Sweet Blasphemy

Hunting is a thing I never thought I'd enjoy. Yet here I am, exhausted and shaking from another unsuccessful hunt that ended with Andy discovering me staking out in places I shouldn't be.
"Do you have any concept of how stupid you are?!?" He screams at me, with no regard for the fact that his hand is gripping my arm so hard that I can already feel it bruising. "You fucking idiot, why can't you just understand that you need to do only what you're told and just stay put unless you're told otherwise!?!"
I rip my arm out of his grasp and punch him in the jaw. I'm filled with a controversial pleasure as Andy stumbles backwards. On one hand, this is Andy, the real Andy who hurt me and drank my blood, the one who yells at me and betrays me and gladly hands me over to a rapist every night. But on the other hand, I can't help but see him as the other Andy, my Andy, no matter how stupid that makes me. I clench my teeth and tell myself to suck it up. This is the cruel Andy, the real Andy that I just punched, and if I know anything, I know that he won't hesitate to throw a punch right back at me.
So I step back when he straightens up, stepping out of his arms-length. A wild look in my eyes, I scream back at him.
"You know what, asshole? You’re the one who doesn't understand! I'm not a fucking doll that you can all play with when you want to; a doll that'll stay put, stay quiet and complacent whenever you're not around! Yeah, you all can rape me and drink my blood and torment me; you can take my body and my blood and claim my destiny and my power and my aspirations for your own, but what you can not take, what you'll never be able to take is my freedom! I don't care what I have to do, who I have to screw over to get out of here; I'm going to fucking do it because I have to prove to you that I am not yours and I’ll never be!”
I shove into him, using all my strength to push him away from me. He does not fight me. He could've hit me by now, could've pinned me to the ground in agony, but he is letting me attack him instead, and it's pissing me off.
"What, you're not going to fight back?!?! It's not like you're too good to hit a girl; you fucking hit me before!" I scream at him.
"I never hit you," says Andy quietly, so quietly that I almost missed it. I am too enraged to respond- I'm pretty sure that drinking someone’s blood is worse than hitting them- so I release my frustration physically instead.
I kick him hard enough to send him flying into the ground, and he grabs onto me and pulls me down with him. Before I can even process what's happening, I am underneath him and his hands are on my arms, pinning them on either side of me head, keeping me from punching his stupid face. He leans down over me, his blue eyes alight with an emotion that I do not recognize but is strong nonetheless.
"Are you satisfied now?" He asks me placidly.
"What does it matter if I am or not? I'm just a little mortal girl; who gives a shit about how I feel?"
"Would you stop saying that every time I ask you a question?!?"
"Why? It's what everyone wants me to say; what does it matter if mean it. I don't mean even half the shit I'm forced to do down here," I snap in return.
"You're such a fucking pain in the ass, Sera! You get offended when other people call you a little mortal girl- even though that's what you are- but then when it's convenient for you it's suddenly okay for you to call yourself one!" Andy leans down over me, close, way too fucking close, and I tilt my head to the side and close my eyes, bracing myself for whatever horrible thing he's about to do.
I feel his lips against my neck, and his tongue traces the marks he left when he drank my blood the other day. I clench my teeth, and then I realize that that only strains my neck and pushes my veins out for him to bite into, like an invitation.
He nibbles on one, softly nipping on it, not hard enough to break the skin but hard enough to cause a dull ache of pain.
"Do you even understand what I'm trying to do for you?" He murmurs against my skin. "Do you have any idea, any inkling that what I'm doing to you is for your own good?"
"What?" I ask him. How is he helping me? He's keeping me from searching for Lavinia, for one, and he threatens me with the constant promise of his teeth sinking under my skin. How could any of that be considered helping?
As if in response, Andy lowers himself onto me, brushing his face against my skin as he positions his mouth on the skin above my right breast.
"If you're a good girl," he says, "you'll see what I mean."
Then he scratches his nails down my side, and I can feel it because my corset has only lace up ties on the sides. I make a small noise of surprise as his fingers slip under the ties and he presses them against my skin.
"You too?" I breathe. "You're going to rape me too? Of course you are. Of course you would be like that; why wouldn't you be-"
My ranting is cut short as I feel something cold and metallic slips inside of the front of a dress. What? It feels... It feels like Andy just slipped a sheathed dagger into my corset.
