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jo-harrington · 10 months

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As Above, So Below - Prologue: Annunciation

Prequels: Heaven - Hell - Purgatory

Summary: Burdened by a centuries-long curse, you must follow the path fate has set for you and defeat evil that roams the Earth. You've left everything your heart desires behind to follow this path, and unfortunately, it still isn't enough. Fate has other plans for you, and for your love, Eddie Munson.

Word Count: 6.9k (nice)

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Fem!OC (Told in 2nd Person POV - you/your)

Warnings/Themes: Violence, Death/Suicide, Torture, Body Horror, Blood, Established Relationship, Romance, Religious Themes, Criticism of Religion/Catholicism, Fate vs. Free Will, Supernatural Encounters, Angst, Biblical and Other Literary/Media References

Note: Welcome to As Above, So Below, my take on Kas!Eddie fic and a story inspired by Van Helsing (2004). This story has 3 prequels linked above that I highly recommend you read as this story will reference them.

This story is going to be EXTREMELY HEAVY to write, so I will not be putting out a posting schedule. Chapters will get posted as they are completed, however long that takes.

Please keep in mind, although this is an OC fic, our Knight will not be named or have physical descriptions noted. She is of European/Italian-American descent on her father's side. She was raised Roman Catholic, but her beliefs are very loose and you will see why if you read. You are free to imagine her as you wish. But her cultural identity will be referenced in this story, at least at the beginning and the end.

This series will not be for the faint of heart, nor is it something that was written with a general audience in mind. Please check the above warnings and ask yourself if you are in the correct headspace to proceed. I am happy to answer any questions via PM or Ask.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

“Do not be afraid […] for you have found favor with God […] With God, nothing will be impossible.” — Luke 1:28-37

March 25th, 1986

In your short time on this earth, you had certainly seen a lot. Mysteries of the universe were made known to you, you'd encountered heroes and villains alike—monsters, even—and been to many places, far and wide.

But you could honestly say that you had never set foot in a lair before today.

And, truly, lair was the only word you could use to describe this place.

Vaulted ceilings, marble floors, velvet curtains. There was an elaborate organ set up on a platform and an ominous set of stairs that descended deeper into the ground at the far end of the room.

Eddie would say this looked like something out of a C-list horror movie or a James Bond film.

You were already deep enough as it was; you'd navigated through an abandoned old mansion and the Los Angeles County sewer system just to get here. To anyone else, it would have seemed as though it took some divine intervention to find this place at all, but the divine is what you knew best.

Archbishop Jinette had given you minimal information to stop the evil that was at play. A ritual to bring forth a River of Life that would flood the San Gabriel Valley and kill millions. More importantly, to Jinette at least, it would create a rift in the fabric of reality that would cause a surge of Heavenly Power to flow freely throughout the Earth.

The Church never cared about the details, didn't care if a sacrifice or two came about, as long as their power remained safe. So the Who's and How's and Why's were left up to you. Thankfully your adversary had been careless with the clues he left behind.

You couldn't tell if it was a coincidence or not. Easter was a few days away so a River of Life made sense but surely a ritual that mirrored the ten plagues of Egypt would be more fitting a little closer to Passover.

"Doctor," you called out, your voice echoed through the cavernous room. You gripped your weapon—a nightstick taken off the body of the police officer that had been swarmed by locusts—and ventured forwards. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help."

"You are not here to help," a stiff, croaking, disembodied voice reached your ears, filtered through some sort of unseen sound system. "You're here to stop me."

"Stop you from killing anymore innocent people," you explained.

"One remains," the voice replied. "Nine shall die. Nine eternities in doom."

"It will be a lot more than that if you don't stop whatever it is you have planned." You tried to reason with him, but you were met with silence. "Doctor! Doctor Phibes!"

Music suddenly blasted through the sound system and the room went dark, the only source of light came from whatever lay at the bottom of the stairs.

You knew the doctor wasn't done talking, he was just luring you deeper into his web to tip the playing field in his favor. You both knew there was no time to waste, so you walked into the trap willingly, with swift feet and a brave, but possibly foolish, heart.

Below the cavernous lair was an even bigger cavern still; a half-finished room with the same marble floors that suddenly gave way to rock formations and stalagmites and an underground river that offered a steady roar of rushing water. You didn't know where to rest your eyes, there were too many carefully crafted horrors laid out before you.

