Howard Kane stared in shock. He began to feel fear for the first time in over twenty years, since he was a boy being abused. The vision before him, Arianna Rose’s entire body alight in a scarlet halo, could not be happening. She had transformed into the Sola, living and breathing. The fire beneath her had climbed up her body, yet she remained unscathed. He watched in equal parts horror and disbelief as she lifted her glowing arms out to her sides, like a Phoenix defying its death pyre and spreading its wings. The shackles around her wrists snapped then fell to the flames as though they’d been constructed of chintzy material, not iron.
He wanted to run, to flee from the imminent destruction, but his legs refused to budge from where they stood. Instead, he was forced to witness the Sola raising her arms, flames shooting out in every direction. Each of his men at the perimeter of the circle that had surrounded her was suddenly ablaze. He heard their tortured screams tear through the evening sky. He clapped his hands to his ears, trying futilely to muffle their cries, and saw that the rest of his men staggered from the surrounding woods, their flesh burning. Everyone around him burned. He was the only one who remained. He became confident that God had spared him.
That confidence buoyed him as the Sola stepped toward him. She stopped directly in front of him and glared at him with eyes that blazed with the blood of those who’d martyred themselves. She loomed near him then spoke with a voice so haunting, the hairs on his body rose like quills.
“You are a fool, Howard Kane,” she said and her voice echoed through him. “A fool who believes God is directing him to murder.”
“God guides me to do His work,” he replied
“No!” she shouted silencing him. “You kill because you enjoy it, because you are evil,” she accused.
His insides began to trill, a sudden inexplicable phenomenon. “God has chosen me to hunt witches, to protect mankind,” he said in a trembling voice.
The Sola began to laugh, a mirthless sound that resonated through the courtyard. “No, Howard. You are one of us. God is not drawing you to us. Your own power is.”
Howard’s eyes widened and a breath of awareness raced across his skin. He knew she’d spoken the truth, could feel it deep within him. He was a warlock. He was not going to heaven as a soldier of the Lord. He would burn in hell for eternity alongside the rest of the evil beings he’d already sent there.
The Sola smiled at him as though she’d read the recognition in his heart as plainly as she would have read a neon sign. She swept her arm out to one side and he felt himself flying through the air. It wasn’t until he felt his back collide with something slender and hard that he understood what was happening. His wrists were suddenly immobilized behind him around the pole, though nothing tangible bound them.
“You have spent your life hunting and killing your own people, my people. You convinced yourself you were doing noble work, God’s work, and now, you will burn here on Earth, and for eternity.”
Howard cried out in terror, her words cutting through his very core. She gestured again and brush at his feet blazed angrily. She assumed a position in front of him and locked eyes with him. He felt the weight of her judgment blister as painfully as the flames that traveled up his body. He howled in agony, the heat unbearable as darkness teased at his vision.
Fire lapped at him, torturously, excruciatingly. But the Sola remained before him, unflinching.
The last image Howard Kane beheld was a pair of scarlet eyes glowing vengefully at him, glowering, judging his final moment on Earth, and casting him to hell.