by Tara Brown
I am sobbing and nearly collapsing, but Wyatt looks strong. He is strong.
Over his heart my name carves itself, in handwriting. I cry out again, looking down at where his name is carving over my heart.
Tears drop from my eyes onto my breasts, trickling over his name. I look at the name, shaking my head. “H-h-how?”
“The metal of the blade is the tattoo, it fades unless it you want it to show.”
I shudder as it finishes. I am about to leap into his arms and make him comfort me, but the dark-haired witch puts her hand between us, “Put these on.”
There is a man’s ring and a woman’s ring in her palm. I grab the woman’s but Wyatt snorts. He takes it and puts it on my wedding finger. I blush, taking gulps of air now that all the pain is gone.
The ring is silver and covered in vines. I pick up the fatter one and slide it on his finger. He smiles, “Worst wedding ever?”
I laugh, “I have zero doubt that you love me.”
He nods, “Witchy weddings are not for the faint of heart.”
When the ring is on his finger, he clasps my hand in his. His eyes bear down on me, “I will love you until I am no longer even a speck of dust on the wind.”
My eyes tear up again. I nod, “Me too.”
He grins, “Always so good with words.”
I sniffle, “You know.”
He tilts my face upward and lowers his lips to mine, “I know.”
I realize then we are standing in a graveyard with only the bottom half of our clothes on and witches all around us. Is it wrong to kiss? Better question is, do I care? When his lips meet mine, I do not. It is sweet bliss. He kisses me once and then pulls away, “Is there somewhere I might take my bride?”
I think we all know he means that in more than one way, and I’m insulted by one of them. The witch laughs, “She is pure of heart now because we have blessed. You cannot take her.”
I blush, “Oh…uhm…no. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo, if you get my point.” I laugh but she does not. The other witches are stuck in the flames of their candles. Only the four of us are able to move.
She rolls her eyes, “I know that. But since the nixie have cleansed you and we have just now cleansed you, have you committed an original sin?”
I scowl, “What is that?”
“Sex, sex without marriage or with a married person, murder without reason or defense, theft, arson, injury to a person for no reason.”
I shake my head, “I ate some pedophiles and murderers.”
She smiles, “You are clean. You may enter the gates of the garden. Eating sin is your job. It is not a sin. You actually have the right of the God you serve to judge people’s lives and choose if they live or die.”
“Creepy.”
Wyatt shakes his head, “So she can’t have sex, even though she is married?”
The witch smiles, “Sex is sex, Van Helsing.”
“Doesn’t the goddess control the garden? Why does she care about sin?”
I look at Wyatt, “We can do it after the garden.” He looks desperate. I laugh, “Is that why you married me?”
He cocks his head, “Yes, I stabbed us both in the heart and suffered unending agony to have sex.”
I shrug, “Sounds legit.”
He sighs, “Well, this blows.” He gives the witch a look, “You never answered the garden question.”
She laughs, “I don’t make the rules. I just know an original sin will keep her from the garden and those are the original sins. Sex removes purity of the soul. It makes us less committed to our goal; we transfer our energy when we have sex.”
I look at Wyatt, “Willow never had sex.”
He scowls, “Lillith had sex to have you. She’s in the garden.”
I give the witch a scowl. She shakes her head, “I don’t know. I just know witches who don’t have sex, go into the garden. Witches who do, can’t get past the gate.”
Wyatt points, “This is a double standard.”
I grimace, “Not if the nixie cleanse her every time she goes back in.”
The fire witch winces. “I would imagine that is how it is done.”
Wyatt shrugs but I nudge him, “They are our sisters. We don’t let them die for us.”
The fire witch nods at Lila. She walks to me and takes my hand in hers. She pulls her wand again and draws on my palm. She uses fire of course, burning a map into my hand. “Follow this and it will take you to the air witches. If you are there, they will come for you.” Lila opens the door with her finger again. She smiles at us, “Be safe.”
I nod, “Thank you.”
Wyatt takes my hand in his and we walk through the garden of the dead. We are more alive than we have ever been and more relaxed. The girls in my head are gone but the lack of emotion is there still, like I still can only feel my piece-of-the-pie worth of love. I wish it was the same for pain.
He hands me his shirt. I scowl, “You’ll freeze.”
He laughs, “Yeah, but not every dude is gonna be able to see my wife’s boobs.”
I laugh until it dawns on me that I am a wife. I am married. I am like the biggest idiot ever. I just married a guy I’ve known half a year. A guy who has tried to kill me. A guy whose family hates me. A guy who I can’t even have sex with.
Awesome.
Four
I step into the water in my skirt, shivering instantly. Wyatt kisses the side of my head, “Did I mention, I love you?”
I look up at him, and no matter how hard I try, I cannot fight the smile I get. I know I love him too. I nod and push into the next kiss he plants on my forehead. We dive into the water and they are there. I hold my hand out to the brunette who has met us at the shore, “Can you take us there? We followed the map to here, but it’s over there somewhere. An island I think.”
She nods once, giving Wyatt a look. I sigh, “He’s mine. Like the baggage I take everywhere with me.”
