“I didn't know you were going to be here at the crack of dawn.”
“It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, Eve.”
“I’m on the night shift. It’s early morning for me," I grumbled. "How are you excited about this?” Grabbing his outstretched hand, I let him pull me upright.
“To be perfectly honest,” I added, “I thought you might disappear overnight, as you occasionally do. Last time Nate asked you to help him with some astral plane surveillance, you didn't surface for a week.”
“I got a job as entertainment director on a cruise ship. Duty called, and I answered!” Met declared. “Plus,” he added in a whisper. “I’m not fond of the Astral Plane. There are too many entities on there that I’m trying to avoid.”
I winced as I got to my feet. I could barely stand up without my back aching, and I was about to go abseiling down the world’s most mysterious and treacherous descent. “Why did I think that this was a good idea?” I whined.
“Because it was your only idea? Beggars can’t be choosers, Eve.”
“You are too perky.”
“It will be fun! I’ve never gone down there before. Between you and me, I’m very excited to see the prophecy. Can you imagine, Eve? Sixty thousand years old, those drawings.” He rubbed his hands with glee. “It will be like a trip down memory lane. You should have seen the world back then, Eve! So shiny and new.” He paused, and shrugged. “And vicious and harsh too. Life expectancy was pretty dim.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Okay, Mr. Optimistic. Let’s get moving.”
Met tactfully left me alone so I could get dressed. With a bit of difficulty, I managed to shrug on some black workout tights and pull a tight maternity singlet over my belly. After I was done wrestling with myself, I rubbed my belly lovingly, feeling the warmth blossom within me.
It didn’t really matter how uncomfortable I became, I still adored the little part-human that grew inside me. It was the only thing I was a hundred percent sure of. I loved my baby. This baby was innocent, and I was not going to sacrifice this beautiful, innocent soul. Especially since Hell was destined to break open eventually, regardless of what I did.
I heard Met downstairs, chatting brightly to Nate and Alex, who answered him in low monotones. Clearly, both of them were still very unhappy about Met and me going down in the caves alone.
Well, I wasn’t pleased about it either. But it was happening. Met was right - it was the only idea I had.
I stomped downstairs, letting the extra weight inside me make my footsteps heavy, and entered the dining area. Met smiled at me and handed me a plate of pancakes.
“Eat up, Strawberry. You’re going to need every extra calorie you can pack in.”
“Is that a prophecy?” I asked him, taking the plate.
“It’s biology,” he said, straight-faced. “You need calories for energy. We’re about to do some physical activity.”
“Why pancakes, then?” Alex asked, his voice surly. “Shouldn’t she be eating quinoa granola or something healthier?”
“I like pancakes,” Met replied, meeting Alex’s eye steadily. “She does, too.”
“And why do you call her Strawberry?” Nate asked, his voice equally peeved as Alex’s. “It’s a stupid name.”
“Her namesake ate one in the Garden,” Met explained.
“What? You mean Eve? The original woman?” I perked up. I loved hearing about the real events behind biblical stories.
Met nodded. “It wasn’t an apple, it was a strawberry. And it wasn’t the fruit of knowledge. It was an enchanted dessert. Lilith, the first human to access her greater powers, channeled some divine energy into a strawberry, and gave it to her girlfriend, so Eve would understand what she was truly capable of. Suffice to say, she did become enlightened, because they both kicked Adam out, seduced a couple of angels and managed to seal off the Garden into a separate dimension. Thus, the Fae were born.”
“Wow,” I breathed out. “That’s amazing. Is that all true?”
Met shrugged. “I think so. I wasn’t there at the time.”
“Did a cruise ship need a lounge singer?” Nate muttered sarcastically.
“Something like that,” Met smiled back beatifically. “But if I were there, I wouldn’t change a thing. For a long while, we were hoping that the Fae would be the ones to keep evolving into divine beings. But, they stalled, just like every other conscious entity in the multiverse. Now,” he waggled a finger at me. “It’s all on you, human.”
