And God decided to place the Garden of Eden, here?
I’d once heard a comedian say if you’re not laughing, you’re learning.
I’d learned something today.
Chapter 9
I slowly turned back to the wall itself, realizing much of it also looked as damaged as the gate and the arch. Scrutinizing it closer, I saw it was at least the same scope as the Great Wall of China, but the passing centuries had blown hills of ash, dead brush, scorched bones, and other rubble up against its base until sections of it appeared level with the land itself. Time had buried or concealed much of its grandeur, like some of the oldest castles in Europe where Mother Earth had reclaimed her surface.
Now, I wasn’t an arborist or anything, but beyond the wall looked decidedly rough and overgrown. It was green—relatively speaking—compared to the desert-like side of the wall we currently stood on. It wasn’t remotely pretty or impressive, though. Nothing like I had dreamed it would be. Not only did it look overgrown, it didn’t even really look like it had a lot of vegetation in it. If there had been skyscraper-sized trees covered in flowering vines I totally would have sympathized with a lack of beauty, seeing it was obviously too large and wild for anyone to maintain.
But this…
It had been neglected. Since…well, since Cain’s mom decided to eat an apple, perhaps.
“It is time you handed over the Spear of Longinus,” The Angel said in an utterly calm tone. “It is not safe in the hands of mankind, let alone one such as you.”
I wasn’t even surprised at the demand. I’d been expecting something like it for quite some time. I’d found the Spear of Longinus—or the Spear of Destiny, as some knew it—when a Demon named Johnathan had attempted to destroy it. He’d made the mistake of inviting me to the party and it hadn’t ended well for him.
Ever since I’d killed him, the Spear had somehow resided somewhere deep inside of me. I’d only been able to draw it out a handful of times, and only after a full day of calming meditation with exactly zero interruptions. Even then, I’d only managed to call it for a few seconds at a time.
Knowing that I had the Spear, that stabbed Jesus while on the Cross, hidden inside of me had not been the transcendent experience most would expect. Because I hadn’t been given a choice in the matter—it had chosen for itself. My stomach curdled even thinking about it. Not in disgust or anything but…it was just a lot to process. It made me feel unworthy.
A fraud.
And I hadn’t even wanted it. But you play with the cards you were dealt.
And now this Angel wanted to take my least favorite toy away. But it was still my least favorite toy, and I’d failed the sharing exam in preschool.
“You are not worthy of it. Hand over the Spear or die. Your choice,” the Angel pressed, reading my thoughts as clear as day. I decided I was about finished with that nonsense, so I used a trick I’d recently learned to wall him out, blocking him from reading my mind.
I waved a hand distractedly, letting him know I’d heard him before he grew upset and pulled an emotion muscle that might disqualify him from the Den of Ed’s upcoming annual flag football tournament with his siblings.
I thought about my earlier conversation with Dorian—how he believed that I was acting out as a result of feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere, that I didn’t have a purpose to guide me, that my lack of purpose was making everyone fear me as the new boogeyman of my city.
Then I thought about the Angels being hardwired with a purpose and a family and how they still somehow managed to fail on such an epic level.
I realized that, more than anything, I felt disappointed. With all of it. The Angels. The Demons. The Garden. The carnage in my city. The hatred in the world. My own actions.
I was fed up with it.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I knew I was no Saint. I had no reason to try to be one. I had yet to meet an Angel who had lived up to their reputations—a being that exuded poise, promise, and goodwill. One who made you weep with understanding.
Instead, I felt…nothing. No love. No hate. Just…a screaming emptiness. An eternal, rattling, death wheeze. Exactly like me, these creatures had forgotten their purpose, broken their family.
And instead of admitting it—deciding to fix themselves—they pointed a finger at me.
To bully and tell me how unworthy I was to hold and protect their precious Spear.
When it was pretty apparent, judging by our current locale, that their track record of protecting sacred things and places…
Was abysmal.
