The Celestial Rose BoxSet

by Annalee Adams

  “They said she’s dead.” The angel replied.

  “Who said, damn it?” Harland yelled.

  “Gabriel.” She said, pulling away from Harland and running off to her friends.

  “No!” I cried, “What about Lucian? The others?” I yelled after her. Too late, she was gone. Where was everyone? The atrium had cleared out as soon as we had entered. Running off, I had to see for myself. Adam had said Taylor was connected to the rose, that would tell the truth. As I entered the chamber, the sky waned, crying for its fallen hero. The celestial rose petals withered and fell, just as she must have done the same. It couldn’t be! What about the babies? I fell to my knees, hitting down hard on the crystal floor. Harland caught up and sat beside me. We sat there, watching the rose as its petals slowly diminished, smashing into a thousand pieces. Without Eve, the rose would fall, and without the rose, the light would darken. All would be lost.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I was a child of the darkness, but before that, I was a mortal created by Eve herself, taken in by Lucian, and strengthened by Lilith. I owed them all everything I was. But I was not just a child of the darkness, I was a child of both light and dark, walking the path of the in-between. I’d given up my vengeance years ago, searching for my one true path; a path to love, to light once more. And now I’d found it, found him. But without the light, it would all be taken away. We’d lose our humanity and fall as slaves to the serpent once more. It couldn’t happen, it mustn’t. My chest felt tight, breath faltered. What was happening? I was on the edge of panic as I realised my happiness was about to end. It couldn’t be.

  Harland soothed my hair as he brought my head down to rest on his chest. “It’ll be okay, Elisha. She will survive this, just as we will.”

  I nodded. We had to.

  “Now, let’s find out what really happened, shall we?” he said, lifting me from him and pulling me up to stand.

  My heart felt heavy, my body burdened, as we left the chamber and headed back to the atrium. The population of Elysium was in uproar. Creatures whizzed from one side to another, rushing back and forth, plotting and planning.

  “What’s happened?” I asked a fairy, grabbing it to stop it from whizzing past.

  “Let go of me, half-breed.” Well, that wasn’t very pleasant. I frowned.

  Harland smirked. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  I let go, frowning again.

  “Humph, kindly do not do that again.” The tiny fairy said, waving her tiny finger at my face. I could have snapped my jaws and bitten her in half right there. But hey, I was trying to be all pearly light, wasn’t I?

  “The sire is back.”

  “The what?” I asked.

  The fairy frowned. “The sire.”

  “Who’s that?” Harland asked.

  “Why, Adam, of course!”

  “He is? Where is he?” Harland yelled.

  “Ouch don’t deafen me. He’s in the dining area.”

  Harland frowned. “The what now?” he asked.

  Ah, I knew what the little pipsqueak meant. It must have been where we’d had breakfast. “Come on,” I said, grabbing his hand. “I know where she means.” I dragged him away and we ran to the room where we had all shared our last meal together.

  “Adam!” I yelled as we entered the room. The table was full of the celestial guard with their heads in their hands and puzzled expressions on their faces.

  “Elisha! Come join us!” he said.

  I looked around the table as Harland pulled up two chairs near Adam, Gabriel, and Charmeine. Charmeine was there. If she was there and Gabriel had made it back, then where were the rest of them?

  We sat down. Harland looked sternly at Adam. “What happened?” he asked. I bit my lip, unsure if I wanted to hear how my loved ones had met their fate.

  Adam and Charmeine filled us in. It was a long tale, but a tale of woe, love, and strength. They had overcome so much with so little. I was overjoyed to know Lucian and Taylor had survived. After all, the last time Charmeine had seen them was when they were taken down to Hell. But they were only unconscious, not dead, damned, or destroyed.

  “How can you smile at a time like this?” Gabriel asked, clearly displeased.

  “Because you were full of tears saying they were dead. They’re not dead, they’ve been abducted.”

  “They’re in Hell, Elisha!” Gabriel yelled.

  “Oi, mate, no yelling at my girl.” Harland boomed.

  Gabriel held up his hands. “Sorry, I just can’t see how this is a good thing.”

