“Ama?” someone called from behind me. I glanced back for a slight second, and Azazel attempted to stab me again, but I caught the spear, instinctually feeling the movement like a ghost in my own skin. I looked back at her, making a face, and I said, “Can you not?”

“I do not believe you,” she spat at me, jumping back again. “That is impossible. You cannot be me.”

I looked at her for a second, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m standing here right now, and I’m not trying to kill you. How are you supposed to interpret that?”

“You are trying to deceive me, wretch!”

“What? No. No, I’m not.”

“I will not hear your lies!” she yelled, lunging at me again.

“Ama!” someone else screamed, and I leapt off to the side and out of her way. These weren’t my movements. I knew this instantly. I’d never been this agile before, and I further proved to myself that how I was moving was not my own movements. She quickly spun on the ball of her foot and kicked up her other leg, aiming for my head. Instinctively, my arm shot up to block it, but I didn’t know what to expect from her strength. She sent me skidding on the grass, and I tried to dig my feet in to slow my momentum. She surged on me, her fist clenched and shooting to my stomach, but I parried just in time, grabbing her arm and throwing her over my body. She flipped away from me, her wing splayed out and angry as the flame in her eyes glinted furiously.

“What is going on?” someone yelled again. I recognized the bass of the voice as Bond’s, and I yelled, “Stay back!”

“Why are there two of you?” he yelled back.

“Are you serious?” I yelled, whipping around for a quick second to send him a look.

“Dude, that’s the angel! That’s Azazel!”

“Oh, shit, really?”

“Oh, my god, Bond,” I muttered.

“Keep your eyes on me, wretch,” Azazel hissed, suddenly appearing before me and the spear thrusting through my stomach. My whole body tensed around the object as I groaned in pain.

“Ah, fuck,” I exhaled, warm blood spilling from my mouth as I doubled over, as world blackening for a moment. Azazel fell on top of me, clutching her stomach, and she screamed, “What did you do? What did you do to me?”

“Do you ever stop yelling?” I snapped, looking down at where the spear protruded from my gut.

“What did you do?” she hissed in front of me. I dragged my eyes to look up at her and saw that she had a hole gaping from her stomach, exactly where I did. I didn’t know why, but a bubble of agonizing laughter came up and out of my mouth.

“Ah, man, would ya look at this nonsense, huh,” I laughed in her face.

“What did you do?” she repeated in a grating voice.

“Ama?” Jo and Bond called. They began to run towards me, and from where the cabin had been, Eleanor and Agatha came running.

“Oh, god, what happened?” Jo shouted as she sank to her knees beside me.

“My Lady? Is it really you?” Eleanor asked, sinking beside Azazel.

“Wow, this is really happening,” Agatha said, crouching down in front of us and looking between the two of us.

“Eleanor, Agatha, what has this wretch done to me?” Azazel asked between clenched teeth.

Agatha looked over at her, rolled Azazel on her back and prodded around her stomach. She and I let out a cry at the same time. I could feel Agatha gently probing around the wound. Tears streamed down my face, some part of my brain relinquishing its hold on reality and consciousness.

“Ama, Ama stay with me,” Jo said, trying to turn my head to look at her. My eyes were rolling back into my head as I tried to concentrate on her face.

“I don’t know why this is happening, or how, but it looks like you and her are tied to each other,” Agatha finally said.

“This cannot be,” Azazel wheezed.

“Well, it is.”

“Fuck,” I yelled out, trying to keep my bearings together. “What the fuck!”

“Remove the spear,” Azazel choked up.

“What? No! That’ll kill her!” Bond exclaimed.

“If it is true that she and I are bonded, then she will not die,” she breathed. “She cannot die.”

“How do you know that?” he asked skeptically.

“I do not know it,” she responded, sounding serene.

“What if she dies, then? You’ll die, too, won’t you?” Jo asked.

“Maybe I will go back home,” she breathed.

“What about me, dick?” I yelled at her.

“A wretch like you should not have made it this far.”

“Wow. I’m feeling so attacked right now,” I wheezed.

“You’re about to die and that’s what you’re gonna say? Those are your last words?” Bond scoffed at me.

“Yes, hoe.”

“Wow,” Jo sighed. “Take out the spear. She’s not going to die.”

“How do you know that?” Agatha asked.

“She wouldn’t be making these smart ass comments if she thought she was going to die.”

“You don’t know that!” I called, feeling like I was going to die.

