In the End (26 page)
Authors: Alexandra Rowland
“
What small ones? The small ribbons?”
“
No,” Jocelin said, frustrated. “The small ones. The humans, but small, with large frightening eyes and stickiness on their hands, and dirty feet.”
“
Oh,” Lalael said dryly. “Children.”
“
They told us that we were pretty,” Jocelin said, stroking the end of a navy blue ribbon. “And the very small one sucked its fingers at us and stared. And then the one that was small, but not so small as the others, it had the colors that Mara gave to it and wanted to... to... to give them to us. And it made us sit upon the grass, and it tugged at our hair fiercely, and told us to be very still so it would not make them... messy. And then it asked us if we were one of the gods, like thyself and Honored Fallen Lucien, and we were angry.”
“
You didn't hurt her, did you?” Lalael asked suspiciously.
“
We did not say anything, we sat very still like it had told us to. And it asked us if we... were... a boy...” Jocelin said slowly, staring off into the space between the angel's eyes and the floor.
“
So you got your hair fiddled with. And then came to show me?”
“
No, Angel Lalael,” Jocelin said, looking to him in surprise.
“
Why, then? Small talk?”
“
We know how to return to the Above.”
“
Has anyone seen Lalael?”
This was the chorus the two days later, repeated through the temple, the gossip spreading like wildfire never did. While it was not unusual for one or the other of the gods to disappear for a few hours, neither of them had never left for more than half a day without everyone knowing where they were going to be. The popular story among the followers was that Lucien was getting antsy, but the truth of the matter...
“
Where in Ríel's name is he?” Lucien growled, pacing the office. “Lael never even goes for a walk without telling me; why's he gone and gotten independent now?”
“
I'm sure he's fine, my Lord,” Andrew dutifully said, standing close to the door all the same. “He probably got caught up converting people and doing generally godlike things. He shall return, my lord.”
“
Like hell he will! Who's going to be the voice of reason around here without him?”
***
Three days later, the Fallen was frantic: Aggressive and prone to verbally cut down whomever crossed his path with a quick and fearsome efficiency. Jocelin, to the followers' relief, received the brunt of the attacks, yet the more Lucien growled, shouted, hissed, or purred at the angel, Jocelin merely became more adoring, more crooning, more devoted. Everyone else agreed the soft velvety voice was the worst; it started off sounding enchanting, but seconds later, Lucien would stride away from a shivering, often sobbing, nervous wreck. But not Jocelin.
Five days after Lalael had left – and no word from the angel either, tsked the congregation – Lucien gave up shouting. The silence was worse, for now the Fallen padded quietly about the temple, silent and downcast. Questions were met with heartfelt sighs or stoic silence.
The poor women who had been purred at could be overheard chattering to each other, forgiving their god to each other at great, and heartfelt, and occasionally tearful length. The followers who weren't outright worried yet were just bored – the only thing to do now was go on search parties, and it felt like they had turned over every rock within a five mile radius.
“
I wish I knew where he'd gone, Jos,” Lucien sighed, lying on the floor in front of the throne which Jocelin was curled up on.
The angel's scheme had been a full success, in Jocelin's opinion, for now the Honored Fallen was all for the angel's ownsome. Jocelin was taking full advantage of the situation and playing with one of Lucien's black, black curls.
“
I mean,” Lucien went on, “I can't help but wonder if I said something that he got angry at, or if he was sick of the temple and wanted to leave... We fought a few weeks ago but I thought he'd forgiven me for that. But if he wanted to go, I would have left too, you know. That's what you do for your friends, isn't it? I'm awfully fond of the humans... Collectively, at least; individually not so much. But they're mortal. They'll have children and the children will have children, and they, the grandchildren, will be raised good and devoted but it won't be the SAME to them. It'll be something to do for an afternoon once a week. It'll just fall apart without Lalael, you know?”
Except for that. That wasn't a success. How was the Honored Fallen supposed to take notice of Jocelin if he insisted on talking about the redheaded one?
“
I don't suppose you know where he went, do you Jocelin?”
“
Yes,” Jocelin said absently, petting the single curl that was being played with. “We know.”
Lucien sat up suddenly, turning to look at the angel. “You
know
?” he demanded. “What do you mean you know?”
“
We know. We spoke to him before he left.” Jocelin gazed adoringly down at Lucien.
“
So?” Lucien said after a moment, when Jocelin said nothing more. “Where did he go?”
