Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 (17 page)

One of the stars looks a little brighter than the others and I watch it for a few seconds.
North Star, maybe?
It might have the answer—one little pinprick of truth, struggling for all it’s worth to outshine its neighbors and shed some light on the whole damn story.

And I still got this little itch. I close my eyes and try to think of the answer. You’d think I would know better.

When the light blasts my eyes, I barely have time to wrap myself in feathers before the little shit slams into me again. And the screeching is louder this time and it’s not just one hit and walk away, or fly away or whatever, because this is an all-out attack. And I try to spin, but a talon has one of my wings and it’s crushing into my metal feathers and a few of them rip out and fall away, and I hear them clank each other on the way down. Now it’s serious, because we are both plummeting down after them. It’s hard to fly and fight at the same time. Go figure that shit.

So I start screeching back at. . . Whoever or whatever has me is so bright I can’t see anything. It’s like the sun in Syria—oppressive and inescapable. And how do I know that?

I squint hard and try to fight it off by flapping my wings at it, and then my fingers and toes sprout talons.

You’re asking
me
how? If I knew that, I would have done it sooner. And I start fighting back with both of them—all four. I think I catch a wing or a leg or something, because I clamp a talon down on it and whatever it is starts jerking, and then I’ve got wings and talons and hard feathers, hammering at me everywhere. And we’re locked together—stalemate of screeching and clawing.

I’ve seen this shit on
National Nature
on the PIN or some other archive cinewave, I shouldn’t have been watching—eagles locked together, falling like rocks. Only they aren’t fighting, they’re fucking and this sure isn’t that. Not unless someone changed it to getting your ass kicked. Come to think of it, I’ve had a few that felt like that.

And one of us is going to have to let go, because I’m sure the city isn’t too far down—we’re gonna slam the street or a scraper soon enough. I turn my face away from the blasting, bright bastard just long enough to open my eyes and look down.

And there it is, the glowing fog above the city, and in another second we’re through the tops of the scrapers and I look back and my eyes burn and I have to shut them tight again—and my vision has got a glowing orange reminder not to look at whatever this sun-bright bastard is.

I screech at him and hope the translation comes out right, “You better let go, because I’m not gonna!”

I get brighter light, more burning, and a tighter grip back for my trouble. So we’re hammering the pavement. Okay by me, I’ve hit the shit three times in the last day. Never from this height, but how much worse could it be?

Then I find out.

— XXXII —

WHEN I OPEN my eyes . . . I am fucked
up
. There is just no other way to describe the pain. I’m on my back and one of my wings feels like. . . I try to move it—the spikes of pain are a serious bitch.
Broken.

And it feels like I got claw marks down my face and chest and legs, and there’s a hot poker feeling coming from my guts. But I stare up and it’s . . .
beautiful
, I think. A weird thought, I know, but bright colorful rainbows of glass and light are everywhere. It’s all blurry, but the colors are spectacular.

I look around, trying to focus, and someone is standing above me with their arms out. When I finally squint enough to see. . .
You have just got to be kidding me. Jesus? Now that is just
—“Goddammit,” I mutter.

I cough when I say it and some of my blood comes out and runs down my cheek. And I drag my hand across my face to wipe it and when I look, it’s . . . it’s black. Okay, so this isn’t the Protection torture dream—I’m still me. The Jump me, anyway, because I would’ve never survived this as. . . “Who am I?” I can barely whisper.

“Shh,” I think I hear, but it could be one of them in my head. I got no idea.

And then things get fuzzy and the room spins and I open and close my eyes in slow motion, like a Protection agent raising his gun at an unarmed citizen. And then the nothingness comes—dark black.

I wake up this time to spikes of pain shooting through my stomach and I screech. Something’s tugging at my guts. It’s probably that little bastard, come to finish me off, because it’s pretty bright and I squint. Not like before, but light enough, so I shut my eyes. Then the light goes away and I can feel him pecking and picking at my entrails and I groan. Bastard’s eating my guts.

“I’m sorry,” it’s the voice of an old man.

I open my eyes a little more, because I can’t believe. . . And I see an old man squatting over me. “Dammit,” I mutter. All-powerful vengeance angel from Hell and a little old man angel kicks my ass and eats my guts for breakfast. So, I’m going out like Daniels. That is a bitch. Hell sucks ass. I gotta talk to someone about that.

