In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  But that raised a different question for her. “What did you see?”

  He lowered the mirror, looking like he was ready to fall asleep. “Even after all that blood loss, you still can’t find it in you to shut your mouth?”

  She ignored him. “What did you see after you took that bite?”

  He sighed the air out of the room. He put his back to Mabel and tossed the mirror onto the floor, unflinching as it shattered and scattered. “I’m not a twister like Azuré, so it’s harder for me to share memories, but… I saw everything.”

  “Everything?”

  He groaned obnoxiously, keeping his face hidden. “Yeah, everything… Things that only I know as a result. No demons can remember what I do—Satan made sure of that.” He reached over his shoulder, putting his claws to the deep, gouged scars. “I remembered my wings… How He ripped them out. I remembered how He manipulated and brainwashed us… How He did so through extensive torture to pervert our sense of Heaven—and then forget bits and pieces all together. I remember how He forcefully changed our bodies, all to fit His dominion—names too, and I remember how He couldn’t break mine. Ha… Haha…”

  Eero returned to his corner, letting his forehead hit the wall with a thunk. “I haven’t told you this, Mabel, but I have no intention of going back to Hell. I assumed things might be different after so many years asleep, but one look at Satan, and I knew they weren’t. He be rid of me because I was a threat to His unholy rule; once I knew the truths He purposely destroyed, I was a force to be reckoned with.”

  Mabel’s head slightly drooped. She figured as much… Eero didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would go through with anything that gave him the short end of the stick. “I don’t blame you.”

  Her response turned around his broken spirit. “What?”

  “I wouldn’t go back either. He tricked you in the first place—not just you, but all of humankind, and He still does; it’s just the way His twisted soul works. But…” She lifted her head. “You took the Mark and made a bargain. How do you expect to get out of it?”

  “Well, that’s what I was thinking about while waiting for you to come to.” He raised a single finger. “I’ll still help you take down that bastard Gannon, but on one condition.”

  Mabel was on the edge of her seat, both literally and metaphorically. “Yes?”

  He put forth his request with a sinister cackle. “You help me take down Satan afterward.”

  The first thing she thought of was that monstrous, deformed skeleton that threw Eero on his ass in one go—the second was about just what he was asking of her. “You’re craz—!”

  “In return!” he loudly interrupted, pausing before continuing. “I’ll give Eero back once we succeed, and I’ll be out of your life for good.”

  She blinked so hard she nearly blinded herself. What?! She couldn’t believe it—she wouldn’t! “After all this time, you’re finally willing to change your position out of the blue? Just like that? How do I know you’re telling the truth?!”

  “You don’t, but your past owes me.”

  Was he being serious? “You’re not very good at negotiating.”

  He smiled. “Regardless, do we have a deal or not?”

  Mouth wide, Mabel glanced back at the vial and rose still hidden within her armor. Really? That was all he was going to say? It seemed far too good to be true… And albeit, taking down Satan would be no easy feat, but if it meant getting back her best friend… Her only friend… Her… Love…

  She squeezed the rim of the table. She needed Eero, but… Something was making her hesitate, and she didn’t know what or why.

  “THE CRYSTAL!”

  The outburst dragged Mabel’s head away from her internal battle, watching the usually graceful Embry tear into the center of the room.

  “Crystal?” Eero wondered, echoing Mabel’s thoughts exactly.

  “The one which Reeve and her Deceiver are sealed within!” She bounded over to Mabel on pointed toes so that the recovering Receiver did not have to strain herself as Embry whisked out the cube that she had been struggling to crack for days. The familiar map of the Proxez palace flew into the air, but now, there was a large red X on one of the lowest floors. Embry moved her eyes to the X to click it; it pulsed once and opened a new screen—not a map but a fast-moving video.

  The camera carrier was racing for their lives, shooting and smashing any and all Proxez drawing too close. There were disruptions with the feed when the recorder was struck, but it fixed itself quickly, creating very little in terms of information gaps. There was no audio, but the longer she watched them run, it faster it dawned upon Mabel who was behind that unfortunate camera. Laelia…

  No one spoke, mesmerized watching her final moments, especially when she stumbled across a pulsing blue crystal in some hidden cavern that held the ally Mabel had technically not seen in almost a thousand years.

