Crashing Paradise

by Christopher Golden

  Julia ran toward her Volvo wagon and stopped short, staring at the vehicle with an intensifying hate.

  My keys.

  She spun around to gaze at the brownstone. Her keys were inside the house. The door hung crookedly from the frame, the sound of battle leaking out from within, and she had to wonder if Conan Doyle had done something to his building to mask anything unusual happening there from the eyes of those who lived or passed nearby.

  The door exploded outward, her son riding what appeared to be a plume of fire. Danny landed in a roll, his T-shirt in tatters, smoldering on his back.

  “Oh, my God. Are you all right?” she asked, helping him to his feet.

  Something roared inside.

  “Fucking dragon,” he said, shaking his head. “He turned into a fucking dragon.”

  “But dragons aren’t real,” Julia whispered.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Mom,” Danny said, dragging her toward her vehicle.

  “I don’t have my keys,” she said.

  Her son swore under his breath, looking back toward the house. She knew what he was considering.

  “No, you can’t go back,” she warned him. Julia could hear the hysteria creeping into her voice and wasn’t too sure how much more she could take.

  Gunfire erupted from within the house. They looked up to see the ghost of Dr. Graves shoot out of the building backward, guns aimed at the front door as he continued to fire.

  “Get in the car, both of you!” the specter ordered, firing those phantom guns again and again.

  “But I don’t have the—”

  “Get in the car!” he screamed, and she saw the human form of Clay standing in the doorway to Mr. Doyle’s home, his eye blazing an unearthly red.

  Julia pulled open the driver’s side door, ecstatic that she’d been unable to break the normally foolish habit of forgetting to lock it, and unlocked the back door for Danny. She clutched the wheel in both hands, waiting for Graves.

  The ghost flowed into the vehicle, his eyes riveted on the top of the brownstone’s front steps. Clay stood in his human guise, unmoving.

  “We have to get away from here,” Graves said, from the passenger seat. She was about to protest again that she’d left her keys, but the ghost reached past her, his hand disappearing into the steering column.

  The engine turned over, the instrument panel in front of her coming to life.

  “Go!” Graves snapped.

  As she put the car in drive, she could see Clay slowly descending the steps. Why isn’t he chasing us?

  Julia stepped on the gas, pulling out of her parking space with a squeal of tires. In her rearview mirror she saw Clay reach the sidewalk, watching them as they drove away.

  All was silent within the car as Julia drove down Mount Vernon Street, not having a clue as to where they were going and not caring, as long as it was away from there.

  “Would somebody explain to me what the fuck just happened?”

  Danny asked from the backseat.

  And the silence went on.

  5

  IN the Garden, the wind dances around her, one breeze carrying the sweet scents of oranges and ripe peaches and the next caressing her with the aromas of the loveliest flowers.

  The rich smell of earth and green life lies beneath it all.

  A deer appears in the trees. It tilts its head to watch her, then looks up as several others run by, pursuing one another playfully. She sprints after them, and soon runs alongside, laughing as she crashes through branches and leaves.

  They burst from the trees on the edge of a stream that burbles over rocks and tumbles down a hill ahead. The deer race off in another direction, but she stands, mesmerized, and gazes down at the glistening water as it splashes down over smooth black rocks, spilling into a waterfall. From the pool below, the stream continues, winding off into some distant corner of the Garden. A bear stands on a rock in the stream, thrusting massive paws into the swift water, hoping for a fish.

  All around the waterfall, and on both banks of the stream below, color is in bloom. Blossoms of gentle red and blue and white, and vivid purple and green and orange, hang in tangles from the trees. The flowers are such a mélange of color that her breath simply stops.

  She basks in the beauty and the scent, and the sound of the cascade of the water below.

  Mice and voles caper across her path as she descends the hill alongside the waterfall. Soft brown birds explode from the trees around her, an entire flock taking off as one, as though some shift of the wind has carried them out of the branches and into the air. They move together, one mind, one heart, and she watches as they settle into the high branches of another tree, not far away.

  A fish in its jaws, the bear wanders off into the trees.

  Farther along the stream, she sees a pair of black horses emerge from the wood, nuzzling one another’s necks.

  The pool at the base of the waterfall splashes her with cool water. One corner of the pool eddies lazily, away from the current of the rest of the stream. Tiny fish jump, there, silver things that flash in the sunlight. She laughs to see them and hugs herself, bumps rising all over her bare skin at the chilly touch of the water droplets that splash her.

  The wind urges her toward the water. It is morning, and the stream still quite cool at the early hour, but she cannot resist the pull of the water, the playfulness of the fish, and the urging of the wind. Surrounded by the delicious, sweet scents of the Garden, she wades into the pool, then dives beneath the water.

  The chill embraces her, and her spirit soars. She bursts up from beneath the water, giddy, as damp strands of hair cover her face. She pushes that wet curtain of hair away from her eyes and sees the colors of paradise all around her, and, above, the perfect blue-white sky.

  She spins, trailing her fingers in the water, splashing, then she wades over to stand beneath the waterfall. The sensation of the pressure and rhythm of the water streaming down onto her is ecstasy.

