Lightbringer - The Patron Saints of the Damned III

Exousia kept her form dim and stayed close to the rocks as she approached the fortress ahead of them. She knew that they would sense her presence but hoped that keeping the sight of her obscured and her mental barriers up would at least mask her identity. If they only detected Roach and a mostly human soul, perhaps they would underestimate the threat. Once close enough, Exousa planned to try and convince them to let her see the Lightbringer. If they didn’t oblige, she would at least have the element of surprise on his side when he struck.

“Remind me why I decided to come back to this place,” Roach said, swallowing nervously.

“I’m not really sure, myself,” Exousia replied, honestly. “It doesn’t matter, though. We’re here, and Mr. Green has bigger things to worry about than a former employee.”

Roach nodded, seeming to accept this. Still, he rubbed his hands together as he walked, causing the exoskeleton that comprised them to make a high-pitched sound. His mandibles also opened and closed repeatedly like a nervous twitch. Though he was not good under pressure or during threats of danger, this place seemed to make him particularly nervous.

“You okay?” Exousia asked.

“I’m fine,” Roach said, giving a fake laugh and scoff. “I just … never liked it here, from the moment I woke up not remembering anything.”

“Horrible things happened here,” Exousia said, with a nod. “It wouldn’t surprise me if part of you deep down remembers.”

“Maybe,” Roach said, nodding in agreement. But he didn’t truly look convinced, rather he seemed to want to agree so that he would not have to think or talk about it any longer.

Exousia decided to let the matter go for now. She continued forward, sensing several demon presences inside the fortress. But when she finally turned a corner so that she was in direct sight of the door, there was nobody there guarding the fortress. Exousia walked closer, a chill going down her spine as she walked up the chiseled stone steps to a massive white gate lying open. She said, “I thought the Lightbringer had demon guards who still remained loyal to them.”

“He does … and they’ve always been here,” Roach said, his voice revealing a nervous chatter.

Exousia continued into the hallway, wondering if maybe she’d been wrong in her decision to come here instead of waiting in some vacant part of the prison for the Madness to find her. It looked and felt like a trap … one that she was supposed to walk into fully aware. But who would set that kind of trap? Did the Lightbringer know she was coming? Or had the Madness of Ammon somehow made it all the way here before she could?

“We should leave and think of a better plan,” Roach whispered.

“We can’t run from the Lightbringer if they already know we’re here,” Exousia replied. She looked around and felt for life around her. There was a lot of energy, more than she could have anticipated. There were definitely demons here and not far away. “Unless you think they can’t sense us as well as we can sense them, we have nowhere to go but forward.” Roach didn’t reply, but he didn’t leave either. So, the two of them entered the palace that was waiting for them.

The grand hall was dimly lit by a torch in one of the corners of the room. The soft glow revealed square and robust furnishings, though not nearly as extravagant as Exousia might have expected. There were tapestries which adorned the walls, portraying the various incarnations of the Lightbringer throughout the millennia. These ranged from depictions of bloody monsters to regal angelic forms. But what stood out more than anything was the state of the enormous room. A thin layer of dust seemed to indicate that nothing in this room had been bothered for a while, except for the thick dirty footprints which looked like they could have even been those of … Dufaii. Of course, he had come here months ago … to make a request for the Challenge. That seemed like a lifetime ago, or at least enough time for his footprints to have been cleaned. But something had happened to prevent that. Had he done something drastic when he’d come here?

The only place where dust has been moved recently was in a semi-circle in front of an open door. Energies and muffled sounds emanated from that adjacent room in a way that was oddly familiar. Was this a trap left by the Lightbringer? It seemed like it … but there was no need to trap someone who had obviously come willingly. So, maybe there was something in there that Exousia was supposed to see.

“I’ve got a scratchy feeling all under my exoskeleton,” Roach said, his voice shaking just a little.

“You can keep watch,” Exousia said, giving the demon an out as they approached the open door.

Roach thought about this a moment but shook his head. “They’re in there … and you’ll need someone to talk some sense into you if it turns out to be bad.”

