Ashes

by P. M. Briede

  Not wasting a moment, I took off through the door and down the hallway. Trouble was I had no idea where I was, no idea where to go. The only thing that made sense in the moment was to retreat from the sounds of death. I had no weapon, nothing to protect myself with, so I prayed everyone was too involved in protecting this place to be patrolling for escaped captives.

  Through corridor after corridor I ran, avoiding noise after noise. I finally found a stairwell and dove inside. I paused for just a second to catch my breath, get my bearings, and listen. Outside and back in the corridor the battle was rapidly approaching me. I could also hear screams and gunfire below me. There seemed to only be a few flights of stairs headed upwards but could they possibly lead to my escape? Or would they just lead to my death? In the blink of an eye I took the risk and headed upstairs. Heading lower or back into the corridor were definite lines to being killed or recaptured, neither were outcomes I wanted.

  When I reached the door at the top of the stairwell I put my ear to it while pressing a hand to the other. Whatever was on the other side it was more peaceful than what was lurking below and creeping up the stairs. I closed my eyes, charged through the door, and found myself on the roof, alone. I ran along the perimeter of the roofline, using the light of the moon and the stars to search for a fire escape. Not surprisingly, there wasn’t one. After all I’d just reached the roof from a stairwell. But I did find a tree with thick branches at the trunk. If I could get into it, I was confident I could climb down to freedom.

  I stood on the ledge of what looked to be a four story building, gauging the distance to the tree when I heard the creaking of the door opening. With no time left, I jumped.

  As my body left the safe footing of the building I felt the branches slap at my legs, arms, and face. My hands opened and closed and were successful in finding purchase on a branch sturdy enough to hold my weight. I clambered towards the trunk and froze when I heard people along the roofline by the tree. I hoped the shroud of night would conceal me from their probing eyes. I was so scared I couldn’t even breathe. I silently waited for them to either call out that I’d been spotted or leave. After what felt like forever they left and went back inside.

  A few minutes after they left my heart stopped drumming in my ears. I caught my breath and noticed the night wasn’t quiet. I maneuvered around the trunk of the tree to face the direction of the noise. A battle was raging in the street not more than thirty feet from my safe haven. Flashes and pops confirmed guns were involved. People screamed and fell. Others methodically moved from one position to another. A door slammed open behind and below me. I looked over my shoulder to see a handful of armed men pour out of the building I’d just escaped and head towards the street. My eyes followed them.

  I had no idea who were the good guys and who weren’t. They all looked the same. Their clothes were a mixture of camouflage and black. Yet that didn’t appear to be how their lines were divided. It seemed as though they’d just attack whoever happened to be standing in front of them. I watched, transfixed, as the men who had run from the building to join the fight took a knee under my tree and raised their guns, raining bullets indiscriminately into the street. Rat-ta-tat-tat. Rat-ta-tat-tat. That became the soundtrack of the night with death screams the lyrics. These were mortals fighting in the streets, not angels versus exiles.

  So if this wasn’t Celinda’s revolution, where was it? What caused this carnage? And how was I going to escape it?

  Then the heaven’s opened up. That’s the only explanation I can think to explain what I saw. Bodies fell from the sky as if a convoy of airplanes had dropped thousands of human cargo. But they didn’t fall how I would have expected. They glided down. There were no parachutes, no wind-suits, no gliders. There were also no wings. These were the angels. This was the revolution.

  I tore my eyes from the amazing sight in the sky to search the ground. After all, if the gates of hell were about to open, death should pour out from there. But nothing happened. I gripped the tree, expecting a rumble, a quake. I anticipated the ground to be ripped apart as the devil’s minions poured out. Instead, the ground remained at peace. The only peace to be found in the night.

