“Uh…” he says.
Then I point the 3D port at Brie and Tessa and say, “Say hi to Brie and Tess, Daddy.”
And they both wave at him all cutesy like we talked about. “Hi, Mr. King.” Both at the same time—they are so good.
Then Tessa leans in and fakes a little kiss at him, but it’s really so he can get a little look down her mini-top.
And we all figured that out quick, because the best thing about boobs—totally distracting. And it works pretty good, because Daddy is like, “Uh … hi girls.”
And for a guy that has like, hot supermodels for personal assistants, he is pretty easy to distract. It’s totally funny … and gross. And I scrunch up my face from behind the 3D hologram—at Brie and Tessa—and they both giggle.
“Mercedes?” the projection asks.
I move right next to Brie and Tessa and point the 3D port at all of us. “Yes, Daddy?”
“Well,” he says, “it sounds like you girls are having a good time. Just—”
“Totally awesome, Mr. King,” Tessa says.
“Uh,” he says, “that’s … good, really good, Tessa,” he says to her. “Just try to stay out of—I don’t want to have to spring all you girls again, okay?”
“No problem whatsoever,” Tessa says. “We’re just playing around at the beach, Mr. King.”
And I can feel Brie looking at her, because what the…?
“Sounds good,” my dad says to Tessa. “I’ll trust you to keep Mercedes’ hex-card under control, then?”
And I have to cut this shit off right now, because I’m starting to get… It’s just—eww! So I point the 3D port at me and move away from them. “Okay, Daddy,” I say.
And I glance over at Tessa and she’s giving me that, “What the fuck?” look.
So I raise my eyebrows at her and give her my own look back. Then I turn back to my wave tablet. “We just have one party to go to, and then a little shopping. Nothing major, I promise.”
And his head turns and tries to look toward Brie and Tessa, but I have the vid-port turned too far and he can’t see them, Tessa for sure. His head turns back and he says, “Just take it easy on the tag-popping, okay? Your mother’s driving me nuts with it. She’s totally out of…”
I don’t listen to the end of it, but when he stops talking I say, “Absolutely.” And I’m trying not to look annoyed, but—“TTY, Daddy.”
“I’m trusting you, Em,” he says. “We talked about this.”
I try not to raise my eyebrows. No clue if I do or not. “I got it,” I say to him, “easy on the credits. I gotta go. Terminate.”
The 3D projection retracts and cuts off whatever Daddy was going to say after that.
And I look at Brie and she’s staring at Tessa and then I look at Tessa.
Tessa shrugs her shoulders and scrunches up her face. Then she looks at Brie and leans back away from her a little, because Brie is moving into her face. “What?” Then Tessa turns back to me. “You said flirty. That was flirty.” And she looks at Brie again. “What?”
Brie’s got her arms crossed now and I can tell she’s trying not to smile. “Holy bitch…”
“Serious,” I say.
And Tessa jerks her head and looks at me. “Oh, come on. Screw both of you! If—if Brie did that, you would be all”—she rocks her head side to side at me—“ ‘Oh, that was sooo funny! Brie, you are so wonderful and I just want to kiss you right now. And you are so cool.’ ”
Brie can’t hold it back anymore. She starts giggling. A little at first, but then more than I like.
I put my hand on my hip, throw my wave tablet into my beach bag, and then I look into the bag and say, “Block previous wave.” Because I don’t wanna hear that ever again. Then I look at her. “That shit is not okay. Not!”
And now Tessa is laughing with Brie and they high-five.
Brie is so excited to get one over on me that she starts running in place, and then she stops and points her finger at me. “Smackdown, bitch.”
“Oh my-God,” I say. “No way!”
And Brie bends over and just laughs. “Bitch,” she says, “your dad is a perv.”
“Totally,” Tessa says, putting her hand on Brie’s back. It makes Brie stop and stand back up. And I think they have enough sense to stop, because I’m over it. But then Tessa says, “Totally cute, though.”
Then Brie starts laughing again. And Tessa is laughing again, too.
