by Anna White
The Light and Fallen
By Anna White
Copyright 2012 Anna White
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For permission requests, contact the author by email at: [email protected]
100% of the proceeds from this book will be donated to The Water Project.
https://www.thewaterproject.org
As a child my dream was to go to Africa and make a difference. I literally slept with a map of the continent pinned to the wall above my bed. This is something that may never be a reality for me, but now I know that I don't have to go across the world to make a difference. Pain and hurt and need are all around us, no matter where we are. So I will try to make a difference in my place, and support the people that go where I cannot.
For the past year or so I have been drawn to organizations that build wells, because clean water is something that is fundamental for human health and survival, and it is also something that I never have to think about. It is something I am privileged to take for granted. My family and I hope to fund a well in Uganda, and we hope you will take the journey with us. You can help by posting, blogging, tweeting, pinning, emailing, or otherwise sharing this novel.
For updates on our progress visit AnnaWhiteWrites on Facebook
or follow me on Twitter @annawhitewrites
This book would be incomplete without thanks to my husband, who gave me the gift of time so that I could write this novel. He believes when I can't believe for myself and loves me more than I deserve. His sacrifice is love in action.
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
Time is eternity
~Henry Van Dyke
The nephilim were on the Earth in those days-
and also afterward…
Genesis 6:4
Chapter 1
Lucian gripped the edge of the banister and peered down into the darkness. How much would it hurt? he wondered. How hard was it to fall? He pulled his right foot up and slid it onto the edge of the smooth rail, pressing down hard into the tips of his fingers as his weight shifted forward. He waited a few seconds, then slowly pulled up his other leg and crouched with both feet pressed against the cool metal.
Even with his eyes closed he could sense the hazy golden light that surrounded him. It refracted into the Hall through the crystal floors and threw faint rainbows around the edges of the room. Farther away, in the outer passages, voices rose and fell in harmonious conversation, the occasional moments of silence punctuated by the singing of the river. He kept his eyes closed and pushed himself up, inching his fingertips away from the rail until he was standing at full height.
He only had time to inhale one breath of incense-scented air before he slipped. He lurched forward, barely keeping his toes in contact with the narrow banister, and his wings snapped open. Their sudden motion jerked him upright; he extended his wings fully and rocked gently back and forth in the golden air as he found his balance again. The Void was directly below him.
He had never been so close to the suffocating darkness that separated Heaven from Earth. He knew if he climbed down from the banister and took a few steps back he would see the world hanging in the sky like a luminous blue star, but from here it was invisible, completely hidden in the deep, inky stillness of the Void.
"It's almost time."
He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of the silken voice. Anthea stood behind him at the raised dais in the center of the Great Hall. Her wings were extended in authority, and her fingers rested lightly on the Book. He felt a pang as he saw her standing there, exactly where he had stood for over a thousand years. She was standing in his place. His replacement.
Lucian raised his eyes to the ceiling of the Hall and scanned the Timeline for signs of change. The future had faded quickly, but he still hoped. Scenes from the past continued to shimmer across the domed ceiling. A new one appeared as he watched, one that captured the most meaningful events of the last hour on Earth. Each of the figures in the scene moved in their own small space, and he glanced past them. They would still be there when he returned, waiting beside the millions of other scenes from other hours. It was the future that was a mystery. It remained frustratingly dark.
"There's been some change today." Anthea's ringing voice cut into his thoughts. "I've been seeing flashes of color."
She made a sweeping gesture toward the darkest section of the Timeline, and as if in response to her words two neon pink flashes arced across the ceiling. "It's because of your decision."
Lucian tore his eyes away and nodded. She was right. He had been watching since the very beginning, so he knew better than any of the others how one choice could reshape the future. He had witnessed it thousands of times.
He squared his shoulders and turned his back on Anthea. Toward the Void. He had always had only one mission: to guard the Timeline. He couldn't protect humanity's future from a distance any longer. The Great Hall had been his home forever, as long as he had been in existence, but he was strong enough to leave it.
"Remember your mission," Anthea cautioned. "The key…"
Lucian heard her voice, but he couldn't focus on her words. Far below him a spark had appeared. It was brilliant, one shining ray that pierced the darkness of the Void. It was calling to him, bright enough to guide him down.
He leaned forward without thinking. There was no more time for thinking. The choice was made.
The warm, golden air rushed across his wings as he plunged forward, and he tucked them back into his shoulderblades so they would offer no resistance. A burst of air rushed up to meet him, and then his feet left the banister.
Chapter 2
Lucian fell into the darkness and the darkness swallowed him whole. Parts of himself were tearing and ripping away. He was freezing, and he was on fire. He tried to catch himself, but his wings were broken.
