Evenstar

by Darcy Town

  In London, the earth rumbled and stirred around a pivot point. The concrete crumbled away as dust. Black rats emptied out of buildings and sewers and raced towards the epicenter. The rats ran and when they found each other, they melded into one form. Larger and larger vermin bounded down streets, flipping cars and destroying shops. The rodents’ eyes blazed blue. The beasts descended into the steadily growing sinkhole hole and met with a graying force. The two combined.

  Chronos awoke. The keeper of decay shook off his self-imposed sleep. He heard his sister’s call. He perceived the swirling essence of his father and mother. His timeworn face broke into a grin. He wrapped shadows around his body and became clothed in age and disrepair.

  A gray miasma fell over the city. Buildings aged, cars rusted, people grew tired, and some fell asleep where they stood. Chronos stepped out of the ground a youth, gray in the flesh, his hair white. His eyes burned blue. Humans that managed to stay awake stopped and gaped. He looked over them, uninterested. He dissolved into the air.

  At Gaea’s feet, shadows rippled and pooled. Chronos stepped out of the sand. He saw his sister and the two hugged, children again. Gaea and Chronos, eldest of the Lilliam, looked out over the blue sea and clear sky.

  Chronos had not felt so alive in some time. “Mother?”

  “She has returned.”

  “And Father?”

  “They are reunited.”

  “Then do we allow the others to wake?”

  Gaea nodded. “It is time I think.”

  He smiled. The two touched hands and sent out a pulse to their long-slumbering siblings.

  ***

  In the abyss of the ocean, the pulse shook the water. A presence stirred in silt.

  Far above the ocean floor, an aircraft carrier cruised through the water on routine. A blue whale surfaced and passed them by. The crew gaped and smiled at the animal so rarely seen. They pointed. Another blue whale breached the water by it, then another. The ocean around them filled with the enormous mammals. The crew stared in shock as the behemoths centered, breathed in, and as one descended into the water.

  The whales dove, surged, and merged into one creature. A red light raced out of the deep to meet them. Leviathan took flesh. Fins as wings grew out of the whale. It elongated and grew in mass. Dozens of crimson eyes opened along the sides of her body, illuminating the depths around her. Lilliam city ruins glowed red.

  Lilliam of the deep swam through ancient halls and buildings and followed Leviathan to the surface. She breached the water; her myriad eyes examined the aircraft carrier, many times dwarfed by her size. She had not been awake in dozens of centuries and the creation that rode the water with her was a curiosity. She heard the pulse and looked way. Matters that were more important drew her attention from the human creation.

  Leviathan shook and made a noise that sounded like laughter. The waves rocked the ship. She leapt into the air and sailed over the carrier. She dove under the surface of the water and surged towards Gaea and Chronos. The sailors stared after Leviathan in astonishment, unable to do anything other than gape.

  ***

  Pigeons around the world went still. They listened. They cocked their heads at one time. The pigeons stared at the sky. Humans in cafés, parks, and at monuments stopped and gaped. Animals whined and ran from the birds.

  The wind picked up. Clouds formed thunderheads. Weather patterns broke as high and low pressure fronts changed course. The north and south winds met with their siblings of the east and west. Storms erupted in clear air. Funnels whipped through the atmosphere. Lightning struck in cloudless skies.

  The pigeons opened their wings and took to the air. They flew straight up, unheeding anything around them. Locals cheered as they found their squares, buildings, and monuments no longer covered in the flying rats. Above them, the skies darkened.

  The pigeons met the wind. They became a stream of feathers and coos as the air currents raced towards the Atlantic Ocean. At an unmarked spot the pigeons combined, pressed in by the winds. A roping dragon took shape from feathers and blood. His body dwarfed planes in the sky; he snapped his jaws and lightning raced through the air. Ouroboros opened burgundy eyes in the darkness of thunderclouds. He spread his many wings and headed towards his siblings.

  Beneath him, Leviathan watched her brother reawaken. She blasted water into the air, disrupting his undulating flight. He smiled and buzzed Leviathan as she raced away. The two rolled and played tag, cutting the waters and any vessels they ran into along the way.

