Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 (31 page)

And I’ve seen all this shit before—two sides of the same coin—bad and worse—State politicians on the left and the right, each telling the masses that the other is the greatest threat to their freedom and faith, turning man against brother and daughter against mother, twisting words and telling lies to keep the people at each other’s throats. Then they laugh and pillage, and rape and plunder the whole time they are in power.

It’s complete bullshit—mind control at its finest. Because one of them beats the people with his left hand until everyone begs him to let the other one beat them with her right. And the only truth in the whole mess. . . The only shred of reality in between the lies and the manipulation and the fear and the desperation is, that they are both just gonna beat the living shit out of you . . . every last day of your life.

And when I think that the rant in my head has just about got my black blood boiling enough, I realize that the thing in the middle of the arena—in the middle of the arena next to the Dark Angel—is the father’s charred, angel-winged body.

It is him, isn’t it—Faith? I mean, who else could it be? And then I think,
Oh, you mother
. . . That better not be Rain, because I don’t see her anywhere. Knowing is not seeing it for yourself, though. “Motherfucker!” I yell at Dal.

Technically, I guess it’s true, but it’s not the time. And I race at him, leaving Salvation and Fury to gawk and get their bearings at the edge of the jewel-studded field of the Arena of Reckoning. It’s a fitting name for the place, because that’s what I’m bringing.

It only takes a couple of steps for me to flap and take flight. And I pump and push on the air in the hall and I can hear my wings swooshing loudly. And then the clucking and cawing of the crowd in the grandstands turns to a roar and then screeching confusion, but the gallery isn’t flying away this time, because tonight—Faith or Fury, Lion or Lamb—none of them cares—they came to witness judgment. They are here to see blood spill for the Word—they want to see the gladiators fight.

When Dal sees me, he roars and bursts into flames. And huge plumes of black smoke and orange flame boil from his great steel feathers. But it’s too late and I ram into him as hard as I can and a huge plume of smoke and fire blasts heat toward the roof. The fireball is so intense that the whole gallery gasps as the entire hall flashes orange from the flame.

And we are rolling and tumbling in a ball of spitting and snarling and growling, and lashing teeth and tongues, and clawing talons. And then the whooping and the hooting starts.

I know I should feel the gouges in my side—he’s pierced me at least twice—but the only thing I can taste is sweet rage and vengeance. Burning smoke and acid coat my nostrils with the hot smell of flaming oil. And I should be on fire, but for some reason I’m not, and even he is confused by that, because he pauses for a split second. But his anger is an unquenchable fire—trust me, I know the look—and he is hell-bent on shooting it up my ass.

“Not today!” I yell at him and throw him off me in a rolling ball of sparks and flames.

And when he recovers, he springs onto all four sets of talons like a cat. In a flash of flame, he’s airborne and flying in a tight circle, headed toward the roof.

I doubt that he’s running. Shit, I wouldn’t run either. But an attack from above is dangerous—high ground is an advantage—so when he banks and his trail of fire heads back down toward me, I jump up and flap hard to meet him.

At about fifty yards between us, the both of us are blasted by the most powerful bright light I’ve seen. And we both spin out of control, flapping and flying backward to escape it. And I cover my eyes. I’m sure he is doing the same, because the light is so hot that the feathers around the edges of my face burn a little.

Then a voice shakes the entire mountain and the hall shivers and shakes. “Enough!”

— LXV —

AND SHINING AS bright as she ever has, is my little Amy—Rain—in the middle of the arena. And I can barely see her, even with my sunglasses on, but when I do I can tell she is scared.

Standing next to her, with her arm stretched out and gripping Rain on the shoulder is the Queen of Hearts—the Chosen One. She says, “Who among you challenges that vengeance is mine?”

And the both of us—the bastard and I—flap and then flutter to the gem-studded floor of the arena. I have no idea why, but I’m listening instead of ripping the guts out of them both.

“I will choose how to repay,” says the Queen. “That is my right.”

