by K. T. Tomb
“Yes.”
“Before my time,” she said.
“Let’s get back to the oil,” he said.
“Fine,” she seemed uncomfortable and jittery, as if imparting this information was more difficult than their recent bout in the studio. In fact, she would probably prefer knocking some heads together than this question-and-answer session. Quite possibly, he suspected, she had never dealt with such questions about her nature before. She continued. “The oil can be used to heal battle wounds and disease. Anything. It isn’t called the Oil of Life for nothing.”
“This Oil of Life comes from the Tree of Life?”
“Yes.”
“You tap the Tree of Life?”
“No. The oil seeps freely and we collect it.”
“Like tree sap?”
She thought about that, her mouth twisting up a little. Her lips were full and flushed red and she was not wearing makeup. She didn’t need any. She had amazing color and he suspected it was this Oil of Life that gave her vibrancy.
“Hard to say, but it is more like an oil.”
He watched her as she glanced around the room. Her inability to stay still was making him uncomfortable, but he pushed on, regardless. He needed answers and he needed them now. “How old are you, Jess?” he asked.
She inhaled sharply and suddenly stood and moved over to his bookshelf. She began perusing his collection of Greek histories written in their original Latin. She pulled a book written by Herodotus and began reading through it casually. He stood and moved behind her, watching her lips move slightly as she read the ancient Latin.
He touched her shoulder with his hand and she flinched, but did not move away. He kept his hand there. “Jess, how old are you?”
“I’m one of the younger Guardians,” she said, snapping the book shut and turning to face him. “I have never told a mortal my age. Our existence is a secret.”
He stepped closer and held her gaze. “I’m not your average mortal.”
“I’m twelve hundred and thirty-four years old.”
He whistled. “I’d hate to see what your birthday cake looks like. Probably see it blazing from space.”
“Do not poke fun at what you do not understand.”
“I understand that you Guardians have been ingesting oil from the Tree of Life to sustain your lives for all time.” He touched the faint white scar on his forehead. “I’ve seen the proof of the oil firsthand. Although you look like you’re in your mid-twenties, you fight like a grandmaster who has an unlimited number of black belts. You read ancient Latin word for word as if you’re skimming through the latest Robert Parker novel.” He paused. “And I’ve been dreaming of you since day one and yet, you’ve never changed since my earliest dreams. Although I’ve grown into a man of thirty-four years, you remain the same. Yes, Jessima, I believe I understand enough.”
She broke their connection and turned back to the books, scanning the titles with her finger. “You do not truly understand, Evan Knight. You couldn’t possibly.”
“Then help me understand.”
She shook her head and her long black hair flowed along her narrow and powerful back. “Someday, but not now. Now is not the time.”
He moved around her and leaned a shoulder against one of the overstuffed bookshelves, giving him a shot of her profile and of her narrow nose and full lips. Her heritage was unfathomable. She had dark hair with the streak of white that seemed more like a birthmark than a sign of age. Her skin was olive colored. There seemed to be the hint of an Asiatic fold to her eyelid, yet the irises were the bluest of the blue and she had the body of an Amazon warrior princess. She could have been any number of ethnicities. He concluded that trying to figure out her national origin was making his head hurt.
She looked over her shoulder. “Do you have any other questions?” she asked. If she was uncomfortable with him staring at her, she didn’t show it.
“Oh, I have one or two.”
“Then continue, Doctor.”
“Why do I keep dreaming of you, Jess? Why have you haunted my dreams ever since I could remember?”
“I do not know,” she said. He believed her, although he had hoped for more than that.
“Have you ever dreamed of me?” he asked. He couldn’t hide the hope from his voice.
She turned her head and looked at him closely, her blue eyes roving over the features of his face. Her eyes were wonderfully expressive. “No, Evan. I have never dreamed of you. I’m sorry.”
He exhaled. He had been unconsciously holding his breath. He had always hoped his dream woman was having the same dreams of him. It made sense to him and gave him balance. It suggested that someone out there had been searching for him as well. It was a romantic thought, but he realized how wrong he had been all of this time.
Still, though, she had sought him out.
“Do you know why I dream of the Garden of Eden? Why I dream of its beauty and why I see its destruction? Why I feel I should have done something, but I do not know what?”
“Now, that,” she said, “I may know. You are the Chosen One.”
“What does that mean?”
She stepped away from him lightly. Her strangely covered feet whispered over his polished floor. She continued to peruse the titles on his shelf and occasionally, slid one out to examine the cover, only to push it back in place stirring up the dust that had settled atop the books. She waved a hand through the swirling dust. “You ever read these dusty things?” she asked. He could sense the mirth in her voice. She was teasing him. He sensed teasing didn’t come very easy for her. At least, teasing a mortal male.
“Yes,” he said. “All of them.”
She whistled, her full lips forming a lush flower bud. “You must be pretty smart.” Her sarcasm was evident.
