Descent07 - Paradise Damned (27 page)

It was time for the truth to come out—both for her and for Adam.

“Okay,” Elise said, feeling dead inside. “I know where we should go to find Nathaniel.”

Elise led them
through the garden, navigating its cobblestone paths with familiarity. She looked calm, but occasional stabs of pain flared through the bond—James could tell that being in the garden was hurting her.

But that was all he could tell. She had closed her mind to him, sealing away every thought. It had to be deliberate. Without the warding rings, it was difficult to block one another out.

James passed Ariane’s weight to Betty, then stepped to Elise’s side.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured, catching her hand.

Whether deliberately or simply because she was walking too far away, her hand slipped out of his immediately.

“Just a little farther,” Elise said. “Nathaniel’s up this way.”

She took them to a path that dipped below the roots of the Tree. A distant dripping sound echoed over the cobblestone. The only sources of light were luminescent blossoms, which splashed patterns of blue on the skulls set into the roots. It was too hard to see the path—James kept stumbling over rocks.

“Elise,” Ariane said. “Wait.”

Her daughter didn’t look back.

Ariane stopped walking, forcing Betty to stop, too. “I don’t think this is the right way,” she said.

James paused. “Elise?”

“This is right,” Elise said, continuing to walk. “Nathaniel’s just up here.”

“Come on,” Betty said, and she dragged Ariane on.

Elise led them to the end of the path under the roots, which was blocked by bushes. James could hear Mnemosyne rushing somewhere beyond. She hesitated with a hand on the branches, gazing up at James with wide black eyes. Elise’s mind was blocked to his, but he could see the question in them.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

Elise shook her head. “Nothing.”

They pushed through the bushes to find the river Mnemosyne just on the other side.

Two other people were already there. James glimpsed a man crumbled beside the river, gushing silver blood from his chest—Metaraon. Another man, tall and brown-skinned, stood over him. James could only look upon Him for a half-second before blazing gray light blinded him.

James’s head filled with the roaring of chimes. He fell to his knees, muscles instantly liquefied and head throbbing.

“It’s Him!” Ariane cried. Her voice was distorted. She collapsed beside James, unable to stand in the presence of God.

James reached for Elise, thinking that they should run, escape before He took them in His grip—but Elise wasn’t looking at him.

“Adam,” she said, as if happy to see Him.

Then Elise stepped into the circle of His arms, and James passed out.

XIII

Elise’s entire body
hurt to be in Adam’s embrace, but she didn’t pull away or cry out. She even managed to smile.

Adam wasn’t smiling back.

“What is the meaning of this?” He asked, indicating the people that Elise had brought with her. James and Ariane writhed on the ground, hands clapped over their ears. Her heart ached at the sight of their pain. But she kept smiling as much as she could.

“I’ve come to make amends,” Elise said.

“For nearly killing my son?”

Metaraon was curled on the ground behind Adam, still bleeding out of that chest wound. It would have killed anyone else already, but angels were hardier than that. Not only was he conscious and breathing, he looked
furious
to see Elise there.

“I did that to save you,” she said, forcing herself to take His hand. She didn’t look at James. She didn’t want to see the betrayal on his face when she could already feel it so clearly through their bond. “It’s time that you know the truth, Adam.”

“Silence,” Metaraon groaned. “Don’t listen to her.”

She raised the volume of her voice to talk over him. “Metaraon was in love with Eve, and he’s been trying to kill you ever since.”

“Lies!” Metaraon dragged himself toward Adam. His arms shook with the effort.

Adam gripped her hand hard, ignoring the angel at His feet. “How could you say that? He is my most loyal son.”

“He’s misled you for centuries, and I can prove it.”

“She’s trying to confuse you! Look at what she’s done—she’s brought
that woman
with her again, that woman that she loves better than you!” Metaraon jabbed an accusing finger toward Betty.

It wasn’t love that surged in Elise’s belly when she looked at the blond woman now. She wasn’t affected by the presence of God like Ariane and James were. Adam’s presence should have been unbearable to most mortals. Betty looked lost standing behind Ariane and James, and the expression seemed so genuine.

