Crashing Paradise

by Christopher Golden

Eve flinched, suppressing a gasp as she felt blood begin to flow from her nose, down her face. Her head filled with the most horrible sounds, a message of some kind broadcast directly into her brain.

  An invitation to come to Eden.

  She heard it in the most ancient of the vampire dialects, a language spoken only by the oldest of the leeches. Gazing from her hiding place, she saw that the vampires at the encampment were reacting as she did, their noses streaming red as they nervously looked around.

  Wiping the blood from beneath her nose, she slipped from her hiding place, leaving the vampire encampment, going off in search of the source of the message.

  It wasn’t long before she found the clearing where the others had set up their base of operations. The ground had been charred black, the rich greens and colors of the Garden burned away. Drow warriors had set up a perimeter around the encampment. Tents were being erected by vampires all around the edges of the sprawling camp. Other tents had been pitched closer to the center, made from some sort of thin, richly veined animal skin. Just beyond those she observed the pulse of an unearthly light.

  Eve would have loved to stay and play with the Drow soldiers a bit, but she found that she was getting hungry again.

  Still, she had a suspicion as to the source of the message being broadcast into her skull that needed to be confirmed.

  The message continued to blare, the invitation repeated over and over. It took all of the concentration she could muster not to curl herself into a tight little ball until it was finished. Crawling through the thick underbrush, she moved around the outskirts of the camp for a better view of the source of the strange, pulsing lights.

  Eve peered through the tall grass, her suspicions verified.

  In a private area, behind the skin tents, the angel Jophiel hovered in the air, his wings slowly beating with powerful strokes to keep himself aloft. He held a sword of fire in his hand, pointed toward Heaven.

  A messenger of God, Jophiel was using his angelic voice to deliver a message that was the ultimate blasphemy. The sword of the angel was like an antenna, broadcasting the invitation from Eden out into the ether.

  But who are they attempting to communicate with?

  Abaddon stood beneath the hovering angel, gazing upward with eyes that glinted with excitement. Duergar had dropped to his knees, his large, calloused hands covering his ears, but that was little protection from a message delivered directly into one’s brain. Legion stood off to the side, eyes closed, swaying in the gentle breezes of Eden. It was as if he were listening to the chords of the most beautiful symphony ever played.

  A shudder of revulsion rippled through the earth upon which Eve knelt, Eden practically begging her to evict these cancerous beings from its heart. She fought to restrain herself, knowing that it would be suicide to attack them now.

  No, she would wait for a more opportune time, when there was a better chance for doing them harm. For now, she would watch, and learn.

  The message built to a painful crescendo, and she bit through her lower lip to keep from blacking out, the warm taste of her own blood flooding her mouth. Then, just as quickly as it had started, the communication was over.

  Jophiel drifted down to stand before the demon Abaddon.

  The mother of all vampires could have heard a butterfly’s wings from that distance, so listening to their conversation posed no challenge.

  “It is done,” the angel said. He appeared wan, tired, as he wished the flaming sword away in a flash of brilliance. “The solicitation has been sent.”

  Legion opened his dark eyes and applauded. “Bravo,” he cried, an unnerving smile forming on his craggy face.

  Duergar rose to his full height, dabbing at his ears with hands dirty and callused. “It surprised me to hear you speak in the voice of the Drow,” the half-blood said, observing the blood that had leaked from his ears onto his fingers. “I wouldn’t have believed that one of your nature would sully yourself with such a guttural tongue.”

  Jophiel gazed at Duergar with complete disdain. “It is a gift of my kind,” the angel stated haughtily. “Our message is heard in the most familiar tongue of the species listening.”

  The angel studied Duergar as the warrior dug a finger into one of his ears, digging furiously.

  “Even something as lowly as the Drow,” the angel added.

  Hatred flared in Duergar’s eyes at the insult, and he started for the angel.

  “There will be none of that,” Abaddon said, placing a hand between them. “It is a time for rejoicing. Soon our numbers will swell, an army the likes of which has never been seen coming together under my command.”

