Son of Secrets

by N. J. Simmonds

  Then it came to her. There was a way out of her predicament, and it would also get her boy’s attention. It was time to make history…again.

  Luci couldn’t control the minds of people without talking and looking at them, and she couldn’t control inanimate objects without pointing at them, but if she could move her fingers just a little and really concentrate, then she should be able to control the minds of animals. It wasn’t only Luci who was famed for strength, cunning, and jet-black feathers.

  Her fingers were swollen and numb from the tight rope around her wrists, but she was still able to move them a little. She closed her eyes and focused on the images of the crows at the gallows and the flock of black birds circling the hill, waiting for the dead to stop twitching. She made a beckoning motion with her middle finger and immediately heard the cry of a crow coming closer.

  It was working!

  She felt it land on her wrists and start to peck at the rope tying her hands together. She beckoned with her finger again and another landed on her shoulder, pulling at the rope around her neck and loosening the hold of the sack over her face. She had to see if Zadkiel was there. She had to free herself before Elien was hanged, or Zadkiel would be gone before she reached him. She felt a thump at her feet as another bale of hay was thrown at the base of the pyre and set alight. Fire crackled at her ankles, the heat rising beneath her long skirt. It wouldn’t be long before her clothing burst into flames and her body quickly followed.

  With one last tug from the bird’s beak, her hands were finally free. She pulled off her hood and looked around her. The screams of the burning women had quickly become one with the roar of the fires. It was hard to make out the crowd through the dense smoke billowing around her. Some of the onlookers had turned their backs on the witches and were now watching the gallows where three women already hung, their limp bodies swaying like broken rag dolls. The guards were cutting them down and looping new rope over the frames. Elien was next, which meant one of the many hooded men in the crowd was Luci’s son. She didn’t have a moment to lose.

  She raised her arms up high, as if praising the god she knew had never existed, and looked up at the sky. The swirling grey clouds began to turn black as dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands of crows gathered above the jeering crowd. The townspeople, upon seeing the skies suddenly darken and the witch free herself from her restraints, began to point and scream. Luci threw her arms down and commanded the birds to attack.

  People scattered in all directions as the crows tore into their flesh and ripped at their clothes. Hats and caps were trampled underfoot. Birds clawed and scratched at people’s faces, their talons tangled in people’s hair, their beaks pecking at wide, frightened eyes. The accused were still burning, some of them now slumped on top of the flames, nothing more than charred masses of blistered skin—but there was no one left to watch them. The onlookers were now running from the hill toward the town, the roar of the fires drowned out by the deafening flurry of thousands of wings.

  Luci reached down her top and took out her necklace, using the clasp to fasten it around her neck. She needed all the help she could get. Untying the rope around her waist and feet, she walked down the burning pyre. As she did so, her long skirt set alight. Those cowering from the birds screamed anew at the vision of the burning witch walking toward them.

  But she didn’t want them; she was searching for her son.

  At the gallows, the crowd had also thinned out. Most people were curled on the ground in tight balls, birds pulling at their hair and clothes, or they were running for their lives. All except for the giant guard who had kept his post, unconcerned by the crows swarming around him, determined to finish the job he’d started. Elien was the last person left to hang.

  ‘Zadkiel! Where are you?’ Luci cried, running to the other side of the hill, her eyes scanning the faces of the villagers.

  She tripped over a pile of flesh and blood. Dead crows and people lay scattered on the ground, black feathers falling like ash over the bloody bodies of the fallen victims. Luci was still too far away from the gallows to be heard, but she could see Elien and the noose hanging around her neck. The guard was fighting off two crows that were pecking at his neck and hands as the girl, now standing on the edge of the wooden platform, looked around her in panic. She was also examining the faces of the few people left standing. Was she searching for Luci to save her? Or was she too looking for Zadkiel?

  The birds knew not to attack Elien and they tried to help her, but no matter how much they tore at the fibres, they could do nothing about the thick rope hanging around Elien’s neck.

