by Dianna Hardy
She dropped the wood back on the pile and sidled up to him, wrapping her still naked form around his torso. He was really going to have to find her some clothes … not that he wanted to.
Letting out something between a breath and a sigh, he held her, relishing in the simple fact that he could. He cupped her backside, and pressed her against him. “You know, I’m feeling a little bit better already.”
He heard her laugh into the crook of his neck. Then she looked up at him, but her smile was sad. “There’s so much about you I don’t know; you’ve had so many lifetimes without me. I feel dwarfed by your age.”
“Technically, I’m not that much older than you, even if you reappeared twenty-eight years ago.” He placed one of her hands on his forehead. “You know everything about me, Mary. Just reach inside my mind – you’ll find it all.”
“Yeah … I know I can do that. I know I can just go in there, and feel everything you felt whenever you went through whatever you went through. But I so wish I could have lived those moments with you. Been there to experience them with you, to help you through it all… Oh, and by the way – that sword… I knew as soon as I held it. I can’t believe you’re that Gwain. I’ve read all about you.”
“Half-truths,” he said with a grin. “But they were good days.”
“Was the table really round?” she asked, with excitement.
“Mm-hm,” he nodded.
“And did you really go looking for the holy grail?”
Oh, how he loved her. Her unbridled curiosity about simply everything was a trait she’d always had, whether she called herself Mary or Ymari. So was her zest for life. He couldn’t stand the thought of a dead Mary. “I went looking for you.”
His serious tone silenced her.
“Every sacred mission, every hunt for hidden relics, every pilgrimage from one end of the earth to the other … I was looking for you.”
She moved her hand from his head to his cheek, to the same place she’d ripped into with her nails all that time ago. An inner-steel hardened her stare, but the steel itself was forged in devotion – a devotion he could feel seeping through his pores, nourishing him as his own blood did.
“I’ll never let go of you again,” she whispered. “I swear it.”
Another inch higher, and she sealed her vow with a kiss, the tip of her tongue brushing his.
His wings burst out in an embarrassing display that had her giggling into his mouth.
“Yeah, well, that’s the affect you have on me.” He deepened their kiss, grabbed her under her thighs and hauled her up onto the nearest surface, which happened to be the kitchen’s marble counter. Her hands found their way to the back of his shoulders, whilst his mapped out the swell of her hips, her abdomen, swept along the dip of her belly button, traced the underside of her breasts…
She groaned into his kiss, which he much preferred to her giggle. “Do we really have time for this?”
“Sod time. Time made me wait. Time owes me.”
She made a beautiful keening sound when he brushed his thumbs over both of her nipples. They instantly pebbled, and by God, he loved her breasts. They were larger than average, but then so was she… He was, one hundred percent, a breast man. “Does that feel good?”
“Are you kidding?” she moaned. “Can’t you tell what you’re doing to me through our connection?”
Fuck yeah. He thumbed her hardened tips, which earned him gasp after gasp, and had him wishing he’d never put his jeans on after the archangel left. “I want you to come like this.”
“I’ve had more orgasms in the past few hours than I’ve had my entire life.”
“So have I.” He took one of her nipples in his mouth, and rolled the other between his fingers.
On ragged breaths, she grabbed at his hair and pressed him further into her chest, her hips rising off the counter, the heady scent of her sex making his balls ache…
Fuck it, his stomach actually did a somersault – had it ever done that before? It was such a girly response – she was turning him to mush; to angel putty…
“Do you really have time for that right now?” came the contentious voice from the doorway.
Mary shrieked, and his wings automatically rose to form a protective barrier around her. He turned to face the intruder he was going to throw out of the window.
Sophia stood at the entrance to the kitchen, with four other Totilemi and a very little, hunch-backed Chinese man, who looked like he was at least one hundred and twenty. She tapped her foot in impatience, but her face still wore a bored expression that was almost blank. It was creepy enough that all the Totilemi demons wore the same mundane mask, but creepier still that they all looked exactly the same, as if they were quintuplets.
“Don’t you knock?” said Mary, angry, red-faced, and clearly frustrated in more ways than one. Her own wings unfurled, and she stretched them around herself to hide her nudity, releasing Gwain from the task.
For the first time he had seen, Sophia suddenly grinned – no, she beamed. “Oh, you have wings! You’ve merged?”
Shit. As much as he knew she was a demon, he just couldn’t bring himself to throw her out the window. “Explain to me why it’s any of your business.”
“The angel shall lay with the dragon.”
Mary rolled her eyes.
Gwain strode towards Sophia. “What do you know of the portents?”
“It’s what Satan was torturing me for. He knows they exist – that they signal the beginning of the final battle – but he doesn’t know what they are, or at least, he didn’t.”
“And Michael wasn’t forthcoming with their meanings.”
The child look-a-like raised her eyebrows in surprise.
Oh, goody, expression number two.
“The archangel? That means—”
“That he’s sending out an army as soon as he can manage it, and Mary and I may be dead soon. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch one more sunrise.”
Sophia clapped her hands in excitement. “Excellent!”
Maybe he could throw her out the window…
“Exactly why does that make you so happy?” snapped Mary.
