And I point at her. “Don’t you go bitch-piling on top of me,” I say to her. “Especially in front of—you know I’m never late.”
Then that little shit… She laughs at me again. “Right to my face? You believe that?”
When I look at Fury, she tucks her wings tight and grins ear to ear.
I frown at her. “What was he right about?” I ask.
“Pretty much everything,” Salvation says. “Now move it!” And she looks at Fury. “And you put those little rookies to roost. They can’t handle any more of that truth and torture tonight. And we’re out late—there’s a fresh flight of souls.”
“The show must go on,” I mutter.
Fury nods and smiles—I know what that means.
“I’m coming,” I say. Then I look at all of the little minds, screaming for answers. And I smile at Fury. “I’ll leave you children in … angrier hands than mine. Careful, don’t believe a word she says. She’s meeeennn!”
By the time we leave and head up through our portal entrance to the Arena of Reckoning in the Hallowed Hall of the Unholy Word, atop The Great Mountain of this Eternity, I know Salvation was right—she’s always right. “We’re gonna be late,” I say to her.
“She won’t be happy with us.”
“She’ll get over it.”
Salvation says, “She’ll rain down on you again.”
“Stop…”
“You better put on a good show,” says Salvation.
“When have I not?”
“I don’t know,” she says. Then she grins as we walk. “Feels like you are … slipping.”
“What the…? Slip—I’ll slip you.”
She’s giggling at me as we enter the great arena to cheers and cooing and cawing from the gallery. And I think to myself, So many different souls—never know what’s coming next.
One thing I do know, Fury’s not putting anyone to bed.
The lakeside stories were a fiery favorite with the little purgatories. Fury knew that. And all the hatchlings of the second Heaven sat beside the fiery lake, wide-eyed and silent as she spoke. She leaned in and whispered softly at first, with a devious smile, “Snuggle up here next to the fire and brimstone, you little bastards and bitches. Get good and cozy by the fiery lake.” And then she opened her eyes wide and spoke a little louder, “You want another story? Auntie Fury has a story that not even Grandpa Jump knows. That’s right, you little soul suckers. Careful though, because as mean as Life was… As horrible as the Dark Angel of death, Lived… This story will scare your flaming little tail feathers off!”
Fury always got a little crazy before a big fight night in the arena. But if she had to babysit these little rookies—if she was missing the fight up there—then she would have to do something to entertain herself. Scaring the shit out of little purgeys would have to do.
But first, no angel in the second Heaven was allowed to roost without praying first. Jump wrote that himself. Fury’s eyes were wild now and she started. They all followed along, reciting the prayer of The Fallen:
With dreams and screams dark angels poke
And our feathers fire and our wings smoke
Because some dreams we leave and some we don’t
And some we can’t … and some we won’t.
Then Fury started her tale, “Very good, little ones. I think you’re like, finally getting the hang of this shit. Ready? Okay, here we go: Keep your talons sharp and your feathers hot, because this is a story that can’t be forgot. So boil some blood and gather some guts. You’ll need snacks for the story of how I almost … went nuts.”
END OF TESTAMENT
Congratulations! You just finished JUMP, the first book in Steve Windsor’s THE FALLEN series.
Turn the page to read FURY Book #2. >>>>>
FURY
THE FALLEN Book #2
RESURRECTION
— LXX —
YOU MAY THINK you know who I am, but like … you don’t know shit.
My two best friends say I have quite a mouth on me. One of their boyfriends knows it’s the truth. But I wasn’t always like that. After I fell, I was worse. Still, none of it was as bad as my whole life.
Whoever I was before, Fury is my name now. This is my testament:
I’m cursing as I plummet, “Cocksuckerrrr!”
That’s me, Mercedes King then—like I’m even telling you my full name—and I’m freshly flown off the roof, my ragered hair all up in my mouth and shit. I’m falling to my death in my favorite underwear. The tight little pink ones I got in Cancun right before it happened.
