The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2)

by M. H. Hawkins

  Lilly spun around and swung her hand forward, and her red ribbons followed her movements. Weightless yet firm, one shot forward, straight as an arrow, while the other ribbon arced widely through the room, slicing through the wall and marble pillars like they were nothing more than warm butter.

  Mea parried the ribbon streaming towards her, and her blade and the ribbon sharpened against each other and sparked like metalwork. The dance of ribbons and blades continued and soon looked more like a gymnastic routine mixed in with a thousand lit-up sparklers.

  Again Lilly’s red ribbon came swiping towards Mea’s head, and she ducked beneath it. Lilly’s other red ribbon was flailing off to the side until it snipped loose the crystal chandelier in the next room and sent it crashing downwards. As the ribbon snapped back again, Mea leapt over it, just in time, just as the ribbon sliced through a lacquered coffee table (most likely African Blackwood) and a marble bust of Alexander the Great.

  Mea was moving again, and the other crimson ribbon was now streamed past her again, almost raking her shoulder. Her blades kissed the red metal streamers as Mea again leapt over and under two more attacks.

  Suddenly the room was less bright, and Mea was standing in the shadows. Looking up, she saw the culprit, the king of shadows… the falling chandelier. Not thinking and only reacting, Mea spun around and kicked the chandelier at Lilly.

  And now it was Lilly’s turn. With the incoming chandelier coming at her like a storm of shattered glass, Lilly’s leathery wings flashed in front of her, creating a shield of sorts. It worked, and the sharpened crystal shards exploded against her leathery wings, blasting the crystal shards off them and in every direction.

  Momentarily distracted, Lilly’s ribbons were lying limply on the ground, and Mea saw her chance. Stabbing her blade into one and flinging her other one across the room, at the other ribbon, both of Lilly’s ribbons were now firmly tacked to the ground and all but useless.

  And as Lilly’s leathery shield of wings opened, she found one of Mea’s hand wrapped around her throat and the other one hammering her in the face. Lilly was ready to retaliate with a swipe of her talons, but as Lilly came out swinging, her sharpened claw froze mid-swipe—stopped by the pinned ribbons that was attached to her wrist. Shit, Lilly thought. I’m screwed.

  Lilly’s eyes filled with fear as another silver, armor-clad fist exploded into the side of her head then slammed into face, filling her fear-filled eyes with nothing but blackness. Then, through the flashes of black and Mea’s armored punches, Lilly realized something… she was floating. Mea’s hand was still at her throat, but she was flying—getting dragged through the air actually. With lucidity slowing returning to Lilly, she could feel the fluttering shear curtains brush over her face, and she knew that she was outside—getting yanked outside. The refreshing gust of wind provided a momentary release from the pain, but it didn’t last long enough to enjoy.

  Lilly’s scarlet ribbons were taut and stretched as far as they could. Still pinned by Mea’s swords, they felt tighter around Lilly wrists. Then, as the ribbons grew taunt, they tugged at Lilly’s wrists and hurt. She grew panicked, and she felt pins stabbing her wrists, then a tearing feeling. And as her ribbons drifted away, they felt as if they had been ripped from her very wrists themselves (they were), and she screamed as such.

  More pain followed. Lilly was getting dragged higher into the sky… and then lower. Mea, with a hard upward thrust of her wings and then a downward blast of her wings, with a splash, Mea slammed Lilly into the bottom of the infinity pool.

  Lilly’s bones crashed against the bottom of the pool and cracked open the tiles that lined it. The tiles and walls of the infinity pool cracked and exploded, and sheets of water (and ice, strangely enough) blew out the “infinity” side of the infinity pool and splashed over the penthouse’s terrace and out and onto the New York City street that lied far below them.

