by G. P. Ching
“I don’t know.” Malini’s hands shook. She reached behind her back for the door handle.
“And therein lies the problem. You see, where we are going, where we must go to save Jacob, will be very dangerous. I could be captured but you could be killed. And if you are something else, something more than just human, it might give us away. The good news is that I couldn’t see you. All the time you were spending with Jacob, I never suspected you were anything other than a normal, everyday girl.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you be captured? I thought you were one of them?”
She laughed mockingly. “Malini, if I was like them, you would already be dead or taken. It’s true I fell from grace. But I changed. I want to be a Helper, a Soulkeeper. I regretted following Lucifer from the very beginning. I’ve been living among humans ever since.”
“But how do I know you’re not deceiving me right now? If you’re a Watcher, that’s your strongest power.” Malini pressed her back against the door.
Dr. Silva didn’t answer but got out and started walking toward the house. Malini sat in the car for a moment and then sprinted after her. If Dr. Silva wasn’t telling the truth, there was no way she would have left her in the car alone.
When they reached the door, Dr. Silva stopped and met Malini’s eyes. “The hardest thing you will ever do in life is to know for sure what is true. Where we are going is a place ruled by illusion. Saving Jacob will be difficult and terrifying. I don’t recommend you come with me.”
Malini had always done the right thing, the safe thing. But the thought of Jacob with Auriel ignited fervor deep within her. Whether it was a sense of possession, jealousy, or old-fashioned loyalty, Malini’s jaw hardened. At that moment, she would have walked through fire for Jacob.
“I’m going. I’m not going to let that evil bitch steal my best friend!” Malini spat the words out like they tasted bad.
“All right then, come with me. We need to pack some things before we go.”
They entered the house and Dr. Silva began filling an old leather bag with things from her cupboards. Malini was fascinated by the odd combination of items she grabbed.
“…salt, for clarity, flowers, for beauty, water, and finally, light.” She grabbed a candle from a wooden box on the mantel. As she placed it in the bag, Malini glimpsed a name in its wax—Abigail Drake.
“What is that, Dr. Silva?”
“My baptism candle.” She threw the pack over her shoulder.
“You were baptized?”
“Later. We have to go. Gideon!” Dr. Silva called. The largest red cat Malini had ever seen ran into the kitchen. “It’s important, Gid. Will you come with us?”
Malini watched as the cat nodded. She tried not to let her mouth fall open.
They raced out the back door and into the orchard, through the gate and down to the meadow, up the hill, and finally through the cactus maze.
“You never finished telling me the truth,” Malini said as they walked toward the tree. “How did the serpent get into the garden?”
“The fallen ones are not of this Earth, Malini. They are under it. They live in a land of illusions, a land that is not with God but is a spiritual realm bound forever to this Earth. They live in a land where God sent Cain when he cursed him to wander. They live in Nod. They are connected to all living things through their wrongdoings. Sin attracts them. Why was the serpent in the garden? The woman brought him there. She was already thinking about taking the fruit; angry with God for the rules he had given Adam. Her pride opened the portal in the tree. She invited the serpent.”
In front of the tree, Dr. Silva’s hand hovered inches above the gnarly bark. “Are you ready?”
Malini’s remembered vividly the bark crawling up Jacob’s arm. All of the same questions plagued her. What would this do to her body? What would it do to her soul? The difference was that this time Jacob was on the other side, the Jacob she loved, her best friend and the person who needed her. Regardless of the question, Jacob was the only answer that mattered.
“I’m ready.” She held out her hand.
Chapter 40
Into the Dark
Darkness is a relative term. There is the darkness of an evening with a full moon, or of a candlelit room. Or the inky blackness of a bedroom at midnight, where the only light comes between shadows that dance in the space beneath the door. But the darkness that Jacob experienced as he followed his captor, hitched to her wings with sweaty palms, was not like that at all. It was a darkness that had perhaps never experienced real light, a black hole absorbing any flicker into its depths. It was the darkness of the bottom of the ocean, or the cold blackness of a grave. Jacob hoped it would not be his grave.
