by Jasmine Walt
The light in the room was glaringly bright. It crawled up the back of my spine and made me tense. It felt off. It felt different. Familiar but foreign. Like something else was in the room. I looked up, and Gabriel, my father, stood in the open doorway. He watched us impassively.
I yelped and grabbed for my sheath. Zane stood, shielding me, and faced my father.
“With all due respect,” Zane said through clenched teeth, “you could announce yourself before coming into a room.”
Gabriel cocked his head to the side like a confused bird. “I stood in the doorway and flashed my light.”
Zane looked to me. I looked to him. Then we both turned back to gape at my father.
“Your presence is needed at the gathering.” Gabriel turned and headed out, likely expecting us to follow his command.
With the sheath covering my body, I looked again to Zane. He pinched the bridge of his nose. I smoothed the sheath down and my hand froze.
“Wait,” I yelled. “Gabriel?”
My father rematerialized in the doorway in an instant, his expression blank.
“Um… could you… would you mind?” I shifted the sheath and pointed to my chest where the torn light was coming through.
I was mortified. What daughter in the history of the world had to get her father to stitch up her skin after amorous activity? Anybody else? No? It was just my luck.
10
I slipped on the discarded sheath and squirmed as Gabriel stitched up my skin. Zane stood off to the side. His gaze was a narrow slit of irritation, but his lips twitched in amusement as he watched the man who had sired me reknit the skin on my chest, which had been torn due to my haste to jump his bones.
As my father’s light connected with mine, it brought a different heat than Zane’s. Gabriel’s light was familiar, but it ran a bit cold. I studied the details of my sire’s face. Had he ever looked on me warmly? I couldn’t recall a single instance.
Once Gabriel was done, he backed away. He tilted his head, signaling for me to precede him out the door. Zane brought up the rear.
“Eden only asked for her,” said Gabriel.
“Where she goes, I follow,” said Zane.
“Yes,” said Gabriel. “I remember that about you two.”
We left the pyramid and headed outside. It was perpetual day here in the core. Light everywhere. Light above, light below, light emanating off the beings walking and floating around.
“Gabriel? Has a decision been made? Are the Elohim waging war against humanity?”
“Elohim do not wage war,” he said. “We keep the balance. Humans have tilted the scales too far. Things must be righted.”
“Like with the dragons?”
“Exactly.”
“But you didn’t just wipe out the dragons. You wiped out most of the creatures who roamed on the surface at that time. Didn’t that create another imbalance?”
“Yes, at the time.” Gabriel nodded. “But in the end, all was righted and brought back into balance. If it had not been, we could’ve all perished. Dragons evolved to breathe fire. Humans have learned to create bombs. The bombs would devastate more of life than a stream of fire from a single dragon.”
I couldn’t argue that. And when I remained mute and stewing, Gabriel turned back around and continued on. I looked at Zane, but he had no words to offer. So we fell into step behind Gabriel.
We returned to the structure where I’d awakened. This time, the heat inside overwhelmed me. It was like a sauna, but it felt good on my skin, like I’d stepped into the summer sun after having been lost in centuries of winter.
Elohim were everywhere. Dozens of them. It was difficult to tell many of the Elohim’s gender. Sex wasn’t a natural trait for beings who started as specks of light encased in membranes.
None had hair. Instead, only a pattern of raised nodes swirled around the crowns of their heads. Many of them sat in their natural light. The few who had skin favored the tones on the darker side of the spectrum. None wore clothes.
I saw the Trickster Twins, Hunahpú and Xbalanqué. I ached to go to them and ask them of Skye and Skully. They’d just left their children, the Balam and the Mohegan shifters, before Zane and I had fallen to the core. The shifters would surely be on their fathers’ minds.
It hadn’t quite been a twenty-four-hour day since Zane and I had fallen through the door. Had it? How long since the Twins had shut the door. How long had they stayed on the surface? How long had we been down here?
I started to make my way over toward them, certain that Zane was at my back. But when I looked over my shoulder, Zane stood stock still. His gaze narrowed at the center of the room.
There was one Elohim on the floor. Though his speech was emotionless and his features impassive, his words were filled with fire and brimstone.
“We feel the irritation of the Earth,” said Michael. “The answer is clear. Something must be done on the surface before the scourge of humanity infects the core.”
A memory of a place flitted to the surface of my consciousness. Somewhere situated off the west coast of Turkey and the continent of Asia. Patmos, I believe it was called. It wasn’t even the turn of the millennium. There I looked over the shoulder of a man as he wrote a book using similar fiery language.
“The nations were angry, and your wrath has come,” said that man on that island. “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your people who revere your name, both great and small, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
John had been his name. He was an older man, and many called him John the Elder. John the Elder went on to write a book. Revelation, he’d called it.
John had stood in the middle of the streets most days shouting about the end of days. “And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’”
John once said he’d heard the trumpets of the angels and seen a fiery light. I wondered if Michael had paid him a vision.
Out in the hall, many of the Elohim nodded in agreement with Michael. But there was at least one voice of dissent.
