by Lanie Olson
Lucy, Fallen
The Infernal Paradise
Lanie Olson
Copyright © 2019 Lanie Olson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Crescendo
The angels have been defeated.
Those that were not executed were taken as slaves. Most were mutilated; their wings being hailed as trophies.
A small group of them managed to escape and have gone into hiding. They are tending to their wounds and mending each other.
It’s been nonstop thunder and lightning since the Thunderbirds have taken over and have been appointed to keep them out.
I... I don’t know where the surviving angels are hiding.
I wondered if they would care enough to help me had I found them anyway.
I’ve been on the run longer than I can remember and I can’t trust anyone.
I’ve found a place to hide on what’s left of the Earth.
I can’t be discovered before I find the angels.
I have to hide what I am so I pick up the cold, gleaming razor-blade that has been taunting me so much.
The wind is blowing through the open window with small drops of rain following it and landing on my naked body.
I walk over to the mirror and turn slightly to the left so that I can see what I am doing.
The rare moonlight glistens against the blade, and I look like a picture fading in and out of focus as the shredded linen I’ve used to cover the window billows softly.
I spread my wings for the last time feeling the wind blow through the feathers before I pick up the old leather strap and place it firmly between my teeth.
I cry out in muffled pain as I start to cut the my wings off my body.
One
I had wandered around the provinces until I had passed out from fatigue.
I woke up and heard voices I didn’t know. There weren’t many but enough to make me wonder who had found me.
I tried to push myself up but I was still so weak from the pain and blood loss that I just grunted in effort.
“Don’t try to move, it won’t do any good,” a deep voice said in passing.
“Wha—?”
I was mumbling. Maybe I shouldn’t try to speak either.
My body started to tremble as the pain started to become very real again.
“Hold still, the pain will go away soon,” a female voice said to me. “I’m almost done, and then he will see you.”
He who?
“That should do it,” she said again as she patted my arm.
I heard her footsteps retreat as she walked away and felt a breeze go by. I realized I was still naked when the breeze tickled my breasts.
“Come on then,” a male voice said to me grabbing me by the arm and half dragging me down a hallway.
I heard a door open. The man that had been “helping” me down the hallway gave me a gentle but firm shove and I fell to my knees.
“Well that’s different,” the initial deep voice chuckled.
It took all the energy I had left in me to lift my head and see who was talking to me.
To say he was a vision would be an understatement. Being that I was an angel, I had beheld many beautiful things in my existence, but I didn’t know how I had never seen this man before.
His hair was as white as my wings were; smooth and straight. It was short cut and stopped below his ears. His eyes were as violet as amethyst and his smile was slightly mocking.
“My name is Deveraux,” he said with a small nod.
I stared at him still in awe of his beauty. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to respond anyway.
“What’s your name, Pet?” he asked me slightly leaning forward.
I just shook my head slightly. We didn’t have names where I was from. Yes; the ones that were there the longest did but some of us who were born about a millennium after them did not. We had numbers.
He looked at me for a moment insulted, before he leaned back in the grand chair he had been sitting in, in this grand room and suddenly nodding with understanding. Apparently, he knew why I couldn’t tell him.
“You’re one of the ones that were born, aren’t you? Then tell me; what’s your number?”
I looked down at the marble black and white floor beneath me and with my finger I drew out the number thirteen. I was the thirteenth born so that was my number.
“Would you like a name then, Pet?” he asked me softly.
If he calls me ‘Pet’ one more time, I’ll find the energy and strength to kill him on his throne, I thought to myself feeling anger for the first time.
Deveraux closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
“Ah,” he said blissfully. “That’s one of my favorite emotions.”
I looked up at him again and he saw that he was smiling at me.
“Name me,” I said finally finding the will to speak.
“Hmm. If I name you this makes you mine,” he said drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair.
No, it doesn’t, I thought to myself.
“But it does,” he said leaning forward in his chair again and reading my thoughts. “I think I’ll name you Lucy. I’ve always liked that name for some reason. You can be my Lucy.”
He stood up and walked over to where I was still on my knees and pulled his shirt off revealing a wide muscular chest and a carved stomach. His arms looked as if they were chiseled out of stone, but he wasn’t overly big. In one quick movement, he wrapped his shirt around my naked body and lifted me off the floor.
“Come, Lucy,” he said as he walked out of the grand room with the grand black and white marble floor, carrying me. “I have to put you somewhere where you’ll be safe for now until I’ve had the chance to explain to my family why you’re still alive.”
Two
Deveraux chained me in a room hidden beneath his home. I couldn’t believe it when he took his shirt back. Once we were underground, he put a metal collar around my neck which had a chain that he proceeded to loop through a giant jump ring on the floor.
