Revelations: The Fallen

by Lauretta Hignett

  “She wouldn’t be Eve if she walked away from her post,” Nate murmured. I shot him a grateful smile.

  Alex glared at Nate over my head, and looked obstinate for a moment. “Fine,” he finally said, blowing out a breath. “If you're going to finish your shift, I’m staying here with you until Dale gets back.”

  Chapter Six

  The sky had cleared by the time I got off work, but it was still as dark as if it were midnight. The stars stood out against the blackest night. There were billions of them. They covered the night sky like salt spilled on a velvet tablecloth. While I walked the path to Zel’s bungalow, I took a moment to lift my face to the sky and breathe in the cooler night air. The sun would inch its way into our hemisphere in the next few minutes, but right now, we were right on that cusp - the darkest point before dawn.

  Alex walked silently beside me. He’d been quiet for the rest of the night, lurking in the corner of reception. Every now and then I’d look up, and see him staring at me with an unfathomable gaze.

  He still looked a little … peeved, is probably the word I’d use.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked him.

  He gave me the ghost of a smile. “With you, yes,” he replied. “With myself, not so much.” He turned and met my gaze. “I’m annoyed with myself for putting pressure on you to quit your job,” he admitted. “It’s your decision, and you should be able to make whatever choices in life you want to.”

  “Thank you,” I grinned back, and gave him an imaginary shot with my pistol fingers. “There you are. I wondered if my calm, rational boyfriend had disappeared, only to be replaced by an overbearing, overprotective monster.”

  “I am still an overprotective monster,” Alex winked at me. “But you won’t see that side of me.” He paused, and frowned deeply. “I’m also annoyed with Nate for not siding with me. He is supposed to have my back.”

  “I think that was for my benefit,” I said without thinking.

  “What do you mean?”

  I bit my lip. I probably shouldn't have said anything. The situation between the three of us was delicate enough.

  We turned a corner on the path. Up ahead, a giant spider web sparkled, suspended between two tall palms. The strands glistened an eerie silver, drenched with early morning dew. It distracted us for a second, and allowed me time to think.

  I believed Nate when he said he loved me as a friend. I also knew that there was something more to it than he was expressing. I wasn’t sure what it was yet, but I thought it had something to do with the fact that he probably loved Alex a little more than just a friend.

  “I think Nate might be having my back a little more than yours at the moment,” I told Alex as we moved past the spiderweb. He peered down at me, a question in his eyes. “I don’t mean that he… he’s feeling anything more than friendship and duty,” I added hastily. “I think… I think he feels like protecting me is what you would want. And that you would want to be honest with me too, regardless of your feelings at that particular time.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Think of him like the angel on your shoulder,” I told him. “Metaphorically speaking, that is. He knew that you would want to be honest with me about the Astral Plane, and how it makes you feel, so he explained it for you. He also knew that you would want me to do whatever I thought was right, including keeping my job. So he sided with me. Because you would have sided with me eventually too.”

  He frowned for a minute, understanding me perfectly. “I still don’t want you to keep your job,” he muttered. “And I do want to be honest with you.”

  “I know.” I took a breath. “But it’s more than just not wanting to let my friends or my boss down. I kinda feel like it’s a bit of penance too, actually.”

  “Penance?”

  I hung my head. “I still feel overwhelmingly guilty about Hannah,” I admitted. I looked up to see Alex’s expression, and glared at him when I saw his raised eyebrows. “Now, I know what you think. No, it wasn’t my fault. Yes, she was awful. No, it won’t do anyone any good if I decide to hang on to my job and let people boss me around just to make myself feel less guilty about her dying instead of me.”

  “If you know that I’m going to say all that, why are you still keeping your job?”

  “I feel so bad about her,” I whispered, glancing into the dark jungle. “I still feel like I can feel her spirit around. I know I’m just imagining it, but it’s almost like I can sense her pain. I’m drawn to her, in a way that is almost the opposite of what she was like when she was alive.”

  “Yes, when she was alive, I was drawn away from her too.”