"Don't be an idiot with that," he whispers. "Don't waste it by using it at the wrong time, attacking the wrong person, because you'll either get disarmed or Death will come and take it away. Wait for the right moment."
Andy pulls off of me, leaving the dagger with me, concealed in my corset. "That's a Soul Dagger," he murmurs in my ear as he helps me up in my shocked state. "It will take the soul of whoever you use it on and absorb it into the blade, making it stronger. If you, for lack of a better term, 'kill' someone with it, you will destroy them from existence. If you use it on a ghost, or a fallen angel, or a monster or vampire, they'll be eradicated from the universe, not just turned into a ghost in here. As a fair warning, you can't 'kill' Death with that."
I'm baffled beyond words. Why would Andy arm me with a weapon that could kill him and his fellow fallen angels? Why would he help me? Why would he tell me what it does, and warn me against doing something stupid with it?
"Just so it's clear, Sera," Andy pulls back from me in the slightest, keeping close enough so that other people won't hear his words, but making his blue eyes visible to me. They burn into me, and his lips curve up into a smirk. "No matter what it may seem like to you, it'd be a waste to use that on me. You have bigger fish to fry."
He gives me a serious look and brushes his hand across my cheek and tucks my hair behind my ear. The familiar act reminds me of simpler times with simpler relationships. "Sera," he says firmly. "Don't hurt yourself with that."
I nod. "Why do you have a weapon like this?" I blurt out. "Why are you giving it to me?"
"I have plenty of others," Andy says, answering my question but not really answering it at the same time. "And didn't anyone ever tell you about the Grim Reaper?" He winks.
I feel like I'm about to puke.
"You mean you're-?" I choke out.
"Sixx," he says. "Sixx, as in I've been around since year six. I've had plenty of years with that thing; it's time for me to use another one of my Soul weapons."
I can barely manage to think I've been living with the Grim Reaper? before passing out.

I wake up and I am alone, lying on my stomach under the covers in my bed, with the Soul Dagger pressed against my chest. At first I think that it must've shifted from my side during sleep, but then I realize that I can breathe, so I must not be wearing my corset.
I make a muffled moan into my pillow before sitting up, positioning the dagger between my legs so it remains hidden. It means too much to be careless with; it needs to stay perfectly concealed until the right time.
I look down at what I'm wearing. A soft blue Sleeping With Sirens band tee and Jack Skellington pajama bottoms. Andy must've redressed me into this after I'd passed out. I want to feel violated, but right now all I can feel towards him is grateful. Even though he hurt me horribly- physically, mentally, and emotionally; he'd also armed me.
Pushing my ever-so-conflicted feelings about Andy aside, I hide the Soul Dagger in my jumble of sheets and stand up. I need to get dressed so that I can continue my search for Lavinia. As helpful as Andy had been by giving me the Soul Dagger, I knew that he wouldn't be giving me any more information any time soon.
After all, it'd taken almost twelve years for him to tell me that he's the fucking Grim Reaper.
I exhale a frustrated puff of air and pad over to my armoire. I dig through it, hoping to find a pair of pants that aren't adorned with the faces of a cartoon skeleton. No luck. But I do find a white peasant blouse and a tan bra and a light brown skirt buried at the very bottom of the armoire.
I get dressed into that quickly, pulling my hair up into a loose bun with a ribbon I find straggling from a brown dress. Once I'm dressed, I frown. I have nowhere to conceal the Soul Dagger. I don't want to wear a jacket (surprise surprise it's really hot down in Hell), and carrying a bag is fucking suspicious. I fit the dagger into my corset earlier...
"Fuckkkkkk," I grumble. Resigned, I get a brown corset out from the armoire and put it on over my blouse. Then, I go over to my bed and retrieve the Soul Dagger, sliding it safely into my corset. I thread my hair into a long blonde braid, then swing it over my back. There. Out of the way.