“It really is for your protection, no matter what you may think right now,” he said before he left me there.
I wasn’t sure how long he planned to abandon me in that place. Days, weeks, years. I had no concept of time so to me it could have been another eternity and I wouldn’t have known for sure.
I looked around the room and saw the stone walls and the scattered skeletons around the room. It was almost as if I were in a catacomb of some sort, but the steel door with bars on it to keep me in, made me feel otherwise.
I felt like one of those animals in a zoo.
His “family” as he called them would come by my room and stare at me. Some of them even threw things at me. I should have expected it. Our sides were always at war, which is why more of us and them were born; to make sure there would always be a balance and that neither side would have an unfair upper hand.
Even the small children who were half like them would come by and look at me curiously. I’ll never forget the little girl with the white blonde, curly hair and large amethyst colored eyes. She was the only one who didn’t taunt me. She would hold the bars with sad little hands and put her face against them and watch me for hours.
I remember the night that she
came down with a small bundle in her hands. She looked around carefully before she set it down in front of her and pushed her little curls out of her face. I noticed she was wearing a white nightgown and was barefoot busily looking through what she had brought with her. Then she pulled out some bread and bottles of water and stuck them through the bars toward me with a smile.
The hunger and thirst took over me harder than it ever had before and I instinctively reached for her gifts when I was pulled back by the chain. I looked at the food and water with tears in my eyes and then to the little girl and yanked dejectedly on the chain.
She looked over to see what I was doing and then understood. I watched her as she ran away into the darkness, her tiny footsteps sounding like a small round of applause as she left her bundle behind. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the stone wall. I was trying to go to sleep when I heard her feet smacking the cold hard catacomb floor as she ran back toward where I was.
Then I heard the sound of jingling which caused me to open my eyes again. She had a large hoop with a multitude of keys on them and she was trying to figure out which key would open the bars. When she finally chose the right key she let out a little gasp of excitement and then proceeded to repack her bundle. She pulled the bars open slowly so that the creaking wouldn’t be too loud and dragged the sack in.
I watched her stop short in front of me. She looked scared for a moment, like if she understood that she was now in a cage with one of my kind.
I reached a hand out to her to let her know that I didn’t mean any harm. Leaning over, she sniffed my extremity and studied my scent carefully before the fear disappeared and she smiled again. She ran her hands softly over my light brown hair and then opened her bundle again. Pulling out one of the bottles of water she uncapped it and placed it to my lips. I drank down the first bottle in two gulps. She smiled happily and wiped away the water that had dripped down my chin, and then she reached back into the sack and took out the small loaf of bread and wiped it off on her nightgown before sitting next to me and breaking it into pieces to feed it to me.
When the bread was gone she reached for the other bottle of water and placed it in my hand after opening it then she turned the sack over and shook it out. As I watched her curiously, she fashioned it into a burlap wrap and with an incredible strength, managed to lift me slightly so that she could wrap it around my waist. She stepped back to admire her work and then reached back and pulled my hair over my breasts then smiled looking at me with hopeful eyes.
“Thank you,” I whispered with tears springing to my eyes.
It was obvious to her that I was unhappy being naked and she did her best to cover me.
I finished my bottle of water and she took the empty container from me. I watched as she turned and picked up the other bottle and headed back to the bars. She hesitated for a moment before she turned and looked at me over her shoulder. Placing the bottles down, she came over to me and reached around the back of the collar to see how I was being held before she leaned her head back behind me. She pushed me slightly forward and I heard her grunting in effort following by the sound of snapping chain links. She stepped back again and leaned me back against the wall and placed a finger to her lips to tell me not to let anyone know she had just freed me. When she smiled again before she left, a piece of the chain fell from her lips and that’s when I realized this innocent looking child devil had just bit through the chains to free me.
I watched her as she looked around me to make sure there were was no evidence of breadcrumbs and then walk outside of my room pulling the bars closed. She held up the keys as if though she was going to lock it again then she looked at me for a moment. Putting her fingers to her lips again, she slid the loop around her arm.
“I promise,” I said to her quietly.
Nodding she waved at me as her little feet beat the stone floor to return the keys and then echo down the hallway and up the stairs.
I pushed myself to my knees and used the wall to help myself stand up. I was very shaky on my legs but I knew that if I stayed on the ground much longer I wouldn’t be able to move very well ever again. I leaned back against the wall and decided to sleep standing up. I knew that when I felt the false heat of what would be the morning it would wake me up and I would slide back down.
But of course that would have been too perfect and too easy.
Three
When I did finally wake up the next morning I saw Deveraux standing inside the bars with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Good morning,” he said to me evenly.
