Two more lights approached from the fog, deep orange glows that resolved into the last two people in the universe I wanted to see.
“It has been quite some time, Morningstar,” Cain said.
“Our lonely hearts have burned for you,” Abel sang.
Their chests flared, flames licking away the clinging mists and dancing towards us. The black puddle surged forward as the Brothers drew close to Aspen’s side, sending tentacle-streams lashing into their ribs like a cat o’ nine tails.
Their bones were coated in the matter, their jaws were connected by a thin stream of it looping between them. It swirled around them and began to coalesce, to multiply and flood and rush back towards us, encircling us. From overhead, we’d look like the final pieces on some cosmic gameboard. Half of the playing field in stark white, the other half in desert brown, circled by a flowing river of dark matter. There was no getting out of this now, no turning around.
“Are you ready to answer for it, Lucifer Morningstar?” Abel asked.
“Answer for what?”
“Everything. Ever,” Cain replied.
I stepped in front of Eve, Monkey at my feet.
“Now we fight?” Goliath asked.
“Looks like it,” I answered.
Chapter Nineteen
The end/beginning of Creation, the vast whiteness behind the Brothers, stopped about twenty feet in front of me, where the remains of the Under/Under began. Blank featureless ground faded into dry, cracked mud. And there we stood, on so many different sides of reality it was difficult to count.
“Goliath, do you still have that bone rattle I made?”
He drew it from his belt and tossed it to me. I gave it to Monkey.
“Keep shaking this thing until Cerberus comes back. We need all the help we can get here.”
Cain said, “Come under your own power, or on the tip of The Spear of The Righteous. Your decision.”
“He is not to pass,” Minikui shouted.
The demons, previously confused by the sudden turn of events, were pleased to have something to focus on again. Someone wanted to take me into Heaven. It was their job to keep me out. I looked at Minikui.
“I’m not moving. You’ll have to deal with them.”
Cain raised his hands and long tendrils of dark matter whipped out from the moat encircling us towards the horde of oni , snaring them around their necks. Their eyes fell dark and they pivoted as one to face us down.
“Rock and a hard place, eh?”
I didn’t have the recharge of souls I’d hoped for, but I still had my “battery” for what it was worth. I snared the bag from Goliath’s shoulder and reached in. I flared my right hand and jabbed at his forehead again. He snapped awake hard, his eyes glowing red. The vile black pool on the ground roiled and rippled away from him, parting like the sea before Moses.
They couldn’t come pull me over to Heaven’s outskirts. That’s a step I’d have to take on my own. Rules. And since they’d already crossed over, they weren’t allowed to come back. Going back into the desert didn’t seem to be an option for me either. God knows what would happen if any of that blackness touched me or my companions.
The silence was broken by a shrill scream.
“Lenny?” Aspen sank to her knees. “What did he do to you?”
Her hand clenched tight around the spear, its glow doubling. She stood, the raw essence of whatever was powering her causing the mists to billow away from her. She charged at us, but was knocked backwards as she hit the line separating Heaven’s outskirts from my badlands. She slashed angrily at the air, pounding the spear into the ground, stabbing into mists. When that didn’t work, she reared back and threw her spear into the air. It rocketed over our heads, slowed, then snapped back towards her.
“I think,” Monkey said, “you’ve angered her.”
“Her aim is as bad as her people skills though. Still, let’s see if we can get a bit more breathing room.”
I flared my right hand again, trying to clear a path in the black matter behind us to give us some breathing room. Instead, it leapt up, growing higher towards a rip in the sky. That wasn’t there before. So Aspen hadn’t missed. The spear had done what she needed it to do. A slow trickle of dark matter began to bleed down. When it connected with the rising column of sludge, the flow picked up its pace behind us, making the black moat grow into a pond. It looked like it was going to keep growing. The rip in the sky grew, and the blackness rolled out into a sheet over the moat behind us, a black curtain shutting out the rest of my reality.
“He’s almost here,” Cain said.
