Daystar (33 page)

“What is it?”

“It’s him.”
 
With Andy being so close, her body wanted to tear in two.
 
The pain overwhelmed her.
 

Helion looped an arm around her waist and pulled her back.
 
She went unconscious.
 
Helion kept his eyes on Andy, a warning.
 
“Stay back, Andy!
 
You make this worse!”

Andy held his hands up.
 
“Tell me what is going on!”

“Who do you think plagues her?
 
After seeing the battle above what else could it be?”

Andy stared at the pair.
 
“Uriel was telling the truth.”
 
His hands shook.
 
“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

The other Archangels drew closer, listening.
 
Helion eyed them all.
 
“No.”

Andy shook his head.
 
“I will not accept
no!
 
There has to be a way to cut it out!”

Helion burst into tears.
 
“You would have to cut
her
out of
it
.
 
There is more there of him than Belial now!”
 
Helion drew all of his wings back in and covered her.
 
“She is overrun.”

Andy took a step forward.
 
“Then what do we do?”

Helion shook his head.
 
“
You
do nothing.”

“But if she—”

“You do
nothing!
”
 
Helion cradled Belial.
 
“She is
my
twin!
 
My family!”
 
Tears escaped his eyes.
 
“She is mine to deal with.”
 
He realized as he spoke the words, he had decided.
 
“None touch her.
 
Not you or Uriel, not Lucifer.”

Andy frowned.
 
“Why would Lucifer?”

Helion took a step back.
 
“She made him promise her.”

Andy felt faint.
 
“Promise what?”

“To take her life when she got to this state.”

Andy reached out to her.
 
“No.”
 
He took a step.
 
“No, no!”
 
Andy raked his nails across his arms, staring at Helion.
 
“No, Helion!”

Helion looked into Andy’s eyes.
 
“I won’t let him do it.”

Andy sighed.
 
“Good.”

“I must do it.”

“
What?!
”
 
Andy’s heart skipped a beat.
 
He stared at the twins, frantic.
 
“Helion, you do not mean that!”

“I do.”

Andy tensed, getting ready to grab her.
 
Ropes of stone wrapped around his body tethering him in place.
 
Whitney stepped past him, placing herself between Helion and Andy.
 
Whitney shook her head at Andy.
 
“I know how it feels, Andy, but this is between them.”

“I love her!”

“So do I!”
 
Helion took another step back.
 
“You lose the woman you love, Andy, but I lose my twin!”
 
Helion stumbled.
 
“She is my other half, my sister, my only family.”
 
He looked down at her face, half-blackened; the cancer writhed underneath her skin.
 
He shuddered.
 
“She should not have to be like this.
 
She should never have had to live with this in her.”
 
His vision blurred.
 
“I want her to be free of it, Andy, innocent again.”

Andy strained against the bands of stone.
 
“Helion, please don’t!”

Helion shook his head.
 
“No!”

“Let me see her again.”
 
Andy’s voice took on notes of desperation.
 
“Please, Helion!
 
Please!”

“No, not like this.”
 
Helion swallowed back tears.
 
“She would not want anyone to see her this way.
 
Remember her as she was.”

“But maybe I could do something!”

“No!”
 
Helion panted.
 
“No.
 
No.
 
Just stop, Andy!
 
There is
nothing
you can do!”
 
Andy snapped his mouth shut at Helion’s voice.
 
Helion dropped to his knees and faced the sun.
 
He lifted Belial’s face up to his and kissed her cheek.
 
Darkness fled his presence and her face cleared.

Belial’s eyes opened, briefly blue again.
 
She saw his expression and felt relief.
 
“You decided.”

“I have.”

Belial smiled.
 
“Thank you.
 
I wanted it to be you.”

Helion held her cheek.
 
“You must only have sweet dreams now.”

“The sweetest.”
 
Belial kissed his hand.
 
“Tell Andy I love him.”

Helion nodded.
 
He steadied his shaking hands.
 
He placed one on her chest, the other to her cheek.
 
He lifted her until she was pressed against him.
 
She sighed into his neck.
 
Helion cemented their connection, joining them.
 
For a moment in time, they were one once more.
 
He felt her acceptance.

Helion reached through their link and ripped the life from her body.
 
The space around them illuminated and a pillar of light tore through the sky.
 
Belial went limp in his arms, her chin dropped to her chest.
 
Silence fell upon them.

Helion convulsed as reality sank in.
 
He looked down at her body, there was nothing left of her inside it, her eyes were empty.
 
The darkness beneath her skin coiled and bucked, dying as she did.
 
He held her until the cancer inside faded away.
 

Helion pulled his wings back and brushed the hair from her face.
 
He laid her body out on the grass and smoothed out her wings.
 
The darkness left her skin and she looked herself again.
 

