Salvation turned around and gave him her “look.”
“Come on,” Jump said, “I forgot to do the prayer. I’m sick of—why don’t you lead them this time?”
The purgatories loved Salvation’s prayers. They were long, but wild to listen to. The excitement ramped up and they flapped their wings, and cawed and cackled, hopping up and down on their perches.
Salvation grudgingly walked back beside the lake. They still had duties—responsibilities and rules to follow. “All right, all right,” she said. “Let’s see … which one? … Which one?” She glanced back up.
Jump knew that Salvation was still steaming over Life trying to take back the garden … and what it would have meant for Rain. So he wasn’t surprised at the long-winded prayer she chose. It wasn’t one of her standards.
“Oh, Rain our Protector…” she started slowly, so the newest ones could follow along.
Jump knew that one—chapter and verse—and he leaned back to enjoy listening to a rant for a change. Salvation had a different style than his—old-world ambiguity and long-winded waling, but if he listened closely, she buried the point underneath pretending to be nice. And that was one of his favorite things about her.
“Rain,” Salvation continued, “from whom vengeance we only borrow, and for all innocence that’s holy, show thyself. Lift up thy judgment under your power—find us redeemed yesterday from the eternity of our sins. O Rain, how long shall evil triumph over the wicked? How long shall they utter and speak hard things in Life’s name?
“Break in pieces Life’s evil angels, Rain, and afflict the heritage of Life—let insidious, vile evil die. Drown the deliverer of God’s gluttony in his own bile. For they slay the mother and the sister, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, Rain shall not see. Understand these most brutish among Life’s fallen and faithful.
“Yet, be merciful, Rain, on those fallen hearts who harbor only love’s envy. And be wise—know the thoughts of Life, that they are vanity. Teach us your laws that they may give us rest from these days of adversity, until the pit be dug deeper for the evil … than it was for the wicked. Will you, Rain, resurrect for the wicked, rise against great evil? Will you stand up for us against the workers of iniquity, while our souls dwell in wicked silence?
“For they gather themselves together to stand against your wicked in Hell, and they condemn your innocent followers to blood in Heaven. O Rain, rock of my refuge, bring upon them their own iniquity, and cut them off in their own evil. And, Rain almighty—Protector … we beg of you, cut off their heads and spike their evil hearts.”
Wide-eyed and silent, the little purgatories stared up at Salvation.
And Jump stared with them. It had been a while since he had seen his wife deliver a good fire and brimstone tongue-lashing. He had only heard about the one at the Battle of the Books. The way Fury had explained it.
Jump stopped and thought about her. He missed having another raging, angry angel around to bounce hate back and forth with. And he wondered how she was doing in her new role as the protector of the Protector. “Now, ya see that, you little shits,” he said to the silent little purgatories, “that’s how you deliver a declaration to kick someone’s ass. I’m not prone to all that pretty prose myself. Gutting, that’s what I like.
“Nothing like seeing the look on an evil bastard’s face when you show him his guts. But … that’s just me, you … you get out there on your first flight, you don’t have to go gutting and grinding right off the bat. Find your own style—put a little fear in someone’s hearts before you tear them out. Trust me, it helps calm you down.”
— CXLVII —
THE GOLDEN GUARDIAN archangel, Fury, flexed her new, gilded wings, tightened her golden feathers, and tiptoed up the steps inside the throne room of her Protector. The dust on the steps down to the library, scraped softly under her feet as she descended the secret entrance. Once she was beneath it, she crept forward.
A light flickered far down the long, arcing corridor, and she eased her way down the passageway, slowly walking toward the source as silent as she was able.
Fury glanced at all of the books along the walls as she crept—so much knowledge and so much understanding. Look at all the misery you’ve caused, she thought. She shook her head and frowned as she approached the source of the light.
Rain sat at her desk, reading the book. She felt the hand gently squeeze her shoulder. The grip did not surprise her—few things did after the Flight of the Fallens. Regardless, she knew Fury was coming. She had smelled her newest guardian since the redeemed archangel crept into her chamber upstairs.
Rain lifted one of her hands off her book and put it over Fury’s.
Fury leaned in close and rested her head on Rain’s shoulder. “Did you find the bitch yet?” she asked.
Rain squeezed Fury’s hand tighter.
“I can’t help it,” Fury said, “the fu—she’s out there like, plotting on you and shit. You know that. I just can’t let that go—I’m killing her. Don’t even think you’re stopping me from that. You watched that—you know what she did. I’m gutting her—end of this story.”
Rain let go of Fury’s hand and ran her fingers gently into her friend’s crown, massaging the feathers on her scalp. “Calm yourself,” she said, “that is how she fooled you in the first place.” She smiled down at her book and put both hands back on it. Then she frowned at the pages as she continued reading.
Misdirection—diversion and escape—Rain had been tricked by the same ruse that Life used on everyone else. So busy flying and finding and saving, that no one had noticed her slip out of the dungeons … with two hundred million warriors of her Word and her devil, Lived, back under her power.