  “She didn’t deserve to die, Alex.”

  “I know that. But it happened, and we can’t change it.”

  “What I can do is do my job,” I said firmly. “I can fetch desserts for spoiled young duchesses, I can source boutique tampons for spoiled courtesans. Then I might feel a bit better about what happened to Hannah. It might not change anything outside of me, but my insides might feel a little better.”

  He squeezed my hand. “I wish I could take that guilt away from you.”

  “I don’t. I need to work through it.”

  He fell silent for a long moment.

  I peeked up at him. “You do understand. I know you do, because Nate does. He even said out loud: I wouldn’t be me unless I kept my job. And you love me.”

  “Goddamn Nate,” he muttered. “He’s meant to be my friend, not yours.”

  I smiled broadly. “He is your friend. He’s trying to be you when you’re not thinking clearly.”

  Alex finally nodded, his handsome cheekbones glinting in the moonlight. “I see what you mean.” He squinted into the darkness for a minute, watching the last of the nocturnal creatures scurrying away. “I guess he’s just trying to help,” he said.

  “He’s also trying to be included. You guys have been so close for hundreds of years. And now I’ve come in and smashed up your bromance.”

  Alex suppressed a grin. “You haven’t smashed anything. We will always be brothers. Nothing can change that.”

  I smirked up at him. “If you and he are brothers, that means that Mags is your sister,” I teased.

  He cringed. “No.”

  “And you’ve shagged your sister.”

  “Eve,” he closed his eyes, shuddering. “No. That’s unimaginable. Nate and I are spirit brothers, not blood brothers. Mags shares none of our spirit, therefore she is nothing to me.”

  “Well that’s a nice way to treat your ex,” I winked at him.

  Alex looked down at me, smiling. “Nate’s father and my mother were once the greatest of lovers,” he said in his deep, rumbling voice. “Their separation caused immeasurable pain to both of them, yet it enabled both Nate and me to come into being. Angels, by themselves, cannot reproduce.”

  “Maybe this is all working out exactly how it is supposed to?” I asked. “They split up for a reason, and now we’re all here for a reason.”

  Alex shook his head. “Nothing happens for a reason. Everything is just energy, building up and fading away.”

  I pointed at myself. “Aren’t I a big fat prophecy?”

  “Prophets and Seers read the flow of energy and make informed decisions as to how that energy will coalesce and ebb away, and what the effect will be. You are the one that will bear the Omega, the last child born on Earth.” He stopped, and rolled his eyes. “Seers have a penchant for the dramatic. They often pepper their predictions with hyperbole.”

  “I guess that’s why they called me The Black Chalice. Like I’m a Bond villain or something,” I muttered.

  “The Seers had to appease their masters. So they would take a vision of an ordinary girl, and turn her into a harlot, and her child into a beast.”

  “Are you calling me ordinary?”

  He glanced down at me and squeezed my hand. “You are anything but ordinary.”

  “But I want to be ordinary,” I said, looking at the ground.

/>   He smirked. “And you’re certainly not contrary.”

  I nudged him in the ribs, grinning.

  We reached another path that broke off the main one, the way to Zel’s bungalow, and walked down it.

  I heard soft music coming from behind the closed door, and I smiled to myself. The fact that I could hear the music at all behind the soundproofed door meant that it was very, very loud. It sounded like Zel was recreating his nightclub here at Revelations.

  Alex squared his shoulders and opened the door, leading the way, shielding me with his body.

  The music blared out of the open door, and I reeled back slightly. Holding my hand, Alex led me into the bungalow. I pulled on his palm in the hallway, stopping him. He cocked his head, but there was no point trying to explain. The music was too loud, and he wouldn’t hear me even if I shouted. I went over to the little panel just next to the front door. I flipped the lid and overrode the Bluetooth, turning down the music.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted from the living room. “What gives?”

  I chuckled to myself, and we walked in together.

  “We’ve had some complaints,” I announced as we walked in. Then, I did a double-take. “Met?”

