Page 25 of Witch's Betrayal
"But how did I come back?" I asked. "I remember knowing that angel would destroy my soul and never let me come back. So how did I?"
"Lucifer," all three of them said in unison.
"You’re lucky that old bastard loves you like a daughter," Ash said with a hint of a smile. "He broke through that barrier the angels created like tearing through paper. The rest of us could only watch as your lifeless body fell back down to earth."
"What did he do?"
Ash's expression hardened. "He used nearly half his power to destroy that angel, and then saved you in the only way he could." His thumbs lovingly caressed my palm as he spoke. "He split your soul into thousands of pieces and let them fall back down to earth. The pieces would inhabit humans, but none would have your magical abilities. They would only have echoes of your spirit. Only after a thousand years would the pieces be able to converge into one body again."
I sat silently while I processed his words. He mentioned it briefly in passing the other day when talking about how the world got thrown into the dark ages.
"What year was Ragnar born?" I asked no one in particular.
"800 AD," Raum answered with a wistful smile. "He and his sons became everything I foresaw and more. After the Roman Empire fell, they held off the grip of the cross-bearers as best they could but without you, we just didn't have enough influence to rebel against them."
I wracked my brain trying to recall history lectures in college. The Renaissance period didn't begin until the 1400s, when creativity, science, and rational thought became valued by the general public again. But even during that period, the grip of Christianity reached far. Galileo was accused of heresy and imprisoned by the church for his findings, despite being proven correct. And like Ash said, women served little purpose aside from breeding and domestic slavery. Hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent witches and ordinary humans alike were either burned or hanged for not conforming to the Church's doctrine.
Only in recent centuries did few, spirited women fight back after hundreds of years of oppression. That must have been when the pieces of my soul began to converge, whispering ideas of rebellion to the brains of the bodies they inhabited. My first instinct was to refuse to be subservient to a man and they must have felt it.
The ones who taught themselves to read and write. The ones who unashamedly demanded their own pleasure during sex. The ones who refused to be sold off like cattle to a loveless marriage. And the ones who happily killed their abusers and rapists. It was Lilith urging them to do it all along. And slowly but surely, I turned the tide before even becoming whole in this body again.
I looked at Raum. "Will the angels do that to me again?"
He hesitated, knowing I was asking if he saw it in a vision but I didn't give a fuck if that was his burden to bear. I could understand him not wanting to tell me about my mother but this? I needed to know.
"I haven't seen it," he answered, bringing his hands together in a prayer position, ironically. "They probably won't attempt it again because they know we'd expect it. And Lucifer wouldn't hesitate to smite one of them again." He licked his lips. "However, my guess is they're counting on modern witches to do their dirty work for them now. I'm sure you've noticed their sentiment toward our kind."
"Oh, really? I haven't." My voice, dripping with sarcasm, was punctuated by my massive eye roll. Sal and Ash both chuckled at my reaction.
"Right." Raum's signature smirk returned. "Their resentment of us has run especially deep since the Salem witch trials. It seems many of them have even forgotten there's a touch of demon in all of them. Even though we've never done anything directly to hurt them. Only humans have done that."
"You've never exactly done anything to help them either," I pointed out. "I don't think it's fair how they think of you now but I can see where the resentment comes from."
"Now that you're back with us," Ash said, brushing my hand against his lips. "Maybe we can work on turning that around."
"Maybe," I sighed. "It will take several lifetimes, though. Even the younger generation has been fed anti-demon propaganda."
"All of our work tends to do that," Raum teased, his eyes lighting up. "It's why we're still here, all these years later."
"Rome wasn't built in a day," Sal chimed in with a kiss on my cheek. "I should know, I spent a good three lifetimes building the damn place."
I giggled, nuzzling to kiss him back. "And look where that got you," I teased.
Raum let out a throaty laugh from across the room. "I think our girl is back."
"Agreed." Ash gave a rare, full grin that made my heart flutter. He looked so much like an angel when he smiled. "I'm happy you're feeling better, my love."
The relief and relaxation on their faces made my heart want to burst. I swore it was from their love and concern that my headache was suddenly gone and I felt like myself again.
"Me too," I said, leaning back into my pillows. "Now we can move forward and change the world again."And get to the bottom of finding my mother's murderer.
"There may be one small holdup," Sal said after a moment of silence.
We all turned to him expectantly. He chewed his lip and looked directly at Ash.
"The witch who was teaching her. He saw me."
"The fuck?" Ash went from grinning to scowling in a matter of seconds. "Why didn't you cloak with a shadow?"
"He would've sensed my presence without needing to see my face, anyway," Sal shot back. "He's a shadow master, remember? Either way, he knows Deja is associated with our kind now." He looked at me with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, beautiful. I just panicked and had to help you when I saw you screaming. I didn't intend to blow your cover."
"It's okay, lion," I assured him. "He read my shadows and saw I had three lovers, so he might have already known. It was bound to come out at some point." I kissed him deeply so he knew that I wasn't angry. "Whatever comes of this, we'll outsmart them. We always do."
"That's definitely our girl," Raum grinned.
