S E V E N

S E V E N

Libro Vitae

HOW STRANGE THE world worked. It always made sure to take the path least expected and bring all its followers to their knees. Yet again, fate was there to color me shocked. When I thought that perhaps there was a fighting chance for me to regain a life, another trouble emerged itself that might damn the world into losing their own.

With Lucifer free and roaming the lands wherever he may be, it would only be a matter of time before both Heaven and Hell fell under his control. He was, after all, a powerful being that wielded magic beyond the ordinary. The figure that had instilled fear into many lives gained that reputation for a reason; a reason in which I prayed I would not learn in all my lifetimes.

All of a sudden, everything became so clear. The demons were rejoicing in their cells, finally shutting their eyes to enjoy undisturbed rest due to the joy simply because their leader was free and they knew it. They were waiting for him; waiting for Lucifer to take back what was once destined as his.

I feared of monarchs that knew not of kindness of the heart. Dictators and kings of treachery had always been one of my darkest nightmares, only ever increasing with every year in which I grew. That was because they held the power to not just kill me and me alone, but rather also everyone I know and love.

Lucifer, however, was worse. He's not but a simple mortal, a human that desired power above any other, but rather, he was a fallen angel. He was someone with magical capabilities and existed in places where I had once thought was mere fantasy or straight out of someone's imagination. In other words, he was a nightmare came true.

The world would be set ablaze with Lucifer running wild and free to do whatever he wished. Thousands and hundreds of thousands will fall with just a simple wave of his hand. The last time he had been in power, he was the one that dragged many angels towards Hell and created havoc, splitting friends and forcing them to fight against one another. He was the sole reason why Dimitri had become the spirit of death, and probably the driving force behind the rest of the brothers' transformations and horrific changes against their own will.

Now it wasn't just Lucius in which we had to take note of. There will be someone else out there, much more powerful and detached, ready to bring damnation to whichever brave and foolish soul that dared to cross his path.

And oh, mother of irony. Both of them had names that represented the light, the gleam of a new hope. How different that turned out, isn't that right?

It was then that I wondered, which of the two evils would I rather face again?

Would it be Lucifer, with his wild tendencies? Once a high-ranking angel and had fallen ultimately because he was condemned of a love and the jealousy that came in tow with that love. Lucifer was someone in which I didn't have the misfortune to know better and probably never will if lady luck shines on me still.

Or will it be Lucius that I rather face? My childhood friend which turned out to be the person behind my past lives' deaths. The angel that was tasked to take care of me, and yet had me killed time and time again over the course of possibly hundreds of lifetimes without batting a single eyelid. A guardian and once best friend that was driven to the edges of insanity, cursed with lunacy for possible all eternity because he was a power-hungry soul that sought for more than he could actually control.

There I came to the conclusion that death actually offered me mercy. I would never have to brave either of the two villains in my life. And yet, even though running away was a clever cowardice that had kept me alive for so long of a time, it would only lead me to my demise when I lay my choice down on the table. For the first time in my life, I am not able to run in hopes of preserving this said existence.

I had to fight for it.

Such madness it was that I had been conditioned to take everything I had for granted. Now that the entirety of my life had been confiscated from me, I was at a loss for what to do in a situation like this.

"Curse the heavens!" Dimitri yelled, kicking at the bars of the jail cell as a ringing noise followed. Both Minnie and I winced immediately, scrunching our noses and hands raised to cover our ears until the ringing slowly halted to a silence once more.

The spirit of death placed his head in his hands, frustration radiating off of him as Minnie and I just blankly stared at the two brothers and their respective reactions to this new revelation. Fabian was an entirely different case as compared to Dimitri. Instead of the panic and hysteria in which Dimitri currently displayed, Fabian was calm and collected, simply swiping a finger against the metal of the bars with a disgusted look on his face when he noticed the dust that had collected there. His action made it seem as though he was somehow bored, even.

"Calm yourself, Dimitri. You need to think this through with a level head." Wiping his hands against the fabric of his pants, Fabian dusted himself clean before walking into the jail cell where Dimitri already stood.

The silver eyed spirit breathed in deeply, obviously taking his twin brother's words into account, his shoulders rising and falling with this movement before he straightened his posture. As if he had always shown the same indifference through every situation -- and that itself was false -- and what we were currently in merely added to the list, Dimitri combed back his hair, lips pursed into a thin line. All at once, his calm facade had returned.

"We have to recapture Lucifer or destroy him on sight. Having him out and about is going to cause way too many casualties, both in the human realm and within our worlds."

"Afraid of your job's inevitable burden?" Fabian jokingly remarked, only to roll his eyes when Dimitri shot him an uninterested look.

