Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 (25 page)

But something Fury said doesn’t sit too well with the father, because he’s staring at me funny. A kinda maniacal mad-funny.

Five minutes, off to the side of the pews, listening to the father whisper-yell at me for killing Mercedes’ mother, and I’m confused as shit.

“I realize she was one of your church-goers, Father,” I say. “But she lies with the devil, she better expect to die right beside him. As far as I’m concerned, all the credits she cracked came from her husband selling the shit that killed Rain—Amy. Just as responsible as him.”

“She was a . . . a good woman,” he says. “You didn’t have to—”

“She shot me,” I say to him. “What was I supposed to do?”

I never see her ease up behind me, but Kelly joins in. “Always someone else’s fault, isn’t it,” she says. I turn toward her, but she limps over to the father’s side of the argument and gives me some more. “You killed that poor girl’s mother?”

“She’s not poor,” I say. It’s a defense. Granted, not a good one, but it’s what I got. “They got rich off of—”

“If you think you can justify it with that,” she says. “Look at you—you aren’t even sorry, just looking for a way out of it. Still a little boy, aren’t you, playing like a man.”

“What the. . .?” I say. Then I look at the father. “Help me out here.”

He frowns and kinda laughs, but not really. “I’m on her side.”

But a couple more minutes into Kelly word-whipping me, and her eyes roll back in her head and she almost falls to the floor before we both catch her.

Then the father motions toward Fury—Mercedes. “Go ask her,” he says. “Do it nicely, or heaven help me. . .”

I look at Kelly. She’s passed out and we need the blood now. “All right already,” I say, “but if she says no, I’m taking it. I—
we
don’t have time for this shit.”

I play as nice as I can, but I think the father’s beads have more magic in them since his own fall, because Fury grudgingly flutters down from the rafters without much coaxing. Or maybe she can see the look in my eyes, that I don’t need her alive to get the blood.

Okay, okay, I wasn’t going to do it. Kelly would’ve kicked my ass anyway.

Fixing Kelly is a little simpler than a full-on transfusion, because when the father cuts Fury’s arm with his little pocket knife and pours her blood over Kelly’s wounds, they start sucking it in like little vampires. She gets better fast, faster than a human, anyway. Then again, I figured that.

However “mortal” angels have turned out to be, we flap back from an ass whooping a lot faster than a man. Or maybe it’s because she’s a woman—the whole “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe” thing, and she can take more pain than a man.

Whatever it is, I smile down at Kelly and stroke her head feathers with my hand. I think it’s funny that we’ve shit-canned the “Your husband will rule over you” part. Because if I’m sure of anything . . . we make it past the bloodbath chapter in the father’s little story—survive my new vengeance-filled duties. . . When Kelly is back to full strength and she screams “Jump!” at me, I’m probably just going to shit myself and say, “How high?”

“Rain. . .” Kelly manages to say. “I’ll be okay. . .” But she needs the rest more than she knows, and she slumps over from exhaustion more than anything else. Then she’s out cold.

I look at the father and he nods his head in understanding and gives me a “she’ll be fine” look. He better hope so. She dies because of me this time, no amount of blood is going to fill up that bucket of guilt.

The socked-in fog has got everything outside a deep gray and inside it would be just plain dark. The hole in the roof let the rain in and it shorted out the lighting in the whole church.

Rain watches us hover over Kelly like any thirteen-year-old would—scared for her mother, and a little curious, too. It was the father’s idea to put her up in the rafters after we coaxed Fury down. Rain is better light than the green cast of the fluorescent stuff, anyway.

I can tell Rain doesn’t really know what to say about me choking her. For some reason, I don’t even think she remembers trying to kill me. “Is she going to. . .?” she asks.

“I’m sorry . . . About. . .” I look up at my darling baby. “She’s not dying.”

“I hope she dies,” Fury says. “You killed my whole family.”

I’ll give her a little rope, because she’s right. Not too much, though, she’s starting to grind my mind with her bitching. “Give it a rest. Probably did you a fav—”

“Daddy?” Rain says. Her eyes say it all. “Why did you. . .?”

And for some reason, I feel like I need to justify it to her. “Her dad was the guy who pumped those—he made your head hurt, honey. Probably a whole lotta other kids, too. So I—”

And before I can finish, Rain turns to Fury and says, “I’m sorry.”

