by TW Knight
"What the fuck is wrong with me?" Was this a side-effect from his early return from the Void or finding his soul-keeper?
Either way, he didn't like it.
For too long he'd kept his old self locked away— it was not the time for a return appearance. There was too much to stake. The war, for starters. He couldn't afford to get distracted.
Rail hasn't been distracted by Cassidy, a treacherous inner voice teased him.
Bass pounded a fist against the side of his head a few times.
Before he did any real damage to his brain, Bree returned with two steaming cups.
"Boomer is back and Rail is patrolling. Hogart's in the extra tent sleeping."
"Did anyone see you?"
Bree handed him one of the mugs. "Just Cassidy. She was adding wood to the fire and asked why I was up. I told her I couldn't sleep. Hopefully she didn't notice I took two cups while we were talking."
"What about your brother? Was he hurt?" He took a long draw off the coffee, letting the heat fill the cold pit growing in his stomach. "I thought I saw him on the floor."
"Sam is holed up in his room next door." Bree took a sip from her own mug. "He's not handling things well. He got knocked out and I... I let Hogart give him blood to help heal him."
Bass smirked as Bree shifted uncomfortably. Like a kid who wasn't sure if she'd made a mistake or not.
Kid. Maybe if he thought of her as a kid, he could shut down the strange feelings battering him.
That idea went to ash when she took a seat next to him on the cot, their legs touching.
"Was it insensitive for me to ask where you go when you die," Bree asked tentatively. "After all, you were kicked out of Heaven..." Her eyes widened. "You don't go to Hell, do you? I mean technically you don't have a soul."
Bass glanced at the young woman beside him. The concern in her eyes tightened his chest. "No. It wasn't insensitive. We don't go anywhere, really." He shivered as the memories flitted around his mind like disturbed bats. "Imagine being lost in a dark tunnel filled with black Jell-O mixed with oil, and you have to work your way out."
"I thought that death was a tunnel of light?"
"Maybe for humans, but not for us." A shiver ran though him again, but this time because she placed a comforting hand on his thigh. "Maybe because we don't stay dead."
"Why don't you want the others to know you're back early?"
"Because I don't know why I'm here and they would make a fuss. We've had a few surprises lately. Better to deal with it in the light." Bass turned to see her face. The warm lantern light gave Bree a soft radiance and for a moment he forgot to breathe. "You said something happened to Cassidy and Rail while I was dead."
Bree nodded and in a rushing flood described what happened. By the time she finished, she was short of breath.
"That makes no fucking sense." Bass stood, paced in a compact circle. After several laps, he returned to sit on the cot, careful not to touch Bree's leg again. "Seriously, that makes no fucking sense."
She shrugged.
"Tell me again what Cassidy and Rail became."
Excitedly, Bree described it once again, going into further detail when describing the glowing being. "Boomer said they were taking their becoming one thing too seriously. No one's really sure what happened."
Bass gave her an incredulous look. "And Hogart really settled down after seeing them?" When Bree nodded, he whistled. "Makes no sense."
"Can I ask you..." Bree set her coffee aside and looked away. "Never mind. We should probably try to get some more sleep."
"I'm not tired. Ask me whatever you want."
"You may live to regret that. I have a lot of questions."
Chapter Ten
"Where do Heaven and Hell exist," Bree blurted, then covered her mouth, her cheeks apple red.
It caught Bass off guard. He' expected some question about the soul bond. For a moment he was unsure how to answer. He quirked a smile. "Heaven is above clouds and Hell is below your feet."
"Seriously?"
He laughed at her sarcastic tone. "Both are parallel dimensions to this one, so technically they are everywhere. We defined the where ages ago when dealing with humans. It just so happens that the portals to Heaven do open in the air above, high places like mountains, and the portals to Hell open in the ground, usually in caves, a few underwater. Has something to do with the placement of energy vortexes."
"Do you think early man knew that before you explained it?" She leaned forward again and touched him lightly.
