Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1

by Steve Windsor

  And as soon as she realizes it’s gone, Rain bursts light so bright that every angel in the arena clamps their eyes shut at the sting. And then she shoots straight up like a comet, leaving a trail of white sparks and shooting stars behind her. And the roof opens and she’s out. And the last ounce of innocence and hope in this fucked-up hall flies out with her.

  And that is how you turn the tide against a titan.

  I’m hardly through. I boom out my voice—more lion sounding now—and try to hush the gallery, “There are six things that I hate!”

  And that calms the place down a little, because they all know the chapter and verse of that. But, fair warning, because I look right in her face … and bastardize the shit out of it on purpose. “Nasty, black, haughty eyes … a bitch with a lying tongue and a heart that devises wicked plans … lust-filled feet that make haste to run to evil’s bed”—I pause for a second and look to the grandstands. They’re eating it up. Then I look back at her—“a false god who breathes out against the truth … a hand that compels others to shed innocent blood!”

  And now the crowd has joined together and the screeching and cawing has turned against her. And she’s waiting and I can see the glow in her black orbs growing.

  And I smile and continue, “And any Devil-fucker who sows discord among my brothers and sisters!”

  And what did I say about fickle fans? But before I can wallow in the self-satisfied sarcasm of my own bastardized words, a bolt of lightning hits me square in the chest and sends sparks and fire flying up in the air above me and I’m hurtling backward, wings useless to stop me from slamming into a pillar at the edge of the great arena. And everything goes dark.

  — LXVII —

  WHEN I WAKE up from the consequences of my self-righteous rant, Salvation and Fury are hovered over me like a couple of State Med-mart nurses, wondering if they are wheeling me to recovery or tagging my toe for the morgue.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen Kelly—Salvation—worried about me since this mess started. “We—we thought you were—”

  “That was brutal,” Fury says. “She fucked you two up.”

  I flap and struggle my way to my feet. “Thanks for the support,” I say. “I notice that you didn’t rush right out to rescue me.”

  Fury says, “We didn’t know what to like—shut up, you’re fine.”

  When I look, the lines are pretty much drawn right down the middle. I don’t think any of the fallen or the faithful know quite what to do. The Dark Angel of Light is dead or gone from eternity or whatever, so the black ones are without a leader. They are lined up along my—our side of the field. For black or blacker, it’s my side now, I guess. The pure white angels are largely on Life’s side of the hall. I’m sure a few of them are questioning her judgment right now, but self-preservation is pretty powerful and fear goes a long way toward buying loyalty for that. The gray angels? When I look at our side of the stadium… “What’s with all of the gray geese?”

  Salvation says, “I—”

  “You should have fucking seen it, Jump,” Fury jumps in. “Remember the father’s speech right before—in the church? Salvation like, hammered her with it. And then, all of those gray ones just flapped their way over here and landed without saying shit.”

  Apparently, while I was out, Salvation gave a little speech of her own.

  “Impressive,” I say to her.

  She smiles at me as she holds my arm to see if I’m steady. “I find my tongue when I have to.”

  And isn’t that the truth. Because, though Salvation is content to let me do most of the blathering and bitching, every once in a while… I’m just sad I missed one of her famous “brimstone blowouts.”

  “Okay, catch me up,” I say, because this looks to be a pretty big fight.

  And Fury is drunk on the adrenaline and whatever else she might have found to snort, because bug-eyed and blazing fast, she launches into an explanation, “Okay, so we got here and the father was toast, so you were like, smacking fire with the Devil, and then she smoked his ass with lightning, then Rain flew straight up out the roof, and then you were talking shit at everyone, and then she lightning-bolted you, and then you were fucked up, and we thought you were dead and Salvation was like, ‘Prickly path of righteousness, and oppression and evil in Heaven, and shit.’ It was fucking awesome. Then you woke up.”

  And I look slowly over at Salvation. “What … the fuck?”

  “I’m aware,” she says. Then she shakes her head as we both look across the arena at the white angel army of the first Hell in Heaven. “I hope Rain never grows up.”