  ***

  Scarabs erupted out of the sands around the Valley of Kings. The golden sands turned black and shiny. Animals and people fled. A second pulse went through the ground, rattling the scarabs. The area quieted.

  The chitenous insects waited. Light oozed out of the sand and formed balls of light, mini stars. Each beetle took position and pushed a sun. They moved without seeming plan or pattern, but each had a purpose reconstructing their god.

  The light joined, grew, and shined brighter than the sun in the sky. Ra stepped out of the condensed light and smiled. She danced from foot to foot as her beetles scattered back into the earth. She stomped on the ground and light raced from her, turning the sand to gold dust. She flew into the air, a bright star. She looked at what her land had become and frowned. Things appeared unfamiliar.

  Ra spread her hands out and focused on the buildings and ruins, the things beneath the shifting sands of Egypt. The ground shook, and the air shimmered. She restored her pyramids and statues. She raised buildings that had fallen; paint and jewels reformed on the surfaces. She enjoyed her objects and found them pleasing to look upon. She grinned as humans gaped.

  Ra twirled in the air.

  Phoenix appeared beside her, bedecked in red and gold fabric. She looked at her mother. “Mom! You weren’t woken up to redecorate.”

  Ra hugged her daughter. “But I want her to see what I made!”

  “And she will, later.”

  Ra kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Why are some of my pharaohs missing? What have my human converts been doing?”

  “The Pharaohs were moved by other humans. They like to look at them, and you do not have many human converts anymore.”

  Ra pouted and gazed at the Egyptians and tourists that waited in the sand. “Well, that just won’t do at all.”

  ***

  Along the Amazon River, spiders packed up their webs and went for a walk. They kept to the shadows, and animals let them pass by. Birds did not feast above the walking carpet of the eight-legged. Life showed them deference. The spiders came to a tree, one that looked like many others. It was tall, ancient, but under the growths of fungus and moss, runes glowed in the wood. The tree burned with gloom.

  The spiders began their climb.

  The tree turned black, blue, and brown as the arachnids layered its surface. They reached the canopy, spun their webs, and coated the foliage in shadow. Nix opened her eyes among the webs. Blue-eyed and glowing, she breathed darkness like smoke. Her body sparkled with stars and captured moonlight. She stretched, yawned, and opened wings of impenetrable black. The sky around her turned to dusk, spreading outwards from her body.

  She smacked her lips and shed her angelic form for one easier to travel in. Nix the owl-eyed leapt into the air. Night descended, an unnatural darkness. It followed her like a cape across the sky.

  ***

  The Himalayas quaked. Ice cracked and slid in rumbling waves. Pack animals fled, leaving their human companions to look around them in wonder. Avalanches went off like dominos falling, covering the base of the mountains with snow. Bare rock glittered in the sunlight.

  Along the ridges, Titan’s spine popped and snapped as he awoke. He opened his fists and the stone casing around them burst into splinters the size of elephants. The giant tore himself out of the stone and gazed into the thin air. He blinked and pulled his feet out of the mountains. Like his siblings Leviathan and Ouroboros, he had fallen asleep as a behemoth.

  Titan r
ubbed his nose, knocking loose rock and earth. He yawned and the sound echoed through the Himalayas. He cocked his head and oriented himself on the planet; his ruby eyes scanned air and water. He closed his eyes and felt for Ifrit. His brother had not yet awoken. Gleeful, he took his smaller form, a stone wolf, and dove into the rock.

  ***

  Ifrit slept in fire. His dreams sent volcanoes into eruptions of steam and molten rock. He felt the pulse of Gaea and Chronos within his dream. He roiled in fire and awoke. He felt at once the heat of the Light Bringer, his father. He smiled. Steam vented in geysers along the ocean, and fire warmed hot springs around the world. Dead volcanoes churned to life.

  Ifrit shrugged his shoulders and sent a chain of underwater mountains into rumblings as fault lines unsettled. He took his angelic form and stepped out onto the lava fields of Hawaii, a winged fiery man. He looked around, not having come to the surface in some time. His body glowed red from the heat; his eyes were sapphires. Ifrit smiled.

