When We Were Mortals

by E. S. Mercer

  “I can’t fix you if I can’t touch you,” I said, reaching my hands out towards her. “Trust me. He’s not hurt, he is just sleeping.”

  It took her a moment, but finally she came towards me, holding her hand out, palm down so I could touch her skin.

  “It will take a few minutes, but it should work,” I said, holding her hand in mine. “I’m not really sure how I did it the first time.”

  It took a little while and she wasn’t as emaciated and grotesque as the rest, but her pallid color and hollow eyes soon began to change enough for me to finally see that she was being cured.

  “I have to help him now,” I said, trying to let go of her. Maybe it was the warmth of my skin, or just being able to touch someone else and feel it, but she wouldn’t let me go all. “Please Sabine,” I said, pointing to Raphael, “I have to help him, he’s hurt.”

  She turned and looked at him and then finally let go. I ran to the eldest brother, who was weak and in pain and as near death as an immortal could be. I propped his head on my shoulder and reached my arms around so I could put pressure on his wound.

  “Why isn’t this healing on its own?” I asked.

  “We may produce an endless amount of essence,” he replied. “but it doesn’t come all at once,” he said between coughs. “It takes time to replenish, and while we are weak, we can’t heal ourselves.”

  “I will heal you then,” I said, pushing on the wound a little harder. I didn’t need to bear down on it like that, but I got a little over zealous, causing him to scream out in pain.

  After apologizing, I closed my eyes and imagined the healing powers I had tapped into before, streaming through my fingers. I chose to believe that I could do it again, without succumbing to the fear I had of the size of his wound. My fears subsided as he began convulsing and shuddering while the warm blue light surged through his body. He cried out as he could feel each rib muscle, bone and skin cell begin to grow back. The blood that had pooled in his stomach began to pour out of him as the last bit of skin stitched itself up. It was messy, but it worked and his wounds had vanished.

  His wings on the other hand, stayed dim. His tethers would have to regenerate themselves, and that would take much more time. The only way to speed up the process would have been to find who had ingested his life force, take it from them, and give it back to him. I had offered to do it, but he refused adamantly as he stumbled towards his brother.

  “I don’t know how to get him out of this,” I said, following him. “It is too hard for me to break.”

  “So, try cutting it with your dagger he replied, pointing at my boot.

  “What is it?” I asked, drawing the blade.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “Leviathan conjured it when we tried to fight back. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” I took the dagger and heated the blade with my hands until it became a smoldering red. Then I started cutting at the edge, which was dangerously close to the back of Michael’s neck and watched as the blade cut right through it as if it was warm butter.

  Once I cut it open, Raphael and Sabine helped me rip it off him and flip him over so I could try and wake him, but he wouldn’t. He just laid there almost lifeless.

  “They took too much from him,” Raphael said, prying open his brother’s eyes. “It will take him too long to recover, unless…” he said, pausing to look up at me.

  “Unless what?” I asked, impatiently.

  “Unless you figure out a way to give it back to him.

  “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” I asked Raphael, kneeling on the floor and holding one of the bottles in my hand, “feed it to him?”

  “I don’t see another way,” he replied, sitting down on a chair to rest. “I really have no other ideas.” I brought the bottle to Michaels’ lips and started pouring it into his mouth, as his tethers began to flicker a little bit brighter. Bottle after bottle was emptied back into him but nothing was waking him up. Soon we had emptied everyone and it still wasn’t enough.

  “We need more,” I cried, looking around me, picking up empty bottles and smashing them on the ground. “We need more.”

  “There isn’t any,” Sabine replied, looking through the rubble, “Not any that hasn’t been ingested.”

  “Fine,” I said, storming down the stairs, “Then I will go take it from them.”

  “No,” Raphael barked, running after me. “That isn't the answer. You can wake him, I am sure of it.”

  “How?” I asked, looking up at him. “I don’t know how my power works.”