  She feels him behind her before he touches her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees movement, and she knows it is he.

  Then his hands caress her arms and back and he slides his arms around her, embracing her from behind. He kisses the back of her neck, and she sinks into his strong body just as she had given herself over to the waterfall.

  It is bliss.

  In the Garden.

  Then he is gone.

  Darkness falls around her. The sound of the waterfall recedes to a distant drip, drip, drip and all that she can feel is the cold of the water enveloping her, and a deep, powerful ache in her belly. She moves, and the pain is so sharp that she cries out.

  She forces herself to inhale, but the sweet scents of fruit and flowers and the rich earth have vanished. All she can smell now is blood.

  The taste of it is in her mouth. It is thick in her throat.

  And it is not hers.

  Again, she moves. Again, the twist of pain.

  Her eyes flutter open . . .

  WITTENBERGE, GERMANY, A.D. 1627

  HER skin was on fire.

  Eve opened her eyes in a hiss of pain. Yet there was something exhilarating about this pain. Her skin prickled as though flames were crackling all over her flesh, but she looked down the length of her body and saw no fire.

  Whatever seared her was inside her body.

  The blood tingled on her lips.

  She narrowed her eyes. The searing, wonderful pain was a distraction, but now, as she shifted, a terrible ache twisted in her abdomen, and there was nothing pleasurable about it.

  She touched her hand to the wound there, felt the rapidly cooling blood. Beneath her back were hard ridges of stone—marble steps. Above her was a vaulted ceiling sixty feet up, with beams of dark wood.

  In the Garden . . .

  Eve squeezed her eyes closed. Vivid colors splashed across her memory. In her mind’s eye, she saw the Garden, and she remembered the sweet scents and the peace of her heart as she wandered its paths and ran with the wolve
s and deer. In that place of bright recollection, she could still feel Adam’s hands on her, and the blissful contentment that had been all she had ever known. All she ever would have known, if not for the serpent.

  A spike of agony shot through her skull. Images cascaded across her thoughts. The serpent, whispering. The fruit of the Tree. The taste of knowledge. That first day, when she had known shame; that first night, when she had learned fear.

  And Adam—sweet, innocent Adam. She had given him to eat of the fruit because she was afraid to be alone in the intimate knowledge of fear.

  The Voice of God. The screaming of angels. Burning swords. The Gate of Eden closing behind them, leaving them lost in the vast wilderness of the world, with the bliss and peace and safety of the Garden denied them forever. Cast out of the Garden, they were easy prey for the demons.

  Where were the angels then?

  “Angels,” she whispered, squeezing her eyes more tightly closed. Her fists clenched with hatred.

  Her tongue ran out, and a shiver of pleasure went through her as she tasted the blood on her lips. Her hands shook, and a cold trickle of blood began to weep from her eyes.

  Thousands of years had passed. Hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps. Or more. Driven from the Garden, abandoned by God, she had been dragged down by the demon, her mind and body raped, her flesh tainted and transformed.

  Eve had been made a new kind of monster. She had given birth to the children who would go forward and propagate the human race. And then she had become the tainted, viral evil, the first vampire, and she had become mother to a second race, which preyed upon the first.

  She had relished every kill. Every drop of blood. Her offspring had begun as a tribe, then spread around the world, and she had rejoiced with each new vampire she created.

  Humans feared the shadows because of her. They feared graveyards and alleys and the darkness beneath their beds.

  Eve celebrated, bathing in their blood, slashing flesh with her claws, stalking them without mercy.

  Her children slaughtered her children.

  And she had never known.

  When the demon had violated her flesh and spirit, twisting her into this dark beast, all her memories of the Lord and of Eden, of purity and sweet innocence, had been swept away. An eternity of blood and murder had followed.

  Now she remembered both.

  She threw back her head, skull cracking on the stone beneath her, and screamed in anguish. Bloody tears slid down her face. Her entire body shook, and she twisted her head from side to side, trying to deny what she knew to be the truth.

  Eve remembered both lives, now, the bliss of the Garden . . . and the bliss of the slaughter.

  “God, what have you made of me?” she whispered to the darkened place, to the stones in the walls and the wooden beams above. “Was my sin so great?”

  Flashes of fresh memory spilled across her mind. The demon pursuing her, dragging her down, forcing the icy sharpness of itself inside of her. Her own screams were so loud that they echoed in her mind even now.

  It had happened on a plain not so very far from Eden—close enough that the angels guarding the Gate must have seen. They had seen, those jealous, beautiful creatures with their fiery swords. They had seen, and done nothing to save her.

  Angels.

  “Jophiel,” Eve whispered.

  Her eyes opened. Shaking, she forced herself to rise. Her mind was awash with these images—memories lost to her for so long—but still she felt the shock when she at last understood where she was. She had lain on the marble steps just below the altar. Beyond it, on the rear wall, hung the cross, upon which was a carved figure of the Christ, in all of His glorious suffering.

  A church.

  The mother of evil stood in the House of God.

  She hissed and flinched back, lowering her eyes. Then her brow furrowed. The image of the Christ had caused her no pain. Merely entering a holy place, dedicated to the worship of the Lord, should have boiled her flesh. Yet she stood there in the shadow of His Son, washed in colors shone by moonlight through stained glass—stood on His altar—and was unharmed.

