Revelations: The Fallen

by Lauretta Hignett

  My stomach gave a twist. I was hungry again. “What if the bread really, really wanted to bake itself?”

  “It could,” Nimue answered me. “But it would be useless once it got here. It would be suicide for the entity. They may never be able to regain their form.” She smirked at me. “The bread would be burnt.”

  “So they’d be wisps, like Vane’s brothers are now?”

  Nimue nodded. “They might not be able to retain any sort of form for several millennia. They’d need to return to their homes to heal.”

  Malach rumbled. “And I know that Vane’s brothers have not returned to Heaven. They are probably lost on Earth, drifting aimlessly.”

  “Okay,” I held up a finger. “You guys can come to Earth whenever you like, without being called. That's right, isn't it?”

  Nimue nodded. “Yes, but unless we’re called to a particular location, we have to follow the Astral Highways. It’s too taxing otherwise. So if I want to come and visit my son without him calling me,” she gave me a wink, “I’d follow the easiest flow of energy on the Astral Highways down to Earth, getting the closest I could, then I’d slip into this reality and run from there.”

  “And you run pretty quick, right?”

  “Right. But even if Vane did that, he wouldn’t get close enough. There are only a few access points to Earth at any time, and they keep shifting.”

  I nodded, but it was too much to take in. “Okay. So chances are that Vane is not going to be able to get close to me anytime soon, not without being spotted. There is however someone here in Revelations - and I’m going to assume that it’s a human because they haven’t tried to kill me yet - who is trying to summon something here. It probably isn’t Vane, because he’d be toast once he got here. We don’t know who it is, and we don’t know who they’re trying to summon.”

  Nimue smiled at me. “Just go down the list of everyone who wants you dead.”

  My shoulders slumped. Suddenly I was overwhelmed with exhaustion. Alex came to my side and put his hand in mine. I drew a little strength from him.

  He took the lead from me. “From the information we’ve managed to obtain, Vane is still in Europe,” he said. “He’s busy trying to persuade other Percuitait to his side, since he is alone, for now. His two brothers, Ailo and Loera, have not regained their forms. Godric has officially been excommunicated, and the Sanctum Domeni has been disbanded. The Church has disavowed them. Godric hasn’t been spotted anywhere near Australia, so we know he’s not here.”

  “Neither Vane nor Godric are likely to come within a hundred miles of this place without being spotted,” Nimue supplied. “I’ve got the nuntius acting as sentries all around this place, and any place where Eve might go.”

  “They’re not exactly reliable,” Alex admitted, “But they’re great at spotting supernatural movement. If there’s a Percuitait or a crazy juiced-up fundamentalist monk running anywhere close to Revelations, the imps will spot them and report straight to Nimue or me.”

  Malach flexed his shoulders. “Vane is under surveillance from the Host. He won’t come anywhere near here.”

  “So you’re actually doing something, are you?” Nimue drawled, inspecting her nails.

  “I am doing what I can,” he snapped back.

  “Really,” her voice dripped with sarcasm. “You’ve got a rogue angel under surveillance, huh? That’s everything you can do?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I am trying to stop the violence.”

  Nimue’s smile was slow and vicious. “Like your darling daughter?”

  Malach went very still. I could see a muscle in his jaw flickering. “My daughter has her own free will. She will make her own decisions. I can only pray that she will see that violence is not the answer.”

  “If Magdelena were my child, I’d be smacking her butt!”

  “She has not called me,” Malach said through clenched teeth. “And she has masked her essence. I cannot locate her.”

  “Oh, so you’ve been trying, have you?”

  “Of course I have. I am as appalled as you are as to what Magdelena has done.”

  “You made her this way, Malach. You bred her from a human that you didn’t prepare well enough for death. Magdalena is tortured by the fact that her mother is in Hell. That pain has twisted her, made her an extremist.”

  Malach’s voice rose to a shout. “You think I am unaware of that! It’s all I can think of! Every moment of every day!”

  “All you do is think! You never do anything!”

  “What can I do? She is down in Hell with you, and you can’t do anything for her either!”

