Prolog: Bullshit
One soul.
Azrael’s third in command gave the order. Azrael himself approved it.
Nothing three rookies couldn’t handle. His words exactly. Simple retrieve and shepherd, nothing more.
But August had to ask questions. He had to make his team wait on that bridge.
He just wanted to do the right thing.
How would he have known kindness would be their downfall?
How was he to know they would come?
Now, he plummeted toward the earth.
Wings severed, harsh winds burned the gouges where they once were. Decatur Street was closing in quickly as his strength was fleeting.
Maybe it was delerimun, or the contemplation of a second death, but he swore he heard her in the wind. Her words—a dreadful kind of comfort in his treacherous descent as he slipped back decades in his mind.
August 29th 2005. The city’s sanity had receded with the floodwaters. Food, shelter, and clean drinking water were now treasures. Survival was the only motive. How could it not be, when everything that once was drowned in God’s cold grip? Authority was spread far and thin, and anarchy became a criminal’s amnesty—including the one that put her here. But that is when society collapses, priorities wane. Human beings became numbers in spray paint. All for the sake of the community.
Slowly, New Orleans healed, and people lived.
But never the same. Society had fractured, and humanity for men was scarce.
August could see it that sweltering afternoon in late September.
Locked to the shadows behind the columns, August watched them funnel in and seat themselves. He recognised a few faded faces in the congregation that day: distant relatives from the north, a couple of acquaintances from school, and the occasional employed sycophants wanting to get in the family’s good graces. All spread far and few between, sat amongst meldyq pews, shifting and groaning, wiping the sweat from their eyes while pulling at their formal black attire.
An hour of their lives consumed in God’s holy furnace—an inconvenience they sacrificed for the
Facade. But he could see right through them.
They didn’t care. He was invisible to them, just as he was now. Only an hour would rot into oblivion. Then, the ruse was over. But, they would get to live the lives they once had before the hurricane.
If only she had that privilege.
“Pass through your earthly vessel and into our father’s elysian oasis. God waits for you. He will wipe your tears. No more crying. No more torment. No more pain.”
The hollow promise melded to her chapped, ruby lips.
Her manicured nails chipped as she dug divots in the polished wood, cracking under the pressure while her perfect bun fell as a veil over her face.
Even now, as the wind whipped past his ears, he could remember her gentle voice, soft and soothing as a lullaby.
She did everything by God’s word. She had prayed for his grace every night. And this is how he repaid her?!
Her world, Augustine Louis III, was in an oak coffin just before he could be an adult.
August’s muscles tensed as he watched, locked to the shadows behind the columns. Lips trapped between his teeth and eyes holding back tears as he witnessed her downfall. Every bit and perfect she was, now crumbled—clutched tightly in an embrace she couldn’t bear to break. Her lips stuck in a trance as HIS empty prayer passed quietly through her lips. The only sanity left: the empty hope her baby would be safe in his hand.
Though her words were lost to the dead, he could still hear her voice.
Such bitter-sweet memories.
His last bit of peace he could hold in his thoughts. Shame the comfort couldn’t cushion the impact before his head smacked into the concrete.
Back to his brutal reality with a bone-chilling crunch.
The area spun. The street was where the sky should be. The wandering souls scattered into the stars where the alleys should be. Jackson Square entrance felt like heaven’s gate as his half-blurred vision stared up at it.
August felt the contents of his stomach rise to his throat.
Bone fragments tore through his muscles. He could hear the deep squelch of tissue and sinew shredding as he struggled to sit up. One hand held his weight, pressed into cold wrought iron. His back was burning as he slouched over his knees. His vision, half-blurred, caught the moment their assailant pinned his partners to the street in front of him.
Their gurgled pleas were snuffed out as the slim shadow crushed their windpipes beneath its boots.
“Temptation, revolution.” August saw the glint in the creature’s eyes, elated with glee as it sang, complacent merriment as it fanned three pairs of severed wings in their faces. “Souls cower from damnation!”Its prey’s despondent humiliation fueled a deep passion
August stifled a groan as his back muscles flexed instinctively. Flight for survival never came. Only anguish as the two large gouged holes constricted.
The lunatics’ insufferable laughter bellowed through the night.
“Step by step,” the manic voice vivicated—biosterous bliss resonating as sickening crunches mingled with his song. “The righteous fall.”
The glint shone like emeralds as their pleas turned to sobs. Sickening pops echoed from the duo’s throats.
August surveyed the open street.
The street was still—not a soul in sight—as the malevolent Lord play continued.
No rescue, no haven. No one dared to cross moonlight’s threshold at the risk of becoming the Lord’s next plaything.
