Power was like that—a big, fat, lazy bully that continually gorged itself on the misery of its faithful followers. It would grow and grow until it was such an obese behemoth of worthlessness that no one could remember the reason it existed in the first place. The trouble was, once they did figure it out, it was too late. Because a bully was only happy when it was beating the shit out of some ninety-pound weakling. And those weaklings were usually the very citizens it was supposed to protect.
The Fifty was the pinnacle of the rich and powerful’s domination over the weak and pitiful. A place where no one you knew would enter—if anyone even knew you were in there. For most, it was a lonely place where, if you weren’t crazy when you went in, you would wish you were by the time you got out. Few left on their feet.
The outside of the downtown sanatorium was a lonely-looking pillar—a big behemoth, completely out of place, crowded on every side by the high-tech, hyper-connected, mirror-skinned scrapers of the world’s new masters. But if someone were on the inside of the Fifty, there was only isolation.
Once inside, most prayed that they just lived through it—got back to their life. Or they begged for salvation or redemption or forgiveness—anything that gave them comfort to endure their daily misery. But no prayers were answered inside the Fifty’s damp, bloodstained walls.
In the Fifty, the Protection sentries that guarded the halls and cells would laugh at the praying “guests” and say, “You won’t find God in here, but He’ll find you.”
If someone was lucky, that was the truth. They would leave the Fifty in a big, black, rubberized body bag, zipped up on one of the facility’s many gurneys—rolling stainless steel tables that they were strapped to and then tortured. Tormented for three days for information, or because someone paid a sentry enough, or to train Protection agents in the art of interrogation, or just for the fun of a businessman with enough credits, taking his lunch break from a scraper across the street.
Credits… There was only one other class of people that had an all access pass to a Fifty—the clergy. More specifically, one of their representatives. And that’s just what Father Benito Octavio Benedetti was, a representative of his faith.
But on this day, he wasn’t there to save souls, and it wasn’t so that he could administer last rites and redemptions, though that was a job that was in desperate need of doing. No, the head priest of the largest church in the city was in charge of tending to the clergy’s “affairs” inside the sanatorium. His job was to make sure that anyone who the church paid to have sent inside … never came back out. And the clergy paid hefty sums of credits so that he could come and go as he pleased, unmolested by paperwork, procedures, or Protection agents, for that matter.
So no one even blinked when Father Ben swiped his Citizen ID badge—the magnetic card containing every last detail of his life—and no one said a thing when the security portal twisted open and he walked inside.
The nice middle-aged—though a little weathered for his time—priest with the soda-bottle thick glasses and the not-so-subtly hidden flask in his robe, walked right past the indifferent Protection sentry agents, and right by the scream-filled interrogation cells with the staring and stoic orderlies outside, then ambled nonchalantly past the sentry in front of the doctors’ private lounge, and finally sauntered between the two Protection sentries, standing at attention on either side of the two big wooden doors of the entrance to the pharmaceutical company’s private wing … just like he owned the whole place.
It was nothing out of the ordinary for Benito—he was ignored so often on his visits that some days he wondered if the “organization” he tended affairs for did own the building. The only difference from a hundred, maybe a thousand other trips he took to the Fifty was that on this day, it was Benito’s own “affair” he was tending to.
— LXXXVIII —
AS SOON AS Salvation told Jump that she had seen Faith flutter out the portal to the great dungeons… “You mean, before that little shit shot a fire-feather into my back,” Jump had reminded her. He had a way of personalizing trouble.
Jump had actually flown to the other side of the arena, trying to pick up Faith’s scent so he could go “beat the living shit out of that backstabbing boozer.” But the putrid piss smell of fear was mixed with a smell so disgusting that even Salvation’s highly developed sense of smell couldn’t tolerate it long enough to follow. And that was a concern.
It took a little convincing on Salvation’s part—Jump wasn’t one to let go of a knife stuck in his back, figurative or literal—but she finally got him calmed down by explaining to him that if they were going to figure out why Faith had been down in the dungeons in the first place, they would probably need Rain’s help to do it.