  Everybody in the crowd was now either screaming and running or crouched on the ground with their arms over their heads—all except for one solitary figure. A hooded man, his back to Luci, was the only still soul among the chaos. Luci ran faster toward him, shouting out her boy’s name, her skirt still ablaze and singeing the grass over which she ran. She could no longer feel the flames licking at her ankles and thighs. All she cared about was Zadkiel.

  Elien had now seen her and was shouting out Luci’s name, her voice lost among the commotion. But as Luci got closer, she realised it wasn’t her name the girl was calling out. It was Zadkiel’s. It was Luci’s son Elien had seen, and Elien was calling out for his help. Zadkiel didn’t move though. He never did. He wasn’t there to save her; he was there to take her Home.

  Luci threw her arms up, intent on knocking over the gallows, but instead she tripped over a dead body covered in hungry crows. She sent more of the birds to swarm at the giant guard, but he grabbed them around the neck one by one, twisted their heads in his large hands, and threw them to the ground. Luci stumbled to her feet, flames now licking around her waist, as the guard turned his attention back to the young girl. Elien was already waiting in position on the gallows’ platform.

  ‘No!’ Luci screamed.

  With one last glance at the burning woman running toward him, the guard pushed the girl off the edge and sent her to her death.

  ‘Elien!’ Luci screamed as the guard walked away, still hitting the birds swooping down at him.

  She was nearly at the gallows now, trying to use her powers to raise her son’s true love through the air and take the strain off her neck, but she was too late. Elien was dead. Zadkiel was already beside the swinging girl, his back to his mother. Luci watched him pull Elien back up to the platform, cut her loose, and gather her onto his lap. She saw his head dip as he bowed down to kiss her, and then he was gone. Again.

  Luci dropped to the ground, the flames on her clothes slowly turning to thick smoke from the wet mud in which she sat. She looked around her at the carnage she’d created. Bodies lay strewn upon the hillside, clusters of hungry birds pecking at their mangled faces and empty eye sockets. Women and children sobbed uncontrollably in the doorways of the surrounding houses, the fire of the raging pyres reflected in the glass of their windows.

  The accused were all now dead, burned alive or hanged. They’d been innocent women whose only crime was being defiant and strong. Luci had failed and in her wake had left nothing but death. The only survivor had been her—the witch that wouldn’t burn.

  She clasped the necklace around her neck and screamed up at the sky as black feathers rained down upon her.

  ZAC RAISED HIS glass and nodded at his mother. She was probably expecting a smile from him but, after being forced to abandon Ella, he couldn’t imagine ever smiling again.

  ‘This is weird,’ he said.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Sitting by the sea with you, drinking…what is this?’

  ‘Sex on the Beach.’

  ‘How inappropriate.’

  He took a sip and screwed up his nose. It tasted of boiled sweets. The little sandy bay was empty and so was the beach bar. Luci had ordered everyone to leave and then had helped herself to the contents of the bar. His mother made a mean cocktail, although nothing she did surprised him anymore.

  Four hours had passed since Zac had
said goodbye to Ella, and it was taking every ounce of his resolve not to turn around and run back to her. He’d watched her die countless times in the past, which had never been easy, but this time was different. This time he’d set out to stay with her forever, and yet he’d still been forced to walk away against his own will. He knew Gabriel and Luci had been right about leaving Ella behind, but it still hurt. And it still felt wrong.

  As soon as they’d left the library and ensured everyone’s memories had been wiped clean, the archangel had vanished and Luci had ordered Zac to get on the back of the motorbike. She hadn’t even given her son time to hold on before riding far too fast away from the old monastery and his soulmate. They’d travelled along the Costa de la Luz coastline until they found a pretty hotel by the sea, and here they were, acting like normal people on a weekend away.

  ‘Tell me you have a plan,’ he said.