“Don’t I?” Jo challenged back. Without any warning, the spear came free from my stomach, and I let out a long and loud scream that Azazel echoed. Gasping for air, I rolled over on my side, curling up on myself as my stomach slowly pulled itself back together. Jo let out a yelp of pain, and I heard the spear clatter to the ground beside me.

“Ow, god, what is wrong with that thing?” she yelled.

“It’s because you’re human, and you’re not a follower at that. I’m surprised you’re not dead,” Agatha said in a very matter-of-fact tone.

“I could have died?”

“We’re in a really weird situation. Anyone can die.”

“You mean like any other day?”

“Are you guys alright?” Eleanor asked in a concerned voice.

“Millennials,” Agatha muttered.

“You’re a millennial,” I put in.

“Gen Z, actually,” Jo said back.

“What a time to be alive,” Bond tsked.

“Are you all done?” Azazel asked.

“What do you mean by ‘done’?” I asked, my breathing slowly returning to normal as the pain began to subside. I rolled myself onto my back and stared on up at the sky, trying to concentrate on breathing through my nose. The moon looked very big and the sky looked very clear overhead.

“Oh, my god, it worked,” Jo whispered.

“Strange, huh,” I heaved. Slowly, I unclenched my body, allowing the tension to melt from my body. My stomach was still delicate and tender, but in place of the gaping hole that had once been there, was now my smooth, untouched skin.

“Come on, let’s get these two inside,” Agatha said. Still crouching, she bent down to Azazel’s side and put an arm around her neck. Eleanor tentatively copied her, and they both heaved her up. Jo and Bond each took one of my arms and helped me to stand, but I was still very weak and tired from the hole that had torn open my stomach. I couldn’t walk without their assistance. Looking up carefully, I asked, “What happened to Evelyn?”

“I, don’t know actually,” Bond said, catching himself. “Jo and I rushed out as soon as we heard you screaming. I thought Evelyn was behind us, but I guess not.”

“Yeah, that’s weird. I know she heard you. We all did,” Jo chimed. Without saying a word, I felt something sink within me.

“Congratulations. You finally found her,” Madison’s voice whispered on a passing breeze. Azazel’s head popped up beside me, but she did not say anything. She just stared at me, a sort of flustered agitation on her face, but without saying a word, a message of understanding somehow passed between us. Whether she knew who it was I had realized or not, did not matter. What mattered was that she and I were at least on the same page about what may happen next. If it was true that she and I were now physically connected, my life hung in the balance in her hands as hers hung delicately in mine. I hadn’t gotten that great of a look at the cabin where I assumed Jo, Bond, and Evelyn had been staying, but there was suddenly a heavy presence that radiated from behind me.

“Be careful. It won’t be long now,” Madison’s voice whispered again.

Agatha, Eleanor, Bond and Jo brought us inside and laid us down side by side in front of the fireplace.

“Do not place me beside such wickedness,” Azazel managed to bark out.

“Will you stop?” I snapped back at her. “I get I’m a bad guy but you don’t need to be an ass about it.”

“Ama, shut up, you’re not bad,” Jo whispered hastily.

“You have my wing, and you have now stolen my likeness. What am I to think about a creature that has taken everything that was once mine?”

“I don’t even know how this happened, okay. And I was born this way. I didn’t steal my looks from you. If you have a problem, bring it up with your god.”

“I want no utterances of the Lord from your filthy mouth.”

“Oh you think what I did here was ungodly?” I challenged.

“There is no other explanation. Obviously you crawled your way out of some depth of Hell and have now made it impossible for me to slay you.”

“Sure, I’ll humor that. But I never killed anyone,” I spat venomously.

“I have taken only the lives of the Fallen.”

“Think again,” I countered. “I know you can’t have forgotten what Artiya said, because I remember it clear as day.”

“Artiya? Why do you bring up my broth–” she stopped herself as the words echoed in my head which I felt reverberating in hers, too.

“It is man! He is possessed!”

Mrs. Ronson’s face snapped into my head, like a slap to the face. I’d never been fond of her, and sometimes I felt she was harder on me than the other kids in my class at the time, but I’d learned a few years after that it was because I was smarter than the others. She was challenging me and pushing me to become a better person, and I’d spoken to her a few times after that. It was pleasant, and she was a kind woman, and I was glad that I’d had her as a teacher, but then she disappeared some time when I’d become a freshman in high school. At the same time this familiar image, this familiar impression came into my mind, the last image I’d had, or Azazel had, of Mrs. Ronson, was when she had killed her.

