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John’s howls of pain were long and loud and ragged, echoing through the alleyways and between the buildings of the waking city. Arkham's residents slowly came back to themselves, the catatonic effect of the red abyss draining away in Kanye's absence. They staggered into the streets, the barest strands of dawn spilling out over the horizon. They trawled through wreckage and held each other and prayed if it was their custom, all, save one, deaf to the old god's cries.
She watched his form hunched and cradling the body on the grass, his silhouette a dark shape against the harbour in the distance. She took a deep slow breath, the cool salt air passing over her tongue and rushing through her hair. She rarely experienced empathy. It was a human foible but as she watched John she felt a keen sharp pang of understanding.
Arthur Lester was dead.
She would have stood sentry for John and waited in silence, contemplating her new life, as long as he needed but as the morning light gathered around her and time rolled forward once more, released from Kanye's grip, she knew they did not have long.
She approached him solemnly, her scuffed brogues and suit pants parting the grass behind her. His breath stuttered out in half started and choked gasps though he need not breathe. His body quaked as though on the point of collapse though he had no muscles, nor blood, nor bone. His humanity was so complete in this moment Lilith marvelled in spite of herself. She planted her feet beside him looking down at the subject of his grief.
Arthur lay on his back sprawled in the place he had fallen, eyes half open and staring upwards. In contrast to his mortal wounds his expression was peaceful, the corner of his mouth slightly upturned as if relieved and pleased. Undefeated even in death. She wondered if it was luck or will that gave John Arthur's last view of the sky. She assumed the latter.
“John” she said gently, Johns form going rigid “There are people gathering in the streets, searching through rubble, looking for wounded”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“They will come here” she said.
John brushed the back of his immaterial knuckles across Arthur's brow.
“I know” he murmured huskily.
“Do you want me to take the stone from his belly and find you a different body?” Lilith offered her new southern twang smoothing over her measured words. There was no sum in the world, no treasure or favour that could repay what Kayne took. It was a trifle she offered but it was the closest thing to a kindness that she could give.
“There is a part of me that wants to say no.” John whispered, gaze transfixed to Arthur's face, drinking in the sight of him “A part that wants to walk beside him until he is tucked into the earth. That would lie with him in the warm dark soil till it consumed him. That would sit tethered to the stone in his grave and watch as he created new life in the trees and birds and insects that sprung from his resting place…”
John broke off, breath caught in his throat, left hand still clutched tight to Arthur's shirt, frozen in the last action John could enact.
“But….” John ground out.
“...but it's not what he would have wanted for you.” Lilith supplied.
“No”
“He wanted you to live.” Lilith added.
“Yes.” John agreed, the breath finally escaping him.
Lilith had seen so much death in her long life, tortuous and slow, swift and insensible and none had been like this. It seemed wrong that the sky should be a lightening shade of blue, wrong that the air should taste so sweet.
“Lilith” John hushed.
“Yes?”
“Did I kill him?” John's voice was so small and distant. It was a tone that desired punishment. That asked for penance and ownership of this ruin.
“No” She replied thoughtfully “No, if anyone was responsible for this it would have been me or Kayne but not you.”
“By the time you met him he wasn't living…not really. He wasn't going to move forward, he wasn't going to change, he would never have let go. Your Arthur would have died with his self loathing like a bitter rot in his soul….No. Your first scramblings on this plane were a mirror to him. Your demands for understanding reflected all the flaws of his immovable tenets, all the failures of his self disgust. If you’ll pardon the parlance, you took an axe to the bedrock of his broken beliefs. He was helpless to do anything but change. And, my god, for the better I might add” She mused a tentative bounce in her tone “the people he saved, the challenges he conquered, the places he saw…he rattled the foundations of the gods John”
John sniffed and huffed a laugh thumb brushing gently against Arthur's temple.
“You know while I was traveling with him some of his soul bled over to mine. A singular experience, though annoying it was also…quite enlightening. When that happened I saw more than the course of his life. I saw what he had shared with you. I saw what he thought of you. Hell I felt it. John it was a love so powerful only one other was held above it” she continued before adding “and you wouldn't want to eclipse her”
She reached out gently, placing a hand on his shoulder.
“No, John, you gave him life until the end”
John leaned into the touch, tears falling silently like rain on Arthur’s body. The clatter of heels on concrete pattered in the near distance. Lilith closed her eyes and sighed. She crouched.
“It's time” she said, laying a hand on Arthur's stomach. When John didn't react she untucked Arthur's shirt and reached under it so John didn't need to see. His hand snapped around her wrist suddenly. She paused, glancing at his face.
“The body” he said, meeting her gaze for the first time in hours. His expression was ragged, tear lines staining his face, such as it was, eyes pleading in a way the old kings never would “will you find one whose soul has…moved on?...I don't think I can….I can't…”
She smiled, covering his hand with her own.
“Of course”
His hand slipped away, falling back to Arthur's chest. He leaned down pressing his lips to Arthur's forehead. He whispered words of remembrance and love then rested his forehead against Arthur's.
“Okay” he said loud enough for her to hear but not moving from his spot. Lilith removed the stone. John’s form swept away from Arthur and up into the stone like a mist blown away in the breeze. Lilith stood gazing at the warm bloody stone resting in her hand. She was not sentimental but for a moment it felt like she could feel the gentle flutter of a pulse against her palm. She retrieved a handkerchief from her pocket and cleaned the stone and her hand. She slipped it into her breast pocket and patted it twice. She took a few steps back.
“Oh God! Someone call the police!” she yelled, her voice whipped up by the wind and carried to the people nearby.
“Goodbye my favorite” she said to Arthur with a crooked grin and a wink “don't worry about John. I'll find somewhere for him to be, you go on to that little girl now. She's been waiting for you”
People rushed onto the embankment, checking Arthur's pulse and injuries and shouting questions. As more still arrived she melted away into the crowd as she had done so many times before, to begin life anew.