Now I’m just grossed-out. “Gross,” I say to them. Now I really want to go jacking, because that is just… And I stomp off toward the mike and flip them the “angel-ass” with the first two fingers and the pinky of my right hand. “Sluts,” I say behind me.
When Brie and Tessa catch up to me, I refuse to look at them. And the Bravo Mike is getting closer, and I can see the brown-suited Mexican Protection agents at the entrance—shit’s a little different in Cancun—PA’s are right out in the open. And I’m so pissed, I forget why I even care.
“What about the Blonde Bimbos?” Brie giggles. And I can tell she’s only half-trying to be serious.
Even though I think it’s a pretty good joke, I’m still annoyed. But I’m starting to remember something. “I’m not talking to you.”
Tessa leans next to me, puts both her arms around mine as she walks beside me. “You just did,” she whispers.
I try not to smile. “Or you,” I say to her. Then I slow down a little, because now I do remember. And before we have to sit in a cockroach-infested Mexican Protection cell again, while my dad waves credits to Raul the rapist—“Duh,” I say to them both, “you know I’m not drinking that without any T. Why don’t we just go—”
“Which is why…” Tessa says, and then she lets go of my arm and reaches into her big beach purse—she jacked it at the same place I did—and she pulls a pint-sized bottle of the brown sugary booze halfway out of her purse.
It’s a pretty stupid move—and I’m back to annoyed—because we are almost at the entrance to a “Mike” and—
Brie tries to grab Tessa’s hand and push it back into her bag. “Bitch,” she says to her, “put that away. Are you crazy?” And now all of us are looking around and Brie and I are serious, because we know. Waving a 3D holo around is one thing—everyone knows a wave tablet is worthless to anyone but the person it’s voice-matched to—but contraband liquor? Gold’s cheaper.
I don’t think Tessa was even thinking about it. “Ow,” she says. And she twists away from Brie as she walks and shakes her hand off of her. “Get off me, bitch. It’s just T.”
“And this is a Black Market in Mexico,” I say to her, “and that shit’s—how did you get that, anyways?”
Tessa laughs. “Mute,” she says. “And stop being a bitch to me. I was just jacking with him. It’s not like I—”
I stop, and both of them stop with me. And now I’m scared. “That’s not what I—I don’t care about that!” I look at the bottle of contraband booze in Tessa’s hand. “What are you think—”
“Aaaah!” Tessa yells, and then she falls down, face first, flat on the ground. And a kid runs past us faster than I think the little brat should be able to. And he’s got, like, tan burlap for clothes, or some shit. Mexi-jacker! I think.
And he is fast as hell and I look at his feet, pounding the dust as he runs. He’s got no shoes. But what he does have, is Tessa’s bottle of Tuaca in his hand, and he’s booking it straight at the Bravo Mike gate.
“You little bitch!” I yell at him. And I frown, but then I smile. Corrupt Protection gate guards or not, jacking right out in the open…? The gate agents are gonna mess him up. But the little jacker jets right past them and they don’t do anything.
“Mother—bitches!” Brie yells at the Protection agents. And she’s down on her knees, trying to help Tessa get back up.
And Tessa isn’t saying anything. She’s just kinda moaning a little. Little shit, I think. But the little jacker just saved us the trouble of trying to get rid of that bottle. Then I look back at the ga
te and the Protection agents are walking toward us.
Brie holds up her hand at me. “Em?”
I look at her hand and at first I don’t get it, because it’s just got clumped-up sand and dirt on it, but when I look closer … it’s covered in blood.
“Great,” I say, “now we gotta go to the hospital. This is just—” But when I look at Tessa’s back, there’s a little slit just above her swim-mini and it’s pumping dark blood.
Liver, I think. Because, like I said, I’ve seen that before, too. “Tess!” I yell down at her. And I drop down on my knees next to Brie. And she’s pulling on Tessa, trying to roll her over. And I grab on too and I look into Brie’s eyes as we roll Tessa over. And I can tell Brie is shitting—there’s no faking fear. “We gotta get her up and to a med—”
But when we get Tessa on her side, she’s not screaming or crying or yelling in pain, or anything. Her eyes are rolled back and they should be white, but they’re like, totally black. And then her whole body shakes like crazy.