“Gimme a sec, sunshine.” I grabbed the skull rattle from Goliath and shook harder, shouting my doggy shouts to my three-in-one best friend. The pebbles on the ground near us began to vibrate to the thunderous rhythm of Cerberus running.
The wind carried the faint roo-roo-roo .
His bark turned to a confused whine as Alpha, Omega, and Princess tried to get their bearings. They were basically right in front of us. The problem was dimensional. In between myself and the dog was the black moat. The dark separated as it flowed down, and I could see Cerberus pacing, pawing at the matter and trying to find his way to us.
“Go around! No, not that way, go to—yeah that’s it! There you—no. No! Cerber—hey! That way. That. Way!” I yelled. I looked at my companions. “Princess used to get her leash wrapped around chair legs and tree trunks. So embarrassing watching her try to work that problem out. I guess dimensional rifts are a bit trickier. If we had some bacon...”
The giant dog disappeared in a flurry of dirt and rocks. There was a soft rumbling in the dirt. A small hump began to form just past the Rift and inched towards us. A tufted brown head broke the surface, followed by another to its left and one more to the right.
“Cerberus!” I shouted. “That’s a good dog! Who tunneled under a pan-dimensional rift? Who did? Was it you? Was it yooou?!” I gave especially good belly rubs, and Cerberus’ rear leg beat out a heavy rhythm on the ground like a war drum.
There was a general round of throat clearing from my crew as I stopped speaking in my doggie voice. “What can I say? I’m an animal lover.”
“Yes, we’ve all heard the stories,” Abel said.
Cain stepped a bit closer to the dimensional split between the desert and Heaven, the fire in his chest approaching a white heat. He lifted one hand and the oni advanced on us. He flicked his wrist and they raised their clubs.
“You can cross over or be dragged across. The choice is yours.”
I pulsed my hand deeper into Lenny’s brain, melding what was left of each of our Holy Essence. We were one being now, and the effect on the demons was immediate. I threw my thoughts at them, basic emotions to push as hard as I could.
Cowards. Weaklings. Nothings.
They slowly sank to their knees and laid down their clubs. Eve stepped forward, staring at the blankness.
“He’s in there,” she said, her eyes shimmering. “He’s there, he’s right there!”
“You’ll get to see him right after we take care of this tiny matter of impending universal doom, just give me a minute to…Eve, no!”
She raised her arms, sending a shimmer of static electricity through the air. She drove her hands down into the dirt, buried up to her elbows. The ground shook and buckled, water bubbling up from the cracks that formed. The hardpan quickly turned to marsh, and as the ground turned fallow, greenery returned, life. Vines snaked their way out of the marsh and around the ankles of the oni . Small brambles pushed their way to the dividing line, giving us a small barrier from the Brothers.
Her hair was lustrous, four feet long and growing. It whipped and swirled about her head in slow motion, as if she was floating in a deep lake. Eyes closed, her arms glowed like burnished bronze as she pulled every essence of life she could find in the earth around her. This was rich ground, teeming with the remaining essence of countless souls who’d faltered and failed on their way to Heaven. A small row of saplings
sprouted before her. They looked weak, but they were growing.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they say. Eve was creating a passage of sorts for us, tall, thick-rooted trees and vines on either side of a path, directly from where we stood to the outer walls of Heaven. The Brothers couldn’t get through.
“This is how I started the first Garden. It’s like learning to ride a bike, right? We can walk in,” she smiled. “Come on, I made us a bridge!”
The ground around us cracked as the new vines spread.
Heaven was flowing towards us across the surface of her newly grown marsh.
“You didn’t make us a bridge,” I said. “You made them a door…”
We were no longer in the desert; instead, we’d created a new ground, mine and theirs, which meant there were no more barriers.[34] Cain and Abel approached, led by Aspen.
“Thanks for that,” Cain said.
Aspen screamed and charged, hacking at one of the trees. The trunk exploded in a splintery shower, and the tree crashed to the ground. Small flames danced across the top of the stump.
