Lilly laid her down in the thick grass. “Sleep with the angels, my little Mischa… No one will ever hurt you again.”
CH 22: Back Then They Didn’t Want Me…
Settling into bed, Mea figured that she’d try to get some sleep. She was exhausted, but her mind wouldn’t shut down. And sleep seemed far away. She touched her face. Her face. Raven knew, he said he knew, but what did that mean exactly? Was it still her face he saw when he looked at her—when he looked at her that way? Or was it still someone else he saw, his wife from another life.
Who did she see? When she looked in the mirror, whose face did she see? It seemed that she didn’t know that either. Her face was familiar yet so very strange. And every time she thought about who she was—a god, a reincarnated soul, someone else, Mea—she never found any clarity, only more confusing questions.
That night, thinking too much was making her nose itch, the scar from Anna’s cat. So she scratched it. They were just kids when Anna’s striped tabby tore into her nose. When Mea swung one of those ball that are tied to a rubber band one-too-many times at the cat—a kitten at the time, it was swinging wildly for the jerking bouncing ball. But its wild, tiny kitten paw missed the ball more often than not, and his strikeout ended up with the kitten’s tiny, sharp claw connecting with the narrow ball at the tip of Mea’s nose.
After that, Mea’s and Anna’s innocent laughing turned to whining which turned into japing between the two innocent girls. Scarface, Anna had called her that night, and Anna had thought that it was the funniest thing ever. Now, remembering that night, Mea smiled and thought: that was a lifetime ago. It feels like it was anyways. That night, laughing, Anna; it all seemed so far and so long ago.
At least they were real, the memories. The scar, that night, the cat, her friendship with Anna; they were real. At least she knew that much. Now, nothing seemed real. Everything had become just… shadows of dusty memories. Who was she? Scattered dreams and half-filled puzzles of past lives—past lives she couldn’t even remember and wasn’t sure truly mattered, or if she even cared—seemed to hold the answers, or lack of answers, as it seemed to be going… and it all felt like shit. Mea was a god without any answers and without any purpose.
Flopping lower into her bed, she wondered about it all. A sigh and loud huff followed her frustrated thoughts. Her body was heavy, but she soon realized that she would not be getting any sleep, not tonight. And now, her head was swimming in anxiety and regret. If the gods were killers, so was she. And most certainly, sleep would not find Mea, not tonight.
Out of nowhere, the energy drained from her. Her eyelids became heavy garage doors, and her vision became as drunk as her thoughts were. The spinning room sapped her wakefulness, and Mea faded to black.
Light exploded against the insides of her eyelids then against the falling sheets of water. Splashing over boulders, the rushing water leapt over and off the jagged cliff of stones. Far below, the crashing waterfall foamed up hard and into white misty clouds before settling into a quiet watery divider of a lush green forest.
The sun was full, and the sky was blue. Then it turned black as night as a blanket of midnight wings swept in. Landing, the pitch black spread turned into an oily black cloak glimmering in the sun and swaying with the breeze. Attached to the front of it was Azazel.
With his black cloak swaying behind him, he stepped onto the granite cliff that overlooked the waterfall and the endless lush forest beneath it. Then, with stern eyes and heavy thought, he sat down on the edge.
Perhaps heavy in thought, Azazel began juggling one of his large black axes in his left hand as he watched below. “Look at them.” His words were vibrant, but his tone was empty. “See how they just smile and laugh, as if nothing is wrong. They all look so happy and heathy.”
A whirlwind of snow-white wings came down and from behind him. Melting into a soft, white, satin cloak that was fitted with a collar of fur that was just as white and just as pure, it danced in the breeze as Azazel’s had. Yet this cloak was attached to a different set of armor, an approaching chestplate of silvery armor. Don’t they look happy and healthy? “Yes, they do—They are. And so are we.”
Barreling into him, Mea giggled while Azazel remained as stone. And all the while, as her blond hair streamed into his eyes and blinded him as she landed and as she bounced into him, Azazel only tilted slightly while he continued to juggle his axe. “Yes, Ishtar,” he sighed. “They are happy and healthy… for now.”
