“You really believe that?” she asked. “You’ve got yourself convinced. You lying son of a—”
I seized Eve by the shoulders and shoved her back against the tree. “In so many ways, I have ruined the great experiment. It’s me. Every bad thing that has happened or will happen is because of me. There was a Plan from the outset, and I fucked it up. And I keep doing it. Every time He tries to set it right, I step in, because I don’t believe in His plan. I don’t like it. I don’t like to see you suffer. I just want you to be happy, I’ve spent the entirety of existence trying to tell people Up There to just let go and be happy, but your happiness interferes with His objectives. I’m the one who gets labeled as a bad guy.”
I slumped down onto the branch, let my feet dangle off the side. I tried to fold my hands in my lap, but my right hand had disappeared again. It was just a wisp of shadow that retained some of its original form. I needed to rest. There was an amazing Technicolor sunrise/set happening simultaneously over the sides of the Brink of Insanity. Eve paused to take it in, the color and shadow splitting her face. She sat next to me on the branch and rested her head on my shoulder.
“It’ll never make sense, will it?”
“Not to us, no.”
We sat quietly for a moment, watching the amazing light show. Two-headed birds flopped to the ground as the chasm shrank, then exploded skyward as it opened again. The leaves on the trees turned a disturbing shade of purple as thick blue veins pulsed along the branch beneath us. I draped a comforting arm around her and patted her head.
“I’ll make it right. If it takes until the end of time, I’m going to make this all right,” I said.
“Just help me. Help me like you promised.”
“I’ll try.”
“And Morningstar?” she asked, turning towards me.
My heart melted, and my face glowed as red as the sunset. “Yes?”
“Can you take your hand off my ass please?”
“Sorry.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was the first good sleep I’d gotten in ages.[25] I’d love to tell you that I woke up next to Eve in a romantic embrace, or even a platonic snuggle, but no, I spent the night on a pile of warm, discarded leaves that the trees laid down for me at her command. She spent the night being gently rocked to sleep high in the canopy of the forest. The trees passed her around reverentially, as if cradling a newborn child.
I awoke to find her standing over me, her hair still shocked with white, but her skin glowing as it was on the day she was made, burnished like adobe clay. “Monkey’s looking for you,” she said. “Call me when it’s time to go. I’m learning as much as I can from the trees. They’ve seen a lot these past few cycles, and they’ve been dying for someone to tell.”
The trees were on a wavelength with all layers of Creation. They could read information from the roots of plants living on Earth; they could even catch broadcasts from the vineyards in Heaven. They did tend to hoard gossip, only to bombard hapless passers-by with innuendo and minutiae that eventually drove them mad. In Eve, they’d found someone who spoke their language and was willing to listen. I wandered back to find Monkey and Goliath.
“Hey-hey! Spent the night alone together, huh? How about that? Damsel in distress, that’s the best kind, right? Am I right?” Monkey had one paw in the air, waiting for a fist bump.
“Nothing happened,” I said as I passed by.
“Hey, I knew nothing happened. I mean, if it was me …”
“Anything important happening out here?”
“See for yourself,” Monkey gestured with his chin towards the Brink.
There was a torso lodged firmly in the ground, female from the looks of it. It was as if someone had dropped an ancient
Greek sculpture into the mud. The right leg was buried up to the thigh, the left, bent forward, was buried to mid-calf. The right arm was missing, as was the head and left hand. The chest was flat and smooth, no hint of breasts or hair or any features at all. But she was moving. A tiny twitch here, a spasm of the right arm there.
“How did we not notice that last night?” I asked.
“Wasn’t there last night,” Monkey answered. “She came walking by this morning. Asked me which way the Gates were. No clothes on, as you can see. She had an empty sack with her, I’m guessing she dropped her crystals somewhere a ways back.”
“When did it take her?”
“Right as I was shouting to her to watch her step. The Brink snagged her. Her right leg disappeared, then grew back out of her mouth. It’s been toying with her ever since, breaking her down, pulling her apart and putting her back together in all sorts of strange ways.
