Genesis: Falling Angel (5 page)

Chapter 6 – Gabrielle

Harsh light shone into my eyes. I winced and tried to move my hands to shield myself. Was I home? Hopefully the answer was no. I had a lot of explaining to do. Gabriel would be furious as it was. I could see him now: blue eyes filled with fury, mouth twisted in an angry
scowl. He would probably confine me to my room until he returned from the mission I had been unable to complete. The thought made me shudder. How had I been killed so easily? How could I have allowed myself to be captured in the first moments of my human life?

“Gabriel, I can explain,” I said. My voice was hoarse.

I shot up to a sitting position. Gabriel was nowhere in sight. This was certainly not Heaven. It was hot, humid, and only half as beautiful, if that. My skin was red in certain places. I touched it briefly, marveling at how it turned pale white with each press of my finger. With each touch came a burning pain. An unnatural hiss flew from between my lips, and I quickly moved into the shade of one of the few trees. Sunburn, the humans called it. I grit my teeth. Certainly nothing I wanted to bear for much longer.

That’s when I saw him. Across the oasis, there was a man lying on his stomach, face buried in the grass. I forgot my pain and ran to him as though my very life depended on his wellbeing. I flipped him over and dragged him into the shade, panting with effort. My muscles weren’t very well-developed. Once I had accomplished my task, I took in his features. His hair was shoulder-length and shaggy. It was black as night, and I marveled at the strange color. His skin must have been incredibly pale because he was crimson from lying out in the sun so long. His limbs were long, so he must’ve been quite agile. His posture was relaxed. I longed to see his eyes, to see the emotions humans had such trouble hiding. I wanted to see myself reflected. Had I changed?

I brushed my hand over the black fabric of his shirt, marveling once more. Black fabric was not common in Heaven. It was too dark, too gloomy. Where could it fit in when my home was filled with such light? I sighed. It was such an ugly color. Part of me was almost glad to be rid of the dark wings I’d been created with. Why humans chose to don such a horrible color was beyond me. I pulled my hand away, and it came back covered in black. I nearly screamed, shaking my hand as if the wet blackness would leave. Had I done something wrong? Was I being punished? Then, the truth came to me.

It was b
lood.

The man
was bleeding. His lips were dark with blackness I had not noticed before, and his shirt was wet with it. It was such a strange color, but I had no time to think on it. Nausea swam over me at the sight, and my hand clapped over my mouth as if to keep down the lack of contents in my stomach. What did humans do when they were injured? There were once doctors and surgeons, but all of them were sure to be extinct by now. I was panicking, glancing around wildly for an answer. I finally settled on holding my hands above his chest, hoping I still had just a tiny bit of power to heal him. I concentrated as hard as I could, but nothing happened. I cried out in frustration. My hands grabbed fistfuls of my hair and tugged as I wept. The first human I had spotted was dying and nothing could be done.

My prayers went unanswered, falling on the deaf ears of a God that did not wish to hear. I had never felt such pain, such heartache. The only thing to do was to wish for his safe passage into
Heaven. Mortals still went there fairly often, and hopefully he would be one of the few that still believed in the Father. My lips moved in silent prayer, my hands clasped tightly together. Perhaps He would hear me. Perhaps He would realize that I desperately needed His help to heal this poor soul.

Then, the most remarkable thing happened. He sat up, gasping like a man who had just been saved from drowning. He was making harsh, choking sounds. The sharp
crack
of bone setting into place followed this strange scene. His hands clawed at his chest, his eyes wide with pain. He looked at me briefly, and I was caught by the strange violet color of his eyes. My face must have held some sort of amusing expression, because his lips twitched as though he was about to smirk. The pain seemed to hold him back.

The sound of his broken bones coming into place was nauseating, and I covered my mouth once more. God had answered my prayer, so a little nausea was nothing. My heart felt full to bursting with joy, and I smiled behind my hand despite the horrendous sound. He was healing rapidly. The last thing to go was his skin, which turned from red to a very pale white. He took in a few deep gulps of air, looked at me once, and then his eyes rolled back and he collapsed once more.