  Luci had changed out of her ridiculous ballgown and was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a T-shirt. Zac recognised them—they were Ella’s. Could his mother be any crasser? She peered at him over the top of her sunglasses and leant back on the sun lounger.

  ‘A plan?’ she echoed. ‘Of course not. It’s finally time to relax and enjoy ourselves. I have my wonderful son back. You have no idea how happy I am right now.’

  He turned away from her beaming smile and stared out to sea. The fact that his mother was alive, and right there beside him, hadn’t sunk in yet. Since he’d killed himself and returned, all he’d focused on was Ella and what he would do when he saw her. He hadn’t imagined he’d find Luci at the same time.

  Over the centuries, he’d thought back to the sweet mother of his childhood, a kind and gentle woman who’d looked after him and made the pain go away. He’d been told by Mikhael that his mother had been a normal woman, someone he’d never see again. Yet here she was, not human at all, instead a reckless, dangerous fallen angel who didn’t care how he was feeling. Couldn’t she see how broken he was? Luci claimed to love him and want him but wanting someone wasn’t the same as wishing the best for them.

  He sighed. Maybe that was his problem. He’d always wanted every version of Arabella, but the original girl he’d fallen in love with was gone forever. Wanting Ella had never been the best thing for her—it was what he wanted. Being together had always led to pain for both of them.

  ‘Do you realise how many times I missed you throughout history?’ Luci said.

  Zac turned to his mother, who was now kneeling beside his sun lounger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I came really close to finding you so many times. I watched you get murdered by the soldier back in Fiesole, I visited The Angel Inn in London after you and Gabriel were spotted there, I’ve seen you in every city and on every street—even in places you’ve never been. In Roermond, I burned at the stake so you would notice me, but you still didn’t.’

  Roermond? She’d been one of the burning witches? All he remembered about that time was sweet Elien. The way her hair had shone as if made of spun gold, even on a dull day, and the sweet smattering of freckles on her nose. He’d only known her briefly and had spoken to her just a handful of times, but he’d been watching her, drinking her in, hoping that she was happy. She’d been too young and too good to have died such a terrible death.

  He thought back to the gallows on that bitterly cold day. How had his mother been there? He remembered the burning women, the screams, the freezing cold mud splashing up his legs as he’d raced to be beside a dying Elien, and…the crows. Of course! That was the day birds attacked the crowd. It hadn’t occurred to him that magic had been behind the onslaught.

  ‘You did that? You summoned crows to get my attention?’

  ‘Yes,’ Luci said. ‘I was trying to save Elien, too. I called out to you, but as usual you only had eyes for her.’

  Zac took a large gulp of his cocktail and waited for it to numb his mind. All this time, he’d thought his mother was dead but she’d been doing everything in her power to find him. How many other times had their paths crossed? How long had he been oblivious to his mother’s attempts to find him while he worked for Mikhael, convinced he was an orphaned Nephilim, focusing all his energy on his lost love? Was this going to be his destiny, too? Forever roaming the world in search of Arabella and the women she became in each lifetime?

  Luci reached out and squeezed his hand.

  ‘I wish I’d known you were there,’ he said, meaning it.

  ‘Everything worked out in the end, son. We’re the fallen few now, the only two of our kind. Can’t you see? Now that you have joined me, we have the power to do whatever we want!’

  He shook his head slowly.

  ‘But I don’t care about power, Mamá. I returned for you and Ella. That’s all I ever wanted—the two most important women in my life. Just tell me how I can get her back.’

  Luci sighed and laid a hand on his.

  ‘You can’t. Not in this lifetime.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Son, you heard what Gabriel said.’ Luci fished the lemon out of her drink, sucked on it, and narrowed her eyes at Zac. ‘Ah, Gabriel. I’d forgotten how attractive that archangel is. I mean, it’s been two millennia since I last saw him, but my goodness, he really did look handsome this afternoon. It’s those cheekbones and the way he…’

  ‘Mamá!’