  Embry paused the video. “Justus forged a discreet map of the palace to pair with the information Sybil gave us,” she explained, “but he did so in such a way that if such knowledge fell into the hands of our enemies, they could not decipher the intent. The crystal… He wishes for us to target it.”

  “And what the heck would that do?” Eero snapped. “We need to focus on crushing the leader, not an ice cube!”

  “But from what source do you believe this frigid power appropriates from?” She pointed to the video again, only this time with a rougher jab. “We cannot revert the destruction if we ignore what keeps the universe in such a perilous state, and of that, I am certain.”

  Eero definitely wasn’t satisfied with Embry’s findings, but his voluntary conclusion on the topic showed that he would not press further. “Well then, we need to get this to Pinion before she begins the invasion.”

  “I do not believe that scenario is possible. Mabel’s surgery occupied too many hours, but judging by my calculations, there may be a saving grace.”

  “And that means?”

  Embry giggled. “Simply gather what you require while I resuit our maiden. We have to be at the surface in approximately an hour’s time.”

  Eero shifted his eyes to Mabel. He gave her a gruff, irritable shrug before heading into the back room.

  “I know agony is wide,” Embry began, helping Mabel sit up, “but we have not a breath to abuse. Once you are refortified, I shall spare you some medicine to tend to your plagues, but until that moment, please keep your head level.” Embry pushed Justus’ box into Mabel’s hands as she went over to the disassembled armor, gathering the pieces to dress the wounded warrior.

  Sitting up made Mabel’s innards blend with pounding, sickening pain, strengthening the acidic waterfall just waiting to escape, but she kept her mouth sealed, focusing on the pain not in her body but in her heart as Mabel mustered up the courage to resume the video. It felt like she was sucked back into a memory the longer she watched Laelia’s last moments, and when the camera turned around to face the empresses one last time, Mabel couldn’t contain her tears.

  Yes, she wanted Eero back… But she never realized until just now that it wasn’t just him that she was fighting to save. Within his body existed all of them, all of her brave, fallen friends, and if Eero was lost, they were too… Eero dying didn’t mean that their souls would be released into the Spirit World. They had become a part of his soul… He was their realm of existence. When Eyla disappeared, they were gone for good; and if Eero was gone, so were they.

  Mabel couldn’t help it. She certainly didn’t care what they thought anymore as she released a bludgeoning scream, letting the tears pour down. If she lived and never got through to Eero, they would all be gone, and she would be alone—would have given up everything for nothing in return. She could see her transformation now: a once bright, bubbly, and even reckless girl turning into a withered, bitter old hag that would see a restored world through the same filth that currently obscured it. Someone who would have nothing to do but stare at clouds and complain, waiting for Death as he purposely
hung back and laughed to prolong her misery—and when he would finally declare her suffering sufficient and claim her head, it would be taken alone and without a tear shed by anyone.

  Eero could have been long gone for all she knew—Laelia and the others too. It may have been selfish, but the teardrops winding down her face came from a very different place than she wanted them to—but she no longer cared.

  There was no more saving Eero so that they could have this perfect, impossible life that she had played out in her head one too many times. She never even meant to fall in love… Maybe the reason that they latched onto one another so quickly and firmly was because they had both yearned so long and hard for someone to care about them… For them. To take away the pain of being an outcast and alone…

  But regardless of how and why it happened, there was no denying that spark—that codependency that she had formed even though she hated to admit it.

  No… Maybe their future couldn’t be saved… But he could. And it didn’t matter how much of Eero was left—if it was everything or practically nothing. She just needed something, anything…

  For she was going to have to save him to save herself.