Cerberus lowered its front legs, hackles raised. Princess and Alpha emitted rocky growls an octave apart as Omega whined and looked a bit confused. He was always more of a lover than a fighter. There was a bit of an internal struggle. Two out of three heads seemed ready to lunge and fight, but Omega’s confusion led to a few faints and jaw snaps with no real commitment.
The white waters spilling forth from Heaven had crept to within inches of the puddle of dark matter on the ground. As soon as they touched, the flow of darkness from the sky increased. A low rumble of thunder sounded, the dull roar of time and space folding in on itself.
The ground near us was mucky, a mix of Heaven and the Under/Under. Aspen and the Brothers had to tread carefully, as any remaining pockets of my dimension came up against them like bumping into a clear glass wall. They’d be on us soon enough.
“Why?” Aspen whined. “Why did you do this to him? He’s the only man I’ve ever loved and you tortured him! You cut off his head!”
“No way!” Goliath shouted. “That was all my work!”
I palmed my face. “Goliath, not helping, man, seriously.”
I leaned towards Monkey. “You’ve got to keep Eve safe. There’s ten kinds of shit waiting to explode here. We don’t know what will happen to her if she tries to cross over to Heaven.”
“We don’t have much choice, do we?” Monkey asked.
“Take the dog with you.”
Monkey nodded and took Eve by the hand, slowly sidling away from the forthcoming fray. He made a slight chucking noise and Cerberus heeled, following him without taking its eyes off the enemies before us.
Cain motioned to Aspen. “Take him. But keep him alive, for now.”
She stepped forward to claim me and was roughly tackled by Baka and Minikui. They pinned her to the ground.
“He stays here by order of—” Their next words were lost as they sailed skyward. Goliath would be a rough match for an oni in a one-on-one fight, but this girl launched two of them into orbit like so much kindling. The demons screams grew fainter, then louder as they approached terra firma again. Aspen dropped low and launched herself into the air with the spear, severing Baka’s head cleanly before impaling the descending Minikui.
Baka’s head bounced towards us and rolled to Goliath’s feet. “She’s not bad, eh?” Goliath smiled.
The remaining three oni huddled together, deciding their next move. Aspen hacked wildly at the remaining trees Eve had grown and they fell, slamming into the malleable reality at our feet. She leapt onto one of the felled trees and used it as a bridge to race towards us.
Sukebe swung a wildly looping shot with his massive iron club that caught her in the stomach and sent her skidding across the ground into the wreckage she’d created. The armor plating on her stomach displayed a deep dent that should have reached back to her spine.
Aspen coughed twice and her hands scrambled at the buckles holding the armor in place. It released and she cast it aside, wearing only a simple leather tunic. She coughed, spitting out what at first I took to be blood, but quickly realized was more of the dark matter. She staggered a moment, then regained her footing and circled towards Sukebe.
The Brothers, meanwhile, had circled us in opposite directions. I kept my eyes on Cain while Goliath stared down Abel. I felt a force pulling me down to the ground. The Mirror of Smoke was gaining weight, pulling towards the ground. For all intents and purposes, it had arrived in Heaven. I was at a loss. I couldn’t throw it away because I didn’t know what it would do. Holding on to it made me a target.
I felt Lenny inside my mind. “Let me go. Let me talk to her.”
“I don’t quite trust you, thanks.”
Aspen slashed twice, then reversed direction and spun on her heel, finishing by striking out with the tip of the spear. The blow jammed into Sukebe’s thigh, causing him to yelp and draw back. He slammed his club at her once, twice, missing both times. The other two demons began to flank her and close in.
“They’ll kill her!” Lenny said.
“I’m okay with that.”
“I can stop this. Please let me try to stop this. I don’t know what I got her mixed up in, but I can talk her down. I love her.”
There was a golden glimmer to my right as Cain drew out the sword he’d stolen from Lenny to start all of this. Phaleg’s sword.
