Fallen - 22. Chapter 22 - Seraph

Instantly I drop the clothes and run to his side. “Bridge? Bridge, are you alright?”

I raise him in my arms, wondering again at how light he is. It’s as if his bones are hollow. Is it because he is fey?

“He fell, Luma. There was nothing we could do, no time. He was standing watching you and then suddenly he just fell.”

“He exhausted himself. I should have stopped it. I should have known this would happen. He really doesn’t have the energy for something like this.”

“Is he going to be alright?”

“For now, I think so.” He is already stirring, the long, long lashes fluttering as he sighs deeply and nestles his head into my shoulder.

“For now?”

I look up at Star. I don’t need to say anything, they all know the score.

“What happened?” Bridge whispers into my neck as I carry him back into the house.

“You overdid things, just like I said you would. You passed out.”

He sighs. “I’m tired Luma.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“No... I’m tired Luma. I can’t...”

“Ssh... It will be fine Bridge. You’re going to be okay.”

“Will you stay with me tonight?”

“Of course I will.”

“We all will.” Star says impulsively and I glance at him. He drops his eyes and turns away. I feel like I’ve swallowed glass.

Bridge is asleep by the time we get to the bedroom. He wakes briefly when I tuck him under the covers and he even makes a real effort to talk to us but it isn’t really working, he’s exhausted and incoherent and it is a huge relief for him when I lie down next to him and gently stroke his hair and shoulder.

“Go to sleep now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What on earth are you sorry for?”

“Being so much trouble.”

“No matter what you do you could never be trouble to me, little one. You are a light that illuminates my life. I would do anything to keep it shining brightly.”

He gives me a strange look and does his best to smile. “I know,” he whispers, “but...”

“Ssh.” I touch his lips with my finger. “There is no but. Sleep, and tomorrow you will be feeling much better.”

“You’ll stay?”

“Right here; all night.” I lean forward and breathe as much sweetness as I can muster into him, holding him close as he sinks into sleep.

Afterwards I can’t let him go. I breathe in his sweet smell and listen to his soft sighs and let myself fill with him. I hadn’t realised I was crying until I feel Star’s arms slide around me and his light kisses on my hair. Although I don’t want to let go he draws me slowly and carefully away from Bridge and into his arms.

When I feel his arms around me and his warm, silk covered chest under my cheek and I think how different he is to Bridge who is always so cold, the pain washes over me in wave after wave of sorrow and I weep. Star cradles and sooths me like a child and for once I am happy to let go the control and allow him to.

Shockingly I fall asleep in his arms. I don’t do that. I don’t cry myself to sleep and I don’t let myself be weak and most of all I don’t fall asleep in the arms of someone who is protecting me, taking care of me, loving me.

I wake up in the darkness of the night and find that I am still in his arms as he sleeps. Careful not to wake him I slide out from under him and stand up. Bridge is still fast asleep in Sacha’s arms and they both look peaceful. Bridge even has a slight smile on his face and it tugs at my heart.

Unable to bear the confines of the room any longer I go out into the garden and breathe deeply the fragrant night air. I feel feverish. I have never been so reluctant to see the sun rise. I walk and wonder. Would it really be so bad to just leave him to recover his strength for another day? Wouldn’t it be possible just to give him a little energy, just a boost to help him withstand the rest of the treatments? And besides, he’s surprised me every day, he’s so much stronger than he looks. He’ll be able to withstand one more... won’t he? If I could just have one more day, one more chance. I will take the chance and finish it today. If he is strong when he wakes I will end it. I will take the sickness away completely and if...

The touch on my shoulder makes me jump. When I turn I have to bite back a cry of shock. It is absolutely the last person I would ever have expected.

“I saw you walking alone and wondered if you wanted some company.”

“I... I thought you would have been in bed long since.”

“I thought you knew me better than that.”

Despite myself I have to smile. We fall into step side by side and the comfortable silence of old friends falls between us.

“So what are you brooding about this time? As I remember it the last thing you got this worked up about was the First World War... and before that the French Revolution.”

