CHAPTER 37: LUCIAN
It had been so long, since I last ventured there. The trip alone was a death trap, trudging over the mountains of Bolivia, slipping through the arctic circle, and then ending in the sand dunes of the Sahara. It was a bizarre way around the world, but one I had to travel to check if the portals still existed. It was the stepping into another realm that stripped the creature, leaving the past behind, stepping through to the cosmos and beyond. I wasn't sure exactly where Enoch resided, any of the three areas I ventured through could have held the passage. I gathered it moved location quite often, keeping it out of sight of Elysium's Angels. If only they could work together, like Taylor and I did, both light and dark in unison. Why there was always so much bloodshed was beyond me. And now that Lilith was rising, the light had no chance to succeed. Black absorbs all colours, whereas white hold none.
First stop was the mountains of Bolivia, a plane flight away from British soil. Speeding along the countryside, I swept past York, splintered through Leeds, and landed in Manchester, ready to board my flight to El Alto, Bolivia.
Tasha, the large-bosomed vision of a flight attendant, gladly showed me the way. She seemed clearly more interested in my physique than her job. I wondered if Taylor would be jealous, not that she was the jealous type.
"Here, sweet thing," she said as she offered her hand to help me into the seat. "You wouldn't mind watching this little boy, would you?" That wasn't really a question, was it?
"No, not at all," I responded. It was the human thing to do. He'd better be quiet; a kid was the last thing I needed sat next to me, bugging me.
The seats shook as I sat beside the most obnoxious human on the flight; a sweaty, bold man with a nose-turning stench. Why did I pick economy? Luckily, he soon fell asleep as we buckled up, soaring into the sky.
On one side, the obese version of humanity was a severe snorer, whom I really did struggle not to smother. Whereas the other held the six-year-old nose-picker, a chatterbox too, and there was just no stopping him. Even the fangs didn't scare him off. He was eagerly as interested as ever after I bared my teeth at him. What hope did this disgusting kid have, running towards danger rather than from it?
The flight lasted a good eleven hours, eleven hours of pure hell. I wouldn't be surprised if I was already in Hell, reliving the journey again and again. How was it possible for a six-year-old kid to be awake for so long? Would it be wrong if I snapped his neck? Surely, I could get away with it. No-one would be the wiser. No, there it was, the pull on my conscience, the Taylor on my shoulder. Even when she was dead, she reminded me to be human.
Damn. Why had I been put in charge of a child? Where were his parents? I didn't think you could fly alone until you were an adult. What was his deal?
"Hey, kid, where's your mum?"
"She's sleeping.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you go to sleep like your mum, then?”
“No, cos’ I won't wake up too."
Shit, now I felt like a super douchebag. The kid's mum was dead.
"What about your dad?"
"I don't have a dad. My mum said God gave me to her."
God? Really. The kid was into the whole God and Angel’s shebang. I had to be the most unfortunate role model for the kid. We were on opposing teams, for frick's sake. Why did Miss Ditzy give me the job of looking after the kid? Did I say I wanted a job? No, I only wanted to fly back to Enoch, to make a deal with the Devil's mother and then sprint right back home again, with the love of my life in tow, of course. I didn't want to gain a kid in the process. Damn it. I closed my eyes, hoping, perhaps, that the kid would take the hint that I was sleeping too and leave me the heck alone.
Silence. The kid stopped. He did have an off switch after all! Was it wrong to feel triumphant? I was feeling pretty good about it. Damn, this plane could move. I can’t stand the turbulence, it’s like being on one of those white-knuckle roller coasters you really want to get off but can’t until it’s over. But then turbulence was a known factor of flying in a heavy, metal casket. How it worked, I still didn't know. Having seen a parade of sorcery throughout my damned, dark life, I understood most of it. But planes and flying? No, there was simply no explaining that one to me.