He was a stone. He was skimming across the surface of a black river, and then he slid down, down into a pit where there was no more light.
There was no life. There was no memory. There was nothing.
Only darkness.
Chapter 3
The pain didn't come from any specific place, it radiated across his entire body. At first it was the sensation of a deep ache, and he was able to focus on the bright light shining behind his eyelids and the soft rustling sounds coming from somewhere nearby. Then the pain erupted into a scorching agony that stole away any other awareness. His body curled in on itself, and his unfamiliar hands clawed at his knees.
The first wave of pain passed and he heard the loud, shallow gasps of his own breathing. The sound was strange and harsh. He fought to control his physical responses, but he couldn't stop his heart from slamming violently against the wall of his chest as he choked down gulps of air.
"Don't fight it."
The voice was so close that it startled him and he grasped out blindly with his hand. The owner of the voice had to be human, but it was somehow beautifully familiar. He opened his mouth to speak but a wave of nausea hit him and instead he rolled to the side and retched. He clutched at his stomach and coughed at the sour taste in his mouth as his head fell back onto something soft and cushioned.
"Shhh."
A cool sensation brushed across his forehead and something hard edged pressed against his lips. "You're here," the voice whispered. "You're safe."
He swallowed gratefully
as a stream of cool water trickled down his throat. Where was he? Where was here? He tried to find his voice but his body was rebelling. He struggled to open his eyes, but their lids felt like they were weighted shut and he gave up with a moan of frustration.
He heard more movement and felt the coolness again, this time sweeping over his cheeks and lips. "Go to sleep," the voice said. "This body needs rest. When you wake, things will be better."
As the voice spoke a wave of exhaustion rolled through Lucian's body and he panicked. No, not the darkness! He tried to fight it, but the urge to sleep was irresistible. He felt like he was falling again. The darkness was stifling. He was drowning; the darkness was pulling him under.
Chapter 4
It was dawn when Lucian finally opened his eyes. A ray of light shone in through an open window, and outside he could see what he knew must be trees. As he watched one of the limbs shivered and a small animal leaped across his field of vision and disappeared. He probed his mind for its name. Squirrel?
He lay still and focused on his body, letting his awareness drift from his head to his toes. Although he could feel a series of strange, unfamiliar movements beneath his skin, he was relieved to discover that the blinding pain was gone. His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of his breath and beneath that, lower and deeper, he could feel the steady rhythm of his heart.
His heart. He concentrated harder, blocking out the early morning sounds outside his window, and heard the blood pushing through his veins.
Swish.
He counted to twelve in his head before it happened again. Swish.
He rested his hand against his chest and waited for the small bump of the muscle. He concentrated as he waited, idly trying to force it to pause, but the heart ignored him. Swish. He laughed out loud as he was seized with a sense of being out of control.
He threw back the covers and watched his toes twitch as he flexed his calves experimentally. He rubbed down their length with his hands and felt soft hairs brush against the delicate nerve endings in his fingers. His skin was perfect, smooth and warm. He pressed against it with his finger and it yielded slightly before he felt the resistance of hard muscle.
A clattering sound outside the room caught his attention, and for the first time he noticed his surroundings. He was in a small, light colored bedroom with whitewashed floors. A chair next to the bed had clothes draped across it, and a bag of toiletries in masculine green and gray colors sat on top of an otherwise empty dresser. A full length mirror hung beside the door and in it he could see the reflection of one defined arm.
He kicked the covers away and pulled a pair of pants and a t-shirt off the chair. He was surprised that he knew the name of every item in the room, although he knew he shouldn't be. He would've known the name of any item, in any room, anywhere on Earth. That was part of the training.
He heard another clatter, followed by a crash, and tentatively crossed to the door of the bedroom. He peered out into a short hallway. He could see a few closed doors, and at its end a bright, high-ceilinged space. He thought he was in a house, but he wasn't sure. Everything seemed to be unusually white.
As he crept down the hall, the sounds became louder. He still heard the occasional clattering and clinking, but he could also hear the chatter of two distinct voices. One of the voices was low, an unfamiliar rumble, but the other he recognized. It was the voice that had been with him in the darkness.
The room at the end of the hall confirmed his theory that he was in a house. It was obviously a living space. Like everything else he had seen so far, it was very white. The wood floors continued across the room and the open windows were simply covered with gauzy fabric that fluttered in the breeze. He slipped quietly past a pale slate fireplace set into the wall and two deep, slipcovered couches and stepped into the kitchen.
Chapter 5
"You're awake!" A tall, thin woman with long, white blonde hair smiled at Lucian. She swept across the kitchen without waiting for an answer and placed an enormous bowl of eggs on a battered farm table that already held two pitchers of juice and a tray of muffins.