  “I told you to stop,” Mea screamed, her fist slammed Lilly’s face again and into the ground. “I warned you. No more killing!” Another blow sent Lilly’s head rattling, bouncing against the busted tiling of the pool. Then, not even really realizing it, Mea was filled with rage, and she continued her barrage. “You should have never woken up. You should have stayed asleep.” She slammed anther armored fist into Lilly’s face and then again and again…

  All of Mea’s other angry thoughts boiled over and fueled into her angry actions. This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be the one dealing with this. I shouldn’t have to do this. Why do I hate myself? Why can’t things work out for me, just once? Why do I feel so guilty? I want to hurt her, the way she hurt me. Each thought was accompanied by another punch until…

  Mea gave pause. Looking at her armored fist, she saw that it was bloody red and shaky, shaking with anger and anxiety. Mea looked down at Lilly, at Lilly’s face—Lilly’s bleeding, bruised, and battered face. Though it wasn’t as mangled as Mea feared, it was still pretty bad. Both girls looked frighten, each for different reasons. Mea looked at her trembling hand again. I’m not a killer, she told herself. I don’t have to kill her, not if I don’t want to. I can control myself.

  Breathing heavy, Mea said, “You should have stayed asleep.” She pushed off on Lilly’s face and stood up. “I’m going home.” Still breathing heavy, Mea leapt out of the pool. She started walking towards the penthouse, to retrieve her swords.

  But a sound gave her pause. Laughter. Mea could hear someone laughing. Lilly’s laughter. “They’re going to die,” Lilly said joyfully. “You know that, right? All of them. Today, tomorrow, five-ten-fifteen years from now, they’re still going to die. All of them.”

  Mea stopped dead in her tracks, mulling over Lilly’s words.

  Lilly’s voice kept rattling on. “But you, you’ll live forever. Even after that human husk of yours rots and withers away, you will still live on, just as you always have. You can pretend to be human, be a mortal, but deep down, you will always be a god, an immortal. A killer.

  “And while your family grows up and older and moves on, when they die and live again and die again, you will still remain. And as the years pass, and then decades and centuries fall to the waste side and fade away and shrink in your rearview window, your family, that family, will eventually… Well, eventually they won’t even know you at all. They won’t even remember your name, not as you were, not as you are.”

  Lilly’s face was slowly healing, but her words grew crueler. “As for you, once you shed your skin and return to your natural form, them—that family you love so much, they will become nothing more than an old, withered, weathered memory to you. And after enough time passes, they will become nothing but a dusty picture of somebody that you remembered caring about—once, but now, for the life of you, you can’t even remember why you cared about them in the first place. And you’ll try to care. You’ll try to remember why you loved them so much, but you won’t. Give it enough time and you won’t even remember why you cared at all. The memory, the reason, they’ll vanish… lost to the pages of time.”

  Mea had never turned around and was still facing away from Lilly. She dropped her head while tears trickled down her cheeks. She muttered, “Why are you so ugly?”

  Lilly’s words were a painful truth and cut deep. Since Mea had turned eighteen, since she started changing, she felt more distant—by the day, like a stranger amongst everyone except her family. And Lilly’s words were a hurtful, painful reminder that even they would someday become distant as well. And now, if Lilly’s words were really true— and Mea knew that they were, eventually, even her family would become strangers to her.

  Lilly had that effect on people. Her words were harsh, and they cut deep… almost as deep as the red-and-black harpoon that was tearing out of Mea’s chest. Lilly’s tail. But they, Lilly’s words, certainly weren’t as painful as when Lilly’s harpoon-like tail came ripped back out of Mea’s back.

  Observing her tail, Lilly saw that it was now dripped with Mea’s ruby-red blood. And as the scaled ta
il swayed behind Lilly, the bright-red droplets of Mea’s blood splattered across the marbled floor of the terrace, and the droplets reminded Lilly of the Jackson Pollock painting that she loved so much. “New tail,” Lilly said, upbeat and renewed. “Yeah, I can do that—grow a new tail. I just needed some time.”

  Mea gasped for air and dropped to her knees. Her chest, and back, felt like they had been splashed with hot oil, and Mea’s chest felt like it was on fire. The venom from Lilly’s tail was spreading through Mea like wildfire, and Mea could feel the fiery liquid filling her veins and spreading across her chest, and Mea’s heart did the rest of the work and pumped the venom through the rest of her body.

  “Poison,” Lilly said as she moved closer. “And a paralyzing agent… but not as bad as last time. It is a new tail, after all.” Standing behind the kneeling, gasping Mea, Lilly swiped her hand in the air, and like she was being yanked by invisible springs, Mea was flung backwards and into the dented wall where Lilly had been just minutes ago.

