He had used the next day to recover and be as fit as possible for what was to come. Without anyone knowing, he had practiced in front of the mirror to change his current face into the one he had before he was killed. He would need it for a minute or two on Earth. That evening, he stepped out of the palace dressed all in black, something like the black tactical uniform of soldiers. The only difference was that he had a red fire-breathing dragon on his chest. He was the son of the devil, so he was the son of the dragon, and he would burn down anything that got in his way. Outside he hung his sword on his back and to his surprise he saw both Michael and Samantha appear.
"Red, what are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here dressed like that, sword on your back and with Celine who is also dressed in black?"
"I'm doing what I have to do, Samantha."
She had tears in her eyes:
"I can't convince you not to?"
He said nothing, just shook his head.
"Then I want you to promise me something."
"Anything. Anything for you, Samantha, you should know that."
"When you come back, I want you to tell me what they did to you."
"Sam, that's not a story you want to hear, believe me, trust me. Let it rest with my dead body on earth."
Suddenly the voice of the Goddess sounded from behind him:
"If you must do what you must do, Alexander, then you must accept that Samantha must know what she must know. You cannot hide a secret like this from her, you cannot keep it to yourself. There are times when you need to be able to lean on someone, boy. If you want to be with Samantha, then she is the person you have to dare to lean on, to allow yourself to lean on. You have to allow yourself to open up to her. There is no one left in this Heaven who does not know what the two of you are. You are soul mates, the legendary Gemini. As you said yourself, It's not a good story you have to tell, but Samantha has to be a part of it."
He sighed and said:
"Yes, Ma'am. Samantha, I promise when this is over I will tell you my story. But like I said, it's not a pretty story and I'd rather not have to tell you. You are just too much light."
Without waiting for an answer, he nodded to Celine and they disappeared from Heaven, leaving Samantha crying in her mother's arms. The two landed in the forest where he had been killed, and he instinctively knew where his old body was buried. He stood looking at the shallow grave for a few minutes. Celine first saw a few tears in his eyes, but they were soon replaced by hellfire. She knew only too well that what would follow would not be pretty and would be accompanied by the consequences of years of accumulated rage. He marked the coordinates of the shallow grave as vengeance built within him. This would be the final act in the macabre game to be played tonight. He looked at Celine and said:
"First the two of them, then I want you to scan for the doctor, the nurse, and the sheriff.
"So all five at once?"
"Yes, but the last three I will get myself and bring them here. This is where it ended for me and this is where it will end for them. This is where it happened, this is where it ends!"
He put the balaclava with the skull on his face and Celine did the same. A second later, they appeared at the front door of the house where he had experienced so much misery. They were in the living room which he knew. He kicked against the door, it shattered and flew inwards in countless pieces. The advantage of being a half-angel is supernatural strength. He stormed in, followed by Celine. The man jumped up and started to say something, but Alex hit him hard on the chin and he collapsed. Apparently, Celine had done the same to the woman, because she was also on her back. They each grabbed one and reappeared in the woods near the grave.
"Tie them up with their hands behind their backs and their ankles bound. When they recover, put them on their knees. Do you have the doctor's coordinates?"
Celine nodded and touched his hand briefly to show him where to go. He disappeared to pick up his next target. The doctor slept peacefully in his bed next to his wife. Alexander came flying in through the window, which shattered into a thousand pieces to give the doctor the maximum effect of terror. The wife wanted to scream, but with a wave of Alexander's hand, she fell back asleep and would stay asleep for a few hours. She would wake up, see the broken window, notice her husband was gone but would remember nothing else about what happened.
"Who are you, what do you want?"
The doctor asked anxiously.
"I'll show you who I am later. What do I want? I want your life and your soul!"
He grabbed the doctor, and the next moment, he threw him to the ground in the forest.
"The nurse, please."
Celine did as she was told, and he went to pick up his next victim. The nurse lived in a small apartment and he appeared in her living room. She was watching television and was startled by his sudden appearance. Before she could say anything, he had grabbed her by the throat and squeezed lightly. He had to be careful with his powers as a Nefilim or he would have crushed her throat completely before he could even begin his revenge, and that would not do. He looked into her eyes as she tried to break free. He saw the fear in her eyes.