Ishtar. Before she was Mea, she was known as Ishtar. Her ancient Sumerian name, in Akkadian, so many millennia ago. Noticing that Azazel was brooding, Mea bumped him again and asked, “Why so glum, cherry plum?”
“Cherry plum? It’s…” He huffed again then belted his juggling axe into the rock wall he was sitting on; its diamond-crusted edge slipped into the stone and left the axe hanging off the side of the granite cliff. “Never mind.”
From the high cliff of the waterfall, they could see almost everything, almost the entire world. In a nearby village, dark-skinned children played and splashed in the clear water of the river. Women laughed as they sat around a pot of boiling water. Another group of women were knitting reed baskets while others were collect buckets of water from the river. Nearer to town, the men were roasting a boar meat over a pit of open flames. Other men were grouped together, laughing at another man that was pantomiming their hunting expedition with dramatic movements and stabbing the air comically with his spear.
Elsewhere, thousands of miles away, other people were traded goods in a market place of tents, blankets, and fruits. The market was busy and surrounded by other buildings, taller buildings made of sand and clay.
In the West, in a different city, crowds were gathering around the great steps of a large temple that was in a great city with large towers, square buildings, and cobbled stone roads.
“It’s almost time.” Azazel wedged his axe free and stood up.
Mea sat somberly for a moment before rising as well. “It doesn’t have to be. We can stop it.”
“Stop it? Look at them, it’s too late. The corruption has spread.”
Beneath their granite perch, a group of men with fiery eyes and sharper blades crept through the jungle below, gliding between the vines, ducking beneath the lush green elephant ears of the forest, and towards the happy village that was not far away.
“They’re not corrupt,” Mea said, trying to convince herself. “They’re not lost, not all of them.”
“You’ll see.” From a nearby tree, an apple floated through the air and into Azazel’s hand. “They are—corrupt, that is. Once, they were pure, good… righteous. But now… their blood is tainted, like this apple.” He pointed out the soft brown spot that covered nearly half of the apple then tossed it to her. “See the hole, the rot? A worm has eaten its way into the fruit. And now the fruit is corrupt and rotting. And as the worm just keeps eating away at it, the corruption worsens… until the entire apple is just… wasted and rotted.”
Studying the piece of fruit, Mea considered Azazel’s argument. She had to admit that Azazel was right, the apple was rotting. But then she smiled. The apple was rotting, but I can fix that, she decided. She slid her hand over her hip, making a scabbard sheathing a dagger appeared on her waist, from beneath her sliding hand. Mea pulled out the newly appearing dagger, and she sliced into the apple and dug out the rotted section and the worm and the path it had burrowed through the fruit.
“They are troubled,” Mea said as she carved. “That, I do not disagree with—but not all of them… Not if we remove the corruption.” She carved out the rest of the brown flesh of the apple and let it fall to the ground. “Then…
“It’s as good as new.” She showed him and smiled. Then Mea shrugged her shoulders and took a bite of the apple, letting its ripe juices shoot out of the corners of her smiling lips and down her chin until the juices sparkled along her neckline. “See?” She smiled, shrugged, and then mumbled with her mouth still half-full, “It’s still good.�
� Then she tossed it back to him.
Catching the apple, Azazel almost smiled. “It is,” he admitted as his eyes glinted. Back then his eyes were the color of golden-amber and had streaks of dull green in them. They weren’t the angry emeralds they would eventually become, not yet they weren’t.
He chewed the apple and thought and gazed out over the world. By now, the raiders with sharp blades were a mile away from the happy, and still clueless, village. Azazel’s eyes turned colder and greener. “This apple is still good, at least part of it is. You saved this one, you did.” The apple was far from finished, but all the same, he dropped it on the ground. “But there are many worms and many apples. Many fruits that will still spoil.”
“Then we’ll need to get better at hunting worms,” she said then smiled again. He didn’t.
