Holiest of Hells

The King of the Watcher looks at me with horrific, hollow eyes. They are empty wounded sockets that have never sealed nor healed completely.

Michael ripped them from his skull, crushing the dark diamonds in his righteous fist.

He gazes out in blindness, salt riming his perfect, mottled lids. The flesh rotten in beautiful decay.

Metatron, Angel of Corruption. Blind like Samael, but in an entirely different way.

Those eyes that hungered weep blood now, a cold black grit that pours half-congealed down his immaculate flesh. His skin is stone. His words mad whispers in the crushing dark.

Raving. Broken. Bruised.

I know not whom to blame.

"Come here, darling," he hisses enticingly, voice rough from centuries of disuse. I approach, trembling, clutching the ancient scroll I have somehow acquired, spelling out the victims of Samael, Azazel, and Semjaza, to my chest. Metatron pries it from my hands, spreading it open in a razor motion. His fingers trace the worn parchment, gliding ghost-like across the eldritch scrawl. They settle on a name.

SAMMANE.

I meet his gaze, worse than staring into the barrel of a gun. I recoil instinctively as his eyes bore into me. The old rags that cover his empty sockets are splayed across his throat like bloodied bandages. A bit of the void weeps out.

"I smell him on you," he says coolly, the paper beneath his finger beginning to smoke. Suddenly, the scroll erupts in flame. I reel backwards, watching in horror as it burns. He laughs lowly, grabbing my wrist with iron hands. I stumble forwards as he pulls me towards him. Bile rises in my throat at the otherworldly stench of his skin. Cool, damp. Like an ancient grave.

"What do you want, Metatron?" I whisper, shaking with terror.

His lips tilt into a mirthless smile. "You don't trust him, do you? Samael, Sammane – it's all the same." His fingers dig into my skin. I know he could crush me like a sparrow in his hands, fragile bird bones shattering in his grip. I shudder, and he laughs at my pain.

"Why- why do you say that?"

"It's obvious. Else you wouldn't be here."

"Pick your poison, I guess," I say, trying to fake bravery but failing utterly. Where have my cursed dreams taken me? The salt in the Baltimore air from the wharf feels too real, in a tent city in the industrial section.

Metatron smiles, so cold. "Yes..." His voice is like a serpent's. He bends his towering form over to whisper in my ear. "And you, dear child, are neck-deep in venom."

I'm about to faint. But I, mad, press on. "Give me what I came for. Tell me- tell me who Sammane is-"

He roars with laughter. "Demands! Who is he?" he says mockingly, taking my head and wrenching it painfully so I'm staring him eye to empty eye. I feel an alien mind pressing into my skull with the weight of the moon. Colors swirl around me: blood red, reeling blue, a weeping void. Metatron is sorting through my thoughts like a carrion picking crow. Laying the shiny entrails out to dry and devouring the choicest bits.

I'm on my knees, screaming, agony all I know. The terrible angel above me, laughing uproariously. He kicks in my head like I'm a discarded bottle, banging my neck against harsh stones. I shriek to the empty echoing alley as my head crashes, again and again, into the punishing brick wall. The grit and lowbrow streets take on a life of their own in oil spill nacrene. Hell in my world. Hell on earth. Hell is death, the abyss in the pearl.

A rat skirts Metatron's feet. He crushes it, smears the remains across my cheek like war paint.

He steals my innocence. My insides burn.

He ruins me.

Christened by blood, I'm no longer a girl. I weep out piteously to the sky thatched with stars. Metatron, above me, breath hot against the night, looks down at me with devouring eyes.

"You want to know who he is? The secrets of the scroll?" he says mockingly. He wounds me again - I scream beneath him. He laughs like a madman. "Do you want to know?" he says gratingly, demanding. The agony continues.

"Yes!" I choke through ripping sobs as my world crumbles around me. Death would be too sweet an end, now. The horror I endured would chase it away.

Metatron smirks. "Samael..." he croons, delighting in my suffering. I weep. "Is a bastard. But you knew that already, didn't you?"

"Please stop. Please," I beg. "I'll do anything- AAGH!"

Azazel howls with laughter. "I've ruined you, haven't I? Your daring was all for nothing. Now you're fit only for the wolves," he muses, licking the blood- my blood- that slicks his hand.

"Yes!" I weep, furious in my helplessness. I curse him, heaven, the gods-

"Shannon? SHANNON!"

There is a cold rush of wind. The glint of a scythe.

And then, all, is darkness.