by Ember Hollis
Contents
Title
Copyright © 2019 Ember Hollis
Quote
Chapter 1: Heaven
Chapter 2: Heaven
Chapter 3: Heaven
Chapter 4: Heaven
Chapter 5: Heaven
Chapter 6: Heaven
Chapter 7: Heaven
Chapter 8: Heaven
Chapter 9: Heaven
Chapter 10: Heaven
Chapter 11: Heaven
Chapter 12: Heaven
Chapter 13: Heaven
Chapter 14: Heaven
Chapter 15: Heaven
Chapter 16: Heaven
Chapter 17: Heaven
Chapter 18: Heaven
Chapter 19: Heaven
Chapter 20: Heaven
Chapter 21: Heaven
Chapter 22: Heaven
Chapter 23: Heaven
Chapter 24: Heaven
Chapter 25: Knox
Chapter 26: Heaven
Chapter 27: Heaven
Chapter 28: Heaven
Chapter 29: Heaven
Chapter 30: Heaven
Chapter 31: Christian
Chapter 32: Heaven
Chapter 33: Heaven
About the Author
Heaven’s Fall:
Pandorax Academy Book 1
By
Ember Hollis
Copyright © 2019 Ember Hollis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.emberhollis.com
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
- William Shakespeare
Chapter 1: Heaven
I lean against the wall and frown at the handsome young policeman eyeing me from down the hall. He’s looking at me like he wants to come over and ask me if I’m all right. Whether I’m here because I’m in trouble. Stolen handbag maybe? Abusive boyfriend? Or perhaps I’m just here because I’ve lost my puppy or kitten. I can see him debating the options. What would be the most innocuous, yet chivalrous reason he could use to come over and get my number?
I can help with that.
Inwardly, I smirk while on the outside I gaze longingly at the coffee machine, then lift a hand to cover a yawn, making sure my body arches just right so my hourglass figure is displayed at its best. I can feel his eyes trail from my boobs to my butt, caressing them like an invisible hand. His lust is so palpable, he might as well be using a loudspeaker to send a wolf whistle my way.
Here he comes.
His footsteps click on the floor as he stalks by me, heading to the coffee machine. He gets a coffee, then twiddles his thumbs as it pours, before finally looking my way, as if he’d just noticed me for the first time.
I look at him and he jerks his head at the machine.
“You want a coffee?” he says, in that New York accent that just makes me want to laugh. I hesitate for a moment, then nod, allowing my lips to curl. It’s my innocent smile, the one that tells a man I don’t know what he’s about, but I trust him.
This one’s a good one, so I don’t layer it on too strong. But still, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.
He fills another cup then walks over to me and passes it over. The paper cup is hot, and I gasp as I jump and fumble with it, nearly spilling it. I stumble as he leans forward, his grip tightening on the cup so his fingers inadvertently close over mine. The coffee is saved, and we both laugh. I make sure to gaze deep into his eyes so we have a ‘moment’. He’s utterly ignorant of the fact that I’ve just palmed his badge. Who knows what mischief I can do with such a prize?
The door beside me flings open and I jump again. A woman with luscious deep red locks steps outside. Her lips are swollen and her cheeks flushed. Though she smells as fragrant as a newly bloomed frangipani, the suggestion of sex lingers about her, inevitably drawing my policeman’s eyes like magnets. I narrow my gaze at her as I pull my hand back. But it’s already too late.
“Heaven?” she frowns, her vibrant green eyes trained on me. “Give that man his badge back.”
“What ba—”
“Heaven!”
I pout but do as she says, slapping the silly man’s badge into his hand. His eyes widen and his face fills with surprise and indignation as he glares at me.
Yes, yes, how dare I?
As soon as I’ve done what she told me to, Mom takes my hand and pulls me down the hall. I cast a glance over my shoulder and note the police chief’s appearance in the door to his office. He’s tucking his shirt into his pants as he lords it over the policeman, a look of languid release about his face. He’s overweight and sweaty, with balding hair and a nose that could have been used as a truncheon.
“Really, Mom?” I scoff as we leave the station. “Don’t you have any standards?”
“I don’t want to hear a peep from you,” she growls. “Let me remind you that the only reason I had to come down here was because you were stealing again!” She throws open the door to my car and pushes me into the passenger seat, then snatches my car keys from my handbag before throwing it at me.
“Hey, I can drive,” I say, but she holds a finger up.
“Just. Don’t.”
She pulls out of the lot, scraping my fender against an adjacent police car, then nearly collides into a car as she joins the traffic coming from the main road. I squeeze my eyes shut until we’re in the lane, then reach back to grab the bags in the back seat. Celeste caught me, but I still have my haul from Victoria’s Secret. Loud honking and yelled obscenities trail us all the way to the hotel, but I distract myself from the possible destruction of my brand new Tesla by eye-balling my new pretties.
They’re not nicer than the hundreds of other things I’ve got up in my room in the penthouse, but the fact that I just took them for nothing sends a shiver down my spine. Mom glares daggers at me while I run silk through my fingers and brush the lace against my lips.