  A hand of stone grabbed his ankle and pulled.

  Ifrit kicked at Titan.

  Titan laughed and the islands shook. He punched through the rock and came to the surface. Both brothers looked towards the horizon.

  Ifrit pointed. “I can see Ouroboros.” Titan rumbled and howled, still a wolf. Ifrit spread his wings of flame and the brothers raced to meet with the others.

  ***

  Michael gripped his spear and stared at the changing landscape of the planet below. “What is going on?” The other Archangels flew by his side watching the shifting landscape.

  Raphael shrugged. “They are healing what was broken.”

  Michael sighed. “What do you mean? Who?”

  “That is what I mean.”

  Michael swung the spear at him, and Raphael backed off. Gabriel took his place. “I think it obvious, Michael.”

  “What?”

  “Lucifer is healed. Ladriam has been found. They are having sex.”

  The Archangels made faces. Michael scowled at the planet. “That is all they ever did!”

  Jegudiel smiled as his ward was fulfilled. “Love.”

  Uriel grabbed Jegudiel and wrenched his arm. “Why are you so happy about that!”

  Selaphiel punched Uriel, launching him towards the moon. “Do not lay your foul hands upon my brother!”

  Uriel charged back. Michael stepped between the two. “Uriel, stop. Jegudiel cannot help the way he was made. Just as you cannot.” He looked at the planet, then at Gabriel. “Get it ready.”

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “I thought—”

  “Do not. Make it ready, fire it, and obliterate this disgusting place.” Michael looked at Uriel. “Get your soldiers ready, we have pendants enough now to invade.”

  Uriel grinned, gleeful, and left. Michael turned his back on the planet. “I cannot watch anymore of this.” He looked at Selaphiel, Jegudiel, and Raphael. “You will participate this time. He has ordered it so. Disobey and you suffer the fate of the wingless.”

  The three nodded and vanished. Michael followed. Barachiel and Gabriel stared at the planet. Barachiel held his register in front of him. “I do not want to go there again.”

  “Tough.” Gabriel rubbed his temples.

  Barachiel glared at Gabriel and vanished.

  Gabriel sighed. He squinted down at the Earth, confused. He shook his head and left

  ***

  Lucifer stroked Dahlia’s sweat-soaked hair with one hand; his other traced a pattern lazily on her shoulder. She lay on his chest, resting her head on his skin. She kissed his flesh. He stared at her while her red eyes flitted up and down his body. She was just as entranced by him as he was of her, as it had been before when they were together.

  The pain of guilt still throbbed inside, but the sharp agony had faded, the self-loathing lessened. He could not hate himself intensely when she so clearly did not. He massaged her shoulder and felt better, not complete, certainly not whole, but improved. His memories of her imprisonment and of his hand in it still present, but they had lost some their immediacy in the afterglow of very good and much needed makeup sex.

  Dahlia smiled. “You are no longer despairing.”

  He nodded, his words soft and cautious, “To despair would be to insult what just occurred between us.” Lucifer smiled slightly. “You are divine.”

  She pushed up on her elbows and he pulled her into a kiss. She smiled. “You have taken a look outside your prison.”

  He frowned slightly. “You have shown me a glimpse.”

  “There is much more.”

  Lucifer stroked her cheek. “I remember the time before.” His eyes grew pained. “Our happiness.”

  She hugged him. “A step at a time and we will both be free. Can you do something for me?”

  “I will try.”

  “Be happy now, in the moment. Give me a day to show you.”

  “What will you show me?”

  “That you have much to live and be happy for. I want you to be whole, Lucifer. I want to move forward with you. Be here with me, do not get lost in the past, at least for this day.”

  He nodded. “This I can give to you.”

  Dahlia smiled and kissed him. He kissed her back and let the memories fade. She nipped his lip. He laughed and slapped her bottom. She squeezed him tight and rested her head against his neck. Her heart beat in time with his. The beat moved along with the song he heard emanating from her, the lovely lullaby he had missed for so long.

  He let it lull him into complacency. He yawned.

  She laughed and looked up at him. “Did you just yawn?”