  Fury looks, too. Salvation and I see them at about the same time that she does.

  Then Fury says, “Oh … shit.”

  It’s the right response.

  “Motherfuckers,” I mutter. Because on each side of the Chosen One are Fury’s—Mercedes’ parents—Frank and his tramp-stamped, bounty hunter, angel bitch.

  But they are seriously … nasty. The only thing uglier than the greedy, gluttonous, vain bastards in life are what they turn into in Purgatory.

  “Do you like my new pets?” Life yells across the arena at us. “You will join them shortly.”

  And now she’s sounding a little less like a “lopping off heads” chick and a little more like a “boil a bunny on your steps” lady.

  But as scary as she is… Whatever Frank did in life has warranted him packing the most hideous face I have seen. Warts and pustules ooze black bile down his cheeks, and his wings seem deformed for some reason. When I zoom closer, they are malformed and tiny—doesn’t look like he could fly with them.

  But the worst thing on him is a huge, hulking—he looks like a rabid dog in heat. It’s hard to shake the image. “Be careful that filthy dog doesn’t hump your leg with that thing,” I yell back at her.

  And now her true colors are coming out, because she points to Fury, and then she says, “He tells me he’s going to fuck your little friend there with it.”

  And I look at Salvation and raise my eyebrows. “Did she really just say that?”

  And I can tell that Fury doesn’t remember most of what happened to her back in life. And that’s good for her—just the way we hoped it would go. “Hah!” she says. “He touches me with—I’ll tear that fucking thing off!”

  And Salvation scrunches up her face in disgust. “Oh my God,” she says. “That is gross. Can you get on with this, please? Don’t let her talk again.”

  Now, children, before you start squawking and screeching, asking me why we don’t all just fire our feathers to mess each other up, there are rules to the game … and besides, what fun is fighting if you can’t fuck with the other team first?

  Now … as bad as Frank looks, blonde-mommy is worse. Her light locks have turned to twisting, albino snakes and her tits are oozing… Who the hell knows what the electric-yellow stuff is. And the both of them look tiny next to Life, but then I realize that they are down on all fours like … well, like dogs in heat. And then they race at each other and—all three of us wince and recoil at the sight.

  “Ew!” Salvation says. “That is—I think I’m gonna—”

  And I don’t know what took this long, because ten billion souls and one bounty killer’s dog-bitch later … Salvation finally pukes.

  Nerves…

  But it’s probably more scarring for Fury to see, though I can’t imagine it looked any better when she walked in on them in life.

  “Goddammit,” she says, “they were always doing that shit. And if it wasn’t him, it was—sick old fucks.” Then she looks at me. “When we win this thing, I want a law in the book that says no sex after you are like … thirty.”

  I smile at her, but before I can say something sarcastic back—

  “That’s just not happening,” says Salvation.

  We all kinda smile at each other over that, but it is short-lived, because from across the arena, Life’s voice laughs back in a maniacal cackle like a thousand crows just lifted off a dead horse carc
ass.

  When I look across at her… Trading taunt time should be over, but I can’t resist just one more, so I yell across the field, “Looks like the bitch is in heat.”

  “Which one?” Salvation mutters. And she is airborne before I can say something sarcastic back.

  “Son of a bitch,” I mutter. And I’m up and flying behind her.

  — LXVIII —

  FURY ROCKETS PAST me, flying faster than I’m going to be able to catch up, and then Salvation shoots by, too. With those wide, sleek wings, Fury is just insanely fast. And she’s a hundred yards ahead of us both when she slices into Frank the freak, and for the second time in I think as many days, she’s slicing and tearing at the little pit bull from hell. And he’s yelping and howling and biting at her. And Fury is clawing and cawing back.

  “Yow!” I wince and yell to Salvation, as Fury gets her proper revenge on him. “That has to hurt.”

  “Pay attention,” Salvation yells back, and then she slams into the first line of white angels, her wings stretched to full width, slicing through snowflakes.

  “I a—” I try to say.

