Dancing with Monsters

I stood in the one place I didn't have to worry, the one place where I could be myself.

The last time I was here, like this, I had a monster and an angel whispering for me to kill the demons, to kill Nicholas.

And I chose Nicholas.

I have yet to second-guess that decision.

I wasn't… perfect. I understood that everyone had the capacity to do both good and evil, and one wrong move wasn't enough to condemn them to death. But I also knew that when the same mistake was made over and over again, and there was no guilt… then that individual needed to be punished.

It wasn't about being morally right; it wasn't about being better than anyone else. It was about balancing the scales… making the world a better place for those living in it… human or monster.

Dear God, I was sounding like a sanctimonious bitch.

"You don't have to do this," murmured the soft voice of the angel as she came to stand beside me. The two of us could have been twins, and there was a part of my heart that was upset about that. I wouldn't have minded being more of a blend between her and my father.

"You might look like me on the outside," chuckled my birth mother as she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. The touch was so different from how Pandora had touched me that it was a wonder I ever thought that she was my mother. "But inside, you are all your father."

"Dad was a demon," I chuckled, staring at all the webs in front of me. Each web shone in a light all their own, the thin strands crossing through multiple layers until it was almost impossible to see where they started or ended.

"Your dad had more… musings… about good and evil than any Angel I had ever known," replied my mother, and I could feel her warm smile.

"Is Dad still alive?" I asked, cocking my head to the side as my eye fixated on one particular thread. The center was a dark brown color, so dark that it was next to impossible to see its original color.

From that one thread, thousands of strands went out in all directions, connecting to even more threads. The problem was that where the brightly colored threads met the rotten ones, they were starting to turn rotten.

Taking my golden shears, I cut out the rotten thread. It crumbled into nothing, falling through the other webs of life until it simply disappeared into dust. Watching intently, I saw the moment the other strands started to go from rotten back to healthy.

"He is," answered Mother softly. "And one day, when I am not imprisoned, I will be going back to his side."

She sounded so sure that I wished that she would be able to do that sooner rather than later. She had easily gone thousands of years without Dad; I really hoped he was the same demon when they reunited.

My eyes continued to search the threads of life in front of me. I wasn't going to kill more than six million people simply because they were demons, just like I wasn't going to ignore a rotten thread simply because there was white underneath. Angels, Demons, Humans, Monsters… the world belonged to all of us.

Finding another thread that had been rotten to the core, I snipped it away, once again watching it fall into whatever was beneath the threads.

"Your dad was always fascinated with a phrase," continued Mother as she continued to stand by my side as I decided who would die this night. "Evil wins when good men do nothing."

Nodding my head, I couldn't help but smirk. I think that was the personal motto of more than half of the police officers I had worked with over the centuries. They seemed to get a sense of purpose, knowing that they were making a difference in the world.

Then again, as I cut out another rotten thread, I wondered just how much of a difference they were really making.

"Your father changed that statement," Mother once again chuckled, leaning her head to the side so that it was resting on my shoulder. "He changed it to: Evil wins."

"Well, if that isn't depressing, I don't know what is," I replied with a smile, cutting out yet another rotten thread. But seeing the damage in front of me, all the threads that were either slowly turning brown or were completely rotten, I began to wonder if Dad wasn't right.

Maybe, at the end of the day, everything I was doing was for nothing… a drop in the bucket when it came to good and evil.

Mother hummed as she pointed out yet another strand that was more brown than pink. A human that time. Reaching up, I casually cut it, wondering absently which human had just died.

"It wasn't meant to be," answered Mother after a minute. I felt weird calling her Mother in my head, a name normally reserved for Pandora, but I also didn't know what to call her. "It was meant to be reassuring."

"I guess it would be for a demon."

Mother gently slapped me upside the head as she rolled her eyes. "Demons are no more evil than Angels are good," she said. "And that is where people get it screwed up. Evil people will be evil simply for the joy of it. Even if a good person tried to stop it, there was no guarantee that it would be stopped."

I understood that point. How many times in homicide had someone gone to jail only to be released and to kill again? And yet, if we killed everyone who had killed someone else, we would be just as guilty as them.

"What are you trying to say, Mother?" I sighed, quickly cutting five more rotten threads. Nicholas might have told me to kill all the demons on earth, but it was much more tiring to cut a thread than people seemed to think.

"I'm saying that the happiness and well-being of an entire world doesn't rest on your shoulders," replied the Angel beside me.

"I would beg to differ," I said, pointing to the webs in front of me. "I think that the happiness and well-being of the entire world does rest on my shoulders."

"Oh, developing a God-complex now, are you?" laughed Mother. "Just because you see it, doesn't mean that you have to do something about it. A lesson that your mates should learn."

"Ah," I nodded, turning my head so I could stare at the Angel. "My wedding."

"You knew?" she asked, her eyes widened in surprise. "I thought…"

"Viktor Van Helsinger doesn't give a fuck about anyone but me," I stated with a laugh. For a while I had doubted that, but now that we were bonded, I knew better. "He doesn't care what the humans or anyone else thinks about his marital status. All he had to do was make a statement if it became a big deal."

"At least you have a good head on your shoulders," nodded Mother.

"When it's on it," I agreed. "But I have a habit of losing it every so often. Do you know what he is planning?"

"Not the details. I just know that on the day of your 'wedding,' everything is going to change."

"Well, come Heaven or Hell, there will be a few less rotten threads to deal with," I chuckled, cutting a few more. "Me and mine will be standing at the end, I don't have to see the future to know that."