Exousia nodded and walked through the door, into a large square room about the size of a small house. The center of the room, there was only one object—a stool to sit on, illuminated by a torch bound to the ceiling. The gray walls, however, were covered in strings, paintings, sketches, and papers covered in writing. A portrait of Ammon was hung in the center of the largest wall. Around that were sketches of various humans with whom he had shared pieces of his soul. Many of these were humans that Exousia knew, and had killed. And one in particular of a familiar girl in a green, plaid shirt. which she could not bear to look at.

The largest of these pictures, however, was a magnificent jaguar that stood on two legs. It was a depiction of the old god, Tezcatlipoca. A string connected this portrait to the central one on the next wall, portraying Dufaii. There were pictures and connections around him as well. However, Exousia knew that these were not beings with whom he had split his soul, since he had only done so once willingly. No, these portraits depicted gods of every culture, with the shards of their divine essence being cut out by his hand. A thick thread connected him to the next wall.

Looking at the third wall sent a chill down Exousia’s spine. It took her a moment to recognize herself as a young child in a human home. Her face looked ragged and empty as she stood among strewn corpses and rubble. However, a small white object hovered in front of her chest as a shadow stood over her, protectively. There was a face in that shadow … that of Dufaii. This was the day that the human girl named Emma had willingly purged her memories and identity in order to become Exousia. Nobody should have known about that … unless … they had all been watched.

The smaller pictures around Exousia’s own mural were also of her, seeming to document how she had changed and matured. And these were connected by smaller strings suspended overhead to the opposite wall, to the humans that Ammon had bonded to. Notes placed at the base of these strings detailed when and how she had killed each and every one. They really had been watched. There were other pictures in the room as well–those of Hades, Michael, Gabriel, and others.

But Exousia followed the string that went from her portrait to a doorway into another chamber. She sensed life inside the room even before she saw the dozens of figures chained to the walls within. It took her a while to recognize these naked humans, each with a scar running vertically from their belly to their neck. They were manacled in such a way that their arms and legs were spread and suspended off the ground, and they were all gagged. These were just a small fraction of the hybrids Exousia had killed … only those whose souls had been damned before they had ever met Ammon. They’d been captured and brought here from intake, no doubt the source of much of the Lightbringer’s information illustrated on the walls in the previous room. But why had these corrupted souls been caught and brought here at all?

Exousia noticed a frantic rattling and realized it was coming from yet another room further in. This one, however, was locked. She placed a hand on the door and closed her eyes. Then, her mind flooded with realization, she pulled out her knife, once again in its original form as a utility knife. Exousia opened the large blade and began to jam it into the bone lock, over and over until the mechanism broke. Then, she threw the door open.

There, Exousia saw a giant serpentine creature with black scales pinned to the ground. Massive stone arches forced the creature’s body down, and white bone locks seemed to keep the stone fastened in place. Exousia slammed the handle of her knife into the complicated bone locking mechanisms, over and over until they cracked. The creature bound in the stone began to move as well, struggling against its restraints more and more, until it started to lift itself and slowly splinter the remaining locks. Then, there was an explosion of all the bolts breaking at once, and it threw the giant stone shackles from its body and twelve heads–letting out a furious roar.

“It’s me!” Exousia shouted to the creature, dropping her weapon to the ground.

The Hydra went to strike. But before it touched her, that look of rage turned to one of confusion … and then one that was neutral.

Exousia put a palm on the Hydra’s neck, where its scales had been damaged in its thrashing. She felt guilt for what the creature had gone through and hoped that it had only been recently captured. Exousia whispered, “When we get out of here, I’ll fix you up. Promise.”

The Hydra looked around the room frantically, just like it had upon escaping the caves in Heaven. It wanted to leave and was searching for a way out. It spotted the door.

“Not yet!” Exousia urged the creature loudly. Like long ago, she opened her soul with her demon powers, just a little, so that it could gain some understanding of the perilous situation they found themselves in.

The Hydra did not look pleased with whatever degree of understanding it had gained. If anything, it looked more terrified than ever. But it no longer seemed as desperate to escape. Instead, it walked to the door and stood by it attentively, waiting on its old friend.

“D-do you need me to come in?” Roach asked without much conviction from the other room.