Andy saw her and howled.
 
The sound dented the earth around him and sent cracks for miles.
 
Whitney let him go and he ran to Helion.

Helion backed away from her body.
 
He choked on his sobs, turned, and ran blindly to the east.

Andy fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to Belial’s unmoving chest.
 
He cradled her, struggling to keep her warm even as her skin began to cool.
 

Her wings dulled.
 
Her halos were gone.
 
Her eyes were sightless, but the look on her face was serene.

***

Uriel staggered.

Michael reached for him, but something in Uriel’s gaze made him hesitate.
 
He drew back and watched.

Uriel clutched at his heart, her heart.
 
He knew.
 
“
No
.”
 

He ran into the throngs of angels.
 
“No.
 
My darling, my precious girl.
 
Where have you gone?”
 
He pulled at angels blindly.
 
“You cannot leave me.
 
You may not go.”

Tears poured down his face.
 
Uriel scratched at his chest.
 
“Come back, Belial!
 
My beauty, my love, you are mine!
 
You may not go!”

Michael stared at him in horror.

Uriel’s face twisted into a mask of madness and rage.
 
“Who has killed you?!”

***

Dahlia’s skin went cold, she gasped.
 
Lucifer lifted his head from her thighs; he caught her expression.
 
He called fire and searched out the area around them, looking for the threat.

Dahlia touched her chest.
 
“She’s dead.”

“Who?”

“Belial.”

Lucifer curled his arms around Dahlia.
 
“Then we need to go back now.”

“Why would she be dead?”
 
Dahlia shook her head numbly, not understanding.
 
“Why?”

Lucifer cradled her.
 
“Helion must have done it in my stead.
 
It is better this way.”

“What?
 
Done what in your stead?”

“She made me promise to take her life when we were both restored.”

“Why?!”
 
Dahlia punched at him.
 
“Why would you make that promise?”

“It was that or take her life before the war!”
 
Lucifer blinked back tears.
 
“I could not do it then, not after what I had seen.
 
I had hope that I could do something for her.
 
So I made the promise.”
 
Lucifer closed his eyes and the pair teleported back to Earth.

***

Helion ran blindly.
 
He was full of too many things, words, emotions, and too many memories.
 
His mind could not handle it.

Whitney flew overhead tracking his progress across the plains.

***

Dahlia and Lucifer appeared near Andy.
 
Lucifer sank to his knees and took Belial’s cold hand in his.
 

Andy looked up from cradling Belial’s body.
 
His eyes were midnight blue.
 
“Explain this to me so that I might understand.”
 
He wiped tears away as more came.
 
“I do not understand!
 
I
do not understand!
”

Lucifer’s jaws clenched.
 
“I—”

Dahlia ripped open a portal to Hell.
 
“RAPHAEL!”

Raphael and Selaphiel appeared at the lip of the portal.
 
Raphael cracked a smile, caught Dahlia’s expression, and turned deadly serious.
 
She stepped through onto the earth and looked past her to Andy and Belial.
 
Raphael dropped to the ground and pushed Lucifer out of the way.
 
Raphael spoke softly, “May I have her, Andrealphus?”

Andy nodded.
 
He passed Belial over and closed his eyes.
 
He turned away and ran, becoming a blur.
 
He fled from the sun into the darkness, towards the west.
 

Raphael took Belial and sat on the ground.
 
She ran her hands over Belial’s skin.
 
She concentrated.
 
Her face grim.

Selaphiel stood by Dahlia’s side and watched.
 
“Why were we not called?”

Dahlia shook her head.
 
“I did not know what was occurring.”

“It would not have mattered.”
 
Raphael touched Belial’s face.
 
“This vessel, her body, it is ruined.
 
She was terminal.”

Dahlia frowned.
 
“You can heal
anything!
 
That ability is yours!”

“I know.”
 
Raphael set Belial back on the ground.
 
“But I can only restore to an original shape.”
 
She touched Belial’s finger.
 
“This is not Belial’s body and a restoration while her soul remained would have made her fully the cancer.
 
Had I tried with this flesh, I fear even her spirit would have been lost in the process.
 
Her soul was the only thing in this vessel that was her.”

Lucifer ground his teeth.
 
“
What?
”

Raphael shook her head.
 
“I do not understand where this form came from.
 
It is a copy, built
from
her flesh, but not her flesh.”
 
She looked up.
 
“Where has Andy gone and where is her twin?”

“Helion fled in despair,” Apple spoke from Berith’s side.
 
“Whitney has gone with him.”

Raphael frowned.
 
“Then her soul flees and is safe, but where is her core, the nucleus from which this container was created?
 
Where is the real Belial?”

“Uriel.”
 
Lucifer looked to the empty skies as wrath knotted in his stomach.
 
“Uriel has had her all this time.”