  “Believe in it, believe you can do anything and it will come to you,” he said, leading me back towards his brother. I just stood there, wishing for a sign, a way to figure out what I was supposed to do, but nothing came to me. So, I climbed up on the altar with him and laid down next to him and cried. Then, I sat up a bit, placing my hand on his chest so I could kiss him and tell him how sorry I was for failing him. Of course, when I least expected it, something began to happen.

  “Look,” Raphael cried, turning my attention towards the windows, doorways and the sky. I looked up to see a steady stream of blue wisps of light floating towards us. “Your hand, it’s glowing,” Sabine said, tapping my shoulder. “Its drawing it back in.”

  I carefully stood up, without releasing my hand and called Raphael over to me. I placed my other hand on his chest, waiting to see if I could do the same for him. Moments later, my hand began to glow, like the other, and his essence followed. After the feather like wisps soaked into their skin, I looked over to see Michael was still not moving. So, I jumped on top of him, thinking I was going to have to perform CPR. Next thing I know, Michael gasped for air as he jumped up off the altar, nearly launching me across the room. He landed on his feet, fists drawn, growling and ready for a fight.

  “It’s ok, you are safe,” Raphael announced, grabbing his brother. “You are ok now.”

  “How?” he asked, looking over at Leviathan on the floor.

  “Her,” Raphael replied, turning him towards me. “She saved us.” It took him a minute but Michael realized he was the reason I was pulling myself out of a pile of rubble, and the jumped off the stage the altar sat on. and pulled me up and into his arms.

  “Your skin, it’s so warm,” I said, feeling the skin of his naked back on my arms. “It feels so good to feel you breathing.”

  “It feels good to be breathing, believe me,” he said between kisses. “Gods, you feel good,” he said squeezing me harder.

  “Michael?” I asked, sliding to the ground. “Yes,” he replied, staring into my eyes. I think he expected me to say something romantic or profound by the way he looked at me. But, I literally just wanted to ask a question that had been bugging me since I met them all.

  “Why do you keep saying gods? You all do it.”

  Raphael, who had been something of a romantic as well started belly laughing, enjoying how hysterical the moment was.

  “Um, ugh,” Michael stuttered.

  “No seriously. You always say gods, but you and your siblings are the only ones that say it?” I asked again.

  Michael stood dumbfounded, so Raphael answered for him.

  “Because we know our father is a god,” he replied. “Even if Hyperion forces them to only believe in one.”

  “There is something wrong with Leviathan,” Sabine interrupted, kneeling by his side. “He isn’t waking up, I think he is dead.” I panicked. I had promised I wouldn’t hurt him again and when I left him, he was still breathing.

  “No, he is not dead,” Raphael assured me, listening to his heart. “His heart is beating quite healthy.”

  “Then what is wrong?” she asked. She had been with Leviathan long enough she had genuine concern for him. “I always felt sorry for him,” she said, stroking his hair. “He was a beautiful man once, who dared to live, until his father punished him for it.”

  “But in return he did much worse things,” I argued politely. “He could have stopped it all.”

  “Y
es,” she said, still staring at her captor. “But he doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “He’s not dead,” Raphael reiterated. “He’s asleep. He’s been cured and now he is literally just asleep.” I left Michael’s side and knelt beside them so that I could kiss the sleeping man’s forehead. “I only wish now you have dreams of hope and love and a future beyond the void. I wish you no harm brother.”

  “We can’t leave him here,” Sabine cried as I got up to walk away. “He won’t be safe.” I was moved by her loyalty to him, pondering how to help her, when swarms of people came pouring into the temple, offering to help carry Leviathan to safety. When I cured him, I had cured all of them. And now, instead of running away, they all found enough compassion to treat him as they did each other; prisoners of Hyperion.

  Building a makeshift stretcher, they placed him upon it and began to lead a procession out of the temple.

  “Where are you taking him?” I asked, “Where will you go?” “Back to Caelum, where we belong,” one of the people in the crowd answered. “That is where he belongs.”