That, as a family…
They had turned on each other to such a degree that their future rematch promised to be Apocalyptic.
That, as shepherds of mankind, tasked with guiding and protecting their flock…
They were even worse. I’d run into—and killed—two Demons before an Angel ever deemed me worthy of a meeting, and then that Angel had ended up Falling from Grace not long after.
And now an Angel dared to point the Holier than Thou finger at me?
By some miracle, I was still clutching my apple from the party. I smiled absently, turning back to the Angel. Then I took a big, fat, juicy bit of the red fruit.
Let me put it into perspective: a woman took a bite of an apple while standing before the dystopian Den of Ed. I was very likely the only human being to ever set foot here since Adam and Eve—and for good reason. A few bad apples had ruined the barrel. Literally.
The Angel really didn’t like my choice in fruit. Not. One. Bit.
His armor abruptly snapped, crackled, and popped—Vice Krispies—growing larger and spikier like one of those puffer fish, and his fist shot to the crystal hilt of his sword. His white eyes flared brighter, but he remained in place, staring at me.
“You dare to call me unworthy of keeping something safe?” I asked in a cool, measured tone. Then, with a mirthless chuckle, I indicated the Garden behind me and the war-torn landscape surrounding us. “Why would I give you the Spear?”
To both our surprise, I was suddenly gripping the crackling white spear in my fist. Two black bands encircled the haft, cutting the weapon into thirds, but it remained one solid piece despite this weakness. I stared down at it. Then I let out a slow whistle. “Speak of the devil…” I chuckled darkly. “And she will appear,” I said, turning my wicked smile on the Angel.
If I was about to die, at least I’d managed a good one-liner.
“Foolish Angel…I am the Spear.”
Chapter 10
The Angel had gone entirely still, staring at the Spear incredulously. Then, like a glacier calving, the new spiky growths on his armor cracked and slid from his body, crashing to the earth in a chiming pile of diamond grit. He never broke eye contact with the Spear.
I could tell he was trying to decide if I had spoken truly, but I was still blocking him from reading my thoughts, so he was instead trying to read or talk to the Spear. And it didn’t appear to be answering his repetitive, desperate phone calls—sending them straight to voicemail, like a needy boyfriend after a breakup.
He finally shook his head and turned to look me in the eyes. I ground my feet into the earth, ready for anything, gripping the Spear in preparation of a very short fight, hoping I had my affairs in order back home.
The Angel abruptly flung out a hand and an orb of white fire erupted on the ground between us. It wasn’t any kind of attack, because it looked like a simple, mellow campfire, but I could sense the raw power within. It was like my own white magic but on crystal meth. Or perhaps Angel Dust. Was this a glimpse of my future potential—the answer to why my magic would occasionally turn white when I made flames? I wasn’t about to ask him, not wanting to further lower his already low opinion of me. The Angel took a deep breath, walked up to the fire, and then calmly sat down on a short pillar of salt.
I grimaced. That was just…distasteful. Hadn’t that been a brother, once?
The Angel reached into the fire and withdrew a brilliantly
glowing coal of pure light. He stared down at it in silence for a few moments, his face blank, but his hand shook in either pain or strain from the raw power. He finally looked up at me with his piercing white eyes and they flashed as if he had absorbed some of that fire. He gave me a nod, letting me know our argument was over. Obviously, a card-carrying member of the man club—maybe their first member—he didn’t apologize or admit that I had been right.
It was good enough for me.
I released the Spear and it winked out of existence. The campfire flared brighter—as did the coal in his hand—before returning to normal. He considered this in pointed silence.
But the set of his shoulders let me know it had been both significant and unexpected.
“Sit with me. We have much to discuss…”
I sighed, realizing I really didn’t have any other option. Cain continued to rail against the sky, mouth open in a silent roar, fighting to send his haunted, chilling music into his mother’s garden.
