The Fallen Ch. 03

This is the third chapter of my continuing story "The Fallen". It is not a stand-alone tale, so I recommended the first two chapters be read first. Much is revealed in this part, and I only hope I've made this exposition-heavy chapter interesting enough to hold your attention. As always, thank you for your interest.

The usual disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. All characters involved in erotic scenes are over 18, even when not explicitly stated.

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THE FALLEN

CHAPTER 3: AWAKENING

I stand just inside the entrance of The Third Eye, a new-age magic shop. After the chaotic night I've had I'm hyper-alert and prepared to bolt at a moment's notice.

Aw, hell...who I am kidding? I'm paranoid and freaked out too.

At the other end of the room, past all the trinkets, books, and bottled herbs, is an older gentleman in an English cut three piece suit of blue and gray. He has kind eyes and salt-and-pepper hair, with a slightly sad smile gracing the lips of his handsome but mature face.

Lounging atop the sales counter is the woman Danni and I ran into at the mall earlier today. Her black hair and heavy, goth makeup still match her all black outfit, and she leans back with one leg swinging idly over the counter's edge.

"You," I whisper.

"I did say I'd see you later, didn't I?" she asks with that faraway look in her eyes.

"Emma," I exhale the woman's name.

"Yes? Am I still Emma Ravencrest? Ah, I believe I am, and this is Graves...though he's not as scary as his name sounds. He's actually quite the teddy bear."

"Good evening, young lady," the older man says with a bow, displaying old school manners. "Please be at peace. We mean you no harm, but you may want to step away from the door."

"What? Why?" I say nervously, my limbs tensing as I prepare to flee.

"Subvolo foemina intrinsecus," Graves mutters under his breath.

His hands move in a series of complex gestures, and his echoing whisper makes the hairs on my arm stand up. I hear the sound of a car door opening behind me.

"Ahh!" Danni squeaks in high-pitched surprise.

I spin to look and see the Outback's rear door closest to me has opened. I see no one and nothing on that side. Either the unconscious Trina kicked it open, or...speaking of Trina, she suddenly rises into the air and floats on her back from the car toward The Third Eye.

"Erykah?" Danni calls out in trepidation as she spills from the other side of the car.

I step aside and try to accept the fact that Trina is hovering past me and into the shop, though it flies in the face of logic. It wouldn't be the first thing to do so tonight. Danni walks in behind the levitating girl, and I'm guessing her look of "oh boy here we go again" mirrors my own.

My expression falls when I see Danni's thoroughly bloodstained clothing, the splotchy red soaking her pants and shirt. She looks like a horror movie refugee. I note that no more blood seems to be dripping from Trina's wounds.

Danni's alert eyes scan the room before they come to rest on the odd couple at the other end. She seems strangely okay with Trina hovering through the room, barely paying it any mind as her eyes examine Emma and Graves.

"What do they want?" Danni asks me, eyeing the pair suspiciously.

Before I can answer, Emma says in a low tone, "Late to the party again, Danni? Tsk tsk...what is that on your dress?"

Danni inhales sharply and gets a look like someone just slapped her across the cheek. The goth woman's words hold obvious meaning for the blond next to me, but I don't get it...Danni isn't even wearing a dress. Either way, it would seem Emma's words have shocked Danni to silence.

With a scowl I ask Emma, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What's over is done at this changing of seasons. Can't you feel it crawling in your veins, this error in your genesis?" Emma responds as if speaking from a dream.

She's pointing toward Trina.

I stare at our levitating, unmoving classmate at the center of the shop. Now that she's in the light I can see the deathly, waxen pallor of her skin. I look back to Emma and Graves. Emma makes a small, sweeping gesture with one hand, and I hear the door behind us close sharply. The sound makes me jump.

Though I'm pretty sure I know the answer, I still ask, "Were you the ones who drove our car here?"

"Of course, my dear. That was I," Graves informs me with a slight bow of his head.

Now the million dollar question.

"Why?" I ask.

Emma smiles and says, "Why Hansel and Gretel, the birds have eaten your breadcrumbs."

The goth woman hops down from the counter, landing on her fuck-me boots with a loud "clack". The noise makes me flinch involuntarily.

"And the old woman was about to shove you in her oven," she adds. "Neverland has no words for the childless heart."