I had to haggle the old jabbering Mexican woman for ten minutes so she would cut the credits on them. When she went to authorize my fake hex-card, I just jacked them and ran with my friends.
I know, I know. I’m a little shit. Get over it. There’s a reason for everything. I’ll get to it like … when I get to it.
I fell then, too. Right on my face and Tessa was just laughing at me and Brie—total bitch—didn’t even help me when the old hag grabbed my hair.
Of course we got away—old ladies can’t run. I wish we hadn’t. If it wasn’t for my dad… I don’t like to think about the part that came after, but if it wasn’t for him, I’d probably still be in a Mexican Protection cell with Donato and his raping buddy.
No, that doesn’t mean I forgave my father for it. It just means he was a rich asshole with credits. Sometimes you need that.
But that was nothing compared to this, and I’m falling straight down from the penthouse of the Smith Tower in Seattle, my parents’ little “love” nest.
It’s hard to even think of them that way now, especially my dad. I’m glad I killed him. Rot in the dungeon!
Huh? … Yes, shut up, of course it’s warmer than falling naked. Naked in Seattle is cold. What are you, ignorant? Nasty little purgatory… I’ll tell you how all that works later. You won’t believe me. I guess it’s sorta funny, but kinda gross, too. And everyone gets to do it. Yes, even him. Jesus, especially him.
I’m working on getting that changed. Because… I mean like, come on, old people? I don’t care if they are Man-monkeys or whatever other species Rain replaced them with. Those two…? That’s just—eww! You know what I’m saying.
Christ almighty—now you got me blaspheming. But just listen to you wicked little bastards. I tell you I killed my dad and you’re like, “You were in your underwear?” Shit never changes.
Whatever. Look, I’m trying to teach you something here, so shut up and listen. Hatchlings, always with the questions. Time to get cracked, dumbasses.
Thirty-eight stories is a long way to fall. Feels like it takes an eternity, maybe two of them.
You think I’m exaggerating? Trust me, some of you whining little purgies already know this, but it feels like a lifetime, at least. Because time doesn’t go by like you think. A fall and a trial is one thing, but like, Judgment? That takes forever to burn through you.
“Time is relative,” I think Jump told me once. Whatever that means. I do know this, different things seem to take longer, like waiting in line for meds at the State Med-mart, or for a guy to figure out how to give me an orgasm.
Seeing how ridiculous I look—flapping my arms and falling in my underwear—I guess I should have put on more clothes before I ran downstairs.
Can you believe that? Thrown out the window by the same asshole that saved me. That like, sucks so bad.
Really? Of course I’m pissed off about it … idiot! Stop talking over me. Anyways… What was I…? Oh yeah, it was probably the best thing that could have happened.
How did all this happen? It’s not exactly how he told you. Let me tell you how life really worked. Wait, I don’t think Salvation and Jump will be back from the arena for a while, why don’t I just show you. Come on, follow me. What? … Of course we can, we’re not dungeon demons. This is your Hell, not Purgatory. Stop asking so many questions. Are you coming or not?
And I flap my way up to the portal entrance with… I c
an’t count all of you little purgatories anymore.
You wicked little shits are piling up like souls on judgment night—Hell’s not hurting for humping hatchlings, is it?
Anyways, I’m only taking six of you—that’s the rules. Rest a you gotta stay here.
Jesus! … Calm down, calm down! Trust me, trip like this, there’s bound to be some bodies, so the rest of you will be like, on standby for your first flight. You can watch the fall, but you gotta hide, so they don’t know where we’ve gone. Else it’s deep shit when Jump and Salvation get back. Bet your flight-feathers on that.
I turn around and flap toward the portal, because I just can’t look at those little pouty faces they make when they don’t get what they want. I used to do that. It’s pathetic.
Dammit! I always clip my wingtips on the edge of the portals—they should make these things bigger.