“
He returned.”
“
Returned
where
?” Lucien asked. “The apartment? It's burned. The harbor? Sergeant Watson's? I was right, he must have been sick of all this,” he murmured.
“
No, our own,” Jocelin crooned, stroking another of Lucien's curls. “He went back to Above.”
Lucien closed his mouth and went deadly still. “Jocelin,” he said slowly, “you don't mean Ríel.”
“
Yes. Above.”
Lucien knocked Jocelin's hand away from his hair and strode to the other side of the room. He stood close to the wall and stared at it. “So he left. Just like that?”
“
Yes, our own,” the angel unfolded and stood next to him, also close to the wall, and staring at it as if understanding this was what was to be done to walls.
“
Didn't even tell you to say goodbye to me for him?” Lucien's voice hardened.
“
Our own--”
“
Don't call me that, Jocelin, I'm not yours.”
“
But now that the other has left, we can be yours.”
“
He's not gone. He'll come back. He wouldn't just leave without telling me goodbye. You don't
do
that to your friends, Jocelin!” Lucien shoved himself away from the wall and flung himself into the throne. “And he told me he didn't want to go back anymore,” he said weakly.
The angel slunk across the room, sitting on the floor at Lucien's feet, chin resting on his knee. “Do you not want us instead of the other?”
“
What, have we forgotten his name already?”
“
Whose name, our own?”
Lucien scowled and shook his head. “Just... Just leave, Jocelin. Go away, go see Mara. I just need to think about this.”
***
A week. A week since he'd left, and everyone had stopped saying his name, to Lucien or to each other. The temple was silent, dead. No one spoke more than they had to. Suddenly they found themselves thinking about the times Before: electricity, nine-to-five jobs, financial ruin, those they'd known and lost.
Mara tried to keep the congregation together. She flitted from one person to the next, dispensing comfort, reminding people to eat, frantically trying to keep the faithful going. She smiled, she scolded, she cajoled, yet everyone knew – she was dealing with the same situation in her own way.
Jocelin hovered outside Lucien's door, which remained locked tight for most of the day.
“
Our own,” Jocelin crooned through the door, “Come along, our own, forget the other. Why do you not have us for your own?”
Suddenly the door was flung open. “Because I don't like you, Jocelin!” Lucien shouted. It was the loudest noise in four days.
“
Why not, our own?”
Lucien found the angel plastered up his side: He shoved Jocelin off. “My only friend. Is
gone
. Alright? He's gone, he's left me all on my own in this godforsaken world of humans when he said himself he was going to stay, and damn Ríel for everything they never did for him, and I'm
angry
at him for going back on that, do you understand? I don't want you, I won't want you, and I hate the sight of you. I don't go for the crazy ones, you know how it is?”
Though he never knew it, at that moment, Lucien was the one who had come closest to staring Jocelin down.
“
But you shoved the red-haired one out of bed,” purred the angel.
“
That time with the enormous mattress? Now that was surreal,” Lucien scathed. “Yes, I shoved him! So what? He was hogging the blankets and keeping his toes warm on my calves anyway.” Lucien glared at the angel.
“
So you can shove us out of bed instead,” Jocelin said, nodding as if this solved everything. “We shall be your only friend now.”
Lucien shoved the angel off him again, this time hard enough that Jocelin stumbled back and fell against the opposite wall. Lucien stood, breath heaving in fury, as Jocelin looked at him in shock – really looked, as if actually seeing the Fallen for the first time. “Get out,” Lucien said, in the quiet, purring voice. “I don't want you, and I really don't want to see you in or near this temple ever again. Leave.”
The door to Lucien's room clicked shut, misleadingly softly, and the only sound was the lock being turned. Jocelin stared at the door for a few moments, then rose, swept down the stairs, and left through the wide oaken front doors. The sunset, a riot of pinks and reds and yellows, lit the ocean miles away as golden as the angel's wings. Jocelin flew.
And none of the temple's followers ever saw the strange angel again, although they heard much of the Angel Jocelin at a later time.
***
It was
nearly midnight by the time Jocelin landed. The angel had flown over the city until they had found an appropriately derelict warehouse. Jocelin landed on the roof and looked to the stars and moon.