“I got some in your size too,” I smile at her, using the throaty voice she reserves for men, wiggling my shoulders to make the bra I’ve fastened over my top jiggle.
“That’s it!” She slams her foot on the breaks. I’m not sure if she’s really that bad of a driver, or whether her stiletto just broke from the impact, but whichever it is, Mom brings my car to a shrieking stop as she pulls up in front of the hotel.
I jerk so hard, I get whiplash and my seatbelt burns a groove between my shoulders.
But that’s nothing compared to the slap she aims at my head. It knocks me back again into the seat, causing me to see stars. Blood slides down my lip, salty and thick, then drips onto my collarbones. Luckily the bra fell off or it would have been stained. Mom is yelling, her beautiful face livid.
I can’t quite hear what she’s saying over the ringing of my ears. I just sit there until her shouting peters out and she storms from the car. The bellboy comes to see what’s going on, but before he can get to me, Mom’s already roped him into following her with all my bags. He’ll bring them up to our penthouse suite, then spend the next hour helping her ‘feel better’.
It’s happened a thousand times before, and nothing ever changes. No matter what I do, what I say, or who it happens to be. My hands tremble as I push myself out of the passenger seat and into the driver’s side. At least she left the key in the ignition. I turn it
and the engine hums to life, the sound a barely audible purr that soothes me.
I gun the engine and burn the tires as I pull away. It’s four o’clock and if Mom gives Barry the kind of ‘treatment’ she likes to give, she’ll be right in the middle of it when Martin gets back. He’s not my father, but he’s a decent man, and I don’t want to have to see the pain in his eyes yet again.
Chapter 2: Heaven
When I finally get home way after midnight, the suite is dark. It’s been a long day and I’m still tipsy from bumming beer off the college crowd I hung out with at the Village, so I fumble to get the key card and swipe it against the door. I miss it the first time, but the door still opens, swinging silently ajar into the room.
My bags are exactly where Barry left them. By the door, with lingerie spilling out of them. One is already missing. A white lace and gauze set that I’d gotten just on a whim. It wasn’t even my size, I recall, a little too tight in places, and too loose in others.
But, it would have been perfect on Mom.
I snort as I laugh. No doubt it’s already been besmirched or else ripped into pieces. Half the clothes and lingerie I steal never get worn and the other half eventually finds its way into her closet. Doesn’t matter how many stores catch me or how many policemen clap their handcuffs around my wrists. She’s the one everyone should be afraid of.
My giggles pepper the air but no one’s there to hear it. The room is dark, lit only by the stars hanging in the sky, visible in the floor to ceiling windows… and the broken wine glass that sparkles on the lush carpet.
I stop and stare.
A stain is on the floor, dark and sticky, with grayish mulch on one end. I follow it to the end of the trail, hidden behind the kitchen counter, until I come upon Martin’s body, slumped over against the cabinets. His head is half blown off, his skull exposed where his brains had fallen out.
I choke and spin away, shuddering so hard my teeth bite through my lips. For a moment, all I see is blood and gore. Then I remember Mom.
“MOM!” I scream. There’s no answer but I don’t wait.
I sprint all the way across the suite to the room she shares with Martin. It’s the most luxurious room in the hotel, which figures since he owns the whole building. “MO—”
There she is.
On her back with Barry between her legs. His back is studded with dark reddish-black holes, and a pool of red soaks the sheets beneath her, coloring the lovely white lingerie I stole just today in a sinful, crimson red.
“No…” I sink to my feet by the side of the bed, kneeling as if in worship. They died together, still merged, and from the look on her face, caught halfway between bliss and agony.
“Why do you always have to… to do this to me?” I sob between my fingers. I grip my mouth hard, as if I can cram the past few hours down my throat and make them never have to come to pass. If only I’d stayed. I could have warned Mom, gotten Barry to hide in the closet. I was her sentinel, the one who helped her cover up her dirty habits. Martin was a good man… if he hadn’t actually seen her, he would have given her the benefit of the doubt. The way he’d had for the past year.
But no. I had to go and be a sulky bitch and run off to do my own thing. This is all on me. This is all my fucking fault…
Before I know it, I’m by Martin’s side. His gun’s fallen from his hand. I pick it up, feeling the heft of it. The weight.
It’s not as if I don’t know why Mom did it. She has… had a hole inside her—not the one between her legs—a bigger one, one that’s all consuming and ever growing. It’s that hollowness that made her search for countless men to sleep with. Any man would do, rich or poor, good-looking or ugly… she wanted them all with a desperate need.
One not unlike my own.
I hold the gun up and look down the barrel. How many bullets are still left, I wonder. How many years till I end up the same as her. Is there any other option, with the way I look, and the damage she’s done to me?
The barrel is cold against my lips. One shot and all the wondering would be over. I don’t know what to expect after death, but it would probably be better than what I have waiting for me in the morning.
But I can’t.