“We’ve felt this disturbance before, with the fae,” said another Elohim. A woman. I recognized her. It was Rhea, the mother of the Olympian gods.
She had come to me in my dreams not long ago. She’d asked me to help save her children, the Greek gods. Perhaps she might be an ally now, especially since her children were still above on the surface and humans were their livelihood.
“Yes, but at least the fae had the wherewithal to remove themselves,” said Michael. “Humanity doesn’t possess the intellect to do so. They do possess the intellect to manipulate energy. Their bombs could destroy us all.”
“My children are still up there,” said Rhea.
Michael shrugged. “So are some of mine. I fail to see your point.”
Beside me, Zane tensed at his father’s words. I wrapped my hand around his bicep. Zane wouldn’t do anything, I didn’t think. I just needed him to know that I was with him.
“Hello, little Ishim.”
It was Eden’s daughter, Bryn. She leaned against the frame of the door, half in and half out. She tilted her head to the side in that curious way that her mother did. But her gaze was shrewd, calculating.
“You don’t know who I am? Do you?” she asked.
“Sure I do,” I said. “You’re Eden’s brat.”
Bryn’s shrewd calculations came to a sum. “Poor little Ishim and their tiny brains.” Her gaze slipped past me and perused Zane.
I wasn’t a possessive woman. Not really. But something about this chick rankled me. “Keep your dim little fingers off my man, or else.”
“Or else what?” She smirked.
&
nbsp; I reached down to my thigh only to remember I had no blades. Meanwhile, Bryn held a sword at her back. How come I didn’t get any steel?
“Bryn, play nice.” Eden’s voice was unmistakable.
Even without recognizing her voice, I felt her light. It was like no other light in existence. Strong as a heartbeat that pulsed through you.
“Why?” Bryn’s voice was little more than a throaty whine. “She’s just an Ishim.”
“So are you.”
“I’m the daughter of two ethereal beings. Not some bloody human.” Bryn pouted and stomped her boot on the ground.
“Mother has work to do,” said Eden. “Go and play with the flora while I talk to Nia.”
“I’m your daughter.” Bryn balled her fingers into fists. “You’ve been putting me off all day when I have something important to tell you.”
“You’re being dramatic. It’s a flaw in my daughters’ design.” Eden looked at Bryn, cocking her head from side to side in that curious expression. “I think perhaps too much light. Bryn, I’m sure whatever you have to say to me can wait a bit longer.”
“I won’t bother to wait. I’ll return home to Asgard since you don’t have time for me.”
Asgard? That place wasn’t real. The realm of Odin and the Valkyrie.
But then I took Bryn in again. The fae ears. The soldier’s outfit. The sword. Valkyrie rode horses, sometimes unicorns. But honestly, was a fire-breathing dragon that far off from a unicorn? She was a freaking Valkyrie.
“I’ll just return to Father then,” said Bryn as she turned. “I only came to tell you about the theft of the Hammer of God.”
Eden’s head jerked back. “Someone stole Odin’s hammer?”
“Hmm,” sing-songed Bryn, still heading away but walking extremely slowly. “A witch.”
That perked up my ears. A witch? A thief? Facing off against a god? Could it be?
“You’ve always had a fondness for telling stories, Bryn,” said Eden. “I’m busy now. I’ll give you my attention when I’m finished. Why don’t you go and play with Zayin while I speak with Nia?”
Eden beckoned to me. I hesitated, looking between the Creator, her demon offspring, and my soulmate. Bryn’s pretend steps toward her home halted, and she turned back and grinned at Zane. Zane raised a wary eyebrow at Bryn and then winked at me. He could handle her, the wink said. I sighed and reluctantly followed Eden.
“Your daughter is a spoiled brat,” I said to Eden while we were still within earshot.
“No.” Eden frowned. “I don’t think so. From my understanding, a spoiled brat is a child who uses their parents’ weaknesses to get what they want. I don’t have any weaknesses.”
She had a point there. Not about the weaknesses, about Bryn getting what she wanted. Bryn was clearly not getting what she wanted from her mother, which was attention. Put like that, I had a momentary pang for the girl. But only a tiny pang. She was still a holy terror.
“And I only brought them into existence,” Eden was saying. “They were raised by their father.”
“Odin? He’s in Asgard? Where is that?”
“Another realm inside the earth.”
“There are other realms?”
“You’re standing in the core right now. This is a big planet. Lots of nooks and crannies to exist within.”
We arrived back in Eden’s lab, tidy as ever, the exam table bare. Did she only use it to knit back fallen Ishim, or did she experiment on the various life forms of creation? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“I developed those symbols because I needed a way to communicate with others.” Eden’s slender fingers waved at the bright graffiti of pictographs that hung in the air, much like Zane’s painting. “Elohim communicated with our light. Then mouths evolved and we began making sounds. Did you know that the first sound was El?”
Having only been born three thousand years ago, I did not know that fun fact.
