R e d e m p t i o n

After Chance, there is only one more story to tell.

This is where I leave you.

This is how the story ends.

How odd this night is, when the doors between worlds opens a crack and spills out a multitude of men and women, vampires and werewolves, into this strange purgatory at the end of the world where the dead live again. How odd, indeed, when that door falls open another notch and admits one who does not belong here, and never did.

He comes from another world, where vampires and werewolves did not exist, but where a very select few live a thousand years. He comes bearing the face of an angel, the words of a devil, and the heart of a tortured soul condemned to a deathless hell...and though none here know him, they knew him well in another incarnation.

Some might call him an angel. Others, Death. He? He calls himself a monster, and nothing but the impossible would ever change that in him. But tonight is the night when the impossible is possible, is it not?

There is one final loose end to tie up, before the great door between life and death that even an angel cannot transcend closes again. And he is here to make that final knot.

Dreaming, now, this slender moment flung far from the haunted edges of whatever self-forged hell in which she has caged herself. How long? ...is there time, is there night, and day, and the movement of the seasons for the betrayed, betraying dead? (...and is she - is she - is she...?)

Let us, then return to basics, and spin this fine web of a story from thence. She is now as she was - the spill of golden hair like a waterfall manufactured from pure fancy and liquid sunlight (...twisting wildly about face and fragile form as it did twist, yesterday, five hundred years ago, stained and lifeless about his clutching, despairing, murdering hands...) Just inside the door, a ghost of a delicate figure, blurred by the luminous hair, by the hazy edges of a pure (...stained...) white shift, an undergarment that contrives to be more modest than any outerwear the modern world does see, falling soft over gentle curves, from the swell of... shoulders to the curl of slippered toes. Soft, too, is the fall of her feet upon the uncertain muck of the floor, already contriving to dull the purity of that shift about the trailing hem.

Lost as cast-off satellite, hurtling through the endless emptiness of space without the familiar comfort of gravity, confused as only the (...wakening...) dead can be, hungry, and haunted, and forgotten at the bare edges of memory she - dreaming (...do the dead dream? If soo, what cruel god would torment them with visions of hope that can never be fulfilled?) - stumbles from the immediate wash of light spilling from the closing door into the pregnant shadows encroaching upon this small rectangle of light.

The music--the chatter--does he hear any of it at all? Perhaps he knows this all so well already: these fickle, modern gatherings of the mortals (or the would-be immortals) that mean nothing--absolutely nothing--for they did not hold that which he sought in vain. Perhaps he knew it all so well that it made no difference where he as, who was with him--only where he was not, and who was not with him.

Genevieve. The angel before the Angel; lover, sinner, saint and martyr.

This is as any other pub. Dim lights, music, chatter. And like any other, it torments him ceaselessly with visions of hair like spun gold, eyes like the forest--but no. No. This one is different, somehow. This one is different because he could swear--he knows--this time, it really is her.

Drawn, the moth to the eternal (pale) flame, he approaches her, full of wonder and terror both. Drawn, he can only shake his head--(what cruel jest; what devil; what monster...?)--as one hand, spurred of its own will, reaches forth to touch the vision, touch the impossible. It cannot be her. And yet--it is.

Perhaps he remembers the first vision, unfolding from the parting fog like some momentary glimpse into heaven - the silence that bound the land, then, broken only by the distant crash of sea to shore, the lonely cry of a frustrated gull, all muted to a transient murmur by the thick roll of fog. Perhaps he remembers - still - the sudden shaft of sunlight through the otherworldly mists, slowly dissipating to the burn of the day, that turned the damp fall of flaxen hair to molten gold. Perhaps he remembers the startled, electric moment when her forest-green eyes opened to his... forbidden... scrutiny, and remained transfixed (...forever...) even pale roses of shame bloomed in her ivory cheeks.