"Hungry?" she asked.
She patted one of the wooden chairs around the table and Lucian's stomach twisted and growled at the invitation. He slipped into the seat and reached for one of the muffins, but he hesitated when he felt heat radiating into his palm.
"They're fresh," the low voice chuckled. Lucian looked up and saw a heavily muscled, dark skinned man smiling at him. The man reached out with one enormous hand and deposited a muffin onto Lucian's plate.
"You have to eat down here," he said, "or that body'll just stop. It's something you get used to." He dropped into a chair beside Lucian and grabbed one for himself. "Sofia's cooking makes it easy for me to remember, but some of the first-crossers have a hard time."
Lucian nodded. He had been warned it could be difficult to adjust to the human body's constant demands.
He broke off a chunk of muffin and rested it on his tongue. He felt a burst of warmth when he closed his lips, and then it fell apart in a burst of tangy sweetness. He chewed slowly, then reached into his mind and tried to pull out an appropriate description. "Delicious."
His voice cracked as his vocal cords pushed out their first words, but the large man nodded approvingly. "It gets easier," the man said. "It all does, but especially the talking. You'll sound like a native by the end of the day."
He reached across the table and Lucian automatically reached back. "See!" he said. "You've got the instincts already." He shook Lucian's hand vigorously with his own. "Guess I should introduce myself before we get too far along. I'm Duncan."
"Sofia." The blonde woman reappeared carrying a platter of sausages. She placed them on the table beside the eggs and slid into the chair next to Duncan. She also reached across the table in greeting, and when Lucian shook her hand he noticed how fragile her fingers seemed compared with Duncan's. She squeezed his hand lightly before she released it and stared seriously into his eyes. "Do you know who we are?"
Lucian searched their faces and struggled to find the memory associated with their names. There was a spark of recognition, but it lingered just outside of his awareness. "I do know," he said. "Why can't I remember?"
Sofia shrugged delicately. "It's hard to cross between worlds. We could tell you, but if you find the connections yourself things start to come back much faster."
She gestured for Lucian's plate and began scooping eggs onto it. Even her smallest movements were graceful. He watched her arm dip in and out of the bowl until the eggs formed a small mound on the plate. She balanced a sausage on top, then handed the plate back to him. "I know that looks like a lot, but you need to eat it. The first few days require a lot of energy, but your calorie needs will stabilize in a week or so."
Lucian watched Duncan and Sofia as they served themselves breakfast. Their faces were unfamiliar of course, if he had known them as part of the Host it would've been hundreds of years ago, but he was sure there was an association with their names. He stuffed a forkful of eggs into his mouth and willed his mind to relax. They all ate quietly for a few minutes, and he knew they were waiting for him to find the answer.
He studied them over his plate, watching how they were together. Their movements were separate and distinct, but they were constantly reacting to each other in subtle ways. He was wondering if they breathed in tandem when a shred of memory flashed into his brain. "You're partners!"
Duncan nodded. "Yeah. I think that's kinda obvious."
Lucian gulped down his eggs and shook his head. "No, you're different. You're real partners." He hesitated as he searched for the right word. "Would the humans call you soulmates?"
Sofia gave him a radiant smile and turned to Duncan. "See, he's coming along. It's just taking a little longer than usual."
It took Lucian a few seconds to register her words. "What do you mean it's taking longer than usual? How long have I been here?"
Duncan shot a sideways glance
at Sofia and there was a long pause before he spoke. "Thirty-two days," he said finally. "We picked you up where you landed, and you've been sleeping in our guest room ever since."
Lucian rubbed his forehead and tried to remember. Thirty-two days was too long. How long was it supposed to take?
"It usually takes eighteen or so." Duncan sighed heavily as he answered the unspoken question. " We were starting to think you might never wake up."
He scraped the last few bites of his breakfast into his mouth and stood up. "I've gotta run a few errands and I'm going to get you registered for school." He grabbed a brown manila envelope from the edge of the table and shoved it towards Lucian. "You can study these while I'm gone."
Lucian felt shell shocked as he watched Duncan lean down and kiss Sofia on the cheek, carry his plate over to the sink, and leave the kitchen. "School?" he asked.
"Look in the envelope," Sofia suggested. "They're your personal records."
He pushed his plate to the side and picked up the envelope slowly. He fiddled with the flap for a few seconds before he opened it up and spread the contents out on the table. There was a small, creased social security card, a driver's license that somehow had his picture on it, a stack of clipped papers, and an official looking birth certificate.
He held the birth certificate up first and brushed his fingers over its textured surface and raised type. "Lucian Smith?"
"You have to have a last name," Sofia said. "That's one of the most common ones. We try to blend in."
"What's your last name?"