“If I’m a demon, you’re no better than I am,” I spat at her bitterly, feeling tears spring to my eyes. “I remember each of the people you killed. I can see them as clearly as you do, and it baffles me that you didn’t see that not all of them were demons.”

“Silence,” she said in a low, quivering voice.

“I might not be the best person that ever lived, but at least I never killed anyone,” I shot again, seeing so many faces over the years.

“Amor,” Agatha said in a cautious voice. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“If she’s going to point fingers and act all high and mighty, I’m bringing her down off of that high horse.”

“You both just narrowly missed dying–” Eleanor tried to interject.

“By her hand?” I yelled. “She’s a brash, archaic, anachronistic angel that spent her time on earth killing people instead of trying to better the world! You really think now isn’t the time to be saying this shit when I’m probably the only one who can?”

“Agatha, I wish to be alone,” Azazel said in a quite tone, slowly sitting up.

“Azazel,” Agatha said, a sad look coming over her face.

“Please,” Azazel whispered back. I felt a burst of indignant rage seeing her reaction, but I kept my mouth shut, feeling the word sear into my brain and branding hers: Coward.

I glared as Agatha carried her off into her own room. Jo let out a long and low whistle, said, “Sharp as ever, I see.”

“I don’t think I deserve that, okay,” I muttered stubbornly.

“You can’t put yourself in her shoes?” Eleanor asked gently, a disappointed note dragging her tone down.

“I did. I lived as her, but god forbid my progressive thinking, huh?” I snapped, rolling my eyes. I continued to mutter under my breath, “I’m not that bad of a person. I feel like shit about myself and I put myself down worse than anyone else can. I call her out on her shit for five seconds and she just goes all crybaby on me. Fucking wimp.”

“Hey, calm down,” Bond said, looking at me pointedly.

“She literally just tried to kill me, like less than ten minutes ago. Are you serious?” I asked bluntly.

“We get it. I’d probably be pissed, too,” Jo offered, “But think of all of us. Me and Bond were like, seconds from watching you die. You’re our best friend, dummy. What do you think we’d do without you? We’re just, we’re glad you’re alive, and you have every right to be pissed, but can we like, enjoy you being alive for a second? Before we wished you had died?”

I looked between the two of them, and I saw then that they were exhausted. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still dark out. Maybe it was the middle of the night; maybe it was three in the morning, but I’d known them long enough to know that they’d been awoken out of sleep. The dark circles under Bond’s eyes were darker than I’d seen before. Jo’s hair had been thoroughly messed up, and her eyes were red and puffy. She’d probably managed to cry a little while I was about to die.

Sighing, I sat up and opened my arms. I held them both close, and without warning, I started to cry.

“I’m sorry. I’ve put you guys through a lot, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, idiot,” Bond said into my shoulder, holding me tightly.

“Aw, what a mess I’ve made,” I murmured, feeling the tears streaming down my face.

“No, this is just what you’re in,” Jo said, her arms around my neck.

“So, you’ve got a wing now, hm,” Bond murmured, poking the limb that was laying limply behind me. Glancing back at it, I shrugged, wiped my eyes and said, “I guess so, man.”

“What does it feel like?” he asked, straightening beside me as he ran a hand along the feathers.

Shrugging again, I answered, “Like an arm with feathers, except lighter, I guess.”

Tentatively, I twitched the wing around, just to get a better feel of it, and it was odd to see how natural it felt on me.

“I think you should get some sleep,” Agatha said, coming out of the room and closing the door quietly behind her.

Glancing over at her, I sighed and looked up at the ceiling as my tears quickly dried. “I really don’t feel like it. I’m tired of sleeping.”

“At least rest up, then. Relax,” she responded, leaning against the wall behind her and crossing her arms. I glanced at her and looked back up at the ceiling.

“Can I have some tea?”

“Sure. Do you want chamomile or peppermint?” she asked, pushing herself off of the wall.

“Both,” I shrugged.

“You’re a weird chick,” she murmured, shaking her head. I didn’t say anything but just closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my stomach. “You both know it’s about to go down, right?”

“What do you mean?” Jo asked, settling beside me.

“Remember how I told you about my reincarnations?”

“Reincarnations?” Bond asked.