And that shuts me up for the first time in as long as I can remember. Kid went through more physical pain than I have in my life and she’s still. . . She’s her mother’s daughter, that’s for sure. She sure as hell didn’t get the “forgive and let live” from me.

And it looks like Fury is going to give Rain both barrels of her wicked whip of a tongue, but instead, she flaps down from the rafters and perches on the back of one of the pews. Then she folds her wings around her entire body in an egg-shaped cone of “leave me the fuck alone.” And she starts cooing, probably brooding over the cut on her arm . . . and her semi-voluntary donation of blood, among other things. I hope she’s getting good and angry under there, because tomorrow I’m going to give her a place to point all that pissed-off . . . fury.

While everyone comes to grips with the fact that, somehow, we all ended up together in this church—as angels, no less—we listen to the sirens race through the city.
Homing pigeons,
I think.

And drone strike warnings vibrate the thick layer of fog over the city. Citizen stompers, letting everyone know they are going to blow the shit out of something. And about every five minutes or so, a drone screams by, rumbling the rooftops of the scrapers outside. Then a few seconds later, a huge explosion lights up the fog and shakes thunder through the ground. I guess the powers decided that the appearance of a flying man, killing their lapdogs, warranted a little martial law misery for their minions. Because anyone I left alive out in that dragnet of death is gonna wish I ripped them apart on the street.

And we listen and brood in silence and confusion about what in the hell all this shit means. Because if you’ve ever had one of those dreams where you get everything you think you want and then someone wakes you up and says, “Surprise, you’re still in your shitty life.” I can only speak for myself when I say, I just wanna go back to sleep, because this whole nightmare just sucks.

However. . . Now they got me doing it. It’s nothing compared to the brick wall that humanity will hit in two days. The father says our little joyride to the assfuck arena in Purgatory put us one day closer to the ultimate judgment day. And I sort of wish there was, but the father doesn’t think there is any way to avoid it. He says the two of them are sure to plug up our little security breach. We won’t be sneaking in the back door to that party again.

The bitch of it is, there’s only one way he knows to get an invitation.

— XLVI —

ONCE THE FATHER and I finally get our flock of angels semi-patched up and put to sleep, cooing and cheeping themselves through whatever real dreams a fallen archangel has . . . I’m not really sure what we should do next. But after we both agree what has to happen in less than one day, the father has backed off on being so pissed about Mercedes’ mother.

I know one thing, they need the rest before their big day starts in the morning. And I don’t know if Kelly will be up for it. . . Come to think of it, I hope she forgives me when she wakes up, because I don’t think I can get the job done with just me and Fury.

So now it’s me and the father, watching over the flock like shepherds. And he is sitting sideways in a long pew at the front of the church, and I’m perched on the back of it, a few feet away, talons digging into the deep brown wood. More shit he’ll have to repair if he ever gets to the roof. And we listen to the rain dripping through the big hole in his church and the soft sounds of his new flock cooing, dreaming the dream.

And when Rain sleeps, she looks like a bright candle, flickering in the dark. And the whole inside of the church has turned to a cave-like cavern illuminated by flames. The shadows jump and flit around like ghosts. In another life, I would have said it was eerie, but I feel pretty safe and comfortable in this one.

And Fury is sleep-jerking and softly cawing on her pew, like she’s dreaming herself through her father’s guts again.

“What was her name?” I ask the father. “He called her—”

“Babette,” the father says. “Her name was Babette . . . and she was good people.”

“Sorry,” I say. I don’t know if I am or not, but Kelly would want me to say it.
Kelly
, I think. “Yeah . . . hey?”

“Yes,” the father says.

I look at Kelly, resting and recuperating like the angel that she is. Bet she’s not boiling in blood, or having psychotic dreams in her sleep. “What did you name Kelly?” I ask.

He smiles at me. “It wasn’t too difficult,” he says. Then he chuckles a little. “She has always been your only salvation.”

And I cluck out a little laugh, because that’s exactly what Kelly is to me. “There you go again, all literal.”

“The very best parts of the
Bible
,” he says, “and my book, can be interpreted in many different ways. For our purposes, literal will have to do.”

