The tentacle squeezed Jake, forcing the air from his lungs. It furled up, winding itself around him with his body serving as its core, until he faced Avademe’s eyes once more. Unable to breathe, he clawed at the monster’s skin but only succeeded in scraping his fingertips raw. He heard his heart beating in his chest and prayed for a swift death.
“We will see you for breakfast,” Avademe said through Bianca’s mouth. “You will speak for us then.”
The tentacle unfurled with blinding speed, spinning Jake so fast he experienced vertigo. The tentacle launched him through the air, and he struck the dock and moved across it like a rolling pin. The cabal members and the watchers scurried out of the way, and he crashed into the far wall and cried out.
“Take him below,” Avademe said.
Watchers seized Jake and hauled him to his feet. Reichard gave him a sympathetic head shake. The watchers jerked Jake forward, and he swung his head close to Madigan’s grinning face. “You killed her, you son of a bitch.”
“She had it coming.”
The watchers dragged Jake away. “You’ll get what’s coming to you, too.”
As the watchers forced him toward the door through which Lionel had brought Marla and Bianca, Jake saw Avademe stuffing Bianca’s corpse into its other slit. He closed his eye and stumbled, but the watchers held him upright. They pulled him through the doorway and into a stairwell with cinder-block walls, the sounds of his footsteps and their claws echoing on the steps.
CHAPTER
23
On a lower landing of the stairwell, Jake stopped to look at a viewing window set in the wall. Spotlights on the other side of the window illuminated the murky green water. One of Avademe’s tentacles swept past the window, and the monster descended. One hate-filled eye blinked at Jake, who found himself paralyzed with fear. The body rotated so that another eye replaced the first in the window and continued to do so until each malevolent eye had scrutinized him.
The watchers led Jake downstairs. The lower level reeked of fish, and Jake noted clumps of seaweed strewn across the tiled floor. Many of the tiles had come off, and water had warped those that remained. The watchers took him around a corner, passing more crates stacked almost to the ceiling, then stopped at a gray metal door secured by three sliding bolts. One creature slid the metal bolts into the unlocked position and opened the door, and the others hurled Jake inside. Lying facedown on the floor, he heard the door slam shut and the bolts slide back into place one at a time.
Groaning, Jake got on his hands and knees and surveyed his surroundings: a stone floor, cinder-block walls, no windows or vents. Only one of the two fluorescent lights in the ceiling worked, and only one of the two tubes in that fixture functioned, and even that flickered and hummed. A toilet with no stall sat in the far corner next to a rusty sink. The LED light on a security camera in another corner glowed red, and he wondered if anyone actually manned the corresponding monitor.
Something did pique his curiosity, and he stood to see it better: a glass cylinder, three and a half feet wide and eight feet high, with hardware on the base and top connecting it to the floor and ceiling. Jake neared the cylinder, which appeared empty. He studied the base and top, determining the cylinder was hermetically sealed. Using caution, he pressed one palm against the curved glass surface, which caused it to hum. He removed his hand and the hum stopped.
Shaking his head, he walked over to the sink and studied his reflection in the dirty, cracked mirror above it, and a whimper escaped from his lips. The flesh framing the deep gashes had begun to sag, hanging off” his face. Through the gaps in his skin, he saw exposed muscles and veins. The monsters had turned him into a monster. He wanted to cry but had already learned tears hurt these wounds. Taking a deep breath, he let out a tremulous sigh. Then he noticed something else in the mirror: shimmering gold light.
Spinning, he saw the light came from inside the cylinder. The light glittered in midair, intensifying and fading, then intensifying again. Jake approached the cylinder, wondering if the golden light was some unique power source. Standing before it, he felt a glow on his face that felt like sunshine, and he knew he had seen it before.
Jake’s body relaxed for the first time in several hours. “Hello, Abel.”
The shimmering light coalesced into a humanoid shape, and Jake heard a familiar voice inside his head. “Jake . . .”
The light faded again. Then it blossomed into a brighter form, and Jake discerned human features twisted in pain. He pressed both hands against the glass, provoking the hum, and stared into the light.
