Philip Simpson - Tribulation

“You mean, because of our night together?” he asked.

“Exactly,” she said. “Demons and angels were never meant to… mate. It’s forbidden. When they sent me to you, I don’t think they imagined for one second we’d do what we did.”

“But… but it was so right,” he spluttered. “How can something like our love be forbidden? How can it be wrong?”

“It doesn’t get any worse than this. It’s probably the worst crime there is. It was bad enough when the Grigori started having physical relationships with mortal women, let alone this.”

“But I’m not even a full demon,” Sam protested. He didn’t get it. He really didn’t get it. Why would they do this to him? It wasn’t fair. It was never fair.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’ve made their decision. I can’t see you ever again. They consider this a huge favor just allowing me to say my goodbyes in person. In fact, I’m lucky apparently that I’m still an angel, lucky that I wasn’t cast down into the pit.”

“I wish you would’ve been,” said Sam hotly. “At least that way, I could see you when I liked.”

“Don’t say that, Sam. I know you’re angry but we have to face up to what we’ve done. I hate it just as much as you but I can’t do anything else.” She began to sob in misery.

He couldn’t resist. He pulled her to him. They stayed like that for a long time, until she stopped crying.

“We’ll find a way out of this,” he said. “I’ll talk to Gabriel. She’ll understand. She’ll help.”

Aimi broke his embrace immediately. “Who do you think told me I couldn’t see you anymore? It was Gabriel and the other archangels who made this decision.”

Sam was so shocked, his legs suddenly felt weak, almost giving way on him. He stumbled, the betrayal falling heavily upon him. Gabriel. She was meant to be his ally. Why had she done this to him? Suddenly, everything his father said was starting to make sense. Could he really trust those in Heaven?

Aimi put her tiny arms around him again. “Goodbye, my love. I’ll watch over you. I’ll never stop watching you or loving you. We’ll always be together that way.”

“No!” he said, pleading with her, desperate. He put his arms around her and squeezed, imagining in his desperation that if he hugged her tightly, she would never be able to leave him — never be able to escape. Somehow, she still slipped out of his grasp. Even when she was human, she’d been hard to hold on to. Before he could move, she was airborne, her beautiful wings outstretched.

“I love you, Sam. I will always love you.”

“No!” he screamed at her. “Don’t leave me. I’ve only just got you back. You can’t leave. It’s not fair!” But it was too late. She was gone, lost in the clouds.

For a moment, he stood completely still, frozen in grief and despair. Then with anger so intense it made him feel cold, he drew his swords. He attacked the bush with more fury than he thought he was capable of, reducing it to scattered twigs. As he hacked at it, a low keening sound emerged from his throat. There were dead trees in the distance, the beginnings of the forest he had avoided. He sprinted towards them, chopping at the first one he reached with strokes so powerful they almost severed the thick trunks with one blow. The tree toppled. He ignored it and moved onto the next one and the next and the next, more effective than the most efficient lumberjack. As he hewed, he began to sob, the first time he had truly cried. He’d only cried once before, when Aimi had first been taken by the Rapture, but this was worse, much worse. Hikari had told him that demons didn’t possess tear ducts and it was true. As then, he cried tears of blood, the scarlet liquid once again streaming down his face.

They ran down his sweatshirt and jeans, staining them. He didn’t care. He kept hacking away at the trees. Blisters formed on his hands. The blisters tore and bled. The blood ran down his hands and on to his blades so that every time he struck a tree, crimson would splatter over the dead wood.

His rage was undiminished, his swords unblunted. It would take more punishment than this to wreck the edge of his blades. He chopped on, tireless, fueled by his anger. Hours passed… not that Sam was aware of the passage of time. Later, much later, he realized that he must have temporarily lost his mind.

As night fell, the sound of chopping could still be heard reverberating amongst the dead trees of the forest.

When he came to his senses, he was standing in a wasteland of dead wood. It was dawn. At first, he couldn’t remember what had happened. He blinked a couple of times against the morning light. His swords were still in his hands but his hands hurt. He didn’t know why.

Hundreds of trees lay shattered about him as if a team of lumberjacks had worked furiously for a week. Sam looked down at his swords. With trembling hands, he raised them to eye level. Both were blunted and notched. How did that happen? Swords like his were not damaged easily. And then it came rushing back to him. Aimi. She was gone and he had been betrayed. He staggered and fell to one knee.

He didn’t cry this time. Gradually, as he assimilated the memory, a cold anger grew in his heart, replacing whatever grief he had felt. He stood slowly, nodded once to himself and cast around for his backpack. Eventually he found it, buried under the remains of a thicket he’d sheltered under the previous day.

He stalked back to the beginning of the forest and seated himself on one of the stumps he had created. Dipping into the side pocket of his backpack, he pulled out his whetstone and began sharpening his Katana with smooth, rhythmic strokes, his blank gaze staring at nothing in the middle distance. Sharpening his swords always calmed him, clearing his mind and giving him space for ordered thought.

He started to feel better straight away. The dried blood on his hands flaked off as he worked, revealing fresh scars. He must’ve really given his hands a work out to inflict damage like this. The injuries were an anomaly though — one that he couldn’t really explain. The hilts of his swords were made from steel, not iron. In theory, the steel couldn’t harm him so why the damage? It had happened before and usually he set the problem aside as something to think about when he had less pressing matters to attend to. For some reason, this train of thought suddenly appealed to him. He knew it was a distraction, something to occupy his mind so he didn’t dwell on current events but he didn’t care.

Hikari had helped train not only his body but his mind. To attack problems with the same vigor as he would in one of his martial training regimes. Hikari had often advocated the theory of Occam’s razor — the simplest and most likely explanation was usually the correct one.

There were two most likely explanations. The first was the proximity of the iron. His hands were only separated from it by a fraction of an inch. The other explanation was that repeated impacts — and he was talking about hundreds or even thousands — could still damage him over time, even if it wasn’t iron. It was something to think about.

These thoughts and the monotonous, repetitive task were soothing. He started to feel back in control, more rational. Reluctantly, he considered his current problem. It was monumental — a real doozy. What was he going to do? He’d only just got Aimi back and suddenly, she was taken from him again. What were Gabriel and Heaven playing at? Weren’t they his ally? Didn’t they give Aimi back to him to keep his favor? Perhaps they had and perhaps and then again perhaps not. He couldn’t let his father’s insidious words influence him though. Satan was known as the father of lies for a reason.

He thought about what had happened to the Grigori. God had punished them, banishing them from Heaven because of their conduct with human women. And they had been angels like Aimi. What the two of them had done was worse, in theory. Aimi hadn’t just loved a mortal human, she had loved a demon. Or half of one. In Heaven’s eyes, it probably made no difference. Sam knew that Heaven could not overlook such a trespass. It had to be punished even if it was just for form’s sake.