I drop my hand to the side and retch on the floor, releasing bile, alcohol and half-digested fries.
Why am I even crying? I knew this would happen eventually. My whole life she’d been teetering on a cliff’s edge, one angry man away from death. It was just a matter of time until she fell over. It didn’t mean I had to follow her down too.
“YOU BITCH!” I scream over my shoulder. “I’M NOT WEAK LIKE YOU!”
“Glad to hear it.”
I whip around then groan when my neck and head complains. A man… of some sort stands by the window, hallowed by moonlight. He looks as if he’s wearing a coat or a cloak, one that’s several sizes too big for him. But it lifts as he walks to me, and I suddenly realize that the thing on his back isn’t a cloak at all.
They’re wings.
Chapter 3: Heaven
“Who are you?” I jerk the gun upward and aim it at him. “How did you get in here?”
A stupid question really, considering the door hadn’t been locked, but one does have to run through the usual procedure.
“I’m your father,” he says simply. “And I flew. The kitchen window is open.”
My hand trembles and the trigger goes off. The sound the gun makes is almost silent, but the bullet buries itself into the glass behind him with an echoing thump. Ripples of cracks spread out behind his wings as if the world beyond has shattered. Just like mine has.
“My father?” My breaths are so ragged, I can barely breathe. “Mom said you were a fling. That you probably died years ago. I thought you were a drug addict or something.”
“All true, in a way,” he says, his voice still calm, as if I hadn’t almost accidentally killed him. “Your mother was like a drug to me. I couldn’t go near her without succumbing. And I had absolutely no knowledge of you. Until now that is.”
He walks closer, his wings so large, they brush over the glass in the carpet, causing it to tinkle.
“Why now?” I whisper. “Isn’t it too late? She’s… gone.”
“I didn’t come for her. I came for you,” he says. He reaches a hand to me and takes my elbow and pulls me into his arms. Then, with a running leap and a single sweep of his wings that bursts through the shattered window, we are airborne.
* * *
Hours pass with nothing but clouds around us. I spend most of the time dozing or crying and feeling sick to my stomach at the memory of what Mom looked like. When the dark of night eventually gives way to day, I look around only to note that I can barely see where we’re going from the occasional glimpses of ground and sea far, far beneath us.
Am I dreaming? Maybe I’ve already shot myself and this is the other side.
I glance up and see the same thing I’ve seen since the sun began to rise. A chiseled jaw. Dark hair. Midnight blue wings. The man—my father—looks young, but I feel a maturity from him that I’ve never felt with Mom. His arms never seem to tire and he doesn’t pause for food, drink, or toilet breaks.
By the time he sets me down on a grassy slope, my bladder is full to bursting. Without a word, I scurry over to some bushes out of his line of sight to fulfill my basic needs.
When I come back, he’s still standing where we landed, his gaze trained into the distance. I come right up to him and he switches his focus back to me.
“Where are we? Why did we come here? Are you really an angel, or have I died and just missed it?” Doesn’t seem likely that heaven wouldn’t have toilet paper, but I can’t hold my questions back anymore. I need answers!
He frowns at the sight of my lip and lifts a hand to it. The swelling has gone down since Mom slapped me, but the hurt from the split is still there. It’s cracked open and begun bleeding again while I was speaking. I begin to tell him not to worry about it, but when he passes his hand over it, the pai
n melts away as if it had never been. Still, nothing can ease the aching loss inside. I bury it deep within me, ignoring how it makes me want to hurl.
“How…” I finger the spot in awe, feeling nothing but smooth, whole flesh where a crusty scab had been.
“I’m an angel,” he tells me, “And as my daughter, you are a half-angel. You’ll become a Nephilim, once you obtain Grace. That’s why I’ve brought you here.”
He turns around and looks upward, guiding my gaze to the top of the mountain we’re standing on.
A humongous structure is perched at the very top, wreathed in mist and magical in the liminal light of dawn. It looks like a castle, except that it’s grander even than the one in the opening of every Disney movie. Waterfalls fall in sheets from a multi-tiered moat surrounding it, and dark towers claw the sky with impossible-looking grassy arches connecting them. Banners and flags stream from the tops of elegant turrets, and huge stained glass windows wink at me even from all the way down here.
“What the hell is that?” I gasp as an explosion rocks one of the southern towers, causing dust and bits of rock to rain down the other side of the mountain. I half expect the rest of the castle to come crashing down on us, but it stands as solidly as if it had grown out of the very stone in the mountain.
“Don’t say that word like that,” my father snaps. It’s the first sign of emotion from him and it makes me stare. “You’re my daughter, and you’ll be representing the angels here at Pandorax Academy.”
“What?” I gasp, incredulous. He can’t be serious. “That’s a school? I’m going to study there? But what about Mom?” What about her funeral? He wasn’t really going to ship me off without even letting me say goodbye, was he?
“There’s nothing more she can do for you,” he tells me, his eyes making it clear this was the end of that subject. “In fact, there’s nothing more anything in the human world can do for you. Your place is here, with others of your kind.”