Hellbound Twins

Chapter 13 — The Weight of Secrets.

"Azazel doesn't want to kill me. He needs my consent .Now I know why."

I can't sleep.

It's been two hours since I've been staring at the ceiling of the room Raziel assigned us — a bedroom at the back of the house, three mattresses on the floor, symbols traced on every wall in red ink. Dad is snoring softly to my left. Elijah is motionless to my right, breathing slow and steady.

Me — I can't sleep.

Raziel's revelation keeps looping in my head. *They will be the choice. Between war and the end.* I don't understand exactly what that means and that's what bothers me. Things I don't understand always bother me more than things I do.

I get up without making a sound.

I grab my jacket. I leave the room.

---

The house is silent.

The candles are out. The map on the central table is barely visible in the dark — the seven red points glowing faintly with a light that doesn't come from any candle. As if the seals themselves are emitting something.

I stop in front of the map.

Two points are different from the others. Darker. Almost black.

The two seals already broken.

I look away.

The front door is ajar. A thread of cold air slips through the gap. I walk over to close it — that's when I see someone outside.

I step back and grab my shotgun.

---

It's Raziel. Of course it is.

He's in the clearing, his back to me, facing the forest. No jacket despite the cold — just his white shirt, his white hair and beard against the dark. In front of him on the ground — a circle drawn in red chalk. Symbols inside it. Candles at the four cardinal points, their flames not moving despite the wind.

He's speaking. Murmuring — like incantations.

Not out loud — more of a continuous whisper, a language I don't recognize. Not Latin. Not Hebrew. Something even older. The words have a different texture, like every syllable carries weight.

I stay still at the edge of the clearing.

I don't know how long I watch him. Five minutes. Maybe ten.

Then without turning around he says:

"You couldn't sleep or you wanted to keep an eye on me?"

I step into the clearing.

"Both."

He finally turns. His grey eyes in the dark — glowing faintly. Not like demon eyes. Different. Like someone who has seen so much that ordinary light isn't enough anymore to illuminate what he's looking at.

"Sit down," he says.

I sit on a stump at the edge of the circle.

"What's this ritual?"

"Listening." He looks at the forest. "I listen to what's happening far from here. The seals. Azazel's movements." A pause. "And something else tonight."

"What else?"

He looks at me for a long moment without answering. Like he's weighing something. Like he's deciding how far to go.

"There are things I didn't say in front of your father," he says finally.

I feel something tighten in my chest.

"Why?"

"Because Marcus Voss is a field man. Brave. Determined. But certain truths — told too soon — will trigger his hunter instincts." He crouches in front of me. His grey eyes fixed on mine. "And his hunter instincts in this particular case could destroy everything."

The wind stops.

"Tell me," I say.

---

Raziel stands back up. He walks slowly around the circle.

"The prophecy speaks of two brothers," he begins. "That's true. But it's not symmetrical." He stops. "One of the two brothers is destined to be at the center of the final seal. Not just present — at the center."

"What does at the center mean?"

"It means the final seal cannot open without him." His voice is flat. Matter-of-fact. As if the words he's saying aren't turning my world upside down. "Lucifer needs a vessel to return to this world. A human body. Strong enough. Resistant enough to contain his grace — what he is." He looks at me. "The prophecy is precise on this point, Arthur."

Silence. Three seconds.

"It's me," I say.

Not a question.

Raziel nods slowly.

"It's you."

I look at the ground. The red chalk circle. The motionless candle flames.

"Azazel knows."

"Yes."

"That's why he let us go in the forest." I pause. "He ordered his demons not to hurt me. Even his princes of hell. I'm sure you encountered one of them during your father's rescue."

"He doesn't need to kill you Arthur. He needs you alive." Raziel crouches in front of me again. "He's waiting for the five remaining seals to be broken. When the last one is ready — he'll come for you."

A pause.

"And he needs your consent."

I look up at him.

"And if I refuse?"

Raziel is quiet for a moment.

"No one has ever refused something written in a prophecy," he says. "Not because it's impossible. But because the price is always..." He searches for the words. "Considerable."

I stand up.

I look at the black forest around the clearing. The same trees we'd crossed hours earlier. The same silence.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because you have the right to know." He stands. "And because what comes next is going to move fast. Very fast." A pause. "I wanted you to have time to carry this before everything accelerates."

I nod slowly.

We stay silent in the clearing.

Then Raziel lifts his head sharply.

His eyes shift — the light inside them intensifies. He looks east. Toward the tree line.

"Go back inside," he says. His voice has changed. Lower. More urgent.

"What's happening—"

"GO INSIDE."

They're here.

---

I run back in.

"Dad. Elijah." I shake them both at the same time. "Up. Now."

Dad is on his feet before I've even finished the sentence. Thirty years of hunting — his body reacts before his brain.

"What's happening?"

"I don't know. Raziel said they're here."

The first shriek comes from outside.

Not human.

Dad grabs his rifle. Elijah grabs his bag. I draw my gun.

We move into the hallway.

Through the living room window I can see the clearing.

And I understand.

One of the symbols on the ground — one of Raziel's defensive lines — is broken. Not erased. Physically broken, like someone walked across it from the inside. From within the clearing. Not from the forest.

From inside the perimeter.

"Someone destroyed a line from the inside," says Elijah.

"One of the civilians," says Dad. His voice is ice cold. "One of the civilians we saved."

We look at each other.

We had brought back a Trojan horse.

Through the breach in the line — the first creatures pour into the clearing. Fast silhouettes in the dark. Black eyes. Yellow eyes. Too many to count.

Raziel stands in the middle of the clearing.

He raises both hands.

And something happens that I've never seen in my life.

Light pours out of him. Not from his hands — from everywhere. White and cold and ancient. The creatures closing in recoil shrieking. Some burn. Others explode into black smoke.

But there are too many.

For every creature that falls — two more come through the breach.

Raziel turns toward the house. Toward us.

His eyes — completely white now.

"THE VEHICLES. GO."

"We can't leave you old friend," Dad starts.

"GO MARCUS." His voice rolls like thunder. "That's not a request."

He turns back toward the creatures.

The light around him intensifies again.

Dad grabs my arm. Elijah is already at the back door.

I look at Raziel one last time.

Two hundred years of life. Two hundred years of knowledge. Two hundred years of solitary battles in these mountains.

He doesn't smile. He doesn't complain.

He just does what he's always done.

We go out the back.

---

We run to the vehicles.

Behind us — the shrieking continues. The white light pulses in the sky above the trees like a silent storm. Then an explosion. Then silence.

Total silence.

I don't look back.

We get in the vehicles. We start the engines. We drive.

Dad stares straight ahead. Hands tight on the wheel.

"I'll miss you old friend," he says quietly.

Elijah says nothing.

I watch the trees blur past in the dark through the window.

I'm carrying something now. Something no one else in this truck knows. Something heavy and cold that settled in my chest in that clearing and isn't going anywhere.

Azazel doesn't want to kill me.

He's waiting to use me. And he needs my consent.

And somewhere in the mountains behind us — a two-hundred-year-old man may have just died to buy us a little more time.

I close my eyes.

We drive toward nowhere.

But at least we drive together.

...

Hellbound Twins

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