Emma steps over to Trina's floating form and walks a circle around her. As she does so she pulls a thin, square case of silver from her back pocket, opening it up and producing what appears to be a hand rolled cigarette. She returns the case to her pocket and places the smoke between her lips. It's tip sparkles and flares briefly with a tiny flame that seems to come from nowhere, and Emma inhales deeply.

She exhales a thick cloud of roiling smoke over Trina's body. I'm pretty sure it's not normal, but I can see tiny, twinkling flashes shimmering chaotically within the billowing haze.

"You said you didn't smoke," is all I can think to say to this improbable, mystical display.

"I don't smoke...cigarettes," Emma tells me before taking another drag.

Then the smell hits me, the pungent and unmistakable stench of marijuana. The woman leans close to Trina and turns her head to the side, as if listening for something.

"Emma?" Graves asks meaningfully.

She presses two fingers against Trina's pale neck for several seconds.

"Hmm...the girl is dead," she pronounces in an unemotional tone, as if she's telling us 'dinner is ready' or 'your shoelace is untied'.

"Oh no...Trina," Danni gasps in disbelief, her hand rising slowly to cover her mouth.

I can't believe it myself. This isn't the first time someone I know has died, but I never thought it would happen again so soon. Trina was a dangerous, shape-changing supercunt, but still...what a horrible way to go. If only there was something I could do about it. Danni shouldn't have to see this. She held Trina in her lap while the girl died. She's drenched in the other girl's blood. I can't imagine how terrible this must be for her.

This is the sort of thing that can haunt a person for a very long time.

A thought occurs to me. I walk over to Trina's floating corpse and hold out my shaky hands. Maybe, just maybe. I press my palms against the two holes in her leather jacket, her blood still warm and sticky. I try to summon the same feeling as when I brought Danni back from the dead, but...

I can't bring her back. It doesn't work. Dammit, why won't it work?

As if she knows what I'm attempting, Emma tells me, "Anger worships her inside the darkened mazes of your mind. Forevermore flies away from one not ensconced within your heart's hallowed halls of light."

It's a truly odd way of putting it, but I think Emma is trying to tell me I must love someone to bring them back. I step away from the dead girl with tears in my eyes, my mom's face coming to the fore of my thoughts. If only...

"Your mother's death is not your fault, child," Graves says with a sad shake of his head. "Nor is the passing of this girl. Her own choices led to her demise, but you may yet save her."

I didn't like Trina much, but I don't want to see her dead, either. I feel like I'm going to cry so I bite back the tears. Danni takes my hand in hers, and I look over. My love seems incredibly shaken and disturbed by Trina's death as well, her eyes pasted to the levitating body.

What Graves just told me finally registers through the haze of my grief. He had said 'you may yet save her'.

"What do I have to do?" I ask, determined to fix this.

"Only make a single choice," the sad-looking gentlemen tells me cryptically.

"Graves?" Emma asks, her spaced-out eyes turning to look at the older man. "Are you sure?"

"What do you see from this?" Graves questions Emma, a hand motioning toward the floating dead girl.

I wouldn't have guessed it possible, but Emma's visage becomes even more spaced-out than before. Her mouth falls open, her eyes going wide as if she's witnessing something terrible.

"War," she whispers in a dread voice. "I see war..."

Emma comes back to her normal level of "space-cadet" and then nods, saying, "What's done is done and must be done. Do it."

"Wait. Do what?" I ask nervously.

Graves' hands begin weaving intricate patterns in the air. He speaks those strange words once more, the ones that send a shiver of unease up my spine. Either I'm having the strangest nightmare ever, or Danni and I are standing in the presence of a wizard and a witch.

The older gentleman enunciates, "Educ quod feminas tribus!"

I turn to Emma and bark, "Hold up! What in the hell is he doing?"

The darkly goth woman ignores me, instead beginning a whispering chant that slices through the air like one hundred daggers of wind. Their combined voices sting my eyes and quiver my eardrums.

"Holy mother I beseech you open the path! Open the path open the path open the path..."

Graves points to Trina, his voice harsh and guttural, like the sound of an apex predator stalking it's prey.

"Lightning-Claw."

Emma intones, "The wolf that hunts!"

"Stop it!" Danni yells, the both of us feeling something build in the air.

Graves turns toward us and points to Danni. The next word departs his lips as if he were blowing a leaf on the wind.

"Jophiel."