An altar with a body carefully placed atop it, a series of nine half-melted wax busts, a four-piece jazz band comprised of mechanical figures, a sterile area with a surgical table, and a ragged man who was elbow deep in another person's chest cavity.

A heavy hand clamped on your shoulder and you jumped to find the elusive Doctor Anton Phibes behind you. He was an imposing man who towered above you, his face sallow, waxy, and sagging. His red-rimmed eyes were bright with lively mischief, although his aura was heavy with the infernal stench of death.

You expected him to speak, but he simply tilted his head forward and urged you towards the altar. Not a question or suggestion, but an order.

You quickly weighed the possibility that if you killed him, struck him down, the ritual would simply end. Of course, then came the equally possible outcome that it would only hasten it.

Phibes pushed you the last bit of distance until you fell against the altar table itself and came face to face with the body resting there. You knew a dead body when you saw one, and generally you disagreed when people said they looked as if they were sleeping....this one however...she was peaceful in her eternal rest.

Face was full and serene, plump lips painted a succulent violet, with long, kohl-laden lashes that kissed her blush-dusted cheeks. Her skin was glowing and her long black hair had been fluffed and haloed around her. Her hands were folded below her chest and a lovely bejeweled ring glinted in the light of the candles that flickered from beside her on the altar.

The woman was preserved perfectly. Unnaturally.

"She's beautiful," you muttered.

"My wife," Phibes' voice croaked from beside you. You glanced over your shoulder to find that he had held a cord that ran from a porthole in the side of his neck to a phonograph-like speaker beside him. "My Rose. Taken from me far too soon, stolen from me."

"My God, please help my son," came an echoed mutter from the sterile area across the room. The surgeon had his bloodied hands folded in prayer as they rested on his patient's chest.

"Murdered!" Phibes voice grew louder and wrathful. "Don't cry upon God, Dr. Vesalius. He is on my side."

"And how do you know He's on your side," you questioned and Phibes' eyes cut back to you.

"He led me here," he explained. "Showed me the way in the quest for vengeance. Showed me the key to resurrection for my beloved and eternal life for us both. I plan to move Heaven and Earth to achieve it."

"Who are you to resurrect her?" you asked. "To bring about devastation for your wife? Is that His plan? The death of millions for the life of one?"

"He told me of you too, little Knight," he ignored your question. "It's how I knew to expect your arrival. He told me that you would appear to stop me."

"You're not only here to enact God's plan but to prophesize as well?"

"He said you would be the last step in bringing me back to my beloved Rose."

"So I must die too?"" You shrugged. "I'm the ninth?"

"No," he croaked. "Vesalius. Or rather, his wretched son. You must complete the ritual."

"I could kill you instead."

"Oh, but virtuous little Knight, I'm already dead." He released the cord and lifted his hands to his face. He peeled the waxy flesh and the tufts of hair on his head to reveal a twisted and burnt husk beneath. He was skeletal, barely a visage left; his nasal cavity shook with each labored breath and his exposed jaw clenched every so often.

Phibes inserted the cord into the porthole once again.

"I lost everything," he explained. "I lost my life, my purpose. And just when I thought it was enough, I lost my love too. I asked myself over and over: what was God's plan in taking it all away from me, in the blink of an eye? All at once? When I decided I would do anything—sacrifice anything—just to bring her back, He showed me the path and I took it. Wouldn't you? If you'd lost your love, what wouldn't you do, give, to get them back?"

A bitterness settled deep in your gut.

What did he know? What didn't he know? What was God's plan?

You'd asked yourself this many times over the course of your life, had become desensitized to the constant lack of an answer. Fate was an answer you couldn't stomach anymore.

So you had tried to run from it, only to collide with it instead. Fate cruelly led you to Eddie, and then away from him again...to protect him from the pain that was your damned life.

Yes, you would have done anything for him, even let him go. Love, for you, had to wait so that Fate wouldn't have been tempted to take him away.

Like it had for Phibes and Rose.

As you turned and stared down at Rose again...you felt for them...you truly did.

"Do you know resurrection takes more than just...some fancy ritual?" you asked Phibes. You could hear his feet shuffling closer to you. "It's unpredictable. The soul...the soul needs to be put back together, and by the time they ascend...or descend..."

