A Long Forgotten Light

By CJ Knight

Photo by Mikita Karasiou on Unsplash

Original story created for Mina Howell’s Inferno-Verse.

Previous stories involving these characters can be found her:

Steel sang across the island, nestled in the stagnant river of tortured souls. Beelzebub met the fallen angel’s black blade with a snap of her spear. The impact shuddered through her arms.

Astaroth, a whisper of death, her demon wings slicing the poisoned air with precise beats. Her predatory instinct honed and effortless. “You’re a fool, Beelzebub.”

Bee’s lips curled into a grin. “Death would be a welcome break from your voice.” She pivoted as Astaroth’s blade flashed past her ribs.

“Well, then.” Astaroth vanished from sight, reappearing at Bee’s side. “Let me give you that break.” Astaroth swung her blade, clipping Bee’s shoulder, sending the angel spinning. Bee steadied, driving her spear backward. Astaroth laughed as she twisted away from the spear.

Around them the forsaken souls swayed like a dead ocean tide, burning with endless, tortured fury. They resisted the urge to interfere, not out of want. Astaroth had not yet granted silent permission.

Michael strained against the burnt and twisted hands that held him in place. Dead flesh clutched his arms, legs, and wings, anchoring him to his knees. His power was immense, but nothing to an inexhaustible rage. “Bee!” He could see her slowing down, tiring. She didn’t look at him. Her focus remained on Astaroth.

Astaroth took to the sky and descended faster, pressing her advantage. Steel clashed in a blur. Movements accelerated beyond the measure of time. Bee held power, but Astaroth was refined. A rapturous scream erupted from her throat as she pushed Bee back. Her blade slipped through and slashed Bee’s thigh. That was enough. Bee stumbled back. Astaroth’s eyes met the closest forsaken soul. The burnt and broken hand shot out and latched onto Bee’s ankle, sending her face down onto the rocks. Astaroth surged down from above, a shadow of wings and blade. “Now you cease to exist.” Bee pushed to get up, but the grip on her ankle tightened. Astaroth’s blade arced for the final blow.

Michael struggled to free himself, powerless to intervene. “Bee!” An ancient roar exploded from his throat. Light erupted. There was no control or restraint. This was not the fractured glow of Heaven, or the pale imitation that lingered there now. This was older than time, pure. Holy Light. It ripped from Michael in a blinding surge. A sun’s ignition. The tortured screams of the forsaken souls exploded in a chorus as the light dissolved them from existence. The grip on Bee’s ankle vanished. Astaroth screamed, her wings faltering as the radiance struck like a physical force. She crashed down onto the island and staggered to her feet. Her vision obliterated.

Bee surged to her feet and closed the distance. Astaroth, blind, did nothing as Bee’s spear ripped through her chest. Astaroth fell still. Her blade slipped from her fingers. Black wings twitched, then dropped. Bee held for a moment longer, then pulled the spear free of Astaroth’s chest. The fallen angel collapsed. Her only remaining movement, a shallow rise and fall of her chest.

***

Astaroth found herself standing in light, soft and warm. Heaven before her fall. Laughter, the sound surprised her. It bubbled from her, unburdened of hate and rage. Endless spires filled the sky, alive with harmony and purpose, interlaced with golden rays. Her white wings caught the light.

“You’re late, Astaroth.” A voice teased. She turned to see an angel smiling, familiar, but a name lost to her centuries ago. The memory slipped away, shifted. Then fractured like cold glass exposed to heat.

“You allowed this!”

“I didn’t…” Astaroth’s voice faltered. Fear filled her very existence.

“Liar!” God stood before her. She stood high above them all. The other angels lined the chamber, heads bowed.

Astaroth tasted the salt of her tears as touched her lips. “I am innocent!” She loathed the tremor in her voice. “I did not cause this!” God waved the words away in silence. “I served! Upheld everything you asked!”

“Enough!” God descended, standing inches from Astaroth. “You failed!”

“No.” Astaroth’s word a whisper. “It…someone else. Not me, please.”

God’s lips curled into a smile that never reached her eyes. “It is done, Astaroth.”

Astaroth fell to her knees. “This is not justice.”

“No.” God kicked Astaroth’s pleading hands away. “It is order.”

“I beg of you, don’t do this.” The words tasted like bile. Pain pierced her soul as her wings disintegrated. Astaroth screamed as she fell. Her hands reached out, but no one reached back. None stood up for her injustice. The angels simply watched.

The memory twisted one final time, flashing through centuries. Her mind and soul fuelled by the rage of injustice, hate replacing love, until Astaroth the angel was nothing more than a forgotten memory. In its place, a demon defined by evil.

As Astaroth took her final breaths on the island on the Styx, her echo of ancient laughter flickered one final time. She couldn’t remember happiness, only that a long time ago, she had been. The rise and fall of her chest ended. Astaroth the Fallen was no more.

***

She felt the shift in the Styx. It now stilled, but the souls cried out. It was the light that raised Mazikeen’s curiosity. Light of that kind had only been recorded a handful of times in all of creation. Holy Light was long forgotten by most and thought a lost art by those who remembered it. She rose from the depths of Hell on instinct alone. Her form rose on the rocky shore of the island. The poisonous air retreated from her presence. Mazikeen’s black eyes swept over the Styx once. Leviathan’s ruined corpse sank beneath the surface, dragged down by tortured souls. Ash littered the air, a silent scream of the tortured soul’s final existence as the light erased them. And…Astaroth. She knelt beside the body of the fallen angel, tilting her head. “You.” Mazikeen’s fingers traced the lifeless cheek of Astaroth. “Gone.” Her touch held no tenderness or affection, only confirmation. Her brow creased, not in grief, in something less important. “I tolerated you, Astaroth.” Mazikeen never knew love or friendship. In fact, she hated every soul in existence, except one. For her, this was as close to affection as she’d ever come. The air still hummed with the residual energy of Holy Light. Her face darkened. “Angel.” She rose and turned to the endless stretch of the river’s horizon. There’s only one reason an angel would venture here. “Lucifer’s Chalice.” Mazikeen, Daughter of Lilith and Lucifer’s Demon of Torture, knew of the power of the chalice, what it could do. She glanced back at Astaroth’s body, and the spear wound in her chest. “Two of them,” she sat. “At least.” Her fingers found Astaroth’s. “There will be no tears. Nor will you likely be remembered. But I will make them scream for this, Astaroth. I can at least do that for you.”

Mazikeen stepped toward the edge of the island. Leviathan’s corpse shifted beneath the surface as it was torn to pieces by rage fuelled hands. She didn’t care. Leviathan was a beast whose death warranted no revenge or care. Astaroth was something else.

Her lip curled into a snarl as she thought of her mother, Lilith, and her pathetic little conquest and play for expansion and chaos. Mazikeen hated them all. She glanced one last time at Astaroth. “I’m going to kill those angels and take the chalice for myself.” Her lips parted into something that could pass for a smile. “Every soul in existence would scream for me. With one exception, I suppose.” She turned toward the Styx. “I could return you Astaroth once I have the chalice. You can watch me torture them all.”

As Mazikeen stepped from the island, the Styx parted in fear.