"You are afraid. Good, because this is just the beginning, bitch..."
In the woods, he saw the first three neatly lined up by Celine and dropped the nurse at her feet.
"Last one, the sheriff."
She nodded and showed Alex where to find the cop. He landed a few feet from the police car the man was in. He took a quick look at what the guy was doing and was not surprised to see that he was drinking from a bottle of cheap whiskey. The next thing the sheriff knew, his window shattered and he was dragged out of the car. He felt an iron grip around his throat and heard from under the balaclava:
"Drinking on duty. Is that why you have no interest in doing your motherfucking job?"
The next thing the sheriff knew, he was in a forest. Much too shocked to try anything and much too late to do anything like try go grab his gun because his hands were already tied behind his back. Alexander stood in front of the five and said in an overly made-up friendly tone:
"Thank you for accepting my invitation.
But he had to make an effort not to kill the five right away. That would not have appeased his hatred. What was needed was a slow death with a lot of pain and fear. Something he was all too willing to dish out!
"Does anyone have any idea why we are gathered here?"
The five said nothing.
"No? However, two of you know exactly what I mean, and three of you can pretty much guess what I mean. Let me start with you, you fucking bitch."
He pulled the nurse's head up by her hair, forcing her to look at him.
"You as a school nurse are supposed to help your students, protect them. How many times have you patched up students after they've been abused at home, only to not give a fuck about what happened or what's going to happen next to those kids? How many kids do you know who are being mistreated or abused at home?"
He slapped her hard across the face, splitting her lips, splintering a few teeth, and sending blood running down her chin, she screamed in pain, and then began to sob in terror.
"Do you think the children were in as much pain and fear as you are now, bitch? That what you are feeling now is nothing, it is only the beginning. Some of your children have been through and felt much worse. But rest assured. Laia, a good friend of mine, gave me a booklet that taught me how to pay back all that pain and misery all at once, with interest, a lot of interest!"
Then it was the doctor's turn.
"And you bastard. How many times have you patched up children after a beating went too far and the child needed medical attention? How many times have you performed abortions on girls who were raped at home? I know of at least a few. One stands out in my memory. A twelve-year-old girl, Molly, who was the sunshine of the school. Suddenly she turned into a pathetic heap of sadness. All without calling the police or child protective services. All because you don't give a shit about these kids. Well, today's the day, asshole."
Alex put one hand on the back of the doctor's head and used the flat of his other hand to punch him hard in the nose. His nose was crushed and blood gushed out and covered Alex's chest and face. The doctor screamed in pain. Then, one by one, he grabbed the doctor's hands and broke each finger.
"This is the pain many children felt before they were brought to you. Do you find this pleasant? Don't worry about your hands, you won't need them after tonight!"
The man groaned that he was sorry, and Alexander said icily:
"Not me, asshole, because I am far from finished!"
He stepped up to the sheriff:
"What about you? Isn't it your job to protect the innocent and uphold the law? You prefer to sit in your car in a secluded place and drink. And when you're asked to do a little investigation, you're immediately at peace with a few glasses of booze, like with those two over there".
He pointed to the couple who had been his parents.
"You make me sick. What goes around comes around, Sheriff, and now you will pay the ultimate price."
With the flat of both hands, he slapped the man's ears, which immediately began to bleed.
"So now those who hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil are present, now for evil itself."
He stood before the couple:
"What is located over there?"
He asked, pointing to the shallow grave. Instead of answering, the man asked:
"Who are you and what do you want from us?"
"Oh yes, how rude of me, I forgot to introduce myself."
Alexander took off his balaclava and the man and woman gasped when they saw his face.
"I see you recognize me. Lovely, now tell these three friendly people what is underneath there."
"That cannot be, you are dead."
"I am indeed dead, asshole. But why am I dead?"
The woman looked away and the man refused to answer.
