“Yes,” the woman said. “Yes, it is.”
And as the words left her mouth she and Jon watched as the man in the suit emerged from the darkness of the cave, the body of an elderly woman held in his arms.
Izzy knew at once who the old woman was, and that she was dead, for the Garden was telling her this.
“That . . . that’s your mother,” Jon spoke aloud, seemingly knowing the information as well.
A pistol had appeared in the man’s hand, aimed at them both.
“You don’t have any need for that,” Izzy told him.
The man continued to stare. It had been a very long time since she’d seen either of them, but she knew this man before Eden had begun to tell her who he was.
“Don’t you remember me, Dad?”
His expression barely changed, but in his dark eyes she could see that he knew her . . . that he remembered.
“Izabella,” he said.
The gun was somehow gone; she hadn’t seen where, or how he’d put it away while still holding the woman, but it wasn’t pointed at them anymore.
Her father looked at the dead woman in his arms with a gaze so intense that she could feel the energy passing between them.
“She blamed herself for what’s happening,” her father said, lowering himself to his knees. “Said that it was all her fault. Purposely hurt herself so that she couldn’t be used anymore.”
Izzy knelt in the moving grass beside her mother and father.
“Why’d you have to go and do that,” Izzy said quietly, reaching out to cup the dead woman’s cold cheek in her hand. “Wish I could have spent some time with you before—”
A violent tremor passed through the earth, and a jab of pain like an ice pick to the skull caused her to double over.
Eden was in trouble again. Eden was in pain.
“We really don’t have the time for this,” Jon said. He was holding the side of his head, a slight trickle of blood leaking from his nose.
Her father was now staring at the man, as if noticing him for the first time.
“Who’s he?” he asked. “Boyfriend?”
Izzy smiled at the idea—after so many years of hate, the Sons and Daughters coming together again . . . here.
“No,” she told her father. “But you don’t have to worry about that.”
She stroked her mother’s hair.
“You need to get her out of here,” Izzy told him. “You need to bring her home. . . .” She looked at him squarely through the lenses of his dark-framed glasses.
“Her real home.”
Her father nodded, understanding what she was asking of him.
“We have some business to take care of here first,” Izzy said.
He stood, gently holding the body of the woman in his arms.
“It was nice to see you again, Dad,” Izzy said.
“Nice to see you too,” her father told her.
And in his eyes she could read that it was true—he was glad to see her.
Remiel held the young Shaitan at bay with the Cherubim’s sword.
The fire burned brightly as he held it out before him, the light from the blade preventing them from advancing.
But for how long?
The small monsters, no bigger than newborns, hissed and snapped at the light thrown from the blade, squinting and covering their eyes with nastily clawed hands.
The angel considered his options: He could flee the Garden, leaving the situation as bad as he’d found it, or he could attack, wading in among the pale-skinned creatures and attempting to slay them all before they reached their full, deadly maturity.
He didn’t particularly care for either choice, but running away was not an option.
The Shaitan were getting braver by the second, charging at him, teeth snapping. As one did this, the others followed suit. They were learning from one another, and it wouldn’t be long now before they came at him in full force.
His body was still weary, injuries slowly healing, but still healing nonetheless. He wasn’t even close to peak battle form, but all that would need to be set aside if he were to fight in hope of slaying them all.
One of the younglings charged with a horrible shriek, and Remiel sliced the head from its body. They had not yet learned of their shape-shifting abilities, but he guessed that it was only a matter of time before they did.
Their dead brother provided him with a little more time, the others pouncing upon the corpse and eating it before the body could even grow cold.
They were soon back, their full attention on him in seconds.
There seemed to be more of them now, even more newborns crawling up from the dirt.
The Shaitan were clumped together, a mass of snarling, snapping teeth and claws, hungry for the flesh of the Heavenly.
“Come at me, then,” he said, steeling himself for the approaching battle. And his thoughts quickly reviewed all the things that would be lost to him if he should fall, all the friendships, all the loves, and even the dislikes that would be greatly missed.
He hoped those things would give him the strength to do what was required of him this moment, the strength to be victorious.
The strength to survive.
The Shaitan flowed like a wave, and Remiel was ready, the slaughter of his foes the only thing that mattered.
He waited for them, but the earth itself reacted before he could.
Jagged teeth of rock and dirt pushed up suddenly from the ground, creating a wall and preventing the Shaitan from reaching him.
Remiel was confused, but remained ready for what might possibly follow.
The abominations screamed their displeasure, pushing against the blockade, and began to climb over. Roots like tentacles reached up from the ground, snagging them around their malformed limbs, dragging them back behind the wall.
A cacophony of bird cries filled the air, and he gazed up to see a cloud of strange, sparrowlike birds descending from the trees to peck at the Shaitan.
The wall of rocks and dirt continued to grow in thickness and in height, and began to push them, herding the newborn Shaitan back toward the Tree of Knowledge.
“You need to get out of here,” came the familiar voice of a young man.