"Rose was an angel," Phibes interjected and insisted. "My angel. My muse."

"...sometimes it's too late. How long has it been?"

"4 years."

"The ancient Egyptians had it right," you explained. "The Ka, the Ba...the Ahk...to put her back together after this long...would be impossible. Moving Heaven and Earth? More like breaking the walls between them. We could complete this ritual and resurrect her, but even still I don't think she would be whole ever again. She'd never really be your wife."

"And when would I have had to..."

"24 hours...48, maybe?" you offered.

Phibes' eyes slowly shut and he let out a painful hissing noise you could only attribute to a wail, or whatever equivalent his body could produce.

"I'm sorry," you muttered, hoping to provide some sort of balm on his wounded spirit. "But she's in Heaven...waiting for you."

You moved out of the way as Phibes collapsed on the altar and spoke in garbled tones to Rose's body, the cord pulled out of the porthole. Whatever confession in his mind was just for them.

You immediately ran across the cavern to Dr. Vesalius and his son. The surgeon sobbed his thanks to you as you began to work on the younger man. You didn't get the opportunity to heal others often—you were used more as an instrument of destruction than one of renewal—though the capability was always there. You dug deep into the celestial light within you and slowly his wounds knit back together.

Once Lem regained consciousness, Vesalius tugged at the restraints. Another spark of your power severed the chains and set the boy free and before long, father and son scampered up the steps and out of this pit of despair.

Vesalius had grabbed your hand before they had, though.

"Thank you," he said. "You're a hero."

No...you were nothing of the sort.

You walked back to the altar to check on Phibes, only to find his form still as it lay next to his wife.

"Doctor?" you shook him. "Doctor?"

You pushed him onto his side and a knife clattered to the marble floor; you balked at the needle in his arm and a slash in his wrist that lazily dripped...dripped...dripped...

Tubes ran out from the needle and embalming fluid rapidly replaced blood. It hadn't been that long for you to heal Lem had it? Had this always been Phibes' plan if the ritual failed? He was sure that you would be the one...the last step in reuniting him and Rose.

You touched his chest and closed your eyes.

Eight were dead but the first born son lived. The ritual was unsuccessful. The secrets of what really happened would stay buried deep below the city.

You could feel it...the ambient energy stirring around Phibes...slowly leaking from every pore of this mortal prison as his body died and he began his ascent. Anton and his beloved Rose would spend eternity together.

He was a good man, a loving man, led astray...and God was willing to forgive him and let him into Heaven.

You looked around the room again and felt sick.

For all the money that the Catholic Church had, the best they could afford when they sent their attack dog—you—to save the world for the umpteenth time was a crappy roadside motel off the 101.

You were used to uncomfortable plane and train rides, questionable motels and cots shoved into the corners of storage rooms in monasteries and missions when space could be spared.

This was your life though.

You had run from the safety of your Nonna's home when you turned 18 and then again from your little apartment in Hawkins a little over a year ago after Fate finally caught up to you. The next closest thing to...a base of operations, if you could call it that, was a tiny, unkempt bungalow house in a small suburb in Chicago that you barely set foot in because evil reared its ugly head a little too much.

Home was not a luxury you could afford, and even if it was...for you, it wouldn't have been a place, it would have been a person.

So you took comfort after a trying assignment in crappy gas station food and lumpy beds because it reminded you of the home you wish you didn't have to leave behind.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you exclaimed as you kicked the door to your room open and found an unexpected visitor sitting crosslegged on the bed you hadn't claimed for yourself. He held a stack of palm branches in his hand, a small pile of folded crosses placed neatly beside him.

"Watch the way you talk," he began. "Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth."

"Is it not a little...weird for you to quote the Bible?" you asked.

"I didn't write it," he replied simply.

"Well your boss did." You fell onto the unoccupied bed and sighed. You didn't know if it was just the adrenaline finally wearing off after a successful end to your task—if you could call it successful—or something else. Something within you felt like you were...trapped under water.

"He did not either," he dismissed and went back to folding crosses. "You're planning to visit the cemetery." It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

"Yes."

"When?"

"Before Easter, if Jinette doesn't have another errand for me to run." You fished a bottle of YooHoo from your bag of snacks and offered one to him. His lips quirked and in a blink, all of the palms were folded into neat crosses and he was on his feet.

"Good." He stared at you blankly, expectantly, and it made you feel claustrophobic.

