Redemption (Stand-Alone, Spin-Off to Reaper Series), page 15
“You’re not Isaiah,” Eve said firmly, shaking her head.
“Well, I am and I ain’t,” Isaiah sniggered. “My name isn’t really Isaiah, but I’m the same guy you were, like, so totally into.” Isaiah adopted the stereotypical voice of a ditzy teenage girl, pretending to toss his imaginary hair backwards as he spoke. When he grinned, his blue eyes glowed brighter, as he was seemingly only more and more amused by Eve’s distress.
“What are you?” Eve asked in a whisper.
“I’ll answer that question,” Isaiah replied. “But first, just let me pull myself together.”
In the next instant, Jack Rice, Lilith, and Ian were all seemingly sucked into Isaiah’s body, like they were being pulled into a black hole. They vanished inside Isaiah in a spark of blue light, and Isaiah stretched as though he had just woken up from a long nap.
“Ah, that feels so much better,” he said in a satisfied sigh. “I really need to stop spreading myself so thin.”
Isaiah grabbed a nearby wooden chair and pulled it over beside the bed. He then fell into it and kicked his feet up onto the mattress, relaxing like he and Eve were just chatting like there was nothing strange going on and three people hadn’t just become a part of him.
“So, you want to know what I am?” Isaiah asked. “Well, that’s the million dollar question! Care to have a guess?”
Eve merely gaped at Isaiah, still in shock. Isaiah sneered in derisive humor.
“Not even one guess?” he mocked. “Aw. Pity. I was hoping we could play together. Although, I have been playing with you since the moment we met. Tell you what, I’ll go easy on you for now. You’ve had a rough day. Here’s a hint. According to humans, what is the exact opposite of an Angel?”
Eve swallowed hard, forcing herself to recover from her state of shocked paralysis. Looking into the bright blue eyes of the man she had once trusted, had once cared for, had once thought was human, she answered with a hoarse voice, weakened from her screaming.
“A… A Demon?” she asked.
Isaiah threw his hands up into the air and cheered in a highly patronizing way. “Woo! Well done! And here I thought that might have been too difficult for you to figure out.”
Eve wasn’t sure how to respond. She cleared her throat once, hoping that she might regain some strength in it. When she spoke again, her voice did seem a little better, but it was still thick with the remnants of her distress, and a little raspy from her cries.
“Demons aren’t real,” she said firmly. “They’re made up. To scare Angel children.”
“Is that what your daddy told you?” Isaiah sneered, still grinning. Then he puffed out his chest and spoke with a deeper, mocking, voice. “Oh, dear little Eve, don’t you worry about the monsters! I’m Elohim, I created the universe, I’m God, blah-blah-blah!”
Isaiah stopped his exaggerated impression of Eve’s father and shook his head at her, as though he pitied her.
“I’m afraid daddy lied to you, Eve,” Isaiah said. “See, Demons are very, very, real. At least… they were. As it stands, I’m the last Demon.”
“Okay,” Eve said slowly. “Let’s say that’s true. Demons are real. How did one end up buddying with Javan?”
“Oh, I fancied his work!” Isaiah laughed. “I took notice of Javan from the moment you gave him a brain. He had some serious potential, right from the start. And when he went on his murder spree, wiping out almost half of his own kind? Inspiring! So, when your brother knocked him off the cliff and you both left him to die, I was there to pick up the pieces. I revived him. I showed him how to put those feathers of yours to good use. And I took him under my wing. We’ve been together ever since.”
Okay,” Eve frowned. “But if Demons are real, why would my father pretend they weren’t?”
“Excellent question!” Isaiah crowed. “Why indeed? Maybe it has a little something to do with how I became the last Demon.”
“And how was that?” Eve asked.
“Wow, you’re just full of questions, now!” Isaiah cackled. “Get over our little shock, did we? I’d like to apologize for freaking you out, but… Your reaction was just too damn funny!”
“Are you going to answer me, or wet your pants over how funny you think you are?” Eve snapped, causing Isaiah to abruptly stop laughing, though his smile never faded.
“My, my, my,” Isaiah said mockingly. “Such hostility. I’ve half a mind to just walk out on you.”
“Just answer me!”