And a roar of agreement caws through the great hall, as the faithful get ready for what she has in store—her judgment.

“And I will execute them all with my wrath,” she says. “So you will all know that I am the Chosen One, when I lay my vengeance upon them.”

And she’s holding Rain and I hear Salvation screech from the edge of the arena for her chick. I hold my hand up behind me, letting her and Fury both know they should wait. Because I can see the death and destruction behind Life’s glowing black orbs. She is ready to burn it all down to survive.

Nothing worse than a lame duck leader. They got nothing to lose and that makes them totally dangerous. And isn’t that just the true definition of a God. “Fucking bitch. . .” I mutter.

And the dark angel beside me grunts his agreement. I’ll get to his guts soon enough.

“Their end will correspond to their deeds,” the Queen says.

And the crowd goes nuts, flapping and cawing and screeching like rabid soccer fans. When it looks like the gallery isn’t going to settle down without some intervention—

“Calm yourselves, my brothers and sisters,” and yes, that’s my real voice, booming above hers. Because while the father was busy rewriting his
Book of Blood
, I was busy boning up on the bile of the benevolent in the
Bible
. “Did not you serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things? And therefore shall you not serve your enemies whom she has sent against you?”

And that little bit throws a serious wrench in the Queen of Hearts’ little plan to start lopping off heads. And I can see that she is pretty pissed off now, because no ones like their own words shoved down their throats.

But if there’s anything I can tell you about what I learned from old archived fight waves—the faithful fans are some fickle fuckers when the fighting starts. In the beginning, they tend to swing toward whoever gives them the best show, and then—once the blood starts spilling—it’s back to who they think will win. They switch teams like a bisexual bitch in heat.

I can see she is angry, but this next part infuriates her. “For I have seen her wrath and I have delivered it in kind,” I say. And I look toward the side of the arena at Fury and Salvation.

And my sweet Salvation is just awestruck—her mouth is slightly open and I’ve made her speechless. It’s hard to do. And I smile at her. She knows I’m an angry son of a bitch, but this shit. . . I rarely calm down long enough to debate with someone.
 

“And I rained Fury and Salvation down on those you were all sworn to protect. We left them as she commanded!” And I raise up my arms at the gallery, and start to turn slowly. “In the end, they wallowed in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and blood, lacking everything. And I watched them all perish at her command. Trust me, brothers and sisters, she is a heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal and unloving ruler. And she will put that same yoke of iron faith around your neck . . . until she has destroyed you all.”

And the gallery goes absolutely wild. Because there are some campfire stories that are true. No matter how beautiful and benevolent someone seems on the outside, there is someone, somewhere who is sick and tired of her shit. Judging from the cawing and hooting and howling coming from the grandstands, a whole lotta someones.

Now, the Chosen One totally panics. Because the only thing a big, bad, benevolent angel fears more than losing her power, is getting tarred and feathered by her flock afterward.

And she points at the dark angel next to me . . . and then she starts making mistakes. “I am Life—the Lord your God,” she says, “who brought you out of the dark angel’s house of slavery. And he shall
not
be your god before me. You shall
not
bow down to him or serve him, for I—the Lord your God—am a jealous God. And I will visit your iniquity on your children to the third and the fourth generation of those of you who dare defy me!”

Apparently angels can
. . . I think.
Not the time.

Then the mistakes get bigger, and a bolt of white hot lightning flashes from her pointing finger and pierces into Dal and he pretty much explodes in a fiery flash of moaning souls and crying babies.

And a huge ball of orange flame rolls slowly toward the ceiling above the arena. And the great mountain shakes so hard that chunks of the pillars holding up the roof fall away and crash to the floor, sending white and red jewels flying, like bits of broken promises—crimson chunks of lies spray across the arena.

And the gallery is “screechless”—half of them staring at their master and the other half wondering where the finger is going to point next.

Then she says, “And when the two thousand years are ended, the dark angel will be released from this prison where I have sent him. And so I have released him from his present one.”