His presence was greater than what was apparent to the naked eye, and in times like these where he was about to spring something on you, your soul could sense the swell of his being. It never got easier.

"I know this isn't a social call or a job well done for preventing the destruction of the Earth for the hundredth time," you begin and cover your face with your hands. "I'm tired, so if you could please just—"

"You say that a lot," he noted.

"What?"

"That you're tired."

"It happens when you're a human," you retort.

"Then you will do well to listen to me now," he says gravely. You peek through your fingers to look at him. "Something is coming. Something bigger than you've ever encountered before."

"Shit, really?" you asked. "When will I have to go?"

"You won't," he stated with an air of finality. "Or else, you will die."

Your hands fell from your face as your ears started to ring and your pulse pounded in your head.

You'd heard many warnings in the past, throughout your life, from him. Pain, suffering, duty. This was the first time he had ever warned you of your death.

Why now? After all of the other missions you'd been given, after facing Hell on Earth dozens of times...

You always knew it was a possibility...but a guarantee?

"W-when...why...when?"

"Soon."

That was helpful. You couldn't even prepare. It would be sprung on you. The next time you were called into action maybe? Or the time after that?

"So I just...I tell...tell Jinette o-or whatever Bishop that I can—” you stammered and he cut you off.

"This is not something that they will ask you to do," he explained. "This is something you will feel compelled to do. Strongly compelled. But you must heed my warning, young one. For you will perish and damnation will surely await you."

"I don't understand," you squeezed your eyes shut. "Isn't...isn't it already awaiting me? What makes this any different?"

"Because it will hurt. It will destroy you." What would...the task? Or the damnation? There was a rustle of wings and a roar of fire in your ears. "Do not be afraid."

They were words you had never heard from his mouth, but you knew he had said them before.

When you opened your eyes, he was gone, and you were left in the motel room alone.

"Gabriel?" You called for him, like you used to when you were a child and nightmares of monsters and demons plagued you. When you used to look for comfort when your father was off on a quest so similar to your own and your mother had no way to sooth you on her own. "Gabriel!"

March 27th, 1986

You knew from the moment you woke up that morning, something was off. As though you were operating on a different frequency than usual. You felt simultaneously sluggish and as though lightning surged just beneath your skin.

It didn't happen often, if ever really, which is what caused some alarm.

Perhaps when you were much younger and your abilities began to manifest. The holy light within you couldn't be contained by such a young body. It had led to massacres and miracles alike.

You remembered seeing Empire Strikes Back for the first time and feeling a kinship with Luke. "Luminous beings are we, not this cruel matter," a phrase you muttered to yourself often, taking comfort in the Light, when your future could only possibly be shrouded in Darkness.

It had taken years to control it, and you were well past grown now, but somehow you couldn't just shake the feeling that plagued you today. It was as though your fight or flight response was primed and ready, despite no danger in sight.

If Archbishop Jinette was any sort of reliable figure in your life, you would have confided in him. Looked to him for guidance. For help. Instead, you'd sat in his office with him for the past hour as he debriefed and lectured you—reamed you—for your handling of Phibes and the ritual.

"It was, quite frankly, irresponsible," he said for the tenth time. His cassock swished around him as he paced before you. "The number of innocent lives that could have been lost."

You rolled your eyes, fully of the belief that he wouldn't have given a shit about any other lives lost at all. You used to give Jinette—give all of your handlers—the benefit of the doubt, used to believe that they cared about innocents. Maybe they had once, but now it was twisted by the power their positions afforded them.

Once they donned a pectoral cross, guilt no longer affected them. It was only a tool used to bend others to their will.

"How can we rely on you to your duty fully if you take the time to negotiate?" He asked. "If you try to reason with agents of evil?"

"Phibes was not evil. He mentioned that God led him to this path," you interjected, and Jinette stopped in his tracks. "That He led Phibes to the ritual in order to reunite him with his wife."

"They would be reunited in Heaven," Jinette dismissed with a hiss. He turned his judgmental, wet eyes to you and glared pointedly. You knew exactly the warning he was trying to convey and you straightened your shoulders.

"It must have been the devil in disguise. Trickery. You, more than anyone, should know how easy it is to fall for temptation." The burn of his stare became righteous, but it was not what caused you to turn your eyes downward.