Without further ado, I slip out of my bedroom, armed with a Soul Dagger and a brown robe with its hood pulled up to cover my face. I am determined to find Lavinia. I will not allow any more failure. I am armed. I am strong. I am defiant. There is nothing that can truly overtake me, I tell myself. I will fight, in my own way, in a silent way, like an assassin in the night. All I will need, if I do this correctly, is one single strike and my world will be mine again. I let this thought fill me as I slither through the shadows of Death’s castle, as I trek once again, in a new direction, blind as to where I’m going but hopeful that it will end up being the prison where Lavinia is being held. I do not know if they’ve moved her since I first saw her with Jinxx, or even how long ago that was. All I know are the feelings of my hope and my doubt mixing together in the pit of my stomach. They are making me nauseous, but I refuse to get sick. I only push myself harder as my body moans for me to take a break from walking. When my mind tells me that there’s no hope and that Lavinia surely can’t be here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, I go farther. I run into the most unlikely spaces, just to prove a point. I am reclaiming my life, and I am starting with reclaiming my consciousness. I can’t continue living a life plagued by my own mind. I cannot continue to let the qualities of Hell invade my mind, making me doubtful, anxious, and afraid. I have to make in impact on Hell to let it know that it can no longer make an impact on me. I have to make an impact.
Freeing Lavinia will be my impact.
I know that I cannot free her today if I find her. I have to devise a solid plan with Lavinia first, and then acquire the means necessary to execute it. I know this, but I can’t help but buzz with excitement at the thought of getting an ally in this wasteland. A true ally, not a confusingly horrid yet occasionally helpful fallen angel. Someone to rely on. Someone to make plans with.
Someone to escape with.
I let out a breathy, barely audible laugh at the thought of turning my Soul Dagger on Acheron, or Ezra, or Jezebel, or the bizarre dressing harpies. I let out a laugh at the thought of finding a capable blade and turning it on Death. Of watching him blink. Of watching him stutter. Of watching him choke as I shove the blade down his throat.
So wrapped up in my own violent delusions, I do not notice where I am until I am standing under a familiar disintegrating obsidian archway, laced with curling foreign silver script across the top.
The prison.
Throwing all caution to the wind in the heat of my euphoria, I sprint inside of the Hell prison, racing past cells broken by the long ago defiance of the once-trapped people who’d been incarcerated here. I want to leave Hell and all of its inhabitants like this prison, badly broken by my own form of defiance, by my power, and my power alone.
I run as fast as my feet will allow and do not stop until I am standing in front of her cell. My heart thrums with pure, undiluted joy as I see her in the cell. Her hair is knotted and matted and nearly turned grey from the falling of flakes and dust particles of cement from the ceiling. She looks weak, sleeping in a curled up form, wearing the same thing she’d worn to school on the day that Link tried to rape me.
Has she been down here this entire time?!?
For a second, I hesitate to wake her. I know what it’s like to be a prisoner down here; I may not be trapped by bars and walls, but I am trapped and suffering nonetheless. I know that sometimes, the only solace provided down here comes in the form of unconscious ignorance. I know this, but I can’t help but feel like being presented with an ally might be even better than the blissful delirium of sleep. Quietly, I murmur her name.
“Lavinia,” I say softly. When she does not stir, I reach through the bars and nudge her softly with the heel of my hand. She moans. “Lavinia, wake up,” I say.
“Drop dead, demon scum,” she mutters before snuggling herself deeper into the dirt of her cell floor.
“Lavinia, sweetheart, if you don’t wake up I will go ape-shit on your ass. You have no idea what I’ve been through, trying to find you,” I say in exasperation.
Lavinia jerks upright faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move before, including Acheron and his unearthly speed. Her golden eyes wide, she speaks.
“Seraphina,” she gasps, staring at me like I’m an apparition.