Release. . .
I guess that’s one way to interpret it,
I think. And if I was going to feel some sort of kinship with who the father said was mine, it should be now. But I got nothing except more empty vengeance in my heart—she just took more blood away from my parched thirst for revenge.

Then she looks at me, and I have no idea what’s next, because if a few talons can pump black blood from me, what is a lightning bolt from this bitch gonna do? But then I feel something from him. His exploded chunks of a corpse, anyway.

A low moaning of souls builds and builds until everyone in the gallery can hear it too. I can’t see the faces of all the angels perched in the grandstands, but I am sure they are pigeon-shitting themselves at the sound—at least half of them, for sure. Because she just killed their master and now whatever power he had, is smoking and steaming out of the chunks of him on the floor of the great hall. And when it does, the steam wafts around, circling in an orange fog of confusion for a little bit, before it pauses and races, and before I can do shit, rams itself right down my throat.

And I can feel the bile and the hopelessness, and the misery and the pain of billions of misspent souls—fallen angels roosting their faithlessness right inside my heart. I can feel the father’s soul, too, mixed in among them. And that shit right there . . . was
not
in the plan. Though I’m starting to see that the plan is breaking apart at the seams.

Then she says to me, “You are of your father, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has no kinship with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

And that’s a whole lotta lying from a woman who knows how to tell them. But whatever I was before and whatever I am now, I’m no bitch, hiding behind lies.

— LXVI —

THE GALLERY OF angels doesn’t stay hushed for long. At least half of them can see that the tide is rising against them. Which half is anyone’s guess, though, and the clucking and cawing starts. Then the screeching and screaming comes, like a billion drunk football fans, threatening and spitting beer at the other team. And once the kickoff starts. . . There are no “Angel Arena Security” to call when the enraged followers in Heaven start to brawl.

And I give Rain the signal to fly. . . . Then again. And I zoom in on her face. She was too bright before, but there’s something around her—“Rosary. . .” I mutter. And that’s how they got her to turn on her own father.

But I’m guessing by this point, even the Chosen One has no idea who she is fucking with. And I jump up and fly—faster than even I think I can. And before I know it myself, I’m holding the Rosary beads that were around Rain’s neck and I land back where I started. Because no matter what happens to me, Rain doesn’t need to defile herself with what’s coming next.

And as soon as she realizes it’s gone, Rain bursts light so bright that every angel in the arena clamps their eyes shut at the sting. And then she shoots straight up like a comet, leaving a trail of white sparks and shooting stars behind her. And the roof opens and she’s out. And the last ounce of innocence and hope in this fucked-up hall flies out with her.

And
that
is how you turn the tide against a titan.

I’m hardly through. I boom out my voice—more lion sounding now—and try to hush the gallery, “There are six things that I hate!”

And that calms the place down a little, because they all know the chapter and verse of that. But, fair warning, because I look right in her face . . . and bastardize the shit out of it on purpose. “Nasty, black, haughty eyes . . . a bitch with a lying tongue and a heart that devises wicked plans . . . lust-filled feet that make haste to run to evil’s bed”—I pause for a second and look to the grandstands. They’re eating it up. Then I look back at her—“a false god who breathes out against the truth . . . a hand that compels others to shed innocent blood!”

And now the crowd has joined together and the screeching and cawing has turned against her. And she’s waiting and I can see the glow in her black orbs growing.

And I smile and continue, “And any Devil-fucker who sows discord among my brothers and sisters!”

And what did I say about fickle fans? But before I can wallow in the self-satisfied sarcasm of my own bastardized words, a bolt of lightning hits me square in the chest and sends sparks and fire flying up in the air above me and I’m hurtling backward, wings useless to stop me from slamming into a pillar at the edge of the great arena. And everything goes dark.

— LXVII —

WHEN I WAKE up from the consequences of my self-righteous rant, Salvation and Fury are hovered over me like a couple of State Med-mart nurses, wondering if they are wheeling me to recovery or tagging my toe for the morgue.