“No,” Mea said, barely holding it in. “But what do I know. I’m just a basket baby.” About to burst with laughter, Mea held onto the bit, continuing on with it. “Just me, little ole’ Mea, floatin’ down the river, all Moses-like.” Her eyes sparkled like diamonds as she grinned at her own cheesy joke.
A few days after her eighteenth birthday, Diana told her the true story of how she found Mea. She told her about seeing an angel, about her failed suicide attempt, and about finding a baby in the hotel room that she had mysteriously woken up in.
Somehow surviving her swim in the Pacific Ocean that she didn’t plan on returning from, Diana woke up in a hotel room, healed and refreshed, and with her would-be daughter in a mysterious wicker basket. While Diana’s story left out the R-rated details, Mea feigned ignorance and didn’t ask too many questions. She already knew.
In fact, Mea knew more about the story than her mom did. It wasn’t an angel that she saw but an angelic iteration of her future daughter. And she wasn’t an angel, she was a god. And despite Diana coming clean, both mother and daughter were still keeping secrets from each other. Like mother, like daughter, like a cliche, though neither one knew.
In the kitchen, Diana finished drying off her hands and flung the towel at her daughter. “Brat.”
Mea retaliated by a quick blast from the dish sprayer, and her mom squealed as the spritz of surprisingly cold water hit her.
“Don’t,” Diana commanded as she wagged her finger and tried to keep a straight face. But as Mea threatened her with another spray and taunted, “Why? What are you going to do?” Diana squealed again and shielded herself.
“Don’t.” Diana grinned and giggled again, still wagging her finger at the dish sprayer. “Don’t,” she repeated, this time with more fake authority. “And now, dry the dishes. Insolence will not be tolerated.” Yet, as Mea threatened another spray of water, she squealed yet another time and ran into the living room.
Mea sighed as her laughter calmed itself. Then, after a few deep breaths, she called out for her mom. “Mom,” Mea called as she began wiping up the water she sprayed. “Mom, come back. Truce. I’m offering you a truce.” She waved the dish towel lazily like a white flag of surrender.
And after peaking her head in-and-out of the doorway a few times, her mom crept back into the kitchen, still half-feigning being afraid. But before she knew it, Mea wrapped her arms around her and kissed her head. “C’mon, Ma. You know I’m just teasing. No matter what, you’re always going to be my mom.”
“You’re damn right,” Diana peeled the dish towel out of Mea’s hand and tossed it aside. Smiling, she thought, I have the greatest daughter in world. Then frowning, she thought, I wish I could give her a better life… but I can’t.
Diana’s sadness grew. And after a long pause and pursed lips, she asked, “Don’t you ever wonder though? I mean, I swear the story’s true, but it’s just… Your biological parents, they have to be out there—somewhere. Don’t you ever wonder where they’re at?”
Mea kept washing dishes, scrubbing harder than she was before. Her hands were angry but her words weren’t. “No, Ma. I don’t—I really don’t. I just… I got you and Ryan, and that’s enough.” The truth was stranger than she could explain. Best to keep it simple, she thought. She was a reincarnated god, of sorts. And she’d been to Hell and back… and to Heaven and back. That was the truth.
Mea spun over to the drying rack and started drying dishes. Ten, leaning her back against the counter, she took a second and tried to choose her words carefully. “Mom, if my real parents were out there, they can stay there. They obviously didn’t care enough to come find me, and they didn’t care enough to not leave.”
But as she spoke, unreal whispers ran through her thoughts. God is dead. Another deadbeat dad, if gods even had parents… The old gods are dead. It is the age of the new gods. She ignored the thoughts, and instead, she just smiled.
Though overly tired, Diana smiled back and continued watching her almost-adult daughter dry dishes. Admiring her, her mom started reminiscing. Just yesterday, she was kid. And now… It all goes by so fast. Selective memories from Mea’s childhood shot to the front of her thoughts; Christmas mornings, first days of school, birthdays... And with the memories, Mea’s best friend, Anna Berstack, blended in with them. Two girls giggling, laughing, playing dress-up. Such cute kids. For a time, Anna and Mea were inseparable. But that was when they were kids.