She turned to speak to her Chinese companion in a language that wasn’t quite Cantonese. Gwain couldn’t place it – which irked him, because he knew almost every language in existence – but it didn’t sound like a modern tongue.
The man nodded attentively, seemed to agree to something, then shuffled forward towards Mary.
Gwain stepped in his path.
“Take a chill pill,” said Sophia. “He needs to see the necklace.”
“Why?” he demanded.
“Because he made it – or at least he thinks so – and if it’s the same one, it was a fairy queen who paid him a damn fine price to do so. It’s not just a necklace. It was forged using ancient blood magic, and has the power to awaken the old Gods.”
The old man gestured at Gwain. His accent sounded impossibly thick bouncing off his ancient, raspy, vocal chords. “I see, yes? I see?”
Mary hopped off the counter, still wrapped in her own wings, and came to stand by Gwain. “I think it’s okay,” she assured him, before reaching behind her neck and unclasping the chain.
She addressed the man. “This was left with me as a baby. I’ve always wondered about it.” Jostling a bit with her wings, she dropped it into his wrinkled hand.
He lifted it to the light, bit it, eyed it scrupulously, then ran a hand over it and closed his eyes as he muttered something that sounded like a chant under his breath.
Gwain spoke to Mary in his mind. I don’t like this.
She met his eyes. Let’s see what he says. We don’t have many choices open to us.
There are always choices.
Are there? Do you know what I really want to do? I want us to go out together tomorrow and buy a new coffee table, and me some clothes … but you and I … what Michael said … there’s not going to be a happy ending for us, is there?
It was a rhetoric
al question, and it annoyed the hell out of him that she’d said it – thought it – so calmly. We’re not going to die, Mary. Let all of Heaven’s army come – I won’t let them kill us.
And where are we going to go so that they don’t?
He didn’t have an answer to that question, so he sort of just growled at her.
Six pairs of eyes watched him guardedly.
Mary grinned. “That’s very sexy, and not very mature, but it doesn’t change anything.”
The Chinese man said something to Sophia, who barely nodded – her face once again showing no emotion – then he looked at Mary, and returned the pendant to her. “This is blood of dragon. Blood magic. And dragon magic.”
“In other words,” interrupted Sophia, “it’s authentic. Ri Tian made this with his own hands.”
The old man – Ri Tian – nodded. “Thirty years ago.”
“But I’m twenty-eight,” said Mary.
“No matter. Fairy queen see all. Predict you coming. I make this for her, and she place it on you when you born.”
“Who’s this fairy queen?”
“She is of old Gods.”
Sophia’s eyes lit up with excitement. “We don’t know much about the fay. But we do know they were here before us – before any of us – even angels. In fact, it is said they were the ones that taught the angels their language.
“Fairies and dragons have always had a close connection, the dragons being what guarded the balance of all creation. When the new Gods came, fleeing their own dying dimension and needing a place to live, the fay welcomed them into their homeland, introducing them to their ways. Of course, as is always the case, the new Gods – or new God, since he likes to be referred to as a single entity – became greedy with knowledge and power over time. He split the very essence of the world that had been given to him—”
“The chaos?”
“That’s what he called it: Chaos. Because he couldn’t understand its structure. It’s nothing new. ‘Civilised’ humans, centuries ago, viewed Indian and African tribes as chaotic, or savage, and it’s still common to assume something is chaotic just because you don’t understand it. The Totilemi always strive to understand,” she added, proudly. “Knowledge is power.
“To the fairies, their beloved land wasn’t chaos; they called it Tír na nÓg.”
“Eggnog!” exclaimed Mary.
Everyone looked at her quizzically.
“Nevermind … carry on.”
“Tír na nÓg was the land of joy and youth – at least, until God decided he could do better, and split it. The half that remained on the other side of The Boundary could not survive on its own. It grew dark and bleak, whereas the half that he kept became nourished with his light … and from his light, he made his own creation – his own paradise. He gave it his own structure, created his own beings, and re-labelled it Heaven.”
Gwain spoke through the silence that followed. “How do you know all of this? You’re—”
“Just a demon?”
“I was going to say, not from Heaven.”
“Lokoli’s gift to the Totilemi was knowledge. I can know everything there is to know about a person or object by merely touching it. And I didn’t know all of this until I knew to seek it a few hours ago, after I saw that necklace you insisted on going back for,” she said to Mary, “and after I touched you both.
“Mary, I thought you were the last angel. Unlike the myths of other demon tribes, Totilemi sources have always believed the last angel to be female. Then I touched you, Gwain, when you carried me on your back, and I knew instantly that you were the last angel.” She frowned. “I hate being wrong. But I suppose, by default, you’re both the last angel since you’re created from the same source – apocalypses are always shrouded in half-truths; full of twists and turns and confusion, and it’s irrelevant, anyway, now that you’ve merged.”
“We were merged before I fell.”
Sophia smirked. “And do you have any idea what happened the last time you merged? Of course you don’t – you weren’t on Earth then, but it’s well recorded amongst those that were. It rained a torrential downpour the world over, for forty days and nights, and everyone thought that was the apocalypse. It damn well would have been if you two hadn’t been ripped apart.”