“They got in the way of my plans for world domination.”

“There is only one thing you have ever sought to dominate, and that’s not really a ‘thing’ at all is it?”

I give him a piercing look and he returns it with his wide eyed, innocent smile.

“You were always too perceptive.”

“Me? Perceptive? You have to be joking.” The innocent smile doesn’t slip for a moment.

“I never joke about things like that.”

“No. You have never been one for jokes, although you used to smile more.”

“I used to have more to smile about.”

“No you didn’t. You’ve never had more to smile about, not ever.”

“You’re talking through your arse.” I grind out.

“Oh my, aren’t we waxing lyrical this morning?”

“I don’t feel very lyrical.”

“No.”

We walk on in silence until we reach the rose garden. He pauses to touch the petals of a red rose. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

“What?”

“The rose; it’s beautiful.” He picks it and holds it delicately to his nose. He is truly beautiful in the pale pre dawn light and the smile on his face is gentle and sweet. “It smells as beautiful as it looks.” He holds it in the palm of his hand and offers it to me. Puzzled I reach for it but before I can touch it he closes his hand and crushes it. I stare in shock as rivulets of blood trickle through his fingers. He smiles.

“Beauty like this is captivating but fleeting and when it’s crushed it makes you bleed, when it wilts it’s even worse because then there is no blood, there is only dust. Is it better to not let it close to your heart; to turn away from the garden and stop smelling its sweetness? Or is it better to open your heart to be torn to shreds by the thorns?”

He pauses, looking at me. “Are you really expecting me to answer that?” I snap.

The direct, piercing look continues for a long moment and then he smiles. He opens his hand and the smell of crushed roses rises into the night air. It makes me feel sick. Then he purses his pretty lips and blows gently on his hand. I blink as a crowd of delicate pink butterflies rise and I follow them with my eyes as they soar into the sky.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know the answer. You’ve always known the answer, but even when you were told you wouldn’t accept it. You can’t do it on your own, you never could.” I lower my eyes to meet his as he slides his arms around me and I stare into his baby blue eyes.

“What are you?”

He smiles, his lips parting as he draws closer. It seems as if his eyes are growing larger and larger, dominating my vision and I am hardly breathing when our lips meet. He is like a peach; soft, rounded and smooth on the outside, but with a centre of stone.

His lips leave mine and wander down to the base of my throat making me tremble. I gasp as he kisses me, slowly and with incredible sensuousness. I let my head fall back, feeling dizzy. “What are you?” I find myself asking again.

“Think of me as your guardian angel,” he whispers into my neck, his lips and breath tickling the sensitive skin, “here to stop you making the biggest mistake of your life. It’s up to you Lumin’el. You’ve been on your own too long, the question is will you realise it in time; will you end this day with a handful of crushed rose petals or a cloud of butterflies flying for the moon.”

“I...” Before I can speak I find myself falling backwards to the sound of soft laughter. My last thought was ‘How does he know my name?’ and then... and then...

I open my eyes and blink in the bright sunlight. I am lying in Star’s arms. How did I get here? Was it a dream? Confused I slide carefully out from under Star’s arm. He stirs but doesn’t wake. The other two are fast asleep, just as they had been the last time. I stand looking down at them and I now have two things to be concerned about.

With a sigh I turn and walk out of the room. The sunlight is streaming through the windows and it is going to be another beautiful day. I take a quick shower and dress simply. It’s still only eight o clock so I wander aimlessly for a while and find myself outside a door. I put my hand on it to open it and then I pause and knock. A surprised voice calls, “Come in.”

He’s lying on the bed; ankles crossed, arms behind his head, staring out of the window. As usual every flat surface, including the floor is scattered with paper and discarded clothes. The door of the wardrobe is open spilling more clothes onto the floor. The television is buried under a pile of clothes and the computer is about to vanish under the papers stacked on the desk. Something crackles when I take a step inside and I bend to pick up a piece of paper. It bears a water colour painting of a pink butterfly, so delicate and so detailed I could swear it is about to fly away.

