FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

  “Why have you come here, Amelia?” the creature said, his face disturbingly familiar as he looked down at me from his throne.

  “What?” I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice. “You know me?”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t?” He stood up from the marble seat and approached me.

  The two guards that had taken ahold of me still remained on either side. He nodded to them, and they let go of me with haste and stood just out of my reach. I knew better than to try anything. In a world where humans with wings walked around with lances and battleaxes, I felt it prudent not to rock the boat. I had wasted enough time. Adam still needed me.

  The angel smiled. “Indeed.”

  “You can hear me, can’t you?” I grimaced.

  “Yes,” he laughed.

  “Am I a prisoner here?” I searched for any sign of an exit in the room.

  “Do you want to be?” The angel laughed again.

  My mouth hung open, unsure of what to say.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you, Amelia?” His warm brown eyes glistened with amusement.

  “I can’t lie. Am I supposed to?”

  And then it dawned on me. Brown eyes. Red hair. An unmistakable accent. With a wide rimmed set of glasses and a lab coat instead of leather-tongued sandals and golden plate armor, I had my Dr. Willard.

  “Doctor?”

  He snorted amicably. “I go by Raphael here, but yes.”

  “You don’t exactly look the same,” I protested.

  “This is Rai’ek,” he laughed again, the edges of his grin reaching his eyes. “I’m a little less for the wear, Amelia.”

  I rubbed my forehead and groaned. “How is any of this possible? You’re Raphael? The Raphael?”

  “Yes.”

  Nausea flooded my body as I turned in search of a place to sit down. I started to ask for a seat, but Raphael was directing me toward a chaise that hadn’t been there moments before.

  “That’s a nice parlor trick you guys have up here.”

  He said nothing but merely smiled. The oncologist that had treated me, my oncologist, never once mentioned the fact that he was one of the most famous angels in all of history, each time acting as if he knew nothing about my recovery.

  I suddenly wondered how much he really knew. “So you did heal me.”

  “No, no,” he denied. “Most definitely not. That feat still should be attributed to Adam.”

  A small whimper caught itself in the back of my throat. That Nephilim had grown on me. In all the chaos, I had nearly forgotten the reason I had begun this journey in the first place. “I don’t understand. How is Adam here, and why doesn’t he know me? Like me-me. How did I get here, wherever here is?” I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice.

  “Let’s try one question at a time. Shall we, Amelia?” Raphael sat down beside me, just as he had done numerous times before. “I’ve already said. This is Rai’ek, the second realm of Araboth. Heaven. Nirvana. Shamballa. Whatever you want to call it.”

  “What does that even mean?” I stood up and spun around. It was like there were holes in my consciousness, so small that they were barely noticeable until they streamed together and I found myself drawing a blank.

  “Let me try and explain this in a way that makes sense.” He pursed his lips, a disgruntled look overtaking his features as he searched for the right thing to say. “The Adam you encountered is no different than the one you know to be your own. He is here just as you are here, but he is here just as his other self is where he is. They both exist; it’s just that you’ve stepped into another realm at a previous point in your own consciousness.”

  “OK,” I said, “so I time traveled.”

  Raphael made an abrupt clicking sound with his tongue. “Kind of, except that time has no meaning here.”

  I walked down the wall and stared at the paintings and figures staring back at me. “So what does this all mean? I was just—somewhere else—and then I found myself here. Can anyone do that?”

  “Shift realms?”

  I shrugged. “If that’s what it’s called.”

  “Not typically,” he admitted, eying me suspiciously. “Usually an anchor is needed, like an incantation or seal.”

  “OK.” I inhaled sharply, letting the much-needed oxygen coat my lungs in reprieve. I’d take what I could get when each second I felt like I was about to choke on my anxiety. “I need to get back to Hell, Raphael.”

  “Hell? Why?” he asked. “You could just stay here until your Adam gets back.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “If no one can shift like this, he’s not coming back. He’s gone, Raphael.”

  “Gone?” Raphael gawked at me. “What are you talking about, Amelia? What’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to ask you,” I seethed, my fists balled at my side. “Camael and another angel named Elias. They murdered him. Sent him back to Hell.”

  Raphael’s face drained of emotion. “I see.”

  “I see?” I turned to face him, already on the defensive as I nearly lunged at him. “That’s all you say when you’ve been gallivanting around, pretending as if you cared? How dare you—”

  “Amelia.”

  “You angels are all the fucking same. Elitist, sociopathic—”

  “Amelia,” he said again.

  “And you sit here acting like nothing’s wrong.”

  “Amelia!”

  “WHAT?”

  “Camael doesn’t have the ability to kill a fellow angel.” He shook his head fervently. “He’s difficult, yes, but not that powerful.”

  “Well, apparently you are wrong,” I snapped. “It didn’t take much effort in fact. And you and your feathery comrades just let this guy just walk around free?”

  “It’s not like that, Amelia,” he said, his body tightening as he shifted uneasily. I could tell this was not a favorite topic.

