TF- C - 00.00 - THE FALLEN Dark Fantasy Series: A Dark Dystopian Fantasy (Books 1 - 3)

by Steve Windsor

  She glanced to his waist, just above where he kept his violating snakes. Shit, she thought. Angel axe.

  The double-bladed hatchet, tucked into the feathers at Lived’s waist, shined and glistened in the moon. A long spike for a handle, half-moons for blades—one shining silver, the other onyx black—“Angel’s End,” this particular one was named … because that was exactly what it was for.

  Lived looked at Fury’s stare. He smiled and continued her Judgment, “You stand accused of adultery, blasphemy, and idolatry … in offense to the one and only God of this eternity.”

  Across the roof, Fury whispered out of the side of her mouth at Faith, “What the fuck’s idolatry?” she asked him. She knew what the others meant—guilty on both charges.

  “That means you worshipped Rain above God—above Life.”

  Jump raised up his eyebrows and tilted his head a little. Not even the half of it, he thought.

  And the Devil, Lived, shouted across the roof at her, “State your intention to submit to this judgment!”

  Fury whispered back to Faith again, “Like, what’s the punishment for that shit?”

  “Doesn’t really matter,” Faith said. “In Life’s version of the Word”—he shook his head—“death … they’re all death.”

  It was the only way. Jump and Faith were both certain of that. Sacrifice was a cold and heartless mistress and she didn’t give a shit about Fury. That was what Jump told her. Though Jump had probably said, “Bitch.” Fury couldn’t remember.

  Faith was a little less “colorful” in his explanation, but the end result was the same. Fury knew they were right—Life and Lived had told her the same thing. Fury had to give something up … something big. Other than her wings, her immortal angel-life was as big as it got.

  Fury walked slowly to the center of the roof. When she got to Lived, she could see the satisfaction all over his face. “You’re a miserable liar!” Fury screeched at him. “It was nothing like she said.”

  Lived smiled at her. “Coming from you,” he said, “I shall consider that a compliment.” He looked toward Jump and Faith. “Careful, however, you are far from fulfilling your part of the agreement.”

  Fury looked behind her. It was the last time she would see them. She turned back to Lived. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Lived spun quickly, turning toward the horde of riders. “Fury of The Fallen,” he shouted, slowly turning as he spoke, “you have submitted to your crimes and received your judgment. The punishment for these offenses is death … at your own hand.”

  “What did he say?” Jump asked Faith. “At her own what?”

  Faith hung his head and closed his eyes. “Her own hand,” he said. He shook his head slowly. “She has to—”

  “She can’t do that!” said Jump. Then he tensed up.

  Faith opened his eyes and raised his head back up. “Easy,” he said. Not that it was easy for him to hold back either, but by now, Faith knew Jump’s tendency toward violence … a little better, at the very least. “Have a little faith in the girl. She has suffered so much. She’s gotten this far. I can assure you, if she wanted to cut his head off… She can defend herself.” He smiled next to him at Jump. “Maybe you should pray. Try that.”

  Jump chuckled a little at Faith’s memory of his own Judgment. “Fat chance on that,” he said. But then he thought about it. He had a little itch in the back of his mind. She recognized me. Not that I was an angel—he looked down at the PAIC—but … me.

  — CXLI —

  THE DUNGEONS WERE completely empty. Not a sound or a smell, nor a drop of blood remained. So Rain and Salvation left as quickly as they went in. They flew to the center of the arena and then watched the fall again.

  Salvation listened to Faith’s words. “Maybe we should be the ones praying,” she said.

  Rain knew Life’s book. Probably better than the vindictive, lying woman herself. There wasn’t much time before the seventh trumpet. She put her hands together and prayed for Fury, “Judge not according to her appearance, Eden,” she said, “but rather judge righteous intent. Let her therefore go boldly to her judgment, that she may obtain mercy, and find grace in her time of despair.”

  Salvation looked up, a little bit surprised that her daughter would use Life’s own book. “That was … beautiful,” she said. Then she turned back to the fall. “I think you changed it just enough.”

  — CXLII —

  FURY DEBATED—CUT the lying head off this devil right now, or earn her place in Rain’s eternity.