  Mea struggled to stand up, to fight back, but as she lurched forward and gasped for air while Lilly’s venom burned her from the inside out, Mea was flung back into the wall, plastered against it. A bundle of smaller and shorter harpoons bit into her shoulders and thighs. With her pearly white wings hanging limply behind her, as Mea herself hung against the wall, she still looked somewhat like a snow angel.

  It was only when the back of her head slammed into the wall and her eyes shot forward that she saw the where the spears had come from. One of Lilly’s demonic claws was short four talons. Mea’s vision blurred further as she watched Lilly’s claw revert back to a flawless human hand with glossy-red fingernails.

  “Mea, did you think that would really work, you attacking me and letting me go? I mean, really? What’d you think would happen? What’d you think I would do?” Lilly observed Mea’s near-limp, near-lifeless hanging body. “Huh,” she said. “Weird, huh? You know, gods can’t die, but we sure can feel some pain, can’t we?”

  Lilly glanced around the penthouse and spotted Mea’s swords, the ones pinning her scarlet ribbons to the ground. Ripped from her wrists from the prior melee, the ribbons fluttered in the air and seemed to be reaching out to her. Then, Lilly watched and saw one of Mea’s swords beginning to shake, trying to shake loose. Lilly looked over at Mea, “Really? That’s your plan?”

  Hanging limply by her side, Mea’s hand was open and tensed, its open palm shaking and aimed at her wobbly sword. Then, as her sword yanked itself out of the marble floor and came tumbling through the air and towards Mea’s shaking open hand, Lilly huffed.

  Without looking, Lilly swatted away the flying blade. Lilly waved her hand again, and Mea’s other sword leapt out of the ground and threw itself away. And Lilly’s red ribbons, free at last, they came floating through the air, swaying towards Lilly, and latching onto Lilly’s wrists… right where they belonged. Smiling, Lilly examined her ribbons as they spiraled around her arms like the high-end accessories that they were. Lilly rubbed her forearms with a renewed sense of completeness and smiled. “That’s better. That’s so much better.”

  Mea was still limply pinned to the wall. She looked like she was drunk and dying. Just as her tail was, Lilly’s talons were poisoned as well, and they were bleeding fire into Mea’s veins, and the feeling in her arms and legs was slipping away.

  Lilly began her taunting, “You know, Mea, when you sliced off my tail, the first one, I figured that some of your memories had returned, but I guess not. But really, I’m curious, why did you come here? What did you really think would happen—that you were going to come down here and beat me up? You were going to stop me? Or did you really think that you could convince me to stand down?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Mea muttered, slurred and barely loud as a whisper.

  Lilly huffed as her white smoky banshee spirits returned and begun to swirl around her and celebrate her victory. “Kill me? Haven’t you been paying attention? We’re gods. We’re immortals. We can’t be killed.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Mea quipped.

  Lilly had to smile. “At least you’re keeping your sense of humor.” She started gnawing on her lip and thought. “You know, back on the terrace, you asked me why I was so ugly. And maybe you didn’t think I heard you, but I did. And if you really want to know, if you want to know the reason why I’m so ugly is…” Lilly’s face contorted into a blender of emotions, the same jumble of emotions that was bubbled up inside her, and she almost looked like she was about to cry. But as quickly as they came, they went. With a head shake and a sigh and a nervous laugh, “Whew,” Lilly successfully pushed down whatever feelings she was feeling. “You want to know why I’m so ugly?” Lilly smooshed Mea’s cheeks together until she had fish-lips. She leaned close to Mea’s ear and whispered, “You want to know why I’m so ugly? I’m ugly… because the world is ugly—all of it.” Then, strangely mercurial, Lilly sweetly and gently kissed Mea then shoved Mea’s face away from her own.

  Lilly continued on with her victory lap, and her face brightened up as she found a topic she liked and started wagging a knowing finger in the air. “You know, Mea… the last Cleansing—almost-Cleansing, the great flood… You got off easy with that one, but did you know that... your Vincent Blackwell made a deal with me… half of the inhabitants of the stone tower to spare your beloved humans—some of them. So, my point is that—that deal—is the only reason that there were any survivors at all. Otherwise they would have all died, drowned, game over, hit the reset button. But back then, you didn’t really care about them, not like you do now.”