It was a lie.

Elise stooped to pick up a river rock, hefting it in one hand.

“That’s the woman that
you
brought into the garden, Metaraon,” Elise said, biting out every word as she approached her so-called friend.

“Elise?” Betty asked.

It wasn’t really Betty. She was an illusion. Just one more way for Metaraon to fuck with Elise.

She slammed the stone into the back of Betty’s skull.

The blood that poured out of her head looked real enough. Her scream sounded genuine. When Elise crouched over her, grabbing her throat in both hands, the fists that beat against Elise’s shoulders caused real pain.

Elise pressed her weight into Betty’s throat and held it.

People were shouting at her—James, Metaraon, Ariane—but Elise couldn’t hear the words over the roaring of blood in her ears.

The expression on Betty’s face faded. Her eyes rolled into the back of her skull, and she died at Elise’s hands.

Elise straightened. Her entire body was trembling.

By the time she returned to Adam’s side, Betty had vanished. She didn’t even leave behind a bloodstain.

A ghost.

“See?” Elise asked, and it was all but a miracle that she could keep her voice stable when inside, she was screaming. “Metaraon’s been manipulating us, Adam. ‘That woman’ was fake. Every woman he has brought here to be your bride has been a human with her mind twisted to believe that she was Eve.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “And he brought me here to kill you.”

Nobody was shouting anymore. Everyone stared at her.

When Adam spoke, it was with a soft, dangerous voice. “You said that you have proof?”

“No,” Metaraon said.

Elise swept a hand toward James and Ariane. “This is my proof. The two of them have the whole story. Open their minds and look.”

“Don’t trust her!”

Adam wasn’t listening to Metaraon anymore. He studied the two mortals, unaffected by Ariane’s sobs. “This one looks familiar,” He said, pointing at James.

Elise’s heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. I thought he might.”

Adam clapped His hands.

James and Ariane’s bodies stilled, frozen in time, as their minds opened to the garden.

The images crashed over Elise and Adam all at once, playing out in flashes and flickers among the trees. It was as though the memories were projected onto the surrounding world like home movies. Elise saw herself in several of them—as a small child with unruly red curls, as an older child with a sword in each hand and glaring eyes, as a woman drenched in blood.

Adam walked among the visions, dismissing some with a wave of His hand and lingering over others.

Elise turned to watch everything swirling through the fog, searching for the individual memories she expected to find. She wanted to see what James remembered of the garden. But she didn’t see anything—only his recent arrival.

“The man has wiped his own mind,” Adam said, flipping through a few images dragged from James’s mind with a twitch of His fingers. “He’s missing many memories. Those that remain are muddy.” He sneered with disapproval. “Witchcraft. I will break through his spells in a moment.”

Elise gazed at James’s rigid features, heart sinking lower and lower.

He had wiped his own mind of the garden. Why? So she wouldn’t see those thoughts through their bond?

“There,” Adam said. “I have cleared much of the fog.”

He played James’s memories in rapid succession. Elise watched everything unfold with growing dread: James’s early lessons with his aunt, Pamela Faulkner, and the moment that he walked through the door in Landon’s basement. She watched Metaraon order him to hunt her down and drag her back to the garden. And she saw the moment that he had realized that God had taken her, and the relief he had felt at knowing their running was over.

None of the memories were detailed. His magic had effectively burned the worst of it from his mind. But it was more than enough for Elise to know she had been betrayed.

“I only see Metaraon guiding you to my doorstep,” Adam said. “That’s hardly a conspiracy.”

It took Elise a minute to find the strength to reply. “Look at Ariane’s memories.”

Adam seized upon a memory, snagging it from the air like a firefly.

“This one,” He said, and they stepped into it together.

“I need you to bear a child,” Metaraon said.

Ariane was shocked by the proposal, thrown so boldly in her face without a hint of humility. “I’m only fourteen,” she said, rubbing her arms to warm them against the bite of the cold winter wind. It was too cold to be talking outside Pamela’s cabin, but Metaraon was unbothered. “I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

Metaraon looked impatient. “That won’t be a problem. I have a match for you. He is a kopis, and you will bind as his aspis.”