“
Now we are on our own,” the angel told the voices, which mumbled and buzzed. “We have been betrayed.” The voices clamored and agreed, and Jocelin nodded. “Our own is merely unhappy that the little red-haired one has left him. We must bring our own unto us.” Jocelin looked around with eyes made even more eerie by the moonlight. “There is power here. Loose and free.” They hadn't felt power like this since the day they had seen the Thing in the depths of the ocean. They had gone to kill it, Jocelin remembered – it was the only thing that Jocelin remembered perfectly and vividly, a single point on the tangled, complicated mess of time that remained steady. Fixed. Jocelin vaguely remembered a time before that, when there hadn't been any voices, when time went in a straight line with no bends or loops in it, but then Jocelin had looked on the Thing in the water, and they had failed, and they had not killed it, but it took something from them with this same loose, wild, chaotic energy that filled the world now. This power, though, tasted of rain, and before it had tasted like lightning and terrible stars and ruins. The angel breathed and laughed quietly. “It wants to play. It wants wishes and starlight, doesn't it?”
The voices sang.
“
Yes, we shall create things for the power to play with, and they shall bring our own unto us. They shall be our... friends.” The voices suddenly became very insistent, and Jocelin tugged at their hair and moaned softly. “Our own told us... he said we do not leave our friends without telling. Priestess Mara will not know where we are.”
The voices fell back and became soothing.
“
A mara is a nightmare,” Jocelin recited, intoning it the same
way as bef
ore, “They come snatching in the night.”
Suddenly the angel's eyes shone in the moonlight.
***
Another week passed. The temple knew new levels of sorrow, uselessness, and depression when Lucien, in full view of the followers, left.
No one tried to stop him. Everyone knew it would have been useless.
Lucien walked. He took no note of where he walked, or how his legs felt like they'd fall off, but he walked, in the hopes that his movement would take him away from his feelings of being lost. He walked all the way to town, through the business district, and he walked through the parks, where the trees stood stark and bare against the overcast, wintry sky. He walked through the suburbs, where the houses were still stained with scorch marks and brimstone.
He walked until he could physically walk no more, and then he stumbled into the first ruined, empty house he could reach, staggered into a bedroom, and slept the night in a bed whose sheets that smelt of mildew.
***
He awoke in the morning, shivering with cold, hungry, and barely noticing, and walked again. He stared at his feet, scuffing the asphalt and the concrete, without seeing them, and so did not notice when his wanderings took him near a certain appropriately-derelict warehouse.
When a shifting black shadow, a wraith of darkness, appeared before him and touched his forehead with a caress like fire and ice and crunching gravel, he spared it not a thought and slipped gratefully into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness.
***
Lucien drifted slowly back to a state of awakening, becoming aware of a throbbing ache in his head, a rhythmic noise of machinery, and a chill that had nothing to do with the cold concrete he was lying on. When he opened his eyes, he saw legs, torsos, arms, heads-- all made out of shadow and smoke. They writhed thoughtfully, touching him with limbs that bruised him like stone, that burned like bee stings. He struggled to his feet, fending off the shadows, pushing his way out of the crowd.
He looked around, quickly coming to the conclusion he was lost in an abandoned warehouse: Dank, dusty light; filthy floor and walls; bare ceiling, showing wires and pipes high above; the bitter smell of mildew.
“
Fallen Angel Lucien,” said a voice – one he hadn't expected to hear ever again. Lucien whirled around. The crowd of darkness had moved away, swaying around a low dais made of crates and boards. Jocelin, resplendent as usual in flawless white and gold, sat enthroned upon a chair made of materials similar to the platform.
“
Jos!” Lucien strode quickly towards the dais: the shadows parted for him. As he tried to mount the first step, the shadows closed around and roiled.
“
Come no further, Fallen.”
“
Oh, we've changed the title again?” Lucien winced and rubbed his head. “Look, Lalael hasn't come back, so I need to know –”
“
We sent him. Back to Ríel.”
“
I know,” Lucien hissed, suddenly furious. “And so you need to come back to the temple so we can get him here where he belongs.”
The angel fixed Lucien with a stare, regal and unmoved by the Fallen's anger. “No,” Jocelin said slowly. “We shan't go. Neither shalt thou. Thou shalt stay with us until thou loves us.”
“
Love you?” Lucien snarled, beginning to pace. “You sent Lalael away, you told him how to go back to his own personal hell, and did you see how gratefully he went?” The shadows moved when he walked, backing away or following, always keeping a reasonable circle around the Fallen.
