When I pulled the dripping plastic bag out, Barbara put her hand over her mouth and gagged a little.
I chuckled at her. “Funny what makes you sick to your stomach, isn’t it,” I said. “For instance”—I’d had enough—“after four years, this bag is as precious to me as my dog was.”
“I never knew you had a dog.”
“His name was Max,” I said to her. I wiped the bag on my sweats, opened it up, and pulled out my ragged and well-read copy of God’s own Word. “And he was the last loyal soul I ever knew.”
Barbara’s eyes watered even more. “Benito?” she said, but I didn’t trust her.
I flipped open my little Bible to the verse that got me through most days, and I read it to her, “ ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.’ I used to think of you every time I read that,” I told her. It was the truth, because though God never appeared during my four-year imprisonment in pain, Barbara visited me every night. I figured the verse was more appropriate for her. It wouldn’t be my last mistake with her. “Why are you even here?”
“Please,” she said, “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” I said. I held up the book. “This book, it’s full a lies, too. Page after page of things that … just aren’t true. And then you—I don’t know what to believe in now. Maybe I should write a book about you ripping out my heart. At least that would be the truth.” It was more than one truth, and two more than I’d ever read in the Bible.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. “I just—”
“I already forgave you,” I said. “What else do you want from me?”
“There’s a new bishop coming,” she said, “to replace Father D—Dominic. I don’t know what they’re gonna do with you.”
“You mean you don’t know what they’re going to do with you.” Deep inside, my inner voice told me that I would protect her no matter what it cost me. It had proven that. And my Shandian mind was silent—it knew too. “You want me to pray for you then?” I asked her.
“No!” Barbara shouted at me. “You’re … you’re just a idiot, and … and I don’t need no prayer.”
“Well,” I said, “I’ll pray for myself then.” And I knelt down on my bed mat and closed my eyes. “Be angry at your friends, but do not sin against them. And do not let the sun go down on your anger, lest you give opportunity to the devil.” I figured we could both use something literal.
— CCI —
SHANNON REACHES DOWN and grabs me by my wounded arm and I wince and try not to make any noise. Once I get to my feet, I stare down at the axe blade buried in the street. The rain sizzles and turns to steam as it hits the blade and the remaining glow of red hot lava—blood from the beast slowly cools in the unrelenting rain. “That is a nasty…”—I look at Shannon—“where in Heaven…? Where were you? Why didn’t you come and help—”
“It be your God what put muttons in her own garden, she did,” says Shannon, “sowin’ and growin’ weeds while you monkeys wank on your williams. And here to mow it, I ain’t. You and me, Benito, we’re here to plow it under. Soon as you muster your molasses, that is. I don’t fancy I’ll be staying for the ending any longer than he will. A right mean offspring, he is—the Devil’s own darling.”
He’s right about running out of time, because the angel in the pews of my church? “Who … is he?” I ask.
Shannon smiles his big mustached grin at me. “Your Judgment, he is. A right fine one at that.”
Shannon’s little potbellied pig squeals and runs up behind him. And Shannon doesn’t even look back when the little demon-angel turned back to pig jumps at him. He just catches it under his arm, and then he starts scratching it between the ears again.
“He likes that?”
“Indeed he does, mate,” Shannon says. Then he looks down at the pig. “Still got your bacon then?”
The pig grunts and squeals a tiny squeak.
Shannon laughs and looks at me. “Says he saved your bacon right enough.”
Lucinda’s voice speaks behind me. And she’s back to the language of the Mike. “How’s a lady to suck tenth teat to that, then?” she says. “Burnin’ and boilin’ bacon—no better smell in me nostrils. It ain’t fair, Shannon—that gruntin’ little cunt … always curryin’ your favor. Slayin’ dragons and demons and all manner of devil, he is.” She smiles at us both—all three—as she walks up. And I don’t know whether she’s talking about me or Shannon’s little pet pig. Maybe both of us.