I gently place it on a nearby table and look around at the rest of the papers that have been scattered around seemingly haphazardly. They are all paintings, all of individual subjects, all in watercolour and ink in shades of lilac and pale pink. There is a rose, a five pointed star with flowers at each point, an angel, a claw, a chalice... frankly they creep me out and I can't really say why.

Shuffling the paintings together I place them carefully on the table with the butterfly while he watches me thoughtfully. I glance around the room. The only part of it that is neat and organised is the part he uses as an art studio. There is an easel, a set of drawers that house paper, paints, pencils and various other things that I ignorantly think of as useless tat. He is a talented artist but careless with his work.

“What have you been working on?” I know him well enough that when I see work scattered in some kind of order on the floor I know that he has been spending time sitting cross legged on the bed frowning at them.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “It came to me but now it’s done I don’t know what it means.”

“They’re very beautiful.” I pick up the rose and stare at it. I can almost smell it. I trace the delicate petals with my finger.

“Did you come here to discuss my art, My Lord?” He always gives a very slight emphasis to the ‘My Lord’ that, coupled with the hint of a smile on his face, makes it sound as if he’s mocking me. Maybe he is.

“Much as I find that I would like to discuss your art and much as I realise how long I’ve neglected doing that...” I suddenly find myself caught up with my own words and I raise my eyes again to really look around me. The walls are covered with artwork in different mediums hung, often pinned carelessly ; overlapping, complimenting, clashing. With the mounds of clothes the room is a cacophony of colour and...

Something is bothering me. Something about the art... the colour, the subjects; something is screaming at me but I can’t see it.

“My Lord?”

I drag my eyes back to the boy who is smiling at me with a look in his eyes that for some reason makes me shiver.

“I’m sorry. I got... distracted. Was it you?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Was what me?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Uh oh, that sounds serious. What am I supposed to have done now... My Lord?” He’s playing with me. I have often had this feeling with him before and nothing has changed but this time I am watching and it is clear. I look into his big blue eyes, gazing innocently up at my through his thick lashes and his perfect lips lifted in a slightly mocking smile and suddenly I laugh.

“What are you?”

The smile slips from his lips and his eyes stop mocking me filling instead with a smouldering look that makes my own smile vanish. I shiver. An enormous natural force is rising up in front of me and I feel like a butterfly pinned to a board.

He stares into my eyes and lifts a hand to touch my cheek, making me shiver. “You’ve asked me that before.” He whispers through those beautiful soft lips that I suddenly want to kiss so badly I can taste it.

“You never answered me.”

He circles me and I turn with him, like dancers in a sensual tango. “I think I did.”

“So it was you... in the garden?”

He stops circling and brushes his lips over mine, making me tingle. “Who else?”

“You said you are my guardian angel.”

He smiles a strange smile. “I have a strange sense of humour.”

“Everything about you is strange.”

“Not everything.” He kisses me harder, smelling of smoke and roses. His hands press against my back and I swear he is drugging me with his breath.

“No... I...”

“Ssh,” he murmurs without taking his lips from mine. I feel his tongue slip into my mouth and then everything... changes. The room seems to melt into a kaleidoscope of swirling colour and the only thing that is stable is his face, his eyes. I feel as if he is lifting me and then I am lying down and he is on me, skin against skin. His lips... his wonderful soft lips are roving over my body and his tongue flicks fire into me.

“Wait I...”

“Relax, My Lord. This is my time. Open to me.” This time there is no mistaking the mockery, or the command in his voice. A kernel of doubt worms in my mind. When I spoke to Astaria and Star of the companion who has been with me the longest it is him. He has been at my side for more than three hundred years. When I took him he was a boy of seventeen and now... he still looks like a boy of seventeen. What if... what if when I took him he only seemed to be seventeen? What if...?

“What if I really am your guardian angel?” He slides up my body like a snake and presses his lips against mine. “After all... you named me yourself.”