Was temptation really so bad if it brought you peace? If it made you feel more whole than you'd ever felt in your life? A year with Eddie and you felt sure in your skin, safe, loved. Was that bad? Did that make you evil?

You had let your pain get the best of you in the moment, but after a few days of clarity...Phibes had been right...

What you wouldn't give right now to be back there? To be anywhere but here?

It was regret.

There was a sharp knock at the office door and Jinette sighed and looked at the clock.

"It is time for Mass," he announced. "Think on your sins and the Lord may offer his forgiveness."

After he vacated the office, you forced yourself to your feet, trudged through the rectory, and into the cathedral where you slid into one of the last pews. You would hardly consider yourself a devout attendee—certainly not as you disassociated through the psalms and readings—but you knew if you missed Mass after your supposed sins, there would be Hell to pay.

"...Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world. He loved his own in this world and he loved them til the end..."

You'd heard this Mass before, the Mass of the Lord's Supper. Not your typical Sunday service, so you couldn’t recite it verbatim, but familiar enough. Your Nonna dragged you to as many masses as she could, in every language offered at the local parish, hoping to spare you of this fate in a way she couldn't spare her son or her husband.

Over the years, her hand shrunk in yours. What was once a healthy, strong hand that guided you became small and weak, shriveled and brittle. Until one day, there was no hand left to hold at all.

"...I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

You spotted a group of women further up the aisle. Novitiates, probably. You could sense a tenuous peace about them. One could tell she was being watched and she turned to look at you. She was young, maybe around your age, and her eyes were wide and curious.

You tried to smile at her, encourage her—it was all you could do not to scream, actually—but she rolled her eyes a little and turned back around.

The sound of rustling bodies washed through the Cathedral like a wave as everyone got to their feet—

"Pray my Sisters and Brothers that my sacrifice and yours should be acceptable to God, The Father, Almighty."

—and as you rose, your stomach dropped.

Your body burned.

It felt like a thousand cuts were made along your skin. You gasped for breath but could find no air. Your bones cracked and crunched beneath an invisible weight, and the pressure felt as though your sides would split and your insides spill out through phantom wounds.

You fell to your knees and grasped the back of the pew in front of you. You tried to make a noise, to call for help, but nothing could overcome the rumble of the congregants.

"Lord have Mercy. Christ have Mercy."

The polished wood splintered under your grip before the world went dark.

When your eyes opened, you were met with a muted haze. A dark sky, with clouds that shifted in tandem with the howling wind, sizzled with infernal lightning over and over.

You laid on cold, damp ground. You could feel it seep through your clothes and leech into your skin, deeper and deeper, until it settled uneasily in your bones. An acrimonious rigor that would have overtaken you had you allowed it.

Something deep within your subconscious wanted you to.

You needed to gain control quickly.

Your fingers dug into the thick, unforgiving clay of the earth beneath you, and you pushed yourself upright, only to be met with a chilling sight that made your heart stop in your chest.

His was body was aligned with yours, the soles of his feet just inches away from brushing against you. His skin was pale and smeared with gore, and his ripped clothes belied the true extent of his injuries. He choked on his blood with fit of coughs, too wet for a death rattle. He was practically drowning in his own life's essence.

Eddie Munson lay dying in front of you, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Your mind raced. Was this a vision? A prophecy? The gift of sight had never been one you could tap into before. Why now?

Was this a warning? If you didn't stay on the path He had in store for you, didn't listen to those He tasked to guide you, would this be your future?

You could hear a voice—an ominous, venomous voice—at the very corners of your mind, speaking to Eddie.

They left you behind. Left you to this fate. Left you to me.

What did that mean? You didn't leave Eddie. Not really. A part of you would always be with him.

You struggled and scrambled to get to his side. Your hands were unsure of where to touch him, how you could let him know you would be there without bringing him more pain.

He looked up at you with unseeing eyes.

"Eddie, please, please," you begged. "I'm here, I'm here with you."

His eyes wrenched shut and he cried out, mouth opening in a feral, heartbreaking howl.

To do with you what I please.

You knew it wasn't the Devil's voice. He wouldn't taunt and tease this way. It had to be some other malevolent creature who tried to get an innocent soul in its' clutches.

You closed your eyes and concentrated, tried to pour as much of your light into Eddie as you could, but despite his body being torn open the way that it was, he simply would not receive the help you could give.

