“Ramel, stop! Stop! They’re retreating! You’ll kill Hypnos,” I screamed, but Ramel didn’t seem to care. He had come here with the intention of killing them all. He never planned to leave any survivors. He didn’t care who they were.
“Ramel! We’ll never be able to wake up the other gods without Hypnos. You can’t kill the God of Creation and the God of Sleep! The universe will not survive it! We will all die!”
Still, he didn’t stop. I saw it in Yahweh’s many faces as the god retreated. Ramel was going to end all creation, and he was going to do it in cold blood.
“I will die, Ramel! Without creation, there is no death!” I screamed, and finally, he paused.
I could almost feel the memory of my first lessons with him penetrate the cold rage that had possessed him.
Balance. There was nothing if there was no balance.
His hand tracked Yahweh as Art shielded him from Ramel’s line of fire, as if he could protect him. After several long moments, Ramel let them go, and suddenly, he was hovering before me like a phantom.
I could only see his mouth beneath the shadow of his hood.
He did not smile.
His lips were a hard, firm line as he effortlessly ripped the golden stakes from my hands and feet. With a swipe of his scythe, he cut through the golden noose that bound me to the cross and caught me in his arms, crushing me against his chest as he turned to leave.
“Wait!” I cried. “Hypnos. We need to free Hypnos,” I pleaded, but Ramel didn’t stop. He continued forward. Single-minded, silent, and deadly. Theclouds were inked black and crimson from the rain of bloody mist he had created in his ruthless path of destruction. The shadows of his cloak curled around his booted feet as he took me back toward the bridge to Hell.
The bridge seemed to be covered in debris of some kind, which didn’t make any sense as it appeared to be more or less intact. In contrast, Heaven’s gates hung in shambles on their hinges in the distance as if they had been blown open.
As we approached the Sorter of Souls, I gasped. My eyes were finally able to make sense of the rubble that lay strewn across the bridge.
It wasn’t rubble at all.
It was hundreds and hundreds of dismembered angel corpses. Limbs, wings, and bleeding eyes were smeared across the gleaming obsidian bridge as if they had been crushed beneath some massive, unseen force.
“Ramel…” I whispered. My voice was small, and I felt weak. The numbness from the shock seemed to be wearing off, and my body was sinking into a state of unimaginable pain.
He didn’t respond to his name. I reached up and touched his cheek with my bloody fingers, his warm flesh sending shockwaves of pleasure through my fingertips.
“Ramel, I remember now,” I said quietly.
He froze. Glancing down at me, I was able to finally see his hazel eyes through the shadow of his hood.
“I love you,” I whispered. His eyes flashed at the words, and there was a suddensnapand awhistle. His body jerked beneath me, and I blinked, unable to process what I was looking at.
The golden tip of an arrow protruded through his chest, missing my own body by mere inches.
I stared at the arrow dumbly in shock. Black blood began to leak from the wound, and when I looked up into his face again, more black liquid had begun to gather in the corner of his mouth.
“No… no, no, no, NO!”
“I know you’re gonna miss me, but you’re gonna be okay.”
—GLENN RHEE, THE WALKING DEAD
Ramel dropped me and spun around, his hood falling back as he turned. I watched as his gaze locked onto Art, who was holding a longbow. He already had another golden arrow knocked into place and had it aimed directly at Ramel’s chest.
Ramel snarled, and I felt him attempt to wield his magic, but the golden arrow prevented him from using his power just as effectively as the noose had.
“I told you I would kill him, Lilith,” Art sneered, and I screamed as he let go of the string, sending the arrow on a direct path to Ramel’s heart.
My Reaper stumbled, leaning against the staff of the scythe as more black blood exploded from his mouth with the impact of the arrow. I ran to him, attempting to keep him upright, but he was too heavy, and he fell to his knees in the clouds, his scythe clattering to the ground next to us,
“No!” I screamed. I was having a horrible moment of Déjà vu. Had I not just held Jezebel like this moments before?