  A flash of light drew my attention to the heavens. Much like the battle on the ground, nothing distinguished an exile from an angel. Unlike the battle, it was creepily silent. Bodies flew around, green fire shooting from their palms. When the fire found its target it would pulse and shrink in on itself until there was nothing left but a hole where it had been. Like when you look directly at the sun then close your eyes. Then the void would shimmer and fill with the background behind it. No one screamed. No one cursed. No one cried out. No one stopped.

  Suddenly the graceful, deadly dance in the sky collided with savage one on the ground. Two bodies crashed into each other, tangled together, and dropped as boulders freefalling from a mountain cliff. They fell amidst the humans and sent them flying as if a bomb had gone off. The ground shook. My tree swayed. Those not knocked from their feet dove for cover. The immortals stood and launched themselves back into the air.

  I expected this to stop the bedlam in the streets. I expected all eyes to turn upwards. It was shocking when it didn’t. The humans acted as though nothing happened, ignoring the crater created by the immortals. Within seconds gunfire again penetrated the night. The men returned to punching, clawing, and shooting their way through their enemies.

  How long was this going to go on? What was going to stop it? How was I going to know if good had triumphed over evil? I searched for answers as I quietly watched death claim mortals and immortals without prejudice, wondering when it was going to be my time. “Mrs. Grace,” a voice whispered directly behind me.

  I didn’t find out who it was. I was caught so unaware that I screamed and fell.

  Chapter 15

  This time I couldn’t believe it when I woke up. After the initial shock of still being alive wore off I berated myself for again getting captured and imprisoned. But I wasn’t back in the padded room. No, this time I found myself in a smaller room, again on a bed, but with a rickety table underneath a lamp and a toilet and sink in the corner. There were no windows, just one solid door. So it wasn’t prison but it may as well have been.

  Time crept slowly. Well maybe it was quickly, I had nothing to track it with. Eventually I grew nauseous and a sharp pain clinched low in my stomach. Unable to remember the last time I ate I just figured I was hungry. This time I denied my body’s attempts to succumb to sleep during this bout of captivity. So after what felt like weeks, when the door finally opened and a man entered the room, I was weak from sleep deprivation and hunger.

  The bright light that shone behind him blinded me and he only appeared as a shadow. But I knew it was a man by his build. His deep voice ordered me to follow but I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. When he realized that he picked me up and carried me in his arms to wherever we were going. I’d planned to memorize his face but when we hit the hall the light was too bright and forced my eyes closed. I stayed in his unfamiliar arms until he deposited me gently in a chair in what I could only describe as an interrogation room.

  The room was big enough that with the one light bulb that hung from the ceiling in the center of the room there were shadows along the edges. My chair was within the range of the light. After dropping me in it he swiftly retreated to the shadows so I still had no idea of what he looked like. Based on the treatment I’d received so far I assumed he wasn’t an exile. But if he was it didn’t really matter. There was no way I’d be able to make another miraculous escape. “Who’s winning the war?” I asked in a weak voice.

  “Whose side are you really on, Mrs. Grace?”

  I’d been too confused and disoriented to place his voice when he’d commanded me to follow him. But I could now. “What exactly are you after, Methos?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Methos responded as he stepped into the light and knelt before me. “Balance. Question is, can that be achieved with you in t
he picture?” His examining gaze swept over me.

  “The war?” I asked again.

  “Over,” he stated simply as if it wasn’t a big deal. “Answer me honestly, Mrs. Grace.” I locked eyes with him as I awaited his question. “The men were more than prepared to give their lives for you. Would you be willing to do the same? If it is determined the weight that tipped the scales wasn’t either of them but in fact you, would you willingly submit yourself for judgment to reset balance?”

  “If the war is over then isn’t balance restored?” I retorted indignantly. Methos hadn’t answered a single one of my questions so I saw no reason to answer his.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Did Wesley kill someone? Celinda ordered him to kill someone.”