I looked at the body again. The left arm twitched, and with a slurp her hand grew back in, followed shortly by her breasts and part of her head. Her face was there up to mid-nose, at which point it planed off smoothly as if chopped off by a blade. Her lower jaw worked a couple of times and then she drew breath.
“What’s happening?” she called. “Where am I?”
“This is why I stopped helping people out on their Long Walks, you understand? This happened almost every time.” I said. “Goliath!”
The Giant, slumbering beneath one of the dancing trees, opened a single eye to look at me. His snoring didn’t slow, but I could tell he was listening.
“I need your strength for a minute. Pull this wretch out of the Brink, would you?”
He lumbered over and grasped her right arm. I glanced down through my right hand. The energy glow had returned, but it was enough to remind me to warn the giant. “Gently this time, okay? And I need you to wait until the Brink has given her back to us.”
Goliath harrumphed and exhaled hard through his nose. He rested his chin on his chest and went back to sleep, still lightly grasping her arm.
The chasm sighed again and there was a noise like a wet rope twisting and stretching. The rest of the woman’s head appeared, along with a light stubble of hair. Both of her arms were flailing now, and she looked a bit panicked.
“What have you done to me? Oh my God! What have you done? Where am I?”
“We didn’t do anything,” I said. “Can you wiggle your toes? I know your legs are a bit wrapped up, but you have to tell me if you can feel all ten of your toes moving. We’re about to extract you, but anything you don’t have on you gets left behind forever, understand? That means your hair and any extremities currently not attached to you.”
“Just relax and breathe,” Monkey said.
The lady nodded. She ran a hand over her head gingerly, wincing at the stubble. “I used to be pretty.” She rocked back and forth. “I can feel my toes. Did that Monkey just talk?”
“Pull her, G.”
Goliath snapped awake and tugged steadily on the woman’s arm. She yelped a bit as the Brink tried to resist Goliath’s pull, but it eventually lost interest, and she came sliding free of the ground beneath. Goliath walked her back towards the trees and set her down, then sat down himself to resume sleeping.
I walked up and set my hands on her shoulders. She was two steps from gone, she just didn’t know it. She was shaking, her eyes flicking so fast from left to right they were almost vibrating. Aside from her lack of hair, she looked almost exactly like Eve. She’d lost her way on the Long Walk. I should have let the Brink finish the job it was designed to do, slowly devour her, body and soul, sending her essence back into the cosmic ether to rejoin Creation. But I wasn’t feeling particularly cosmic. I was kind of pissed off at the whole situation. I focused my energy into my right hand, watched the glow expand and crackle with living force.
“All right, miss. I can’t promise you this will hurt any less than what the Brink was about to do to you. But I can tell you that you’re about to serve a greater cause. Me.”
She slowed her trembling, her eyes focusing on me as if seeing me for the first time. “Who are you? Am I in Heaven? What happened to me?”
“I’m Deliverance. I’m the Pale Rider. I’m the one you’ve h
ated and feared all your life. You’re going to perish now. You’ll never get to Heaven. Take some comfort in the fact that you won’t be in Hell either, except that part of you that will live in me. And remember, I didn’t make this happen. God set you before me. Or he set me before you. Either way, it’s over. Take a breath.”
Her lower lip was bouncing up and down, and I’m sure she would have voided her bowels, had she eaten anything in the past few days. She nodded her head once, shakily, and her voice cracked as she said, “Okay. Am I really not going to Heaven? I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t deserve anything I got. I was a good person. I am a good person.”
“Breathe, honey.”
She sucked in a quick breath, and I extended my index and pinky fingers. I drew my hand back and jabbed it hard against her chest. The energy roared in. Her neck locked and engorged, every vein stood out on her body. I drew my hand back. The raw red energy that arced between my index and pinky fingers now held an object: the essence of her soul, a small, fluttering purple pulse. I clenched my right hand and felt her life force slam into my body.
“Is that why that little horn symbol got associated with you?” Monkey asked.
