FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

  It felt like walking over broken glass when Danielle was around. I knew I shouldn’t trust her; I just didn’t know why.

  “I’m on no one’s side,” I started to walk away from the two. “Besides, someone needs to find Adam and Raphael.”

  “We will.” David chased after me, and while I knew he was on my side, I couldn’t say the same about Danielle.

  Perhaps when this was all over, I would find out why. Was she in love with Adam? Thoughts whizzed in my head as I tried to come up with the rationale behind her hatred of me. There was no possible way anyone could miss her disdain. But my search for whatever caused it was going to have to wait.

  I crossed my arms, hugging myself. “And what if Camael realizes what I’m doing?”

  “Well, if he’s innocent, hopefully nothing.” Danielle rolled her shoulders. “But you know him; we don’t. It all depends on how close you two have gotten in the past four months.”

  I threw out the question, “What if not very?”

  “Well then, you’re gonna have to be a little more creative with your tactics, won’t you?” Her green eyes pierced through me. “Unless you don’t want Adam to survive, in which case tell me now so that we can stop wasting our time.”

  We stood there for a few minutes in silence until I finally broke the standoff. “Fine, Danielle, but you better be right about this.”

  “So surprising,” she snorted. “I’ll be sure to let Adam know should we find him first.”

  “What?”

  “You care for him,” she said plain as day.

  “Who?” I balked.

  “Camael,” she answered. “It’s written all over your face.”

  Ω

  “I will make you another deal, Adam,” Enoch said simply as he took another swig of his scotch. “You can appreciate that, yes?”

  Adam exchanged a glance with Raphael. They were running out of options. “I’m listening.”

  “Alright,” the leader of the Seraphim said simply. “I would have thought that my first warning was clear, but obviously I was wrong. You’re not an easy man to scare.”

  “No, I’m not,” the Grigori answered. “I’ve waited six thousand years, Enoch. You will not keep us apart.”

  Enoch muffled his amusement in his glass. “Perhaps, but then again, perhaps I won’t have to.”

  The muscles in Adam’s back tensed. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means exactly that. I told you in very specific terms that I would kill your little princess if you refused to help me, but as I said, that apparently is not getting my point across. So perhaps this will.”

  Much like the rest of the Seraphim, Enoch was fast, but this was something else entirely. Adam didn’t even have time to follow the blade before it was already thrust upwards into Raphael’s throat.

  The Archangel’s eyes widened, his mouth opening and closing much like a fish out of water, as his eyes locked with Adam’s.

  Panic flooded the Grigori’s veins as he raced to catch the collapsing doctor and waited for Raphael to tell him what to do. His hand shot out to grab the blade, only to be stayed by an invisible force.

  Enoch.

  “What have you done?” Adam hissed, his face already blood red with anger.

  The Seraph stared down at him. “There is no point in trying to remove it. Even if the wound doesn’t take his life, the liquid silver will.”

  “What?” he breathed, looking back at the man in his arms. “I thought that didn’t work on Archangels.”

  “This dagger here?” Enoch said, lifting the blade for Adam to see. “It’s made of everything nasty and foul in this universe all wrapped into one nice angel-killing piece of silver.”

  “What about Lamafuere?” Adam asked, tearing off the sleeve of his gambeson to tourniquet Raphael’s wound. He started to lift Raphael’s head off the ground but stopped when he realized he was working against gravity, not with it.

  “Michael’s sword?”

  Adam nodded as Raphael’s pupils started to dilate. Raph, what do I do?

  “Oh, don’t worry about that now.” Enoch bent down and ripped the blade from Raphael’s neck, dropping it onto the small side table next to his empty glass. Undoing the lid of the scotch once again, he poured himself another drink, swallowing nearly the whole lot when he finally brought it to his lips.

  Adam glanced between the two, unable to leave Raphael’s side long enough to avenge him. He lowered the healer’s head to the ground and eased out from beneath him in hopes of slowing the marriage of blood and silver.

  It was poison, pure and simple. Like a snake, it slowly coursed through Raphael’s veins, working its way into his brain and heart, taking with it the only rationale Adam had left.

  Raphael, what do I do? Tell me something, anything!

  “It won’t work, Adam,” Enoch answered for him. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He can’t speak, aloud or otherwise. He can’t think. He can barely even breathe. The silver will strip his blood of its oxygen until there is nothing left but starved, hollow veins. And then he will die. Frozen forever.”

  “You bastard!” Adam snarled again. “I will kill you!”

  “Please. Stop fooling yourself, Adam. You can’t even leave his side,” Enoch suddenly hovered behind Adam with the Grigori’s head in a lock, the same blade now pressed against the man’s throat. “You’re completely useless. I could kill you right now if I wanted to, and no one, not even your precious Eve, could stop me. First, Raphael, then that sonofabitch Camael and his whore. Do I have your attention now, Adam?”

  “Yes,” he breathed between tears. I’m so sorry, Raph.

  Enoch let go of Adam who floundered as he struggled to regain his balance. “See how easy that was? I should have just done that from the beginning.”

  “You’ll never get away with this.” Adam rubbed his throat and looked for anything he could use to fight the Seraph leader.