But August could not blame them. He and his friends were God’s ground forces. Spirits shepherding souls toward paradise, not to torment.
If he and his comrades couldn’t hold against Hell’s spawn, how could he ask for the ones he was supposed to protect for help? Especially against them!
Though his eye was partially blinded, he caught sight of the trees behind the masticist. Under their branches, he witnessed the shadows twist and bend. Drift in form, they splayed, morphed to a crawl before two tenebrous beings emerged. Their eyes were lucent as they huddled around their commander’s game. Two new voices joined its chant. “Sing their prayers and watch them fall.”
August adjusted himself the best he could, drowning out the taunts with his mother’s voice as he searched the immediate area. He couldn’t watch. He had to fight. He couldn’t let his friends suffer. He had to make her prayers mean something.
He had to find his scythe.
His blurred vision strained as the glass shards from his glasses shredded his cornea. They darted through the shadows. Pieces of cement beaded themselves into his palm as he smacked the sidewalk. One arm over the other, he crawled into Jaskcon Square, desperate as he heard their vicious choir drifting closer.
“Lamb of God, gurgles blood. Won’t be long till the sins have won!”
The pleas of his comrades fell to muffled drones as her prayer pounded in his heart. Each word pushed him forward, inch by inch, until he felt sleek metal brush his fingertips.
His scythe!
His broken knuckles cracked—shattered pops- as he curled his fingers. His body screamed—adrenaline pumped. Just a little further. Salvation at his fingertips.
Then another boot came down.
It struck his hand cleanly.
The impact pinned August’s palm against the ground, forcing metal into flesh as the blade bit through skin. Silver streaked across the edge as he cried out and tried to wrench free.
It didn’t move.
The pressure held him in place.
The boot shifted.
Weight ground down through muscle, forcing his hand flatter against the street. Bone began to resist the pressure beneath it—sharp, inevitable.
August strained again.
Nothing.
The boot twisted harder, grinding him into the pavement until the metal edge locked against bone.
If there were spirits left wandering, hearing his whale split the quiet night would have sent them into the deepest umbra.
“Bossard!” The figures accosted the shadow like a knife through flesh. “If you value your tongue, I suggest you bite it before I rip it from its stock.”
Pain racked through August’s soul as the world began to slow. Her words echoed louder as he felt his being rise. His hair, matted in blood, was held tight in his adversary’s grip. Its razor talons dug into his scalp, and August dangled, eye to eye with it.
His words were trapped. His lungs were scared to breathe as new memories stared back at him. August hadn’t seen those eyes since that night.
When the addict gouged the knife across his throat.
Incarnate infernos studied his appearance. A faint clank of metal giggled in the air. He couldn’t see, but August could feel the worn metal tip graze his cheek. A faint stench of oxidized blood made his stomach churn. A slight sting added insult to injury while the blade dug into his cheek.
Words that were meant to be confident came as pitiful cries. “Please. I—I just wanted to help her cross over.”
“Not much of a catch.” Another phantom purred. Amethyst hues pierced the darkness. Wisps of vapour danced as it stood aside. “Not sure what message you’ll send with invalids such as these.”
“Hey!” the manic protested. “You try working with Levi and see—”
“Enough!”
Hush fell. The red never left August’s gaze as the demon tilted its grip. Though its features were concealed under shadows, August could feel its wicked smile, its hungry malice burning in his
soul.
“These lambs will do nicely. Especially this little ram.” Laughter echoed in the square as the mighty dropped the broken. August’s body screamed, soul broken, as he stared back up at the stars.
A world of paradise. The elysian oasis. August’s mind went numb, his body colder than it was the day his soul left the veil.
She tried so hard, and he had tried so hard to find his paradise—only for it to be snatched. His will was broken, dangling in a monster’s grip and staring his final moment in the face.
God. God wasn’t here to wipe his tears. He had shed more tears. Pain was all he could feel.
Her prayer was dead, just like him. And now, his reality was in the hands of the damned.
Harsh pants fanned his cheeks as the being drew him close. Decay and brimstone merged with the bitter silver scent. “Do you have any last words, lamb?”
His comrades’ cries were a distant noise. The wind was placid, and everything stopped as she came to mind.
Her warmth. Her laugh. Her gentle touch.
A single tear escaped August’s eye as her warmth wrapped around his feet, meandering up his torso like congealed sludge. Her prayer played like a broken record. His paradise was a pleasant afterthought as the world sank into darkness.
“I’m sorry, Mom,“—his final thought.
While his final breath echoed: “Bullshit. All of it—bullshit.”
