In Eden's Shadow

by Amanda Churi

  She wasn’t coming back. That was it. I hadn’t reached her in time. I failed. I failed to protect her. How I ever wanted her dead, to feel her hot blood that now iced me to the bone was beyond me. All I wanted now was a spark of life, of naivety and impulse—a snort of nasally laughter. I hadn’t realized how deeply she had rooted herself to my twisted soul… To my twisted life. Not even the fledglings were taking advantage of what was a clear breakdown, an open shot at my soul; their shock echoed in my subconscious in the form of silence.

  The clapping of hands shook the air within my crushed soul. Lovely… Oh, that was a far better show than I could have hoped for!

  I shuddered with animosity. Part of me wanted to do it—to carve the Mark off my body and throw it away with the rest of me; but ultimately, I was too stricken to answer Him, let alone end it.

  Amazing… After all she did, I didn’t expect you to redevelop feelings.

  My mouth cracked open a sliver, releasing a single, pointless stream of air. “Neither did I.”

  A cackle shook the broken cage of my head; the fledglings began to chirp again, the intermingling voices of Eyla and angel rising to combat them. Well, you kept up your end of the bargain. I appreciate it! Now, though, something tells me you won’t mind me having a little fun with that bastard, will you?

  Lifting my head felt like I was lugging the rest of the world with it. The forest cocooned the maniacal Lord’s path. I did not even attempt to track his body and pluck him from the shadows—the pebble trail of clots and tissue left behind would take me right to him.

  And he wanted that. But quite frankly, so did I.

  I stopped trying to reattach Mabel’s head; I laid it down in such a way that it looked like she was sleeping. I didn’t have time for a vigil, no matter how much she deserved it. The best gift I could give her was finishing this. “No…” I snarled. “I don’t mind one fucking bit.”

  A sun immediately burst through my chest and came to a violent burn in my armor. My nerves went out and shot into silence; a cape of black whipped past my eyes and stole my vision, my presence from the body with a vortex-like suction.

  Sunrise struck. My control was gone and replaced with a force so massive my innards and consciousness were colliding like meteors and stars until my sight returned but not my control.

  My body came to a stand on its own and turned to Gannon’s cowardly, darkened flee.

  Time for our last dance, Eero.

  Thirty-four

  Act V

  He did not try to hide. On a hill, the highest peak within the secret greenhouse, he stood straight and mighty beneath his pride and joy, watching the dancing lights float through the solid air and lightly scatter across the soil. The trunk was thrice his width and reached above every other biotic tower that purified the enclosed air. The soft branches and leaves swayed like willows; petals of green carpeted every brown rope from start to finish, delicate white blossoms budding from the young shafts and blooming fruits from all lines—apples, lemons, oranges, pears, and many more.

  A rabbit hopped inconspicuously before his feet, nibbling at an open apple core. Deer and doe pulled their way stealthily through the shadows, only revealed by their eyes; the squirrels did not chipper, but they were alert, perching high in the surrounding trees with Gannon’s presence.

  And mine—the presence that was finally about to do away with his.

  Gannon regained motion and reached for a blood orange. The rabbit darted and dove through the puddles of ink with a plop. Gannon smiled, overturning the fruit and wiping the dew from its freckled skin. “I know You’re there. No body could restrain such high levels of energy.”

  Satan and I smirked as one. Well, he wasn’t wrong.

  Satan stood my body and stepped from the shadows. My veins screamed with the movement—oil rigs that had taken a bonfire to them. Every crease of muscle and skin excruciated me more than the last, but my emptiness killed.

  However you do it, let it be nice and slow, I growled, my thoughts unable to exit my mouth.

  Satan snickered. “That’s far too tame compared to what I have planned.”

  Gannon turned as Satan began trudging His way up the blackwashed hill. Birds erupted into a frenzied panic and took flight; the levitating eyes between the trunks flew away into the night. Gannon smiled wide with his teeth, looking off at the vanishing creatures. “Please, don’t distress them. They don’t breed well when they’re upset.”

  Satan chuckled. “I didn’t know you were a breeder.”