“
He wished for punishment. For his sins of blasphemy and treason. He shall be Felled.” Lucien's breath caught in his chest with a painful thump. “Thou shalt stay.”
“
I won't.”
“
Thou
shalt
,” Jocelin shrieked, standing in a swirl of white and gold as the throne flew back and clattered onto its side. “We shalt keep thee until thou forgets the other.”
“
No,” Lucien said coldly. “You really won't. I won't stay, and I couldn't forget if you kept me here for a century.” He turned away.
The angel made a small gesture. “Stop,” Jocelin said softly. The shadows writhed violently, surging and slamming in front of Lucien. “They obey us. They shalt not let thee leave.” Another small gesture, and a small shadow darted from the crowd and righted the angel's chair. Jocelin sank onto the tattered cushion.
Lucien turned back again, this time fearfully. “What are they?”
Head tilted; whispering soft murmur, “They whisper to us while we go to the other place. When we close our eyes and stop seeing in this world.” The angel began a familiar gesture: swaying gently, eyes closing. “They whisper of darkness. Of things we have done. Of being seen by Him. Of frights.” Jocelin looked questioningly towards the Fallen.
“
Nightmares.”
“
We like them, the shades,” Jocelin crooned, reaching out to them with both hands. “We can feel them, and they whisper to us of blood and darkness and wind in the moonlight. We like them.” The shadows swayed adoringly towards Jocelin, wrapping around the angel's hands and wrists, stroking and flickering. “We tell them and they do. We said unto them, find the Fallen Angel Lucien, and they went like a quiet storm at night.” The shadows crawled up Jocelin's legs, touching the angel's dark hair, faltering at the angel's stony face as Jocelin caressed their fragile airy forms. “They like us.”
“
They certainly do,” Lucien growled. “And you're just as much of a lunatic as ever. Well,” he paused thoughtfully, “Maybe a bit more lucid. But not by much.”
Jocelin gestured dismissively. “We care not. Thou shalt stay, and the Nightmares shalt keep thee here.”
“
Not if I can help it,” he growled.
“
Thou can't,” the angel said simply. “Dost thou love us? Wilt thou stay with us?”
Lucien lunged at Jocelin. The Nightmares caught at him and pulled him back, though he struggled. Their grips bruised his arms, their touch blistered his skin – he cried out. Another motion from the angel, the Nightmares released him.
“
I hate you,” the Fallen hissed, and spat at Jocelin's feet. The angel studied him.
“
It occurs to us...” Jocelin began slowly, “It occurs to us that thou art also a traitor, like the Angel Lalael. Dost thou not repent?”
“
Not a smidgen.”
“
Then thou must be punished until thou does.” The angel nodded in conviction. “We...” Jocelin's head tilted once more. “We feel... pity for you, our love. We wanted thee to give in easily.” The angel rose from the throne once more and stroked a lock of Lucien's hair. The Fallen's hands clenched at his sides, jaw set stubbornly and lips narrowed to a thin, pale line. “Our love,” Jocelin repeated. “Mara told us once about this. It is like fire and drowning, and falling and... what birds do when they are not still in the trees. All at once.” The Nightmares drew back as Jocelin circled Lucien. “We want thee to be ours, our love,” Jocelin whispered, chin resting on Lucien's shoulder, fingers toying with the sleeves of Lucien's filthy shirt.
“
Well then, that's just too bad, isn't it?” Lucien pulled free of Jocelin's embrace and turned to the angel. “You can't have me.”
“
But thou art so pleasing to our eyes. The stars would fall from the sky if thou but asked them.” The angel paused. “Thou must not ask, though, for we would gather them up and string them on a thread about our neck, and they would burn us, our love.”
“
You'd deserve it.” Lucien turned away, only to find the shadows blocking his path.
“
You cannot leave, our love,” Jocelin said, with something close to sorrow. “We must help thee to see thy wrongs. And then thou shalt be grateful to us, and then thou shalt love us. We have seen it.”
“
You dreamed it, Jos,” Lucien said, glancing back wearily. “Lalael dreams too.”
“
We didn't. We saw.”
“
Jos –”
“
Do not–! Do not call us that,” Jocelin said firmly.
“
Jocelin. You have to let me go. I have to find Lalael –”
“
No. Thou shalt stay here, and thou shalt repent and ask the Great One to forgive thee, and then thou shalt be with us for eternity, our love.”