Holy fuck!
After his immortal life plodding along so slowly for millennia, these revelations were hitting him at bullet-speed. It had been a long time since he’d felt this out of control. Panic tightened his chest. Mary sensed it and reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his. “So, what’s this dragon necklace thing supposed to do?” she asked.
“Ah,” said Ri Tian, “the blood I use to forge it, came from last remaining dragon.”
“There are no remaining dragons,” Gwain said, more assertively than he’d intended.
“There is one. It lies sleeping in the belly of the earth, sleeping under Hell, waiting to rise.”
“And how will it rise?” whispered Mary, her other hand clutching the pendant tightly.
Sophia’s gaze fixed on Mary. “It will rise when you fall.”
“When last angel falls, dragon will rise once again, along with the old Gods,” stated Ri Tian. “Your death will awake the dragon.”
Anger, brought on by his panic, engulfed him. “Nobody’s dying.”
Mary squeezed his hand in reassurance. “Sophia, you said at the station that I was to stop the last angel from falling.”
“No, I asked you if you knew how to stop an angel from falling – that’s completely different.”
“But you said—”
“You were all over the place at the station, and not listening to me. You have the attention span of a gnat. I was saying creepy-sounding stuff and handing you a weird balloon to make you focus on the fact that you have an important role to play in the greater scheme of things.”
Mary scowled. “You’re incorrigible. What about mankind?”
“As long as Hell exists, mankind will fall when angels are no longer there to guide them – which will be the case if the apocalypse takes place. The weight of their sins are too great for any other outcome.”
“Then we have to stop the apocalypse,” stated Gwain, his temper rising.
“Don’t you get it?” snapped Sophia, matching his anger. “I got it as soon as I touched you: you’re both made from the exact same fabric that was the crux of Tír na nÓg – of what came before God! Your mergence is the only way light and dark, Heaven and Hell, order and chaos, whatever you want to call it, can be united since God separated the two. And you have merged. You’re undoing separation. You’re not just portents for the apocalypse, you are the fucking apocalypse. The only way to stop the apocalypse from happening, is to tear yourselves apart again – un-merge. Are either of you willing to do that? No, I didn’t think so. Well, Michael and his army will do it for you when they kill you. Gwain, what happens to the souls of fallen angels when they are beheaded?”
He could feel that desperation he’d felt when Mary had been taken from him. It choked him. “Their souls return to the source – to God. In Mary’s case…”
Fuck…
“…to Abaddon.”
The message was clear. If they were killed, they would be separated … again. And the thought of her returning to that psychotic angel’s clutches was more than he could bear, even if it meant averting the apocalypse.
Maybe he was more exhausted than he’d thought, because his legs suddenly felt weak and he was sure he was on the verge of collapse. He should have been worried about all of mankind, but he’d always been a bit of a selfish bastard.
You’re going to lose her, whispered his stupid subconscious. You’ve just got her back, and now you’re going to lose her. Are you willing to spend another ten thousand years trying to find her again?
“Hey,” said Mary, softly, brushing his face with her fingers. She brought his right hand up, palm upwards, and dug her nails into it with her new angel strength, until skin broke an
d blood seeped through small crescents. Then she turned her own palm up. Identical moon-shaped cuts stared right back at them from her hand. “Your pain, is my pain. We’re not losing each other again – there’s no losing.” Tears filled her eyes.
He looked at her grimly, and then laced his fingers through hers, red palms pressing; a soft glow emerging where their blood mingled.
There was no winning either.
He wouldn’t be able to find her again, because if Mary died, so would he, and they would be separated for good.
Outside, the hail that had eased off earlier now gave way to heavy rain that pounded through the silence in the room.
He brought her into his chest and breathed her in. Ten thousand years had dragged on forever. Now, the few hours he had her for were racing him by.
Sophia stepped up to him, and tugged on his feathers. This time, her expression wasn’t blank, but one of reverence and awe. “Some of us have been waiting for an end to separation for a long time. Some of the demon tribes fear the apocalypse, and some of us welcome it. The fay have been working to make it happen since the beginning, so they can return their homeland to what it once was.” She gestured to Ri Tian, who fumbled under his cloak and brought out a dagger, which he handed to her. She took it, turned back to Gwain, and held it to him. But it was Mary who reached out and took it.
Sophia nodded her approval. “That dagger was created from the purest, consecrated fairy silver, over two thousand years ago.”
“Fairy silver?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t even know such a thing existed until I touched this blade just a few hours ago. This will kill a fallen angel by piercing it through his or her heart.”
“Beheading is the only way to kill a fallen,” said Gwain, although he didn’t know why he was bothering to hold onto what he knew – he clearly knew nothing.
“Not anymore. This dagger was made specifically for you both, by the fairy queen herself. Its magic will preserve your soul and conscious thought. It will ensure you two are not parted by death, although I cannot say what will happen to you.
“Let Michael kill you, and the apocalypse will be averted and mankind saved from falling, but you will be separated; do it yourselves, and the apocalypse will take place, man will fall, but you will remain merged – forever.”