Ariane tugged on her hair, twirled the curls around her fingers, licked her chilly lips to warm them. She fidgeted to delay her response.

Landon and Pamela were waiting for Ariane by the front door of the Faulkner cabin. She was tempted to run to them, begging for escape. Yet she didn’t move.

Having a child so young—it was ridiculous. Ariane wasn’t sure she ever wanted to have babies. But this handsome, powerful man was offering to give her a kopis—a real kopis—and the only cost was a child.

“People have babies all the time,” Ariane said. “You could take any of them.”

“This one will be specially made to be a weapon. She will be a kopis, like her father, and the greatest hero ever known. She will live to conquer the most terrible villain. You will all be a part of history.”

Power. A place in history. Her future secured.

“Why do you want so badly to make this…weapon?” Ariane asked. Easier to think of the child she might have as a gun, or a bomb, than a baby. “What did this great villain do to deserve such a special death?”

His composure slipped. Tension corded Metaraon’s neck. “He killed the woman I love.”

Somewhere, underneath all of that anger, was a shattered heart. And Ariane’s heart broke for him, too.

Metaraon went on to tell her more. With words, he painted a picture of ancient wars, creatures slaughtered, cities devastated, helpless infants falling under his command. “And if we don’t kill Him soon, then He may very well break free and hurt many people again,” he said. “This is the only way. I have long searched for alternatives. Will you deliver the world from this madness?”

Ariane had little concept of wars and such great suffering, but she understood heartache. She saw it in every line of Metaraon’s body.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

Elise backed out of the memory to realize that Adam was watching with her. He stood at her side, white with shock, one hand extended as if on the verge of dismissing the memory.

Her stomach was knotted with sympathy for her mother, a foreign emotion. It couldn’t have belonged to Elise. It must have been one of Eve’s creeping urges.

“Did you see?” she asked, swallowing down those uncomfortable feelings.

Adam waved. The memory vanished.

“Metaraon was lying to her. I clearly didn’t kill you, Eve,” He said slowly. “How could I have? You’re with me right now.”

Elise grabbed His hand again. “Am I Eve? Check my mind.”

Adam hesitated.

“Don’t you want to know the truth?” she pressed.

In response, He peeled open her mind and stepped inside.

Elise’s life unfolded in front of them piece by piece, in jittering fragments and long breaths. She watched herself birthed from her mother’s body into the hands of an angel, then, a few days later, the first time her father held her. Isaac had said, “She’s awfully small.” He had been disappointed in her from the very beginning.

Adam led her to the memories of her early training. On her seventh birthday, she had received a pair of twin falchions and promptly killed a demon with them. “Good,” Isaac had said at that. “Very good.” It was a rare moment of approval, and utterly meaningless to Adam. He moved on.

He skipped through much of her adolescence, but paused to watch the first time that she had been dragged into the garden. He watched in bemusement as Elise spoke with the last Eve that had lived there, and coerced the cherubim into helping her escape.

The rest of it He skimmed through, as if He couldn’t bear to see it.

When her memories faded, He said, “You really aren’t her.” He sounded so heartbroken that she almost pitied Him. “But I saw pieces of her within you.”

“That’s the garden,” Elise said. “This entire place is a prison designed to contain you. We’re in Araboth. Not Eden—
Araboth.
And the only way you can be freed from it is to kill Metaraon.”

Adam didn’t acknowledge her counsel. He packed together James and Ariane’s memories and shoved them away.

Time resumed its normal pace.

He kneeled at Metaraon’s side. The angel was still bleeding profusely, and didn’t seem to realize that time had been interrupted at all. “Don’t listen to her,” Metaraon said, hands clutched to his wound. Silvery blood slicked his fingers.

“How could you bear to serve me for so long with so much hatred in your soul?” Adam asked, stroking Metaraon’s forehead. “All I have ever done is love you.”