I nodded. “My baby is the tipping point. He or she will be born, one more human will die, which, in turn, will cause the barrier to break. The Devil’s Drop is the weakest point of that barrier.”
He shrugged, considering. “It’s the place where it all began, so it makes sense.”
“Not in a good way,” I muttered. I slowly realized what I had to do. “Dale, why the hell did your ancestors write the prophecy down there?”
“Probably so no one would disturb it,” he said. “Duh. There’s information there on how we can survive the Last War. It’s sensitive material, Eve, and they had to make sure that, number one, it didn’t fall into the wrong hands and, number two, it survived sixty thousand years. What better place to put it than somewhere that can cause you to go crazy?”
I held my hand up, silently begging him to stop so that I could think. We had reached the service door that led to the back entrance of Reception; this was my stop. Clover was going to have a fit - I’d been away for so long, and I was meant to be working.
So there was another prophecy. The oldest prophecy, apparently. And it was good news. We could survive this.
“There’s more information down there,” I said slowly. “You're sure about that?”
He nodded. “The oral tradition is pretty simplistic: Above and Below fight, someone on the middle plane does something, and life on Earth carries on.”
I thought to myself: What exactly was that something? And could we do it?
Chapter Nine
“I’m sorry,” Nimue drawled, re-crossing her legs on the recliner. “Someone does something? Which helps save all of you?”
I nodded. “Isn’t that right, Dale?” I had to raise my voice so he could hear me. He was sitting in one of the recliners right down the back, stuffed into one seat with Zel.
Dale wasn’t listening to me. He and his fiance were whispering and giggling to each other.
I sighed, and turned back to Nimue. “Yes, apparently so. Someone does something. That’s all I got,” I shrugged.
The pizza and Buffy marathon was still going strong. Once I clocked off my shift, Alex and Nate picked me up, and we went straight out to find the others so that we could talk.We found them all in the movie room, stuffing themselves with garlic bread and watching the end of season six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The irony didn’t escape me. In season seven, the hellmouth was going to burst open, letting all the demons out to kill everyone and destroy the world.
All the guests who joined in the marathon had long gone to bed, since it was now near dawn. But our whole gang was here - Nate and Alex sat in recliners on either side of me, giving me and my belly plenty of room. Zel and Dale were behind us, jammed into one seat when they had a whole row to themselves. Nimue was draped over a recliner at the front, with an empty seat beside her. I caught her eyeing it sadly. Malach wasn’t here.
“Is there a reason you chose to do a Buffy marathon, Met?” I asked on impulse. The little old archangel was sitting cross-legged, right in front of the giant movie screen, sharing a Hawaiian pizza with Rux and Phil seated on either side of him.
Met turned to me and considered the question. “Yes,” he said, swallowing his mouthful of pizza. “There is a reason. It’s because it’s the best show of all time.” He nodded at me gravely.
“Anya my favorite,” Rux squeaked. “So funny!”
“I always liked Willow,” Met replied, handing him a slice of pizza. “She valiantly fought the darkness within her, better than anyone of them. And she won.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?” I asked him. “Am I supposed to fight the darkness inside me?”
Met rolled his eyes. “You have no darkness in you, Strawberry. Although you’re a little annoying when I’m trying to watch my favorite show.” He turned his back on me and refocused on the screen.
I huffed out a breath. Alex, next to me, chuckled. “I don’t know why you keep trying to get sense out of him,” he said.
“Because he’s the Voice of God. He must know something.”
“He’s just a mouthpiece,” Nate said, not unkindly. “He’s like a radio. He can pick up frequencies and translate them into sound. When God was broadcasting, he had a lot to say.”
“God is not broadcasting right now,” Alex muttered under his breath. “So all we get is Buffy marathons and football tournaments.”
A piece of pineapple suddenly hit Alex in the forehead with a splat. “You loved that football tournament, you ungrateful sap,” Met grumbled.
“Even I loved that tournament,” Nimue breathed out. “I never thought I’d get to wear my Lingerie Bowl outfit ever again. Not before the world ended.”
The pineapple chunk had left a greasy patch on Alex’s forehead. “You probably deserved that,” I told him. “Met is an amazing amount of fun.” I directed the next words to Met’s back. “You’re perfect just the way you are, Metatron.”
“Kiss-ass,” he deadpanned, taking another bite of pizza.
“I’m just wondering if it will ever happen again? If God will ever give us some information?” I asked sadly. “It would really help if we had some guidance right now.”
“I think we have to do it ourselves,” Dale piped up from the back, ungluing himself from Zel. “That might be the whole point. If God intervenes, then the experiment won’t work.”
“Okay, what?” I tried to turn around in my seat so I could talk to him, but my bump was so big now that it made turning uncomfortable. I gave up and resigned myself to being rude by not facing the person I was speaking with. “What experiment? What are you talking about?”
“Humanity is God’s big experiment, right?’
“I guess.” I shrugged.
“Maybe God is trying to avoid the observer effect.”
“Wha..?”
“It’s a quantum physics thing. I don’t really understand it,” Dale admitted. “But from what I figure, just watching an experiment will alter the results.”