  Twenty-five

  Guardian of Angels

  Fate wouldn’t forgive her, neither Death as brother and sister stood hand-in-hand on that same battlefield they had looked upon with such hungry eyes lifetimes ago. It was truly something for that notorious duo—to have their feet on such cursed soil. With their backs to the looming, heart-crushing walls of ice and their noses to the ruins of the ancient village… It took them back.

  Because there they were yet again, watching the newest fleet of thirsty rebels run toward their very ends. To them, they moved as a thundering, fueled herd, but from Fate’s perspective, they were slow and sluggish, almost wasting years taking that next stride that clashed them with Haxor and Bot.

  Fate sighed with boredom, flicking her finger at an Encryptor the instant before a Bot cut them down. “You know, it always amazes me how far humans will go for something that most of them will never even live to see.”

  Death snorted, swiping the rusted blade of his scythe through the slowly falling body. It caught the soul right in its ragged crest, tearing it out of the corpse and flinging it across the battlefield and into the empty world that it now belonged to. “You know what impresses me even more? How that corrupted girl can possibly bear to set foot on the ruins her father died upon.”

  Fate agreed with a whimsical laugh, feeling her presence pull toward the sloth-like army. Without needing to look, she threw up her finger again, this time sealing the life of a Bot as an Encryptor whammed it into the snow. “Yes. Truly ironic that the new palace was built around the crystal, and that they now walk amongst the very ruins of what was once the entirety of Phantome. What a fitting place to bring so many worthless lives to a close.”

  Death’s veiled face found his sister’s as he plunged the rod of his staff through the Bot’s skull, releasing the distorted, pained soul. “Just don’t get too carried away; I would love to enjoy the buffet for a while longer.”

  Fate nodded with a smile. “Believe me, I had no intention.” Her blue eyes of destiny shot ahead into her prime prey, frowning as she watched Pinion raise her sword to the sky, preparing to yet again summon their father that Pinion had so unjustly gained a piece of. “When she sees me, only then will she come to know the err of her ways.”

  A burst of green exploded from the treacherous, revered sword, breaking through the slate of sinful clouds and shattering the glassy sky. Fate and Death watched silently from the ground as the remnants of what they came from cascaded down in tiny, spinning shards of all that was.

  A gassy, immortal mass of purple, blue, and black revealed itself through the bold hole she blasted through the timeline. Stars and interstellar matter ran through its borderless body as would blood, two sizzling, enraged eyes of deadly electricity shifting down to his children that stared up. The golden crown upon his ancient head speared each roman numeral along the rim, reflecting every year that had ever come and gone. A black chain of chaos dangled from his immortal heart that held the entire universe, swinging back and forth like a pendulum at whichever rate he desired—or she, in this instance.

  “Father…” Fate grumbled, the hatred in her voice directly fueling the lightning in her creator’s ireful eyes. Her fluid orbs of blue collapsed, creating dead, hollowed sockets, but ones that even when empty never lost sight of who she targeted. She thrust her black, wispy finger straight upon the summoner, smirking when she foresaw what was so rightly to come. “Her time is up.”

  ***

  “SEEK!”

  All the child saw was a blurred flash of motion; her feet couldn’t turn in time.

  An arm was thrown right over Seek’s face, the bared jaws of an incoming Bot mercilessly clamping down on the plate of armor that crossed its path in the nick of time. The Bot latched onto the arm with their hands of spinning nails and screws, first shredding armor then flesh as they dragged the Encryptor down.

  “PEACE!” Seek cried pitifully as her ally was slammed into the snow. The medic squealed and wailed like a gutted pig, the Bot holding on tight and throwing their grinding mouth down onto the Encryptor’s exposed throat. Skin was shred to strings, flying away from Peace’s body while ground flesh, chalked bone, and sticky blood sprayed into the air.

  The anger that raged in Seek’s stomach erupted through her skin. With a hardy scream and illuminated fist, she slugged the Bot’s head, knocking it so hard that the neck snapped with one punch. Their death disrupted the orders flowing from brain to body, but their mouth still spun as did their nails, continuing to feast on the medic until there was nearly nothing that kept Peace’s head attached to her body.

