His frown increased. “It’s obvious you don’t remember that either.”
He would say no more about it but simply turned back to face the massive shoreline that stretched on and on. The next time our eyes locked, the cold-stone irises had returned, leaving behind the ruthlessness I knew so well.
The carefree Camael was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Adam, I know this might seem like a good idea because you feel like you’re out of options, but you don’t have to do this,” Raphael exhaled as he struggled to keep up with Adam. “There’s bound to be another way.”
The former Grigori turned down the last corridor, the entire area brimming with ornate hand-woven rugs as he burst through a set of doors leading to a large library. To his left, a pretty, little angel jumped up from the information desk that sat behind a dangling, crystal barricade.
Brightly lit with tomes and scrolls nearly stacked to a ceiling far, far out of sight, the Hall of Akashic Records was more than just a library. It housed a compilation of all knowledge about every living being in all of Assiyah. Their thoughts. Their dreams. Their memories. Their future.
“You’re going to kill yourself trying to do this,” Raphael whispered quietly as he nodded to the fearful blonde at the desk. He followed Adam as the Grigori walked with the determination of a man who had lost everything else in his life. “Adam. Adam—”
Raphael yanked him around by the shoulder, inadvertently drawing the attention of one of the ibis-headed Powers standing guard to the restricted section. “Adam, listen to what I’m saying,” he whispered as he eyed the guard, nodding to the curious bouncer.
Adam brushed his hand off. “I am listening. I’ve heard everything you’ve said.”
“Then what are you doing in here?” the Archangel hissed as he angled his head to keep one eye on the guard. “This is the last place we want to be right now.”
“Raphael, step out of the way.” Adam moved to step around him, but a piercing ringing erupted in Adam’s ears. Unable to do anything else, he covered his ears from the deafening sound while Raphael just stood there. “What was that?”
Raphael glanced around only to find everyone’s eyes now on them. “An alarm telling everyone you’re our number one fugitive,” the Archangel answered. “I suggest we leave. Now.” He grasped his friend by the shoulder once again, making it look like he had arrested Adam.
A second later, another shrill ringing sounded in their ears, this one even louder than the first. Raphael hurried his step, dragging Adam along with him as they slipped past back the information desk with the lithe blond.
“Now what?” Adam growled, only hearing the ringing but not the message behind it. Another angelic ability he had lost by becoming a Grigori.
“A second alarm telling them I’m our number two fugitive,” Raphael said simply as he let go of Adam long enough to push the massive, wooden doors open. “This is where I suggest we run.”
Raphael turned back just long enough to see the ibis-headed Power joined by two more, all headed in their direction. Before they could get any closer, Raphael and Adam burst through the front doors and down the massive stairwell.
There were almost sixty-five steps leading to the Great Library in Machon, and each one made Adam’s side stitch as they shot down the stairs and around the corner, leading to yet another hallway.
Unlike the human world, neither cameras nor detectors guarded the entrance ways and exits. The seven realms were a security system unto themselves. Each angel was a soldier, and each soldier, an armed guard against whatever threat arose.
Angels had a collective knowledge, each one able to tap into the stream of consciousness that told them exactly what was happening. Ignoring orders or information was one thing, but there was no way to avoid hearing it.
Anyone and everyone was a threat to Adam and Raphael. A threat that would surely be guarding the one and only exit out of Heaven, the massive stone portal in Rai’ek.
Trying each of the three doorways in the vicinity did little to alleviate the rising fear the two of them felt. “It’s not working,” Adam said, yanking one final time on the quartz door-handle.
Raphael pressed his back to the wall and maintained watch while Adam moved on to the next door.
“Why are there so many damn doors?” the Grigori growled. “There has to be at least fifty.”
Raphael nodded anxiously. “I seriously hope you’re not intending to check every single one.”
Adam shot him a glance. “You know, maybe if I had the time, but now it isn’t really prudent. Where are we anyway? I don’t know this corridor.”
Raphael craned his head around the corner and found both directions clear. “I don’t know, but I don’t think picking random doors is going to get us anywhere. Any minute the Second Sphere is going to find us, and it’s not only your ass on the line. Now I’m involved in this.”
Adam tried to smile even though the door wouldn’t budge. “I know, Raphael,” he said, trying one of the doors on the opposite side of the blinding-white hall. He wrenched the knob back and forth a few times, doing his best to stay quiet. A few more yanks of the handle, and Adam finally took to the doorway with his shoulder, ramming it just above the hinge.
That only took five seconds.
Before either one could argue, the two slipped out of the hallway and into the room beyond whether they wanted to or not. It was better than the alternative.
“Raphael, do something about these lights,” Adam said in the darkness, trying to adjust his eyes to the harsh change. He reached around in search of a charging crystal on the wall, but there was none.
In fact, there were no walls.
No walls, and no Raphael.
At first, Adam thought he might have been imagining it, or that Raphael was playing a trick on him, but knowing the kind of man Raphael was, it seemed doubtful.
“Raphael? Raphael, where’d you go?”