Shock gripped me. Was he dead? He couldn’t be. God had answered my prayer, so the man must be fine. I tentatively touched his chest, feeling for broken bones through his blood-soaked shirt. He was healed. I sighed and stared at my own reddened skin and wished I too could be granted the rapid healing God had given to him. He was healed, and that was enough. All I wanted was to see a human, but seeing one nearly dead had been horrifying. Hopefully such an occurrence was rare.

His eye
s had been mesmerizing. They had been the most beautiful violet, matching so many of the flowers in my favorite field. A lovely line of gold had surrounded his pupils, as though mimicking the yellow center of a violet. However, the emotion that they’d held was foreign to me. Gabriel had taught me about many emotions humans held, but not a single one matched the almost burning gaze he had turned on me. The thought made me shudder, and I rubbed my arms to make the gooseflesh go away. Maybe I had come across one of the vile, sinful humans. I shook my head to ward away the thought. No. He was going to be good, and I would ask him to be my guide in the new, strange world. Perhaps he would feel he owed God that much for saving his life.

I silently prayed my thanks, and then returned my attention back to him. I wondered what his name was. As if on impulse, I introduced myself. “My name is Gabrielle. I’m not really from around here.” He said nothing, of course, but it felt good to say. My voice was scratchy and hard to understand, so I quickly looked for the source of water that must’ve kept the area so green and full of life.

I hadn’t stopped to look around yet. The grass was fairly dry and there were only three trees growing. I could see cacti in the distance, green specks of prickly plants. The sky was blue, clear and free of any clouds. I chose not to look at the sun again. I learned quickly that it burned. A clear, small pool of water was in the center. I quickly made my way over to it despite the burning sensation of the sun hitting my reddened skin. My thirst caused me to drink almost greedily. The water was slightly warm, though it soothed my parched throat. Once the ripples cleared, I took a good look at myself. Nothing had changed. My heart sank at this. I had wanted to look less like some otherworldly creature. More human would’ve been nice.

I glanced back at the man. He was lying so still. I briefly thought about bringing him water, but what if it choked him? I didn’t know how to give an unconscious human water! I certainly did not want to kill him. I pondered this only briefly before I decided to resume my place at his side. After all, I needed to be there when he woke up.

His injuries and our location proved that he had saved me. How he did it was another story entirely. How could a human fight such a huge creature? It nearly had me for dinner. How had he moved us so far away? I had so many questions for him, but all I could do was watch him sleep. I sighed at this realization. I needed to be more patient. My humanity was already affecting me.

My fingers brushed some of his ebony hair out of his face. I smiled softly at his sleeping expression. “You’re beautiful, for a human,” I whispered. He certainly was. I was no expert in human aesthetics, though I knew most angels though
t humans were inferior in appearance. Humans had their own beauty. It was natural, raw, and rather earthly. While angels were like polished, cut diamonds. Humans were the uncut ones. They were mysteries, full of an inner beauty that no angel could even hope to possess. This man held the strange, otherworldly beauty of angels while still capturing the inner beauty of humans. He was simply beautiful. No description seemed fitting.

So I began to speak to him, wishing to pass the time. “It may seem silly, but it hurts me to see your kind turn their backs on God s
o easily. He gave you so much: an entire world, His blessings, and His love. You all took it for granted. You forgot Him. It was then that He became so very angry with you. All He wanted was for you to be happy. Now He believes that it’s never enough for humanity, and that they must be punished as all children are punished. His anger is righteous, and so I obeyed His laws. ‘Do not go down to earth,’ He said.  So I didn’t. Until now, that is.”