I should have brought another apple…
The Angel watched me, his fist still shaking from the coal. I waited in silence, pretty confident in my decision to not play follow the leader. “This is my first time,” he said in a tight, cautious voice. Well, for an Angel, it was practically screaming. I rose above my inner urge to pounce on the obvious laundry list of jokes and waited.
He eventually lifted the stone to his face, let out a breath, and set the coal against his forehead. He hissed and grunted, and I watched in disgusted fascination as his face…changed.
The beauty burned away, revealing the same face below, but…terribly, permanently scarred.
I leaned closer, my eyes wide as I picked out the same features from the previous mask, horrified to see the nasty scars that had marred such perfection. Like seeing before-and-after pictures in reverse. What remained was a rugged, raw, haunting beauty.
This face had seen war. His eyes were no longer as closed off, and I could see they were haunted and full of…loss—the first emotion I had seen here. As I stared at him, I realized his entire face now showed signs of life, emotion, sympathy, and fear. Not as naturally and easy to read as a human’s face, but the potential was there.
I leaned back, letting out a breath as he met my eyes and nodded. He had experienced at least one bad Monday in his existence.
I very carefully considered my response. He had admitted this was his first time. This seemed ritualistic. A gift. A baring of blades. The first sign of honesty I had seen from him. Something real. I relaxed my shoulders and let myself show a genuine smile I hadn’t realized I’d been holding back from him.
“You are still beautiful,” I breathed, making sure to look into those white eyes as I spoke.
His face—I hadn’t even realized it was tense and apprehensive—softened. Barely.
But his eyes glowed with appreciation. They were still hard and merciless, but a little humanity lurked in those depths. We weren’t friends. I knew that. Beings like him didn’t have friends. He only had brothers—and those brothers had earned their place at his table.
In his eyes, I was likely some yapping dog with a bad attitude. A dog he had taken on a walk to his Father’s Garden. Then I had bit at my leash, begun barking at everything, and peed on their things. Out of the blue, I had then looked up at him and wagged my tail politely.
Something along those lines. Now, I needed to prove that I wasn’t a temperamental Yorkie.
I hadn’t been railing against God with my previous disrespect. The Angel seated across the fire was solid proof that He existed. In what capacity, I had no idea. But there was obviously a source to the Angel’s creation. But until the big guy sat me down for a chat, I wasn’t about to devote myself to Him.
Call it what you will, but it wasn’t in my nature. I knew it was wrong, and that I was supposed to simply have Faith. I could have chosen to sit beside everyone else at church, singing the songs, reciting the prayers, but…it wouldn’t have been genuine.
Accepting that fact, I had chosen to be brutally honest. Because I wasn’t happy with how management had handled things. I was leaving a bad review.
I was showing this Angel—and his Father—that their actions had consequences. It wasn’t bravery on my part. I knew I had an ace up my sleeve—that if this Angel had truly wanted to end me, he would have already done it. He was powerful enough to snap his fingers and end me. Which meant he wanted or needed something from me.
“Why have you brought me here?” I asked him, folding my hands together in my lap, studying the white fire between us.
His gaze latched onto the shadow ring circling my thumb and his scarred face tightened angrily. “You bound an Angel.”
This was shaping up to become one of those sensitive conversations. One where someone got their feelings hurt…
Chapter 11
I let the statement settle between us for a few moments, knowing it hadn’t been what he originally intended to say. I slowly lifted my thumb, displaying the band of shifting shadows. “What choice did I have?” I asked softly. “Let him join your Fallen brothers and sisters?” I shook my head firmly.
He studied my finger in silence, a troubled look replacing his anger. “I do not have an answer, but it has been a long time since one wore an Angel on their finger,” he admitted, sounding sickened.
I glanced up sharply. “I’m not the first?” I asked, surprised.
“Your ancestor, Solomon, son of David, also bound the Fallen into a ring. He had the wisdom to not let them touch his flesh. But to risk them so close to clawing away at your true soul…” he shuddered at the thought, staring at my thumb.
