Afterlife: A Fall of Angels Novelette (4 page)

Cole just closed his eyes as he listened to the two of them descend. 

This had to end soon or Jeremiah was going to discover Jessica’s little secret.  And then even he couldn’t help her anymore.

“
...not without cause is this going to the abyss; it is willed on high...”

- Canto VII, Inferno, Dante

From a distance, with Jeremiah in his sights as well, Cole saw familiar races gather in an overflowing garden, each dressed color matching clothes.  He could hear Jessica even from this far away.  The family started to get frantic when she didn’t walk out of the building on cue.  He heard Jessica’s cries, heard her tell everything to Alex.  Cole
couldn’t hardly
believe the boy was real.  With everything Jessica had thrown at him, he was still by her side.

Then arm in arm, they walked down the aisle and said words that only the world cared about.  They had been so unnecessary.  Even with all Cole had seen, he’d never witnessed two people more committed to each other.  Words repeating the commitment they had already made to each other seemed redundant.

The wedding was Cole’s final defeat.  He would never have Jessica.

But he didn’t deserve her.  Cole would never have sacrificed himself for love like Alex had for her.  Like Jessica would for him.

As Jeremiah withdrew something metallic and cold looking from his pocket, Cole finally made his approach.

“I would highly advise you put that back where it came from,” Cole said as he stopped at Jeremiah’s side, watching as Alex and Jessica shared their first kiss as husband and wife.

Jeremiah started, turning wide eyes on Cole,
then
flashing to the shiny silver gun he held in his left hand.

“Blood is such a terrible way to ruin a wedding,” Cole said, turning his flat back eyes on Jeremiah once again.

“What are you doing here?” Jeremiah hissed.  Even still, he put the gun back in his pocket.

“I should be asking you the same question,” Cole said, anger rising in his blood.

“You know why,” Jeremiah said coldly.  “She doesn’t belong here yet she hasn’t come to our world.”

“You have no idea how much you’re going to regret this day,” Cole said, his voice becoming a demonic growl.  Gripping Jeremiah by the back of the neck, Cole squeezed.  Jeremiah buckled to his knees instantly, blackness spreading from his neck, up his face, staining all visible skin.  Cole’s own veins struggled to leap out of his skin.

“It’s time to go home brother,” Cole breathed.

Cole stole one more glance at Jessica in her white lace, smiling at all the people who mattered to her, again arm in arm with the man Cole hated almost as much as he hated Jeremiah.  His chest gave a violent squeeze.

Before he could let the pain cripple him, Cole let him and Jeremiah slide back into the afterlife.

“
Without fame, he who spends his time on earth

leaves
only such a mark upon the world

as
smoke does on air or foam on water.”

- Canto XXIV, Inferno, Dante

The fire blaze through the blackened night.
  The contrast of the flames against the darkened trees was beautiful.

Cole had set the fire to the curtains in the ground floor living room first.  It quickly spread throughout the room, moving on into the kitchen.  From outside, he saw the glow as the fire spread to the second story.  A moment later a maddening beeping sounded.

He pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat, hearing a woman cough.  Only a few moments later he heard a scream.

Out here in these woods there would be no one to hear it.

A face appeared in the window.  A woman not much older than Jessica stared directly at him with wide terrified eyes.  She called to him, slapping her hand against the window, desperately calling to him for help.

Cole simply observed her as she lived the most terrifying time of her life.  Her features were delicate, framed with long, blond, straight locks.  She was thin but she looked fit, a woman able to handle herself.

But not a woman able to walk through fire.

As Cole simply stood there and watched, the woman looked back toward her only escape.  Even from his position Cole could tell the flames were too great for her to exit without causing herself mortal danger.

That was exactly how Cole planned it.

The woman came back to the window, pleading to him to help her.  Her cries became weaker as the smoke filling the house choked her.  One of her hands came to her throat, her eyes closing as she coughed over and over again.

Her eyes met his one last time before she shrank out of view.

Love and lust made Cole do terrible things.

The little twist at the bottom of Cole’s stomach was unexpected.  Taking the old man and the drunk had been easy. 
But watching this woman burn all alone out here made him think twice.

But she was the ultimate payback.

The woman Cole was hearing scream as the flames consumed her was Jeremiah’s own daughter.

Jeremiah was so young.