While the outline of the garden where he’d arrived had been visible, he could see nothing now. He followed Auriel by touch, holding on to the feathers of her wings as she walked. She seemed unaffected by the lack of light and moved quickly. Jacob didn’t try to get away. Where would he go? He was helpless here, completely dependent on her.
“Where are you taking me?” His voice was shaking more than he wanted it to. He was trying to be brave, but truthfully he felt there was little hope. An hour ago he would not have believed that this place existed. No one would know where to look for him, if they looked for him at all. The others probably didn’t even realize he was gone yet. When they did, what could they do? The only person who could follow through the tree was Dr. Silva and she would have to know where he was to get here. That was, if she even cared to save him.
“We are going to see my father. He’ll be very interested in adding you to our collection. You’re a rare breed, Jacob. Maybe, if you are lucky, he’ll put you on display. Look, we are almost there.”
Jacob could barely make out a bluish fluorescent glow ahead of him. A series of steel boxes of various heights appeared on the horizon, illuminated by humming artificial light. A skyline, but there was no artistry to it, no architecture of any kind, just the monotony of box after box. Simply stone and steel.
Auriel approached the gate and it opened before her. She escorted him into a bustling city both beautiful and disturbing. Creatures with wings walked up and down the streets, each one more beautiful than the next. They weren’t angels; they were Watchers, fallen angels. They were thin, tall, and muscular with perfect hair and features that would put a supermodel to shame. But as he watched them, Jacob had the undeniable sense they were too perfect. It was like seeing a football field full of plastic surgery recipients. The eye knew it was unnatural, somehow wrong.
More disturbing still were the people. The city was filled with humans just like him, serving the Watchers in every capacity: chained to wagons like horses, on their hands and knees on the sidewalk polishing Watchers’ shoes, picking up the trash that the Watchers arbitrarily flung into the street. Some were on leashes, dragged around by the neck. All of the humans were dirty, dressed in rags, and treated like dogs.
Jacob’s scalp prickled. Wherever or whatever Nod was, it was not a place that valued human life. As he looked around, the people would not meet his eyes. They hung their heads with vacant expressions, empty shells responding only to the kicks and screams of their captors.
“In here.” Auriel held open a door and pushed Jacob through it. As he stumbled over the threshold, it was like walking into the atrium of any office building. A Watcher sat behind a circular desk, her light blue wings in sharp contrast with the dark mahogany of the wood. Beyond the desk was a set of elevators.
“Depositing,” Auriel said. The blue-winged Watcher did not look up from filing her nails but nodded her head in response.
“This way.” Auriel shoved him toward the open elevator doors and pushed a button at the top of the panel. He was startled when he felt the elevator drop instead of rise. It descended to the thirty-sixth floor below the atrium. When the doors opened, Auriel led him down a sterile white hall to a room with a stainless steel examination table over an ominously large floor drain.
; “Sit here.” Auriel pointed at the cold steel table. Jacob walked toward it, noticing he had to peel his feet from the floor with every step, as if he were walking down the soda-drenched row of a movie theater. Looking at the pattern on the floor, he tried to think what might be sticking to his shoes. As he neared the table, he discovered to his horror that the floor was not patterned at all but peppered with drops of drying blood. The table was similarly filthy.
“No,” he stated firmly, turning to face Auriel. “Take me home.”
“It will not speak!” a male voice boomed from behind him. A huge Watcher with shiny black wings entered the room. He ran a hand through his wavy blonde hair, and flashed a set of perfect teeth. Spreading his monstrous black wings, he coasted across the room in one powerful motion. His eyes were solid black, as dark as coal, and not reflective as a human eye. Instead the dark irises were black holes absorbing all. Looking into them, Jacob felt like he was falling hopelessly into nothing.
The Watcher kissed Auriel.
“Hello, Father,” she responded. “I’ve brought you a gift.”