The aircraft shuddered across the skyline, phasing in and out of control. There had to be an end to this torture. I opened my eyes. Something didn’t feel right. The plane was flying too smoothly all of a sudden. It seemed to slow, judder, drop a little, and then nothing but quiet. Everyone took a breath of relief. They shouldn’t have taken that breath. That relief was inconsiderate of the fact that the plane just stalled, engines malfunctioning, as it began descending at an enormous rate, dropping right clear out of the sky. In that moment, the terrifying breathless panic stormed over the body. Fists gripped the chair in front, eyes wide, face paler than usual. Even Dark Ones feel fear at times and when I'm not in complete comprehension of what's keeping me up in the sky, or in our case, what wasn’t. That fear streamed through my soul.
One, two, three... I counted the seconds as the Boeing 747 plummeted to the ground. Shiiit! There was the cursing again. She'd have to forgive me for that one.
Four, five, six seconds. The yellow oxygen masks dropped from overhead. The kid screamed, wailing at the top of his lungs. Time passed furiously as the obese guy vomited inside his oxygen mask. Chunks of carrots and sweetcorn squelched out the sides. I gripped the kid's mask and placed it over his head. Hell, I didn’t have to breathe, but the kid did. The six-year-old squealed in delight and grabbed my hand as we went down with the plane "weeeeee." He actually seemed to be enjoying the descent as I looked at him in despair.
The ditzy air hostess shot past, gripping her cart for dear life. Screams chilled the cabin as the plane whirled down into oblivion. Smoke alarmed past the window while the left wing erupted, breaking free of its host. And just like a bird with a damaged sleeve, it twisted and turned against the wind, round and round, causing its own personal typhoon of broken corpses. Granted, there weren't any corpses yet, but at the rate of the nose-dive, it wouldn't be long before the mortal shells of desperation died a death of stifling suffocation.
Seconds turned into minutes as the kid next to me defied gravity; he lifted out of his seat just in time for the grand finale. Gripping my hand, he shrieked. How the hell was I getting out of this one? I didn't know, let alone saving the life of a snotty six-year-old. Life was really treating me like shit right now. Where were we anyway? I had been travelling for hours. We had to be well past the Atlantic and headed inland. Whose idea was it to try Bolivia first? Yeah, that would be mine. I used to enjoy taking a trip there when I wanted to head back to my home turf in Enoch. It'd been such a long time and was highly likely the pathway was closed. But the mountains were glorious, especially when the sun rose, shimmering over the top of Huayna Potosí, as the lake Zongo below reflected the beauty within it.
That's where the passage was, at the foot of the mountain. You could just see it glittering across the atmosphere as the sun rose bright and early on a spring morning. I'd love to have taken Taylor there. There was so much I wanted to show her, such beauty in the world that she had yet to see. I couldn't die on this plane, cut up into a thousand pieces. I wouldn't technically be dead. I'd be a bodiless immortal, flapping around with the winds of purity until all my body reassembled itself. But then that wouldn't happen without being healed by a Shaman or one that can wield the light, and Taylor wasn't here right now.
Shit, what was I thinking? There was no way of surviving a plane crash at this speed. Three and a half minutes down and the plane would ignite, setting alight humanity's most unfortunate. What would become of me? What about the kid? I guessed if we survived he could come with me as a snack along the way. I hadn't had any mortal blood for quite some time. I had been stashing the bagged stuff since my humanity switch was turned back on. Damn, though, who was I trying to impress? It's not like the dead cared anymore! If i
t came to my survival or that of a nose-picking chatterbox, would I be wrong to choose me? After all, Taylor's fate depended on it.
Three minutes in and the ground looked mighty close. Blood splattered through the air, igniting my darkened desire, as the body of an air hostess shot past me into the back of the plane. Gripping the armrests, I held on for my dead life. I'd pulled the kid back down into his seat, strapped him in, and prayed to whatever bloody god was out there to save our souls. To be fair, I was hoping he'd save the kid and have pity on me next to him. But let’s be honest, it's not like God was about to rush in and pluck us from death anytime soon. The plane began to shake, disintegrating as my vision distorted, and with the portrayal of an old black and white movie, the cabin turned grey. It was lucky I didn't have to breathe, as I could hear the kid’s shortness of breath, wheezing for his next lifeline as he shuddered and shook.