I gazed out over the endless desert. “It’s beautiful, you know. The sun, the heat,
and the sand are so wonderful. They are all part of His work. Between you and me, I didn’t agree with His treatment of humans anymore.” I glanced down at the man. “He was going to send Gabriel. Gabriel is just, but he lacks compassion for your kind. So I came instead. I love it here, too.” I gently poked at my skin. “Even if your sun burns my mortal flesh, and even if your nightmarish creatures wish to devour me, I’m still glad to be here. To feel pain is so exotic to me that it fills me with joy. I’m so thrilled to be able to feel! I watched mortals for ages, and I never imagined just how it would feel to be able to feel strange emotions and sensations.” I grabbed his hand, holding it over my heart. “Do you feel that?” I asked excitedly. “I have a heart. It’s a real, beating heart. I have blood flowing through my veins that is the same red color as anyone else’s. Compared to the angels, my flesh and bones are fragile.”

I sucked in a deep breath. “No, you have no idea what you take for granted each day of your life. In
Heaven, there will be no pain, no suffering. How can one truly enjoy it without first experiencing pain and suffering? Answer me that.”

Of course he did not answer, but to be able to say such things brought a sense of euphoria. It was a freedom like none I’d ever known. “I’m grateful that he allowed me to come here. I hope that I can save at least one of you.” I kissed his forehead, smiling warmly at his sleeping face.

Chapter 7 – Adrian

The darkness was only brief. Something woke up my mind, and I was once more aware of the pain. I could feel the crushing pressure in my chest, the slow beating of my heart as if it had to pump molasses instead of blood, and the cold, clammy feeling one gets after fainting. My breathing was labored as well, and I was almost certain one of my lungs had collapsed. I tried to reach for my chest, to do something that would allow the healing process to begin.

I couldn’t open my eyes. That was the next thing that I noticed. My eyes weren’t open, but I saw the light bleeding through my eyelids. It was almost taunting. It was as though the sun was mocking me with its warmth. To make matters worse, I could tell that my skin was burned. I could feel the undeniable pain of sunburn. I may have been immortal, but I was not impervious to wounds. My skin was not hard like the scales of the dragons in Avaritia. My body was not built with the strength of the Fallen that occupied Superbia. My heart was not as powerful and could not handle as much stress as a werewolf’s. My healing powers were certainly not as great as a one of the witches of Invidia. Incubi were not the strongest of demons. We relied more on cunning than physical strength. We could never hold our own in a fight. We were as fragile as humans, if not more so thanks to the wings sprouting from our backs. Wings were not so much convenient as big, obvious targets.

Despite how “weak” inc
ubi are, we still managed to live through major injuries by going into a sort of hibernation. In time, my wounds would heal. Yet I didn’t have time. I needed to bind the angel, or knock her unconscious again. Surely she had woken up and run away at the sight of me. I tried to move, twitch my fingers, anything. She was going to get away, and it would be my fault. I could feel Lilith’s wrath already.

This was absolutely ridiculous. I was a king among my kind. I was the lord of Luxuria. How did I manage to let a big, stupid troll swat me out of the air? I had been cocky, of course. Was that really a good excuse? Would Lilith accept such behavior? I inwardly groaned at the thought. She was going to be pissed. My mind wandered to all that she could do to me, and a cold feeling swept over me.

I willed myself to move. I tried to wiggle my toes. It was as though I was still unconscious. Then it hit me. I had just thought of it moments before, but I had never considered that it could actually happen to me. I was paralyzed because my body was healing. The trauma had been so severe that my body had frozen, trying its best to stitch me up as quickly as possible. I’d heard of it happening, but I’d never allowed myself to be caught off guard this much.

I wanted to scream in frustration, to tear apart the next thing that I saw. My heart had slowed even more. Apparently it was taking too much energy to heal. How was I awake? How could I be aware of what was going on?

Then I was moving.

There was no fight
left in me. My body was dragged further and further by someone who panted with effort. Was I really that heavy? I felt almost insulted. Then the warmth and light of the sun vanished, and I knew that this person had come to help me.

Moron.

Maybe I could kill them as soon as I could move. Simply thank them and kill them. That would be fun. At least I’d get some of this anger out. I sighed inwardly and wished to wrap my hands around their throat.

A light touch slowly moved down my chest. For a moment, I thought it was Lilith once more. Fear gripped me. The first punishment I could think of was castration. She’d done it to countless others, even her favorites. I would be no different. It was almost a fate worse than death. An incubus with his masculinity stripped from him was nothing.