Jacob was confused because the male Watcher looked barely older than Auriel, but he was beginning to understand that things were not as they seemed in Nod.
“What breed is it, Auriel?”
“A rare breed, a Horseman of mixed blood. He is half blood from the east, Chinese, and half blood from the west, German. Does he not have fine features and so young?”
“Yes. I am pleased. Do you know what its gifts are?” he asked Auriel.
“No. He did not fight. I could find no one that had seen him train.”
Jacob silently thanked Dane for being too proud to admit how he’d kicked his ass in Westcott’s parking lot. The less Auriel knew the better.
Auriel’s father pointed a manicured finger at him. “It will tell me what its gifts are.”
“Gifts? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jacob tried his best to lie convincingly. Keeping his abilities secret seemed like his only hope.
“Auriel, perhaps you took this one before he was told. Very good! One less to kill later.”
The dark angel squinted at him. “It will undress now.”
“Excuse me,” he said, shivering in the cold room.
“Jacob, you must put this on.” Auriel threw him a rag sack with holes for his head and arms.
“Why do you talk to it like that, Auriel? It will learn soon enough its place here. Why prolong the process?”
“Just avoiding any need to damage it before it reaches the display case,” she answered.
“Very well. I must go. You will deal with it then?”
“Yes, Father.”
The Watcher left the room in a movement so fast Jacob didn’t see it. The woosh of air was the only way his senses could perceive the dark angel had flown away.
“Auriel, can I ask you something?”
“Quickly, human.”
“I heard Dane say that you’ve been asking to meet me all year. Why didn’t you come after me yourself, sooner?”
“You have no idea how difficult it is for us to stay above ground. It would have been so much easier if you had just gone with Dane. But you’re too hardheaded for that. Without a portal, we must return through the same tree as we arrive. We are flesh eaters. If we stay above ground for too long, our powers fade and we lose our illusions … until we eat flesh. Eating flesh usually means killing and if we kill, the Soulkeepers come. They always feel the kill. I couldn’t risk leaving my tree, so I sent that idiot Dane after you. Of course, once I knew who you were, I thought I would capture you, using Oswald. That would’ve been the easiest way. You know, I almost had you. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“Your first time through the tree, I was there, in the garden. You don’t recognize my voice? If it weren’t for Gideon keeping me away, I would have taken you then. Before that, I knew a Horseman had come to Paris, but I didn’t know who it was. That day, when I saw you navigate the garden, I realized you were the one I was after.”
So, it was her voice he’d heard in the garden. “I heard you again, when I brought Malini to the tree,” Jacob said.
“Yes. I was there, hoping for a two-for-one deal, actually,” Auriel snorted. “I was inside the tree, waiting. Had you manned up and forced Malini through, you two would have traveled straight to Nod. But then you had to go and do the self-sacrificing thing and help her back to the gate. There’s nothing more repelling than self-sacrifice.”
“So then why did you risk coming after me now?”
“After Malini let me through the gate, I had free access to the portal. The two of you had been fighting. The anger in the air was yummy. I thought it would be easy to prey on your loneliness, to lead you back here. It would have been so much easier if I could have posed as your girlfriend and convinced you to show me the garden. But then that girl had to go and forgive you. And Dane.” She shook her head. “I came awfully close to alerting the Soulkeepers. I had to do things the hard way and take you.”
The weight of despair that settled on his shoulders was intolerable. He’d brought this upon himself. This whole time he’d been playing with forces he didn’t understand. Dr. Silva had tried, in her way, to warn him. This was his fault.
“Enough. Change now,” Auriel demanded.
Jacob did as he was told. He took off his favorite Matsumoto’s T-shirt, the black turtleneck, the blue jeans, and his hiking boots and donned the smelly rag. He was freezing now and crossed his arms over his chest, shivering.
“Let’s go.” Auriel grabbed his bare arm.
A rush of adrenaline coursed through his body and Jacob tried to twist away. The extension of her white wing swept him like a piece of dust to the floor. His hands caught his fall, landing in the tacky half-dried blood of the humans who had been there before him.