Not that there weren’t billions of faithful and fallen left in Rain’s two Heavens, but that many dark and desperate angels was a concern, at the very least. Dynasties had toppled from the fire-feathers of far worse outnumbered armies, smashed upon the shields of blind believers, willing to die for a book. Rain was learning about that.
“Fooled?” Fury said. “I was—she made me—”
Rain giggled. It was easy to get Fury worked up. She was learning that too. “I am simply like … shitting on you,” she chirped.
Fury tried to frown, but could only manage a smile. She stood up. “Oh, that’s just,” she said, “so not right. You are getting meaner”—she smiled and bobbed her head slightly—“and I like that about you.”
Rain stood up and faced her friend. She shined brighter. “What else do you like … about me?”
Fury squinted behind her sunshields. “Mean and bad,” she said. “Look at you, hiding down here, pretending to be all blinding and benevolent and shit. Fooled… You’re not fooling anyone.”
Rain moved closer to Fury. “And yet…”
Fury’s feathers ruffled, clicking and scraping as she tightened them. “And yet, nothing,” she said. “That—”
Rain tilted her head slightly to the side. “Shh,” she said softly. “Boiling and boiling, always spoiling for a fight, my furious little guardian. Have you learned nothing?”
Fury relaxed a little, but she was still worked up. “I’ve learned that if we don’t go find her she’ll come back and—”
“There is time for her,” Rain said, smiling. “Does your blood not boil for … anything else?” Then she pulled back her plumage and moved closer.
Fury cocked her head toward the lake and listened hard. The voice was faint—she could barely hear it. “Is that…?” she said. Then she listened. “Salvation is like, delivering a sermon again … and it sounds… She’s not too happy with you.”
“I am aware,” Rain said. She put her arms around Fury’s neck. “She is not very patient after your fall. She wants me to take some action against … her.”
“Maybe you should,” said Fury. “Teach the bitch a lesson.”
“Maybe,” Rain said. “However … to the benefit of all. It is not some childish rhyme. I must protect the misguided as well as
the murderous monsters.”
“Why the…? Saving monsters,” said Fury, “I’ll never understand it. Why would you…?”
“I’ve told you, balance,” Rain said. “If the scales tip too far one way or the other, good becomes evil, and evil becomes good. So much so, that you might never tell the difference between them again. Now … shall we continue this conversation, or shall we…?”
Fury smiled, but looked back toward the fiery lake.
“Do you miss it?” Rain asked. “The lake? My parents? … My father?”
Fury turned and looked back at Rain. “I … I’m where I should be.” And then she pushed back her plumage.
— CXLVIII —
Life watched from the nothingness. Cast out of her own Heaven—an unacceptable fate. The garden belonged to her, not some whelp and her furious friend. Yet she had no need or desire to take it back herself. Such continuing wars were beneath the efforts of a queen. She would not reclaim the garden herself. And soon … she would not have to.
Life turned away, and then she pushed into her womb, bearing down as she screamed at her pet. “You are a dirty, filthy dog!” she yelled at him. “And when I am finished, I shall—” And she let out another loud screech and then a scream like an eagle. Then she let up and breathed quickly, and winced and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Stings, huh,” Dogg said, turning his head to the side a little to get a better look at his master’s opening. “I think he was right.”
Life looked up at Dogg and snarled. “Regarding what?” she asked.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have made this so painful,” Dogg said. “Looks like that’s coming back to bite you. But don’t you worry, everything’s gonna be fine … juuuust fine…”
Life scrunched up her face and bore down hard again. Then she screamed so loudly that Dogg had to howl along with her.
“Ow, ow, owooooah…” he howled, “Daaaaawwwwg!”
To think that her second child would be born of her insidious lust with this animal… When Life finished pushing this time, she spat at him and growled. “You are a disgusting canine,” she said. “I should never have created you.”
Dogg smiled back in his most evil grin. “Aw, that might hurt my little puppy feelings,” he said. “Anyway, I’m Man’s best friend,” he said. “If you wanted cute and cuddly, you should have made me a cat.”
Life smiled up at him. However vile he was, Dogg was a devious and delectable treat. He reminded her of… Even the thought of Steg made her long for him—not who he’d become, but the way he was—again. She would guard those feelings as she had once guarded the great dungeons. “If I were so inclined,” she shouted at Dogg, through the pain of another tight push, “I should have you gelded!”
Dogg laughed out loud. “You know us dogs,” he said. “Faithful to the commands of our masters. I’m just spreading your word, Your Majesty. Multiplying the fruit, so to speak.”
Life smiled a little. “Indeed…”
END OF TESTAMENT
Congratulations! You just finished FURY, the second installment in Steve Windsor’s THE FALLEN series.
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FAITH
THE FALLEN Book #3
TRIALS
— CXLIX —
“DO NOT SUPPOSE that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34).
When my mother first read that passage to me, I asked her what archangels were like. Because they sounded pretty scary to me. Like maybe God sent Michael to punish someone.