I grip my arm as the Mike burns down to a crackle and blood flows from my wound. I moan a little and wince at the pain in my arm.
Lucinda—at least I think she’s back to human—reaches over and faster than any of us can react, she plucks a hair off of the little potbelly’s tail and it turns to a brown iron feather right in front of my eyes. Apparently Shannon’s grog has got a ways to go before it lets go of me.
And Lucinda blows on the quill and it glows up to red hot.
Shannon chuckles. “Mind him with the fire then, love,” he says to her. “He might not—”
And Lucinda grabs my arm and sears the feather along the entire length of my wound. And I scream out, but she keeps at it. My flesh sizzles and the smell… I remember the smell of my own burning flesh. And when she lets go of me I lean over and vomit out a huge stream of black.
“Aw, for Satan’s sake, Lucifia,” Shannon says. “I warned—you are a right vicious vixen, you are. I bet his own lovely lady wouldn’t burn him like that.” He thinks for a second. “Literally, I mean. She be a burnin’—”
“Oh, shut up then, ya monster,” she says to Shannon, “he’s fine.” She points at the ground—at my blood, glowing dark in the night and the flames of the aftermath of the Mike. “There ya go then, his miserable monkey molasses.” She glances at the axe, buried in the street, and then back down at my vomit. “Took the Blood Weeper to wick it back out of him, but there it is, sure enough.”
I stare down with her. My blood doesn’t just appear black in the dark Mike night … it is black. “Molasses?” I mutter. “Blood Weep-what?”
“Blind and deaf then, are ya?” Lucinda says to me. Then she looks at Shannon and shakes her head. “You sure he’s the right monkey? Next, you’ll be boiling ’bout he can’t write.” She chuckles a little. “Wouldn’t that be an ironic irritation.”
“Come on then,” Shannon says to her, “stop pizzing about nippin’ at him. He’s got the blasphemy buried in his own basement, he has. Don’t you worry about that none, love.” He pauses for a second and sniffs the air. “And he’s got about thirty-three a me feathers to find his way back to his memory of it. So instead a wellin’ up our ears with more of your wicked wailing, why don’t you help him scoop up his molasses and fly his feathers back to his faith.”
I’m… I don’t even know how to react. But I’ve remembered something—jarred thoughts brought on by who knows what hallucination I’m having. Shannon’s grog, my Shandian mind says. And that’s that—I’m swearing off his liquor cabinet no matter how good it tastes, because this is by far the longest hallucination I’ve ever—
I just catch a flash of Lucinda’s—and her three-fingered hand’s on my temple and the other one’s on my chin and she—
She’s going to kiss you! my inner voice shouts. I don’t know if Shannon is going to like it. I know I wouldn’t like anyone kissing—
Her mouth opens up. A bright white light bursts out and then her lips are across mine and it feels like the entire eternity rushes into my mouth. My eyes roll up and I shake uncontrollably and I fall, but she catches me and lowers me down into the puddle of my own black blood.
“Monkey molasses,” she says. “Flyin’ through fog—it’s a bleedin’ bitch, it is. Why’s it me then?”
“Well, me pig’s not doin’ it, now is he?” Shannon voice is fading, and I’m slipping backward into the black. “Piz … go … fetch … me … grog … glass.”
— CCII —
THEY… WHOEVER THEY were, they kept me in my cell at Saint Samuels for four more years. I was eighteen before they released me—made me a priest and gave me my own church. Those years were far less brutal, but I would have welcomed a beating if they’d just let me go outside to feel the rain on my face … even once.
The very next night after I had said the prayer against her, Barbara came to see me in my cell again. But right before she got there, I heard her talking to someone out in the student dormitory corridor.
I could tell it was a woman, not a booming bald blasphemer like Father D. This voice was younger and sweeter and gentler. I found myself fearing for her, listening to Barbara’s words, because when the woman spoke to her, Barbara offered none of her trademark sarcasm and spit back. And I’d come to understand that Barbara only acted that way when she wanted something.
