FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

“No,” I whispered, and I felt a palpable snap, like a cord around my arms and neck suddenly breaking apart. It made me jolt forward, my hands instinctively going to my throat as Camael raced to steady me before Adam could.

  Adam, ever the Watcher, backed off a step, neither of them daring to do anything with me in the way.

  My legs faltered, and I clutched onto Camael, taking solace in his unwavering strength. “What was that?” I managed to ask.

  Camael pulled me against him, and I let him, his hands deftly brushing my hair back from my forehead as he kissed my brow. “Your freedom.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Camael slowly inched me off him, his long fingers wrapped around mine as the back of my hand met his lips. “You did it. I knew you could.”

  “I—I don’t understand.” I shook my head, my eyes locked on Adam’s face. “Adam?”

  He stammered as I moved away from Camael and over toward him.

  I stood inches away from him, all of us soaking wet and damned to an eternity of Hell brought on by our own indignation.

  “Adam, please,” I whispered. “Tell me the truth.”

  Camael’s back straightened. “That’s the point, Amelia. He doesn’t know it.”

  Adam blinked, unsure of himself as he stood there. I could see it for myself. “I don’t understand why you’re even listening to this rhetoric. Mia, it’s always just been you and me. I’ve loved you since we were first stationed at Vilon. You are my match, my equal, my soul.

  “Camael tried to claim you for his own, so we ran, as far and as fast as we could,” he explained, the deadly sword reappearing in his hands. “I went to Raphael to petition the Council to hide you. It was the only way to keep you safe, so they stripped your memories and your immortality and sent you here.

  “I followed soon after, becoming a Watcher, as it was the best way to be near you, to guard you here while Raphael guided from above. When Raphael told me you were in the hospital, I knew we had run out of time. The disease humans call cancer is simply the natural breakdown of the body once the soul’s past its maximum incarnations.

  “Souls require decontamination from the muddled energy of the lower planes. Without the ability to return you to Araboth, we knew this would happen; we just didn’t know when.”

  I wasn’t even sure what to say, but I had to say something. “You knew?” I inhaled. “You knew and you didn’t say anything. All this cat and mouse. You could have told me this from the very beginning.”

  Adam sighed. “Would you have believed me?”

  I started to open my mouth but stopped. “Yes. No. I don’t know, but that’s something you should have let me decide.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, stepping forward, his blade poised in our direction. “I will ask you once more. Please stop this foolishness and come with me.”

  But I wouldn’t. He should have known. I suddenly didn’t know who was standing next to me anymore, this man, this angel who had freed me from the life I had been living.

  “But is it true, Adam?” I choked, my voice barely above a whisper. I could barely speak above the hurt in my heart. It all seemed like lies.

  “Mia, I just told you the truth. I’ve always loved you and still do,” he replied. “You are my entire universe.”

  His eyes, ever green like pale mint, swam in a sea of emptiness. I hadn’t been able to see it before, but now I could. Deeper than black, they were endless and hollow, like looking for the bottom of a very deep well. They scared me at a time when I didn’t want to be scared.

  Camael stepped beside me. “The Seraphim programmed his mind to think such a thing. They are very capable of such horrors,” he said. “They wrote all of Genesis for God's sake. What you don’t know, Amelia, is that he tried to advance on you, and you denied him. You denied him because you loved me instead.

  “But he couldn’t take it, so he petitioned a Seraph to erase your memories so that they could make you his. Turn you into some pawn for their schemes.”

  “If what you’re saying is true, then why didn’t you tell me?” I asked the Fallen leader. “All those chances, you refused. You said I had to trust you. That you would explain!”

  He nodded. “And that time is now, Amelia. I’m not lying to you.”

  “The bracelet. It was mine the whole time, wasn’t it? That’s why you didn’t want it going to Na’amah.” Oh how the dots just kept on lighting up.

  The entire time, his face was somber.

  My eyes widened in horror. I had been so wrong. “That person you lost . . . that person was me?”

