Tales of the Fallen Book I: Awakenings (2 page)

Of Angels Fallen

The woman’s body slid down the wall as if in slow motion—too slow. Mal put his finger on the bridge of her nose and pressed down hoping to quicken the descent. When her legs finally collapsed, she crumbled into a pile at his feet—forehead resting on the cum-, piss-, what-have-you?-stained carpet. Mal put the steel-tip of his Doc Marten into her temple and gave her a quick kick. No sign of life. Of course there was no real sign of life before he shoved the seven-inch blade in one side of her skinny neck and out the other. Just because she was breathing didn’t mean she was alive. Her heavy-lidded eyes had exploded at the realization that something was horribly wrong. Her left hand, which had been deftly stroking Mal’s cock, gave a sharp, hard squeeze as he unloaded onto the front of her filthy, pink PVC skirt. He placed his hand on hers and squeezed to keep the pressure tight on his shaft. He kept her hand moving along his cock to work out a few more drops while she hung there in the air stunned and bleeding out. “Finish the job, honey. Always finish the job.”

From the other room Mal heard her crack-head baby crying for something he wasn’t going to be getting anytime soon. “Sorry, brother, momma’s tapped out.”

Mal dropped the knife next to the “whore” and stuffed his slick-tipped dick back into his pants.
At least with this one I got a good crank out,
he thought.
Even if I did have to finish it off myself.

The kid wailed again, sensing something wrong in the air. Mal thought about paying him a little visit on his way out. Then shrugged it off. They would take care of him, her and everything else just like they always did. No concerns on his part. Mal’s jizz, his blood, his fingerprints… Didn’t matter.

Mal walked by the screaming kid’s room and poked his head in. “Take it easy there, twitchy. Maybe they’ll take you in and save you like they did me,” he said before shooting him a quick thumbs-up and heading out the door.

««—»»

Balance of power
, that’s what they called it. For every good, decent life extinguished at the hand of evil, retribution is needed in the name of the righteous. This is what he had been taught since they had rescued him from the gutter.

Twenty-two and already a bum—a bottle of whiskey a day for the past year left Mal numb and free of any concerns other than where the next bottle came from. Petty theft, B&E, a little assault here and there, blood siphoned into a bottle for some poor bastard brought into an ER after Mal had just beat the shit out of him for twelve bucks and some change.

Yeah, Mal was leading the charmed life. Then one night of too much booze and too little thinking, he tried to force the wrong guy to give up his wallet. The guy was big, too big Mal would soon find out. But the alcohol and the need inside Mal made him feel as if
he
was even bigger. Mal came at the guy, stammering and wobbling, finger poking in his coat pocket pointing a cotton gun. The guy stopped but didn’t seem scared, instead he just stared at Mal through black watery eyes, his head tilted slightly, his brow creased. He looked like a confused puppy trying to figure out what his owner wanted him to do.

“Give me your money, asshole. Now!” Mal screamed. Trying hard to be menacing. He puffed out his chest, trying to seem larger than he really was—larger than the stranger whom he now realized was a
hell
of a lot bigger than Mal first thought. It was a sad display.

The stranger just stood there as if studying the situation. Mal teetered on his feet and started to lean back. He blinked and when he opened his eyes no one was in front of him. Before Mal could make sense of what was going on, the bottle of bottom-shelf whiskey sitting on the ground where Mal placed it before rising to intimidate, was coming up the side of his head. The stranger’s motion was lightning fast and his aim was dead on. One second Mal was starting to jack this guy, the next he’s falling to the curb with a cascade of whiskey and blood covering the side of his face, then his body.

Mal hit the ground, shook his head, stunned, and rolled onto his back. Blinking manically through the whiskey-stung eyes, Mal tried to look up. The guy looked down at him, his head still tilted slightly. A flash of orange appeared before Mal’s face, shadows danced for a second and in them he could see the stranger grinning—but only for a second before the grin vanished and the flame dropped down onto Mal’s body. One moment he felt cold, wet and dazed. The next he was completely sober, every inch of his body awake to the sensation of excruciating pain as his whiskey-soaked coat burned away, then his shirt, then…his flesh. The screams that erupted into the night seemed distant as if Mal were hearing them from blocks away.
He wasn’t on fire. He couldn’t be. It had to be someone else.
Someone else in this pain. Someone else screaming into the dank air. Someone else hearing the low murmuring of voices coming from right behind the wall of flames. It had to be someone else. Not him. Not…

««—»»

He had killed the crackhead whore because they told him to kill a hooker. Actually, they said “harlot.” Guess it wasn’t as crude as hooker. They’re not big on the vulgar. Silly when you consider what they are big on. Whatever. Mal knew what the hell they meant.