Abel materialized as Jake remembered him, with taut muscles and long blond hair. As the agent of Light assumed solid form, he absorbed the remaining light into him and stood nude before Jake, his face battered and trembling. He slapped his palms against the glass, opposite Jake’s. Then he collapsed with a groan, and Jake saw his body was covered with red circles, similar to those the watchers had left on Jake’s neck, only the size of saucers.
Suction marks from the suckers on Avademe’s tentacles, Jake thought.
Abel attempted to rise but fell back, leaning his head and shoulders against the cylinder. He wrapped his hands around his raised knees and wept.
First Cain, now Abel.
Sliding his hands down the glass for balance, Jake crouched. “What the hell happened to you?”
Abel managed a smile. “You don’t look so hot yourself.”
“I don’t understand. You manipulate your energy to suit however you want to appear. What’s with the craters?”
Abel grimaced. “They tortured me. They absorbed some of my energy . . . and destroyed it.” His lips quivered. “They ate part of my soul and scarred me forever. I can’t project any form without the damage showing.”
Jake took a moment to register the implication in Abel’s words. Not only was Avademe capable of devouring human souls but those of heavenly beings as well, just as Sheryl had feared. As the image of Sheryl popped into his head, Jake noticed the light in Abel’s blue eyes intensify.
“Why can’t you get out of there? Just dematerialize and jump onto cloud nine or wherever it is you go, like I’ve seen you do before.”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m a prisoner. Avademe has made the energy around this glass cell nullify my energy. I’m powerless.”
“How is that possible? You’re from heaven”.
Abel closed his eyes. “I thought I was.”
Jake blinked. “What do you mean?”
When Abel opened his eyes, they filled with resignation. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”
“You mean, like the truth? Big answers? Or the evasive nonsense I usually get from you people on both sides of the aisle?”
“The truth.” Abel seemed to swallow. “Big answers.”
“Isn’t that against the rules? Aren’t you afraid you’ll be consigned to the Dark Realm for singing like a bird?”
Abel smiled. “What difference does it really make? Avademe intends to devour me. What more harm can there be?”
“You sound like those old bastards upstairs.”
“I’ll take my chances. I’ve inhabited the Realm of Light longer than any other soul. Perhaps I need a change. Or perhaps my time has simply come.”
“Self-pity is conduct unbecoming an angel.”
“Don’t you see? I’ve thought myself eternal for centuries. Now I know I’ve been living a lie. I’m destructible. There are no guarantees that once attained, the Light is permanent.”
Glancing at the security camera, Jake sat cross-legged on the floor. At least the hum stopped. “Enlighten my primitive mind.”
Sliding higher up against the cylinder, Abel clung to his knees as if in pain. “Where do I start? My beginning or the beginning of this universe as you know it?”
Jake shifted his weight. “This is going to be a long story, isn’t it?”
“I’ll try not to ramble.”
“I appreciate that.”
Abel gazed at the ceiling. “I remem
ber every moment of my existence from the time my brain developed in my mother’s womb. I’m pure energy now, and memory is nothing but an electrical pattern. Once I ascended to the Realm of Light, those patterns became clearer. I had a twin sister, Aclima. We were very happy and emotionally connected, even inside our mother’s belly. I was born first by six minutes. Cain and his twin sister, Myrwh, were our elder siblings by less than a year. As we grew older, Cain and Myrwh teased me and Aclima, but the four of us were still close. Myrwh was jealous of Aclima’s beauty and grace. Cain enjoyed tormenting us and depended on Myrwh to side with him in all matters.
“Despite his bad behavior, Mother fretted over Cain. She did not favor him over the rest of us but always seemed more concerned that he might harm himself when engaging in the same activities we did. She and Father continued to procreate, and we had many brothers and sisters. The number never remained constant for more than one year during my entire life, and until I came of age, there was never a time I saw Mother when she was not either pregnant or nursing. Fortunately for her, we four eldest children were the only twins.”
“I’ve done my research,” Jake said. “According to the Bible, Adam lived almost a century and had close to eighty sons and daughters. That’s a lot of labor, for both parents.”
