The Lost Fallen
L.C. Mortimer
Copyright: L.C. Mortimer
Published: 2017
Publisher: Amazon Kindle
The right of L. C. Mortimer to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.
Serenity cut off her wings to be with the man she loved. Then he died, leaving her alone, leaving her mortal, leaving her human. He died, leaving her without hope, but she found something to keep her going. She found a world she could lose herself in to deal with her pain. She found a world where anything goes as long as you can paint it, as long as you can draw it.
Wrath didn't want to be cast out of hell, but his mood swings were too much even for the Lord of Darkness himself. When Wrath finds himself stranded on Earth, he has to find a way to deal with both his attitude and his newfound humanity. Someone suggests he sign up for an art class, and Wrath doesn't have anything to lose.
When he meets the instructor, he immediately recognizes her as a lost fallen. She's one of the angels who left: one of the angels who walked away from heaven for a chance at something better, a chance at something greater.
Serenity doesn't seem to know who - or what - he is, and Wrath begins to toy with the lines of sanity and reality as Serenity shows him how to reach deep inside of himself and to discover that sometimes, love finds us in the most unexpected ways.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
About the Author
From the Author
Brass Heart Floating
Lost in the Apocalypse
The Forgotten
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 1
Chapter 1
Art classes were for nerds.
Wrath needed to learn how to draw about as much as he needed to learn how to embroider napkins, which was to say, he didn’t.
Still, Angelica had insisted he needed to learn how to deal with his anger issues, and she was going to fire him if he didn’t get his act together.
She was a fair boss, Wrath thought. Kind. Interesting. Funny. She was everything he had liked about humans before he became one. Now, Angelica was just another reason he no longer had the powers that had once made him unstoppable, and he hated that.
Wrath stood outside of the little community center on Main Street. The bricks were worn and crumbling at the corners. Angelica described the building as “quaint.” Wrath would describe it as a health disaster waiting to happen.
Who knew how old these bricks were? And what of the insulation? Had they used toxic chemicals to create this abomination of a building? Wrath didn’t exactly have immortality holding him together anymore. Nope. Now he could die, and he wanted his lungs to last a long, long time.
“You here for the class?” A squeaky voice brought him out of his thoughts. He turned to see a little girl staring up at him. She must have been nine or ten years old. Her eyes were big and bright, and her hair was braided in an assortment of colors.
“Why is your hair so many different colors?”
The little girl frowned. “Why are you asking so many rude questions?”
“I’m not being rude,” Wrath said.
“You are a little,” the girl said. “It’s not nice to talk about the way people look. Didn’t your mama teach you that?”
“I didn’t have a mother,” Wrath said, and the little girl cocked her head at him. He saw something flash in her eyes, but it wasn’t pity. Curiosity, perhaps.
“Everybody’s got a mother,” the girl said.
He shook his head. She had no idea.
“Who does your hair?” He asked her, changing the subject.
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking me so many questions? Are you a snitch or somethin’?”
“No.”
The girl watched him for a long time. Her gaze made Wrath slightly uncomfortable. He still wasn’t quite used to being in his human form permanently. In the past, if someone looked at him this way, he could shift quickly into his demon body and kill them. That was the thing about the living, though: they tended to frown upon randomly killing people. He needed to find new ways to deal with the anger that pulsed through his veins.
“Are you here for the art class?” The girl repeated her question.
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to be late if you just keep standing out here,” the girl told him. “You scared?”
He looked at the girl curiously. She wasn’t mean. He could tell that right away. She wouldn’t tolerate him picking on her, of course. She had a strange inner strength he wasn’t used to seeing in people. That, too, was obvious. Still, he wasn’t about to admit that art class was something he didn’t really want to participate in.
He didn’t need it.
There was nothing wrong with being angry, he thought.
Only, Wrath knew he was lying to himself.
Anger was what had driven him as a demon. The need for vengeance, his thirst for revenge? Those things had kept him going when he was tired, when he was old. They had also become the reasons he was no longer a demon.
Now he was human, and he needed to learn how to act like one.
It had been six months since he’d been dumped on Earth. Six months and he still wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing here. Oh, he had a job and a place to live. He knew how to buy food, how to open a bank account, how to go to the library. He could do plenty of activities that humans seemed to enjoy engaging in, but he still didn’t know how to be human.
Not on a deep, intrinsic level.
The world of demons had a different set of rules. Being a supernatural creature had its benefits. Wrath could visit Earth, but he had never been bound by its rules for humans. Gravity had never been a problem for him before. Neither had illness.