  I held my hands over my ears. The noise grew intense as the two entities descended into a shouting match, neither listening, both screaming over each other.

  Alex noticed my pain. “Enough!” he roared. “You two, stop it! We’ve been over and over and over this stuff, for the whole thousand years I’ve been in existence. I’m sick of it!”

  Nimue and Malach fell silent and glared at Alex.

  “All your arguing can’t change the past,” he said. “So there’s no point doing it. But we can do something about the future. This whole plane of existence is facing extinction. I want to stop it. I want to keep Eve alive. I want the path to continue, and I want to see humans evolve.” His eyes were pleading. “Help me do that. Please.”

  I squeezed his hand, my heart bursting with pride. “Alex is right,” I said firmly. “We can do this. I just have to stay alive, and un-pregnant.”

  The glare dropped off Nimue’s face, and she gave me a leer. “How’s that going for you, Eve? All practice, no game time?”

  Malach scoffed. “Always thinking about sex, even in the face of the apocalypse, aren’t you?”

  “Of course,” she said saucily. “You used to love that about me.”

  He growled back, his eyes glowing. “Used to being the operative word.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Ohhhhhhh.” The word left my mouth in a rush of breath.

  Everyone turned to look at me. I felt my eyes pop open as wide as they could go.

  Silence descended in the room for a heartbeat. Malach’s eyebrows were raised.

  Met leaned over and gave me a nudge. “That’s right,” he stage-whispered to me. “They used to do it.”

  I pressed my lips together to stifle a giggle. “So…” I turned to Nimue, who looked at me expectantly. “That’s what you meant about Alex and Nate being brothers, of sorts?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Malach looked faintly embarrassed. “Our history is none of your concern.”

  “It is if you guys keep fighting like divorced parents,” I said snippily. “And that was the point of this meeting. So we could share all our information. I can’t believe I didn’t know that you two were involved.”

  “Involved is understating it,” Malach boomed. “We are two halves of the whole. We were created together, and for each other. But,” he glared down at Nimue, “Someone chose the Human Realm, and Hell, over me.”

  “Selfish,” she reprimanded. “The souls needed guidance. I fell because I cared about something. Which is more than I can say about you.”

  “I cared about you, and the Path. And I would have followed you to Hell if you had told me about it. Instead, you went behind my back, and fell with Satan.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t come with me!” Nimue hissed. “You said we should leave the souls as they were! And then you went and copulated with that stuck-up cow from the Empress’s court…”

  “Don’t you dare mention her!” Malach shouted back. “She never did anything to deserve your bile. And, for your part, you ran off and made a child with that arrogant Viking. And now I’m stuck having to work with him! Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  Nimue put her head to the side. “Oh, and I suppose I’m supposed to be happy stuck with your screaming, tortured wife?”

  They both started shouting over the top of each other again. Bright sparks and shafts of light shot around
the room, energy stirred up by their argument. Alex and Nate began to shout back, trying to get them to stop and concentrate on what we were doing.

  The noise and the strobe-light effect became too much for me. I put my hands over my ears and backed away from them all.

  We weren’t getting anywhere anyway.

  I bumped into a coffee table and felt a hand on my back, guiding me out of the room. I opened my eyes and saw Met ushering me out of the door. As soon as we were on the steps outside the door, I let go of a breath I was holding.

  “Oh,” I sighed. “They’re really something, aren’t they?”

  Met gave me a sympathetic smile. “They’ve been fighting like that for millennia. They were so close once; the best team. And the greatest lovers. But as soon as humans evolved beyond the point where they could be easily reabsorbed by the source, Nimue became overwhelmed with sadness for the souls.”

  “I would have thought it would be Malach that would get more maudlin like that.”

  “Malach has more faith than Nimue. She thought God had forsaken the humans. And Malach is stubborn. He wanted to stay in Heaven, by God’s side. Then Lucifer fell, and Nimue, amongst others, went with him. Malach felt rejected and betrayed.”

  Met’s face fell, and he looked sorrowful. “Malach is telling the truth, he would have gone to Hell with Nimue if she had asked him.”

