"And the voice of your brother's blood
cries out to Me from the ground."
— Genesis
4:10
Highgate Cemetery – Dusk
The wind threaded through crooked headstones and angel statues worn
smooth by rain. A dusky orange stretched across the horizon, bruised with
purple as the sun sank behind the black trees. The old cemetery breathed like a
living thing — moss-covered, cold-skinned, holding its dead too close.
A pair of boots crunched gravel near the chapel gates.
Luciel stood at the edge of a family crypt, one hand in his coat pocket,
the other tracing ash into a fading salt spiral. The grave beneath him bore no
name. Just a broken cross and a cracked marble plate that read:
"I Am Still Remembered."
He lit a cigarette.
Watched the smoke curl around the hollow statues like ghosts reluctant
to leave.
The evening air grew heavier, darker. No stars tonight.
Luciel didn't look up.
He already knew something was watching.
Then, the wind stilled.
Luciel stood sharply, butcher's knife drawn in one hand, the black gun
in the other.
And a voice, clear and ringing like the first chime of a great bell,
spoke from behind him:
"You never change, do you, Nephilim?"
Luciel froze.
His eyes narrowed — not from fear, but recognition.
He didn't turn right away. "Didn't think Heaven sent messengers without
burning a few bushes first."
He turned.
And there stood Gabriel.
Not in full radiance — not with the blinding wings and trumpet calls.
But in a dark gray coat, gold-copper hair pulled back, and eyes that seemed
both impossibly old and heartbreakingly young. He looked human enough to pass —
until you looked at his hands. They shimmered faintly with light not meant for
this world.
Luciel holstered his weapons slowly. "So. The Herald comes to whisper
warnings?"
Gabriel's smile was gentle, sad. "Warnings don't work with you. I've
come to offer you clarity."
Luciel stepped forward, voice dry. "That a euphemism for smiting these
days?"
"No," Gabriel said. "It's a mercy. While mercy still holds meaning."
Their eyes locked.
Two weapons of different makers. Both dulled by time.
Luciel's voice dropped. "How long have they been digging?"
Gabriel didn't answer at first.
Then: "Long enough for the dead to start remembering."
Luciel's fingers twitched against his ring. The karmic threads pulsed.
"Why now?" he asked. "Why this city?"
Gabriel's gaze drifted toward the basin of blood. "Because memory has
roots here. And someone is trying to water them."
Luciel frowned. "They're after something."
Gabriel nodded. "Not something. Someone."
Luciel's breath caught.
The threads throbbed behind his vision — all of them bending, slowly,
toward a single name he couldn't see yet.
Gabriel stepped closer, voice low.
"Tell me, Luciel… have you met her yet?"
Luciel's eyes sharpened. "Who?"
Gabriel didn't answer.
He simply offered a faint, sorrowful smile — the kind angels wear when
they know what's coming.
Then he was gone.
No wings. No lightshow. Just a soft distortion in the air, like memory
being rewritten.
Luciel stood alone in the chapel, surrounded by salt spirals and blood.
He didn't speak for a long moment.
Then he lit another cigarette, whispered to the shadows:
"Guess I'm not the only ghost sniffing around the past."
⸻
The Black Dog Hotel, 3:03 A.M.
The room was small, windowless, and smelled faintly of mildew and
lavender-scented bleach. The neon sign outside buzzed "VACANCY" in red
stutters. The kind of place where lost things went to rot quietly.
Luciel stood shirtless in the dim bathroom, water running red as he
washed blood and chalk dust from his hands. He caught his reflection in the
cracked mirror: tired eyes, cigarette tucked behind one ear, karmic sigils
faintly glowing across his collarbones.
He stepped into the room, tossed his coat across the foot of the bed,
and dropped his butcher's knife on the nightstand.
The moment his back hit the mattress—
He moved.
A whisper of sulfur.
A scream under the floorboards.
The air shivered — then cracked.
They came through the walls.
Three of them — twisted, feral shapes, cloaked in darkness but bearing
the stench of rot and brimstone. Not full demons — wretches, foot soldiers,
bred for assassination and chaos. Their limbs were wrong — jointed too many
times, eyes glowing like furnace coals.
Luciel rolled, grabbed the black pistol from beneath the pillow, and
fired. A shot like thunder — silver-forged, blessed in Jerusalem, straight
through the lead demon's face.
It didn't drop. It just screamed — bone splitting like wet wood — and
lunged.
Luciel whispered fast:
"Talisman of Uriel — Divine Light."
He flung a thin strip of parchment toward the ceiling.
It ignited mid-air,
burning with golden flame — flooding the room in brilliance. The demons
shrieked, clawing at their own skin, smoke pouring from their mouths.
He dove forward, sliding under the nearest one, butcher's knife gripped
tight.
He slashed low, cutting
through its heel tendons. It fell screaming — right onto a second
talisman slapped against the carpet.
"Talisman of Remiel — Watcher's Binding."
The parchment glowed blue
— then erupted in chains of sigil-wrapped light, locking the demon in place. It
screamed once more before disintegrating into salt and ash.
The second lunged.
Luciel let it — and when its jaws snapped down, he jammed the barrel of
his silver pistol into its throat and pulled the trigger.
It dropped.
Only one remained.
The last demon hissed, hesitating, eyes twitching toward the windowless
walls.
"Too late," Luciel murmured.
He drew one last talisman from the inside lining of his coat — a small
piece of black cloth marked in red with the seal of Sandalphon,
the angel of music and silence.
"Talisman of Sandalphon — Echo Reversal."
The moment the demon screamed, the sound bent,
twisted mid-air, and ripped backward
toward it like a reversed tape reel. The sound became a weapon — a force of
vibration and angelic resonance that struck the demon in its throat, chest, and
skull all at once.
It imploded in silence.
Luciel stood in the smoking aftermath, breath heavy, shirt
blood-streaked, eyes scanning for more.
Nothing.
He picked up the burning remains of the Sandalphon talisman between two
fingers.
"Guess I'm sleeping in the tub tonight."
He stepped over the ashes and walked to the nightstand, lighting another
cigarette with fingers that never quite stopped shaking.
Then, finally, he sat on the edge of the bed.
Fate Weave flickered behind his eyes.
And somewhere, far off in the web of karmic strands, a single thread tightened.