“I don’t love him,” Barbara’s voice burned into my ears as painfully as any PI’s torch had ever burned my back. “I just… You’re not gonna kill him, are you?”
At least she doesn’t want you dead, my inner voice heckled me. It was small consolation, and I wondered if Barbara wasn’t asking the question so much as making a suggestion.
“Oh, Heaven in the Garden, Sister,” the woman’s voice said, “no, we aren’t going to kill him. Not today.” The pause felt uncomfortable, like that was exactly what this woman was going to do one day. “And you will love him … in time,” she said to Barbara. “However, today you will set his soul on the path to redemption.”
“With a book?” Barbara had said. It was as respectful as I’d heard her be. Then I heard the rustling of pages. “But there ain’t nothing written in it.”
“Our Lord’s sheep shall hear the voice in this book,” the woman’s voice said, “and your young priest will know its words, and then we will all follow. For God gave you children eternal life, Sister, so that you will never perish. But our Lord shall snatch that out of her hand.”
By the time Barbara’s face appeared between the bars on the door to my cell, the woman she had been speaking with was gone.
“You hear all that?” Barbara asked.
“Yes,” I said. If she wanted to lie to me, that was her business. I vowed to tell her nothing but the truth.
She held onto the book with both hands. “I knew you was listening.”
“So … my book,” I said to her.
Barbara held up a huge leather-bound book. I could only assume from her conversation that it had nothing written in it.
I picked up my five-gallon privy and tilted it toward her. “Not that book,” I said. “Where’s my Bible?”
“They … made me take it away from you.”
And I knew the answer, but I wanted her to know that I would never again participate in her betrayal. “How did they know I had it?” I said, glaring at her.
“Don’t be that way, Benito,” she said. “They’re sending me to the Mike tomorrow.”
“I doubt that,” I said. “Now give me my book.”
Barbara held the book up in front of her, like she wasn’t going to hand it over without some kind of payment.
I reached through the bars, grabbed onto the big leather spine, and jerked it out of her hands. Had she already figured out what that payment was, I believe she would have held onto it harder. She let me take it without protest.
When I opened up the big book, the pages were tan and ancient and just as I had overheard, they were completely blank.
I thumbed through the parchment a few pages. The pages didn’t even make sound as they flipped past my thumb. The room was more silent as they turned.
I closed the book, looked back at Barbara, and then I held out my hand—I had nothing to write with.
Barbara hesitated a little and gave me a look like she had no idea what I wanted.
I just stared at her, continuing to hold out my hand.
Then she smiled an evil grin and reached beneath her habit. She pulled out a metal quill pen and handed it toward me, but when I went to grab it from her, she jerked it back and my fist missed. Then she threw it through the bars and it clinked across the stone floor of my cell.
I didn’t look down at the pen. “And the ink?” I asked.
Barbara turned her back to me, showing me the truth side of her. “They didn’t gimme none,” she said.
“What am I going to write with then?”
“Write it with your shit for all I care, Benito,” she said. “You like playing around in it so much.”
I turned around and picked up the long pen. The end of it looked like the end of an arrow and it was very sharp.
“You’re smart,” Barbara said. Then she walked away. The last thing she said to me was, “you’ll figure out something.”
I eyed the tip of the metal quill, and then I touched it with the end of my finger. And the quill sliced into my finger like Barbara’s words had cut into my heart, and I bled just the same … exactly the same.
— CCIII —
I WAKE UP from my “trip” to the Mike, back on the floor of my own church. The rain is drizzling down through the hole in the roof, backlit by helicopter searchlights, and the dripping sounds are accentuated by explosions in the distance.
Drone strikes, my Shandian mind says. For certain the loss of an entire platoon of Protection agents, not to mention one of their MARR’s, would warrant an Avenger drone strike.