— LXXI —
AS THE PROTECTOR of her two-thousand-year eternity, Life had been a god. No, she was God. And that was the right word … “was.”
Now, her once brilliant and near-transparent white feathers were spotted and stained with patches of pink. Marks ground in from over half an eternity spent as a concubine in a cell, deep within the Dungeons of the Damned.
Life’s shining black orbs glowed. She stared up blankly at her once beautiful archangel, turned vengeful master.
Lived had been her highest and most beautiful creation—an angel of light—until his ego surpassed hers and she was compelled to cast him into the bottomless pit below. Now he was the devil, Lived, the dark angel of light turned inside out and backward by God.
Life smiled when she spoke up at him. He was always more pleasant if she smiled, less rough, more like it used to be. In the beginning of the two-thousand-year eternity before this one—Life’s own time as Protector—they were better together.
But that eternity was a distant, almost forgotten memory. No one spoke of the time of the Man-monkey now. And why would they? Rain almighty, the Protector of this new eternity—the god of her time—had decreed that none should speak of the Man-monkey’s eternity. Those beings were considered far too dangerous to even tempt with thought and belief.
That life, and Life herself, were long-forgotten nightmares, locked behind iron bars of judgment and condemnation.
The once benevolent and all-powerful God, Life, endured the fate that Rain condemned her to suffer. She served the “devil” she “knew,” on top and inside of her most mornings … and evenings, if it suited him. Though, in the dark depths of the dungeons, the change between day and night passed by unnoticed.
Life adjusted her wings and they scraped against the rusty red metal of her cellmate’s feathers. And sparks dropped and bounced on the floor of their cell as they coupled. “Does she go back?” she asked Lived.
Lived—Dal, he used to be called, Life’s dark angel of light—smiled down at his former master. His creator, actually, because she and she alone had made him and then twisted him into what he was now.
He had been dazzling once, the most and the highest angel in Heaven. But Life cast him from her side and into the pit—the lake of fire beneath the dungeons—for the simple act of disobedience. There, he ruled in Hell for a full eternity.
But then he and Life were vanquished—overthrown … by a child, no less. The Battle of the Books was a bloody one, pitting mother against son, and son against father. No angel in Heaven or Hell escaped judgment on that day. All faced justice. Not all found peace.
Afterward—once the Great Dragon of Judgment, Jump, defeated them—Jump’s whelp daughter, Rain, stripped Life and Lived of their powers and cast them into the Dungeons of the Damned beneath the Arena of Reckoning. Before it all happened, they were the gods of their time. Now, the once God, Life and her evil devil, Lived, were less.
Lived’s devilish breath no longer reeked of the vile bile of rotting souls, and Life’s godly aroma no longer emitted the sweet, succulent scent of vanilla and molasses. Nor did her voice waft the wonderful sounds of women and children, wailing and crying. Sounds that Lived had so loved to hear.
Things were different. And not how Dal had imagined they would be. He had waited and plotted for two thousand years—an eternity spent planning to turn the tides of time against Life. But his plan had not borne fruit the way he intended. Failure was a disgusting taste that he had no palette for.
Lived’s voice had less fire, his flames weren’t as intimidating, and his fury was less formidable. Everything was “less” now … for both of them. The most egregious… When they woke from the last great nothingness—the dark sleep—this eternity was to be an everlasting impotence, imposed on them by the daughter of the very child that he and Life spawned to try and avoid it.
Thankfully, that part of their granddaughter Rain’s new book was not literal. Literal or interpretation—the Word of Heaven and Hell, for Life and Lived, had changed for the worse.
Rain… Lived thought. The bright little star of light had condemned him and Life to live for this eternity, confined together behind iron-barred gates in a cell—alone with their failure.
Now, they were only allowed to hear the judgments above, never to witness them. Sweet sin and salvation a mere breath away—the smells of misery and mayhem everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
Their power stripped and their roles reversed, they would never be allowed to repent. Rain had made that clear. But Life was not one to be confined in a cage. Gods were funny that way. Cast out and imprisoned or not, she knew there were other ways. If she was not able to return to the throne as Protector through the front door, she would simply slip into the house of the Lord through the back.