  “Well, if anyone can get out of Hell, it’s the Devil himself.” I grinned. If only they knew.

  “Yes, he probably could.” Harland said, “but that doesn’t help us in the slightest.”

  “Oh, it does.” I grinned.

  “What? You’re not making sense, love,” he said.

  I rubbed my hands together and told them the story of how the Devil came to town. Speaking unheard truths that only the Devil’s mother and I knew.

  “Shit.” Adam said. I nodded.

  “Perhaps there’s still hope after all.”

  CHAPTER 104: LUCIAN

  Slamming my shattered body through a portal of uneven glass was a hazardous move I hoped to never have to do again. My daughter, though, was fine. I’d protected her, cradling her tiny frail body as we battled the cascaded darkness and triumphed as we pushed forward into the light.

  “We’re here, baby girl,” I exclaimed. “This is where your mummy was brought up.” The fact that we’d landed back in Elvington was beyond normal reasoning. It seemed the universe revolved around the place.

  I’d love to comment on how sunny and delightful our home town appeared to be, but considering the Earth itself appeared shattered, I was surprised the gravitational field was still intact. Luckily for my daughter, oxygen was on the list of plus sides that the planet still had. It’d take a heck of a lot to bring peace back to the world again. It was beyond recognition. The grass was fried crisp, the trees were bare and brittle, and even the sky seemed alight with the flames of Hellfire. Then there were the homes, countless homes, thousands of cherished memories had been destroyed in an instant. Why? What was the point of all the bloodshed? The unearthly ruin? I was all for the ‘let’s pick apart the bad guy’s party’. I’d lived for years like that, pleasing my own hunger by hunting down the vilest of the bunch. But the innocents, the mums, dads, uncles, and aunts. The old folks warming their skeletal bodies by the fire, or the children playing hop scotch in the playground. My heart was sullied by the anguish of so much innocence lost in the fight of a family feud. It wasn’t right, none of it was.

  Then there were the children, carefree and pure, uncorrupted by the nature of the darkened world. It’s as though the world felt the loss of its creator. Mankind was on the brink of extinction and their leader had been cast down to Hell. Wasn’t it ironic, though, the amount of them that prayed to their false God? If only they knew, if only they had realised that he was the reason their loved ones had perished, he was the reason Hell walked on Earth. Shit, they cursed the Devil, but what about God? Perhaps one day they’d see, they’d come to realise... that the only person you could trust in was yourself.

  Now, how the heck did we get back to Elysium? I pondered, looking down at the small human in my arms. I wish she’d seen this world before all the chaos unravelled. I wish she’d had the chance to know her mother as I did. But instead she’d grown up so quickly, passing through six months of her life in, hell, never touched a drop of milk and soiled a nappy. What was all that about? I thought mini humans were needy little things from the day they were born! She started to cry. “Oh baby, don’t cry... shush shush.” What did I do? The stench of faeces crept in to the air, as something warm and liquidised spurted over my arm. “Damn, really?” She soothed, giggling. Burgh, I was covered. I’d clearly spoken too soon. “Right, let’s head home and change. It looks as though you might need something solid to eat.” I said, looking at the liquid diarr
hoea covering my clothes. Shit. I did look a mess. Actually, we both looked grubby. It didn’t help that we’d been roaming around in Hell for fuck knows how long. I just hoped the Darkwater mansion was still left standing.

  We sped over fields and into the woods, bypassing the lurking zombified corpses as they clambered around looking for food. Well, at least there was something still living on this damn planet. The green shit all over the wildlife didn’t look pleasant, though. My boots were covered in it, whatever it was.

  Zooming up the driveway, my lips widened as I smiled. I saw the mansion in fantastic condition, immaculate and well protected. Was Eliza still in there? Had she kept the place safe all this time?

  The door opened, Joey sped out. “Mateeee!” He yelled, running over. Stopping only because of the stench of faeces and the tiny human I held in my fatherly arms. “Shit, man. You stink,” he exclaimed. “What’s with the mini one?”

  “Joey, I’d like you meet my baby girl.” I said, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  “Man, you bein’ serious?”