“Or we just get rid of the tree. No more tree, no more fruit… no more worms.” He flicked his cloak behind him, and it turned back into a sheet of black feathers before spreading out into two great wings spread-out widely behind him. Then, as the wings slammed down, Azazel blasted off and into the air. Like a giant crow, Azazel swung high above Mea until his silhouette momentarily blacked out the sun. He then swooped down and into a wide turn before disappearing into the shadows of a lush tree on an opposite cliff.
The tree was big and dark green. Filled with ripe red fruit, the grounds were littered with shadows and more fruit, less-ripe fruit. And the fallen fruit was tainted, rotting, and most likely filled with worms.
“Pay him no mind,” said a voice behind Mea. Then she flinched as a hand suddenly touched her shoulder. “Azazel is just sulking, brooding over what he thinks the world should be. And yet… he has no mind to change it.”
“My wise old shadow.” Mea grinned, turned, and wrapped her arms around Blackwell. Instead of his custom-made suit, he was wrapped in a black robe made of rough-spun wool and still looked very much the same. Back then he was known as Enki, the Sumerian god of mischief.
Mea ran her fingers through his soft, flat hair that was blacker than night. It felt familiar and nice, and not-at-all foreign as it now was. Then she kissed one of his rough-but-nice hands and held on to it. “If Azazel would do nothing, what would you do?”
“I would do what I could, to see you smile… to smile more than you do now.”
And smile she did, but she couldn’t hold it. Blackwell continued, “And you? What would you do?”
What could she do? She backed away from him and looked out and over the waterfall, to the happy village, then to the great city with its giant statues and floating gardens, and then back to the village again. The men with sharp blades were still creeping closer, hidden beneath the giant green leaves and dark shadows of the forest. “I would have them figure it out for themselves, without our interference.”
Below them, a laughing child ran into the forest, playing and exploring. Then two more followed him. And the three children laughed while throwing berries at each other as they ran under the thick green leaves and through the forest’s shadows without a care in the world. And with each step, they were a step closer to the hidden men with sharp blades. Mea sighed. “Please?”
“This is hardly us not interfering,” he stated, pointing out her hypocrisy. But then, he saw the look in her eyes, so he nodded and did as he was asked. Looking over the cliff, his eyes flared like two red suns, and the winds momentarily swirled around them.
Below them, in the forest, the raiders with the sharp weapons crept deeper into the jungle, their hands clenching tightly to their weapons of whittled wood and sharpened stone tips. The children’s laughter was close. You could tell they could hear the children. The children, they were just two trees and a few bushes away from the men with sharp weapons, and the village wasn’t much further. After a few hand gestures, the raiders readied their weapons and prepared to pounce. And in a few seconds and a few screams, the happy village would be theirs, and villagers would be gone.
At least the sun was out, but bright as the day was, the jungle was still heavily shadowed. Beneath giant, dark green elephant ears and the ceiling of tree leaves high above them, the shadows were just as alive as everything else there, dancing and shifting with every move—the eternal dance between shadows and sunlight. Yes, the shadows were alive.
And they were sharp. The wind rustled the bushes. Then the bushes rustled the shadows. Sharp shadows. Reapers with their own sharp blades leapt out of the darkness, and their blades were already in hand and ready too. One slash and two quick thrusts was all it took. And with an appearing reaper for each and every raider, it all went down rather quickly. Two thrusts per raider, that was all they needed. Blackwell’s reapers, once they finishing thrusting their second thrust, they would wrapped their arms around the stuck men’s necks and fall backwards, melting back into the shadows with their fresh kills. The whole episode lasted less than two heartbeats.
“Thank you.”
“Certainly,” said Blackwell. “But you owe me a smile… later.”
Mea grew quiet, thinking about it. “Can we stop it?”
“The Cleansing?” Blackwell’s eyes grew wide and white. He knew what she was hinting at, war. “How? Lilith?”
“We can stop her together.” Mea grabbed onto his shoulders.
“And the Wolf?”
“He sleeps in the North. He does what is in his nature. He will remain neutral.”
“If he can.” Blackwell shrugged loose of Mea’s hands. “And what about the others?” He nodded towards the tree where Azazel had vanished. “He won’t defend the mortals. And the Beast, the Dragon? What about them?”
