Huh.

I couldn’t figure out what the big deal was about dying. I mean, there was that bit of pain for a second, but then I simply… stopped existing. It was that moment between awake and asleep. I never remembered that moment when I laid my head down at night, the split-second my body shut off and my brain entered dream-land. Then, the next time my mind rebooted, it was to the screeching alarm clock on my bedside table.

Dying was like that. One second ouch and the next nothing. But this time there would be no alarm clock come morning.

Instead, I took my final breath, eyes fluttering closed as the world disappeared. When I opened them again, I found myself sitting on Papa Leth’s lap while he told me a story from his time during the crusades.

Not grown-up me. Little girl me. Pre-purple hair and kick-ass boots me.

“And the lesson I learned,” Papa Leth bounced me on his knee and stroked my hair, “is that men will always die for their beliefs, but even more importantly, they will kill for them. Even a righteous man who views murder as sin will kill if he feels the cause is just and right. That is what makes belief the most dangerous of weapons.”

Little me frowned, brows pulled together and mouth turned down, and tipped my head back to look up at him. I vaguely remembered this story. I knew I’d heard it before. It was the early fourteen hundreds, more than four hundred years after the First Crusade when Papa Leth had gotten on On High’s good side. This moment was also more than six hundred years before I killed myself in the hospital morgue in Orlando. Which didn’t make any sense.

“Is everything well, Caith?” Papa Leth touched my cheek, the warmth and strength in his hand soothing against my skin.

I leaned against his chest. “I think so, Papa.”

Being here in this moment didn’t make any sense, but my thoughts were cloudy and jumbled. Memories of my long life, and sudden death, sank beneath the waves of my turbulent thoughts. After a moment, I couldn’t even remember why I’d been so confused.

Everything was fine, after all. I was with my Papa, the strongest and fiercest of my five fathers. I was safe.

“Let’s go find your momma, then.” Papa Leth nudged me off his lap and I hopped down to stand on my own two feet. He took my small hand in his, the rough calluses from centuries of sword fighting coarse against my smooth skin. “I’m sure she misses you. She’s been looking forward to your visit.”

“Oh,” I said, full of childhood innocence. “Okay, Papa.”

He led me through the village and off the dirt lane that wove toward the woods, but… we never seemed to arrive. I know I kept walking, one little foot in front of the other, but the world slid away beneath my soles. Awareness seeped in, the knowledge that something wasn’t quite right about this memory making itself known.

Papa Leth had never taken me to visit my mother. He couldn’t because my mother lived in Hell and On High had blessed Papa Leth due to his actions during the Crusades. The only time I saw my mother was when she used her dark magics to claw out of the unending abyss of Hell’s circles. Even then, I was an afterthought. She never put effort into crossing dimensions to see me. I was simply a rest stop when she had other business in the tween.

It was Papa Leth who cared for me every day. As my human father, he was the only one able to raise me as part of human society.

While I logically knew my mother couldn’t be waiting for me, and that Papa Leth had never taken me to visit, she was somehow… there. She stood in the middle of the dirt trail, dressed in a long, black silk dress that fell in sensuous waves from her shoulders to the ground.

It was all wrong.

The cut of the dress, the smartphone in her hand…

Her barely giving me a glance was right on the mark. That was the only normal part of this picture.

“Caith,” she gave me a slight smile. “You’re late for your lessons.”

“What lessons?” I frowned. Papa Leth gave me lessons, no one else.

“Tsk, tsk, Caith Belinha.” —I hate my middle name— “Don’t you ever pay attention. Off with you now.” My mother waved a hand to shoo me away.

I turned to leave, but Papa Leth was no longer at my side. His hand wasn’t cradling mine. Instead, he was off in the distance, standing atop a hill. The sun slowly lowered to the horizon, the mix of sunset’s colors outlining him in nothing more than indistinct shadows. He raised a hand and waved at me before turning and walking away. But…

“Papa!” I broke into a run, pumping my little legs and racing as fast as I could. But I was so slow. I remembered being able to run much faster, racing over the ground in long, loping strides. My legs were longer, not these child’s little stubs. And the hilltop seemed to move farther and farther away.

That didn’t stop me from pushing onward. I would get to my Papa. I would throw my little body at him and he’d catch me like he always did.

Except I tripped and fell to the ground with a soft cry. I caught myself on my hands and the dirt scuffed my palms, scraping away my skin. The pain stabbed me, the heels of my hands burning with the wounds. I’d never admit to the hurt though. Warriors didn’t cry. Papa Leth taught me that. I rolled and plopped on my butt in the dirt and rubbed my hands together.

I expected droplets of blood, but there was nothing. The skin was clean and unbroken. Not so much as a scrape or speck of dirt.

I frowned. Again. I was doing a lot of frowning.

Why?

Because things were so confusing.

Why?

Because none of this was right.

Why?

“This isn’t real,” I answered my own question aloud that time.

I closed my eyes and focused, searching for the answer to yet another “why” that swirled in my mind. I was between reals—purgatory. A place where I existed only as thought and spirit. A place where my mind shaped my reality.

