Fall From Grace, page 33
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
“Something occurred to me today,” I admitted, leaning all the way back on the couch and lifting my face toward the ceiling of the outdoor sitting area, which was somehow still intact. “Everything seems to be happening a little too precisely. I mean, look at this.” I waved my hand to the untouched area only a handful of yards from the rubble of my destroyed mansion. “The house was specifically targeted, the attack somehow getting through the wards and other protections we had in place.”
I debated telling them everything surrounding the armor and how it had been taken from me like I was nothing but an actor in a play who was hitting his marks as expected.
“There’s other stuff, too. With Lily, Taylor, the angels, and even Papa T. And I feel like…like-like-like there was supposed to be, this…this massive wedge forced between us, man. Like we were supposed to have a falling out.” An almost random phrase came to mind, and I whispered, “A fall from grace. And I refuse—I refuse—to be played like that. So, I’m doing the opposite of what anyone pulling my puppet strings would expect, and falling on my blade before you, brother. I own it. All of it. And I will spend the rest of existence making it up to you…however long that will be.”
It was supposed to be a joke to make light of the fact we only had two years left before the prophecy was supposed to take place, but all my comment did was make everyone in the know slightly uncomfortable.
Depweg lowered his gaze to the table that sat in the center of the couches and chairs, and slowly nodded his head, unfocused eyes turned inward.
Snapping back, he looked up at me and said, “Thank you, John. I appreciate what you are trying to do. And…and it’s going to take me some time to…to…”
“Forgive me.”
Depweg’s lips went tight as he stared at me, and he nodded a few times. I could see it in his eyes that it hurt him to not say he forgave me out loud, but I also understood the enormous pain that still electrified his heart, like a gaping wound being exposed to lemon and salt.
Even with Meli in his lap, he had still lost their shared memories, along with his son. Though he could make new memories with the Meli of this universe, he could never recover what had been lost with his child.
“What…what was his name?” I asked, feeling a lump in my throat. I had wanted to ask out of curiosity before, but had been afraid the answer would somehow make what had happened that much more real.
Depweg’s eyes welled with tears as a steady voice said, “Joey Dawson. Or…or JD for short.”
An atomic bomb of guilt dropped from my throat to my heart and exploded into a mushroom cloud of pain I hadn’t known was possible to feel.
“I…I-I-I…” I gasped as my own eyes filled with tears at realizing the significance of his son’s name, trying to force words past a throat that was tight enough that it felt like the Invisible Man was trying to strangle me.
Meli slowly pushed herself up to a seated position with her legs curled up under her, and looked with red-rimmed eyes between Depweg and myself as we struggled not to burst into uncontrollable sobs. Hell, even Locke had intentionally turned away from the group. But I could see him lift a hand to wipe his eyes while sniffling back some snot.
I could tell Greg wanted to ask what was happening, but he was mature enough to remain silent.
“What’s he talking about?” Meli asked Depweg with a throat hoarse from crying, her cloned time crystal dangling around her neck.
“No-nothing,” Depweg answered, quickly wiping his eyes and loudly clearing his throat.
I watched as Meli processed the actions and words of Depweg, piecing together that he was clearly lying to her, and making me fearful of how she might take him holding back such a massive secret.
To underline my fear, Meli pushed herself a few inches away from Depweg as she stared into his face, daring him to drop the lie. And do it now.
“I…” Depweg began, his hands circling in the air in front of him as he tried to figure out what to say.
Use your head, an ethereal voice whispered in the back of my mind.
“I have an idea,” I interjected, surprising myself with words I didn’t have any intention of speaking. But then my mind filled in the gaps, and I understood what must be done.
Moving my arm toward Greg, he took the hint and grabbed Tim from the crook of my arm, allowing me to get up and move to sit on the table in front of Meli and Depweg.
Taking in a deep, unsure breath, I looked at Depweg and asked, “Do you trust me?”
Depweg’s gaze flicked between my eyes for a few seconds before he slowly nodded, though concern was etched all over his face.
Turning to Meli, I asked, “Can I show you something? I think it’ll help it all make sense.”
“Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because I have to show you. Just trust me, okay?”
Meli narrowed her eyes at me before eventually crossing her arms in a show of compliance. As she did, I couldn’t help but notice how weird it was to have a shifter wearing the cloak of the Council.
I slowly raised an open palm, stopping a few inches in front of Meli’s face. She recoiled a little bit and sucked in a breath, presumably to ask what I was doing.
“Please,” I said softly.
She stopped moving, and I placed my other hand in front of Depweg’s face. I could see in his eyes that he knew what I was planning, and his brow furrowed and quivered as his mouth kept forming the word are over and over again, like he couldn’t get the question out.
“I’m sure, buddy.”
Depweg closed his eyes and lowered his face a tad in acceptance.
Closing my own eyes, I did something I had never done before, and willed my essence into both weres at the same time.
It was easy to locate Depweg’s memories, as I was confident he was pushing them to the forefront of his mind to help make this easier for me while simultaneously making sure everything needed to be shown was present.