She scowls and Wyatt chuckles.
They grab my hand but not his. I grab his as I’m pulled away. He laughs when we are under water again, “They won’t touch me—never touch another woman’s husband.”
I growl, “You might have said something.”
He laughs in the bubbly-weird laugh we have under water, “I forgot till now.”
The swim is short, like seconds short. We near a floating dock. It is in the middle of the ocean. They leave us there. I swim to the dock after Wyatt. He hops up and offers me his hand. I let him pull me up. We both shiver, huddling into each other for warmth.
We are surrounded by mist and the dark night. It is creepy, maybe not quite as creepy as the earth witches’ house, but still very creepy. I sense movement in the fog and tighten my grip on Wyatt.
He turns around, pushing me behind him, and holds me there. The mist moves again, and I swear I hear a song on it. It’s lovely.
Wyatt winces. The mist swirls and forms into a figure and then a face, and then it’s gone again.
I hear the song again. I realize it’s a voice. “Why do you seek us?”
I look at Wyatt. He frowns, “What?”
“You don’t hear that?”
He shakes his head, “Air witches are telepathic. They hear your thoughts and send you theirs.”
I sigh, “You have to tell me these things before we get to the dock.”
He shrugs, “Didn’t seem important.”
I concentrate and think, “We need your help with the horsemen.”
Something drops onto the dock. I scream and jump. A massive winged woman walks towards us. The dock trembles under her feet. She looks like a Viking woman. Strong, blonde, scary and a little too muscular for a girl.”
She lowers her eyes on me, and I swear they see right through me with their brilliance. They are blue in the way the sky is in July on a cloudless day. They are tranquil and yet harsh.
“Why do you want to kill the horsemen?”
I look at her, “I am the sin eater.”
She narrows her gaze, g
iving Wyatt a skeptical look. I exhale and my wings pop out. She smiles instantly and the blue of her eyes is pleasant. The stress is gone from her face. She nods, “You are the sin eater.”
I nod, not sure why we are repeating things. She looks at him, “What is he?”
“Mine.”
She shrugs, she doesn’t care about him. She wants me. She nods upward, “We fly.”
I wince, “I’m not great at the whole flying thing. I sort of have to be falling first.”
She shakes her head, “You fly or you stay.”
I give Wyatt a smile, “We fly.”
He grimaces, “You got this?”
I nod and offer him my hand. I do a couple squats. The air witch gives me a confused look. She jumps from the dock, shaking it back and forth. I almost get seasick and leap up too. My wings try to flap but we fall back to the dock. Wyatt laughs, “Fly first and then come get me.”
I let go of his hand, “Ok.”
I jump up, almost getting it. He grabs my foot and tosses me high into the air. I flap upward to where she is and shout, “Be right back!”
She looks confused, I don’t think she has many other faces.
I dive towards the dock, soaring down. “JUMP!”
He turns and leaps. I catch his arms but we drag down. He goes under water for a second, like I’ve dunked a tea biscuit in my tea. I flap hard, really focusing on the wings. We start to go up again. It takes me forever to get back up to where she is. She points and takes off. Wyatt is shouting at me but I shake my head, “Not looking down at you. Sorry. I can’t do this. If I look down, we’re dead.”
He starts to climb my body like I am a tree. He climbs around the front of me. I shake my head, “Stop moving. I’m going to get sick.”
He shouts back, “You get sick on me, and I’ll pull that damned dagger out of your heart and put it back in.”
I sneer, focusing on the flying angel witch in front of me. “God, she’s so graceful and good at this.”
I can see his grin in my peripheral, “She isn’t lugging two hundred pounds with her.”
I growl, “You need to go on a diet.”
“No way, baby. I’m at seven-percent body fat, I like it there. I still have an ass in my jeans but not my old hockey-player ass.”
I laugh and suddenly the flying feels easier. The better my mood and the less worrying, the easier it gets.
We fly through a huge, white fluffy cloud. I lose sight of her and then I realize Wyatt is walking, and sort of carrying me.
“Can you touch?”
He nods, “This cloud is a platform.”
I shake my head, “Don’t let go though, okay?” I look down at the map on my hand. We are right over the burning red ember at the end of the line. I look up and scream, seeing the blonde. She is with other blondes. It’s like Hitler’s angel army in a cloud city. Where the other witches all have women of all nations and races, the air witches do not. I swear one girl looks like she might have exotic features, but she has blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s creepy to see so many of them.
Wyatt drags his feet. My wings suck in and he’s holding me in the air. We are surrounded by a white city. It is like nothing I could have imagined.
I still can’t look down. I’m scared it’s like that tower we saw in geography with the glass-bottom floor.
The blonde points at me, “Sin eater, meet the white priestess.”
The blonde next to her, in the white gown that almost looks like a toga, gives me a nod. I bow, not sure what else to do. Wyatt shakes his head, “Please excuse her, she doesn’t know anything. She was raised as a mortal.”
The white priestess makes a face, “With wings and raised as if you were a human?” She finds this distasteful, apparently.
“Yes, your majesty.”