It cannot be her, in this dim pub lodged at the end of eternity, at the cross of worlds, for she breathes, swiftly, sharply, as if in pain. It cannot be her, for she moves, swaying like a storm-tossed willow. It cannot be her for she speaks, and though the murmur of her voice is too quiet to distinguish words from the sound, he knows the pitch and timbre as he knows nothing else in the world.

It cannot be her, for she lives.

Perhaps? Only perhaps?

He remembers her. He remembers the bird-delicate gestures of her hands. He remembers her eyes, the color of the summer sea. He remembers her first touch, fleeting and hesitant. He remembers the rose-bloom of shame upon her cheeks. He remembers her soft smiles, and her voice and--that haunting air, that lonely air of the ocean, of sadness, that lingered about her like the fog upon the shore.

He remembers her. How can he forget? How can he forget, when he had clutched her and wept after--how can he forget, when the skies had fallen and the world had turned black when he had--?

And yet here she stands. Alive. Alive. Was it all a dream, then, a terrible nightmare? Or is this the dream, so beautiful as to be cruel, so cruel as to be beautiful? --No matter. She is here, and--

"Genevieve." The word spills from his lips, more a gasp than sound, more a prayer than speech--(does she remember him?)--and five centuries are but a blink of the eye as his skin touches hers, fingertip to fingertip.

"...my.. my lord.." Haunting is the sound, lonely as the crags, the storm-swept crags, looming over the gray expanse of the Channel in winter, and luminous as the forbidden - breathless - moment when first their eyes, hands, lips did meet. "...my... Valerai..."

Fragile, so tenuous, the barest contact of their fingers, as beeswing-fine as the delicate turn of her wrist, and still it burns, sending delicate ripples along the cast of her arm, her fragile form, as a stone cast into still waters sends seeking circles ever outward.

Softer now, and hushed lest she break the webs of dream that must surely hold her here, she chokes on ache, on sweet, twisting guilt. "...m-my lord..."

My lord--the words strike him as a blow to the soul, harder than ever her touch might. There it is, then: the proof. The words, relics from another time, spilled. No--it was no dream--he had killed her, spilled her sacred blood. She has been dead for five hundred years - and this? This is nothing but a cruell twist of fate that sets him and her in this pub at the end of time, at the brink of nothingness.

Can redemption come, even for the fallen? Can forgiveness be found where there is nothing but memory, and guilt?

"No." He is shaking his head, drawing away even as his hand curls, convulsive, upon hers. "No--no. Not I." Even his words, the very inflection of his pronunciation in contrast to her liltingly archaic tones, is another blow, and another, and another. No. He cannot do this. She has not changed at all. He has changed--so very much. How he had dreamed of this moment--how he dreads it now, this final reunion in which he realizes just how much has changed. She is dead. She has been dead for five hundred years. He killed her. She lives...and he cannot do this.

"I must have mistaken you for another--I--my name is--" he flails for another pseudonym, something to tell her, comes up empty, and his words are just as empty, "--my name is Azra'il."

Azra'il. The angel of death. Cursed.

"...m-my lord?" The staunch, tense line of her slender shoulders crumples, some dim thread of hope pulled too far, something of that which sustains her (...vision...) in this broken and hollowed place eroding. Bird-delicate hands twist, then, feverishly fierce in his convulsive grip.

For another moment she sways, a tattered sail in a ferocious gale, before pressing her smooth brow to their clasped hands. "...oh, forgive me. Too long have I hoped. How long have I dreamt..." Her breath upon his hands, his straining wrists, moist and fragrant and warm.

"...have you come to take me, then, Azra'il? Before we go, please..." She whispers, choked, choking. "...did he... did he ever forgive me?"

He cannot believe it. He cannot believe what he is hearing. "Did he..." he repeats, dully, "did he ever--did he ever forgive...you...?"

How can she think that? How can she even think that he blamed her, when he had--(the fog, the sea, her eyes, her hair--her blood, her last sighing breath, her closing eyes, her motionless body. And his screams wordless and nigh-mad, howled as a wild animal's to the turbulent skies and the turbulent seas. The world had ended on that day, and all else was...punishment. Blackness. Void, and no more. Is it any surprise that he made the night his time, and death his domain? Is it any surprise that he was who he was, heartless and cold, when all he had been...died with her?)