I pulled Depweg’s memories from his mind and brought them into myself, where I was able to watch them in their entirety to make sure they would be delivered in the proper order, sort of like a movie editor.
There was only one problem I hadn’t been anticipating; I was watching the memories from Depweg’s point of view, and I experienced everything as if they were my own memories.
Just like with the soldier whose head I had entered during my first mind lesson with Ulric, I was diving too deep and living the memories as if they were my own.
I could feel his fondness of Meli growing into something resembling love, and I quickly yanked myself free for fear of losing even an ounce of love for Lily.
Returning to my body, I began hyperventilating while keeping my hands up to secure the connection between Depweg and Meli.
“What’s wrong?” Locke asked, stepping beside me and resting a hand on my shoulder. The weres were basically unconscious as I dove my essence into their minds.
“No-nothing,” I exhaled, intentionally slowing my breathing and regaining control. “Just dove a little too deep.”
“Are you sure you can do this?”
“No,” I replied with a fake chuckle before closing my eyes and diving back into the theater of my mind.
Keeping my focus only on making sure the movie of Depweg’s memories was coherent and in order, I simply watched as the two lived a life together and brought a son into the world.
A feeling swelled inside me, and I was beyond tempted to let myself feel what it would be like to have a child of my own. But I immediately crushed the idea, knowing it would only alienate Depweg. Plus, I knew the ending to this movie, and I already had problems not crying when sad stuff happened. You ever seen What Dreams May Come with Robin Williams? Yeah, that shit got me every time, and that was just a movie. This…this was real.
I slowed the movie once it came to the end of what Depweg was feeding me, and I scowled as I watched Jose come into frame, JD held captive with a silver knife to his little throat.
Making an executive decision, I cut the memory short just before Joey Dawson Depweg was murdered, not wanting to give Meli those images.
Shifting focus, I took the completed reels and slowly began easing them into Meli’s mind, careful not to break any connections while her brain took in the memories and created space for them.
It was beyond difficult to compress years’ worth of lived experiences into a brain that hadn’t actually lived them, so I had to make cuts on the fly.
I chose to remove some basic memories, like a normal breakfast together, and instead focused on the important moments. It wasn’t ideal, but I had to work within the limitations of her brain, choosing to err on the side of caution.
As the last of the film was played out, I did a systems’ check to make sure I hadn’t broken anything vital, and slowly began pulling my essence out of Meli’s head. Doing the same with Depweg, I eased out of their brains at the same time and sat on the table, watching them.
Depweg stared up at the ceiling with glistening eyes after reliving all those memories, and I knew the man was struggling to maintain a stoic composure.
Meli, on the other hand, was blinking rapidly while slowly shaking her head from side to side.
“Meli?” I asked, placing a hand on her thigh.
“I…I’m fine,” she managed with a stream of tears flowing down her rosy cheeks.
My mind tried to conjure the scene inside my plastic prison as Ulric made me…made me…
I shook my head, hard, to clear those thoughts. My friends needed me right now.
After several seconds, Meli seemed to regain control. She opened red-rimmed eyes and looked over at Depweg, who was staring back at her, his own cheeks reflecting light from the sheer volume of tears that silently slipped down his face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked softly, still trying not to burst into sobs.
“I—” Depweg began before Meli cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him to her.
The pair embraced and began crying in earnest as I turned to Locke, who nodded his head in a direction away from the sitting area.
Standing up, I tried to move as silently as possible toward where Locke was, managing to nudge the table with my calf, step on the loudest pebble in existence, and trip over my own damn boots.
“Damn it,” I mouthed before making it out of the death trap that was my sitting area.
Locke was staring behind me as I approached, and I turned to see Greg just awkwardly gawking at the pair as if he didn’t know what to do.
“Greg!” I stage-whispered while gesturing for him to join us by aggressively swiping at the air in my direction a few times.
Greg put on a oh, right! face and stood up, easily making his way through the death traps without making a sound.
I wanted to mumble something that might have sounded like stupid graceful shaman-witch, but decided to keep my mouth shut.
The three of us walked away from the sitting area as Meli and Depweg held one another.
“You did a good thing,” Locke praised. “You freed Depweg from his poisonous chains of silence.”
“Yeah, but I could have totally fucked up Meli’s brain if I hadn’t been superduper careful.”
“But you were careful, right?”
“Ummm,” I let out, remembering the entire process in an instant. “I think so?”
“We’ll deal with it when, and if, the time comes. For now, take comfort in knowing you just saved your friendship.”
“Yeah…” I breathed out, feeling how heavy Locke’s words were.
Greg was petting a sleeping Tim as the three of us stood in silence for a minute.
“So, what do we do now?” I asked, turning to look at the destroyed mansion.
“We rebuild,” Locke answered.
One of Greg’s ears twitched, and he turned his head toward the tree line, where Magni was coming out.