“Give us the Mirror,” Abel said. “And we’ll spare you the indignity of watching your friends hacked to pieces.”
“I’d rather not,” I said.
Cain charged me, sword raised. I heard the blade sizzling through the air. It left a faint vapor trail behind it, a microthin incision in the fabric of reality. He leapt as he approached, and I ducked low, but he didn’t strike. He landed gently behind me and kept running, then sharply doubled back and charged me again.
Goliath took a swipe at him, but Abel feinted an attack, drawing his focus and causing him to miss Cain altogether. The song from Cain’s blade grew in volume. He twirled this time as he was near me, jabbing out twice hard before rolling back and continuing to circle.
“Are we dancing or fighting?” I asked.
There was a rumble overhead and the air around me shimmered black. The cuts Cain had made in the ether were starting to bleed, black matter pattering down around me. What was a thin black trickle from the sky before quickly turned into a deluge. Yaotl was making his grand entrance, raining through one molecule at a time. No idea how much of him had to come through before he could fully form, and I hoped not to find out.
The wall of mist before us turned a pale yellow and slowly built to a warm golden glow. The air around us was still, swimming with motes of pure energy. The obsidian matter stopped raining down and floated, weightless, black globules spinning before my eyes. We faced an insurmountable sheer wall made of gold.
The Gates of Heaven.[35]
An opening appeared for a split second, announced by a sharp blare of the Heavenly choirs. A fiery being stood before us, pure light. The fire from his halo was blinding, and he was dressed in full battle armor. Cain and Abel froze in their tracks and Aspen and the demons ceased fighting. He raised his shield, and his wings spread to their full majestic span.
“I AM THE ANGEL PHALEG, WARLORD AND RULER OF THE ORDER OF ANGELS, SENT BY HE WHOSE NAME CANNOT BE SPOKEN TO BRING FORTH LIGHT INTO THE WORLD OF MEN.”
His voice cracked the very ground we stood on. The cuts Cain had made in the air shook looser and drooped a bit.
“You,” he gestured at Cain, “have something of mine. You will return it. Now.”
Aspen spun on her heel and charged Phaleg. He swatted her spear aside and reared back with his shield, smashing it into her face, driving her into the ground.
Cain lowered his guard, clenching Phaleg’s sword before him. He stood between me and the Angel of War. I shifted to my right and Cain matched me, as if he was trying to keep The Mirror of Smoke between us
. I tried to sling my jacket but the Mirror was too heavy, immoveable but somehow weightless now.
“Whatever you were planning to do, it ends now. You will answer to the Lord himself for your transgression,” Phaleg said.
He charged, faster than I could even see, and made contact with Cain in a blinding explosion. My clothes rippled against my body from the force of the impact.
The sky tore open and the dark matter cascaded like tropical rain.
Abel whistled, and Aspen rose to her feet, collecting her spear. She raised it above her head and inhaled the dark matter. Her skin shone phosphorescent. The tip of the spear burned, and she carved a complex pattern in the air. The oni , who had been circling nearby, found themselves quite suddenly without limbs. They fell at her feet and she strode over them towards us. I could see all of the traces they’d made, Cain with the sword and Aspen with her spear. They hadn’t been attacking, they’d been drawing patterns. Sigils.
A doorway.
Phaleg was on one knee behind me, crawling back towards his dropped shield. He was whimpering, “My God... My God...”
Cain, on the other hand, stood strong, brandishing the angel’s sword. “Your God. Let me introduce you to your new God...”
Cain raised the sword above his head and inverted it, stabbing hard into the ground. I felt the fabric of my pocket give way as the Mirror shot away from me toward Cain. The air shimmered briefly and I felt like I was immersed in deep, cold water.
The world warped and everything went black. There was a dull roar that built to a mind-shattering crescendo. The kind of sound that would cause mortals to melt. The kind of sound only a fellow god would recognize as laughter.
The Dark One.
The Adversary.
Yaotl.
Jaguar had arrived.
Angel Falls Page 21
