FALL FROM PARADISE

by Blair, M. Dylan

  Kill me if you can. The thought flickered through my mind.

  I had given them that right; I had earned it with my own two hands. They could live and die like humans if they so chose. The realms were no longer bound by some foolish sentiment that came about six thousand years ago. This could end very well for us, or very badly.

  “Adam, don’t do this,” I pleaded, though I knew there was no point.

  He had killed Raphael as if the Archangel was nothing more than a fly on the wall.

  Even if his memories had been altered, our love had been real for him. I didn’t hold it against him, but I wasn’t a pawn to be played in some game, a tool to be used. I could, however, hold it against him that he had killed Raphael, and I would.

  And then I would find Enoch and kill him for doing this to Adam, kill him for doing this to us, kill him for doing this to the realms.

  He wasn’t God, or was he? If there was no longer a Satan, then what did that mean for God? I shivered at the thought. This moment was all that I could handle, and even now, I was barely making ends meet.

  I thought I could save us all. Maybe I was the fool.

  “Can you stand?” Camael asked me as I waved off his attempt at support.

  With two angels wielding elemental swords and able to fly, I was going to have to be able to hold my own. “I’m fine,” I lied. We didn’t have time to wait on me; Adam was still alive.

  Although the Watcher was shorter than Camael by a few inches, I couldn’t tell with him standing there, his wings widespread, stretching almost every inch of the burning plain.

  “Please, Amelia,” Camael said, grasping my hand tightly. “Just this once, stay back. I can’t fight and worry about you.”

  “I can help, Camael.”

  He turned back toward the Watcher who seemed newly consumed by the sand and gravel beneath his feet, a small dagger in hand as he began to carve into the ground.

  “Fine,” he finally yielded. “But please try not to get hurt.”

  I laughed sourly. “Easier said than done. Now, what are we going to do about—holy shit!”

  “What?” He turned to where I stared. Eccentric scrollworks had consumed the better part of the area in the time we had been distracted. As much as I hated to admit it, if Camael wasn’t going to let me lead, we were going to have to get our act together, otherwise we were both going to die.

  All of the embers had transformed into blue wildfires. They weaved their way along the rocks, cutting gullies into the ground as they snaked outward in all directions. We had stupidly given him the time he needed to complete a transmutation circle. Was this new knowledge that Enoch had granted him, or had he known this all along, tricking me as he had everyone else?

  A blue line lashed out toward me and another toward Camael, causing both of us to jump back out of its reach. Everything around us was roaring to life; the blue lines, like sentient vines prepared to ensnare anything foolish enough to cross their path.

  “Manan. Huloc. Vidor. Ba. Hukuk. Ur. Ranaman.”

  What is he doing? I asked Camael, not daring to take my eyes off the Watcher as the ground itself began to quake beneath us.

  Calling the gods.

  Gods?

  Earth devas, elementals, Shiva-linga, call them what you will. “It doesn’t matter. This entire cliff is going to be gone in a matter of minutes unless we stop him.”

  If the rain was nothing against Camael’s sword, then I doubted it stood a chance against Adam’s magic. In fact, it only seemed to agree with him. Each second the winds around us grew stronger, kicking up things now much larger than rocks and bramble. Gale-force winds pillaged and plundered the vegetation on the cliff’s edge.

  Boom! A crack of lightning sent thunder pinging over our ears, again and again, each one louder than the next until nothing could be heard save for the cyclic heartbeat of the night sky.

  Boom! The sky flashed again just as the first bit of ground broke from underneath our feet, sending us stumbling in the rain.

  If there were ever a time to need my wings, now was it. I had to find a way off this ledge.

  Adam and Camael were both in the air now that the rockslide had begun. Blow by blow they clashed, one against the other, fire versus air, destroying everything left unscathed in the vicinity.

  Boom! Thunder echoed again; lightning streaked across the sky. It was like being surrounded by a thousand strobe lights, all of them on a different timing.

  Calm down and focus, but I couldn’t summon my wings. With each second the ledge beneath us was breaking off into the ocean. If I couldn’t get into the air, I was going to be a sitting duck. Camael was completely wrong, and he had no idea. I was human once more. Like Raphael, I had lost my immortality.

  “Amelia!” Camael screamed, racing toward me when he realized that my wings weren’t working and that the ledge beneath me was finally succumbing to Adam’s rage. “Get out of here!”

  I shook my head, but from the way he kept coming at me, I could tell he didn’t understand.

  “They’re gone, Camael,” I told him when he finally landed next to me, not knowing whether he had realized that I was indeed human.

  “Then I need you to run, Amelia,” he said calmly, racing back into the air to face Adam, and for the first time I noticed that he had never put his chest plate back on. If we all had lost our immortality, then he too would be dead at the first impact.

  The island was collapsing before my eyes, leaving nothing but blackened sky around me. The two angels didn’t even have the chance to see me before I was falling into a chasm that would soon be nothing but scattered crags cresting a hungry ocean.

  The stone tore into my skin, piercing what delicateness remained of me until my hands were as tattered as my soul. I had survived many things. I had become a fighter against all odds; I had lost the final part of me that innocence hid within.

