— LXI —
WHEN LIFE LET her loose back in the Arena of Reckoning, Rain knew what her master wanted. It was hard for her to resist with the beads around her neck. She blasted Dal with her brightest light yet, before he had a chance to behead the father.
She watched him recoil from the truth of her light. Though he was fire itself—spat from the dark pit of the burning lake of oil—her light burned at his feathers and beat down their flames. And he took flight away to the shadows of the hall and landed on the other side of the arena.
The Chosen One watched, standing next to Rain, hands on her shoulders, grinning as her finest fighter yet sent Dal flying for cover. She smiled and then addressed the gallery, “Oh, how you are fallen from Heaven, my Day Star, my sweet son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground… . You who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to Heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the North; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the far reaches of the pit by my light and my truth.”
Dal snarled at her. Life’s bright champion of light was becoming a nuisance. He had known the warmth of the Chosen One’s grace and favor before. It was fleeting and always ended the same way—cast from her side to rule in the bottomless pit of desperation and death. He knew Rain—her newest lapdog—would suffer the same fate. But for now, she needed to wait her turn.
Dal flew and the great flapping sound of his flaming wings burned through the air above the arena. He swooped at them both and spat a huge stream of fire. The two bright angels split and flew in different directions. Dal followed Rain, shooting fire and trailing black smoke.
With each blast, Rain flitted to avoid it, but Dal flapped his great wings to fan the orange flames and he shot another and another, chasing her around the arena, flying behind her bright shining light.
When she turned and slammed into him, Dal went crashing to the floor in a huge ball of orange fire and black smoke. When the black cloud of soot cleared, he sprang up and flew at her and shot fire from his wings and it engulfed her, and he fired all the feathers he could and Rain crashed to the floor of the arena, losing feathers and blood. And then she was back up and Dal flew at her again.
The Chosen One motioned toward the dungeons—she would not lose her champion this easily. Though she had never been bested since she arrived, Dal might be too much for Life’s unseasoned archangel. She would get more practice.
As quickly as Rain entered, two of the golden guardian angels from the dungeon snatched her from the floor of the arena and dragged her flickering body back through the tunnel, flying her to her cell below.
— LXII —
FATHER BENITO WATCHED helplessly as Rain was forced to fight with Dal. But weakened by a Rosary, she was unable to mount much of an attack. He knew now why Fury had hated them around her neck.
He had already surrendered hope when they took Rain during his judgment. Now Faith had to trust in his comrades. They were all he had left.
But if it was to be his last day in eternity, he would not go out like a lamb … or a lion. He spoke to the crowd as if they were his final words. Short and sweet—that was how he had always delivered bad news, “The dark angel has no claim on my soul.”
And Faith shook the talons of his two captors out of his side and off of his arms. And he spun and shot feathers at them both, piercing them and sending the two golden guardians, flailing and flapping toward the sides of the arena, squawking and screeching from the sting of his steel.
Then he stood and looked at the gallery. He could see Dal flying back—a huge ball of flame, preparing to silence him with fire. He flapped his newly minted wings and then hovered twenty feet above the center of the arena, so all could see and hear him. He said, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the new ruler of this world is coming.”
And then he recited the ageless prayer. The rest was up to them. And just like he told Jump, he altered it just enough to get his point across, “For light is his Mother, and darkness his Father, and he is their Son, and he is judgment, as my own judgment and yours was in the beginning, under my power for eternity, in this, our world without end. Amen.”
Neither of them could deny that word.
And then Dal’s flame melted Faith’s feathers and burned his flesh and boiled his blood. And Faith felt the agony and the darkness of wrath. But if his brothers and sisters could have seen his face through the flames, they would have noticed his smile—Jump was coming—right before he went to the black nothing before the next eternity.
And Dal’s flame fell down to a flicker. And he stood over Faith and growled to himself, “And now you are mine. You and your book.”
— LXIII —
IF YOU’VE EVER been deep in the forest at night, you would know the kind of darkness that descends over the three of us … and the planet. A thick blanket of black and the only light is the stars. A million… Billions of tiny points of bright pricking through the black of eternity, flickering like the truth in a dark sea of lies.
You can’t see the truth from the city. You have to go to the deepest, darkest woods of your soul. Because the city is full of its own light, an artificial brightness that masquerades as the truth of time. Lost in the forest, that’s where the light is the brightest. Because in the depths of your soul, shines the light.
“Are you joking me?” That was what I said to the father when he told me that philosophical shit. But the guy was dead serious and now I know he was right. Because once we crumble the last lying, greedy, conniving flicker of the artificial light of humanity… Once Dubai falls, it’s a hell of a lot easier to see the truth in the darkness.
And there it is, shining like it was always there. A huge trail of bright stars in the sky—the pathway to Heaven.
I stare up at the twinkling trail of tiny lights. “You ready?” I ask Salvation and Fury.
They both know they are going.
“Like, where the fuck else we gonna go,” Fury says, “Vegas?”
Salvation laughs a little. “Not anymore.”
They both cluck and coo, obviously remembering what they did in Sin City. They told me about it, but maybe there’s something more.