"I don't care if you want to answer or not, it won't change your fate anyway."
He grabbed the man by the collar and set him down in front of the other four.
"Good, this is for all five of you."
He changed his face back to normal, put his balaclava back on, let the hellfire ignite in his eyes, and looked each of them in the eye. Standing before the man who had murdered him, he unfolded his blood-red wings to their full span and spoke menacingly:
"I'm not your son, fucker. I never was. My father is Lucifer Morningstar, and that makes me the devil's son."
The five people freaked out because they could see in his eyes exactly what their fate in Hell would be. He could smell that some of them had lost control of their bowels.
"I have placed a mark on all five of you so that when you die, you will go to the deepest bowels of Hell. Special treatment from the Demons to please their Prince. And rest assured, they will want to please their new Prince of Hell. I have also made sure that you will not be able to take your eyes off this piece of shit because I want you to see what he has done to me."
Now all five of them were crying and begging for their lives and forgiveness. Alex laughed coldly for a moment:
"Pity for you? Where was your compassion for me when I was alive and suffering?"
He manifested a ball hammer and held it in front of the man's face, who retreated pale as a corpse.
"I see you recognize this. This is exactly what I'm going to use to send you to hell, motherfucker. I bet you were too lazy or too drunk to make sure that all traces of my DNA were removed from this hammer. Consider it poetic justice that I will send you to Hell with the same hammer and the FBI will be able to connect the dots."
He placed a hand briefly on the man's head and said:
"This is to make sure you don't pass out from the pain before I'm done with you. You're going to feel every blow. Believe me, you will love it as much as I have loved it. But first this little thingy..."
Alexander manifested a lighted cigarette. He took a few deep puffs so that the fire at the tip was red hot. He said:
"The booklet I got from my friend said something I didn't know, which gave me an idea. Apparently, an eyeball is insensitive to pain. So it is not the pain that makes a person become so distraught when something hits his eye, but it is the shock and fright that causes that effect. Let me demonstrate."
He took three more deep puffs in quick succession to get the fire in the cigarette really hot. Then he quickly grabbed the man's head and forced him to keep his eyes open. He took the cigarette and pressed the hot glow against one of the man's eyeballs, who immediately began to scream like a weaned pig.
"See what I mean? Now for the rest..."
What unfolded over the next thirty minutes was a veritable bloodbath. He slowly killed the man with the hammer. Blow after blow landed on the body, breaking bones, extremely calculated so that his suffering would not end too soon. The other four had gotten off a little easier. Exactly as Leila's book had taught him, he had sliced the katana through the air four times, leaving a wound on each of them, their guts had fallen out of their bodies, and they had died slowly and painfully. When it was over, he grabbed the sheriff's cell phone and got a number from Celine. He dialed it and heard:
"FBI Field Office."
Alex answered as if it was an everyday conversation he had on the phone:
"Good evening, is this call being recorded? If not, you will need a piece of paper and a pen to write down some coordinates."
"We are recording this call, sir; may I have your name, please?"
"Don't worry, Ma'am, my name will be given to you in a moment. These are the coordinates you need to find the grave of a thirteen-year-old boy."
He turned to the grave and handed over the coordinates. Alex took a deep breath and went on:
"The boy was murdered by his father with a hammer after a lifetime of abuse while his mother watched without doing anything. The hammer is in the same place; the boy's DNA will be on it. If you dig him up, you will find cigarette burns and scars from beatings on his body, and you will see that he is malnourished. X-rays will show that he has suffered several fractures. In the boy's bedroom, you will find a cage in which he was locked. Use Luminol and the house will light up like a fucking Christmas tree. At the grave, you will also find the bodies of five people. The nurse from his school, the doctor from the local clinic, the sheriff, and the boy's parents. How these five are connected to the boy's death, well, you'll have to do some FBI work for that and snoop a little bit in their paperwork, but I think you can already guess what the result will be. And if your agents have a big appetite, they will find a lot more. It's a small town, but apparently it has more than enough depraved scumbags. I suspect they will find the Molly Meyers file quite interesting. Interesting enough to have a chat with her father, they won't be able to talk to her, because she's dead, just like the boy. A little advice. As mentioned, I left the body of a corrupt cop here. If your colleagues won't do their job and clean up this shithole, I can assure you that I'll have no problem leaving behind the corpses of some disinterested FBI agents if they think small-town people aren't important enough for the big powerful FBI. So make sure you tell them to have a big fucking appetite to clean up this fucking mess! These kids deserve justice and you will give it to them! Oh yeah, you asked my name? I'm Alexander Marcus Fucking Morningstar!"