  Methos sighed. “If I answer your questions will you stop being difficult?” he asked. I nodded. “Wesley didn’t kill anyone. The death of President Wyatt’s opponent was supposed to be the signal for the exile rebellion. With the help of your criminalist friend we were able to convince Celinda it had happened when it hadn’t by filtering a fake media stream to her phone and tablet. The exiles rose from their hiding places and we were waiting.”

  “Don’t you mean fell?” I challenged. Methos shrugged as if it didn’t matter. It probably didn’t. “So they were all centered here?”

  “No. What occurred here, occurred everywhere.”

  “What are people saying?” I gasped. They had to be saying something. Thousands of bodies don’t just fall out of the sky and fly around shooting fire every day.

  Methos looked irritated at having to explain this to me. I somewhat wondered why he was. “Your president announced to the world that NASA was tracking a meteor storm. Nothing large enough to destroy the earth but a beautiful show to behold.”

  “No one will believe that!” I exclaimed. “There were thousands of you just here, hovering in the sky! People aren’t that stupid!”

  Methos laughed. He actually laughed! “Humans will explain away anything they’re not ready to believe. Just as they’ll say Jesus appeared to them in a cheese sandwich. We give you a miracle and you discredit it. Then you turn around and create one where it isn’t.”

  “What about the fighting in the street,” I whispered, discouraged.

  “A petty riot.”

  “The crater?”

  “An errant meteor.”

  I dropped my head into my hands and sighed. “So the apocalypse is over?”

  “Still to come,” Methos casually admitted. “The world wasn’t scheduled to end yesterday.”

  That brought my head up. “Scheduled?”

  “For another time, Mrs. Grace. Now about that balance.”

  “Scheduled?” I growled insistently. I wanted to know if I was going to have to prepare for another in my lifetime.

  Methos wore a sneer as he shook his head and crossed his arms across his chest. “Two forty-two, Mrs. Grace. Just like it’s always been. Just like it always will be. That is all you need to know.” I opened my mouth to ask more but he plowed over me. “Are you going to restore the balance?”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re a muse,” he stated simply.

  “How?”

  “That is up to you. It’s my job to determine whether you’re going to aide with the recovery or spur on the demise.” I asked Methos how he was going to determine that. “My methods are my own.”

  We sat there staring at the other. He wasn’t going to give me anymore guidance. This came down to freewill. Would I choose wisely or poorly? “You could have given me a clearer warning,” I said breaking the silence.

  “Excuse me?” he said. Methos actually looked confused.

  I rolled my eyes and began explaining. “In the room when Celinda had me. You told me this would all be over so…”

  “The first I’ve seen of you since the boat was when I said your name in the tree,” he broke in.

  “No, you were there. It wasn’t your face but I saw your eyes in it. I said your name!” My voice raised in pitch as Methos obstinately shook his head.

  “It wasn’t me,” he argued. “Angels don’t have the ability to change forms. That’s a talent only bestowed to the exiled.” Was it possible I’d imagined it? Now that Methos said he couldn’t change forms I remembered Olivier had told me he’d received that gift after he was exiled.

  I didn’t know what to say or think. I was confused, exhausted, and overwhelmed. People had died today. Immortal beings had been erased from existence. The idea that others had been sacrificed for me made me sick. I fell to my knees and clung to the chair as if it anchored me to reality as my body tried to rid itself of the grief. In response to my sorrow Methos picked me up and carried me out of the room.

  The room he took me to was larger than the one I’d been in but with all the same accoutrements. There was one thing inside that hadn’t been in my last room … Celinda. “You aren’t going to leave me alone with her, are you?!” I exclaimed. Methos smiled and shook his head. Once I was deposited on the bed, he snapped his fingers, signaling for Celinda to follow him. With a sagging carriage she did and that was the last I ever saw of the wretched, vile exile I’d known as Celinda Banks.