I try to speak but I can’t, and then I lose my ability to form coherent thoughts as he raises his hips and slides his hand between us, sending me spinning on a journey such as I have never been on before. Occasionally I am aware of his face, his eyes unblinking and wide, his lips curving, his tongue... oh Hel the things that tongue is doing to me.

Gradually the swirling colours change. At first they are blue and green and purple shot through with dark reds and black, but they slowly change and the red becomes crimson and the black turns spiky, striking sparks and igniting flames in my guts. I burn. Oh Hel I burn.

I become aware of a desperate grunting noise interspersed with whimpers and I gradually come to realise that it is me. My body is on fire, shaking uncontrollably. I have never been out of control of my body before and I am not sure I entirely like it.

“Of course you like it.” The sweet voice whispers in my ear. “Or at least you’re about to.”

The world explodes and my gut turns to fire. I feel him enter me but it feels huge, as if it is no longer our bodies that are joined but two worlds, worlds of fire, worlds of heat, worlds of... of...

He rides me hard and fast, his head thrown back, his hair cascading in waves of gold down his back. His skin is sunkissed, sparkling with a diamond sheen. He is a god, a creature of legend a... a...

“Fuck. Fuck!”

“It’s taken a while,” he says smiling down at me his angel face surrounded by golden flames, his eyes exploding, each pupil a supernova, a galaxy of exploding stars. For a moment time stops, the earth stops spinning, the universe holds its breath. For a moment we are suspended in nothing. For a moment he is as big as a planet, as wild as the wind, as beautiful as a mother’s smile.

And then it all crashes back and he plunges into me and triggers a climax that I swear shakes the foundations of the house.

I lie gasping for breath like a fish out of water and slowly become aware of someone stroking my chest. Two realisations hit me... I am naked and I am naked with Him.

“What...?” I gasp looking up into his eyes. Serif smiles a gentle smile that is more open than any I have ever seen on his face.

“Hello Lumin’el.”

“But... but how...? Why? Why did you never say anything?”

“You weren’t ready to hear.”

“But... you have been with me for over three hundred years. How have you hidden it for so long?”

“I haven’t,” he says smiling. “I never hid anything; you just chose not to see.”

“But you have... you must have...”

“You’ve tasted my blood Luma. I’ve seen it in your eyes that you have always known, from the start, that I am not human. When you drained me yesterday you knew that you had gone beyond what a human could recover from. You knew from the moment you raised your head that I should have been long dead. You knew... you just didn’t want to see.”

“Why...?”

“What would you have done Luma? Three hundred years ago, what would you have done if I had said to you that I am as you are; if I had shown you what lies in my soul? Would you have taken me to your breast? Would you have loved me? Would you have kept me with you? Two hundred years ago? A hundred; fifty; ten? What would you have done a year ago Luma?”

I look away but he forces my face back to look into his eyes. “What would you have done Luma,” he asks softly. “Would you have run?”

I shake my head and tell the truth. “No. I would have fought you to the death.”

He smiles. “I would have expected nothing else.”

“So what changed? Why now? Why have you revealed yourself now?”

“I told you Luma, I never hid. You were the one who was hiding. It wasn’t me who changed; it was you.”

“Much as I would like to believe that, I know it isn’t true.” I smile and reach up to touch the wonderful spun gold hair. Now that I know, I can see it, of course I can, of course I always have. I can practically see the shadow of wings on his back. “Are you first generation?” I ask, not really knowing why.

“Depends what you mean by that. I was there when you fell but I didn’t stand by you in the fall. I didn’t believe what you believed not then. I wasn’t banished. I was a spoiled child, a cosseted spoiled brat. I thought I knew everything.”

“What changed?”

He climbs off me and lies down at my side, making himself comfortable and wrapping a blanket around us. “I did.” A thousand years is a long time; five, six. I grew up. Things didn’t stop when you left, they carried on and they didn’t get any better. The Council got more and more powerful and they used the threat of what happened to you to quell any kind of resistance.