When I quit chuckling with them, I say, “I still can’t believe you—”
“Whoa-whoa,” Salvation says.
“Oh my God,” Fury chimes in, “don’t you know anything?”
Then Salvation clucks out a little giggle. Apparently the girls had more fun leveling that place than they told, because she looks at Fury and says, “What happens in Vegas…”
Fury smiles an evil little grin. Kinda gives me the shivers. “Dies in Vegas,” she says.
Then the two of them start flapping slowly toward the bright trail of stars in the dark night sky. And I can hear them above me, clucking and chirping at each other, lazily fluttering their words and their wings, pretending they aren’t shitting themselves at what’s ahead.
When I catch up to them, I say, “All right, ladies, foreplay’s over. Time to start fucking the faithful.”
I smile to myself and fly ahead. Then I listen behind me—I hate secrets.
“Fuck,” Fury says, “is he always like that?”
“Little girl,” says Salvation, “you have no idea.”
I smile in front of them and think, We might just make it.
— LXIV —
THE TRAIL OF stars doesn’t work like the hole to bring souls does. It grabs the three of us like the jet stream currents, and Salvation, Fury and I rocket faster than any of us can fly on our own. Then the stars blur to streaks of bright light and then we are just … there.
When we appear at the entrance of an access tunnel on the edge of the arena, I can see that the dark bastard is deep into a rabble-rousing speech—he’s busy whipping the crowd of angels into a frenzy against Life. And something is lying at his feet.
&n
bsp; Dal’s voice booms, “This two-thousand-year reign comes to an end, my brothers and sisters, and the light turns to darkness, and evil to righteousness.”
I can see a black angel coming down from the roof of the great hall. A huge iron key dangles from a great chain in his hand.
Dal points to Life. “And with this key,” he says, “I seize the dragon’s tail and bind her, and throw her into the pit, and shut it and seal it over her, so that she might not deceive you any longer, until this next two-thousand-year eternity ends.”
And it’s working pretty damn well, because the clanging of wings and the loud screeching of steel feathers fills the arena with the frenzy of the faithful and faithless, clamoring for blood, clucking and cawing for change. I don’t think they have long to wait.
And I’ve seen all this shit before—two sides of the same coin—bad and worse—State politicians on the left and the right, each telling the masses that the other is the greatest threat to their freedom and faith, turning man against brother and daughter against mother, twisting words and telling lies to keep the people at each other’s throats. Then they laugh and pillage, and rape and plunder the whole time they are in power.
It’s complete bullshit—mind control at its finest. Because one of them beats the people with his left hand until everyone begs him to let the other one beat them with her right. And the only truth in the whole mess… The only shred of reality in between the lies and the manipulation and the fear and the desperation is, that they are both just gonna beat the living shit out of you … every last day of your life.
And when I think that the rant in my head has just about got my black blood boiling enough, I realize that the thing in the middle of the arena—in the middle of the arena next to the Dark Angel—is the father’s charred, angel-winged body.
It is him, isn’t it—Faith? I mean, who else could it be? And then I think, Oh, you mother… That better not be Rain, because I don’t see her anywhere. Knowing is not seeing it for yourself, though. “Motherfucker!” I yell at Dal.
Technically, I guess it’s true, but it’s not the time. And I race at him, leaving Salvation and Fury to gawk and get their bearings at the edge of the jewel-studded field of the Arena of Reckoning. It’s a fitting name for the place, because that’s what I’m bringing.
It only takes a couple of steps for me to flap and take flight. And I pump and push on the air in the hall and I can hear my wings swooshing loudly. And then the clucking and cawing of the crowd in the grandstands turns to a roar and then screeching confusion, but the gallery isn’t flying away this time, because tonight—Faith or Fury, Lion or Lamb—none of them cares—they came to witness judgment. They are here to see blood spill for the Word—they want to see the gladiators fight.
When Dal sees me, he roars and bursts into flames. And huge plumes of black smoke and orange flame boil from his great steel feathers. But it’s too late and I ram into him as hard as I can and a huge plume of smoke and fire blasts heat toward the roof. The fireball is so intense that the whole gallery gasps as the entire hall flashes orange from the flame.
And we are rolling and tumbling in a ball of spitting and snarling and growling, and lashing teeth and tongues, and clawing talons. And then the whooping and the hooting starts.
I know I should feel the gouges in my side—he’s pierced me at least twice—but the only thing I can taste is sweet rage and vengeance. Burning smoke and acid coat my nostrils with the hot smell of flaming oil. And I should be on fire, but for some reason I’m not, and even he is confused by that, because he pauses for a split second. But his anger is an unquenchable fire—trust me, I know the look—and he is hell-bent on shooting it up my ass.
“Not today!” I yell at him and throw him off me in a rolling ball of sparks and flames.
And when he recovers, he springs onto all four sets of talons like a cat. In a flash of flame, he’s airborne and flying in a tight circle, headed toward the roof.
I doubt that he’s running. Shit, I wouldn’t run either. But an attack from above is dangerous—high ground is an advantage—so when he banks and his trail of fire heads back down toward me, I jump up and flap hard to meet him.