  The decision with Frank… There was still a twinge of regret, welling up in the back of her mind. Why hadn’t she killed him? She should have. She had plunged the needle into his neck and his greedy, raping soul was inches from her final judgment against him. Something held her thumb back—willed it to deliver mercy instead of murder. Listening to Lived tell her that she had to take her own life, her thoughts filled with regret.

  As if the bastard could read her mind, when Lived turned back around, he was … he—he was Frank!

  “You should have judged me up when you had the chance … Matilda,” he said. “Now, I’m down there with her and I’m just going to wake back up and—all alone in that room. I wonder what I could do to her in there?

  “After all this… You’ve run up a pretty big tab. More than your mother’s ass can pay back, that’s for sure… . Eh, that hole was getting too big to fill anyway.” Then Frank—it was him, wasn’t it? He looked across the roof and shouted, “You got a decent size cock there, Ben … for a priest. Nice to see you didn’t waste it on chastity.” Then he tilted his head back and laughed and howled.

  “You motherfucker!” Fury yelled, and then she raced at him. Devil or Frank—she didn’t care.

  And Frank lowered his head, revealing his neck. “Yes…” the devil inside him said softly. In a split second, Fury would be his slave. And Lived changed himself back from Frank.

  “No!” Rain yelled at the fall. “Please, no-no-no!” Then she turned her head. She would be lost … and so would Fury.

  Fury had come too far. She ran by Frank, screaming and screeching as she passed him. And she slipped the Angel’s End from Lived’s feathers and then she fell to her knees, sliding across the roof.

  When she stopped, she held the axe above her head, and then she leaned her head back and screamed into the heavens, “Rain, forgive me!” A long and loud cry over lost vengeance and the bittersweet love that she would never find.

  She stretched her wings as wide as she could—angled them above her, pointing them at the two Heavens. “I tried!” she yelled. Then she hung her head down and cried. She muttered softly now, “You know I tried…” And then she let out a huge screeching scream that shook the roof.

  The concussion pushed the riders and their horses back a few feet.

  And then Fury swung the bright blades of the axe down toward the roof and then in a fast circle up and over her head, and then down behind her neck, slicing through the bases of her wings, shearing them off in one loud, steel-against-steel clang!

  Red blood sprayed from Fury’s right wing and black liquid spewed from her left, and she screamed in a long, mourning howl and then slumped forward, down onto the roof. And she shook as she wept.

  Thunder boomed through the heavens and lightning lit up the sky, cracking bright, white spikes of light through the moonlit black.

  “There’s no time!” Faith yelled to Jump. “She has to do it now!”

  Then the thunder boomed and lightning flashed again and the building shook, and small pellets of hail began to fall.

  Fury pushed herself up. Hail pelted her bloody wing-stumps and she winced and groaned as she stood. She dropped the angel axe and it clanked on the rooftop. “I won’t!” she shouted up into the sky. “I don’t wanna do this anymore!” she raged at Life. She was mortal now … and her death was her own. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

  — CXLIII —

  SO NOW YOU know. “Matilda.” You believe tha
t shit? What was my mother thinking? Like I’m walking around with that on my back? My back kills me enough as it is. Meds… Don’t do shit. Crazy-ass dreams and—

  Oh, come the fu—I’m on the balcony again? … Hail? You gotta be shitting me. “It’s Seattle!” I yell up at the night. “Like, hello, it doesn’t hail here.” The little drops of ice hit my back and it stings. And my head is killing me. “I won’t … I don’t wanna—don’t make me do this anymore.”

  I peek over the edge a little and the hail kinda like, falls in slow motion, down to the street. Weird.

  And I get a good look at myself. “Oh, goddammit,” I mutter. Soaked. I look up. No idea why—I already know there’s like, no one up there. “These are my favorite underwear.”

  I slip a little. “Whoa!” Shit, I could sleepwalk right off of this—damn, that’s a long way.

  Gotta keep that door shut, I think, trying to remind myself. That would be so… I mean, did you see how far down that was?