Emma intones, "The messenger of light!"

Danni goes rigid, her body vibrating. Next Graves points directly at me, his speech like a dark shadow slipping through the cracks of reality.

"Cassandriel."

Emma intones, "The angel of death!"

It feels like someone just rammed a cattle prod up my ass and another down my throat. Like Danni, I seize up and can feel my muscles twitching rapidly under some freakish and unknown force. That name...Cassandriel. I feel a disturbing duality when I hear it, one side of me insisting I'm Erykah Gray. Another part, dark and hidden, declares I am Cassandriel.

"Revertere in loco electionis ut Cassandriel!" Graves chants as his hands pick up their gesticulations.

"Bring them through unshackled before this elegy!" Emma's voice rises in counterpoint to Graves' own.

"Emma!" I manage to scream through my chattering teeth. "Stop this!"

I am terrified beyond words. It feels like I am being unmade, and my plea falls unheeded. Neither Emma nor Graves cease what they are doing.

"Ut revocet vitae ut Lightning-Claw sed nihil memoriae neque Jophiel namque memoriae!"

"Be calm."

It's that voice again, the same one who showed me how to heal myself.

"Correction. Ourselves...we have awakened."

Cassandriel? Help me...

"Be calm. All is well."

The voice is comfort, the hand of a parent holding that of a child as they walk down a dark and frightening alleyway at night. I'm not scared anymore, though Graves' voice is reaching strident heights. There is a roar in my ears, like a freight train rolling thunderously through my mind.

Emma voice tears through the sound like the clarion ringing of a bell as she sings, "The skein of life ripped asunder remade! Ripper asunder ripped asunder ripped asunder remade..."

"Nunc accipere haec omnes tres quod tempus et loco autem mea arbitrio!" Graves chants, his hands clapping together at the finale with the deafening boom of one thousand lightning bolts.

The world is made of brittle glass that shatters and explodes.

* * * * * *

"Dammit," I curse under my breath.

My crotch and short little fuzzy-wuzzy hairs down there are still damp with urine, and I forgot to bring something along so I could wipe. I really don't want to just pull up my undies or use a finger...yuck. I start examining the bushes surrounding me, trying to remember what poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac look like.

They've got kind of furry-looking leaves, right?

I pause. Something is off. Way off. Then everything comes rushing back, a crashing avalanche of thoughts and memories that never took place, but they are as real as the ground beneath me.

"Oh fucking fuckitty fuck fuck!" is all my stunned mind can come up with to feed my mouth.

I look around, down, and to the obscured horizon with my jaw hanging open. The light from the dwindling sun has turned the twilight sky in that direction a gorgeous crimson.

Did I just jump back in time?

"I'm back in the forest at the lake!" I whisper in awe. "What...? Fucking what?"

Did I just have a psychotic break and imagine all of that? Though it wouldn't surprise me, there is one easy way to find out. All I have to do is wait. What happens next should be...

I hear a noise. I quiet my breath, my ears straining. I'm greeted by silence. Did I only imagine it? I listen intently and hear more sounds, like footsteps approaching.

I knew that was going to happen! My eyes widen, my still-damp crotch forgotten as I whip my clothes back on and slip my bare foot into it's boot. I'm in a calm sort of panic-mode as I work to get out of here before Trina and Nathan can come into view.

This is it. This is the point everything started going to hell.

Oh my god...this is the "single choice" Graves said I had to make...flee instead of hide!

My boot is still unlaced and my zipper down as I charge the opposite direction of the sounds, crashing through the underbrush. I almost lose my boot but somehow manage to keep it on my foot. I risk a look behind, but no one is following me.

I breathe a sigh of relief that I'd made it out in time. I'm pretty sure Trina didn't see me.

"Well done."

Cassandriel?

"Yes."

What are you?

"We are us."

Well thanks for clearing that up.

"No problem."

We'll have to work on your sense of sarcasm.

I make it back to the lake and the beach, but I pause before stepping fully from the cover of a tree. I finish doing up my jeans. I have to upend my loose boot to dump out twigs and other debris before I can lace it up.

"Jophiel is here?"

Danni? Yeah.

I walk across the beach to see Danni standing near my brother's Outback in the parking area. She's already changed out of her swimwear and into her street clothes, and she's packing the remains of our belongings inside the car.

"Our love!"