You knew you couldn't leave him.

But Eddie was already gone.

And do to you, I shall...

When you came to, mass was over.

The closing hymn, heavy with organ song, rang throughout the cathedral as the procession made its way back up the aisle. You watched as Jinette glared at your prone form, laying on the pew, as he passed, but a light voice offered a distraction.

"Slowly, there you go, wake up," it said. A small, strong hand shook your shoulder then carefully tapped your face. "Sister Margaret went to call an ambulance."

"No," you groaned. "No ambulance. I'm fine." You immediately tried to push yourself upright, but the hands held you down to the pew.

"Don't get up, I don't know if you hit your head."

"I don't think so," you muttered. The pain that had wracked your body was nothing but a memory, a tell tale static that surrounded you, much the same way it would if your foot fell asleep.

You finally got your wits about you and found that your savior was the young woman you spotted earlier. Hell, if she didn't already think you were some creep off the street who'd wandered into the cathedral before...

"You're a part of the Order, right?" she asked disarmingly and pointed down to the small medallion that must have escaped from the confines of your shirt when you collapsed. Your hand immediately went to it and tucked it back into its hiding place; it was a reminder...a shackle. "A Knight of the Holy Order. Mother Superior said to steer clear of you if we ever crossed paths with you. She didn't say much else.

"I never thought I'd see one...just...pass out during mass."

"We're normal people," you sighed. "Not...Gods."

"Saints?"

"Sinners," you clarified and she laughed lightly.

"Yeah, me too" she agreed then frowned again. "Do you feel well enough to sit up?”

"I'm fine, just...tired," you explained and pushed her away from you. "I need to get back..."

"Back home?" she asked eagerly.

"Back to my motel." You got to your feet as the organ music stopped and the last few stragglers left. "Thank you for staying with me..."

"Oh...uh...Mary...Victoria..." she provided her name and you must have made a face. "I'm still working on it. I know I have time. But Victoria was my grandmother's name...so..."

"Well, I think it's a lovely name then," you offered a tight smile and your own name, then shuffled past her to make your escape. "See you around Mary Victoria."

March 30th, 1986

In the days following Holy Thursday, something was still off.

You had woken up the following morning with a sore jaw and a hoarse voice. Sometime later that day, you'd started crying blood. Only for an hour, but there was no controlling it. You were overwhelmed with emotion.

Hopelessness was the most prominent of them all.

You hadn't blacked out again, but something lingered beneath the surface. Given Gabriel's warning, you figured it would be best to lay low.

You knew it was a futile attempt to try and summon Gabriel again; he appeared when he felt like it or when it would best serve God.

The only time you’d ever desperately called for him, as fire almost consumed you and damp earth threatened to bury you alive, it had fallen on indifferent ears. It was then that you realized stories about Guardian Angels were just that: stories.

So instead, you went about your day as you typically would. Unless you were summoned somewhere by the clergy, they generally left you to your own devices. Especially on Holy Days like today.

Your plans for Easter Sunday specifically consisted of visiting the local cemeteries—

You would miss mass at the Cathedral today. Running your hands along the marble headstones and brass nameplates of those long-since-passed-and-forgotten and offering them a thought or two brought you more peace than any prayer or blessing would.

—and getting absolutely hammered.

You weren't a big drinker, really, since you typically were expected to have your wits about you. But it was a Holiday and you were far from home and alone. You made a blind choice at the liquor store on your way back from the cemetery, and it would numb you either to the point of blacking out, or make you give into your temptations to call Eddie.

You'd been thinking about him more lately.

Well...that was a lie, you always thought about him. Thought about calling, about visiting. You knew you couldn't trust yourself, so you did what you could to keep him safe. You skipped the letter M in the phonebook on the off chance he had finally made it out of Hawkins to follow his dream. Made it a point not to drive through Indiana if you could help it.

Maybe you didn't want to help it anymore. Maybe you should...maybe not visit...just call him.

Someone had left behind an honest-to-God glass in your motel room, and after a thorough cleaning, you poured yourself a helping of the nondescript amber liquid. It burned on the way down. Maybe it was a warning about the bad decisions that lay ahead of you.

You'd been tempted to call for his birthday last year, for Christmas...you sent a card. No return address, no name. Just a heart. You hoped he knew it was you because he always said your hearts looked like butts.