I stood and focused on the image of myself as an adult. Bigger feet, longer legs. I wasn’t tall—only 5’4”—but I wasn’t short like my childish self. My hair was dark and streaked with strands of purple. My clothes weren’t roughly woven but comfortably worn leather.

By the time I straightened my legs, I was fully grown. I had my woman’s body back, my palms rough and callused from so many hours swinging a sword. Like Papa Leth.

On some level, I knew these weren’t my hands at all. I didn’t have a body, so I couldn’t have hands. But picturing the familiar body gave me something to ground me, tie me to my spiritual identity. If I lost that, I’d lose me. I’d become nothing more than wisps in the wind, a pocket of cool air in the night breeze. That snap of chilled air that sent a shiver down someone’s spine.

I’d be lost for eternity.

I turned in a slow circle and tried to figure out my next step.

In purgatory.

Biblical lore said this was a place where sinners would be “purified.” A place to ‘work through my darkness’ and earn absolution or some shit.

Yeah, that was for suckers. I wasn’t destined for On High. Never had been, never would be. I was supposed to be someplace else, and I needed to find a way to get there.

Which meant purity was out the window and I needed to get to work on getting damned.

I scanned my surroundings and spotted Papa Leth again. Or I supposed, my mind’s recreation of Papa Leth. He didn’t exist here any more than my mother did. They were projections shaped by memories, but part of me knew there was something more. This version of Papa Leth wasn’t my real father, but there was a reason he had appeared. Him and none of the others. I needed his help.

“Papa Leth!” I jogged toward him. For a few steps, my stride shortened, my spirit body molding to my child’s form as my mind filled with memories of my youth. I raced to Papa Leth and leapt for him, his thickly muscled arms catching me with ease. He hugged me tightly and swung me around with a lighthearted laugh before setting me down.

The moment my feet touched the ground, I was an adult once more, the changes fluid and hardly noticeable now. The transition came with the barest of thoughts, as natural as breathing.

Except I guess I wasn’t breathing anymore.

“I need your help, Papa.”

“I know, but if you want my help, you’re going to have to earn it.”

More frowning and I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but a flash of movement in my peripheral vision wrenched my attention from my father. It was a whirl of darkness and I ducked out of instinct. My spirit body didn’t lose its sense of self-preservation.

A massive black scythe sliced through the air where my neck had been mere moments ago. The whistle of the blade-whipping overhead was a high-pitched whine in my ears.

I dropped into a roll and popped to my feet several paces away, putting space between me and my attacker. Unholy fuck, he was big. A massive black-furred demon, its head a bull with glowing red eyes faced me. It was a cross between a classic minotaur and a thelac dem that had crawled right out of one of the circles of Hell. It rushed me, swinging that scythe once more. I backed away and ducked. Then I dodged left and then right to avoid his swings.

I didn’t have a weapon, no katanas or daggers strapped to my body, so as soon as I found an opening I went for it. I avoided the demon minotaur’s next swing and jolted forward to grab the shaft of the scythe. I planted my right foot on the creature’s chest and kicked. It stumbled back as I wrenched the weapon from its grasp. In a practiced whirl, I raised the scythe, posed to decapitate my attacker.

But it vanished. The scythe, not the dem. It disappeared from my grip and suddenly the dem had it once more. Leaving me swinging nothing but air.

“Seriously?” Not cool. That was totally cheating.

I needed a weapon to fight this thing and a hefty wooden club was better than nothing. I darted for the tree line and snatched the biggest fallen branch I could find. The ground vibrated with every one of the minotaur’s pounding steps, his approach easily tracked. When he got close enough, I spun, my grip on the branch firm. I’d hit him and—

The length of wood turned to smoke as I swung, and the demon tackled me, slamming us into the forest floor.

I struggled with the minotaur, kicking and punching the beast while I bucked my hips to throw him off. While I fought, Papa Leth approached, his pace casual and gait smooth as if we were playing in the park.

He looked down at me, his lips curled in a small smile. “You seem to be having trouble.”

“You think?” I grunted and shoved the dem, finally getting my soles planted against the minotaur’s chest. One kick had him launched off me. I jumped to my feet, fists raised, but my opponent was gone.

“Behind you,” Papa Leth’s tone was casual.

I tried to dodge, but the demon rammed into me, slamming me against a tree. The wind rushed from my lungs and my ribs screamed in pain, stealing any thoughts of breathing from my mind.

Papa Leth strolled forward and craned his neck to peek at me over the minotaur’s shoulder. “Does that hurt?”

The minotaur pummeled my chest again and again with his massive fists.

“What the fuck do you think?”

“Why?” Papa Leth wasn’t normally so damn obtuse.

“What?” I ducked the dem’s arm and circled the tree. I threw out a kick when the minotaur got close, but he vanished once more. I spun, searching for the motherfucker.

“Why does it hurt?” Papa Leth’s idiot was implied. He spoke as if I was the dumbass, not him.

“Because getting punched in the ribs hurts.” I explained just as slowly. My asshole was implied too, dammit.