There was no response save for his own voice echoing off some distant surface.
He pulled out his Zippo from the pocket of his jerkin, filling the area with newfound light. And then he could see it for himself, the end he was trying to stop.
The end of everything.
Ω
“Raphael, it’s so good of you to join us this morning,” Enoch’s disembodied voice called to him. “Have a coffee. Hand-pressed.”
Raphael turned around to find Enoch, the leader of the Seraphim, approaching him with a mug in hand. Standing in a completely different place than he had been previously, he was now in a wide, open room where a large holograph of Adam roamed the opposite wall.
“What’s going on? What have you done with Adam?”
Handing the Archangel the beverage, Enoch took a swig of his own. “Nothing yet. This one’s beginning to become a real problem, so we’re just going to give him a little perspective on the situation at hand. Come. Sit.”
Raphael eyed the leader of the Seraphim suspiciously once he had turned away. Though it was obvious it didn’t matter. Enoch had eyes everywhere, angelic or otherwise. “What is that supposed to mean? What are you going to do to him?” Raphael stalked across the room after the tall man who had already sat down in one of the ornate high backed chairs in front of the holograph.
“Me?” Enoch turned to face the Archangel. “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to show both of you why this is so important, or did you also forget what’s riding on this outcome?”
Raphael steeled his jaw, wanting to say a thousand things but said none.
“You’re not a foolish man, Raphael; otherwise your use would have expired long ago. Adam, however, just continues to disappoint. Almost as if he was programmed that way, wouldn’t you agree?”
The Archangel licked his lips. He knew Enoch was baiting him. As the leader of the Seraphim, the highest group of celestial creatures and the guardians of destiny itself, Enoch was not someone to brook argument. He knew what a person was going to say or do long before it happened.
But at times like this, when his own flock was treading off the beaten path, he had to steer them back in the right direction.
As Araboth’s Chief of Medicine, Raphael had seen it happen on more than one occasion, and it was never pleasant.
Some things even he could not heal.
Enoch would prove his point, with or without Raphael’s help.
Sometimes a dead angel was worth more than words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Of all the names different cultures had allotted it, Apocalypse, by far, sounded the worst. From the Greek “apokaluptein,” meaning to ‘uncover’ something, Adam wished he hadn’t discovered this truth. The only thing he had to figure out was whether or not it was real.
He now found himself in a world destroyed with him only a spectator. If only Raphael had told him not to open that door. Would it have made a difference? Would Raphael have told him to stop had he known what was on the other side?
It didn’t matter now; it was too late.
Adam looked around at his new surroundings, a dismal gray mist in every direction. It lingered and swelled around him like a second skin, blocking his line of sight. There was no ringing, no screeching alarm to signal that he wasn’t alone. The dismal light the Zippo put off did little to show him otherwise. His feet touched something, ground perhaps, though he couldn’t see it.
At least gravity was still doing its job. He stepped forward and prayed the ground beneath him was real. How ironic that it came down to faith in the end. With one misstep, he could end up in the bowels of a volcano or a feeding pit for the Damned.
This can’t be real. Can’t be.
The horizon began to light from a muted gray, almost as if a thick fog finally started to dissipate. With no other options and no door behind him, he headed toward a clearing.
Adam had only taken a handful of steps when the first crunch beneath his feet nearly sent him stumbling. The fog, still thick enough that it clung to the ground like wild moss, kept him from seeing what had nearly taken his ankle out. He steadied his footing and tried again, yet another cluster of bramble and rocks yanked at him in the darkness that lingered beneath the fog.
Something grabbed him as he thrashed around trying to free himself, and he screamed before he could help himself. His nerves were overloaded, too shot out. Dammit! He tore his jacket off with a huff, yanking his arms free.
Crawling on his knees, he felt at the ground in front of him. A pile of something lay beneath him.
Thankfully, it wasn’t souls trying to ensnare him. Whatever it was, it wasn’t alive or damned.
It was inanimate. Dead.
And then he realized the truth. Dead.
Oh, please God, no.
He reached below the fog and latched onto whatever he could, his hands scraping on the jagged material once more as he ripped a portion of it free. It wasn’t until he lifted the object above the fog that he realized it for what it was and flung it back as fast as he could.
Bones. A rib bone, precisely.
He closed his eyes and prayed that the bones belonged to some unfortunate creature. He reached farther into the mess, pulled the skull into his hands, and knew the truth the moment he eased it out of the fog.
The symbol was burned into the skull, a symbol he would have known anywhere. Any Celestial would.
All of the blood rushed out of him, and his breath stopped as the skull fell from his hands.
At the point of salvation or damnation, a person was marked, as if the coloring of one’s wings wasn’t enough. No magic could duplicate or clone the symbols. They came from a higher magic than even the Seraphim.
It was the mark of God.
It was real, and it was undeniable, here for all to see should they have been able to.
God was dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
There was no way to deny it, no way to hide from the horrors in front of him. It was like being in a vacuum, snatching all of his wind from him.
No. Impossible.