Exousia replied, “I have an old friend in here with me … better that you stay out there for now.” Then she moved forward into the last remaining room. There was soft breathing coming from inside, which somehow caused her heart to race like she’d never felt before. Her breath felt short, and she felt trapped, though she knew that she could turn around at any moment. Slowly, something small lumbered into the light, the metal shackles dragged behind. It was a person … a human man who Exousia barely recognized. He was bald, with a round face that was something between sad and confused. With a raw voice full of emotion, he said, “I know you.”

Exousia felt like a heavy spike was being driven into her chest. She didn’t understand at first, how this scared pathetic human was doing this to her. But the longer she looked at him, the more she remembered her dreams in the woods and a childhood she had forced herself to forget. Exousia stepped backwards and tripped over herself; she fell to the stone ground.

“Emma!” the man shouted with his raw voice, letting out a dry sob as he did. “I know you … You’re my daughter. Please, don’t go.”

Exousia froze in place for the first time since she’d been a child, trapped with fear at the top of the stairs before the door crashed into her. Her heart continued to race and she could not will herself to stand up. She wanted to say something, to become the warrior she’s once been or at least the child so full of rage that had murdered this man. But it was like that part of herself was nowhere to be found. Somehow, all at once, Exousia felt fear of how powerlessness this man made her feel, she felt guilt for what she’d done to him, and she felt shame that this was part of her.

“Please … I just want to be free,” the man said, his face contorting with emotion. It looked as though he was trying to cry. But of course, that was impossible here. “I’m so sorry about your mother. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a good enough father. I tried my best, I really did! But it was so hard … and being with her didn’t make things any easier. Being down here has made me understand. I’m so sorry.”

Exousia didn’t know how to respond. On the one hand, she knew this was not unusual for her … she didn’t know how to interact with humans and barely with demons. It was a problem that had begun before she’d taken the demon soul and been reborn. What was strange was that Exousia also didn’t know what action she should take–how she should deal with the confusing feelings inside herself. Why was she afraid of this man shackled to a wall? Why couldn’t she move to just unbind him and let him go? Exousia barely remembered this man who had nothing to do with her new life. And there was no reason to fear him because she had killed him once already!

But something had changed inside of Exousia. Dufaii had healed the unfeeling broken child she’d once been. This had stripped away the rage that had protected her. After that, Exousia had let people in–like Megan, Roach, and even the Hydra. They had all peeled away the protective shell of emotional disconnection. Now, Exousia was vulnerable, and she could not help but blame herself.

“Please daughter!” the man screamed with unexpected desperation, lurching forward until his chain caught with a startlingly loud rattle. He sobbed bitterly, his breath heaving though his face remained dry. “Please! All I want is to move on with my life. I don’t want to be here anymore. Just have mercy and let me go.”

Exousia tried to move, to stand to her feet. She just wanted to stand, to get up off the ground. With shaky legs, she eventually managed but could not look up again. Exousia stared down at the stone ground, hyperventilating shallow and useless breaths. Her vision became dizzy and the world began to spin around her.

“What is the matter with you!” the man screamed, his voice suddenly changing as if it were coming from a different person. But it wasn’t the madness. It wasn’t any sort of entity controlling him. It was the man … with the same voice of brutal power he had used when he was alive. “You did this to me! You invited that demon into our home, you took its power, and you made it so that I had to as well. Now you can’t even talk to me? Look at me! Look at me when I am talking to you!”

Exousia shook her head; she would not look up! If it was the only thing she could force herself to do–to not look up at the man.

“You’re just like your bitch mother!” the man screamed, his wrath as sincere and as piercing as his sorrow. He thrashed violently in his chains, looking intimidating even for his small size and bound position. “You better hope to God that I don’t get out of here! I saw her down here and I’ll find her! I’ll find you, I’ll find everybody. You did this to me, to your own father, and you can’t even look up to face me!”

Exousia stumbled backward step by step, the man’s threats and screams ringing in her ears. Then, she was out of the room and slammed the heavy metal door closed to drown out the sounds and submerge the man again into darkness. Exousia fell to her knees and felt emotions overwhelm her worse than they had before. She felt like a coward, a monster, and a gullible fool. How could she have let this happen … and how could that human still hold such power over her? Exousia trembled and forced herself to try to breathe. She tried to summon rage like she had done to protect herself when she was younger. However, the anger was slow coming, and too far out of his grasp. But nothing Exousia did could replace those confusing emotions inside of her, for a man who wasn’t even supposed to be part of her story. This man wasn’t supposed to have an influence, a say on what she had become. He was supposed to be the ghostly dream of a dead child, not something that had shaped her.