“Over time they became corrupt.” He laughs shortly. “No, they were already corrupt, but after you were banished there was no one left to show up the corruption. There were others who saw, of course there were and, as the centuries wore on there were more and more and they started to speak up.” He frowns and gives me an appraising look, then continued.

“At first the Council tried to quash the rebellious talk. They got harsher and harsher until it was practically a dictatorship and people lived in fear. It couldn’t last. There were outbreaks of rebellion, wars if you like and the Council kept coming down harder and harder on anyone who spoke against them. One of them was my best friend...” He hesitates. “My lover. He just couldn’t keep quiet any more and he had to confront the injustice.”

He pauses again and his eyes are bright with tears. “They ‘made an example’ of him. They... took him into the square in front of the temple and stripped him. They beat him and humiliated him... and then... then they burned him.”

“Burned him?”

“Seraphim.”

“But you...”

“Yeah... yeah I am a Seraph. I didn’t take part but my friends and family did. The people I loved and trusted did. The people I looked up to; that I cared for; that had reassured me and comforted me... they all did. They wanted me to take part. They demanded that I help to destroy the one person who had ever touched my soul. They threatened me and warned me, segregated me and constantly chipped away at my resolve.

“I was humiliated, beaten, locked up, abused, spat on. On the last day I walked out into the square and watched. He looked into my eyes and kept looking into them until they cut him off from my view. I listened to his screams, watched my friends and family surround him and burn him and then I knelt in the ash and wept.

“They dragged me away and locked me in the cellars of the city hall. They told me I would be put on trial for treason and I would be lucky to escape his fate.”

“Damn. What did you do?”

“I sat and wept for three days. At that time I was ready to accept death and I was simply waiting for it. But then... I started to think, to wonder what good it would do if I died, what difference it would make in our world if one more voice was silenced. I started to dream about him and in every dream he was yelling at me; telling me that he would be so disappointed if I just gave up, that I would dishonour his memory, throw his love back in his face if I wasted it; wasted my life.” He looked up and grinned at me. “So I blasted through the walls and walked away.”

“Didn’t they come after you?”

“Of course they did?”

“But...”

“I’m a Seraph, Luma.” He shrugs. There is no need to say more. The Seraphim are truly a force to be reckoned with. When in their true form just to look at them is death. They contain a fire so hot and intense it melts rock.

“Why did you come here?”

“Where else did I have to go? I couldn’t stay there. Quite apart from the fact they were beying for my blood I couldn’t stand what the Council were doing to our people any more. So I left. I went to the hub and spoke to Astaria; and she sent me to you.”

I groan. “Astaria, I should have known.”

“She’s a force Luma. We’re only lucky that the Council never took her seriously. She was a human after all: what power did she have: what could she do to upset the balance? You would have thought they would have learned by now.”

“They have learned.” He raises an eyebrow. “They’ve sent her back to the spiral.”

Serif laughs. “That doesn’t surprise me. Did she tell you that they’re on the brink of war?”

“She mentioned a war.”

“They’re poised to bring down the Council... or at least to try.”

“Really?” I thought that I would feel more when this day came. I thought that the prospect of the Council falling would make me feel.... something. But now it comes down to it I really don’t care. It makes no difference to me whether they stand or fall. Revenge is hollow and I would never go back, no matter what. This is my home now.

Serif smiles. “You don’t look too excited about the news.”

“I’m not. That part of my life is closed now. Eden is no longer my home; this is.”

“But wouldn’t you want to be able to go back? Even if you don’t want to live there any more wouldn’t you like to be able to go back, to see your friends again?”

“I don’t have any friends there now.”

“No, but if the exiles were allowed to return you would have.”

For a moment my pulses race. To see them again; to hold them; to... They were my men, my loyal followers. The last time I saw them they were bleeding and dying, following me into an exile of the soul. To see them whole again; together again? But those times are gone.

“It would be nice, yes... but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge ... for all of us. I don’t know...”

He looks serious. “I know what you mean. I feel like that... kind of. I couldn’t look them in the eyes again. I couldn’t live among them. But it’s different for you. You had friends who were exiled with you...”