  Duergar fixed him in a suspicious stare. “Your command, demon?”

  “A mere slip of the tongue,” Abaddon apologized. “Our command, of course.”

  Duergar grumbled, and Legion began to laugh. It was an insane sound, one that seemed to make even Duergar uncomfortable.

  “Why do you laugh, shifter?” the monstrous half-breed asked.

  The shape changer looked around. “Can’t you feel it?”

  The ground began to tremble, then to writhe as if in pain.

  “The first to answer our invitation have arrived.”

  From her hiding place, Eve watched in horror as the air around them began to shimmer, to bend and stretch. Large rips formed in the very fabric of Eden as passages from other, far more horrible places were opened.

  Eve wanted to scream, but knew that she would be immediately set upon. All she could do was watch, as demons and other abominations spilled from the jagged holes like diseased internal organs freed from the bellies of monsters.

  The creatures chattered and squealed as they touched the blessed soil, fouling it immediately with their mere presence.

  The earth beneath her recoiled in agony.

  Eve sank her fingers down into the cold, trembling earth, holding on to keep from being thrown from her hiding place.

  She felt the screams of the earth beneath her—the plants and flowers, every blade of grass—as it was infected by these creatures’ foul presence.

  The Garden of Eden was dying.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d ever experienced anything quite so painful—quite so sad. The earth ceased its spasms, and she removed her fingers from within its cold, dirty skin. Eve stared at her filthy hands, stained with the blood of the soil, watching as they changed to deadly talons. She was nearly blind with her rage, the emotions of a dying and frightened Eden reverberating through her form.

  Something had to be done—somebody had to be punished.

  She looked out to see that the monsters were still arriving, and her thoughts reeled from the insanity of it all.

  What are they doing? Why have these abominations been called here?

  Her eyes fell upon Jophiel. Eve could see by the look on his perfect, heavenly features that he was as repulsed by the new arrivals as she was. The angel stepped away from the accumulating number that Abaddon was welcoming with open arms. Jophiel spread his wings, soaring up into the air, flying away.

  Eve again stared at the encampment, furious that there was nothing she could do. But she then turned her nose to the sky, smelling the divine scent of the angel, drifting on the Garden winds.

  She followed.

  Perhaps there was something she could do after all.

  IT was as if the Garden were helping her.

  Just as she believed she had lost the angel’s scent, a sudden breeze would kick up, the smell of the messenger’s trail there for her to follow.

  Eve moved through the thick forest like a shark through water, stalking her prey. She climbed up and over fallen trees larger than the greatest redwood, and waded across bubbling lagoons frothing with aquatic life. The stink of the angel that had evicted her from Paradise and that had plagued her for the subsequent years, fueled her pursuit. As did the plaintive, psychic cries of the Garden in agony.

  As the angel’s stink grew heavier, a terrible foreboding struck her. Eve glance
d about, searching for signs of danger, only to realize there was no imminent peril. Instead, it was the part of the Garden she had just entered that filled her with such dread.

  She had been here before.

  As she pushed aside a wall of hanging vines, her eyes confirmed that suspicion. Yes, she had been here before—on the day she had fallen from grace.

  The Tree of Knowledge stood as it had those many millennia ago. Now, though, its base was ringed with a thick, high wall of dark bramble, which prevented access to the tree and its ripe, dangling fruit.

  Jophiel stood before the tree. Tentatively, he reached into the growth, attempting to tear away the obstruction. The angel cried out, the air suddenly rich with the scent of his blood. Eve crouched at the edge of the clearing, watching as Jophiel pulled back. The angel gazed woefully at his bloodcovered hands. The thorns of the bramble were razor-sharp, uncaring about who or what they bit.

  “Do not deny me this,” she heard the angel say, gazing up toward the heavens.

  The smell of his blood made her stomach ache.

  “Who are you talking to?” the temptress asked, coming into the clearing around the Tree. A stream ran past it, and it washed over her bare feet as she stepped into the water.