“Quiet,” he says. “You are going to need to save your energy. This is difficult enough without—”

“Fuck you,” is all I can manage. I spit out some blood as I say it—slobber it more than shoot it in his direction. Maybe I can hit him with it. “Save it . . . for what?”

“If you are what I. . .” he says. He goes back to tugging at my belly, and then he mutters to himself, “I. . . This is just. . . An angel? . . . You will need your strength.”

For an angel, he seems pretty surprised that I’m one. And I try to tilt my head up and look at him, and an acid feeling burns though my stomach. And the little guy’s working on removing a big metal cross from my belly—same one from the roof. “Shit,” I say, “ain’t that a bitch.”

Probably shouldn’t be cussing so much, because I can tell by the collar on the little prick’s shirt that he’s a priest. In fact, for some reason, I think I know him.

The little gray-haired God-dog works on me for longer than I’d like, before he finally removes the cross from my stomach. I gotta say, there’s no fire like a five-foot metal cross shoved through your guts.

When he finally cuts it free, he wipes his little knife on his shirt, closes it, and clips it back in the pocket of his black pants. I always wondered why the men of the cloth dressed in black all the time. It seemed to me that they should be in white. And if there was a Satan-worshipping church, they should be the men in black. Just the way my mind works, I guess. It’s the little things—the illogical—I always wanted to understand. And that’s one of them, floating around in the delirious dream I’m obviously having.

But it’s no wonder my stomach is on fire, he was cutting on me with that knife! I roll my head to the side and watch him. He walks a few steps away and flops himself down on a church pew. Then he starts yammering.

He’s gibbering and jabbering away, and apparently, I crashed through the roof while he was cleaning up some paperwork in the rectory. He came running down here and found me, just as a bright light flew out a huge hole in the roof of the church.

Bet if he told that story to the congregation they’d call the white-jackets to come and snatch him up. Guess it makes more sense for the 5150 crew to wear white.

Calm down, little nutcracker
, I think.
Time for you to go to Heaven
.
I cluck and chuckle a little at the thought and my guts burn acid to reward me.

My sick humor aside, the father is pretty shaken up, and he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a leather-covered metal flask. His wrinkled fingers tremble as he unscrews the top, then he flips it up and takes a long swig. When he pulls it away from his mouth, a tiny deep-brown drop runs down his gray scruff. He reaches into his back pants pocket and pulls out a white cloth. Then he wipes the drip away.

Old fuckers and their handkerchiefs
. . . “You okay?” I ask him. I don’t really care, but I’m not going anywhere—might as well shoot the shit. Scared shitless God-dog or not, he’s not stabbing me with his knife, and that is . . . interesting.

I’ll tell you one thing, I’ve never seen wider eyes on someone. But when he talks to me, he squints. And I don’t know if the flask is because he has no idea what he’s seeing, or if it’s because he knows
exactly
, but from his yammering, it sounds like he has a better understanding of what’s going on than I do. When he pauses, he takes another pull on his flask. He wipes his mouth with his shirt this time then he says, “You are an—”

“Easy, Father,” I say. Then I open my eyes wide back at him. “You’re gonna pop an eyeball. I think you need some glass—”

“You. . . The fu-fall. . .” now he’s stuttering. And he takes another pull. The sauce always helps. Even the priests know that.

“Yeah,” I say, “me fall from sky.” Might as well start playing along. Doesn’t look like the, “state the obvious” game is going away any time soon. “Take it easy. Find your glasses and stop sucking on that tit, because you’re gonna have to patch me up.”

Might as well get it right out in the open. I got the urge to slice his head off with my wing—something tells me that’s what I should be doing—but I’m not going to be able to stitch myself back up. And I’m . . . woozy again.

“Your blood is . . . black,” he says.

I get an annoyed look on my face, because what did I
just
say? “So what?” I say. Maybe I can give this guy some insight into his own faith. At least shock the shit out of him a little. “All angels have black blood.”

He takes another quick swig. Then he says, “No, they do not.”