Sighing, I said, “Give me a second to try to put this together,” and after a second, I began, “I’m part of Azazel, I guess. I don’t know why, but I am. That’s why I have her wing and this stupid triangle, but I’m not the only who had this. I think it goes generation by generation or whatever, but if I die, someone else will be born with her wing and her mark, and it just keeps going. I don’t know when it will stop, or if it ever will, but it’s been going on for centuries now. I’m not the first. I think I’m the . . . thirty third. From what I saw, no one lived past thirty, and it’s because someone always comes along and kills us, and it’s always someone close to us.

A friend, or a family member, or a coworker. Someone close, and I’ve finally figured out who it is this time around. Madison, the person before me, has been warning me since I got this mark, but she didn’t know who it was. There’s no way to really figure it out until it’s too late. A sad, dark feeling continued to plague me, and Evelyn’s face came to mind, a slight pang of betrayal reopening a wound that had ended all of my previous lives. I said nothing, not quite wanting this sad truth to be my reality. Without passing a word between the three of us, we all let out a sigh and leaned against each other.

“What a week,” Bond breathed. A jolt of shock ran through me, and a wave of dread swallowed me whole. Jo looked up at me, asked, “What?”

“Dude . . . my mom is gonna kill me,” I groaned. Bond and Jo sat back to look at me, their eyes wide, and then they burst out laughing.

“Right, we have a life to go back to after all of this,” Bond chortled. “Ah, like school–”

“And work–” Jo cut in.

“And family,” I finished, still laughing. “Ah, man, what—this is just wild.”

“Yeah, especially when you remember there’s a life waiting for you somewhere else.” I looked between the both of them, and I asked, “Do you think this is okay? What we’re doing?”

“I don’t even really know what we’re doing,” Bond shrugged.

“I don’t know if you can really call it right or wrong,” Jo said. “We haven’t really done anything wrong. We’ve just kind of been doing this for you, ya know?”

I nodded and said, “Yeah, I get that. This has all kind of been for just me, huh?”

“But it’s fun, I guess,” Jo offered. “I mean, aside from the dying part, or getting close to dying. It’s . . . kind of fun. A real life adventure.”

“Would you go back to our normal life if you had the chance?” I asked in a hushed tone. Bond and Jo were quiet a moment, and then he answered, for the both of them, “I don’t know. I have to see how this plays out.” I nodded my head in silent understanding, and Agatha came back with my tea in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.

“Thank you,” I said, taking the hot mug from her. She nodded at me and stood there, looking at us a while.

“What do we do from here?” I asked after a few moments. Letting out a sigh, she answered, “I don’t really know, actually.”

“Huh.”

“As far as our prophecy went about you, all it said was that one day, you would make it here and one of us—me—would finally meet Azazel. All it said was to be ready and to protect you at all costs. There was nothing else about what to do about you, what to do about Azazel, how to fix you, if you needed to be fixed. All it said was to be ready for your return,” she said sinking to the ground and shaking her head.

“Everything is so vague when you’re a Mod. It’s not like there’s any guidebook or rule, especially when it comes to you guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“You and this prophecy are on a contingency basis. We knew you would eventually come, but no one could pinpoint when. For all I could have known, or any other Mod, you could have died, and your next reincarnation would have gotten to me when I turned eighty.”

“Is it good that I got to you so early?” I asked cautiously.

She looked up at me and said, “It means you did something right this far. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll continue to make the right choices.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” I scoffed.

“I really don’t want to tell you something and get your hopes up just to have you make the wrong choice and then it costs you your life, or your friends’,” she said, gesturing to Bond and Jo beside me. I glanced at either of them and looked down at my tea.

“What choices does she even have to make?” Jo asked.

“What is she supposed to be doing?” Bond asked.

“That, I truly don’t know,” she sighed, putting her head on her arms. “When someone becomes a Grand Mod, since you first started appearing in the world of the living, we would go through a sort of ritual that allowed us to understand our relationship with God and Azazel better. It’s like a spirit journey, or something. It’s different for everyone, but every single person learns the truth of who they are when they do it. If you don’t, then you aren’t supposed to be a Grand Mod. At the end of the spirit journey or whatever, the person sees that prophecy—of you and Azazel returning—and a piece of another vision.”

“Another vision?”