  “No, no, no…!” The Seeker dropped to her knees in the red snow, shoving the glutton away before grabbing Peace by the cheeks and staring into her wide, mortified eyes. Seek couldn’t breathe; she watched the blood pour from Peace’s mouth and neck, too petrified to do anything but pray in a silent hurry as Peace’s kind white soul peeled from her open trachea and flew away into a now endless roam.

  Seek wanted to hold her, cry, but she was long past having the ability to mourn at this point—she just wished that people would stop carelessly throwing away their worthy lives for her.

  …Maybe she should have hidden in her shackle like Pinion suggested, then they wouldn’t have had to defend someone so weak.

  Her hands furiously gripped the snow. No. They needed all the help they could get, and that meant that she had to be present—be fighting alongside them all who so valiantly were prepared to give it all.

  With electrical bullets and blood flying around her, Seek found her shaky feet. Few eyes were keeping watch on their allies any longer—any besides her, that was. They were in the final heat to get to the foreboding ice gates and tear them down, only crossing those who dared to cross them first.

  The snow around the Revere Palace had never been pure, filled with gray and grimy pollutants, but now, blood and limbs darkened the mixture. The drifts and frost-wedged houses behind her were burning in the cold; the high levels of flying ash and debris made visibility extremely limited for all. But the flying warships continued to be summoned by the dozens, blindly firing; war tanks that looked like giant metal snakes rushed over the battlefield in whipping slithers, mowing down all in their way with either their vehicles or the Haxors shooting from the windows. Victory was anything but easy to picture. The Proxez didn’t care who they killed or how, including each other: so long as the field was cleared of living, moving entities, it was a sound victory in their manipulated eyes.

  A ravenous snarl exploded beside Seek, whipping her around. She made eye contact with the Bot as they lunged, and she threw her spine back so that they flew overhead and missed her by a hair, landing on flustered fours. They snarled as they scampered back to face her, lunging again with claws outstretched.

  Seek could only dodge, droppi
ng to her stomach as they went soaring through empty air. The frustrated whirs and hisses grew. Frantic, she scrambled in the snow, grabbed her shackle and pried it open, rolling onto her back with a scream and throwing the pincers shut around its neck. A wild surge of white launched from the clamps; it consumed the Bot in energy and agony, smoke spewing from their skin and blood through their eyes until they collapsed, unmoving in the snow. The shackle immediately returned to an innocent, unsuspecting instrument of torture.

  Seek sighed grievously, undoing the shackle with shaky hands and closing it back around her neck. Her knees could hardly hold her up—her fingers struggled to bend. That attack sapped far too much of her strength, her souls, but if she hadn’t—

  “Seek-chan!”

  The child didn’t even get the chance to look before she was dragged to her wobbly legs at the shoulders, stiffly stuck upright in the snow. “What you doing taking a nap?! Uppity up!”

  “S-sorry, Merritt-sama! I just—”

  “ŌI!” Merritt spun so hard and fast that her hair whipped Seek. Both gloved hands were up and spread before Merritt’s face as a Bot charged. Merritt gave an aggressive push with her fingers, excreting wisps of a deadly black toxin that were sent flying directly into the Bot’s face. It tried to smack it away as it continued its pursuit until it suddenly skidded to a stop, staring at Merritt with surprised, flickering eyes. Its nose scrunched and shook, crinkling until it was almost implanted within its face, and then, a gasp fled their deadly, metallic chompers. Whimpering with feet spinning, it bolted in the opposite direction, oblivious to everything and everyone besides its escape route.

  “Doesn’t work on Elites, but Haxors and Bots are still semi-human; even they can’t withstand some scents.” Hands on her hips, Merritt looked back at the child. “Eyes up, you hear? Get to Pinion-san like you’re supposed to!”

  An Elite approached through the chaos, dragging his chains through the snow as his crystalline eyes twisted and locked down on the duo. Merritt’s blown pupils flicked toward the encroaching challenger; saliva flew through her filed teeth as she hissed and crouched, grabbing both daggers at her hips. “Get going, Seek-chan.”