I raise my eyebrows at him and look at his flask. He’s not getting it or. . .
Oh, whatever.
“Yes, we do,” I say. “I should know, I’ve. . .” But when I think about it, I realize that, despite the buckets of crimson I spilled on the roof and the street below it, not a drop of it came out of an angel. “What about the fucker that crashed in here with me? Pretty sure I got some blood outta him.”

“The profanity,” he says. “You cannot. . . I must ask you to. . .”

That’s a pipe dream. At least he hasn’t lost his faculties entirely.
Still useful.

Then he looks around a little, like he’s trying to figure out how to put his church, and his whole belief system, back together.

“Look, Father Ben, you—”

“You know my name?”

“I should,” I say, “you married us.” Because that’s who this little guy is.

He squints at me again, and then he reaches into his shirt pocket. Booze must be kicking in, because he’s less shaky now. And he pulls out a little pair of black-rimmed spectacles.

No wonder. No citizens wear those anymore. Little guy must be blind as a bat, because the lenses are glass-bottle thick. And he’s kinda “weird uncle” funny looking, and I cluck and chuckle a little. It makes me wince.

Then he leans in as much as he dares, examining me like I’m a wounded cougar his wife is making him rescue. If they allowed him to have a wife, anyway. No wonder they’re raping little boys.

“Jacob?” he says.

“In the—” And I cough out a little black blood. “In the flesh . . . and it’s Jake.” I feel a little weird. Like I’m running out of gas. “Used to be . . . anyway. Now . . . Father, all this chit-chit is. . . I’m tired. . .” My vision is blurry again. “So if you don’t mind, I’m gonna. . .”

I wake up in another room. I’m still on my back and feeling pretty dizzy, but the sweet smell of molasses calms me down a little.

I stare up, and I guess my mind’s still working—
dark wood ceiling and walls, a huge bookshelf along one wall, and a big stained-glass window
. No idea how the little guy got me in here. I must be twice his size. And my wings? I try to move them and fire shoots through the left one and I chirp out loud.

“Be still,” a voice to my left says.

When I look toward it, the little guy is hunched over a large wooden desk, clear on the other side of the room. Got his head down, reading something.
Probably his Bible
, I think. Because if this shit doesn’t send you to the owner’s manual, I mean, what does?

And I can barely hear it, but the choir is singing out in the main church. Bet they shit themselves when they saw the hole in the roof. Wonder how he explained that? “Nice choir, Father. They’re annoying as shit.”

He stops reading and sits up a little, but he still doesn’t turn toward me. “Yes, yes,” he says. “It makes a particular sound, doesn’t it. And you must stop cuss—”

“A shitty one,” I say. I never did like sitting through the singing.
 

“Please,” he says. “You must be familiar with it, given who you are. You know its sound.”

And everyone from God to the Devil to the clergy themselves are speaking in riddles, pissing me off. “Know what sound? Put down that
Bible
and get that choir to shut the fuck up. They’re killing my head.”

“There is no choir,” he says. Then he mutters, “Tuesday. . . I have no idea what I’m going to. . . The roof.”

The choir keeps going and he keeps reading. I ask my body to move and I get more pain and a crackling sound for an answer. When I realize I’m lying on the floor on a tarp, I get more irritated. “Why the hell do you have me on the floor?” I try to roll over, but I’m still weak and all . . . sticky.

“I had to roll you in here on my car creeper,” he says. “I could hardly. . . You are remarkably heavy. There was no sense even attempting to put you on the couch.”

“You still got a guzzler? Benefits of the benevolent, huh?” I say. “Got you changing your own oil, though. So that’s not totally legit.” I look at the big brown leather couch next to me. “Leather couch grease-monkey,” I chuckle softly and it hurts. And I try to sit up again, but the fire in my gut sends me back down.

“I told you not to do that,” he says. “It says to keep you still.”

“What says?” I ask. “Keep me still? I’m gonna kill that little fucker.” And I wince at the pain. Dead man turned angel or not, pain is still a bitch.

He holds up a finger at me. “Profanity,” he says. “And you are lucky that she did not kill you.”

“She?”

“Yes,” he says, “
he
is a she. You are—”

“That explains a lot,” I say. Leave it to a woman to tear the living shit out of a man for no reason. “Mean little bitch.”