  Jophiel turned, red-stained hands held out before him.

  “You.”

  “Blood on your hands,” she snarled, feeling her canines elongate within her mouth. “How fucking apropos.”

  The angel sneered. “I will not be judged by the likes of you,” he spit, his wings nervously flapping as he wiped his hands on his shirt.

  Eve shook her head disapprovingly. “What have you done, Jophiel?” she asked, eyes boring into his. “What the hell have you done?”

  He seemed to think about her question a moment, his perfect features slack and unemotional.

  “Times such as these create the most unusual bedfellows,” he said. He held out his hand, and a sword of crackling fire ignited in his grip.

  “I believe He intends for us all to die,” the angel said, the flame of his blade dancing in the darkness of his eyes. “I came here . . . to the Tree, thinking that perhaps it might hold the answers I seek.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Devourer is coming, and I don’t think even Heaven can stop it.”

  Jophiel’s movements were lightning; one moment he stood, back to the brambles, the next he was beside her, the burning sword slashing through the air.

  Eve barely avoided the blade, feeling the heat pass dangerously close to the flesh of her neck as she dropped to the ground.

  “It’s self-preservation, Eve,” he said, watching her with mad eyes. “Worlds will die, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that the same thing doesn’t happen to me.”

  “Selfish prick,” she hissed, knocking his feet out from beneath him with a sweep of her leg.

  The angel went down on his back with a grunt. Eve dived on top of him, pinning his wrists to the ground. His wings flapped as he attempted to stand, kicking up bits of debris that stung her eyes and flesh, but she held fast, grinning as she sat astride him.

  “You’d betray everything just to save your own ass,” she said, bearing down on him with all her strength. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  He tried to use his sword, to lift his hand, but she had found power in her rage and believed that it partially came from Eden itself.

  “Listen to you.” Jophiel thrashed beneath her. “The temptress speaks to me of morality.”

  The angel began to laugh, a high-pitched braying that felt like steel spikes being driven into her brain. He had laughed very much like this as she and Adam were chased from the only home they had ever known, out from within the bosom of His protection, out into the wasteland.

  Looking down at the angel, helpless beneath her, there was nothing Eve wanted more than to rip the perfect flesh from his face, to reveal the monster beneath.

  But he bucked again in a surge of anguish and broke free of her grip, hurling her off him.

  Eve landed against the brambles encasing the Tree of Knowledge.

  That fucking Tree, as she had learned to call it over the countless millennia. The thorns hungrily pierced her flesh and she could feel rivulets of warm blood running down her back as she fell to the ground. She looked up to see the fearsome shape of Jophiel standing above her, burning sword in hand, ready to pass judgment upon her.

  Just like the old days.

  “I think it’s time that somebody put you out of your misery,” the angel sneered, the flaming sword raised above his head.

  She started to dodge, but Jophiel lashed out with a kick that caught her on the chin, and Eve fell.

  “Did you know He actually believed that you could be saved?”

  She heard the angel’s voice through a sea of pain. She gazed up through the haze to see Jophiel looming over her like a vulture.

  “It’s true,” the angel continued. “Even after Abaddon’s seed infected you, turning you into this.” He gestured toward her, wrinkling his nose. “He still believed in your redemption.”

  The words were like a white-hot brand searing her brain.

  What the fuck is he saying . . . that God is still watching me?

  Eve pushed herself to her feet.

  “Guess we’ll never know if He was right,” Jophiel said, genuine amusement in his voice. “Personally I’d have smote you the moment you touched the fruit, but that’s just me.”

  She heard the crackle of heavenly fire as the blade descended.

  He still believed in your redemption.

  What did it mean? If she died now, she’d never know.

  Eve shifted just enough that the burning sword pierced her shoulder instead of her heart, cutting through flesh and bone with ease.

  Had she evaded him completely, he wouldn’t have been close enough. Taking that wound hurt like a son of a bitch, but it gave her just the edge—the moment—she was looking for.