“Seven thousand years ago. Do you have any idea how much people change in seven thousand years of exile?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I have never thought about it. I suppose you’re right. But you wouldn’t turn them away would you? If they came knocking at your door you wouldn’t turn them away?” He sounds anxious and I narrow my eyes.

“What do you know?”

He looks down. “Well... are you going to send me away?”

“No, of course not. You are who you are, who you always were. The way I feel about you, that I’ve felt about you for the last three hundred years, hasn’t changed... although perhaps we can drop the My Lord now. Technically I should be saying that to you.”

“Perhaps I should make you... for a while. It could be amusing.” The smile fades and he shakes his head. “But what if there were others? Another?”

I narrow my eyes again and there is a flash of fear in his. A lightbulb goes on. “Taz.” He bites his lip. “I should have known. There is NO way that a human would have survived my seed.”

“He is not first generation. He is Taz’s son by a human woman. He was born here about five thousand years ago.”

“He found her again then.” I say thinking back to beautiful Tazi’el and his lovely wife. She was pregnant at the fall, many were, my beautiful Astaria for one. None of those children survived but many of the humans were simply sent back to the spiral and not exiled outside of it. If I have found my way back here then it is reasonable to suppose that others would have too. Funny that I have never thought of it before. I have never cared before.

“Is his father...?”

“No. I don’t know the details and neither does he but his father is... gone.”

“Gone?”

“Taken out of existence.”

I am shocked. Of course I know that is the only way one of us can be truly destroyed but to think that it has actually happened to one... and probably more.

“Soooo.”

“Sorry?” I must have been out of it, lost in the past. I can tell that he has been speaking and is waiting for me to comment on what he has said but I have no recollection of it.

“Taz? You won’t make Taz leave?” He looks anxious and I remember the way he had looked when Taz was hurt; how Taz had practically attacked me when I drained Serif. But I also know what happens when my kind try to live together. But we have lived side by side for the best part of three hundred years, and Taz is the son of my best friend. Everything has changed. I don’t know anything any more, not for sure.

“I’ll try. To be honest with you Serif, my experience of our kind living together on Earth is not good.”

“But we’re not on Earth now, not really. We’re in your house; your home and we still have enough respect to honour that.”

“You’ve spoken about it?”

“Of course we have. It has been our biggest fear for many years that you would discover the truth of what we are and send us away. Where else would we go?”

“You would always find a place, but no, I won’t send you away, either of you. Things have changed; we’ll try and see how it works.”

Serif grins, a beautiful, brilliant, terrifying smile.

“But why would you reveal yourselves now?” I try again to get him to answer.

He looks serious and frowns. “A lot of reasons.”

“Try me with one.”

“One... things are changing; have changed. You are different. You are in a place to accept now, not to just react.”

“Yes... there is that... but why now? Why right now?”

“Because you are about to make a monumental mistake and I couldn’t just stand back and let you make it without at least trying to do something about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I lift myself up and look down at him. Those innocent eyes look back. “Serif you can’t do this, not after what you just said. You said I was going to make a mistake and I know it has something to do with Bridge. You can’t say that and then not tell me what it is.”

“Yes I can. Luma, you have to trust me on this. I can’t tell you because if I do it will create an intolerable pressure that could ruin everything. I can’t tell you what it is but by telling you that it is I have drawn your attention to it and hopefully you will recognise it and take the right path.”

“Serif, this could be Bridge’s life.”

“Yes,” he says staring levelly at me. “it could; which is why I can’t say another word.”

“Serif!”

But he won’t. He shakes his head and compresses his lips and I know the look very well. As frustrated as I am I know that there is no point in pressing him further. Annoyed and shaken I get up and get dressed. I wonder, not for the first time how he managed to undress me without me even being aware of it.

“Did you enjoy the ride?” He purrs from them bed and I glare at him.

“Tidy your room, it’s a pig sty.” I grind out as I stride out the door.

“Yes Dad.” He calls, laughing as I close it behind me.