  Adam had been led to believe a lie. It was so deeply ingrained, so far within his psyche that any counter-thought was unfathomable.

  And then I had shattered his illusion with that one, final straw, and with it, I became nothing more than another piece of the environ. I was expendable just as I had thought all along. I’d made the same deal with Enoch as I had with Matt. By allowing Camael to live, I would die.

  But it was worth it in the end if it would grant him the peace he needed, the peace they both needed. I could feel the wind rushing past me as I fell. Like a jumper without a parachute, I plummeted downward, only to find that the chasm dwindled, and I soon found the sky greeting me once more.

  Wherever we were, it wasn’t on Earth. Maybe above it, but most definitely not on it.

  The clouds rushed past me at such a speed that I could hardly even tell what they were, save for the sudden dampness clinging to my skin. As I saw the world fast approaching beneath me, I couldn’t help but close my eyes. This wasn’t what I had wanted at the beginning, but it was what I had now.

  I was going to die for a man I barely knew, one I struggled to remember. Yet I knew there was no other way.

  The world depended on it. The world depended on me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Falling was a surreal feeling. Exhilarating and terrifying. Peaceful and undeniably a once in a lifetime occurrence. I had made my choice, and with it, I had met my fate. Camael couldn’t fight knowing that I was there, and ignorantly I believed that he would not even realize I was missing beneath the clouds.

  But I was wrong.

  The moment I saw him break through the mammoth cluster of gray and white, I knew that he was a fool to have come after me. By doing so, the fate of everything loomed in the balance.

  Had he killed Adam?

  The dark swarm of clouds had only increased above us, and he surged toward me with lightning haste.

  “What did I tell you?” he said calmly as he caught up to me and pulled me into his arms. “I thought we agreed that you would stay out of trouble.”

  “I thought you said that I could help,�
� I said back, awkwardly latching my arms around his neck as we suddenly bulleted back into the clouds, his massive wings barreling us back to what remained of the broken cliff.

  And for the first time I realized exactly what it was. Camael set us both back down upon a floating island.

  I hit the ground running, hoping to find a weapon or something useful lying on the ground. Adam hovered in the air, staring down at us with disdain carved into his now grisly features. The once handsome man was all but lost, leaving behind the remnants of his identity and the beginnings of a demon.

  Blood was on his hands now.

  “He could have killed you, Amelia,” Camael said as his gaze narrowed on Adam. “This has to end here and now, but it’s not going to be at the cost of your life. This is my problem; Adam is my mistake. Now I won’t say it again. Get out of here and hide.”

  I couldn’t even protest before his nimble fingers covered my mouth. “Please,” he whispered. “I’m not saying this to be mean, Amelia. You saw what happened the first time. Now go.”

  He removed his hand, leaving me to my own devices as his wings propelled him upward until he was as far from Adam as he was from me.

  And then it began.

  Adam’s sword, fused from the elements of air and water, sliced into Camael’s open flesh every chance it got. Like a snake in the grass, it lashed out, each wound taking just a bit more out of Camael.

  Like wild animals facing off in the Sahara, they sparred, their bodies clashing end over end. It was like a war of the gods.

  I had never seen fire rain down from the heavens, almost like the summit of a volcano raining down ash and embers each time their swords locked. Again and again they clashed as I watched, too fearful and awe-struck to do anything. I didn’t know what, if anything, I could do at this point. There wasn’t enough magick in the entirety of my body to be able to stop them now.

  They fought, possessed by rage and blinded by hate until I could take no more.

  The entire cliff was gone. The angels themselves were drenched in blood. The two bladesmen were too well matched, neither one had to touch the other to wound him.

  “Stop,” I pleaded with the two of them, doubting either could hear me. “Stop. Stop! STOP!”

  And then it all happened so fast.

  Enough that my brain couldn’t register which happened first. Camael froze, seizing in place just as Adam’s blade charged at his chest. The elemental sword of wind and water plummeted into my Seraph’s chest, a sharp exhale leaving his lungs as he collapsed beneath Adam, driving his own blade into the Watcher’s throat.

  “Camael!” I shrieked, scrambling to my feet in a frantic attempt to race to their sides.

  My eyes darted back and forth to see if either would survive. Like planes shot down out of a barren sky, their bodies were bloodied and charred from the attacks they had rendered.

  They both hit the earth at such a speed that the entangling of their limbs and swords seemed to create a chimeric-like beast that dented what remained of the earth beneath them.

  “Camael?” I called again as I dropped beside the two of them. I didn’t know whether to grab Camael or not. I was too afraid Adam would attack. But what did it matter if Camael was already dead?

  “Camael?” The tears already pooled in my eyes, the first streams already falling down my cheeks. I didn’t want to do this alone. Raphael was gone. Matt was missing.

  And now Adam and Camael.

  Please, I begged. Don’t die on me.

  I couldn't tell if either was alive. There was so much blood, so much dirt and ash. The breath seized in my lungs as I sat there unsure of what to say or do. I called to Camael silently, and each time no response came.