“I developed taste to guide life forms into understanding dangers of certain elements. With noses I established scent. With the eyes came writings. But, at the end of the cycle, all communication is light.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“You’re a good storyteller. I like the way you’ve catalogued your memories and humanity’s stories. I’d like for you to work with me.”
“Work with you?”
“Keeping the records of existence.”
I opened my mouth, but then closed it. Most of my records were of those cultures and civilizations that had been wiped out due to genocide and war and strife. I wrote down the stories of the marginalized, those who were covered up and buried in the dirt. What Eden was offering me now was a dream job.
“You’ve decided to save humanity?” I asked.
“Oh. No. The pattern of the human race’s destructive nature is strong. They need to go.”
My throat went dry. Like a brittle, cold day with a raspy wind that blew away a scarf.
“But not all,” Eden clarified. “I’ll save a few humans for the records. You can even pick a few hundred of your favorites, if you’d like.”
“Save a few humans? Like in Noah’s Ark?”
“Who?” She frowned. “Humans have lost their connection. All other animals still heed the rules of nature. But humanity goes against it. My hands are tied. Is that how the phrase goes?”
“That’s not true,” I said, and then groped for evidence. I hadn’t been able to make a valid argument to Vau or Epsilon, or to my father. I’d had these thoughts myself from time to time.
“Humans are connected,” I said. “By the blood in their veins. They protect each other, even as they fight each other. That’s admirable. Just because they haven’t served your purpose doesn’t mean they’re bad. They love hard, create beauty, solve problems in new and interesting ways.”
True, their love easily turned to hate. Yeah, they often destroyed the beauty they created. And maybe they were often behind the problems that needed solving.
“I like you,” said Eden with a nod of approval. “You have fire in your belly. Like a dragon. They were one of my favorite life forms.”
Hope sprung up in my heart. She was feeling nostalgic. She had said she’d hated destroying the dragons. Maybe she was having second thoughts about humans.
“So, you’ve changed your mind?” I asked.
“No, I believe it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“The apocalypse.”
My heart sank to my bare feet and my legs shook. No, that wasn’t me shaking. The ground shook.
11
BOOM!
I’d been in an earthquake before. During that natural disaster, the first indication was a bump, like rolling over a speed hump at low speed in a vehicle. Several seconds later was the telltale shaking of the ground. That sharp shake caused buildings to rattle, glass to break, and brick to fall. But it all passed relatively quickly.
This was no typical earthquake. The earth below and the faux sky above rattled like a beast trying to escape a cage. The shocking vibrations weren’t quick or fleeting. The shivering of the earth lasted for long moments. Waves of energy passed through me, like a strong wind. But it didn’t knock me down.
It had started. The apocalypse. There was nothing I could do.
Everyone above that I loved was gone or suffering. I wanted to punch something, preferably Eden. But the look on her face left my fingers numb.
The blast hadn’t knocked Eden down, but it did knock the impassivity off her face. I didn’t know true fear until I saw the face of God contorted in shock and uncertainty. Whatever had exploded, whatever had been destroyed, whatever was coming, it wasn’t by her design.
“Huh,” she said, cocking her head in that birdlike fashion. “That is new.”
Then her face took on a dreamy look.
“It has been so long since I’ve had a new experience.”
I didn’t wait around for Eden to revel in the moment. I hurried out of the lab. T
he Elohim spilled out of the hall. I expected them to surround Eden, to protect her. But none of them even approached her. I supposed that made sense since she was more powerful than all of them. They could do nothing to protect her.
Gabriel searched the crowd until he found me. Was that relief or accusation on his face? I wasn’t sure.
Michael stood at the perimeter. Sword of light raised, looking for a battle.
“What was that?” someone asked.
Eden looked around. I knew she wasn’t looking with her eyes, but with her inner light. Confusion remained on her face. For once, she didn’t know something.
The shaking stopped. But the vibration of the disturbance remained. And then a voice sounded in the silence.
“Kneeee-ahhh.”
A throaty voice, like a smoker. The consonants came off the tongue clipped and harsh like she was South African. But there was an added softening to the end of my name, lengthening the vowel sound as though the speaker had leisure time at her hands and the freedom to spend it.
“Dr. Nia Rivers.”
The voice that bellowed my name was deep. But it was also high-pitched and feminine. I was hallucinating. I had to be. It simply wasn’t possible.
“Girl, you better get your hot ass out here. And bring that fine Frenchman with you. Your ride is here.”
Loren? Loren. “Loren!”
Zane drew close behind me. His was the only face not contorted in confusion. His lips quirked in amusement.
Beside him, Bryn had her hand cocked on her hip. “Told you,” she told her mother. “I tried to tell you someone was coming for her. But you didn’t have time to listen.”
Dozens of bright eyes shifted from Bryn to me. I had to assume break-ins and rescue attempts weren’t a common occurrence in the core of the Earth. There was likely no protocol for what was happening. Instead of waiting around for them to figure out what action to take, I grabbed Zane and took off.
We ran out of the bright hall into the cool warmth of the outside. And there she was, like a blonde, avenging angel.