“Okay, okay!” Isaiah said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine! If you want to know so badly! It’s like this… Before you were even born, your old man served an Angel more powerful than him. I assume you remember Abzu, right?”
Abzu. The former tyrant lord of all Angels. He had ruled over all the Angels as an invincible dictator, forcing everyone to serve him, sweeping his armies across universes and consuming souls everywhere he went. It was he who had murdered Eve’s mother, which then caused Eve’s father to respond by creating the universe they now lived in, where humanity evolved. Not to be bested, however, Abzu had waited patiently for hundreds of millions of years, preparing his armies and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. He had unleashed massive devastation on Earth, but was finally defeated by an unlikely victor. Had he not been beaten, though, he would have gone on destroying worlds and consuming souls for power.
Isaiah didn’t wait for Eve to acknowledge the memory of the tyrannical and cruel Abzu.
“Well, back in the days when your old man was Abzu’s BFF, searching for new universes to conquer and souls to consume, Elohim came across my home universe. He and Abzu found my people. And then your daddy wiped us out.”
“My father would never have done that,” Eve snapped, feeling her rage boil up within her. She was now beginning to accept that Isaiah had played her for a fool and was now openly taunting her, and she was determined to not let his lies break her spirit. “My father was never loyal to Abzu! He only served him to keep me and Gabriel safe.”
Isaiah tutted at her. “Whatever helps you sleep at night. But trust me, your old man was ruthless. See, Abzu told him to just completely annihilate all the Demons, and Elohim did. Well, except for me. I was just a little too powerful. I managed to sneak away into the Angel universe and lie low for a few millennia. And then, when Elohim organized the exodus from your world to this one, I just tagged along for the ride. And that’s when I met our buddy, Javan. Oh, speaking of which, Javan’s the talk of the town! Talk of the world, actually. The little stunt we pulled at the press conference worked just like we planned. The cameras that weren’t destroyed got a perfect shot of him regenerating, which has everyone completely interested in how he did it. Oh, but I feel like I should warn you. The explosion? Well, the media kind of blames you for that.”
“What?” Eve cried. “Me? I didn’t do anything!”
“Oh, I know that,” Isaiah leered. “But we paid off a few people, told them what to say, and BAM! No one knows anything about an over-enthusiastic Catholic suicide bomber, and you fired the first shot in a war between Angels and humans. Exciting, right?”
Eve stared at Isaiah like he was insane. The man she had once thought of as trusting and kind, as someone she cared for, was nothing but a true monster. “No!” Eve cried. “Not exciting!”
Isaiah waved a hand at her like she was an annoying fly buzzing in his face. “Ah, whatever! Who cares what you think? Point is, humans were already freaked out by Angels ever since the invasion, so with you coming in, bragging about your wings and how you’re God’s daughter, only to then go and blow up a room of people, hah! They’re all going to completely lose it! They’ll be climbing over each other to get at a drug that will make them immortal. It’ll really give them an edge for the day the Angels invade again. You know, not being able to die so easily. Unlike last time. Oh man, there were so many bodies in the street, it was crazy!”
“But the Angels aren’t going to invade!” Eve yelled.
“We know that,” Isaiah grinned, his blue eyes burning brightly again. “But they don’t. Javan’s just giving them what they want. Just so happens that we get what we want, too.”
“And what do you want?” Eve asked coldly. “I get Javan’s reason, even if it’s awful. But what’s your deal? What does a Demon care about humanity?”
“Oh, I care a great deal about humans,” Isaiah grinned unpleasantly. “They’re very important to me. Near and dear to my heart.”
“I’m not buying it,” Eve snapped.
“Doesn’t matter if you do,” Isaiah laughed, rising to his feet.
“What, you’re leaving now?” Eve asked.
“Not just yet,” Isaiah leered. “I brought you a present.”
Isaiah almost danced over to the door in his excitement and then leaned out to retrieve something from the floor in the hallway. When he stood up and moved back into the room, he was holding something white and soft.
“My dress!” Eve cried, pulling on her restraints once more.
“Oh, yes, your dress,” Isaiah grinned. “Your mother’s old dress, right? Before Abzu killed her, I believe. You know, you always looked so good in this thing, I have to admit. But that red dress I picked out? Man, that was a number! And with you wearing that instead of this, it gave us plenty of time to study the fabrics this is made of. Javan’s found a designer in Italy who’s chomping at the bit to get his hands on it. Wants to create a whole line of Angel-wear. And all this happened while the two of us danced in each other’s arms.”