Looking over at the young man, I noticed his gaze was affixed to the ground, as if he didn’t have the strength to lift his head. Maybe it was from the crown of vines and ice and not from the guilt I knew it to be.
“Hmm,” I let out.
“What?”
“Why isn’t the crown affecting him? I mean, Lily warned of how the Unseelie crown would inevitably corrupt her, and she literally made Faerie.”
“Did it?”
“Well, no…I think. I mean, she didn’t wear it for very long, right? I got the impression it would take a while for it to fully take hold.”
“Then what are you concerned with?” Locke asked, gesturing toward Magni with his chin.
“I…I don’t know. Taylor should be back in action quickly. Or at least, I hope.”
Locke only nodded in agreement as we both looked at the visibly sulking Magni.
“Can you go talk to him?” I asked Locke. “I need to go grab an old box from my room, or at least try to find it.”
“Old? How old?” Locke asked.
“Um, super? Like, biblical?”
“Oh, no way,” Locke breathed out while jogging over to where the kitchen should have been.
There was a tiny area that led back to the center island which seemed to be unaffected by the debris, and I understood that was where Locke had found Tim.
Crouching down, Locke reached in and pulled out the box that had been in my nightstand.
Walking back to us, Locke took note of the shocked expression on my face as I stared at the box containing Christ’s Crown of Thorns.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I let out, picturing Gabriel going through the drawer that held all my—ahem—adult instruments to pull the box out. Guess I was wrong in thinking no one would ever look for it there. Then again, these angels seemed to know just about everything.
“What’s in it?” Greg asked.
“Best you don’t know,” I answered, moving my gaze from the box to Locke. “Can you make sure this goes somewhere extrasafe? Like, I mean extrasafe, know what I mean? You picking up what I’m putting down? You on the same pag—”
“I think I understand,” Locke interrupted with a half smile.
Turning his attention to Magni, he gestured with his chin and said, “Go talk to him. He needs you right now.”
“What’ll you do?” I asked, following his gaze to the slow-moving young man with the weight of guilt trying to pull his shoulders and head toward the ground.
“I’m going to call Director Baker and see about getting our home rebuilt.”
“Maybe with some upgrades?”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
“Yeah,” I sighed as I began to walk toward Magni, whispering to myself, “Never know if the Ether might come back.”
Hearing my footsteps, Magni lifted his head and stared at me with eyes that were almost sunken.
At that moment, I decided that if the prophecy was to be taken at face value, that meant I was to become a father figure to Magni. Never mind that other part which I refused to think about right now.
My logic was that if I had to accept the bad parts of what the books said, that meant I could also accept the good parts.
If Magni needed a father figure right now, then I was going to be the best damn dad ever.
I froze midwalk and thought about how I had almost let myself live being a dad through Depweg’s memories. Had that been by design?
Magni raised a hand to wave at me, though it looked like it took most of his energy to do such a simple act, and I returned my thoughts to the now.
Damn the prophecy. Damn the game I was in the middle of. And damn both Heaven and Hell for using me like the village whore—just getting fucked by everyone.
We had won this day.
Though we had lost Hayley, I knew she was happier wherever she was with Ludvig. Hopefully, the child she had lost would be with them, too.
Depweg had been able to tell Meli the truth of what had happened in the errant stream of time, and it would appear that had solidified their connection in this universe. Who knew; maybe they would make another JD…just…just before the gates of Hell opened.
Shaking my head, I focused on only the positive and smiled at the young man I was approaching.
Magni had been saved from the Ether, being the first person ever to have survived becoming a sorcerer, and needed me now.
And as the cherry on the cake—if cherries even go on cake, that is—King Taylor was thawing at Doc Jim’s and would hopefully be able to return to Faerie to wear both crowns until I got Lily back.
Lily…
My smile hardened, and I etched an unbreakable promise on a stone pillar within my mind:
Lily,
I will free you from Hell, or die trying.
Magni noticed the change in my smile and stopped in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” he tiredly asked.
My brain raced to come up with an answer, and I blurted out, “Oh, you know, just trying to figure out what to get you first. Ice cream or pizza.”
Magni looked at me as I finished my approach, and I realized the man was nearly as tall as me.
Smiling, Magni added, “As long as it isn’t Waffle House.”
* * *
John will return in book 10 of the Preternatural Chronicles in 2022…
JOHN ON!
EPILOGUE
GRAND ISLAND, NEBRASKA, 1990
Trees rustled in the wind of the mostly flattened warehouse complex in Germany where the abomination that was John Cook had battled and defeated phase one of the were-pire test subjects.
An obsidian portal opened near the tree line, an odd sound that resembled a crackling fire filling the empty air as the gateway pushed the fabric of space apart.
A boot stepped out to crunch on the dry leaves, followed by another. The last portion of the traveler to exit the portal was a hand holding an obsidian bag that had, just moments ago, been made of ivory. The contents clinked together in a muffled, metallic sound which might have suggested to an unknown passerby that the bag contained various pots and pans and not the angelic armor made by God himself.