That launched Jump off into a tirade about finding Faith, ripping out some of his flight feathers, and forcing him to tell them what was going on.
Salvation knew that there were dark things—darker than even the darkest archangel in Hell could conjure up in his head—left over in her husband from Life’s life, but ripping out flight feathers? “That’s just … wrong,” she had said. “You might as well geld him.”
Jump had been so pissed about the fire-feather in his back that he thought about doing that very thing.
Salvation had wondered so many times about her husband’s “occupation” when they were Man-monkeys in life, but she had somehow intuitively understood that she really didn’t want to know.
Well, she wanted to … but she didn’t. Because even in life, her husband had subtly warned her, “A pinch of curiosity … can get a whole lotta trouble pounded into you. The kind of trouble you wish killed you.” It was about as much as she ever got out of him.
In the arena, as was the case in most situations, calmer beaks prevailed, and Salvation led her wild demon of a husband to Rain’s throne room and then they waited while the golden guardians fetched her.
Jump stood outside on the huge stone steps, impatiently waiting for his daughter to grace them with her presence. He rubbed the wound on his lower back. Angels healed quickly, Jump quicker than most, but there was nothing quite like the sting from one of the faithful’s searing, steel feathers. Once a little purgatory got shot in the arena, they never made the shield mistake again.
But Jump had made that mistake. “Shot me in the back,” he mumbled. “Crazy old man shot me. Me.”
Salvation waited on the steps with him, more patient on the outside, but a torrent of anger on the inside. Someone would pay for shooting at them, judgment night would take care of that. But her man had gotten shot. “Yes, yes, someone shot at you,” she said. “Like that’s the first time.”
“Why do you always have to go disagreeing with me all the time? It’s just—”
“That’s not the right question,” Salvation said.
“Then what is?”
“The question is … why?” said Salvation. “And the father—Faith … of all angels? He has no—why would he do that?”
Jump frowned and shook his head slowly. “What was he doing down there, anyway?”
A familiar, bright-spiking light shined out of the throne room, and Salvation and Jump covered their eyes and then they both reached for their sunshields. A split second later, Rain fluttered out in front of them, her wings and entire body emanating brilliant white light. “I’m afraid that would be my fault,” she said.
Flanked on each side by two of her golden guardians, busy shading their own eyes with their wings and reaching for their own “God-goggles,” it was like visiting the queen … just like it.
“Your fault?” Jump said. “You told him to shoot at me?” He had no idea what to do about it, but it pissed him off anyway. So he looked at Salvation and did what he always did. “You believe—what are you going to do about that? She had him shoot me. She is just—that is some disrespectful shit.”
“He shot at both of us,” Salvation reminded him. Then she ignored Jump’s rant and looked at Rain. “Who’s down there?” she asked. “Oth
er than those two?”
“I don’t give a fuck who’s down there,” Jump said. “I got shot.”
Rain giggled at her father. “Your feathers look fine to me.” Then she looked at her mother. “Seriously, he is like a child.” She looked back at Jump. “Stop angel-aching like a little purgatory,” she said to him. Then she looked up at the roof of the Hallowed Hall. “You are upright, the stars are shining, you have a wonderful wife—everything is right in your eternity.”
Jump knew it wasn’t. “Okay, okay,” he said, “you two wanna play dump on Jump with yourselves, go right ahead. But this has turned into more than a little game of hide and seek the sinner. And me getting shot right after, by that little tit-sucker—and before you even start”—he held up his hand at Rain—“I’m talking about the booze, so don’t get your pinfeathers in a wad. I’ve had enough annoying little quills for one day.”
