripped the knife tightly and pointed the blade at his heart.  “I’m sorry…”  He closed his eyes, but I could still remember what they looked like.  They were incredibly bright and engaging for someone in his position.  He might have had a tough exterior, but there was too much light inside of him to extinguish it.  “I can’t do this, Julian.”  I tossed the knife across the room.

Julian grunted angrily. 
“You promised me!”

I didn’t want to upset him further, but I laughed from relief.  He just reminded me of our first day together and how he tried to lecture me.  Didn’t he see how much I needed him, just
like he now needed me?  “As long as I can look into your eyes and see you, I’ll never lose my faith.”

He stubbornly crossed his arms and looked away from me.  “Michelle—”

“You told me that you believed you were brought back for a reason.  You believed that you could redeem yourself.  In so many ways, you have.”  I placed my hand on his cheek and guided his face back to mine.  “I’m not cured, but you’re saving me.  God doesn’t want you to give up, so I won’t give up on you either.  If you can’t fight for me, then fight because it’s the right thing to do.”

Julian was still scared of what he might have become
, and I was uneasy, but I wasn’t afraid.  I knew him.  His faith and strength would win out in the end. 

Julian wrapped his arms around me and collapsed on top of me.  He was so incredibly tired
, and he deserved some rest and peace of mind.  “The Lord is my Shepard.  I shall not want…”  I don’t remember the rest of the passage, but he quoted it to himself as a source of comfort and strength.  I knew then that Balthazar wasn’t going to come back, at least for a little while.

I held Julian up on his feet, though I was a weak mess myself. 
“What are we going to do about Maria?”

Julian came to his sister’s side and stroked her pale face.  I couldn’t imagine what sort of pain he was going through.  It wasn’t
his entire fault, but he clearly blamed himself.  From his shimmering eyes, I thought he was going to explode with emotion and die from his grief.  “If we bring her back, she’s gonna be like us.  She’ll be even worse.”

“I know.
”  I knelt down next to him and touched his shoulder.  “I think whatever we decide we have to make the choice that will keep you sane at the end of the day.  I know she’s your sister, but that’s gonna make things even more difficult for you when she uses witchcraft or tries to summon Balthazar.”

When I really saw how agonizing the hurt was in Julian’s heart, I immediately retreated. 
The temptation to make his pain go away might have been worse than his addiction to witchcraft.  “But I know you, Julian.  You’re tough, but you’re not cold.  Could you forgive yourself for letting her die?”

No.  He couldn’t.  He had yet to forgive himself for killing himself in the first place.  “I don’t want to endanger anyone.  She made her choice...”  He was trying to
be brave and not make the foolish decision, but being that selfless would have destroyed the both of us.

“We can save her
, just like you’re saving me.”  It was a serious risk, and I had my opinion, but Julian was the most important person in the world to me at the time.  I would fight with everything that I had to save his soul.  “It’s your choice.”

              I lazily opened my eyes.  I was so uncomfortable lying in a little hospital bed.  I felt fine and I was too worried to sleep through the night.  I kept checking my phone to see if my parents would respond to my texts, but they were ignoring me.  Well, I hoped they were ignoring me.  To think about the alternative was just too depressing.

Julian knocked in my doorframe and walked inside with a sheepish smile. 
“How are you doing?”

             
I sat up and grinned.  He was the only person who was there to see if I was okay, and that was just fine.  I wanted Julian to get checked out, but he said he felt alright.  His bones had popped into place after the transformation, but I had still lost a lot of blood.  I felt alright myself, but Julian was concerned.  “The doctors said that I’m perfectly healthy, which is surprising.”

             
His eyes widened a little bit.  “God is a miracle worker.”

             
“I’ve noticed.”  I was really conflicted.  It was amazing what had happened to me and I was grateful that I somehow survived.  I couldn’t deny God, and maybe I still had some bitterness about hell, but I knew that I was starting a new chapter in my life, and I couldn’t go back.  “I think the reason why I’ve been so reluctant to pray and do all the stuff you’ve been telling me to do is because I never believed that there was anything out there.  I felt too far away from anything to believe that there was some entity up there watching me or loving me.  When I came back, I had the demon’s bitterness mixed in with my own.  I didn’t understand the price of my sins, even though there was a painful and immediate payment for mine.”

             
“And now?”

             
“Look at how I hurt people like Liz.  Michael really likes me, and I’ve done nothing but lead him on.  Now when I tell him that I don’t wanna be with him, he’s gonna think it’s because of his accident.”  I had to force myself not to cry when I thought about how he was never going to walk again.  It was Maria who hurt him, but I put him in her crossfire.  He didn’t deserve to pay for my mistakes.

“My parents have hurt me so much
, and I hurt them in return.  It’s awful.  The demon almost had me because it promised to help me feel and freedom to express myself.  In reality, all it did was temporarily remove my conscious.  I don’t wanna live like that.”