  “Then what is it like?” I stood up, my gaze deadlocked with his. “A man I have no recollection of meeting, in this lifetime nor any other, tells me I can be saved from my deathbed only to find out that both he and everyone else around me are either immortal or have ties to them. I then get kidnapped, tortured, and shot while this strange man declares his undying love only to be emulsified into tar and stabbed to death.

  “So please,” I spat. “Please tell me how any of this is going to be OK, because right now I’m not trusting in the angelic capabilities, yours or anyone else’s for that matter.”

  I could see I had struck a chord with Raphael. His younger face burned with uncertainty. He didn’t know what to tell me anymore than I knew what to tell myself.

  But he sat there, silent as the stone and waited for me to calm down. “I know you’re angry,” he finally said.

  “Angry?” I balked. “I was angry months ago when you diagnosed me and told me I was going to die. What was that for? Shits and giggles?”

  He shook his head. “No, Amelia.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s hard to explain.” He looked away for a second, biting his lip as he did. “I didn’t lie to you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Well, thanks for that. I feel so relieved,” I spat. “What I am is pissed. I’m so damned pissed that I barely even remember what angry feels like!”

  “And that’s understandable, Amelia. You’ve been through a lot. More importantly, it’s asking a lot. It’s a lot to ask out of anybody.”

  I sighed. “If you know that, then why don’t you help me out?” I asked. “Why don’t you help me understand? Why don’t you help Adam?”

  He sighed and looked away for a second, pissing me off even more. I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came out of his mouth. Having heard my thoughts, he knew it was easier just to say it. “It’s not that simple, Amelia.”

  “Then make it that simple,” I replied as I dropped back beside him. “Just tell me how to get Adam out of Hell. If you can’t, then take me to someone who can.”

  Again he s
at there, saying nothing for the longest time before he finally broke. “I want you to follow me, Amelia,” he said. “If Camael’s acting of his own volition, then we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Why do you say that? What’s happened to Adam?”

  “To him, I don’t know,” he said simply, reaching for my hand to accompany him. “But Camael was court-martialed and clipped two days ago.”

  My limited military understanding knew court-martialing was not a good thing. “Court-martialed for what?”

  If the room could have gotten any quieter, it would have. “For trying to overthrow God.”

  Ω

  Having been raised Roman Catholic and brought up as an altar server, it seemed almost a shame to race through the lower quadrant of this place and ignore the amount of religious theology at my fingertips. For a religion that taught men not to covet wealth, the opulence of the place seemed hypocritical. Ornate crystal chandeliers checkered our journey as we made our way down the grand staircase and into the foyer below. Plush red velvet lined our path as Raphael quickly ushered me to the large stone monstrosity they called a door.

  He clutched me by the arm, those same caring eyes of my doctor staring at me now. “You must go.”

  “Now?” I looked around. The place was deserted save for the two of us. “Raphael, what’s going on?”

  “With Camael’s punishment came martial law on Earth. All of the Nephilim are to be executed on sight.”

  I don’t think I could contain my horror even if I tried. Camael strung up by his own noose seemed a little too intentional. What was he planning? What good would it do to join the ranks of his quarry, to become the hunted instead of the hunter? Honestly, I didn’t think I rightly wanted to know. I had to find Adam, my Adam, before things spiraled any further out of control.

  Raphael had heard me. At least, it seemed, that my lack of shielding was not all bad. There were a few I could still trust.

  “I’m sending you back.”

  I steadied my resolve as I glanced at the thick stone and realized the hand-chiseled work for the mastery that it was.

  Over twenty feet in height, its design embodied the ultimate struggle between good and evil. At its base grotesque demons with worm-riddled orifices clawed at each other as they vied for control. At its zenith, cherubs and winged beasts that I vaguely remembered being called Triumphs screamed down in chorus over the chaos unfolding in the middle. There, two angels were embroiled in battle, one toppling over the other in glorious triumph, the winner about to plunge a fiery sword into the loser’s chest.

  “I’ve seen that sword before,” I told Raphael. “It was the blade Camael used to kill Adam.”

  “Lamafuere?” The Archangel shook his head. “No, that’s impossible.”

  I reached out to the door and ran my fingers down the grooves in the carving. “No, I’m certain of it.”

  “No, Amelia,” he said, more forceful this time. “There’s no way. Lamafuere is the sword of fire that God gave to Michael during the Great Battle.”

  The look on my face told him I didn’t believe him. That, or that I knew something he didn’t. It turns out it was the latter. “Well then,” I said simply. “We have a problem because that’s the sword Camael used to send Adam to Hell.”

  Before Raphael could even respond, another alarm like the one that had sounded earlier screeched from every crevice of the place. The brown-haired angel frantically turned to me, using both hands to push me toward the massive gate barricading us from the rest of the world. “You have to go. Now. There’s no time.”

  The sound of clinking footsteps in unison approaching our direction only furthered his point.

  “Raphael, what’s going on?” I steadied my balance as he still attempted to usher me out.

  His eyes darted side to side, checking for how much longer we had. “That weapon is the only thing powerful enough to kill an angel. If Camael has Lamafuere, then none of us are safe.” And with that he made a series of gestures, beckoning the stone beast to open itself to me.

