Arthur would be lying if he said he didn’t know a low like this could exist. He’s been here before. He never thought he would be here again. It seemed…wrong, somehow. Cosmically wrong. Impossible that it could happen to the same person twice.
He never thought he could survive it twice.
Chances seem high he won’t.
He can smell his own blood around him, the air so thick with iron that it clogs his nose and his throat. He’s a murder scene in progress. Chunks of him torn out, gaping open, missing.
Happens to are the only words in his head. Because it didn’t happen to him. He did this. His choices, his failures. Everything that remains of him is fused into a single drive, a single decision. He will not let this happen again.
He’s not a fool. He knows what that thing was that they met in the massacred city. Whether it wants to call itself Kayne or Lucifer or some unpronounceable cough of a name makes no difference. Arthur knows what it means to call out to it, to ask it for help.
In the end, he knows, this will kill him. It will do worse than kill him. One way or another, he’s selling his soul.
A soul is a fair price to buy John the chance to choose his own destiny.