The cockpit began to rip apart, eating itself open as it flew away from the rest of our plane. Fire screamed through the cabin with hues of yellow, orange, and red entwined into a triumphant inferno, consuming all remaining oxygen as the cabin heated up and threatened to boil us where we sat.
I've died before, so this fear was unnatural for me. I always came back, though. But the horror that streamed through my body terrified me. Gripping the armrests, I sat far back into the seat, body tremoring as the plane broke down around me. Tensed up, I saw the kid had passed out from a lack of oxygen. This was it, the ground was close, nothing left now except to kiss my ass goodbye and say farewell to all life on Earth.
Then there was a moment of pure clarity. An unspoken silence. The ground rose up, threatening to touch what was left of the plane. The sound of a tin can being crushed resonated through my eardrum. Our seats catapulted forward as the kid and I launched into flight. Free from restraint, we were thrown into the air, flung over 200 yards away, floating down, encircled by light. What was that? What pulled us free? It was there, then it was gone. Something had kept us safe.
I watched in despair as the old cabin crumbled, consuming its victims, lovingly squeezing them to death. The fire shrieked out behind us, absorbing what little was left of the metal box we had flown in.
Coming to, I realized I had blacked out. Was it possible for a dead guy to succumb to unconsciousness? Apparently so. It was a new one on me, though. I even began to believe it was plausible for a Dark One to suffer from shock. Especially since I felt no pain anywhere on my cold, dead body. Usually I felt things, emotions, in fact. I'd been able to turn them off before, but now, since the bite I wanted to keep them alive, suffer the affliction of triumphant emotional meltdowns, and I was sure to have one soon.
Blinking in the sunshine, I rose up, stretching each limb to check it was still attached. Yeah, everything seemed to work, granted a bit battered and bruised, but shit me, I'd survived my first plane crash. Something I never ever wanted to do again, but hey, you can't live until you've tried everything at least once, right?
Shit, the kid. Was he alive? Was he strangled by his seatbelt as we catapulted free from restraint? He looked intact, anyway. He had basically landed on top of me and his chest was still rising, all positive signs. Damn, there must be a god after all. Something was looking out for us up there.
What do I do now? Where do I go from here? Where is here? I knew there would be help on its way for any screaming survivors, but would the kid be safe? I did tell the ditzy blond I'd look after him. Damn, why did I agree to take on the responsibility of the little orphan beside me? What could I do? It wasn't like I could take him to Enoch. Lilith would eat him for lunch. If you think Dark Ones craved blood, try going against her husband, Cain. He could eat his weight in children, and he wasn't exactly the thinnest of folk.
Right, take note of the situation, Lucian. I was alive-ish, no broken bones, by some divine intervention, and I had gained a kid along the way. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Kid-ade might be just as scrumptious, though. Then again, have you ever tried fresh blood from an innocent child? There was something about the taste. It used to be, to us, Dark Ones, like caviar was to humans; lip-smacking good. But that was back in the days of the great war, when anything was game. Since I became a Darkened Disciple and took the path of enlightenment when I met Taylor, everything changed. Kids weren't really a menu choice anymore. I didn't think she’d forgive that one. It was good to feel again, though, even if I was dying of thirst. She had shown me how to be like a human again, how to feel love and enjoy the rest of my long, tedious life. Immortality sucked at times, especially when she wasn't at my side.
Burgh! I guess I needed to put these legs to good use and start walking. Where the heck am I anyway? Looking through the smoke, I could vaguely see the outline of a mountain. Hmm, it looked like we weren't too far away when we crashed, at least. It shouldn't take too long to speed over there. But what about the boy?
“Hey, kid,” I said, shaking him. “You alive in there, mate?”
“Err,” he said.
Well, grumbling was good. Now where to dump him?
Jeez, I couldn't, could I? If that was the mountain I thought it was, then I was too close to the passage of Enoch. Bolivia would be full of the supernatural. I doubted any of that lot would survive out there with the damn shadelings about. Bloody hell, why am I sweating? It wasn't overly hot out here. Shit! Just walk away. I couldn't take him with me. He’d have more of a chance with the shadelings than by my side.