Both of these things had proved to be his undoing here on Earth. Learning to walk normally without falling or tripping had been a disaster. When he first moved into his apartment, he had stepped on a Lego the previous tenant had left behind. Wrath wasn’t sure how he’d managed to avoid killing someone over that pain. He’d never been able to match the sensation. It was brutal.
Then there had been the illnesses. There was no vaccine for the common cold, but after experiencing constant viruses and sicknesses since becoming human, Wrath wondered why not. Surely someone should have invented that by now. He had never realized, as a demon, how terrible a sinus infection actually felt.
Now he knew.
He knew so many things, but he still had more to learn.
“I’m not scared,” Wrath finally said to the little girl. She just stood there, watching him. Her gaze made Wrath uncomfortable and he couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Perhaps it was the way she seemed to see through his words and his exterior to the man he was beneath all of the clothes.
He wore a button-down shirt, a nice pair of jeans, converse, and a leather jacket. He had watched humans for millennia. He knew how they dressed. He knew he had pi
cked an outfit that was normal, but that wouldn’t draw too much attention for being either too fancy or too plain.
“My name is Clover,” the girl said, and she held her hand out to Wrath.
He simply stared at her.
“The socially appropriate response is to shake my hand and tell me your name,” Clover offered helpfully.
“That’s a strange name,” Wrath said. He took her hand and shook it. “Why would your parents give you such a weird name?”
“It’s not my real name,” Clover looked at him like he was the biggest idiot she’d ever met. She spoke slowly, as if he couldn’t quite understand English. “But you white folk can never seem to remember my real name, so ya’ll just call me Clover.”
“What’s your real name?” Wrath was curious.
“Clemecia.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“My mama thinks so, too.”
Clemecia stared at Wrath, waiting for him to say something. Oh, right. His name. She wanted to know his name. He had a proper human name, too.
“John Smith,” he said, and now it was Clemecia’s turn to snicker. “Why are you laughing?”
“You’re the one with the weird name,” she said. “What do your friends call you?”
He didn’t have any friends. He didn’t have anyone who knew the true him. How could he? He had studied humanity long enough to know that if you approached someone with an outrageous claim, you needed to be ready to either back it up or be committed to a mental institution. You couldn’t simply tell people you were a former demon who had been sentenced to life on Earth. That was a fast way to be labeled insane.
Still, that seemed like too much information to offer little Clemecia, so Wrath just nodded.
“I go by Wrath,” he said.
“It suits you,” Clemecia said.
“Thank you.”
Together, they stood and looked at the building in front of them. Out of the corner of his eye, Wrath noticed other people slowly trickling in and out of the building.
One boy dripped water as he walked past. His flip-flops squeaked and squished with each step. The towel tossed over his shoulder was a clear giveaway that he’d been to the community center to swim.
Another woman headed into the building wearing a sports bra and a pair of shorts. She carried a water bottle and wore earphones. Obviously, she was about to work out, and she was comfortable enough with her body to wear the clothes she wanted to while she exercised.
Everything seemed so normal to Wrath.
He knew, in this moment, that he was about to become even more ordinary. He was about to become even more a part of Earth. Each time he participated in something like this, some sort of human ritual, he felt the demon part of him slip further away.
His humanity was being cemented, slowly, and he hated the way that made him feel. Humans were weak and they were small. Out of all the supernatural beings, out of all of the planets he’d been to, humans were by far the worst creatures he’d ever encountered.
They were strangely resilient, though, and they were scrappy.
Wrath didn’t want to be scrappy.
He wanted to be big, to be strong. He wanted to strike fear in the hearts and minds of the people he encountered. He wanted to lash out when he was angry and to kill when he felt like it. He didn’t want to be trapped in this vessel.
“We’re going to be late,” Clemecia said again. “We should go. Our teacher won’t like it if we make her wait.”
This time, Wrath nodded, and followed Clemecia into the building. With each step, his dread grew. It became a weight hanging around his neck, waiting to sink him. He had to be strong. He had to keep going. He couldn’t let something like this hold him back.
It was only a class.
It was just one hour, and then he could return to his quiet apartment and sit by himself.
No one had to know what his life had become. No one had to know how much he hated being there. He could go for a little while, and he could pretend to be normal, and then he could leave. He’d tell Angelica he had come, and he’d bring something as proof of his visit, like a brochure, or a picture of the class itself. Then she’d leave him alone, and he never had to come to this silly class again.
The inside of the community center smelled of chlorine and sweat.
“Don’t mind the smell,” Clemecia said.
“I do.”
She wrinkled her nose at him and shook her head. “You’re fussy,” Clemecia pointed out. “This is the only place some people have to work out, you know. We’re lucky there’s a pool here.”