  He lay there, unmoving, and I could feel anxiety flood my veins like liquid fire. Brave and stupid to the very end, I had to try something. I reached out and grabbed the Grigori by the shirt in an attempt to pull him off Camael, my grip slipping in the blood that had encased his body.

  “Cam?” I whispered as my hands failed to pull the dead angel off the one person I still cared about.

  “Cam?”

  A grunt erupted from beneath the Grigori, and I knew that I had not been too late. Camael slowly emerged from beneath the blood and the gore, pushing Adam off his chest, his dagger still wedged in Adam's throat.

  “Why didn’t you just listen?” His eyes were wide, angry, panicked. “Why!”

  Blood pooled from Adam’s lips, and we both knew his heart beat no more. Fast and merciless.

  The Seraph shuddered and dropped the blade almost as if it scorched his hand.

  I took a shaky step towards him. “Camael?”

  “You fool!” Camael breathed, not even bothering to look up at me, his eyes already brimming with unshed tears. “You damned fool!”

  “Camael?” I called again softly, hoping he would realize I was there this time.

  And then our eyes met, and his bristled ire calmed, like a junkyard dog soothed by its favorite toy. “Amelia,” he breathed, holding his arms out only for me to race into them.

  There was no more doubt in my mind. No more uncertainty.

  He was mine and I, his.

  I could scarce open my eyes for fear that the tears would start to fall once more. “Are you—”

  He stifled a smile. “It hurts like a bitch, but I’ll live.”

  “All this time,” I breathed, staring at the wound on his chest. He was right, as usual. It would take numerous stitches and probably a hospital stay, but it had indeed missed his vitals.

  “It was always you.” Cam reached for my face, his fingers deftly embracing me as he pulled my face to his. “I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you in that field, all those millennia ago. You were so lost and alone, and I wanted to hold you in my arms so that you would never again feel that way again, but they took you away from me.

  “They took you away and hid you, told me you were dead—told me I would have to move on without you, but I couldn’t. I waited and bided my time until one day word reached me that you were alive, and I knew all of my waiting hadn’t been in vain.

  “I knew you were alive. Everyone told me I was crazy, and when I would try to find out what had happened to you, doors closed on me at every pass. Michael and Raphael, Enoch even. No one would tell me anything, and then I found out why—what Adam and his cronies had done to you. So I went to find you and see it for myself.

  “Drastic as it may have seemed, I couldn’t take a chance and let Adam know what was happening, but somehow he did anyway. I hadn’t taken into account that his alliance with Araboth was still withstanding and that he would see us coming. But he couldn’t protect you, not from me when he was the one you needed protection from.

  “So I pretended to apprehend you, cruelly and without pleasure; I had to prove to Araboth that I was over you. After all, six thousand years is a long time—did they really expect me to wait for you? No, and that’s where their guard failed.

  “They didn’t take into account that I would hold out for you forever.” His eyes beamed as he spoke, and I could see the fervor of a mastermind whose careful ministrations had finally fruited and bloomed, a culmination of centuries of planning.

  “Camael, I—”

  He covered my mouth with his hands before I could finish.

  “And then I saw you there in the warehouse, and I could see it in your eyes that you had no idea who I was. Not even on a subconscious level, nothing. I was a stranger to you. They had permeated the core of your psyche and erased almost every trace of us, and it nearly killed me.

  “I had found you. After thousands of years, I had found you.” He dropped to his knees, bloody and battered as they were, the rest of his body screaming in discord with his movements. “I love you, Amelia,” he breathed. “Human or not. Angel, demon. I don’t care. I want you, and I always will.”

  “Camael, I . . .” I frowned. I didn’t know what to say to this man to express my own thoughts on the matter. It was beyond words.r />
  The fear of rejection was already breaking through his countenance as he stood back up and clung to me for dear life. His hands slid down my shoulders and latched onto my arms, pulling me closer into his embrace. My breath hitched in my throat as I stared up into those steel eyes. I knew that I would never have to feel afraid ever again.

  “Please tell me you feel the same,” he breathed against my cheek, the warmth making my body burn with a longing that I didn’t want deny any longer. I wanted to melt into his embrace until there was no me or him. Only one being. One soul.

  “I do love you,” I whispered, waiting for the forge behind those eyes to light. “More than you could ever possibly imagine.”

  His eyes widened. “You do?”

  “Yes, always.” I inhaled sharply as he nuzzled my neck, the scent of his body nearly overwhelming me as we stood there.

  For now, this would have to be it.

  The war had begun, something we weren’t prepared to handle. Michael’s forces were coming for us. For me. For Camael.

  But he no longer belonged to Heaven. He belonged to me.

  A rush of energy swept over me, and I realized that he was doing it. The darkness deep within his soul had begun to blaze, healing the fragmented wounds that had nearly destroyed us both.

  The storm would cleanse away the several thousand years of pain until the only thing left was the love we were always destined to share.

  Always, and forever.

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  I want to acknowledge:

  My family for always being there when needed.

  My loving husband, Always and Forever.

  My son, for even though you're too young to read this now, you won’t always be.

  My editor, Leigh, for being able to see through my craziness.

  And to you, whoever you are, for reading this novel. May all the blessings of the world reach you.