I twisted away from him to reach my fingers into the top of my bra and withdraw the tiny silk pouch holding the Seal of Solomon that I had tucked inside—not having wanted to risk it out of quick reach at the party. Good thing, too, because I had no idea where my clutch purse had ended up. It had only held my phone and some cash, thankfully—I hadn’t bothered putting my driver’s license in there. I smiled absently, wondering if it was lying somewhere here in the once-beautiful Garden of Eden.
That would really confuse some Angels.
I turned back to the Angel, dumping the silver ring into my palm and showing him.
He leaned back instinctively. I closed my fingers over it, shielding my mind in case any of the residents inside decided to reenact a Jerry Springer episode of family drama. Luckily, they were quiet. “I don’t know how to put this one inside,” I admitted, holding up my shadow ring. “Or what that even means,” I admitted.
“It is not for me to know, but you should find out how to extricate him from your flesh.”
I sighed tiredly. “No argument there.”
He leaned forward, staring into the white fire. “It saddened me to feel him Fall…” he breathed. “We wear these scars like broken hearts for our siblings who chose wrongly on that fateful day,” he said, holding his hand palm up as if to indicate his entire face with his fingers. “I have never shown a human this,” he reminded me.
I sighed at the raw pain that briefly flickered across his eyes at mention of his scars. “Thank you for the gift. The scars do not negate your beauty, though. Why hide them?”
He let out a breath, shaking his head. “They see it as tiny victories, knowing we are just as scarred from our broken family as they are—even if it is a different type of scarring. They embrace their transformations, their grotesque visages, their self-inflicted mutilations, making a mockery of the perfection given to them by our Father. As a balance, we conceal our pain.”
My heart broke a little at that, not having ever thought about it. He was speaking of Demons. Both literal and his own internal demons. Cain continued to pound at the sky, managing to emphasize the potential harm siblings could inflict upon each other.
I wondered if Abel’s demise bothered Cain more than he let on. If he, too, felt like this Angel.
I smiled consolingly at the Angel. “Masks don’t heal pain. Pretending otherwise s
imply means you continue to carry guilt on your shoulders. The scars are a part of you.” I pointed at the landscape around us—at all the unmasked scars. “Pain is a lesson one shouldn’t ignore. Embrace it. Understanding and accepting is healing.”
He looked up at me, staring into my soul for a few moments, considering my words. “Perhaps.” Then he smiled faintly, as if at an inside joke, but it was gone as swiftly as it had appeared, like a blown-out candle flame.
I frowned, wondering what I had missed. “But I’m just an ignorant human,” I admitted.
He nodded seriously, turning back to the flame so he missed my responding scowl. He’d taken it literally. Bastard. “It’s been thousands of years since I’ve spoken with a human. Ignorant, perhaps, but you see much. Experience much. Hurt much.” He shivered as if shaking off a potential contagion. “It’s terrifying.”
I blinked a few times, and then a throaty laugh bubbled out from my lips. Soon, I was clutching at my sides, my eyes watering. He cocked his head, frowning. I waved a hand, laughing harder. “It’s not terrifying. It’s existing.”
“I exist,” he argued.
I forced back my laughter, knowing it wasn’t helping. That this was a genuine opportunity to perhaps teach him something. “What have you learned in all your years?”
He thought about it. “Love. And War. Good and Evil—”
I nodded soberly but held up a hand to cut him off before he began reciting scripture. “I understand that, but you had one taste of true existence…” I again motioned at the war-torn land around us. “And your solution was to run from it, lock it away, hide it from sight as if it never happened. You won’t even show your own face…” I added softly.
He stared into the fire, thinking silently. I gave him a few moments, but he seemed to be struggling with a response. “It was…bad,” he finally said. I waited for more, because hearing that his family had been ripped apart, that a vast group of his siblings had rebelled and then been banished to Hell…well, that was a few million miles past a bad day.
Feathers and Fire Series Box Set 2 Page 34