  “Yeah, isn’t she gorgeous?”

  “Err, Luci, she ain’t moving.”

  “What are you on about? Of course, she’s moving, look.” I said holding her giggling body out before him. “Do you want to hold her?”

  “No man, she ain’t moving. What’d Lilith do to you?”

  “What are you on about?” I asked, puzzled. Was he blind? My daughter’s tiny radiant face gleamed as she smiled, tapping her hand on my face as I brought her back in for a cuddle.

  “Luci, come inside mate, you ain’t looking so well.”

  “I’m fine, we just need to clean up. Then we’re off to Elysium for Adam’s help.”

  “Err okay, man.” He said as we walked to the doorway. “ELIZA!” he yelled. “You best be coming down here.” He sounded scared. What on Earth would make Joey scared?

  Footsteps tumbled down the staircase. “I’m coming!” she shouted as she ran to the doorway we stepped through. “Oh my, what on Earth happened to you Lucian?” she asked.

  “Ah, nothing a shower and some new clothes can’t fix.” I smiled. “We can’t stay long, we need to get to Elysium. Taylor’s still in Hell and we’ve got to get her out of there.”

  “Ah, yes, I understand. And by we, you mean...”

  “My baby girl, of course!” I said. What was wrong with these two? She was right there. I held her out, “Look she’s waving at you!”

  “Oh, Lucian, you need to sit down.”

  “What! Why?”

  “Come on, come over here,” she urged.

  “Fine, but I really can’t be long,” I said.

  “That’s okay,” she said, placing a large mirror before me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What do you see?” she said. I frowned. She was nuts. I sat my baby girl up on my knee and she giggled at the mirror, reaching forward to grasp it. I laughed.

  “Don’t tell me you can’t see her doing that?” I said, laughing.

  “I can’t Lucian, but I’m going to ask the mirror to show me what you see, okay?”

  “Sure, but this is nuts, you know?”

  She smiled, patted my shoulder, and sat on the arm of the chair beside me. Whispering an incantation of delicate words, she smiled. “Ah, I see,” she said, waving at my daughter who sat on my knee. “She is adorable, Lucian. How old is she?”

  “I don’t know, we weren’t in Hell that long.”

  “Well, it’s been about seven months since Joey arrived back here.”

  “Yeah mate, but that was after my bang bang fun in London. Oh and was it fun!”

  “Hmm, so about nine months then,” she said. “It explains how she can sit up by herself.”

  “What are you on about? That thing ain’t been doing nothin’ now for a while,” Joey stated.

  Eliza gave him a stern look.

  “What’s he on about?” I asked her. Why couldn’t they see?

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Lucian.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Your daughter, she... she died.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me,” I said, pulling my baby girl in close. “How dare you say such a thing? She’s as right as rain, look!” I said as my daughter giggled, batting at the flies that hovered over her. “You saw her yourself, you said so.”

  “Yes, I can see what you see in the mirror.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said holding my child tightly.

  “I think Lilith has been messing with your mind in Hell, Lucian. How did you get out of Hell anyway? No-one survives that place.”

  “My girl showed me the way. Her light is far stronger than any I’ve ever seen.”

  “Okay, I’m not quite sure how she did that.”

  “She can’t of mate, she’s fuckin’ dead,” Joey said.

  “Shut up, Joey!” Eliza yelled.

  My baby girl began to cry. “Shush shush, it’s okay, it’ll be okay.” I hushed, stroking her back as I stood her up against my chest.

  “Would you like me to show you?”

  “Show me what?”

  “Reality?”

  “What? I can see reality. It’s you pair that’s lost the plot.” I said.

  “Okay,” Eliza said. She smiled, whispered a flow of words into the mirror as it changed in front of me.

  Terror formed in the image of myself. A ragged man, a dirtied soul grasping at life as my fingers took their toll, clasped around the necrotic flesh of another lost in war. My life turned to fear, dashed hope, and mythic lore. What was once, was never more, and what would be, would never be sure.