“Give me a break,” she laughed. “Since it cannot take direction, it will follow Mordechai to its cage. Father!” she yelled.
To his horror, the black-winged Watcher returned, grabbed him by his upper arm, and yanked him from the room. Jacob chided himself. He would’ve been far better off with Auriel than Mordechai.
Mordechai forced Jacob down a long hall before exiting the building and boarding a train made entirely of glass. At first he wondered why the Watchers would want a train with clear walls but when he thought about it, it made absolute sense. They were all about appearances. This was a world of illusions. Even traveling, they lived to watch and be watched.
Everywhere he went other Watchers bowed to the one holding his arm and said, “All hail Mordechai!” or “The great and powerful Mordechai, your presence is an honor.” Mordechai must have been someone important in this society but Jacob made no guesses as to his station. He was too busy glancing rapidly from wall to wall, looking for any way to escape.
When the train stopped, Mordechai pushed him down a dusty path and through a huge metal archway labeled Zoo. It wasn’t until they came to the first cage that Jacob realized the full extent of his fate. The room was eight-foot square with bars on three sides and a full-size picture of a living room pasted to the far concrete wall. There was a bed, a chair, a toilet, and a ball behind the bars. Sitting on the chair was an African man with ebony skin, a muscular frame, and a proud jaw. He looked sadly at Jacob. The sign above the cage read African.
The next cage was exactly the same except the woman was blonde with large blue eyes. The sign said Swiss. She looked vaguely familiar, but Jacob couldn’t quite place her and her blank expression didn’t help. Cage after cage went by, Italian, Lebanese, Cambodian, Egyptian. Every color and ethnicity was displayed like animals. Each clothed in rags. Each with the same bed, chair, toilet, and ball. The only thing that differed was the background picture, a twisted reminder of what the prisoner was missing.
Two Watchers walked up to a cage marked Indian. A gorgeous human girl, who painfully reminded Jacob of Malini, lay on the bed in rags. One of the Watchers, a redhead with fair skin and pink wing
s, peered at her through the bars, circled her hands above her head, and transformed into an Indian Watcher, an exact replica of the girl, but with parking cone orange wings. Her red hair turned black, her green eyes brown, and her pale freckled skin a light russet. The other Watcher giggled.
Jacob stared in astonishment. Was this what they used people for: a physical image to copy for their amusement?
“It will go there,” Mordechai said, opening the door to a cage exactly the same as any other except for the back wall, painted to look a lot like the Laudners’ living room. The door clanged shut behind him. Almost in a trance, he trudged to the chair and sat on the uncomfortable hard surface.
“What’s this one, Mordechai?” a young male Watcher asked.
“Mixed breed—very rare. Another Horseman.” And before Jacob’s eyes the boy circled his hands and transformed into him, but with wings. It was surreal, watching his own image walk away from the cage.
He stared out the bars for what seemed like an eternity. In his mind, the same thoughts played over and over in an endless loop. This was his fault. He had brought this upon himself. He deserved this. The guilt was a straitjacket. Jacob knew he belonged here—after what he’d done to Malini, to Dr. Silva, and to John. Auriel was right. If he rotted in this cell for one thousand years, he would never feel like he’d paid his debt. The worthless feeling settled over him like a shroud. He would never forgive himself. He understood now why the people here acted like shells. The despair in this place was impenetrable. There was no hope, no escape.
The zoo was clearing out now, the last Watcher making his way out the archway. Jacob’s eyes wandered down the row of cages, at his fellow prisoners. Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, and finally, Chinese.
The Chinese cage enthralled him. Something about the person in the cage was familiar, more familiar than the Swedish woman or the Indian girl, more familiar than a casual resemblance. Her back was to him as she sat on the floor of her cage, rocking back and forth, her straight black hair sweeping her shoulders as she did. As she rose to move to her bed, she turned, giving Jacob a clear view of the outline of her profile.