“Didn’t you leave your ribs in the tween?”

I frowned at Papa Leth—So. Much. Frowning. —then got slammed from the side. One of the minotaur’s horns ripped into my side, tearing my skin from hip to underarm, and a gout of blood flowed from me.

I staggered back, blood dripping to the dirt, but the moment it touched the earth, it disappeared.

“It’s like you’re channeling The Matrix,” I muttered. “I can’t hurt. I can’t bleed. Ghosts don’t have blood.”

“You’re not quite a ghost,” Papa Leth’s idiot was implied again. “Just a wandering spirit.”

I wanted to glare at him, but when I’d been alive and an adult, Papa Leth had seen glares as challenges. Involving swords.

Ah, good times.

“Right.” I clenched my fists and stared the minotaur down.

I was sometimes slow on the uptake, but I was coming to understand the rules. Just as my body had shifted from child to adult based on my desires, my wounds and pain were nothing more than projections of my thoughts. The dem’s blows only hurt because I thought they would hurt.

It rushed again, the scythe swinging through the air. I blocked it instinctively and the asshole—the minotaur, not Papa Leth—punched me in the face.

And motherfucker, it hurt.

Apparently knowing the pain was only in my mind didn’t make it easy to believe it was in my mind.

Purgatory sucked ass.

I traded a few more blows with the beast and each time his hits connected, it hurt as if it were real. Because in my mind, it was real. I tried to tell myself I was in the spirit realm. I was a spirit. Nothing could hurt me.

But after a lifetime of experiencing pain through blood, sweat, and tears, it was hard to turn that instinct off.

Yes, I was a stubborn bitch just as my fathers always said. The stubborn part. Not the bitch part. Only my mother called me a bitch, but she said it with an emotion that I might call love.

I might not have been able to brush off the idea of pain, but I could do something much easier. I could use a belief I’d honed over six hundred years. I could pull on knowledge that had proven true more often than not.

When it came at me again, I reached over my shoulder just as I had a thousand times before. And like a thousand times before, my fingers wrapped around the leather hilt of my sword. I drew it from its sheath and swung in one smooth movement. The honed edge sliced straight through the minotaur’s neck. The beast’s head toppled from its neck and fell to the ground, rolling until it vanished in a puff of smoke.

I stared at the blade in my hand, remembering when I’d forged the metal in the fires of Hell myself. It hadn’t been strapped to my back a moment ago, but I was so used to carrying it into battle that it had been easy to anticipate its presence.

Of course, as soon as I thought about it, the stupid thing vanished. I squeezed my eyes shut and recalled the sight of it in my hand once again, but it didn’t return. I’d managed to fuck up and doubt its existence and that Helldamned doubt made it impossible to summon.

“Everything about you is shaped by belief,” Papa Leth said with that teaching tone again. “But belief isn’t easily shaped. That’s why it takes centuries, sometimes millennia, to master that control.”

“Right.” I nodded. Papa Leth, or my mind’s recreation of Papa Leth, set me back on the right path.

I knew what I needed to learn; now I just had to figure out how to do that whole mastering thing.

“You’ve taken the first step. Now you’re ready for the next.” He placed his hand over my heart—or where it would have been. “In my time, I was a Holy Knight in the Crusades. Your mother chose me for that reason—my goodness to counter her evil. The light touch of On High to offset her darkness. You’ve learned to tap in to my strength, the physical prowess that helped you through years of training. Now you must learn about spiritual strength—the strength of Faith.”

A warmth spread through my chest, a presence and certainty that there was something more to my life and my soul. The knowledge that I wasn’t alone, someone was out there looking after me.

I touched my chest, a wave of dizziness swamping me. I’d never been one for the sentimental, spiritual woo-woo stuff. I mean, sure, On High exists. I get that. Really. I mean, Uncle Luc was a fallen gel, right?

But I’d never felt the divine presence like that in the past. It was the difference between knowing about something you’ve read versus seeing it with your own eyes.

I doubted that anyone from On High was on my side. Okay, maybe Sam. But maybe it didn’t matter? There was the whole forgiveness thing, after all. I’d never gone to confession or any of that crap. I had too much pride. I wasn’t going to open myself up to rejection. I wasn’t going to be turned away if I tried to confess my sins.

But then there was that blossoming of warmth, the smallest brush of a divine presence. And for that one moment, I realized I might just be wrong.

And by “might” I meant that I was but I’d never say that aloud.

I was still too prideful to admit my sins or ask for absolution, but after feeling that soft touch I knew someone was out there. If I ever decided I wanted to talk or whatever.

Not that I would because, duh, Caith Morningstar.

As the gentle warmth faded, I looked around, searching for Papa Leth. I wanted that heat back. But he was gone, disappeared as if he’d never been. I supposed he’d served his purpose. He’d given me something I’d never had—the gift of faith.

With a shake of my head, I went back to the road and just started walking. There wasn’t much else to do. I had no idea where I was headed or what I’d face next, but I had a new certainty in my heart.

I was going to find what I needed here in purgatory. I just needed to have faith.