Salvation and Rain stared at Jump. And Rain tried not to grin when she said, “What are you referring—”
“Oh, hell no,” Jump said, frowning, “I’m not finished, not by a long—you sit back and you listen to me crow for a while.” Then he looked back at Salvation, now standing with her arms crossed and her hips cocked to the side. “I don’t know who you two think you’re dealing with, but we’re deep into my realm of expertise now. You know better—missing children and backstabbing priests. I know that kinda shit … all too well. It never changes and I told that little—I told Fury not to go messing around with things more evil than her.”
“Who—what evil things?” Rain asked. “What was she asking?”
Jump jerked his head toward Rain. He was pigeon-bobbing now—it always happened right before and right after a good fight. “You missed a few things back in life, sweetie,” he said. “Probably time to catch you up.”
“Now?” Salvation asked. She didn’t know if she was ready for Jump to have the “talk,” much less stand there while he did it.
“That’s just—” Rain frowned and scrunched up her face at her father. Then she looked at Salvation, standing as uncomfortably as a mother could, listening to her husband explain the “angels and demons” to her only daughter. “Mother, you did that with—ich!”
Jump laughed a little. It was his turn to lean on Rain’s comfort zone. His wife’s too, when he thought about it. Doing it was one thing. Talking about it after…? He shook his head and smiled at Salvation. “More than once.”
“Jacob!” Salvation said. It was all too much. “That’s enough—it’s just—it’s TMI.” Fury taught her that little saying.
Jump frowned at her—he knew. “There’s no such thing. You see, that’s the trouble with … every—every damn thing, if you ask me.”
It was another rant. Salvation saw it coming. Rain did, too. Somehow both of them knew that in between the screaming and cussing—the crowing and cawing about justice and tyranny—there were little tidbits of truth, sprinkled through the anger. And if they listened closely, there were also hints about who Salvation’s husband and Rain’s father had been. Way back, before this half eternity, before the end of the last eternity, before he was just an angry citizen sick of the system. Because if they listened carefully they knew that a long, long time ago, Jump—Jacob Blake—was the system.
So they both listened, stood silent while Jump explained the facts of Life’s life … the real ones.
“Everyone always trying to cover shit up,” Jump muttered. “Hiding and scurrying like little rat-monkeys, stealing some other rat’s meal. Buncha pigeon-toed pussies, pretending to be tough guys, passing laws and pounding on people every damn way they can.”
And that might have been a little too far into Rain’s comfort zone. “Careful, Father.”
Jump barely broke stride in his sermon. “Careful,” he said, “gets you killed, little girl. You go getting too careful—beg for too much protection from … from every scary thing you think might happen. Pretty soon, only way to “protect” you is to lock you up—remand you—protect you from yourself. Because if you’re that big a pussy, then what good are you to the rest of us?” It wasn’t a question. “And once I do that… After I’m totally responsible for delivering for your whole existence … well, then I just own you. And that, ladies, makes you a goddamn slave.”
CRACK!
Rain’s bolt of lightning sent Jump flying backward. It wasn’t meant to kill him, just remind him. “I’ve warned you about blasphemy!” Rain shouted. “There is no purpose—”
“There’s a purpose, Rain,” Salvation said. Then she walked over to her daughter—Jump would be fine. Arrow in his back was worse, she thought. And she put her hands up to hold Rain’s shoulders. When her daughter recoiled backward and gave her mother a “Rainly” look, Salvation put her arms down. “Forgive me, however … you might want to listen to your father, once in a while. He is right about more things than you could possibly know.”
Jump was just getting to his feet, dusting himself off. Only half paying attention to what Salvation was saying, because whether it could kill him or not—and battle after battle had proven that it couldn’t—lightning stung like a bitch. But he caught that last part, and it caught him off guard. “Thank you,” he said. And that surprised even him, and he stood straight up, wide-eyed, and looked at them both, like a little kid who had just said the “F” word for the first time. “Yeah, well … anyway… And stop hitting me with the damn lightning. It hurts.”
Rain looked at him with more empathy than Salvation had ever seen. “Father,” she said, “I am… I should not have—”
“Yeah, you should—”
“Jacob!” Salvation shouted. Then she raised her wings and her feathers fluttered a little toward Rain. And she motioned with her head, too.