  Constantine, who had followed the crowd in, saw Sabine and immediately ran towards her. They embraced as Raphael, Michael and I started to walk out the temple doors.

  “I have no idea how long we have been gone from the mortal realm, but I am assuming the cure spread to them as well,” I said wrapping my arm around Michael.

  “But how much destruction was done before hand?” he asked. “An hour here can sometimes be days there.”

  “Then we must go back and fix it,” I decided. “She said I could if I wanted to.”

  “Who said,” he asked, turning towards me.

  “Me, the other me,” I replied. “She said I would know when the time was right.”

  “How are you going to do that?” he asked.

  “I have no idea, but I assume it will be similar to how I got here.” I replied.

  I turned to Ksenia and Constantine. “Are you sure you don’t want a ride? You will have been gone awhile.”

  “We are good,” she replied, holding on to Erik. “We will find our own way home.” Then, out of the blue, it hit me. I stopped, literally going blank as I let what Leviathan had told me earlier finally sink in. Not only had he detected that I was pregnant, but he had suggested that the he had smelled a child on her too. But I couldn’t grasp how and why it had happened.

  “Are you ok?” Michael asked, realizing I hadn’t followed him into the street. He stood at the bottom of the stairs waiting for an answer, but I was so far in my head, I didn’t hear him.

  “Evangeline!” he cried out, “Are you ok?

  I still didn’t answer as I debated whether to tell him. I didn’t have answers to my questions and I didn’t want to get his hopes up without knowing first.

  “Eva!” he yelled again, this time in a panicked tone that caught my attention. “Watch out.” But it was too late. As I turned, I saw a hand coming towards my forehead and another straight to my chest in slow motion. A superficial blue light hovered over them. It had the same energy pattern I had when my hands glowed, but I could tell it wasn’t coming from him. The light started to travel down my head and into my neck almost immediately, as I started to feel myself black out.

  “Abraxas no,” Michael called out, running towards us. “Stop.”

  “Sleep,” Abraxas said, as Raphael quickly yanked him away and caught me before I fell backwards down the stairs. I don’t know if was reflex, or my other self was stepping in to finish what was needing to be done, but my hand raised to grab ahold of Michaels arm. Instead of panicking about the fact that I was losing consciousness, all I could focus on was sending them back to where and when they belonged. I was unsure about what was happening to me, but I knew they needed to go back and fix whatever had been done while we were gone.

  As my eyes began to close, I saw them disappear in a tornado like wind, leaving me behind to collapse into a very deep sleep.

  Chapter XII

  Shortly after we left for Aljann, Gabriel did exactly what I had asked him not to do – leave the Manor. He told his sister he was going to lie down and catch up on some muchneeded sleep, which seemed a little odd to her, but she thought maybe the whole love triangle was getting to him, so she chose not to question it. Leaving him at the bottom of the stairs, she decided to go grab a bite to eat in the kitchen, never once checking to see if he actually went in the direction he said he was going in.

  The moment she rounded the corner, he slipped past the guards at the side door and out into the courtyard. However, he was so intent on getting passed the guards, that he didn’t notice Zara, sitting on a bench, gawking at the strange countryside that surrounded the Manor. The moment she saw him, she ran after him, begging him to take her along.

  “You do realize that all I have to do is tell your sister, right?” she asked skipping down the path after him. “You know as well as I do she would never let you leave this compound.”

  “You aren’t coming with me,” he replied, looking for a weakness in the fence.

  “You don’t have a choice,” she said, pulling on his arm. “If I go and tell any one of them they will stop you from going.” He whipped around, preparing to give her a piece of his mind when he saw a guard coming in their direction. He pulled her with him into the bushes behind them, nearly catching the guards eye.

  “Take me with you or he knows we are here,” she whispered into the Prince’s ear.

  He glared down at her as the guard walked by. “Well,” she said, a little bit louder. It wasn’t loud enough to give away their position, but enough for the guard to think he may have heard something. Gabriel put his hand over her mouth and pulled her ear close.