She smiled at me—laughed a little. Then she turned her head and stared out the window at my father down in the stock pens. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, “angels are no different from me or you. They read the Word … try to understand themselves,” then she mumbled a little but I heard every word like it was inside my head, “wonder if they’re doing the right thing.”
That was a long time ago and I was a different person back then. Now? … Well, you may think that I’m just a shaky old, alcoholic priest who has lost his faith … but things were not always this way.
So, before you rush to judgment—condemn Faith for the cowardly archangel you think him to be—this is my testament.
Way back before the need for it was rendered obsolete, the insurance leeches had a saying for anything that happened to a guzzler that they couldn’t blame on someone else. It was called an “Act of God.”
Hitting a deer at night, or a tree falling on your hood in your drivebay, or golf ball-sized hail dimpling up the metal on your roof like some kind of frog plague… All of that was hard to coax penance out of some other insurance sinner, or lay the guilt on their own pay-ing customer, so they called it an Act of God to make themselves feel better for cracking out the credits to repair one of their own insureds’ vehicles.
To an insurance institute, there were many different types of godly acts, and they were all as different and as random as I have since come to know God to be. But bloodsuckers didn’t care about the ones they drained … any more than a sinner cared about God, I suppose.
A shareholder report that looked too soft on profit and too heavy on helping would cause someone to have to answer to the only god that Man had left—credits. Since you couldn’t lop off God’s head for a bad quarterly credit summary, any claim that couldn’t be abdicated, abandoned, or aborted … got labeled “Act of God.”
However, one thing every “act” had in common was how they sounded when they happened … and what happened after.
Most every act of my once benevolent God began with a huge cracking crash that sounded just like lightning and ended with a terrible ton of damage to someone’s life or livelihood, sometimes both. I learned before I lost faith that if God was watching, the only time he would let you know was when he was very, very upset with his children. And when that happened, God, or whoever in Heaven was in charge of such matters, would usually send an archangel to remind his children just whose rules they were supposed to be following.
For the record, archangels are not very nice.
Like all acts of an angry God—and as I’ve told you, I now believe that there are few acts that aren’t angry—the beginning of my end came in the form of a huge crack and then a crashing sound that shook the very foundation of my own church … not to mention my long-overdue, fallen faith.
Though, when I think back on it, my faith came crashing down around me long before the roof of my church did. In reality, or the last eternity if you want to look at things that way, my faith was a glass house, blown to a seeming palace from the most fragile of grains of red hot sand. And like all glass houses, mine would be brought down by stones thrown from inside it … by my own weak-willed hand.
For a long time I thought that it was only one particular stone that had done most of the damage—the biggest one. That was the most obvious conclusion that anyone watching from the outside could come to. It was certainly the conclusion I had come to. Though, looking back through the passing of at least two eternities that I can remember, I started throwing rocks at my own faith before I ever be-came a religious man.
Where those rocks came from? Well, let’s just say that the streets of Seattle are not paved with emeralds.
— CL —
THE HUGE CRASHING sound is followed by the most piercing screeching I’ve ever heard, worse than my screaming classmates back at seminary. Those cries scared the faith right out of me. This screeching now might just put it back in.
My big mahogany desk shakes, lifts off the ground a little and slams back down. And I’ve dropped my glasses.
I turn my chair, lean over and look for them. I can see without them, but it’s … different. Without their assistance, it’s like peering through the bottom of a mason jar at evening meal—total kaleidoscope blur.
I’m sure I could get them “fixed”—my eyes, that is—but I’m not letting a State doctor put a nanochip behind my eye. I know better.
Another
loud, screeching scream and I almost fall out of my chair. I catch myself and go to my knees and start running my hands back and forth, frantically searching for my “eyes” on the wood flooring. It’s only a few seconds, but the screeching continues and it’s a hideous and haunting sound, more so because I can’t see normally.
When I find them—their little white outline against the light blue floor of my office doesn’t help—I put my glasses back on and remind myself that I shouldn’t be so vain about using the little chain she gave me to hold them around my neck. Vanity… Considering the “gift” in my pocket, worrying about how I look is not the worst of my sins. But I don’t think that it’s going away anytime soon. The vanity, that is. I know she’s not going away. Not today … maybe not ever. She’s my burden to bear. In the end, I’ll probably be carrying her to Heaven.
By now, I hope I have made peace with that, but the vanity has been haunting me the longest—caused more heartache than if I had been stronger. But there’s no time to reflect on any more of my sins, because now there is glass breaking out in the main hall of my church. I fear that the night vandals have found a new way to protest one of their perceived oppressors.
Perceived isn’t the right word, because the average citizen has precious little else to look forward to each day but oppressors. Most know to be careful speaking out against the ones that will snatch them up, and torture and kill them for even thinking about resisting.
Well, at least it is less assured that will happen if a frustrated citizen defies the Clergy. Not that it wouldn’t happen, but the church has bigger issues to deal with than some disgruntled citizens. If every sermon stopped to deal with every ache and anger that one of their flock had, there would be no time to pass the offering basket. The church, more importantly the Clergy, doesn’t stop the collections for the wages of sin simply because the citizens can’t afford them.
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