Jump looked at his daughter. God or not, the little girl inside her was feeling guilty. “Yeah…” Rant all day about idiots—easy to find the words for that. Comfort his—reassure the protector of Heaven and Hell that everything would be okay? … Not so easy to wail words for that. “I’m fine—I can take a punch. Just don’t do that a—”
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Salvation said to him. “That’s not what she needs right now. What she needs now, is a plan. So unless you have one buried inside one of your little speeches, you need to stop talking and we’ll figure it out ourselves.”
“Damn…” Jump said. He looked at them both. Salvation was serious, but he knew that she didn’t understand the depths of the evil he smelled when they went to try and find Faith. There was only one angel in Heaven or Hell who smelled like that, and Salvation didn’t know why she was right, but they were damn sure wasting time getting to him.
“Do you have a plan, Father?”
Jump walked back to the steps. Then he spread his wings as wide as they would go. And neither Rain nor Salvation had seen him do it anywhere but in the arena… Though that wasn’t entirely true, because Salvation had seen it at the Battle of the Books, but that was so long ago.
Jump’s wings caught fire and he pushed the flames up high above all of their heads and let them burn and smoke for a few second before he let the inferno die down to a campfire-sized flicker of flame. “Yeah, I got a plan,” he said, nodding. Then he smiled the wicked grin that made Salvation both excited and scared screechless at the same time. “Time to fight fire … with fury, ladies.” And he turned around—wide wings trailing flames and smoke as he did. “Time to go dick with the devils in the dungeon.”
“Shit…” someone said behind him. Who said it? … Any angel’s guess.
Salvation flapped her wings and swooped around the edges of the Arena of Reckoning, just in front of the normally pigeon-packed grandstands, slicing her razor sharp flight feathers through the bathed-in-black air above the arena floor, warming up to play her part.
It was a decent plan, from what she knew of them anyway. She was only worried about one thing, and she flew faster and faster thinking about it.
Teaching Rain about the facts of the afterlif
e was one thing, but one of Fury’s classes, instructing new hatchlings in the theoretical operation of ballistic fire-feathers and their proper application during battle, never prepared a single one of the little purgatories for the first time they were penetrated by a burning hot quill. And gray, orange, or cherry-red hardly mattered—an innocent little purgatory, not to mention Salvation’s darling daughter—practically speaking, still a little naive young deity… The first time always hurt the worst.
If Rain’s part of the plan went poorly… Salvation swooped up in the air and screeched in anger. That was just not going to happen.
Jump stood on the floor of the arena and watched Salvation fly around the edges of the grandstands. She flew to the center, just below the roof, and then she swooped and swirled, and twisted and turned and dived at the arena floor like she was in a real battle.
It reminded Jump of the first time he saw her as an angel, screaming her way down out of the fog above Seattle to pick up that molester’s black soul. Jump still felt guilty about the whole thing. Of course he hadn’t known then, but it hardly mattered to his wife when he sunk his talons in her as she tried to collect Frank’s soul. She went bleeding and limping to who the hell knew where, while Jump used the evil bastard’s wriggling worm of a soul to get into Purgatory.
He yelled up at Salvation, “Hey, don’t overdo it.” Then he muttered to himself, “Can’t fly around in the dungeons anyway.”
And if they couldn’t, then he knew that he would have to rely on his talons if his plan went to pigeon-shit on them. He flipped them out—the ones on his feet, too—and he sharpened the ones on the tips of his fingers with one of his flight feathers. When he was satisfied that it could cut through steel like a feather through Faith’s head—he still had to get to that little prick—he cawed up at Salvation, “Get down here, will ya? It’s just about time.”
Salvation screeched back at him. She knew the time. The smell of lust was already starting to waft its way out of the dungeon and into her nostrils. After she swooped down and landed a few yards behind Jump, she walked up to him and said, “I swear to Christ—”
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 36