I narrowed my eyes at him jokingly. “As if I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders already, you’re pinning your hopes for the entire universe on me too?”
He beamed at me. “You don’t have a clue what you’re capable of, my little strawberry. Now eat up. We’ve got a hole to descend down.”
“That’s what he said,” I muttered. I immediately regretted the joke when Met burst out laughing and spat his mouthful of pancakes everywhere.
When I was full, Nate and Alex walked with me towards the caves. Met, weighted down by ropes and harnesses, followed behind us.
“Promise me that you’ll come up the second that there is any danger.” Alex reached out and took my hand as we got to the cave’s entrance.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” I replied.
“Keep your mental block up,” Nate said. “Don’t panic if it slips, and the screams get louder. Just focus, like we practiced, and get the block back up.”
I nodded. “I just hope they’re not much worse the lower we get.”
“They will be,” Alex said, looking sad. “They will get worse every step of the way. If you keep your block up, you should still be able to concentrate on what you’re doing.”
“The screams almost killed you.” My resolve wobbled for a second as I turned to face him. My beautiful Cambion lover.
His gorgeous, hard jawline was tensed, and I trailed my fingers down to his chin.
“I was bound in hematite,” he said firmly. I was mesmerized by the stubble on his chin. It emphasized the hardness of his tone. I could tell he was trying to be strong for me. “It made it impossible to shift my energy to my head, so I couldn’t block the screams,” he added. “I know you’ll be okay.”
My lips trembled. “You have faith in me?”
“More so than in anyone else,” he said roughly.
I kissed him hard, feeling the sweet taste on his lips, feeling the fear and passion overwhelm me. I gripped the back of his head, tangling my fingers in his tousled, dark-blond hair. Alex’s arms squeezed tight around me, and I felt a pulse down low in my body as my energy center flared into life. I couldn’t get close enough to him, not ever, not even when our bodies were intertwined and as close as they could possibly be. I needed him.
I felt a sharp smack on my butt. “Let’s go, you hussy,” Met giggled at me as he passed, wrestling with his ropes. “You’ll have enough time for that when you come back out.”
I pulled back from Alex, losing myself again in the fathomless depths of his icy-blue eyes.
“The Voice of God has spoken,” I smiled softly. “I’m definitely coming back out.”
“I look forward to it,” Alex replied roughly.
Nate gave me a quick hug, and rubbed my belly, leaning close to whisper to my unborn child. “Give her a hand, Champ,” he whispered.
I chuckled nervously. “He’s not even out yet, and you’re already putting pressure on him?”
“Are we sure it’s a him?”
I shrugged. “Nope. Not that it matters. I keep switching pronouns when I refer to her. We need a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.”
“We've got one!” Met said sassily. “People have been using they and them as singular, neutral pronouns for almost seven hundred years.”
I huffed out a breath and turned back to Alex. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it, woman. You’re the luckiest girl I know.”
I grimaced.
“For what it’s worth,” Nate chi
pped in, “You’re with Metatron. I keep trying to remind myself that even though he doesn’t look like it, he’s an exceptionally powerful archangel. He has as much power, if not more, than any of us.”
“It’s easy to forget,” Alex growled, watching Met get tangled in his climbing ropes.
“I’ll be just fine.” I took a deep breath, gave the boys one last hug, and turned to take the ropes off Met.
“How much of this rope are we going to need?” I asked him, trying to distract myself as we walked into the cave’s entrance, weighed down with all our climbing equipment.
“None of it,” Met replied happily. “It’s just for show. I like to look the part.”
“What?”
He giggled. “I came down here this afternoon and fixed a good half-mile of rope down the drop. That’s all we should need. Dale said that the caves are only halfway down.”
“What if we need more?”
He shrugged. “I guess I could materialize some if we get stuck.”