The mark of God. The Alpha & Omega. The All-Father. Deus. The Highest of Highs. YHWH.
God was dead and with him, all of Heaven.
This can’t be real. Can’t be.
Not even nausea filled his body anymore. Now he just felt cold, so much colder than he had ever felt.
Six thousand years he had been gone from Heaven, and nothing like this had happened. Barachiel would have told him if war had come to Araboth, even if he were no longer a part of the Council.
The lingering fog finally started to clear, leaving Adam to see the truth with his own eyes. Like a massive open grave, thousands of skeletons lined every inch of the ground on which he stood, but the corpses were far from normal. Every single one of them had wings; every single one of them had a mark. Cherubim, Thrones, Principalities, and Seraphim, they were all dead.
All gone.
They lined the field, their wings broken, like a tangle of white bramble as far as the eye could see. Jagged. Crude. Violent.
We’ve failed. His hands burned from where they had touched the skull, his mind playing tricks on him as he marched farther into the field.
All of Heaven. Gone.
No words could describe the destruction he saw. It stole his will to speak, his will to breathe. The light that Mia’s brief return had given him compared little to this. It only made his guilt worse.
All this because of me?
Yes, answered the fog.
Adam spun around violently, ready to fight whatever lurked in the graveyard. Who’s there?
You did this, Adam. You and no one else.
He shook his head. It’s not possible. This isn’t real.
Yes, the fog answered back. It is, and you did it.
“Come out, whoever you are,” he snapped. “Prove to me you are telling the truth. Prove to me that everyone is dead, that Araboth has fallen.”
Oh, it will, and when it does, you will have no one else to blame but yourself.
“You’re lying!” he yelled into the gray mist, still in search of whoever spoke to him.
Am I? Are you are so blind that you fail to see what is right before your eyes? This is what saving that woman did for you. By saving her, you doomed us all.
No, Adam whispered as he slipped to his knees.
You belong with us. Never forget that. If we fail, not just Araboth will fall. So too will Assiyah.
No. His eyes brimmed with tears. I will have no part in this.
Then remember your place, Adam. Remember your place and know that on your shoulders rests us all.
Before Adam could say anymore, the voice was gone and with it the graveyard of his brethren. He spun around, frantically in search of answers but found only an empty white room instead.
He was alone again.
He turned back around, toward the way he thought he had come, this time finding the crystal door handle. Whoever had been playing tricks on him had made their point.
This war was about more than just Eve and Camael. It involved everyone.
He had to kill them both.
He had to kill them both or everyone would die.
Ω
“Hey, you got a minute?” Camael asked, suddenly poking his head into the training room as his eyes ran the length of the destruction Mammon and I had caused.
“Huh?” I looked up, sweat burning my eyes as I struggled to brush my bangs away from them. “Yeah, sure. Just give me a minute. Is that alright?” I asked, glancing over at Mammon who threw a towel at me.
“Fine,” Mammon answered. “Just make sure to bring her back in one piece, Camael. I don’t have time to heal her and teach her psionics. Just remember that.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Camael snorted and looked back at me. “Come on.” He left the room, forcing me to chase after him, making me think a part of him enjoyed it.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere a little quieter.”
“Why?” I asked, falling into step with him as
we walked briskly down the eastern corridor.
“Just because,” he snapped and suddenly stopped walking. “Why does it always have to be why with you? I have already promised that nothing would happen to you while under my ward. You need to believe me; otherwise you’re just going to be wasting both of our time.”
“Jeez, okay, sorry. I’m just a curious person.”
“Pffh,” he said. “Control freak’s more like it. Are you always like this nowadays?”
“What?” I asked confusedly.
He sighed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“What do you mean 'nowadays?'”
“Here,” he said, ignoring my question as he thrust a bundled handkerchief toward me.
“What’s this?”
“Just something I’ve been holding onto. I didn’t know what else to do with the junk.” He straightened his posture as I unraveled the cloth to find an ornate, gold cuff encrusted with rubies along its face.
“Junk?” I balked as I turned the bracelet over in my hands. “It looks really old, Camael. I mean really old.”
“It is.” His face was unreadable as he stood there watching me.
“Then why are you giving this to me?” I asked, trying to hand the cuff back to him. “Isn’t there a certain someone this belongs to?”
“There was,” he said, matter-of-factly. “A long time ago, but they won’t be looking for it any time soon. It’ll help you with your incantations.”
“I don’t know, Camael . . .”
“Just take it,” he snapped suddenly, “Otherwise, it’s going in the trash.”
“Um, okay,” I said, my eyes widening over his sudden fervor to get rid of the thing. “Why me? Why not Na’amah?”
“Please!” he nearly choked. “Don’t flatter her. I just thought you could use it. Anyway, her abilities far outrank yours. She doesn’t need something like this.”
“Fine. Whatever. Thanks,” I said, turning back the way I had come.
His hand gently gripped my wrist. “Where are you going?” he asked softly.
“Back with Mammon,” I groused. He was really starting to grind on my nerves. “What now?”
FALL FROM PARADISE Page 14