Wyatt laughs and leans in, “Stop. She isn’t your queen. She is the queen of the air witches.”
The beautiful, and yet stern-looking, priestess nods, “Your pet is correct. You owe me no fealty. We serve the same true king. What are you wearing?”
I look down at the massive black skirt and Wyatt’s black shirt. “What?”
“You look like one of those depressing fire witches.” Her eyes trail Wyatt’s bare abs, “His outfit is much nicer.”
I smile at her lecherous stare. He tilts his head, giving her the smile. Bam! There it is. Sweet God. I smile when I see her response. She has weak knees and she’s doing the heavy mouth-breathing thing I always end up doing. He is like an addiction. She blushes and turns back to me.
I blank my thoughts, actively working at filtering the dumb thoughts and weird judgments I constantly have.
I point at her, “She looks like Nicole Kidman a bit, huh?” Okay, some things get through the filter.
Wyatt smiles, “Inside voice, not the outside one.”
She ignores my idiotic comment and looks down at the cloud-covered floor, “Do you know how to kill the horsemen?”
I shake my head, “That’s why I’m here.”
A sly smile creeps across her perfect pink lips, “You don’t?”
I shake my head, “No. I don’t know how.”
She shakes her head as if teasing me, “No. You don’t kill the horsemen. They are the mighty king’s men. They are God’s horsemen. He has sent them to test his people—to see who will falter and not stay strong in their belief, in the face of pain, death, and suffering.”
It doesn’t feel right. I frown, “Are you sure? It seems like they are kind of evil.”
She shouts for no reason at all, “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, CHILD!”
I step back. Wyatt steps in front of me, “She knows her gut feeling. If she thinks it’s wrong, it is. Who told you this was the way it would be?”
She paces in front of him, suddenly shaken or upset. I don’t even understand why. No wonder the other witches think they’re crazy.
Her eyes turn on me, “Those traitors think we are the crazy ones?”
Wyatt gives me a look. I wince, “Sorry. Weak mind.”
He turns back to her, “If you ask me, the air witches are the best ones. You have stayed true to the angels who helped make you what you are. You serve God, as we do. You fight for the cause of God’s people, like we do. Fire witches are selfish and don’t even get me started on earth witches. Slutty space cadets. The nixie are creepy, very creepy. You guys are the only ones I trust because we both serve God. Now tell me, who told you the horsemen were his?”
She swallows hard, “The angels.”
“Which ones?”
“Michael. Our father.”
Wyatt bites his lip and takes a deep breath, “Michael is the angel of war. He wants war. He wants to get back to Earth and have a big old war. I’m not saying the horsemen aren’t God’s. I’m just saying their purpose is extinction. They’re supposed to kill off the weak and save the truly penitent and suffer the evil. But they go about it in a dark sort of way.”
”It is a dark deed that is being done.”
Wyatt puts a hand up, “I agree, but we can’t let them all loose. The third brings starvation. People starving and the scripture says the rich will be fine; it is the already impoverished and the middle class who will die from starvation and poverty.”
She nods, her eyes burning with something. She knows something we do not. Her lips twist into a grin. “The black horse is upon the Earth now. They shall all be tested.”
“Shit.”
Wyatt nods, “Double shit.”
“The horsemen will come for Lillith’s blood.” The priestess laughs as if we’ve told a joke. I feel like it might be on us though.
The Black Horse
“When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come and see!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day's wages, and three quarts of barley for a day's wages, and do not damag
e the oil and the wine!"
Revelations
One
We crawl up the slippery, slime-coated rocks of the English coastline. I look back at the nixie. They have become lights in the ocean and nothing more. I’m soaked and frozen. I look at Wyatt, “I’ll fly us up. I can’t scale that wall.”
He nods, shivering too. I jump into the air, bursting my wings from my back and fly upward. I flap, lowering, “Grab my foot.”
He laughs, “I’m fucking cold, Rayne. My fingers are cramping.”
I nod, “Mine too. Just grab on and we’ll be in a hot shower in like five minutes.”
I feel his strong grip attach to my ankle. I flap harder, pushing us up into the air.
I struggle against the cold wind and hateful English winter weather.
“Say something funny. Make me happy. Make me smile.”
“I have a serious case of blue balls, and the entire swim this damned painting smacked me in the head.”
I start to laugh and he becomes lighter. My exhaustion is insane and my feeble brain decides that his statement, about his balls, is the funniest thing I have ever heard. I drop him down into the courtyard of the castle and almost fall into his arms.
He gives me a pained expression, “You think it’s funny that I’m suffering?”
I laugh harder, “I’m so-sor-sorry.” I can actually imagine the painting hitting him in the head.
He carries me to the house. Marie opens the door, “Miss Ellie, you alright?”
I nod. “My skin is blue and I’m exhausted, but I’m all right. Just cold.” When we get inside, I moan, “Drafty, stupid castle.”
“RAYNE!”
My eyes pop open. I step back into Wyatt. He wraps his arms around me.
Stella comes stomping down the hallway. Her eyes are black and the blue veins she gets when she feeds are there. She points, “What did you do to Constantine?”