I hold Tessa’s body down, but Brie lets go and kicks herself away a little. “Judgment,” she says. And then she stops scooting. “Oh bitch…”
I know what she means—little jacker stuck Tessa with Sleep Syrup, too much of it. And if the liver wound doesn’t kill her… I look back at the Protection agents, running at us now, and I scream, “She’s stabbed! … Judgment! Juicio-juicio!”
I know, you little shits are right—I am—I was stupid. But there was nothing we could’ve done anyways.
— LXXX —
JUMP FLEW, BEATING his huge gray wings in long, powerful strokes, pushing his great steel feathers against the snowflakes that fell from the clouds above the Great Mountain of the Eternities.
The air around the mountain was ice cold. When he did catch up with Fury, there was going to be some hell. No angel in the second heaven liked being out in the cold. And the ruler of Hell having to fly through it?
Not that it would stick to Jump’s feathers. His blood boiled so hot that Salvation worried he would melt the snow right off the peak of the mountain. But he was the Great Dragon, and archangel “search and salvation” was not in his job description.
Jump looked over at Salvation, flying beside him. “She’s not out here in this,” he said. “This is total—when we find her…”
Jump’s wingtip scraped against Salvation’s and she banked a little to avoid colliding with him. He tended to drift in the direction he was looking when he flew. “Careful,” she said. “Don’t make me pull your license.”
Jump banked hard into her path and Salvation pulled up and spun around him to avoid crashing. Then she drifted back behind him a little.
“I’ll give you something to pull,” Jump crowed back at her.
Salvation shook her head and smiled. Her man was testy. They needed to find Fury or she would spend the rest of the day listening to him rant. “Careful,” she cawed at him. “I’ll have to get you glasses, too.”
Jump must not have heard her, because he didn’t even look back.
Salvation scanned the mountain. She zoomed her vision into every crack and crevice of the valleys below it. There were flowerites, treetippies, and snow leopard fairyflies—their big white and gray wings camouflaging them against the rocks and white on the slopes of the mountain—all of Rain’s favorites as a child. Well, not the fairyflies. Rain created those after Salvation explained to her that she would have to create something for real snow leopards to eat. That would mean lambs for them to slaughter. And judging dead souls in the arena was one thing, but creating animals just so something could rip their guts out for breakfast? A child didn’t understand that.
So Rain made them into fairyflies and gave them slopes of snow-grass to munch. There were lots of living beings on the mountain that Rain had created during the genesis of this new eternity … but there was no angel Fury.
It began to snow harder. Once that started, Salvation knew it would be days before Rain made the sun come back out. It was as ironic as Hell being the second Heaven, but Rain loved Christday snow, too.
“I don’t think she’s out here,” Salvation screeched in front of her. She flapped her wings hard to catch up to Jump. It was difficult. His wings were so big that no angel in Heaven or Hell could catch him if he was at full speed. Except for the one they were looking for, that is. Luckily they weren’t attacking anything today, so her husband’s pace was manageable. “We should check the arena,” she shouted through the snowflakes.
“You know she’s not in there,” Jump cawed back. The touch of annoyance in his voice had turned to a slap. “When I get my hands on—”
Salvation dove and then used her speed to pull up—right in front of Jump—and she flew as fast as she could toward the top of the mountain.
And Jump frowned, spun upside down, did a couple of loops, and then powered in front of her.
Then she followed him in silence all the way through the rotating, transparent domed roof of the great Hallowed Hall.
They tried to avoid it as long as they could, but they both knew where they had to check next. It wasn’t the arena.
Jump rubbed his foot across the chipped diamonds and rubies on the floor of the Arena of Reckoning, remembering the spot where he had torn Life apart and then had his heart ripped from his chest by his own daughter. Then he looked up and toward the edge of the field.
The stars above the transparent roof made the gemstones of the arena sparkle, and they cast tiny reflections into the grandstands. The long, railed perches in the grandstands were usually filled to bursting with the steel armor and feathers of the fallen and the faithful of the two Heavens, all of them cawing for judgment, justice, and in some extreme cases … jail.