Lightning shot across his skin from the point where her fingers alighted on the back of his hand straight to his brain. Bass bit back a groan as the sensation ricocheted to regions further south. Shifting, he hoped in the dim light Bree didn't notice his body's reaction.
She was full of surprises. He could chalk up his body's reactions to the soul-bond, but how her mind worked excited him as well. Why would she ask these questions when her concerns should be centered on being alone in the room with him and the tent he pitched behind his zipper. "Well." He coughed, aware how deep and thick with desire his voice sounded. "Uh, if you read the mythologies, you'll see that the Gods of Light and Heavenly Helpers came from above, or from sacred mountains, and the Gods of Death and Darkness along with evils of the world came out of caves or deep waters, so yeah I think they had some idea. Although it's possible that The One instilled his creations with some sort of instinctual knowledge."
"The One," she asked tilting her head. "You mean God?"
Bass nodded. "In the beginning—"
"Wait, give me a sec." Breanna scooted off the bed, grabbed her laptop, and returned to her place with a big smile as the computer booted. "I'm going to take notes. If that's okay?" She looked worried.
"Sure. But why?"
"So I can do research later. My major is World Religions, a Comparative Study of Mythology, Folklore and Religious Rites."
Bass gaped like fish. "How old are you?"
"Twenty–three." She smiled sheepishly, glancing at the computer screen. "Okay, I'm ready."
How did thinking about Breanna's mind lead to him thinking about other parts of her body? With a shake of his head, Bass jumped back into the discussion. "Well, with those studies you know there are three schools of thought regarding how this world came to be: creationism, evolutionism and alien intervention." He looked up to find Breanna's eyes locked on him, her fingers moved over the keys, making little clicking noises. "What you may not know is that all three are true."
"All three? But—"
"Didn't the others give you the history lesson while I was out?"
"Yeah, but I kind of tuned out at points. It was too much so soon after seeing, well, everything." She let out a sigh, her breath shifted a bit of hair hanging over her left eye.
Bass stared at her lips, fascinated by their shape. The sound of silence alerted him he should say something. He needed to focus on the conversation.
"Okay. A quick refresher. Once there was a Presence who became bored with its existence, left its dimension, and wandered into this dimension looking for adventure," Bass started as though telling a story to a child. "For sake of argument and confusion, we'll call this presence God. Here, He found an intriguing new world in its second stage of birth. Curious, God decided to stay and watch what would happen." Setting his coffee aside, he stood, walked to the door, and back. "After a few millennia, which would have been no more than a blink in time to the Almighty, new life began to form, to replace what nature had wiped out. Of course, God believed that it was His presence and energy that gave this world its new spark of life."
"Did it?" Breanna asked, her fingers stilling on the keys.
"Who knows, maybe it did. Anyway," he continued. "Over time, that spark grew, changed, and evolved. But God wasn't satisfied with nature's approach and began tweaking the newly forming creatures to see what would happen. In His home dimension, this type of experimentation achieved brilliant results."
"Tweaking?" Bre
e interrupted.
"How else could you explain the platypus?" Bass laughed, enjoying Bree's answering chuckle. "Basically, He infused some of the new creatures with His energy and kept making changes until He got something similar to those He'd created back home. Eventually, God brought his first children over from the dimension you call Heaven to this world. These children were the first Angels— the Hierarchy." He spat the last word with disdain. "And as humans began to evolve, God created more children— these became the various lower ranks of Angels."
Bree cleared her throat. "Why didn't God make more of the same type of Angels he'd already created?"
"Apparently creating the Hierarchy took a lot of His energy, so we were created with less energy and fewer supernatural gifts. And—" he sighed like an exasperated teenager, "—more rules than the Hierarchy. The first born are always the favorites, right?" Bass returned to the cot. "But even having His new children didn't stop God from experimenting. In time, the humans became His favorite project. That's really why the Angels were brought here in the first place. To help the humans develop. Honestly, I think that was His plan as soon as His creations began to show promise."