“So you think that God is not watching?” Nate asked slowly.
His tone was hesitant. He still had faith, I knew that.
“Not interfering, probably,” I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe God still wants this stupid path to continue, and for all of us to evolve into divine beings one day too. So God is trying not to meddle in her stupid experiment too much.”
Alex took my hand and squeezed it. “Whatever God is doing, the only thing I’m sure of is that we’re not going to get any help from Her.”
I nodded slowly. “I guess this means we’re on our own, then.”
“Together,” Nate murmured. “At least we’re together.”
I smiled at him briefly, but then looked back down at my lap. “That probably means that if Met doesn’t know anything, I guess we’re going to have to go down there.”
Nate glanced at me, puzzled. “Down where?”
“Down the Devils Drop, of course.”
“Eve.” He shook his head slowly. “You’re not going down there.”
“Uh, I have to, stupid. We have to find out what the something that someone does is.” I shook my head, appalled at my grammar. “You know what I mean.”
“You’re not going down there,” Alex said firmly.
“Yes, I am.”
“Absolutely not.”
“And why not?”
Alex looked meaningfully down at my bump. “You are almost eight months pregnant, Eve.”
“So what?”
“It’s too dangerous. You can’t abseil down there pregnant.”
“Of course, I can. The harness gets fastened on your hips, anyway. Under my belly. It will be fine.”
“Your center of gravity has changed.”
I shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it.”
“The screams will drive you insane.”
“I can block them out now, thank you very much.”
It was true. I’d gone for a walk down in the caves with Nate a few months ago. He was trying t
o teach me how to block energy, as well as sense it. That’s actually what the screams were - waves of energy emanating from the thin spot in the Devil’s Drop. It was hard, but I managed it. My mental blocks slipped from time to time, but I was finding it easier and easier to wrestle them back into place.
“The cave isn’t at the bottom of the Devils’ Drop, anyway,” I added. “It’s only halfway down.”
“It’s further than any other explorer has ever gone.”
“If they knew it was there, they would have kept going,” I retorted. “They thought they were descending down an endless, boring cavern. Of course they gave up.”
“You are not going down there!” Alex shouted, exasperated. “This is ridiculous.”
“Uh, darling…” Nimue piped up. “She might actually have to.”
“What?”
“We’ve had a little… development,” she said darkly, eyebrows drooping dramatically. “And now I don’t think that anything even slightly demonic can go down there.”
“I don’t understand,” Alex said, looking at his mother blankly. “What kind of development? Why do you think that you can’t go down there?”
“I’ve been down there once or twice, just to check it out,” Nimue said blithely, waving her hand dismissively as if it were nothing. “Both times, it seems we stirred up a few souls. A couple of them escaped.”
“Escaped!”
“Relax, darling. We caught them and sent them back straight away.”
“How come they escaped?”
“The barrier is fragile down there. Stretched to breaking point. However, the souls aren’t trying to escape. It's just that they're following their base impulses. They are attracted to negative energy, so if they sense any around, they’re going to follow it. I think they managed to come through the barrier because I was close.”
“But… But you’re not a negative entity,” I asked her. “Are you?”
“Of course not, Eve, why would you even say that?” Nimue replied huffily. “It's just that we spend so much time in Hell, there is negative energy surrounding us at all times. We block it, but some of it clings to us. We carry the memories of the souls that we tend, because we try and get them through it. We are immune to it, largely.”
“Until it overwhelms us,” Zel said in a sing-song voice. "And we find we can’t block it anymore. Then we have to get away from it before it sends us crazy.”
“And you become rogue demons,” I nodded, understanding. “So where does this leave us now? You can’t go down there, obviously,” I said to Nimue. 'Neither can Zel. But can Alex?”
Nimue shook her head. “Alex has been to Hell, and he’s of my blood, so we have similar energies. The souls will be attracted to that energy, and may also recognize that he has a similar energy to one who has tried to help them,” she pointed at herself.
“What about Nate?” Alex asked.
“He’s spent too much time with you,” Nimue replied, cocking an eyebrow. “Your friendship has mingled your auras. Even though he hasn’t been to Hell, he’s spent enough time with his poor mother over the centuries, and her pain and anguish clings to him still.” Nimue shook her head. “If I can sense it, then they can too. In any case, you can’t risk it. I’m worried that if there’s a large enough breach, they’ll all come screaming out.”
I huffed out a determined breath. “So it is going to be me going down there.”
“I’m sorry, Eve,” Dale said sadly, from behind me. “I would go with you. I’d even defy the sixty-thousand-year-old orders from my ancestors to go down there with you.”
“It’s okay, Dale. It’s pretty clear you have a little too much of Zel’s essence in you for it to be safe.”
They both broke into dirty chuckles. “Not just my essence,” Zel giggled and wiped his eyes.
No one else was amused. Alex gripped the armrests of his recliner, his fingers whitening. “What about Malach? He can go with her.”
“Malach is trying to find his daughter,” Nimue replied, sniffing haughtily. “He’s currently unavailable.”
“We don’t have time to waste finding more help,” I muttered. “I need to know what the prophecy down there says.” I sighed. “I guess I’m going down the Drop on my own.”