  But Life hammers into me and she’s screaming and screeching and Jesus, she is strong, because I’m flying backward again. Only this time she’s clawing and cawing at me and I’m just getting beat to shit in the face by her near-invisible wings. And I can feel my black blood flowing down my cheeks and the rage is in me, but I’m not getting anywhere with it.

  She drops me and I plummet, flipping and flapping toward the floor of the arena, and somehow I manage to pull myself out of the spin—ten billion kills later, I’m a little better at this now—and I bank hard and head right at her. I twist wildly and spin like never before, and I loose pin feathers and flight quills in a streaming torrent of slicing steel rage.

  And the whole arena slows down and I look at her face and she’s wild-eyed—intoxicated on the power of her own wrath. And I look around the arena and angels fire feathers and claw and caw at each other below, as white and gray and black hounds of the two Heavens run red with the blood of their brothers and sisters. And snowflake plumage turns pink and wings sever and limbs and talons fall to the red and white jeweled floor of the arena. Everything turns to a bathed-in crimson death match of damnation and fire.

  And I can feel my rage growing—the pointlessness and waste of it infuriates me. A civil war? For what? So someone can stay on top—stay in control? And I feel my wings turn to jagged sharp swords and fire shoots above me as I follow the feathers I fired.

  She flies straight through my blanket of fiery quills and several of them slice right through her, leaving small specks of blood forming on her shining transparent white feathers. Not that it matters, because seconds later she slams into me full force.

  But this time I catch her by one wing with a talon and I shoot fire at her, but she hammers me with a bolt of lightning that blinds the shit out of me … but it doesn’t kill me.

  Whatever DNA she donated with “daddy,” that lightning trick doesn’t work quite like it did on him. In fact, it kinda supercharges me, and I throw her off and she goes spinning.

  When she regains control, she hovers and looks at me, confused. Didn’t know I could do that, did you? I think. But when I look down, I’m losing some “molasses” of my own.

  Then two gray angels slam into her at a speed so fast I can barely see that they are women. And she goes spinning out of control, but then flies up above, finds them—shooting away—and she sends bolts of lightning at them and they crash, smoking and burning and leaking blood on the floor of the arena.

  And I spin again and let loose hundreds of feathers at her. They streak across the arena like orange tracer rounds in a firefight. She sees them coming, but there are just too many and the tip—a foot or so, maybe—slices off of her right wing and it goes spinning down like a helicopter crash to the floor.

  But she’s back and racing at me, with noticeably less flight control than she had before. As she flies, I can see blood spraying from her severed wingtip and the patches on her chest feathers are getting bigger. And even if it is black molasses, blood is blood—losing it is bad. You don’t last long doing that.

  When she crashes into me this time, it’s a pretty even match. The wrath of God versus my red-hot, rant-filled rage. That’s a draw in any world but the real one, so we stalemate and beat each other senseless in midair. And before we know it we are both flopping and flapping on the floor of the great Arena of Reckoning, turned to a river of blood.

  “When I’m done,” she screeches at me, “I’ll give your wife to the whoremongers and feed Rain to my dogs.”

  And that is just not gonna happen. “When you’re done,” I yell at her, “you are gonna wish you never fucked the Devil to have me.”

  It’s probably the wrong thing to say, because she flaps up and hovers and lightning bolts fly from all of her fingers, every direction at once. And I fly backward when one hits me, but I’m up pretty fast. Five angels of varying colors aren’t so lucky. Neither is Salvation, and I watch her fall from the sky—wings folded and flapping aimlessly—then she bounces on the ground in a whump, and she’s down, smoking and motionless on the floor of the arena.

  And now the only thing this benevolent bitch hasn’t taken from me is my little girl. And my stomach acid turns to liquid hot rage and I feel every feather on my body as it catches fire and shoots flames above my head. And I jump up and race at her, flapping hard, leaving a trail of black smoke. I feel a couple of stings on my way—lightning bolts, or maybe feather she fired—hit me. At this point, who knows? I really don’t care. And when I get to her, I engulf us both in a huge ball of orange fire and black smoke. And flames shoot all around us as we fall back to the floor.