Another glass and you stood in front of the nightstand. You stared, transfixed, at the dingy rotary phone as you sipped your drink, savoring the burn this time. As if it had a mind of its own, your hand moved to grab the handset, but it just hovered for a moment.

How would Eddie answer? What would you say? What if it wasn't Eddie at all, what if it was Wayne? What if Wayne told you...that Eddie was spending Easter at a girlfriend's house? What would you do? What could you do? You practically forced him to say that he would wait for you...could you really blame him if he didn't?

Next to the phone was the remote for the television.

You hadn't really left him much hope after all.

You grabbed the remote and mindlessly aimed it behind you to turn the small set on. As it came to life and started bleating a commercial for some local restaurant, you momentarily prayed that it wasn't one of those Biblical epics, like The Greatest Story Ever Told.

Instead, the commercial ended and, as you poured yourself one more glass, the sterile voice of a newscaster reached your ears.

"...currently 68 degrees at the Los Angeles Civic Center. Lovely weather for Easter Sunday. For our top story, we bring you live to our own Robert Gilroy in Roane County, Indiana. Rob?"

You turned in shock and stared, dumbfounded, as the screen flashed to show a severe man in a brown suit. He frowned at the camera while a convoy of cars inched by behind him. You couldn't help but notice plumes of black smoke in the distance and you hoped that it was just a defect with the cheap motel tv.

"Thank you Laura. It's been less than 48 hours since a 7.4 Magnitude Earthquake rocked the quaint town of Hawkins, 80 miles outside of Indianapolis in an event that seismologists are calling a natural disaster of near unprecedented scale."

A wash of colorful stripes rolled across the screen before it showed b-roll of people running and crying, of a team of firefighters desperately trying to extinguish the burning Hawkins Public Library building, that was half rubble anyway, a man in camo bandaging a little girl's leg.

"The death toll now stands at 22, but with hundreds more filling Roane County hospitals and many more still missing, officials expect those numbers to rise."

You immediately dropped your glass and turned back to the phone, fumbling with the rotary dial to input a number you knew by heart.

"Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up." You listened as the ringing went on and on and on. You hung up and dialed again, and you desperately hoped you just got the number wrong. You screamed as it didn't even ring, but blared a taunting busy signal. "No! No! Who are you talking to? Pick up!"

"This is only the latest tragedy to befall this once safe town. Most recently, a string of high school students were killed in a series of ritualistic murders which have been linked to a local Satanic cult known as Hellfire."

Your blood ran cold at the word Hellfire and you refused to look at the television.

There was more b-roll, some chitter chatter saying how the Hellfire boys were always up to no good. How some upstanding students were killed, taken too soon.

Your breathing got heavy, enough that you started becoming lightheaded. The alcohol didn't help at all.

You tried to savor the last few minutes of ignorance as you wrenched your eyes shut, because if you didn't see it. It wasn't real.

"Eddie Munson, the leader of this cult and prime suspect in the murders..."

But you knew. You knew that this was the moment. You knew that this was what Gabriel meant. If you went to Hawkins, if you had to fight for Eddie, you would do it in a heartbeat and you wouldn't stop until you died.

"...has been missing since the earthquake..."

Those seconds that the reporter needed to take his dramatic breath were an eternity, one you would savor. Because it was easier to pretend that the only thing you had to do was just stop yourself from going to Hawkins, stop yourself from being selfish and wrathful, to punish those who would accuse the sweet, dumb, foolish, clumsy, trustworthy innocent love of your life.

It was just easier if you still lived in a world where you didn't have to hear what you knew was coming next.

"...and is presumed dead."

People often mistook the power of heaven to be one of peace, of hope, of new beginnings. And it could be. It usually was. But they forgot that the beginning of one thing was also the end of something else.

Divine retribution, a burning smiting wrath, the like of which had leveled Sodom and Gomorrah, flowed freely with your grief. It was illogical and irrational and inexplicable to any mortal, including you.

You remembered screaming.

Remembered the pain of the bones in your fingers splintering as you dug them into your skull. Your nails cut deep into the flesh of your scalp as you peeled the hair and flesh, as you opened the top of yourself to release the pressure that had suddenly and violently built up in your core.

Glass disintegrated into sand, furniture turned to ash, even the frame of the building began to buckle.