Isaiah grinned nastily at Eve as he swept up her dress and pretended to dance around the room with it in an over-exaggerated waltz, spinning in circles with the dress in his arms.
“You’re insane,” Eve said quietly. “Why would you do any of this? Why did you even pretend to… pretend to like me?”
“Because it was fun!” Isaiah leered, abruptly stopping his dance and leaning over the bed above Eve. “Just knowing that you had no idea who or what I really was? It was a thrill! Like when I came to you in the Garden as Jack Rice? You ate up everything I fed you. You really believed I was one of your returned souls! And when your brother showed up in the limo? He had no clue! The both of you really thought that he had made me fall asleep, and then forget he was ever there. And when we first met with me as Isaiah, when I scratched you with my ring? That was just to get a skin sample, which helped create the drug that’s made you human. You had no idea! It was really hard not to laugh in your face a lot of the time, especially with how gullible you were. You believed everything I said! But the best part? I’ll tell you the best part, Eve. The best part was when we kissed.”
Isaiah ran his tongue along his bottom lip, as though he was tasting it, making a small noise of satisfaction, leaning in closer over Eve’s face, making her cringe into the bed.
“That was the best part,” Isaiah repeated, whispering now. “Kissed by an Angel, the sweetest kiss of all. And the taste of your lips? Like apples. The sweetest fruit I’d ever tasted.”
Isaiah then reached out and grabbed Eve’s jaw, forcing her to face him fully. He then slammed his lips into hers and stole a kiss from her, pressing his face painfully against Eve’s. Eve clenched her fists and struggled, pulling against the restraints, kicking as much as she could, but she was trapped on the bed and Isaiah’s unnaturally strong grip kept her from pulling away.
Finally, he let go and stood above her, making a sound of satisfaction, while Eve took in a deep breath and immediately turned her face away from him.
“I always enjoy our moments together,” Isaiah said with mock sincerity. “And since we’ve shared so much together, I feel like we’ve gotten really close. And I’m bored with the name Isaiah, now. So next time you can use my real name. A name once revered, but times do change. I am Belial.”
Isaiah grinned widely and bowed his head, but Eve merely glared at him in a combination of hatred, betrayal, and confusion. Isaiah/Belial just grinned back at her, his amusement only serving to infuriate Eve.
“But,” he sighed, “I have to go now. Busy times, right now! Lots to do!”
He turned and began marching towards the door with Eve’s dress balled up under his arm, but then he stopped and snapped his fingers, as though he had just remembered something.
“I almost forgot. The guys in the lab were studying your hair samples and seemed really interested in what they were looking at. I don’t know about it, they said a bunch of science crap that just went way over my head, haha! So, yeah, they’re coming in to take more. Bye!”
Isaiah/Belial leered at Eve one more time as he left the room, but his presence was quickly replaced by another doctor in a mask, holding a ziplock bag and a pair of scissors.
“No,” Eve said flatly, shaking her head. “Haven’t you people taken enough from me?”
The doctor paid no attention to her complaints, nor her shouts, which was all Eve could do as she watched her bright red hair fall to the floor.
15
EXODUS
W
eeks went by, and still Eve remained imprisoned. She hadn’t seen Javan or the Demon since her hair had been savagely cut, but she thought of them every day. And about what she’d like to do to them.
She felt the urge to run her hand through her hair and feel the length that had begun to return, though it was still nowhere near as long as it had been. It now only just brushed her earlobes and the back of her neck, but was uneven and had wild strands splaying in numerous directions. Eve longed for someone to break her out, for her brother to bust in and get her out of there, pausing only long enough to stab Belial and Javan with his sword. Only problem was that Gabriel couldn’t sense her as long as she was inside the building. He had already said as much. Javan and his building were blank spots on the Angel radar. Completely invisible unless you were looking right at it. So no, Gabriel was not about to kick down the door in some heroic rescue mission. Eve was by herself.