  — CXLIV —

  FURY RAN TOWARD the edge of the roof. Hail pelted her face as her feet pushed hard against the rooftop. She was naked now, having sacrificed her immortal life—her wings and feathers—to Life’s plan for her. Well, except for her favorite underwear and tank top—like she was giving those up to that bitch.

  It wasn’t much of a plan. The whole thing seemed pointless, like Life was just making everyone miserable for the fun of it. Just like jacking the Mike, Fury thought as she neared the edge. This dream… It was her life—she’d end it her way.

  “She kept her underwear?” Jump said to Faith.

  “Seriously?” Faith said. “That is what you…? Mother of Mercy.”

  “What?” Jump said. “Oh, shit. I get that now.” He shook his head and smiled. “You’re a blaspheming bastard, father.” He had no idea why he even cared. “Why didn’t she just use the axe?”

  Faith frowned at Jump and knelt down. He had so thoroughly failed. Babette lie near death in the basement, Mercedes had to stay and endure her hell, and Fury had to forfeit her immortality for redemption.

  In Life’s eternity, he hadn’t done much for whom he now knew to be his one, only and last daughter from Heaven. Even during the half eternity since Rain’s rule started, he had barely known the archangel, Fury. It might be too late for him to find peace and forgiveness, but he could help Mercedes and Fury find theirs. He prayed, “My angel from Heaven, forgive me my sins and my failures. For I am your guardian, my love brought you here, and from forever this day, I shall remain at your side, to light and guard and guide you from evil.”

  Fury leapt off the edge of the building … like an angel taking flight from the top of the great mountain.

  And Jump and Faith watched as she drifted out a few feet—arms wide and blazing red hair flying everywhere. Then she arced down … and disappeared over the edge.

  The riders above the roof watched in silence, broken only by occasional snorts from their mounts and the clanking of steel-feathered armor.

  Faith walked to the middle of the roof and slowly picked up the Angel’s End axe. This was his fate now—his newfound faith against Life’s old one. He would not help her any longer, unwittingly or otherwise. He lifted his head toward the dark night sky. A tiny sliver of light pushed its way up from beneath the horizon—there wasn’t much time left.

  “Rain almighty,” he said, “I am heartfully sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins and prepare to meet thy just punishment, but most of all because I have offended thee, who is all good and deserving of my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of thy grace, to sin no more as I have, and to avoid the near occasion of sin in the future.”

  Lived ran at Faith, grabbed the axe from his hands, pulled his wings back, and cut them both off—one quick swing and a loud clang for each.

  Faith fell to his knees and hunched forward, moaning and spraying blood from his back. And he cried out and fell over.

  “You insolent hypocrite,” Lived yelled down at him. Then he flipped the axe up in front of him, grabbed it by the top and plunged the spike through Faith’s back, into his right heart. “Go then”—he jerked the spike back out and sunk it into Faith’s left heart—“to your new god!”

  Jump walked to the middle of the roof and stood next to Lived. They stared down at Faith.

  “Miserable…” Jump muttered. “She sure wants her pound of flesh, doesn’t she?”

  Lived kept staring down. “If one is not vigilant,” he said. He adjusted his shoulders, feeling into the fresh wounds that Life gave him in their cell, “she will take two.”

  “One day,” Jump said to him, “there’ll be a reckoning for all this shit. You know that, right?”

  Lived was silent. He put the axe back in the feathers at his waist. Then he stared blankly into Jump’s eyes.

  “Yeah,” Jump said, “you know. It’s gonna be a helluva thing, too.” He walked toward the edge of the roof. He wanted to see Fury one last time. He didn’t look back as he spoke. “I just hope you’re still alive to see it.”

  Lived walk toward his mount. When he got there, he stepped in his stirrup and swung his leg over his steed. Then he folded his wings behind him, forming the twisting snakes and wings of his Hell’s warmark on his shield. “Until that day,” he said, “I bid you the same.”

  — CXLV —

  THE ARCHANGEL FAITH stretched his shining new wings and then closed them behind his back, forming the bright shining star—the emblem of his Protector—the great god, Rain. He stared into the empty cell in the dungeon where she had been.