Her mom frowned. “Mea, so they never found out what happened to Anna? She just disappeared one day? She didn’t leave a note, or call you, or say goodbye?”
“Anna?” Mea’s nerves sparked like a broke powerline. Anna was dead. Azazel killed her. I couldn’t stop him… And before that, she betrayed me.
She couldn’t say that, so she just took a deep breath instead. “No, no. No note, no call, no nothing. And they never found her.” Anna, I forgive you, for everything. “I hope…” that she found peace in death. “I hope she found what she was looking for.”
Diana smiled sympathetically and said, “Yeah… Yeah, me too.” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head—atop the golden brown streams that draped over her shoulders like gentle waterfalls. In an unexpected spurt of emotions, Diana pursed her lips and squeezed her eyes tight—to hold the tears back. They grow up too fast, she thought again before pulling her daughter’s head into her chest. “I’m going to bed, honey.” She patted her daughter’s back “Don’t stay up too late, alright? Make sure you get some sleep. I love you.” Then she again kissed the top of her daughter’s head and went off to bed.
“Love you too, Ma.”
Just as Mea was finishing up the last of the dishes, she had a feeling. The hairs on the nape of her neck tingled, and invisible strings were tugging at her arms. She wanted to watch some TV before bed, but the wings in her back were now twitching and were definitely not going to allow that. The wings, her new, emerging six-sense, everything else; they were becoming all-too-familiar. Since turning eighteen—just about four months ago, her powers and memories were steadily returning to her. Of course, it wasn’t an easy transition. They came back in chunks and felt more like solar flares—flashes of power and unknown knowledge, like she was transforming into someone else. She was.
The tingling on the back of her neck, she knew what it was. She had a visitor. So, she tossed the dish towel aside and went up to the roof to meet a familiar face.
Making her way up the apartment complex’s back stairwell, she found the door to the rooftop. It was padlocked, again. So again, she found herself holding it in her palm. The palmed metal cooled and grew colder. Then it grew even colder, and three seconds later, it was frosted over. It was a new trick she had learned. It used to take roughly twenty-thirty seconds of concentration to do it, but not anymore. Five seconds, tops. This time, it took less than four. The lock turned blue and the temperature change gave it a frosty white—then blue—aura. Ice appeared along the creases, and the creaking of bending, brittle metal stirred. Then, with a squeeze of her hand, the lock shattered into a splash of frozen metal shavings.
The rooftop of the suburban apartment complex was peaceful. The half-moon shined brightly behind a stream of gray and white clouds, and a light breeze filled the air. While it wasn’t the tallest building in Baysville, Illinois; it was secluded enough to not draw attention.
Mea stepped out onto the concrete floored rooftop. It was peaceful. Aside from some oversized exhaust pipes and a storage shed, it was mostly clear. It was a bit of a fixer-upper and would’ve made a nice rooftop terrace, if their landlord gave a damn, but he didn’t.
Speaking to the wind or to no one in particular, she announced herself, “I’m here. And I know you’re there. So… You can come out now.” Spinning, she scanned the empty plateau.
Just then, Blackwell stepped out of the shadows of the oversized exhaust pipe. Stepping through the gentle gray fog flowing out of it, he had a gentle smile. In the same soft tone he always used, he greeted her. “Hello, Mea.
”
“Hey, you.”
With loving eyes, he scanned her clothes—sweat pants and an old t-shirt with a faded, head-less cardinal holding a baseball bat on the front. Dishwater had splattered across the bottom of the shirt and left a dark gray circle of soaked cotton. He thought it was cute and smiled. “You know I can get you a dishwasher, if you like.” Either human or machine, your choice, he thought. And he almost said as much, before wisely deciding to keep those specific details to himself.
Mea’s face pruned up at his half-teasing offer. Smart ass. “No, we already have a dishwasher.” She grabbed at the soaked portion of her shirt. “Me.”