  He was right. He might have been frank, brutally honest even, but he was telling the truth. The scars were real, like a patchwork etched into every fiber of his body. Men like that didn’t make up stories about their wounds. They didn’t need to.

  Then came the answer I needed to hear. “Yes, Amelia.”

  “That’s a lie!” Adam yelled. “You know who he is now. How can you expect to believe anything he says?”

  I frowned. I was going to have to roll the dice on one or the other. Whomever I ended up trusting was going to kill the other. And then this war would be over. I had to be okay with that. I had to make my peace.

  “You’re right, Adam,” I said simply. “I can’t trust either of you.”

  “Mia, you can’t be serious!” Adam argued.

  Camael lowered his head, stepping back from the two of us. “Yes, she can, and if that is her decision, then so be it.”

  “No,” Adam shouted. “I won’t allow that to happen.”

  “Excuse me?” my voice wavered. My bravery was dwindling by the second.

  “It seems I have no choice,” Adam said plainly as he raised his sword in my direction. “Mia, you are coming with me whether you want to or not. There are more things riding on this than just us.”

  “I won’t let you.” Camael stepped in between us. A loud pang of thunder rumbled in the distance, shaking the ground in its agreement with the leader of the Fallen.

  “You have no choice, Camael, so stop acting like you do,” Adam said simply. “You are nothing anymore. You’re not a Seraph. You’re not a demon. You belong nowhere. A fallen angel without a home, how fitting that it would be me to kill you now.”

  “No.” There was a sudden flapping of wings in the darkness, and the three of us looked up to find Raphael standing inches away from us. “I can’t let you do this, Adam.”

  “No . . .” Adam shrieked quietly. “I saw you die.”

  I exchanged glances with Camael. What’s going on?

  I don’t know but stay on your feet.

  “Adam?” I asked, stepping toward him.

  “He killed you,” Adam said, completely ignoring me as he moved toward the Archangel. “Right in front of me. I watched you die, Raph.”

  “I know what it seemed like.” As the Archangel walked towards us, Camael shifted back in front of me on the off-chance Raphael was not on our side. Though the look he was giving Adam gave me the slight hope that he was.

  “I watched you die, Raphael!” Adam yelled at the Archangel. “Die and I couldn’t do anything! And you’re telling me this was all some ruse?”

  “I can’t explain what happened,” Raphael said calmly.

  “Well, start trying.” The glistening sword swelled in Adam’s hand, another elemental blade in its own right. How many of them there were, I had no idea, but I couldn’t tell if Adam’s was anywhere as powerful as Lamafuere.

  And I had a feeling I didn’t want to find out.

  Adam shook the blade much like a painter shaking the water out of a brush. Wind kicked up around our feet, blowing leaves and loose rocks in our direction. “Raphael, I don’t know what’s going on, but you will stand down. I have my orders.”

  “I know, Adam,” he said with more force behind his tone. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Then you know I have no choice,” he told him. “You saw what happened in Araboth. This is the only way to end this war.”

  “No.
Enoch manipulated you. This isn’t the way,” Raphael said to the Watcher as he stepped in front of Camael and me, his hands outspread. At least I had backup. “And as your friend, I can’t let you do this.”

  “So help me, Raphael,” Adam exhaled, raising the blade in the direction of his friend. “If I have to cut through you to get to them, I will.”

  “Adam, you might want to listen to Raphael,” I added quietly. One Archangel, one Fallen leader, and one Nephilim. It was a standoff, and I didn’t know who was going to make it. I trusted Raphael, but not enough to save us. We were still going to need a backup plan.

  “Amelia, stay out of this!” Adam snapped. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  I blinked a few times, unsure of myself. Was it just something in immortals’ programming that made them think I could be tossed aside without a second thought?

  “It does, Adam,” Raphael told him. “They share a link, the two of them. Twin souls.”

  “No!” Adam denied, clutching his ribs. “He’s gotten to you, hasn’t he? Tricked you with his venomous lies.”