  The little old man was doing a party shuffle on the slate floor. He gave me a cheery wave and kept dancing, his feet moving spectacularly fast, his hands pumping in time to the hardhouse music. “Hello, my Strawberry!”

  Zel sprawled out on the creme leather lounges, wearing nothing but his plain white loincloth. And beside him, her feet curled up underneath a stunning black flowing gown, Nimue leaned back, relaxed, her hands around a glass with swirling amber liquid inside.

  “Darling,” she cooed, getting to her feet. “Hello.” She drifted over, hips swinging, and kissed Alex on the cheek.

  “What are you doing here, Mom?”

  “Oh, I heard Zel was in the area,” she gave a pretty laugh. “I wanted to come up and say hello. I haven't seen him in decades.”

  “You were wondering why he was invited to this little party, and you weren’t, you mean.”

  Nimue pouted. “Don’t be like that, darling. Yes, I did hear that Zel was at Revelations, and I wondered why. But I do know that you’d have me here in a heartbeat if you needed me.”

  I poked my head around Alex’s broad back. “I’m glad you’re here, Nimue. I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Eve!” She artfully sidestepped her son and gave me a hug. “How are you?”

  “The same,” I smiled at her.

  “Who called you, Mom?” Alex frowned, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked so big when he was annoyed. It felt like thunderclouds were brewing in the room. It was exciting and sensual all at the same time. If he weren’t on my side, I’d be terrified.

  “No one called me, sweetie,” she cooed, ruffling his hair, then smoothing it back off his face. His terrifying demeanor took a little hit, and I suppressed a smile as he glared at her. “I got back down to Hell the other night and, well, it’s been hell down there.” Her face crumpled into a dramatic frown. “It’s almost unbearable. The souls are at breaking point. We’re dealing with new escapes every other day.” She turned and looked at me frankly. “I don’t want to scare you, Eve, darling, but I have a sense that we’re not too far away from total destruction.”

  “Oh, that doesn’t scare me at all,” I murmured sarcastically.

  “Well, I wanted to take the opportunity to get away for a couple of days,” Nimue went on brightly. If Earth is going to be destroyed, I wanted to hang out here for a bit. Of course,” her smile dimmed, “I’ll have to head back down to help out with the souls if things get too bad down in Hell, but I just wanted to make the most of my days on Earth. There was an astral channel drifting by Cooktown, so I took it and ran down here.”

  Zel’s eyes shimmered. “I wish I could help you, Nim,” he said, his big lips trembling. “I wish I could. It’s just too much for me down there. Even the memory of all those screams…” He trailed off.

  “I don’t blame you, Zel,” Nimue patted his bare muscular thigh. “Of course it gets too much sometimes. You’re not infallible. We were all made the same, but we are all still different. You’re just not as good as blocking out the screams as some of us. Your heart is soft, but that's a good thing, darling.”

  I didn't think I could ever forget the pain I heard down in the caves. And even then, I hadn't been in the midst of it. “I’ve heard the screams too, Zel,” I said to him quietly. “Only that was from just outside of Hell. I can't imagine what it would be like being in the middle of it. I don’t think I would cope either.”

  There was a softness in his eyes when he looked back on me. “It was why I fell,” he said in a deep, resonating tone. “To help the humans. They don’t deserve that suffering.”

  I nodded. “But as Nimue said, we’re good at different things. She’s great at blocking out the screams so she can help the souls process their pain. But you -” I winked at him. “You’ve probably been excellent at getting humans to accept themselves as they are, flaws and all. Chances are, you’ve gotten a fair few humans to deal with all their pain and guilt while they're still alive, instead of after they are dead.”

  His brow furrowed, and he grew silent. The only noise in the room was the soft thump of techno, still pumping through the speakers, and the tap of Met’s shoes as he did the quickstep on the flagstones.

  “I never thought of it like that before,” Zel finally muttered.

  I cocked my head. “How could you not have?”

  “Well, I just thought of myself as a liberator, as someone who encouraged humans to embrace their dark sides,” he admitted. “A pansexual kink-genie, if you will.”

  “I’m glad you like that title,” I said dryly.