  “Smite this,” she growled, slashing her talons into his groin, tearing through his clothing and the angelic flesh beneath.

  She ripped him open from crotch to chest.

  Jophiel stumbled back, taking his sword with him. Eve wasn’t sure what hurt more, the blade going in or being pulled out. The messenger dropped to his knees, struggling to keep his viscera from spilling out onto the ground. But it wouldn’t be long before Jophiel pulled himself together.

  Angels healed quickly. Divinity was the ultimate Plan B.

  “You miserable bitch,” he rasped, over and over again, slimy snakes of intestine slipping through his hands as he attempted to shove them all back inside.

  Eve felt her legs begin to go.

  “I would have made it quick,” the angel said through gritted teeth. “But now I think I’ll hurt you . . . very badly, then I’ll give you to Abaddon.”

  He’d managed to get his guts back inside him, and the yawning gash was already starting to mend itself.

  “Have you missed him, Eve?” Jophiel asked, venom dripping from his every word. “He talks about you all the time, about how proud he is of you, how you were his greatest achievement.”

  She wanted to go at him again, to rip him apart, but she was barely keeping it together. Eve dropped to her knees, the jarring impact shaking something loose. Blood and bile exploded in her mouth.

  Jophiel was laughing again: that horrible fucking sound.

  “I wonder if he’ll just play with you for a while, have a little fun like the good old days, and eventually kill you. Or will he try to turn you again?”

  The angel looked down at his torn clothing. The wounds had healed, leaving behind four angry, vertical scars where her claws had torn him open. And then he looked at her.

  “I’d like to see that,” Jophiel said. “I’d like to see how much you could take before the darkness claimed you again.”

  He started to rise, wings unfurling.

  Eve knew this was it. She would kill herself rather t
han be given to Abaddon again, and she was looking around for something sharp, when she felt a jolt like an electric shock—the same feeling she’d had sporadically since coming to Eden. The Garden was alive, and it was telling her that it would not allow her to die.

  Pushy bitch.

  Thick vines erupted from the earth. Tentacles of vegetation wrapped about the angel’s wrists, legs, and neck, pulling him back down to the ground. The harder he struggled, the more vines slithered up from the Garden’s fertile soil, coiling around the thrashing angel, holding him tightly in their grip.

  A gift for you, Eden whispered inside her head.

  And Eve suddenly realized what was being offered to her.

  She was weak, probably even dying. If she were to survive, feeding was an absolute necessity, and even then, wounds so severe would take time to heal.

  But to feed on the blood of an angel.

  Eve dropped to her hands and knees. She crawled toward her ancient enemy, listening to him scream.

  Jophiel knew what was coming, and she moved extra slowly to prolong his terror. She had fed on him before, and was looking forward to doing so again.

  “Just like the good old days,” she said, lying atop him, gazing down into his terror-filled eyes.

  Then she could hold it back no more, the hunger inside her like a wild beast, eager to be released.

  Eager to be fed.

  She sought out the place where she had bitten him before, the scar tissue there the only ugliness marring his perfect flesh. It called to her like an old friend, as she buried her teeth in the soft skin of the angel’s throat.

  As she began to drink, Jophiel screamed for God to help him.

  No one answered.

  CONAN Doyle was fatigued, but he wouldn’t let on to the others. He felt Ceridwen’s gaze upon him and turned to give her a reassuring nod. The spell they had used to bring them to this limbo realm—even with the addition of Ceridwen’s elemental magic—had exhausted him, but he did not have the luxury of rest.

  The Menagerie stood in awe upon that strange middle ground between Heaven and Earth, before the Gate to Eden.

  The place of humanity’s birth.

  Jelena sniffed the breeze, eyes closed as the scent of the place filled her nostrils. Clay stood beside the naked wolf woman. He wore his natural earthen form, his large, powerful hands clenched into fists, anticipating the struggle yet to come. Dr. Graves drifted in the air beside Squire, both of them staring at the formidable Garden Gate.