Remiel turned to see Jon and Izzy emerging from the jungle. The two were holding hands, and he didn’t really understand until he noticed the jungle around him, and what was happening at their feet.
Where there had once been sick and wilted vegetation, it was now green and healthy, growing up from wherever they passed or stepped.
They were connected to Eden now, and this connection was providing the Garden with what she needed to fight back, and to survive.
“What happened to your armor?” Jon asked.
“Lost in the belly of the beast,” Remiel answered. “Good to see you, Jon . . . Izzy.”
“Good to see you too, Remy,” Jon said. “But you’ve got to do what we said and get out of here as fast as you can.”
“I can’t,” he said, looking back to the Tree, and to the Shaitan that were trying to escape the Garden’s attempts at confining them. “Something needs to be done about them before . . .”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Izzy told him. “That’s why we’re here.”
The Garden then shook with such force that he almost toppled.
“You’ve got to go now, Remy,” Jon said.
Remiel noticed that both their noses were bleeding, and their ears as well.
“We’re helping her fight, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up,” Izzy said.
Strange, catlike animals were padding from the jungle and going to the Tree, attacking the Shaitan on the other side of the rock wall.
“You need to go and do what you did before for her,” Izzy said, her face squinted up with exertion. “You need to cut her loose by closing the gates again.”
Remiel understood what they were asking of him.
“What about you two?” he wanted to know. “I think I cou
ld fly both of you through the jungle and—”
“We’re staying,” Jon said. “Somebody has to make sure that these things aren’t allowed to escape.”
“And with our help, Eden should be strong enough to keep them prisoner here for a good long time,” Izzy added, wiping a fresh trickle of blood from her nose with a sniffle.
Remiel stared, in awe of their sacrifice.
“We’re sure about this,” Jon said, Izzy nodding beside him. “Please . . . get out of here and close the gates.”
He was about to leave when he heard the unmistakable sound of magickal energies being unleashed. They all looked toward the Tree as jagged fragments of rock and hunks of tree root exploded into the air. The Shaitan were learning about their abilities, unleashing them against the forces that attempted to keep them at bay.
Remiel lifted his sword and was heading in that direction, when Jon grabbed his arm in a powerful grip.
“Go,” the man commanded. “We have it under control, but we don’t know for how long.”
He hated to leave them like this, but the thought of the Shaitan getting out of the Garden was even more troubling.
Moving toward the jungle, he passed the sad, mangled body of Adam, and as if in response to his troubled thoughts, he watched as the ground began to draw the corpse down into its embrace, swallowing him up, returning his body from whence it came.
The sounds of heated battle erupted behind him, but he did not turn. He had a mission to perform, and there would be nothing to deter him from it.
Remiel spread his wings, leaping into flight, maneuvering through the low-hanging limbs and vines, flying toward his destination. Eden looked healthier, greener, thicker, and he believed that maybe the great Garden would survive the horrors she had been forced to endure.
And in doing so, keep the monstrous race known as the Shaitan from swarming out into the world of man. He could see the gateway up ahead, and pushed himself to fly faster. As he dropped to the ground just before the opening, so as to not overshoot his goal, excruciating pain exploded in his back as something raked its claws down his bare flesh.
Remiel fell to the ground, rolling over and lashing out with his sword.
A young Shaitan crouched there, licking his blood from its hooked claws, a malicious smile growing upon its monstrous face as it enjoyed its snack. He had to wonder if any more of the beasts had escaped Jon and Izzy, and gradually climbed to his feet. The wounds in his back throbbed in pain so sharp it was as if he were being stabbed over and over again.
He didn’t know whether it was his eyes playing tricks, his senses dulled by the incredible pain, but he could have sworn that the Shaitan was growing—maturing—before his eyes.
Finished with the blood on its claws, it obviously desired more, coming at him with a ferocious hiss. The flaming sword lashed out, but the beast was quick, ducking beneath the swing and darting forward to rake its claws along his side.
Remiel cried out.
It was all proving to be too much, his body shutting down a little at a time, not leaving him enough to work with.
The Shaitan seemed to sense this, moving in to attack again, tatters of Remiel’s flesh still dangling from its claws.
There was no mistaking the sound of gunfire.
The shot hit the beast in the chest, dead center, and tossed it backward into the jungle.
Remiel turned to see Francis, smoldering pistol in hand, standing in the gateway. Was that one of the Pitiless—weapons imbued with the power of Lucifer Morningstar? he asked himself briefly, before the sound of screaming drew his attention back to the jungle in front of him. Even with a bullet hole in its chest, the Shaitan was coming again. Remiel readied himself, sword in hand to fight.
But snaking tendrils of green shot out, vines wrapping themselves around the Shaitan’s thrashing limbs. The creature continued to squeal, struggling as it was dragged backward into the jungle.
A face that he recognized as Izzy’s took form in the bark of a tree nearby.
“Get out of here,” the face of wood commanded. “Close the gates behind you.”
Remiel passed through the gate to the world outside.