Then the touch stopped. There was labored breathing, an almost terrified, animalistic cry, and sobbing. What in the hell was going on? Lilith never cried.

Once again, the answer came to me. It had been there all along, sneaking up on me and grinning sinisterly. The one that had saved me, the one that was now crying over my broken body, was the angel. Of course
the frail thing would be crying.

Tears made me nervous. I wasn’t supposed to show sympathy for any living creature, but tears were so raw, so human, that they were impossible to just ignore. I had to be close to humans to live. I had to feel their pain, their suffering. I was an outlet for them. Lilith didn’t understand. No one understood just how connected I had to
be to my prey to feed.

The thought quickly dissipated. I had killed countless humans, amongst other creatures. Men and women, even children had fallen during my rages. It was the way of life. Demons ruled the world, and mortals that disobeyed were punished as severely as possible. I was a lord over many, and a connection to my prey did not make me weak.

I could almost feel her panic. Though my power reached out to her, testing for any chinks in the angelic virtues she possessed, I found nothing but fear. Fear must’ve been new to her. It was overwhelming, chaotic, and I relished in the darkness of it. She had already begun to fall to the most human of instincts. It was more amusing than anything I’d ever born witness to.

My amusement didn’t last long. My body flinched violently, eyes opening wide of their own accord. I gasped for air. Pain seared through my veins as though fire had replaced the dark blood within them. My heart had begun racing, and I panicked. What was this? It was far too intense to be my normal healing process. It was too precise and too quick. I grabbed a fistful of my shirt the second that I could move something on my own. My eyes were wide, glancing around wildly. My skin was red as blood. My shirt actually was soaked in the substance despite the fact that there were no outward wounds.

The first thing to cause severe pain for me was the sharp
crack
of my bones. I gasped, clawing at my chest frantically.
Crack, crack, crack
went my bones. I could even hear my heart at that point, desperately working to keep up with my miraculous healing. I had never felt more pain in my entire life. I nearly bit my tongue, and my eyes frantically sought something to hold onto. I needed something to focus on. Something had to take my mind off this unbearable pain. So I looked at her, and my eyes widened.

Her skin was a hilarious shade of red, though that was the only flaw that I found. It was her eyes that drew me in the most. They were stormy gray, like those of the Fallen. They held endless wonder and curiosity in them at my display of healing. There was joy as well. Was it joy at a stranger’s healing? Was I the cause of her delight? Or had Lilith been wrong? The angel could be a member of the Fallen with eyes like that. Yet I remembered the emotion coming off of her, and I felt deep down that she was the real deal. Despite the mortal shell and beating heart, she belonged to the race I hated most.

Her face twisted in disgust at the continued sound of my bones resetting themselves. I could breathe easily now, and the pain was not the searing, white-hot pain I had been enduring. My eyes locked with hers once more, and I saw a look of surprise come over her reddened face. I wondered briefly if she was blushing, a virtuous maiden embarrassed by the stare of a man. My lips twitched at the thought, but I didn’t manage a full smirk. An angel blushing was a sight I’d definitely love to see.

I began taking in gulps of air like it was some sort of drug that I desperately needed a hit of. I gasped, my newly healed chest taking in each lungful painlessly. The last thing to go was my skin. The redness disappeared, the unnatural paleness of my skin returning steadily. My heart slowed to a normal pace. I took another look at the angel. I was about to say something, to reach out and grab her before she could run off. Instead, my eyes rolled back and I collapsed onto the grass once more.

She told me her name soon after. “My name is Gabrielle.” The rest of her sentence was lost. Gabrielle. The name was too close to
his
name. A bitter feeling rose within me. I had met the archangel Gabriel only once before. He had been too powerful, too clever for me. He had stripped me of my wings in order to make them grow back, fully and painfully. For an angel, he had a bit of a sadistic streak. If there was anything I hated more than God, it was Gabriel. I actually almost prayed that she wasn’t him in disguise. How strange of him, to pick a woman’s form. I always figured he had some great masculine code. He wouldn’t touch a woman, so why be one? He may have finally Fallen as Lucifer had, and he was cursed with a female body.