             
“God loves you, Michelle.  He’s just…”  He squint his eyes as he searched for the right words to say. “Complicated.”

             
“Complicated?”  I laughed short and hysterically, because I couldn’t deal with anymore complications.  “If it’s alright with you, I’m just gonna simplify things.  I wanna fight evil and do good.  I wanna be good.”

             
If I didn’t know any better, I would think that Julian was proud of me when he started to smile.  “That’s a start.”

             
I actually started to get really excited about it.  “I also wanna learn how to do some of that awesome knife fighting.  That was pretty cool.”

             
“Okay.”  I was glad that I had started to cheer him up.  He looked really cute when he wasn’t all doom and gloom.  “We will start on that tomorrow if you feel up to it.”

             
“I do!”  I was a different person.  Yeah, I felt miserable for all of my misdeeds, but I needed that shame.  I needed to be godly sorry in order to repent.  That was the only way to be forgiven and start on my new journey.  “I know I can do this now.  I have to.”

             
“Julian?” said the voice of a woman.  We both followed the voice to the doorway and there was a pretty brunette doctor in her mid-thirties standing there. 

             
“Yeah, that’s me.”

             
She smiled.  “Your sister is doing fine.”

             
Julian was happy to hear that, but still a little unnerved.  “Thank you, but what happened to her doctor?”

             
“Let’s just say I have a special interest in her.”  Then I realized that her eyes were the same as Julian’s when he was overcome by the demon, and she possessed that same creepy smile.  “It’s good to finally have you here, my lord.”

             
I took a hold of Julian’s hand.  The demon recognized my fear and left out of the room chuckling manically.  “Julian, how many demons inhabit human bodies?”

             
“I don’t know…”  He was fearful himself, but enough of him was intrigued to the point where I found it disturbing.  “This is bad.”

             
He was someone who was struggling with wanting too much power.  Besides wrestling with the temptation of having access to real magic, he had to fight the urge to call upon only God knows how many loyal servants to fulfill his desires.  It was a lot for him to take, so I squeezed his hand tight and tried to remind him that I was there to steady him if he ever forgot that the person who he was, was already enough.

             
Julian didn’t want to keep Maria there in the hospital, but they wouldn’t let her leave.  They said she needed to be observed for at least twenty-four hours.  Julian and I did some good with that time, and we raided Maria’s room and cleaned out of all of her witch stuff.  We boxed up every candle, every charm, and every book.  Julian was afraid to touch her most powerful and favorite spell book.  He said he could feel the evil on it, so I had to be the brave one and bring it outside to our raging bon fire.

             
I honestly didn’t know how much good it would do.  Julian certainly didn’t need a spell book when Balthazar started destroying my insides.  I didn’t know if Maria could be stopped.  She was going to be our enemy, and I would have to do everything in my power to make sure Julian didn’t fall prey to the seduction of the dark side.

             
“When you kept telling me to stay away from Maria, why didn’t you just tell me that she was a witch?” I asked him.

             
“Because I’m ashamed of what she is and that it’s my fault.”  He hated himself for turning her into something that dark.  I understood that rage he felt with himself, but I didn’t want it to transform into something else.  “I didn’t want you to ask questions and get curious about it.  You weren’t freaked out enough.  If I wasn’t on you so much, you’d probably be a practicing witch right now.”

             
He was absolutely right about that.  Now things were different.  I was sure I could return to Cynthia and get Zariel out of me.  “Do you feel Balthazar?”

             
“A little bit, but I’m gonna be okay, Michelle.”  He smiled, but I wasn’t sure if he was going to lose a piece of his soul for intentionally lying or if he was just that delusional that God let it slide.  He was petrified.  Julian was just great at hiding it.

             
I, however, knew that we were gonna both make it out alive.  “You know that we actually do love each other?”

             
He nodded and kept his eyes focused in on the flames as they rose up into the night sky.  Just like his old life was cleansed away by hellfire, he hoped he could save his sister and himself in a similar manner.  “Now isn’t a good time for us.”

             
“I know.”  I tried to take his hand, but he pulled away as soon as his fingers felt my own.  I tried not to take his rejection too personally.  I knew how he felt, and I knew that we had an important mission ahead of us.  I couldn’t save him just by loving him.  I had to guide him into saving himself.  “I’m gonna get free, and then we’ll find a way to free you too.”

             
“This is bigger than freeing our souls, Michelle.”

             
“I know.”  I certainly had become a different person.  I had seen the face of evil.  I had danced with it, compromised, and made love to it.  Nothing good came out of it.  My rebirth had crumbled apart, and all I had left was the rubble to build with.  But God was a miracle worker, and I was stubborn.  I had a war to win.  “I’m ready to fight.”

             
Julian smirked with the same confidence and passion he had for fighting when I first met him, and then I knew that I had somehow inspired him to believe once more.  “Then let us begin.”