Yet … the man had shaped her … pathetic and powerless as he was. He had left a mark that would never go away. Not just the scar on her cheek, but one deeper inside as well. He had created the pain that had led to all of the rage, then her mind burying her memories, the disconnection, and everything else. Along with his wife–their abandonment, their abuse–leaving nothing but fear bubbling up to the surface.

Was that the point, Exousia wondered as she desperately grasped for meaning in the depths of the pain emerging after a lifetime of being buried. Had the Lightbringer kept the man here because they understood his potential as a weapon? Only they could so deeply understand how the pain of such a betrayal could rip open the soul.

Exousia slammed her palm against a stone wall hard enough to bruise. Then, she screamed. She couldn’t believe that she was stupid enough to think that the Lightbringer would help her. That she was still so weak as to let a shadow of her past affect her like this. Her chest burning, Exousia turned her back on the dark cell, without the power to kill or save the monster locked inside.

“Something happened in there,” Roach said, sounding worried.

“We have to get out of here!” Exousia replied, forcing the words out of her tight throat as she stormed back to where the Hydra waited. She went back into the grand hall of the fortress and waited for the monster to slowly worm its way through the doorway. Then the two of them exited the palace through the still-open doors. Exousia only paused when she saw that Roach had not joined them. So, she walked back into the grand hall. As soon as she had, the door slammed behind her. Then, something hit her with enough power to send her rolling painfully along the stone ground. Exousia stood back up to her feet and let out a violent growl, looking for her attacker.

The Hydra hissed and clawed at the massive locked door from the other side. But the only other person there, standing in front of the door, was Roach. There was a menacing smile on his face, not at all like the playfully menacing expressions he’d shown before. If anything, it looked foreign, like it didn’t belong to him. And slowly, his skin began to soften and become pale until he looked like an adult human with the body of a warrior. Clothing slowly materialized around him, until he was wearing a black suit. His hair lengthened and lightened to silver. Suddenly his leering smile matched the rest of him.

“Welcome home Mr. Green,” said another demon in the shape of a human with pale skin, as she emerged from the shadows with a guard on either side of her. She was dressed like a secretary, seeming to match her master. She was not the only demon there, however. Beside her was another Mr. Green! However, his form slowly melted away until the one beside her looked like a different demon altogether, a warrior with dark skin. Yet another demon in rugged armor and with no hair stepped forward. Scars covered her face and arms, making her look intimidating. She held a strap of leather around her hand and used it to drag along a fourth demon by the neck.

The fourth demon did not look nearly so pleased as the others. It seemed terrified and for good reason. Barbed wire held most of its skin together. Its wings were broken and mangled so that they dragged behind it. Its black eyes were covered in milky white film. And its mouth was wired shut in a way that seemed to indicate that it had been tightened around the bone of its jaw, not just its lips. Since there was no real metal in this place, the only possible explanation was that the creature had been forced to create the metal from its own soul, same as a demon weapon, and to use it to torture itself perpetually.

“What did you do with Roach?” Exousia asked, her mind spinning like a tire on ice for something more. She had many other questions, too many to keep track of. However, this was the only tangible one, the only one that made sense. And, to her own surprise, she realized that it was the one she cared most about.

“He’s somewhere inside,” Mr. Green replied, almost as if this fact were an irritation for him. “The little cretin has been no end of problems ever since his incarnation.”

“Incarnation,” Exousia whispered, her eyes going wide. “He’s … the new Lightbringer but … how is that possible? You’re still here.”

“He’s hardly the Lightbringer,” Mr. Green said with a roll of his eyes. “He is a creature of my making, designed to be stupid, weak, gullible, but able to escape this prison.”

“You designed him?” Exousia asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“An absolute inspiration that came from you, actually,” Mr. Green said with a smile. “My time was coming to an end, you see. But I had no intention of continuing this cycle of rebirth into idiotic beings of terror and destruction, or feeble ones happy to live out their existence in this prison.”