“Could be. I can tell you, this was way messier when I had to do it with my actual hand. I could get used to this,” I said, holding up my electric appendage.
I released the girl, the husk of her body collapsing and folding in on itself.[26] I nudged her corpse gently towards the Brink of Insanity and the ground opened up again, slowly pulling her in like a python devouring a tiny mouse. It occurred to me that I should have at least asked for her name. It had been so long since I’d taken someone’s soul that I’d almost forgotten all of the prescribed protocol. Maybe I just wanted to think of her as Eve, to remind myself of the fate that God had in store for her and all of humanity.
I closed my eyes and felt her presence in my veins, wandering, like a lost girl inside of a dark tunnel. My pulse pulled on her, drawing her ever closer to my heart, until the gravity was too great. I felt her soul enter, felt the familiar fire burn, felt myself grow stronger even as she vanished. And for some reason, for the first time, I cared. I don’t know if it’s that I didn’t want to see this poor creature’s life end this way, or if I didn’t want to see her essence wasted, but it mattered. Suddenly everything mattered.
“Monkey. I have an idea on how we’re going to make sure nobody breaks into Heaven.”
“What’s that?” Monkey asked.
“We’re going to break into Heaven. Get Eve and Goliath and gather by the dancing trees near the Brink in twenty minutes. And give me the angel’s head.”
Ultimately, I didn’t care. I wasn’t doing things by His rules anymore. I’d stop Yaotl, but I wouldn’t stop at the Gates of Heaven. I was going in, and I was going to talk to the Old Man, and we were going to settle some things.
Monkey nodded his head and jogged over to the car. He made a fist and slammed a staccato pattern on the trunk and rear quarter panel of the car. The trunk popped open. Monkey hopped in and drew a bulky bag from within. He tossed it towards me and I palmed it out of the air.
“Please don’t kill me,” the bag whimpered.
I walked in silence for a few more minutes, with Lenny begging, simpering, and complaining the whole way. I wanted him to sweat this out a little. It seemed like we’d been the victim of his youthful lust and not some grand cosmic conspiracy, but I had to be sure he had nothing to do with Yaotl or the Brothers’ sudden reappearance.
I carried him deeper into the forest, close enough to the Brink that the stones and twigs were whispering warnings to us.
Stand back… Come in!
Would you like some lobster? I want to swallow you whole.
I pushed the manic thoughts out of my head and set Lenny down. He made a move to scramble away from the Brink but I stepped on his hair, preventing him from moving.
“Please don’t throw me in there. Please. I’m so close to her. So close…”
“I don’t get it, Lenny. For an angel, you’re acting pretty human. You should be beyond these petty schemes and desires.” I found a tree that was swaying its limbs and dancing like a drunken hippie at a Jerry Garcia show.[27] I raised my hand towards one of the branches and perched Lenny on it. The tree cradled him, swinging to and fro, its arms hovering dangerously close to the moving edge of the Brink.
“Who cursed Phaleg’s sword? I saw the liquid darkness on the blade. That’s not something that happens by accident.”
“I didn’t do it! You saw that! I was only called towards the blade. I knew where to find it, but that’s all.”
“Who do you think is behind all of this?”
“Yaotl!”
He screeched the name so desperately that I actually checked over my shoulder to see if the dark god had somehow appeared behind me. I rounded on Lenny.
“You brought his curse inside, Lenny. You stole. You coveted a mortal’s possession, and you invited and carried a forgotten demon god straight into Heaven. Did you know about the Mirror of Smoke while you were still alive?”
“No!”
“Part of him is still inside of you. You understand that? I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before. I just assumed you were falling apart. But that black goop that comes out of you, it’s part of the Mirror. We have to clear it out. If we can’t, I can’t take you with me.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“In mind? More like out of my mind,” I said, casting a long look down into the rippling soil of the Brink.
“You’re not throwing me in there!”
“Nope. We’re going in together.”
“Are you insane?”
“Not yet.”
“What if we can’t get out?”
“I’ll get out just fine. I made the place. And the only way you’ll come out is clean.”