  He covered his mouth. “Maybe.” He flipped her on her back. “You are tiresome.” He kissed her shoulder and worked his way to her neck.

  Dahlia smiled and mussed his hair. “Good.” She laughed. “Do you know what I want right now?”

  “What?”

  “A Bartlett Pear, a ripe one, a perfect pear. That sounds delicious.” She kissed his forehead. “But I will settle for you I guess.” A pear dropped from Gaea’s tree and hit Lucifer in the back. He looked up as an orange hit his shoulder. A strawberry bounced off his nose. Dahlia laughed and grabbed the pear. “Ask and ye shall receive apparently.”

  Gaea’s tree glowed; the branches carried every kind of fruit Dahlia had ever seen. She bit into the pear and sat up with Lucifer. He caught blueberries as a banana smacked him in the face. Cherries rained down, and an apple bounced off her head.

  He glanced up at the tree. “Stop.” The tree stopped dropping fruit. Dahlia finished her pear and tossed the core to the side. Lucifer leaned over and picked berries out of her hair. “I wonder what we did this time?”

  She smashed a lemon against his chest. “Made fruit.” She stretched and yawned.

  He pushed at her. “Now who is tired?”

  Dahlia got up and threw an orange at his head. “I get sleepy when I eat okay?”

  He tossed a coconut at her. Dahlia punched the shell and it splattered them both in coconut milk. Lucifer grabbed her ankle and pulled her to the grass. She hit him the face with a ripe kiwi. He kissed her and brushed her hair back. They were both sticky and rainbow-colored. He smiled. “Rain.”

  The rock ceiling above them split and warm water hit Dahlia’s lower back. She gasped and sat back, letting the water pour onto her head. Lucifer scooted over until they sat under the waterfall. He found an apple and bit into it. He wrapped one arm around her waist.

  Dahlia looked at him through the wet locks of her hair. “What now?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What will we do now? Not right now, but going forward?”

  Lucifer chewed and mulled it over. “Before Furcas gave me the extra memory I would have been content with this, with being here with you and making up for time lost. My desires never went farther than having you free and with me.”

  “And now?”

  He threw the apple at the wall. “I must make Him suffer for what He did.” His face grew cold. “There was no just reason,
no justice. I am not the betrayer, He is.”

  She picked pieces of fruit off the ground as the warm water came to a stop. “That is good, because He will not be content to let us be free. We will not be left to our planet. I think you know now that He cannot stand us together; we are doing what we did before to anger Him. He will seek to run us out of this place.”

  Lucifer frowned. “What do you mean?”

  She leaned on him. “Surely you know that He has been planning on destroying this planet for quite some time.”

  He nodded. “Yes, but He has not succeeded.”

  “He can though.”

  “How?”

  “The humans.”

  Lucifer snorted. “We have been fighting them off. I was thinking of using the violin to destroy the rest, now that I have it again.” He frowned. “Well, now that Paimon has it.”

  She shook her head. “You must not. We cannot kill any more of them.”

  “Why? They seek out our children!”

  Dahlia kissed his cheek. “I know.”

  “They are a plague!”

  She nodded. “Agreed, they are, but in killing them you are handing the Archangels ammunition.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Dahlia looked grim. “Gabriel took pieces of me and formed the humans. It is why they could come here in the first place. It is why destroying them gave Gaea my energy. The only thing that can get through my barrier and attack the planet is my energy. The humans are here to hurt our children yes, but also to absorb my energy through their natural lives. The angels have been reaping it since the beginning, storing it.”

  Lucifer looked nauseous. “But we had to kill them to defend our children.”

  “Exactly, you had to. Gabriel engineered it that way.”

  “And this energy would allow them to attack through the shield?”

  “Yes.”

  “If they created this thing why have they not used it?”

  She shrugged and closed her eyes. “I think they do not know the consequences. Gabriel designed it, but he cannot predict exactly what it will do to the planet or to us. Our destruction is a theory.”

  “What else could it do?”

  “Gabriel thinks it might restore my powers, maybe, or restore yours. Michael has been too afraid of the possibility of your restoration to allow its use.”