There is such joy in this proclamation that I have to stop walking. I can't see through all the tears of happiness streaming from my face. I wipe at them, feeling the same things I felt on that first night - the night I realized I love Danni more than life itself. The night I realized we're soul mates. My heart feels like it might burst at the rush of emotions.

"Run to her!"

I can't help it. It's the only thing I can do. I dash across the sands and over the dirt lot.

"Oh, hi Erykah!" Danni waves happily when she sees me running toward her. "Everything okay?"

We embrace Jophiel...er, Danni fiercely.

"Heavens I missed you!" we blurt out.

"You were only gone a few minutes," Danni giggles, hugging us back. "Erykah, you're crying! What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" I say with an overly loud and rapturous joy. "Nothing is wrong! Everything is right! We get a do-over!"

"What do you mean?" Danni asks.

"She doesn't remember."

Good. She doesn't need to. Last night...uh wait...tonight? Yeah, tonight would have been horrible, but Emma and Graves sent me back to change that one choice that swung the future in a new direction.

"Ignore me," I giggle, releasing Danni and stepping back. "I'm just being all emo."

"Jophiel I love you!"

"Danni I love you."

"I love you too Erykah," Danni smiles, putting her hands on her hips. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," I nod, putting my own hands on my hips in a mirror of Danni's gesture. "I am absolutely awesome. Now let's go home and get some dinner."

"Okay, sounds great!" Danni nods eagerly.

* * * * * *

I'm driving away from Lake Sunkist, back down the mountainous dirt road. I look over at Danni and can't help but notice she looks extremely exhausted. It's just like that other time, the night that never happened yet I still remember.

"You look tired," I voice my concern. "Why don't you take a nap, sweetie. I'll wake you when we get home, okay?"

"I wanted to chat, but I guess I could use a little sleep. Today took a lot out of me," she says, a deep yawn punctuating her statement.

"It's okay, have a nap," I say, giving Danni a squeeze on the leg. "You'll need the energy for later. Don't forget you promised me some bone jumping!"

"Alright," she nods with that flirty smile of hers as she shifts to get comfortable.

It doesn't take but a minute before Danni is gently snoring in a way I find so cute. I knew she needed to sleep a little. I would love to chat, but I also need some quiet time with Cassandriel. I have a feeling we have a lot to discuss.

"We have questions. Ask them."

Damn straight I have questions. First and foremost...what are you? And none of that cryptic "we are us" gibberish.

"We are an Eternal."

Which is what? Explain please.

"We are a child of the All-Mother, the creator of everything."

You mean God? Are you trying to say I'm an angel like Emma said? An "angel of death" from the Bible?

"Pfff. If it helps to think of us as a creature from that child's storybook, then by all means go ahead and have such a narrow view."

So I'm an angel. Huh...who'd have guessed?

"An Eternal."

Okay, an Eternal. So this All-Mother is God?

"The All-Mother is the All-Mother. She was fertile with and gave birth to the universe in which we exist, and The Eternals were her first and most powerful children. We helped shape and mold her creation according to her design. We formed it according to her will."

You keep saying "her" and "she". God is a woman?

"Yes...and no. The All-Mother is neither male nor female, but this primitive mind we're shackled with cannot understand the concept of what she is. The closest idea to her is that of 'mother'."

I suppose that explains me being able to raise the dead and throw grown men across the street. I'm an angel...er, an Eternal. Whoa, hold up. Does this mean I can sprout wings?

"Does such a thing excite us? How odd. Wings are simply a mode of locomotion, like our legs or this metal steed we ride within."

It's called a car, and what are you talking about? Having wings would be bad ass! Can I grow wings or not?

"Yes. We may grow wings of shadow, but it is not recommended we do so in sight of mortals. We have found they react badly to such things. Pitchforks and fire tend to be involved in the end results."

Can I fly?

"Yes, but once again it is not recommended..."

Yeah, yeah...don't freak out the natives. Noted. What other cool stuff can I do?

"We belong to the House of Reavers, so our main focus is life and death. Our original duties were to ferry the spiritual energies of living beings and inanimate objects to and fro. We are weak from long slumber, thus much of our power must be relearned. Our domain is limited at this time. Like all of our kind we may heal ourselves, but our House allows us to bring the souls of others into alignment and heal them as well. However, to raise the newly dead back to life we must truly love them, as when you brought Jophiel back."