“The one and only,” I smile at her. She stares at me in shock for a second longer before dissolving into violent sobs.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Sera. I was supposed to- to protect you, and I failed. I failed so horribly, Sera. I didn’t know, I didn’t know you had five on you; I figured it’d be two, three at the most, not five,” Lavinia cries. “I couldn’t even know for sure that you were in the presence of fallen angels until I saw their drawings on your back, until I saw the prayers of the demon angels inked onto your back in nearly every language. When I saw it in art class, I know I freaked you out, and I’m sorry for that, I was just trying to figure out who you had on you. I was afraid that it’d be someone strong, but I never could’ve imagined that it was Sixx and Jinxx. I tried to go after you, Sera, but then I saw him, I saw Jinxx, and I got so mad, so fucking mad that he was there, that he was waiting for the moment to take you down here to his horrible master and I attacked him. It was stupid. I was stupid. Everyone knows this; you don’t attack Jinxx. He’s somewhat of a legend; he’s been around since the dawn of time. Some say that he was the first angel to ever fall from heaven, that he was the one people refer to as Lucifer. Mortals think that Death used to be a part of Heaven, but that’s so wrong. Death has been here as long as Phoenix has. Jinxx was the one that fell. Jinxx is the one the mortals talk about. Jinxx is the mortals’ Lucifer.” Lavinia sniffles, looking guilty, like she had actually done something wrong when she hadn’t. She’d tried her best. It’s just that her best wasn’t quite good enough. “I was an idiot, and it’s my fault that you’re down here; it’s all my-”
“Lavinia,” I cut her off, taking her freezing cold hand in mine through the bars of her cell. Her eyes met mine and I gave her a weak smile. “Lavinia, it’s going to be okay. We’ve found each other, haven’t we? Believe me when I say that I’m pretty sure that that was half the battle. I’ve been looking for you for weeks!”
Lavinia’s lip quivers. “How did you even know I was down here?”
“I followed Jinxx down here, the day after Link tried to rape me, and I saw you,” I tell her. “I saw, I saw… your wings…?”
Lavinia looks away from me, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t tell you, I really, really am. I didn’t know for sure if you were with the fallen angels or not, and even if you were, I had no way of being sure that you knew what they were or not. You might’ve not even known that angels were real; I couldn’t just come right out and tell you, and risk freaking you out enough that you would’ve told your fallen angels and exposed me. I couldn’t have told you…” She rolls her shoulder, shaking out her wings, rubbing them against the dirt of her cell floor. She stares at a demon bug that is crawling across her left wing, squirting black liquid from its pincers. The bug is the size of my fist, and the black ooze is dissolving Lavinia’s white feathers like sugar in warm water.
I swallow, dazed by the entire situation, watching the bug like it’s the only thing in the world. I know that I’ve been seeing dead people my whole life, and that I’ve been accompanied by five fallen angels- one of the the Grim Reaper- since I was six years old. I know that I’ve been kidnapped and brought down to Hell, to be held captive by monsters like vampires and harpies, and am to be wed to Death Himself. I know this, but somehow, the sight of Lavinia’s wings is what gets to me the most. I don’t know if it’s the fact that she had seemed so, so human that affects me so much, but the sight of the dirty white wings flowing out of her back like poetry makes me want to laugh in manic ludicrousness. “So you’re an angel then,” I shake my head. “You’re an angel. That’s perfectly normal, right? That the girl who sat across from me in art class turns out to be an angel, imprisoned by my childhood friends who just so happen to be evil fallen angels?” I clench my fists, digging my nails into my hands, hoping that my pain will clarify my reality, and force me to accept that this is happening and spur me into action. I compose myself with a deep breath. “Lavinia,” I say firmly. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
Lavinia buries her face in her arms, crumpling her own form into a ball on the floor of her cell, burying her face in the dirt. “Why bother?” she asks, her voice muffled by the dirt and her own flesh. “I’m just a seraph, a failed one. Phoenix will make me an underling if I ever get out of here. I was supposed to keep you safe!” She cries, her hands clawing into the coarse dirt. “I failed, so there’s really no reason for our fates to be intertwined, is there? I’m a failure, and I deserve to be down here. I let myself get caught- no, I let you get trapped down here, and I deserve to suffer for it.”
“Lavinia,” I say, shocked. “Lavinia, don’t you dare talk like that! Don’t you dare even think like that; none of this is your fault! You’re not the one who kidnapped me, not the one who dragged me down here tooth and nail. The fallen angels did that to me, and they did the same to you. If anyone’s to blame for us ending up down here, it’s them, not you. Do you understand?”
“I’m so sorry,” Lavinia wails, like she’s not even listening to me at all.
“Lavinia,” I say, firmer this time.