I stared at him.
“Can I ask you something Lucy?” he said dropping his hands and sliding them into his pocket.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Why do you think I keep you chained in here, naked and hungry?”
“Because you’re evil and I’m your enemy,” I responded.
Throwing his head back, he let out a genuinely amused laugh.
“Oh, Pet,” he said, when he finally regained himself, “that’s not it at all! I told you it’s for your protection, didn’t I? That is the truth whether you wish to believe it or not. If they see you getting privileges such as food, water, and even that sack—they’ll think that I favor you. I must admit that in a way I do,” he said looking me up and down with curious eyes. “I’m not sure why, but I do. But you’re an angel and I’m not, so it would never work, you know?”
I felt repulsed for some reason that I couldn’t quite figure out at that moment.
“Of course, I could always make it work,” he murmured to himself.
“I don’t want to be here anymore. Why are you keeping me here? I’m not a caged animal. I’m not an exhibit. Why Deveraux? Why not just let me leave?” I rambled desperately.
Looking down, I could see the solemn expression on his face. It was as if though he were trying to find the right words before he spoke.
“I know you’ll never believe this, any of your kind, but we didn’t start this. We didn’t work with the Thunderbirds and we didn’t ask them to do this. It was a small sect of humans who thought the world would be better off destroyed so they pleaded with us first to destroy your kind. I refused as did the rest of the Elders. That’s when they got the brilliant idea to call upon the Thunderbirds,” he said sarcastically. “If only they knew that once they released them that the world would be worse than anything they could imagine, they probably would’ve held hands and just jumped off a small cliff instead. Hell, if I knew that’s what they were going to do, I would’ve pushed them all over myself. I’m one of the few Elders that wanted to save your kind. In a weird way we need each other don’t we? Angels and Devils. Good and Evil. I like to think that the world is more interesting with you goody goodies around and now it’s just destruction and chaos. I mean I should be happy about that, but now there’s no one around to try to stop it so it takes the fun out of everything. I know it’s been days since I’ve left you in here Lucy, but that’s because I’ve been thinking of ways to fix this entire mess.”
Days? It felt like years.
“Would you be willing to join us?”
The look of clear outrage on my face caused him to quickly reword his request.
“No I don’t mean become one of us, I mean join our family. If we worked together and found the other angels, I’m sure that together we could rid the world of the Thunderbirds and get you all back to where you belong. Then we could go back to where we belong, because to be quite honest with you, I’m tired of living on the Earth when all I want to be is below it.”
I turned my back to him and looked out the small window carved out of stone. I didn’t know what to do. I desperately wanted to save my brothers and sisters, but if I joined them I’d never be able to go back home. Don’t be selfish, Lucy, you know that they would do this for you.
“What would I have to do?” I asked quietly.
I heard him approach me.
I closed my eyes as I felt him trace a finger over the
scars of where my wings used to be.
“Give yourself to me,” he whispered.
My mind raced.
There was no way I could do this. I couldn’t give myself to anyone let alone one of his kind. It would damn me forever. I would be banished into the hellfire and I’d never see my brothers or sisters again.
“I can give you your wings back,” he said softly.
I turned and faced him. He was standing so close to me that I could smell the faint sandalwood on him. That was something I desperately wanted. I wanted my wings back and to not have to hide from the Thunderbirds and the humans but if I gave in to his request I wouldn’t need them any longer.
“They’ll be beautiful, Lucy. The colors of dusk and dawn until the world is whole again, and then they’ll be the pure white as they once were. Give yourself to me,” he persisted again running a hand over my face gently.
I closed my eyes lost in his gentle caress.
“Will you promise no harm will come to my brothers and sisters?” I asked quietly.
“I swear it.”
“They’ll never accept me,” I said opening my eyes and looking over his shoulder.
A small group of what I was now referring to as tourists had formed outside the bars. He turned slightly and glanced at the group.
“They won’t have a choice if you stand by me, they’ll either accept you or face execution,” he said more to them than me.
The group quickly scattered in fear leaving us there in the cell alone again. I couldn’t think of why I shouldn’t do this. I mean the eternal damnation would be something I’d never get used to, and I knew that I would desperately miss the beauty of Paradise, but if I did this one thing I would be able to start to save them all.
“On my honor, I will give myself to you and join your family,” I promised looking into his eyes.
He searched my eyes for signs of deception, but there were none.
Angels can’t be deceptive and even though he knew that he had to be sure. Reaching down he placed his hands on my collar and began to unscrew the bolt that held it in place when he realized it wasn’t there. He pulled off the collar and examined it. When he saw the bite marks a knowing smile crossed over his face and he looked at me.