The clicking stopped and Bass turned his attention back to the girl. At first he thought she might object to the history he'd recited, yet she remained silent, her expression blank. Something flickered in Bree's eyes and she jumped, waving her hands excitedly, nearly dislodging the laptop from its perch on her knees.
"God is an alien?" She gasped. "Oh. My. God. You're aliens! All those Ancient Alien theories are right. You guys were the ones responsible for places like Atlantis, Machu Picchu—"
"Actually, that would be Puma Punku as part of the Tiahuanaco civilization in South America. But some angels did help with Machu Picchu. Along with the Rama of India, the Osirian along the Mediterranean, and the Uiger of the Gobi desert— to name a few of the more obscure ones. Malta's my favorite. If you Google ancient civilizations with advanced technology, you'll get the list of just about all of them." When she openly gawked, Bass laughed. "What can I say? Some of those projects were before my time, so occasionally I Google just to see what the archeologists have been digging up. No pun intended." He winked and his heart stuttered when he caught a rising blush on Bree's cheeks. "And to clarify, we're not aliens. We are the children of an inter-dimensional being. And technically, so are you."
"Still an alien in my book," she quipped. "Why did the angels help the early humans build all those great cities?"
"To help harness the energy that flows between Heaven and this world," he answered matter-of-factly.
"Then why did they all vanish? It seems like an awful waste of time and, well, energy."
"There were some objections as to how some of those civilizations were developing. How they were using knowledge we gave them." He let out a breath. "We had to let some of them go."
Bree huffed.
"Anyway," Bass continued. "I'm guessing you were paying attention to Rail at some point since you knew we'd been kicked out of Heaven."
"Yes. I was listening then." Her voice held an edge of anger. It struck a chord within Bass. "It wasn't fair what they did."
"We broke the rules," he corrected.
After a moment Bree asked, "Did you... did you lose anyone?"
"No. Not like many of the others. But I protested what was done, and was punished just the same."
"Do you ever think about how different the world would be if the Hierarchy had just left things alone," Bree asked, setting the laptop aside.
"All the time, babe. All the time." Some of those "what ifs" scared him shitless, while others made him cry when he was shitfaced drunk. Not that he'd ever admit it.
The room closed in around him.
'"Okay, you explained Heaven and God, the angels and creation, but what about Hell?"
Broken free of his dark thoughts by Bree's voice, Bass jumped. She smiled, waiting for his answer.
"Ah. Well," Bass started. "Apparently there was something dark and evil already here. Or at least existing in another parallel dimension called Sheol, but attached to this world the way Heaven is. There's been a rumor for ages that God's presence here brought the Evil-One's attention to this world." Bass shrugged. "I don't know if that's the truth, but it makes sense."
"Okay." Bree's fingers flew over the keys once again.
"Earth is like a gateway between lots of dimensions," he pointed out. "I think the dark presence didn't even care about this world. Probably only knew it was here because other things fell into its world through this one. You know, like the neighbor's dog going under the fence." He sipped the cooling coffee, frowned, and set the cup aside. "Who knows for sure? Not that it really makes a difference. There's always been an uneasy balance between the beings of Light and those of Dark in every dimension. It's one of those Universal Rules."
"Uneasy balance." Bree snorted. "Do you think this impending demon war Rail mentioned is over who controls the gateway?"
Bass raised an eyebrow. Why would Rail mention the war to the newbies? "Like I said, the Dark One didn't appear to give a fuck until the new kid moved into town. We're pretty sure that he didn't bother with the non-humans living here."
"Non-Humans?"
"Elemental beings and what not. Pests, really."
For a moment Bass was certain she would ask about these other beings, instead she stared at him. The gears in her mind worked behind her bright eyes.
After a few seconds, she asked, "Do you think the rise of mankind is what tipped the balance?"
