Chosen One - Chapter 35

[madbottoms]

  Title: Chosen One - Chapter 35
Summary: Our favourite tortured boys are back in this third and final instalment in which they try to outrun Hell.
Notes: See chapter 1 for disclaimer warnings and related info. Apologies for the long break in transmission. But as they say, “Shit happens!”  But before we get back on air again, let’s go back to the original disclaimer. In it I admitted the story was shamelessly stolen and I had just dropped our favourite characters into it like we do for Reel Torchwood.  In hindsight I should also have added the prompt as well - so in the spirit of full disclosure, the story is from Personal Demons. And yes, there is a lot the same throughout the stories, and yes, sometimes exactly, but just with Torchwood characters. So happy reading if you still want to keep going and see how it ends.  Anyway, the last lot of chapters will be posted regularly until it’s finished, which should be about six or seven. 

35

*~*

Armageddon

JACK

I don’t know what just happened, but I do know it’s my fault. I felt something burst out of me, and when I called it back, I killed Ianto. He lays lifeless and pale next to John on the ground, and a fist clenches my heart and squeezes as I realise I’ve killed them both.

Then I see Dad, crumpled on the ground next to Gray, my whole family hovering over him.

“Daddy,” I whisper as my heart collapses under the pressure. “Oh, God. No.”

There’s a crackle of lightning and a girl materialises next to John. She lays a hand on him, his copper hair swirling around his fair face in a gust of cool air. He looks at me with amber eyes and a golden tear slips over his lashes onto his cheek. He bows his head, and in that instant I realise it’s the girl who protected the plane the night we fled. Carys.

She scoops John into her arms, stretches her wings, and her long white gown flutters behind her as she takes flight, lifting John off the ground and disappearing into the roiling black sky a minute later.

I look up at Lucifer, my heart in my stomach.

How did everything go so wrong?

“Come to me, my love,” he beckons with an outstretched hand.

Something burns into my chest, scorching me with demonic heat.

I look down and Lucifer’s metal pendant lies over my shirt, glowing red. I pull it up by the strap and stand mesmerised as it spins in front of my face, the grey light refracting through it as if it was the reddest of blood rubies. Its power—His power—throbs from it, drawing me to Him.

I gain my feet and move toward my green-eyed angel as if in a dream.

“No!” Maggie’s cry rips me from the trance. She lunges for me and grabs for the pendant. But before she can get it away from me, a burst of crimson explodes from it and the air is tinged with the smell of singed skin and sulphur as she pulls her burnt hand back.

Maggie looks at me, her eyes pleading with me through her terror and pain, and with the sense that I’ve been punched in the gut, I suddenly see clearly. I can’t breathe as I turn to Lucifer. “You never meant to return to Heaven,” I say, finally understanding that I’ve been wrong—about everything.

“But, you’re mistaken, my love,” He answers. “I do intend to return.” A tiny burst of Hellfire explodes out from the pendant, drawing my attention back to it. It’s so beautiful.

I feel myself moving toward Him again, the visceral tug too insistent to ignore. It’s as if I have no will of my own.

The thought rolls around lazily in the back of my head.

No will of my own.

No free will.

I don’t know where she came from, but Kate is at my side. She grasps the pendant and it goes suddenly dead.

“No!” Lucifer bellows, as if in pain, and I hear Grace, mumbling behind me—something about the shield of righteousness. I grind my teeth tight, setting my nerve, then rip the leather strap from my neck and heave the pendant as hard as I can toward the Abyss.

Lucifer’s bestial roar tears through my head, mingling with my own. I look at Him and, even though He is still in the form of the beautiful green-eyed angel, I suddenly see Him through Grace’s eyes. It’s as though a veil has been pulled back, showing me what I couldn’t see before. I see His true essence.

Black.

Nothing but black.

I have to fight to block Him from my head. Because, what I know now, looking at the thing I thought was my angel, is that whatever He was before He fell, that part of Him is gone. He’s never going to change.

