Chapter 12.10

The woman wandered through a white mountain dotted with hundreds of birch trees. She didn’t notice her cheeks, scratched and bleeding from the biting wind, and kept climbing the snow-covered mountain in a frenzy. She bit into the red berries on the holly, scooped up snow in both hands to moisten her throat, and at the summit, she found the ruins of an ancient site.

Heavy snow fell. In the air that seemed to freeze her lungs, a musty smell spread. The woman clenched her fists tightly. The demon appeared before her.

“So you made it here. Impressive.”

The demon looked her up and down, taking in her shabby, pitiful appearance, and his eyes flashed.

“You desperately want something, don’t you?”

From the stinking maw came a sweet fragrance.

“To desire something you shouldn’t even hope for. You’re greedier than that man.”

“Shut up! I’m not like him.”

Stung by the demon’s sneer, the woman bit her lips hard. Her lips, blue and bruised, trembled faintly.

“To wish to love ‘that being’—I like your boldness. Fine. With my human heart, I’ll help you. Just say the word. Then that noble creature will be yours.”

“You wicked, vile demon.”

Emotion appeared on her face, pale as a blank sheet. In her bloodshot eyes, there was not fear but anger.

“You think I’ll fall for your silver tongue?”

She remembered the last moments of those who had died, tricked by the demon’s temptations, and opened her eyes.

‘Lily. I’ve decided to run away with him.’

Magnolia. Her beloved friend, her angel, her sister more precious than gold.

‘You’ll understand me, right?’

If that meant making a deal with the demon, she couldn’t understand. The vivid sound of a bullet hitting something made her rub her frozen ears.

She thought she saw cloth dyed in amethyst fluttering. Hair falling in an arc. Her sister, collapsing like a wounded animal, her face lifeless as if her soul had been stolen. Her star-like eyes were trapped in sunken eye sockets, black, and the black veins standing out on her pale skin were grotesque. Only the hair she grew for her lover hadn’t lost its shine, fluttering in the wind.

Magnolia. Her little sister. 

‘Did she give her blood for such a man? Not knowing he would swallow her soul. Did she love like that?’

The hunter took his own life. It was a worthless repentance. The dark red blood from his heart soaked Magnolia’s hair. He was selfish to the end.

“Ah, are you that woman’s family?”

The demon’s eyes suddenly flashed and he laughed.

“Did you come to avenge your sister? Such touching family love.”

Pretending to wipe away tears, the demon’s pupils split vertically. The woman, grinding her teeth and searching for an opening, felt her heart tighten. Did he notice?

“But that man is dead.”

The demon didn’t know what she was touching with her hand in her pocket. He had granted the hunter’s wish. It was the hunter who had misused that power; the demon only provided the means. So he didn’t realize the woman would try to take revenge on him.

But her anger, lost and aimless, mixed with her resolve to destroy the wicked being, and she wrapped her fingers around the rifle’s grip.

“If you could save your sister, would you?”

Just as she was about to pull the hammer with her thumb, the demon’s whisper froze her thoughts.

“You can save her?”

“Yes. You hate me, but you can’t deny my power. Or, I could take revenge on the lover who abandoned you.”

Noticing the woman’s hesitation, the demon spoke with a sly tongue. Her hand, which should have come out of her pocket, was stuck. How did he know about her family, her friends, the lover nobody knew about? Had he been watching her past all along? It didn’t matter.

Revenge. The woman picked up the words the demon dropped.

“You can take revenge?”

“It’s difficult, but not impossible. You’ve already achieved something extraordinary. To be loved by an archangel—never seen in countless ages. There’s never been a human like you before, and there never will be again.”

The demon praised her. She was glad the demon called her feelings love, and called him her lover. Her desire for revenge was soon buried in dreams. To the lover who broke his promise to love her forever and left. What she truly wanted was—

“My revenge is…”

Her violet eyes, shaken by the sudden rain, gazed into the distance. The demon’s mouth split up to his eyes. His hand, twitching to snatch her, was elegantly extended.

‘Go on, take my hand!’

Though she wore a worn and tattered dress, the woman was wrapped layer upon layer in the archangel’s blessing, and the demon couldn’t touch her. He swallowed and waited leisurely.

How long had he waited for this moment? He hadn’t expected this woman to seek him out, but everything happens as a chain reaction. Seeing Enoch, who guarded Eden’s south with his sword of ice, leave his post for a moment, the demon followed and witnessed a scene that made his blood boil.

To think an angel would be blinded by a human woman.

Those who desire are beautiful. But even more beautiful is the face of someone when their desire is frustrated. The demon adored humans in fear, despair, disappointment, and grief.

But the most beautiful tragedy in the world is the fall of the noble, the corruption of the pure, the submission of the proud. The exalted falling into lowly love and plunging into ruin.