Wrong. She hadn't merely died, Azra'il. Valerai. You killed her. You destroyed her, crushed her out, broke her in your hands. And you dared to even weep? You dare, even now, to hurt?

He draws her forward, lays his brow against their hands, clasped, and breathes into that minute bubble of sanctity betwixt-- "He never blamed you. He forgave you before your life ceased to bleed upon his hands. He forgave you--but he could not forgive himself." He draws a breath, releases it. "Don't forgive him. There is nothing in him to forgive."

Her tears are diamonds, falling hot as blood (...spilled so long ago, spilled forever...) upon the impossible necessity of their clasped hands, touching brows. They spill wild as the storm-cast sea, gleaming as the scattered dust of jeweled stars in the velvet night.

So very slight, now, and that all her weight upon their clasped hands is but a feathered breath for his strength to bear. "Oh, Angel. I did dream, I did dream and as impossible as it is, I knew he would. How I knew he would, though such magnanimous forgiveness is a golden gift of which I am not worthy." Another pause. Breath. Release, as the tangled silk of her flaxen hair falls about them like a curtain, and each breath is a word, and each word is a prayer. "...but Angel, Azra'il, I cannot - I could never - forgive him..." Is that ice seizing the heart still beating within his breast? "...for he did no wrong. He needs not my forgiveness."

Diamond faith, bejeweled, she reiterates with a martyr's utter conviction. "He wronged me not. But I - I betrayed them both. My lords - my only hearts - my vows - and my God. I betrayed them, one and all. He - he did no wrong."

He can only shake his head. Did no wrong? Did no wrong, when he had--surely she did not remember, surely that was why--

He could not imagine that she would not hate him for what he had done. Her hatred would sting, would likely destroy him--but destruction was acceptable, was preferable, to this. He did no wrong? She forgives him. She does not even admit that he has sinned. And he--sinner, devil who only pretends to be God's angel--he could not take it from her.

He is suddenly furious beyond reason, drawing back, drawing away from her, shouting. "Look at me, Genevieve. Look at me. Why do you not know me? Why are you not angry? Are you so easily fooled? My name is Azra'il. And my name is Valerai. I am the man who killed you. I killed you--and I have done no wrong? God damn it--God damn me, Genevieve, why do you forget? Why do you forgive? Curse me. Strike me. Hate me!" His hands are suddenly crushing upon her wrists (as they had been, five hundred years ago) and he is jerking her hands from her brow to slam against his body in cruel, merciless self-abuse--battering her fists against his shoulders, his chest--trying to force from her the hatred she would not--could not--give. "Give me your bitterness. Give me your rage. Give me anything--anything--but forgiveness. I can't--I can't take it--anything but forgiveness...anything but..."

He breaks off, releases her, and clenches his jaw, his fists against tears that would not come, anyway. The damned cannot cry.

She is a ghost, livid white, a puppet to his sudden rage, stiffly raining blows upon his chest, his shoulders, blows - terrible blows - that have no substance beyond the power his own strength grants them. She is the ghost of a startled doe, rigid for endless, agonizing moments of painfully acute awareness before disappearing into the ever-encroaching mists that render her fae, and insubstantial as the dream - the vision - she must certainly be. (She will not look. She will not hate. She will not strike. Damn her to the darkest hells, she will not look. )

...and she is fading, and she is breaking, and she is shattering upon the floor, crushed beneath his onslaught like shards of crushed, diamond glass, a thousand rose petals, wilting, marred, by the press of a thousand uncaring feet.

...or is she a diamond? Is faith, nursed for an endless eon, so weak that it will crack before an onslaught of mere moments? (He breaks away, and the very air stills, silent as the stark, mad hours just before dawn on a chill midwinter night.)