  I leaned against the doorframe, which trembled slightly with the sound of the argument within the bungalow. With the door shut, you couldn’t hear a thing. I suspected one of the creatures inside had somehow drawn a barrier around themselves so we wouldn’t be overheard.

  It was better now that the ringing in my ears had subsided. I let my head rest against the doorframe for a second and sighed. “We’re not any closer to figuring anything out, though. “

  “Come now, Strawberry. Chin up. We’ve got some useful information.”

  “Not really. I’m still not any closer to figuring out who is trying to summon something here at Revelations,” I sighed. “Maybe it’s nothing to do with me.”

  Met put his head on the side, his wrinkly face creased into a million more wrinkles. “I wish that were a possibility, but it’s unlikely. The circles appear as if it's a human trying to call an angel or a demon, but they’re getting their information wrong. It's not someone who knows what they're doing. We know it’s not Vane, or Godric, or any of the Quarters. Or Magdalena,” his face scrunched up again in distaste. “I knew that little goody-two-shoes was up to something.”

  I smirked at him. “I thought you weren’t a Seer.”

  He held out his bag of crystallized ginger to me; I took a couple more pieces. It did a good job settling my stomach. I still hadn’t come right after the deconstructed rice paper rolls that the Revelations chef was trying on the menu. Or maybe it was the thrice-cooked pork belly.

  “I wish I knew what was going to happen,” Met said to me, settling himself down on the doorstep and leaning into me. “But I don’t.”

  “Could it be someone trying to call some katadonis into Revelations? To spy on me?”

  Met shook his head. “They don’t need to be summoned. They travel the Astral Highways better than most beings, apart from the Ascended Guardians. But the katadonis won’t come here, not after what happened in the caves with Godric and his goons. They’ll be spotted straight away. And from what I've heard, they’re not entirely sure that Godric and the Percuitait are doing the right thing. They’re divided, confused, and uneasy.”

  “Just like all of us,” I muttered. I hauled myself to my feet. “I have to go to work, Met. Will you go back in and sort them out for me?”

  He held out his hand so I could help him up. As he popped onto both feet, the door flew open, and Nimue stalked out.

  She gave a frustrated groan. “Errrrrgh. That arrogant son-of-a… Honestly, Eve,” she turned her glowing eyes on me. “Why didn’t you tell me he was going to be there?”

  “Er, Nimue, if I'd have known it was going to turn out like that, I wouldn’t have come myself. As it is, I have to get to work.” I shrugged. “See you later.”

  She shook herself. “I’ll walk with you. You need an escort, and I’m not in any hurry to get back to Hell. The place is almost at breaking point, and so I am.”

  I was going to make some excuse, but Nimue seemed a little shaken. It was strange seeing a powerful entity such as herself acting self-consciously. “Okay..."

  Met squeezed my hand. “I’ll head back in and see what’s going on.” He turned to give Nimue a warm hug. “Bye, Jalapeno. I hope we will be able to hang out a bit more. I’ve missed you.’

  Nimue hugged him back fondly. “And I’ve missed you. I wish we’d chosen different sides, but somehow, it was always going to end up like this, wasn’t it?”

  He winked at her. “It’s not over yet.” Met put his hands in his pockets and headed back inside, whistling.

  I took a huge breath, and turned back to Nimue. “Do you think you could, uh, I don’t know,” I shook my head at her dazzling, overwhelming body, and waved a hand over the sharp suit and her otherworldly glow. “Maybe tone it down a notch? Get down to human proportions at least?”

  She scoffed. “I thought this establishment was used to hosting glamorous types.”

  “Nimue, you look like some sort of avenging Goddess. Eyebrows would be raised.”

  She tossed back her heavy blood-red hair and sighed. “Fine.” She shrunk in size, hitting perhaps six foot, and her ephemeral glow faded until she could pass as human. “There,” she said testily. “Happy now?”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. She still looked like the most glamorous supermodel about to hit the catwalk, but it would have to do. “We have to head back to the staff quarters. I need to get changed for work.”