As I took a few steps towards the mountains, the kid grumbled, holding out his hand for help. Damn it, bloody humanity switch! I headed back over and pulled the kid free of the torn seatbelt. I couldn’t leave him to be eaten alive. Taylor would never forgive me.
“You’ll be okay, kid. Hang in there,” I said as my voice cracked.
Lifting the boy free, he gripped around my neck with his tiny clammy hands and fell asleep in my arms.
“We’ve got a while to go yet, best be quiet around these parts. We don’t want any unwanted attention,” I said as the kid snored openly in my arms.
CHAPTER 38: TAYLOR
Gabriel. Who was he to me? He watched me, kept me safe and well protected. I knew, realistically, he worked for us, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like we were equals, he and I. We didn't create them, father did, so I guess we were all equals in the full sense of the term. Mother birthed us, whereas God birthed the Angels, just not in the literal sense.
"Are you ready, Eve?" Gabriel asked, knocking at the bedroom door.
It was the room Lucian and I had spent many nights in, entwined under the sheets. It was my second home, with my first now sitting in silence since my dad and brother had died and gone to Elysium. Jeez, I missed Lucian. Why did he have to go be the hero and try save me from the depths of Hell? Why did he even think I’d be in Hell? Granted, I had caused an apocalyptic mess, but hey ho, who was watching anyway? God certainly wasn’t, thankfully, by the sounds of it. Why did I end up with the 'creepy dad' card? He’d been roaming Earth for centuries hunting me down. Obsessed much?
What was so special about me anyhow? Why was the Almighty so adamant to take down all the women in his life? First my mother, then Lilith, and now me. The darkness consumed him, though. It wasn't him in there pulling the strings, it was the darkness. So why does it push to banish all of us to different realms? What did we have that the men in our family didn't?
"Gabriel," I said as I walked over to greet him by the open door. "Why do you think God tries to destroy all the women in his family? Why not the men? Why not Adam?"
"Good question, but I couldn't give a definitive answer."
Elisha barged in. "Why, it's because women are special, darling." She smiled. "We have more self-control, we're used to emotions."
"Perhaps that's it, then," I said. "Maybe we can control the darkness like we do our emotions."
"Yes, and men aren't stereotypically the emotional types, so they have no control over them." Elisha said.
"So," Gabriel spoke, "the darkness controls m
en and women have more chance at controlling it."
"Makes sense, mate," Harland said as he came up the stairs. "Have you ever tried controlling a woman?" He smirked.
Gabriel smiled. "Right. Eve, are you ready?"
Harland frowned. "Are you sure you want to do this, Taylor?"
"Yes. Wouldn't you, for your soulmate?"
"I wouldn't know, I've not met them yet."
"Them... you're hopeful."
He laughed. "Always."
We walked down the stairs to say our goodbyes beside the roaring fire.
"Don't be a stranger, Taylor," Elisha said, hugging me.
"I'll miss you, TayTay," Nic said.
"Don't get yourself killed again! I'm not making another casket anytime soon."
"Be good to yourself and come home to us, Taylor." Lawrence said.
Harland walked over, seeing Gabriel and I to the door. "Be safe. You're my family, you'd better come back in one piece." He flung his arms around my neck, pulling me in for a tight squeeze.
"Ouch! You're crushing me," I said as Gabriel laughed.
"Come on, Taylor, where are we off to?"
"Bolivia, apparently, beside the mountains near lake Zongo."
"Really? I'd never have guessed it was there."
"It might not be yet, but Elisha said that's the first place Lucian would try."
"Then Bolivia, here we come." Gabriel smiled as we walked out into the deep night sky.
"Wow, just look at the stars tonight!"
"Just you wait until you're right up close to them." He said smiling. "Come here."
Gabriel pulled me close to him, so close I could feel his warm, moist breath flutter across my forehead. Gripping me gently around my waist, his feathers fluttered, wings stretched out, and we fleetingly rose up into the night sky, waving goodbye to my supernatural family below.
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