After a breath, or ten thousand, or nothing so substantial as the natural draw of necessary air to aching lungs, she moves. "I could never hate you, punish you, destroy you more than you destroy yourself."

She kneels before him, then, supplicant or savior, and her hands - her delicate, bird-slender hands - are insistent upon his arms, pulling his fists from eyes.

"...my lord. My love..." Tears. Diamond tears glittering upon the fine ivory of her cheeks, shining within the endless forest of her eyes. "...my Valerai. Though even to ask is to sin against you, to sin against my lord, to sin against Our Father, I beg you, do not cast me forth."

Forced to look upon her, he drops his hands to the grimy floor, defeated, and simply stares, searching her face for those tiny details, those minute details, that he remembered so well. Loved so well. Those flecks of deeper green in her eyes; that faint cleft in her lower lip, splitting her mouth into the lush halves of (forbidden) fruit; that tiny mole upon her neck, directly above the hollow where he had fallen asleep, ages ago. A lifetime ago--an instant ago.

It is her. It cannot be denied. He stares at her, stricken--does she remember that look in the frost-green of his eyes? Does she remember that same look on that dark day, by that dark sea, when his dark fury had washed over them both and drowned all the light from his world?--he stares at her, and for a blinding instant, all he wants is to cast her off, is to run away from this hell created for him by (himself) some twisted monster, run back to the sane world where such a happening would be nothing but a bad dream--

--except he knew it was not a bad dreamm. It was reality, and it was the best thing he could ever hope for, or wish for--a second chance, another grasp at what he had lost, had thrown away that day as he shattered her crucifix upon that rock and thrown her after. It was reality, and it was...

...impossible. There could be no redemption for him. And yet that does not keep him from hoping, floundering. He reaches for her, then and again. His hands find hers and he presses her fingers to his lips with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to straw, and words are nothing but a spill of hoarse sound, trembling and empty in this mad world which would mean nothing when the morning came.

"Never. Never again. Only say that I have sinned, Genevieve. Accept my sin, as I have accepted yours. And..." he clasps her hands between his and closes his eyes--asks for the impossible, "...forgive me again, so that I might forgive myself."

"You sinned, my lord." Such simple words, spoken now with a clarity so painful it rivals the burn of the midday sun at high summer. "In your rage at the true depths of my betrayal, your cast me from you." Such fragile clarity, as delicate, as easily broken as the vows she betrayed so very long ago. "You thrust me from bluffs, in the midst of a terrible storm, and I crashed into darkness, and my body was broken, and breath was fire, and the world sang, and shone, and then faded from my grasping eyes." Such fierce clarity, as strong as the depthless passion that once did bind them.

"My last vision was you. The last memory before the dark fall of death was the agony contorting your beloved face. My last sensation the tears that spilled from your eyes to my lips. They were salty, my lord, my love, like the spray of the sea."

"You sinned, my love. You killed me." Her hands tighten in his, vehement, and she draws them to her lips, presses her soft lips against his knuckles, opens his palm and presses a kiss upon his grasping hand. "...and I forgive you, my lord, my love, my angel, my Valerai."

Forgiveness. Can he--dare he--believe? When has he ever mistrusted her? His seeking hand--his grasping, open hand--curls about her cheek and is slowly joined by his other and together, they cup her face to his.

In this night beyond time, this night of so many lover's kisses--they do not kiss. This cannot be called a kiss, this slow, reverent caress of souls, of hearts that, for another night, another moment, beat in harmony. In this night beyond memory, this night of claims of undying love--he says nothing. It did not need to be said. He would gladly die for her--more importantly, he has lived for her, lived five hundred haunted years for this one night. And in this night beyond reality, this night of so many spilled tears--he does not weep. The flood is of words, instead, a tearfall of confessions, of half a millennium of sins, of haunted dreams, of hearts crushed, lives taken--of his night-black wings that would not, no matter what, turn white again.

