30: Turning of the Tide, pt 2

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And now the conclusion to Chapter Thirty. Music Selection for both parts: Bad Blood by Bastille; No Life Without You by Joseph Loduca.

Unedited. 

~*~

With a thud echoing through the room, Chris’ slammed against the church pew and dropped into the seat. I walked after him with an arm clasped around my ribs, taking in the surroundings since this was the first time I’d fully integrated myself and someone else into one of my visions.

It all looked pretty damn real and technically it was. We weren’t. Though the place Caelus had chosen was a bit unreal.

A church. Caelus had hidden himself and Gaia away in a church. Or they would as they weren’t currently in the room with us. Kind of ironic if you thought about it which I didn’t. There were other things to concentrate on at the moment. The church was stripped of the usual adornments and abandoned. If I had to guess, I’d say the place had been empty for about a year. Most of the pews had been ripped out and part of the ceiling about the aisle had caved in, allowing water and other various wildlife to enter. The weird thing was, every single stained glass window was still intact. They were evenly spaced very third row and each depicted a different Arch Angel. There was no backlighting, either having been boarded up from the outside or the vision was taking place at night. Either way, the lack of light made the faces of the angels appear more sinister than they were meant to.

I eased myself down on the pew next to Chris and faced the alter and pulpit where the preacher would’ve stood to deliver a sermon. Caelus wasn’t a preacher and I imagined the sermon he was about to give wouldn’t be as religiously enlightening as the ones my father heard every Sunday at his church.

“Where are we?” Chris asked.

“It’s not where that’s important.” I turned my head to look at him. “It’s what will happen that’s of consequence.”

“And what’s supposed to happen?”

I turned to face the front again. “You’ll see.”

“And how do I know any of this is real?”

“I’m not Persephone. I deal in truths not lies.”

The doors behind us banged open and the sound, combined with hurried footsteps, boomed through the chapel. Chris turned his head to look but I didn’t. On some level, I knew what was coming and I didn’t want to face it. In a way, what would transpire here would be the beginning of the end.

Chris’ posture changed the moment he saw Persephone and he scrambled to his feet.

“What do you mean it’s not going to work?”

“We’ve had this discussion already, my dear. Nothing has changed.”

Caelus passed our pew and even though I’d hoped to see his face in order to identify him, it didn’t happen. Or at least the face didn’t register, not completely. I got the sense the features were familiar but other than that….

Red hair flowed over his arm like a bloody waterfall, the strands swaying as he walked. The locks weren’t solid like everything else around us. Instead there was a transparency to them I hadn’t quite expected.

Gaia wasn’t fully corporeal.

“There has to be something you can do!”

Persephone was next to pass us, not a hair out of place and clothing immaculate as if she’d just picked the outfit up from the drycleaners.

“Seph?” Chris followed after her. “Seph!”

When he caught up to her, the funniest thing happened. He went straight through her, stopped in amazement and frustration, and then she passed right through him as she continued to chase after Caelus.

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