They would be His equals.
Malachi remembered the joy he felt as he watched the female approach the Tree, reaching up with trembling hands to grab hold of one of the fruits, swollen with knowledge of God.
Will she do it? he wondered. Had Lucifer managed to convince them to disobey their most Holy Father?
He had.
The fruit came away in her hands, and she stared at it with great longing before bringing it to her mouth. Adam was soon beside her, fear in his gaze, but her confidence won him over, so desperate was their desire to be like Him whom they loved so very much.
So Adam joined his mate, and both partook of the forbidden fruit.
The Lord God Almighty was not pleased.
The Garden of Eden was besieged by a terrible storm reflecting God’s anger with His rebellious creations.
The humans ran away in fear, chased by the fury of God’s wrath, dropping what remained of the special fruit.
And in all the excitement, while no one was watching, Malachi retrieved that piece of fruit from the storm-swept ground, holding what he believed to be his destiny in his hands.
As the humans were tempted, so was he. The elder angel brought the future to his mouth, and tasted it.
And he saw.
Hell
“I saw as He saw,” Malachi said aloud, twisting the blade of his scalpel ever so carefully within Francis’s brain.
The former Guardian cried out, straining against the straps that held him to the stone table.
“I gazed into a future of chaos, and the inevitable end of all things.”
Malachi stepped back, his surgical tool in hand.
“How could I allow something like that to occur, I ask you?” he said, seeming to confide in his captive. “The fall of the humans and their banishment from Eden was just the beginning . . . the catalyst for the nightmare to follow.”
Malachi stopped for a moment and listened to the sounds of a world changing outside the caves.
“It wasn’t long after that we were at war,” the elder continued.
“The humans’ failure proved that Lucifer was right—that humanity was not the answer—but the Allfather did not listen, still faithful to what He perceived to be His greatest creations.”
Malachi looked down at the suffering Guardian’s glazed and unfocused eyes. He wasn’t sure how much more the fallen angel could withstand, but he had to find it.
He had to find what had been so expertly hidden away for just this precise time.
“The war, as horrible as it was, provided me with the perfect cover,” Malachi said. “The perfect distraction to set my own plans for the future—for my destiny—in motion.”
He leaned in close again, tenderly stroking the Guardian’s sweatsoaked brow.
“I just want you to know how important you are to the coming future, and how much I appreciate all that you’ve done, and what you are about to sacrifice.”
“I . . . I don’t have a . . . a fucking clue . . . what . . . you’re . . . talking about,” Francis managed.
“Which is how it was supposed to be,” Malachi said, pressing his hand more firmly against Francis’s brow, holding his head steady on the stone table. “It was all part of the plan.”
Malachi placed the blade in the corner of Francis’s left eye and slowly pushed it into his brain.
“You’ve been holding something for me,” the elder said, twisting the blade and making Francis shriek.
“Now all I have to do is find it.”
Remy and Jon sat by the wood-burning stove so that their clothes might dry.
“How do you like your coffee?” Izzy asked from the tiny kitchenette.
“Black is good,” Remy said.
“Do you have any cream?” Jon asked, trembling from the dampness.
“Got no cream,” Izzy snarled, handing Remy his cup.
“Then black is good,” Jon said.
“It sure is,” Izzy muttered as she returned to the stove for Jon’s cup and her own.
She handed Jon his coffee and sat down in a lounge chair across from them. “I hate to break it to you, but you two almost got yourselves killed for nothing.”
“How so?” Remy asked after taking a sip of the scalding hot brew. It was good, or maybe it wasn’t; maybe it was just because he hadn’t had a cup of coffee in a while.
“You’re looking for my mama, and I don’t have a clue as to where she is.”
“You couldn’t have just told us that?” Remy asked. “Maybe skip the whole siccing-the-swamp-on-us business?”
Izzy laughed. “Now, what would have been the fun in that?”
“We spoke the truth, you know,” Jon said. “We don’t mean you or your mother any harm. We’ve come on a mission of forgiveness.”
“For who?” Izzy asked, scrunching up her face.
“Eden is coming,” Jon said. “You must have sensed it.”
“I’ve been having a lot of dreams,” Izzy admitted, holding her coffee mug in one hand as she rubbed her eyes. “I figured something was up, which is why I was ready for you.” She blinked several times as she brought the mug to her mouth. “You still haven’t told me who’s being forgiven.”
“The first father,” Jon said.
She looked a little confused.
“Adam,” he said. “Adam is dying and wants to be buried in Eden.”
“Adam Adam?” she asked incredulously. “Are you serious? He’s still kickin’?”
“Yes,” Jon responded. “He’s . . . still kicking, but we need your mother . . . the other half of the key to gain entrance to Eden once it returns.”
“Too bad Eve can’t have that same luxury,” Izzy said angrily as she set her mug down on a tray table beside her chair.
“It is too bad,” Jon said. “But there’s nothing we can do now to change what happened in the past. It was a long time ago, and my brethren believed—misguidedly—that the way to forgiveness was to punish the sinner.”
“It takes two to tango. You idiots burned her alive,” Izzy spat angrily.
Remy had heard that during the early 1600s the Sons of Adam had found Mother Eve and, in an attempt to make things right with the Almighty, had sacrificed her on a burning pyre. The relationship between the Daughters and the Sons had been toxic ever since.
“An act that I did not believe in,” Jon assured her.
“Aren’t you something wonderful.” Izzy gave him a look that could seriously maim, if not kill. “I couldn’t help you find my mother . . . this other half of the key you’re lookin’ for, if I wanted to. My father feared for her safety and hid her someplace that I don’t even know.”
“Your father,” Remy said as he sipped his cooling coffee. “He wasn’t human, was he?”
Izzy looked at him with anger in her eyes. “Who are you to call my daddy—”
“He was like me, wasn’t he?”
Remy had felt the touch of the divine in the way that she’d manipulated the elements. He had no doubt that she was the product of the mating of angel and human. Although he was surprised that she hadn’t been driven completely insane by the angelic side of her nature, as was the case most of the time.
“Let’s just say he was something special,” Izzy said. “Just like my mama.” She became very quiet, gazing into her coffee mug, and Remy could hear the sound of thunder in the distance as her mood affected the elements.
“What do you want from me?” she finally asked. “I can’t tell you where she is, or even if she’s still alive . . . though I think I’d know if she was dead, but that’s beside the point. I don’t know where my daddy hid her; he disappeared not long after that. He didn’t want to draw attention to me or the Daughters.”
“Attention from whom?” Remy asked her.
Izzy stared past them as she remembered. “The angels,” she said. “I saw them once . . . after Ma had already been hid. Daddy was talking to them.”
Remy was confused. He’d thought the threat came from the Cherubim, but her words suggested otherwise, that new players had just entered the field.