“Very well. Regardless, you look beautiful as always.” He meant it, though she certainly did not feel beautiful, especially not at that moment.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, easy for you to say. You’re always wearing that same damn dapper suit.” And just then, she noticed that he had switched the colors of his shirt and tie. “Your shirt, it looks better that way.”
“Thank you,” He replied while deciding not to mention who gave him the suggestion.
Approaching him, the shadows pushed away from his face, and she noticed that he looked different as well. His hair was blacker, no longer dark brown. His eyes had red specks—almost as thick as stripes—scattered within his golden irises. They had been the color of icy blue sapphires. “You look different,” she said, stating the obvious.
As they made their way to the ledge of the rooftop, their usual casual meeting spot, he said, “Yes, thank you for noticing. As you know, I can change our appearance. Before, I had changed my look to… ease our reintroduction. But this is my usual one, my preferred one.”
She smiled and tousled his hair. “Well, I like it. It’s different, but I still like it.” Smiling at him, she adjusted his tie, smoothed out his lapel, then patted his chest. “You look very handsome.”
“Thank you,” he said as his smile faded. Back to business. “I just came from visiting Azazel.”
She cringed at the name. Azazel—the one who killed Anna. “Why’d you do that?”
“Information.”
“Information?” Mea huffed, growing angrier by the second. “Information? I don’t even know why you left him alive.”
Blackwell paused for a moment of introspection. “Mea, taking a life should not be so easy.” He shook off the emotion. “And according to him, we are immortals. So taking his life would be… complicated, to say the very least. Truthfully, I wonder what would happen if we tried. Such a thing has never occurred, not in the traditional sense. There could be unintended side effects.”
“Side effects? Immortals? If we can’t kill them, how do we stop them?”
Stop them? what a novel idea. They can’t be stopped. It can’t be stopped. He dodged her last question and diverted back to the prior one. “Maybe we aren’t immortal. Maybe there is a way.”
“How?”
“Don’t know,” he said while shrugging. “Chop ‘em up? Small pieces, you know. Scatter them over the ocean or blast them into outer space.” He grinned. She didn’t.
Instead, Mea rolled her eyes and called him an idiot, and he admired her beauty. I wish things were different, he thought. He continued holding her gaze, perhaps longer than he should have. “Have any of your memories returned?”
“No, none of the useful ones. It’s just…” She dropped her head and flicked a pebble off the roof. “Just the painful ones.”
He smiled sympathetically and tried to empathize, “And that’s why mortals don’t remember their past lives. Our past, our experiences, they shape our actions, influence our views. Sometimes our pasts are like… scars, mistakes seared onto our souls.”
Mea stood up and moved towards the center of the rooftop. “Yeah… Well, apparently I’m not a mortal.” Large wings, pure as newborn snow, shot out of her back. “Not completely, at least.” She threw her hands up and gesturing at them.
“No you are not,” he said as he watched Mea’s wings folded in and onto themselves before retracting back into her shoulder blades, disappearing like they were never there in the first place. She walked back over to the ledge and sat back down.
“You know, any time I try to remember or focus too hard on it, It… it all becomes too much.” Anytime she tried remembering, thousands of memories would flash through her mind like a high-speed clip show. Tidal waves of emotions would slam into her until she couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad, angry or hurt, vengeful or righteous. Every emotion, every memory crashed into her and smash together into a conflicting menagerie of every human feeling, emotion, and experience ever known to man. “It’s just… too many memories and too little time to figure them out.”
He grabbed her hand and sandwiched it between his own. His palms were rough and warm while hers were smooth and cold, and she liked the way they contrasted against her own and smiled. He continued, “Mea, yes, emotions can be complex—paradoxical even.” He thought about what Azazel said. Does she remember what happened last time? “And death, pain, sadness—they can be heavy and overwhelming at times.” Does she know what you are? Again Blackwell found himself shaking off his errant thoughts. “I would suggest that you not focus too much on the negatives. There are always many questions, and many emotions, and no simple answers.” Only dangerous ones.