“Azazel? He… he won’t…” She didn’t know how Azazel would react. “The others? They’ll sleep like the stars do. Quiet and stagnant until…” Mea kicked at the half-eaten apple that Azazel had dropped. “Until the time comes for chaos. Then it’s all fire and smoke and exploding stones and crashing stars. Devastation. Then they go back to sleep. They’re like boundless children with no discipline. They romp about, menacing the mortals with no sense, no sense at all.”
“No,” Blackwell corrected her. “They are chaos. Primordial and fierce. The Beast feasts on screams and terror. And the Dragon… He will bath everything in fire and turn it to ash, and then he will do it again and again. And only once all life and spirit are silent, silent enough to his liking, only then will he again take his slumber—then, and only then.”
“So we’re powerless?” Mea huffed as she stepped further away from him. “Gods without power are no gods.” She meant business.
“We have our limits, yes. The gods, mortals, none are all powerful. Complete control, complete power; such things make existence pointless—no different than a child playing with sticks by the river. Complete power amounts to nothing more than….”
“Then you are saying that we’re powerless.”
“No, Ishtar. Not powerless but… we can only do what we are capable of doing. And this is a battle that we cannot win.”
“Not if we don’t try!” Mea shouted as she grew angrier. And just then, the wind picked up and drew a chill. The ground frosted beneath her feet and crunched as she walked towards Blackwell. “So what would you do? Would you just stand by and watch, is that it?” I won’t, she thought, having already made her decision.
“I would do it quickly… to limit their suffering. And I would see you smile, as much as possible.”
“Smile?” Mea huffed incredulously. Smile? such a glib comment. “Me? I would do more and smile less.” She flicked her cloak back, transforming it into her snowy wings which quickly flared out. “With or without you.” A flurry of white feathers and flash of light sent her away.
Just then, Mea’s dream exploded into a burst of light before everything became flashes of moments and bursts of long-lost memories. A thousand years forward, Mea saw herself as she tore Azazel’s wings from his back.
Two thousand more years passed, and the Cleansing, the great flood, finally came. Mea saw Lilith screaming in her
face with crimson ribbons dancing in front of her. And Lilith’s words could be as harsh as her venom. “You would stand for them? Woman and man? Stupid, foolish, weak girl. The Golden Lion of Elysium? The Queen of Heaven? You are weak. You are no god; you’re a sympathizer… You are nothing.”
A bite… A spear of shimmering onyx that was both sharp and barbed, it dripped with honey. She barely felt it as it plunged into her stomach. A stinger, a very large one, and sweet. She barely felt it as it slid through her. The face and voice blurred. “What is a kingdom without subjects? Nothing… but I will help you. I will get you subjects for your crystal city, so many subjects—subjects as far as the eye can see.”
Lilith looked off into the distance and then at the ground. And with a shrug, she said, “Eh, and I guess I’ll fill his kingdom as well.” She meant Hell, Blackwell’s domain. “And his—most likely—will be filled even more so than your own.” The onyx spear broke off from Lilith’s tail. And as a new spear tip replaced it, like a cobra dancing for a snake charmer, the newborn red-tipped tail danced in front of Mea’s face.
The sky blackened and wiped away the calmness. The thunder shook the earth and rattled bones and mountains alike. Pillars of water shot out of the seas and shaded the sun. Sheets of water fell from the heavens and bathed the world in shadows.
Mea grasped to make sense of it and gain some lucidity. Hard beneath her fingertips, she grasped at the ground—no, not the ground. It was a wall, a stone wall, and she was hanging from the onyx spear. As she grabbed for it, the barbs pricked her hands and made them sticky with sap. More venom. Still she pawed at it, determined to fight back. Fight it. Get the stinger out, the poison will wear off. First, you have to pull the stinger out. Just get it out. She kept repeating and telling herself. But with each grasp and each prick, more poison entered her blood. Just pull it out, damn it! She tried again, but each additional prick just made her more euphoric and lethargic; and each movement was sloppier than the one before it.
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 21