  Every dark archangel condemned to the dungeons was gone … and so was Babette. But what had she done? Rain’s forgiveness and his own redemption aside, Faith’s failure sent her there and he would never forgive himself for that.

  He stared at the star on the seal on the gate. Rain had all the cells in the dungeon resealed. “In another eternity,” Faith said softly. “I will find you there.”

  But she would never be redeemed for what she had done after the fall ended. She could not be. Some decisions were final.

  Babette lie on her side and pushed into her misery. She could never go back. She would never go back. Hope and love weren’t even memories any longer.

  Her love had abandoned her again—Benito had left her to her vile fate. Her death had barely slipped from the sharp claws of one filthy dog, only to be chained in the yard at the beck and bone of another dirty devil.

  If this was what Life had delivered to her, she would finally embrace her devil, Lived … as she would embrace the evil growing inside her.

  Misery… In the only way she knew how, the Babette that she knew had searched for nothing but love … and she had only been delivered a choking throat filled with the insidious seed of evil and misery.

  She gritted her teeth and growled at her master as she pushed.

  “Now, now, Babette,” Lived said. He smiled and ran his long fingers through the snake-hissing hair of his newest pet. “It is not such a terrible fate, you realize. I can imagine far worse things to put inside you.”

  Babette whimpered and her whole body tensed up at the pain. Then she relaxed and lie limp when it subsided.

  Babette… she thought. She would never be that hopeful woman again … to anyone. She felt that deep in the sliver that was left of her sacrificed and forgotten soul. And if she could never know love again—never feel the warmth and glow of her right heart—then so be it. Neither would anyone who had ever used her up and thrown her aside.

  If she would not find love, she would make sure that anyone who tried to taste its fruit would draw back a mouthful of ashen anguish instead. From now on, anyone who had wronged her would harbor only love’s envy in their hearts. “Hole,” she said to Lived, “my name is Hole.”

  Lived smiled a little wider. She was his now. “And what do you ask of your master, Hole?” he said.

  “Now,” Hole said, “I ask only for you to bring us revenge.” And then she screamed and pushed as ha
rd as she could. And the vile spawn of her new master ripped and clawed its way out of her womb and into its new world with a screeching and screaming noise that made her ears burn.

  “And so I shall, darling,” Lived said. He pointed to the loosed souls that had languished in the dungeons “So we all shall.”

  — CXLVI —

  SALVATION STARED UP at the portal to the dungeons above. The emptiness above the lake was unsettling, but that wasn’t what was making her nervous. She thought past the empty dungeons, through the silent arena, and out the roof … to the top of the great mountain—Rain’s chamber. I hope she is… her thoughts drifted.

  “What the hell do you mean, how did I get off the roof?” Jump said behind her. He was deep into his Flight of Fury story. It was required redemption training for every new hatchling in Hell.

  Salvation turned around and smiled.

  Six curious and seriously annoying little purgatories sat by the edge of the fiery lake, listening intently to Jump’s story.

  It was one of the newest flock of hatchlings’ favorite tales—a story of the pain involved in a fall to resurrect lost redemption. It wasn’t clear whether the little purgatories liked hearing it more than her husband liked telling it—they all looked intense.

  Salvation rolled her eyes and rocked her head back and forth as she whispered under her breath, “I’m an angel—I flew.” Then she smiled to herself.

  “I’m an angel!” Jump raised his voice at the purgatories, “I flew, that’s how. Now, stop interrupting me. Jesus, I don’t know how the hell she did this job. You little shits are so—dammit, let me finish the story.”

  There was chirping and cawing as the purgatories jostled and shoved each other for the best spot, right in front.

  When they finally settled down, Jump continued. “Get in close,” he leaned in at them and said, “because this is so scary, I don’t want Salvation to hear it. Gives her … bad dreams.”

  Salvation listened for a couple of seconds, then turned her attention back to worrying about Rain.

  “Salvation,” Jump said, then he raised his voice behind her, “Salvation, come on over here.” Then he realized what his wife was doing. “Let them alone. They’re—she’s fine. You need to leave it. The more you imagine it, worse it’s gonna get.”