"Shouldn't have. After all, the Dark Presence has lesser life forms under its control, too."
"You mean demons."
"Yeah, demons. Although we don't know if they were created by the Darkness, creatures pulled from other dimensions, or if they're the original life forms of Sheol."
"What about Lucifer? How does he fit into this war?"
"You know the story. He was kicked out of Heaven for being a douchebag and voluntarily joined forces with the Darkness to gain more power for himself. Personally, I think Lucifer couldn’t care less about good versus evil. The arrogant bastard just wants to run everything. Always thought he could do a better job of running Heaven, but he was too radical for the Hierarchy."
Stifling a yawn, Bree nodded and kept typing. "Radical how?"
Sighing, Bass reached over and shut the laptop. "You need to get some sleep. We have years and years together to talk about this stuff. No need to stay up all night." Before Bree objected, he took the computer from her and moved it to the little table next to the cot. "You can take the bed and I'll take the sleeping bag."
Not waiting for an answer, he slid out of the way, stretching as he stood. His vertebra snapped a happy hello.
"Um, we can share the cot, if you'd like," Bree offered.
Chapter Eleven
Bree swallowed, suddenly feeling wobbly. Did she just ask him to share her bed?
Heat raced up her neck and across her cheeks. Embarrassment exploded in her chest.
Her grandmother would be appalled.
She held her breath waiting for an answer, praying for a yes.
"I don't think that would be a good idea." Bass' voice waivered.
Bree's head snapped up. "Huh? Why?" She bit back the hurt burning her throat. "I mean, we're both fully clothed adults. Not like I'm asking you to sleep with me. Just share the cot."
Seriously! Why wouldn't he want to sleep with me?
Bass took a step back. "First off, that thing was barely big enough for me. Seriously, I'm surprised it didn't already fall—"
"Excuse me! Just how much do you think I weigh?"
"That's not what I meant." Bass continued to back pedal until he hit the door. "I just meant when we were both sitting on it. If weight was an issue—"
"Wait, you won't share the cot with me because I'm fat?" Her voice hitched up an octave.
"Wait. What? I never said you were fat."
"You said—"
"Lo
ok. That thing is old, shaky, ready to fall apart, and too small for two people, let alone someone as big as me. You take the cot and I'll take the floor."
The heat in Bree's cheeks rose to third degree sunburn. She'd responded like he rejected her sexually. "I'm sorry. I'm tired and..."
"Vulnerable."
"Excuse me?"
"You're tired and the soul-bond is affecting your emotions. You're vulnerable." Bass took three steps forward and pinned Bree against the wall, her arms above her head before she realized he'd moved. "Be thankful I said no. I'm just the kind of bastard to take advantage."
In the next breath, his mouth slanted over hers, his tongue seeking entrance. Bree sighed and gave in. She tried to take control of the dance, failing as her body melted against his, vibrating with need and hunger. Deep inside her something tightened and then burst, her energy slowly draining away.
All too soon, the surging heat and electricity vanished. Bree opened her eyes to find Bass leaning against the door, panting. "Maybe I should relieve Rail from patrol. Being out in the snow might be a good idea."
Without another word, Bass vanished. Bree watched the door close. Falling forward, she caught her balance on the table's edge and slowly sucked in a deep breath.
Taking a shaky step toward the cot, Bree came to a staggering realization. Bass was the best kisser in the world. And, although she was far from being a virgin— she'd just had her first true orgasm.
***
Bass flashed directly from the building to land face first in a snow bank. He lay there only a few moments when the cold kiss of steel touched his neck.
With a grunt, he rolled over to stare at Rail's confused expression. "Why am I always on my back with you threatening to kill me," he asked, exasperated with the whole situation.
"Bass?" The sword dropped away. "What the fuck?"
"I know. Right?"
"But it's only been..."
"Yep."
"But you're—"
"Freezing my ass off. Help me up." He held out a hand and Rail hauled him to his feet.