  Nothing of consequence happened for a long time. Shortly after Methos departed with Celinda, I was brought a meal. I was famished, devouring the food like I hadn’t eaten in months. The man who’d brought it offered to bring me more when he came to pick up the plate and I quickly accepted. I finally felt sated after finishing my third helping and was ready to let sleep overtake me. I’d given my testimony and the results of that were already in motion. There was nothing to do but wait and for some strange reason I didn’t think any harm would come to me until I was either burned or set free.

  Just as my eyes had closed the sound of the door opening popped them open. Olivier was shoved inside the room. I waited to see if I was therefore going to be collected and carted off, as Celinda had been, when I’d been dropped inside. It never happened. When his eyes saw me Olivier instantly stopped fighting his captor and ran towards me, sweeping me into his arms. The door closed and I exhaled the breath I’d been holding.

  Olivier was a wreck. Though immortal with the ability to heal, he’d taken a beating, which was still in evidence along every inch of his skin. He was more black and purple than anything else. “What happened to you, Olivier?” I squeaked. Of their own volition, my hands ran along his skin as if I could somehow heal him as he’d done to me countless times before. He was only wearing combat pants and a t-shirt both of which were tattered and bloodstained.

  His arms remained protectively around me as his eyes swept the room for hidden threats. “Who’s in here with you, Charlotte?” The question spilled from Olivier’s lips full of fear. I told him no one but he looked at me as if I were crazy. He put me at his back and continued to search the room. “Someone is here I can hear two…” then he stopped and spun back around to face me with shock etched along his features. I was about to open my mouth when he pressed two fingers to it to silence me. I watched as he strained to hear something in the room. With no idea what Olivier was listening for, I tried to remain patient while I waited.

  Unfortunately, patience wasn’t a virtue I had in much stock currently. I had so much to ask him that I was about to reaffirm we were alone when Olivier collapsed in front of me. Wrapping his arms around me, he hugged me with his head to my stomach while he sobbed. His sudden change in demeanor frightened me and I did the only thing I could think of. I ran a hand through his hair and another along his back as I tried to comfort the one man who’d always seemed so unbreakable to me. “Charissimus, please, tell me what I can do,” I asked tenderly. “What do you need?” His tears were stirring my own and I desperately didn’t want to cry. One of us needed to be strong for the other. But I was afraid Olivier was about to tell me news I didn’t want to hear and that’s what had finally broken him.

  My plea brought his head up
and though he’d been sobbing his face didn’t look disconsolate. He almost appeared happy? His mood was confounding and I was about to demand an answer when he cut me off. “Carissime, you have to let me heal you.” He didn’t wait for approval but pulled me down to sit on the bed.

  I put a hand to his face to stop his lips from meeting mine. “You’re too weak,” I protested. “I’ve got bruises and scratches but that’s all. I’ll heal just fine on my own. For your injuries to still be this apparent they are either fresh or you were worse off than you are now. Which is it and what happened to you?”

  Olivier snatched my hand from his face and the fire leapt into his eyes. So at minimum I knew he was being driven by passion now. “There is no time for explanations first. You have to let me heal you!”

  Ready to rebuke him again we were both caught off guard when the door opened. Two men entered the room, one being dragged by the other. The one being dragged had his head down and was only clad in tattered, bloodstained combat pants. Upon seeing them Olivier immediately swept me off the bed. Now I was even more confused. It wasn’t until the self-possessed man left that I took in our new roommate. Olivier was already moving from me to him and I gasped when I recognized his swollen, battered, bloody face. “Oh my God, Wesley! What have they done to you?”

  He was wheezing and where Olivier had appeared black and purple, I could barely describe Wesley. The lines of his chest and the bruise patterns made me think many of his ribs were broken which could be the cause for his tortured breathing. One of his ankles was turned in a direction no ankle should ever turn. And the fingers on one of his hands appeared as if they’d been smashed with a hammer. The tears I’d held at bay before were now streaming down my face as I looked at the man I loved with all my heart and watched him slowly dying in agony. “Do something, Olivier!”