  As the mirror shadowed the realism before me, I began to see. I finally saw. But what it showed... I felt my heart weep. For the child I cradled could not speak. It was cold and callous, brittle and black. For the baby I held was lifeless, lost in flashback.

  My frame threatened to scream and devour, every piece of the witching hour. My heart shattered, my kindred battered. How could it be that I did not see? My child was dead, as dead as dead could be.

  Eliza reached over and took her lifeless body from me. I screamed, fell to my knees, and beat the floor. I’d lost her. She had died, and I’d failed in the washed-up mess of the corridors of Hell. Joey leant over and placed his arm around my shoulder. “NO,” I screamed, pushing him back into the wall. How dare any of them try to comfort me? They’d taken my girl away, turned her into the brittle flesh of a necrotic baby. I’d been caring for her dying flesh since we’d entered this world. What happened? When did it happen? I should have known, I should have tried harder. Of course, she’d never have survived without food or water. What was I thinking? But then, how had I gotten out? What was real and what was not? Could I even trust my own eyes anymore? Was any of this real? Or was this Lilith’s plan to get me to give up my child? Maybe we were still in Hell. Maybe we had never gotten out and Lilith was here trying to steal my baby girl and lying to my face about who she really was.

  I leapt up, gripped Eliza’s neck, and slammed her into the wall. She dropped my daughter as I reached out to catch her crisp body. But she fell. It was too late. I was too slow. Her fragile figure fell to the ground and her torso cracked. I screamed, dropping Eliza and bending down to recover my daughter’s broken body.

  Eliza leant down next to me. “I’m so sorry, Lucian.” I cried, trying to lift her as a whole piece. But every time I tried, her skin crumbled and fell, falling to the ground around us. “NOOOO.” It couldn’t be happening, none of it could. I’d killed my baby girl. She had died, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  Eliza tried to help me hold the pieces together. “Put her down, Lucian, she’ll break if you don’t.”

  “Shit,” Joey said. “Fuck man, that Lilith did a number on you this time.” He said as he reached out and passed me my baby’s finger.

  “This can’t be real,” I said, placing my daughter on the ground. I cradled my legs, rocking back and forth. I was truly in Hell. I’d ne
ver escaped, how could I have? I’d entered my own personal version of Hell without even knowing about it.

  “It is, Lucian, I’m so sorry. You’re back home.”

  “You’d say that if it wasn’t real too,” I said. “How could I see her for all this time? She was real. I know it.”

  “She couldn’t have been.” Eliza said, bringing my head to her chest. I cried the sorrow of my lost child. I was heartbroken. My body felt like a lead weight and my mind had shattered beyond recognition. Each tear that fell caused pain as it bled over my sullen face, gritting at the soreness of my macerated cheeks.

  My head buried against her. “But you would have seen her, Eliza! You would have seen this coming!”

  “Yes, I should have. That’s what I don’t understand. The day of the big battle, the one where I walk alongside Taylor and you? I also hold the hands of two infant children. Twins, your twins.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense!”

  “No, you’re right, it doesn’t.”

  “Err mate...” Joey said.

  “Come on, Lucian, let’s get you cleaned up,” she said, standing up and holding out her hand. I couldn’t look at my dead child again, it was too much. Every ounce of life was gone from her. Her tiny heart had stopped beating a long time ago and there was nothing I could do to save her. “She’ll be okay, there,” she said, as I took her hand and stood up, turning away.

  “Mate!” Joey said.

  “I need to shower,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Taylor.” Tears dug into my cheeks as they fell.

  “Hey mate, you need to see this.”

  “Not now, Joey, I need to change. I’m a fucking mess.”

  “No, you best be seein’ this.”

  “Joey, I can’t. I can’t see her like that again. I just can’t.”

  “But mate...”

  “JOEY, NO!” I yelled. Did he really have to fuck with me right now? That’s when I heard it, the whispering grain of a little child’s soul replenishing in her skin, the resounding chorus of her angelic laugh floating across the airwaves. It couldn’t be! I dropped Eliza’s hand, turned, and ran over to Joey. He was sat dusting off the necrotic shell from my baby girl. My tiny little child that was alive, kicking and giggling on his lap.