  “How can this be?”

  Her skin still prickled with the delicious burning pain she’d felt before. Her whole body felt alight with it. She glanced around the church and she saw the angel, Jophiel, sprawled across the pews. One of his wings looked broken.

  He twitched and tried to stir, but consciousness eluded him, for now. His throat was torn open, and glistening crimson blood dripped to the stone floor.

  Again, Eve licked her lips.

  He’d nearly killed her, with his sword. Jophiel—her ancient enemy—had dragged her across the sky. One of the stained-glass windows, near the front doors, had been shattered.

  That had been where they crashed through. He’d intended to kill her, bringing her into the church. Eve had nearly defeated him, and Jophiel’s last hope had been to bring her onto holy ground, where the divine presence of the Lord would destroy her, or weaken her enough that the angel could cut her down with that flaming sword.

  But as Jophiel wrapped an arm around her, twisting the sword in her belly, Eve had filled her fists with his golden hair and dragged his throat to her jaws. She’d torn the flesh of an angel, and drunk deeply of the blood of the divine.

  It raced through her now, the fire of an angel’s blood, the taste of divinity, and she knew that must be the answer.

  Somehow, the blood of an angel had awoken the memories within her of the last time she had encountered such purity—her memories of the Garden of Eden.

  Revulsion and self-loathing filled her at the thought of what she was, and all of the terror and death she had wrought upon the world. But Jophiel’s blood had given her selfawareness, and, with it, a choice. Despite her hunger, she did not have to be a monster anymore.

  A spark of hope ignited in her cold, dead heart. Could this be a second chance for her? Had the Lord given her this awakening so that she could seek redemption?

  Then, as quickly as it had ignited, despair crushed that spark. How could she redeem an eternity of wading in death?

  She clutched a hand over the wound in her abdomen, which was already healing. The hunger still gnawed at her. She was still a monster; that had not changed. The Garden would never be hers again. Such innocence had no place in this world.

  But perhaps there was peace to be found beyond this world. For an eternity she had been the devil’s unwitting tool.

  Given a choice, now, could she make amends for all of that blood? Could she become the Hand of God? Could she find her way back to Him?

  Shivering, Eve turned to face the crucifix. She gazed at it.

  And then she closed her eyes and tried to remember the Voice of God. She pictured herself in the Garden.

  “They are the children of my blood and cruelty,” she whispered, “the monstrous get of my rape by Abaddon. I will scour them from the face of the Earth, and the demon as well. I only pray that it will be enough.”

  The vow made, she paused a moment, wishing for the intimacy that she had felt with the Lord in the Beginning.

  In the church, there was only silence.

  But silence was enough for her, that night. It would have to be enough. Monster or not, she had been given a choice.

  Eve went to stand above the unconscious Jophiel. The angel began to stir. She knew what he would see when he opened his eyes—the mother of all vampires. The plague of evil. The angel would never understand, for forgiveness was not his to bestow. And his kind had ever been just as cruel as their fallen brothers.

  Eve spit on him.

  Then she walked from the church and out into the moonlight, a crusade begun.

  VILLEFRANCHE still had a medieval feeling about it. Eve had last traversed its cobblestoned streets and breathed in the perfume of its flowers 327 years before. Now, in the twenty-first century, little about the place had changed, except for the preponderance of tourists and the cafés and restaurants that serviced them.r />
  The beauty of the Cote d’Azur reached its pinnacle in Villefranche. From the sandy beaches of the seaside to the way the shore extended its arms outward to create a natural bay, protecting the town from the elements, it seemed a tiny sliver of paradise. The cobblestoned streets crisscrossed back and forth up the steep hillside upon which the town was built.

  Terraced steps and paths and alleys separated blocks of terracotta, brick, and stone.

  Eve stood on the main road, high above, and looked down over the red-tiled roofs of the Old Town and at the Mediterranean beyond. The moonlight was her only illumination.

  She could only imagine how astonishing the view must have been during the day, with the sun picking out the colors of the architecture and the flowers, and the sky clear above the deeper blue of the sea.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Clay said, behind her.

  She turned and glanced at him. “I don’t have any breath to take.”

  He smiled. “Even so.”

  Eve nodded. She liked to bust his balls. Clay was a good sport about it, which made him good company. Joe Clay wasn’t his real name. The truth was, he did not have a real name. Word was, he was the Clay of God—the real thing—the actual material that He had used to design all of the creatures who had ever walked the Earth. When God was done, He’d just thrown the clay away, left it there on the new world.

  If that was true—and she had no reason to doubt it—that made Clay the only creature in the world older than Eve.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She frowned. Fucking stupid question. She’d spent the better part of four hundred years ready, tracking down every vampire she could get her hands on and exterminating the vermin. Her children. The darkness still cloaked her, just as it had when she was a monster, like them. But ever since that night when she had tasted Jophiel’s blood and her memories had come back to her, it had been the vampires’ turn to be afraid. She had become their bogeyman, the thing that they whispered about and warned each other to watch out for.