Francis was standing there, the body of Eliza Swan lying at his feet.
Remiel felt sadness come at the sight, but quickly pushed it aside to deal with the problem at hand.
“We have to close it,” he said to his friend.
Francis nodded, saying nothing as he went to one of the heavy metal gates, and Remiel went to the other.
There were noises coming from within the Garden, something that told him that more than one of the Shaitan had escaped his friends. They needed to do this, and to do this quickly.
“Ready?” Remiel asked him. “On the count of three.”
The sounds were louder now, multiple things fighting their way through the thick jungle growth.
“One,” Remiel said, taking the cold metal in his hands.
He looked across at his friend, feeling a strange combination of joy—to see him still alive—and revulsion.
He was concerned what that meant, and wondered whether it had anything to do with the weapon he’d seen in Francis’s hand.
“Two.”
“Three,” Francis grunted, pushing on his side, as Remiel joined him.
It was as if they did not wish to be closed again, but the gates eventually gave way, hinges crying out unhappily as they came together with a nearly deafening clatter.
The two stepped back, away from the locked gates as the Garden of Eden was again detached from a particular reality, gradually slipping in and out of focus as it resumed its journey behind the veil.
Cast adrift, and out into the sea of realities once more.
Jon thought he was going to die.
The power of Eden rushed through him like a raging river, threatening to pull him from the safety of shore out into deeper and far more dangerous waters.
“Got to hold ’em,” Izzy said, squeezing his hand all the tighter.
He didn’t answer, choosing instead to focus on the job at hand.
The Shaitan were trying to escape, newly acquired magickal energies shooting out at the Garden that tried to imprison them. A few had managed to escape the clutches of the jungle, but only a few. The majority still remained in their possession . . . the Garden of Eden’s possession.
Thanks to Jon and Izzy, Eden was stronger now, filled with a strength that she had not had for countless millennia.
The Garden told them how happy she was.
How happy she was to have her children back.
The gunmetal gray sky of the North Pole above their heads suddenly went to a weird kaleidoscope of colors before going completely to black . . . burning lights like stars igniting one by one, shedding their light down upon them, lending them some of their fiery strength.
“Remy did it,” Izzy said. “These nasty sons a’ bitches ain’t getting away from us.”
And Jon had to agree. He felt suddenly stronger, capable of getting the job done, now that the threat of the Shaitan’s escape out into the world had been averted.
“Let’s put them down,” he told Izzy . . . he told Eden.
And they obliged him, their combined strength pouring into the Garden. A wall of earth like a tidal wave rose up from the ground above the struggling Shaitan. The roots from the reinvigorated Tree of Knowledge had created a kind of jail, keeping them in one place, as the other aspects of the holy jungle worked at keeping the monsters from escaping.
The wave of dirt plunged down, burying the squirming beasts, as the Garden drew them deeper into herself.
“She’s going to create a place for them,” Izzy said, the sides of her head and neck stained crimson with blood. “A prison that she holds close to her heart.”
“And she’ll hold them there for as long as she is able,” Jon joined in, feeling Eden’s message to them. “For as long as she is strong.”
They stood there for a good long time, waiting for the Sha
itan to reemerge, for the battle to continue, but they did not come.
For now, Eden was capable of holding them.
The Garden soon calmed: The ground beneath their feet ceased to tremble; the plants, trees, and animals returned to their natural states. It was a Garden of peace again.
A Garden of peace with a malignancy at its core.
Jon was so exhausted that he dropped to the ground, releasing the viselike grip that he had on Izzy’s hand. His head swam, and he dropped it between his legs, taking deep breaths, trying to keep from passing out. There was an annoying whine in his ear, and he reached up, plucking out the damaged hearing aid and dropping the squealing device on the ground. It was then that he realized that he didn’t need it anymore, that his hearing had completely returned to that ear.
The damage had been healed. As he had helped heal the Garden, the Garden had healed him.
“Where do you think we are?” Izzy asked him.
He looked up to see that she was staring at the strange sky above them. It was like no night sky that he had ever seen before. The stars all seemed so incredibly close.
“I haven’t any idea,” he said. “But as long as we’re away from Earth, it’s all good.”
She sat down on the ground beside him.
“Never would have seen this coming,” she said with a chuckle.
“You’re right there,” Jon answered. He picked a stick up from the ground and started to play with it. Healthy green buds began to grow upon the stick, blossoming into tiny pink flowers.
“Look at that,” Izzy said. “Looks like you’ve got a green thumb now.”
He let go of the branch and watched as it took root before his eyes. It had grown nearly twice its size before one of them spoke again.
“So, what now?” he asked, wondering if Izzy had any idea of their purpose. He glanced over to her, waiting for the answer.
Izzy shrugged. “We’re the gardeners now,” she said. “I guess we tend the Garden.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed.
“And when we’re not tending the Garden, who knows,” she added.
He looked and saw that she was staring at him, eyebrows going up and down lasciviously.
A Hundred Words for Hate Page 28