Even though my mind is racing, I can start to see what I need to do. I’m not supposed to get Lucifer to come back to Heaven. I’m supposed to broker a truce between Heaven and Hell.

Without Him.

As if He read my mind, He unleashes a roar that shakes the ground under my feet. At the same instant, all around me, an electrical storm erupts, the smell of ozone overpowering the brimstone wafting up from the gorge. All my hair stands on end as the air lights up in tiny licks of static electricity. Suddenly I’m surrounded by hundreds of fluffy white wings—and the angels they’re attached to. I stumble back and gawk, open-mouthed. They’re so beautiful. All of them.

A silver-haired girl who looks younger than me smiles in my direction. She gives her wings one flap. Her long white gown flutters behind her as she’s lifted into the air. Above us, others hover all around.

I stare in disbelief.

This can’t be real.

But even as I stare, my pounding heart starts to slow and my gasping breath calms as their angelic peace dulls my panic, helping me to think.

Three angels swoop in and scoop the lifeless forms of Ianto, Gray, and Dad into their arms. My heart wrenches and tears leak over my lashes as I watch them take flight and disappear.

Other angels sweep in on the black mass surrounding Lucifer and all Hell breaks loose.

Adrenaline makes my senses hum as I take in the scene—the battle raging all around. Streaks of white lightning and flashes of red Hellfire light up the darkness; shouts erupt in a thunderous echo; singed angels; smouldering demons.

“No!” Lucifer snarls. He spins and stares black death at me. “You will be mine. Heaven will be mine!”

The ground under us shakes with His rage. Grandpa steps in front of me, making himself as wide as possible to block me from Lucifer’s line of sight. “Get back to where ya come from,” he shouts.

I hear a scream from behind me and turn to see Suzie pulling Maggie away from me. I spin and kick, connecting with her arm and breaking her grasp on Maggie. But before she can skitter away, she grabs a handful of her hair.

“Let her go, Suzie,” I say.

“Sorry,” she replies, and her eyes flick to Lucifer. “Protecting His interests.”

My eyes flick to Lucifer and He gives me a sad smile, then He locks eyes with Grandpa. Instantly, Grandpa falls to the ground with a strangled cry.

“No!” I drop to my knees next to Grandpa but am pushed back as I try to touch him. The air around him ripples with some sort of electric field as he cries out again and convulses on the ground. “Grandpa,” I sob. I press my hand to the field around him. “No…”

“I will spare him,” Lucifer says, His voice close behind me. “It’s up to you, my love.”

I’m shivering violently as I turn to Him, shards of ice running through my veins. “What do you want?”

His voice is low but potent. “It’s not so much what I want, as what I’m due. I have waited patiently for you, and now you’re here.”

Without the pendant, thinking for myself is easier. I don’t feel the same visceral draw to Him as I did when I was wearing it. I chance a glance toward Suzie as Maggie struggles against her. Her field shimmers around her, opalescent, but it doesn’t seem to do anything to slow Suzie down.

Desperation grabs my gut and won’t let go. I turn back to Lucifer. “I’ll do anything. What do you want?”

Grandpa groans and rolls into a ball when the assault on him stops. Lucifer cuts a cold smile at me. “I only want what’s rightfully mine. You will give me Heaven.” The heat radiates off Him, burning me with its intensity.

“I can’t do that.” The words catch in my throat as I choke back a sob.

He steps closer, His voice low in my ear, seductive in its promises. “But you can, my love. You will give me what I want and you will rule at my side, or your family dies.”

I want to crumple into a ball and hide. All I can think is how stupid I’ve been. So many are dead because of me. Ianto, Dad, Owen, Hope. Panic grips my heart as my gaze shifts between Grandpa, lying on the ground, his breathing laboured, and Maggie, in Suzie’s grip. I have to save them.

Suzie’s expression is despondent, and her eyes plead with me.

She doesn’t want this. She wants out from under Lucifer.

“I’m not your love!” I yell. “Let them go!”

He peers down at me with raised eyebrows, His green eyes piercing mine, as if searching for my soul. “I’ve waited an eternity for you. You have the power to give me what I desire.”