  “I like to think of myself as an ecologist—restorationist. Reviving populations from near extinction is no easy feat.”

  His reasoning stopped Satan dead. “Yes. I’m familiar. You’ve given me plenty of experience.”

  Gannon tipped his head to the side and pinched his eyes with happiness. “Experience is the best way to learn.” He dipped into his cliché, misleading bow with that same shit-faced smile used on Mabel and me only hours ago. Her spine was still over his shoulders, swaying as a hollow, soundless windchime. “It’s lovely to finally meet You, Satan.”

  “Not sorry that I can’t say the same.”

  A warm chuckle filled the air as Gannon straightened up. “Ah, but I know You can. You’ve clearly wanted my head for a long time.” He turned back to the tree, hand and orange waving in a directory fashion. “By the way, I was wondering, did I get it right? The stories never gave the name of the forbidden fruit, so I couldn’t replicate the tree exactly, but I combined as many genes as possible to increase my rate of success.” A sinister wire of white crossed through his eyes. “Say, did I hit the nail? After all, You would know best.”

  “You didn’t even hit the board.”

  He overturned his palm, letting the fruit plummet into the padded grass. “Hm… I see. Disappointing.”

  “In fact, you didn’t get a damn thing right. Every species that existed in that hideous garden dwelled there and there alone. Those animals were nothing like the half-breeds you have today.”

  He grinned again. “A human can only try.”

  Neither leaders moved, waiting for the other to step forth; finally face-to-face, they used every second they could to get as much of a read on their opponent as possible. “Do You really want to fight me in that form?” Gannon finally taunted. “Last time You tried, the stories say You lost.” He reached for his neck and grabbed Mabel’s spine with a wicked smirk. With a clench, he squeezed the blocks of her back, popping them between his knuckles.

  YOU BASTARD! I wanted to lunge and rip the moron’s head off, but Satan remained cool and composed.

  Gannon’s eyes smiled on their own. “And You lost with this, might I add. That’s the whole reason I had to get rid of her, Eero. If you didn’t join with me, I needed a surefire way to get rid of you—Satan too.”

  I wasn’t sure if it was Satan’s impatience or my rage that triggered me. A storm of black and red flames sprung from my skin, the Eyla and fledglings screeching in pain. Satan took a step forward; the moist grass beneath His massive feet steamed, attempting to catch fire. “I’ve waited for this day for nearly a millennium. Some soft-tongued, spineless human that had to take one for himself won’t change a thing.”

  “Then it might do You good to leave that body and fight me like the king You’re supposed to be. Oh, wait… I forgot.” Shooting nets of starlight ruptured the rims of his eyes and shattered his face into a mosaic of a thousand, asymmetrical pieces. His skin glistened and reflected the straying strings of light slinking out of the corners of his eyes, his pupils and irises blending, succumbing to a deceptive white. His arms lifted beside him, reaching as wings. Circuits of boiling blue and white crept out of the slits of his armor; they intertwined and buried his arms in their frenzy, lively electrical briars and thickets swimming for blood.

  “I forgot that You don’t have a body left to use. Good luck.”

  “Yeah,” Satan bristled. My hips stayed straight, but my back hunched forward, hands upturned and curled, sifting
the dark matter around us. “Never have needed it.”

  My field of vision darkened, and then I was sprinting through the unseen fabric of air. Satan took the uphill as though it was down, at the crest before Gannon had moved his eyes. Flaring claws sliced at Gannon’s neck, and an inch away from contact, the Lord spun in fast-forward mode, his eyes snatching the Devil from the dark. He backhanded the strike and punched me across the face. Knives of fire ripped through my soul; a crack of lightning shattered the space between us and launched me back, the world a mesh of grayscale streaks and pixels.

  His nerves zapped into action and whisked him after me, at the tree one moment and at my still-flying face the next. He kept speed with me for the blink it took him to power up his fist and crash it below my jaw, redirecting the energy and shooting me straight up into the air.

  Get a grip! I ordered, frustrated beyond words.