  “No, Adam.” Raphael raised a calming hand. “You have to believe me. Enoch isn’t who he says he is. A lot of people are going to senselessly die if you don’t quit this now.”

  “That’s why I have to stop this,” Adam breathed on the verge of tears. “They have to die. It’s the only way I can get my Eve back.”

  “Adam,” I called to him. “I’m standing right here.”

  “No, you’re a traitor. Enoch was right.” Adam pointed the blade in my direction now. “You’re not Eve. You’re merely a substitute.”

  Raphael turned towards Camael. “Are you prepared for this?”

  The Fallen leader nodded. “I am.”

  “I’m sorry, Amelia,” Raphael said with a frown, suddenly looking at me. “I never wanted you to get hurt. None of us did.”

  “It’s okay.” I smiled. “I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

  My doctor flashed the familiar smile I had come to know so well. “Me too.”

  His blue eyes pierced through me, almost as if he could see into the depths of my soul and know everything that had transpired in his absence. His solemnness broke my heart.

  “It was against our rules, our customs,” he said, subtly pointing to Camael. “Unthinkable. Seraphs did not fraternize. We placed you under his guard, his watch in Vilon. Somehow you wedged your way into his heart, and there would be no more talks of anything else.”

  “I—I don’t get it,” I said.

  Raphael laughed, smiling. “Pomme d'amour. The apple of love.”

  My spine bristled. “Where did you hear that?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “It’s like I said. You guys are twin souls. Inseparable. You move, he moves. Like the ocean and the moon. In love, there can be no other way.”

  “So it’s true then,” I said matter-of-factly. “Every last bit. Camael. My memories. All to be some pawn in the Seraphim’s games.”

  “Amelia,” Raphael sighed. “I don’t presume to know the ways of gods and men, nor would I ever care to. All of us on the Council aren’t as malevolent as you’ve been led to believe.”

  “Then why did Camael leave?”

  There was that knowing understanding of a doctor once more. “I think that’s something best left to Camael to tell you.”

  “I don’t care who tells me.” I pulled my own short sword out. Enough time had passed to know for certain that Mammon wasn’t coming back. I felt like I had lost my backbone, my nerve in human form. Much like at the beginning of my journey, I was in the middle of a game, and I didn’t know the rules. A bitter laugh erupted from my throat. Ignorance. It was still ignorance.

  I had never left the game. I had only thought I did.

  “You really don’t get it; do you, Amelia?” Raphael’s eyes widened.

  “No, Raphael,” I shouted. “Everyone, please stop with this bullshit and just tell me what this has to do with me.”

  “Camael was telling the truth,” Raphael said. “There was never any apple, never any snake. Just one big conspiracy to keep the truth contained.”

  “And what truth was that?” I managed to ask.

  Raphael frowned, his eyes almost tearful as he stood caddy-corner to us. Unlike the rest of them, I felt blinded by my ignorance. They all knew, and I didn’t. Why hadn’t anyone trusted me with the truth? “That you loved him, and him, you.”

  Then it was true. No more lies, no more denial.

  Out of the mouths of angels, so to say.

  “No, no! I won’t have any more lies!” Adam screamed.

  I could feel it, even then. That pinging in the back of your mind. Instincts, I guess. That same voice inside your head that tells you when something bad is about to happen. When time stands still for a second, just long enough to make your stomach sink and your breath run cold. Almost like Fate had a sense of humor, delaying the inevitable for her own amusement.

  I couldn’t rightly say which happened first: Camael and I both yelling for Adam to stop, or the realization that it was already too late.

  Before either of us could do anything, the celestial sword was already wedged into Raphael’s spine, forcing the Archangel to his knees as Adam ripped the blade from his back.

  “Raphael, no!” I whimpered, tears bursting from my drained soul. I had no more to give, and yet something kept asking me for more.

  Camael caught the good doctor before he could collapse entirely, and I raced to help as Camael lowered him the rest of the way to the ground as to not further his injuries.