My thoughts are confirmed when two more explosions rock the city in the direction of the Mike. Hellfuries, my inner voice says. Those are Protection’s favorite missile of choice.
But was any of it real? My question is answered by a grumbling groan on the floor several feet away from me. My vision’s a little blurry and I touch my face to adjust my—but my glasses are gone. I touch my pocket and it tells me that in addition to my flask… Why are they in my pocket?
I pull them out, wipe them, and put them back on. The angel is still on the floor of my church and it still has a cross through its stomach, but it’s not dead.
Another groan from the huge bird of prey tells me he is far from dead. I look at the clock on the wall over the exit to the street. Only a few minutes… “Molasses?” I mutter. I’m in it deep now.
I look around me and sure enough, there is a gallon of Shannon’s—Grog? My Shandian mind tells me that may not be what’s in the big gallon-sized genie bottle next to me. I can only hope it’s not filled with the same thing we were drinking in his shop.
I’ve blacked out on a bender before, but this one’s—Focus!
The screech ends the reprimand that my Shandian mind is about to give me, and I grab the bottle of “molasses” and kneel next to the big angel. I still can’t believe it.
I work on its stomach for a few minutes—pushing and shoving entrails back where they came from.
There’s something in my mind—a long-forgotten warning … or riddle … or Colonel-ism I can’t quite recall. Hide behind weakness, Benito, my Shandian mind says, and I remember.
When this big brute does wake up… Whatever comes next, I’m pretty sure that the best thing I can do to fulfill my part of this entire plot is to pretend I have no idea what is going on.
The angel groans again and then opens its eyes. The light that didn’t get blown out from the caved-in roof shines in its eyes, and he squints and then looks at me curiously.
“I’m sorry,” I say to him.
The angel groans a little and then says, “Dammit!”
I think about reprimanding him, but then I just tell him to conserve his energy.
When he replies… “Fuck you,” he says to me.
Now I’m sure that my decision to remain meek instead of manly is the right strategy. Regardless, I’ve had enough of dealing and debating with angry angels for one day. Better if this one thinks I’m not worth fighting. Besides, I know what he wants anyway—I wrote him.
— CCIV —
WITH HER DAY Star Luc
ifer’s plot freshly quelled, Life sat on the throne in her chamber and pondered her victory. Two Golden Guardians stood on either side of her.
Something sinister was shrouded. She couldn’t quite push her mind to it. As delectable a demon as Life thought him to be, Lucifer was not one to suffer defeat in silence. Her Day Star would answer.
“But how?” Life spoke softly to herself.
The guards did not even stir to answer.
Life glanced at them. “Dreadful demon stands sequestered for sin of sedition,” she said, “yet … I sense the point of plot’s pen … remains immersed in ink.”
She stood up and fluttered her wings, hovering for a second in front of her guards before buzzing outside to the great mountain. And then Life stared down at Eden’s garden, into the dense mist above Lucifer’s latest battleground, Seattle. “My sister’s keeper…” she said, nodding her head slightly. Then she thought of her own warmark—her orange shining sun. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Your miserable fog refuses to yield to saintly salvation from the sun,” she muttered. “Though I have thrown designing devil in sibling’s dungeon … the earth of plot’s purpose sogs and slips from my grasp—rife with rain.”
Lucifer stood, wings around himself and his eyes watchful. He waited in his cell, deep in the Dungeons of the Damned. The first phase of his plot—there were three—had ended … perfectly. Salvation from his tormentor was but two breaths away.
He drank in the darkness and the damp and the misery that would ensue as a result … and he waited for his visitor. He knew she would arrive shortly.
The portal from the arena twisted open and a dark angel from Lucifer’s own past… By the time the angelic figure appeared in front of his cell, Lucifer could discern neither past nor present as his own time.
The angel flitted and then stood in the shadows across the tunnel from his cell. She folded her wings behind her and peered from the darkness at him.
TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3) Page 79