This woman was the one who could achieve what no demon ever had, and the demon didn’t miss his chance.

The demon spread rumors while the angel was away, called by God. Tarnishing the woman’s honor was easier than blowing on a flame. Branded with the filthy accusation of consorting with a wicked being, the woman was cast out of the village, and her life was filled with loneliness and shame. Though she was pure, she suffered from false corruption, and when her lover finally came to her, she accused him. That she was carrying his child, and turning that tragedy into comedy was her greatest mistake.

Not even knowing what the angel hated most.

Ah, such sweet sorrow! The woman was soon abandoned. Because she wanted her lover completely, her delusion that she was pregnant was shattered instantly, but the angel returned to a place she could not reach.

But when the woman was in danger, when she faced death, the angel would return. The demon had been waiting for that moment, so he whispered softly.

“Say anything. I’ll listen, in place of the God who won’t, and the lover who left you.”

The demon carefully reached out for the woman’s throat, bound by dreams, past, and illusions. He wrapped his black, snake-scaled hand around her neck as gently as holding a flower, whispering softly, but the woman didn’t move. Seeing her eyes wandering in dreams, the demon’s voice grew more seductive.

“Go on, speak. I pity you, so I’ll take something other than your soul as payment.”

“My wish is…”

The sweet fragrance grew thicker, dizzying.

“The wish is for him to forget me.”

When the demon’s black nail pressed gently over her pulse, the woman spoke.

“What?”

“For him to forget me and find peace.”

The demon couldn’t understand and asked again.

“Is that possible?”

“What kind of wish is that…!”

Bang! Without identifying the source of the next sound, the demon blinked. Something pierced his mind. A chilling thought shot through his head. The demon plummeted in the opposite direction of the sound. His eyes rolled upward. The woman held a navy rifle, glowing with a cross-like blue light.

“H-how…?”

The rifle, which should have belonged to the hunter, was in her hands. She exhaled painfully. There wasn’t much time left. She smiled wide, like a field of blooming flowers.

“What the hunter wanted to k*ll was you. You’ve been deceived.”

Realizing the trick, the demon burst with rage and tried to shed his physical shell. But his limbs wouldn’t move, like a pinned insect.

She had planned this from the start! She had come to k*ll him. Seeing her thumb, with its chipped nail, pull back the hammer, he screamed.

“Do you think I’ll die just because of this? I am great!”

“You’re filth. Do you think you’re an almighty god? You can’t even reach his feet. The commandments say ‘Do not k*ll,’ but you’re not a living thing, so I’ll go to heaven.”

“My brothers will avenge me!”

“Let them try.”

Then, would she be able to see him?

Without hesitation, she pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the demon in the center of his forehead. The red light inside flickered and went out. The winter wind blew as if to sweep them away. The woman curled up and endured, gritting her teeth until the wind stopped. After a long while, she heard faint birdsong.

When she lifted her head, hidden between her arms, the body possessed by the demon lay collapsed. Clang! The clear sound of bells rang from the cathedral’s steeple, spreading out to the distant horizon. The vibration shattered the body, whose gender and age were hard to guess, into ashes that scattered with a gust of wind.

It was over. The disaster that had started one day had stopped. The woman, still holding the rifle, staggered into the cathedral whose doors had just opened. She sat among those who had come for dawn mass and quietly closed her eyes.

‘I’m sorry. Let me lie beside her for just a moment. Just a moment…’

The foolish man who couldn’t even cry aloud before Magnolia’s grave left her a last will.

‘Please get rid of this. Bury it deep underground or in the sea so no one can ever hold it.’

The rifle that killed his lover was handed to her. Hesitant, stuttering sounds. Trembling hands. Eyes like snow-covered marigolds dimming like the light of the setting sun.

‘The last bullet is a magic bullet. It can hit anything. I never used it.’

The hunter had two rifles. He succeeded in hunting with the other rifle, refusing to use the magic bullet, but when the last bullet misfired, he had no choice but to use the magic rifle. What remained for the hunter was not victory, but regret.

Is dying before a loved one a blessing? She wondered for a moment.

‘Would you cry for me if I died?’

At the meaningless thought, she forced a smile. When her lover left, the snowflake on her white eyelashes melted at that moment.

People recited prayers of blessing. The prayers of those who believed in love, peace, faith, and hope echoed with the mysterious resonance of the beautiful hymns she had heard at the cathedral as a child.

“Be happy. And make others happy.”

An old woman sitting beside her offered a blessing with a smile. The woman barely moved her lips in response, and before the mass ended, she stood and left the cathedral. Her feet sank into the snow, stepping on the blooming spring flowers. Startled, she stepped back. Unlike the snow piled up higher on the mountain, spring was alive at the foot of the mountain.

Could she return to the people, to that season, and live again?

The woman turned away. And walked deep into the mountains.