“Not as smart as someone who has spent the last twelve hundred years of her life reading every book imaginable, probably in their original languages, as well.”
“True,” she said, and continued over to his next bookshelf. “That person would be very smart indeed.”
“Then again,” he continued. “One could argue that there’s more to life than book learning. That life experience should account for a lot of one’s knowledge. Twelve hundred years of life experience is tough to beat.”
“True again.”
“Not to mention you’ve lived through most of the history that I’ve studied. You could probably settle many arguments among scholars.”
“And spoil all of the fun? Then what would they do with their time?”
She had stopped and was reading through the original Apocrypha, written in ancient Hebrew. A language Knight knew well. “You are avoiding my question.”
“I’m not avoiding it.”
“You haven’t answered yet,” he said.
“Some questions need time for the right answers.”
He took her elbow and spun her around. He was strong and she knew it. She could have resisted, but she allowed herself to be handled by him. “Enough riddles, Jessima IL Eve. Why do you keep calling me the Chosen One?”
“There is a prophecy among the Daughters that one will be born to save the Earth. It is an ancient prophecy, one we hardly believed. Yet, the Mother Daughter has been having the dreams again steadily for many years. She was sure the prophecy would be fulfilled.”
“Who is the Mother Daughter?”
“She is our mother.”
“She’s mother to all of you?”
“Yes.”
“Over a course of how many years?”
“Thousands,” she said, shrugging. “When we lose one to accident or battle, we get another.”
“How many of you are there?” he asked.
“There were eighteen, but we have recently lost one.”
“You are all women?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It is our fate as Cherubim,” said Jess. There was a monotone quality to her voice, as if she had thought this or v
oiced it many times.
“How old is the Mother Daughter?”
“She is old beyond our knowing.” Jess suddenly stopped and cocked her head, listening. Her body perfectly still. Knight found himself listening as well, but could hear nothing. Finally, she slid the book back and continued. “I think not even the Mother Daughter knows how old she is.”
“Where did she come from?”
“She is a daughter of Eve.”
“You mean, as in Adam and Eve?”
Jess smiled at him. “We know her as Evelina.”
“This is for real?”
“Everything I have told you is real. The garden is real. The Tree of Life is real. You have seen them in your dreams. Dreamscapes I have seen in the form of your paintings. Why do you find it so hard to believe that Adam and Eve, too, were real?”
He did find it hard to believe. Everything within him rebelled at the idea that man and woman were first created by God and set into the Garden of Eden. Yet, he suspected that there might be much more to the story. Knight thought of man’s history as a very complex puzzle. So many pieces were unknown and he suspected the Genesis story in the Bible could be simply another piece, perhaps a corner piece, in the evolutionary history of man.
“What about evolution? The earth is over billion years old. We have Neanderthals that date back hundreds of thousands of years.”
“It is a long story, some of which we are not meant to understand. Do you wish for me to get into it now?”
Actually, he did. Then again, he didn’t. He didn’t know. He wanted all of her answers immediately. He wanted her physically as well. He had never in his life been so physically attracted to another person, but he knew that would be the case if he ever met his dream woman. The problem was, he had never thought he would. Although it left a hole in his heart and made him feel empty with longing, he had accepted it. All his suppressed desires and urges now raged. He took a deep breath.
Easy, Doctor, he told himself. She could probably crush your spinal column if she wanted to.
“Will there be time later to discuss this later?” he asked.
She looked up briefly, thinking. Her white streak of hair hung just inches above her blue eyes. “Our destination is far. We will be spending much time together in the journey.”
This sent a thrill through him in more ways than one. “Then, let’s save that one for later. For now I will accept that you believe you are a direct descendant from a daughter of Eve.”
“Eve is my grandmother.”
“Of course,” he said. “Are they alive as well?”
“No. They are not Cherubim. They are not Guardians. They have passed over. Their bodies forever sealed in the great ship.”
She didn’t elaborate on the great ship and Knight let that one slide. One Biblical miracle at a time, he thought, because he was in no mood to get into a discussion about Noah’s Ark. He was aware of the legend that the remains of Adam and Eve were taken aboard Noah’s Ark. Long ago, as the dreams of Eden had taken hold of Knight’s life, he was never one to immediately discount the old Biblical stories. For him, Eden had been all too real, at least in his dreams.
“Why is it the fate of the Cherubim, the Daughters of Eve, to forever stand guard over the Garden of Eden?” he asked.
She seemed preoccupied. Her thoughts were elsewhere. She seemed to be listening to a conversation in another room, or outside. It was frustrating at best, but he pushed on. “The Garden needs to be protected. In particular, the Tree of Life.”
“Who do you protect it from?” he asked.
She hesitated. “From those who do not understand. From those seek fortune and fame at the expense of all life on Earth.” She paused.
“What happens if the Tree of Life is destroyed?” he asked.
“The tree is the life force of all life.”
“This is crazy!”