“Don’t, just don’t,” she sobs. “Don’t tell me that it isn’t my fault, Seraphina, don’t. If you really want to help me, then kill me! Kill me, and get rid of me.”
“Lavinia!” I scream. “Lavinia, snap out of it! You’re- you’re scaring me!” I grip her hand tightly. “I- I can’t even kill you, you know that! I would never do it anyway, so why, why would you even ask such a horrible-”
“You can kill me,” Lavinia cuts me off. “You can. I can see the hilt of the Soul Dagger’s sheath, it poked out when you leaned over to grab my hand. Sixx gave you a Soul Dagger, did he? Good. Let him help you; let him get you out, and kill me.”
I gape at her. “How- you saw the Soul Dagger, already? You…” I pull my hands away from her and hold my head in them. If I can’t even hide the Soul Dagger from Lavinia for fifteen minutes, how am I supposed to keep it hidden from Death? He’s going to find it, and kill Andy, and probably me too. I do not realize that I am moaning in frustration until I feel myself pulling on my braid. “How could you ever think that Sixx, even if he were completely devoted to helping me, would be able to get me out of here? I couldn’t even hide my Soul Dagger from you for a minute, could I?” I give a humorless laugh. “I’m never going to be able to do this without you, Lavinia, and deep down, you know that.”
“You don’t need me,” Lavinia says in response. “You can get out of here, even without Sixx’s help. You’re a Sybil, and you’re so much more. You’re stronger than Death, you just don’t know it yet.”
“You’re lying,” I fire back at her, feeling tears spill over my lips, but too emotionally ravaged to wipe them away.
“You think I’m lying, Sera?” Lavinia laughs. “What do I have to lie for? I’m going to suffer on the floor of this cell for the rest of eternity. You want to be able to hide your Soul Dagger? Here.” Lavinia’s hand shoots out of the cell, wedging between the bars. Her hand brushes against the sheath of the dagger, through the slit in the side of my corset. I am afraid that she is going to grab the Soul Dagger to kill herself, but she does not go to steal it. Instead, she murmurs something in another language.
She chants:

“Só leigheas seo blade agus i bhfolach
An killer a saol taobh istigh
Déan an Glow cumhachta
Nuair is gá aingeal is mó
Déan iad a impigh do trócaire
Nuair a bheadh báis cúirtéis
Agus trill an anam an tsolais
Mar a ghlacadh sciatháin an Fhionnuisce eitilt
Cheilt seo lann cursed
Go dtí go bhfuil cinniúint fhág
Maidir leis an gcumhacht a bheidh le scaoileadh
Go raibh do chumhacht riamh d'fheidhm.”

When she is done, I feel warmth surge through me, like I’ve been slowly submerged into a tropical ocean. The crystal clear water purges my bones of any and all dark, and I am left feeling lighter and freer than ever before, despite my situation. So rejuvenated and amazed by the way my skin seems to sparkle with a silver glow, it takes me a minute to realize that I should probably look at my Soul Dagger. I reach into my corset and pull it out. When I look down at it, I see nothing, but I still feel it in my head. Frowning, I rub my eyes with the heel of my one hand, using the other one to keep a firm grip on the Soul Dagger. When I look again, it is still invisible.
“Lavinia?” I ask her.
“Say the word ‘nochtann,’” Lavinia says quietly. I do as she says, and once I’m done, the Soul Dagger flickers into my field of vision. Entranced, I unsheathe it, checking the blade amd making sure that there’s nothing wrong with it. It is perfectly unscathed. What the hell just happened? “No say the word ‘cheilt,’” Lavinia orders.
“Cheilt,” I say, and the Soul Dagger becomes invisible again. I look at Lavinia in amazement.
“I used some of my magic on it,” she says. “All you have to do to make it invisible is say cheilt, which means ‘conceal’ in Irish. To make it visible again, say nochtann, which means ‘reveal.’ If you misplace it while it’s invisible, say ‘aimsiú,’ it’s Irish for ‘locate’ and will lead you to the Soul Dagger.”
I am amazed, calling out the word nochtann so that I can stare at the dagger in awe. “Lavinia,” I say breathlessly. “Thank you…” I tear up, thinking that all of the work I’d done, thinking that everything I risked trying to find her has already proven to be worth it.