The spirit of famine was obviously poking fun at Dimitri's unfortunate occupation as the reaper of souls and ferryman of the dead. That, unfortunately, was not at all amusing for Dimitri, evidently. So Fabian smacked his lips, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip before raising his hands in a surrendering position.

"Just trying to ease the tension," Fabian said. "Relax."

"What are we going to do?" I spoke up, both hands too busy playing with the collar of my shirt. Anxiousness settled itself rather snugly into my bones, playing my mind like a toy of some sort as I fiddled with the string of fabric I had found. "It's not going to be easy to bring Lucifer back. He's not going to go with us. Not without a huge fight at least."

"No, it's not easy and nobody said it would be."

Walking away from the cell, Dimitri grasped both my hands in his, his thumbs tracing the bones of my knuckles all whilst examining them under the red glow in which the whole place provided. The translucency of my hand was apparent under the colored lighting, showing very well the layers of veins, muscles, and bones beneath the skin. My skin was starting to disappear before my very eyes.

I was a ticking time bomb, and Dimitri knew it. If I were to know any better, I might have even said that Dimitri could feel me dying all over again. How jolly it was to find out that Death craved me so.

"Which is why we can't do it now."

"What?!" In complete surprise, Fabian's eyes were as wide as saucers, a flabbergasted look on his face as he stormed towards Dimitri and I. "Allowing Lucifer to roam for even a single day means that we are condemning the mortals and other beings to torture for 24 hours more. Our job is to maintain the balance between the world of the dead and the world of the living. If my mental calculations are correct, and they usually are, having a serial killer on the loose for a massacre is not exactly keeping the worlds in balance."

"Addison only has five days to live before she is shipped off to her next life. The second she dies for real and gets her ass turned into a baby once more, the whole world dies along with her. We need that power in order to take Lucifer down, Fabian."

The two brothers were nose to nose, eyes both filled with fury and disgust. Yet, though their faces were shaped identically in regards to the display of emotions, their stands were completely different, rivaling one another to the very heart. I had no doubt that Fabian would gladly throw me over a make-belief building for me to die should there be a need to. Dimitri, however, would probably do anything to keep me away from, well, death.

"How about this." Minnie stepped in between the boys when I found myself unable to do so, a hand placed on each of their chests to push them away from each other and to wedge herself in between them so as to enlarge the distance. "We find the mystical book that we came out here looking for, and then we part ways. Fabian can go and capture himself one fallen demonic angel and Dimitri can help revive Addison. Perfect?"

For a second there, both of the spirits simply stared at each other, eyebrows still furrowed with unspoken wrath. Fabian was the first to break, his facial features relaxing as he took a step back and away from Dimitri.

"Perfect," he coughed out rather reluctantly.

"Now that that's settled, let's go get ourselves the book." Clapping my hands together, I pushed past my three companions and headed straight towards the cell, stepping in after assessing the bars in disgust.

Obviously, nothing seemed too different as compared to what could be seen on the outside. It was just an impenetrable wall of thick stone, paired with dirt on the ground, both tinted a dark burgundy due to the place's unique and ominous red lighting. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. However, it was when I had stepped to one side had I realized that the side of the wall that wasn't so visible from outside the cell had carvings on it. Large lines and circles formed carvings that seemed to make zero sense were indented into the wall.

"Guys," I called out unsurely, eyes still fixated on the hauntingly beautiful mark as familiarity nipped at my toes. "You don't happen to know what this means, do you?"

When Dimitri and Fabian stepped in, both stunned into silence, I knew that whatever I had found was a step closer towards our main goal. Dimitri reached out, the pads of his fingers just barely grazing the rough stone wall, as if entranced in a memory from a very long time ago.

"What is that?" Minnie asked, voicing out what I was thinking as well.

"It's a dead language." Voice barely above a whisper, Fabian breathed out the words in disbelief. "Biblical hebrew."

"I've not seen it in centuries," Dimitri admitted. "Maybe even more. I've lost count by now."

"Can you still read it?" Edging closer towards Dimitri, our shoulders were almost touching. He turned, assessing me for a second as if deciding if I was worthy enough to hear the answer to all our questions.

"Even better. I can translate it." I couldn't deduce the expression in which Dimitri had on. It seemed to be something along the lines of reluctance and fear, maybe even dread. He knew the answer, I was so sure of it.

"Then what is it?" I asked, encouraging him to give a slip and finally share this secretive piece of information.

"Libro Vitae, princess." The words rolled off of Fabian's tongue, speaking in another dead language that definitely was not the one written -- carved -- on the wall. However, it was enough to tell me that the meaning was the same. The Latin words may be foreign to my ears, but evidently not for the two brothers that knew much too many things about the world we were currently in.

Dimitri grimaced. "Otherwise known as the book of life."

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