Abel smiled at Jake as though he were a child. “I don’t know how much time we have, and if you question everything I say, I’ll never reach the end.”
“Sorry.”
“We lived in a cave at first, which Father later built a clay house around. That house continued to expand as our family grew. Eventually, the cave became Father’s place of worship. He worked hard in the fields, tending to our crops and livestock, which left Mother to care for us children. On Sundays, Father rested. He spent his mornings in the cave, where he professed to communicate with God. On numerous occasions, Mother chastised him for saying this. She said, ‘You may speak to Him, but He hasn’t spoken to us in years.’ You see, our parents raised us to believe in God, but we never personally encountered Him. Father told us the earliest tales of what you know as Genesis, and Mother just shook her head. The stories constantly evolved, becoming more fantastical, but always with a lesson at the end. When Father told us God had created Mother from his rib, Mother laughed, which caused Father to grow sullen and retreat to his cave.
“We never saw any other people, except for some old Neanderthals hunting in the woods, so we had no reason to discount Father’s stories, especially since Mother never offered us contradictory versions. Sometimes Mother and Father fought, and she referred to a woman named ‘Lilith,’ and he to ‘that old serpent.’ When we asked them who they meant, they refused to answer, though Father would say, ‘Don’t let that old serpent tempt you into misbehavior.’ And Mother would warn, ‘Watch out for Lilith. She’ll eat you up.’
“When we were old enough, Cain and I helped Father in the fields. We did so over Mother’s objections; as always, she feared Cain would come to an unimaginable harm. Cain and I bickered so often that Father had to separate us. By that time, it was clear that Cain favored Aclima, my twin, for he teased her incessantly, which only added to Myrwh’s insecurity and made her more jealous of Aclima. Because the animals loved me and grew skittish or showed outright panic around Cain, Father put me in charge of the livestock and Cain in charge of the crops.
“Myrwh got her first menstrual cycle, and Mother said, ‘Thank God, now I can stop bearing children and you can take over. Good luck, girl.’ Father instructed Cain to marry Myrwh, but Cain objected: ‘I love my other sister, Aclima. I will marry her instead.’ Father said, ‘Aclima is not ready to marry and bear children, but Myrwh is. You and Myrwh were our firstborn, and your mother and I always intended for you to marry. Abel and Aclima are meant for each other.’ I loved Aclima dearly, and she me, so I said to my brother, ‘I will marry Aclima when she’s old enough, as Father has said. It’s the way it ought to be, since we love each other.’ Cain grew angry and said, ‘You are younger than me, so you have no say in this. I am the oldest child, and I will decide who I will marry.’ Father said, ‘I will go to the cave and ask the Lord to decide.’
“Father spent three days and three nights in his cave. During that time, a heat wave caused Cain’s crops to whither, which made him even more bitter. Myrwh was equally impossible to deal with, partly because of her period, but also because Cain and I made it clear that neither of us wanted her. She argued with Aclima, who was innocent in the entire conflict, and Mother chastised her. I tended to the animals, while Cain tried to salvage his remaining crops. When we came home at sunset, it was unbearable to be around each other. Aclima reassured me with her beautiful smile, but Cain only grew difficult when Myrwh tried to soothe him, which made her even more difficult. They seemed perfect for each other to everyone but Cain.
“Aclima and I were greatly relieved when Father finally emerged from the cave. Mother taunted him, ‘Well? Did He speak to you?’ Father said, ‘No, but I see He sent us a sign: Cain’s crops have failed, and Abel’s animals have survived this heat, so Cain has lost the argument. He shall marry Myrwh as planned.’ This made everyone happy but Cain, who stormed off” and did not return that night. The next morning, I found him at the bottom of the hill where I kept our sheep. He had butchered most of the animals with a stone tool and stood covered in their blood. We fought, and he hit me over the head with the tool. I remember lying there with the sun in my eyes, seeing this wild man with long hair and bloody features raising a rock above his head. I held up my hand to deflect the next blow, and I called out for Mother and Father, but my brother crushed my skull, ending my life on earth.