  ‘Sorry, you’re right, not appropriate. What was I saying? Oh yes. You can’t get back with Ella during this lifetime. It would be suicidal, Zadkiel. If Mikhael is watching her, then you have to keep away. Now that she’s back on her path, he’ll be extra vigilant, so make sure you’re not in the shadows. His sword is what makes him great and, no matter how strong you and I are, as long as he has that weapon, he can end her life forever.’

  Zac thought back to the day he’d hacked off his own wings with that very same sword. How the tip of Mikhael’s blade had been poised over the crown of Ella’s head, seconds away from ending every one of her future lives. Zac should have sliced Mikhael’s wings off, too, but then his father would have simply returned as Zac himself had done. Mikhael couldn’t die, just as he and Luci couldn’t.

  ‘How will I find Ella in her next lifetime?’ he asked.

  ‘Luck, my darling boy. It’s not easy. I spent over two thousand years searching for that piece-of-shit Sebastian. I vowed I’d repay him for what he did to us all, and only last week did I find his rotten soul in his current incarnation. What makes you think you’ll even find her the next time? And more to the point, how do you know she’d want you in the next life as much as she wanted you in this one?’

  Zac hadn’t thought about it like that. When he’d ended his life, all he’d imagined was returning to Earth and being with Ella forever. He hadn’t thought about the life they’d live, whether their children would have been safe, or what he’d do when she eventually died and he remained earthbound, the same age he’d been for thousands of years. He could never give her the life she deserved. His battle to return had been for nothing.

  ‘I don’t know what it is to not have her in my life, Mamá. She’s married by now, and all this time she’s been thinking I didn’t come back for her. That I broke my promise. When she dies, I won’t be by her side like I’ve always been. I’ll never take her Home again.’

  Luci sighed and looked up to the sky.

  ‘Get a grip, son. You’re boring me. We are going to be walking this planet for many years to come, and time is the only thing we have on our side. Just wait a few years, ten or twenty, and when Mikhael is confident you’re not coming back…then explain it all to her.’

  Zac shook his head again and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I can’t do that! I told you, in eleven years Ella and Josh will be dead. Ella drowns alongside her husband at age thirty-four; that’s their fate. It’s meant to be. She’s back on track now, which means her destiny is set and she won’t return for many years after her death. If I don’t see her soon, I never will again. Not as Ella, anyway.’

  Luci pul
led his head into her chest and stroked his short hair.

  ‘I’m sorry things turned out like this, son. I truly am. But this moping about stops today. You no longer have any link with her. She’s gone. It’s over.’

  ‘I can’t…I can’t live without her.’

  ‘You think, after all these years, I have not loved and lost as well? There have been men in my life, gods among men, who…’ Luci looked away.

  He looked up at his mother. Was she upset? About a man?

  She looked down at him, her watery eyes shining like bright green sea glass. ‘You have no idea what my heart has suffered, Zadkiel. You can’t imagine the things I’ve been through or the extent of my loss. Two thousand years is a long time; it hasn’t all been fun and games. But you and I, we live forever, and we keep going. You know what you do when you reach the very bottom, son? You kick off the ground and push yourself up to the surface again. Of course you can live without her—we can all survive without the things we want and the people we need.’ She held him tighter to her. ‘You’ll never be alone again, my boy. I’m not going anywhere.’

  Zac closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of his mother; it was the smell of his childhood, a time when everything was OK.

  ‘What am I going to do, Mamá?’

  ‘You are going to live, Zadkiel. You’re finally free; no one controls you. We’re untouchable, invincible, and unstoppable. I’ve waited two millennia to have a partner in crime. Let’s go crazy and see the world in style.’

  Zac was more powerful than he had ever imagined. Luci and Gabriel had both said so, but he felt far from strong. Could he ever be as brave as his mother?

  ‘I don’t know how you can be so positive about this state of in-between that we’re in.’

  ‘Because I get what I want and do what I want!’

  ‘But I don’t want to go through life brainwashing everyone to get my own way.’