  “What have you done?” I hissed at Adam, my eyes wide with fear. “He was your friend!”

  “And he was in the way.”

  And then I knew the thing that differed between us. Adam had done more than sacrifice his soul; he had sacrificed his humanity. Or perhaps, it had never been there in the first place.

  I couldn’t be with him. I did not want to be with him, no matter what the cost.

  I turned back to Raphael, my hands clasping his wound as I ripped off my jacket and tore a sleeve from my shirt, balling it up to halt the bleeding. Tried as I might, the blood kept pouring, bright red and very warm.

  I gaped at him. “You’re human.”

  “Amelia, stop. It doesn't matter anymore,” Camael said gently, letting go of him. “He’s dying.”

  “Dying? Why is he dying? What happened?” I shrieked, looking back at Raphael when no answer came. “I thought we couldn’t die.”

  Raphael laughed, coughing up blood. “We can all die. We just have to be given the opportunity.”

  Tears brimmed in my eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” Raphael said with a nod. “But that’s why he likes you.”

  “Camael?” I asked, looking back to find the two angels about to spar.

  The doctor nodded, his rigor dissipating fast. “See, you’re not so dense after all.”

  I shook my head at him. “Raphael, why?”

  “I told you, Amelia,” he said with a smile, clutching my hand as he slipped something into it. “In love, there can be no other way. Take care of each other.”

  And then he was gone, one of the most famous angels of all time, gone forever because of the deal I had made with Enoch.

  Camael had been right; there was a price. One that I wasn't prepared to pay.

  I should have listened. I should have known, but I was ignorant and foolish.

  And I was next.

  I closed my eyes and clutched onto whatever it was that Raphael handed me, too scared to see it for myself. I would have known in any world, in any time what he had handed me. He had given me a small jade dragon from the hospital gift shop the first week I was in there. He said it symbolized me, symbolized my strength. Dragons stood their ground for what they believed in, even to the death, unwavering in their fortitude.

  I didn’t feel very strong as I sat there on my knees and fumbled the dragon between my fingers once more before slippi
ng it into my jacket pocket.

  I had just long enough to drag myself to my feet before an explosion rocked me. The ground trembled beneath my feet. Fragmented earth raced up to meet me before the wind was knocked from my lungs. I floated over my body for just a moment before everything went black.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  I regained consciousness long enough to see a blaze of sparks overhead, like shavings at the grindstone only this was far larger and setting everything alight in its wake. Wherever a new set of sparks landed, it quickly consumed the ground, snaking outward until the only thing left was the storm overhead and wildfires underfoot.

  Had this fire come from another source, then perhaps there might have been a chance. But it came from Lamafuere, the ultimate source of pure fire and the only thing strong enough to kill an angel. Raphael had told me that when he had thought it to be true. Now he knew otherwise. We knew otherwise. He had paid with his life.

  “I made a mistake all those centuries ago, letting you live when I shouldn’t have,” Camael’s voice pierced the darkness. “But I will atone for that mistake here and now.” I could see him standing a few feet away, the embers burning around us both like a concentric halo.

  He inched back slowly toward me, stooping down to come to my aid. In another moment, he finally spoke again, but his voice was barely above a whisper. “I will kill you, Adam D’Angeline, and your blood shall rain down on all of Araboth.”

  He spoke with more than just certainty in his words; it was conviction.

  Adam glanced down at me lying in Camael’s arms as he tried to ease me out of the line of fire. With Raphael gone and neither Matt nor Mammon anywhere to be found, there was no one left to turn to.

  Just us.

  My eyes locked with Adam’s for a moment, and I knew it would be the last time Adam ever looked at me in that way, with those pale green eyes saying everything his words couldn’t. His adoration had turned to pain. With my refusal, Adam had chosen his path, one that he would walk alone. “Mia.” He bit his lip, catching himself on the endearment.

  That was alright though. He didn’t have to say the words. We could all hear it for ourselves. We three had accepted death.