“It was painful; I’ll tell you that. My skull caved in, lacerating my brain, and I felt my soul escaping from my body. I saw the world around me in all directions at once, including my own bloody body. I ascended to the Realm of Light and felt no more pain. My soul merged with a field of pure, white energy . . . energy that was sentient and wise. When I tell you it was like being born again, it’s no exaggeration. But I raged at what Cain had done to me and cried out for vengeance. I also cried for Aclima. The Creator welcomed me into His kingdom. Although He did not speak to me directly, I felt His presence, and I knew that Father’s stories were at least partially true, in the only way that his primitive mind had been able to interpret the cosmos. And as the Realm of Light replaced my anger and loss, I became part of it.
“God created this universe and everything in it, including the formation of the planets and the evolution of man. Father was the first Cro-Magnon man, but Mother was not the first woman; Lilith was, and she gave birth to my father’s first daughter, Eve, my mother. Father tried to subjugate Lilith to his will, but Lilith demanded equality in all things and mocked Father when he demanded her obedience. So he drove her off, and when Eve was old enough, Father married her. It was this act that displeased the Creator and caused Him to stop communicating with Father. Lilith returned to the land one day, and when she discovered that Father had married their daughter, she cursed Eve: ‘Your firstborn son will suffer for your sin.’ When Father ordered Lilith to leave again, Lilith laughed and kissed him, causing Eve to become jealous and flee.
“Mother came across a man in the woods, the first man she had ever seen besides Father. The man was charming and handsome and wiped away Mother’s tears and soothed her sorrow. He explained that he knew Lilith and that Lilith belonged with Father, and he seduced her. They made love in the foliage, and when they were finished, the man transformed into a giant serpent and Mother screamed. Lilith seduced Father as well, and when they were finished fornicating, she transformed into a raven and flew away. Lilith had met the serpent during her long absence and had made a pact with him and had become his unholy vassal. The serpent was the master of the Dark Realm, and Lilith became the mother of all black magic. Father and Lilith evolved from two separate bloodlines, and when Father procreated with his own daughter, the resulting generations had increasingly shorter life spans until the gene pool
had sufficiently thinned out.
“In the Realm of Light, I learned to observe happenings on earth. Cain buried my body in the ground, then cleaned himself up and returned home. When I failed to return the next day, Aclima went looking for me and discovered the butchered flock. Father confronted Cain, who denied having anything to do with my disappearance or the animals’ slaughter. Mother joined the interrogation, and eventually Cain broke down into tears and confessed. Father drove him off, as he had driven off Lilith, which upset both Mother and Myrwh. Mother had always dreaded that something terrible would befall Cain because of Lilith’s curse, but his terrible fate turned out to be enduring banishment for slaying me and for committing his soul to the Dark Realm. Father told Myrwh, ‘You shall marry your brother Seth, for he is next oldest.’
“Father was the first man, but he was not the only man. The Creator caused the evolution of men and women on all of the continents, spread out to avoid conflict. Eventually, after years of wandering, Cain encountered other people, and he settled down and married. In fact, he married our half sister, born by Lilith with Father’s seed. When Cain died, after siring sons and daughters of his own, his soul descended to the Dark Realm, where the serpent appointed him its champion and emissary.
“As I once explained to you, the Realm of Light and the Dark Realm are polar opposites, drawn to each other and repelled like magnets at the same time. We agents of Light are content to leave the Dark Agents alone, but the Dark wants nothing more than to see us all destroyed. We must constantly be on guard, which is why we continue to monitor the activities of mankind.”
Jake arranged the components of Abel’s story in his mind. “I once asked you if God existed . . .”
“And I told you I did not know. What I should have said was, ‘I don’t know if He still exists.’ For a time, every soul that ascended to the Realm of Light experienced His glory and light. Then, for reasons none of us understands, He decided to walk on earth among his creations, as one of them. During that brief period, we still sensed His power. Then He allowed Himself to be executed by men, and we lost connection to Him. He simply ceased to exist in our world—and in yours.”
Cosmic Forces: Book Three in The Jake Helman Files Series Page 25