She shrugged. She didn’t care what he thought was crazy and what he didn’t. She was looking out his dark windows. She even sniffed the air once, her nostrils flaring. He saw that her hand had unconsciously gone to the hilt of some weapon at her hip. She did all of this unconsciously, her movements slow. He frowned.
“There is another group of people who seek the Tree of Life,” she said. “They are known as the Fallen.”
“Who are they?”
“Daughters who ate from the Tree of Good and Evil.”
“Ah, the other tree,” he said, smiling.
She wasn’t looking at him and didn’t see him smile, which was just as well. “Yes, the other tree. The Forbidden Tree. The tree, that even to this day we Cherubim leave alone, although its ripe fruit is alluring and its shade welcoming. Those who ate of this tree are the fallen Cherubim. Some of those who ate of the tree were given immortality as well.”
“But Adam and Eve ate of the tree, as well.”
“Yes, and they were banished from Eden and stripped of their fellowship with who we know as the Creator. Both died when very old. The fallen Cherubim, however, were given a different punishment. A cursed eternal life, forced to feed on the dead and never live in the light. Their souls are tormented, trapped in bodies that long to die, but can’t.”
“Vampires?”
“No, but they are the source of many of the vampire legends. The Fallen are able to reproduce, though. They do not have fangs and do not turn into bats. They do not kill, but feast on the rotting corpses of anything they can find. They lurk in the shadows, scavenging among the freshly dug graves, working in slaughterhouses. It is a miserable existence and they are foul, disgusting creatures. They cannot even remember who they were and what they had been. Except for one. She seeks to organize them and is the strongest of them all. She is the sister of the Mother Daughter.”
“This is getting confusing,” he said. “So, she was your aunt?”
“In essence. She ate of the fruit and tempted the others. She was always resentful of her destiny to be a Guardian. Well, she got what she wanted and she brought many of the Daughters down with her.”
“Seems I heard this story before. The fallen angels. Fallen Cherubim.”
“Yes. The similarities are striking,” she said. “Now, this one has not been fully transformed and has made it her lifelong quest to return to the Tree of Life after her banishment.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sulina the Fallen.”
“Catchy,” said Knight. “So, what do they want with the Tree of Life? Will it heal them as well from the curse?”
“The Tree heals wounds and can even bring back the dead. However, it cannot erase the curse that has been placed on the Fallen. No, Sulina seeks the Tree for other reasons.”
She paused, and cocked her head.
Knight said, “This is the part where you tell me the other reasons.”
She turned to him, lost in her own thoughts, or distracted by something outside. He couldn’t tell which. “The Tree of Life is not called that for nothing. The Tree can create life that has never existed on this planet before.”
“I’m not following.”
“Sulina seeks to find the Tree to create life in her own image. An endless army of her own warriors and perhaps of foul creatures too hideous to describe. All to serve and worship her and do her bidding.”
Knight tried to come to terms with what she was saying. “It’s a big cloning, but better, because you can create something that never existed before. Like God did.”
“Yes,” she said. “Like God did.”
“I‘m beginning to see why it’s so important for you ladies to protect the Tree. Has she made an attempt on it in the past?”
“Twice, but she was thwarted. She organized many of the Fallen, but they are a hapless bunch, prone to fighting among themselves with short-attention spans. I know she seeks to someday bring a real army to the Mountain of God.”
“And, if she does?”
“We are prepared,” said Jess. “There is one other thing about the Fallen. They can find me.”
“They can smell me and any other Daughter.”
He sniffed. “You smell fine.”
She stood, her hand coming to rest on the pommel of her short sword. “The oil in my system gives me away. For those who know the scent, it is a trail that leads them to me, or any of the Daughters. When they’re close enough, I can smell them as well. The oil enhances our senses and I can smell the rotting stench of death that forever emanates from the bodies of the Fallen.”
He didn’t like the direction this conversation had suddenly taken. “Why are you telling me this now, Jess?”
“Because they’re here.”
***
She watched him move quickly to his dark sliding glass door that led to a wooden deck with what must have been a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean in the daytime. Now, all was black through the window, save for the blinking lights of an offshore oil rig.
He stepped to one side of the glass, instead of exposing himself fully. Looking out at an angle, he reported, “There’s only a half moon tonight. Beach is dark. I don’t see anything.”
He didn’t doubt her, she could tell. He was just reporting what he saw.
The stink of something rotten, as if something had died in the next room, was strong in the air. The smell of decay was mixed with something else that always reminded her of bad cologne, as if the Fallen doused themselves with body oils to mask the stench of their rotten core. However, her experience told her that few mortals could detect the Fallen, although some probably did become ill or nauseous for an unknown reason. Most experiences were chalked up to a mild case of food poisoning, but they had actually been exposed to noxious odors from a Fallen.
“They are out there. The stench is strong. They are many.”
“Wait,” he said, and pressed closer to the door frame. “I see movement on the beach. There appears to be a small crowd.”