Lenny blanched. “I don’t like this. I’ve had enough. I just wanted to get back with the girl of my dreams, but I don’t know if it’s worth all of this. I’ve been decapitated, tossed to a demon, blasted by Yaotl…I got fucked by an angel, for God’s sake!”
Our shadows suddenly lengthened, and the land grew darker. While three more fractured suns began a slow rise at the periphery of the chasm, a small purple star was now halfway below the horizon. Listening closely, I thought I heard the Brink sucking on it like a lollipop.
“Time to earn your keep, Lenny.”
He scrambled to climb down from the tree branch, but the twigs and leaves entwined around him tighter. The chorus of voices from the Brink grew louder and greater in number.
No, no, no…don’t leave us.
You said you’d never leave us!
You promised you’d love us forever. He was your father, how could you?
I climbed up the tree and straddled the branch behind Lenny. The tree curled more branches around me, caressing my neck, rubbing my shoulders, squeezing my calves.
So Strong…
Oh my, oh myyyy…
“We’re getting closer,” I said to Lenny as his hair began to dance with the tree branches. My lower lip broke free from my face and tumbled down the front of my shirt.
“Hrrm,” I mumbled.
My lip began to inchworm its way across my lap. I slapped a hand on it and put it in my pocket for safekeeping. I’d done this a few times before, and this wasn’t the worst that had happened to me on a transition through the Brink.
“Graggh that granch and hold your greath, Lenny,” I said.
“Wha?” he replied.
“OW!”
His nerve endings suddenly sprang up through his skin and crackled in the air. His eyes left their sockets, floating before him, tethered only by muscle and optic fiber. The voices continued.
I never liked you…
I am the way and the light…
Come into my parlor…
The tree dipped forward hard, sucking us down through the ground, through a labyrinth of root structures, bone, gristle, fat and rock
. We exploded through a ceiling and experienced a momentary freefall through a room of swirling bliss. Hues living and agile danced through the air around us. We slowed down, hovering above the checkerboard tile that should have been a floor. The room was twisted and tubular, bending and pulsing, with doors and tunnels winding off around several curves.
“Lenny?” I ventured. My lip had returned to its proper place.
“I hate you,” he replied. There was a slight gurgle in his voice.
His left eye slowly drifted back towards his face and reseated itself with a wet thwip . We were back to normal, as much as was possible here in the realm of delirium.
“Lenny, I’m going to ask you to do something very difficult now. You’ll have to trust me. I want you to die.”
“What’s that?” Lenny asked, his fingers running in midair as if to escape me.
“I need you to die. It’s perfectly possible here to do it without harm. Would it make you feel more comfortable if I died first?”
“It would make me happier, if that’s what you mean.”
“Part of Yaotl is living in you, and we have to get it out.”
“Is there a chance that this could actually kill me?”
“Not if you’re dead first.” “Your logic astounds me.”
Lenny began to orbit around me, trailing a slick strand of darkness. There were strands of the stuff coalescing in the air around us as well.
“This hurts…feels like I’m being flayed…what’s happening?” Lenny asked.
“We’ve gone over the edge. The Brink of Insanity. Everything down here is the remnants of the death-as-a-cave cultures that used to flourish. We’re looking for the source of a certain river. I need souls, and unless things have gone very wrong down here, there should still be a few eternally damned ones floating around down here. Maybe a few gods if we’re lucky. This is where they come to fade and disappear. So many of us who’ve held the very existence of the universe in our hands, who dealt life and death on a daily basis, whose only mortal enemy was Time itself, this is where we end up, Lenny. All of those doors you see winding off down the hall, there are some amazing beings back there. Some sit in silence, some scream for all eternity, some are foolish enough to try to start a new universe on their own. Chances are, they sense Yaotl’s essence and they’re trying to pull it in for themselves. It’s a powerful thing to drink in another god. Dangerous, some would say. Stupid. And yet, that’s what we’re here to do. I gotta eat, get my strength up. You ready to die?”
Angel Falls Page 17