I scowled, and pushed the useless, coiled rope off my shoulder. It landed on the ground with a definitive thump “Met,” I said sternly. “Could you just… I don’t know… float us down there? Teleport us?”
“I could,” he said, looking thoughtful. “But it takes a fair bit of energy, Eve. I might not have enough to block out the screams.”
I suddenly felt sympathetic. “You hear the screams too?”
Met stopped in his tracks and turned so he could meet my eye. All of a sudden, he was serious, thoughtful, and very somber.
“It is one of the great sadnesses of my existence,” he said gravely. “That I could not Fall with my friends when they left Heaven to tend to the mortal souls. My destiny lay elsewhere, but not a day goes by where I feel great sorrow for the humans, and also for the demons that give them comfort.”
“Oh. I never thought of that,” I said softly. “I just figured you chose a side.”
“I always chose the humans, Eve, just like the demons did. But unlike the demons, I have faith. I know that this is all going to work out.”
“Why do you have faith?”
He booped my nose. “Because I’ve got you.”
I groaned. “Well, we better get down there so I can see what it is that I have to do to save this damned planet.”
We trudged through the outer caves. With Mrs. Croxford’s words echoing in my brain, I paused to take in the beauty and splendour of the crystal cavern as we went down.
Metatron approved. “The wonders of this realm will never cease to amaze me,” he said, letting his eyes take in the glowing crystals and mighty stalactites and stalagmites.
“I think it’s worth saving,” I agreed. “But to be fair, if the humans were to get wiped out, this would all still be here.”
“Though no one would be left to admire it.”
“Don’t be a downer, Met. Let’s go before I get weepy.”
I waddled down the staircases to the lowest levels of the caves, holding tight onto the railing to make sure I didn’t slip. Metatron was as surefooted as a mountain goat and whistled merrily all the way, his song bouncing off the cave walls and echoing in a particularly odd fashion. It was eerie, but in a good way, like we were headed somewhere special, not scary.
We reached the platform that led to the Devil’s Drop. The resort had fixed lights around the lower levels where we were, but the glow only extended a few feet down the massive hole that yawned up at us. It was designed to be scary. Revelations management wanted to give the guests a show, but they didn’t want to encourage them to head down there. And, if any of them insisted, the management let them know that it was a wholly boring descent, and that the caves weren’t even close to being the deepest on Earth.
Any of them that persisted were put off once the dark thoughts started whirling in their heads, a few feet down.
I took a deep breath. Because I was so sensitive now, I’d put my mental barriers in place as soon as we’d gotten into the caves. I could hear the screams the minute I entered the belly of the earth. They were muted, but they’d grown in volume on the way down. It was manageable. My mental barriers were doing okay. It was strange; I had to visualize pushing a cushion of air around my head. Occasionally, if I got distracted, it slipped, but I pushed out easily enough. As long as I concentrated, I’d be okay.
Met slipped on his harness and ducked under the railing without hesitation, clipping himself in like an expert cave diver. Feeling like an elephant trying on a sexy outfit, I got into my harness and tightened it low under my bump, and crawled on all fours under the railing. I’d accepted a couple of months ago that I couldn’t bend double anymore. Soon, Alex would have to tie my shoes for me.
Met clipped me in and plonked a helmet on my head. “Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Great.” He slapped me on the helmet, turned my headlamp on, switched on his own, and backed himself down the ledge until he was spider-walking backward.
Reluctantly, I followed. I kept my eyes forward, not looking down. I wasn’t scared of heights, but the lamp’s light only extended a few feet. It was scary looking at the yawning maw of blackness below me. Instead, I faced the sheer rock wall, letting the harness hold my weight firmly.
We went very, very slowly at first, then faster, as I got the hang of swinging myself out and letting go of the tension in the ropes at the same time. My barriers held fast, but I could tell the screams were getting louder.
“So, Met,” I began, suddenly desperate to distract myself. “Have you been to any other realms?”
