The Voodoo Doll

Chapter XLIV: The Core

I hold his hand, but it burns me so much I instantly let go.

Goodbye, fake mother. Goodbye, Queen Lailah.

Take care of your kingdom.

Her eyelids snap open.

Her body began to shift, and as she heard a loud thud, she found herself on the floor, her wings wrapped around her in an angel reflex to avoid injury. She untaggled her feathers from her aching body, stood up in a herculean effort.

What was she dreaming of? She had forgotten. Only a lingering feeling of guilt remained. Quite an unpleasant thing she didn't know the source of.

Until another feeling replaced it. A familiar one, this time, one she never thought she would experience again. That sick, draining fatigue, dawning on every cell of her immortal body. That void, dug right into the core of her essence. The so-called heart for humans.

And she realized, at that moment, that she screwed up. Again.

Noah. Noah's essence was gone.

Did he die? Did he die the moment she left him? No, he was too important to all of them, only an idiot will kill her son.

The demons. There was no other answer. The demons have taken him again. That would explain his essence disappearing from Earth.

She didn't hesitate. Fractions of her recent dream were starting to come back to her.

She was supposed to consult the Oracles before every decision. She was supposed to stay put, wait for orders , call an urgent meeting between angel leaders, her most trusted childhood friends.

That isn't what she did.

She was sick of playing everyone's game, pretending to be the one in charge when she was only following the majority's orders. Haunted by the idea of messing up, haunted by the fear of being kicked out of the throne. Ditched, replaced like nobody.

She told herself she loved her son more than anyone in the world, but what did she ever do for that love? When it truly counted, she left her son for fifteen years in the hands of her enemies, she was supposed to be sending him to school herself, she was supposed to be watching him fall in his first love, struggle with his first homework, and have his first teenage rebellion. She was supposed to have fought for him all along, found a plan to retrieve him from the demons and save her kingdom from demise.

All these years, she chose her kingdom over her own blood.

She even dared to disguise herself as a crazy teenager, kept hiding facts from him, let him suffer inside that smartphone demon magic, and couldn't do a single thing.

She hoped, from the bottom of her evil core, that it wasn't too late.

What she was about to do could cost her her position. It was so reckless no one would agree to it, even Michael, who usually let her do whatever she wanted.

She stood up, rummaging in her closet until she found what she needed: her favorite band sweatshirt, a folded white mini skirt and black knee-high socks with daggers inside their magical fabric. She put on a black converse, one that protected her feet from immense heat. She called upon her twin swords, focused her essence into the vital parts and the blind points, into the very tips of her wings, the muscles of her back, and walked towards the back doors of her room.

They were hidden by mist, one only the queen could see through. With a hand, she brushed off the illusion, and golden gates, decorated with emeralds and rubies lined in between carved glass, gleaming with a thousand colors. On the door were drawn three angels, flying in the endless skies but reaching for the Earth, where humans stretched their hands towards the immortal creatures, wishing to be among them.