She was beginning to come to terms with the fact that she was now mortal. Not that she liked it. She still felt like punching down a wall whenever she thought of her lost wings, but she at least didn’t feel so weak and tired anymore. However, with a human body came human needs. Which she was allowed to do twice a day, accompanied by two armed human guards.
“Hey, Red,” greeted one of the guards as he entered the room. “You gonna behave today?”
“Depends,” Eve said flatly. “You gonna be an ass today?”
The guard frowned at her, stroking his thumb along the handle of his holstered gun, as though he longed to pull it out and shoot her. His name was Ortiz, according to the name tag on his shirt. He was a big man with a broad chest and an even broader stomach, much like a college footballer who didn’t make the draft and let himself go. The other guard was a smaller, fitter, woman with her hair pulled back into a tight black bun.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Red,” Ortiz growled. “And you better be on your best behavior. You know what happened the last time.”
Eve nodded. “Yeah. I dislocated your fingers and knocked out one of your teeth. How’d the trip to the orthodontist go? Did they give you a gold tooth like I said?”
The female guard, Rivera, sniggered behind Ortiz’s back while he scowled. Eve smiled pleasantly at him, remembering fondly the time a week ago when she had attacked him between her room and the bathroom, because he had made a lewd comment about her, which Eve, of course, responded to by beating on him just enough to send him to the emergency room. Even though she was human now and didn’t have even a fraction of her regular strength, she had still been trained to defend herself by Gabriel, who had since become Commander of Heaven’s Armies, and was highly skilled at hand-to-hand combat. She wished she had been able to do more to Ortiz, but Rivera had tasered her, allowing more security to file in and strap Eve back into her bed. Still, it was the most fun Eve had had in weeks.
“Try a stunt like that again,” Ortiz growled. “I dare ya. I’ll leave you strapped in that bed for a week, no bathroom breaks. See how smart you are lying a pool of your own filth for a few days.”
“There’s no need for that,” Rivera interrupted. “Eve’s gonna behave, aren’t you?”
“Oh, sure am,” Eve said brightly. “I’d never want to upset Mr Ortiz. He’s so scary.”
Rivera failed to hold back a grin, then stepped forward to unstrap Eve from the bed, while Ortiz scowled in the corner, still thumbing his gun.
When Rivera and Ortiz led Eve out into the hallway, Eve turned towards the bathroom down the hall, but was looking beyond it, searching for the person she knew would be making his rounds.
Like clockwork, there he was. The doctor who routinely visited the rooms of each “patient” and gave them medication, took samples, examined them, and whatever other atrocities they were committing. As she walked down the hallway, Eve stared at the doctor who hid his face behind a surgical mask. The doctor was also pushing a metal cart, which was full of numerous surgical and medical tools, including needles containing unknown chemicals, gauze, bandages, scalpels, interchangeable scalpel blades, scissors, and other things Eve didn’t know the names for. As Eve and her entourage reached the bathroom door, the doctor disappeared inside a nearby room. Eve could distinctly hear someone crying inside, but as the doctor closed the door behind him, the sobbing was silenced.
Ortiz pulled open the bathroom door and jerked his head toward it as he glared at Eve. “Go on, then. I’m not waiting around all day. I’ve got a lot of work, other than babysitting you.”
“Oh yeah, that box of donuts in the break room is crying out for you,” Eve said sarcastically, rolling her eyes as she walked into the bathroom.
Ortiz slammed the door hard behind her. Aggravating Ortiz was usually the highlight of Eve’s days lately, but she had other things on her mind right now. And she had little time.
Eve moved to the sink in the small bathroom and turned on the faucet, letting the water run loudly. Fortunately, she didn’t need to use the bathroom, as she had intentionally not had anything to drink for the last few hours, allowing her to focus entirely on her timing. If she did this right, the doctor with the cart would be walking right by this room in just under two minutes. Eve had been timing him for days. He was always doing his rounds during Eve’s 7pm bathroom allowance. He would spend sixty to ninety seconds inside the patient’s room next to the bathroom, after which he would exit the room and turn left, walking directly past the bathroom Eve was now in. She knew she would be able to hear the rattling of the surgical instruments on the cart as he exited the room, as long as she listened carefully. Timing was crucial for the first part of her plan and there was no room for mistakes. If she was caught, she wouldn’t get another chance.