“Yeah. It’s like, we see this image of you and Azazel meeting for the first time. It’s not like it was specifically supposed to be you, Amor, but we know that it’s you because you have her left wing, and she’s standing in front of you. I don’t know, maybe we should have known the one who would finally make it here would look exactly like her, but I don’t know. We’re human, and we’re limited by our possibilities, not the outcome,” she exhaled.

“After that, we get a snippet of another vision. Everyone gets a slightly different piece, but they all come together to make one full prophecy that happens once you’ve come together. I have to confer with the other Mods to do that, to find it out, but I’m scared.”

I furrowed my eyebrows and asked, “Why are you scared?”

“I don’t want to risk knowledge of her getting out, or you. There’s a lot of bad people and things out there that don’t want you alive, Amor. You specifically. I would lay my life down for you, that’s the way of a true Azelian, but there are bad people even in our following that don’t want to see you or what comes after you.”

“What? Why?” I exclaimed.

She just shrugged and said, “Why does anyone do anything? Your guess is as good as mine.”

Everyone was quiet. I don’t think anyone really knew what to say in that situation. It was . . . hard. And it didn’t help that the prophet among us only received her visions conditionally. After another few moments, Jo asked tentatively, “What should we do?”

Agatha made a slight face to herself and said, “I need to confer with the other Mods. Regardless of whether it puts you in danger or not. Staying here won’t turn the wheels.”

Without saying a word, I nodded, and she stood and went back into the room where Azazel was lying down. Eleanor still hadn’t left the room. I wondered how big of a moment this was for her, being able to actually see, touch, speak with the thing of your worship. All three of us were quiet again. I didn’t know what to say, or if I should even break the silence. Maybe it was time to be quiet, time to think and adjust to this new reality we found ourselves in. Quietly sipping my tea, I allowed myself to finally relax. Well, I didn’t really allow myself to relax, but rather I forced myself to. The other gifts I’d picked up from my past lives were constantly “on”.

The painful prickling that encircled my neck had calmed down to an insistent sizzle directly behind me, from where Evelyn still was, I assumed. Beside me, I could feel Jo and Bond’s emotions swimming against my skin and drifting around me like water. Bond was warm and simmering beside me. Somewhere inside him was a sort of contempt, possibly for the world, possibly for the circumstances he was in. His thoughts were like muffled whispers through a blanket in my head. It was contempt, but I didn’t know what for, and I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t even want to be intruding on them like that, but I didn’t know how to stop it. On my other side, Jo was cool and stagnant. Her mind was clear, and it seemed she was meditating, trying to keep her thoughts calm and at bay. I knew she was hit worse by the darkness of her thoughts than either Bond or myself.

If I tried to concentrate, I could feel Agatha and Eleanor’s thoughts and feelings in the next room. Azazel’s was . . . strange. It was as if I were in her body and not at the same time, experiencing her emotions and thoughts while simultaneously observing, and I didn’t want to do that. I honestly didn’t. The suffocation she was suffering in her mind was quite similar to the whim of my own suffocating thoughts in my head. From her, regret, grief, shame, guilt all buffeted against my already unstable mind. I deliberately chose not to think about the events that had just transpired. I had no desire to rehash all of what happened in the event that I lost myself in everything and fell into a deep and dark and sad place, like I did all too often.

Diversion and avoidance. I was very good at those two things when it came to myself. Shutting my eyes tight, I tried to calm and silence all the thoughts in my head. Not just mine, but Agatha’s, Eleanor’s, Bond’s, Jo’s, and especially Azazel’s. I just needed some peace and quiet in my own headspace if I wanted to actually deal with anything else going on, or that might eventually go on. Listening to my breathing, I tried to count backwards from ten, then forwards, then backwards, then forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards until the only thing in my mind that I knew of, even the only thing on my body that I managed to pay attention to was the consistent forwards and back countdown.

In the tranquility of my mind, I felt as if I were floating on a still lake, staring up at a blank white sky, free to paint and color with my own thoughts, my own emotions. In my mind, I just lay there, staring up at this whiteness, pretending it was just the stillness of the water in my ears, in my mind, quietly making everything into one. One . . . one with everything . . . one with myself . . . one with the air, one with the sky, one with the ground, one with the life within everything, one with everything. Quietly melting away and becoming one, becoming the same, understanding nothing but myself, what I am, what I wish to be, what I am supposed to be, and understanding that at the end, at the finale of this journey, it’s all the same. It’s all the same . . . I am the same . . . the same as I was before . . . when I was young . . . when I was her . . . when I was me . . . I am the same . . .