“Leads to trouble,” I say. And I look around the church at our flock. “Just look at them, walking, squawking, misinterpretations of the Word. Me too. I think it’s just messed up, the way everyone pretends to know what the
Bible
—”

“I don’t think so.”

“Really?” I say. “Exactly what did you change in there, anyway?”

“Just enough to get the point across,” he says, “maybe a little more.”

“You sure that’s the only way?” I ask. “I mean, it seems wrong, especially you being a priest.”

And now the father looks older for some reason, like he’s been here too long. “As opposed to what,” he says, “letting us continue down the same path we’re on? We will never avoid the crash. In fact, we may already be in it.”

And I know he’s right—we are the back-stabbingest, pettiest, most oppressive ghouls that ever crawled on our bellies through the bile of reality shows on the PIN. Humanity died a long time ago. Only thing left to clean up are the humans. “It’s too bad.”

“Bad?” he says. “Bad is perspective. Is it too bad for a starving baby if it was never born, or is it too bad that it was, only to suffer and die in the agony of hunger and disease? Honestly, I never understood it. How can he—”

“I never understood it either, Father,” I say. “I mean, you got billion-dollar yachts with assholes in the galley, eating contraband sushi off some chick’s naked tits, and then you got a starving mother with five kids and she can’t feed a one of ’em. What kinda species are we?”

“That’s not what I was saying,” he says, “but I see your point.”

Things have to get pretty messed up for a priest to start agreeing with me. And I don’t think either of us knows what to say about that, because we sit there in silence for a few seconds, saying nothing.

By now, you know I can only handle a few seconds of not hearing my own voice, but it’s the father who breaks the silence first, “What I do not understand is why he wanted to keep knowledge from us in the first place. And then he punished us once we got it.” And he turns his head and looks at me with pained eyes. “If you had knowledge and understanding, wouldn’t you want to give it to your children? But he punished us for it.” He turns back to staring straight forward, probably at Jesus staked to the cross in the front of the church. “However, I agree with you, he does seem to be indifferent to us punishing each other. Did you know that to some, the serpent in the garden was the hero?”

“How the—” I pause when he cocks his head to the side and frowns at me. “I’m trying . . . Jesus.”

“Try harder,” he says. Then he continues his story. “The snake gave us what he would not—knowledge.”

And I know he’s seen it with his own eyes, but he still can’t bring himself to admit it. “
She
,” I say.

“Yes, yes,” he says, frowning at me. “That . . . it simply makes no sense. The
Bible
is rife with the oppression and domination of women, and yet if it weren’t
for
women, the church would have died long ago, starved and withered on the vine for want of money and followers.”

“Ouch,” I smile when I say it. “Your flask has got your filter way off. Better be careful with that. Trust me, no one wants to hear the truth. And next time, she might rain down wrath on you.”

“I’m sure that is coming.”

I glance around the inside of the father’s own sanctuary, trying to find topics to keep us awake. And with all the statues of saints and angels, and the ornate stained glass, not to mention the building itself . . . and the land it’s on. . . “How much does a place like this cost, anyway?” I ask him. “I mean, it doesn’t look like you’re hurting?” And then I can’t resist. I may not be as angry as I was yesterday, but wife and Amy back with me or not, I got a mad streak like the stripe on a skunk, and you can pour as much Purgatory on Pepé Le Pew as you want, it will never change the smell. “And then there’s the kiddie dungeon downstairs—”

“Jacob.”

And I cluck out a chuckle and say, “Sorry.” I’m not, but like I said, that’s what I’m supposed to say, right? I pause a little . . . letting the air clear from the poor taste of my joke. But as soon as the smell wafts away, I’m back at it. “Okay, but seriously, how much?”

The father laughs at me now. Then he says, “You don’t want to know.”

I shake my head and look at the pulpit. “Buying their way in to Heaven,” I say. “Shame on you, Father. Letting them think they can—”

“Oh, no,” he says. And I can tell by the look on his face that he knows exactly what I’m saying. “My job is simply to remind them to be generous.”

“Uh-huh. . .” I say. Then I smile and check on Kelly again. She’s still snoozing, breathing a little better now. I whisper anyway, “Father, you know what the difference between a whorehouse and a titty-bar is?”