But there was a voice that called your name. A soft, sobbing voice that pulled you back from the edge of whatever precipice you subconsciously teetered on.

"It’ll be ok. I’m here."

You could practically feel arms slither around you, the phantom weight of them pressed into your skin. Dextrous fingers wove together with yours, soothed them, healed them. They caressed your wounds and the broken flesh stitched itself back together.

A cool breath grazed your ear and the screams that ripped from you began to subside. It shushed you and said unascertainable words of comfort as your fury subsided into woe.

"Close your eyes. It'll all go away if you don't look."

"But you're gone," you wept. The tears rolled down your cheeks and over your lips. You sniffled and licked at them; blood, again. "Why?"

There was no answer. You were about to open your eyes, eager to see and not just to feel, but the fingers glided over your face again. Over your cheeks to wipe the blood from them, over your lips to play with the softness of them, then over your eyelids.

Places he liked to kiss...places you wished you could feel lips instead...wished you could know that he was there.

"I'll never really leave. Even if you can't see me. I’m here.”

Every fiber of your being wanted to go, would have walked to Hawkins, run til your feet bled, to find his body. To clear his name. To say goodbye.

To die a most miserable death. Like Phibes and his Rose.

You would leave this world, happily, if it meant you could be by his side. But there was no guarantee. You could toil for a lifetime and hope to join him, and still be denied access to Heaven.

“I’ll be waiting for you. As long as it takes. I’ll be here.”

You heard the lovely whisper of your name, over and over as you sunk to your knees and you curled in on yourself. Every second it faded into the depths of your mind, and you couldn't help but crack your eyes open.

Lightning struck, the firefighters would explain to you later, on a clear day. The building went ablaze and was destroyed, but all the rooms were empty except for yours. The paramedics said it was a miracle you weren't injured. They touched you lightly, almost reverently.

"Hallelujah."

You were alone again.

It was a disquieting procession.

The creatures moved in a way that seemed unnatural, unfamiliar to them. Their feet shuffled across the barren waste and they dragged a hulking beast behind them. It was a large and ominous and twitching thing, and although the formality of this event it felt like a funeral, you knew that you were witnessing a birth instead.

The wings conjured images of Beelzebub...but Asmodeus felt like a more fitting comparison given how familiar you were with the inner workings of its mind.

Thinking of him as Beast or It was wrong. It felt sinewy and astringent. A bite you were reluctant to take.

You bore witness for three days.

It took two to break him, but images would haunt your mind and your heart for eternity. You tried to protect him, tried to undo what was done. You offered him comfort and a place to hide when he desperately needed a break he would never get.

How he had survived it, you would never know? But he was always stronger than you; if not in body, then in spirit. You never lasted long before you were forced to pull him back in. If you had remained, given him a longer rest, you knew you would have broken before he did.

He finally begged for mercy. He finally relinquished his soul.

You would stay beside him. No matter what they did to him. No matter what he did to himself.

They dragged him to their pit to put him back together again, and you forced yourself to watch, to listen, and to pray that every addition and alteration would stick. That he wouldn't have gone through the torture only to perish so close to the end of it.

You wondered where prayers went when they were made in Hell. Did they reach God's ears? Were they intercepted by Lucifer and his court? Or did they just...float in the void of oblivion?

He muttered words, you'd even heard your name escape his lips several times before they filled his mouth with too many teeth to speak.

By the end of the third day, he rose again.

And you sobbed in relief because somehow the sight of him complete, the sight of him rising and blinking and roaring brought you more comfort and warmth and joy than you had ever felt in your cursed existence.

It didn't matter how grim of vision he was. There was a beauty in that too. The beauty existed...simply because he still did.

Whatever they did to him, he was alive, and he would always be your Eddie. And that meant you had a chance to save him.

“When you loved someone, you put their needs before your own. No matter how inconceivable those needs were; no matter how fucked up; no matter how much it made you feel like you were ripping yourself into pieces.” — Jodi Picoult, The Pact

Special thanks to @big-ope-vibes and @pastel-pillows who can read even though she says she does not. And @fracturedarkness who I am determined to destroy/delight with this story.

Next Chapter: Illumination

#vampire eddie munson #vampire!eddie #kas!eddie #Eddie Munson fic #tw: death #tw: violence #tw: religious themes #stranger things fic #tw: suicide

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