“You can hide your Soul Dagger now,” Lavinia says. “You’re armed, and you have a way of concealing it. You have Sixx to help you. Now please, please Sera. Kill me. I know what you’re going to say- you think it’s unnecessary, that it’s going to hurt me for no reason, but Sera, Sera you don’t know what it’s like to be a seraph trapped in Hell. Even the air down here is toxic to me. It burns my skin like acid, and it’s eating away at my sanity. The dirt is getting soaked into my pores and mixing into my bloodstream, poisoning me. The very essence of this place is turning me fallen, Sera, and I’d rather die than become a fallen angel. You understand; you have to understand! You lived with them; you know what they’re like, you know now what they’re truly like, and you know that I could never be that way. I could never deceive someone like you for malicious reasons. The only reason I deceived you was because I was trying to help you, not hurt you. Sera, I can’t hurt people. I’d rather die. You have to understand that.”
“Lavinia,” I reach through the bars. She’s so close to me now from casting the spell that I can touch her wings, and I do. They’re soft, soft like nothing I’ve ever felt before in my life. They’re beautiful, even covered in dirt and withering, much like the girl they’re attached to. “I know,” I murmur, stroking her feathers gently, taking great caution to treat her delicately. By the way her body quivers and shakes as she takes in breaths, I can tell that she’s in pain. I do not want to worsen it. “I know. I know and I won’t let you turn fallen. But I’m not going to kill you either. I’m going to get us both out of here; I swear it on my life. How long do you think you have before you turn?”
Lavinia ruffles her wings against my hand, and snuggles up closer to me, making it easier for me to reach her. I scratch the feathers between her wings, in the core of her back. She makes a contented noise. She’s adorable, like a little dove, and I want to protect her so fiercely that it almost scares me. I want to kill Jinxx for putting her in here. I want to kill whoever gave her that cut on her cheek, or that bruise on her exposed leg. “About a week,” Lavinia says finally, reaching through the bars of her cell so that she can grab onto my blonde braid. She runs her fingers down it, and sighs. “You’re not going to kill me,” she says, defeated.
“I was never going to kill you in the first place,” I say. “Never. Never did I even consider it. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that I’m the heroine? And the heroine never gives up. The heroine rescues everybody and makes sure that they all live happily ever after. The heroine sure as hell doesn’t kill her best friend.”
Lavinia inhales sharply. “Do you mean that?” she asks me, her voice catching, like the thought of someone actually caring about her is going to make her cry. It reminds me of myself, to be honest. Before Andy had come along, I had been suspicious every time someone showed me kindness. Sometimes when people were too kind to me, I would start bawling my eyes out, sure that they were making fun of me. To see Lavinia going through the same thing makes me want to hug her, but I can’t. The bars of her cell separate us.
“Well who else is going to be the heroine? Andy?” I smirk, settling for humor to cheer her up instead. Lavinia smacks my leg.
“I meant about me being your best friend,” she says softly.
I run my hand down the length of the top half of her wing. “Well who else is going to be my best friend? Andy?” I inquire.
Lavinia laughs at me, quietly and more in resignation than amusement, but I consider the small laugh a win. “You silly girl,” she murmurs. She sounds like she’s about to fall asleep. “After all that’s happened, you’re still willing to be friends with a stranger?”
I bring her hand up to my mouth and kiss it. “You’re not a stranger, Lavinia,” I tell her. “You’re not even just an angel. You were sent to be my guardian angel, and you still are. You’re my angel, Lavinia, and you’ll always be.” I tuck her hand back in against her chest and stroke her wings one last time, smoothing her feathers down and appreciating their sleekness. “Now get some sleep,” I tell her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Be prepared with some ideas for escape, okay? I’ll have some of my own. We’re getting out of here, Lavinia. I promise.”
“I believe you,” she mumbles against the dirt, almost losing consciousness already. “You’re Seraphina Blakeley. If anyone can escape Death, it’s you.”
With that, her eyes flutter closed, and she falls asleep. I gaze down at her, feeling old, so old. I have so much of a burden on my shoulders, and sometimes I’m not even sure if I can take it. But seeing Lavinia, despite the fact that I’d had to talk her out of suicide, has lifted me, and given strength to my aching shoulders, enabling me to go on carrying the weight of the world.