  She nodded, and we started walking on the path. Nimue took her time, wandering slowly.

  “So,” I said, feeling the need to fill the silence. “You and Malach, huh?”

  Nimue nodded, her red lips drooping into a frown. “My ex. It was a long, long time ago.”

  “There seems to be a lot of passion there between you.”

  “An understatement,” she declared. “We were the most passionate lovers in history. That passion has never died. We are opposites of the same whole. He is the ice, I am the fire. He is the Yin, and I am the Yang.” She sighed heavily. “Then it was all over. Miscommunication, as usual, ruined everything. Followed by envy and bitterness.”

  “Do you think you guys will ever get together again?”

  She shrugged. “For a long time, I hoped so. I still love Malach with every ounce of my being. But we are on opposite sides of this fight. He has faith, and I have none.”

  “Faith in God, you mean?”

  She nodded. “And while we both have compassion, I’m the only one that was willing to sacrifice my own happiness to help the tortured humans. It split us apart.”

  “That’s so sad,” I whispered. “And now, your sons are best friends. Who would have thought?”

  She laughed out loud. “Certainly not me. Although I give Nate a hard time, I love him like a son, too. He’s all the good parts of his father, but somehow like me. Alex, too, is all the good parts of me, and strangely, he has faith like Malach does.” She glanced down to gaze at me fondly. “And his love is pure.”

  I felt a rush of shame again. “I don’t deserve him.”

  “You do,” Nimue said. “Alex has forgiven you. I hear you sunk enough whiskey to kill a small person. I’m surprised you’re still alive, let alone alive and still feeling guilty.”

  “It’s no excuse,” I muttered.

  “Of course it is. You were out of your mind, and manipulated by that clever little bitch Magdalena,” she said bitterly. “If Malach and I can teach you anything, it’s that sometimes you need to forgive and move on quickly, or else you’ll let your miscommunication destroy your entire relationship.”

  “Hmmmm. On the plus side, if you guys hadn’t broken up, you wouldn’t have
had Alex.” I cocked my head. “And I wouldn’t have Alex.”

  She winked at me. “And have had Nate.”

  I cringed. “Stop it.”

  She just giggled at me.

  We reached the gate to staff quarters, and I went through to the outdoor bar area. Some of the staff, either on their days off or just finished their early shifts, relaxed by the pool, cocktails in hand.

  “Well,” said Nimue, her eyes roaming around the excess skin on display. “This is charming. What do you call this place?”

  “This is the staff quarters, Nimue.”

  “This is where you live?” There was a touch of excitement in her voice. “I thought it would be more austere than this. Dorm rooms and functionality,” she said, glancing into the staff building.

  “Well, there are dorm rooms, but they get too rowdy for me. You get to choose where you want to go. There are single rooms if you want privacy, but they’re quite small. No one seems to want the privacy anyway. I’ve got a corner room with Andrea and Clover.”

  “Mixed gender accommodation?” Nimue’s eyes were wide.

  I shrugged. “I guess. I don’t… for obvious reasons. But all the guys that work here know what I’m like... Or, what I was like,” I muttered under my breath. “I got a reputation for being… unreceptive to advances, so most of them left me alone. There’s quite a big gay contingent here too, which is great.”

  Nimue smirked. “This place is a den of swirling hormones. How the hell did you live here for so long with your virginity intact?”

  I frowned. “Too scared to let anyone get close to me, Nimue. Even living with this bunch of good-natured hooligans. As soon as Clover and Dale realized how damaged I was by my history, they made sure that all the boys knew I was off-limits, so none of them even bothered hitting on me. There’s no lack of willing participants here anyway, that’s for sure, so no one would want to waste their time on someone as unwilling as me."

  I smiled, remembering how nice it was that they all just accepted me, no judgments, no pressure. "Also, I guess, all the staff here are crazy in the right way, not the wrong way." It was one of the reasons I chose to work at Revelations. All employees had to complete extensive personality checks, so I knew that there weren't going to be any hidden sociopaths on staff. Nevertheless, I kept my distance from any of the straight men, just in case.