“
No,” Lucien furiously said, regaining his earlier fire. “I don't repent, and I don't want to! You'll forget in a few days anyway, and I'll just waltz right out...”
A fleeting glimpse of regret crossed Jocelin's face. “Thou must stay,” the angel repeated quietly. “The Nightmares shall take thee away. Tread softly, our love, do not fight and perhaps it shall hurt thee less.”
Jocelin turned away, the Nightmares swept in, herding Lucien away through the dim light. “Give me time,” the Fallen swore as the smoky wraiths churn
ed around him, “Give me time, Jocelin. I will destroy you.”
“
We are made of time, our love.”
***
The Nightmares had shut Lucien in a cage of chicken wire. The Fallen had snorted to himself at the folly of such a thing, but as the Nightmares herded him through the door, he became aware that something was extremely wrong. Immediately he felt an itch between his shoulder blades, a sting as if of a mosquito. Over the course of the next half-hour, the itch grew to a dull throb, then a sharp throb, then an excruciating pain that left him panting and twisting on the floor of the cage, trying to find a whisper of relief.
The pain kicked up another notch. Lucien hissed, scrabbling at his back, and then –
Wings, bursting from his shoulder blades. Oh, blessed goodness, gentle waves of relief soothing away the muscles' memory of pain. He lay on the ground for a few more minutes, wiping away the beads of sweat on his forehead.
And he wondered.
He felt an inexplicable hatred for the chicken wire, a loathing to go near it. A fleeting thought of breaking out of the cage was instantly and apprehensively dismissed. He studied the wood of the enclosure instead. Ten feet long, eight wide, seven high. Only the top and two sides were chicken wire, the others of sturdy wooden crates, so he folded himself as best he could into the remaining corner and wondered.
The dim light gave way to total darkness, and Lucien felt rusty mental gears, long since abandoned, begin to turn again. Force of habit, he told himself, but the dark was just so... Dark. And the Nightmares, who knew where they were? Drifting about unseen in the night, except perhaps as one of the strange static shapes, seen only when staring straight into the dark.
But the gears turned, and found themselves in working order, and Lucien began to remember the mantra he'd comforted himself with, ages and ages ago, in the darkest tombs of Rielat:
Lucien. My name is Lucien. I am the light. My name is Lucien, and it means light, and I am Lucien, so I am the light. Light like the tiny flame of a candle, like lightning, like starlight, like the sun and the moon. I am Lucien, therefore I am the light. This is the dark, and I am the light, so the darkness isn't quite so dark. My name is Lucien, I am the light.
And as a part of him repeated this, over and over, the variations and the resounding chorus of
I am the light
, another part of him mused that it wasn't so much different from Jocelin. He turned his head, tucked his wings over it, and slept.
***
“
Our love,” Jocelin crooned. “Our love, awaken, we have brought a lovely present for thee.” Lucien awoke with a jolt, wings stiff and protesting as he jerked them away from his face. Automatically, he tried to will them away, but a warning bolt of pain raced down his spine.
“
Jocelin, it's still dark.”
“
No,” Jocelin said, swaying and almost smiling. “It is day outside. This light is like moonlight, so gentle and sweet, our love. This is all the light we need, our love. The Nightmares don't like it, you see, and we must keep our sweets pleased, mustn't we? Come along, our love, we have a lovely gift. Like the red thing that was round and wondrous.”
“
It was an apple, Jocelin, for the last time,” Lucien growled.
Jocelin's fingers stroked the cage's wire. “It's a lovely present, our love, we found it just for thee. It shall give us many more pretty things, things that are red and sweet smelling.”
“
What is it, then, Jocelin? And then maybe you'll let me out of the cage? I'm quite done playing your games.”
“
We don't play any games, our love,” Jocelin murmured, drawing a wickedly sharp knife from nowhere at all. “This is our present. Are thy eyes pleased by it?” The dim silvery light glinted off the blade.
“
I don't want it.”
“
But thou must have it, our love. It shall whisper to thee of thy wrongs until thou says thou art...” Jocelin fell silent, staring at one of the wooden crates.
“
What, sorry?”
“
Yes,” Jocelin said, attending reality again.
Lucien shook his head tiredly. “Okay, I'm sorry.”
“
What for, our love?” the angel sounded truly puzzled.
“
For everyone thinking I'm a god, I suppose. That's what you meant by traitor, isn't it?”