Wrath didn’t believe in luck. Never had. Even as a demon, the idea of luck eluded him. People made their own luck, no matter what anyone said. It wasn’t just about working hard. That part was a myth. No, you got luck from being smart, from being clever. You got luck from the long con.
Life wasn’t as short as most people said, but people had incredibly tiny attention spans. They thought five years was a long time. It wasn’t. If you wanted to get the most out of your life, you had to think ten years down the road. You had to think twenty. Where did you want to be in twenty years? Think that way, and your luck would come to you.
When you set goals for the long-haul, you could make choices that would move you forward over time. It wasn’t about this week, this month, this year, or this decade. It was where you wanted to be at the end of your life. It was about a lifetime.
He didn’t tell Clemecia that.
He doubted she’d understand.
They turned down a hallway with cinderblock walls that had been pained a strange, ugly shade of blue.
“Ugly,” he pointed them out, but Clemecia just shook her head and kept walking. She walked with confidence that no child her age should have. Wrath knew she was the type of child other people would label an “old soul.” That, again, was a misnomer. All souls were the same age. There was no such thing as one being older than another.
At the end of the hall there was a door, and Wrath knew before Clemecia said anything that the class was just beyond that door. She paused and looked over her shoulder at Wrath, as if silently asking him if he really wanted to go through the door.
He didn’t.
There were many things Wrath didn’t want to do and art class was at the top of that list. Clemecia didn’t ask him, though, and Wrath didn’t say anything as she pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Wrath followed her into the classroom. Tables had been set up around the room with paper and brushes and pencils sprawled out on the tops of the tables.
“Hello, Clemecia,” the teacher smiled. “Who’s your friend?”
Wrath waited for Clemecia to say they weren’t friends, that she didn’t even know him. Surely Clemecia would tell the teacher he was just a stranger, a loser who was too scared to walk into the room on his own, but Clemecia didn’t do that. Instead, she laughed and took Wrath’s hand, pulling him beside her.
“This is my friend, John,” Clemecia said. “Only, I call him Wrath. You can, too.” Wrath breathed a sigh of relief. He wouldn’t have to be called John Smith here. Good. He knew it was his official name: his human name. All of his documents said John Smith and he was used to people calling him that name, but it still didn’t feel right.
It felt like he was borrowing someone else’s coat in the middle of winter. It kept the chill from reaching his bones, but it never quite fit the way his own coat did.
“Hello, Wrath,” the teacher smiled at him. Wrath wasn’t used to people being nice to him, at least, not once they got to know him. He was dark, and he was jaded. People didn’t like that. They didn’t like being around people like him. Not for long.
Clemecia watched Wrath with gentle eyes. She wasn’t waiting for him to screw this up. She was just waiting for him to calm down, to become comfortable with this situation.
“My name is Serenity,” the teacher said. She held out a hand and Wrath took it, shaking it nervously.
“Nice t
o meet you,” Wrath managed to say. Serenity seemed so out of place here, in this community center. She had pale skin and bright, brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was hanging loose in long curls that fell past her shoulders, and she was wearing black.
All black.
It was strange, in this place that was so colorful. He glanced at the students in the room, and they were each wearing different, vibrant colors. Shades of red and yellow, orange and blue, filled the room. The teacher was different, though. She stood in stark contrast to the rest of the space, but she seemed completely comfortable with herself.
“How did you hear about our class?” Serenity asked.
“My boss suggested it.”
A smile slid over Serenity’s face. She seemed like the kind of person who smiled easy. Not like Wrath.
“Well, we’re happy to have you,” she told him. “We’ve already started class for the day, so go ahead and take a seat. After class, if you’ll come see me, I’ll help you fill out the registration form.”
“This way,” Clemecia took him to the back row. There were two empty seats there. They sat side-by-side as Serenity began giving instructions for the drawing they were supposed to do. The girl to Wrath’s left began drawing vigorously, holding her purple pencil tightly in her grip. Thick, dark lines began to fill the page as Serenity talked and the girl drew, almost angrily.
Then he realized she wasn’t angry.
She was passionate.
There was a look of peace on her face as she drew, and as the colors filled the page, she began to visibly relax more and more, going to a state of almost complete calmness.
Serenity continued to speak to her class. Wrath listened as her musical voice filled the room, and he wondered if there wasn’t something to this whole art thing.
He still didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to be drawing in a class full of people who were happier than him, but Serenity had caught his attention, and Wrath picked up a pencil from the pile at the center of the table.
Then he began to draw.
Chapter 2
The Lost Fallen Page 1