“There’s got to be another way,” Nate said. “Another human, perhaps, can help us.”
I thought of Clover; my cheerful, lusty, perpetually optimistic friend. “I’m not dragging any more of my friends into this mess.”
There was a gloomy silence. All of us stared blank-eyed at the movie screen. Buffy was in the middle of an inspirational monologue, but I wasn’t listening.
I was planning. I was mentally preparing to strap myself into a harness, clip on some ropes, block out the screams, and spelunk down those caves alone, so I could see what I had to do that could possibly save the world.
Buffy wrapped up her speech, and we all watched in silence. Met began to clap.
“Bravo!”
I huffed out a laugh. “Can you throw me an extra bit of pizza, Met?”
He obliged, and stuffed another bit of garlic bread into his own mouth, chewing furiously. “I’m going to need the extra calories if I’m going to be abseiling in the morning!”
I tilted my head. “Sorry? You what?’
Met locked eyes with me. He looked particularly eccentric today. In honor of the pizza and Buffy binge, he was wearing Mickey Mouse flannel pajamas. On his feet were slippers in the shape of Goofy’s head. He stared at me frankly, with perfect clarity. “We’re going abseiling,” he said. “You and me. Going down is easy,” he winked, stuffing another bit of garlic bread in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. “It’s getting up that’s the hard part. I’m going to need to carb load.”
“You’re coming with me?”
He looked slightly offended. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Uh,” I frowned. “I didn’t think of it. Sorry. It’s just not your style. To plan things like this, I guess. You just kinda pop up.”
He widened his eyes, looking offended. “Eve, honestly. As if I would let you go down there alone.” He waggled his finger sternly at Alex and Nate. “ She needs better support, gentlemen. She’s heavily pregnant, you know.”
Alex opened his mouth, but shut it again. Nate put his head in his hands.
“You’re really coming with me?” I shot a look towards Nimue, who was assessing Met carefully.
“He doesn’t have a lick of negative energy on him,” she said. “He’s as pure as the driven snow. How do you do that, Met?”
“The trick is to accept it, not block it,” he nodded sagely. “You also have to be careful not to let it overwhelm you.”
“Easier said than done,” Zel muttered from the back row.
“You can really come with me?” Suddenly, my heart was a lot lighter. I was dreading the idea of abseiling down that cave alone.
“My little Strawberry,” Met drawled, his voice deep, and quite sarcastic. “How do you think you’re going to be able to understand the prophecy that’s written on the walls?”
I furrowed my brow. “I hadn’t really got that far.”
“Are you proficient in comprehending ancient aboriginal art?”
“Um. No. No, Met, I am not.” I had a vague idea that I’d be staring at cave-drawings, but in my head, they’d be laid out like a comic book, so I could understand what they were saying. Of course, that wasn’t going to be the case. These were complicated stories of the First Peoples. I felt foolish.
“You’re not going to be able to understand what you’re looking at,” Met went on. “Tell me, my little Strawberry. What is my occupation?”
“You’re a translator,” I groaned.
He nodded.
“Is that why you’re here? With us, right now?”
He looked shocked. “Is it?”
“You don’t know?”
“Oh.” The realization dawned on his face. “For a second there, I thought you knew.”
I suppressed
a grin. “Uh. No. But in any case, Met, I’m glad you’re coming with me.”
“This will be fun!”
“You have an insane concept of what constitutes fun, Metatron,” Nimue drawled. “I am, however, glad you can accompany her.”
Alex was still frowning deeply. “Why can’t you just go down there alone? Why does Eve still have to go?”
Met’s expression drooped; he suddenly looked devastated. His bottom lip trembled. “I’m scared of the dark.”
“Don’t worry,” I patted his hand. “I’m coming. I think it’s something I have to do.”
Nate gave me a side-eye glance. “Just like you thought that calling Godric was something you had to do?”
“Yeah, well, maybe my gut instincts can be a little off at times,” I said airily.
The tiny flame of hope inside me flared a little brighter. It had been burning low lately, and when the light was dim, I found it hard to care what happened to me. In those moments, I could see how if it got any worse, I would walk into the caves and throw myself off the edge of the Devil’s Drop. I would sacrifice myself so that the world would keep turning.
It was the baby inside of me that kept the light burning. If he was still close, and I could love him, then all hope was not lost.
Chapter Ten
“Strawberry.”
I moaned and rubbed my face sleepily. “Not yet,” I mumbled.
“Strawberry,” the voice insisted. “I thought we had a mission?”
I cracked open an eyelid. Metatron’s face filled my whole range of vision: Huge, shiny white teeth set in a wide grin, dark wrinkly skin, warm brown eyes, and silky-white, perfectly semi-circular beard. At first, I thought he had gone strangely bald overnight, as the top of his head was pitch black and shiny like an eight ball. I blinked, clearing my vision, and saw that he was wearing a helmet.
“What’s going on?” I croaked.
“Field trip!” Met squeaked. “Come on. Get up! We’re going down the Devil’s Drop today!” He sounded like a schoolkid going on an excursion. “Why are you not ready?”
Revelations: The Last War Page 10