  And before I could even tell the good doctor good-bye, I was being thrown out of the gate of Heaven and back into the bowels of Hell.

  Ω

  I woke with a start, gasping for breath as I sat up and took in my surroundings. It was getting easier; I had to admit, this jumping between dimensions, if that’s even what it was called. I had made it back to Hell in one piece, but Goat was nowhere to be found. In stark contrast, the entrance to Hell was remarkably underwhelming. I awoke on a stone slab in the back corner of a long room that could have been a holding cell as easily as it could have been a tomb. Torches burned faintly on either side of the slab, and I suddenly got the feeling that it might have had more nefarious uses given my location.

  I was in Hell after all.

  The faint howling of screams and whips crashing against unwilling flesh only confirmed my suspicions.

  Panic welled in my chest as I slid off the stone and truly began to study where I was. The thick stone slab was, in fact, an altar, with all four sides covered in cryptic faces of demons and beasts I couldn’t even begin to name. I suddenly wished I had studied something, anything, of demonology. I was alone in Hell, stuck in a chamber that was probably used for torture, without my demonic guide.

  Doubt began to fill my gut. Had this been what Goat had wanted all along? To return to Hell? Had I been used unknowingly, some missing link I had no recollection of being?

  And then I remembered the blood. My hands. I could still feel his obscenely sharp blade digging into my flesh. Raphael told me not to trust anyone. Did that include Goat and him too?

  “I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” Goat echoed from behind me.

  I found him standing in a doorway that led past another set of torches and down a narrow stairwell onto the stone level below. “Why do you say that?” I asked while I did what I could to shield my thoughts.

  I was sick of everyone knowing my business. This transparency was killing me. I had far more important things to worry about without others reading my brain like a book on the coffee table. I desperately wished that I could be allowed a moment of weakness, to be able to lean on someone, but I wasn’t that person. I didn’t have anyone I could lean on.

  Nice try. The thought wasn’t mine, yet it was there in my head just the same.

  I looked up to find Goat staring back at me.

  “There’s so much more to this than simply refraining from broadcasting one’s thoughts. Shielding from others. Allowing certain information in, but not others. Broadcasting to multiple people, each of them receiving a different conversation. Telepathy has its advantages and its disadvantages, but if you want to keep people out of your brain, you need to try a little harder.”

  “I’ll make a note of that,” I replied. “Where are we? Where did you take us?”

  Goat shook his head and slipped farther into the room. The light from the torches caused his shadow to dance on the wall behind him. “Exactly where you asked me to take you. Into Gehenna. Into the first level of Hell.”

  “What?” Dread coursed through my veins like liquid fire.

  “See for yourself.”

  Before I knew it, I was being led down the narrow stairwell and out onto a small, stone outcrop that served as a balcony to a larger area meant as an assembly hall. Thousands of benches carved out of the earth circumscribed the area. It took a second to realize that this place had been an arena at some point.

  “What am I looking for?” I asked as I searched the gathering crowd for anything to guide me.

  Then I saw for myself.

  Camael stood center stage, his once white wings now black. A deep sense of satisfaction poured through me as he circled around a hanging tapestry.

  Now he was just like the rest of us. Broken. Damaged.

  It wasn’t until I saw the blood caked on the tattered fabric that my dread overcame my satisfaction. Camael ripped the cloth down from its human holster, unveiling the main event for ev
eryone to see.

  My Adam was no more.

  In his place was the shadow of a man and the beginnings of a monster.

  “No.” Half-caught between horror and heartache, I felt my knees nearly buckle out from underneath me.

  Bound to some Neolithic crucifix was the remains of the man who had saved my life. It was with great naivety that I believed him dead, his immortal existence to be no more.

  How foolish I was.

  The left side of his face was a disfigured concoction, like someone had taken his features and rearranged them while they were all still in the melting pot. The half that wasn’t burned beyond recognition remained pure. Remained perfect. Human.

  Goat latched onto my shoulder to keep me from throwing myself into the den of wolves. It wasn’t until Adam’s one remaining human eye found me, even over a thousand feet away, that I looked away. I couldn’t take the absolution in his eyes.

  His acceptance that, much like the heartache I felt, nothing would ever be the same again.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Brothers, I call to you as one of your own,” Camael boomed across the vast arena filled with demons of varying terrors. “I, like our fair brother Lucifer, have been cast from Heaven like a worthless mongrel, but we must show them that even mongrels bite back.”

  Yeah, I thought bitterly, a mongrel that deserves to be put down.

  Angels and demons used whatever tactics were available to them to exterminate their opposition. I realized that now. Camael wanted to make an example of Adam. To send the demons a message, letting them know that he wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.

  No one doubted him now.

  “Gehenna, I give to you, Adam D’Angeline, Guardian of Vilon and current Reaper of the Elohim. His punishment for betraying the White Wings has been to punish you, to send you here like caged beasts awaiting extermination.”

  I looked on in horror, still fighting the urge to catapult myself over the edge. Even if I did, there was no hope of success. I would never make it to him before the several thousand demons tore me to shreds. “What have they done to him?” I hissed between breaths.