A Kiss of Death (Bk1)

Chapter 18

I was drifting in a red haze of pain. It was nerve racking to know my end was near and that I was the sole cause of my demise. It went against everything that I was and all that I waz meant to be but it had to be done. I couldn't let god win this round nor could I allow mother's petty nature to let Fin just die in hell. So I screamed out loud in my mind and suffered my pain in silence and waited... waited for death to come.

And then he was here gracing me with his presence. He was a relief from this pain. He would make it all go away. He would make it better. I raised a caressing hand to tenderly caress the carcess that was death almost lovingly. He ducked his almost skeletal head into the palm of my spiritual hand. Acknowledging my gesture for what it was... a whisper of thanks.

I allowed my caress to drift running my fingers down his black cloak. The very cloak that was his only adornment. Maggots squirmed out of its crevices fat from having their fill of his never ending rotting flesh. I had heard the tale behind it. It was a gift from mother.

Death bowed down to no one. Neither good nor evil. He acknowledged no god nor devil. He served only himself. Catering to his never ending greed. The story was told that death had been a gift from the gods to the devil herself. Death would take the life of the living and in return release the souls to the mercy of the devil. Mother had been glad of the gift using the services of death freely to fill her coffers with tarnished souls. She didn't want those that were pure and death did not discriminate over whose souls he took.  Mother was not pleased by what she considered were wasted souls that drifted the earth for the doors to heaven were as closed to these souls as were the pits of hell. So mother demanded that death obeyed her and release only those souls who were worthy of her fiery pits. Souls whose endless screams of torment would give her unending pleasure.

But death had not obeyed. Death declared he was above mother and refused to yield and so mother gifted death with his cloak. A clock he could never remove. A cloak that became a part of him. A cloak that fed off death himself. Eating into his regenerating flesh for all eternity.

God had been cunning in his gift for the world was slowly being rid of all living who was evil. But when death came running back to god demanding to be released from the flesh eating cloak that plagued him, god had laughingly refused. He saw nothing of consequence in death himself. He saw no wrong in simply letting mother's gift be.

So death took his vengeance. Death gathered all the souls floating about who were rejected by the pits of hell and brought them to heaven. As a creation of god himself death had full admittance into heaven. The sentinals couldn't stop him and when they begun to see the souls of their lost ones included in his entourage, they hadn't wanted to stop him.

So the gates of heaven were thrown open for souls that were pure and god had grudgingly accepted deaths deviousness.

So my now gazing into death's gaze brought no hope. No reassurance that death would defy his nature and turn his back on Fin or me. No death would collect. He would claim for his own the lives of the son of god and the daughter of the devil.

I just hoped he did it quickly.