The marble courtroom was empty. There was only one proud man behind the judge’s stand. Nikola guessed he was Michael. He looked like Uriel. The same coloring, the same eyes. But his hair was a curly mess and his armor more pronounced.

“Nikola Asenov,” Nikola went in the defendant stand. The revelation that Uriel had dropped onto him, repeating in his mind.

“Nikola,” snapped Michael when Nikola didn’t answer.

“Is that my real name?” Uriel looked ready to groan and give up. But, Nikola persisted. “What did my parents want to call me?”

“It is Nikola, but you didn’t have a last name. Until you were given to the Asenov household,” Nikola nodded.

“I refuse to die,” he said, practically blurting it out.

“I beg your pardon?” Michael looked ready to scream.

“You can’t take my soul unless I let you. I don’t want to die. I am not letting you. So, there,” Michael looked at an unrepentant Uriel.

“You told him?” Uriel smirked and Michael placed his face in his hands.

“Could I even die if I don’t let you take my soul?” Michael groaned.

“No,” he hissed, and Nikola looked at Uriel.

“Take me back, please,” Uriel made his way to him, but Michael hit the wood of the judge’s stand.

“You used to want to die. But then, Uriel kept insisting you were too young to know any better. What changed?” Nikola imagined Sadik, Emilia and Eric at his funeral and shuddered.

“I have precious people now. Why do you want me to die?” The question plagued Nikola ever since he entered the courtroom. Angels were the good guys. Yet, one wanted him dead. Why? Sure, he was a freak of nature. But it wasn’t his fault.

“Orders,” Nikola made an oh shape. “Our father fears that you might be more like him than us.”

And that hurt Nikola. To know that the one being he valued above all else wanted him dead. He became detached from the present time.

“Take me back,” he demanded again.

“We can’t,” Uriel opened his mouth to protest, but Michael looked at him tiredly. “He will be kept in here for eternity. I am certain that, after a couple of thousand years of loneliness, he will cave and beg us to take him to our home.”

Michael waved his hand and Uriel disappeared.

“You can’t do this! I am a…” Nikola stopped himself. He was a Christian, true. But his very existence angered God. And he felt his anger leave him and the hollowness set in.

“You do understand, then? You had fun, but your life is a crime of the highest order. An incest most vile,” Nikola began to shake his head. He wasn’t disagreeing, he just wanted to block out the words.

“Nikola,” Michael’s voice was gentler — now. “You were not created by God, so, we can’t make you die. But we can keep you here. Think on that.”

Michael disappeared and Nikola blinked. The courtroom bled to nothingness around him, and he was back in the whiteness. However, it brought him no comfort.

The anger returned and he glared at the nothing.

“Snow!” He yelled, voicing his demand. “I want snow!”

He knew he looked like a petulant child, but he focused really hard. He remembered the feeling he had felt when he had set the tree on fire. All that time ago.

He felt the same anger now. Slowly, a snowflake fell from the nothing above. Then, another followed it and a blizzard began. Nikola shivered. He needed to control his anger. Anger would bring him nothing but more time in the nothingness. And he needed to get out of here.

He tried imaging a door as the snow fell around him. He tried stopping the snow when he found that it was just falling down and not piling up, and found he could not.

“If I wake up, I will let Sadik turn me into a vampire!” Promised Nikola. Would he be accepted then? Would the change even take?

“And I will live a better life. One where I don’t fear every single step I take!” He felt something snap. Something he had been carrying all his life. He decided that he was on the right track and continued.

“And I will allow myself to be selfish at times. Because I am not perfect, and I will never be. So, why should I try?” He heard clapping as the chains he had carried all his life snapped. There was a man in the nothingness with him. One wearing a Prada suit and a fedora. He had red hair and eyes, which contrasted with his pale skin.

“I think I know who you are,” Nikola backed away. The man made a step forward.

“You said something about selfishness. I know all about that,” the man winked, and a chair materialized behind him. Nikola stared at it, gaping. “There are three realms for the dead. Heaven, the place you don’t want to go to. Hell, the place where you really don’t want to go to. And Purgatory. The place no one had ever ruled but should be ruled.”

Nikola nodded. The odd one out. He thought about a chair and one materialist behind him. He sat across Lucifer…

“Ah, nah. There is a bit of misinformation on your part. Name’s Satan. Pleased to meet you, Niki,” Nikola nodded, but didn’t extend his hand for a handshake. “You seem to be biased about me. Why?”

“You are evil incarnate. The father of lies,” Satan chuckled.

“Lucifer is the father of lies and God is evil incarnate. If he wasn’t, he would have made angels sterile. Like how he made sure you become such,” anger flooded Nikola’s system again. He was not going to have children with Sadik, unless he adopted Eric officially. But, to know that the possibility has been taken from him?

“How does it make you feel? To know you paid lip service all your life. Only to have been betrayed at the start of it?” Nikola knew the answer to that.

“Enraged,” Satan leaned back in his chair.

“I can work with that,” he grinned, and Nikola tried to remember that he was the enemy. But, when your enemy is the only one to give you a helping hand, is he still an enemy?