Exousia seethed. “What in the hell does that have to do with me?”

“Oh!” Mr. Green said, lifting his index finger. “That’s right. I was quite inspired by your little childhood feat of purging your identity and memories in exchange for a new one. I used the psychic powers of the Seer to do the same–shaping my next incarnation into one that I could easily dominate. Of course, the difference being that I had the Seer keep my current incarnation immortalized within their own spirit. I then forced the creature I’d made to study and reveal every map and puzzle I could find so that it could implant that power into my rebirthed consciousness, allowing for my eventual escape. Finally, I initiated my own rebirth before my time was up.”

“But Roach escaped without you,” Exousia said, shaking her head.

“Yes … thanks to Dufaii’s pathetic begging on your behalf and his emotional impulses against my guards, the Seer escaped and my control over Roach was broken.” As Mr. Green spoke, the circles under his eyes darkened so that he might have been seething were he not in such a good mood for being back. “The situation here is quite new to me, but I suppose one of my guards has been impersonating me in my absence, and my loyal servants have successfully tracked down the Seer.”

“Of course, Mr. Green,” the secretary demon said, her eyes filled with loving devotion. The demon managing the Seer did not reply, but her eyes burned dutifully. The Seer, however, looked broken beyond its physical ailments. Its face was puffy, bleeding, and deformed. And the trauma seemed recent, like its facial bones had been broken only in the last hour. When it was pulled forward, it became evident that the leash holding it was intertwined into all the barbed wire that ran through its body and face. It tried to make a sound, but only air came from a voice larynx that sounded crushed. Its eyes … its power … were centered on Mr. Green, presumably giving him control over his host.

“You’re not going to help us,” Exousia said, piecing it together. “Between Ammon and Hades, you’ve already lost control of this place.”

“Yes, Hell is lost … bit it’s not alone in that,” Mr. Green said, his face darkening more. “The Heavenly host is closing in and have been ever since the brighter two Archangels learned why the Creator appointed a human to fail as their Champion. This … all of this … was a plan of the Creator’s making. Everyone assumed that it was to resolve the rebellion of Ammon. But why, after all the threats that the Creator has ignored, would they suddenly be interested in an inevitable demon uprising? Why would they fight the solution to that which was their greatest regret? You should know the answer, seeing how your life has been a journey to the same end.”

The same end …

“The Creator is … trying to destroy themselves,” Exousia realized, her eyes widening. How could she have missed it? She’d been sitting on the answer for her entire life, and it had taken her this long to realize it. Raphael had basically spelled it out on the night Exousia had first tasted magic. But she’d missed it in her desperation to escape. The entire scheme was an elaborate suicide plot, death by demon. Exousia shook her head. “The Creator has to know that their action will end in war!”

“Correct,” Mr. Green said, looking pleased that his hints had struck so potently. “Which means that there is something much worse at risk if the Creator is not destroyed. Perhaps they feel like they will go into another bout of madness. Maybe they are simply in too much unending guilt and pain to care. All I know is that the Archangels were none too thrilled when they learned about this plan.”

“You told them!” Exousia growled.

“Quite the opposite,” Mr. green replied, not at all bothered by the false accusation. “Raphael and Gabriel came to me with this information and offered me a deal in exchange for not serving as the only weapon by which the Creator could be destroyed. They promised me my freedom.”

“So you won’t fight by your kind,” Exousia said, tilting her head so that her eyes darkened and narrowed on the being before her.

“None are mine except my loyal servants,” Mr. Green replied, staring right back with a ferocious gaze. “And now that I have you, I have a more permanent solution to my problem. I’ve been told what you can do to the souls of demons, humans, and other creatures. With your help, I would no longer have to worry about another escape from the Seer.”

“You’d trust me with your soul?” Exousia asked doubtfully.

“Oh no,” Mr. Green said with a laugh. “No, I will need to use what I’ve learned of you, and the powers of the Seer of course, to break you down a bit first. You have no idea how thrilled I was to see the impact of your abusive progenee on your psyche. I will break you until you are nothing but my puppet.”

Exousia forced herself to breathe, saying nothing to maintain her power even while everything in her wanted to react. She took another breath and then reached into her pocket. With one hand, she opened the larger blade and then held it in a backwards grip.