Afterlife: A Fall of Angels Novelette (2 page)

But Jane.
  Jane.  She was destined for better.  Given to the one man Cole would always be over-looked for.

Money did not equal love.  Despite being given to another, one who was wealthier than even Cole was, she fell for Cole.  Over the course of only a few short weeks, secret meetings were made, hesitant, forbidden touches began.  The fire between them grew into a blazing torrent that threatened to destroy the both of them. 
And their families.

But despite everything Jane felt for Cole, despite everything that he
knew
she felt for him, she refused to break off her engagement.

Cole would never be quite good enough for Jane, or her power-hungry father.

Or their son.

Even creating a new life, a child together, was not enough to make Jane be a part of Cole’s life.

As he watched Jane, now long dead and judged, he felt… distant.  There was still that ache that was inside of him.  There was a void that had slowly
ate
at everything else inside of him, that made him into the monster that he was.  But it seemed to almost be a memory of what the past had been. 
Like he didn’t feel the un-bearableness of everything.
  It was almost like he only remembered what he had felt, and like he had clung to it for so long that he didn’t know how to let it go.

And every time he looked at Jane he saw Jessica.

Jane was a new kind of pain now.  She was a constant reminder of the one thing in his life that he truly could never have.

Cole had money, he had houses and carriages.  He had fine clothes and servants.  Even though Jane would never marry him, he did have her.

But as much as Cole had wanted Jessica, as much as he did everything in his power to get her, Cole had, and never would have Jessica.

All because of a simple boy.

One boy was all it took to defeat the power that Cole had over women.

The trial ended with the man before them being escorted to the above, to a place Cole had never been allowed to see.  The other residents of the afterlife set to whatever it was they did to serve out the rest of eternity.

But Jane stayed, staring emptily out into the vastness of the cylinder.  Without thinking about it, Cole gave a powerful beat of his wings, carrying himself to the staircase just above her.  She ignored his presence as he descended, her wings tucked comfortably behind her.

“I still don’t understand it,” Cole said, stopping a few stairs above her.  “How did you manage to get into the above?  After everything you did?”

“Of course you don’t understand, Cole,” she answered simply, shifting her weight back, propping herself up on her palms against the hot stone beneath her.  “You have tunnel vision.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, his voice harsh sounding.

“You fixate, Cole,” Jane said, her blue eyes meeting his.  “You see what you want to see and nothing else.  You saw the sins I committed with you for those few years, and to you, I did nothing else with my entire life.”

Cole stood there, anger at being made to look foolish by a nothing angel flaring within him.

“And you don’t see what has changed within you,” she said, a sly smile pulling at the corner of her lips.  “You are not the man I fell in love with.  Nor are you the man who has led the condemned for the last century and a half.”

“I will always be Cole Emerson.  I will always be a branded angel that those around him saw fit to lead them.”

“Yes, you will always be those things.  But you didn’t used to be a man who would let a woman you care for go to another man.  You didn’t used to be a man who ached because he saw that woman hurting.  You didn’t used to be a man that was suffocating because of his own fear.”

“What am I afraid of?” Cole scoffed.  Fear was not a word anyone had applied to him since he was a human child.

“You’re afraid of her being hurt,” Jane said as she stood, standing just inches away from Cole.  “You’re afraid of Jeremiah bringing her back here and of what will happen to her once she joins our world.”

Cole just held Jane’s eyes, defeat sinking into his dead stomach.

“You know that once she joins our world she will truly be lost to you forever.  You know where she will be placed.  She’s lead a good life.”

He simply stood there, feeling a war raging in his body.  Oh how he wanted to silence Jane, to make her stop speaking words he wouldn’t admit were true.  But this was Jane.  He could never lay a finger upon her.

“This is the point where you have to decide what man you want to become,” Jane said as she lifted her hand and traced a finger along Cole’s jaw.  “Are you going to be the
man
who sits back and lets Jeremiah have his way with her?  Or are you going to be the man who will do anything for her, even if he can’t have her?”

Everything felt very still inside of Cole as Jane dropped her hand from his face and stepped away.  Holding his eyes for just a moment more, Jane stepped around Cole and started up the staircase.

He let his eyes slide closed, feeling as if he couldn’t breathe.  But no one would save the leader of the damned from suffocating.

Cole would ever be alone.

“
O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance that harms you.”