  “I’m going to get business cards made up,” he smirked. “But seriously, Eve, all I ever wanted was for humans to embrace themselves.”

  “And embrace anyone else that would have them,” Alex muttered.

  “Yes, that too.”

  I nodded. “Well, you’re serving a purpose here on Earth, Zel. You’re helping humans work through their shame. It’s a divine mission.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Alex said. “Stop it, Eve. You’re giving him a big head.”

  “Is it a divine mission, Met?” I called out.

  “Right on!” Met shouted, punching a fist to the ceiling, while doing the running man at high speeds.

  “You see?” I grinned at everyone. “Even the Voice of God gives his approval.”

  “The Voice of God thinks he’s in Ibiza,” Alex muttered.

  “Regardless,” I said, “It’s all working out. Zel is doing the job he was created for. I wonder how many souls he’s helped?”

  “Probably thousands,” Zel said, grinning. “At least, I have made love to several thousand humans in my time.”

  I went to open my mouth, but I didn't.

  “You are an exceptional woman, Chalice,” Zel went on. “I am glad that the Sacred Energy weaved its way into you. And while you’re here,” he leaned in close to me, whispering conspiritally. “Where is your delectable co-worker? I thought you would bring him with you.”

  I frowned. “Dale? Why would I bring Dale with me?”

  Zel sighed dramatically, leaning back, dwarfing me with his immense size. “Because I love him, of course!”

  “Er, of course.”

  “Surely you could see that? And you did not bring him with you? Do you not care about my feelings?”

  “Um, Zel, didn’t I just re-adjust the whole concept of your exile-”

  “And now you’re standing in the way of my one true love?” His face drooped spectacularly; he looked as sad as an abused puppy. “You hate me so much that you would sabotage my one chance at true love?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bit of a drama queen?”

  “I must have him!” Zel declared. “He is divine. His aura glows like the sunrise. He is the dawn of my new day. He is
my Omega, the last soul that I will combine with. He is devotion made flesh, he is wholesome beyond measure and represents everything good and pure in this world. He is-”

  “I thought you were kidding about Dale,” Alex muttered down to me out of the corner of his mouth as Zel went on and on.

  “Nope,” I whispered back.

  “And you know all this, Chalice,” Zel boomed, crossing his arms over his enormous chest. “You know the extent of my devotion, but you still wouldn’t bring him with you on this most sacred night?”

  “Okay, buddy,” I said snarkily, waving my finger at his face, which was several feet higher than my finger was. “First of all, I’m not your pimp. Second of all, this is not a ‘most sacred night.’” I did the little air quotes with my fingers, mimicking his over-the-top booming voice. “And thirdly, Dale doesn't know about any of this,” I waved my hand around the room, gesturing wildly. “If I had brought him with me, and he saw you sitting here, all giant muscles and loincloth, with him,” I pointed at Met, “an old man, doing high-energy party dances in the corner, and her,” I jabbed my thumb at Nimue, sipping whiskey elegantly on the lounge, “looking like Goth Jessica Rabbit… well... he might be a bit… unsettled.” I shook my head. “I know we get freaky customers here at Revelations, but you guys take the cake. The fact that you’re three times normal human size might make him gulp, if you know what I mean.”

  “Oh,” Zel’s face fell, and he grew thoughtful. “Good point.”

  As I glared at him, he shrunk down until he appeared human-sized. Narrowing his eyes, he shot a glance at Alex, appraising, then, he grew one more inch so that he was just taller than him.

  “That’s better,” I said.

  He looked suitably chastised. “Will you still put in a good word for me with Dale?” His eyes were pleading. “Please? He’s just so… so…”

  “What?”

  “Perfect,” Zel sighed. “He’s literally perfect. His bloodline is ancient, and he’s got the karma of a saint. I’ve never met anyone as pure as he is.”

  “He’s very cute too, isn’t he, darling,” Nimue drawled from the couch. “Not sexy like your friend Clover. But he’s very attractive, in a cuddly, boy-band, token member kind of way.”