  “I already have.” Enoch laughed and sat contently back in his chair. “After breaking into the Hall of Records, you could no longer discern friend from foe, and when Raphael attempted to help you, you struck him down with one of the blades you stole from the Second Sphere.”

  “That’s a lie!” Adam backed up toward the man-sized candelabras perched against the wall.

  “Perhaps,” Enoch said as he reached over to a small crystal sphere sunken into his table and depressed it further into its surface, sounding an alarm immediately. That same piercing ringing, which had been frequenting Araboth since Adam’s return, took over once again. A battalion of masked soldiers flooded into Enoch’s chambers, surrounding Adam in a semi-circle within seconds.

  “Now, Adam,” Enoch said calmly as he stood up, walked over into the crowd and worked his way through them till he was inches from the Grigori. “I told you I would make you a deal, and I intend to keep that promise.”

  “This coming from the man who always lies,” Adam seethed in response.

  Enoch shrugged. “Believe what you want, but I’m doing this for the right reasons. You can either help me or not.”

  “You killed Raphael.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “I did.”

  “If you’re just going to kill everyone anyway, why does it matter if I help or not?”

  The Seraph chuckled and wiped his mouth with the handkerchief from his chest pocket. “Because I can make all of this so much more painful if you don’t. Get Eve to turn herself in, and I’ll release the others.”

  The color drained from Adam’s already pale face. “Others?”

  Enoch nodded. “Raphael’s men. You wouldn’t want their deaths to hang over your head too, would you?”

  “You sonofabitch!” Adam said, lunging at Enoch only to be stayed by two halberds belonging to the nearby soldiers. “How did you get like this? You had everything!”

  “And that, dear boy, is exactly where you’d be wrong.”

  “You’re the leader of the Seraphim, for God’s sake! What more could you
possibly want?” And then it dawned on him. “It was never Camael, was it?”

  That same grin overcame the Seraph’s narrow face, one full of possibilities and ill intent. “No, my boy.”

  “They’ll stop you,” Adam said. “I’ll stop you.”

  Enoch snorted and clasped him by the shoulder. “You always were my favorite. Now the choice is yours. Kill them and rule with me, or refuse, and I’ll kill all three of you.”

  Unarmed and surrounded by staves and swords, Adam asked the only question he could. “How long do I have to decide?”

  Ω

  Teleporting through realms remained a strange thing.

  I felt like all of the wind had been sucked from my lungs and my legs became jelly. And that was being modest. I wasn’t ready to go back, but they weren’t about to let me stay. Besides, I had a new mission.

  I was charged with finding out whether the Fallen Hosts, mainly Camael, knew anything of Adam and Raphael’s disappearance. Angels were starting to go missing, but they weren’t joining the Underground.

  “The Gate is going to be heavily guarded so that option is out,” Danielle breathed. “Can you get back on your own?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “At least, I don’t think so. Not yet.”

  “Shit,” Danielle cussed as the three of us rounded the next corner and into a new labyrinth of blinding white hallways.

  If there were any doors at all, they were hidden.

  All I could see was white including the small crystal geodes attached to the wall, which served to light the area.

  “We’re gonna have to take the back way,” she said. “David?”

  He looked up from the floor. “Yeah?”

  “Do you still have that parchment Raphael gave you?”

  “Um, maybe,” he said as he started rummaging through the pouch at his waist. “Yeah, but it’s a summoning scroll,” he said, handing it to Dani.

  “What good is that going to do?” I interrupted. “We’re not trying to summon anyone.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But we are trying to send you home.”

  “You really think something like that will work?” I said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, unless you’ve learned any useful tricks that would help us.”

  They both looked at me expectantly.

  I blushed. “I can throw fireballs and use telepathy—”

  “We’re all telepathic,” she snarked. “How else would we get those damned memos.”

  “Memos?”

  “Yeah, ever since you first entered our radar,” she sighed. “Now you and your little snaked-tongued friends are all the Three Spheres talk about. It’s aggravating.”

  “Sorry?” I offered.

  “Don’t be.” David shrugged. “Consider yourself lucky you haven’t heard it yet.”

  I glanced between them. “How does that make me lucky?”

  “You’re lucky because you don’t have somebody’s name drilled into your head five times a day,” Dani sighed and rolled her eyes. “If you’d stay here long enough, you’d realize that verbal communication is the Spheres’ last method of choice. Even our directives come without words.”

  My eyebrows shot up incredulously. “Without words? How does that work?”

  Everything was so strange here, but I guess it was to be expected. Just as Gehenna, so too Araboth had its own rules, customs, and laws—ones I would have to learn and abide by in order to survive.

  Dani tried to explain though I knew it bothered her. “When you’re not, shall we say acclimated to our realms, it sounds like shrill ringing in your ears. And the Principalities aren’t nice about it; the messages can be downright deafening.”

  “And if you are acclimated?” I asked.

  “Then it’s like telepathy on blast,” she answered me. “Everyone within the entire realm will hear it at that point.”

  “How often does that happen?” I looked down at my clothing and pulled the hem of my shirt back down around my waist. My anxiety had made my clothing uncomfortable, making me fidget every now and again.