  She moved closer to Mea and wiped away the blood trickling out of the corner of Mea’s lips then sucked it off her finger. Had Mea not been poisoned, she would’ve found the act particularly disgusting, but at the moment, Mea was poisoned and dying and didn’t object.

  Lilly continued talking. “Then… if you remember, after I tore through that ark, the one right in front of your eyes, and… well, you still cared, didn’t you? Somewhat, obviously. But after the great flood, you were the one that brought the ice, the Ice Age. The coldness, your coldness, chilled the air, and it froze the seas and oceans. The flooded world dried and froze, and soon it was all covered in ice and snow, mostly.

  “But before that, before the flood, that was when you became somewhat famous for all your hard work. In Europe, they came to call you the Ice Queen. Eventually they started writing fairytales about you. Myths, legends. And after the flood, the stories survived with the survivors. And with each telling and re-telling of the stories, over the ages, they all became more fantastical and less real.” Lilly paused to shrug and make sure Mea was still conscience. She was, barely, so Lilly continued. “Well, you know, the stories became less real than they really knew.” Lilly popped up, suddenly overly alert, and she gestured at Mea with a hard flick of her hand. “Because, I mean, look at you. You’re freakin’ amazing.” You almost had me. You should have killed me, if that’s even possible.

  “Anyways… Before all that, when we were still friends… friendly-ish, you used to just wave your hands in the air, and giant ice castles of would rise out of the ocean, out of the seas, wherever you wanted, and with a few more waves of your hands, that ice would obey your every command, molding and folding into whatever you could think of. And your castles, your sculptures, they were gorgeous—and made from solid ice—I mean clear ice, not that cloudy shit that I’ve been seeing everywhere since I woke up. You used to say, ‘Look, Lilith. This looks like the palace in Elysium. Look, Lilith. This one’s like the sculptures on the second floor. Look, Lilith. This one isn’t like the one on the third floor, but it’s what I’d like it to be, one day. Look, Lilith. This is a monument for the ancient wars, for the forgotten warriors. And this one, the big one, Lilith, this one’s going to be a giant statue of you and…’” Lilly trailed off and looked away. Damn it, I didn’t mean to say that last one. She sighed and avoided the topic. “Anyways, they were all giant and beautiful,
and you were always smiling and your eyes would always sparkle.”

  Though the poison that was sapping her energy and she was near passing out, Mea listened.

  Lilly huffed again. “Have you even been back there lately? To Elysium, as you like to call it? I mean, I don’t know, but I imagine that it’s a complete train wreck up there. Angels, seraphim, whatever other souls that were granted entrance—whichever ones transcended, I’m sure that they are just … indulging in the gluttony of euphoria—or they’re at each other’s throats. God, who knows?”

  Lilly grabbed Mea’s face again and mushed it together. “That… is your kingdom, an abandoned mining town.” Mea’s face was mushed together like putty, her cheek and lips plumped up and smashed within Lilly’s hand. “Do you hear me? That is your home.”

  As Mea tried to think through the fog, her hand twitched. And though it was far away, her sword began twitching as well. “Nope, don’t do that.” Lilly jabbed her thumbnail into Mea’s wrist, dumping even more venom into her veins. “Mea,” Lilly said, gently slapping Mea, to wake her up. “Mea, I’m trying to talk to you. I’m trying to have a conversation with you, that conversation that you wanted so badly. So… be nice. I’m trying really hard to not poison the shit out of you, again. But, please, don’t make me. Okay? I’m just trying to talk to you. Don’t be rude.” As you’re poisoning me, Mea thought foggily.

  The irony was not lost on Lilly. “Yes, I know. It’s strange. It’s odd that this is how the gods talk to one another, beating the crap out of each other and then saying whatever it is that we got to say. It’s all quite theatrical, and very dramatic. ” Then she sighed. “Look, my point of all this is, believe it or not, I’m trying to help you. The Cleansing, it can’t be stopped. If you think this is bad, the Wolf is worse. And the Beast, the Dragon.”