I stand up, brushing dirt off of my light caramel skirt. I can’t return to the castle with a ruined skirt. If one of the harpies find it, they will know that I was doing something outside of the castle that I’m not supposed to be doing, and I will be even more trapped than I already am. So I make sure to brush all of the black hell-dirt off of me before lightly walking away from Lavinia. I do not want to leave her behind, but trying to break her out now would be foolish. For one, I don’t really have any way to get her out of the cell, and even if I did, we still wouldn’t know how to escape. So I have to lay low, just for now. When the time comes, I will be able to split this miserable realm open like a machete slicing through a skull, and then I will make it burn down much like the way I do inside of my mind. I will get my revenge on this place and on all who inhabit it, and then I will escape. And I will not look back.
I am outside of the prison, kicking past crumbles of razor-sharp obsidian and smirking at a particular bloodthirsty stalagmite, remembering when I hit my head on it, and how terrified I had been. I had barely even known terror back then. Terror is getting betrayed by the only people you’ve ever loved. Terror is wondering if there will ever be anyone in the world who loves you. Terror is worrying that you’ll never see the sunlight again. Terror is getting raped by a monster. Terror is being attracted to a monster. Terror is vampires. Terror is fallen angels. Terror is Death. I know terror now, and I am emboldened by it.
“Well aren’t you a naughty girl,” I hear a feminine voice rasp from behind me.
“Hark who’s talking,” I say in response, and then I turn around to face Jezebel. I am getting better at remembering voices and matching them to names. Sure enough, when I turn around, I see a beautiful vampire dressed in only a very short black dress, with her wine purple hair spiraling down her back. Jezebel Nightshade, younger sister to Acheron Nightshade, the most powerful vampire in existence, and older sister to Ezra Nightshade, the scariest vampire in existence. In my opinion, at least. I go to make a comment about how I’m not the one fucking my own brother, but change my mind at the last second. First of all, getting smart with monsters has only even gotten me pain and flesh wounds. Second of all, Jezebel was the only one of the Nightshades that had showed me any kindness. While drinking blood from my thigh, I had screamed to her that it hurt, and she had almost immediately stopped. She didn’t have to, but she did anyway. I found that kindness to be a gift, and I still do. And third of all, it’s not really my place to judge her life choices. It’s none of my business who she sleeps with. So I refrain from making a smartass comment and instead say, “Jezebel Nightshade. Pleasure to see you.”
Jezebel smiles, and I see her fangs. I also glance behind her, and am relieved to see that her brothers are not here. While I feel relatively okay around Jezebel, her brothers terrify me, in different ways and for different reasons. I am terrified of Acheron because he is gorgeous, and I wouldn’t mind sleeping with him. I am terrified of Ezra because he acts like a child and is certifiable insane. Ezra is cruel and does not have any concept that what he is doing is wrong. Acheron knows that what he does is wrong and revels in it. But Jezebel, Jezebel Nightshade is different.
Jezebel cocks her head and studies me. “You’re brave,” she remarks after a minute.
“How so?” I quip.
“You’re not afraid of me, not even in the slightest,” Jezebel says, her expression curious yet also annoyed.
“I’m sorry, I would scream in terror but I think we both know that I’m not exactly supposed to be here,” I say.
Jezebel rolls her eyes. “Whatever. It’s fine. It’s just that everyone, every mortal I’ve ever encountered has been scared of me, and you’re not. I’m just wondering why.”
“Because you stopped drinking my blood when I told you that it hurt,” I blurt out, then look at the ground. For a second, I’m worried that she’s going to try and rectify that by painfully sucking my blood right here and now, but I do not hear Jezebel move at all.
She is quiet for a moment. When I look back up at her, I see that she is pink. “Oh,” she says. “I felt- I don’t know, I guess I felt like you didn’t deserve to be in any more pain, you know? It was obvious that you were in a lot of pain. Emotional pain, mental pain, physical pain. I figured that no one deserved that much pain. That’s all.”