  If the queen isn’t dead, she’s damn close, because now she’s rolling, trying to put out the flames on her wings. And I jump on her back and sink my talons deep and she lets out a loud caw and screech and she’s—Son of a bitch, I think, she’s yelling for help.

  No sooner do I translate it, than a bunch of white angels grab me in their talons and lift me off her back. Half my size at most, it’s difficult for them to pull one wrath-filled archangel off another. And I jerk and screech at them and blast flames in every direction at once, burning every one of them down to black, smoking feathers and squawking beaks.

  And as soon as they let go, I fold my wings and drop in a dive right at her. But she’s up, too and sending bolts of lightning at me and this time they are brighter and hotter. I must have done something to piss her off. When they hit me, I spin to the ground and land in a crash and a few of my flight feathers rip out and embed in the floor of the arena, sticking almost straight up. Then more white angels are on me, pecking at me, trying to carry me off, but I flap my wings and set them on fire, too.

  I fly to the tip top of the arena, ascending until I’m almost at the domed roof. And I know she’s behind me, chasing me and screaming in rage. So I slow down and let her grab on and then … I spin around and grab onto her with every talon I’ve got. And I’ve got both her wings in a vice grip as we stop flying and start falling. And she’s screeching at me and I’m cawing at her … and that’s exactly what I want.

  When we slam into the floor of the arena, I feel a big wind come out of her—millions of souls—babies and women, crying—and then a steel spike feels like it jabs into my chest and I look into her black eyes. She seems stunned or something, and then I smell vanilla and molasses everywhere. And I’m lying on top of her and we are both impaled on the wing feathers I lost when I crashed. Smells like my blood is—yep, I’m bleeding down onto her chest and my blood is burning her like acid. And the smoke comes up and when it hits my nostrils it smells like burned chocolate chip cookies. I shit you not. No wonder she can get away with so much crap, I think.

  Let me tell you a little secret, you wanna win a fight, don’t go getting all merciful and complacent when you think the other guy, or crazy demigod, is down. Give them everything you got until t
here is nothing left of them. And I’m on top of her with all twenty of my talons. And I’m pecking and tearing and clawing until I see guts. Because the only way this fight ends is with her insides … out. Only way to be sure.

  And then it’s done—simple as that. Guts and chunks—not as glorious as the good books make it sound, is it?

  Then … I fall over.

  When I wake up—no telling how long I’ve been out—I’m barely able to move. When I finally flop myself over—pull my own feathers out of my chest—I take a deep breath in through my nose and my chest bubbles and gurgles a little.

  I can smell sweet molasses from us both. And I turn my head toward her and her black eyes have turned bright blue and she has a smile on her face. What the fuck? And when I look, yeah there’s crimson red blood and guts coming from her stomach, but out of her chest pumps the sticky black goo that I know all too well. “Fucking molasses,” I mutter. Then I turn my head back and look up at the roof. And it opens.

  I would like to tell you that I lie here and cry into the sky—feel something human again—but the only thing I feel is emptiness and anger. And I listen to the screaming and screeching, as the fallen and the faithful claw and battle each other, and I close my eyes and try to shut it all out.

  But my mind doesn’t work that way—I don’t stay relaxed for long—and I start grinding a little speck of grain in my craw. And it grows and it grows and then it’s a sea of bright wheat. So bright that I’m squinting even though my eyes are closed. And as soon as I feel like I’m ready, I’m going to open them and then I’m going to see Rain and everything is going to be fine.

  And I still don’t understand. “Pointless,” I mumble. And then I think to myself, Do they even know what they do? Do they care?

  And when I open my eyes, there she is. No, it’s not Rain, it’s Life’s body, floating up, glowing brighter than it did when she was… Is she alive? Was she? Are any of us? And her body floats toward the roof of the arena, and it grows brighter as it ascends. And then she looks at me through the bright and her voice whale-moans into my thoughts, “Goodbye. Good luck.”