He crushed the phone to scrap and said quietly:
"We're done here."
"Shouldn't you be getting rid of all this blood, Alex? Because it's all over you."
"No, Samantha made me promise to tell everything. The Goddess told me that nothing should remain a secret between us. So this will not be a secret either. Remember, no secrets to have!"
Celine nodded and understood what he meant.
A second later, they reappeared in the square in front of the palace. Samantha's eyes widened and she slapped her hand in front of her mouth when she saw him completely covered in blood.
"Alex, are you okay, are you hurt?"
"No I'm not hurt Samantha but I'm far from okay."
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you after a shower like I promised."
Without further ado, he turned and walked into the palace on his way to the suite. The Goddess and Casiel were waiting for him, looking as shocked as Samantha but saying nothing. He stormed into his room, closely followed by Samantha. He threw the sword in a corner, went to his bathroom, and stepped into the shower, clothes and all. He closed his eyes and the warm water slowly washed the blood off him. With his heavily gloved right fist, he began tapping slowly against the wall, but the tapping became harder and harder until it finally became fist blows. Finally, with a loud scream, he punched a hole in the wall and collapsed. Samantha went to grab him, but the next thing she saw hit her heart like a sledgehammer. Alexander had crawled into a fetal position and kept repeating:
"Please stop, please don't hurt me anymore, please stop hitting me."
Not knowing what to do, Samantha panicked and called her mother. She could see by the look in his eyes that he was not there, that he was somewhere far away. The Goddess came running in and immediately stopped the water and heard him pleading:
"Mom, please make it stop...it hurts so much, please."
Samantha cried and asked the Goddess:
"Mom, what is happening to him?"
"He is stuck in a reliving of his trauma. This may take a while, Sam. We need to get him to bed."
The Goddess made his bloody clothes disappear, and they were both shocked. A multitude of injuries and scars had appeared on his body. Some of the scourge wounds on his back were also bleeding as if they had just been inflicted. It seemed that no part of his body had been spared. Somehow, the re-experiencing caused these to manifest physically as well. She picked him up and carried him to his bed. Meanwhile, Alexander repeated a phrase over and over, and the Goddess' heart broke for him.
"Mommy please help me, it hurts so much".
The Goddess first took care of his open wounds, tucked Alex into bed and covered him up. She sat at the head of the bed with Alexander's head in her lap. She placed her hand on his forehead and said softly:
"Alexander boy, come back to us."
The first few times he didn't respond, but the next time she asked him, he shot up from his reliving. At first, he panicked and didn't know where he was or who he was for a while. He looked into the eyes of the comforting Goddess and pleaded:
"Mom, please make it stop, please help me, I don't want to remember, I don't want to see, I don't want to feel. Please, Mom, make it stop."
And with that, he burst into an uncontrollable crying fit and turned back into the boy he was. When he finally fell asleep, the Goddess said to Samantha:
"Stay with him, when he wakes up he will need a friendly face or he could slip right back."
"What happened Mom?"
"What should have happened earlier, child. What should have happened from the moment he arrived here. Instead of trying to push the immense trauma away with all his strength and trying to carry it alone, he had to face it. But according to Raphael, his trauma could only come out through a catalyst, and that happened tonight. I need to contact your father and Aisha and Franklin. It's best if all four of us are there tomorrow because if I know Alexander, he will keep his promise to you and throw everything out. And I'm afraid it will be something terrible. It's the least we can do, because Michael is right, the four of us are responsible for this...".