Lived pushed his wings down harder against Life’s and smiled as her brow furrowed. “You had a doubt that she would bend to my … will?” he grunted. Prisoner or not, submission was his right, and doubt played little part in that.
Jump may have defeated Lived in the Arena of Reckoning, his own lover may have smote him before the Battle of the Books, and Rain almighty herself may have stripped him of position and power, but he still had his wits … and his lies. Surely that was enough to defeat one small child, especially one without the wisdom of the world to keep her from ruin.
The seed of his and Life’s plan was simple enough, but waiting for the fruits of revenge to grow was more difficult. “She will bite the apple,” Lived said. And he pushed again. “These things take … time.”
Life winced a little as she tried to stay still. Then she looked back into her past and remembered.
How had she come to this fate? Life had ruled. She had made the garden and stocked it with fresh souls to worship her, but in the end of her eternity, every angel in the heavens revolted. And she was brought to judgment in the arena, condemned, and sentenced to be Lived’s slave. But it wasn’t the entire truth.
Ever since, Lived had tried, convicted and condemned her every day. The fate Life considered unacceptable had become her daily duty—her violating reality.
In the beginning of Life’s eternity, Lived’s danger and his passionate anger had been seductive, sensual … sensational. And every time they joined, she had experienced the white hot truth of the love she so longed to feel with her own creatures—to be loved and adored by the human beings she created. But each time, the fire she and her highest angel sparked, burned into her deeper. And sooner than she was prepared to, Life was forced to cast Lived’s arrogance out of her Heaven and lock him in the bottomless pit. She would allow him to rule in his own kingdom, but never in hers.
It was a mistake, and Lived became the engineer of Life’s destruction—the evil devil was now her master. He had used the son that Life bore him to inadvertently bring about both of their ends. As a result, in this eternity, Life was his to join with as often as he pleased. And it did please him often. Life knew who was responsible for that.
Rain… she thought again. The girl was becoming Life’s obsession. But revenge would have to wait. She could tell by the evil grin on Li
ved’s face and his disgustingly long tongue… He always slithered it around her breasts just before he finished. She was thankful he had cropped his huge, pointed tail. “No, my beautiful Day Star,” she said. “I have no doubts.” She moaned a little—she knew it hastened his ending. “None … what … so … ever.”
And then it was over and Life closed her big black orbs, and she forced a tear to run from one of her dark eyes—a drop of deception trickled down her cheek.
Lived slithered his tongue from his slave’s chest and swirled it up the side of her face. Then he slowly savored the salty taste of his own revenge. And he pulled himself out and off of Life and stood up. He cawed above his head, and then he said, “You are still delicious, my love.”
Life returned her feathers to their full brightness, stood up next to him, and shook her wings and her feathers dry. It felt like she would never get his burning-ash scent out of her plumage. As you will be, when I feast on your failure, she thought. The thought did not concern her—gone was the era when they would be able to smell the other’s thoughts. Rain had stripped them of that power, too.
They both heard Rain’s voice above, and they lifted their heads and spread their wings, listening to the roar of angels—the feathered followers, cheering in the arena above them. It was a constant reminder that the warmth of their eternity had ended. And both of them wished for nothing more than to return to its glory.
— LXXII —
THE FIRST THING I notice is that like, my wing isn’t the only thing that got fucked up going through the portal, because there’s sirens all over the place, and I’m running from the PA’s again. It’s not where I wanted to resurrect and I tuck my wings into my back. Nothing to see here, just another Man-monkey chick running from Protection.
Life said the portal was more art than science, but this? Protection Agents? WTF on that?
It’s not any fun this time around either, and I run. It’s weird too—been a while since I used my legs like this. Why run when you have kick-ass wings, right? All I’m saying.
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