When he got back in his car, Mal quickly noticed the package sitting on his passenger seat. He knew immediately what it was by the mark—a flaming sword, red. Mal still laughed at their lack of subtlety
.
“It’s about fucking time,” he said opening the package. What he found inside confused him. So he picked up the piece of paper. “Finally!” Mal’s eyes filled with tears as he read the note another time just to make sure:

This will be your last assignment.

Your reward is nigh.

««—»»

The sharp stink of rubbing alcohol mixed with shit assaulted Mal when he first awoke. He opened his eyes and immediately felt like someone had punched him in the face. The light seared into the back of his brain—pain attacking his skull like a jackhammer.

Pain…

Amidst the pounding in his head, Mal saw flashes—images—ricocheting through his mind.

A bottle crashing into the side of his head…

Face against the black top of a street…

An orange grin…

Then…

…
a flame …

… falling …

… falling.

Mal sees himself…

Screaming …

… screaming …

… through a wall of fire …

… covering him in white hot pain.

But only for a few seconds… Then only the screams remained. Mal heard them as if someone were standing next to him—mouth an inch from his ear—unleashing a banshee cry directly into his brain.

Through the screams and the incessant
thump-thump
in his head, Mal managed to feel hands on his shoulders. They pressed into him, pinning him down. He chanced opening his eyes again. This time more cautiously. A fraction of light seeped through.
A little more
, he thought, as the cold white light pried its way into his eyes.

The screams subsided, chased away by the light. The pain in Mal’s head settled into just a light pulsing. He gave into the pressure against his shoulders and settled back into the pillow behind his head. He blinked a few more times, trying to focus. He saw what looked like two hairy and thick tree limbs on either side of him. A blink later he realized they were actually arms. He followed them up and thought,
Great, I’m being held down by a refrigerator with arms.

On top of the living appliance was a head the size of a watermelon—a big fucking watermelon—with long, golden hair. Mal could have sworn he saw a glow behind the giant, golden head. Almost like a…

Mal shook his head trying to clear his blurry vision. When he looked up again, the glow had abated somewhat leaving just a large—make that very large—man in a white suit, with golden locks cascading down around his massive shoulders.

“What the fuck
,
” was all Mal could say.

“Language, Mr. Branch. Language,” came a voice from somewhere in the room. Then: “Please allow our guest some room.” Mal felt the pressure on his shoulders disappear as the behemoth let go of him.

“There. That’s better. Right, Mr. Branch?”

Mal shoved himself up onto his elbows trying to figure out who was talking to him. He cocked his head and looked up at the guy who had been holding him. “What’s up,
corn-fed
?” he asked nodding to the big fellow. Then flinched as the guy moved, thinking he was going to shove him back down or crush him into a ball like tin foil.

“Relax, Mr. Branch. Desmond won’t hurt you,” said the voice again as the room suddenly became brighter. The mass of human before him moved to the left as a moon passing out of an eclipse. Where Mal first thought the guy was glowing and wasn’t, there was no mistaking that the figure that appeared from behind Desmond…
was
glowing.
A lot.

««—»»

Should have realized this would be a hard one.
Mal shook his head, lips twisted in aggravation. But soon he let out a huff of slight amusement.
Fuck it. Go out with a bang, I guess.

Mal had been watching his mark for a while now. And one thing was certain: this was no ten-dollar chickenhead whose skull he could smash into the grimy wall of a dead-end alley after the whore finished sucking him off. Nope, this one would take some planning.

Jericho White was a powerful man—a
very
powerful man: high profile and almost never alone as executive assistants and hired meat moved around in a carousel dance of top-notch ass kissing. Yep, Mal had his work cut out for him on this one.

Whores, bums, an entire cult, a busload of geriatrics from Atlantic City, dictators, even a school full of children, thousands…all training—years and years of training. Training to follow orders, to obey…to kill.

««—»»

“It’s quite simple, Mr. Branch. We would like you to work for us.”

Mal tried to look directly at whatever the hell was glowing at the foot of his bed. But his eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to working status again and he felt his gaze avert itself toward the floor, the ceiling, anywhere but straight ahead.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Branch?” the glow asked.

“Um… Well… You, ah, know you’re all super glowy and shit, right?” Mal responded.

“Ah, yes. I do tend to forget. It’s been a while since I’ve been around someone not used to my…condition.”

“The glowy thing is a ‘condition’? What fucking condition makes you do that? ”

The man flinched at Mal’s words. “I will make you a deal, Mr. Branch. I will hide my ‘glowy thing’ as you put it,
if
you promise to refrain from being profane in my presence.” And the light surrounding the voice began to abate.

Mal shrugged, “Okay. I’ll try, but it ain’t gonna be easy. I came out of the womb middle finger in the air. Know what I mean?” he asked, trying to see what was forming at the end of his bed.

“Indeed. A lovely image. Your mother would have been quite proud—”