He and Salvation stood side by side, as they once had, in the middle of the arena, silently eyeing the portal entrance to the dungeons below.
The arena was a wild and barely controllable place on judgment nights. Long screeching and cawing matches, where dark and light souls were judged. Condemnation or salvation was delivered with equal fury. None who passed through the great Pearl Gate—the bright, pearl-covered portal entrance from and to the garden—were ever the same after, and all were required to endure.
Rain had wanted to change the process—it seemed far too violent to her—but in the end, harder souls prevailed. Jump had asked Salvation to speak to their daughter about the ways of the world of the old Man-monkeys … and those of Rain’s new creations. For every species he could think of, from the old eternity to the new, only grew stronger through struggle.
That wasn’t quite the way he put it when he fumed at Salvation by the lake of fire. She smiled at him, remembering his words.
“They gotta be tough,” he had told her. “Go tell your daughter I’m not letting any pee-pissing purgatories stink this place up.”
Translating understanding and meaning between Rain the innocent and the Great Dragon of cynicism… Salvation had her hands full most days. She looked at the spot on the arena floor.
During the Battle of the Books, Salvation was smote there and her feathers had been burned to a powdered ash around her. Remembering the pain still made her feathers prickle, and she reached next to her and held Jump’s hand. She squeezed into his metal pinfeathers … just hard enough.
Jump looked down at Salvation’s hand on his. She had a firm grip, tighter than when she held it on judgment nights. And he followed her gaze to the spot on the arena floor. “Still a bitch, huh?” he said.
Salvation nodded her head and continued to stare. “Like it was yesterday. She is such a…”
Once Rain resurrected Salvation from the ashes of Life’s lightning bolt, Jump had raged for the one responsible to be ended by annihilation. A judgment that only Rain could render. But his daughter had other plans for the “Chosen One” and her dark angel, Lived. So, locked in the dungeon they were, condemned to a fate Rain believed worse than annihilation.
Jump did not agree. “If she won’t do it, I’m going to r
ip her apart again,” he said. Then he walked toward the portal to the dungeon.
Salvation pulled back on his hand. “That won’t change a thing,” she said. “You’ve done that—she always … she will never… Nothing good comes from fighting with her. She just resurrects worse.”
Jump stopped at the end of Salvation’s outstretched arm. He stared at the portal. “I’m not after good,” he said. Then he looked back at his wife. He was wild-eyed and thirsting for the blood of the benevolent. “I’m after gone.”
Salvation knew how to handle her man. She smiled, stepped toward him and pulled his hand behind her back, and then she hugged him and ran her fingers through the pinfeathers on his head with her free hand. As she stared behind him, silently assuring him that she was okay, she caught a shimmer of light at the edge of the arena. “Remember…”
Then the portal to the dungeons twisted open and out fluttered a familiar figure. The portal twisted shut behind the dark shape.
Salvation watched as the angel fluttered, meandering playfully like a little purgatory with a new fresh frock of feathers. But bathed in shadow, illuminated only occasionally by sparkles from the gemstone floor, it was hard for her to be certain. And then there was the way he was flying. The archangel that Salvation knew hadn’t shown a spark of light since … she couldn’t remember when.
Jump had calmed down a little. “Remember what?” he whispered into her ear.
Salvation continued to watch the figure flit and flap. “Father Ben?” she muttered. She had never gotten used to calling him by his new angelic name, Faith. “What’s he doing down…?”
Jump let go of Salvation’s hand and pulled her other one out of his head feathers. Then he turned around to see. At first he didn’t say anything, because from the way that the angel was flying, there was no way it was him. He zoomed his gaze in on the figure. Then he smiled, remembering the little priest that had poured molasses over his wounds on the floor of his church.
The father, Faith, had been a little “tin-tit sucking boozehound,” Jump had called him back then. A faithless clergyman who had resorted to carrying a flask of State swill with him wherever he went. Jump had only seen him a handful of times since the old geezer’s Book of Blood had overthrown Life and that long-licker, Lived.
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 32