Confession. This is the end of the world; this is the Judgment, and he will wash his sins clean in a river of words. And when he is finished--when there is no more to say--nimble fingers (ancient fingers, that do not show their eight centuries) undo the buttons of his coat, slide the cloth from his bare shoulders, and remove from an inner pocket a dagger that was every bit as old as he. He weighs it in his hands, and there is nothing to say--this is what he treasured the most, and this, he sees now, is every bit a prison as his guilt had been.

And yet--such a flimsy thing it seemed now, such an insignificant thing, this piece of ornate metal that had bound him so irresistibly to a life he hated. He straightens, throws his shoulders back, and from his shoulderblades spring, for the last time, those magnificent wings—black--that had marked him so indelibly to hundreds, thousands, over the centuries. A moment is he still, flexed, arched, caught out of time and beautiful--so tragically beautiful, the fallen angel, redeemed--

--and then his eyes close, and his handds close and the dagger simply...crumbles.

For an instant, nothing happens. And then--action, silent and gentle: no shattering of worlds, is this, but the softest falling of snow upon a sullied world, the quietest cleansing, covering, of sins once indelible. There is movement, but all is breathlessly quiet, as the wings simply disintegrate in a shower of pure...white...feathers that fade before they ever touch the floor.

Redemption.

He opens his eyes, and all traces of the other life (which was the dream, and which the reality?) are already long gone, dust upon the wind. He stands, slowly, on legs suddenly (finally) mortal again, and slips his coat back over shoulders that showed no sign of those wings that had once graced their width. “Come,” he murmurs, “let’s go. Wherever you came from—take me with you.”

Some fae wind, some bitter, laughing humor of the Lord they betrayed, so utterly, so endlessly, has returned to cast them together at the end of the world, where time – endless, irrevocable, inevitable time – has lost its bitter battle against the raging world to something else – something strong as the mottled wisdom that brought her to kneel before him: sinner and confessor, mendicant and redeemer. Something else. Something that brings the waste of centuries to spill from lips in bitter penance, in devoted, ageless faith. And something that brings her here, now, to lathe even the darkest of his sins in her luminescent tears, to baptize him once more, to wash clean the sins and the centuries and their stained hearts shriven, pure as when they first beat in such shining unison.

Something else – and the words that embody it are weak and empty reflections of the sheer, shining truth of it, of this – the perfect union in which they move, with but a quiet glance, gentle as summer rain sliding over lush fields in tender caress, dazzling as the sleek bending of their sunlit heads, and strong, strong as unshakable faith.

His wings are not gone. His wings are not gone. Now, clutching fiercely upon him (…so fiercely that you could only dream it, as if all the faint strength of her body were concentrated upon the harmony of their clasped hands…) she replies in a voice born on a wind from ages past, quiet and sure and reverent, “I know not from whence I came. I know not now where I – you – we shall go. But, my lord, my Valerai, I believe that I can bear it, now, whatever does come.”

What waits beyond the door is a mystery, dark and hidden as once were the basest sins of their lovely, flawed hearts. It has opened, this night, to a thousand streets, a thousand hells, a thousand, tiny, heavens. It has opened to oblivion, and as they approach that door there are no sureties beyond the tender burn of his fingertips upon her delicate wrist, the down-soft caress of her white hand upon the line of his jaw. As their hands curl about the brass of the knob, there are no sureties beyond his arms, enfolding her in an embrace as huge, as tender, as the curl of the wings of some great, lovely bird about a fledgling lost, lost to the endless dark, and returned. His arms – the wings of his arms – enfolding her, as if he might shield her from forever…

…and then they are gone, and they could well have been naught but a wild dream but for the tendril of salt-sea mist that curls around the warped frame of that fateful door, but for the luminous heart of green glimpsed for a radiant moment, awash in the dancing flames of growing dawn.

Oh, but for the aching endlessness of sunlit shadows, they could well have been a dream.

And though thy sins be as scarlet,
They shall be white as snow;
Though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool.
(Isaiah 1:18)

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