  Satan only wheezed. My face was to the ceiling, scanning the imposturous nebula when Gannon’s blistering eyes appeared in midair before his sparking knuckles drilled down into my eyes.

  A savage fire entered the lenses and shot through the connecting veins, frying my brain. I screamed—Satan did too. I momentarily lost sight and feeling; the next strike I registered was my back imprinting the ground, gravel, soil, and grass pluming around me as I knocked the arena a foot closer to sea level.

  This was ridiculous! The fight had just started! What kind of bullshit was this?! What were You doing all that time I was gone?! Practicing for a dance recital?! Get the fuck up!

  Gannon peaked in the sky, stunting physics and turning upside down in place. With Gannon’s head and fist aimed at the ground, the world released him, launching him toward us in a cocoon of zapping white.

  Satan groaned. My fingers curled and twitched, sowing the beds of rock my back had broken. “Don’t… Tell me what to do!”

  He tore up a hunk of stone the size of a horse and flung it at Gannon with a single hand before tumbling away at hyper-speed. A dark smile ripped across the Lord’s falling face; his hands joined in a lethal clap, and a sawblade of lightning struck down, effortlessly splitting the boulder into two.

  Satan scrambled back to His feet just as Gannon finished his crash-course, staking the soil with praying hands. Maniacal, robotic laughter rattled his armor when he saw our legs pedaling back into the edge of the forest. “Oh, come on… That’s all?” He plucked his crackling hands from the flickering mounds of shallow earth, stretching them wide. “Have we really stolen so much of You that You can’t even land a single flick?”

  Apparently.

  “Shut up!” Satan screamed, fangs and saliva flying.

  Gannon smirked. “Only if You literally make me.” The hands that prayed to himself rejoined before his Eyla-filled breastplate. A crackling sphere expanded from his metal gloves, reaching out and past the borders of his body—a globe of hissing, voltage-filled snakes scribbling across the slick surface.

  “Like Heaven I’m losing to a chump like you…!”

  My existence lapsed as the white blast shot toward us with a squealing whine. I vanished for a second, fuzzy in the head and limbs until I rematerialized deep within the abyssal forest. Gannon’s strike plowed into the regiment of trees, splintering, woody bullets zooming past with an expulsion of scalding air that tried to unravel my skin from my skeleton. Faltering sparks and wires chirped in the surrounding air, and Gannon smiled, every crease of every expression amplified on his gaudy diamond face.

  I need a different tactic… Satan mused, slinking farther and farther back through the trunks.

  Did He really not have a plan? Any at all? You just winged this fight? Are You kidding me?

  Shut your fruit-loving trap. I didn’t think he would be a problem.

  I was so dumbfounded that it should have broken our soul link—I was surprised His answer didn’t send me tumbling out of His ears. Yes, the man who literally overturned Hell wouldn’t be a problem. What a moron… Thinking You could brute force a sorcerer.

  That’s no sorcerer, dipshit. He may have an Eyla and the genes, but he’s pushed himself far past that… He’s closer to a drain. Every time I get close, my energy is sapped.

  What kind of piss-poor excuse was that? How I had ever looked up to such a pathetic demon was beyond me, but the dragging of His thoughts, the wheezing of air passing unfiltered through my chest…

  I tightened focus, taking careful note of Gannon’s encroaching presence as he melted through the tree line, the only light in an otherwise dormant forest. He almost floated through the trunks—a universe encased within a body. Satan wasn’t wrong: everything seemed to gravitate toward him as he passed; even the air rippled and danced around his armor. I had assumed it was just static, perhaps an unstable distortion caused by his obscene level of elemental exploitation, but no… There was an ever-slight drying of the tipping trees, a browning of the fluttering leaves the farther he advanced.

  Wait a minute… This…

  I pried my sight from my body and entered blackness. I felt Satan still moving, still retreating with caution, but I silenced my eyes and ears, desperately diving into my head and trying to remember. Come on, come on… Is it really that?

  The nightly world was stripped away, lingering threads of coal and obscurity creeping in, but thankfully, the sight was one thing I had most certainly not forgotten.