  David shrugged. “Sometimes. When something big enough or important enough goes on.”

  My eyes locked onto his. “You said Raphael and Adam went missing.”

  David shrugged again. “As far as we know. They disappeared right after they went into the Hall of Records.”

  “Emil's gonna rub this in our faces.” Dani frowned and crossed her arms.

  “What?” I looked between them. “You guys knew they were headed into danger and didn't stop them?”

  The female angel snorted. “Please. There was no dissuading Adam. He’s so wrapped around your finger that no one could talk him out of it. Not even Raphael; all he could do was go with him.”

  “So, if you know where they’re at, why don’t you go after them?” I asked.

  She paused for thought. “We already tried. They’re gone. We’ve searched everywhere within the realms, and they’re just gone.”

  “I’m sure they’re fine,” I said. I already had enough on my plate without having to worry about this too. “You should know better than anyone that time works differently here.”

  “So?”

  “Maybe it does in the Hall of Records too?” I said. “Maybe they are still there just in another time or something.” I didn't tell her where my hypothesis was coming from. That was more details than I felt like spilling.

  I was never worried about what would happen when Adam came back here. I ignorantly thought I would be the only problem. Apparently, I was wrong.

  “Maybe, but that’s why we’re leaving it up to you,” David shrugged. “You’re the only one who can travel between realms.”

  Dani grabbed me by the upper arm. “Now, let’s get you back while there’s still enough of you to worry about. Oh, and Amelia?”

  I rolled my eyes in her direction. “Yeah?”

  “Next time I see you,” Danielle warned, “You’d better have a handle on your shit. It’s getting real old having to save your lily-white ass.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  At first, just darkness surrounded me.

  No sights, no sounds. Stark quiet embraced everything around me like a second skin. And then I remembered. I had dove into the lake while Camael’s back was turned. Surrounded by chains of silver, I had charged blindly away from him to rid myself of the part I couldn’t control.

  And then, suddenly, I was in Araboth once more – returned to the Heavens as simply as walking through a door.

  Amelia? called the darkness.

  Something was wrong. Danielle had told me that much. With Adam and Raphael missing, there were very few suspects mulling around in my head.

  One of them stood back on the bank.

  Adam had survived. That much I could take solace in. Emil and the others had rescued us in time.

  Amelia? it called again.

  The abyss was calling for me, and it could take me if it wanted. I did not have the strength to withstand this bullshit another moment longer. By saying yes to Adam, I had said yes to everything I hadn’t expected.

  I was no longer frail. Weak. Dying.

  I was angelic. Immortal. Undead. Call it what you would, but I couldn’t die. I couldn’t die, and it broke my heart.

  I was alone and trapped in Hell. I had made a mistake by coming here. Thinking that this was the easier, less painful path proved to be my biggest mistake yet. We could have found a way for Adam and I to be together. Adam and I.

  And now he was missing. Trapped. Tortured. Dead. So many things could have happened to him and Raphael both, and it was all my fault.

  The sudden rushing of water passing over me dissolved my self-loathing as light flooded my vision.

  “No, no, no, you silly girl!” Camael breathed frantically, waist-deep in water as he lifted me out of the lake and back onto the bank. “What were you thinking?”

  The systematic pounding on my chest did little to reward his efforts as he struggled to resuscitate m
e. For the first time since all of this mess began, I wasn’t afraid at the thought of dying. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to worry anymore. At least that way, it’d be over.

  No one could fight if I was out of the equation.

  Regardless of what Adam believed, I wouldn’t take orders from him or Camael if I was gone. If nothing else, at least I could enjoy the emptiness.

  “Amelia, no.” I could hear Camael say as some part of me recognized that he had turned me on my side the moment water rushed from my lungs.

  Coughing overtook me as my instincts struggled to fight the foreign substance.

  “Are you daft?” he said hysterically. “What was the point of drowning yourself when you can’t die? Torture?”

  “You seem . . . awfully concerned . . . for somebody that stabbed me,” I muttered in ragged breaths.

  His face contorted even more. “I don’t want you harmed.”

  I sat up as the last of the water escaped my chest, his arm steadying me as I did. “Yeah well, sometimes you don’t always get what you want.”

  I slapped his hands away as I shifted around onto my knees, flailing as I returned to my feet.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said, ignoring my attempt to not use him as a brace. “You could have gotten—”

  “Hurt?” I brushed him off. “You need to get your story straight, Camael. Either I can get hurt, or I can’t. Either you care, or you don’t.”

  “I do care, Amelia.” His back stiffened as he stood across from me. “That’s the problem.”

  I couldn’t believe this. “Caring?”

  “Yes.”

  “Caring is a problem?”

  “Yes.” Times like these reminded me he was a soldier through and through. He stood with his hands behind his back, his posture rigid like a statue.

  I sighed and stood with my own back to his. I was going to have to do this on my own. I couldn’t just outright tell Camael that Adam had gone missing; I was going to have to find some other way to see what he knew about it.

  “What made you like this?” I whispered softly enough that I doubted he’d even hear me, but out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his back tense.