She began speaking again only moments later, interrupting my musing over Gabriel changing his sex.  “You’re beautiful, for a human.”

The compliment was lost underneath the insult. She thought I was
Human
! What part of me looked like a human? Was it the violet eyes? Or maybe it was the wings. Was she insane? I was “beautiful” for a reason: to lure ignorant humans in. Was that such a hard concept for her to grasp? If I’d had control of my hands, I would’ve snapped her neck for even
suggesting
I looked human. I could already tell she was going to be trouble. If she kept insulting me, she’d regret it.

Then again, she thought I was human. My eyes would not seem unnatural to a denizen of
Heaven. My wings were hidden from sight. She wouldn’t see or feel them even if she searched through the air. She thought I was one of the creatures that her God loved so dearly. She thought I was just another victim in the nightmarish Hell on earth that demons had established. I could use this to my advantage. I could play the part of the poor human, the guide that merely wanted to help her. I was no actor, but to a naïve angel? Well, I guess I would just be a slave of Ira or something. I’d figure it out.

As she began to speak of God, I felt like throwing up. The mention of Him always made me a little sick. Demons never had a chance like humans did. I was one of the ones born from
human sin. I never had a chance to earn his love. The thought made me angrier, and I almost decided right then and there that the moment I got up, I was bringing Lilith a corpse. Even then, I’d only deliver her after breaking her. Then no amount of tears could dissuade me.

Then she continued with her little speech. “B
etween you and me, I didn’t agree with His treatment of humans anymore.” She
what
? I expected a storm, a grand lightning bolt to fry her before I could make any move to warn her of blasphemy. She was definitely crazy. Someone needed to slap some sense into her. God may have turned a deaf ear and blind eye to humans, but the angels were probably under a lot of scrutiny.

S
he still hadn’t managed to catch me off guard until she snatched my hand. I wanted to protest, to proclaim just how insane I thought she was. She held my hand close to her, and I felt the steady pulse of her heart. “Do you feel that?” she asked excitedly. “I have a heart. It’s a real, beating heart. I have blood flowing through my veins that is the same red color as anyone else’s. Compared to the angels, my flesh and bones are fragile.”

For once in my many years of living, I felt like blushing. Her figure was still boyish and slightly uninteresting, but the naïve boldness of her action had caught me off guard. She probably knew nothing of human sexuality, nothing of what sort of intimate touch she was forcing upon me.

Not that I minded, really.

The steady pulse
of her heart soothed me. It was strange to feel a heart beating so fast from the sheer excitement of living. It was like a child’s heart, almost. Something so pure and innocent, finding joy in the smallest of things.

I would’ve pondered it more, but her question caught me further off guard. How can one enjoy life without first suffering? It was a strange question for a being that had no idea what suffering was. I wanted to respond, to tell her just how lucky she’d been, that she made a mistake in coming to the earthly realm. None of these words left me. I was not only paralyzed, but mesmerized by the strangeness of her.

Her lips brushed my forehead. I gasped, eyes opening wide. She let out a tiny scream of surprise, and backed away. Obviously she had expected me to be asleep or unconscious. I panted heavily, eyes never leaving her.

She was certainly not Gabriel, but then what was she? My eyes swept over her, and her arms moved as if she was trying to cover herself. She wore a simple white shift that left quite a bit to the imagination, though still obviously hiding a figure not worthy of my attention. I met her gaze with a smirk.

For a moment, neither of us said anything. Then, she whispered almost to the point where I had to strain to hear her. “My name is Gabrielle. Who are you?”

“Who am I?” I echoed, and she flinched at my voice and shied away. Some part of her knew what I was, but it had yet to sink in. So who would I be? Would I bear a different name? Would I have some tragic story? In the end, I decided to keep it close to home.

“Adrian,” I said with the most charming smile that I could muster. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Gabrielle.” She seemed trapped by my gaze, a deer caught in the headlights. “Thank you for helping me.”

Thank you, indeed.