“Hm,” I remark. A considerate vampire. I never would’ve pegged Jezebel as one when I first saw her. She was a slut, but a terrifying slut with a thirsty gleam in her eye, a gleam that could’ve either been for sex, or blood, or both. I find a whole new level of appreciation for her as I think about what she just said. She had stopped drinking my blood because she sympathized with me. She didn’t want a mortal to be in pain. This is a trait that I had only found in two creatures down here so far- CC and Lavinia, the fallen angel and the broken angel. Now Jezebel is the third.
“I’ll be going back to my coven now,” Jezebel says abruptly. “I’ll be sure to keep seeing you here a secret, Sera. I know that you may doubt it, but I really have no desire to get you into trouble. I harbor no hatred for mortals. And I certainly harbor no hatred for you. If you need anything, come to the coven. I’ll make sure to protect you from my brothers. They might be the strong ones, but I am wicked at defense.” Jezebel winks, and walks past me, her hips swaying. In that moment, I see Jezebel not as hot, but as beautiful. She is beautiful and kind, and she hides it behind a mask portraying a merciless slut. I can see why she would. Any good that is found down here is swiftly turned to evil. It is necessary to hide something good in order to get it safely out on the other side. I do not realize that I am still clutching my still visible Soul Dagger until Jezzie turns around and looks at me. “You’re going to want to hide that, mortal girl. And here,” Jezzie draws random lines in the air, painting an invisible picture, and when she is done a paper falls into her hand, folded like a love note. She breaths onto it, and I feel it fall into my palm. Amazed, I stare at it. “That’s a map that will lead you back here from the castle, and also will lead you to the coven. If you need me, just come to me, okay? Don’t forget to hide your Soul Dagger.”
Before I can even say thank you, Jezebel is gone, vanished into thin air. Heeding her advice, I murmur “cheilt” and watch as my dagger becomes invisible. I slide it back into my corset and uncurl the map Jezzie gave me. Once I have the route back to the castle in my mind, I tuck that into my corset as well.
As I walk back to the castle, hood up and face hidden, I reflect on what just happened.
It seems that I’ve found myself an ally in Jezebel Nightshade.

Notes

I'M SOOOOO SORRY THAT I HAVEN'T BEEN UPDATING! At first, I was just preoccupied dealing with my horrible family and my mom and my brother. Then, I fainted in homeroom and got a concussion. I don't know if you know this, but if you get a bad concussion, you can't be on anything electronic, or do anything that stimulates your brain. Obviously, I couldn't be on here, and I couldn't even write my chapter down on paper 'cause that would stimulate my mind. So basically, I was out of commission from doing anything for a while. Then I had to make up all the stuff I missed while I was out of school for my concussion and holy shit only now am I really free. Heh, so I know it was a while, but here's an update. Sorry it took so long. If any of you are curious about what Lavinia said in Irish to cast the magic on the Soul Dagger, here it is in English:

"Heal this blade and hide
The killer that lives inside
Make the power glow
When angels need it most
Make them beg for mercy
When death would be a courtesy
And trill the soul of light
As Phoenix wings take flight
Conceal this cursed blade
Until destiny does bade
The power to be released
May your power never cease"

Alrighty, so I got a bunch of cool names for the people who read the story. Here they are: hellhounds, Grimms, demons, Sybils, the Fallen, and the Dark Ones. We're gonna have a vote on which we like, and the one with the most will be our fandom name ^^ Thank you to everyone who submitted ideas, you're all amazing and this chapter is for you. Also, I wanted to let y'all know who guessed the title and won a million gazillion Oreos and confetti panda bears. The cookies and pandas go to...... HAVIC FORTUNA!!!!! The title of the sequel will be "Heaven's Calling." As promised, since someone guessed the title, I'll tell you a little bit about it :3
The story will be told from Andy's POV, Sera's POV, and possibly a third character that you suckers don't know yet XD I'm pretty psyched for this sequel, but I'm also pretty psyched for the rest of "Blasphemy" as well.

So basically, sorry I suck, concussions suck, the sequel is "Heaven's Calling", R&R, and SUBMIT YOUR VOTES! I'll tell you what won on the next note.

PS: check me out on mychemicalromancefanfiction.com. My story is called "Deadly Little Sins" and under the pen name "DirtyFallenAngel"