- Canto VII, Inferno, Dante

Cole sat alone on the catwalk, waiting. 
Pondering.

He’d finally gone to her.  He couldn’t leave her unaware any longer.

Unable to take facing her in the real world, in seeing her face, in being so near her scent, Cole had gone to her in the only way he could.

In the In Between.
 
The dream world, a state of passing.
 
Limbo.

He’d told her that she was being watched.  He had warned her to be careful.

Through the dark he could sense her.  He could almost touch her, could almost smell her.  But she wasn’t in his world and he wasn’t in hers.

And now here he sat, feeling shredded, ripped apart, like a wounded dog, beaten by his master, but still sitting at her feet, licking his wounds.

Yet again he had searched for Jeremiah, only to find him gone.

So he waited.

Only minutes later Cole heard the footsteps walking down the tunnel, out toward the cylinder.  Cole continued to stare at the stone walls in front of him.  His legs dangled above the abyss below.

“You’ve grown soft,” Jeremiah said as he emerged from the tunnel.  He stopped at the edge of the stone walkway.

“And you seem to think that your opinion matters,” Cole said, not looking up.

“Look at all the talk I’ve created already,” Jeremiah said.  “Your reputation is failing.  Just look at you.”

“Careful,” Cole said, his eyes feeling heavy.  He wished he could remember what sleep felt like.  “I have my position for a reason.”

“You will not have it for much longer,” Jeremiah said.  Cole heard him turn to go.

“Jeremiah,” Cole called.  He heard him hesitate.  “This is my final warning to you, to stay away from her.”

“Or what?”
Jeremiah scoffed.

“Or I will cause you to lose everything.”

“Look around you my friend,” Jeremiah laughed.  “I have nothing to lose.”

A smile cracked on Cole’s face as he looked over at his subordinate.  “You are so young.  Remember that you still have people you care for in the world of the living.  I am not above causing
them
to lose everything.”

Jeremiah’s face grew stony for a long moment.  Cole saw the way he swallowed hard, the way his fingers twitched.  “You dare not return to their world.  You will lose everything should you return.”

“Remember, I told you this was your final warning.”  Not waiting for a response, Cole spread his wings and pushed off from the walkway.

“
Consider well the seed that gave you birth:

you
were not made to live your lives as brutes,

but
to be followers of virtue and knowledge.”

- Canto XXVI, Inferno, Dante

The rain started to fall over the Rocky Mountains, the clouds thick and heavy.  Cole could smell the earth as he walked swiftly down the sidewalk.  He pulled his long, thick black coat tighter around his body as he turned right down another block.

The building that rose before him was simple to the extent of being sad.  Wilting flowers hung from baskets that looked ready to fall apart next to the front doors.  The gravel that formed the tiny parking lot had practically disappeared back into the Earth.

Letting the better part of him start slipping back into the afterlife, Cole let himself disappear from human eye and walked through the front door.  A nurse sat behind the front desk, filling out a chart.  She didn’t even glance up as he walked behind her, sliding his thumb along the charts that sat on a rack behind her.

Lawrence
Kepper
, Room 207.

Silently opening a drawer of the nurse’s cart, Cole reached inside and grabbed a syringe.

The smell of slow purification was almost overwhelming in the nursing home.  Death hung in every corner here, lay on the floor, just waiting for someone to trip over it.

Finding the door Cole was looking
for,
he slowly opened it and stepped inside.

The old man was sleeping in his skeletal looking bed.  He was old, but not old enough to be considered at the edge of death.  He would still have several years.  His scent wasn’t strong.

Cole let himself wander the small room, observing the wall that was covered entirely with pictures.  So many smiling faces, so many memories. 
All these happy people.
  How many of them would eventually end up under his reign?

He smiled as his eyes found a familiar face, staring back at him from a faded and slightly yellowed picture.

At least one of these faces already had.

Cole turned back to the sleeping man.  Observing the tube that ran from the crease of his arm to a clear bag attached to a tall silver pole, Cole felt the itch of anticipation.

The contents of his deadly syringe didn’t even discolor whatever it was in the old man’s bag, slowly running into his withered body.  They slipped un-alarmingly in, no one ever the wiser.

It would take some time, but eventually the old man’s heart would stop prematurely.

He would stand before the council.  And hopefully, Cole’s timing would be right.

Jeremiah should have headed Cole’s warning.