His hands felt nice, and so did his words. She pulled his arm around her and leaned into him. “No simple answers? Yeah, I gathered as much. But I can’t ignore what happened—what’s happening now, what I’ve done, the people I’ve killed.”
Mea’s thoughts whipsawed. Not people, fallen angels. Azazel’s minions—emerald-eyed outcasts. Fallen angels from Heaven. I had their wings ripped out of their back and exiled them. And they tried to kill me. They threatened my family, they deserved… No, don’t do that to yourself; don’t think that way. “I just… Why me? Sometimes, I just wish I was normal.”
Blackwell nuzzled into her until his cheek rubbed against her hair. “If it wasn’t you, it’d be someone else. For mortals and gods alike, power is both a gift and a curse. Using it, not using it; both option have consequences. Both cause ripples and influence the lives of others. And that, in itself, comes with an implicit burden.” Pausing, he noticed that she still smelt like dish soap, in a nice way, and grinned. “But of course, if you are tired of playing the game, you can always transfer your powers.”
She shifted away from him and scrunched up her face. “Transfer your powers? Is that even possible?”
“Of course it is. Would you like to?” He held out his hand and levitated a ball of white smoke in his palm. “We can do it right now, if you’d like.” In truth, he had no idea if it was possible. Instead, he was playing a game of liar’s poker with no cards, bluffing and seeing if she’d take the bait. “Just… say the word.” And call my bluff.
She didn’t and instead folded her hand. Chills ran up her spine as she thought about losing her powers, losing part of herself. “No… No, I’m okay.” Forcing a smile, she slapped the ball of smoke out of Blackwell’s hand and held on to it. “It’s fine. I’m just venting is all.”
She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed it. Her chest thumped as she inhaled deeply. His hands smelt of sandalwood and soap. Clean and masculine. She rubbed the back of it along the side of her chin. Rough like sandpaper, but it still felt nice and gave her a sense of comfort. Both enjoyed the moment of intimacy, but Mea felt something else coming over her. She closed her eyes and leaned in…
She ran her free hand through his hair and moved her face closer to his. And then… Her hands were suddenly less-full, and the smell of sandalwood was gone. And when she opened her eyes, Blackwell was gone as well.
She looked around while her jaw hung open, limp and confused but… when she finally saw him, her jaw snapped shut, and her eyes narrowed.
Standing five feet behind her, he was shrugging with a sad, stupid look on his face. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” Again, Azazel’s voice was inside his he
ad, whispering to him, “Does she know what you are?”
And his stupid look and rejection were like throwing gasoline on a fire, and now she was beyond angry. She hopped up from her seat and charged over. “You know what? You’re an asshole.” She shoved him.
“Yes, I know.”
Embarrassed and irate, she shoved him again. He rejected her. After all his empty sweet words, he rejected her, again. And she shoved him again and cursed him and shoved him yet another time. And again, Blackwell didn’t offer any resistance. About to shove him another time, she finally realizing that she wasn’t getting anywhere and stopped. And instead, threw up her arms in frustration and fury and stomped away from him while gritted her teeth.
Hoping that it would help to contain her anger, it didn’t. Instead, dramatically and animatedly, it all came out. “You know what? You say that we used to be in love and that you still care about me. And in some past life, or lives, we were together; but now—now you won’t even… You won’t even do anything like… you’re scared. You’re scared, aren’t you? You just… You know what? I’m tired of playing these stupid games with you—you’re in my life. You’re out of it. Then you grab my hand and then—“
“Mea.” He dropped his head in defeat. She was right, she was right about everything. He let out a deflated sigh. “I have already expressed my feelings about you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know; I’ve heard it a thousand times. But you can’t have it both ways. I’m throwing myself at you, and you… It’s a simple decision; are you in or are you out? That’s it.”
Blackwell said, “It’s not that simple.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said, mocking him. “And why’s that?”
“Because it always ends the same way.” With you realizing what I am, with you leaving, he thought.
She shook her head and grunted again. “So, now I’m paying for things that I supposedly did in a past life? things that I don’t even remember doing?” She huffed. “God, you and your stupid god rules.”
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 4