He nodded. “I’ve been to most of them, Strawberry. The ones that have intelligent life, in any case.”
“That was your duty, wasn’t it? To look for life that had the potential to evolve into divine beings?”
“It’s not a duty as such,” he replied. “It was a wish that I had, many, many centuries ago. I, like many other angels, desperately hoped another life form would evolve so that humans wouldn’t need to suffer anymore. Instead all the other life forms stalled in their evolution as soon as they become comfortable. Or else they destroyed themselves very quickly. No, my love,” he sighed. “It’s got to be humans. It’s our only hope at this point.”
The thought weighed heavily on me, and I fell silent. For a while, the only sound in the cave was the soft zip of rope on steel, and the tap of our feet hitting the cave wall as we descended slowly down.
“Well,” I said slowly, looking for something fun to talk about. “If you had to choose another realm to live in, which would you choose?”
He grinned. “The Vampire Realm.”
I glanced at him, shocked. “Really?”
“You’d be amazed, Eve. They’re surprisingly fun. Yes, they can be vicious monsters, but some of them have morals. They love very passionately; it’s always entertaining. They also adore humans, for the most part, too. That’s probably because they move in and out of the Earthly Realm so easily.”
“They do?”
He nodded. “Shifters, too. I like them as well, but vampires are more predictable. They want blood and sex and entertainment, and that’s about it.”
“What about the Fae?”
“There’s a few different races of Fae, and it’s quite complicated,” he said, putting his head on the side and sighing. “Fae are of angel descent, so they have similar failings. They are not humble.” He said the last word in a profound, serious voice. I got the feeling that Met prized humility more than anything.
“And vampires are humble?”
“Vampires are dramatic,” Met replied. “There’s a difference.”
“Ha,” I snorted. “If this whole mess has taught me anything, it’s that there’s good and bad in everything. I thought demons were bad, and angels were good. Instead I've discovered there are so many shades of grey in between.”
“Even amongst all the other species, too,” Met agreed. “There’s good Fae and bad Fae. There’s good shifters and bad. There are bad vampir
es, and vampires that are good at being bad.”
I giggled, pushing myself off the rock a little higher. “You’re doing a good job at distracting me,” I told him. “I’m glad you’re here.”
He turned to look at me, and I had to squint to block the light from his headlamp. “I’m here to serve,” he giggled. “It seems I'm just in time too, because I think we’re here.”
I froze, holding my rope in front of me, and I looked around.
“There,” Met said, pointing down a bit.
I twisted myself a little, letting the lamp-light illuminate the cave. “Oh!”
There was a small hole, set right into the sheer wall of the cave to our left. I wasn’t surprised that the few explorers that had been down here had missed it - it was far enough to the side that you wouldn’t see it with your headlamp unless you were staring in that direction at a crucial moment in your descent.
“How on earth did the First People get down here?” I wondered aloud.
“How did Stonehenge get built?” Met replied. “Or the pyramids?”
“Uh, I don’t know.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do you know?”
“It’s not for me to divulge the secrets to the mysteries of mankind, Eve,” he said primly.
I let myself drop down a bit further until I was almost in-line with the small hole. “I’m guessing it opens up a little, once you are in there,” I said hopefully. “How the hell are we going to get over there?”
Met winked, and pulled a weird gun out of his utility belt. Aiming, he pulled the trigger, and a rope shot out of the barrel. It was only when I heard a sharp ping that I realized that the rope had a pin attached to it, and it had dug itself into the wall.
Met used the rope to pull himself over towards the hole. Once he was there, he quickly banged in a few more pins, securing himself to his new position.
“Grab this line,” he called over, tossing me a spare. I caught it on the second try, and he pulled me over and secured me carefully.
Together, we inspected the hole. It was tiny, but it looked like it did indeed open up into a larger cavern, a few feet further in. “Am I going to fit in there?” I wondered aloud, rubbing my belly.
Revelations: The Last War Page 11