Something broke inside her. Just like that, on the whim of a cosmic entity, Mary was sucked into Hades, the land of the dead. Sara felt numbness at the base of her skull. Her anger broke any and all restraints. Instead of the passionate anger of wrath, it was the icy chill focus of vengeance. Whatever water was left on the kayak froze. Air moisture congealed into tiny snowflakes.
The pale horse neighed and clopped the floor, resonating with her anger. It was unaffected by her cold powers.
Her link with the Pale Horse. If she hadn't yet accepted the Omen of the Fourth Seal, why was she already bound to the Horse?
Sara's brain spun its cogs.
Verachiel's contingency failed to rewind the memory of beings from upper dimensions. Sara was a Nephilim, half-Celestial. She surely had a foot in an upper dimension. That's why her connection, her bond to the Pale Horse was already complete. This was supposed to be the fourth or fifth time she became Death.
That's why she could see the dead and their sins. Guide them to the afterlife. That's why the ghosts appeared whenever she needed one. She didn't have the choice to reject the mantle.
She was Death right from the beginning. Perhaps, were she an ordinary human, she wouldn't be able to do shit to these beings. But if they were gods, she was a demigod. She was half-Celestial. Perhaps that didn't matter. Just the concept of Death was enough to impart the knowledge they could die. She never learned which was which as the practical implication was the same. Death was coming with a vengeance. For all of them.
Gloating, Charon stared at the defiant girl. "What are you going to do?" The spell kept growing, devouring more of the surrounding landscape. Kelly's house and Gresham Park. The farms around the lake. It would take all of Atlanta, kill everyone soon enough.
Her fingers wrapped around something invisible and she pulled, breaking metaphysical bindings. She clambered on her feet. With heavy steps, she walked toward Charon. Mana buffeted her and seared her skin so dense it was. She squeezed the cold shaft of her weapon and instinctively called upon something deep inside her.
A scythe, black as midnight, appeared in her good hand. A blade two yards in length, curved and wicked as Death's weapon ought to be. Not a single speck of light from the Core reflected on its midnight black form. It didn't hum, though.
It was one with her. She was the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Death. Always had been.
She raised the scythe and infused it with her Mana. She brought it down on the boatman. Busy channeling his massive spell, Charon had no time or means to raise a defense.
But Charon was one closely aligned with the concept of Death. When he was killed, something else happened. The skeleton shattered and the pieces flew outward, shredding the threadbare robe. Charon was the gateway to Hades, that basic Truth didn't, couldn't change. Dead, he was supposed to ferry himself over but that couldn't happen either. Frozen between such paradox, he was sucked inward, unable to be at the same time both ferryman and passenger.
The Universe resolved the paradox by freezing him in time. The bones froze as they were, halfway sucked into a vortex in space and stabilized the vortex as a natural magic circle which froze to a halt as an oval ring around the swirling gate to Hades. The boatman remained the passage to Hades, but no longer would he sail.
Sara wasn't done. She roared and turned to face Verachiel.
"Sara, stop!" The wounded Titan, Seraph, Fallen, Serpent of Eden, Flame Bringer, or whatever that thing truly was, tried to parlay with her so wounded it was.
"Daughter of Eve my ass!" She shrieked and charged, scythe in hand, ready to claim another life. "You fucking gaslighters."
Wounded by his fight against Fourth, Verachiel tried to draw more power from the Core.
> "Warning. System energy cannot be used against an Administrator," The sweet lady voice of the System Core bleated with a klaxon.
Verachiel became desperate, all eyes fixing themselves on the scythe. Sara grinned. Yes, she could kill the mastermind behind all that. Kill, kill, kill. She embraced her Role for that moment.
A spell diagram flared to life behind Verachiel and sapped Sara's momentum. Sara slowed down because time itself slowed down. She could feel her notion of time stretching...
Stretching!
Bleeding coward of a motherfucker!
She then understood how his contingency worked then. The frozen area stretched time, creating tension like a rubber band. The tension was then used to power that contingency spell. When it snapped, it would push Verachiel back to where it started like a metaphysical slingshot aimed at the past.
It would send Verachiel back to October 7th, 2019 if Abby hadn't sabotaged it.
But Abby's sabotage, opening the time bubble too early, released some of the tension, a rubber band that dried while stretched. Now, when Verachiel released it out of desperation, it snapped.
Another temporal vortex opened and quickly sucked the wounded Seraph, closing before he had gone entirely through. It rebounded and burst in a shockwave of power, sending Sara flying away. She landed next to the corpse of the Fourth Living Being which was also pushed to the edge of the Administrative Space. Where Verachiel stood moments before, dozens of large pinions slowly floated down, cut in half. Gold blood dripped on the System Core. His escape was not without a price.
Whatever happened to the Seraph after that magical mishap, was anyone's guess.
The pale horse approached, not bothered to step on Celestial blood, freezing it from her cold flames. Yes, it was a girl. Verachiel's blood did not evaporate this time. Sara was sure Verachiel rooftop wounded act was an illusion.
She also remembered what Verachiel said on that same rooftop.
"I had four choices among the remaining humans on this planet. One was a murderer, currently serving time in an Indian jail. The second person was a military officer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The third one, which I almost picked, is a Brazilian televangelist."
It was pretty obvious now where each Horsemen was. Conquest/Pestilence, War, and Famine. She had a doubt which of the first two was which, but it wasn't an issue for now. She just felt sick to be compared to those people.
Her tension was fading now that she vindicated herself and probably derailed the Apocalypse. The Pale Horse nudged her, trying to comfort her wounded heart.
"I guess I need to give you a name. Green, in Greek is... You'll be Chloros... No, Chloe. It means green and fertility," she caressed the horse's neck. "You know, Chloe, that from death new life springs forth?"
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Sara clambered to her feet, her poisoned arm almost useless, scythe in her other hand.
Chloe neighed happily and licked Sara. She accepted her horse. It was part of her, just like the scythe.
"Yeah, me too," The girl tried to giggle as a social cue but she couldn't; Sara was still angry and not yet done, "let's subvert some expectations."
*
*
System Administrative Dimension, Lake Stonecrest, DeKalb County, Georgia. Friday, November 1st, 02:30
Death twirled its scythe. Sara's psyche was shattered and she was just a bit unhinged. Yes, just a bit. Don't argue.
"Happy ending, Abby!" Sara wished with a hidden agenda. No, she basically lied. "We are bound for a happy ending!"
"Why wouldn't he?"