  I was there again, taking in the view at Heaven’s edge: the true colors of space and creation—the heart of the universe that was all God’s and always stretching. Crystalline blues made up the universe’s skin, freckles of neon and powder purple falling against the backdrop. His breath moved space, every star the womb of a growing angel. Twirling currents of green wafted through dimensions; streaks of reds began at the zenith and continued to bleed down into the mass of obsidian purple churning below. Clouds of white and gold bloomed from nothingness, warm, ethereal trees growing on top of them and prospering in an unconquerable climate.

  Even though I could remember the view, but I could not remember myself. Looking down at what should have been arms, I only found empty air, a memory unable to be recreated. But Satan’s form still had a shape; the friend beside me still had a discernible body. His floating hair was rows of golden feathers, and he had pearl white eyes pocketed in a face the color of water—skin with no solid tone, always sparkling and reflecting the beauty he came from. A rare, sincere smile dressed his face; holding any expression other than that was impossible while watching space move with God’s hands. The world bent with Him and His knuckles, palms suddenly closing upon a dark sphere and breaking open the energy like the shell of a nut as He rid the universe of an undesirable creation.

  A black hole!

  “What?” Satan hissed. His reply brought me back into my body, one that Satan had concealed behind a boulder deep within the woodland.

  A black hole! That’s what Gannon’s like! He’s taking the energy of everything around him and growing from it. I looked around, observing the fraudulent night sky that popped with energy. That’s why Gannon brought Mabel here—to lure us. The energy here doesn’t only benefit the plants, but it empowers him as well.

  Satan scoffed. “I should have made you a scientist instead of a forger…” He carefully rose, cutting me a choppy mountain range of vision as He peered beyond His rocky shield. Gannon continued to make his way straight toward us, tickling the tangible air with his sparkling fingers. “…And we beat this firecracker how?”

  Just because I noticed the problem didn’t mean I had the answer to it. But if I had to guess… He has to attempt to take in something with so much energy that he physically cannot handle it—that it swallows him instead.

  A trilling snort shook my nostrils. My inner face could not fall flat enough. You got another idea?

  “No,” He said, a cackle rumbling below His breath. “But if my all-empowered self is not enough, then what—?”

  “COME OUT!”

  Satan sprung to the side so hard my chin sowed a row.
The gush of spiraling, electrical tendrils that shot from Gannon’s chest blew the boulder clear off its foundation; showers of compressed meteor and airborne chalk pattered around my body, my head flying up with my legs that pushed me to stand.

  Golden blood streamed from my ringing ears. We can do this, I snarled, Satan’s growl churning with mine to form a tumbling, seething torrent of malice. Push my body as far as You need to.

  “You thought I wouldn’t?”

  I watched Gannon adjust his footing and plant himself amongst the trees. Deer fled in airy strides; squirrels leaped through the canopy; mice scurried beneath felled leaves. Branches of white crackled at Gannon’s back. Their arms knew no limits—they conquered the expanse of the mountain, weaving across the land and pulling in the electricity from within the walls and ceiling. The air was so charged and bright that it was painful to look, to exist with the crushing gravity of his presence, but we stayed there.

  Yes. Satan was an asshole—the biggest stabber to the back and trickster of a being that had ever come about. But that was Satan; it wasn’t Lucifer. The last time we had stood side-by-side and faced off against such a mortal enemy—God Himself—I had trusted Lucifer with my very existence.

  The trembling air rattled Mabel’s spine; I could still smell her salty blood swollen within the confines of bone.

  Yes, despite everything, I had no one else. I had to trust Him again. That void that the immortal eventually fell into, it was coming for me, and that spine, that pulsing rack of blocks had given me every reason to openly accept it. I knew You would push me to the limit, I finally answered, but as my old friend, I’m giving You permission.

  A bushel of claws stroked my heart; my core shuddered. “Not that your consent matters, but you realize if I take you up on that—”

  I know…

  A sigh pressed heavy on my subconscious, a glance in at the Eyla turning me inside out. They stood in a line, watching my pulsating, golden root of a soul crush, crack under the compression of Satan’s red vice clamping down, choking the life out of me.