At about fifty yards between us, the both of us are blasted by the most powerful bright light I’ve seen. And we both spin out of control, flapping and flying backward to escape it. And I cover my eyes. I’m sure he is doing the same, because the light is so hot that the feathers around the edges of my face burn a little.
Then a voice shakes the entire mountain and the hall shivers and shakes. “Enough!”
— LXV —
AND SHINING AS bright as she ever has, is my little Amy—Rain—in the middle of the arena. And I can barely see her, even with my sunglasses on, but when I do I can tell she is scared.
Standing next to her, with her arm stretched out and gripping Rain on the shoulder is the Queen of Hearts—the Chosen One. She says, “Who among you challenges that vengeance is mine?”
And the both of us—the bastard and I—flap and then flutter to the gem-studded floor of the arena. I have no idea why, but I’m listening instead of ripping the guts out of them both.
“I will choose how to repay,” says the Queen. “That is my right.”
And a roar of agreement caws through the great hall, as the faithful get ready for what she has in store—her judgment.
“And I will execute them all with my wrath,” she says. “So you will all know that I am the Chosen One, when I lay my vengeance upon them.”
And she’s holding Rain and I hear Salvation screech from the edge of the arena for her chick. I hold my hand up behind me, letting her and Fury both know they should wait. Because I can see the death and destruction behind Life’s glowing black orbs. She is ready to burn it all down to survive.
Nothing worse than a lame duck leader. They got nothing to lose and that makes them totally dangerous. And isn’t that just the true definition of a God. “Bitch…” I mutter.
And the dark angel beside me grunts his agreement. I’ll get to his guts soon enough.
“Their end will correspond to their deeds,” the Queen says.
And the crowd goes nuts, flapping and cawing and screeching like rabid soccer fans. When it looks like the gallery isn’t going to settle down without some intervention—
“Calm yourselves, my brothers and sisters,” and yes, that’s my real voice, booming above hers. Because while the father was busy rewriting his Book of Blood, I was busy boning up on the bile of the benevolent in the Bible. “Did not you serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things? And therefore shall you not serve your enemies whom she has sent against you?”
And that little bit throws a serious wrench in the Queen of Hearts’ little plan to start lopping off heads. And I can see that she is pretty pissed off now, because no ones like their own words shoved down their throats.
But if there’s anything I can tell you about what I learned from old archived fight waves—the faithful fans are some fickle fuckers when the fighting starts. In the beginning, they tend to swing toward whoever gives them the best show, and then—once the blood starts spilling—it’s back to who they think will win. They switch teams like a bisexual bitch in heat.
I can see she is angry, but this next part infuriates her. “For I have seen her wrath and I have delivered it in kind,” I say. And I look toward the side of the arena at Fury and Salvation.
And my sweet Salvation is just awestruck—her mouth is slightly open and I’ve made her speechless. It’s hard to do. And I smile at her. She knows I’m an angry son of a bitch, but this shit… I rarely calm down long enough to debate with someone.
“And I rained Fury and Salvation down on those you were all sworn to protect. We left them as she commanded!” And I raise up my arms at the gallery, and start to turn slowly. “In the end, they wallowed in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and blood, lacking everything. And I watched them all perish at her command. Trus
t me, brothers and sisters, she is a heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal and unloving ruler. And she will put that same yoke of iron faith around your neck … until she has destroyed you all.”
And the gallery goes absolutely wild. Because there are some campfire stories that are true. No matter how beautiful and benevolent someone seems on the outside, there is someone, somewhere who is sick and tired of her shit. Judging from the cawing and hooting and howling coming from the grandstands, a whole lotta someones.
Now, the Chosen One totally panics. Because the only thing a big, bad, benevolent angel fears more than losing her power, is getting tarred and feathered by her flock afterward.
And she points at the dark angel next to me … and then she starts making mistakes. “I am Life—the Lord your God,” she says, “who brought you out of the dark angel’s house of slavery. And he shall not be your god before me. You shall not bow down to him or serve him, for I—the Lord your God—am a jealous God. And I will visit your iniquity on your children to the third and the fourth generation of those of you who dare defy me!”
Apparently angels can… I think. Not the time.
Then the mistakes get bigger, and a bolt of white hot lightning flashes from her pointing finger and pierces into Dal and he pretty much explodes in a fiery flash of moaning souls and crying babies.
And a huge ball of orange flame rolls slowly toward the ceiling above the arena. And the great mountain shakes so hard that chunks of the pillars holding up the roof fall away and crash to the floor, sending white and red jewels flying, like bits of broken promises—crimson chunks of lies spray across the arena.
And the gallery is “screechless”—half of them staring at their master and the other half wondering where the finger is going to point next.
Then she says, “And when the two thousand years are ended, the dark angel will be released from this prison where I have sent him. And so I have released him from his present one.”
Release… I guess that’s one way to interpret it, I think. And if I was going to feel some sort of kinship with who the father said was mine, it should be now. But I got nothing except more empty vengeance in my heart—she just took more blood away from my parched thirst for revenge.
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 24