  “Fine,” he whispered. “Just be quiet.”

  She yanked his hand away and grinned from ear to ear. “Thank you!” Once the guard moved on, Gabriel shook his head in disapproval and started climbing the fence behind the trees. Of course, the Manor had a way of making you forget it was in the center of the city, with its rolling hills and small forest of trees. The sounds of the city were somehow nonexistent as long as you were on the grounds and the only view you had of it was from the skyscrapers that battled the height of the trees and won.

  He leapt over the top of the fence, thinking he would land softly on the ground, but got quite a shock when he fell on top of a cardboard shelter which held a sleeping homeless man. As he tried to pick himself up and warn Zara about what he had found, a series of police cars with their sirens on sped past the alley, drowning out his voice. He tried to get up and catch her, but he tripped over a blanket and clumsily fell back onto the pavement as she hurled herself over and landed on the already irritated old man.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the old man grumbled, pushing Zara off him. “Can a man get no, no, no, peace ‘round here?”

  “Sleep? How can you sleep out here?” Zara asked, brushing herself off. “The noise is deafening.”

  “It’s only been bad since the sun done and gone down,” he muttered, pulling his blanket back over him. “It's dark,” Zara cried, looking up at the night sky. “But it was daylight a moment ago at the Manor.”

  “The Manor exists in between realms,” Gabriel muttered putting himself back together, “it doesn’t follow the same timeline.”

  “T-t-timelines?” the old man stuttered. “You two a couple of crazies?”

  “No sir, but it’s a long story,” Zara replied.

  “Good, good, cause I’s gon’ say, you belong down in this here box with me,” he chuckled.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. “Why are you homeless?” “I ain’t homeless,” she whispered. “I got me a ni-ni-nice little home. He patted the sides of his box and laughed. His long mustache, which carelessly dangled over his few remaining teeth, danced as he found amusement in his situation.

  “But you had to be something once, right?” she asked.

  “Zara, quit being so rude!” Gabriel barked, “You don’t ask someone something
like that.” He ran towards the end of the alley to assess the situation, when he noticed a few of the ‘cursed’ crossing the street “We need to find that church and fast,” he announced.

  “Chu-chu-church?” the old man stuttered, standing up, “which church? I know them churches in Heaven City. ‘Specially the Catholic ones. I was a P-P-Pr-Priest once.”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Gabriel replied. “I just know it had a large statue of an Angel between the front doors.”

  “Ah, St. Michael’s,” the man announced proudly. “My dear, dear, dear St. Michael’s. I’ll take ya.”

  “It’s not safe out here,” Zara warned him, helping him put on his rank overcoat. “These creatures are out for blood.”

  “Then you’ll pro-pro-protect me,” he said, pointing to his walking stick. “You protect me from them and I’ll guide you.”

  “We’ll find our own way,” Gabriel assured, dismissing the old man. He turned his back to talk to Zara, who kept insisting she take their new friend along, when the old man, who stood hunched over waiting for an answer, suddenly fell to the ground as if he had passed out.

  “See,” Gabriel said. “He’s no condition for us to go with us.” The old man came to, never skipping a beat. “But you need me,” he argued. “You cannot find it alone.” He looked around as if he was still trying to figure out what had happened. “Wait, what were we looking for again?”

  Gabriel shot a glance at Zara who was still begging for Priest to go along.

  “See? He doesn’t even know where he is,” Gabriel cried.

  “St. Michaels,” she said, helping the man up. “We were going to St. Michaels.”

  “Yes, I know. St. Michaels,” he replied.

  “Fine, if you know the way, then take us old man,” Gabriel growled, scouting the street in front of them.

  “Gladly, but the name is John, not old man,” he barked without a stutter. “Father John.”

  “Whatever your name is, I just need to figure out how to find to the church,” Gabriel said, looking up and down the street.