Her screams intensified, growing to the point of delirium.  Cole shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.  He didn’t like this feeling of internal itching, like he needed to do something.

It wasn’t until her screams stopped that Cole realized he wasn’t as much of a monster as he thought he was.

The front door crumbled as Cole’s foot collided with it.  The torrent of flames raged about him as Cole walked calm as night through them.  The hem of his long coat caught fire as he ascended the stairs.  Locating the room he had been watching the woman from below, he opened the door.  The skin on his hand burned away from the intense heat. 
And started healing instantly as he pushed the door open and let go.

The woman was collapsed beneath the window.  Not moving and barely breathing, Cole took his burning coat off, put the flames out, and wrapped it around her.  Lifting her body and holding it tightly against his, Cole grabbed the metal chair sitting at a desk.  Giving it a small heave, it shattered the glass and flew out into the nighttime air.

Glancing once more down at the woman in his arms, Cole took two steps away from the window.  Sprinting full speed forward, he leapt out the window.

His black shirt shredded as his glorious and powerful wings caught them as the sailed through the air.  With a gentle beat, he set the two of them back safely on the ground.

The woman’s eyes fluttered open, catching Cole’s eyes.  She didn’t say anything, just stared at him.

As Cole let his eyes slide over her body, he knew she wouldn’t make it long.  Seeing her now, he questioned his actions. 
Such a beautiful woman, such a waste.

“I truly am sorry,” he said quietly as he brushed her hair away from her burned flesh.  “It’s nothing personal.”

She continued to stare at him, her eyes calm as they observed him.  Cole felt his skin start to tighten, felt the familiar twist in his core.

“Are you real?” she asked in a raspy whisper.

“Not until you pass from this world,” he said quietly.  In the reflection of her eyes, he saw the blackness start spreading around his own.

Feeling around the woman’s pockets, Cole found what he was searching for.  He pulled out her cell phone and after a minute, figured out how to dial a number.

“911, what is your emergency?” a man asked on the other line.

“There’s been a fire at 2119 County Road.  Send an ambulance.”  And Cole hung up the phone.

“Thank you,” the woman said, too eerily calm for what she had just gone through.  Maybe it was the smoke inhalation. 

“If only it was going to be enough,” Cole whispered as he wrapped his coat tighter around her.  “I will make sure your judgment is as easy as possible.”

“What?” she started to ask before she started coughing violently.  Her face scrunched up in pain and agony.

Cole straightened, his eyes never leaving her pained face.  “I truly am sorry. 
Something that I am not very often.”

Before he could let guilt fully form, Cole let himself be pulled to the world she would soon be joining.

"Midway upon the journey of our life,

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straight
foreward
pathway had been lost."

-Canto I, Inferno, Dante

The score was even.  In this game where the other team wasn’t even aware it was playing, Cole had settled the score.  The game was about to end and Jeremiah was going to learn just how many points Cole had beaten him by.

The final straw had been when Jeremiah dared try to murder Jessica at her own wedding.

Even with Cole’s twisted side he knew Jessica deserved that day, after all he and his kind had put her through.

And so Cole had taken the one thing in this life Jeremiah still cared about.

Feeling the familiar pull within him, Cole knew it was almost
time
.  The council was being called for trial.

Everyone’s time had run out.

Settling into his seat, an evil smile curled on Cole’s face.  As Jeremiah settled next to him, Cole felt the stir of victory grow within his chest.  A man was brought to stand before them, his name read.

Cole heard Jeremiah half gasp, half choke.

“Grandpa?”
Jeremiah whispered so quietly only Cole could hear him.

The old man stood on the catwalk, his face covered, his hands bound. 
The old man from the rest home.

“Please,” he started to cry.  “It wasn’t time.  I told them there was something wrong with my medication.  I didn’t… I didn’t get to say good-bye.”

But it was too late for reasoning.  The man was dead.

The leader of the exalted started the trial and soon the deeds of this man’s life were being rattled off.

Jeremiah squirmed in his seat, his fingers threatening to crush the stones beneath his hands.

There was nothing quite like the satisfaction of revenge.

Grandpa was soon tried and unlike his posterity, was granted blue eyes and escorted to the above.

Jeremiah sat very still with two of his fingers pressed to his lips as they waited for the next poor soul to be brought before them.